WEBVTT - Dr. K: Feeling Lost in Your 20s or 30s? (THIS Mindset Shift Will Help You Find Direction & Purpose) 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:02.280 Fifty percent of people under the age of thirties still 0:00:02.279 --> 0:00:05.640 live with their parents. Seventy percent of people in their 0:00:05.680 --> 0:00:08.280 twenties are going through something called a quarter life crisis. 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:10.600 He's a Harvard trained psychiatrist. 0:00:10.039 --> 0:00:12.240 Which specializes in modern mental health. 0:00:12.400 --> 0:00:14.920 Meet doctor k It's the man behind Healthy Gamer and 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:17.360 the voice helping millions navigate the digital world. 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:20.799 What does someone do with the feeling of feeling being 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:22.480 left behind people. 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:25.479 Who feel like they're not enough. That feeling comes from 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:27.840 trying to make other people happy and failing. 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:31.680 Humans need to grow, We need to pursue something, We 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:33.680 need to move in a certain direction to stay a 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:34.640 lot of true or fulks. 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:39.199 Chasing growth is not the same as growing. A lot 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:41.599 of people get focused on doing, but they don't pay 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:42.800 attention to what's happening. 0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:46.320 What does it even mean to be a man right now? 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:49.159 A lot of masculinity right now is men trying to 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:52.000 become as manly as possible in the alpha sense, and 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:55.080 that doesn't translate over in happiness, and that doesn't work. 0:00:55.920 --> 0:00:57.920 When you look at people who are growing up right now, 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:00.639 people in their twenties and thirties, why is it that 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:07.400 they're confused, lonely hurt when externally everything seems to look okay. 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:10.200 The number one health and wellness. 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:14.360 Podcast Jay Sheeddy Jay Sheddy Sey Only Set. 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:19.400 Hey, everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the place you 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:22.759 come to become the happier, healthier and more healed. I'm 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:25.240 so grateful because today's guest is someone that I've been 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:28.160 really really looking forward to talking to. I've watched a 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:30.400 ton of his interviews, what's a ton of his videos. 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:33.120 He's got millions and millions of subscribers, millions and millions 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:36.199 of views online. He's the author of How to Raise 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:38.960 a Healthy Gamer. If you haven't got a copy of 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:41.920 the book, make sure you grab one. After today's conversation, 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:45.440 I'm talking about the one the Only doctor K, Doctor K. 0:01:45.600 --> 0:01:48.000 It is great to have you on on Purpose. I've 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:52.600 genuinely looked forward to this. I find your reflections to 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:58.360 be poignant, powerful, direct, there's no bs, and you're so 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:01.560 well informed and well studied and set that it's pretty 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:03.320 hard to debate and argue with you in a good way. 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:05.440 So thank you so much well the work you've done. 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:06.960 I mean, thank you so much for having me. I 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:10.560 think you know I similarly really appreciate the work that 0:02:10.600 --> 0:02:13.960 you do. You know, I'm so curious about you, actually 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:16.799 because I see a lot of the work that you do, 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:19.640 and I know about you know, your I think it 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:22.239 was your first book, and so I think we may 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:24.280 have a little bit of a shared history, which I'm 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:27.440 super curious about. But I really appreciate the opportunity to 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:29.880 be here and would love to support the mission of 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:30.480 your podcast. 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:32.560 Oh, thank you so much, and we should definitely dive 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:34.520 into that. I'd love to learn. Tell me, tell me, 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:36.280 tell me about some of the shed history that you know. 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:39.840 So I understand that you grew up. I don't know 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:41.800 if you grew up or you have some sort of 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:45.480 spiritual training or you grew up with spiritual training. I'm 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:48.399 really curious about how you made the decision to walk 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:52.680 away from that and sort of where what kind of 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:56.120 spiritual tradition you come from. Yeah, I see the way 0:02:56.160 --> 0:02:59.120 that you embody some of these concepts and and it's 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:03.200 sort of it's baked into the assumptions that you have 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:05.359 when you approach the world. Even just meeting you and 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:07.000 some of the stuff that we just did. You know, 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:09.680 I think you live some of this stuff. But I'm 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:12.320 super curious about you know how you got to be 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:13.040 where you are. 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:15.800 Well, we'll get into it. Yeah, yeah, we'll get into it. Yeah. 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:17.560 But yeah, I think the place I wanted to start 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:20.040 with you is I find it so fascinating that you 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:23.760 focus so much on young people and young men in general. 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:27.160 And I feel that when you look at people who 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:28.800 are growing up right now, when you look at people 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:32.000 in their twenties and thirties, why is it that they're 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:39.160 secretly confused, lonely hr when externally everything seems to look okay. 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:40.880 So a lot of the people that I work with, 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:43.640 I think, externally things don't look okay. I think that 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:46.480 was more true a few years ago. I think now 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:49.760 we're starting to become more and more aware that things 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:52.600 are even externally not okay. But I'm totally with you. 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:55.760 I think you know. I was just reading a paper 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:58.840 about this guy named Eric Erickson, who sort of talks 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:01.520 about the state that we go through in life. He 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:04.840 was a psychologist or psychiatrist, and so he said that 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:06.520 a lot of people are going through something called a 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:07.840 noiseless crisis. 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:09.320 Soortant to me. 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:12.880 A lot of people that you look at are going 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:15.839 through a crisis that you will never see. So we're 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:19.040 sort of familiar with this idea of a mid life crisis. 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:22.680 This is when men like me and you, you know, 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:26.080 we maybe hit our forties, maybe hit our fifties, we're 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:28.520 maybe paying a mortgage, we don't get to do what 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:32.000 we want, will maybe dye our hair, buy a convertible 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:34.880 and start driving really fast. But what I think is 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:38.080 happening way more. And there was an interesting study on 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:41.920 LinkedIn that found that seventy percent of people in their 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:44.760 twenties or going through something called a quarter life crisis. 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:47.320 So this is a time when you're sort of like, 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:49.719 you sort of took all the right steps, you did 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:52.480 what you should do, but you wake up one day 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:54.600 and you realize this is not the life that I want. 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:57.440 So I think we're seeing a ton of that, and 0:04:57.480 --> 0:04:59.159 I think that one of the main reasons for that 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:03.400 is that the answers that the generation before before gave 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:06.480 us used to work. So like when I was growing up, 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:08.479 you know, my parents were like super like, oh, look, 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:11.120 you have to be a doctor. And then this sort 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:14.000 of idea of going to college, getting educated, you'll get 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:15.719 a good job, and then you'll be able to buy 0:05:15.720 --> 0:05:18.279 a house and happily. Ever after kind of stuff. But 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:20.840 I think that formula doesn't work anymore. I think our 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:24.680 institutions have started to fail us. Not in a negative way, 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:26.640 but I think if you look at the way that 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:30.359 psychiatry develops, you know, we'll do research for twenty or 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:33.559 thirty years before we figure something out. And there's still 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:38.039 studies being published on Facebook today. And I don't mean Meta, 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:40.599 I mean Facebook. So this was a trial that started 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:43.960 like eight years ago that they're like publishing the results now. 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:46.880 So the rate of change in the world is rapidly 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:50.080 increasing and we don't really know how to deal with it, 0:05:50.160 --> 0:05:52.480 and young people are getting absolutely crushed. 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:56.520 And it's that affecting are you saying it's affecting our identity? 0:05:56.600 --> 0:05:59.440 Like you said before, there was almost a path that 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:02.800 was laid out yep, And so you had these milestones effectively, 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:05.480 I go to college, I graduate, or get married at 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:07.400 a certain age, or buy a house at a certain age, 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:10.040 or retire a cern age. There were these milestones that 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:13.000 were laid out for you. And now, whether you go 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:16.560 to college or not, there's basically no milestones because the 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:18.480 goals have changed, the targets have changed. 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:20.520 Yeah, So I don't even know if I think the 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:22.640 targets have changed, but I think the bigger problem is 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:26.040 the targets aren't meetable anymore. So, just as a simple example, 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:29.920 when I went to college, it costs about five thousand 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:32.800 dollars a semester. Yeah, six thousand dollars, I think. So, 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:35.000 you know, college costs me. It took me five and 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:38.080 a half years to graduate, so it cost me somewhere 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:40.600 around thirty thousand dollars to get an undergraduate degree. I 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:43.839 mean that's the cost of one year now, right, So 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:46.479 costs are increasing a lot if you look at this 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:49.279 idea of like, you know, getting married by a certain age. 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:51.320 And I have so many patients who really struggle with 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:54.480 this because they feel like they're late. They're like fifty 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:56.600 percent of people under the age of thirty still live 0:06:56.600 --> 0:06:59.040 with their parents. So if you sort of think about 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:01.480 how does that cast say that again, fifty percent of 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:03.839 people under the age of thirty who are adults still 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:04.640 live with their parents. 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:08.440 Wow, I didn't know that, right. So people in the US, 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:11.640 like India. 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:12.800 And it's an economic thing because it used to be 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:14.280 that you can like, I mean think about you know, 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:16.440 we're here in New York, like rents are crazy, like 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:18.920 you can pay like three thousand dollars for like a closet, 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:23.040 you know. So now it's just not people are finishing college. 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:25.960 They have a ton of debt, there's inflation, people are 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:27.800 not able to get jobs. And then if you think 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:31.640 about the cascading effect, if I want to date, right 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:34.400 and I'm like a twenty seven year old dude, and 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:36.440 then like if the date goes well, it's like do 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:38.040 you want to come back to my place? And then 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:40.800 we go back to my place that like my BA 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:44.000 is there, you know, and then it's kind of like 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:47.440 you can't really, you know, do that. So we're seeing 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:50.280 sort of this epidemic of loneliness. We're seeing this like 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:53.760 dating and mating crisis amongst like men and women, and 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:55.640 a lot of young men are struggling a lot of 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:58.840 young women are struggling to and so like, I think 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:00.800 the world that we lived in is changed, and we 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:05.400 need new answers, we need new paths to navigate this world. 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:08.360 Yeah. I love what you said about how the targets 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:12.480 are just unmetable. Yeah, because that's why people feel behind, 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:15.160 It's why they feel late, it's why they feel they'll 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:18.440 never get there. I now we're all using chat GPT. 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:20.160 But a couple of years ago, when I was writing 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:23.040 my second book, I started it off by talking about 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.240 how if you type in on Google, the first thing 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:29.200 when you type in will I ever which is obviously 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:32.719 a question about your future and possibility, The first thing 0:08:32.720 --> 0:08:35.840 that comes up is will I ever find love? 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:36.600 Wow? 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:38.720 And the second thing that comes up is will I 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:42.840 ever be enough? Wow? Those are the top two questions wow. 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:44.720 And when you look at that and you think wow, 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:47.839 like love and self worth like they are right up 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:50.800 there as the top two most Google things at that time. 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:52.959 Now on chat GPT, I'm sure we'll get so much 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:56.000 more data. But I love what you said about unmet needs. 0:08:56.640 --> 0:08:59.920 What does someone do with the feeling of feeling late, 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:03.800 of feeling behind, or feeling being left behind? 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:07.120 So this is why I was excited to come here 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:11.319 today because you didn't ask me why, you asked what 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:12.080 does someone do? 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:12.959 Right? 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:15.400 And I think that's what sort of exemplifies what I 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:18.440 appreciate about you, is that you're always focused on what 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:22.200 to do, not necessarily why things happen. So I think 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:26.000 you know, if you have that feeling, there are a 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:28.199 couple of important things to do The first is that 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:31.600 that feeling has to do with your sense of identity. 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:34.400 So where do you get these expectations? Who do you 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:37.360 think you are? And I don't mean that sounds so bad, 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:39.240 but like, really, who do you think you are? How 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:41.720 do you understand who you are? And this is what 0:09:41.760 --> 0:09:43.760 we see in people who have a quarter life crisis 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:47.199 is that they are too busy with identification that they 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:49.880 don't understand identity. Now, I know that's kind of confusing, 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:52.120 but if we think about identification, what does that mean? 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:54.760 That means that I'm going to look outside of me 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:56.240 and I'm going to find a group of people and 0:09:56.280 --> 0:09:59.400 I'm going to say my identity is, like I'm one 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:03.520 of these people out right, Like I'm a goth kid, 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:07.480 or I'm super into football, or I'm a gamer right, 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:09.800 or I'm an inceel like there are all kinds of 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:11.880 ways that we can identify. We can identify with a 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:15.160 political party, but identification and identity are two different things. 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:18.480 And I think that when people feel like they are behind, 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:23.280 they have this expectation. They're looking outside and they're saying 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:27.199 this is what I should be, But their information about 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:30.920 who they are comes from what they see outside of them, 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:33.320 And the most important thing that you can do, I 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:35.880 know it sounds kind of generic, is to look within 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:37.880 and I mean really think about, you know, how do 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:41.320 I feel about myself? What do I want in life? 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:44.840 I oftentimes find that people who feel like they're not 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:48.640 enough that feeling comes from trying to make other people 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:52.120 happy and failing. Right, So, if my parents want me 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:54.440 to be a doctor and I don't go to medical school, 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:56.800 which is what happened in my case, you know, then 0:10:56.800 --> 0:10:59.880 you've let them down. And we get so much our 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:03.800 our core sense of identity, the way we're socialized usually 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:06.520 comes from people outside of us. So there's a lot 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:09.319 of research on things like attachment theory, where a child 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:15.040 knows what they feel based on reflection from people around them. 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:17.160 And my favorite example of this is, like, you know, 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:19.280 when I remember when I had a two year old 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:21.520 daughter and she was like running around and then she 0:11:21.559 --> 0:11:24.680 would fall, and then in a moment, what she would 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:27.920 do is look around, and if everyone else is like, 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:30.840 oh my god, are you okay, she'd start crying. But 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:34.240 if everyone is laughing, she'd get up and start laughing too. 