Welcome to the huberman lab, guest Series, where I and an expert, guest discuss science and science based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew huberman. And I'm a professor of neurobiology and Ophthalmology at Stanford school of medicine. Today, marks the fourth episode in our, for episode series with dr. Paul Conti about mental health. Today's episode deals with the topic of self-care, we hear the phrase self-care a lot nowadays, but rarely if ever is self-care precisely defined,
Instance is self care about pampering oneself. Is it about self-acceptance is self care about, just making sure we get enough sleep in enough exercise and have healthy relationships. Well, turns out that yes, indeed adequate self care is about all of those things but true self care. The topic of today's episode is about far more as it relates to our mental health true. Self care is also about constructing a life narrative in which we frame our past, our present, and future, in a way that allows us to see what's gone wrong.
What's going right? And the best path to navigate forward. So in many ways, true self care is really about fostering a sense of self-awareness and doing so within the context of a framework that is known to work and today, dr. Paul County shares with us exactly how to do that. He also touches on some of the things that if not properly understood and processed can inhibit our ability to take excellent care of ourselves, including how to properly process traumatic experiences. Something that he is expert in among many other.
Picks as well. He also touches on some of the things that can potentially serve as barriers to excellent self care, including traumatic experiences and explains how to frame those traumatic experiences so that we can best move forward. He also shares with us various practices that include therapy but also practices that we can carry out on our own such as specific forms of meditation journaling, and other ways of examining the self and fostering better self care toward our mental health. As I mentioned before, this is the fourth episode in our, for episode series.
He's all about mental health, I realized that perhaps not everyone has had the opportunity yet to listen to the previous three episodes in this series. If you haven't, it certainly won't prevent you from gleaning, important information and protocols from today's episode, but I do encourage you at some point to try and listen to all four episodes in this series because at some level they are interwoven at the level of Concepts and of practices, I'd also like to highlight the doctor Paul, Conte has generously provided some simple diagrams that can help you navigate today's material and the material.
In the other episodes they are available as zero cost. PDFs by simply going to the show. Note captions where you can view them or download them before we begin. I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to Consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public in keeping with that theme. I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is better help better help offers Professional Therapy with a licensed therapist carried out all on.
Online. I've been doing therapy for more than 30 years. Well, I confess that initially I was forced to do that therapy as a condition for being let back into high school over time. I learned that therapy is a tremendously valuable practice. In fact, I consider doing regular weekly therapy as just as important as doing regular physical exercise. In order to improve one's Health, the beauty of better help is that it makes it extremely easy to find a therapist that's excellent for you and we can define an excellent therapist to somebody who's going to give you a
Support. But in an objective way as well as somebody with whom, you can have excellent Rapport and that can help you arrive at positively transformative insights that you wouldn't have otherwise had. And with better help they make it convenient, so that it's matched to your schedule and the other aspects of your life. If you'd like to try better help. Go to better help.com huberman to get 10% off your first month. Again, that's better help, heelp.com. Hubermann. Today's episode is also brought To Us by waking up, waking up as a meditation app that offers
Offers dozens of guided meditation sessions, mindfulness, trainings Yoga, Nidra sessions and more. By now, there is an abundance of data showing that even short, daily meditations can greatly improve. Our mood reduce anxiety improve. Our ability to focus and can improve our memory. And while there are many different forms of meditation. Most people find it difficult to find and stick to a meditation practice, in a way that is most beneficial for them. The waking up app, makes it extremely easy to learn how to meditate and to care.
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Herman and now for my discussion about mental health with dr. Paul, Conte dr. Conte, welcome
back, thank you. Pleasure to be here
for this series. We've been focusing on mental health and really defining what mental health is and a roadmap to achieve mental health and in episode one, you laid out for us a map, essentially of the things that any and all of us can look at pretty much at any time with essentially any degree of resources.
Is to try and get a better understanding of ourselves. And how well, or not, well, we happen to be moving toward, we're creating true mental health for ourselves in addition to that, you spelled out for us what true mental health really is and just to recap a little bit of that, it really boils down to these verb State, action states of agency and gratitude. And then, in episode 2, you covered some of the common challenges that you've observed in life and in your
Practice. And we address some of the ways that people can overcome those challenges by going to the map opening, the so-called cupboards as we're referring to them and asking specific sorts of questions. And then, in episode 3, we talked about how looking at the map and exploring the map. In those Cupboards, in particular can help people in relational aspects of Life, romantic relationship, work relationships, family relationships, and the relationship to self. Yes.
Very important, very important,
the foundation of all relationships outside of ourselves,
and I'm so glad that you highlighted the relationship to self. Because today's episode, we will, of course, return to the map. And I should mention that. If people have not seen episodes one, two or three, that's okay. Today's discussion will be entirely accessible to them, but I do recommend that at some point, they especially listen to episode one and hopefully episodes 2 and 3 as well.
But today's discussion is really about the aspects of ourselves that exist in all people, and the action steps. The paths of inquiry that are available to all people that can allow anyone and everyone to improve their mental health, to move toward these ideals of agency and gratitude on a regular basis. Yes. And as you pointed out, it is a process. It's not that we arrived at agency and gratitude and just to reiterate
Agency, gratitude our verb States, they involve ways of being in the
world, they're active processes. Like, life is an active process, right? Is there's not an end point, we're trying to reach, right? We're trying to live
and in thinking about today's discussion, you know, it occurred to both of us really. That today's discussion is really about self-care, you know, as self-care as a concept. I think for many people evokes, Notions of like, okay, you're going to take a vacation or you going to kick your feet up or get
Massage, you know, things of that sort and certainly it can evolve those sorts of things. But just as if we were having a discussion about physical health, and we're going to talk about ways to take care of the physical body to enhance, Health span and lifespan. Today's discussion is really about how to take care of the internal landscape the Mind, Right? Which also qualifies very strongly as self-care. Yes. So if you would, could you tell us how you think about self-care, you know, regardless of whether or not you have a patient who's dealing with
Severe mental illness or somebody who's just, you know, hitting the same speed bumps of Life over and over again or anything in between, you know what, sorts of self care practices and mindsets. Do you suggest people take on for themselves and for that matter, how do you think about
self-care? Well, I think we start with with factors that are really just Baseline factors that have to be in place in order to achieve good things.
Upon them. So the basics of, you know, we have to be eating well, enough to feel, okay? And hopefully eating really well, we have to stay hydrated, we have to get sleep, we have to move the body. These are Basics, but Basics, a lot of people are not attending to. Similarly, we have to be in a situation that isn't making fear and misery all the time. So an example of an abusive relationship, right? A person is to be tested navigate out of that before they can really start taking care of themselves in the way that builds goodness.
So we look for the basic factors that we need to take care of in order to then. Look at the factors that become particular to each of us. And what we're really looking for is self-understanding, right? How much can we understand about ourselves be knowledgeable about what's going on inside of us why it's going on also? And very importantly being aware that we don't know everything that goes on inside of us and being curious about that. And looking at how we're engaging with the world around
Around us are, do we feel happy? Do we not feel happy. How do we Define? What happy Means, how are we engaging with the world? Because as you're saying the agency and gratitude are verb state. So how are we living life? How we engaging with the world? Do we feel like life is a sequence of things I have to do? You know? For example, right. Or we doing things, we really, really don't want to do, right? Do we have to do those things? How could life be different, right? We start looking at ourselves, too.
Assess, how were engaging with ourselves, the people the world around us in a way that is either generative or not generative if we're in that state of agency and gratitude and we are going to have periods of time where we feel peaceful, right? We feel sense of contentment or we feel delighted. So is any of that in my life right? If not why can I start thinking about that? Sometimes the answer is quite clear like oh there's this thing. I love and I'm not doing that right? And I
I can't do it and then you revisit like, is it true that you can't do it? I mean, a lot of times it is not true and if it is true, how does the person come to terms with that process that perhaps grieve, right? So, say, if it's a loss of a person, right that can keep people, you know, in terrible misery, over years and years. So there may be things, we have to understand, we have to process so that we can get ourselves to that place of knowing ourselves pretty well. And engaging in the world in ways that we have a pretty good understanding of and that that are
And then we look to say, okay now, how do I make that better? Because now we're thinking about preventive medicine, right? We want our bodies to be healthy because of course we want to be healthy today, right? But we also don't know what will happen in the future, right? Will there be an injury or an illness? I mean eventually like you know we all have an injury or an illness in some way or another. So we're preparing for the predictable challenges that will come our way in the future. And we're well served by doing this about our Mental Health.
With two right, there will be challenges that come our way, there will be losses and stressors and things that make us feel bad or feel scared. Maybe these things will happen to us. So the healthier we are the better today is and the better. We set ourselves up to either make tomorrow even better today or tomorrow gives me a challenge. I don't have today. I can meet that challenge and get back to a better place.
So, if I understand correctly, it sounds like one of the cornerstones of self-care for sake of Mental Health.
Involves asking really good questions about oneself. Yes. Yes. I don't think I've ever heard it defined that way before. Yes, you know, it's in such stark contrast to the other forms of self-care which I certainly subscribe to as well. Like making sure one gets enough rest and you know, avoids toxic people to the extent one can Etc or toxic environments and so on,
right? You mentioned ask questions of the self, but the logical next question to that is
As well. What questions do I ask myself? Sometimes we know we have an idea, right? Sometimes we don't and this is where the construction of a life narrative. Look, let me think about my life. Let me potentially talk about my life with a trusted other person. Let me potentially write down a narrative about my life and we can learn so much from doing that. So, the person who thinks back and starts to tell the story of themselves, and let's say just as an example, you know,
Story is going pretty well, and the person is feeling pretty good about themselves and then say something happens and it starts to change what then this thing happened. And then, you know, I started kind of spending time with different people or I started dating different people or I took a different kind of job and and it can engender the reflection of like, oh, things really kind of changed then because because the emotion systems within us, don't care about the clock or the calendar. The
Motions often of negative experiences can back map into our lives and someone who can tell you, I was miserable ever since I was a child, can then write out a life narrative, that describes a very happy childhood until something happened or something. Change at a certain point, which could be something dramatic, or it might be increasing pressures of school or increasing social pressures or how things changed at puberty, right? And if we have an understanding of that, we may know the right questions like for example
Simple let's say, afterwards, the person finds it, they're drinking more. So, an example with a common example instead of taking that for granted, oh, that's what I do, right? Or the, I can't cope any better. Write the negative things people will say to themselves. The Narrative can often point out, I can cope better, I did cope better. I did feel differently about myself so the life narrative can really help us, establish the roadmap, right? And part of what the life narrative does is it guides us to the places to ask the questions.
If you would be so kind as to tell us a
little bit more about how one would do this on their own. So is this involve journaling things out? I confess, I have a file on my computer that has a bunch of other files that starts with, you know, age 0 to 5. And then I have some notes in there. It's not an autobiography far from it. It's just kind of highlights of events that I remember, you know, six to 10 and so on and a places I lived and I use it just to
Of Orient myself in time. Yes, I actually don't know what the the purpose and utility of it is why I initially started doing this but it's an important file to me and when I return to it I often remember additional key events. So it's constantly growing. I mean, that the files are getting quite large again, with no specific, purpose of writing this out at any point, but just to orient, right?
Right. You, you can't not learn about yourself.
From doing that, right? It exposes truths of self. It makes you ponder about things. It draws your attention to ways in which you've changed. Whether you think those ways are good or bad, right? I do the it draws your attention to change it. Draws your attention to the impact of external events. And as you said, it's sort of grounds. You, it provides way of localizing oneself in time like I am here now. Wait, how did I get here, right? And the thoughts, and ideas of how we got here, very much helped us because often we don't do that, you know.
Sort of rushing headlong forward. Because in many ways, our society is prompting as we live in a very fast-moving Society, we want information in ratification and often, we don't even want it very fast but it's coming at his very fast anyway, and to stop and reflect makes a very, very big difference. Even at even to think at times Beyond Our Generations right into the best of my knowledge. The vast majority of people on one side of my family, everyone was a Shepherd for like every generation until like,
Two ago, right? And thinking about that I was like huh? That's interesting, right? It makes me mainly, he's grateful, so grateful for the opportunity I've had but I also think I while they lived in close-knit communities then and what was that like and, you know, we begin to see ourselves in a broader way both in our own history, and then projecting forward, which which sometimes is about children and nurturing children, but it can certainly be about other things. It can be about friendship, it can be about work. So we start to see ourselves in ways.
That are interesting that are through the lens of Truth and that speak to our place in the world around us. And I think this in genders both agency and gratitude, right? If I'm aware of like home, what have I done? What have I accomplished when haven't, I accomplish things? How might that be different? And in a sense of gratitude for being here, and having opportunity, and even be able to think about this, you know, my guess is, when you read through those files that, at some point, you have to have a sense of Marvel. Why like, whoa, that's me.
Right? Whether it's a good memory or it's a difficult memory, know it's all part of you that lead you through to today and you do have a better sense of self through
that one of the feelings. I most often come away from those excursions into those files with is one of gratitude because so much of what's in those files Recollections of others that I really appreciate some are still alive some aren't and what that's meant.
Me and how that carries me forward. Yeah, so that's what I do. I'm sure there are a near infinite number of ways that people could do this. But what, our view that you've seen work really well that people can do on their own, or perhaps with a clinician as well. In fact that raises the question should people share this sort of practice and the contents of that practice with with a trusted
clinician, right? Yeah, I think sharing within with another person always should be a try.
