WEBVTT - Beyond Anxiety: How Curiosity Turns Fear Into Fuel with Martha Beck 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:02.480 If you're anxious, you fritter away the energy that you 0:00:02.520 --> 0:00:06.920 can have being alert, prepared, engaging with your life, and 0:00:07.040 --> 0:00:09.119 creatively trying to figure out what to do. 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:20.320 Wow, welcome to the one you feed throughout time. Great 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:23.279 thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:27.280 Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:30.800 you think ring true. And yet for many of us, 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:35.120 our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:39.360 self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:42.040 have instead of what we do. We think things that 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:45.239 hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:49.800 just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:53.159 and creative effort to make a life worth living. This 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:56.120 podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in 0:00:56.160 --> 0:00:59.280 the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:06.119 Fear is instinctual. It's like a cobra in a box 0:01:06.120 --> 0:01:10.040 of kittens. It grabs our attention and it won't let go. 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:14.960 But anxiety, that's something else. It's the ghost of fear 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:18.959 haunting us long after the danger is passed, or before 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:22.520 it even occurs. In today's conversation with Martha Beck. We 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:27.000 explore why anxiety can't simply be silenced. It has to 0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:32.400 be replaced, replaced with creativity, curiosity, and a deep kindness 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:36.520 towards ourselves. And when we do that, something important begins 0:01:36.520 --> 0:01:39.399 to happen. Life starts to feel like something we can 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:44.680 actually live rather than just survive. I'll take any opportunity 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:46.720 to talk with Martha. I think she's one of the 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:50.680 most gifted and thoughtful teachers we have Today. I'm Eric 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:54.320 Zimmer and this is the one you feed. Hi, Martha, 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:55.440 Welcome to the show. 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:58.120 Oh, Eric, is so good to be back. I love 0:01:58.160 --> 0:01:58.920 this podcast. 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:01.720 Oh thank you talking with you. It's a pleasure to 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:03.880 have you on and it's nice to see you again. 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:06.200 We're going to be discussing, at least part of the 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:11.120 time your latest book, which is called Beyond Anxiety, Curiosity, Creativity, 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:14.799 and Finding your Life's Purpose. And I'm sure will veer 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:16.959 kind of all over the place, but yes, that may 0:02:17.000 --> 0:02:20.200 anchor us correct. But before we get into that, we'll 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:22.200 start the way we always do with the parable. And 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:24.640 in the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking to their 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:27.320 grandchild and they say, in life, there are two wolves 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:30.200 inside of us. That are always at battle. One is 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:33.600 a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:36.600 and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:40.400 represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:42.960 grandchild stops. They think about it for a second. They 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:45.360 look up at their grandparent and they say, well, which 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:49.160 one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed. 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:52.639 So I'd like to start off by asking you what 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:55.720 that parable means to you in your life and in 0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:56.600 the work that you do. 0:02:57.320 --> 0:03:02.000 It's everything. I grew up in the rigid religious system 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:05.120 in Mormonism and was told to follow the rules and 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:08.840 only feed any impulse that had been given to me 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:12.440 by the religion. And when that happens to you, a 0:03:12.440 --> 0:03:14.680 lot of people who leave Mormonism don't go to any 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:17.720 other religion because you break free from it so hard 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:22.000 that you reject all belief systems. When I was around 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:24.320 seventeen eighteen, I went off to Harvard. I started getting 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:27.440 different types of thinking, and then it just sort of 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:29.880 blew up in my head and I decided that the 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:32.120 only thing I could do to build my life was 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:34.920 to find what felt like the truth and what felt 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:38.280 like joy, and that I would go toward that no 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:42.960 matter what, and if something felt like fear or less 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:46.600 joy and less freedom, I would not go there. As 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:48.880 life went on, I made my choices based on that, 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:53.080 and that's sort of shaped everything. And I'm so grateful 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:55.840 for that metaphor that so many people out there are 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:56.560 hearing it now. 0:03:56.840 --> 0:04:01.080 Yeah, I think that's a great way to segue into 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:04.680 your book, because what you're basically saying there is you 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:08.720 tended to follow. If I use the subtitle of your book, 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:11.200 the things that made you curious, the things that made 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:15.720 you creative, the things that made you calmer, and use 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:19.920 those as a guidance versus following the things that made 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:22.560 you fearful or anxious sort of. 