Ryan Bush┃Master Your Mind: The Algorithms Behind Anxiety, Identity, and Becoming Who You Are

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Studying and mastering this thing we call anxiety. I decided
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to make that the first sort of deep dive that
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I did into how psychitecture is applied to a specific
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psychological challenge, and so I really immersed myself in the research.
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I read many dozens of books on anxiety to try
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to build a really comprehensive understanding of it. And it
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wasn't long before it had sort of illuminated this model
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of exactly what causes anxiety and what can sort of
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cure it, what can eliminate anxiety?
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What if your thoughts aren't just reactions but code you
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can actually rewrite. Today I sit down with Ryan A. Bush,
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creator of psychitecture, to explore how our beliefs, emotions, and
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habits function like mental algorithms, and how we can redesign
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them to build a more resilient, aligned, and fulfilling life.
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We dive into anxiety identity and what it really means
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to become who You are very happy to be here
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today with Ryan Bush. Welcome, Ryan, thank you Fleet. I'm
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happy to be here.
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Well, we're really happy to have you. I read your
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book over a year ago and.
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I found it absolutely fascinating and so I've been looking
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forward to this interview, So I'm going to share your
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bio first and then we'll jump right into the conversation.
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Sound good, Sounds great?
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Okay? So. Ryan A.
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Bush is a thinker, designer, and founder of Designing the Mind,
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focused on building better systems, better people, and a better future.
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His work integrates wisdom from ancient and modern thinkers such
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as Laus Sioux, Buddha, Marcus Aurelius, and Nietzsche to create
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a new vision for psychological growth and self mastery. As
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a designer, Riot works with tech startups and organizations to
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create award winning products and experiences, bringing patented physical products
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from concept to market, and building digital platforms and apps.
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He is also the co founder and chief design Officer
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at Nomad, where he continues to innovate and rethink complexes.
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His ideas have been featured on platforms like Psyche, Life, Act, Modernism,
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and the Art of Manliness. Ryan is the author of
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Designing the Mind, the Principles of Psychitecture, and offers transformative
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programs like the Anxiety Algorithm, providing practical frameworks for expanding
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human potential. And as we were chatting before the interview,
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you have a newer book out. What's the name of
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your most recent.
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Full length book, Become who you Are?
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Become who you Are? Great?
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All right, So let's start off with this idea of
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psychitecture and how you developed that. So you introduced this
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concept to describe the process of designing and changing one's
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own mind. I wonder if you could share how this
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concept emerged in your life and how you understand how
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our understanding of what happening happiness is and how we
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do about more happiness enjoy in our life kind of
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fits into this overall framework of psychitecture.
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Yeah.
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Well, it's a long time in the making. I think
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the first traces emerged when I was a teenager still
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and I was just starting to become really fascinated with
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the inner workings of my own mind and other people's
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minds particularly. I was always excited if I could change
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an emotional response in some way, so if I would
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face some setback that would normally upset people, normally upset me.
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I was sort of discovering new ways just through my
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own inner experimentation, to try to rewire those emotions right,
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work them around so that I could feel a positive
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emotion or neutral even after something seemingly negative happened, and
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you know, it was really a building fascination from there.
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I didn't know that, you know, the Stoics and the
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Buddhists had beat me to a lot of these ideas
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a couple of millennia. At the time. I was just
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kind of experimenting with myself and figuring it out, and
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it wasn't too long before I started studying these other sources.
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I got really into Stoicism, I got really into Eastern philosophies.
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Other philosophies like Nietzsche have been really inspiring. And then I,
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you know, even later than that, really started getting into
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the psychology and the psychotherapy behind it. So I really
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took a quick liking to CBT when I discovered it.
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Cognitive behavioral therapy really inspired a lot of this, and
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learning that that had its roots in Stoicism also really
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really started getting me excited about the connections between all
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these things. Around that same time, when I was in college,
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I first went into computer science and started learning about
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you know, software and algorithms, and then I ended up
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switching over to product design and getting my degree in that.
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So that led to a lot of the creative problem
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solving design thinking sort of elements to all this and
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the systems thinking behind it, and so ultimately I ended
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up sort of weaving it all together. And I was
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working a job as a product designer at the time,
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and I just started finding that my notes I was
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taking were like crashing my notes app there were so
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many of them on all these interrelated topics, and I
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kind of felt like, you know, I was waiting for
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someone else to write this book that essentially takes our
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psychological states and puts them into this software metaphor that
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we can use to sort of reprogram them, and no
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one did, so I figured I had to write it.
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So I sort of went part time and then eventually
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quit my job there. And then, Yeah, ever since, I've
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been kind of exploring this concept of psychitecture and sharing
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different ways to rewire and reprogram your psychological algorithms.
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Yeah, fascinating. I love that term psychitecture. We often talk
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about in our Rewiring Your Brain and Rewiring Summit series,
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we talk about rewiring the brain. We also talk about
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reshaping the neural architecture, so kind of the architecture of
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the psyche, if you will, in the mind and so forth.
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So I think it's a it's a great term. And so.
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In your own experience, you've also been somewhat transparent about
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your own struggles with depression, and I'm curious as to
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how that also led to the development of some of
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these interests and theories and so forth.
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Yeah, this sort of picks up the story where we
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left off. So it was kind of during the period
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when I was part time at that job and I
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was working on writing this first book, but it was,
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you know, my progress wasn't coming along fast enough. I
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was really struggling creatively with the process of put all
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these pieces together. But more importantly, I was just I
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was feeling more and more like I wasn't doing well
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at my job. I wasn't really you know, I had
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coworkers who'd sort of taken like a one in particular,
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who sort of took an instant dislike to me, and
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so I was I was sort of battling with that.
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And then of course, there was a global pandemic during
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that time, which doesn't tend to help make things better,
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and so I was finding that I was getting cut
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off from a lot of the domains that my self
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esteem had normally come from. I was disconnected from a
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lot of my friend groups. During this lockdown period, I was,
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you know, working this job where I was becoming increasingly alienated.
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I was I was increasingly doing work that I really
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wasn't good at. As the product cycle matured, I wasn't
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doing the creative design work anymore, and I was I
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was really doing kind of tedious engineering drawings that I
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was I was just not good at. And so all
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this led, I think, to a place where I couldn't
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really see what I was good at. I didn't really
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have evidence of my own personal strengths, and I had
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never really experienced that. I'd always kind of had pretty high, healthy,
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high self esteem my whole life, but during this year,
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I kind of got to experience what it was like
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to not feel good about myself and to you know,
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gradually sort of sunk into what I would describe as
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a mild to moderate sort of depression. And luckily it
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was pretty short lived. It was really just for that
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one year, you know. After that, I got out of
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that job and into a place that was much sort
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of harnessing my strengths much better. I you know, wrapped
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up the book and published it and was able to
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start you know, interacting with readers who were saying that
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this book was changing their lives, and all of this
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served to sort of bring me back, at least least
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to the same, you know, to my normal point as
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that before, probably beyond it essentially, But it did teach
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me a lot about depression and the nature of well
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being and self esteem, and so that essentially inspired the
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theory that went into my second book, Become Who You Are,
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which is called virtue self signaling theory, and so it
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really just explores the actual levers of our well being,
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the core components that bring us up toward what the
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ancient Greeks called you diemonia and down toward what we
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now call clinical depression.
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M So I want to talk about that virtual self
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signaling theory in a moment, but to begin with your
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one of your key frameworks in designing the Mind is
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and you mentioned before recognizing these algorithms, so and your
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work in studying computer programming. So in that book you
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talk about when we have habituated behaviors, various habits and
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so forth that aren't serving us, and in order to
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look at how to change those, all these habits can
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be looked at as a series of if then statements.
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So there's some kind of stimulus.
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Or que and then we generally have a habituated condition
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reaction that leads to a certain result. And there's there's
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all these patterns of those. So one way to look
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at redesigning the mind and for one that really serves
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us and empowers us and leads to the kind of
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behaviors that create the results we're hoping to manifest in life.
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We can just look at these if then statements and
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begin sort of rewriting them so that there's always going
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to be these very stimuli and cues, So can we
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respond to them differently with a kind of different algorithmic
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design and get a different result. So I wonder if
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you could talk more about how you kind of develop
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that and maybe talk about, you know, how that plays
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out beyond theory, about really how you maybe took that
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approach to actually redesigning some of your own emotional patterning, thinking,
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beliefs and habits and so forth.
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Of course, Yeah, so I think it's pretty clear to
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just about everyone that our mental phenomena are interconnected our beliefs,
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our emotions, our habits and behaviors. That there's clear connection
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between a lot of these and this is well established
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in a lot of different fields. You know, you can
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look at you know, I was mentioning earlier, cognitive therapy.
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This makes very clear that our thoughts are essentially the
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triggers for our emotions. It's not just a direct response
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to what happens to us, it's the way that we
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interpret it. So what happens is first filtered through our
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beliefs and our thoughts, and that ends up triggering different
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types of emotions. Right, we can look at behavior change,
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where you know, it's clear that the way that we
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set things up, the inputs and our environment and the
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consequences we structure for ourselves influence how motivated we are
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to take a certain behavior and to stick to a
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habit or to break a habit. And also if we
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just look at the pure belief space, the cognitive realm,
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we can see that cognitive biases have this same sort
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of relationship. There's inputs coming in, there's some modification to
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it that results in the output of a belief or
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an emotion or behavior. And so what psychitecture sort of
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does is it puts all of these findings from various
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fields into a common framework that we can make sense
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of a lot of even ancient wisdom through if you
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look at a lot of the ideas of ancient thinkers,
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you can see it as this kind of open source
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cognitive code that allows us to go in identify this
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algorithm in our minds that's causing whatever we want to
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eliminate that that negative emotion, for example, and rewire it
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by altering that emotional trajectory. And so yeah, I think
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one of the best examples of this is looking at
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cognitive therapy and seeing how you see, for example, a
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lot of extreme polarized thinking in people who are depressed.