Stood other, right? And we can kind of take stock of that, you know, of people have an idea of who may be safe, right? Often people. So there's no one, I could share something with. But really that often comes through lens of fear, you know, of exposure of self of rejection of vulnerability, which often is warranted. But sometimes is not sometimes they really are. In fact, often there are safe people. So the, the act of doing something other than just thinking about something brings, as you all know it, it brings
Parts of our brain online that then our thinking in a different way. So, for example, they may bring error correction mechanisms online. So if I'm thinking over and over again, that I've never been good enough to do anything, you know that can be just automatic inside of me, but if I start to write, or to talk or even to formulate words to talk to myself or to put words in my mind, as if I were talking, now we come at it in a different way and we can to ferret out the truth within us, which
Might be, you know, it's not true that I've never been able to do things or achieve things. And and people often bring that online by doing something other than the same thought process. That's gone often over and over and it's non productive and it brings down mood and it raises anxiety. And it also builds a sense of futility. I mean, I cannot tell you how often I've heard a person say like no good. Will come of this or like, okay, try, I will try, but I know I can't be up. I've been thinking about this for 10 years or 20.
Years. But what they've been doing is the same thing. They've been ruminating on it for 10 years, they start talking about it. And people will say, oh my goodness, I have achieved more in two hours, you know? Then I then I did in years, right? But that's because you're doing something different in the two hours. So I think that's very important, especially because we can't say, okay, go look in your unconscious mind and see what you find there, right? So then we need ways of accessing the unconscious mind and the communication either with
self in writing with others. Can be very, very helpful in doing that. I also I'm a firm believer that knowledge is power. Many times I will feel like I've I'll have a sense of really having help someone and the other person may have that sense and we can see the change and all that I've done is impart knowledge, right? When we all know different things. So often it's the case that a I happened to have learned things that are different from what that other person. Learns it
Nine communicating to them things that I have learned. So they know them too. And then they feel tremendously better because if we put inside of ourselves, the tools of understanding our unconscious minds and sometimes our conscious Minds to, we'll work on them will make use of them. So, if you talk to a person, for example, about how trauma can impact Us and how we can shove it underneath the surface and how it can spin off shame, then that person may take that knowledge away and come back with
Real understanding and the fact that we can do this on our own, right? We can do this through good resources we can do this by taking information into ourselves that can be very, very helpful and it doesn't require because the first place to start our with things we can do that. Don't require professional help, right? And and sometimes we may come at problems that that do, tell us that we should get professional help, right? So if we're having thoughts of self-harm thoughts of not wanting to be alive thought,
Real despair, thoughts of will, of hopelessness that's telling us. Okay, let's get some help. There's a role in a place for professional help, but people come to professional, help in other ways, too. Such as, for example, reflecting on the self. And, and to real example, person thinking, you know, I really became kind of different when, you know, when things started changing, like, after college. And then I thought, like, oh, I've kind of gotten to this place, and I've got a good job and like things really should get better.
Her. But like they kind of have it dry and that was really a branch point that person may have never really thought about that or they may have thought about it 10,000 times, is then shoved it underneath from from Consciousness to unconsciousness because it's a scary vulnerability inducing thing, it seems scary, like how could it be that I achieve things and didn't get healthier now, we're afraid of that, right? And, and letting that come to the surface being able to say, oh like that's true. Like I don't have to be afraid to shine light on that.
Then a lot of times that alone, sometimes a person will solve their own problems. They think about it, they come in, they have all the answers. They thank me. I did nothing but listen, but the listening part is important. It, allow them to come in and say what they needed to say and other times, then it's not, it can be that, but it's not always that other times it informs us about what to work on clinically and it might not be something that's dire, right? It might just be like, I want to understand this. I want to be happy. I want to be healthy. I want to work towards these good things when people talk about that.
That they're always, if you really distill down, what are they talking about? Since a piece, a sense of contentment, coming at the world through agency and gratitude and and we can do that through self-inquiry including through therapy. It doesn't have to just be for situations where oh there's a significant clinical
problem. Is it the case that when somebody journals a bit of their life narrative or thinks about great or sadly traumatic events that perhaps happen to them?
At whatever stage of life that there's something accomplished in that action or in that therapy session, if they're doing it with a clinician. But that when they go to sleep that night and perhaps in their waking States as well, that the unconscious is working some of that through such that Revelations, come to mind later. Insights come to mind. You know, I'm certainly familiar with the fact that there are certain times of day and evening wear my
Brain is in a bit of a liminal state. It feels like somewhere between sleep and awake and I just have learned that provided, I block against outside sensory input as much as I can, in particular social media and the news that I'll just be, you know, doing the dishes or preparing coffee or something, and something will come to mind. Seemingly out of nowhere. It's not always a great Insight. In fact, it's rarely a great Insight, but it always takes me a bit by surprise. Sometimes a little bit of delight, sometimes a little bit.
Chocolate while like, where did that come from?
Because it came from your unconscious mind, right? Was invisible to you. Then it got thrown up and you won't. You realize it while in the midst of doing something relatively mundane, right? Because during the day you're engaging, your brain is highly engaged, which is great, but it doesn't leave a lot of room, right? For the unconscious mind to do its millions and millions of things, a second that can help you figure things out, which is the same reason, mean it's uncanny, any any psychiatrist will tell you this, that people
'well, person will come in and say it's strange, you know, all of a sudden when when I can finally relax. Like, that's when I have a panic attack, right? Or they don't know like then I can finally relax. I go. Ah ah then my heart's beating fast, and I'm sweating, right? Because that's when the panic attacks come. If the person is laboring under something that is that is causing them. This would constant distress when when you stop focusing outward and you sort of settle into an inward State, then,
Things that are underneath. The surface are going to come to the surface and through something. Really bothering you that your brain is very upset about a very afraid of what is it throw up to the surface? A panic attack, right? But if you're in a good place, you're taking care of yourself, you're in a generative stage, you're in a safe environment. Then when you, you stop putting all the attention outward. So we imagine then salience changes. And instead of a lot of the sailings being outward, it starts to be Inward and you're just sort of meditative you're washing the dishes, right? And there's room then.
Then for your unconscious mind to throw something important to the surface. It's the exact opposite of how people can't. Remember something if they're trying to think of it. I mean, we all go through this, like, I can't remember that person's name or that restaurant, or whatever. It is, try to keep thinking about it and see if you figure it out, right. The answer is not in your conscious mind. So if you keep bringing your conscious mind to Bear, you just generate frustration, right? But then, when you stop thinking about the answer is there inside of you. Oh, I remember now.
Right? So, so that's how if we, if we have the conscious mind engage in something, it's not going to figure out right. Then, it doesn't figure the thing out, right? And and that works for our problems too. That's why a person can say by thought about that. For ten years will, you ruminated about it for 10 years? It just ran over and over and over in the conscious mind and how ironic that it prevents understanding.
So it's very clear to me that asking certain kinds of questions about oneself and one's self narrative life, history, essentially can be very beneficial in the moment or moments of doing that practice as well as the subconscious or I guess the, the appropriate way to refer to it as the unconscious, right. Okay. So, for those out there who like me sometimes say subconscious, it's unconscious, the unconscious can throw things up to the surface that can be real in.
Likes can it can give us not just panic attacks, which I think most people would like to shy away from. But as you point out, there's information in the fact that the panic attack is occurring under right conditions and if we
stir up the pot of the unconscious and you put some new information in, it can do new things, it can figure new things out which is why the process of self-reflection. For example, and often the process of therapy is not always, and in fact often is not a pleasant process, right? But then we take
Take away from that hard work, renewed insights. So someone this happens all the time, who knows? They know that a certain promise is inside of them and has been affecting them whether it's for days or weeks or years, they know it. They don't know what to do about it. They have a conflict about it. So they keep trying to shove it under the surface and they finally accept for whatever reason to talk about it. And and what often happens, then is, let's say doing three or four successive.
Of weeks of hourly therapy. Mean that person is crying and that person is upset or but person is angry, but it doesn't always happen this way. But it does a fair amount of the time as they get better and better, right? Because they're discharging some of the energy, right? Maybe they're crying. And they're sad because they're grieving something they haven't grieved before, right? Because they've just been angry right or they've just been ashamed. A classic example is the death. I mean, how many times do people think well, that can't be still affecting me? It was X. Number of
Of years ago but they've never actually grieved because they carry in them. Oh, it was my fault. Right. And how many times do we hear that? I should have said something different before I should have gone. You know, we then back map something that makes us feel bad. And then from the guilt and shame comes the inability to process grief. So if the person then deals with right, I feel so bad about this. In fact, I feel so ashamed of it and I feel like it's my fault. It's okay. Well let's talk about that.
Right after my after my brother's death by Suicide, I felt responsible. I was not involved in any way in mental health, I had a business career at the time and I finally went and saw someone, I wasn't acculturated that getting therapy with something. One did but I realized, hey, I'm not okay, right? So I didn't know, I didn't know how, right? I just knew the manifestation of it, which was misery and risk. And, you know, I could just tell like
I know what it feels like to not feel like this and this is not okay. So so then I, you know, I called the insurance number eventually I going and, and see a therapist and, you know she did, I'm sure she was a very good therapist but she didn't innocence need to be in the sense that sometimes we don't need to use all the things we know, we can do, just something basic with someone. And that's all she did with me. I mean, she got me talking about it. And I talked about how ashamed I was, because it was my fault and then you really, and then she challenged me about that and then, you know, in a nice way. But then it was,
Clear that I was so utterly shocked by it right far from it being foreseeable to me, right? That, that the problem that I was having now was the shock of it and the sense of Shame and guilt that it raised in me. And then me shoving it under the surface not knowing what to do with it. Then it's making all sorts of misery in me and I can't actually grieve, right? So at some point, during those sessions, now I'm sad and I'm crying, right? And and I know what she was thinking, right? She good.
Good. Okay, this is like this. Thank goodness, this person getting better, but I felt a sense of relief because she could see him. He's, he's coming out of risk. He's able to feel sadness. He's able to grieve. He wasn't been doing this before, you know. So it's that, it's that work weight. If we put into it, that makes a difference. Just as when physical health. I mean, if I want to be stronger, I want to be more robust, like I have to go to the gym and work or I have to do something that's that's hard work and then I get the benefit of it and the same is true whether we're reflecting on our life.
Then, it brings, you know, some difficult emotions to us or whether we're talking with someone or whether we're doing it in therapy, but that's all that that process of inquiry leads us, you know, to take some of the gordian knots in us, so, to speak in and to cut them instead of trying to figure out like, how am I going to feel okay about myself even though I'm responsible for my brother's death because I should have foreseen. I mean that dog that doesn't work, right? You have to stick. I see what that thing is, and that has to go away, right? And then therapy can lead us to the
point where it wasn't my fault. And, oh my goodness, I'm sad.
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I can see how self-inquiry is really powerful. I've certainly experienced that in my own life and it's an ongoing process. Right. This is not something that one does and then stops ideally, you do it forever, just like physical fitness and at the same time, I know that a number of people perhaps are wary of self-inquiry, especially because of the pain points it can bring about and make conscious and that we have to really sit with and most people would like to avoid discomfort. I'm sure
There are also people who are doing quite well in life and therefore think, oh, you know, pattern or self-inquiry, all it could do. It sounds like there's more harm, like why would I want to do that? But I think we both agree that there's nothing but good and progress and more agency and gratitude to be had by going through patterns of
self-inquiry. And I think that really highlights something very important which is that self-inquiry isn't always the right answer. Now I think just because things are going well.
That doesn't mean self-inquiry isn't the right thing to do cellphone. Curry is always the right thing to do if we want to understand ourselves better, unless we're in a place where it can bring real risk to us. So when I was trying to think about myself inquire, why was I so miserable? What's going on in me? Yeah, I reached a point where I realize like, I'm not getting myself anywhere and I'm getting worse and like, this is now this is not good for me. Because where do they self-inquiry lead me to more guilt and shame. So then at some point I sort of pulled the ripcord
Board. Right on. It's like I can't do this on my own anymore, right? And and that's very, very important to anyone who's listening. If you feel like, I don't think I'm in a safe or a stable place again, thoughts of self-harm thoughts of hopelessness then then it probably is not or let's err on the side of being cautious, right? It is not a good idea.
Then to engage in
self inquiry. Right? First go, see someone clinically right and, and I know that can be hard to do and this day and age. But if we really advocate for ourselves, we really pushy.
We really, we do whatever we can do to try and get in front of someone who can kind of help us understand what we may need. And maybe that person helps us with the process of self-inquiry, maybe that person reassures us. Maybe that person, then tells us that we really do need you, no more care, more help and then it leads to us getting that so that we can come back to the good place of being well enough for the
self-inquiry.
I'm grateful you shared your path to working with a clinician and the fact that just focusing on something on your own wasn't really working and there was a sounds like a requirement for a clinician to help guide you through that it relates directly to what I'm most curious about at this moment. Which is you know in the map that you established for us in episode 1 and that has carried through all these episodes. And and by the way of people are not familiar with the map, we cover it in top.
Or in a little bit more depth in a moment here, but one of the key things as or cupboards as were referring to them to look in in order to exert, self care and improve one's mental. Health, is this notion of self awareness of a really understanding that there's an ime and exploring what that's really about in the moment. But also historically through narrative, Etc. Also, in this map is a covered that relates to salience what's
Most obvious. What do we default to both internally? In terms of what sorts of thoughts, we default to and externally? What are we focusing on in the outside world? And I think I and perhaps many other people out, there are wondering how to resolve any conflict between a practice that is aimed at increasing self-awareness and perhaps even drawing to mine early traumas or challenges or recent traumas are challenges and salience. In other words,
If I were to take some moments or even an hour once a week and sit there, and really like think about the sorts of things that I don't want to think about like that, that have been gnawing at me below the surface for a very long time. The stuff that I gained some proficiency at pushing down beneath the surface, I think one fear that I have. And so I have to assume other people have it as well, is that if I were to bring that to mind, that it would overtake a lot of my waking hours like it.
