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Coping skills and strategies_transcript.txt

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+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Living up here in Western Washington, there are a number of activities that people like to spend their time doing, and one of them that my husband likes to do is actually surf. Have you ever been surfing?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Not that I can recall.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Well, surfing is an interesting thing, because I think it takes a lot of skill, and there's multiple facets to being able to learn how to do it. Some of it is timing, balance... So many systems involved that you have to really just practice over and over and over again. And just when you think you're good, something else changes and you have to reallocate and try again. I think managing how we react to our lives, our world and the emotions we have is much like learning how to surf.
+
+The problem is that sometimes the experiences that we have throughout life pummel us, they're unexpected and unwanted, and if you've ever -- not even surfed, but just been jumping the waves in the ocean, and you get hit hard, and either take in a bunch of water or get pummeled over the coral, it's really easy to freak out and be like "I'm not going back in that water. I'm not surfing, I'm not swimming..." And then you might even be tempted to vilify the water, the board, or yourself. And really, that's at the heart of coping in life. We have to learn how to navigate unexpected things, or overwhelming experiences, and our emotions. I think a lot of people struggle with what to do with feelings, especially when they have the feelings about their feelings.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. Feelings are tough. Feelings are sometimes a part of your identity even. Very protective. Like, "Wait, this is how I feel. Don't you dare tell me I'm wrong." People are very strong about their feelings.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** They are, for sure. Well, emotions are powerful. I would say emotions, at the most fundamental level, are energy. So they have to go somewhere. I would offer that we all have somewhat adaptive strategies for dealing with our feelings, and some more maladaptive, or ones that don't work very well. One I would offer that doesn't tend to work very well is actually avoidance.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right?! We can put procrastination, avoidance... Both of those in the same thing. The problem with that as coping is that it actually reinforces itself.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** How do you mean?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** What I mean by that is that when I avoid that thing that feels overwhelming, heavy or hard, guess what I feel when I don't have to do it? I feel relieved. I'm like "Phew! I did not have to deal with that, and now I feel better and I can just go on with my day."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[04:09\] The problem is that I now didn't do that thing that was hard, heavy, overwhelming or scary, and so then I'm going to -- when that thing comes up again, do you think it's going to be any lighter than it was the first time?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** It's probably gonna be heavier. So what you're saying is that you get relief from this scenario, but maybe the burden of it truly doesn't really go away yet. It's still there, it's just sort of delayed.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. You actually are participating in a bind... Because what gives you the relief is actually what contributes to more of the problem. So here I don't wanna do a paper, or there's a project that's super-overwhelming and I don't know what to do, how to fix it... So I don't. I just leave work that day, and be like "We'll deal with it tomorrow." Except that when you get in the next day, and you then are like "Oh, that didn't feel very good, so I don't wanna do it now...", so now I'm escalating more of the negative energy or emotion around that hard thing, so it only grows. And ironically, it's sort of like you actually forfeit having any feedback.
+
+If I think that the project is hard or that I can't do it, and then I don't do it, guess what I'm telling myself by avoiding it? "I can't." Because I don't have any data. I had no direct experience. So I show up to a game, ready to play; I'm like "Oh gosh, I don't know if I'm gonna win." Can you imagine if we played sports the same way?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[laughs\] We're like "Oh, there's no game today. Sorry."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah, that would be unfortunate.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right?! But that's what we do all the time in saying "I'm going to avoid this thing that's way too big, hard or heavy for me to navigate... So I'm going to avoid it." However, if I'm like "You know what, I'm actually just gonna start small." So instead of trying to complete the task, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna commit to working on whatever project for ten minutes. I don't care what that looks like, I'm just gonna set a different criterion for my success, so that I'm practicing exposing myself to that thing. Now I have data. Now I have a feedback, even in a different emotion, that goes "Look, you didn't wanna do it, it was aversive, and you did it. So who do you need to tell you you did a good job?"
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Because you know that was hard for you, and you did it anyway. So if we could shift the lens of how we look at emotions to really being this sort of "skilled and unskilled", and that we all have propensities as based on what we've practiced... So some of the things, like maybe even in the workplace, we're really good and we can rock it over here, but maybe it's our health habits that we tend to struggle with...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. You see that a lot. You see people excel in their career, and suck in their health or suck in their marriage... Something is getting the better part of them, and they actually will lean in the areas where they're successful. That's why you sometimes see people really lean into their career, because "Well, that's somewhat easy for me. Or it's easier than all these other things."
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. So imagine that actually what you're gonna do is practice what we call "distress tolerance." It's distressing to me to feel ill-equipped to do this activity, be it health-related, work-related, relational-related... And so now that's going to bring up negative emotions. But I'm gonna tolerate those in a certain way, so that I can still actually practice doing it.