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So you can identify people think that they are either
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a total success or a total failure. There's no in between,
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and so they'll hold these beliefs of oh, I missed
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an appointment, I must be a total failure, right, And
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a lot of what CBT does is it kind of
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teaches people know there's a whole space in between. You
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don't have to be one of those extremes. And so
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changing that thought of oh, I'm a total failure because
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I missed this appointment to sort of an alternative balanced
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belief of oh, like I missed an appointment, that's unfortunate,
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but I make most of my appointments. I usually stick
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to a good schedule. So you know, I'm not perfect,
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but I'm not a total failure for this reason. And
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so going in and kind of restructuring these on a
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case by case basis allows you to gradually build a
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better and more robust mind. It's less vulnerable to setbacks
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and things that would normally cause you to suffer, and
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it can become a sort of lifetime art, a lifetime
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discipline of gradually restructuring beliefs and emotions and behaviors to
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build a better and better mind.
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I'm curious about you know, you mentioned CBT cognitive behavioral therapy,
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and there's, as you said, you've been influenced by the
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Buddhist teachings as well, and there's one of the things
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that's coming to our modern, secular, mainstream world from Buddhism
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is mainstream mindfulness. And so you have mindfulance based CBT
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NBCT mindfulnance based cognitive therapy and developed by Siegel and others.
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And so.
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Within the cogn cognitive behavior work, it seemed to be
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kind of on a spectrum from some of your earlier
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cognitive therapies which kind of I'm thinking of I won't
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be able to think of the author right now. With
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some of the early models, for basically there's there's bad
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thoughts that lead to bad results, So take out the
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bad thought, replace it with a good thought, and you'll
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get a better result. To the other end of the spectrum,
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which are considered more kind of acceptance based cognitive therapies,
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where there's at least some context of learning to be
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with our experience, with some level of acceptance, the willingness
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kind of feel what we're feeling, and then from there
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beginning the process of kind of reprogramming as opposed to
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doing it from a more kind of surgical, you know,
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good bad approach. And I'm curious about what you've discovered
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along that spectrum and where your work fits kind of
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within that.
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Yeah, you're probably thinking of Aaron Beck and Albert Ls
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sort of founders of CBT, and yeah, so the third
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wave practices, I think introduce a really important element that
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has been really a staple in all of my work.
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If you read one of my books or take one
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of my programs, before you even get into the psychitecture,
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like the actual changing stuff, there's going to be talk
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about metacognition and mindfulness and diffusion. And this is a
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really important step that I think, Yeah, it was neglected
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early on in cbt's history, which is that a lot
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of people aren't really aware of what's going on in
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their minds, and if they are aware of it, they're
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sort of fused with it, they're identified with it. They're
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not really able to step back and see a thought
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for a thought, it just looks like reality. And so
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what has been introduced in these later therapies, and of
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course is in Buddhism and a lot of other practices,
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is learning to step back and simply observe and accept
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what's going on. I don't really think that there's this
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conflict that has sort of been made out between accepting
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what's going on in your mind and changing what's going
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on in your mind. You know, you hear people arguing
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about this, but ultimately, well, of course you should accept
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what's going on in your mind right now. Of course
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you need to be aware of it in order to
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do anything else. But I don't necessarily agree with the
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mindset that we should accept and then do it some more.
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We should build awareness and then just keep maintaining that awareness.
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I think that in itself can solve some problems, but
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not all problems, and so I think that's step one.
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That's the prerequisite to psychitecture, is that you practice some
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form of mindfulness. You develop a level of metacognitive awareness,
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so you are able to notice your thoughts and your emotions.
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And there are several other practices for doing this. You know,
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Eugene Genland's focusing has been really powerful for me actually
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noticing my emotions, being able to observe them and say, oh, look,
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that's that's what's happening in there, and here's sort of
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what's causing it. But yeah, so that's sort of that's
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in chapter one of Designing the Mind, and that's kind
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of the first step to a lot of this stuff
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is defusing from your thoughts and emotions, learning to see
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them as just that instead of simply as reality. But
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then you can really get into the fund stuff, at
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least the way I frame it, which is you can
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actually start modifying and altering these things.
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And the prioritis are less familiar with the whole spectrum
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of cognitive behavioral therapies. Some of the other third way
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therapies dialectical behavioral therapy and acceptance commitment therapy.
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People may have heard of some of.
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These, and so I agree with you that I think
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that's a false argument around the acceptance quality. I think
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what's sometimes pointed to an acceptance is just as we
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approach redesigning our mind, doing so from a perspective of
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kind of befriending ourselves and with some level of self compassion,
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rather than with some kind of there's something wrong with me,
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or you know, I've got to somehow exercise this bad
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stuff out of me that we can take a little gentler,
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more self compassionate approach. But I think you're absolutely right
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it does begin where mindfuluence really begins. Is that defusing
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from our experience, getting that little bit of distance so
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that we can be aware of what's going on and
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the quality of metacognition you're pointing to. So let's talk
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about your virtual self signaling theory and just tell us
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what all that's about and how it kind of integrates
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current neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and other disciplines.
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Yes, I will try to summarize it in a fairly
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concise way. It does get into the weeds of evolutionary
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psychology and clinical psychology. But essentially there are a number
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of realizations that became clear. They were very much interconnected,
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and one of them I think has to do with
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the the deceptive nature of well being.
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Right.
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We can see that a lot of the things we
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would expect to make a person really happy, or that
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we would expect to make them really unhappy, actually don't
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have that kind of long term effect. So winning the lottery,
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for example, it doesn't end up resulting in way higher
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happiness levels. In fact, you know, lottery winners and paraplegics
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a year after their incident supposedly have the same levels
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of happiness that they did before. And some people have
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sort of concluded that, oh, you just returned to a
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set happiness level no matter what. And I think really
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the correct takeaway here is that these superficial sort of
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life changes, these changes in circumstance, aren't really pulling the
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levers of our happiness. But that doesn't mean that nothing is.
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It's become very clear to me that they're you know,
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my happiness has changed pretty dramatically over the core of
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my life, particularly during that one year that it was
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much lower than before. And what was notable about that
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is that I always had a very high view of
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my myself. I had a very positive view, and I
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had reason for that view. You know, there were there
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were definitely periods where that was disrupted. For example, you know,
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I noticed when I was in high school when I
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would go into a summer break and be so excited
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that I didn't have to do school, I didn't have
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to do anything. I could just stay home and lay
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in bed and play video games. It wasn't ever long
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before I was kind of hating it. I was kind
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of miserable and wasn't sure why. You know, it seemed
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like the best thing in the world, but it wasn't.
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And you know, you see this kind of thing, and
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a lot of people who are depressed, you see that
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they are, you know, not very active. They often have
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very idle, sedentary lives, and and you can see this
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as a symptom of depression. Well, and you can see
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low self esteem and negative self critical monologues as a symptom.
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But I think there's actually more evidence for the alternative,
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which is that your beliefs are what result in your
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well being level and the actions that you take are
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essentially feeding into your beliefs. In other words, you are
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as happy as the actions you see yourself taking. When
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you see evidence of the kind of person you are
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and you approve of that person, your happiness level increases.
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Your overall sort of deep well being increases. When you
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bring out what I call your virtues, your greatest personal strengths,
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your brain is observing that, and it's regulating your mood accordingly.
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And similarly, when it can't find any evidence of those virtues,
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or worse, when it sees evidence of vice of things
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that you actively disapprove of that you would disapprove of
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seeing someone else do, that sort of lowers this dial
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in your brain. And I think there are polutionary origins
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for why our brains would do this. It's sort of
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rooted in social status and mating that our brains are
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essentially designed to regulate our mood according to the virtues
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or the strengths that it perceives in our own behavior.
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But that's the idea, and it really goes all the
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way down to yes clinical depression where you have to
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either intervene at a behavioral or a cognitive level in
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order to improve things, and also all the way at
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the peaks of happiness when we study the happiest people,
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the people that Maslow was calling self actualized individuals, the
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people who are studied in cognitive therapy. And what again,
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the ancient Greeks called you diemonia, which was this sort
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of deep well being. It really is based on these
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core virtues that we pretty much admire universally cross culturally.
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We have these deeply ingrained into our minds, and so this,
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this ultimate well being is the product of essentially aligning
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who you are with who you would most admire through
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a gradual, action oriented process.
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That's really interesting.
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It seems like what you're referencing is a kind of
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evolutionary organic like happiness, seeing happiness as a kind of
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evolutionary organic behavior modification program that's in there kind of
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to help us move in the direction of virtue virtue's behavior. So, yeah,
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that's quite an interesting perspective. You know, another one of
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the third wave cognitive therapies, acceptance commitment therapy, one of
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the hallmarks of what's seen as you know, evolutionary progress
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there is called psychological flexibility. And I wonder if that's
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a term that resonates with you within your both your
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practice and your theorization around this of that of how
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a quality like like psychological flexibility relates with adonomic well being.
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Yeah, I think it definitely aligns. Just being able to
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adapt your beliefs, your views of yourself, your behavior is
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not being too rigid and all that. That's I think
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an important part of actually changing those underlying beliefs and
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behaviors and in general. Yeah, Acceptance and Commitment therapy has
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been one of the many influences behind that. You know,
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it really emphasizes values in a way that I don't
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think CBT normally does. So it talks about value aligned
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action essentially, that's the next step. And I think there's,
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you know, a really elegant integration in all this because
427
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you know, if you look at CBT and you look
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at you know, if you read a book by one
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of these thinkers, find that that people who are depressed,
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they have these thoughts that are very much centered around
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their own virtues, their own alignment with their own values.
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You know, it's it's it's not often pointed out, but
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it's very self oriented, these thoughts, and they're very much
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about how well I am aligning with the things I
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most value. And so it makes sense that actually setting
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a patient up for for behavior that aligns with their
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values through things like behavioral activation would be a really
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important part of this process. And so I think that's
439
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one of the benefits of these later waves is it's
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not so focused around just altering beliefs. There's a great
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growth quote that basically says, if you want to find
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out who you are, it's never by thinking, but always
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by doing. Do your duty and you'll know at you know,
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you'll know who you are essentially. And so what these
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practices like behavior real activation too, as they have you
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actually take action that you admire, that bring more pleasure
447
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and mastery, and ultimately that relate to your values. So
448
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that you are giving yourself that evidence. You don't need
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to necessarily play mind tricks with yourself. You can't even
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deny it because you're seeing your own actions and your
451
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drawing conclusions from it.