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:37.040 So we learn so much about ourselves from the people 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:40.200 around us. I think the problem is that the expectations 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:43.880 that everyone places on us are no longer meetable in 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:46.000 the same way. So what you really need to do 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:48.040 is ask yourself, you know, who am I living for? 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:51.720 What do I want? What are the expectations that I've 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:56.600 internalized that form my value? And then I also tend 0:11:56.600 --> 0:11:59.160 to use a lot of meditation practices, So I really 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:02.400 like for people who have identity problems, people have narcissism 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:04.920 or low self esteem, I'll do a certain kind of 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:09.479 meditation practice called shunya, which is Shunya means void or nothingness, 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:12.920 and so they sort of you cultivate this experience of 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:18.000 like complete emptiness. And when you cultivate that experience of emptiness, 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:21.600 there's a part of your brain called the default mode network, 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:24.200 and this is the part of your brain that thinks 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:27.240 about you. So like, you know, your brain thinks about 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:28.760 all kinds of things. I'm paying attention to you, but 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:31.640 they're sometimes when we reflect on ourselves, what do I 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:34.120 think of myself? The really interesting thing is that the 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:38.480 default mode network, this self reflective capability, is hyperactive when 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:42.160 you're very depressed. So when people are super depressed, what 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:44.280 are they thinking about? A lot of people think that 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:46.520 they're thinking about how the world is falling apart. They're 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:49.920 really thinking about themselves. I'm a loser, I'm pathetic. I've 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:51.640 had patience who will come in and say, you know, 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:54.440 my family would be better off without me, Like I'm 0:12:54.520 --> 0:12:57.320 hurting my kids by existing, so I'm going to kill myself. 0:12:57.360 --> 0:13:00.560 Like you know, they think so negatively and you can't 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:03.920 get them to stop. And so the interesting thing is 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:08.800 is we treat depression. The default mode network deactivates as 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:11.520 you do meditations, and I think Shunya is a specific 0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:15.360 meditation that I suspect activates this pretty quickly. You stop 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:19.079 thinking about yourself, and when you stop sort of hyper focusing, 0:13:20.040 --> 0:13:22.760 then this is I know it's kind of paradoxical, but 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:25.240 when we think about ourselves, what we're really doing is 0:13:25.240 --> 0:13:28.600 we're internalizing expectations. Then you start getting data from within 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:31.280 that's not the same as thinking about yourself. It is 0:13:31.320 --> 0:13:34.640 actually paying attention to yourself. And then you start to 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:38.000 get these internal signals and you get some amount of quietness, 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:41.080 some amount of stillness, some amount of groundedness, and then 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:43.000 people start to move in the right direction. You start 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:43.560 to feel better. 0:13:43.640 --> 0:13:46.720 Talk to me about that difference between paying attention to 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:50.560 yourself and thinking about yourself. What are the different thoughts 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:52.800 and emotions and feelings that are connected to each? 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:57.040 Oh beautiful. So thoughts, emotions, and feelings are all thinking 0:13:57.080 --> 0:14:02.240 about yourself. When I think about myself, I'm literally having thoughts. 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:04.719 All oak is good, all oak is bad, all oak 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:07.800 is beautiful, all oak is ugly. That's all thinking about yourself. 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:12.200 Getting information from within is not thinking about right. So 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:15.400 if I think about something, I am over here and 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:18.520 the thing is over there. So the object of what 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:21.640 I'm thinking about happens to be me, but the thinking 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:23.760 is happening over here. I am using my mind to 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:26.720 think about myself. So it's kind of like if you 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:30.120 look at your reflection in a mirror, you don't see yourself. 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:33.160 You are seeing a reflection of yourself. What you're really 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:37.920 seeing is a mirror. Right. So what I think people 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:40.200 and people get stuck in this right because they're thinking 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:42.360 about themselves a lot. Instead, what they need to do 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:45.680 is pay attention to themselves. Now, paying attention means observing, 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:52.080 not thinking. Just watch and something really interesting happens. So 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:54.720 I work with some patients who have schizophrenia and they 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:58.680 become psychotic, and it's really interesting. So when I was 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:01.280 back at Harvard, I was trying to to develop meditation 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:05.400 protocols for particular mental illnesses. So if you suffer from depression, 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:08.960 you know what kind of meditation do you do? And 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:11.480 anxiety and stuff? And I turned that all into a guide. 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:15.360 But when I have patients with psychosis, what I would 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:17.400 try to so these are people who are having hallucinations 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:19.640 and delusions, and what I would really focus on with 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:22.320 them is they would get so caught up in it, right, 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:25.960 And in psychiatry we try to make the hallucinations go away. 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:29.240 That's a good treatment, you know, that can be very 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:31.520 good treatment. But the other thing that I would add 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:35.520 to medications and things like that is let's learn how 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:38.880 to just watch it without getting pulled into it if 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:41.440 they're there, like, so what right? Can you just continue 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:43.800 to focus on this? Can you shift your attention away 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:48.920 from it? So simply observing gives us distance. So there 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:50.920 are other patients that I have that will get so 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:53.960 caught up in something. And maybe you know your listeners 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:56.560 have situations where like someone gets dumped and then your 0:15:56.560 --> 0:15:58.200 friend comes to you, they're like, oh my god, like 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:00.560 my life is over. My life is ever take a 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:04.680 step back, like, get some perspective. So as we observe things, 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:07.960 the bite comes out of it. We start to gain 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:10.560 a little bit of distance from it, and so you 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:14.960 can just witness Okay, I'm feeling anxious today, right, So 0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:17.560 this is very different if I say my life is 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:21.280 falling apart versus saying there's a part of me that 0:16:21.400 --> 0:16:23.760 feels like my life is falling apart. That doesn't make 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:28.040 it true. Thoughts aren't facts, so that observation is a 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:30.400 little bit different. It's actually a skill uses a different 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:32.440 part of the brain, and as people start doing that, 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:34.720 they get some distance, they get some perspective. And the 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:38.359 really interesting thing is when that part of the brain activates, 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:41.280 it's like your anterior singular cortex, the part of your 0:16:41.280 --> 0:16:44.720 brain that experiences emotion like you're amygdala. This is like 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:47.400 your threat center, your survival center that actually starts to 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:50.120 calm down. So people will literally as you turn this 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:51.560 part of the brain on, this other part of the 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:53.240 brain will naturally turn off. 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:57.600 Well yeah, it's almost like thinking has an element of you, 0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:03.800 attaching your story and prediction and projection unto yourself and 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:07.840 observing is just watching the story. It's almost like there's 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:10.720 not even a story. Actually, you're just watching it, just seeing. 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:13.000 It's a beautiful way to put it. 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:13.480 Yeah. 0:17:13.680 --> 0:17:17.360 Right, So you're right that your mind attaches a lot 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:19.840 of stuff, right, And this is why I'm curious about 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:22.679 your background. But you know, in Sanskrit than in the 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:26.399 Eastern spiritual traditions, we have this concept of detachment or 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:29.400 vit agya. And what we sort of notice is if 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:33.040 you really think about what the source of your suffering is, 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:37.760 it's there can be pain, but usually what really messes 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:41.360 people up are the implications of what happens. 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:42.240 Right. 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:45.399 Oh, if like if this person says they're if this 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:48.560 person doesn't return my text within the hour, what does 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:52.040 that mean? That means they don't like me. That means 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:54.760 they think they're better than me, That means they're more 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:57.520 important people. We attach all kinds of things, and it 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:00.720 happens really rapidly, it happens subconsciously. That's really where our 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:01.560 suffering comes from. 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:04.359 Yeah, well said, Yeah. The Buddha called it the second arrow. 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:07.479 Like the first arrow, it hurts it's things, and then 0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:10.720 the second arrow is the meaning the story, the implication 0:18:10.920 --> 0:18:13.800 that you have not even checked, you've not fact checked, 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:15.560 you've not observed, and there it is. 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:18.680 Yeah, So I'm glad you brought up that example because 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:21.680 I was reading that text recently. I didn't realize, I think. 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:24.119 So we talk about the second arrow a lot in psychiatry, 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:27.119 which is this concept that you life sends you the 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:29.840 first arrow. You can't control whether you get dumped or not, 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:33.119 but it is the implication that you attach. Right, So 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:35.960 if I get dumped, that's a fact that there's some 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:38.359 amount of pain, some amount of grief. But then you 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:40.880 start to tell yourself, I'm a loser, I'm not good enough, 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:44.000 I'm not good enough, I'll always be alone. Those kinds 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:46.720 of thoughts are what you add to the equation, the 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:49.359 really fascinating thing about how to stop doing that. So 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:52.000 this is why it was blown away. I recently read. 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:54.520 I realized i'd never like, actually looked at the teachings 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:57.760 of the Buddha. What I had done is everyone talks 0:18:57.800 --> 0:18:59.879 about the teachings of the Buddha, right, but it's like 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:03.560 other people talking about the boos. So what I didn't 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:05.760 realize is the bod that actually says the second arrow. 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:07.560 So we in psychiatry we talk about this is how 0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:10.640 you avoid pain and negative emotions. The bod that says 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:13.480 the problem with the second arrow is also your positive emotions. 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:17.280 He says, you should stop attaching that to your positive 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:20.840 emotions as well. So when something good happens to your life, 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:23.160 we get excited about it, he says, don't do that. 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:25.439 So if you get a promotion that means I'm going 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:27.000 to do this, and that means I'm going to do this, 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:28.879 and that means I'm going to do this, stop doing 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:31.440 all that promotion is That's all it is. It has 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:35.199 no implications. And the really fascinating thing is this is 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:38.360 why it's so hard for people. Everyone wants the associations 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:41.040 of the good stuff, but nobody wants to give up 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:42.760 the associations of the bad stuff. That's not how the 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:45.439 brain works. If you want to decouple those two things, 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:49.320 take something in your life that is good and look 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:52.159 at why you're excited about it, and then let go 0:19:52.280 --> 0:19:56.560 of that excitement. It happened, that's it. Observe it. It's 0:19:56.600 --> 0:19:59.159 in the past. It doesn't mean anything about your future. 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:01.920 And if you yourself on both sides of those coins 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:05.600 at that coin, then your mastery will increase. Way more quickly. 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:09.680 Yeah. Absolutely, it's as you know as well. It's the 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:13.960 definition of equanimity in the Gita of the idea that 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:17.880 one's not disturbed by happiness or distress. And that's really 0:20:17.920 --> 0:20:20.040 interesting use of words. It's like, how could you ever 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:23.159 be disturbed by happiness? But that's how you are because 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:26.480 you created so much additional meaning, which now when it 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:29.400 didn't happen, the promotion didn't even make you happy anymore. 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:34.399 You believe the promotion was your right towards some bigger, 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:37.200 greater thing, and now you can't even experience the joy 0:20:37.240 --> 0:20:37.879 of that moment. 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:40.159 Absolutely, And that's what I see, you know, I have 0:20:40.440 --> 0:20:42.600 kind of like a couple different buckets of patients. And 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:44.800 the interesting thing is I have people who are like 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:47.600 twenty nine years old living at home, you know, in 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:50.480 their mom's basement, playing video games and watching pornography all day. 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:53.480 And then I also have like executives and CEOs and 0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:57.520 startup founders, and they do exactly that. They attach a 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:00.879 lot of things to their happiness, so they end up 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:04.080 moving the goalposts. One promotion isn't enough. Now I need 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:05.920 another one. Now I need another one, Now I need 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:08.479 another one. And it's beautiful, you know the quote from 0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:11.520 the Githa that you said, because I think what does 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:14.240 it mean to be disturbed by happiness? Literally the way 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:16.320 that I try to work with these people is a 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:20.240 disturbance is anything that creates a change in your mind. 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:23.879 So your natural state is to be still. Think about 0:21:23.880 --> 0:21:27.159 when you watch a sunset, you know, or you're just 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:30.480 like completely peaceful, like you're just there with yourself. And 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:33.399 even when you get a promotion that creates a disturbance, 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:36.119 and the moment that you create a disturbance, you're no 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:39.720 longer still, You're no longer at peace, and you may 0:21:39.760 --> 0:21:42.240 be signing yourself up for future disappointment. 0:21:42.800 --> 0:21:45.280 What I'm really intrigued by is how do you kind 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:49.679 of factor that thought in with growth? Because it's almost 0:21:49.720 --> 0:21:52.760 like humans need to grow, we need to pursue something, 0:21:53.720 --> 0:21:56.080 We need to move in a certain direction to stay alive. 0:21:56.160 --> 0:21:59.560 True of for us, I think that's the most common way. 0:21:59.760 --> 0:22:03.160 Right, So what's a healthier way or what would be 0:22:03.520 --> 0:22:04.200 the better way? 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:08.639 Healthier? Better is a tricky language, Yeah, so what's so 0:22:10.280 --> 0:22:12.840 I think that so this is really confused. I'm glad 0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:19.040 you asked this because I think chasing growth is not 0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:23.400 the same as growing. A lot of people get focused 0:22:23.440 --> 0:22:26.600 on doing, but they don't pay attention to what's happening. 0:22:27.520 --> 0:22:29.679 So I see this all the time in patients with addiction, 0:22:29.760 --> 0:22:32.399 where like you know, you're they're doing something like a 0:22:32.440 --> 0:22:35.399 substance or pornography or something like that, but they're not 0:22:35.440 --> 0:22:39.440 really paying attention to how does pornography or the substance 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:44.040 rewire my brain? If I crush up opiates and snort 0:22:44.040 --> 0:22:48.160 them right now? What am I signing myself up for tomorrow? 0:22:48.200 --> 0:22:51.119 What is the human I am creating? What is the 0:22:51.200 --> 0:22:54.959 life I will inherit if I take this action today? 0:22:56.320 --> 0:22:58.440 And the interesting thing there is, once you start paying 0:22:58.480 --> 0:23:01.560 attention to that, it's not really about growing, it's not 0:23:01.640 --> 0:23:04.000 about getting anywhere. It's just what do I want to 0:23:04.000 --> 0:23:06.680 inherit tomorrow? That's a great way I think to think 0:23:06.720 --> 0:23:09.679 about it, right, I think like actually super short term, 0:23:10.080 --> 0:23:16.239 so I think wanting growth, ambition, goals. These are wonderful motivators, 0:23:16.800 --> 0:23:19.840 but they won't bring you happiness. Right, So you can 0:23:19.880 --> 0:23:23.920 get satisfaction of the ego through achievement, But then you've 0:23:23.920 --> 0:23:27.159 done something really sneaky, which is that you've made the 0:23:27.359 --> 0:23:31.639 lever of satisfaction in your life, gratification of the ego. 0:23:32.000 --> 0:23:34.320 So I want to chase this. I want to get promoted, 0:23:34.600 --> 0:23:37.240 but that's really tricky. Like, sure, you can get promoted 0:23:37.240 --> 0:23:39.439 and you can feel really good, but now you are 0:23:39.600 --> 0:23:44.840 training your brain to feel good when you get something. 0:23:46.240 --> 0:23:49.080 And so this is something that no amount of promotions 0:23:49.440 --> 0:23:50.639 will ever be enough. 0:23:51.080 --> 0:23:54.479 It's less about what's happening and who you're becoming and 0:23:54.520 --> 0:23:57.720 what you're inheriting, and more about what you're doing. And 0:23:57.760 --> 0:23:59.480 that's why we get addicted to doing. 