Like I don't want to think about this thing or those things and so now what Salient is something - and when I'm focused on something - then I'm not able to be as generative as I would like, you know, move my life moved forward toward my life goals. Now I I could even have the realization the the cognitive understanding that. Okay. That's but that's necessary, right? Like this is like getting a wound fixed or dealing with a chronic injury like sooner or later, you gotta deal with it. Otherwise you're not going to be at your best but that
Conflict between gaining more self awareness. And also, the understanding that what is most Salient to us, is kind of defines the quality of our daily life that that conflict or friction. Seems like an important thing for us to drill into a little
bit. Absolutely. And I would say this, if you think there's something that you can't bring up into Consciousness because it's going to take over your mind or is people often say I'm going to curl up in a fetal position. I'm going to cry and never stop. That is
Exactly. The thing. You must look at because salience presents itself in a whole array of ways. So, if there's something inside of you, that's that strong enough, right? That it's throwing itself up to the surface, like, hey, maybe you want to think about me, right? As your unconscious mind, throwing it up to the surface. That is active in you and often it. Although a lot of it happens in the unconscious mind, it happens also in the conscious mind.
And if the person then stops and thinks how much might that thing that you are not thinking about be impacting, you how might it be Salient in other ways? And sometimes a person will realize like, yeah, that's all my mind. People say, oh, that's on my mind. He all the times. I kind of on the back burner, but always there and he's always, right? What are we on the back burner that, you know, that's like having a voice in the background telling you something, you know, very - a very distressing and it's just one example.
There were often times there's a realization that that thing is actually quite Salient. Sometimes there isn't a realization until later. Oh the salience of that is that I that's how we're that's. Why I don't let myself get ahead, right? They can come out later because you know, we don't know how much of it is unconscious. How much of it is conscious but but under the right circumstances, if things are safe and as we said, if there's not something going on that presents risk and warns clinical care,
R. If there's something inside of you and you think I can't let that to the surface. Then what that is telling you is, I must let that to the surface. Now again, we want to do it injudicious ways, and do it in ways that are safe. But that's, that's the message.
I think it's especially important that you mentioned. That if something is gnawing at our conscious mind, every once in awhile, then it absolutely has to be operating below the level of our conscious awareness be running.
All the time of of Consciousness. Yes. So if ever there was a cause for exploring something like that. That's it. Right? Because we can't be aware of the ways that's damaging to us or limiting us again, you know, somebody listening to this could be doing quite well thing. I'm doing great. I why would I want to do any of this? Well, perhaps they could be doing that much better, right? Absolutely self-awareness and addressing one's personal narrative and a sense of I is what we
Called cupboard one under the function of self. Now for those that listen to episodes 1 2 or 3, they'll be familiar with what I'm talking about when I say a cupboard cupboard, one function of self but just for sake of getting everybody on the same page as we move forward here, maybe we could just return to the map of mental health for a moment. We've talked about agency in gratitude as a verb States and you also described in previous episodes this ski really essential
Depth of this generative drive. So, if you could just take a few minutes for us and really explain what agency ingratitude are, how one goes about building those up and expressing those and what the generative Drive is, and then we'll return to the 10 cupboards of inquiry under the structure of self and function of self, which really represent the pillars and and all the stuff that geysers up into these simple, but extremely powerful Concepts and ways of being, which our agency and gratitude.
Dude, yes, yes. So I really liked when you brought the image of a geyser right to mind because if we think about the structure of self, which is one pillar and the function of self, which is another pillar underneath those pillars there, the 10 cupboards we've been talking about and they represent the areas of inquiry for us because they're the aspects of the structure and function of self. So that's where the answers are.
Write the answers are in those pillars. The answers are in those 10 cupboards. So, if we're doing that, we're looking there. We're honoring what we find there. Were becoming healthier than that geyser, right? I imagine it coming out, you know, like the spacing between the pillars. Right. And and what it is lifting up is first empowerment and humility but empowerment and humility are qualities. Is certainly the way and the way we're using them.
I'm their qualities are potential. So I have empowerment as opposed to being disempowered, right? So I have humility instead of, for example, a reactive grandiosity or even a reactive self oppression, right? So I have these qualities of empowerment in humility and then they become enacted, right? They become expressed by us. And I imagine riding on the top is the agency and the Gratitude is at the top of the geyser, and it's moving, right?
Verbs, we navigate life, as life moves forward, right? I will often think, like, being on, like, the luge right in the sea, in the Olympics, with prices, going down the twisting path. And it's like, that's us moving through life, right? And we all have different Pathways, but they can interconnect and they can cross. But that's what's happening. Living is an active thing. So agency and gratitude are active things, why? Because they're the ultimate
Ultimate expression of all underneath of it of them, that's where it goes. If the pillars are in the right place, the geyser can function, the empowerment and humility are with us. So we're engaging with ourselves with others, with the world through a lens of clarity and through a lens of knowing we can make the world a better place and knowing our role in it. That's very, very active and then it brings to us, the peace, the contentment, the Delight that weaves in and out, as
You describe that you will feel the peace, the contentment the Delight when you're doing the solo podcasts, right? But you're doing something very very active, right? That's not, it's not a passive Endeavor, right? During which you feel all those things, but that makes sense. Right? Piece doesn't mean nothingness right now, it can someone who's looking out the window with the garden? They planted can feel that too, but there's life going on in them also right there, they're contemplating the garden. They know that they
Made the garden. So these are all active processes because life is an active process. And then we end up in this place of looking inside of us, these drives within us are both deterministic and determined. Right? Think about how active a process that is where we have a natural bias, one way or another. Because of our genetics, just like someone has a natural aptitude to be taller in someone shorter or to be more or less athletic but we have
Potential within us when the genetics come together and that may determine some sort of set of parameters. So so maybe someone who doesn't have the blessings of being so athletic. Perhaps myself, right? I'm not going to be the world's greatest athlete, right? But if I work hard, like, I could be a lot more athletic and have been at times, right? And if I don't, I could be a lot less athletic, right? So so there are potentials within us that get sued
A genetically determined, but have a wide array of a variance around them and then our choices determine where we are in that variance. If I don't take care of myself, I will be on the very low end of the athletic Spectrum, right? If I do and I cultivate myself, you know, I can be on a higher end for me, right? But still that's a lot better than the lower end. There's a very big difference. The same is true in our drives. So
So the more we're taking care of ourselves, we're reinforcing the Primacy of the generative drive and then the aggression, assertion proactive that Drive-In us is realized as best, we're going to realize and not everyone's is going to be off the chart, right? And that's okay. Right. But but that drive is in a place that lets that person take care of themselves, you know, have a job they enjoy and can do well at and make their home.
Life better or whatever it is that we can do. Like, we're more assertive, we're more engaged and then that's bringing us more pleasure. So the pleasure drive, it's not a hedonistic drive, it's try for things, we enjoy, like we enjoy safety. We enjoy absence of pain but we also enjoy friends and romance and sex and food like these are things that bring us gratification and we can have that in a healthy place to. So there's not too much and not too little of the aggression assertion
Proactive drive, not too much, not too little of the pleasure drive and then we're in a place where we can meet where those drives are at. So if the pleasure Drive is in a certain place, in us, we can meet that. Right? And maybe we Foster, it moving a little higher up because we're doing good things and we're taking care of ourselves. So if our romance is in a better place, you know, then we can take more pleasure in our romance. Right? If our physical fitness is in a better place, we can enjoy that more, right?
We can do more things. So we are helping those drives to be in the optimal place. To subserve, the generative Drive, which we are trying to optimize and maximize and that puts us in the best place to have the things under those pillars, in those Cupboards in a good place. And then, on top of that geyser, is the empowerment in the humility. And then that gets enacted as agency and gratitude and we have more of the goodness of people.
Peace and contentment and delight, and that reinforces the generative drive. So that's what's going on and it is never failed me yet to read or listen to someone communicating happiness. Either, what they think it is, how they found it, what they're striving for what they think it philosophically is right, it's all that, right? And it's not as simple as a word, right? But because it's
Plex were complex but the beauty of it all is the complexity is within us but it's not out of our reach to understand ourselves better and help ourselves. And if we do that, as we move further up the hierarchy, it gets simpler approaching the world through agency and gratitude as verbs and it's pretty straightforward. That's why that's the best metric for romantic compatibility, right? It's not this person plays a musical instrument and that
The mathematician. So they're not compatible. No more than one plays. The trumpet one plays the clarinet and we assume they are compatible. Where are those drives? Add our people healthy in a healthy place. We can then take the best care of ourselves. Engage with others in a healthy way, understand who's a healthy other to engage with, right? Get ourselves out of unhealthy situations. And then we're building Health within ourselves and around ourselves and that's how at the different
Levels of emergence things, get better. So if I make myself healthier and you make yourself healthier, we will be healthier as a group of to, that's always how that is. And if we're healthier as a group of to, we can be healthier as parts of larger groups, right? Where if the groups aren't healthy, we're pushing towards greater Health, right? We're in gendering health. And that's how we see Health grow until it can be manifest, even on a cultural level where we're taking better care of
Cells, were less. Punitive, we're less rushing forward as a society and trampling the vulnerable, right? And we realize, oh, I could be the vulnerable, right? I care about other people, even if I don't know them, because I can understand and empathize with what it feels like to be vulnerable. And furthermore, I could be among the vulnerable. So we behave differently as a culture and that's what we're searching for on an individual level, all the way up to a cultural
level.
I have several questions. But first, I want to just highlight what you said about relational structure relationships. And the fact that as was explored in episode 3, and you made so clear and it just makes so much sense. Most of what people explore for, when looking for a romantic partner or determining whether or not their existing romantic relationship. Could be better or not is focused on the wrong things, right? These, these
Kind of superficial Notions of what people enjoy and even level of Education, some of which can really matter but that's not the critical issue at hand and that the maps that the two individuals have and the extent to which there are expressing their generative drive and agency. And gratitude is far far more important. And so for those that haven't heard episode 3 and are interested in relationships, not just romantic relationships, but relationships of all kinds work families.
Relationship to sell friendship. I highly, highly recommend listening to that conversation because it's, it's truly spectacular. In terms of it's actionable, takeaways in by actual well, I mean, actions, of course, behaviors, and also modes of thinking they can really serve people. I also just want to make one clarification that. I believe, that when you said hierarchy, when when you said move up the hierarchy, you were referring to the hierarchy within the, within the map that's been laid out here, right? As opposed to, I don't want
The yet mistakenly distracted by the possibility of we're talking about some sort of like external social hierarchy. So I just want to clarify that and that's actually a perfect jumping-off place for going into the map with a little bit more depth and detail and exploring. These cupboards that reside at the lower levels of the map and that are quite complex. Okay, so for those of you listening who have not yet gone and access to the PDF that we put in the show, no captions you can do that at any point.
But what we're talking about is a bunch of things down at the bottom under these two pillars structure of self and function of selfies, cover cupboards, excuse me, that are extremely valuable for any and all of us to look in and explore and ask specific questions because it's what resides within those cupboards that combined in a sort of recipe and then guys are up into whether or not and how much empowerment humility agency? Gratitude peace contentment Delight.
And generative drive. We are able to exert an experience for ourselves in life. So imagine any in your minds if you will. And here, I'm borrowing directly from a picture model that dr. Conte provided before the filming of this series which is an iceberg where below the surface of the water resides a bunch of stuff. And then a little bit is above the water and maybe you'll help us revisit that model. Now for a few moments, but if you take nothing away,
At this moment, please understand that there's a lot of complex stuff going on underneath the surface of the brain and mind, but a key feature of this map is that while it is very very complex underneath.
What emerges from that complexity gets simpler and simpler, especially as we move towards places of Better Health and more Effectiveness in life. So if you would, could you, you know, describe the map in a bit more detail, especially what's down there in these pillars, the complex stuff and the stuff that we should be looking at. And then we'll touch on some of those cupboards that we all have and the sorts of questions that we should all be asking in the context of some common challenges. But also
so some very common and very effective paths to doing and feeling
better, mmm-hmm yes, yes. The unconscious mind is the place to start because that's the deepest level of the structure of self. So, imagine imagine sitting on top of a biological, super computer, the size of a house, right? That's what's going on inside of us. Write the unconscious mind is that biological supercomputer, and if we're interested in ourselves,
We become very, very curious about what is going on in it. And, and that's where, even though it's not directly accessible to us, it can be accessible through other ways, such as we talked about reflection or therapy. Of course, there are other ways to but it is accessible to us. And we want to know what is in it because what it is in, it has such a strong effect on what's going on in our conscious mind, right? That's the
Person on top of the biological supercomputer, the size of a house or the the image we've been using is the top of the iceberg that's coming out of the water so we can look at that. Either way. But what is in it has of course a huge effect on the part that we're aware of our conscious mind and I think the best analogy here and sexy, I think quite a analogy that parallels very well is to an abscess in the field of Physical Medicine. So an abscess
Is an area of Walled off infection, right? So imagine that there's some infection. For example is often in the abdomen. There's there's some infection and that infection could be really dangerous, right? If that infection spread, but it could go to the blood that the person could could die from that, right? So the body does a really good job of Walling off that infection, right? And that's a good thing, right? Because if the infection weren't walled-off, it poses huge.
Risk. But the walled off infection does not represent a condition of health. So someone who has an abscess in them and doesn't know it. This happens frequently in medicine and we see people coming to emergency rooms and you know, they have a low-grade fever and they have had a low-grade fever for a while and this don't feel good and they have low energy and they're not sleeping. Well and they find themselves sweating. A lot there are pervasive experiences going on that are really detracting.
From life, like not feeling great all the time. Even though the person doesn't feel really sick, that's sometimes why it takes a while for the person to come to medical attention. So what's going on? Is better than not
being walled off, but it
is not synonymous with health. So what happens in Physical Medicine abscesses identified, and then someone goes in a surgeon, goes in and drains it and then the person is better right now. Think about that process.