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So contrasting wellbeing with hedonic well being, which is basically
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we're happy because things are going our way, we're experiencing
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more pleasure than pain and things like that. You've developed
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a model of you talk about navigating life in three
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dimensions that leads to this quality of adomic well being
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sometimes also called psychological wellbeing, which often includes a sense
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of basic competency value alignment that you've been describing, ability
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to kind of handle our lives, and it could even
460
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be a level of self regulation and self leadership, self
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master These kind of things lead to the psychological.
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Adomic well being.
463
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So talk about these three dimensions and how that plays
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into that.
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Yeah, so this is sort of a visual model for
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the virtue self signaling theory that I think is pretty practical,
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something that people can use to sort of plot their
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direction in their lives. Essentially, I lay it out. You
469
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can imagine a chessboard sitting in front of you. If
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you think about the X axis the left and right
471
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on the chess board, this is essentially pain and pleasure,
472
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and so further to the right is more pleasure, more
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to the left is more pain. And then you've got
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the Y axis, which is loss and gain. And so
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you move further away from you on the chessboard or
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closer to you. That represents you know, you've experienced some
477
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positive circumstance in your life, maybe you've got a promotion,
478
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you know, or loss which is maybe you lost your job, right,
479
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And so what I argue is that Naturally, we're sort
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of wired to navigate our lives on this two dimensional chessboard, right,
481
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So we're trying to maximize pleasure, we're trying to maximize
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gain and minimize loss and pain. And the problem with
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this is that people who navigate their lives on this
484
00:29:22.119 --> 00:29:26.039
often find, well, this doesn't really add up. I've achieved
485
00:29:26.160 --> 00:29:29.119
the things that I'm supposed to. I've got hedonic pleasure
486
00:29:29.200 --> 00:29:32.119
in my life. I've got, you know, a successful career
487
00:29:32.200 --> 00:29:35.799
or whatever. I'm not fulfilled. I'm not happy, and you've
488
00:29:35.799 --> 00:29:38.079
got the opposite. You've got people who don't have these things,
489
00:29:38.119 --> 00:29:41.440
and yet they seem really deeply satisfied. And so what
490
00:29:41.519 --> 00:29:46.400
I do is I essentially extrude a third dimension out
491
00:29:46.400 --> 00:29:48.720
of this chessboard. So if you imagine sort of a
492
00:29:48.759 --> 00:29:53.720
topographical chessboard with mountains and valley than it. Now I
493
00:29:54.160 --> 00:29:57.039
argue that this is what's really pulling the strings of
494
00:29:57.079 --> 00:30:00.440
your happiness, is this third dimension. And if you really,
495
00:30:00.519 --> 00:30:03.440
if you think that you are happy because you got
496
00:30:03.440 --> 00:30:07.720
that promotion or something, you're really being sort of deceived
497
00:30:07.759 --> 00:30:10.440
by what this third dimension is doing. That's really the
498
00:30:10.519 --> 00:30:15.119
reason you're more fulfilled. And this third dimension is essentially virtue.
499
00:30:15.720 --> 00:30:17.839
I've mentioned it a couple times. I know it's kind
500
00:30:17.880 --> 00:30:22.359
of this outdated, stuffy, preachy sounding word, but I really
501
00:30:22.400 --> 00:30:25.079
don't use it in that way. It's the way the
502
00:30:25.079 --> 00:30:28.359
ancient Greeks used it. That's a truly sort of beautiful,
503
00:30:28.440 --> 00:30:36.480
colorful view of ethics, which is essentially it's your greatest strength. Yeah,
504
00:30:36.839 --> 00:30:42.680
it's not necessarily just moral right, Compassion and creativity and charisma,
505
00:30:42.720 --> 00:30:46.359
these are all virtues. So our courage and you know
506
00:30:46.400 --> 00:30:49.880
a lot of these others. But you can think about
507
00:30:49.920 --> 00:30:53.839
Martin Seligman's twenty four sort of virtues that he's studied
508
00:30:54.039 --> 00:30:56.480
in different cultures. Right, there are a lot of these
509
00:30:56.480 --> 00:30:59.920
things like honesty that we value, but also things like humor,
510
00:31:00.400 --> 00:31:04.480
and so these traits and the degree that you are
511
00:31:04.599 --> 00:31:08.680
exercising them and seeing evidence of them in your own life,
512
00:31:08.720 --> 00:31:12.119
this is what's really determining how satisfied in your life
513
00:31:12.119 --> 00:31:15.279
you are. And so you can have the extreme pleasure
514
00:31:15.640 --> 00:31:18.599
and gain in your life. You can have a cushy
515
00:31:18.680 --> 00:31:21.440
job that doesn't require you to do anything, that's paying
516
00:31:21.480 --> 00:31:23.480
you a lot of money. You can go and spend
517
00:31:23.480 --> 00:31:26.920
that money on all kinds of momentary pleasures. You're not
518
00:31:27.000 --> 00:31:29.960
going to feel deeply satisfied if you're not bringing out
519
00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:32.799
your greatest strengths and you're not seeing those strings in
520
00:31:32.839 --> 00:31:36.079
your own actions on a regular basis. And similarly, you
521
00:31:36.119 --> 00:31:40.440
can experience loss, you can experience pain and go through
522
00:31:40.640 --> 00:31:44.279
uncomfortable periods, and they can be deeply rewarding. You can
523
00:31:44.319 --> 00:31:46.920
look back on them as great periods of your life
524
00:31:47.000 --> 00:31:49.039
because even though you were low on the X and
525
00:31:49.200 --> 00:31:51.920
Y axes, you were high on the Z axis. You
526
00:31:51.960 --> 00:31:54.559
were high in virtue at that period of your life,
527
00:31:54.880 --> 00:31:58.720
and you have reason to admire yourself during that period.
528
00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:04.279
This is essentially just illustrating in three dimensions the implications
529
00:32:04.319 --> 00:32:07.200
of this theory. But if you go very high on
530
00:32:07.240 --> 00:32:09.960
this terrain, you know that's going to be the most
531
00:32:10.519 --> 00:32:13.480
fulfilling period. And if you go really low on it,
532
00:32:13.559 --> 00:32:16.160
like I went through during that period where I didn't
533
00:32:16.200 --> 00:32:18.920
really have a whole lot of evidence of the things
534
00:32:19.000 --> 00:32:21.119
I was best at, you're going to be at risk
535
00:32:21.200 --> 00:32:25.200
for depression. And and yeah, so this is this is
536
00:32:25.200 --> 00:32:27.480
the framework that I sort of center the book around.
537
00:32:28.319 --> 00:32:31.240
I like that, and this the axis really is pointing
538
00:32:31.279 --> 00:32:33.799
to the deeper dimension of life. And and you kind
539
00:32:33.799 --> 00:32:38.599
of referenced this from the classic Greek Roman traditions and
540
00:32:39.079 --> 00:32:42.599
the Stoics, as well as in the Buddhist tradition. Uh
541
00:32:42.640 --> 00:32:49.039
there's uh, there's this admonition and and recommendation if you
542
00:32:49.079 --> 00:32:51.759
will to not ground our life, to not ground our
543
00:32:51.759 --> 00:32:54.240
happiness for all well being and things like loss and
544
00:32:54.279 --> 00:32:56.640
game pleasure and playing the the I think called the
545
00:32:56.640 --> 00:33:01.319
eight worldly of beliefs and so forth, that because these
546
00:33:01.319 --> 00:33:06.599
things are transitory and don't lead to lasting happiness. And
547
00:33:06.680 --> 00:33:09.960
another aspect of that, which which kind of ties into
548
00:33:11.440 --> 00:33:18.640
the Stoic view, is when we have our happiness, our
549
00:33:18.680 --> 00:33:22.640
well our sense of well being and happiness reside in circumstances,
550
00:33:23.039 --> 00:33:26.960
whether there are internal circumstances within ourselves or external circumstances,
551
00:33:27.359 --> 00:33:30.279
we really are giving our power away because we really
552
00:33:30.279 --> 00:33:32.880
can't control any of that. Sometimes we can influence things
553
00:33:32.920 --> 00:33:35.119
a little, but ultimately the only thing we really have
554
00:33:35.400 --> 00:33:38.759
any control over is our own mindset, really, and what
555
00:33:38.799 --> 00:33:41.440
we're doing with our own mind right. And so when
556
00:33:41.519 --> 00:33:43.480
we when we base our happiness and well being on
557
00:33:43.519 --> 00:33:47.559
external circumstances, we're essentially giving our powerway. We're putting the
558
00:33:47.559 --> 00:33:50.960
world in charge of our internal state. And so it
559
00:33:51.000 --> 00:33:54.279
makes complete sense to take this deeper view of what
560
00:33:54.359 --> 00:33:57.440
are the real causes of genuine happiness and well being
561
00:33:57.480 --> 00:34:00.759
in a lastic sense. Yeah, And I think also the
562
00:34:00.759 --> 00:34:03.519
buddhistview would very much focus on the idea of virtue.
563
00:34:04.240 --> 00:34:08.039
And yeah, not in the most simplistic sense of good
564
00:34:08.079 --> 00:34:11.039
and bad and morality, There's nothing wrong with that, but
565
00:34:11.079 --> 00:34:12.559
in a deeper view of virtue.
566
00:34:12.719 --> 00:34:14.159
Absolutely what you're talking about.
567
00:34:14.880 --> 00:34:17.199
I think so that the Noble Eightfold Path is in
568
00:34:17.239 --> 00:34:21.000
many ways best practices for a virtuous life. So I
569
00:34:21.000 --> 00:34:24.639
think it is subtly centered around that as well.
570
00:34:27.639 --> 00:34:32.199
What a transformation isn't just about thinking differently, but feeling differently.
571
00:34:32.719 --> 00:34:35.559
Science shows us that true change happens when we align
572
00:34:35.679 --> 00:34:39.159
not just our minds, but also the neural networks in
573
00:34:39.199 --> 00:34:42.800
our hearts and guts. This heart mind connection is the
574
00:34:42.880 --> 00:34:47.119
key to deeper healing, resilience, and expanded awareness. That's why
575
00:34:47.119 --> 00:34:50.559
I created the Heart Mind all access membership and community,
576
00:34:50.840 --> 00:34:53.719
a space designed to help you rewire your nervous system,
577
00:34:54.079 --> 00:34:58.039
cultivate heart intelligence, and live with greater clarity and purpose.
578
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With over one thousand hours of transformational teachings specifically curated.