0:24:00.080 --> 0:24:02.880 Yeah, absolutely, so we get addicted to doing because we 0:24:02.920 --> 0:24:06.239 want our internal state to change. Right, So if I'm like, 0:24:07.000 --> 0:24:09.400 if I'm not happy, if I do something about it, 0:24:09.800 --> 0:24:12.800 then my circumstances will change. If I get her flowers 0:24:12.840 --> 0:24:15.159 one more time, she'll say yes when I ask her 0:24:15.160 --> 0:24:17.760 out on a date. But what we're really doing is 0:24:17.760 --> 0:24:20.560 we're putting the control of our life. We're putting our 0:24:20.880 --> 0:24:26.760 internal happiness or contentment based on how the world responds 0:24:26.760 --> 0:24:29.640 to me. So I'm not saying that you shouldn't act, 0:24:29.680 --> 0:24:31.199 which a lot of people will say, like should you 0:24:31.600 --> 0:24:35.600 not act? Which, actually, if you do this right will 0:24:35.600 --> 0:24:37.159 be where you end up. And that's what happened to 0:24:37.160 --> 0:24:38.800 the Buda, right, So he said, like, I'm going to 0:24:38.840 --> 0:24:42.240 walk this spiritual path, walked away from his wife, walked 0:24:42.240 --> 0:24:44.880 away from his son. And so I think that there 0:24:44.920 --> 0:24:47.399 is a certain part of this path that is not 0:24:49.240 --> 0:24:53.359 conducive to life that you will start to change so much, 0:24:53.800 --> 0:24:57.720 you will start to stop caring so much about the 0:24:57.760 --> 0:25:00.400 things that everyone around you cares that it can become 0:25:00.440 --> 0:25:01.080 really difficult. 0:25:01.240 --> 0:25:02.480 Yeah, and that's what I was going to say, that 0:25:02.560 --> 0:25:05.159 even if we go back to the simple idea at 0:25:05.160 --> 0:25:07.640 the beginning, where you said, if you know who you are, 0:25:08.240 --> 0:25:10.719 you can start to choose your own values, almost your 0:25:10.760 --> 0:25:15.720 own metrics, your own milestones that aren't based on your parents' society, 0:25:15.840 --> 0:25:18.600 the things around you. But the challenge with that is 0:25:19.200 --> 0:25:27.480 you're fighting against decades and decades of wiring that is 0:25:27.600 --> 0:25:29.959 encouraging you to move at these milestones, to move at 0:25:30.000 --> 0:25:31.960 this pace, to be married by this age, to have 0:25:32.040 --> 0:25:35.119 kids by this age. And so it's such a struggle. 0:25:35.240 --> 0:25:37.520 Sometimes it can feel because you're like, wait a minute, 0:25:37.520 --> 0:25:41.320 I'm trying to follow my whatever it is, but over 0:25:41.400 --> 0:25:45.639 here there's this chart that feels like it's ranking me constantly. 0:25:46.160 --> 0:25:49.480 That doesn't just disappear. How do we hold on to 0:25:49.640 --> 0:25:54.760 our values and a new vision in a world that 0:25:54.800 --> 0:25:56.679 has a very clear script you should follow. 0:25:57.160 --> 0:26:00.320 So it's a great question. I guess this is where 0:26:00.359 --> 0:26:02.879 like I'd like to just share my experience, which is 0:26:02.920 --> 0:26:08.200 really weird. So I think that I got to where 0:26:08.240 --> 0:26:11.800 I am by making a series of terrible decisions, and 0:26:11.880 --> 0:26:15.000 I strongly encourage everybody else to consider doing the same. 0:26:15.920 --> 0:26:18.359 So I spent seven years starting to become a monk 0:26:18.800 --> 0:26:21.159 and then decided to walk away from that. Right, So 0:26:21.200 --> 0:26:23.159 this is like abandoning this path that I spent so 0:26:23.240 --> 0:26:26.280 much time putting into. Decided that I fell in love 0:26:26.320 --> 0:26:28.760 and the whole met my wife and was not super 0:26:28.800 --> 0:26:33.880 interested in bromachadia celibacy, and so you know, did that 0:26:34.040 --> 0:26:37.359 and then ended up going to medical school. Towards the 0:26:37.440 --> 0:26:39.200 end of medical school, I was going to do holistic 0:26:39.200 --> 0:26:43.439 oncology and do like evidence based complementary alternative medicine for 0:26:43.480 --> 0:26:45.480 cancer treatment. My dad was a cancer doctor, so I 0:26:45.520 --> 0:26:47.040 was like, I learned all this stuff in India, and 0:26:47.080 --> 0:26:49.159 I was like, let's secure cancer with like herbs and 0:26:49.240 --> 0:26:53.040 yoga and meditation and chemotherapy. And then towards the end 0:26:53.080 --> 0:26:55.760 of it, I fell in love with psychiatry, and even 0:26:55.760 --> 0:26:58.560 my family was like actually super against it. They're like 0:26:58.680 --> 0:27:00.800 this is crazy. Like my mom the doctor was like, 0:27:01.119 --> 0:27:02.679 you're going to go crazy if you spend time with 0:27:02.680 --> 0:27:05.280 crazy people all the time, right, why don't you like 0:27:05.320 --> 0:27:08.960 be a real doctor, like new cardiology. Look, it's the 0:27:08.960 --> 0:27:11.560 second point. Wife was watching Gray's Anatomy. She wanted to 0:27:11.600 --> 0:27:15.840 me to be a neurosurgeon. I was like, same organ, 0:27:15.920 --> 0:27:18.440 but maybe in a different way. And so I sort 0:27:18.440 --> 0:27:20.200 of walked away. I'd done a bunch of research and 0:27:20.440 --> 0:27:22.080 things like that, and so I sort of walked away 0:27:22.080 --> 0:27:24.160 from that path and like at the eleventh hour sort 0:27:24.160 --> 0:27:27.320 of tried to apply for psychiatry, ended up getting lucky, 0:27:27.880 --> 0:27:29.600 and then I wound up at Harvard and I was 0:27:29.600 --> 0:27:32.040 like faculty at Harvard Medical School and was like, you know, 0:27:32.080 --> 0:27:35.359 working on these meditation protocols and stuff like that. And 0:27:35.400 --> 0:27:38.399 then I kind of started streaming one day talking to 0:27:38.560 --> 0:27:41.720 like broke gamers on the internet because I realized, like 0:27:41.760 --> 0:27:44.680 no one's really helping them, and so like walked away 0:27:44.760 --> 0:27:48.280 from like that academic career. And then the weird thing 0:27:48.359 --> 0:27:51.280 is like that sort of picked up in a weird way. 0:27:52.000 --> 0:27:53.920 So I think that what a lot of people don't 0:27:53.960 --> 0:27:57.680 realize is that so here I am. You're kind of saying, okay, 0:27:57.720 --> 0:27:59.879 so how do I the world wants me to be this? 0:28:00.200 --> 0:28:01.320 This is what I want to be, and there's a 0:28:01.359 --> 0:28:04.280 fundamental mismatch. Even if I'm going to do this, I'm 0:28:04.280 --> 0:28:07.040 going to piss off the world and what I've seen 0:28:07.080 --> 0:28:09.399 not only in myself but also my patients who I 0:28:09.520 --> 0:28:12.240 encourage this path for. I was really worried because I 0:28:12.359 --> 0:28:17.640 realized that about forty percent of my patients within eighteen 0:28:17.640 --> 0:28:20.320 months of coming to see me will make a career change. 0:28:20.480 --> 0:28:20.760 Wow. 0:28:21.160 --> 0:28:23.240 And I was like worried that I'm biasing them in 0:28:23.280 --> 0:28:25.480 some way, Like am I like shaping them? But I 0:28:25.520 --> 0:28:27.280 think once you start to realize, okay, this is the 0:28:27.280 --> 0:28:29.159 direction that I want to move. Once you cast some 0:28:29.200 --> 0:28:33.200 of those things off and you start moving in your direction, 0:28:34.200 --> 0:28:38.400 you get so much positive internal feedback, like, yeah, people 0:28:38.440 --> 0:28:42.000 around you were upset, but you are grounded. And if 0:28:42.000 --> 0:28:44.040 you really think about when you feel the most out 0:28:44.080 --> 0:28:47.440 of control in life, it's because you let the opinions 0:28:47.480 --> 0:28:51.560 of other people disturb this. But as long as you 0:28:51.640 --> 0:28:54.400 were secure in what you're doing, if you really lean 0:28:54.480 --> 0:28:56.520 into that, and there's so much positive feedback, like it 0:28:56.800 --> 0:28:59.240 the first time I started streaming on Twitch and you know, 0:28:59.280 --> 0:29:02.000 like there were five people there. It felt so good 0:29:02.040 --> 0:29:03.959 to talk to them. It just felt right, felt right 0:29:04.000 --> 0:29:06.960 in here. And the biggest thing getting in the way 0:29:07.000 --> 0:29:10.120 of that in today's society is we use technology to 0:29:10.280 --> 0:29:13.680 dull what's going on in here. I'm feeling anxious, like 0:29:14.080 --> 0:29:16.760 I'm on the subway, I'm bored. I don't like feeling bored. 0:29:16.800 --> 0:29:19.560 Let me pull out my phone. I'm feeling anxious. Let 0:29:19.560 --> 0:29:21.800 me pull out my phone. Oh my god, my boss 0:29:22.120 --> 0:29:24.800 just told me, like, ah, let me pull out my phone. 0:29:25.040 --> 0:29:27.800 So we do so many things with technology that dull 0:29:27.960 --> 0:29:30.200 our sense of self. We don't like to be with 0:29:30.280 --> 0:29:34.120 ourselves anymore. I saw a super scary study. People are 0:29:34.200 --> 0:29:36.680 spending so much time on the toilet with their phone. 0:29:37.080 --> 0:29:40.000 It's increasing the risk of hemorrhoids by about sixty five percent. 0:29:40.200 --> 0:29:42.800 Oh and they're not even pushing, They're just sitting there. 0:29:42.840 --> 0:29:45.160 And if you stay in that position in your body, 0:29:45.680 --> 0:29:49.479 it puts pressure on the blood vessels. And like, sitting 0:29:49.520 --> 0:29:52.719 on the toilet with your phone is giving people hemorrhoids. 0:29:52.800 --> 0:29:55.360 Oh my god, it's super scary, and it does something 0:29:55.400 --> 0:29:57.120 similar to your mind too. I don't know why, but. 0:30:14.440 --> 0:30:17.120 As I'm listening to you, I'm just thinking, like, that's 0:30:17.480 --> 0:30:19.280 really the core of all of it. And you talked 0:30:19.280 --> 0:30:21.400 about the ego self at the beginning. It's almost like 0:30:22.320 --> 0:30:24.280 the reason why we're so obsessed with what everyone thinks 0:30:24.280 --> 0:30:27.880 about us is because of the egos right there. So 0:30:27.960 --> 0:30:29.880 if I was to ask you, what if someone do 0:30:30.000 --> 0:30:34.760 to truly stop caring what people think? Because there's usefulness 0:30:34.800 --> 0:30:37.280 in caring what people think. It's what helps the world 0:30:37.840 --> 0:30:41.000 stay sane to some degree. But at the same time, 0:30:41.160 --> 0:30:43.280 there's a part of you with what you're saying, which 0:30:43.280 --> 0:30:46.000 I love. Is this idea of love. I love the 0:30:46.080 --> 0:30:48.600 explanation you gave between Hey, when I was live on 0:30:48.640 --> 0:30:51.960 Twitch for five people, it felt right here, and then 0:30:52.040 --> 0:30:54.000 the opposite to that, which is, I don't feel good 0:30:54.080 --> 0:30:56.480 right here, so I'm going to numb myself with technology 0:30:57.000 --> 0:31:01.000 or you said, dull yourself. How do we even get 0:31:01.000 --> 0:31:05.120 to that clarity that I like doing this right now 0:31:05.200 --> 0:31:08.200 because I think we've all become so clouded. And I'm 0:31:08.200 --> 0:31:09.800 sure you see this with the people you help and 0:31:09.840 --> 0:31:12.240 serve and the millions of people online all the time 0:31:12.280 --> 0:31:14.240 that even when you encourage someone to move in a 0:31:14.320 --> 0:31:18.280 direction of noticing what's true to them, it becomes a 0:31:18.400 --> 0:31:21.480 really difficult concept for people because I don't know what's 0:31:21.480 --> 0:31:23.440 true for me. I'm kind of I like these all 0:31:23.480 --> 0:31:25.440 these things, and I like this then, but now I'm 0:31:25.440 --> 0:31:27.760 distracted by video games. I'm now distracted by porn. I'm 0:31:27.760 --> 0:31:31.600 now like those polls are so strong that even if 0:31:31.600 --> 0:31:33.360 you're close to knowing goll I really like this five 0:31:33.360 --> 0:31:35.960 people on Twitch, the distraction of oh I wish I 0:31:36.000 --> 0:31:38.800 had a million subscribers is so strong that you get 0:31:38.800 --> 0:31:43.040 pulled away from that sense. How does someone truly know 0:31:44.080 --> 0:31:48.600 something that feels right for them to pursue in a 0:31:48.640 --> 0:31:52.160 world where they're either clouded so they don't know themselves 0:31:52.160 --> 0:31:54.680 well enough or they get distracted. 0:31:54.840 --> 0:31:56.600 I think the answer is sort of in the question. 0:31:56.720 --> 0:31:58.000 And I think this is why it's fun to talk 0:31:58.000 --> 0:32:01.560 to you, because you ask questions with certain concepts in mind. 0:32:01.600 --> 0:32:03.920 So I think you know, I don't know what I feel, 0:32:04.400 --> 0:32:06.680 So let's understand that first, right, So if you want 0:32:06.680 --> 0:32:09.600 to understand what you really want because you are getting distracted, 0:32:09.680 --> 0:32:11.880 like and it happens to me too, I'll see you 0:32:11.920 --> 0:32:14.200 know now that I'm in like whatever room I'm in, 0:32:14.240 --> 0:32:16.800 I make comparisons. Right, Oh, this doctor is doing this, 0:32:16.800 --> 0:32:20.960 this influencer is doing this. So the first thing to 0:32:21.080 --> 0:32:24.760 understand is that where you spend your attention is going 0:32:24.840 --> 0:32:27.920 to be where you get information. So literally, like if 0:32:27.960 --> 0:32:31.360 I numb your tongue, like if I'm doing dental surgery, 0:32:31.400 --> 0:32:33.680 like you know, you can't talk, you can't chew. So 0:32:33.720 --> 0:32:37.440 one of the key concepts is awareness precedes control. And 0:32:37.480 --> 0:32:39.360 you kind of pointed this out that if we look 0:32:39.400 --> 0:32:42.880 at what's happening in our world, where is our perception going, 0:32:42.920 --> 0:32:45.360 where is our attention going, It's always going outside of us. 0:32:46.200 --> 0:32:48.959 You know when I was in med school, I started 0:32:48.960 --> 0:32:51.040 med school at the age of twenty eight, which was behind, 0:32:51.840 --> 0:32:53.000 and so I was like, oh my god, Like I 0:32:53.080 --> 0:32:54.800 have to be efficient. I have to be efficient. Everyone 0:32:54.840 --> 0:32:58.720 is so concerned with productivity in efficiency. I think it's 0:32:58.720 --> 0:33:01.840 one of the most damaging things in the world. Because 0:33:01.880 --> 0:33:03.959 now I'm listening to a podcast on the way to 0:33:04.000 --> 0:33:06.720 the train, I'm reading on the train, listening to a 0:33:06.800 --> 0:33:09.360 lecture on the way to lecture Hall, paying attention into 0:33:09.440 --> 0:33:12.200 lecture Hall, Like every moment I can be productive I 0:33:12.240 --> 0:33:15.560 can be efficient, but my attention is outside of me, 0:33:17.160 --> 0:33:21.080 so I get bad. I Basically the other thing to 0:33:21.160 --> 0:33:23.760 understand about the mind is the mind never wears out. 0:33:23.840 --> 0:33:27.480 It rusts the faculties that you do not use, you 0:33:27.480 --> 0:33:30.080 will lose. This is why we forget languages that we 0:33:30.160 --> 0:33:35.640 don't practice right. So our attention is going outside of us, 0:33:35.960 --> 0:33:38.480 getting pulled away by things like technology. And then once 0:33:38.480 --> 0:33:40.920 we start to if I spend all of my time 0:33:41.760 --> 0:33:45.760 thinking about what everybody else is doing, I will not 0:33:45.880 --> 0:33:48.520 have a good sense of myself. So the first thing 0:33:48.520 --> 0:33:52.680 we need to do is internalize our awareness. The second 0:33:52.720 --> 0:33:56.280 thing to understand is that internalizing our awareness why don't 0:33:56.280 --> 0:34:00.280 we do that because it's usually painful. So I don't 0:34:00.320 --> 0:34:03.320 know why the world is designed this way. But when 0:34:03.360 --> 0:34:06.560 a patient comes to me and sits in therapy, they 0:34:06.600 --> 0:34:10.520 don't have a breakthrough first and then cry a lot 0:34:10.600 --> 0:34:13.800 at the end. They cry a lot, they face their trauma, 0:34:13.840 --> 0:34:16.800 they face their negative emotions, and then the good stuff 0:34:16.840 --> 0:34:19.520 is at the end. So the reason people don't like 0:34:19.680 --> 0:34:22.520 to look within themselves, we actually try really hard to 0:34:22.719 --> 0:34:26.200 never look within ourselves because there's usually a lot of 0:34:26.239 --> 0:34:28.399 pain in there. Like I remember when I was at 0:34:28.400 --> 0:34:30.279 the height of my video game addiction. I was like 0:34:30.320 --> 0:34:34.080 eighteen years old, and I know for an eighteen for 0:34:34.120 --> 0:34:37.680 a whole year, I never went to sleep. I always 0:34:37.719 --> 0:34:42.479 passed out if I got into bed, And what would 0:34:42.480 --> 0:34:45.680 happen if I was idle? Thoughts would start to flow, like, 0:34:45.840 --> 0:34:48.880 you're screwing up your life. You know a month has 0:34:48.920 --> 0:34:50.560 gone by, you haven't gone to a single class in 0:34:50.600 --> 0:34:52.920 a month. You're screwing everything up. I could see that 0:34:52.960 --> 0:34:56.000 I was destroying my life and I was powerless to 0:34:56.040 --> 0:34:58.879 stop it, so shame and guilt would flood my mind, 0:34:58.880 --> 0:35:01.839 and I hated that. So I would play until five 0:35:01.840 --> 0:35:03.880 point thirty in the morning, six in the morning, so 0:35:03.920 --> 0:35:06.680 I was so exhausted that I would just pass out 0:35:06.680 --> 0:35:10.160 immediately because if I was awake for even five minutes, 0:35:10.480 --> 0:35:12.319 my mind would turn on and I would be awake 0:35:12.400 --> 0:35:16.560 for hours in absolute torture. So we don't like to 0:35:16.600 --> 0:35:21.279 look within ourselves because looking within ourselves is painful. This 0:35:21.320 --> 0:35:25.480 is where there has to be this ugly part. And 0:35:25.520 --> 0:35:28.360 from a neuroscience perspective, what's going on is we're doing 0:35:28.480 --> 0:35:33.200 so much emotional suppression through technological devices. That's what they do, right, 0:35:33.239 --> 0:35:35.000 So if you're feeling anxious and you pull out your 0:35:35.000 --> 0:35:37.040 phone and you like laugh at cats, then like suddenly 0:35:37.040 --> 0:35:40.719 you feel better. So it shuts that stuff off. So 0:35:40.800 --> 0:35:42.480 as we shut off these circuits of the brain, we 0:35:42.480 --> 0:35:45.640 have to rewaken them. And this is probably from an 0:35:45.640 --> 0:35:48.279 evolutionary perspective. I don't know if this kind of makes sense, 0:35:48.280 --> 0:35:53.480 but negative emotions keep us alive more than positive emotions. 0:35:53.760 --> 0:35:56.320 So our brain has a bias to experience the negative 0:35:56.320 --> 0:35:58.759 over the positive. So the first thing we have to 0:35:58.800 --> 0:36:02.560 do is move our attention away from the outside world. 0:36:02.680 --> 0:36:07.080 Spend some time with yourself. No music, no headphones, no 0:36:07.200 --> 0:36:09.839 podcast nothing like that. I mean, I love podcasts, love 0:36:09.880 --> 0:36:12.360 this podcast, but spend some time. You know, after you 0:36:12.400 --> 0:36:15.600 listen to this episode, sit in silence, let yourself absorb. 0:36:16.120 --> 0:36:18.719 Second thing is, if you sit with yourself, what's going 0:36:18.760 --> 0:36:21.759 to come up is a lot and negativity. But that 0:36:21.840 --> 0:36:27.680 negativity has to come out before it disappears. So when 0:36:27.680 --> 0:36:29.880 I'm sitting with a patient who has a history of trauma, 0:36:30.239 --> 0:36:33.000 the trauma is like stuck inside them and they use 0:36:33.040 --> 0:36:35.960 so many defense mechanisms to bury it. We want to 0:36:35.960 --> 0:36:38.520 bring that stuff up. We want to have you crying 0:36:38.560 --> 0:36:41.520 and stuff like that and then let it go. And 0:36:41.560 --> 0:36:45.840 then underneath all the negativity you will find that voice, 0:36:45.880 --> 0:36:49.239 that internal sense of really what you want right when 0:36:49.280 --> 0:36:52.120 you have a good cry at the end of that, 0:36:52.360 --> 0:36:54.600 like you'll have a sense of peace and you'll be like, Okay, 0:36:54.640 --> 0:36:57.640 like this sucks. Now that I've sat with it, what 0:36:57.719 --> 0:37:00.359 am I going to do about it? And it's amazing 0:37:00.400 --> 0:37:03.839 how it happens. You don't have to do it. All 0:37:03.840 --> 0:37:06.520 you have to do is create the right circumstances. And 0:37:06.600 --> 0:37:09.680 in the same way that your body the moment that 0:37:09.719 --> 0:37:11.920 you swallow a piece of food, your body takes care 0:37:11.920 --> 0:37:14.960 of the rest. If you give your mind the right environment, 0:37:15.440 --> 0:37:17.279 it is designed to heal, just like a cut on 0:37:17.320 --> 0:37:19.760 my arm. It will get rid of those negative emotions. 0:37:20.000 --> 0:37:21.520 You just need to stop getting in the way. 0:37:22.320 --> 0:37:25.319 That's such a That is a really brilliant explanation. Never 0:37:25.360 --> 0:37:28.239 heard it put that way so well. It's I love 0:37:28.280 --> 0:37:31.800 the idea that your mind is already designed to repair 0:37:31.840 --> 0:37:35.080 and heal itself, and if it's given the right parameters 0:37:35.080 --> 0:37:38.440 and the right set up and the right environment, it 0:37:38.520 --> 0:37:40.839 will naturally find its way. 0:37:41.200 --> 0:37:41.680 Absolutely. 0:37:41.680 --> 0:37:46.520 But the key part that you put there is the 0:37:46.600 --> 0:37:51.319 pain and the discomfort is the prerequisite for a breakthrough 0:37:52.120 --> 0:37:56.279 and our ability to sit in that is the part 0:37:56.320 --> 0:37:58.520 that makes a contingent as to whether we'll actually rise 0:37:58.560 --> 0:37:59.160 above from it. 0:37:59.640 --> 0:38:02.480 Yes, So I think just one other example, So I 0:38:02.520 --> 0:38:05.200 want you all to think about when you get food poisoning, 0:38:05.800 --> 0:38:10.160 what does your body do It feels nauseous, I'm going 0:38:10.200 --> 0:38:13.680 to vomit the nausea and vomiting is doesn't feel good, 0:38:14.200 --> 0:38:17.880 but it is healthy. And so sometimes what I'll also do, 0:38:18.000 --> 0:38:20.000 like when my kids get food poisoning is oh wait, 0:38:20.040 --> 0:38:23.520 I won't give them anti nausea meds unless they're in 0:38:23.600 --> 0:38:25.520 risk of dehydration. So there are times where you have 0:38:25.560 --> 0:38:29.160 to stop what the mind naturally does. But generally speaking, 0:38:29.239 --> 0:38:31.560 we want the mind like, think about it for a second. 0:38:32.200 --> 0:38:36.000 Every time you stop, if anxiety arises, your mind is 0:38:36.040 --> 0:38:38.040 trying to get rid of it. It's trying to vomit 0:38:38.080 --> 0:38:40.880 it out. Why does your mind keep doing that? Why 0:38:40.920 --> 0:38:43.400 does it keep going there? Because that's the problem it's 0:38:43.440 --> 0:38:44.040 trying to solve. 0:38:45.360 --> 0:38:47.520 Yeah, let's go back to the ego now, sure, because 0:38:47.520 --> 0:38:49.279 you don't want to. I didn't want you to miss 0:38:49.280 --> 0:38:51.920 out on that pot the ego I raised because I 0:38:51.960 --> 0:38:54.880 was saying that we were saying that a part of 0:38:54.960 --> 0:38:57.640 us has to stop caring what people think in order 0:38:57.719 --> 0:39:01.719 to even pursue this path. I'm assuming when you were 0:39:02.040 --> 0:39:05.440 studying to become a monk for seven years, where was 0:39:05.480 --> 0:39:07.359 that intentional desire coming for you? 0:39:08.640 --> 0:39:10.239 Where was the intention of to be a monk coming? 0:39:10.320 --> 0:39:12.440 Yeah? It was coming from the ego, right, Talk to 0:39:12.480 --> 0:39:15.359 me about that. YEA, that doesn't make sense to the outside. 0:39:15.160 --> 0:39:17.440 Yeah, yeah, yeah, So yeah, I mean, here's what happened 0:39:17.440 --> 0:39:20.360 in my life. So I went to college. So growing 0:39:20.440 --> 0:39:23.799 up I was like kind of gifted, so never really 0:39:23.840 --> 0:39:28.440 like learned how to study. And then my parents, you know, 0:39:28.520 --> 0:39:30.800 were like, oh, you have to be doctor Raluk. And 0:39:30.880 --> 0:39:32.600 then I remember when I was fifteen years old. I 0:39:32.640 --> 0:39:36.000 was at a party one day and some adult asked me, like, 0:39:36.040 --> 0:39:37.120 what do you want to be when you grow up? 0:39:37.120 --> 0:39:38.680 And I said I want to be a doctor. And 0:39:38.680 --> 0:39:41.360 they were like what A, Like wow, Like you're going 0:39:41.400 --> 0:39:43.880 to be a doctor, Like that's so amazing, right, And 0:39:43.920 --> 0:39:46.000 so my ego loved that. I was like, oh my god, 0:39:46.000 --> 0:39:47.440 I just say I'm going to be a doctor and 0:39:47.440 --> 0:39:48.799 people are going to be like, wow, you have so 0:39:48.880 --> 0:39:52.440 much potential. I loved hearing that and then but my 0:39:52.560 --> 0:39:54.480 heart really wasn't in it. It was like ego. So 0:39:54.520 --> 0:39:56.839 then when like I got to college, I was like, ah, 0:39:56.960 --> 0:40:00.239 like whatever, And so then what started to have and 0:40:00.239 --> 0:40:02.800 something weird happened. As I started to fail fell in 0:40:02.840 --> 0:40:05.000 the video game addiction. I started to feel a lot 0:40:05.040 --> 0:40:08.160 of shame, and then all of my friends like left 0:40:08.200 --> 0:40:10.279 me behind. I remember I went to a Christmas party 0:40:10.320 --> 0:40:11.760 where there was a friend of mine fro high school, 0:40:12.200 --> 0:40:13.680 and I hadn't seen her in a few years, and 0:40:13.680 --> 0:40:15.200 I was like, what are you doing? And she's like, oh, 0:40:15.239 --> 0:40:17.160 you know, I just finished med school, Like I'm going 0:40:17.239 --> 0:40:20.360 to start ophthalmology residency in like a month. She's like, 0:40:20.360 --> 0:40:22.280 what are you up to? And I'm like, I'm applying 0:40:22.280 --> 0:40:24.360 to medical school for the third year in a row. 0:40:24.880 --> 0:40:29.400 I've been rejected an eighty times. What ended up happening 0:40:29.440 --> 0:40:32.120 is my ego was so low or like it was 0:40:32.160 --> 0:40:35.480 so bruised that I pulled a really interesting trick that 0:40:35.600 --> 0:40:38.840 happens in spirituality, where I said, I'm going. 0:40:38.680 --> 0:40:42.040 To be not material anymore. All of these materialistic people 0:40:42.040 --> 0:40:43.960 are chasing these materials. You want to be a doctor 0:40:44.000 --> 0:40:45.920 for money and fame and pride and all of this. 0:40:46.200 --> 0:40:47.640 I'm going to be better. I'm going to let go 0:40:47.680 --> 0:40:49.560 of materialism. I'm going to rise above you. 0:40:49.840 --> 0:40:52.280 I'm going to be swami, I'm going to be Yogi, 0:40:52.280 --> 0:40:54.640 I'm going to be great. But it was really ego, 0:40:55.840 --> 0:40:57.920 So that's the original. So I fell in love with 0:40:57.960 --> 0:41:00.680 it in a genuine way. But also so what kept 0:41:00.760 --> 0:41:03.520 me there was like, this is the way that I win, 0:41:04.440 --> 0:41:06.759 This is the way that I catch up. This is 0:41:06.800 --> 0:41:09.840 the way that I impress people. So it took a lot. 0:41:09.719 --> 0:41:13.040 Of both of them that way, because even exactly right. 