Like surgery is surgery is not a fun thing, right? There's anesthesia there's recovery right, but surgery is great when it cures the problem, right? So it's not that oh the the physician in the emergency room where the family practice doctor identifies that there's an abscess refer to the surgeon. Everything is great and happy and they're better know, they have to go have a surgery and that's not an easy thing, right? But if they go and do that on the other side, the infection actually is gone. So they do not
Have the symptoms that it was constantly spinning off inside of them and they also don't have the risk that maybe that infection gets out of the abscess and their life is, then at risk. So the parallel is looking into the unconscious mind to what is inside of us. That may be acting like that abscess. Even though this is an analogy it is not theoretical like this happens all the time and the
Abscess inside that person emotionally maybe the bullying that went on right around the time of puberty. It may be that awful boss who is just so mean and like took that good job away from me, right? It might be that it might be, you know, that assault. But I don't want to think about that. It's really, still with me, it might be that death. I still feel guilty about, I don't know what it is, but if there's an abscess in there, we want,
Understand it and then fix it, cure it right and that's what the therapy process can do and that's why at times the therapy is unpleasant, you know, the crying and anger. You know, that's the parallel of going through the surgery, right? But on the other side, we've dissipated the energy inside of it. Like we've we've taken care of it. And and that's why it is so important to go into the unconscious mind, if there are things that are really troubling us or
If we don't know what's going on to cast the net of inquiry that may lead us there because trauma is so common and we shove drama underneath the surface because of the guilt and shame that it generates and then it stays in us like an abscess and Spins off symptoms. They could be symptoms of diffidence, they could be symptoms of over using a substance. They could be symptoms of avoiding good things in our life, but they're pervasive symptoms.
That are really harmful to us that we can understand and
fix.
In addition to Quality therapy.
What are some other ways to access the unconscious earlier we were talking about journaling and spelling out. One's life narrative in written or in spoken form either alone or with a trusted other. Let's assume that somebody either can't afford or it's just not at the place where they're willing to do therapy yet but they fully adopt this abscess model that or this abscess analogy that you described which I think is an exceptional one.
A you have the 20 plus years of clinical experience knowing this exists? But also I think we all at some level and understand that there's stuff happening within us that we can't explain and and I as a neuroscientist can absolutely say that. You know, most of the neural Machinery in your head and the parts of it that are in your body. Like, we don't have access to it. We love to think that we do, but we don't is just clicking away under there. So let's say somebody wants
Us to make some progress. The improve their level of mental health, more obtain, more agency in gratitude, improve all aspects of their life in the generative Drive. What are some ways that they can start to tap into the unconscious? And my guess is, if it's not in therapy, it's going to be by looking at some in some of these other cupboards as you're describing them,
right? Yes, develop. And embrace curiosity about yourself and if you can
Go for that. Curiosity being dispassionate, right in the sense that, you know, you talk about these files, you have with you with memories and events from your past like that's so good. Right? Because you're exploring your life, right? So so someone who wants to understand themselves. Better do that for yourself. Go look at pictures, talk to people, you knew at different stages of life, reflect upon how you behaved at different stages of Life. What you felt inside, anchor
Self to memories and then extrapolate from there, become curious about yourself. And if you can be dispassionate this idea that sometimes gets called in observing ego right there, other words to put to it, but it's not ego in a negative sense right here. It means the ability to stand outside of oneself and go. Right. And to really think about oneself without the negative, emotion were often able to either see the trauma, for example, or see the change. Like, why did I
I go from feeling really good about myself and like I felt like I could do anything. And then just a couple years later, man, I look at me, I'm moppy in the pictures and you know, and then take yeah. I was drinking more. I stopped taking care of myself. Like, that's a pretty big change, right? And then, so, and so now like we're calling attention, once that change and a lot of times, the person knew it, you know, like all I got rejected, I had that terrible breakup, right? And like they, oh, they knew it was a terrible breakup, but they keep shoving it under the surface.
Maybe they didn't know. It was a terrible breakup, maybe they can't figure out what it is. Like, that's okay. Wait, even if they recognize. Look there was a change then that will put the lie to what in this example, is likely going on. So that person likely frames themselves in a way that is very negative and always was true. Right? So so I can never achieve anything. I never feel good. No one likes me and can't find a part of whatever it is. We say to ourselves the business. It's always been that way.
Right? Because the negative emotion is so strong. In that part of our brain, doesn't care about the clock in the calendar and then the person goes back and thinks it was not always that way, right? And it comes to this, a lot in therapy, doesn't have to be as you said in therapy. But no, you know, I was a go-getter right again, I'm thinking the person who said I was a go-getter and I went out there and did things which put the lie to her saying that she was lazy and capable. All those things that were not true but she accepted as truth, right? So she needed from that.
Mathematical perspective like to go back and question the Givens right? From our perspective. We're saying. Go look in the unconscious mind. Go look in that part of the pillar of the structure of self go look there. That's the deepest part, the most complicated part, but it doesn't mean we can't understand it, and if we start to gain understanding, then we can think more about the conscious mind like what ways I can, what am I thinking about? What do I think about that, right? Have I really thought about this or is it just running over and
Over in my head. What would I like to do about it? Maybe I'd like to learn more. Maybe I want to go get a book that I think could help me listen to another podcast that could help me talk to a friend, like, maybe I want to do those things. So, now the flow between the unconscious mind and the conscious mind right? Becomes much more robust and that lets us look further, right. To look at the next level, up the defense mechanisms that grow up out of the unconscious mind and and we can have some understanding of them even
Oh, they're unconscious, right? So the idea of wait, what? When that went something shifted in me? How did my way of engaging, with the world kind of change, you know? Like I was perseverant and, you know, I would take some of that energy and me that wasn't so good. In member, I could put it into like exercise and taking care of myself. And then, you know, then that sort of shifted and I became psychic a stick and cynical. And now, I started avoiding, you know, those of my friends who are really taking care of
Themselves and doing well because it made me feel worse about myself. So that's a dialogue that is reflective of defense mechanisms. Now the person isn't going to necessarily say, oh I used a lot of sublimation, which is good. And then I started using reaction formation and avoidance just as an example, right? But they're going to understand that in words, that they can whatever words they put to it. They understand that there was a change. They can start putting. They put words to that they can understand that process.
Of change. It's not opaque their Shining Light on it and now they can gain a better understanding of it, and they can change it. Even that realization, that I was much more functional, things were different, I mean, that can be a treasure Trove of very relevant, very important and very positive information to bring to the current situation.
I think we often Romance the idea of the person who can just live life forward, who doesn't look back, who just doesn't really explain.
Their past is just action-oriented because after all when we wake up in the morning all we can control is our actions going forward. We can't re script the actions of past hours are others.
That is such a good point of what happens when we're just looking forward. I have we become like a sprinter who comes out of the blocks too fast. So if you think about that, the beginning of 100 100 meter dash. They're the best sprinters in the world. Say right? And there they are.
In the blocks. And if they come out of those blocks in the right way, they will gain momentum. They will keep their form and they will run as fast as they can. But if they do not pay attention to what is behind them, the blocks that are supporting their body, right? The whole bigger picture here of the limitations within the body, right? They have to know what those limitations are. They have to understand themselves, that's how they avoid coming out of the blocks so fast, and then sprawling headlong onto the track and we see that happen to. So,
If we're just looking forward and thought an idea that's how to live life, we will be tripping forward. And ultimately will be like that Sprinter, no matter how great a sprinter. If you come out of the blocks too fast. You're going to trip forward.
Yes. I know. I said this in a different form a few minutes ago, but I think a lot of people are afraid of self-inquiry because they just don't want the thing that they discover, which resides in their unconscious, the abscess if you will or the
Damaging thought, or thing that happened which they are aware of, but are pushing down to take over their daily life. In a way, that doesn't allow them to be at least as functional as they are in the
moment. If you go visit, the person who had the abscess cured by the surgeon, on post-op day, one that person will be less functional right. They'll be in a hospital bed, right? They won't be able to get up out of the bed. Won't be able to exercise. You're going to feel, you're going to feel their best, right? That's okay.
Right. It is okay that we at times can become intermittently say less functional, right. In the sense that were more upset, that I'm spending more time crying. But that's okay, because that's part of the energy, the effort, the choice that gets us to a better place,
okay? So it's clear to me, why exploring? The unconscious mind can be an really is immensely valuable. It's just, I'm convinced and I can't imagine anyone out there who would disagree with the idea.
Do that.
Getting better, mentally being able to function better in the world as a consequence, is not a terrific use of one's time. Even if it, you know, at the surface seems to take us off course, a bit in the moment or for even a few days. And I think it's also worth highlighting that. It's not the case that if we do an exploration of the unconscious mind or looking any of these covered, so that matter, that our entire day is going to be overtaken by it, or
All of our sleep is going to disappear when we're not talking about a process in which everything is devoted to exploring these cupboards. I mean there are instances of course where someone hits a crisis and they simply can't function. But in that case, the thing that we absolutely need to do is to look in these cupboards. Yes. What are some ways that we can explore? This other cupboard under the pillar of structure of self which is the cupboard of the conscious
mind? Mhm. So we can also approach this through the Curiosity of
Self. We do a lot of things automatically write that we can stop and think about like, why do I do that thing, right? And it's amazing, what that can provide, right? So for example, I'm working with the person who has been going to work for a long, long, long, long, long, long time, right didn't need to go to work a long time ago, right? And there's so many other things this person wants to do with their life, they're curious about things they want to
More time with the older people in their family right but they had to stop and think why am I going to work right now? He's fortunate enough that he doesn't have to. He also earned you know he's not working he's diligent he's fortunate. But he hadn't thought about it. He's been going to work automatically for a long time and it was the thinking about it that made him realize why I do that automatically now. Why? Because it's rooted in in unconscious things, but that he's now bringing to the conscious mind, right? Because I've
You hard work and I value diligence but him stop working. Does it mean that he's not hurting, you know, he's not innately hard-working or diligent. He showed that for years and years and years, and he can show it in other ways like by, you know, how he wants to be attentive. To older people who need help. Like there's a lot he can do, but he had to go back and look. And then, of course, there's a reason why he didn't realize it, right? And even though it's not even a bad reason, but clearly there was an over value of hard-working diligent and he didn't realize oh,
oh like I've done that, right? I've done enough that I've convinced myself, I know I'm hard working. I know I'm diligent so I don't have to sort of serve that internal Master anymore and I can step away. And now his whole life is changed but how the change come about by asking? What might one might think is such a simple question to make no sense. Like why do I go to work each day? Why have I been going? He's off on the road to change, so so that's its one aspect of how we can explore the
Conscious minded often lead us back to the unconscious mind, right. But it's awareness of our conscious choices. We can also then use tactics. So, for example, cognitive behavioral tactics like thought redirection, like if I'm aware that hate is a thought that comes into my mind a lot and I start learning ways. I can redirect away from it, instead of thinking about it a hundred times, right? And if I learn how to do that, there's less of the negative emotion that comes from thinking about it, and, and I can start to feel better, right? So the basic premise of it. But these
Are techniques that can really help us and they involve understanding and guiding the conscious mind.
I'm smiling because I'm recalling an experience. I had, I have a female friend who very impressive person really as overcometh on, is a recovered alcoholic for many years and takes at least by, my read, great care of herself and the other people around her, and his spectacular sense of humor and a bunch of other things. But it's probably five six years ago that we were in conversation about something. I don't recall what and out of apparently know where she she said,
Ed. I hate being busy and it just stopped me in my tracks because I'm somebody who keeps very, very busy. I might schedule is extremely full with things that I really enjoy some things. I don't enjoy, who are enjoy last. But unfortunately, at this point, my life mostly things that I enjoy. At the time, I was very, very busy with many things, including many things, I didn't enjoy, and her statement just halted me and I realized you, maybe. I don't have to be busy.
Like like what this whole notion of doing a bunch of things, I don't want to do, like sure we have to make our way in the world and make a living and take care of ourselves and others. But but I realized that there was a lot of extra stuff that I was doing,
right, because I think what she meant and what you were reflecting on, was I hate being automatically busy, right? It's not good to be automatically busy, and then it makes you think about wait, how am I busy in ways that are good for me? And how am I busy in ways that are not? I might just taking up time, you know, to avoid something. You start really.
Thinking about it. Yes. In the conversation stays with me to this day because up until then I never really thought about the possibility that summer. A lot of the things I was doing were truly a waste of my time like it mostly because I could be putting that energy into generative things, right? Generative tribes things that would bring me agency, gratitude peace, contentment Delight us. These sorts of things. What I'm giving us an example, I realize is quite different than
Sitting down in a chair and asking oneself questions about oneself and and one schedule and what we
enjoyed say, Amen. But but
it raised same endpoint and and I bring it up because I think it was the fact that it stopped me in my tracks. But also the fact that I can't seem to forget it. That means that it must have had significance and I would say, has had significance because, you know, I think most people are familiar with seeing these news articles that come out
Do you know woman or man? You know, 104 reflects on what really mattered in life and it's almost always the same things. It's like close relationships, it what you know, no one on their deathbed says, I wish I spend more time at work. I might be one exception. I actually really enjoy my work. So I whenever I see that one always, think know like my life without my life's work. It would have been a diminished life for me. I think there are others out there as well, but I think it's very hard for us to place ourselves into the future of a person on our deathbed looking back and then make really good decisions. Now,
I think there are ways to do that, but it seems that it's far more powerful to just think about, what am I doing now. And and make some, you know, and come to some realizations about what is really a value now, and what is of less value or no value now and then make adjustments now because as opposed to doing the deathbed exercise, you
have no other option. If you're going to make change, I mean think about what a complicated and ultimately meaningless exercise. It is to try.
And project ahead into a future when one is on one's death bed. And like what is that? Like, like, where? I mean, we, we can't imagine that and we don't know who's there, like whatever that situation may be for any of us. It's not going to be what we imagined. So then we just make something up and we try and what extrapolate our lives in a way that that gets us to this place where we're on our deathbed. We're not unhappy, okay? Just brings us right back to the
A future like, because it's actually simple, right? That is so complicated. What if he's going to be like on our deathbed, what will happen between now? And then all things, I don't know, so it's impossibly complicated. So then you take it back to the present, right? Like, what is it? I'm choosing. I am the eye right now. That is moving through time or is on the luge of life or whatever we want to say. So what am I choosing right now? That's how we make our lives better, but, and we're aware of course. I know there's a future. I want to lead towards a better future. I can't, I don't have a crystal ball.