579
00:35:03.800 --> 00:35:05.039
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580
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581
00:35:10.719 --> 00:35:15.159
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582
00:35:15.199 --> 00:35:20.000
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583
00:35:20.039 --> 00:35:24.760
full potential. You'll also gain unlimited access to every summit
584
00:35:24.800 --> 00:35:28.159
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586
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587
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588
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589
00:35:38.039 --> 00:35:40.960
connected and conscious life, I invite you to join us.
590
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Clip the link to learn more and start your journey today.
591
00:35:46.920 --> 00:35:50.199
So let's talk about anxiety for a moment, because I
592
00:35:50.280 --> 00:35:54.119
know you've spoken about anxiety and a course. In our society,
593
00:35:54.199 --> 00:35:59.239
we both try to self medicated anxiety, and we also
594
00:36:00.079 --> 00:36:03.679
you know, clinically medicated anxiety, and we try to suppress anxiety.
595
00:36:03.719 --> 00:36:08.039
And it's very uncomfortable, so it's understandable that we do that,
596
00:36:08.639 --> 00:36:11.320
and we develop a lot of coping mechanisms to deal
597
00:36:11.360 --> 00:36:14.440
with anxiety that are actually in the end not so
598
00:36:14.519 --> 00:36:17.960
helpful or have all kinds of collateral negativities.
599
00:36:18.400 --> 00:36:20.360
So you've talked.
600
00:36:20.159 --> 00:36:24.280
About an algorithm looking at again like this from an
601
00:36:24.320 --> 00:36:28.960
algorithmic perspective that rather than coping with anxiety or suppressing it,
602
00:36:29.000 --> 00:36:31.679
we could learn to master anxiety. So I think that's
603
00:36:31.760 --> 00:36:32.760
really fascinating.
604
00:36:32.800 --> 00:36:33.880
Could you talk about that?
605
00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:35.639
Absolutely?
606
00:36:35.800 --> 00:36:35.840
So.
607
00:36:36.199 --> 00:36:39.360
Yeah, After I sort of came through that period and
608
00:36:39.400 --> 00:36:42.639
I published the first book, which was sort of this
609
00:36:42.760 --> 00:36:46.559
high level overview of psychitecture, I sort of, you know,
610
00:36:46.840 --> 00:36:49.800
I was gradually growing this audience. I said, I'm not
611
00:36:49.880 --> 00:36:52.760
wasting time. I'm going to start building things. So I
612
00:36:52.840 --> 00:36:57.079
built this community called mind Form that has turned into
613
00:36:57.119 --> 00:37:02.880
this really beautiful community. I also dedicated that year that
614
00:37:02.920 --> 00:37:06.599
the first book came out to essentially studying and mastering
615
00:37:06.679 --> 00:37:09.320
this thing we call anxiety. I decided to make that
616
00:37:09.400 --> 00:37:12.199
the first sort of deep dive that I did into
617
00:37:12.280 --> 00:37:17.199
how psychitecture is applied to a specific psychological challenge, and
618
00:37:17.280 --> 00:37:21.159
so I really immersed myself in the research. I read
619
00:37:21.440 --> 00:37:24.639
many dozens of books on anxiety to try to build
620
00:37:24.639 --> 00:37:29.119
a really comprehensive understanding of it. And it wasn't long
621
00:37:29.199 --> 00:37:32.159
before it had sort of illuminated this model of exactly
622
00:37:32.559 --> 00:37:36.079
what causes anxiety and what can sort of cure it,
623
00:37:36.119 --> 00:37:42.119
what can eliminate anxiety, and so the anxiety algorithm centers
624
00:37:42.199 --> 00:37:45.199
around four sort of nodes, and of course this is
625
00:37:45.480 --> 00:37:49.239
visualized like all my stuff. But you've got the antecedent,
626
00:37:49.360 --> 00:37:53.039
which is the real life trigger or the situation. You've
627
00:37:53.079 --> 00:37:58.280
got the arousal, which is your emotional response, your physiological response.
628
00:37:59.039 --> 00:38:02.280
You've got the appraisal which is your mental interpretation, and
629
00:38:02.280 --> 00:38:04.719
then you've got the action. So four a's that's the
630
00:38:04.760 --> 00:38:08.360
action you take in response to your anxiety. And these
631
00:38:08.360 --> 00:38:12.679
are essentially what is either you know, increasing or decreasing anxiety.
632
00:38:13.480 --> 00:38:16.840
So for example, if you come across something that makes
633
00:38:16.880 --> 00:38:21.239
you nervous, that's an antecedent, right, then it triggers this
634
00:38:21.360 --> 00:38:27.360
physiological arousal. Your heart rate increases, right, you maybe start sweating. Right.
635
00:38:27.440 --> 00:38:30.480
This is all kind of unavoidable for the most part,
636
00:38:30.519 --> 00:38:33.119
but then you get into where you have an option.
637
00:38:33.199 --> 00:38:36.559
So one approach is you can interpret not only that
638
00:38:36.679 --> 00:38:40.320
thing that you're facing, but also these feelings that you're
639
00:38:40.360 --> 00:38:43.039
having as a danger. So you can say, oh no, no,
640
00:38:43.119 --> 00:38:46.400
I'm getting anxious. I might have an anxiety attack. This
641
00:38:46.519 --> 00:38:49.960
is not good. If you interpret that as a danger,
642
00:38:50.440 --> 00:38:52.960
it's going to feed back into the arousal, so you're
643
00:38:53.000 --> 00:38:56.719
going to get even more anxious because you've now interpreted
644
00:38:57.000 --> 00:38:59.639
that there's danger, right, and then that's going to feedback
645
00:38:59.679 --> 00:39:01.599
into the appraisal and so on. So it's going to
646
00:39:01.599 --> 00:39:04.719
become this vicious cycle where your thoughts and emotions feed
647
00:39:04.760 --> 00:39:07.079
off of each other to make you more and more
648
00:39:07.119 --> 00:39:10.559
anxious until potentially it does result in a panic attack.
649
00:39:11.440 --> 00:39:15.559
And then eventually, when you do take an action, if
650
00:39:15.599 --> 00:39:19.239
you escape from the thing that incited all this, if
651
00:39:19.280 --> 00:39:22.119
you take some kind of behavior that removes you from
652
00:39:22.159 --> 00:39:26.679
the situation, that is additionally going to teach your brain Okay,
653
00:39:26.679 --> 00:39:29.760
this is really dangerous. This is we're right to be
654
00:39:29.840 --> 00:39:32.280
anxious when I come across this, So let's keep that
655
00:39:32.320 --> 00:39:35.960
response or even increase that anxiety response. Now, the other
656
00:39:36.079 --> 00:39:39.559
options that you have are when you feel that first
657
00:39:39.559 --> 00:39:43.840
wave of anxiety, you can interpret it as nothing more
658
00:39:43.960 --> 00:39:49.320
than meaningless anxious arousal. You can interpret it purely as
659
00:39:49.360 --> 00:39:54.079
a physiological noise that doesn't really warrant a whole lot
660
00:39:54.119 --> 00:39:54.719
of attention.
661
00:39:55.239 --> 00:39:55.360
Right.
662
00:39:55.440 --> 00:39:57.400
You can notice it, you can acknowledge it, but you
663
00:39:57.400 --> 00:40:00.679
can say, Okay, that's not really a problem for and
664
00:40:00.760 --> 00:40:03.159
even if it escalates, even if you feel your heart
665
00:40:03.159 --> 00:40:06.559
beat increasing, right, if you don't resist it in any way,
666
00:40:06.559 --> 00:40:09.199
and you actually lean into it, you'll find that you
667
00:40:09.239 --> 00:40:11.960
don't ever have a panic attack. Right. Panic attacks are
668
00:40:11.960 --> 00:40:15.880
always caused by this mental resistance to the feelings. If
669
00:40:15.920 --> 00:40:18.119
you lean in and you say, that's fine, my heartbeat
670
00:40:18.199 --> 00:40:20.519
can get as fast as it wants. It's not going
671
00:40:20.519 --> 00:40:22.960
to give me a heart attack. That's not how anxiety works.
672
00:40:23.320 --> 00:40:26.159
That's okay, just let it run its course. You won't
673
00:40:26.159 --> 00:40:29.320
have a panic attack, right, because it's it's essentially that
674
00:40:29.360 --> 00:40:34.119
thought process that creates panic attacks. Similarly, if you take
675
00:40:34.199 --> 00:40:37.440
actions in response to anxiety that your brain does not
676
00:40:37.559 --> 00:40:41.679
interpret as escape, If you just sit there and allow
677
00:40:41.760 --> 00:40:45.039
the anxiety for a moment, allow the wave to come
678
00:40:45.079 --> 00:40:48.960
and then to subside, you'll find that that decreases your
679
00:40:49.119 --> 00:40:53.239
future anxiety response. If you know, this is pretty clear
680
00:40:53.280 --> 00:40:56.199
when it comes to something like exposure therapy. If you're
681
00:40:56.239 --> 00:40:58.800
scared of spiders and you see one and you don't
682
00:40:58.880 --> 00:41:00.840
run away from it, and maybe you even get a
683
00:41:00.880 --> 00:41:04.480
little closer to it, that's essentially going to lower your
684
00:41:04.480 --> 00:41:07.079
anxiety response. It's going to tell your brain, Okay, maybe
685
00:41:07.119 --> 00:41:09.719
I really shouldn't be afraid of this thing, and I've
686
00:41:10.039 --> 00:41:13.000
done a lot of experimentation with this, I've proven it
687
00:41:13.119 --> 00:41:16.920
really true with my own fear of heights, and I've
688
00:41:16.960 --> 00:41:19.079
applied it in many other ways, even when I didn't
689
00:41:19.119 --> 00:41:21.800
know I was applying it. My social anxiety when I
690
00:41:21.880 --> 00:41:25.840
was in seventh grade, I essentially without knowing it, took
691
00:41:25.880 --> 00:41:30.159
on a multi year long exposure practice to eliminate that
692
00:41:30.719 --> 00:41:34.119
and have come quite a long way since then. So
693
00:41:34.159 --> 00:41:37.559
I've seen this demonstrated in many ways, but it applies
694
00:41:37.599 --> 00:41:42.039
to everything from tangible fears and phobias to panic attacks
695
00:41:42.119 --> 00:41:46.079
to worries. Right, it all essentially falls under the same
696
00:41:46.239 --> 00:41:50.320
anxiety algorithm, and there are clear leverage points for actually
697
00:41:50.639 --> 00:41:52.639
eliminating that anxiety from your life.