0:41:12.960 --> 0:41:16.719 So that's what's sneaking out the ego. It'll twist and turn. 0:41:16.960 --> 0:41:18.759 That sort of happened for a while. Thankfully I had 0:41:18.760 --> 0:41:22.040 some really excellent teachers. I did a lot of meditation practice, 0:41:22.040 --> 0:41:24.640 and I kind of discovered that years later that oh, 0:41:24.680 --> 0:41:28.920 this is actually like my ego. So that was my journey. 0:41:29.160 --> 0:41:31.200 And then then I actually like let go of the 0:41:31.200 --> 0:41:33.920 ego quite a bit. I stopped caring about my grades. 0:41:34.280 --> 0:41:35.600 And we'll get to that in a second. So I 0:41:35.760 --> 0:41:38.800 ended up getting into medical school and I tried to 0:41:38.840 --> 0:41:41.480 take my vows. So when I was twenty one years old, 0:41:41.520 --> 0:41:43.319 I went to my guru and I said, you know, 0:41:43.400 --> 0:41:45.000 I want to become a monk, like can I take 0:41:45.040 --> 0:41:47.399 my vows? And his response was really interesting. He said, 0:41:48.040 --> 0:41:50.359 becoming a monk is about giving up your life. But 0:41:50.440 --> 0:41:52.480 you don't have a life worth giving up. Your life 0:41:52.560 --> 0:41:54.080 is empty, Like you haven't done anything. What are you 0:41:54.080 --> 0:41:57.560 giving up nothing? It's an escape. So he said, go 0:41:57.680 --> 0:42:01.319 back to the US, get a doctoral degree, and if 0:42:01.320 --> 0:42:03.200 you still want to do it when you're thirty, we'll 0:42:03.239 --> 0:42:05.600 take you. You can come back every summer. We'll continue 0:42:05.640 --> 0:42:08.359 teaching you practices, you can continue learning, you can walk 0:42:08.360 --> 0:42:10.319 that path, but we're not going to let you take vows. 0:42:10.880 --> 0:42:13.360 So I said, okay, fine deal. So I went back 0:42:13.920 --> 0:42:16.080 focused on getting a doctoral degree. So I decided to 0:42:16.080 --> 0:42:18.840 go to medical school. That's a little bit silly because 0:42:19.000 --> 0:42:20.719 my wife wanted to be married to a doctor. I 0:42:20.760 --> 0:42:22.640 was like dating her, so I was like, all right, 0:42:22.719 --> 0:42:25.560 might as well, which is like so funny because you 0:42:25.560 --> 0:42:27.560 know everyone thinks like, oh, like you have some deep No. 0:42:27.719 --> 0:42:30.000 I was just like I got to get a doctoral degree, 0:42:30.040 --> 0:42:31.600 and like this chick that I like wants me to 0:42:31.640 --> 0:42:33.839 be a doctor, so like let me do that because 0:42:33.880 --> 0:42:37.120 she's going to think that's hot. So I mean, it 0:42:37.160 --> 0:42:39.719 was so like simple, right, So as I start really 0:42:39.719 --> 0:42:41.640 focusing on the work, and then I think I sort 0:42:41.640 --> 0:42:43.799 of let go of my ego. And so you kind 0:42:43.800 --> 0:42:46.680 of talked about, you know, how do you stop caring? So, 0:42:47.080 --> 0:42:48.920 like you said, you should care. So I care a 0:42:48.960 --> 0:42:52.160 lot about what people think, but I don't let it 0:42:52.200 --> 0:42:57.640 determine my identity. So people say negative things to me 0:42:57.960 --> 0:43:01.520 all the time. I got reprimanded by the Medical Board 0:43:01.520 --> 0:43:03.799 of Massachusetts. I think that's a good thing. I think 0:43:03.840 --> 0:43:07.240 that's a healthy thing. I think that sometimes in life 0:43:07.320 --> 0:43:10.360 I make mistakes, and I think sometimes in life I 0:43:10.440 --> 0:43:14.120 behave in a non perfect way, and so I value 0:43:14.160 --> 0:43:19.160 what people think. But I also accept that I'm not perfect, right, 0:43:19.200 --> 0:43:21.400 So of course I'm going to make mistakes. I try 0:43:21.440 --> 0:43:24.839 not to let it affect my sense of me. And 0:43:24.880 --> 0:43:27.680 that's the key differentiator, because what a lot of people do. 0:43:27.719 --> 0:43:29.279 This is the biggest mistake I think you can make, 0:43:29.360 --> 0:43:31.279 is if you're this is what happens right, people are 0:43:31.280 --> 0:43:34.920 like I care so much what people think, So how 0:43:34.920 --> 0:43:37.080 do I fix that? I stop caring what people think, 0:43:37.440 --> 0:43:40.600 and then you turn yourself into an asshole, and then 0:43:40.640 --> 0:43:43.120 that causes lots of problems. And so the problem is 0:43:43.280 --> 0:43:46.799 either end of the pendulum is a bad idea. So 0:43:47.320 --> 0:43:50.480 receive what people think, also add some context to it. 0:43:50.520 --> 0:43:52.560 Don't just take it at face value. Where is this 0:43:52.640 --> 0:43:56.520 person's criticism coming from. Ninety percent of the criticism I 0:43:56.520 --> 0:43:59.759 get is projection. Right, they see in me something that 0:43:59.760 --> 0:44:02.360 they don't like, but that's not really who I am. 0:44:02.640 --> 0:44:05.960 So accept the criticism and then also recognize that just 0:44:05.960 --> 0:44:10.880 because someone says something about you, even if it's true, 0:44:11.080 --> 0:44:15.200 that's not who you are. Right. It's an attribute of you, 0:44:15.680 --> 0:44:18.680 But at your core, you're just a regular human being 0:44:19.200 --> 0:44:22.160 trying to navigate this world doing the best that you can. 0:44:22.280 --> 0:44:25.280 And the moment that you accept yourself is that nothing great, 0:44:25.360 --> 0:44:28.640 but also nothing terrible. Things become way easier. 0:44:29.120 --> 0:44:33.799 Yeah, it seems like for most people following, whether they 0:44:33.800 --> 0:44:36.400 call it ego or whether they call it something that 0:44:36.400 --> 0:44:39.120 gets them the result they want. I get to marry 0:44:39.120 --> 0:44:41.480 the girl I want to the guy I want, or 0:44:41.520 --> 0:44:43.279 it gets me a promotion, it gets me some more money, 0:44:43.360 --> 0:44:45.799 helps me move to the city. It almost feels like 0:44:45.880 --> 0:44:50.000 that's a base level motivator that pretty much all of 0:44:50.040 --> 0:44:52.840 us function on. Yeah, it's almost like the general operating 0:44:52.880 --> 0:44:55.040 system of the world, which is I need to get 0:44:55.040 --> 0:44:58.839 this to get this, and it ether serves you because 0:44:58.880 --> 0:45:01.200 you get there and you get the girl, or it 0:45:01.239 --> 0:45:03.160 doesn't serve you because you don't get it. And then 0:45:03.320 --> 0:45:06.839 that's where people turn towards depression and other things as well. 0:45:06.920 --> 0:45:08.920 Like that's it's almost like when your ego is not 0:45:09.000 --> 0:45:13.319 fulfilled for what it may think, it may end up 0:45:13.640 --> 0:45:16.360 moving towards being disheart and depressed and lonely. 0:45:16.680 --> 0:45:20.960 Absolutely so, I think ego opens the door to those things, 0:45:21.280 --> 0:45:24.000 and there is a ton of evidence for that. And 0:45:24.040 --> 0:45:26.839 I love your observation that this is the default way. 0:45:26.880 --> 0:45:30.080 I think that's what That's how far physical evolution got us. 0:45:30.920 --> 0:45:34.360 So if you look at like how human beings evolved, like, 0:45:34.400 --> 0:45:38.480 you know, we evolved to care what people around us think, right, 0:45:38.520 --> 0:45:42.200 So exodus from the tribe, ostracization from the tribe meant 0:45:42.239 --> 0:45:44.680 death when we were like growing up and couldn't take 0:45:44.680 --> 0:45:46.680 care of ourselves and things like that, so we lived 0:45:46.680 --> 0:45:49.240 in these very tribal communities. I think society has changed 0:45:49.239 --> 0:45:53.680 so much because in those tribal communities we cared a 0:45:53.680 --> 0:45:56.440 lot about the judgment of other people, but we also 0:45:56.520 --> 0:46:00.480 had a lot of baseline connection, you know. I remember 0:46:00.560 --> 0:46:02.080 I had a friend who was like one of the 0:46:02.120 --> 0:46:05.799 earliest streamers, and I asked him why he quit, and 0:46:05.800 --> 0:46:08.799 he said, well, because people on the internet are assholes. 0:46:09.200 --> 0:46:10.520 And he's like, you know, when I used to play 0:46:10.520 --> 0:46:14.160 games in arcades, like if you're mean to everybody, no 0:46:14.160 --> 0:46:15.440 one's ever going to play with you. But on the 0:46:15.480 --> 0:46:17.600 internet you can be mean to anyone. There's no consequence. 0:46:18.600 --> 0:46:21.239 So we used to have this Our brain evolved for 0:46:22.200 --> 0:46:24.279 some amount of like caring what people think, but some 0:46:24.400 --> 0:46:27.160 amount of default connection. People just don't give up on you. 0:46:27.719 --> 0:46:31.560 In today's world, people are so replaceable. So those things 0:46:31.600 --> 0:46:35.000 worked when they were both there. Now we have an 0:46:35.040 --> 0:46:39.560 imbalance where people are so replaceable. Everybody ghosts everybody online 0:46:39.640 --> 0:46:42.640 dating is like I can keep on. I don't have 0:46:42.680 --> 0:46:46.160 to choose between ten people, one hundred people, a thousand people. 0:46:46.360 --> 0:46:50.520 The number of options jay is infinite. I can keep scrolling, 0:46:50.640 --> 0:46:53.239 keep scrolling, keep scrolling until I find what I want. 0:46:54.680 --> 0:46:57.960 So that sort of thing has really changed. And so 0:46:58.120 --> 0:47:00.120 now what we have to do is learn a new 0:47:00.200 --> 0:47:05.560 way to relate to people to form our identity. And 0:47:05.600 --> 0:47:08.239 then arguably you can talk about like this is the 0:47:08.280 --> 0:47:11.160 limit of physical evolution, and there's a whole weird spiritual 0:47:11.200 --> 0:47:15.040 perspective on spiritual evolution. But I do think that, like, 0:47:15.160 --> 0:47:16.959 this is a skill, and this is why we're seeing 0:47:17.000 --> 0:47:20.640 an explosion of mindfulness, right, I mean it is transformative 0:47:20.640 --> 0:47:24.040 for you, transformative for me that these concepts are what 0:47:24.120 --> 0:47:27.240 you need to survive and thrive in today's world. 0:47:27.360 --> 0:47:30.279 Yeah, it's almost scary when you put it like that though, 0:47:30.320 --> 0:47:33.520 where you're like, and I love that example of Yeah, 0:47:33.520 --> 0:47:37.400 if you were playing a video game at an arcade, generally, 0:47:37.480 --> 0:47:39.600 if you were decent, people would crowd around you and 0:47:39.640 --> 0:47:42.239 watch and cheer you on. If you're about it's something, 0:47:42.239 --> 0:47:44.839 maybe one person would walk past and laugh or make 0:47:44.880 --> 0:47:48.400 fun of you. And now, of course that's escalated, and 0:47:48.440 --> 0:47:50.360 that's what leads to learneliness because people are well, I 0:47:50.360 --> 0:47:52.359 don't want to put myself out there. I don't want 0:47:52.360 --> 0:47:54.360 to go on that dating app. I don't want to 0:47:54.400 --> 0:47:56.280 make a video. I don't want to chase my passion 0:47:56.280 --> 0:47:58.480 because actually, if I do that, there's going to be 0:47:59.080 --> 0:48:02.160 hundreds of thousands of peace people, or forget that, there's 0:48:02.200 --> 0:48:03.640 going to be just the ten people around me, my 0:48:03.719 --> 0:48:07.279 own family that disagrees with what I'm doing. And so 0:48:07.960 --> 0:48:10.200 if someone's in that state right now where they're like, 0:48:10.440 --> 0:48:15.120 I'm scared about putting myself out there from a let's 0:48:15.160 --> 0:48:17.840 choose dating because you brought up dating. I'm scared of 0:48:17.880 --> 0:48:20.200 putting myself out there from a dating perspective because I 0:48:20.200 --> 0:48:23.920 think I'm replaceable. I'm actually scared of even believing that 0:48:23.960 --> 0:48:27.040 real connection exists. I don't even know if there's someone 0:48:27.040 --> 0:48:31.799 out there for me. How do I even begin to 0:48:31.960 --> 0:48:35.000 work against the math and the algorithm, which feels like 0:48:35.040 --> 0:48:35.920 it's set up against me. 0:48:37.840 --> 0:48:39.320 This is the first time I'm going to say I 0:48:39.360 --> 0:48:41.759 don't know. So I think dating is the one thing 0:48:41.760 --> 0:48:44.279 I've been focused a lot on for the last year. 0:48:45.160 --> 0:48:47.600 But in terms of what I understand and what I know, 0:48:48.520 --> 0:48:52.560 I got lucky, so like I found my hopefully life 0:48:52.600 --> 0:48:57.080 partner before things got really really hard, and I think, 0:48:57.120 --> 0:49:00.239 if you're not someone, so this is the one area 0:49:00.280 --> 0:49:02.680 where I kind of feel like I don't know. So 0:49:02.920 --> 0:49:04.799 some of the things that I'll do, and this is why, 0:49:04.920 --> 0:49:06.799 like I kind of make the content that I do 0:49:06.920 --> 0:49:09.480 is you know, I made this guide to meditation, and 0:49:09.520 --> 0:49:13.640 what the best answer I have is start to use 0:49:13.680 --> 0:49:17.040 some of these concepts, start to internalize some of these skills. 0:49:17.320 --> 0:49:19.759 If we look at the way in which dating in 0:49:19.800 --> 0:49:25.000 today's world scars you, that involves hits to your ego, 0:49:25.560 --> 0:49:28.440 that involves these things like some Scots and there's we 0:49:28.480 --> 0:49:29.880 have a trauma guide to where we kind of go 0:49:29.920 --> 0:49:31.799 into that. But if we kind of think about, like 0:49:31.840 --> 0:49:34.480 why is dating so hard? This is the a sunskrit 0:49:34.680 --> 0:49:37.319 concept of something called a some scot. So this is 0:49:37.360 --> 0:49:38.759 kind of like a trauma. So if you kind of 0:49:38.760 --> 0:49:41.600 think about every person that you date, you're not just 0:49:41.680 --> 0:49:45.919 dating that person. You're carrying the emotional baggage of all 0:49:45.960 --> 0:49:48.640 of your experiences. And this is why online dating is 0:49:48.680 --> 0:49:52.000 such a mess, because if you go to date someone online, 0:49:52.440 --> 0:49:55.759 they're not judging you based on you. They're judging you 0:49:55.840 --> 0:50:00.120 based on all of their past experiences and yours and yours. Right, 0:50:00.160 --> 0:50:04.120 So when someone doesn't text you back, your mind attaches 0:50:04.200 --> 0:50:10.279 associations to that, right, like, oh, this means they're ghosting me. Well, 0:50:10.280 --> 0:50:12.120 why do you interpret that as ghosting? Because I've been 0:50:12.120 --> 0:50:15.120 ghosted before and it hurts so much. So as we 0:50:15.200 --> 0:50:20.120 go through life, we start accumulating baggage, and then what 0:50:20.160 --> 0:50:24.560 happens is we're not dealing with a person, we're interpreting 0:50:24.600 --> 0:50:26.200 that person. And I'm sure there are people in the 0:50:26.239 --> 0:50:28.440 audience who have felt this, where people don't judge you 0:50:28.520 --> 0:50:31.759 for you, they look at some tiny fraction of you 0:50:32.200 --> 0:50:36.480 and they inject all of their negative experiences with people 0:50:36.719 --> 0:50:40.799 like that, all men are dangerous, all women you can't 0:50:40.840 --> 0:50:44.040 trust women. Right, So where do these generalizations come from? 0:50:44.080 --> 0:50:45.840 And we see this so much, get this kind of 0:50:45.840 --> 0:50:51.880 indoctrination using social media, But the root, the psychological injury 0:50:51.920 --> 0:50:55.880 is there. And so the best thing that I know 0:50:55.960 --> 0:50:59.319 how to do is teach people. Let's give you a 0:50:59.360 --> 0:51:03.560 course in yourself. This is how you work. And that's 0:51:03.560 --> 0:51:05.640 really what I learned in India when I was here 0:51:05.680 --> 0:51:07.680 in the United States, They'll teach me about physics, They'll 0:51:07.680 --> 0:51:10.360 teach me about chemistry. No one could explain to me. 0:51:10.960 --> 0:51:14.040 I want to wake up at eight am, but I 0:51:14.080 --> 0:51:16.880 never do. I want to stop playing video games, but 0:51:16.920 --> 0:51:20.760 I can't control myself. And so as we teach people, 0:51:21.960 --> 0:51:23.719 like it's interesting because we have a lot of in 0:51:23.840 --> 0:51:25.719 cells that have been coming into our community for the 0:51:25.800 --> 0:51:28.400 last few years, and like they're starting to get better 0:51:29.239 --> 0:51:31.399 as you teach people. This is how I work, This 0:51:31.440 --> 0:51:34.839 is where my ego comes from. I want a relationship 0:51:34.920 --> 0:51:37.920 so bad that I'm going to tolerate abuse because I'm 0:51:37.960 --> 0:51:41.440 scared of loneliness. I would rather be abused than alone. 0:51:41.960 --> 0:51:44.560 So once you start to understand these things about yourself, 0:51:44.719 --> 0:51:46.960 once you start to dissolve your ego a little bit, 0:51:47.120 --> 0:51:49.359 once you start to realize what your s scars are, 0:51:50.280 --> 0:51:53.319 what is the emotional baggage that you carry around that 0:51:53.560 --> 0:51:57.759 sabotages all of your interactions. And the way that you 0:51:57.800 --> 0:52:01.520 know this happens is because the same crap keeps happening 0:52:01.520 --> 0:52:03.880 to you over and over again. This person takes advantage 0:52:03.880 --> 0:52:06.240 of you. This person takes advantage of you. This person 0:52:06.239 --> 0:52:09.880 takes advantage of you. That's because you were sending out 0:52:09.920 --> 0:52:14.920 a signal that they are picking up on, because they 0:52:14.960 --> 0:52:18.920 test boundaries. They'll treat you a little bit inappropriately and 0:52:19.000 --> 0:52:22.040 you'll take it, or they detect that you're a people 0:52:22.080 --> 0:52:26.320 pleaser and that you don't. You can't tolerate someone being upset. 0:52:26.360 --> 0:52:28.040 This is one of the huge, one of the biggest 0:52:28.040 --> 0:52:31.200 things that I think people we've trained people to do 0:52:32.040 --> 0:52:38.880 is tolerate. People have now become intolerant of the dissatisfaction 0:52:38.920 --> 0:52:41.600 of others. If somebody doesn't like me, I can't handle 0:52:41.600 --> 0:52:45.279 that anymore. And so as you start to realize some 0:52:45.320 --> 0:52:49.440 of these patterns, then I think you form yourself into 0:52:49.480 --> 0:52:52.520 a better human being. And then fingers crossed, it's up 0:52:52.520 --> 0:52:54.840 to karma or God or the universe or whatever or 0:52:54.840 --> 0:52:57.040 the algorithm. But I think the best thing that I 0:52:57.120 --> 0:52:59.480 know how to tell people is turn yourself into the 0:52:59.480 --> 0:53:02.120 healthiest human you can and then the rest of it 0:53:02.160 --> 0:53:03.280 is kind of out of your control. 0:53:03.560 --> 0:53:07.360 Yeah, I actually find that approach quite refreshing, and I 0:53:07.360 --> 0:53:10.040 think it's true. You just get a better radar, you 0:53:10.120 --> 0:53:13.759 get a better ability to spot frequency. And I don't 0:53:13.760 --> 0:53:16.040 mean on a spiritual level, I just mean on a 0:53:16.080 --> 0:53:19.279 general human level. Like you just said, you set up 0:53:19.280 --> 0:53:21.720 your boundaries better. You have better barriers, you have better 0:53:21.960 --> 0:53:25.280 filters early on. You don't allow someone with bad behavior 0:53:25.280 --> 0:53:28.040 to last longer than they should. Absolutely, and all of 0:53:28.080 --> 0:53:32.120 those things save you from wasting time and energy. And 0:53:32.200 --> 0:53:33.959 I think one of the biggest things is you don't 0:53:34.000 --> 0:53:41.600 allow your old kind of a Hollywood Romance Disney version 0:53:41.800 --> 0:53:45.759 that was programmed into you to rerun the program every 0:53:45.760 --> 0:53:48.359 time it feels that way. So I think so much 0:53:48.360 --> 0:53:50.000 of this goes back to that same thing. It's like, 0:53:50.040 --> 0:53:53.840 how do you not let that old circuitry take over again, 0:53:54.400 --> 0:53:56.400 even if you've learned all these new principles and you're 0:53:56.440 --> 0:53:58.560 meditating and your mindful and all this stuff, but it 0:53:58.600 --> 0:54:02.040 can just flip back yep, because it's so hardwired and 0:54:02.520 --> 0:54:04.680 that ultimately sometimes you see people who are doing all 0:54:04.719 --> 0:54:06.959 the right work, but they meet someone that they found 0:54:06.960 --> 0:54:10.520 attractive traditionally and then everything's gone out of the window. Yeah. 0:54:10.560 --> 0:54:13.160 So I think it's really uncomfortable. It's a beautiful example 0:54:13.200 --> 0:54:16.040 because you kind of do everything that you're supposed to do, 0:54:16.960 --> 0:54:18.839 but you never do the one thing you need to do. 0:54:19.080 --> 0:54:19.360 Yeah. 0:54:19.440 --> 0:54:21.640 I see this all the time in my patients, and 0:54:21.960 --> 0:54:24.880 you offered I think the best example, which is you 0:54:24.960 --> 0:54:27.480 find someone that you're attracted to, and what a lot 0:54:27.560 --> 0:54:30.919 of people need to do is start looking at people 0:54:30.960 --> 0:54:33.960 that are not attracted to. Don't just accept that attraction, 0:54:34.080 --> 0:54:37.920 because when you follow that kind of attraction, it gets 0:54:37.960 --> 0:54:39.960 you back into the cycle. I'm going to meditate and 0:54:40.000 --> 0:54:41.200 I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do this, 0:54:41.480 --> 0:54:43.279 but then this kind of person shows up and I'm 0:54:43.320 --> 0:54:46.239 going to make the same damn mistake again. Right, So 0:54:46.920 --> 0:54:49.680 it feels so counterintuitive. I think another thing, Like, so 0:54:49.719 --> 0:54:52.319 sometimes my patients will come in we'll talk about, you know, 0:54:52.400 --> 0:54:55.560 dating and relationships, and they'll be like, you know, but 0:54:55.560 --> 0:54:57.440 but it sounds like, doctor k You're saying I shouldn't 0:54:57.440 --> 0:55:01.080 be myself, and I'm like, yeah, you should. I think 0:55:01.120 --> 0:55:02.840 being yourself. I know this sounds kind of weird, but 0:55:02.920 --> 0:55:05.399 let me explain, being yourself is one of the worst 0:55:05.480 --> 0:55:09.080 things that you can do. Like what created this version 0:55:09.120 --> 0:55:12.520 of you? A lot of unconscious programming, a lot of 0:55:12.520 --> 0:55:15.799 social conditioning, a lot of trauma. Right, all of these 0:55:15.840 --> 0:55:18.759 things have turned you into the current version of you. 0:55:19.680 --> 0:55:23.239 So I think the real you is way more formless 0:55:23.280 --> 0:55:25.160 and ego lists and all that kind of stuff we 0:55:25.239 --> 0:55:29.640 actually need to dismantle. Don't just be this set of patterns. 0:55:29.840 --> 0:55:31.920 That's what they oftentimes mean. They say, like, you know, 0:55:31.920 --> 0:55:33.520 if you can't handle me at my worst, you don't 0:55:33.520 --> 0:55:35.280 deserve me at my best. So I'm going to continue 0:55:35.320 --> 0:55:38.360 acting at my worst. This is what we tell people nowadays. 0:55:38.400 --> 0:55:41.359 I think that's a terrible idea, and we wonder why 0:55:41.400 --> 0:55:43.680 there's such a dating and mating crisis when everyone's like, 0:55:43.719 --> 0:55:45.160 I'm just going to be me. If you don't like me, 0:55:45.560 --> 0:55:47.440 you can move on. I'm going to move on too. 0:55:47.680 --> 0:55:51.000 Everyone is replaceable. I don't need to change, right, So 0:55:51.040 --> 0:55:52.600 I think we need to take a step back from 0:55:52.600 --> 0:55:55.320 that and try to really turn yourself into the best 0:55:55.360 --> 0:55:58.680 human being that you know how to be, and then 0:55:58.719 --> 0:56:00.239 I think things will turn around, which is what I 0:56:00.280 --> 0:56:01.280 see pretty consistently. 0:56:01.640 --> 0:56:05.000 Yeah. Yeah, at least you have the tools. Yeah, like 0:56:05.080 --> 0:56:06.880 you said, they may not, they may not solve all 0:56:06.920 --> 0:56:08.560 your problems, but at least you have the tools to 0:56:08.560 --> 0:56:10.279 know what to do with it. What do you what 0:56:10.320 --> 0:56:12.440 do you think it means? You talk so much about masculinity, 0:56:12.440 --> 0:56:14.600 which I really appreciate because I think it's an area 0:56:14.680 --> 0:56:17.600 that the country as a whole that we both live 0:56:17.600 --> 0:56:20.239 in is dealing with right now. Yeah, the world's dealing 0:56:20.239 --> 0:56:23.120 with it, for sure. What does it even mean to 0:56:23.160 --> 0:56:27.280 be a man right now? I don't know? Yeah? 0:56:27.360 --> 0:56:28.560 Yeah, so, I mean, I I don't. 0:56:28.600 --> 0:56:30.520 Yeah, what's confusing people, I guess is the question. 0:56:30.719 --> 0:56:34.839 Yeah, so, I I mean I don't prescribe so masculinity. 0:56:34.920 --> 0:56:38.359 My understanding of, like the scientific or literature definition is 0:56:38.400 --> 0:56:41.040 like it's like the set of you know, behaviors and 0:56:41.080 --> 0:56:45.360 expectations that we put on men that's not that's not 0:56:45.400 --> 0:56:46.960 the lens that I work. So if you ask me 0:56:46.960 --> 0:56:49.239 about masculinity, I'd say, like, go ask someone else. I mean, 0:56:49.280 --> 0:56:50.920 I'm going to talk about it, but like just to 0:56:50.920 --> 0:56:54.520 be clear, you know, I'm a clinician. Yeah, so my my, 0:56:55.480 --> 0:56:58.799 I'm zoomed into one person at a time. So what 0:56:58.840 --> 0:57:01.200 I think is going on right now? You know, I 0:57:01.480 --> 0:57:04.960 had a really interesting video come out recently that got 0:57:04.960 --> 0:57:07.840 a lot of controversy about why women prefer beta males. 0:57:08.680 --> 0:57:10.520 So this is like a big thing where everyone's like, 0:57:10.520 --> 0:57:12.360 I'm going to be alpha, and there's so much weird 0:57:12.440 --> 0:57:17.560 science that people don't understand. So as one simple example 0:57:17.600 --> 0:57:19.840 of like a lot of what masculinity like, everyone wants 0:57:19.920 --> 0:57:22.320 to be ripped. So there's a great study that looked 0:57:22.320 --> 0:57:26.440 at something called drive for muscularity. So this is not 0:57:26.480 --> 0:57:29.680 how muscular you are, but how much you want to 0:57:29.680 --> 0:57:33.480 be muscular. So the higher your drive for muscularity is, 0:57:34.200 --> 0:57:37.880 the lower you're a likelihood of entering a long term relationship. 