Can't Envision what that's going to be but I can do my best now to guide my life as best I can. And that's going to have to lead me to the best future. Whatever. All the variables are that, I don't know yet.
The next cupboard under the pillar of structure of self is defense mechanisms. I have several questions about defense mechanisms but the first question is, can we be aware of our defense mechanisms? And is there value in that? And if so, which
It's mechanisms are accessible to us. And I guess the third question would be, how does one go about exploring defense mechanisms?
Well, it's sort of Fantastical imagery, right? That there's this Iceberg, right? Part is underwater, part is above water. And then from the part that's underwater, come, these sort of branches, right? So, so the way I imagined it is there their branches of ice that can be clear and have light passes through them in a way that is high fidelity.
Or they can be sort of Twisted and unclear that and they distort the light that passes through them. Now they Rise Up from the unconscious mind meaning defenses are unconscious, they're automatic, but they're not outside of our ability to go looking for them, right there, in the unconscious mind. So, so it's not that we can't understand them, is that they're Elusive. And there has to be a process of inquiry, but we can learn about them, just like we can learn about other things in the unconscious mind.
Mind. And and here again knowledge is power. So I'm not going to learn anything new or I'm unlikely to learn anything new about my defense mechanisms if I don't think about them, right. But if I start to think about them then I can start to learn things and to draw conclusions, you know, how am I behaving now as opposed to before? Do I notice that like how coping well also in think coping but coping is conscious but we can access that. How am I coping? What am I?
Doing. And what does it mean? So, so for example, someone who after some difficult experience, right? Then starts avoiding right can be doing that. Without an awareness of it, avoidance is a defense, so avoidance of situations or people or potential negative emotion, I'm so self-reflection can help us understand which defense mechanisms were using and what may have.
Changed in us. So an example, an example, you see all the time is someone who say had as a primary defense mechanism sublimation before some difficult event and sublimation is taking energy taking, say excess aggression turning it into something positive, right? It's a good way of handling distress within us, so it's healthy, right? And now after some change in their life, they find that say they're drinking more and they're they're relying more and more on.
Alcohol. And he might say, well, there's soothing with alcohol. Yes. There's soothing with alcohol in one sense but what else might that mean, right? And often times what you'll see is, maybe the person is using alcohol because they're mad at someone, they're punishing. Someone that someone is probably them. They get to have the short-term soothing but then to feel worse about themselves, the next day, right? And the alcohol is impart a search for soothing, but it's impart and acting out.
Against the self, which is a different kind of defense mechanism, that is not healthy. So the process of reflection or of inquiry can help us understand the branches that are coming up from the iceberg, from the unconscious mind, how are they in me? Are they arranged in a way that sort of elegant and and they're clear in the light is passing through them are there things that have become so Twisted. Okay, what does that what exactly is that? How do I go change that, right? I don't want that.
Branch. That is sort of opaque and that the light can't get through his distortedly. So, so I can go look at that because even though defense mechanisms are unconscious, if I'm working on myself, I can take away that so to speak diseased Branch, right? Or that Branch, That's not healthy, and put in its place. Something healthier. That's how we can change our defensive structure, right? Those branches of our defense mechanisms because even though they're unconscious, right? We can reflect on them, bring them to come to consciousness.
And then bring ourselves to Bear to make ourselves healthier and it can indeed get healthier. And as it gets healthier, it affects the next level around it, which is the person's character structure. So remembering. We're using Fantastical imagery, right? Because around the iceberg below and above the water, and the branches that come out of the part of the iceberg, under the water, and how they array themselves, were imagining that there's a nest, that's encompassing, all of that. The unconscious mind the
Just my, the defense mechanisms and that Nest is the character structure. It's a way that we contain and Define the self that rides on top of everything. It is into that Nest that the self settles, and from which the self grows because the character structure is more than just the conscious mind, it's sort of the conscious mind in action, the defense mechanisms in action. All the
things that are going on underneath the surface in the unconscious mind in action. And then that's how we be, you think be as an active word, right? That's how we are or that's how we actively be in the world. How were engaging with the world?
So you describe the character structure as the nest that is up above the surface of the water and that includes things like these unconscious defenses and all other aspects of what comes from Below.
Then you also said that the self ourselves reside in that nest and you and I don't recall the exact wording, but you said something to the extent of you know, the self grows within that Nest. Yes. And as you said that, I immediately had the image in Mind of a nest that is either incredibly nurturing and can really Foster the self and its best ways and can give rise to empowerment. Humility agency, gratitude peace. Contentment Delight generative.
I've all these wonderful things. I also imagined a nest that you know, isn't as clean as it could be or that has some holes in it or that isn't stable in the wind and these sorts of things is that sort of imagery that's coming to mind for me, is that a decent way to conceptualize this?
Yes. And I think this is a it is a very important point, the self nests in the character structure. Hey and from nesting in the character structure
It grows, we are the self that grows from within that nest, and that tells us a couple of things. One, I am something now. Well, right now, the things I've done the things, I've thought the things that have happened to me, like there's a self now. So, so one might think, then what grows out of the nest? Right? Is what I am. Now hence, the concept of acceptance of self. That's what I am now.
Right? But I am also responsible for tending. What is growing? I'm responsible for weeding it. I'm responsible for planting healthy seeds in it and I think that captures the truth of the acceptance of ourselves, this is what I am now. This is who I am now. But isn't it beautiful that? I can't end and nurture it and we know as you'd comforted what happens if you don't tended. There's a lot of weeds.
Things aren't going well, things start to get unstable. I'll be, that's not good and we can go that way too, right? That's where agency gratitude is a part of how it all Cycles through, right, because our unconscious mind is still working, like it's all still happening and that's how we tend that Garden of the self so to speak. That's how we best tend to. So that what grows up from it is a self that we recognize in the way that we want to recognize.
Ourselves. We see a self that we can feel proud of. We see a self that we understand. Well, enough to guide forward, we see a self for which we have enough respect and humility within us to understand that we don't understand everything. And it's from that self that we engage with the world.
I've heard many times before in the circles of psychology and self-help and elsewhere that you know,
We need to all learn to mother and father ourselves to some extent. And I'm not a developmental psychologist, but my understanding is that the unconscious mind the conscious mind, our defense mechanisms character structure, all the stuff that makes up the nest, which the self resides, and hopefully can grow our least at some stage of Life, perhaps all stages of Life, determined by genetics. And by how we were raised nature and nurture. But this phrase
We have to learn to parent ourselves. It is thrown around a lot these days certainly on social media but elsewhere too. And oftentimes that brings to mind sort of stereotypes of mothering and fathering and these stereotypes break down quite a bit. These days, the things like, you know, we have to be nurturing to ourselves, you know, self-respect, self-love self-protection, right, healthy self protection, and these kinds of things. And all of that sounds fine and good, but it's always seemed rather
Egg to me like you know if I'm telling myself I'm okay or you know, is that mothering and fathering myself? Like, I don't know. I mean it doesn't seem as concrete as as perhaps I would like and others would like because because it's not spelling out to specific actionable. What you're describing here, makes so much more sense to me, even though some of these concepts are a bit abstract because the idea of this nest in which the self resides and and emerges from character structure,
One can immediately see why it's so valuable. And it's such a key component of mental health, and self-care to tend to that nest and written into. That is the fact that the nest is malleable that, we really can make changes, right? That we can create a better internal environment for our self. By going through these
cupboards, you're pointing out another crucial Factor here, which is if I am the guardian of self that grows,
Up from all of it. And I am responsible for tending, the garden. I'm also responsible for tending to the whole structure, and that's so important. If I'm going to take care of myself in the ways that we've talked about, I'm going to attend, not just to the Garden that's growing out that I can see on the surface, but I'm going to attend to All of Me to the entire structure of self. An example here that I think can illustrate it pretty well is so.
Imagine a person who's doing well, you know, the part of the iceberg under the water is solid, right? The Consciousness on top is solid defense mechanisms are clear. The nest is good, the garden of self is flourishing. And then there's a significant trauma to that person. There's a car accident, someone is hurt. There's a death of someone around them. They have a serious illness, they lose a job, right? It can even be, they spent too much time contemplating and looking at news from murders around the world and all the awful things.
Things that we can spend too much time with something traumatic, then goes into the unconscious, mind the trauma happens and what often happens, not always but what very often happens is that guilt and shame that are raised cause us to push the trauma underneath the surface. Now, that's in the unconscious mind and it's impacting it and that stability is threatened, right? I mean, it's all riding on top of this giant part of the iceberg that's underneath the surface of the
Water. And okay, we don't have to worry too much about it, right? If things are going well. But if it starts to get fragmented, it starts to shift it threatens everything that rides on top of it, which is why taking care of ourselves means taking care of all elements of the structure of
self. That all makes very clear. Why tending to the Garden is so key and why we as individuals are really the people most fit to do this. All right? Of course when one can
Work should be done with somebody who's really terrific clinician of guide that process and where one can't work with. The clinician one would hope that they would take a structured approach to this, which is really what we're talking about here and in the other episodes
and keeping in mind because you keeping in mind that tending to the self means tending to the whole structure of self, right? If we keep that in mind, we won't go wrong, right? We'll pay attention to the surface, but we'll pay attention to things that are
Under the surface, we pay attention to the whole structure of self. We will Shepherd ourselves forward as best we can.
I'd love for you to tell us about the function of self the second pillar that resides alongside structure of self and that serves to geyser up into how we show up in the world. Hopefully, with empowerment humility agency, and gratitude, but sometimes know, and as we've established there is always always always tremendous value to
Luring these cupboards. So, how does one go about exploring? The different cupboards under the function of Self in which probably start that conversation by saying, what are the cupboards under the function of
self? I'll start off by saying all the cupboards under the function itself will reference the structure of self, right? Which makes sense. There's a structure and the function arises from the from the structure, it's good for us to have that in mind as we're thinking about the elements of the function of self. So,
Oh, the deepest element. Let's say the the the bottom of the pillar right? Is self-awareness, right? The sense of an eye on top of that. Next up the pillar our defense mechanisms in action up from that is salines what we're paying attention to inside. And out the next level above that is behavior. And on top of that is our strivings
So if we go back to the bottom layer, the deepest most complicated layer, it's the sense of self-awareness, the sense of an eye. And there are a lot of ways that we can foster self-awareness. So like the unconscious mind in the structure. We can't just go there and fully understand what the eye is, but we can do things that can really, really help us. So for me, thinking about like what,
Am I and how am I navigating the world and having in mind the structure of self like right, there's an unconscious mind, working it away in me. There's my conscious mind. Even being aware of the first pillar can be part of fostering the self-awareness of the second pillar. Another way that can happen is self-reflection for some people, it can happen in meditation. Contemplation of the self, there are many ways that we can help ourselves understand that living is an active process that I
Of the losses of time and were, you know, we're moving down. It, it's an active process. And that is the I that I'm guiding through that process. We can foster self-awareness in a number of ways, but what we're trying to do here the same as with the bottom of the structure of self pillar the most complicated Parts. There's a lot that's unconscious. There's a lot that's unknown to us. So what we're trying to do is know some of it, right? And no.
Or of it over time. Bring some of those automatic or unconscious things to conscious awareness, so that we can have a better understanding, because if we have an understanding, we can utilize that to make everything better.
I can see right off how this first cupboard of self-awareness and an exploration of the eye is so critical and realizing that we have a physical body that we have agency in the world to do lie, certain things. And in an earlier episode, you mentioned
Itís actually of looking in the mirror and focusing on this reality, that we have a physical body, we reside in it and then we have agency. We can do things in the world as a way to reinforce self-awareness, such an interesting practice and one that I started on immediately after well that evening. Yeah. And the next morning after hearing it from you, is some interesting things came to mind and I encourage people to try it. It's done eyes open for just for a few minutes or so, to 3 minutes and my case,
Some interesting understanding came about especially when coupled with thinking about some of my life narrative and things that have happened. So I highly recommend people explore this. This practice you described. I'm also interested in the sorts of narratives that we have about ourselves. I think everyone has narratives about what they're good at what they're less good at what's happened to them why it's happened to them. Could you tell us what you think about exploring our narratives?
Not just exploring fact that we have a physical body but exploring our stories about ourselves.
Well, self-awareness is just the awareness of an eye, right? So we can use our conscious mind to help that way. So this, this aspect of function, of self isn't about what the narrative means, right? That comes later. This is about the awareness of an eye. So when you were talking about the narrative, you
Said something along the lines of like their stories and, and you're not thinking of, like, oh that's it's the same me in these stories. If you approach the narrative in a different way, the awareness like there's an eye, right? There's a me, like, I'm the point of all these stories, right? That's why they're here. They're all in me in some way or another because I remember them and they're important enough that I wrote them down. If you look at it that way we just apprehended and I like home, there's
Me to whom all of this applies. That's how we can use the conscious mind and the narrative in order to Foster self-awareness it's not yet about meaning. It's about the awareness of an eye.