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:25.479 I mean, it's interesting because I've had a whole career 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:28.000 helping people build their lives based on feeding the good 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:30.880 wolf and following your better angels or whatever it is. 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:33.880 But I also had very high anxiety, and a lot 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:36.760 of people that I've worked with and people that i've 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:41.200 known as friends, very creative people, had tremendous amounts of anxiety. 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:44.360 And I didn't see that always as part of the 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:47.240 bad wolf, because it's so innocent to be afraid in 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:50.160 a world where things go wrong and where we all 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:52.240 know we're the one animal that knows for sure we're 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:55.159 going to die. So I thought anxiety was just part 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:58.920 of the human condition, and so I didn't steer away 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:02.000 from it the way I have learned to. It wasn't 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:06.560 until I started living by this code of absolute integrity, 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:08.400 and I wrote a book called The Way of Integrity, 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:11.880 because I came to find that if I only did 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:15.560 things that felt aligned with all the parts of my 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:19.800 being body, heart, mind, soul, if I just always walked 0:05:19.839 --> 0:05:23.680 the line of truth there, then I wouldn't feel any 0:05:23.800 --> 0:05:27.239 psychological pain, which has been true for me. But people 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:29.120 came up to me after I wrote that book and said, 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:32.200 I'm living in total integrity, but I'm afraid all the time. 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:35.160 And I thought, okay, so that's just the human condition. 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:38.200 And then I thought, no, no, that's not the way 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:41.000 it works. And so I went and I researched anxiety, 0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:43.279 and I dug into it and into the brain science 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:45.800 and into the social science of it. And what I 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:49.240 found is that we live in a society that really 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:52.640 encourages high anxiety, and the way we learn and the 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:56.680 way we organize our lives is very conducive to high anxiety. 0:05:56.720 --> 0:06:01.400 But it actually isn't normal. What's normal is something that's 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:03.880 not around most of us anymore. That is sorry, I'm 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:05.320 going on and on, But if you and I had 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:08.320 been born three hundred years ago, we would have woken 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:13.000 up surrounded by nature, by animals, hearing the trees, water, 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:16.320 other people's voices. We would have spent the day in 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:19.760 our group of people we mostly knew, doing things with 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:23.000 our hands as well as our minds that were deeply 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:27.160 meaningful to us. And that type of scenario is what 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:31.560 we evolved to live in, and that's what puts the 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:35.800 nervous system in a state of regulation. And nowadays we 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:40.359 live in a profoundly abnormal situation for the animals of 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:43.800 our bodies, and we're anxious because we're in cages all 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:47.000 the time, and some of those cages are physical and 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:50.719 some of them are psychological. And in this book, in 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:52.440 the research for it, I tried to find my way 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:55.000 out of that, and so two thirds of the book 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:57.680 are about what happens after you get away from that, 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:00.440 and it's actually really fun. That's where the cure riosty, 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:03.640 creativity and finding your life's purpose coming there. There is 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:08.000 my dissertation. Everybody can go to bed now. 