0:57:37.880 --> 0:57:41.600 You can enter short term relationships, higher likelihood of divorce. 0:57:42.600 --> 0:57:44.360 And I think there's there's a lot of like cross 0:57:44.400 --> 0:57:46.320 talk where like a lot of women are saying what 0:57:46.360 --> 0:57:49.760 we want is like safety, not some dude who's like 0:57:49.800 --> 0:57:53.919 super cut, and so there's a lot of confusion about 0:57:53.920 --> 0:57:55.400 what it means to be a man. I think one 0:57:55.440 --> 0:57:58.080 of the reasons why there's confusion is because of sort 0:57:58.120 --> 0:58:01.840 of the way that men and women operate. So there's 0:58:01.920 --> 0:58:07.840 a part of men that focuses on intra male competition. 0:58:08.440 --> 0:58:10.720 So I'm going to talk a little bit about animals, 0:58:10.720 --> 0:58:12.640 and I don't think that translates over one hundred percent, 0:58:12.720 --> 0:58:14.720 so big caveat there. But if you look at sort 0:58:14.760 --> 0:58:18.960 of like you know, a lion pride, right, the males 0:58:18.960 --> 0:58:22.439 will fight amongst themselves, and then one male will rise 0:58:22.480 --> 0:58:24.400 to the top and then he becomes the male of 0:58:24.440 --> 0:58:27.560 the pride. So there's this idea that, like men will 0:58:27.600 --> 0:58:31.360 fight amongst each other, they'll create a hierarchy and then 0:58:31.400 --> 0:58:34.040 that'll make them attractive to women. And I certainly know 0:58:34.080 --> 0:58:36.680 that it was really weird. Once I got married and 0:58:36.680 --> 0:58:39.720 started wearing a wedding ring, I got way more female attention. 0:58:40.320 --> 0:58:44.080 So I think there's some element of that's true. But 0:58:44.160 --> 0:58:46.600 I think that having spent a lot of time working 0:58:46.640 --> 0:58:50.360 with female patients, everyone's an individual. We're not just like 0:58:50.400 --> 0:58:52.400 products of our biology and I think this is what 0:58:52.440 --> 0:58:55.400 really confuses men, is that we can fight amongst ourselves. 0:58:55.480 --> 0:58:58.360 But that's not actually what women want, that's not what 0:58:58.360 --> 0:59:01.800 they actually make their selections based off of. So I 0:59:01.800 --> 0:59:04.640 think a lot of masculinity right now is men trying 0:59:04.680 --> 0:59:08.640 to become as manly as possible in the alpha sense. 0:59:09.240 --> 0:59:12.000 And I think that people get super confused because like, 0:59:12.040 --> 0:59:14.880 that doesn't translate over into happiness. And if it doesn't 0:59:14.880 --> 0:59:17.560 translate over into happiness, you know these dudes, like I've 0:59:17.560 --> 0:59:19.800 worked with so many men who like are super into 0:59:19.800 --> 0:59:23.960 transactional relationships because they really think that human females, that 0:59:24.040 --> 0:59:27.440 these general principles of how lions select mates will translate 0:59:27.480 --> 0:59:30.800 over to an individual person who has unique genetics, unique history, 0:59:30.840 --> 0:59:34.200 and that doesn't work. So they approach this relationship transaction 0:59:34.240 --> 0:59:36.080 of the will thing like, oh, all women want is 0:59:36.160 --> 0:59:41.120 like money. So if I approach a relationship from a 0:59:41.160 --> 0:59:45.680 transactional perspective, if I see a woman as just a 0:59:45.760 --> 0:59:52.480 biological uterus, the women who want a partnership will run away. 0:59:52.600 --> 0:59:54.600 The women who have enough confidence will be like, this 0:59:54.600 --> 0:59:57.520 guy's an asshole, they'll leave, and so all you'll be 0:59:57.640 --> 1:00:00.440 left with is women who also view relation ships in 1:00:00.480 --> 1:00:03.000 a transactional way, and then that will sort of feed 1:00:03.120 --> 1:00:05.760 into giving you this idea of like, Okay, this is 1:00:05.800 --> 1:00:08.160 all women want, because all the women who don't want 1:00:08.160 --> 1:00:10.640 that will never date you in the first place. So 1:00:10.680 --> 1:00:12.720 I think we're seeing a lot of these like mechanisms 1:00:12.760 --> 1:00:16.120 at play. I think a lot of this masculinity is 1:00:16.120 --> 1:00:22.920 because we expect a lot from men, but as men 1:00:22.960 --> 1:00:26.720 are failing those expectations because I think they're unreasonable, we're 1:00:26.760 --> 1:00:29.680 not really giving them an alternative. So I think, you know, 1:00:29.760 --> 1:00:32.680 research shows that most women still want to date a 1:00:32.800 --> 1:00:37.360 man who makes more money than they do, but sixty 1:00:37.400 --> 1:00:39.920 plus percent of people who go to college are now women. 1:00:40.720 --> 1:00:42.840 So what's happened is men are in this really tough 1:00:42.880 --> 1:00:48.200 spot where the expectations from men have not changed, but 1:00:48.480 --> 1:00:51.560 society has changed, so we can't meet those expectations anymore, 1:00:52.160 --> 1:00:54.640 and so that there's this really interesting gap. And when 1:00:54.640 --> 1:00:58.720 people feel crushed, when they feel rejected, the ego activates. 1:00:59.000 --> 1:01:02.160 We fall into all of these like unhealthy behaviors like 1:01:02.200 --> 1:01:04.840 pornography and drugs and video games and stuff like that 1:01:05.080 --> 1:01:08.680 to soothe our internal environment. We don't teach boys or 1:01:08.760 --> 1:01:12.240 men emotional regulation skills. And so I think there's like 1:01:12.320 --> 1:01:14.720 just a confluence of a thousand things going on and 1:01:14.760 --> 1:01:17.200 men are getting like crushed and squeezed. 1:01:17.400 --> 1:01:20.560 Yeah, yeah, I mean, and I appreciate. I know you're 1:01:20.600 --> 1:01:23.920 a clinician. I just find your perspective on some of 1:01:23.960 --> 1:01:29.960 these more societal challenges to be you know, great observations. 1:01:29.320 --> 1:01:34.120 And I feel similarly, it's almost like it's what we 1:01:34.200 --> 1:01:37.640 talked about. We talked about there were targets. Somehow some 1:01:37.680 --> 1:01:40.360 of those targets have remained, but they feel unmeutable yep. 1:01:41.200 --> 1:01:43.600 And then there are moving targets which you keep trying 1:01:43.640 --> 1:01:45.440 to place. I need to get more buff, I need 1:01:45.480 --> 1:01:47.479 to get more ripped, I need to get more money, 1:01:47.560 --> 1:01:50.760 whatever it may be, and they become arbitrary, abstract targets. 1:01:51.520 --> 1:01:53.840 What's happening for women on the other side, because society 1:01:53.840 --> 1:01:57.439 has also changed and their desires. 1:01:56.960 --> 1:02:16.800 Yeah, I think they're getting equally screwed. As society is changing, 1:02:17.320 --> 1:02:20.800 women are facing particular challenges, men are facing particular challenges. 1:02:21.200 --> 1:02:22.720 And one of the beautiful things we've seen in our 1:02:22.760 --> 1:02:25.880 community is the more that we understand that, I think, 1:02:25.880 --> 1:02:26.800 the better off things get. 1:02:26.920 --> 1:02:28.360 That's the conversation that needs to be. 1:02:28.320 --> 1:02:30.840 Had yeah, so it's beautiful. I remember a post that 1:02:30.880 --> 1:02:35.000 someone once made, so there was a woman who's very 1:02:35.080 --> 1:02:38.120 attractive who said, you know, I'm an incredibly attractive, physical, 1:02:38.320 --> 1:02:43.240 physically attractive woman. I feel so incredibly alone. Every time 1:02:43.280 --> 1:02:45.200 I meet someone. They don't see me, they don't care 1:02:45.240 --> 1:02:46.720 about me. They just care about the way that I 1:02:46.760 --> 1:02:49.280 look and things like that. So people always around me, 1:02:49.360 --> 1:02:52.200 but they're like using me constantly. And then the really 1:02:52.200 --> 1:02:54.840 funny thing is like there was an incel in our 1:02:54.880 --> 1:02:57.600 subreddit who was like, wow, like the way you're describing loneliness, 1:02:57.600 --> 1:03:01.760 that's exactly how I feel. I never image that like 1:03:01.800 --> 1:03:04.320 a ten out of ten attractive women could feel the 1:03:04.320 --> 1:03:06.120 way that I feel. And it was like a really 1:03:06.160 --> 1:03:09.880 beautiful moment, like of weird connection over the internet. I 1:03:09.880 --> 1:03:11.640 think one of the key things that women are struggling 1:03:11.680 --> 1:03:14.400 with right now is first of all, safety. So I 1:03:14.440 --> 1:03:19.040 think that men are getting very aggressive, men are getting 1:03:19.160 --> 1:03:21.720 very angry, and there's some reasons for that. I think 1:03:21.720 --> 1:03:23.800 that's not something that's a problem, but I think it's 1:03:23.920 --> 1:03:26.920 the only card men have to play in today's society. 1:03:27.960 --> 1:03:30.360 So I think their safety is kind of the number 1:03:30.360 --> 1:03:33.920 one priority or like the number one danger that a 1:03:33.960 --> 1:03:36.920 lot of like women face, and I think it's something 1:03:36.960 --> 1:03:40.200 that a lot of men like can't understand. So I 1:03:40.240 --> 1:03:43.600 remember getting frustrated because I was like walking behind a 1:03:43.640 --> 1:03:46.720 woman and we were walking, so I was walking down 1:03:46.840 --> 1:03:48.840 in New York City actually, and she like turned ahead 1:03:48.880 --> 1:03:50.960 of me, and it was nighttime, but I'm like walking 1:03:51.000 --> 1:03:53.480 behind her. We're walking at the same pace. And then 1:03:53.600 --> 1:03:55.760 you know, later on, someone kind of tells me like, oh, 1:03:55.760 --> 1:03:58.080 you shouldn't do that because it seems like you're following her, 1:03:58.640 --> 1:04:00.000 and so then they're like, what you should do is 1:04:00.160 --> 1:04:02.120 past her. So then I started walking really fast and 1:04:02.240 --> 1:04:04.040 someone else tells me, like, you should never do that 1:04:04.080 --> 1:04:06.120 because now you're like it seems like you're walking fast, 1:04:06.400 --> 1:04:08.400 you're getting you know, you're getting closer to her. So 1:04:08.440 --> 1:04:10.440 then it's like, what am I supposed to And they're like, 1:04:10.480 --> 1:04:12.600 you should cross the street. And then I crossed the street, 1:04:12.640 --> 1:04:13.200 but then like. 1:04:13.160 --> 1:04:14.040 Then you go run over. 1:04:14.800 --> 1:04:16.840 I didn't get run over, but then there's another woman 1:04:16.880 --> 1:04:19.120 on the other side of the street. It's like because 1:04:19.120 --> 1:04:22.480 it turns out, but I'm just like like zig zag 1:04:22.640 --> 1:04:24.920 zagging back and forth. So but I think the reason 1:04:24.920 --> 1:04:28.400 that they feel this way is because they things are unsafe, 1:04:29.120 --> 1:04:31.320 and a lot of men feel like they women don't 1:04:31.320 --> 1:04:33.840 give them a chance. And it's kind of like, imagine 1:04:33.840 --> 1:04:36.800 that a third of the people that walk into your 1:04:36.840 --> 1:04:40.120 store are going to steal from you. How would you 1:04:40.160 --> 1:04:41.520 relate to that. I think a lot of men just 1:04:41.520 --> 1:04:47.360 don't understand the statistics around how easy it is to 1:04:47.440 --> 1:04:50.000 become a victim. If you're a woman in this world, 1:04:50.080 --> 1:04:52.400 you can become a victim as a man too. I 1:04:52.440 --> 1:04:56.520 don't think we take you know, cases of male sexual 1:04:56.560 --> 1:04:59.000 assault victims, even by women and teachers and things like that. 1:04:59.000 --> 1:05:02.040 We don't take that seriously, which is a real problem. 1:05:02.600 --> 1:05:04.760 But I think that's one thing that they're really struggling with. 1:05:05.280 --> 1:05:07.240 I think another thing that they're really struggling with is 1:05:07.280 --> 1:05:10.280 that there is a lack of good men that women 1:05:10.320 --> 1:05:13.320 are looking for partnership. They're looking for companionship, and a 1:05:13.320 --> 1:05:16.120 lot of men have become angry. And this is where, like, 1:05:16.200 --> 1:05:17.960 you know, people will say, like, we blame them. I 1:05:18.000 --> 1:05:19.600 think that's the big mistake that we make. I think 1:05:19.640 --> 1:05:22.360 the reason that so many men are struggling right now 1:05:22.680 --> 1:05:26.480 is because they're the one demographic that we as a 1:05:26.480 --> 1:05:30.560 society don't help so the one thing that hasn't changed 1:05:30.600 --> 1:05:33.080 this is maybe the most damaging thing, is we expect 1:05:33.080 --> 1:05:37.520 men to solve their own problems. So sixty percent of 1:05:37.880 --> 1:05:40.400 people who go to college or women where the male 1:05:40.480 --> 1:05:43.040 only scholarships. We don't want, we don't need those because 1:05:43.120 --> 1:05:45.560 men have privilege. And I think this is what's really 1:05:45.600 --> 1:05:48.560 scary is you know, I see this a lot because 1:05:48.640 --> 1:05:50.680 I'll have CEOs come into my office and then like 1:05:50.720 --> 1:05:53.520 I'll go and work in jail, and right, most of 1:05:53.520 --> 1:05:55.400 the people in jail are men. And so when we 1:05:55.440 --> 1:05:58.200 talk about male privilege, which is real, the key thing 1:05:58.280 --> 1:06:01.440 is like it affects men, some men a lot, but 1:06:01.520 --> 1:06:05.720 it doesn't affect others. So the majority of workplace injuries, 1:06:06.760 --> 1:06:08.520 you know, things like that, like that, those are all men. 1:06:08.560 --> 1:06:10.160 And so I think that we need to sort of 1:06:10.600 --> 1:06:14.880 stop thinking about, yes, male privilege exists, but it may 1:06:14.880 --> 1:06:18.480 be insufficient to compensate. And this is how people think. 1:06:18.480 --> 1:06:20.760 They think that if there's privilege, that means that there 1:06:21.000 --> 1:06:25.200 isn't hurt, right, but like it, those things don't even out. 1:06:25.760 --> 1:06:28.840 One thing I appreciate about medicine is things are very multifactorial. 1:06:29.200 --> 1:06:32.000 There's a lot of variables here and just because you're 1:06:32.120 --> 1:06:36.480 rich doesn't mean that like that has great advantages. But 1:06:36.480 --> 1:06:38.600 if you get cancer, you still have cancer. It's not 1:06:38.640 --> 1:06:41.680 like being rich cancels out cancer. It may help in 1:06:41.720 --> 1:06:44.880 a very significant way, which unfortunately I've seen. There's some 1:06:44.960 --> 1:06:48.120 degree of like connection there, but one doesn't replace the other. 1:06:49.000 --> 1:06:51.480 Yeah, no, And I think you took it to the 1:06:51.560 --> 1:06:54.439 high ground there, which I really appreciate, which is that's 1:06:54.480 --> 1:06:56.160 the compensation. And that's why I asked about both. The 1:06:56.160 --> 1:06:58.640 conversation that needs to be had is how do we 1:06:58.680 --> 1:07:02.480 just understand each other better because generally what we find, 1:07:02.520 --> 1:07:05.520 and it's easier because it's clickbait, gets more views, gets 1:07:05.560 --> 1:07:09.080 more attentions, is the small echo chambers of one or 1:07:09.080 --> 1:07:10.920 the other. That we could be sitting here as a 1:07:10.920 --> 1:07:14.000 conversation as men having a conversation about how women have 1:07:14.080 --> 1:07:16.360 let us down, or we could be having a conversation 1:07:16.520 --> 1:07:19.760 about how men are terrible, because then that makes us 1:07:19.760 --> 1:07:22.920 look like better men, and both are not helpful for 1:07:23.000 --> 1:07:26.320 society because we're just going to sit on the opposite 1:07:26.360 --> 1:07:28.600 sides of the bridge and just point fingers. 1:07:28.880 --> 1:07:30.480 Yeah, I'm with you, So I think that you know 1:07:30.520 --> 1:07:33.160 that's what happens, is like that's literally what we see 1:07:33.240 --> 1:07:37.960 is like then, you know, male only spaces will highlight 1:07:38.080 --> 1:07:40.520 how women are saying that men are all trash and them. 1:07:40.440 --> 1:07:42.640 And men need to make seven figures or whatever. Yeah. 1:07:42.760 --> 1:07:44.920 Right, so everyone's just pointing the finger at each other, 1:07:44.960 --> 1:07:46.880 and I think I think you're spot on that. What 1:07:46.960 --> 1:07:50.040 we really try to do is just understand, yeah, sort 1:07:50.040 --> 1:07:52.600 of recognize that every human being doesn't matter if you're 1:07:52.640 --> 1:07:54.480 a man, it doesn't matter if you're a woman. You 1:07:54.480 --> 1:07:56.840 have a unique set of advantages, you have a unique 1:07:56.840 --> 1:07:59.760 set of challenges. Let's understand who you are. Let's give 1:07:59.800 --> 1:08:04.680 you the basic set of skills of self understanding, dissolving 1:08:04.680 --> 1:08:08.080 your ego, emotional regulation, and if you like work on 1:08:08.160 --> 1:08:11.000 this stuff. I think that's the best way is to 1:08:11.080 --> 1:08:14.880 become a healthy human, an independent human. I think that 1:08:15.120 --> 1:08:17.440 sets you up for the best kind of relationship. 1:08:17.640 --> 1:08:19.519 I think that speaks to a big issue right now. 1:08:19.520 --> 1:08:21.240 I'd love to know how you work with people on this, 1:08:21.920 --> 1:08:25.479 because it's a big part of self understanding. Is there's 1:08:25.520 --> 1:08:31.320 such a challenge we have with raising the mind from 1:08:31.439 --> 1:08:37.200 judgment to understanding. It's so much easier to judge, blame, 1:08:37.400 --> 1:08:44.360 point fingers, shift responsibility to make sense of someone through 1:08:44.439 --> 1:08:47.120 very little amounts of information to have a projection on them. 1:08:47.479 --> 1:08:49.840 How do we encourage How do you encourage your clients? 1:08:49.880 --> 1:08:52.360 How do you encourage your patients and people you meet 1:08:52.439 --> 1:08:55.759 to rise from judgment to understanding In a world where 1:08:55.760 --> 1:08:57.960 we don't have time, we don't have energy for that, 1:08:58.000 --> 1:08:59.439 it requires so much more effort. 1:09:00.120 --> 1:09:03.080 So I don't know about time, but it does require 1:09:03.080 --> 1:09:05.479 more energy, and it does require more effort until you 1:09:05.560 --> 1:09:08.120 learn how to do it. So I once had a 1:09:08.160 --> 1:09:11.599 patient who I was in training at the time. They 1:09:11.600 --> 1:09:15.440 were an adolescent and they had all kinds of behavioral problems. 1:09:15.720 --> 1:09:19.719 So this is a kid who would start fights, would 1:09:19.720 --> 1:09:23.599 smear feces all over the bathroom at school, and like 1:09:23.920 --> 1:09:27.799 what everyone does. This is so sad. But when someone 1:09:27.880 --> 1:09:31.280 does something really crappy, what we want to do is 1:09:31.280 --> 1:09:34.599 punish them. But if you want to stop that behavior, 1:09:34.680 --> 1:09:37.840 what you really need is compassion. So if you sort 1:09:37.840 --> 1:09:41.680 of think about judgment, judgment is like a narrowing, right, 1:09:41.720 --> 1:09:44.400 So I'm saying like you are bad. So there are 1:09:44.400 --> 1:09:47.639 a couple of things that create judgment in the brain. 1:09:48.600 --> 1:09:55.120 The first is activation of negative emotion. If my adrenaline 1:09:55.479 --> 1:10:00.000 is high or if I feel angry or afraid or anxious, 1:10:00.560 --> 1:10:04.360 this does something really interesting. It narrows our peripheral vision 1:10:04.520 --> 1:10:07.960 from one hundred and eighty degrees to thirty degrees. So literally, 1:10:08.200 --> 1:10:11.040 if I were angry with you right now, I would 1:10:11.080 --> 1:10:13.880 be zoomed in on you because you were the threat. 1:10:13.960 --> 1:10:16.880 You were the danger. The really interesting thing is that 1:10:16.920 --> 1:10:21.519 it does that psychologically too. We stop seeing context. When 1:10:21.680 --> 1:10:23.639 this person dumped me. 1:10:23.760 --> 1:10:24.639 Oh so good. 1:10:24.840 --> 1:10:27.160 I didn't think about what's going on in there or 1:10:27.240 --> 1:10:30.559 not even dumped. When this person said no, I don't 1:10:30.560 --> 1:10:32.960 want to go on a date, I didn't think about 1:10:33.200 --> 1:10:35.840 what's going on in their life. I didn't think about 1:10:35.960 --> 1:10:38.360 the way I smell. I didn't think about any of 1:10:38.360 --> 1:10:40.880 those things. All I see is that hurt, and it 1:10:40.960 --> 1:10:43.479 causes me to see red well, and then I will 1:10:43.479 --> 1:10:46.120 snap into judgment. And this is evolutionary, by the way, 1:10:47.120 --> 1:10:49.640 So when a tiger, when I'm like work in the 1:10:49.640 --> 1:10:51.920 fields and a tiger shows up, I don't want to 1:10:51.960 --> 1:10:54.519 be like hmm, I wonder how the tiger's feeling today. 1:10:54.920 --> 1:10:57.840 Is the tiger hungry? Is they not hungry? This is evolutionary. 1:10:57.920 --> 1:11:01.759 Fear and anger cause us to zoom in see black 1:11:01.760 --> 1:11:05.120 and white and act before we think, which is the 1:11:05.200 --> 1:11:09.000 only way that we survive. So what we really need 1:11:09.040 --> 1:11:13.360 to do to stop judgment is to lower those emotions. 1:11:13.640 --> 1:11:20.040 And we see this so much with Israel, Palestine, Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives, men, women, right, 1:11:20.680 --> 1:11:24.920 everyone is angry. Everyone is fighting for survival. And when 1:11:24.960 --> 1:11:28.639 you fight for survival, there's no room for compassion. There's 1:11:28.720 --> 1:11:33.080 no room for empathy, there's no room for understanding. So 1:11:33.160 --> 1:11:35.240 what we need to do is two things. One is, 1:11:35.240 --> 1:11:38.439 if someone is coming at you really hard, try to 1:11:38.479 --> 1:11:41.720 be compassionate. And this is what's really interesting. You know, 1:11:41.720 --> 1:11:44.519 it's like weird, like being trained as a psychiatrist, Like 1:11:44.560 --> 1:11:46.280 we get trained in this stuff formally it's really hard 1:11:46.280 --> 1:11:49.360 to do. But when a patient comes into my office, 1:11:50.280 --> 1:11:53.679 you know, like like you're terrible, and psychiatrists are all terrible, 1:11:53.720 --> 1:11:56.000 and like, you know, like I hate being here and 1:11:56.040 --> 1:11:58.080 I don't need to be here, and all y'all you're 1:11:58.120 --> 1:12:00.120 just trying to scam me, like big farm is paining 1:12:00.200 --> 1:12:03.719 you to fill people up with meds. The natural reaction 1:12:03.880 --> 1:12:06.200 is like no, they're not. No, I'm not you know, no, no, no, 1:12:06.200 --> 1:12:07.920 no no. But I'll be like okay, hold on a second, 1:12:08.080 --> 1:12:10.840 I can see you're really upset. But tell me, like 1:12:11.000 --> 1:12:13.640 why you hate psychiatrists so much? Like what have been 1:12:13.720 --> 1:12:16.840 your experience is? I really like to understand. And when 1:12:17.000 --> 1:12:20.400 someone comes at you with hard emotional energy, if you 1:12:20.600 --> 1:12:22.720 sort of make yourself like water, if you kind of 1:12:22.720 --> 1:12:27.320 give them that space, they kind of deflate. Right. So 1:12:27.360 --> 1:12:29.400 if I come at you like you know, I argue 1:12:29.400 --> 1:12:31.200 with my wife all the time, and if I come 1:12:31.200 --> 1:12:33.519 at her hard, like she's done an awesome job recently 1:12:33.560 --> 1:12:38.840 of like really handling my anger where I would come 1:12:38.840 --> 1:12:40.800 at her hard and she would fight back, right, And 1:12:40.840 --> 1:12:42.760 if she comes at me hard, like I'll fight back, 1:12:42.920 --> 1:12:45.479 We've done a really good job of like giving each 1:12:45.520 --> 1:12:47.439 other space. But like I get you your pissed, Like, 1:12:47.479 --> 1:12:50.519 tell me more, let me understand, help me understand. So 1:12:50.560 --> 1:12:52.799 don't respond to that negative energy with like a negative 1:12:52.800 --> 1:12:56.320 emotional energy. It'll narrow your view and for those that 1:12:56.360 --> 1:12:59.800 you judge. So, if someone is coming at you, I 1:12:59.800 --> 1:13:02.080 think you got to cool off a little bit, right, So, 1:13:02.520 --> 1:13:05.160 and then if someone is coming at you, try to 1:13:05.200 --> 1:13:07.479 be compassionate towards them. Now, this is where a lot 1:13:07.520 --> 1:13:09.599 of people get tripped up because they think compassion means 1:13:10.520 --> 1:13:13.840 giving them what they want. So sometimes people will come 1:13:13.840 --> 1:13:16.280 in and will be like, I need riddlin, I need 1:13:16.280 --> 1:13:17.720 adderall I need it. I need it, I need it. 1:13:17.720 --> 1:13:19.280 Don't you understand, Doc, If you don't give me this, 1:13:19.520 --> 1:13:21.000 everything's going to fall apart and things like that. And 1:13:21.000 --> 1:13:25.160 I'm like, okay, look, I already prescribed you once. I 1:13:25.240 --> 1:13:27.600 told you that if you lose your medication I'm not 1:13:27.640 --> 1:13:29.880 going to prescribe it to you again. I totally feel 1:13:29.880 --> 1:13:32.400 that these consequences are there. I'm not going to give 1:13:32.400 --> 1:13:36.640 you more meds, right but I recognize that doing that 1:13:36.720 --> 1:13:38.240 is going to put you in a really tough spot. 1:13:38.920 --> 1:13:42.120 I'm going to hold my boundary, but with compassion. What 1:13:42.280 --> 1:13:45.280 else can I do? Do you want to non stimulant medication? 1:13:45.479 --> 1:13:47.439 Do you want to do some other things? Do you 1:13:47.479 --> 1:13:49.960 want me to write a letter to your professor telling 1:13:49.960 --> 1:13:52.519 you that your ADHD is particularly bad right now? I 1:13:52.560 --> 1:13:54.680 don't have to include details of your clanico history, but say, 1:13:54.760 --> 1:13:57.120 can you please give them an extension for medical reasons. 1:13:57.320 --> 1:13:59.160 I'm happy to work with you. I'm going to hold 1:13:59.160 --> 1:14:02.360 my boundary, but I'm going to be as compassionate as possible. 