So it's actually much simpler than I'm making it out to be at some level at that level. Yes, got it. Yes. Okay. Well then, at some point, we will return to this theme of narratives narratives that serve us preps narratives that don't serve us. Meanwhile,
take us into that second bin under the function of self that the defense mechanisms in action. I find these infinitely fascinating, and I think many other people do too because sublimation denial, these kinds of things. I, you know, they really provide so much of what does and doesn't happen to each of us and yeah, so if you could tell us how we can think about our defense mechanisms in action, in a way that can improve our
Yeah. Yeah of course defense mechanisms are under the structure of Mind defense mechanisms in action under function of mind. Right there, unconscious processes that we can gain. Sometimes a very good understanding of, by directing our conscious mind towards them. And this is a place where we can use narratives, right? We can use an understanding of self. So, as an example, someone who's thinking about themselves, and what they want to do for a living, if they want their job or where they want,
To live and you know who's thinking about self can realize, you know, he's going to feel good when I'm doing something for someone. When we hear this a lot, especially people who then direct themselves towards helping professions like, what did I liked about that job? It wasn't that it had a great salary. It wasn't that the hours were good, you know? I liked that it was really helpful to people. Or, you know, there were people that were underneath of me in the hierarchy that I could really kind of nurture, right and anything right. And
I love putting food out for the birds and the squirrels like it used to. It can be a realization of self that guides us towards consciously apprehending and thinking about altruism is a defense mechanism because altruism is a defense, it's a healthy defense. Where if you can do something good, you do something good, make something good.
That's the end point of it. Like you don't need that to translate into something else. It's a defense mechanism. It's a good one and you can certainly see how it fits with the good things. We're trying to build on top of it. And sometimes through that process of reflection, the person becomes aware of that they haven't chosen jobs by the obvious things that even they thought they chose jobs by. Where is the job? What does it pay? It wasn't that, that what they really valued and what they then started choosing upon might have been something that they weren't aware of?
Until they think about it and that leads them to the defense mechanism. The same way, another example could be rationalization, right? Someone who thinks about their life and they think, you know,
I always kind of tell myself something is better than it is. Right? And then ultimately, I got disappointing myself, you know? Like I tell myself like you're doing really well at work and you know, I'm not really working hard enough and then when I have that review I feel lousy you know and that last person who broke up with me and said, you know, you just weren't being a reliable partner or you know, that person was right and that can lead to. Oh look what's going on? I always think things are going pretty well.
When they're nod and that's guiding us towards rationalization is a defense mechanism. And again, a person doesn't have to say, ah, I conclude, I am using rationalization as a defense mechanism, but there can be words, put to that and seeing a pattern in the cell with is when this is done. As part of therapeutic inquiry were often looking to identify the defense mechanisms and that can be great too, but it's not always needed right defense mechanisms result in patterns, right? So if a person just sees the pattern that can be enough to
Nuys the pattern and either say follow the pattern of altruism as a defense mechanism, or how do we work against? How do I work against the pattern of rationalization is a defense
mechanism? Can we conclude that patterns that we don't like are the reflection of unhealthy defense mechanisms and that patterns that we like are the consequence of healthy defense mechanism,
usually yes, it's worth some thought and some reflection and putting together, like, what exactly are they
Pieces of that. But basically the answer to that is
yes. In an earlier episode, you mentioned, one defense mechanism in action that is often observed in people is acting
out this
immediately sounds like an unhealthy defense mechanism. So to keep with this concept of the patterns are often more observable than are the underlying defense mechanisms. Would it be the case for instance, that if somebody, you know, has a repeated set of
Failures. Like that's a pattern or is repeatedly and friction in a particular relationship in their life. Like maybe even just with one person. Like all other relationships are going great. But then they're in a lot of friction with this one other person. So there's a pattern from that pattern. They could explore. What I mean, is it important that they get to a verbal identification of the
Defense mechanism, or you know what, what sorts of steps would want a going from, a recognition of the pattern, to understanding of the defense mechanism. Perhaps in, a way, that moves them forward
to the understanding of the defense mechanism can be very helpful but isn't always needed, right? If you can recognize a maladaptive pattern like, oh, this is happening a lot and it's not good for me, you know, you you become able to
change that pattern, right? So understanding the defense can be helpful. I mean, again, the more understanding the better but it's not always necessarily here. I think to understand the defense mechanism. We should first Define acting out because we think of acting out just hearing the words as something that's volitionally done, right. But that's not what we're talking about. Right defense mechanisms are unconscious. So there's an automaticity to the response that the person can see by reflection because this
A conscious choice to act out. That's something different, that's bad behavior, right? But what we're talking about here is the thing that's automatic and unconscious until we bring it into our conscious mind and acting out isn't always dramatic either. So, so here's one example. Alright? So let's say in a relationship situation, right? You have one person who always does the dishes. Well, the person does something different, right? That person does the dishes. I am
And, you know, it's onerous, we will have busy lives. Its owners have to do a lot of dishes and every time like things aren't going so, well, there's a little bit of conflict between them, right? The other person makes twice as many dirty dishes, right? This is exactly the kind of thing that happens in relationships situations where this little thing, becomes a little crack in the door that opens more and then there's a foot in the door. Now there's a big problem because we act out in these ways that we're
Not aware of. So, again, the person isn't deciding. I'm going to do that, so that that person has to do more work, but there's an automaticity to it and, and upon reflection, sometimes a person could realize I'm doing that, right. Or is it real example, person who realizes I just make much more difficulties right around the house, like I make a lot more difficulties for my partner was a whoa, you know, like this person doesn't want to be doing that right there. That's
Not they love that person. They don't want to be doing that but by realizing that when they can bring a process of change of just being more self-aware and saying look I don't want to do that. I don't want that to be a defense anymore. If I have conscious awareness now I can control it and maybe that person is doing that other places. Maybe purses you know kind of goes that way at work too. You know I could contribute to a project and make something easier on a person and I realize I don't do that, right? If I'm if I'm feeling it some negative way then we can go fine okay? What -
The roots of that be did a, for example, did a parent role model that behavior, right? Was that done to them where the parent was really good to them if they were behaving in the right way and like they make their breakfast right? And if not well you know you make it yourself or oh sorry there's no milk me like these things happen and then the person gets in them, some array of circumstances feelings response is all the stuff that goes on in the unconscious mind that then throws up to the surface. This kind of acting out
Out as a defense mechanism. So I think it's important to point out and it's a good example because it is unconscious and a lot of times how we're doing, it is not dramatic.
What about salience? You know this cupboard under the function of self that I think we are all all too familiar with, you know, like what we pay attention to internally and externally, I have a sort of bizarre meditative practice that I've talked about.
Before on the podcast, I don't know why I came up with this but it's more of a perceptual exercise that I do from time to time, where I feel like I'm too. In my head, I literally Focus my visual attention outward, I try and place on a horizon or some object out there. And other times, if I'm sort of in the world too much and I want to get back into myself, I'll close my eyes and do a moment or two or more of more traditional. What traditional mean what people think of as meditation the practice involves
Setting aside a minute or two and deliberately stepping through closed eye meditation. Like just it's not really meditation again, it's just recognize myself like here contained within my, the skin of my body. Then I open my eyes. I look at my hand, this all sounds very silly as I describe it, but but it and then I think about a bridge like my perception can be split between my awareness of self internally, and my hand. Then I look out some distance 10 12 feet or so and do the same eyes are bridge.
Self-aware Bridge self-awareness with external awareness and I step out to the Horizon and then I sometimes like to do the exercise of it goes with a popular meme. You know. This other we're just like this like pale blue dot. I think about myself and in right here but then the fact that planet that's like spinning in a you know and in space and and then right back into myself and then I go about my day and I developed that a few years ago, more on the basis of what I know about visual,
Option and interoception our recognition of inside versus extra reception just fancy language for recognition and perception of what's outside. But that's my practice of orienting myself in life because then I feel like I have a better buffers against what happens around me and how much I'm reacting or not reacting, that's my practice. I have a feeling it touches into a few of these bins but not but it certainly doesn't get it at, you know, approaching a specific problem.
Or thinking about where problems might exist, beneath the surface that I'm not aware of, right?
Because it's only one part of the equation, but it's paying attention to sailing and see what you're doing. Then you are grounding yourself in order to change salience right? And and that is a strategy you said oh maybe it's silly or this or that nursing is an understood and known strategy. For example, a variations of that are are what people can do to prevent panic attacks right to change the sailing instructor.
If the salience is I'm going inside of me and I'm feeling panicked and I just, you know, I just have a feeling of awful in this, right? You can change that salience by grounding yourself to the world around you, right? We tell people place your place, your hands on the table. Look at the specifics of exactly what time it is. Look at the shape of a doorknob, right? Ground yourself so that you can change salience because now as we move up the hierarchy of function of self, we're getting to using the conscious mind, right? Things that are salient.
Us can be external, they can be internal and if their internal, they can be conscious and sometimes they're unconscious. So, it's not all about the conscious mind, but we're bringing the conscious mind to Bear here to think about salience which combined with everything else. Can help us see what's under the surface. Most of the time, what we're doing, is that active self-observation, right? What is going on inside of me, which can be, what am I thinking? This is how the person can realize over and over. Oh my goodness. I'm saying to myself
Elf X. And for the first time, they say out loud and realize, if thing they've said to themselves 10,000 times, right? Or it can be a feeling steak. All right, well, what's ailing it to me, is a feeling States a of vulnerability and then everything seems threatening, right? So salience it's a form of self awareness that we can could say, is using the conscious mind. You now to tend to that Garden of self, right, to look at that Garden of self and say what's really growing.
From it, right? It is all things. I like rightist, we never all things. We like, is it's a process. But am I happy with it? Am I not happy with it? Are there, you know, weeds that are coming up all over the place? Those that could be the, intrusive thoughts, right? So we're using metaphors, but he's actually very, very concrete, right? This aliens part is what is going on inside of me, and that's a very interesting inquiry and informative, right? It's interesting because it's
informative. Do you think that's an inquiry? That's
It's best done in meditative like States, you know, set or setting aside some deliberate time to to think about like, what am I thinking about? What am I paying attention to how am I allocating? My thoughts? Yeah. Or my thoughts being allocated. I guess we have to respect the unconscious component here. Like we're not we don't just walk around saying I'm place my attentional Spotlight there and then my thinking here you
know we always want to be aware of what we there things we don't know that.
Respectful. That's appropriate. Humility, because it's
true. So I'm assuming this ratchets directly into the cupboard of behavior. You know, what were actually doing is that covered best explored by listing off, perhaps on paper and our minds, what we're doing each day is that is that one way to explore? Like how am I spending my time again not as an efficiency exercise, but as a way to
Start to explore the self and and the mind for sake of building up to more agency and gratitude.
Right? You know the routes to to most effective self-inquiry right to bringing the conscious mind to Bear really differ widely by person. There's some people who they're so well served by doing that. When they're meditating right there are other people who like they can really get at that when they're playing a sport, you know what's going on inside of them along with the other things.
That they're doing some people find it in the shower, they find out when they wake up in the morning or they find it when they're with an animal, they love where they might find it when they're reading a certain kind of material, and then they read it. And then they kind of the reading Trails often, they're thinking, they're a reverie sort of inside. So, how we can engender the best use of our conscious Minds is going to differ by person. But again, we can think about that, like what really works for me. Let me do more of that someone and it's interesting we see people sometimes I see people a lot of the time who are
They're trying to meditate to understand themselves and like not working, right? And I think, I must know how to meditate in order to understand myself. Well, it's not necessarily true, it might be, I must go on more hikes in order to better understand myself because that's how it works for me. So that process of reflection can be very, very helpful to us because we're using our conscious mind to try and either look inward. What is sailing it to me. Including understanding that. I don't understand everything, but I can understand a lot of it and
What behaviors am I engaging in? What are my behavior patterns? And to be reflective about that, to think about that can be immensely helpful to us. Like, how am I spending those hours of the day? What am I doing with my time? Am I wasting my time do? I always get mad and say something mean to somebody? Why? Because I had a negative thought about something. Am I doing that? No. Have I kind of changed since
Thing unpleasant happened and, you know, now I'm not so nice to someone in the household, right? Or am I taking a lot better care of myself? You know? Like since I started doing X, whatever X may be learning more about myself, right doing more of the things I like got left that old job it was so hard for me to leave you know I do actually get myself to the gym, right. So it's a reflection upon self because a lot of what we do we do automatically right? And that's very important, right?
The example that often is given is okay, think about how you last brushed your teeth, right? And the answer by like a blank, right? Because you brush your teeth in an automatic way, right? Most of us don't remember that because we just skip right over it. So it makes sense. It lets us think, while we're doing things, it lets a lot happen automatically in the physical world, right? Just as it happens inside of us automatically, but we can their have sort of too much of a good thing. We're too much is happening.
Automatically and we want to stop and think and it's remarkable how sometimes when people stop and think they might say when real examples, I don't want to be spending five nights a week at the bar, and I'm spending five nights a week at the bar. Why? Because I go home a certain way from work and there's a bar along that way. And then I think, oh I'll just stop in and maybe see a friend and then I know that once I get in there I'm going to have a drink and I know once I have a drink I'm going to get three and I'm going to
And I see this pattern of behaviors and how like I don't decide, I'm going to go to that bar instead of going home to see my wife or my husband, my kids or whatever it may be. And I don't want to behave that way, right? Because they are that's a great example of how you can stop that from happening. But once it starts happening, The Dominoes start falling. It's very, very hard though. People don't generally realize, oh my goodness, I'm in the bar and I had one drink, and now I'm going to have two more, that's not the time.
But the understanding the reflection upon Behavior patterns can lead a person to stop, those behaviors to understand and recognize them get their arms around them. Shine the Light of Day on them and then have greater agency, right? And greater gratitude, I'm grateful. I can go home to my family and that's what I choose to do, right? And I can do that. I do not have to end up at that bar and I'm not going to end up at that bar. I'm going to drive a different way home. And if I can't get myself to do that, I'm going to have a friend in the car with me. And if I can't do that I'll be
Backseat, right? But I'm not doing that thing. I choose not to do and, you know, that's a more dramatic example in not an uncommon one, but we can apply that the whole way up the list from nuances of our behaviors down to more dramatic behaviors.