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:11.520 Well, I think that, yes, I think we are probably 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:17.320 living in a deeply anxiety producing culture. We are living 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:20.880 in ways that don't allow us to soothe ourselves. And 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:24.480 we could go back, though, to say the Buddha and 0:07:24.520 --> 0:07:28.520 he's writing about something similar a little bit right, He's 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:32.000 going back and he's saying like, Hey, these things that 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:39.040 you manufacture in your mind cause you to suffer more 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:42.360 than is necessary. And so I think that it's just 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:45.120 gotten worse. Right, I think that the world that we 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:47.200 may have lived in when we were closer to nature, 0:07:47.320 --> 0:07:53.000 had more maybe natural balms in it than today's world does. Yeah, 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:56.160 it keeps getting amplified. There's something that you talk about 0:07:56.200 --> 0:07:58.160 in the book that I'd love to really start with, 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:01.880 which is that you talk about fear, which is a 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:05.080 natural response. You make examples in the book I Love 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:09.480 Your Kittens and Cobra's example, like, if you open up 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:11.800 a box and there are eight kittens in one cobra, 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:14.040 what are you going to pay attention to the cobra? 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:16.080 I just think that's so it made me laugh when 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:17.920 I heard that. But if there was a cobra in 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:22.400 this room, I would naturally be fearful, and that is natural. Yeah, 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:26.640 But you describe anxiety more as like being haunted, right, 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:29.440 I love that phrase. Tell me what you mean by that. 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:32.480 Well, fear is like being shot from a cannon. I 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:35.840 interviewed a lot of people who'd been through life threatening situations, 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:39.640 and they experienced fear in those situations the way animals 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:43.880 probably do. And that was an extremely intense bolt of 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:48.280 alertness and energy that allowed them to react to the emergency, 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:50.719 whether it was a car accident or being mugged or 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:53.360 whatever it was. And then the feeling went away, the 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:56.920 hormones dropped, it was gone once they were safe, unless 0:08:56.920 --> 0:08:59.520 they had lingering trauma. And this is where our humans 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:02.000 can do things in our brains that are not good 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:04.839 for us that most other animals cannot. And that is 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:09.240 that the part of the brain that tells stories and 0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:13.960 thinks in logic and abstraction and time starts to tell 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:17.040 a story about how there is danger out there waiting 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:19.560 to get us. It's not in the room anymore, but 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:22.120 it could be back any second, and what if this happened, 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:24.760 and what if that happened? And just today, looking at 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:29.360 my Instagram feed, it was like a thousand terrifying stories, 0:09:30.000 --> 0:09:33.560 legitimately terrifying. Yeah, And I was saying when I got 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:35.439 on with you, if I'd known this would be happening 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:37.400 when I wrote the book, I may have shaped it 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:41.880 slightly differently, but you were reminding me that it's still true. 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:46.280 I'm in a completely comfortable room, well fed and housed 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:49.160 and healthy. There is nothing for me to be afraid 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:52.520 of right now. So looking at my Instagram feed and 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:56.240 painting a picture with my mind of a world that 0:09:56.440 --> 0:09:59.880 is very dangerous, pure anxiety, I just let myself f 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:03.600 into the trap of doing that again. But at least 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:04.640 now I know how to get out. 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:09.440 Yeah. So let's talk about separating these two things, because yes, 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:12.040 you and I were sort of extrapolating on this before 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:15.960 we started, which is that for certain people today, Let's 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:19.480 say you are an immigrant in the United States. Right now, 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:23.839 it's a time that I think it's reasonable to have feasts. 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:29.200 Absolutely and and well, here's the thing, that bolt of 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:33.800 fear that fills the body with cortisol and adrenaline and everything. 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:37.760 That's only for things that are physically here and now, 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:40.120 and it's so that you can fight, flee, or do whatever. 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:44.640 Then there is alertness and awareness, so I said, other 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:47.120 animals don't have anxiety because you know, if your dog 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:50.040 or cat is in a safe room, they relax, They 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:53.920 save their energy. I've watched an antelope get charged by 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:57.320 a lion and it took off running really fast, and 0:10:57.320 --> 0:10:59.880 the lion gave up and just stood there and panted, 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:03.920 and the antelope stopped immediately and went back to grazing. Like, 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:07.600 you don't waste any energy on that adrenaline response unless 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:12.240 you absolutely have to. However, if you are in the 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:17.160 African wilderness where I saw that, you'd better be very aware. 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:22.640 If you're not aware and alert, then danger will come 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:25.000 upon you and you might not have time to get away. 