1:14:03.640 --> 1:14:05.800 And what a lot of people think is that compassion 1:14:06.240 --> 1:14:08.280 means letting people run all over you. That's not what 1:14:08.280 --> 1:14:10.720 it means. So you want to be compassion, but you 1:14:10.720 --> 1:14:15.200 want to be stable. Now, if you are feeling judgmental, 1:14:16.080 --> 1:14:19.080 I think, take a step back, take a breath. Also, 1:14:19.120 --> 1:14:23.200 pay attention to the way that you are indoctrinating your mind. Right, So, 1:14:23.240 --> 1:14:25.120 if we're spending a lot of time on social media, 1:14:25.160 --> 1:14:29.080 if we're like spending time in echo chambers, your judgment 1:14:29.120 --> 1:14:31.639 is going to be through the roof. And oftentimes if 1:14:31.680 --> 1:14:35.400 you are judging someone else, sit down and let them 1:14:35.520 --> 1:14:39.960 add their human context to your projection. You think, this 1:14:40.040 --> 1:14:41.760 person is doing this, and they're doing this, and they're 1:14:41.800 --> 1:14:43.160 like this, and they're like this, and all women are 1:14:43.200 --> 1:14:45.320 like this, all men are like this. No, I don't 1:14:45.320 --> 1:14:47.679 know about all men or all women. But this human 1:14:47.720 --> 1:14:50.840 being is not all of those things. There is unique 1:14:50.920 --> 1:14:55.080 human being. And as you train yourself, and it ain't easy, 1:14:56.280 --> 1:14:58.960 this is where doing some emotional regulation practices and things 1:14:59.000 --> 1:15:01.519 like that not should thee bran I am and activating 1:15:01.560 --> 1:15:03.680 your para sympathetic nervous system and stuff. We have a 1:15:03.680 --> 1:15:05.719 guide to meditation. It's all about that kind of stuff. 1:15:05.760 --> 1:15:08.240 But I'm sure, you're familiar with you know, alternate hostile 1:15:08.240 --> 1:15:11.840 breathing and things. So as you do those kinds of 1:15:11.880 --> 1:15:14.760 things and you like emotionally regulators you calm down, then 1:15:14.800 --> 1:15:16.720 you'll be able to do that. But that requires a 1:15:16.720 --> 1:15:19.120 lot of energy and effort. Like you're spot on, reacting 1:15:19.160 --> 1:15:23.800 is really easy. One of the most draining things. So 1:15:23.800 --> 1:15:25.960 if you look at willpower as a battery, one of 1:15:25.960 --> 1:15:29.400 the top drainers of willpower is regulating your emotions. It 1:15:29.439 --> 1:15:32.160 is the most emotionally taxing thing you can do, so 1:15:32.200 --> 1:15:33.960 it's hard, but then you'll get better at it. 1:15:34.680 --> 1:15:39.639 That's a brilliant answer. The idea that anxiety, anger, and 1:15:39.720 --> 1:15:43.800 fear narrow your viewpoint and therefore don't give you the 1:15:43.840 --> 1:15:47.519 ability to see everything else in the context around it 1:15:47.560 --> 1:15:51.559 is such a such a useful lesson to know why 1:15:52.080 --> 1:15:54.719 that's happening and how to regulate. And I'm thinking about 1:15:55.320 --> 1:15:57.040 talking about your wife. I was thinking about some of 1:15:57.200 --> 1:15:59.800 my wife. She sent me an idea recently for a 1:15:59.800 --> 1:16:03.519 new venture that she wanted to start, and in my 1:16:03.600 --> 1:16:06.920 head all the fear and anxiety went off, and I 1:16:06.960 --> 1:16:08.360 messaged back and I was like, yeah, no, but I 1:16:08.400 --> 1:16:10.040 don't think it's gonna work, Like, you know, she just 1:16:10.080 --> 1:16:11.840 shared an idea. She's like, I'm really excited about this. 1:16:12.120 --> 1:16:13.760 And my response was like, yeah, I don't think that's 1:16:13.760 --> 1:16:15.400 gonna work. And here are all the reasons why it's not 1:16:15.439 --> 1:16:17.120 gonna work, and maybe we could do it in like 1:16:17.160 --> 1:16:19.920 five years, like all this stuff. And then again, my yeah, 1:16:19.920 --> 1:16:21.680 my wife's amazing at this, and she just called me 1:16:21.680 --> 1:16:23.600 out in the most compassionate, loving way, and she was 1:16:23.680 --> 1:16:25.400 just like, hey, I was just showing something I was 1:16:25.439 --> 1:16:27.439 excited about. I wasn't saying we have to do it. 1:16:27.600 --> 1:16:28.840 I wasn't saying we need to do it. And I 1:16:29.080 --> 1:16:31.400 would have just loved for you to just at least 1:16:31.479 --> 1:16:33.600 hear my idea out right, to just give me the 1:16:33.680 --> 1:16:35.200 space to say, oh, tell me about your idea, tell 1:16:35.240 --> 1:16:37.800 me what you're excited about, rather than And it's so 1:16:37.840 --> 1:16:41.559 interesting because even though I would generally naturally do that, 1:16:41.720 --> 1:16:44.080 in that moment, my anxiety. The reason why I didn't. Yeah, 1:16:44.080 --> 1:16:47.120 I'm now reflecting back was my anxiety and my fear. 1:16:47.320 --> 1:16:50.320 My there wasn't any anger, but my anxiety and fear 1:16:50.360 --> 1:16:54.560 were high. Yeah, and therefore my response was not helpful. 1:16:54.920 --> 1:16:57.920 And therefore, if my wife had not been as evolved 1:16:57.960 --> 1:17:00.000 as she is, then we would have just had a 1:17:00.000 --> 1:17:02.280 full blown argument about nothing. Yeah. 1:17:02.320 --> 1:17:05.080 The one thing that really shocks me is how much 1:17:05.240 --> 1:17:12.360 yogic training and psychiatry training don't prepare me to be 1:17:12.400 --> 1:17:17.920 a good husband, like being a good husband and a father. Actually, 1:17:17.960 --> 1:17:18.200 so what. 1:17:18.320 --> 1:17:18.920 It does, Preva? 1:17:20.160 --> 1:17:22.360 I mean, So that's that's the crazy thing, man, I think, 1:17:22.400 --> 1:17:24.160 Like I thought I was like, oh, I got this 1:17:24.240 --> 1:17:27.439 stuff on on lockdown, you know, like I'm yogi and 1:17:27.520 --> 1:17:29.800 I'm knocked at it, like great, it's going to be. No, 1:17:29.960 --> 1:17:34.320 it's like it's really hard. Like my wife brings out 1:17:34.479 --> 1:17:36.800 like some of my worst tendencies and I really have 1:17:36.880 --> 1:17:39.400 to work on it, and she's awesome. It's like I 1:17:39.439 --> 1:17:41.240 turn into a different person around her in like not 1:17:41.320 --> 1:17:44.519 a good way, you know. And so I think that's 1:17:44.560 --> 1:17:46.559 also healthy in a sense because she's not a patient 1:17:46.600 --> 1:17:48.320 of mine. She's not like a client or someone in 1:17:48.360 --> 1:17:50.400 a meditation class or whatever. And when I go into 1:17:50.400 --> 1:17:53.200 psychiatrist mode, it pisses her off a lot of course, 1:17:53.240 --> 1:17:58.240 like oh tell me how you feel. Yeah, So I 1:17:58.280 --> 1:18:00.920 think it's it's it's hard for everyone, myself concluded, and 1:18:00.960 --> 1:18:03.000 it's been shocking, Like how much you really have to 1:18:03.040 --> 1:18:05.479 train like I have to train myself like every single 1:18:05.560 --> 1:18:07.880 day to try to be a better husband. 1:18:08.040 --> 1:18:11.400 Yeah, well, I think because that's I think it's so 1:18:11.600 --> 1:18:13.800 common that the person that you love the most in 1:18:13.840 --> 1:18:16.640 the world sadly gets to see the worst of you, 1:18:16.880 --> 1:18:21.240 absolutely man, the totality of you, the three sixty degree 1:18:21.320 --> 1:18:23.720 view of you. And there's a beauty to that too, 1:18:23.800 --> 1:18:26.320 because you feel you can show it to them. You 1:18:26.720 --> 1:18:29.160 can't show that to anyone else. And obviously we don't 1:18:29.160 --> 1:18:33.080 want Again, I'm not encouraging or condoning physical verbal abuse 1:18:33.120 --> 1:18:34.720 in any way, and that's not what I mean. But 1:18:35.360 --> 1:18:37.880 there's a beauty in being able to show your full 1:18:37.920 --> 1:18:40.840 self to someone with the vulnerability of it, as long 1:18:40.840 --> 1:18:43.160 as it's not harming them. Yeah, and for them to 1:18:43.200 --> 1:18:44.800 help you with then for you to help them back. 1:18:45.280 --> 1:18:47.640 That's why I think that is that one relationship. I 1:18:47.880 --> 1:18:49.840 don't think anyone knows me better than my wife. Yeah, 1:18:49.880 --> 1:18:51.599 it's the only person who knows what you're doing at 1:18:51.600 --> 1:18:54.360 six am and what you're doing at midnight, and you 1:18:54.400 --> 1:18:57.160 know everything else in between, and so it's beautiful. But 1:18:58.080 --> 1:19:01.400 I wanted to touch something with you that I wanted 1:19:01.400 --> 1:19:03.559 to talk to you about actually, because I've watched so 1:19:03.560 --> 1:19:06.160 many of the interviews and I've been today's my intention 1:19:06.240 --> 1:19:10.120 and my focus has been to really mind that spiritual 1:19:10.120 --> 1:19:12.280 clinician side in you and to find some of that 1:19:13.320 --> 1:19:16.800 maybe more etherory or stuff, which is such a deep 1:19:16.840 --> 1:19:19.720 expand as well, because I think the two compliment each 1:19:19.720 --> 1:19:23.320 other so wonderfully. In your expertise, what is that spiritual 1:19:23.360 --> 1:19:26.920 evolution that's being demanded of humanity right now? When you 1:19:26.960 --> 1:19:29.200 mentioned it earlier, like we've kind of reached the peak 1:19:29.240 --> 1:19:33.320 of our material evolution based on ego development. What is 1:19:33.360 --> 1:19:36.120 the spiritual evolution that we're being invited to? 1:19:36.439 --> 1:19:38.960 Yeah, So I think this is where, like I got 1:19:38.960 --> 1:19:41.240 to start with a big disclaimer, So I think this 1:19:41.280 --> 1:19:43.920 is where, like we're talking about spiritual evolution, which is 1:19:43.920 --> 1:19:47.040 not clear whether this stuff even exists or a scientific perspective. 1:19:47.240 --> 1:19:49.280 So I may touch on studies and things like that 1:19:49.600 --> 1:19:52.519 on neuroscience and meditation and brain changes sort of some 1:19:52.720 --> 1:19:54.839 evidence of this stuff, but there's a lot of stuff 1:19:55.560 --> 1:20:00.240 in the spiritual traditions which there's no scientific evidence for. 1:20:01.160 --> 1:20:03.559 So before I even started med school, I was in 1:20:03.640 --> 1:20:06.599 a Yeah, yet I was in a tai Chi lab, 1:20:06.640 --> 1:20:09.639 a Neuroscience ti Chi Lab at Harvard, and so we 1:20:09.640 --> 1:20:12.280 were trying to understand this like concept of chi or 1:20:12.320 --> 1:20:15.160 branna or life energy. And so the really interesting thing 1:20:15.160 --> 1:20:18.679 about this kind of stuff is that there's no scientific 1:20:18.720 --> 1:20:24.480 evidence that it exists. But when you do a practice 1:20:25.520 --> 1:20:30.640 that supposedly activates this stuff, it outperforms physical exercise like 1:20:30.720 --> 1:20:33.479 yoga for example, right or taichi. So we were studying 1:20:33.520 --> 1:20:35.800 tai chi and so there seems to be like something 1:20:35.840 --> 1:20:38.840 where like the health benefit is greater than physical exercise, 1:20:39.040 --> 1:20:40.480 but we can't really detect. 1:20:40.280 --> 1:20:42.639 What are you measuring to know that it's greater than 1:20:42.680 --> 1:20:43.519 physical exercise. 1:20:43.560 --> 1:20:45.360 I mean it depends. So you know, one of my 1:20:45.439 --> 1:20:50.240 early mentors was, uh, doctor Wong has a great paper 1:20:50.280 --> 1:20:52.519 in the New England Journal of Medicine on tai chi 1:20:52.800 --> 1:20:57.400 and arthritis. So she's just measuring the improvement of arthritis 1:20:57.640 --> 1:20:59.840 if I give tai chi, if I do exercise, and 1:21:00.120 --> 1:21:03.680 chiese superior. So I was trying to study the mechanism 1:21:03.800 --> 1:21:06.559 of that, and the mechanism is super interesting. So I 1:21:06.600 --> 1:21:10.120 was in a chronic pain lab, and the really interesting 1:21:10.160 --> 1:21:13.120 thing about chronic pain is that it locks your brain 1:21:14.080 --> 1:21:17.120 into like one part of your body so someone who 1:21:17.160 --> 1:21:19.880 has chronic pain, they're always thinking about what hurts. 1:21:19.960 --> 1:21:21.160 YEA, so true. 1:21:21.640 --> 1:21:24.439 And then what happens when we do yoga tai chi 1:21:24.600 --> 1:21:26.920 is that we're putting our body in different places to 1:21:26.960 --> 1:21:28.880 where I'm like, if I'm standing on one leg and 1:21:28.880 --> 1:21:32.360 twisting myself into a pretzel, my brain is focusing on 1:21:32.439 --> 1:21:35.240 other parts of my body and that trains my brain 1:21:35.840 --> 1:21:41.320 to move away from the hurting part. And then once 1:21:41.360 --> 1:21:44.880 I move away from the hurting part, then I feel 1:21:44.880 --> 1:21:48.559 it less and so the pain actually feels better. And 1:21:48.600 --> 1:21:50.759 this is also what we do mentally with yoga and stuff. 1:21:50.760 --> 1:21:53.719 It's like, let me move away from this ruminant of thinking, 1:21:53.960 --> 1:21:56.160 let me return my attention to the breath. So you're 1:21:56.200 --> 1:21:58.920 literally training your brain to do what you tell it to. 1:21:59.040 --> 1:22:00.800 But it's just what you said right at the beginning, 1:22:00.800 --> 1:22:03.320 which was thinking about yourself as is paying attention. 1:22:03.120 --> 1:22:05.639 Absolutely right. So the beautiful thing about yoga and tai 1:22:05.680 --> 1:22:09.599 chi is that they force you to observe yourself because 1:22:09.600 --> 1:22:11.640 once you stand on one leg, so you can do 1:22:11.640 --> 1:22:14.920 a simple like so I'll challenge everybody in your audience 1:22:14.920 --> 1:22:16.840 to just raise their arm. That's it. I just want 1:22:16.840 --> 1:22:18.360 them to raise their arm. And we're just going to 1:22:18.400 --> 1:22:21.440 continue talking. Okay, We're just going to have a conversation, 1:22:21.600 --> 1:22:23.439 and over time, what's going to happen. You don't have 1:22:23.479 --> 1:22:25.599 to do that because I want to converse with you, you 1:22:25.600 --> 1:22:27.720 won't be able to converse, right, So people are going 1:22:27.720 --> 1:22:29.640 to pay attention if they're still doing it, and then 1:22:29.680 --> 1:22:31.160 the longer we go, they're not going to be able 1:22:31.160 --> 1:22:34.040 to hear anything we're saying. We're forcing our attention over here, 1:22:34.560 --> 1:22:38.799 so the change of our attention becomes really really important. Anyway, 1:22:38.840 --> 1:22:40.560 I was talking about tai Chie and chronic pain, but 1:22:40.600 --> 1:22:43.400 you asked a question about for physical and spiritual evolution. 1:22:44.120 --> 1:22:45.600 So the first thing to understand is why have we 1:22:45.600 --> 1:22:50.360 stopped physically evolving? Because we started shaping our environment. So 1:22:50.600 --> 1:22:55.839 evolution happens in order for us to adapt to our environment. 1:22:56.160 --> 1:23:00.519 But once I start building cars, creating air conditioning, having 1:23:00.560 --> 1:23:03.360 cell phones, what we are doing is we are shaping 1:23:03.400 --> 1:23:07.639 our environment to let whatever I am now continue to exist. 1:23:07.680 --> 1:23:09.720 This way, I don't need to grow, right if I 1:23:09.760 --> 1:23:12.600 shape my environment around me. If I'm a narcissist and 1:23:12.640 --> 1:23:15.800 I surround myself by people who will say, yes, you're great, 1:23:15.960 --> 1:23:18.479 you're great, You're great, I will never need to conquer 1:23:18.479 --> 1:23:21.760 that narcissism. So I think there's a couple of things 1:23:21.800 --> 1:23:25.160 going on in terms of spiritual evolution, and those things 1:23:25.240 --> 1:23:30.720 are somewhat reliable to completely crazy. So like take this 1:23:30.760 --> 1:23:32.080 with a grain of salt. So I think the first 1:23:32.120 --> 1:23:35.120 thing is that first stage of spiritual evolution is that 1:23:35.439 --> 1:23:38.839 since we're shaping our environment in this way, our environment 1:23:38.920 --> 1:23:41.000 is making lots of changes to our brain and lots 1:23:41.040 --> 1:23:43.680 of changes to our mind. So this is why we 1:23:43.680 --> 1:23:45.880 have a mental health crisis, Like it's so weird. Right. 1:23:46.080 --> 1:23:49.719 Science is progressing. We have more neuroscience papers than ever before. 1:23:50.200 --> 1:23:52.400 We have so many fMRI labs and things like that. 1:23:52.439 --> 1:23:55.080 Our understanding of the brain in the mind is increasing, 1:23:55.400 --> 1:23:59.080 but people are getting worse. So the next stage of 1:23:59.160 --> 1:24:01.599 evolution that we need in your own life, I use 1:24:01.600 --> 1:24:05.280 the word loosely but maybe not so much, but is 1:24:05.280 --> 1:24:08.920 actually like evolving your mind, right, And I know that 1:24:08.920 --> 1:24:11.559 sounds kind of weird, like evolving your brain, like learning 1:24:11.600 --> 1:24:15.120 how to change yourself, which is what evolution is to 1:24:15.400 --> 1:24:19.000 survive and thrive in this level of the world around us. 1:24:19.240 --> 1:24:21.559 So this starts with stuff like ego. Like we talked 1:24:21.560 --> 1:24:25.360 about emotional regulation not letting these su scars or emotional 1:24:25.360 --> 1:24:27.519 baggage pile up. You have to do a ton of 1:24:27.600 --> 1:24:31.920 mental training to survive in today's world. Then there's like 1:24:32.040 --> 1:24:34.559 other weird things going on. So like the other weird 1:24:34.560 --> 1:24:36.240 stuff is like when you start talk to talk more 1:24:36.280 --> 1:24:42.559 about these spiritual traditions, so weird stuff. There's a study 1:24:42.640 --> 1:24:47.120 that was done on DMT that ninety two percent of 1:24:47.200 --> 1:24:53.040 DMT users will encounter other worldly beings. Now we have 1:24:53.040 --> 1:24:56.720 no scientific evidence of this, except I think this is 1:24:56.800 --> 1:24:59.000 kind of could be argue to scientific evidence. I'm not 1:24:59.040 --> 1:25:01.920 saying it's it's it's complete evidence. But now what we 1:25:02.000 --> 1:25:04.160 have is we have something like a telescope. If I 1:25:04.200 --> 1:25:06.640 like look through a microscope. If I look through a 1:25:06.640 --> 1:25:09.320 microscope and I see a lot of bacteria, you can't 1:25:09.320 --> 1:25:10.960 see that with the naked eye. But if I use 1:25:11.040 --> 1:25:14.679 this technology, I can see something that my normal perception 1:25:14.760 --> 1:25:17.960 cannot allow me to see. So I think what we're 1:25:17.960 --> 1:25:22.560 starting to do with meditation is this is a spiritual technology, 1:25:22.920 --> 1:25:26.040 and there are some meditation techniques that will give you 1:25:26.120 --> 1:25:29.479 insight into your past lives. That has been very helpful 1:25:29.479 --> 1:25:32.120 for some of my patients with trauma that they have 1:25:32.200 --> 1:25:34.360 this trauma that doesn't come from this life. It actually 1:25:34.680 --> 1:25:36.680 seems like it sort of comes from past life. I 1:25:36.720 --> 1:25:39.000 can go into detail. I know it's unbelievable, but there's 1:25:39.040 --> 1:25:41.519 a great researcher out of the University of Virginia who's 1:25:41.520 --> 1:25:44.320 been looking at like past life research. Occasionally some crazy 1:25:44.360 --> 1:25:47.519 scientists will get into the stuff. So I think that 1:25:47.560 --> 1:25:52.280 we are sort of being able to detect things that 1:25:52.320 --> 1:25:54.519 are kind of beyond it. And I think this is 1:25:54.520 --> 1:25:57.400 where things get kind of weird. But like, it's so strange. 1:25:57.400 --> 1:25:58.880 But if I was talking to a bunch of my 1:25:58.880 --> 1:26:02.360 friends who are neuroscientists cert neurologists, and I was asking them, 1:26:02.439 --> 1:26:05.200 what proof do we have that thoughts exist? From a 1:26:05.240 --> 1:26:09.439 scientific perspective, we have none. We can't detect thoughts right 1:26:09.479 --> 1:26:12.360 we can what is an fMRI or an EEG detect. 1:26:12.520 --> 1:26:17.160 EEG detects electrological activity in the brain, fMRI detects blood float. 1:26:17.400 --> 1:26:20.120 Neither of those things are thoughts. So it's kind of weird, 1:26:20.120 --> 1:26:22.400 but we have no proof of the existence of thoughts. 1:26:22.400 --> 1:26:24.000 So I was trying to figure out, Okay, what's going on? 1:26:24.000 --> 1:26:27.880 Then scientifically, some people think it's like imagination. I think 1:26:27.920 --> 1:26:30.680 what's going on is that there's a certain realm of 1:26:30.760 --> 1:26:35.280 human experience which we can't detect with an instrument yet. 1:26:35.800 --> 1:26:40.280 So this is subjective experience, it's consciousness, it's thinking, and 1:26:40.320 --> 1:26:44.760 so I think that we don't have a measurement of consciousness. 1:26:44.800 --> 1:26:46.639 But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. This is where 1:26:46.640 --> 1:26:49.280 a lot of people, I think, disagree with me. So 1:26:49.320 --> 1:26:51.680 some people say, since we can't detect it scientifically, that 1:26:51.680 --> 1:26:54.640 means it doesn't exist. I think that human beings can 1:26:54.680 --> 1:26:57.759 observe it. It's a conserve human experience. Everyone can observe 1:26:57.800 --> 1:26:59.960 their own thinking. I think it exists. We just haven't 1:27:00.040 --> 1:27:06.160 developed the ruler for consciousness yet. So the other area 1:27:06.200 --> 1:27:10.960 of spiritual evolution is to evolve your consciousness. So to 1:27:11.080 --> 1:27:14.640 take your conscious experience, use some of these more esoteric 1:27:14.720 --> 1:27:18.000 meditation techniques, which is usually how this is done, like Kundalini, 1:27:18.040 --> 1:27:20.479 sadna and stuff like that. So as you do these 1:27:20.479 --> 1:27:23.040 weird kind of like jukras, sadhnas and stuff like that, 1:27:23.640 --> 1:27:27.040 you will start to have it's hard to describe a 1:27:27.160 --> 1:27:30.960 change in your subjective experience of the world. So as 1:27:30.960 --> 1:27:33.960 I move through the world, right, I try, but I 1:27:34.000 --> 1:27:36.439 also like start to see, Okay, bad stuff happens to me, 1:27:36.479 --> 1:27:38.600 I'm not so worried about it anymore. This is a 1:27:38.640 --> 1:27:41.680 negative garma. That's sort of the logical way to explain it, 1:27:41.720 --> 1:27:44.080 but that's not how it feels on the inside. So 1:27:44.160 --> 1:27:46.639 I recognize that there are periods of my life where 1:27:46.640 --> 1:27:49.680 like negative garments are manifesting. So I'm like, let them come, 1:27:49.760 --> 1:27:51.240 let them come, let them come, like I'm going to 1:27:51.280 --> 1:27:52.920 work through it. I have to work through this stuff. 1:27:52.920 --> 1:27:55.200 There's some kind of bad energy out there, and I 1:27:55.240 --> 1:27:57.960 realize how indefensible that is, but I really think that's 1:27:57.960 --> 1:28:01.280 what's going on. And so a lot of people are 1:28:01.360 --> 1:28:05.280 needing to evolve. They're hungry for this evolution. They're hungry 1:28:05.320 --> 1:28:09.439 for like this world around me. Even if we talk 1:28:09.479 --> 1:28:13.440 about growth and goals and ambitions, this is not satisfying. 1:28:14.000 --> 1:28:16.720 They need to grow in a different dimension. And I 1:28:16.760 --> 1:28:18.559 don't mean that like, oh there's like alternate. I mean 1:28:18.640 --> 1:28:21.559 like there is material growth, there is professional growth, there's 1:28:21.600 --> 1:28:25.280 academic growth, and there is growth just within you. To 1:28:25.320 --> 1:28:28.880 be able to experience different kinds of things, to be 1:28:28.920 --> 1:28:31.639 able to understand like how you connect to other people. 1:28:32.120 --> 1:28:35.400 That's a level of spiritual evolution. And when I work 1:28:35.439 --> 1:28:38.000 with my patients, what I oftentimes you know, will start 1:28:38.040 --> 1:28:42.000 with is like meditations to help them treat depression. But 1:28:42.040 --> 1:28:45.320 eventually it's like, Okay, if you're depressed because you know, 1:28:45.360 --> 1:28:48.840 you think you're a loser, let's see if we can 1:28:48.880 --> 1:28:54.600 cultivate an experience of cosmic connectedness. And if you have 1:28:54.720 --> 1:28:56.960 that experience, and this is also what we know from psychedelics. 1:28:58.080 --> 1:29:01.160 You can use a psychedelic that's not healing. Specifically, you 1:29:01.200 --> 1:29:03.840 can ask someone what happened to you when you were 1:29:03.960 --> 1:29:07.520 using the psychedelic If they had an ego death experience, 1:29:08.320 --> 1:29:12.840 that correlates with treatment improvement, and treatment refractory depression, that 1:29:12.880 --> 1:29:16.160 improvement that correlates with improvement in trauma. But if all 1:29:16.200 --> 1:29:18.720 you see is colors and synesthesia and stuff like that, 1:29:19.000 --> 1:29:22.559 clinical symptoms don't appear to get better. And this is 1:29:22.560 --> 1:29:25.439 what we know from our traditions, right, is like, as 1:29:25.479 --> 1:29:28.840 you have these higher senses of consciousness, the ahumgaara, the 1:29:28.880 --> 1:29:33.639 ego starts to dissolve your atma blends with the cosmic soul, 1:29:34.360 --> 1:29:36.920 and like we can sort of duplicate that in a 1:29:37.000 --> 1:29:39.680 lab now, at least the subjective experience of it. Then 1:29:39.760 --> 1:29:42.519 that gets to the question of is that subjective experience 1:29:42.560 --> 1:29:45.200 real or not. I think it's absolutely functionally useful. We 1:29:45.200 --> 1:29:47.439 can detect the change, we can detect the health benefit 1:29:47.439 --> 1:29:49.920 in it. So I think that spiritual evolution that we're 1:29:49.960 --> 1:29:52.960 seeing is like at the level of consciousness, and hopefully 1:29:53.120 --> 1:29:55.519 I've tried to explain that in a somewhat mechanistic or 1:29:55.520 --> 1:29:56.200 technical way. 1:29:56.560 --> 1:29:58.640 Yeah, it's fascinating. 1:29:58.720 --> 1:30:00.519 I also think this is where I get weird. I 1:30:00.560 --> 1:30:02.320 think it's weird. But if you look at the world, 1:30:02.960 --> 1:30:08.120 we're all moving this direction, like meditation is exploding. Right. 