I've heard you described the unconscious mind and some of its other interconnected workings with the analogy of a, you know, a phantom in the driver's seat and
And we're in the backseat, sort of, you know, of course, all within one person, right? This idea that were just being taken places that we don't want to go or that we know we shouldn't go or that can't really figure out why we're going there. We have some idea but we're just not certain about what's going on. You know, it's not necessarily related to really destructive action either. I mean I can be but what you're describing sounds to me a lot like climbing out of the
Backseat and maybe sitting in the passenger seat and looking into the driver seat in Ohio. Like there's something else going on here. Of course, all of this is one mind and in doing that taking some control of the
vehicle. It's about understanding. What is that Phantom? Where did it come from? That's how we get rid of? It's like, how do we get back in the driver's seat? We don't grab the Phantom and throw it out the door, or throw it in the back seat, right? It's a femoral.
We can't grab it, right? So how does it go away? It goes away through understanding. So, very common example that the Phantom in the driver's seat is trauma that we have pushed in an unconscious place. And now that hole under the surface structure of the iceberg is fragmented and a sort of roiling and there's a big problem there. And if we go at that problem and whatever it's spinning off, right? That's the abscess, but it's a bad one and it's spinning off.
A lot of problems and that's why the Phantom is in the driver's seat because
healthy things are not built. On top of that fracturing and roiling
part of the iceberg, right? We see that a lot. The Phantom could also be something different, it could be one defense mechanism. That's unhealthy that we are really over relying on, and then we can understand it through that lens. So, they're just a few examples, but if you know, if we sort of wake up in the backseat of the car, so to speak, and the Phantom is driving recklessly.
And then how we get the Phantom out of the front seat is by understanding it. Then, you know, I always imagined prove it goes away because now it's not driving my life anymore, right? I'm driving my life. It's
gone.
The message that I'm hearing over and over again in my head, is that no matter how well or how poorly any of our Lives happen to be going that by looking in these cupboards under structure of self and function of self, we can have so much more positive control.
Yes, yes. That's why ultimately what we're talking about is optimistic. We can't help ourselves if we don't honor truth, right? And then
The truth is that there are complex aspects of this. So, okay, we want to go look at that. We want to look at how things can go wrong, and that's all very, very important but that's all wrapped in the best truth, which is that we can change it. We can make it better. That's why the self The Garden of self is on top of the structure of self and the top of the function of self are our strivings. That's what comes next after behaviors. Isaac. What are my
Doing what am I doing? What am I striving towards? What am I doing? Literally am I going to a job? I hate. Am I doing things? I don't want to do? Am I accepting treatment that? I don't want to accept. Am I treating people in ways? I don't want to accept. How can I strive for better and striving and hopefulness or so intertwined? So, the Pinnacle of the function pillar is striving the Pinnacle of the structure pillar.
Is self and we can see how the self the strivings right. What we're doing now is combining, the pillars is where it comes together and your imagery of I that's where the geyser comes from and we want that geyser to be healthy, right? It's a stream of clear, clean water, that's coming out of it. That's where our empowerment is. But empowerment is a condition of being, right? I am empowered empowerment rest within me. That's where humility.
Comes into the picture. Humility also something within me, right? I have humility. They're not verbs. But empowerment and humility. Then gain their expression at the top of that geyser. When agency and gratitude those verbs, arise from empowerment and
humility. What you've drawn for us is an incredibly compelling picture because the the picture map is really a roadmap.
It's a path to ideals and and you've been talking about these ideals of agency and gratitude across the series and they just Encompass so much. And as you mentioned before, they are interconnected and they are verb States and a critical component of the geysering up from the pillars toward agency. And gratitude are these two components of empowerment and humility. Tell us a little bit more about empowerment.
Into humility and how we should view empowerment and humility in the context of
self-care empowerment is a state that we can create for ourselves if we're taking care of the pillars, right? So we're looking in the cupboards, we're doing the things that make our map clearer and clearer. Right. This idea that, oh, that seemed like a good path, but it gets clear and there's a swamp there, right? Or that. Didn't seem like a good path because it's circuitous. Oh no. But they're good thing.
Along that path. So the map gets clearer as we tend to the cupboards in the pillars and that empowers us, right. We're in a state is a state inside of us that is a state of potentials that are now skewed in a good way. Right. That's what empowerment is, is like, it's not something that happens. It's a state that we then bring to bear on what happens, right? The same is true of humility, humility does not mean not acknowledging things that are good at.
Bout you, right? And we often can very much mischaracterize. Humility. Like is that person being weak? Is it? False humility? Or people often who are conscientious? Don't want to acknowledge good things about them. Oh no. No I'm not that smart. Like that's not humility, right? Humility is consistent with truth. So if you keep saying, you're not that smart, but the world around you tells you that you're that smart, right then acknowledge that, you're that smart, right? That's coming through the
Is of Truth and right wing go down to the pillars and the cupboards and say, okay, how does a person get to acknowledging that truth, right? So it's only by by squaring away the things that humility isn't, right? It is not denigrating ourselves and and we see that in a lot of people. I'm humble. So. And then the person often tells you why they're accepting something that's not good to accept, right? So humility is about acknowledging truthfully. The characteristics that you have
thin yourself, good and bad. And here is where we can identify things. That were not so happy with right. We have to have humility within us in order to make ourselves better, right? Just like I have to say, look, I'd like to be more fit if I'm going to then get myself in a more fit state, right? So saying, look I can be now I can be a little bit so snippy with people if I'm irritated or I can be a little bit condescending or you know, I can I can be a little selfish at times but it's hard to admit these things to ourselves.
Close. But if we have the humility to to acknowledge those things, right? Then we also get to have that broader humility about just being a person like wow, look how complicated this is to navigate life. Let me these pillars are not simple and when we go down to the real base elements of them, it can get very complicated. So then we have a compassion right for yourself and for others, you know, like sometimes I'll say to a person I should be doing this, I should be doing that. They think they should be doing something perfectly and I
I will say to them. It's amazing that we're moving forward, right mean, let's start with with. Wow, it's not easy to be human, it's not easy to navigate this world and that kind of humility can then. Allow us to feel good about what we build on top of it. Right? It's not easy to navigate this world than humans are pretty vulnerable by and large, but I'm applying myself, right? And and I'm proud that I'm applying myself is that I'm persevering. But also, I'd like to be a little more compassionate.
It's that sort of thing that combines with empowerment. So, empowerment and humility are these potential states that then Express themselves or become enacted. However, we wish to put that, but they change into the active verbs of agency and gratitude and agency and gratitude are ways of being right there verbs, they're active. So that's the point of it from the sense of how we are living.
Right? How we are being that's why agency and gratitude is in some sense, its own and point, right? But because there's a circular aspect of this right are active being is not the end point. If we're being in a healthy way, then we get to experience things right. Peace, contentment Delight. We experience them because we are healthy. So we get to be through the lens of agency and gratitude.
We get to experience, peace, contentment and delight, and that makes a healthier us the drives and their expression are in better bounds. The generative Drive is fostered and strengthened and the drives underneath of it, the aggression assertion, proactive, right? We're really using that in a good way and we're mining all of it within us. Like, I want to bring that to bear and I can bring more of it to Bear, right. That's very, very good and the pleasure Drive.
He is active in us. I'm enjoying the things I do. I feel good about the things I do, I'm making good choices and that state of health what it promotes the pillars. The cupboards to stay clean and clear and healthy, right? But life is life and the slings and arrows of Outrageous, Fortune, the slings and arrows of life will continue to come at us and cause us to go back and look at the pillars in the cupboards and even if they don't come at us, those things are never
Right. But that's not bad because by tending to them. Where do we bring ourselves? We bring ourselves back to the active verbs of agency, and gratitude, the active verbs of living. And here we are in this cycle that if we pay attention to it, we use it to understand our selves, we use it to improve ourselves. Can bring us to Better Lives.
How do you think about a person? And I've confess, I've been this person.
Perhaps still lamb to some extent who can really haven't sense of agency in gratitude in certain domains. Maybe even many domains of life and yet feels as if there are certain areas of life that are just so much more challenging than others, by this like stark contrast, like this stuff works can do that. But like this stuff is just really, really hard. And maybe that continues long enough that
Almost starts to feel like or the person wonders whether or not, you know, maybe that part of life is inaccessible to me. It's just never going to be successful for me, you know, how do you think about these carve out of, you know, functionality and lack of functionality. That's probably not the right language. But I think this is important because it relates directly, I believe to kind of narratives that we tell ourselves. I mean they are narratives, right?
Right. I think it's important to think about these because you know, they are intermeshed with and perhaps even the consequence of narratives that we have like stories about ourselves that we have internally. And again, you know, I'll be the first to admit that I felt this way, for much of my life, certain things I can do other things are far harder and sometimes it felt outside the reach of
possibility, I have a very concise answer.
To this one. In fact, it's nine words. Don't make yourself special in ways that hurt you and we tend to do that as humans. Oh, I get to have a b and c, but I don't get to have D. I get that professional success and I'm in pretty good shape and have a lot of friends, but I don't get to have a relationship. I mean, over and over and over, because the relationship part is so emotionally Laden. It's the part that gets carved out, right? Falsely carved out the most
Just right, but it can happen in any Arena of life where we make ourselves special in a way that really is black magic or is being cursed, right? You have the Machinery, right? The ability, the function to go about pursuing the things you want and get them, right? That sounds like a pretty good Paradigm, except about something really important to you, right? That can't be right. It is, we're applying the same Machinery of self, because we were talking about,
Things people want in a broad scale, right? Like I would like professional success. I would like personal success. I would like to do well in my family unit and be a good family member. I would like romance, right? So we're talking about areas of self, right? And we will make ourselves Special by carving out one, and then applying black magic or some cursed state, that then takes that away from us, and that creates tremendous consternation that will throw all of those Cupboards in those pyramids.
Off balance because like, we don't like that. Like that seems mysterious and ominous. You know what is there that you don't know? That's about being cursed. So you can't have something and then that makes anger and frustration in us and more likely that will act out a will be frustrated and we start enjoying things less, right? Sometimes a person can wall something off like that and they can go forward with the rest of life and mean it affects them, but it's not obvious, it's not on their mind all the time which is why the process of self-inquiry.
You can reveal important things like, oh, like I pretend that I don't even care about professional success and it's the only. Why do I do? That is the only thing I'm not doing very well and because I think it's impossible for me, it's not something I get why? Because I got other things so I don't get that. Okay. Now we're really curious about that and sometimes it causes very, very big problems where a person who a person can build an external sense of self that
That Sue's some of their vulnerability so they can present in a certain way, but underneath of that they're hiding the sadness or the pain of what is missing, but that is then sort of eating away at them and their feelings of self on the inside. Don't match, what people see, on the outside, we see a lot of this and the process of self-inquiry of self. Exploration of curiosity about self can lead us to realize what we've carved out, if we don't already realize it,
Or it can help us to see that, the carve-out makes no sense, right? It's as if you said, well, you know, there are nine roads around my home and they're all just regular old roads. I can drive on eight of them, but not the 9th.
So it doesn't make any sense. If there are there similar, it requires the same set of skills right after in our drive, the car and of the visual Acuity. Why wouldn't you be able to drive down the ninth? But even though that's a very mundane example. But it's that that we apply to very important and emotionally charged aspects of our life. You know, I get to have physical fitness and friends and Career Success, but I don't get to have love. I mean, we hear people say this.
And that's a very powerful way of taking us away from what we want to achieve in life. It takes us away from the active agency and gratitude and all the good that comes of
that. What you just said makes a lot of sense, especially the point that you know if we have nine roads around us and we can drive down eight of them. Why not the 9th? Because it places us back into the verb tense and the action tense of like the car.
Where a vehicle of the eye that we can take through the world, right? Sure. Conditions matter, maybe Road Number 9 has Boulders on it, but, you know, it can't be that roads. One through eight were all just smooth, super highways either, write those had challenges and we, I'm not can use myself as a guy for whoever's doing this. Sort of exercise had a mind that was able to work around those Boulders, right? Of challenging people of, you know, limited fine.
Chances of, these are all things I've experienced, you know? And of course people come into the world with different levels of Challenge and privilege in accessibility etcetera. We don't want a denial of that, but but those other eight roads are rarely. If ever
perfect, we spent throat, it's why it's completely about the self, right? And it's the realization that if I brought myself to bear, and I got down the first eight, I can bring myself to bear and
It down the knife and as you're pointing out, it's not like the first eight were easy, right? Maybe one of them was really pretty smooth, right? But there's going to be a couple of them in there that are have have raised really strong difficulties things to surmount and to overcome. And it's from that place of understanding, that we find within ourselves. The Courage, the strength to go down the 9th Road, even if we see greater barriers, even if we're okay, I'm aware now. But I'm also aware that I avoided that ninth Road for
Reason, right, the boulders and the potholes right there. More severe on that road. In fact, I'm kind of worried that it's that it's impossible but many impossible, right? If there's Boulders they're all, you know, go rent, some Excavating equipment or I'll fill in the potholes, right? And and that's how we get ourselves to go forward and to acknowledge and validate like I'm afraid of doing that if I weren't afraid of doing it. I would have done it already, right? But I now realize what the truth is and what I brought to bear in the
First eight and I'm going to bring myself to Bear for the knife. That's also when we recruit often resources around us, we might say Let Me Tell a couple good friends about this or clergy member or a therapist or you know, a trusted other and let me explore this more in myself and that's often how in making ourselves better. We engage more with the people around us and then the support from someone else, that may help a person do that right is support given back to the other person. And this is also how we build
The Beyond self is that the path to travel down the knife road so to speak, we don't have to travel alone, you know, much of the time. But that often almost always wasn't in the person's mind, right? They they perceive only. It's a three-person job here to go down and say great, you have two
friends,
Yes, certainly, where I've been able to travel down certain roads. The key features have been a desire to go down that road recognition of the landscape, but not trying to take on the whole thing all at once, and then finding really good people. And, and frankly, really trying to avoid people that seemed, you know, poisonous to the journey, right? That we're going to, you know, throw a toxic things into the engine of my vehicle.