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:27.719 Once I was with some friends and we were relaxing 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:30.360 on this river bank in Africa, and I put my 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:32.319 head down on the sand because I wanted to see 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:35.320 if I could hear the footsteps of elephants. And I did, 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:37.920 and I was like, you guys, there are elephants. And 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:42.320 my friends were like, Marty, there are elephants. Get in 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:44.280 the damn jeep. And I was like, but I couldn't 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:49.080 hear their footsteps. That was stupid. That was just playing stupid. 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:52.280 I wasn't afraid when I ran over and got in 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:55.600 the jeep. But I was alert, and I was aware, 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:58.640 and I had a plan. That jeep was parked there 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:00.559 for a reason. We didn't go far from it, for 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:05.160 a reason we knew the boundaries. In the social science sociology, 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:08.720 they say that those who are not prepared to remember 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:11.079 the past are doomed to repeat it. I think that's 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:16.840 George Santeana. If we don't keep our wits about us now, 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:22.439 danger could very well come upon us quickly. And yes, 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:30.079 it is unfair and horrible that that risk is distributed equally. Yeah, 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:33.400 it's a scary time, and it's a time to not 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:36.800 get anxious, because if you're anxious, you fritter away the 0:12:36.960 --> 0:12:41.320 energy that you could have being alert, prepared, engaging with 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:44.600 your life and creatively trying to figure out what to do. 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:47.160 Yes, And I think what you just said there is 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:50.800 kind of the key to the game, because I always 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:53.640 go back to and I reference it a lot on 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:57.040 this show because it's one of the most foundational teachings 0:12:57.080 --> 0:13:00.160 I think that I know of, and it emanates of 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:02.600 the serenity prayer right, the courage to change the things 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:05.719 you can the acceptance. But there's a part of it 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:08.320 where Stephen Covey took it for me a step further, 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:10.240 and he talked about the circle of influence in the 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:13.320 circle of concern, and the thing about it that I 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:16.359 come back to again and again with all these situations 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:19.720 was his point was, if you spend all of your 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:25.600 time out in your circle of concern, worried, frightened, anxious, afraid, 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:28.760 your circle of influence shrinks. But the more time that 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:31.840 you put in your circle of influence, the more it grows. 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:35.320 And I think the corollary of that is what you're 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:41.079 talking about, which is this idea that being anxious doesn't 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:47.040 prepare us better to deal with the world. It exhausts uses, 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:53.800 it disheartens us, it discourages us, and so finding a 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:58.680 way to work with it skillfully actually makes us safer. 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:00.200 Yes, much. 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:02.520 But the thing about anxiety, and you alluded to this 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:04.520 in the beginning where you were like, oh, I think 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:06.280 it's not this thing to move away from. Is it 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:10.960 always convinces us that it's right? Yes, well, yes, I 0:14:11.000 --> 0:14:13.840 know anxiety is bad and I shouldn't be anxious except 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:18.440 I really have a reason to be this time, right, Yeah, 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:20.760 And it's not that you don't, it's just that it's 0:14:20.760 --> 0:14:23.800 a profoundly not useful response. 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:26.440 And it's based on such a weird factor of the 0:14:26.520 --> 0:14:30.600 human brain. And there's a neuroscientist named Ian McGilchrist who 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:34.600 writes brilliantly about this. The left hemisphere of the brain 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:37.320 is the one where most of the language and almost 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:42.000 all of the anxiety are located. My friend Jill Bolty Taylor, 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:44.960 who was a neuroanatomist who had a stroke, a left 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:48.560 hemisphere stroke, she said that working only with her right 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:52.280 hemisphere when she didn't have a left hemisphere, effectively there 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:56.600 was no anxiety whatsoever, no time, no fear, just presence. 0:14:57.240 --> 0:14:59.920 So what Ian McGilchrist and a lot of other neural 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:03.240 logists have written about is the part of the brain, 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:07.840 the left hemisphere, that generates most or all of our anxiety. 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:11.960 It has a characteristic called hemispatial neglect, which is so 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:14.440 weird and I don't really know the reason for it. 