+
+I mean, once upon a time you weren't as skilled as you are today in your line of work, right?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** \[08:14\] Yeah. Yesterday I sucked. Today I'm better. \[laughter\] No, I'm just kidding. There definitely is, because I've been podcasting since 2006, so there's definitely a record of all of my bad and all of my good, or my attempts at being good, or better, at what I do.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. And so how did you get better? When you had those bad days, did you throw in the towel and you're like "I'm good."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I show up every day. That's how I got better.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Regardless, right?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. Like, if today is gonna suck, "Oh, well. Let's just get through it." You're gonna have good days and you're gonna have bad days, but you've gotta show up; you've gotta get that time in. The age-old thought is that mastery comes after 10,000 hours of doing something. Well, I've gotta get my 10,000 until I'm actually mastery-level, or equipped.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. There's so many things in life wherein we start out at novice. And some people are like "Well, no, if I'm way over here, I'm a master or an expert in this lane, then I should think that I would be an expert or a master over here. But I'm not." So it's really actually being willing to sort of look in the mirror and acknowledge where you are... And that doesn't mean anything about where you'll be next week, next year, five years or ten years. I just know if I don't start practicing, I'm not gonna get better.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** So when it comes to coping, what are some common paths to just practicing at coping? Give me one good example of practicing to cope.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Well, I've gotta give one more caveat, because I think this is important. I often use this acronym with people when they're trying to cope... And it's HALT. Because if we are Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired, your coping will invariably look different. I don't care if you're 3, 33, 73. If you are hungry (or hangry), angry, lonely or tired, you just have less to be able to navigate it. This is why at different life stages some things can be harder. After having a child, right?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** A lot of times, both parents are not sleeping in the same way they once did. That doesn't mean "Oh, Adam, you can't do your podcasting...", but rather, keeping that awareness in the forefront as sort of a filter to go "You know what, I just have less today. So instead of $100 in my bank account that I get to spend, I've got like $60." So I don't want that to deter people from practicing some of these skills... Because again, we're all human, so I don't care what age or where you're at; if you're hungry, angry, lonely or tired, you just have less energy.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I've definitely made some poor decisions and coped very poorly in times of HALT, specifically hangry... My wife and I - we'll both recognize a moment where we may not be on the same page, and it's like "Are you hungry? Am I hungry? Is it because it's 5 o'clock, or 6 o'clock, or whatever time it might be, in prep for dinner coming soon?"
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Sure.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** It can be very stressful, for some reason. And it's because of just the feeling you have. When you're hungry, you have less to spend, as you said.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. Because why do we eat? What does it give us?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Energy.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** You've got it.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Satisfaction! Happiness!
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, and connection... All these things.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** True, yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[11:48\] So when you can name that and identify that as a component, it can change the way in which you ride that emotional wave. Because then you're not going toe-to-toe with Heather, right? You're like "Oh, we're both just hungry."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Well, usually it's about where should we go to eat or what's for dinner, and it's simple decisions pretty much... But for some reason, these simple decisions are very hard to accomplish because of our inability to actually execute on the decision, because we're hungry, or we're tired, or it's the end of the day and it's like "Come on...!" That's why a plan beforehand is always good, for this and other scenarios.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** And you just named it. There you go. There's one of the best ways in which we can cope. So planning and/or front-loading are one of the ways we navigate it. I can remember back in graduate school when I was doing multiple roles... Because during that time I was in school, I also worked at a local university counseling center, while I was also working a practicum site over in a different area of Los Angeles... And I coached a high-level competitive gymnastics team.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Wow. That's a lot.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, so I had a master list of the books I would need for any given day of the week, I had what meals I needed to take, which changes of clothes I needed to take, and what assignments or other responsibilities in each lane were due according to that day of the week.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. So when you started to fall down, you didn't fall down and be like "Oh, my life...! The day is over. Let's go back and not play the game." It's "Okay, what's my plan?" Because you've already thought about it beforehand, right? You've already done the work of thinking through it.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. The key is that we're going to fare better, our frontal lobe is going to come online more when our emotional reactivity is less. Because remember that emotional processing part of the brain - we can sort of get a cog there, and we won't process information in the same way... Which is why it's so much harder to make some of those decisions when you're stressed or overwhelmed, or there's more of an emotional load. So it's sort of like "How can I calm down, and then I can plan even more effectively?" I can do meal-planning for the week. Frontloading would look like - the same day of the week I do these sort of routine behaviors, be it getting gas, getting groceries, meal-planning... Any of these things. At the heart of this is bill pay. If I set them up in advance, I know my bank is gonna handle those responsibilities, and then I don't have to allocate my energy to do those things.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So then, apart from planning, if I'm going "Well, I'm still pretty activated", it's really hard for me to calm down, for whatever reason. There is what we call grounding. Grounding is a psychological experience wherein you actually attend to the sense. So what sensory data are you taking in live? Because senses are all real-time. I'm not seeing something that I saw last week, or yesterday; it's what's within my visual field right now, immediately. If you're in your office, there's a chair, there's bookcases, your computer, your keyboard... All of the things. And then it could be "What do I hear? What do I smell? What do I taste?" All of these things orient you to what is actually happening, not that sort of background chatter that your brain wants to shout at you.