698
00:41:53.760 --> 00:42:01.079
Oh that's fascinating how our resistance to anxiety gets then
699
00:42:01.440 --> 00:42:05.199
pocratized and built into an algorithm that just takes us
700
00:42:05.199 --> 00:42:08.519
further and further into anxiety, even in the panic. And
701
00:42:08.679 --> 00:42:10.719
as I was listening to you, even before you mentioned,
702
00:42:10.840 --> 00:42:14.199
I was thinking of things like exposure therapy and desensitization
703
00:42:14.400 --> 00:42:19.760
therapy and so forth. And so I've often worked with this,
704
00:42:20.440 --> 00:42:23.960
been teaching meditation for many decades and worked with a
705
00:42:24.000 --> 00:42:27.480
lot of students who are suffering from anxiety.
706
00:42:27.480 --> 00:42:28.320
In one way or another.
707
00:42:28.360 --> 00:42:31.719
And anxiety can be very debilitating when it goes along
708
00:42:31.800 --> 00:42:36.079
that spectrum you're describing in a negative way. But I've
709
00:42:36.159 --> 00:42:39.039
often counseled them in the same way, just the willingness
710
00:42:39.079 --> 00:42:41.639
to be with it, to explore it, to give space
711
00:42:41.679 --> 00:42:44.599
to it, to be curious about it, right, and that
712
00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:48.639
in some ways anxiety it depends on what you describe
713
00:42:48.679 --> 00:42:52.000
as anxiety. If it is the physiological arousal, then that
714
00:42:52.039 --> 00:42:55.320
may be not necessarily be part of life. But what's
715
00:42:55.360 --> 00:42:59.840
stimulating that physiological arousal is part of life in that
716
00:43:00.199 --> 00:43:04.320
in that life is uncertain, you know, when you start
717
00:43:04.360 --> 00:43:08.599
getting beyond the structures of our relative self, life is
718
00:43:08.639 --> 00:43:14.920
pretty groundless, pretty uncertain, impermanent, and the more sensitive to
719
00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:17.679
that we are, I think that produces anxiety. And I
720
00:43:17.679 --> 00:43:20.079
find some people struggling with anxiety are just kind of
721
00:43:20.119 --> 00:43:23.719
very open sensitive people. They haven't dulled that down in
722
00:43:23.800 --> 00:43:26.679
a way some others of us have or compartmentalized it
723
00:43:26.800 --> 00:43:30.599
or or you know, in other words, shielded ourselves from
724
00:43:30.639 --> 00:43:34.079
it with distractedness and so forth. But they're experiencing that
725
00:43:34.159 --> 00:43:37.320
kind of groundlessness of life. So then there's the process
726
00:43:37.360 --> 00:43:39.639
of Okay, how do you make friends with that, and
727
00:43:39.719 --> 00:43:41.880
how do you learn to swim in those waters?
728
00:43:41.960 --> 00:43:42.119
Right?
729
00:43:42.599 --> 00:43:44.360
You know, if somebody pushes you in a deep end
730
00:43:44.360 --> 00:43:45.639
of the pool you don't know how to swim, you're
731
00:43:45.639 --> 00:43:47.840
going to panic. But if you're a good swimmer, you
732
00:43:47.920 --> 00:43:50.480
might be irritated if they pushed in with your clothes on,
733
00:43:50.599 --> 00:43:53.320
But sooner or later you start splashing around and probably
734
00:43:53.320 --> 00:43:56.039
start laughing because you're very comfortable in the water. Right,
735
00:43:56.280 --> 00:43:59.679
So it seems like it's a similar idea. There be
736
00:43:59.760 --> 00:44:03.239
friends and exploring and understanding what is anxiety? What are
737
00:44:03.280 --> 00:44:05.599
these cues, what's the ultimate source of it?
738
00:44:06.559 --> 00:44:09.880
Yeah, so that's kind of the worry component of this.
739
00:44:10.079 --> 00:44:14.719
So so the Anxiety Algorithm program, it has four modules, fear, panic, worry,
740
00:44:14.800 --> 00:44:20.159
and then avoidance behaviors is centered around procrastination and that
741
00:44:20.280 --> 00:44:23.519
kind of thing. But the worry component we really dig
742
00:44:23.639 --> 00:44:28.000
into these beliefs about how the world is or should be,
743
00:44:28.119 --> 00:44:32.280
and specifically there's five distortions that we have to sort
744
00:44:32.280 --> 00:44:35.760
of overcome and expose ourselves to. And what you're getting
745
00:44:35.760 --> 00:44:39.119
at is completely contained within that. So we've got first
746
00:44:39.159 --> 00:44:42.599
the utility distortion. A lot of people believe that they
747
00:44:43.559 --> 00:44:45.719
that their anxiety is serving them in some way that
748
00:44:45.840 --> 00:44:49.039
worrying is a good thing, is a healthy thing, and
749
00:44:49.159 --> 00:44:50.719
that's going to make it very hard for you to
750
00:44:50.760 --> 00:44:54.559
overcome it. Right, You've got the security distortion, which is
751
00:44:55.000 --> 00:44:57.119
kind of what you're saying, the belief that we can
752
00:44:57.320 --> 00:45:00.519
attain a kind of safety or a permit or a
753
00:45:00.559 --> 00:45:03.119
certainty in our lives, when in fact none of that
754
00:45:03.199 --> 00:45:07.920
really exists. Everything is impermanent, everything is changing, everything is uncertain.
755
00:45:07.960 --> 00:45:10.440
That's simply how it is. And so the more thoroughly
756
00:45:10.480 --> 00:45:13.360
you can lean into that and embrace that, the less
757
00:45:13.400 --> 00:45:16.960
worried you'll be right, you know. Sovereignty is a big one,
758
00:45:17.519 --> 00:45:19.880
thinking that you can control your life. If you are
759
00:45:20.159 --> 00:45:22.760
just careful enough and you worry enough, you can control
760
00:45:22.840 --> 00:45:25.440
everything that happens to you, which of course is never
761
00:45:25.480 --> 00:45:30.440
going to be true. Adequacy, which is all about, you know, perfectionism,
762
00:45:30.480 --> 00:45:32.760
the belief that you can be perfect and live up
763
00:45:32.760 --> 00:45:37.039
to your full potential. And then catastrophe, which is kind
764
00:45:37.039 --> 00:45:40.519
of the idea that regardless of what happens, believing that
765
00:45:40.599 --> 00:45:42.840
you won't recover or that you can't cope with it,
766
00:45:43.159 --> 00:45:46.800
when in fact our minds are far more anti fragile,
767
00:45:46.840 --> 00:45:49.440
far less vulnerable than we tend to give them credit for.
768
00:45:50.719 --> 00:45:54.800
I wonder if those also play into you know, in
769
00:45:54.840 --> 00:45:57.840
our search for happiness as human beings, we're often grabbing
770
00:45:57.960 --> 00:46:00.760
the wrong end of the stick. And you know there's
771
00:46:00.760 --> 00:46:03.559
that country Western song I think, you know, looking for
772
00:46:03.639 --> 00:46:07.400
love and all the wrong places right. And so I
773
00:46:07.440 --> 00:46:14.280
think you've talked about how our intuitions about happiness and
774
00:46:14.320 --> 00:46:16.920
what will make us happy are often skewed, and I
775
00:46:16.920 --> 00:46:18.960
would assume they get skewed by some of those things
776
00:46:19.000 --> 00:46:21.280
you just mentioned. And I'm wondering if how we can
777
00:46:21.320 --> 00:46:26.800
then kind of align our intuitions or maybe you could
778
00:46:26.800 --> 00:46:29.599
describe what you mean by intuition for a moment and
779
00:46:29.639 --> 00:46:32.599
then but also, you know this kind of internal framework
780
00:46:32.639 --> 00:46:35.760
that we kind of rely on to make choices and
781
00:46:36.239 --> 00:46:41.519
directions going, that we could better align that with with
782
00:46:41.840 --> 00:46:44.559
the actual sources of happiness so that we make better
783
00:46:44.599 --> 00:46:45.679
decisions in a moment.
784
00:46:47.360 --> 00:46:49.480
Yeah, So I think what you're getting at is kind
785
00:46:49.480 --> 00:46:53.039
of this idea that you know, we can either go
786
00:46:53.119 --> 00:46:56.840
about our happiness through internal means or sort of external means.
787
00:46:57.199 --> 00:47:00.559
And this is a major message in my books. I
788
00:47:00.679 --> 00:47:04.079
kind of warn people early on, like, if you're here
789
00:47:04.159 --> 00:47:08.239
to rewire your mind, so that you can just like
790
00:47:08.559 --> 00:47:11.639
get really fit, or you know get you know, get
791
00:47:11.719 --> 00:47:15.119
rich or whatever like, that's not really what it's for
792
00:47:15.159 --> 00:47:17.440
and those things aren't really going to make you happy
793
00:47:17.440 --> 00:47:20.559
in and of themselves. And so it's really all about
794
00:47:20.880 --> 00:47:23.840
embracing the fact that most of the power to control
795
00:47:23.880 --> 00:47:28.639
our well being is inside our own minds, and when
796
00:47:28.719 --> 00:47:32.280
we try to achieve happiness through external means, we're most
797
00:47:32.440 --> 00:47:34.719
likely going to find that it doesn't really work. Even
798
00:47:34.760 --> 00:47:37.199
if we get what we want, which is not at
799
00:47:37.199 --> 00:47:40.599
all ever guaranteed, right, it's probably not going to hit
800
00:47:40.679 --> 00:47:43.559
us the way we thought it would, And so we
801
00:47:43.679 --> 00:47:46.400
have an immense amount of power over our own well being.
802
00:47:46.800 --> 00:47:50.599
We unfortunately can't change everything about society, right. There's a
803
00:47:50.639 --> 00:47:53.079
lot of things that could be a lot better, but
804
00:47:53.119 --> 00:47:56.760
we have a disproportionate amount of control over our own minds.
805
00:47:57.159 --> 00:48:00.960
And there have been ideas that are thousands of years
806
00:48:00.960 --> 00:48:05.000
old that are so neglected they're not taught in schools,
807
00:48:05.039 --> 00:48:09.519
but essentially that they can dramatically change your well being.