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:17.640 But people who have lost the right side of the 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:20.000 brain so they're only working with their left side of 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:22.120 the brain, the left side of the brain controls the 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:24.800 right side of the body and vice versa. So someone 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:28.120 only having a left hemisphere not only only works with 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:31.360 their right and left leg, they actually don't believe their 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:34.360 left arm and leg belong to them, or that they 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:38.440 even exist. They don't shave the left sides of their faces, 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:40.840 they don't look at people who are on their left. 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:43.840 It's this weird thing the left hemisphere has of believing 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:46.440 that it is the only thing in existence and that 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:50.800 it is absolutely right and its stories are the only truth. 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:53.000 So if you go online, you can see a lot 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:56.560 of left hemispheres screaming at each other. I know the 0:15:56.640 --> 0:15:59.880 truth and your perspective does not matter, is not real. 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:03.080 And that was a really amazing thing for me to 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:06.640 study because it describes so much of what I see 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:11.320 going on as people anxiously shout at each other. But 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:15.000 it's a very bizarre kind of mental illness really, and 0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:17.720 and McGilchrist says, we act like people who have had 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:20.600 a right hemisphere stroke, so it's very weird. 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:24.240 We did a fascinating episode. It's been several years ago, 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:27.600 but we had Jill Bolty Taylor on. We also had 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:30.160 a friend of mine. He was originally like a coaching 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:32.040 client and it just over the years of gon and 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:35.760 know him who did indeed have a right brain injury 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:39.480 really and still has a right brain injury, and his 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:44.120 recovery has been all about how does he bring that 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:45.480 right brain online? 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:46.400 Wow? 0:16:46.520 --> 0:16:49.080 You know, so he's kind of the opposite of Jill, right, 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:52.320 he was Jill's opposite. And I love the way when 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:54.560 you talk about this you do the standard disclaimer that 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:56.400 I think is worth doing real quick, which is so 0:16:56.520 --> 0:17:00.440 that all the neuroscientists can settle down, which is that, look, 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:03.120 of course, we are all using all parts of our brain. 0:17:03.280 --> 0:17:06.920 Brains connect, there's networks. It's not as simple as saying 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:09.800 this part of the brain does that. And you know, 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:12.080 the split brain experiments and all these different things show 0:17:12.160 --> 0:17:14.920 us there are very different ways. And I think that 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:17.800 some people, I think, get all into like it's all 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:20.879 should be all the right brain and it should be 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:25.440 the whole brain. The problem is that we are oriented 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:29.800 in one direction ninety eight percent of our time. It's 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:31.280 sort of like when we talk about being present and 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:32.760 people like, what are you just supposed to be present 0:17:32.840 --> 0:17:34.879 all the time? And I'm like, no, try it, Like, 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:36.840 let's try and get the ratio to like ten percent, 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:39.480 Like you know, like if I could get to ten 0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:41.720 percent present, I would take it, you know, like I 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:43.320 just need to move in that direction. And I think 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:45.840 it's the same thing, like we want to move in 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:49.480 the direction of wholeness. And I wanted to talk about 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:54.280 this because you recently talked about this very eloquently, and 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:56.200 it's going to take me a second, but well, actually 0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:58.600 I'm gonna let you do it, because you were talking 0:17:58.840 --> 0:18:04.439 about the idea of breakdown and to break through, and 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:07.480 then you went to talk about the double slit experiment. 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:09.600 So kind of walk me through this, because I think 0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:10.680 this is really important. 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:13.919 I have no memory of what you're talking about or 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:15.960 what I was smoking, but I'm going to follow that lead, 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:17.159 and you just tell me where I'm. 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:19.280 Off from, all right, I'll fill in the gaps, all right. 