And and that's putting a lot on them. But you know, it just felt as if going down, those other roads was too valuable an expedition to spend time on and with people that it wasn't helpful to spend time with and at the same time there have always been good people that have presented themselves with examples. I think, you know, this is where it comes to mind. And, you know, it's not always the case that, you know,
No. Got a friend who's saying you can do this and here's why or therapist that says he can do this. And here's why. But that their examples in the world of like, well, this person did this, I think when we have challenges in a certain domain now that ninth road so to speak, I know for myself that I know him in a place of futility when I start to reflexively orient towards others that have had a problem getting down that road you know like oh like I recognize it
Pursues been good at Rhodes, 1 through 8, but not 9 and it occurred to me during the course of the series. Really that, you know, why not pick different
examples. So if you're going on a journey and it's a really important journey and it's a difficult Journey but it can be awesome. Bring good people.
Right. Have them on your journey, beyond their journey and then you think well, why would a person not bring good people if I were going on a journey and it's going to be arduous but wow we could see amazing things along the way. I can bring a couple people with me. I don't want to choose a couple people who are lazy, you know, someone who you said you do, don't look at the world around them and you know, some that won't be helpful to somebody else in needs. Like, why would one choose
That right, it comes back to the self, right? If a person now we're going with any Journey, right? This is the Journey of life, right? If a person is choosing people, you wouldn't choose to be on the journey with you is because you don't think that you're worth better, right? And if you think that you're worth better, you won't choose the people. You'll say, I want other people like me. I'm going to be diligent perceptive collegial Cooperative. So I'm going to surround myself with people like that. And if we look Beyond
Cells that groups of people and it culture, the healthier we are the more we alai with healthy people and the more healthy we are because we're making ourselves healthy, we get healthier groups of people. The journey is better for all of us and this is how we can make the whole culture better, right? Potentially, this is how we can make life on the planet better, but it has to start somewhere, so it has to start with the
eye.
I love, love, love the message that, you know, if you're heading off on a journey, that's really meaningful to, you know, go with and make sure that you interact with good people. This is actually a place where, you know, a reference to social media and online. Communities is actually worthwhile and can be very beneficial, you know, I think it's easy for us to kind of roll our eyes at like self-help and things like that on the other.
And there are communities online that I consider myself a part of but which I and many other people drive to a lot of strength. A lot of reassurance and confidence, right? You know, because a lot of people are isolated, they might have access to one, or two people in their community that they really value. But those people are perhaps also busy with other people. Or I can remember being a student alone in my studio apartment, as, as an undergraduate, I'm
Being very much against the grain of my local environment. You know, too much partying for me at the time. Meaning I wasn't partying and there was a lot of partying around me and had I been a better student in high school. I probably would have been able to health healthily engage in that, but I just wasn't able so feeling pretty isolated, but knowing I was on a path. So, in that case, it was one Professor. One graduate student and a hell of a lot of books and music. That to me, just carried me through, you know, nowadays, I'm
Merchants have many more direct resources in my life of amazing people, but I just want to mention that because I think in this discussion around self-care and the various practices, I think there are sure to be people who are, you know, that kid, that woman, that man that, you know, like alone in a room and you like, okay but how right? I see the the grocer once a week and I and I see my neighbor and they don't even say hello, you know, and and you know how to start to access some of these better.
Actions,
right? Navigating, the online world is navigating the world, right? It comes down to understanding and choice, so for understanding as best we can, and we're making Choice as best we can, then we'll find great things online. There are great things to find online. Same is true of life. If we're searching for something that for example, allies us around, hatred, around acting out around things that make us unhappy even around commiseration. Instead of thinking about how we can make things better.
Better. Then we bring ourselves in a different direction, that's life, if we understand. And we choose as best we can, we will lead our self to better places,
such an important message, and is a perfect segue. Into a question that I, and I'm certain many, many other people have about anger, and not just anger from interpersonal conflict. Like somebody said something, and it really upset me, but stuff that we see stuff that we observe in the world.
Old could be acts against other people words against other people, or, you know, that, we take reference to and think many people feel yanked around by, you know, even dragged by something they see and they can't get it out of their head. Now, there could be all sorts of reasons related to each and all of us why we can't get it out of her head work that we need to do etcetera. But according to the map of mental health that you've laid out for us,
Things that get in the way of that generative Drive are really quite poisonous to our well-being and the well-being of the world because that generative Drive is about learning creation. And yes, a tends to be pro-social, yes, and in so many ways tell us about anger and how from a frame of reference of trying to engage in self care. We should think about our anger and work with our anger in ways that can perhaps even help us and not harm us
in.
In order to really understand this. And this is so important. We have to Define three words, right? And the word to start with his effect. So affect is aroused in us, right? Meaning we don't have control over it. So anger is an effect. It is aroused in us. The idea, being that if a person is walking down the street and someone jumps in front of them and shoves them, anger is aroused in them. They don't choose to be angry. In fact.
The body reacts and has also to fight or flight responses before the person even realizes that they're angry. So we can't control, what is aroused in Us. In the immediate term we can in the longer term if I have a short fuse and I get angry really easily, you know, I can't really control that in the next 10 minutes, right? Meaning the effect that's aroused in me, I can do different things with it, but I can't change what's created in me. But if I'm living a better life, taking better care of myself, the generative Drive is better.
Press the I have more pleasure in my life. Then what happens is the mechanisms that arouse so much anger start to arouse less anger so by taking care of ourselves. We arouse less anger but anger is aroused in us, okay? The next word is feeling, right? And again there are different definitions for these words, but the way we're defining them effect is aroused, feeling is when we take that affect and we're
It to the self. It's the next thing that happens on the way up because the arousal of effect is very deep in the brain as it comes up. The next thing it does is relate that affect to self. So this is where that the classic example of a person who spills something, they are angry. That thing is spilled. It raises anger in them. Then they become aware and they match the anger to self and say what a dummy. Right? What a jerk. I'll never do anything, right? They say it inside, right? Because the
our gets enacted against the self. Now, what what, how would we like that to go where the person is taking better care of themselves? So when they spill something less anger is aroused and by the time it gets to Consciousness, there's less anger so it's easier to manage and there's a stronger sense of self all the other aspects of the pillars. And the cupboards are are in a good place. Then the person is better able to manage what anger makes it right to feeling. And then to say, you know, okay, everybody spill
Now then whatever need to clean it up. In the person doesn't have to enact the anger towards themselves. So affect feeling and then emotion, so emotion is when we relate the effect in the feeling to others in the world around us. So for example, a person might spill something and then it arouses anger. And now they get to the feeling part, but they have a set of unhealthy defenses and they don't think they're responsible for things they're responsible for.
So they just keep that that load of anger, right? That that affect upwards until they get to emotion and then they decide that wasn't my fault, it was yours and that's why maybe they kick the dog or they slap somebody or they say something mean like this happens. So if it happens a lot like this is part and parcel of what's going on us, a lot about negative emotions, and either can be dramatic examples, but they're smaller examples that are winding their way.
Our lives and the better. We take care of ourselves, the less aroused - effect we have and the better we cope with it when it gets to the level of the eye and when it gets to the level of the you, right? And if we think about pro-social collaborative behaviors versus the inaction of anger on a large scale, right? If by the time it gets to you, there's still a lot of anger there, it is very easy to then paint with a broad brush. Righto the
Rooms. Are that demographic right? The problems are those people who aren't like me, right? That's where anger is at its most dangerous. So the idea of having the negative effect under control, having the understanding and the control mechanisms, right keeps us from getting to that broader level the level of you and then working in ways that are not pro-social, but are antisocial. And, and this, I think also, relates to what we can find online, right? We can
And online everything we can find in the world. So then we have a choice. Are we going to work on understanding? What choices are we going to make about how we're engaging in the world? And if we're choosing the good things, we're taking better care of ourselves and we're better. So to citizens of our relationships of our family units and ultimately of our
societies,
I've observed, anger, directed my way certainly are far from perfect. I have thousands of flaws and I've directed anger towards others in ways that I wish I hadn't a common observance. I've had about myself and others is that when angry a lot of valuable time is wasted instead of placing my efforts within the generative Drive, Right? Creating things that I really value, the anger becomes an immense distraction, you know, and I've seen this a lot, not just on
Mercy campuses. But one place I have seen it is when I was a graduate student or postdoc, there will be some interaction for either between them in the laboratory. I was in, although rarely but more often it was about some interaction with between a student or postdoc and someone in the outside world. And so they come in and if you really upset about it and there's a tendency to, you know, try and support one another which I think is healthy, but then it was like that, this would just continue and continue on the person who likes it.
Ting in their chairs, like really upsetting. And sometimes these were really upsetting occurrences that warranted taking some time and just really stopping but often. I felt like things just kept spiraling up and spiraling ovens like halfway through the day. And again I'm not immune from this but but I observed it more than I felt it certainly. It's like wow that's a lot of time wasted like they just days of perhaps even weeks and months and then there's the Sleep loss that goes with anger. I think that's one of the
Things about social media and online communities. That's new and unique, is that it used to be when kids went home from school, or we go home from work, you would something might have happened there but you didn't have access to more incoming. You know, people weren't calling you on the phone. Telling you, you know, things that you don't like or talking about others in ways that you don't like. Whereas all you have to do now is pick up social media and if you're not really deliberate and how you interact with social media and on the internet and which news articles you read and which ones you used,
Roll past. I mean, that could be accessible at two in the morning when you're up about the thing that was angering you during the day that is new. Right? And, and, and requires elevated levels of intelligence,
right? High levels of anger, bring volatility and confusion, right? And that doesn't serve anyone or anything? Well, lower levels of anger can be healthy, right? I'm angry at that. And I want to try and make it right. Or I'm angry at that. And I'm going to have my say in wrong and have my vote.
In it or whatever it may be lower levels of anger, okay? They can inform us that can guide our behaviors but when we get to high levels of anger, its volatility and confusion, the person ceases to then be effective. And his an example when you were telling me about how you feel when you're doing the solo podcast, right? And and how your agency, and your gratitude are like really in action and you're feeling you're feeling the peace and and you're delighted and you degenerative Drive is at the
For in you, right. And then I said, what if we add a little bit of anger, even right. To kind of make the you and then your responses, like, oh, would all come off line, right? Because they're, you're doing something that calls for, like you to really be at your best firing on all cylinders. So, even a little bit of anger is too much, but it's a good example because it shows like you're able to do this thing that, that is so good for you. You're living in the place that if you could have all of existence be like, you feel then, right? You would love it. If you could bring it to all the rest of your life.
That's the Nirvana where we're going for in your actively living it, but we could throw it off and ruin it with even a little bit of anger, right? So, it's an example that kind of models for us how higher levels of anger, cause problems in situations that are not so rarefied as that high levels of anger, major somebody blurting out, somebody attacking somebody, somebody saying something, they shouldn't somebody making a bad decision. You know, anger isn't good for us at high levels and we can decrease it by making ourselves.
Elves healthier that then we make less of it and we control it better and we keep ourselves at the low to moderate levels of anger. Hopefully, Logan, know, anger is not good. High anger is not good. Let's try and live in the low range. Occasionally something is very distressing. We rise up to moderate. That's where we have anger in a healthy place.
When we set out on this journey to explore, what is mental health? I had no expectation that you would
Were to us this incredible map of how to explore our inner territory and that you would spell out such crisp and clear ideals of states and ways of being in things to access nor did I know anything about the generative drive and the other drives that reside within us, you know, in thinking about self-care and in thinking about the sorts of things that people are challenged with.
Often, you know, I made out a little list not just anger but things like scared, embarrassed, grieving dejected tired, confuse stuck, you know. And then I wrote, you know, infinite number of these, right? I mean there have to be an infinite number of challenges that people face an infinite number of circumstances.
And perhaps, even an Infinite combination of those things that people face in circumstances that can make it all seem like a giant oppressive Cloud within us and around us. And yet what you've provided is really a path of clarity because it's a path that certainly includes a lot of complexity down in those pillars. The bottom you know the structure of cell function of self but you directed us toward looking into
Complexity looking into those cupboards as a way to arrive at answers that bring us toward more Simplicity empowerment, humility agency, gratitude peace, contentment delight. And this incredibly attractive thing the generative drive that that is really accessible to any and all of us
it's there in every one of
us in providing this path of clarity. And again, I want to remind people that
Whether or not you feel you're doing well in life, maybe even in all domains of life or whether or not you're experiencing challenge in any or perhaps, even all domains of life going into. Those cupboards is clearly of immense value and you've so graciously, spelled out how we can do that regardless of resources, really, it sounds like, all it requires is a desire to be better, and feel better, and do better and a willingness to to explore.
Curiosity, right? If I had to summarize the whole thing into words I would say be curious, right? Because curious opens the door to all of it. Curiosity about self curiosity about life, leads to all the good
things.
Well, what you've given us is of immense value. And it's something that I know that I and many, many other people are going to take on as as a positive set of goals, not just for the immense challenges but really, for always, right for living forward and understanding the past. I mean, I never before have I been presented with something that felt like it had as much power and potency to do good as this.
So, that's great. I'm happy to hear
that. Well, it's absolutely true. And I really want to thank you on behalf of myself and everybody else were, you know, sharing with us, your time, your intellect, your willingness to build this structure specifically for this series and it for lack of a better word. It's so generative. It's the end and I'm sure that people have tons of questions.
And and tons of experiences of their own to share in terms of using this and they can share that with us. And that's one of the wonderful things about podcast is. They can put those to the comments on YouTube, or, or else. We're really the comments on. YouTube would be the place to share those questions and comments and feedback. And perhaps going forward, we can explore the self, the psyche relationships and ways to improve all of that, and our lives going forward.
Yes, yes, this has been great. It's been invigorating and fun and thank you so much.
Thank you for joining me for today's discussion. All about true self care with dr. Paul, Conti this marks the ending of the fourth episode in our four episode series. All about mental health with dr. Conte, you can access each of the episodes by going to huberman labs.com where it's linked out to all formats. And regardless of whether or not you have now completed or you are still in the process of digesting, the material from the series.
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