808
00:48:09.519 --> 00:48:13.719
They're more powerful than any technology, any medicine we've developed.
809
00:48:14.079 --> 00:48:18.599
I tend to call these psychotechnologies, but they're simple ideas
810
00:48:18.639 --> 00:48:22.159
that if you stall them, install them into your psychological
811
00:48:22.199 --> 00:48:27.280
operating system, you can dramatically increase your overall well being.
812
00:48:27.719 --> 00:48:32.079
And so I think these ideas. You know, maybe it's
813
00:48:32.239 --> 00:48:35.119
just because they're abstract, they don't have a physical form,
814
00:48:35.159 --> 00:48:37.800
they're not shiny things we can look at. But if
815
00:48:37.800 --> 00:48:40.159
we paid more attention to these and made them a
816
00:48:40.159 --> 00:48:44.559
bigger part of our sort of educational process, we could
817
00:48:44.760 --> 00:48:48.320
we could increase our well being and just the population's
818
00:48:48.360 --> 00:48:52.000
well being dramatically. It's the most direct route to alleviating
819
00:48:52.079 --> 00:48:55.119
suffering and cultivating fulfillment.
820
00:48:57.159 --> 00:48:58.800
I'm curious what you think about.
821
00:48:59.280 --> 00:49:01.960
You know, before you were talking about there's this kind
822
00:49:02.000 --> 00:49:09.159
of evolutionary organic algorithm that motivates us towards virtuous to
823
00:49:09.639 --> 00:49:13.920
virtues and value alignment, because then we end up experiencing
824
00:49:13.960 --> 00:49:17.280
more aerodomic well being and that kind of lasting happiness.
825
00:49:17.800 --> 00:49:21.400
And even in talking about.
826
00:49:21.159 --> 00:49:23.719
Rewiring our beliefs or rewiring the brain, there's all these
827
00:49:23.800 --> 00:49:27.000
kinds of things we can do on one level of
828
00:49:27.079 --> 00:49:29.880
kind of relative reality that are going to lead to
829
00:49:29.920 --> 00:49:33.440
greater well being and happiness and so forth. And I
830
00:49:33.440 --> 00:49:35.480
know you've studied in the Buddhist traditions and in the
831
00:49:35.480 --> 00:49:38.119
Buddhist tradition, there's something called Buddha nature, or one of
832
00:49:38.159 --> 00:49:42.360
my teachers just called it unconditional basic goodness. And there's
833
00:49:42.440 --> 00:49:46.159
three basic views of human nature across culturally and historically,
834
00:49:46.559 --> 00:49:48.639
and that actually ends up being the dominant one if
835
00:49:48.679 --> 00:49:50.920
you study. But the other views are blank slate, that
836
00:49:51.000 --> 00:49:53.280
we're just a blank slate and whatever we're exposed to do,
837
00:49:53.320 --> 00:49:55.880
we become. And then there's the idea of like the
838
00:49:55.920 --> 00:49:58.239
fallen nature of humanity, that we have some seed of
839
00:49:58.280 --> 00:50:01.599
evil in us or something I'm wondering about, you know,
840
00:50:01.760 --> 00:50:06.039
in my understanding of the contemplative traditions and in my
841
00:50:06.079 --> 00:50:12.480
own experience through contemplative practices and introspects in metacognition and
842
00:50:12.559 --> 00:50:15.440
some of the deep practices, we can drop into levels
843
00:50:15.480 --> 00:50:19.039
of our being beneath all the noise, perhaps even beneath
844
00:50:19.239 --> 00:50:23.960
all the conditioning, where we experience this unconditional wholeness, this
845
00:50:24.239 --> 00:50:29.480
unconditional integrity, unconditional goodness that then becomes an ultimate source
846
00:50:29.519 --> 00:50:34.920
of wellbeing that maybe is even deeper and more lasting
847
00:50:35.440 --> 00:50:41.800
and less fragile to circumstances than a somewhat more constructed
848
00:50:42.320 --> 00:50:45.480
albeit you know, a really wonderful source of wellbeing like
849
00:50:45.519 --> 00:50:46.320
you've been describing.
850
00:50:48.000 --> 00:50:53.320
Yeah, so my worldview on this is that, thanks to evolution,
851
00:50:54.000 --> 00:50:57.599
are psyche. Our psyche is sort of a mixed bag.
852
00:50:58.000 --> 00:51:01.360
It's not that we are the under the core of
853
00:51:01.440 --> 00:51:05.039
it all where we're really truly good and pure, or
854
00:51:05.079 --> 00:51:08.079
that we're you know, deeply evil. It's that there is
855
00:51:08.960 --> 00:51:12.480
just a mix of tendencies and motives and desires built
856
00:51:12.480 --> 00:51:16.360
into us. You know, evolution really doesn't care and the
857
00:51:16.440 --> 00:51:19.559
things that we consider ethical or not. It's all about
858
00:51:19.599 --> 00:51:23.679
what is adaptive and what serves our reproductive success. And
859
00:51:23.719 --> 00:51:25.480
so there is going to be a mixed bag in there.
860
00:51:26.079 --> 00:51:28.760
But our values are are a little bit different from
861
00:51:28.800 --> 00:51:32.280
our desires, right. I think there's a very meaningful distinction.
862
00:51:32.719 --> 00:51:36.440
Our values don't motivate us in this same powerful way.
863
00:51:36.480 --> 00:51:40.400
They're very easy to ignore. But our values do seem
864
00:51:40.440 --> 00:51:42.920
to relate to these very good things. And I think
865
00:51:42.920 --> 00:51:46.079
that's by definition, right. If it weren't good, it wouldn't
866
00:51:46.079 --> 00:51:48.280
be one of our values. And you know, if we
867
00:51:48.360 --> 00:51:50.239
perceive it as good and we call it good, that's
868
00:51:50.320 --> 00:51:52.920
that tells us that's what one of our values is.
869
00:51:53.239 --> 00:51:55.360
So I think it's inevitable that we're going to have
870
00:51:55.440 --> 00:52:01.280
to rewire certain tendencies and alter certain desires and behaviors
871
00:52:01.360 --> 00:52:04.679
in order to achieve that state that we actually highly
872
00:52:04.800 --> 00:52:09.519
approve of. Right, But there are these values that we
873
00:52:09.599 --> 00:52:13.400
see throughout cultures that we really do tend to admire
874
00:52:13.440 --> 00:52:17.280
in others, and I think going through and practicing psychitecture
875
00:52:17.280 --> 00:52:20.880
and rewiring the parts of us that we don't highly
876
00:52:20.920 --> 00:52:23.639
approve of that we don't admire is sort of the
877
00:52:23.639 --> 00:52:26.119
path to this. And so I think absolutely there are
878
00:52:26.159 --> 00:52:30.639
practices like this deep meditation that can bring us closer
879
00:52:30.679 --> 00:52:34.239
to that. But I guess my worldview is not that
880
00:52:34.800 --> 00:52:40.119
they're shedding outer layers and getting to the true, purely
881
00:52:40.199 --> 00:52:44.320
positive inner core of us. It's that they are rewiring
882
00:52:44.440 --> 00:52:47.639
us in strategic ways so that we can more closely
883
00:52:47.719 --> 00:52:49.079
align with our own values.
884
00:52:50.880 --> 00:52:56.760
So, yeah, it's fascinating to look at all these things
885
00:52:56.760 --> 00:53:03.239
through these different windows, and any way we can deepen
886
00:53:03.280 --> 00:53:06.400
our understanding about you know, what draws us in the
887
00:53:06.440 --> 00:53:10.639
direction of what we're calling well being and lasting happiness.
888
00:53:11.599 --> 00:53:12.199
Seems to be.
889
00:53:12.159 --> 00:53:15.480
An incredibly profitable way to focus our energy and attention.
890
00:53:16.480 --> 00:53:18.920
Let's talk about this idea of becoming who you are.
891
00:53:19.320 --> 00:53:24.800
This idea from Nizsche and which I think you've done
892
00:53:24.840 --> 00:53:28.079
your latest book around, so could you talk about that
893
00:53:28.159 --> 00:53:28.559
for a bit.
894
00:53:29.880 --> 00:53:32.960
Yeah, it very much relates to what we're talking about here.
895
00:53:33.199 --> 00:53:38.360
And essentially this is an idea that he proposed and
896
00:53:38.519 --> 00:53:40.800
kind of made a central part of his work. Even
897
00:53:40.840 --> 00:53:43.679
though it's very cryptic. Not many people have ventured to
898
00:53:43.719 --> 00:53:46.800
interpret what Nietzsche meant when he said become who you
899
00:53:46.880 --> 00:53:50.519
are or what does your conscience say? You shall become
900
00:53:51.360 --> 00:53:55.039
that which you are. But I've sort of ventured to
901
00:53:55.079 --> 00:53:57.239
do that, and it very much lines up with what
902
00:53:57.280 --> 00:54:00.400
we're talking about here. It's the idea that you have.
903
00:54:01.920 --> 00:54:04.840
There's a sort of self, a template of your ideals
904
00:54:04.880 --> 00:54:08.400
that are sort of etched into your mind. Right, It's
905
00:54:08.400 --> 00:54:11.280
in there you can see when you approve of someone
906
00:54:11.480 --> 00:54:14.480
else's actions. Right if you look at if you create
907
00:54:14.519 --> 00:54:16.639
a list, for example, of all the people you most
908
00:54:16.679 --> 00:54:20.679
admire and then write out the specific traits that they
909
00:54:20.719 --> 00:54:23.920
demonstrate that you admire, you've sort of got a blueprint
910
00:54:23.960 --> 00:54:27.280
there for who your ideal self is. And chances are
911
00:54:27.280 --> 00:54:30.480
you're not that person. In fact, it's literally impossible to
912
00:54:30.639 --> 00:54:34.400
get all the way there, but that template is in
913
00:54:34.440 --> 00:54:37.280
many ways you because it tells you it's a unique
914
00:54:37.559 --> 00:54:41.599
signature of your values that's only built into your brain.