1:30:08.160 --> 1:30:11.000 We have, like you know, champions of it like you, 1:30:11.040 --> 1:30:13.080 and you've spread a lot of knowledge about it. Like 1:30:13.320 --> 1:30:16.519 something weird is going on. Where from a scientific perspective, 1:30:16.560 --> 1:30:18.560 it makes sense that we have all these like technology 1:30:18.560 --> 1:30:20.840 things and we need some kind of antidote to that. 1:30:20.880 --> 1:30:23.320 From a neurochemical perspective, I think that makes sense. But 1:30:23.360 --> 1:30:26.479 I do feel like we're all being called to meditate more. 1:30:43.280 --> 1:30:44.920 It goes back to that same point that you brought 1:30:45.000 --> 1:30:46.840 up earlier. We're all being called to do this, but 1:30:46.880 --> 1:30:49.960 then we struggle to do it, and we can't. We try. 1:30:50.000 --> 1:30:53.200 Once we let go, we know we need to work out. 1:30:53.240 --> 1:30:55.320 Everyone knows they need ten thousand steps today, we don't 1:30:55.320 --> 1:30:57.600 get ten thousand steps today. Everyone knows they need to 1:30:58.200 --> 1:31:01.120 eat better, but we still, you know, making all the 1:31:01.120 --> 1:31:05.000 phossephood companies rich and wealthy. What's the disconnect there? 1:31:06.560 --> 1:31:13.280 So I think the biggest disconnect is information doesn't change behavior. So, like, 1:31:13.320 --> 1:31:15.760 you know, I had a patient once. This was bad, 1:31:15.880 --> 1:31:17.880 But I had a patient once who was I was 1:31:17.880 --> 1:31:20.719 a medical student. And so they come in and they smoke, 1:31:20.800 --> 1:31:23.320 and I try to tell him, hey, so like smoking 1:31:23.320 --> 1:31:25.759 will give you lung cancer, smoking will give you heart disease. 1:31:25.920 --> 1:31:27.760 And he's like, yeah, doc, I know. And I was like, 1:31:28.000 --> 1:31:29.439 I'm a medical student. He's like yeah, I know, but 1:31:29.600 --> 1:31:31.720 you're a doc. Basically, it's like, yeah, Doc, I know. 1:31:32.520 --> 1:31:34.920 He's like, I'll stop, I'll quit. I promise. Comes in 1:31:35.040 --> 1:31:37.160 a month later, as you're smoking. Oh yeah, I know, 1:31:37.200 --> 1:31:39.000 I'm supposed to. It's not working. And I was like, okay, 1:31:39.080 --> 1:31:41.280 maybe he wants some medication for that, and he's like, sure, doc, 1:31:41.439 --> 1:31:44.160 give you the medication. Comes in a month later. Are 1:31:44.200 --> 1:31:46.519 you taking the macage? Not really? Okay, let's give you Like, 1:31:46.560 --> 1:31:48.920 let's try a nicotine gum, Like, let's try this, he's 1:31:48.960 --> 1:31:51.840 not doing it, not doing it, not doing it. So 1:31:52.040 --> 1:31:53.880 I was, you know, working with my preceptor, and I 1:31:53.920 --> 1:31:56.600 read some about addiction and things like that, and I realized, like, 1:31:56.640 --> 1:31:59.680 you have to you have to motivate him. And so 1:31:59.840 --> 1:32:01.599 next time he comes in, I take a different approach. 1:32:02.280 --> 1:32:04.160 I'm like, so tell me about yourself, tell me about 1:32:04.200 --> 1:32:06.559 you know, what you're excited about. And he's like, you know, 1:32:06.600 --> 1:32:09.599 I love being a father. I have three daughters, and 1:32:09.680 --> 1:32:11.840 you know, I'll die happy the moment that the last 1:32:11.880 --> 1:32:14.320 one is married because I know they're being taken care 1:32:14.320 --> 1:32:16.120 of and it's going to be such a great day day, 1:32:16.160 --> 1:32:18.800 Like my oldest daughter is married, it was awesome, Like 1:32:18.880 --> 1:32:20.559 walking her down the aisle was one of the best 1:32:20.560 --> 1:32:23.519 experiences I've ever had. And I asked him, oh, great 1:32:25.040 --> 1:32:27.920 when you're when your second daughter gets married, do you 1:32:27.960 --> 1:32:30.320 want to be wheeling an oxygen tank behind you? And 1:32:30.360 --> 1:32:32.599 do you want to be pushed in a wheelchair when 1:32:32.640 --> 1:32:36.080 your third daughter gets married? And he was like no, right, 1:32:36.160 --> 1:32:37.840 Like I said something that was so mean. I was like, 1:32:38.080 --> 1:32:40.719 that's what's going to happen if you don't stop smoking, 1:32:41.880 --> 1:32:44.000 And so that was brutal. I wouldn't recommend it. I 1:32:44.040 --> 1:32:46.200 was still learning. I was still a medical student. But 1:32:46.240 --> 1:32:50.880 I think a lot of behavioral change comes from like 1:32:51.000 --> 1:32:53.280 motivation within. You have to have a good reason to 1:32:53.320 --> 1:32:56.160 do it, not in like an intellectual like, oh this 1:32:56.320 --> 1:32:58.280 is like I'm not going to get cancer forty years 1:32:58.320 --> 1:33:00.840 from now. Your brain doesn't understan answer. This is what 1:33:00.920 --> 1:33:03.439 people don't get when I tell you, like, do this 1:33:03.600 --> 1:33:08.639 or you'll get cancer. How does your brain know what 1:33:08.720 --> 1:33:11.840 cancer feels like? So if you touch a hot pan, 1:33:13.200 --> 1:33:15.360 your brain knows they're like okay, and then it's hard 1:33:15.479 --> 1:33:18.040 to touch a hot man. But how does your brain 1:33:18.120 --> 1:33:21.760 know this like hypothetical thing. It doesn't. So information goes 1:33:21.760 --> 1:33:23.880 into this one part of our brain that really doesn't 1:33:23.920 --> 1:33:27.360 shape our behavior. What shapes our behaviors emotions. So if 1:33:27.360 --> 1:33:31.080 you think about when you get angry, then everyone's telling 1:33:31.160 --> 1:33:34.600 you not to act. Stop, slow down, don't act that 1:33:34.840 --> 1:33:36.960 we need to get angry you feel like acting. So 1:33:37.000 --> 1:33:39.240 the first thing is that we need to focus more 1:33:39.280 --> 1:33:43.160 on finding like our right like the right emotional reason, 1:33:43.560 --> 1:33:46.200 like what is the reason for your change? What really 1:33:46.280 --> 1:33:48.200 drives you to change. The more you connect with that, 1:33:48.640 --> 1:33:52.879 then the information will become useful. There's another really interesting. 1:33:54.120 --> 1:33:56.519 Man, that's awesome. Yeah, it's so great. 1:33:56.920 --> 1:33:58.439 One other thing that I would say is a lot 1:33:58.439 --> 1:34:00.400 of people don't realize. I don't know if this is sense, 1:34:00.439 --> 1:34:03.800 but there's something called ambivalence, which is when we're internally conflicted, 1:34:03.960 --> 1:34:07.320 and anytime somebody wants to change, there's a part of 1:34:07.400 --> 1:34:08.960 us that wants to change, but there's a part of 1:34:09.000 --> 1:34:12.320 us that doesn't want to do So when we want 1:34:12.360 --> 1:34:14.519 to change, I tend to think about the benefit. So 1:34:14.560 --> 1:34:16.559 in this moment, my brain is telling me like, oh, like, 1:34:16.600 --> 1:34:20.000 we want to get let's get healthy. So you're thinking 1:34:20.000 --> 1:34:23.080 about the benefit when you start, but as you start, 1:34:23.320 --> 1:34:27.280 you see the cost. So when I go to the gym, 1:34:27.520 --> 1:34:30.559 all it is is suffering. And so then what happens 1:34:30.600 --> 1:34:32.320 is like the cost gets really big in my mind 1:34:32.360 --> 1:34:34.360 because I'm reaping the cost. Now, I'm feeling the cost. 1:34:34.360 --> 1:34:36.679 Now this is really hard and the benefit is far away. 1:34:36.880 --> 1:34:39.479 So when I get started, I think about the goal, 1:34:39.560 --> 1:34:41.760 I think about the benefit, but I'm not really appreciating 1:34:41.760 --> 1:34:45.040 the costs. When I actually do it, I feel the cost, 1:34:45.439 --> 1:34:48.120 but don't think about the benefit. So one of the 1:34:48.120 --> 1:34:51.800 biggest mistakes that you can make is thinking about the 1:34:51.800 --> 1:34:55.960 benefit when you want to do something interesting. So instead 1:34:56.000 --> 1:34:59.240 what you should do is actually focus on the cost. 1:35:00.240 --> 1:35:03.679 Tell yourself, Okay, this is going to be hard, right, 1:35:03.720 --> 1:35:05.479 Like it's going to suck going to the gym and 1:35:05.560 --> 1:35:08.639 accept the cost upfront. Do I want this thing? Yes, 1:35:08.680 --> 1:35:10.960 but you need to balance it so when we have 1:35:11.160 --> 1:35:15.200 high expectations, we're going to have low follow through. And 1:35:15.280 --> 1:35:18.280 when we have low expectations, if you say to yourself, look, 1:35:18.320 --> 1:35:21.000 this is going to suck, I'm going to do it anyway. 1:35:21.040 --> 1:35:23.160 That's the approach you should take. Now a lot of 1:35:23.200 --> 1:35:25.080 people will say, like, but I don't do it anyway, 1:35:25.120 --> 1:35:27.320 And that's where you need to really dig for a reason. 1:35:27.640 --> 1:35:32.800 Yeah, that reason being the idea that emotion shifts behavior 1:35:33.720 --> 1:35:38.160 and figuring out what that emotion is is so critical. 1:35:38.200 --> 1:35:42.120 Like I'm thinking about most of my spiritual aspirations come 1:35:42.160 --> 1:35:45.200 from a deep sense of gratitude, Like that's the emotion. 1:35:46.000 --> 1:35:48.400 It's like a gratitude to my teachers, the people that 1:35:48.439 --> 1:35:50.320 have invested so much time into my life when I 1:35:50.320 --> 1:35:53.920 didn't deserve it, people that are far more enlightened and 1:35:54.479 --> 1:35:57.479 far more well read, and people have actually dedicated their 1:35:57.520 --> 1:36:01.680 life who found it? You just that I found so 1:36:01.840 --> 1:36:04.840 useful and we're so kind to give me time and energy. 1:36:06.520 --> 1:36:09.360 That's kind of what it carries from, because I'm like, yeah, 1:36:09.400 --> 1:36:11.479 and then there are certain other things which coming back 1:36:11.520 --> 1:36:15.400 to health. Yeah, knowing that hey, all my friends are 1:36:15.400 --> 1:36:17.240 getting cancer at forty or fifty years. 1:36:17.080 --> 1:36:19.200 Old or oh my god, is that actually happening? 1:36:19.240 --> 1:36:22.160 A lot of them are sadly sadly yeah, yeah, really 1:36:23.120 --> 1:36:26.720 sad truth to recognize. Oh yeah, I would like to 1:36:26.840 --> 1:36:30.280 if I can avoid that. What's that going to take? 1:36:30.360 --> 1:36:32.080 What does that mean? What do I need to shift? 1:36:32.160 --> 1:36:34.880 What do I need to you know? And so then 1:36:34.920 --> 1:36:39.440 there's certain motivator is like gratitude that are like these beautiful, 1:36:40.320 --> 1:36:43.479 wonderful feelings. And then, like you said with the oxygen 1:36:43.520 --> 1:36:46.840 tank example, and the wheelchair, there's certain emotions that are 1:36:46.920 --> 1:36:52.599 much more fear based, yeah, and worry field and both 1:36:52.600 --> 1:36:54.000 are useful for different things. 1:36:54.040 --> 1:36:57.040 Absolutely, Yeah, yeah, I wouldn't rely on fear. 1:36:57.280 --> 1:36:59.080 Yeah, you know, it's a good one to get going. Yeah, 1:36:59.240 --> 1:36:59.960 good one to get going. 1:37:00.080 --> 1:37:02.320 But yeah, I mean I think it's it's it's so 1:37:02.400 --> 1:37:04.840 interesting I wonder if like, so this is you know, 1:37:04.880 --> 1:37:06.519 when I work with people, I find first of all 1:37:06.520 --> 1:37:09.480 that that's really common that there's some things, some emotional 1:37:10.200 --> 1:37:12.840 valances that they can really connect to that get them moving. 1:37:13.240 --> 1:37:16.080 And so usually what we try to do is connect that. Right, So, 1:37:16.160 --> 1:37:18.599 is there some way to tap into gratitude about you've 1:37:18.600 --> 1:37:21.040 been given this body and you know, like you know, 1:37:21.640 --> 1:37:24.960 like what do you owe with this body? Or something 1:37:25.000 --> 1:37:26.559 like that. So I think if you sort of think 1:37:26.560 --> 1:37:29.040 about the emotions that really get you going, and for 1:37:29.040 --> 1:37:30.920 a lot of men, like for example, it's anger, which 1:37:30.960 --> 1:37:34.519 can actually be good, right, channeling that anger oftentimes that 1:37:34.560 --> 1:37:36.920 will help people bridge the gap of if there's one 1:37:36.920 --> 1:37:39.559 thing that does get you going, can you tie that 1:37:40.479 --> 1:37:41.720 to a thing that you want to do? 1:37:41.880 --> 1:37:44.720 Yes, yes, yeah, yeah. I've always broken it down as 1:37:44.800 --> 1:37:48.160 the in the buggle to get to the modes of 1:37:48.280 --> 1:37:51.320 material nature are there, and so you have motive ignorance, 1:37:51.400 --> 1:37:55.280 motive passion, motor goodness, and pure goodness. So Thomas Rogerson Suburne, 1:37:55.280 --> 1:37:58.880 I've always seen that angers like a tum us motivat. Yeah, 1:37:58.920 --> 1:38:01.439 it's like it's it's it's not ideal, but it gets 1:38:01.479 --> 1:38:04.479 you going. Yeah, absolutely, And then Rogers is more of 1:38:04.520 --> 1:38:06.960 a motive passion is kind of like having a goal, 1:38:07.080 --> 1:38:09.439 having a desire or having an ambition like I want 1:38:09.439 --> 1:38:11.479 to get a six pack, I want to be a millionaire, whatever. 1:38:12.280 --> 1:38:14.519 But then above that is goodness and pure goodness, which 1:38:14.560 --> 1:38:17.880 is more like love, gratitude, all these emotions that our 1:38:17.960 --> 1:38:20.599 overall have a much more healthier impact and have more 1:38:20.640 --> 1:38:23.840 longevity to them. Yeah, they don't die when you get there. 1:38:23.920 --> 1:38:25.680 The really interesting thing is that I think if you 1:38:25.720 --> 1:38:30.200 use satviic emotions, your material success could be way lower. 1:38:30.360 --> 1:38:31.000 Yeah for sure. 1:38:31.240 --> 1:38:34.519 Right, So as you start operating from love and as 1:38:34.520 --> 1:38:37.400 you become a little bit more detached, you may not 1:38:37.520 --> 1:38:39.599 achieve as much, but you'll be happier. 1:38:39.800 --> 1:38:42.559 Yeah yeah. Whereas if you have a lot of motive 1:38:42.600 --> 1:38:45.200 passion in your life, yeah, you'd be much more successful, but. 1:38:45.320 --> 1:38:46.240 You also have ulcers. 1:38:46.560 --> 1:38:51.000 Yeah yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. I really like 1:38:51.080 --> 1:38:54.320 the idea about just going back to that mental training 1:38:54.360 --> 1:38:59.320 piece around. Yeah, the emotion. What's at the root of 1:38:59.360 --> 1:39:01.559 our addiction to pornography right now, Like, what's in the 1:39:01.680 --> 1:39:04.800 root of that from a coal point of view, or 1:39:04.840 --> 1:39:05.040 at the. 1:39:05.080 --> 1:39:07.680 Root is meaninglessness. So this is what a lot of 1:39:07.680 --> 1:39:11.280 people don't realize. They think that pornography addiction is about sexuality. 1:39:11.320 --> 1:39:13.880 They think it's about being horny. They think it's about lust. 1:39:14.240 --> 1:39:18.479 It's not lust. So you know, one of the top 1:39:18.600 --> 1:39:23.160 variables is too One of the top variables for addiction 1:39:23.240 --> 1:39:28.120 to pornography is lack of purpose, lack of meaning. So 1:39:28.160 --> 1:39:30.639 when I was designing our coaching program, I was seeing 1:39:30.680 --> 1:39:33.000 that there's a lot of new problems, but they have 1:39:33.120 --> 1:39:35.520 these roots that are a little bit different. So in psychiatry, 1:39:35.560 --> 1:39:38.760 they don't teach us how to find purpose. But our 1:39:38.760 --> 1:39:41.800 initial pilot's study of one four hundred and fifty three 1:39:41.840 --> 1:39:45.360 people found a sixty eight percent increase in purpose and 1:39:45.360 --> 1:39:48.479 direction in life at twenty weeks. So that's also where 1:39:48.479 --> 1:39:49.880 you got to stick with it for a while. Doesn't 1:39:49.920 --> 1:39:52.600 happen overnight. So I think what's going on is to 1:39:52.680 --> 1:39:57.240 be like blunt about it. When you are addicted to porn, 1:39:57.600 --> 1:40:01.880 you got to have a reason to not watch. So 1:40:01.920 --> 1:40:04.000 what happens with pornography addiction. A lot of people don't 1:40:04.000 --> 1:40:06.680 realize what this looks like. They think it's like automatically 1:40:06.720 --> 1:40:10.360 associated with lust and masturbation. Oftentimes it's on the second screen. 1:40:10.400 --> 1:40:12.439 So we're seeing a big explosion of it with like 1:40:12.479 --> 1:40:15.799 work from home, people will really use it to regulate 1:40:15.840 --> 1:40:18.479 their emotions. That's really the number one reason. So if 1:40:18.520 --> 1:40:22.160 we think about sex and what it does to our brain, 1:40:23.000 --> 1:40:25.719 if I'm feeling anxious, if I'm a man biological male, 1:40:25.760 --> 1:40:28.160 and if my testosterone is intact and stuff like that, 1:40:28.720 --> 1:40:33.120 you know we will oftentimes if we get sexually activated, 1:40:33.160 --> 1:40:35.320 all of our negative emotions go away. And it's such 1:40:35.320 --> 1:40:40.679 a powerful activator. It's like the most powerful biological way 1:40:41.280 --> 1:40:45.680 to shut off your negative emotional circuitry. Happens immediately like 1:40:45.720 --> 1:40:47.719 once you get horny, right, and a lot of guys, 1:40:47.720 --> 1:40:49.400 and sorry if this is a bit vulgar, but you 1:40:49.400 --> 1:40:52.080 know we'll experience this post not clarity, and literally what 1:40:52.200 --> 1:40:57.080 happens in your brain is when these sexual circuits activate, 1:40:57.560 --> 1:41:03.400 they suppress everything else, including our risk assessment circuitry, which 1:41:03.400 --> 1:41:05.840 is why we make really bad decisions. They shut off 1:41:05.880 --> 1:41:08.080 everything else. They shut off your reasoning, they shut off 1:41:08.080 --> 1:41:10.240 your logic, they shut off your risk assessment, they shut 1:41:10.280 --> 1:41:13.200 off your anxiety, they shut off your fear. So what 1:41:13.240 --> 1:41:17.479 we're seeing is that as people become more directionless and 1:41:17.640 --> 1:41:22.400 as their capacity to handle negative emotions decreases, they get 1:41:22.400 --> 1:41:28.639 addicted to pornography because it's the most accessible biological tool 1:41:28.720 --> 1:41:30.760 that you can use and it doesn't involve you know, 1:41:30.800 --> 1:41:33.200 opiates and spending money and things like that usually. 1:41:33.560 --> 1:41:36.000 Yeah, And what are the negative effects of pornography anyway 1:41:36.000 --> 1:41:38.920 that we're seeing, because if someone's watching this and going, well, 1:41:38.920 --> 1:41:41.640 it's not that bad anyway, it switches off helps me 1:41:41.680 --> 1:41:42.479 emotionally regulate. 1:41:42.600 --> 1:41:45.240 Yes, So I think the scariest one for me is 1:41:46.040 --> 1:41:48.799 the rise of a rectile dysfunction under the age of thirty, 1:41:49.680 --> 1:41:54.680 so erectils. Yeah, yeah, so a rectiled dysfunction under the 1:41:54.680 --> 1:41:56.760 age of thirty used to be five percent, right, So 1:41:56.800 --> 1:41:59.160 as men were in society, we tend to think like 1:41:59.439 --> 1:42:01.960 as you get right, like once you have kids, once 1:42:02.000 --> 1:42:03.960 you have grandkids, like that. It doesn't work the way 1:42:04.000 --> 1:42:06.200 it used to do, right, But actually, what we're starting 1:42:06.240 --> 1:42:08.320 to see is the rate some studies suggest a rate 1:42:08.360 --> 1:42:10.360 of twenty percent of people under the age of thirty 1:42:10.400 --> 1:42:14.640 boys men will have rectile disfunction. And the reason that 1:42:14.680 --> 1:42:17.120 happens it's kind of also a little bit of vulgar, 1:42:17.200 --> 1:42:23.719 but it's medical. So the hand grip strength, the PSI 1:42:23.880 --> 1:42:26.439 the pounds per square inch of your hand can be 1:42:26.520 --> 1:42:29.879 like one twenty one thirty. The vagina has a PSI 1:42:30.040 --> 1:42:33.200 of like fifteen to thirty. So literally, what the way 1:42:33.240 --> 1:42:37.440 you define a rectile dysfunction is it is the inability 1:42:37.479 --> 1:42:41.680 to maintain erection until the completion of the sexual act. 1:42:42.320 --> 1:42:46.000 So what we're seeing is that when boys start using 1:42:46.000 --> 1:42:49.960 pornography and masturbating at a very young age without lubrication 1:42:50.080 --> 1:42:53.800 and stuff like that, their body gets trained for a 1:42:53.840 --> 1:42:57.400 certain kind of stimulus in order to complete the sexual act. 1:42:57.560 --> 1:43:03.719 And when they engage in a sexual relationship there penis 1:43:03.720 --> 1:43:06.080 doesn't know how to handle like it just just just 1:43:06.120 --> 1:43:08.360 not enough. And then eventually they'll go at it. They'll 1:43:08.360 --> 1:43:11.000 go at it, they'll go at it, they'll lose the erection, 1:43:11.080 --> 1:43:13.920 which is physiologic, and then what happens is we have 1:43:14.040 --> 1:43:17.240 all kinds of like shame associated with it, you know, 1:43:17.479 --> 1:43:20.280 and then like once the shame kicks in, that shame 1:43:20.320 --> 1:43:23.479 can be so powerful that the sexual drive cannot shut 1:43:23.520 --> 1:43:26.120 that down, and then you have anxiety around sex and 1:43:26.160 --> 1:43:29.040 things like that, and it can really mess up people's relationships. 1:43:29.360 --> 1:43:31.400 What's the mental training for someone who's saying, Okay, well 1:43:31.560 --> 1:43:34.200 I want to disconnect from porn, I want to detach, 1:43:34.280 --> 1:43:37.920 but I'm not going to find purpose tomorrow. So what's 1:43:38.000 --> 1:43:39.080 the stop gap. 1:43:39.280 --> 1:43:41.679 There is no stop gap, and you have to stop 1:43:41.720 --> 1:43:44.840 thinking about things happening tomorrow. Honestly, that's where you start. 1:43:45.360 --> 1:43:49.040 So you know, our approach to pornography has three major pillars, 1:43:49.400 --> 1:43:51.280 and I think you have to tackle all three. So 1:43:51.320 --> 1:43:55.840 the first is like a very standard addiction oriented structure, 1:43:56.560 --> 1:43:58.840 where like if you're trying to quit alcohol, you got 1:43:58.840 --> 1:44:01.559 to stop going to bars. So from a structural standpoint, 1:44:01.600 --> 1:44:05.000 what I recommend everyone is that they, you know, log 1:44:05.040 --> 1:44:08.960 out of all their devices, use only one device for pornography, 1:44:09.240 --> 1:44:11.840 and restrict your pornography used to like one or two 1:44:11.920 --> 1:44:14.439 hours of the day, so it has to like stop 1:44:14.520 --> 1:44:16.800 infecting every part of your life. That's the first part 1:44:16.800 --> 1:44:19.800 we're going to kind of restrict it. The second thing 1:44:19.920 --> 1:44:23.880 is emotional regulation. So as long as your brain requires 1:44:24.040 --> 1:44:28.479 pornography to manage your emotional your emotions, it's you're never 1:44:28.520 --> 1:44:29.280 going to be able to quit. 1:44:29.560 --> 1:44:30.600 So you need to. 1:44:30.320 --> 1:44:34.360 Develop alternate skills to manage your emotions. These can be 1:44:34.400 --> 1:44:37.559 things like meditation practices, even going for a walk, stuff 1:44:37.560 --> 1:44:40.160 like that. One thing that I also really recommend to 1:44:40.160 --> 1:44:43.880 people is that they give themselves time to think before 1:44:44.080 --> 1:44:46.559 before they go to sleep, So spend an hour of 1:44:46.600 --> 1:44:49.200 idle time. I love pacing. We need a lot of 1:44:49.200 --> 1:44:52.120 time to process emotions. You can also do things like 1:44:52.200 --> 1:44:55.080 dream journals. So dreams are one of the main ways 1:44:55.080 --> 1:44:59.360 that our brain processes emotions. So that emotional regulation is 1:44:59.439 --> 1:45:01.040 number two in the The third thing is finding meaning 1:45:01.080 --> 1:45:04.760 or purpose. So watch more episodes of On Purpose with 1:45:04.840 --> 1:45:07.960 Jay Shetty. So as you develop that purpose, You're right, 1:45:07.960 --> 1:45:09.640 it's not going to happen overnight. We see that it 1:45:09.680 --> 1:45:11.719 takes about twenty weeks. That's when people weeks. 1:45:11.800 --> 1:45:12.240 Is amazing. 1:45:12.360 --> 1:45:14.439 Yeah, so it's focused. 1:45:14.520 --> 1:45:14.680 Right. 1:45:14.720 --> 1:45:16.200 So what we did is we took some of these 1:45:16.280 --> 1:45:19.240 like clinical things that used to be used to treat depression, 1:45:19.600 --> 1:45:24.320 and we shift those the same conversational techniques exploratory techniques 1:45:24.320 --> 1:45:27.400 to finding something like purpose. And that works incredibly well. 1:45:28.560 --> 1:45:30.479 And then we can go into the details of you 1:45:30.479 --> 1:45:31.360 know what that involves. 1:45:31.479 --> 1:45:32.680 I was going to ask you that that was my 1:45:32.720 --> 1:45:34.639 next question. How do you how do you define purpose? 1:45:34.680 --> 1:45:36.960 What are you looking at in the twenty weeks? What 1:45:37.000 --> 1:45:37.800 are you trying to get people? 1:45:37.880 --> 1:45:38.040 Yeah? 1:45:38.160 --> 1:45:40.360 So, so the funny thing about purpose is like, it's 1:45:40.400 --> 1:45:44.120 not what everyone thinks it is. So the way you 1:45:44.240 --> 1:45:47.800 find purpose is like really kind of counterintuitive. So it 1:45:47.800 --> 1:45:51.639 actually involves, Actually I don't know what purpose is. Maybe 1:45:51.640 --> 1:45:55.160 we can ask you, But what we know is what 1:45:55.200 --> 1:45:58.439 are the scientific mechanisms. So if I take someone who 1:45:59.320 --> 1:46:02.240 has no purpose in life, and I take someone who 1:46:02.360 --> 1:46:05.559 has purpose in life, what do they do differently? Yes, 1:46:05.720 --> 1:46:08.679 that's what we try to change. So the first thing 1:46:09.520 --> 1:46:14.240 is self direction. So people, as long as you, as 1:46:14.280 --> 1:46:17.519 long as life is happening to you and you are 1:46:17.560 --> 1:46:20.839 not making choices, if you are forced to make choices, 1:46:20.880 --> 1:46:23.720 you will feel out of direction. So this is kind 1:46:23.760 --> 1:46:25.800 of counterintuitive, but the first thing I tell people to 1:46:25.800 --> 1:46:29.120 do is start making choices. And then the first question 1:46:29.160 --> 1:46:30.880 that they asked me is how do I know what's 1:46:30.960 --> 1:46:35.000 right or wrong? That's not actually doesn't matter. What matters 1:46:35.120 --> 1:46:38.120 in your brain is that you choose. And the whole 1:46:38.160 --> 1:46:41.000 point this is really insidious. If you think about right 1:46:41.080 --> 1:46:43.760 or wrong, if you figure out right or wrong, you're 1:46:43.880 --> 1:46:47.040 not making the choice. The world tells you this is 1:46:47.120 --> 1:46:49.240 right and this is wrong. That's the world making the 1:46:49.320 --> 1:46:51.040 choice for you. This is right and this is wrong. 1:46:51.400 --> 1:46:53.479 So forget about right or wrong and just make a choice. 