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:22.080 So I think that if you go long enough in 0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:25.439 a state of anxiety, which is a sort of false fear, 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:29.280 you do things. You create things in your psychological life 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:31.919 and also around you in relationships and the things you 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:35.960 build in the world whatever. You make things that are 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:40.840 inherently flawed because they are based on a limited version 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:43.280 of reality. So people who go out and sort of 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:46.960 build themselves a giant pyramid of power without any meaning 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:50.080 in it, they're creating something out of anxiety that is 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:53.560 destined to collapse, and so they will have breakdowns at 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:56.480 some point. And I had that when I was at 0:18:56.520 --> 0:18:58.600 Harvard and I had a child with Down syndrome, and 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:04.520 it broke down my whole concept of intellectual meritocracy and everything. Anyway, 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:06.959 you're gonna you're gonna break down if you feed that 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:12.639 wolf forever. So what happens then, though, is what the 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:16.960 left hemisphere sees as fragmentation and letting go is actually 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:22.040 gives space and permission for the meaning systems and the 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:25.639 perceptions that we see more with our right hemispheres to 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:30.280 come back into consciousness very fully, and if we can 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:36.160 contextualize both together, we'll be living in a really interesting paradox. 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:39.520 So when Jill had her stroke, her left brain went 0:19:39.960 --> 0:19:42.800 on and off for a while, and she was in 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:44.640 the shower for part of that thinking that it would 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:47.359 help this horrible headache she had. And she told me 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:49.800 that when her left brain was active, she saw her 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:52.640 hand against the tiles, and when her left brain went 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:57.159 off duty, so to speak, what she saw was not 0:19:57.320 --> 0:20:01.080 hand in tiles, but two intermingling fields of energy. And 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:07.040 both perceptions are accurate. So the double slit experiment pertains 0:20:07.080 --> 0:20:10.920 to this in that way. Back in nineteen twenty three, 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:13.080 so it's been more than one hundred years ago, someone 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:17.040 designed this experiment where if they shot little photons through 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:19.520 a screen that had two slits in it, it would 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:23.680 behave like water. If you threw two buckets of water 0:20:23.760 --> 0:20:27.440 through two slits, they would make a certain pattern where 0:20:27.480 --> 0:20:31.000 the water would disperse differently but then come back together 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:33.440 after it went through the slits. Then when they tried 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:38.320 to observe this process, what happened was completely different. The 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:41.520 photons went through the two slits and created two perfectly 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:44.560 vertical straight lines, as if you'd shot a number of 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:48.439 bullets through a screen. So one interpretation of this, and 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:51.840 has been the paradox of matter for as long as 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:57.120 I've been alive, is somehow, when consciousness is not observing 0:20:57.160 --> 0:21:01.600 or we're not measuring, what is happening to particles. They're 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:05.040 just waves of energy what Jill saw with only the 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:08.200 right side of her brain. When we're observing them and 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:12.800 controlling them, the probabilities of that energy cloud collapse into 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:14.800 a point and it looks like solid matter, and it 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:18.560 behaves like solid matter, and we are living in both 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:21.880 realities all the time. And I think when you get 0:21:21.920 --> 0:21:24.480 back to a balanced brain what you're talking about even 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:28.359 ten percent, if you get back into nature and you integrate, 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:31.359 your right brain starts to wake up the way it 0:21:31.400 --> 0:21:34.560 does my mind does. When I go into nature, you 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:40.560 begin to see a vast array of possibilities in reality 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:46.600 instead of the narrow, tight, circumscribed, nasty little lives. 0:21:47.800 --> 0:22:05.000 That our culture prescribes for us. 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:10.679 In my Zen training, we talk about this in the 0:22:10.720 --> 0:22:15.000 sense of the relative, in the absolute. The relative is 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:18.920 A good example would be think of like my hand, 0:22:19.480 --> 0:22:21.880 my hand. I could just describe it as my hand, 0:22:21.920 --> 0:22:23.679 and it is one hundred percent in my hand, and 0:22:23.720 --> 0:22:26.440 it does things that hands do, and luckily it works well, 0:22:26.480 --> 0:22:29.080 and it's all that. That's the absolute view. It's the hand, 0:22:29.160 --> 0:22:31.840 it's a whole thing. There's another view that is one 0:22:31.880 --> 0:22:33.840 hundred percent true at the same time, which is that 0:22:34.119 --> 0:22:37.840 these are all separate fingers. Yes, and these fingers are 0:22:37.880 --> 0:22:39.960 not the same as each other. This finger is different 0:22:40.000 --> 0:22:43.119 from that finger. That's different from that finger. And so 0:22:43.560 --> 0:22:46.120 I think what the physics pointed to, what the spiritual 0:22:46.200 --> 0:22:49.120