915
00:54:42.199 --> 00:54:46.679
And so when we talk about becoming, we're talking about
916
00:54:47.039 --> 00:54:51.159
the you of your actual self, your actual behaviors on
917
00:54:51.159 --> 00:54:55.320
a regular basis aligning more and more with that template
918
00:54:55.360 --> 00:54:59.679
of your ideals. And when you practice, you know, when
919
00:54:59.719 --> 00:55:02.239
you look get your life through this three dimensional lens
920
00:55:02.280 --> 00:55:07.199
and through virtue self signaling theory, you gain the ability
921
00:55:07.239 --> 00:55:11.199
to gradually become who you are, to become that template,
922
00:55:11.559 --> 00:55:16.440
and you organize your life around this process of self becoming. Right,
923
00:55:16.519 --> 00:55:19.760
this is really the most direct route to well being.
924
00:55:19.800 --> 00:55:23.760
And I think even Nietzsche was aware of this. He criticized,
925
00:55:24.440 --> 00:55:27.679
you know, the ancient Greeks and the Stoics, but I
926
00:55:27.679 --> 00:55:30.239
think he had more in common with them than he realized.
927
00:55:30.280 --> 00:55:33.440
I mean that you can look at certain quotes where
928
00:55:33.519 --> 00:55:37.360
Nietzsche and Seneca, for example, essentially said the same thing
929
00:55:37.480 --> 00:55:41.880
using the same metaphors. Right, the idea that you know
930
00:55:41.719 --> 00:55:46.079
you can't like the strongest trees are the ones that
931
00:55:46.159 --> 00:55:50.519
experience wind. Right, if you protect a tree from the wind,
932
00:55:50.559 --> 00:55:53.800
it doesn't grow stronger. So this idea that you see
933
00:55:53.800 --> 00:55:57.599
in all these different cultures that It's not really about
934
00:55:57.639 --> 00:56:01.639
being comfortable, right. Our culture is sort of centered around
935
00:56:01.800 --> 00:56:06.559
achieving comfort, but ultimately character beats comfort. And you could,
936
00:56:06.880 --> 00:56:10.880
in many cases you can choose the most uncomfortable route,
937
00:56:10.960 --> 00:56:13.480
and it will be the more direct route to character
938
00:56:13.800 --> 00:56:17.280
and to virtue and to self becoming that will determine
939
00:56:17.280 --> 00:56:21.000
your ultimate well being. And so following that compass of
940
00:56:21.039 --> 00:56:25.960
your own admiration instead of the expedient or comfortable or
941
00:56:26.119 --> 00:56:29.679
seemingly successful route, is much more reliable. And I think
942
00:56:29.719 --> 00:56:32.440
that's a major message of Nietzsche's work as well.
943
00:56:33.880 --> 00:56:34.039
Yeah.
944
00:56:34.039 --> 00:56:39.360
Absolutely, I've read countless accounts of you know, some of
945
00:56:39.400 --> 00:56:42.119
the great Yogis of the Eastern traditions and so forth,
946
00:56:43.000 --> 00:56:47.920
who embraced discomfort at a level that most modern Westerners
947
00:56:47.960 --> 00:56:51.480
can hardly imagine. And yet it led to lives of
948
00:56:52.199 --> 00:56:57.800
complete freedom and joy and showed up as virtuous behaviors,
949
00:56:57.840 --> 00:57:04.679
incredibly altruistic motivated behavior, and so forth. So, and it
950
00:57:04.760 --> 00:57:09.920
is amazing how in our Western culture, you know, I
951
00:57:09.960 --> 00:57:12.199
spoke before about that we keep grabbing the wrong into
952
00:57:12.239 --> 00:57:14.880
the stick. We and and you know, in some ways
953
00:57:15.199 --> 00:57:18.320
we are comfort seeking animals. I mean, all animals seek
954
00:57:18.360 --> 00:57:24.360
to avoid discomfort and seek comfort, and but as conscious
955
00:57:24.360 --> 00:57:26.880
beings we can override that. But it's it's interesting that
956
00:57:26.960 --> 00:57:30.480
as a culture we've become so comfort seeking and it's
957
00:57:30.480 --> 00:57:33.119
really to our own detriment. Uh. And it's not that
958
00:57:33.239 --> 00:57:36.119
it's been physical comfort, but now we have kind of
959
00:57:36.159 --> 00:57:40.559
in this postmodernist era, there's a there's a drive towards
960
00:57:40.599 --> 00:57:45.800
trying to create some levels of psychological comfort and emotional comfort.
961
00:57:46.000 --> 00:57:47.880
And you know that to create.
962
00:57:47.800 --> 00:57:52.079
Bubbles, imagine a bubbles of lack of challenge that we
963
00:57:52.119 --> 00:57:55.119
could live in, and that's somehow would be helpful to us.
964
00:57:56.119 --> 00:57:58.960
Sure, yeah, I think you know. One thing is it
965
00:57:59.039 --> 00:58:02.119
is important to that are discomfort be chosen as much
966
00:58:02.159 --> 00:58:05.719
as possible. Right, if you look at people who go
967
00:58:05.800 --> 00:58:09.159
through something really difficult, who go through hardship and come
968
00:58:09.199 --> 00:58:11.480
out of it stronger, and you compare that to people
969
00:58:11.559 --> 00:58:14.760
who you know had something really awful happen to them,
970
00:58:15.159 --> 00:58:18.039
I think you know, you got a much better shot
971
00:58:18.079 --> 00:58:20.840
at coming out of it actually better and more satisfied
972
00:58:20.840 --> 00:58:23.480
if you chose to take it on as opposed to
973
00:58:23.760 --> 00:58:26.159
you know, putting someone else in that position where they
974
00:58:26.519 --> 00:58:29.320
are forced to face a challenge. Right, if you want
975
00:58:29.440 --> 00:58:33.280
to overcome your fear of swimming. Right, you want to
976
00:58:33.360 --> 00:58:35.920
jump in the water and force yourself to but you
977
00:58:35.960 --> 00:58:37.840
don't want to jump. You don't want to push your
978
00:58:37.920 --> 00:58:40.960
kid into the water if they didn't choose to overcome
979
00:58:41.000 --> 00:58:43.440
their own fear of swimming. And I think that's a
980
00:58:43.480 --> 00:58:47.800
difficult challenge. But I empathize with those who are trying to,
981
00:58:48.559 --> 00:58:51.559
you know, decrease the amount that we challenge and offend
982
00:58:51.599 --> 00:58:53.639
other people, because at the end of the day, you
983
00:58:53.679 --> 00:58:57.960
should you should be choosing to increase your own resilience
984
00:58:57.960 --> 00:59:01.280
and your own psychological robustness on your own and not
985
00:59:01.320 --> 00:59:02.480
having it forced upon you.
986
00:59:03.239 --> 00:59:03.440
Yeah.
987
00:59:03.440 --> 00:59:06.239
Absolutely, And we don't want in any way glorify poverty
988
00:59:06.360 --> 00:59:11.000
or any systemically caused injustices or discomforts. And at the
989
00:59:11.039 --> 00:59:14.559
same time, I'll just say we know from pretty extensive
990
00:59:14.920 --> 00:59:23.840
evidence and sociological anthological research that often people who live
991
00:59:23.920 --> 00:59:29.800
in circumstances that modern Westerners would consider pretty uncomfortable are
992
00:59:29.800 --> 00:59:31.760
actually much happier on the whole than we are.
993
00:59:32.320 --> 00:59:35.119
So even though maybe they didn't.
994
00:59:34.920 --> 00:59:40.159
Particularly choose that, but there is something about our overwinging
995
00:59:40.199 --> 00:59:44.159
attraction to comfort that I don't think is making us happy.
996
00:59:45.280 --> 00:59:46.760
No, I totally agree.
997
00:59:49.280 --> 00:59:52.480
So we're coming towards the end of our time, Ryan,
998
00:59:52.559 --> 00:59:54.280
I wonder if you can speak to what you think
999
00:59:54.360 --> 01:00:00.199
might be like maybe one of the beliefs, or or
1000
01:00:00.239 --> 01:00:03.079
if you will algorithms that.
1001
01:00:04.960 --> 01:00:06.320
Really stands out for you as.
1002
01:00:08.719 --> 01:00:11.639
Most getting in the way of people's ultimate happiness or
1003
01:00:11.840 --> 01:00:14.119
ultimate well being or aeronomic well being.
1004
01:00:15.760 --> 01:00:20.719
I think one big thing is that despite the fact
1005
01:00:20.719 --> 01:00:27.719
that discomfort can be can ultimately lead to greater rewards.
1006
01:00:28.119 --> 01:00:31.840
I think in some cases we justify suffering to an
1007
01:00:31.880 --> 01:00:36.199
extent that we shouldn't. Right, A lot of people are
1008
01:00:36.239 --> 01:00:40.519
sort of under the impression that our emotions are all
1009
01:00:40.639 --> 01:00:43.880
there for a reason, and they're all they all speak
1010
01:00:43.920 --> 01:00:46.000
to us, that we can learn from all of them,
1011
01:00:46.000 --> 01:00:49.239
and we shouldn't try to eliminate them. And I think
1012
01:00:49.599 --> 01:00:52.400
one of the healthiest lenses we can take to this
1013
01:00:53.280 --> 01:00:56.119
is an evolutionary lens where we can say, Okay, why
1014
01:00:56.239 --> 01:00:59.639
is this emotion here? What purpose does it serve? You know,
1015
01:01:00.039 --> 01:01:03.000
there's a chance that you know, maybe you're feeling depressed
1016
01:01:03.039 --> 01:01:05.559
because yeah, your mind is trying to tell you in
1017
01:01:05.559 --> 01:01:09.119
some ways you're not living up to your own ideals, right.