1:46:53.479 --> 1:46:56.879 I don't care what it is. Choose Macha instead, of coffee. 1:46:57.200 --> 1:46:59.840 Put your left shoe on first instead of your right shoe. 1:47:00.040 --> 1:47:02.600 Start brushing with your left teet or your left hand. 1:47:03.000 --> 1:47:06.560 So you need to start making choices. There's a beautiful 1:47:06.960 --> 1:47:09.360 element about anxiety that we can talk about there. It'll 1:47:09.400 --> 1:47:13.360 also like drastically help your anxiety. Second thing that you 1:47:13.360 --> 1:47:16.759 need to do is stretch your capacity. So we feel 1:47:16.760 --> 1:47:18.599 like we have purpose in life because it's not purpose, 1:47:18.640 --> 1:47:21.280 but this is like literally what the scientific makeup of 1:47:21.320 --> 1:47:25.440 purpose is stretching your capacity. So we always feel overwhelmed. 1:47:25.439 --> 1:47:27.000 I don't want to do it. I want to do 1:47:27.040 --> 1:47:29.800 the bare minimum. We're a society of people who do 1:47:29.840 --> 1:47:33.440 the bare minimum. We're a society of people who companies 1:47:33.560 --> 1:47:37.400 use chat, GPT, and AI to review applications. Now everyone 1:47:37.479 --> 1:47:40.160 is using AI to apply for jobs. It's just AI 1:47:40.240 --> 1:47:44.479 talking to AI. We're trying to do as little as possible, 1:47:44.840 --> 1:47:47.880 and we're seeing an epidemic of purposelessness. We're seeing an 1:47:47.920 --> 1:47:50.360 epidemic of pornography use. But that's because in your brain, 1:47:50.400 --> 1:47:55.040 these two things are connected. The moment you stretch your capacities. 1:47:55.080 --> 1:47:58.320 Once again, it doesn't matter what you're doing. If you 1:47:58.479 --> 1:48:03.280 swim ten ten laps, swim eleven if you are wake 1:48:03.360 --> 1:48:06.200 up at seven at seven o'clock every day, wake up 1:48:06.200 --> 1:48:09.280 at six point fifty nine. This is the beautiful thing. 1:48:09.520 --> 1:48:12.040 The content of what you do is completely irrel not 1:48:12.080 --> 1:48:15.240 completely that's not wrong, that's wrong. But the key thing 1:48:15.280 --> 1:48:19.000 is that you stretch your capacities. I didn't think I 1:48:19.120 --> 1:48:20.920 was capable of this. You don't even have to succeed, 1:48:21.280 --> 1:48:23.479 you just have to stretch it. I didn't think I 1:48:23.479 --> 1:48:26.120 could do this. Turns out I was wrong. At least 1:48:26.160 --> 1:48:29.760 I tried. When you start thinking in this way, right 1:48:29.800 --> 1:48:31.680 when I ask someone, you know, if I like a 1:48:31.760 --> 1:48:36.160 quick thought experiment, we're always afraid of giving it all 1:48:36.360 --> 1:48:39.880 or all in failing. But when you give it, you're all. 1:48:40.439 --> 1:48:43.280 How do you usually feel? You can usually sleep at 1:48:43.320 --> 1:48:45.320 night as long as some of this stuff like ego 1:48:45.360 --> 1:48:47.599 and stuff doesn't get in the way. Right, at least 1:48:47.640 --> 1:48:50.960 I tried my best. That can give you a good sense. 1:48:51.000 --> 1:48:53.320 That's a hard lesson I learned in med school because 1:48:53.520 --> 1:48:56.880 or in residencies like you know, what helps me sleep 1:48:56.920 --> 1:48:58.800 at night is not whether the patient lives or dies. 1:48:59.680 --> 1:49:01.639 Did I give it my all? Did I do everything 1:49:01.680 --> 1:49:04.559 within my power to try to help this person? And 1:49:04.600 --> 1:49:07.400 if I did the rest is out of my hands. Yeah, right, 1:49:07.439 --> 1:49:10.920 so you have to stretch your capacities. The third thing, 1:49:10.920 --> 1:49:15.439 and this is the hardest one, relatedness, So people have 1:49:15.520 --> 1:49:19.439 to be able to see you and respond to the 1:49:19.439 --> 1:49:21.479 real you. It doesn't necessarily have to be positive. A 1:49:21.479 --> 1:49:24.680 certain amount of acceptedness accepting that person is good, but 1:49:24.800 --> 1:49:27.080 other people has to be able to see who you are. 1:49:27.439 --> 1:49:29.679 And that's really hard because people don't have the attention 1:49:29.800 --> 1:49:32.240 for that. Everyone's on their cell phones. So I think 1:49:32.360 --> 1:49:34.760 if you do, if you cultivate these three things, your 1:49:34.800 --> 1:49:36.479 sense of purpose will increase in life. 1:49:37.120 --> 1:49:40.880 That's fresh. I like that. I like that you've used 1:49:41.880 --> 1:49:44.200 what you'd see is the difference between a purposeful person 1:49:44.680 --> 1:49:47.360 and someone who doesn't have purpose to find to what 1:49:47.439 --> 1:49:48.240 paths to travel? 1:49:48.520 --> 1:49:50.760 Yeah. So, I think the really confusing thing is when 1:49:50.760 --> 1:49:53.360 people think about purpose, Like if I were to ask you, Jay, 1:49:53.360 --> 1:49:54.920 what is your purpose? How would you answer that? 1:49:55.680 --> 1:49:58.599 If you ask me what is my purpose? Yeah? So 1:49:58.680 --> 1:50:02.400 my purpose would be to make ancient wisdom accessible, relevant 1:50:02.400 --> 1:50:03.679 and practical for the modern birth. 1:50:03.720 --> 1:50:07.280 Perfect right, So that's what most people think it is. 1:50:07.280 --> 1:50:09.639 They think it's like this thing, yeah for sure, right, 1:50:09.680 --> 1:50:11.800 But this is what I want people to understand if 1:50:11.840 --> 1:50:14.000 you really think about it, how do you know that 1:50:14.080 --> 1:50:15.719 you have purpose or you don't have purpose? 1:50:15.920 --> 1:50:17.519 Yeah, it's not it's. 1:50:17.400 --> 1:50:19.519 An internal feeling. Like I wake up every day, Like 1:50:19.560 --> 1:50:21.160 my guess is you wake up and you're like, I 1:50:21.240 --> 1:50:24.559 have purpose. Yes, it's an internal feeling. So how do 1:50:24.600 --> 1:50:26.679 we cultivate that internal feeling with these three things? 1:50:26.840 --> 1:50:29.479 Yeah? I love that. I think it's beautiful. I really 1:50:29.479 --> 1:50:32.479 really like those three things, and they come closely to 1:50:32.560 --> 1:50:34.400 some of the things I've thought about before as well, 1:50:34.400 --> 1:50:36.599 in I think there's a need, and your people get 1:50:36.640 --> 1:50:38.960 it because they're part of your community. But I think 1:50:39.000 --> 1:50:42.400 belonging is such a first step in purpose. Like even 1:50:42.520 --> 1:50:44.720 you know, recently, Air I took out pickleball, and I 1:50:44.760 --> 1:50:47.280 feel like I'm part of the La pickleball scene and 1:50:47.320 --> 1:50:49.400 I'll just walk up to a court and I can 1:50:49.479 --> 1:50:51.040 just go play with anyone. You don't have to know 1:50:51.080 --> 1:50:53.120 each other's names. I don't know what job they have, 1:50:53.439 --> 1:50:55.880 they don't know what I do, and you're playing pickaball together. 1:50:55.880 --> 1:50:59.000 And there's a sense of belonging which makes me feel 1:50:59.120 --> 1:51:02.719 automatically link to something bigger than me. So belonging isn't 1:51:02.760 --> 1:51:05.120 a sense of I have friends. Belonging is I feel 1:51:05.120 --> 1:51:09.160 connected to something that is beyond me and beyond this person, 1:51:09.479 --> 1:51:11.439 and I think that's such a part of purpose. The 1:51:11.479 --> 1:51:13.840 second one, which is aligns with what you're saying to me, 1:51:13.960 --> 1:51:16.519 is learning. But really it's what you're saying, it's that 1:51:17.000 --> 1:51:21.840 challenge to stretch my capability to try something new every day. 1:51:22.040 --> 1:51:25.080 That idea of curiosity is so key to it, as 1:51:25.080 --> 1:51:28.080 well as a habit that this one's really important for me. 1:51:28.160 --> 1:51:31.800 It's people who feel independently useful. So now you're part 1:51:31.800 --> 1:51:33.640 of this bigger thing, but you know what you do. 1:51:33.680 --> 1:51:35.920 So I'm the guy who brings the pickleballs, I'm the 1:51:35.960 --> 1:51:38.840 guy who puts the net out right, like I have 1:51:38.880 --> 1:51:41.000 a use that is unique to me. 1:51:41.680 --> 1:51:47.280 Yeah, So you know what's really fascinating is I love 1:51:47.479 --> 1:51:50.800 And I'm amazed that my guess is that you did not, like, 1:51:50.880 --> 1:51:53.080 read a bunch of scientific literature to come up with 1:51:53.120 --> 1:51:53.840 these things. 1:51:54.560 --> 1:51:56.920 I've read enough, but I didn't use it to But 1:51:57.560 --> 1:51:58.679 I'm definitely I'm always reading. 1:51:59.520 --> 1:52:01.160 I know you're you're quite well read and stuff. 1:52:01.240 --> 1:52:04.599 I enjoy reading it, you know, socie. 1:52:03.800 --> 1:52:05.519 But it's not like you're like, let me read a 1:52:05.600 --> 1:52:08.760 thousand papers. That's how I came up with your right. 1:52:09.000 --> 1:52:10.920 And so what I think is really beautiful is your 1:52:11.040 --> 1:52:13.560 things can be mapped onto my things. And what the 1:52:13.680 --> 1:52:17.800 data shows your independent exploration. Sure you're reading a lot, 1:52:17.880 --> 1:52:19.800 you are, you keep up with signs and stuff like that, 1:52:20.120 --> 1:52:23.480 but you're looking at your experience and you have belonging 1:52:23.560 --> 1:52:25.520 this which is correlated with relatedness. 1:52:26.240 --> 1:52:26.400 Right. 1:52:26.479 --> 1:52:30.320 You have this curiosity which causes you to stretch. You 1:52:30.400 --> 1:52:35.559 have this independent usefulness which is autonomy, which is making choices. 1:52:35.880 --> 1:52:37.840 I'm going to go ahead, no one needs to ask me, 1:52:38.520 --> 1:52:40.439 and you find a utility like you know. And so 1:52:40.680 --> 1:52:43.400 I think it's really beautiful, Like like, I love hearing 1:52:43.479 --> 1:52:47.519 that because that shows me that if people pay attention right, 1:52:47.560 --> 1:52:51.440 if they do what you did, which not to devalue 1:52:51.439 --> 1:52:53.400 what you did, but I think is easier than what 1:52:53.479 --> 1:52:56.599 I did. You don't have to read a thousand papers 1:52:57.040 --> 1:52:59.639 on purpose to understand what it is right. You can 1:52:59.680 --> 1:53:02.160 pay it tension to yourself. You can do some amount 1:53:02.160 --> 1:53:04.479 of reading. You can listen to a few podcasts and 1:53:04.520 --> 1:53:06.960 that is enough for you to find the right answers. 1:53:07.280 --> 1:53:10.360 And it's crazy because you hit all three. You didn't 1:53:10.400 --> 1:53:11.760 come up with four. You didn't come up with two. 1:53:11.800 --> 1:53:14.120 You came up with three, and it's all the same buckets. 1:53:14.520 --> 1:53:18.280 Really amazing. I have two more, really okay, So that's 1:53:18.320 --> 1:53:21.160 actually really cool too, because if you've got two more, 1:53:21.360 --> 1:53:22.960 I wonder if we're missing something. 1:53:23.120 --> 1:53:25.120 Yeah, and I'm not, and I'm not saying you are. 1:53:25.200 --> 1:53:26.400 This is just my own refinra. 1:53:26.240 --> 1:53:28.200 No no no, but I mean I would bat money we are, 1:53:28.400 --> 1:53:31.000 so tell me what. Okay. 1:53:31.120 --> 1:53:34.040 So having a sense of give back, having a sense 1:53:34.080 --> 1:53:37.160 of being involved in other people's well being, which goes 1:53:37.200 --> 1:53:39.760 back to you've it's really beautiful because I've heard that 1:53:39.840 --> 1:53:44.120 idea before, but not as strongly and concretely. This idea 1:53:44.200 --> 1:53:46.840 of you explaining what it means to not think about 1:53:46.840 --> 1:53:50.400 yourself today is just like really cut through for me, 1:53:50.439 --> 1:53:53.400 which is so powerful because it's been explained in a 1:53:53.439 --> 1:53:56.760 clinical way, I think. And that's what that service element is. 1:53:56.760 --> 1:53:59.559 It's like all those first things were still about in 1:53:59.600 --> 1:54:02.040 once belonging was beyond you is think about something bigger 1:54:02.080 --> 1:54:04.200 than you. But this one's a key part. It's like, 1:54:04.240 --> 1:54:05.800 how are you doing things for things which are not 1:54:05.840 --> 1:54:08.200 about you. I'm not thinking about how I'm useful, I'm 1:54:08.200 --> 1:54:10.040 not thinking about this I'm trying to think about someone else, 1:54:10.360 --> 1:54:12.240 so service. And then the fifth one comes back to 1:54:12.280 --> 1:54:14.960 our point earlier on detachment, which is surrender. I use 1:54:15.000 --> 1:54:18.080 the word surrender because it falls into my five acronym 1:54:18.120 --> 1:54:21.120 that I have, But the last is surrender because there's 1:54:21.160 --> 1:54:26.400 such a need for ultimately that detachment from what you 1:54:26.479 --> 1:54:28.800 just so beautifully said that at the end of the day, 1:54:28.840 --> 1:54:30.760 I can't decide whether I'm going to save someone's life 1:54:30.840 --> 1:54:33.160 or not. The only thing I can be satisfied is 1:54:33.240 --> 1:54:35.000 I gave it my all, and that, to me is 1:54:35.000 --> 1:54:38.080 what surrender really is. The ability to say I did 1:54:38.120 --> 1:54:40.440 everything and now I'm holding my hands up and I'm 1:54:40.440 --> 1:54:43.840 living with the results because I can't control what's going 1:54:43.840 --> 1:54:46.160 on exactly. Yeah. 1:54:46.200 --> 1:54:48.680 Yeah, And I think there's plenty of science for your 1:54:48.720 --> 1:54:51.520 last two. I think the interesting thing is the scientific 1:54:51.600 --> 1:54:55.400 literature doesn't thus far has not tied that to the 1:54:55.440 --> 1:54:58.600 concept of purpose. Yeah, but I think, especially like you know, 1:54:58.640 --> 1:55:04.000 service is really interesting. There's a study that found multiple 1:55:04.040 --> 1:55:06.720 studies that found that people who suffer from major depressive 1:55:06.760 --> 1:55:09.120 disorder and are depressed, one of the best things they 1:55:09.120 --> 1:55:11.720 can do to improve their depression is help other people. 1:55:11.840 --> 1:55:13.440 Yes, yes, yes, yeah, right. 1:55:13.520 --> 1:55:18.320 So there's something really special about being a part of 1:55:18.320 --> 1:55:21.600 a community. Giving back in some way has profound positive 1:55:21.880 --> 1:55:22.680 effects on our brand. 1:55:22.720 --> 1:55:25.800 It's so great for self esteem. It affects all the 1:55:25.880 --> 1:55:28.320 I think we used to argue this stupid debate over 1:55:28.800 --> 1:55:31.480 can something ever truly be selfless service? Because you're doing 1:55:31.480 --> 1:55:34.040 it for yourself and imagine not interested in that question. 1:55:34.160 --> 1:55:36.680 It's more interesting to me the fact that if you 1:55:36.720 --> 1:55:39.800 were useful, you'd feel more useful where you'd be more 1:55:39.880 --> 1:55:42.480 useful and you do more for others, and that is 1:55:42.520 --> 1:55:45.280 a positive cycle for people who have depression or a 1:55:45.360 --> 1:55:48.400 struggling with feelings of not being worthy enough or not 1:55:48.560 --> 1:55:51.280 mattering that idea. When you look at it through suicide, 1:55:51.360 --> 1:55:53.480 it's like I didn't matter anymore. I didn't feel like 1:55:53.480 --> 1:55:55.000 I was needed anymore. 1:55:55.360 --> 1:55:56.160 Absolutely, you know. 1:55:56.120 --> 1:55:57.680 It's like you don't want people to go through those 1:55:57.680 --> 1:55:58.680 feelings and emotions. 1:55:59.000 --> 1:56:01.280 There's a I love what you said, and let me 1:56:01.320 --> 1:56:03.120 know if we're like, no, I love it. Pickleball is 1:56:03.160 --> 1:56:06.280 going back and forth too much. But you know, I 1:56:06.320 --> 1:56:08.920 love this concept of service because I think many of 1:56:08.920 --> 1:56:11.160 the questions you asked me, I think this is the answer. 1:56:12.040 --> 1:56:16.000 So when you engage in service that dissolves your ego. 1:56:16.520 --> 1:56:18.919 So if people are wondering, how can I stop caring 1:56:18.960 --> 1:56:22.760 about other people? Give yourself in service, right, don't do 1:56:22.840 --> 1:56:25.800 what they want. That's not really service. Service is not 1:56:25.840 --> 1:56:29.640 giving someone that they want. It is doing what you 1:56:29.880 --> 1:56:32.560 feel like for the benefit of others. It comes from you, 1:56:33.320 --> 1:56:35.240 and you're saying like, this isn't for me, this is 1:56:35.280 --> 1:56:37.440 for other people. And if you kind of think about 1:56:37.480 --> 1:56:39.640 how do I stop caring about what other people think? 1:56:40.080 --> 1:56:43.960 That is a selfish selflessness, right. I'm trying to make 1:56:44.000 --> 1:56:46.080 other people happy so that they'll leave me alone, they'll 1:56:46.080 --> 1:56:48.640 treat me with respect, they'll tell me I'm great. That's 1:56:48.680 --> 1:56:53.640 actually selfish. But service is giving without expectation, giving, and 1:56:53.680 --> 1:56:57.160 that's the whole point, right, And so I think service 1:56:57.280 --> 1:56:59.720 is a beautiful way to decrease the humguard because it's 1:56:59.720 --> 1:57:03.200 not about me anymore. And there's a really interesting neuroscience 1:57:03.200 --> 1:57:07.640 to this, which is literally, when you were engaged in service, 1:57:08.280 --> 1:57:13.440 the minutes that your brain are not thinking about you increases. 1:57:14.440 --> 1:57:18.080 And for so much of our life, social media and 1:57:18.160 --> 1:57:21.680 all this kind of stuff, we are constantly thinking about ourselves. 1:57:22.680 --> 1:57:26.040 So literally, to spend time to give your break or 1:57:26.040 --> 1:57:29.080 your brain. A break from thinking about you, worrying about you, 1:57:29.200 --> 1:57:33.240 just focusing on somebody else is profoundly helpful for your 1:57:33.280 --> 1:57:35.280 default mode network and your ego. 1:57:36.400 --> 1:57:38.280 Doctor K, I could talk to you vow is I'm 1:57:38.280 --> 1:57:41.520 going to need to book you in again. This is 1:57:41.560 --> 1:57:44.120 so much fun and we didn't even There's so many 1:57:44.160 --> 1:57:46.840 things we can talk about. But we end every own 1:57:46.880 --> 1:57:49.440 purpose interview with a final five at these questions have 1:57:49.480 --> 1:57:52.320 to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum. Okay, 1:57:52.760 --> 1:57:54.200 So doctor K thes a you a final five. 1:57:54.240 --> 1:57:54.840 Okay, let's do it. 1:57:54.920 --> 1:57:57.720 Question number one is what is the best advice You've 1:57:57.760 --> 1:58:02.520 ever heard or received or given? 1:58:03.280 --> 1:58:10.400 Best advice I've ever heard or received or given? Can 1:58:10.440 --> 1:58:12.400 we go to the second one? Well, I think about that. 1:58:12.560 --> 1:58:15.839 The second one's harder. Usually, what is the worst advice 1:58:15.880 --> 1:58:17.520 you've ever heard, received, or given? 1:58:18.320 --> 1:58:20.320 The thing that's top mind for me right now is 1:58:20.400 --> 1:58:21.040 be yourself. 1:58:21.360 --> 1:58:24.000 Yeah, that's what I agree. It's fully bad advice. I'm 1:58:24.000 --> 1:58:26.160 so glad you said that, because I was on tour 1:58:26.240 --> 1:58:29.240 earlier this year and I literally said downstage, I was like, 1:58:29.240 --> 1:58:30.880 if anyone ever tells you to be yourself, it is 1:58:30.920 --> 1:58:34.840 the worst advice over That makes me happy. Question number three, 1:58:35.600 --> 1:58:38.240 what's something that you used to believe to be true 1:58:38.680 --> 1:58:39.720 that you don't anymore. 1:58:42.320 --> 1:58:47.440 I'm great, it's a good answer. 1:58:47.560 --> 1:58:49.800 Yeah, that's a great answer. 1:58:49.800 --> 1:58:52.160 I'm really not That's how I. 1:58:52.360 --> 1:58:53.920 Can relate to I'll put my hand up with that. 1:58:53.960 --> 1:58:57.760 That's a great answer. Question number four, what's something that 1:58:57.880 --> 1:59:01.280 other people don't agree with you on but you'd fight 1:59:01.360 --> 1:59:02.400 for till the end. 1:59:03.080 --> 1:59:05.160 I don't know that I would fight for this, But 1:59:05.240 --> 1:59:07.520 I think the biggest thing is, like some of my like, 1:59:07.560 --> 1:59:10.520 I think that this consciousness stuff is real. I think 1:59:10.560 --> 1:59:14.720 there's a whole dimension of like human existence that science 1:59:14.760 --> 1:59:20.000 cannot I get one answer, one word, but I think 1:59:20.040 --> 1:59:22.080 that there is a whole I think that I believe 1:59:22.120 --> 1:59:28.240 there's a layer of reality that can only be experienced subjectively. 1:59:30.200 --> 1:59:33.600 Great answer. Fifth and final question. If you could be 1:59:33.640 --> 1:59:35.480 asked this every guest has ever been on the show. 1:59:35.880 --> 1:59:38.360 If you could create one law that everyone in the 1:59:38.360 --> 1:59:40.240 world had to follow, what would it be. 1:59:40.760 --> 1:59:46.360 I would never do that, I really wouldn't. 1:59:46.520 --> 1:59:49.040 I'll edit for you. If you could create one habit 1:59:49.560 --> 1:59:51.360 that you wish everyone in the world would follow, what 1:59:51.400 --> 1:59:51.960 would it be. 1:59:55.040 --> 1:59:57.280 I understand you're trying to help me out here. But 1:59:57.400 --> 2:00:00.200 you know, answer, I am, I am so a verse 2:00:00.400 --> 2:00:04.000 to doing one thing forever. Everyone interesting, right, Like, I 2:00:04.040 --> 2:00:07.560 just don't think like yeah interesting, and I think I 2:00:07.600 --> 2:00:10.320 really think like, I mean, I've learned this the hard way. 2:00:10.680 --> 2:00:13.840 The moment I assume that anyone who walks in my 2:00:13.920 --> 2:00:17.400 office is even a little bit overlapping with someone else 2:00:17.560 --> 2:00:19.280 is the moment that the great answer? 2:00:19.320 --> 2:00:20.920 Yeah? I love that. Do you want to give the 2:00:20.960 --> 2:00:21.760 best advice again? 2:00:22.360 --> 2:00:27.080 Yeah? So best advice I would give is focus more 2:00:27.280 --> 2:00:30.480 on what is happening and less on what you're doing. 2:00:31.080 --> 2:00:33.240 Focus more on what is happening and less on what 2:00:33.280 --> 2:00:36.840 you're doing. Yeah, I like that. Observe, observe, focus on 2:00:36.840 --> 2:00:40.480 the observation, focus on the experience. 2:00:41.400 --> 2:00:44.640 Yeah. So, just to explain a little bit, right, touched it. So, 2:00:44.800 --> 2:00:47.440 I think a lot of people don't realize what the 2:00:47.480 --> 2:00:50.720 consequences of their actions are. So just to give you 2:00:50.760 --> 2:00:53.920 a really simple example, we have a bunch of you know, 2:00:54.040 --> 2:00:57.440 kids that are on iPads right now, and so a 2:00:57.440 --> 2:01:02.600 lot of times what parents don't realize is, like, you know, 2:01:02.600 --> 2:01:04.600 when your kid throws a temper tantrum and you give 2:01:04.640 --> 2:01:08.200 them the iPad to calm them down, you're just training 2:01:08.240 --> 2:01:12.280 them to throw a temper tantrum. For kids that are 2:01:12.280 --> 2:01:14.200 slightly older, a lot of parents will be like, hey, 2:01:14.280 --> 2:01:16.120 come down for dinner, Come down for dinner, Come down 2:01:16.120 --> 2:01:18.440 for dinner. Kid doesn't show up for dinner, they're fifteen 2:01:18.480 --> 2:01:21.880 minutes late. You go up there, you unplug the PlayStation, 2:01:22.320 --> 2:01:25.560 and you're like, no PlayStation for a month. So what 2:01:25.600 --> 2:01:28.720 you're actually training your child to do is ignore your 2:01:28.760 --> 2:01:33.400 words and until you unplug the PlayStation. Does that kind 2:01:33.400 --> 2:01:35.880 of make sense. Yeah, So like the first six times 2:01:35.920 --> 2:01:39.840 you say something, you're not reinforcing that at all, right, 2:01:39.880 --> 2:01:42.280 So you're actually training them to ignore what you say, 2:01:42.400 --> 2:01:44.040 which is why you have to cont and then you 2:01:44.040 --> 2:01:46.000 have to take a drastic action to get them to listen. 2:01:46.120 --> 2:01:49.600 And parents feel insane because now I'm having to go 2:01:49.720 --> 2:01:51.640 up and yell at you all the time in order 2:01:51.680 --> 2:01:54.320 to get you do to anything. That's because when you 2:01:54.360 --> 2:01:58.480 speak gently, there is no consequence. So tie the consequence 2:01:58.520 --> 2:02:02.000 to the gentle, not the consequence to the yelling, because 2:02:02.000 --> 2:02:03.880 if you tie the consequence to the yelling, you'll have 2:02:03.920 --> 2:02:06.240 to yell again. That's the way they they'll get trained. 2:02:07.040 --> 2:02:11.040 So pay attention to what is happening, not what you're doing. 2:02:11.520 --> 2:02:14.720 That's a great explanation. I love that the book is 2:02:14.760 --> 2:02:17.640 called how to Raise a Healthy Gamer and Power Struggles, 2:02:17.640 --> 2:02:20.840 break bad screen habits, and transform your relationship with the kids. 2:02:21.480 --> 2:02:23.520 Doctor K. Subscribe on YouTube as well. If you don't 2:02:23.520 --> 2:02:26.480 subscribe to doctor K channel already, Doctor K, You're gonna 2:02:26.480 --> 2:02:28.360 have to come back and do it a bunch of 2:02:28.400 --> 2:02:30.720 more episodes because we didn't even talk about kids today. 2:02:30.840 --> 2:02:33.000 Yeah, we didn't talk about kids, and I still want 2:02:33.000 --> 2:02:36.120 to hear so much. I mean, it's it's amazing. You know, 2:02:36.160 --> 2:02:38.480 your background with the GETA and stuff like that, so 2:02:38.520 --> 2:02:42.960 I'm super curious because you seem super grounded in that 2:02:43.320 --> 2:02:45.880 and and I haven't even read the whole thing, so 2:02:46.080 --> 2:02:47.120 I want to learn about that. 2:02:47.320 --> 2:02:49.160 More than have you to. Now we know each other, 2:02:49.280 --> 2:02:51.080 so yeah, we should connect offline as well. 2:02:51.120 --> 2:02:51.800 Absolutely, dude. 2:02:51.840 --> 2:02:54.120 Yeah, such a pleasure. Man, You're amazing. If you love 2:02:54.200 --> 2:02:57.920 this episode, you'll love my interview with doctor Gabo Matte 2:02:58.320 --> 2:03:02.520 on understanding your trauma and how to heal emotional wounds 2:03:02.800 --> 2:03:05.840 to start moving on from the past. Everything in nature 2:03:05.880 --> 2:03:08.800 grows only where it's vulnerable, So a tree doesn't grow 2:03:08.800 --> 2:03:10.720 where it's hard and thick does it. It goes where 2:03:10.760 --> 2:03:12.560 it's soft and green and vulnerable.