1018
01:01:09.159 --> 01:01:13.079
But there are other times when you are getting angry
1019
01:01:13.119 --> 01:01:18.400
because it's it's simply a primitive response to barriers, and
1020
01:01:19.159 --> 01:01:21.719
you know, the modern world has amplified them in a
1021
01:01:21.760 --> 01:01:24.159
way where you know, you're spending a lot of your
1022
01:01:24.199 --> 01:01:27.079
time angry, and you're sort of clinging to that anger
1023
01:01:27.119 --> 01:01:31.000
in a way. And so I think people do cling
1024
01:01:31.039 --> 01:01:34.840
to and justify suffering in many cases. You can see
1025
01:01:34.840 --> 01:01:38.559
this in people who believe that they have to choose
1026
01:01:38.599 --> 01:01:43.639
between being happy and deceived about the world and unhappy
1027
01:01:43.679 --> 01:01:47.760
and seeing the world clearly. You see people justify that
1028
01:01:47.840 --> 01:01:51.239
all the time. You see people say, well, being unhappy,
1029
01:01:51.280 --> 01:01:54.639
being angry, being anxious, it drives me to achieve what
1030
01:01:54.760 --> 01:01:58.719
I do. And this is another fallacy, right. You can
1031
01:01:58.760 --> 01:02:01.000
see there are plenty of people there who are both
1032
01:02:01.400 --> 01:02:05.119
happy and live in relative peace and stability, who are
1033
01:02:05.159 --> 01:02:08.199
also very effective and get things done. And so I
1034
01:02:08.239 --> 01:02:13.519
think in general, justifying your suffering right believing that it's
1035
01:02:13.599 --> 01:02:17.239
somehow good, or that it's inevitable, or that it's deserved
1036
01:02:17.320 --> 01:02:21.280
or something. I think that's one of the biggest problematic
1037
01:02:21.320 --> 01:02:25.320
beliefs that I see people just choosing to suffer or
1038
01:02:25.400 --> 01:02:28.400
choosing to say, oh, well, you should be suffering, maybe
1039
01:02:28.400 --> 01:02:32.159
in solidarity or maybe because of society, whatever, it is
1040
01:02:32.599 --> 01:02:37.440
I think we can all become more effective human beings.
1041
01:02:37.440 --> 01:02:41.039
We can all become more productive, we can develop more
1042
01:02:41.079 --> 01:02:47.480
accurate beliefs if we choose not to inflict needless suffering
1043
01:02:47.519 --> 01:02:50.159
on ourselves and not to cling to that suffering.
1044
01:02:50.840 --> 01:02:52.239
Absolutely not on others.
1045
01:02:52.800 --> 01:02:57.320
So I wonder one last question might be I think
1046
01:02:57.480 --> 01:03:03.519
one of the sometimes we get really identified with and
1047
01:03:03.519 --> 01:03:07.280
I don't even necessarily mean consciously, we can't get consciously
1048
01:03:07.320 --> 01:03:10.719
identified with our suffering or patterns of suffering. And I
1049
01:03:10.760 --> 01:03:13.840
think that can become a barrier to change because if
1050
01:03:13.880 --> 01:03:15.079
I wasn't that, who would I be?
1051
01:03:15.360 --> 01:03:15.559
Right?
1052
01:03:15.639 --> 01:03:18.320
And that can be kind of destabilizing because we all,
1053
01:03:18.800 --> 01:03:21.320
you know, we start off to these these little beings
1054
01:03:21.039 --> 01:03:24.280
with much of a framework to navigate the world, and
1055
01:03:24.320 --> 01:03:26.559
we build a self structure and we cling to that
1056
01:03:26.599 --> 01:03:29.400
pretty tightly because we're not designed to deal with the
1057
01:03:29.440 --> 01:03:32.039
groundlessness and in permanence of reality as it is at
1058
01:03:32.039 --> 01:03:34.800
that age, and even as an adult is a challenge, right,
1059
01:03:35.440 --> 01:03:41.199
So that that can happen, But then also there's trauma
1060
01:03:41.239 --> 01:03:46.480
that happens in people's lives, childhood traumas, adult traumas, historical
1061
01:03:47.239 --> 01:03:48.880
ancestral traumas.
1062
01:03:48.440 --> 01:03:50.559
That that can tend to kind of.
1063
01:03:53.599 --> 01:03:56.920
Almost build in some of these algorithms and get people,
1064
01:03:57.440 --> 01:04:00.000
get us stuck at our nervous systems, get our neurobiology.
1065
01:04:00.079 --> 01:04:03.400
You're stuck in some of these what can be in
1066
01:04:03.440 --> 01:04:07.079
some way self defeating algorithms. And I'm curious about your
1067
01:04:07.079 --> 01:04:11.639
thoughts about that, and then how how one can develop
1068
01:04:12.400 --> 01:04:15.400
both the perspective that you're talking a lot about, the
1069
01:04:15.440 --> 01:04:19.320
metacognition or perspective, the awareness, but then also the resilience
1070
01:04:19.800 --> 01:04:25.119
to be able to change or allow those things to change.
1071
01:04:26.599 --> 01:04:28.800
Yeah, I think you're right. A lot of people do
1072
01:04:28.960 --> 01:04:32.639
identify with those things, and it's kind of you know,
1073
01:04:32.639 --> 01:04:34.920
there's two sides to it. On the one hand, like
1074
01:04:35.840 --> 01:04:39.960
diagnosing yourself or getting a diagnosis for something you're struggling with,
1075
01:04:40.000 --> 01:04:43.440
whether it's trauma or anxiety or depression, right, that can
1076
01:04:43.480 --> 01:04:46.199
really help you get access to the tools that you
1077
01:04:46.239 --> 01:04:48.960
need to overcome those things. On the other hand, it
1078
01:04:49.000 --> 01:04:52.840
makes you start identifying that mental illness or struggle or
1079
01:04:52.880 --> 01:04:55.079
whatever becomes a part of who you are, and that
1080
01:04:55.440 --> 01:04:57.920
makes it a lot harder to get rid of you again.
1081
01:04:58.000 --> 01:05:00.840
You start clinging to it and it becomes a part
1082
01:05:00.840 --> 01:05:03.000
of you that you can't really get rid of and
1083
01:05:03.079 --> 01:05:07.000
so yeah, when people go through my anxiety program, you know,
1084
01:05:07.119 --> 01:05:11.199
I encourage them to, yeah, one, acknowledge that they are
1085
01:05:11.280 --> 01:05:15.400
currently struggling with anxiety, that they're experiencing these emotions, to
1086
01:05:15.519 --> 01:05:19.840
notice them, but to never identify as an anxious person
1087
01:05:20.039 --> 01:05:22.639
or a worry or right. I think that is a
1088
01:05:22.639 --> 01:05:25.159
big part of it. Changing your identity. You know, if
1089
01:05:25.199 --> 01:05:28.800
you want to change habits, right, this is a big
1090
01:05:28.840 --> 01:05:31.320
part of you know, James Clear's atomic habits. If you
1091
01:05:31.360 --> 01:05:34.559
want to change those behaviors. If you want to say,
1092
01:05:34.679 --> 01:05:38.000
become a musician, right, you want to not just say
1093
01:05:38.559 --> 01:05:41.920
I'm practicing guitar. You want to say I'm a musician.
1094
01:05:41.960 --> 01:05:45.360
You want to identify with that thing. But quite the opposite.
1095
01:05:45.400 --> 01:05:46.960
If you're trying to get rid of something. If you're
1096
01:05:46.960 --> 01:05:51.599
trying to get rid of alcoholism, don't identify as an alcoholic.
1097
01:05:51.719 --> 01:05:53.840
You can maybe say you're a former alcoholic or you're
1098
01:05:53.840 --> 01:05:58.239
struggling with this. But you want to be very strategic
1099
01:05:58.280 --> 01:06:01.159
about your identity and sort of craft it along with
1100
01:06:02.159 --> 01:06:04.679
what you're trying to change. This is a big part
1101
01:06:04.760 --> 01:06:06.960
of become who you are. It is the idea that
1102
01:06:07.079 --> 01:06:11.679
depression is the product of identity failure, And in many cases,
1103
01:06:13.320 --> 01:06:16.800
it's essentially letting us know that we have built an
1104
01:06:16.840 --> 01:06:20.079
identity that isn't working in some way for us, right,
1105
01:06:20.159 --> 01:06:22.519
and we've reached a dead end for that identity. And
1106
01:06:22.559 --> 01:06:25.880
so you do have to go in and design your identity.
1107
01:06:25.880 --> 01:06:29.599
I talk about a virtue portfolio, where you keep track
1108
01:06:29.679 --> 01:06:33.880
of your greatest virtues and how much they're finding expression
1109
01:06:33.920 --> 01:06:36.960
in your life, how effectively you're able to exercise them,
1110
01:06:37.440 --> 01:06:42.159
and essentially paying more attention to and designing your identity
1111
01:06:42.199 --> 01:06:46.400
deliberately to serve your ideals instead of just allowing your
1112
01:06:46.440 --> 01:06:50.039
identity to form on its own passively. So I think
1113
01:06:50.119 --> 01:06:54.440
identity plays a huge role in both the lows and
1114
01:06:54.480 --> 01:06:56.039
the highs of mental health.
1115
01:06:57.119 --> 01:07:00.719
I love that idea, designing your own idea, and I
1116
01:07:00.760 --> 01:07:04.280
think I can give people tremendous hope to see you're
1117
01:07:04.280 --> 01:07:08.119
not just asking people who just completely give up, you know,
1118
01:07:08.519 --> 01:07:11.280
any identity or the one idea, the one identity that
1119
01:07:11.320 --> 01:07:14.000
maybe is related to suffering, but at least it's identity.
1120
01:07:14.199 --> 01:07:16.760
You're actually giving them the tools to create something that's
1121
01:07:16.800 --> 01:07:20.239
more empowering and more life infirming and so forth. Yeah,
1122
01:07:20.400 --> 01:07:23.360
I think that that's a good place to bring our
1123
01:07:23.400 --> 01:07:27.800
conversational clothes illuminating and fascinating and incredibly helpful. Thank you
1124
01:07:27.880 --> 01:07:30.199
so much, Brian, Thank you for this conversation and for
1125
01:07:30.280 --> 01:07:30.920
the work that you do.
1126
01:07:31.880 --> 01:07:33.719
Yeah, thanks so much for having me fleet. I really
1127
01:07:33.800 --> 01:07:34.199
enjoyed it.
1128
01:07:36.519 --> 01:07:40.079
Thank you for joining me on the Radical Responsibility Podcast. Remember,
1129
01:07:40.280 --> 01:07:43.599
real change happens when we commit to our growth, face
1130
01:07:43.679 --> 01:07:47.639
our challenges with compassion, and stay open to transformation. If
1131
01:07:47.719 --> 01:07:50.480
you found this episode helpil, I encourage you to subscribe
1132
01:07:50.519 --> 01:07:53.679
and help us spread the message of healing and personal empowerment.
1133
01:07:53.920 --> 01:07:57.440
Until next time, stay grounded, stay present, and stay true
1134
01:07:57.480 --> 01:08:02.880
to yourself. Take care at known fALS.