+
+Sometimes when we're anxious, one of the words we give to -- a way in which we think that doesn't work well is catastrophic thinking. Catastrophic thinking is this way in which I'm imagining every possible, plausible, wretched outcome I could come up with... And it's amazing how many things a brain can come up with.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** \[15:55\] Yes, it is. You're not thinking very rationally at that moment. You're thinking very irrationally, and pretty much anything you dream of; it's like Chicken Little almost. The sky is falling. And it's not really falling.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. And imagine that when you're in that place of anxiety, rational thought has no effect. Imagine you're trying to have a conversation with a two-year-old in a grocery store about why they can't have candy. They don't really care. They just want what they want, when they want it.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** That's right. Two-year-olds, come on...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So in some ways we all have this inner two-year-old, that likes to hang out, and wreak havoc, and wants what they want, when they want it, how they want it.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Wow...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** I know.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** That's really interesting to even think about... Because that's true. You see that play out too with people often, if you have conflict at least. You see somebody, sometimes, in their two-year-old state, or that inner two-year-old wreaking havoc.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, exactly. And that's why it's really hard to have more adult-like, rational conversations. And then you end up having to try to talk to Chicken Little, which really doesn't get you anywhere.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So the "name it to tame it." What do I see, smell, touch, taste or hear. And literally, you can even feel the different textures around you, be it your desk, or computer, keyboard etc, so that your brain is like "This is what's actually happening, live, real-time. Not any of the plausible things I make up in my head."
+
+Along with that would be the "name it to tame it." So when I can't say what I'm feeling, or what is going on, it really helps me navigate things different. I know I've mentioned that it's more of the limbic system which does the emotional processing, but like all things with the brain, it's never that simple... So more of our right, frontal lobe is also responsible for emotion, whereas many - not all, but many - language is a left-hemispheric function. So when I name it, it's like I manage the teeter-totter of the right-emotion, and the language - left. So it's like "Phew! I came back to some sort of..."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** You've got balance.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, yeah. So then you don't feel quite so out of control, and then you can shift even to the planning or problem-solving.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. Let's go further into strategies then, because I think that -- there isn't one on the list that we have here to go through, or at least one that I've done recently... And I'm sure there's way more than this list. The exhaustive list of coping strategies is probably many.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** It is.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** But sometimes, when you're super-angry, maybe the easiest way to calm down is just to be quiet for a while, for example. What are some good strategies to step away from these emotions really taking over?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Well, I think if you can hold on to the fact that emotions are energy, which means you're gonna do better when you move them, or maneuver them. This is why when we're anxious, to just sort of sit still, it's like I'm gonna wanna tap my foot, or move back and forth, or click my pen very irritatingly... Because I'm trying to move or discharge that emotion somewhere. So if you're really angry, exercise. There really isn't a better all-around strategy for managing our feelings than exercise.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** That happens a lot, too -- it does a lot to your body. Obviously, your joints, your back, different parts of your muscle release cortisol, I believe, or different... Different things happen because your body moves. And it's definitely a different reactive state that your brain is in when you're in that kind of motion, too.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** It is. It's really fascinating, because actually, exercise as well - research has shown that it tends to increase or improve brain plasticity. And what I mean by that is literally like exercise is yoga for your brain.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Wow.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[20:09\] So you're able to move and maneuver more adaptively when you exercise. It makes your brain more pliable. Much of what I encounter with individuals struggling with anxiety or depression, a lot of the times I'm trying to increase or improve this flexibility in their mind, that life and the way in which they see the world doesn't have to be black or white. It's not binary, "Either this or that."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** There's some grey area in there.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, exactly. So when we're at that heightened place of emotion and we can't really reason with ourselves, we're apt to try to reduce things, to make them very black and white... Like, "Either it's this, or it's that." And there's so much in life that really isn't black and white, so you can't really ever feel like you get a grasp on the emotions... Because it's like your brain will remind you of one other caveat, or one other way in which you can see it, and you're like "Oh, I thought I had that shut down." \[laughs\]
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So exercise, moving... And once upon a time, we used to think that with anger - that it was better to do more angry outbursts, so to be more physical, like fighting or things like that... And that's changed. We don't necessarily think that using aggression, or feeding that sort of way in you, but rather -- think of it like sublimation. I'm bartering one emotion for a different one.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** You brought up some brain chemicals... And one of the key ones that gets released when we exercise is dopamine. So you get that huge rush... This is why if you've ever heard runners talk about runner's high, what they're actually referencing is that high on dopamine.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. I mean, as soon as you're done with the marathon, you're like "Okay, next one please." Unless, obviously, it took you way longer than it should have, and you're depressed, or your feet are falling off... But the best time to sign up for the next marathon is after the existing one, because you're high on it.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Sure. And if you think about it from even a multidimensional perspective, when you're exercising outside, think of all the sensory data that you're taking in while you're moving your body.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Well, yeah, you're getting the experience -- well, for one, Vitamin D from the sun, likely, because you'll probably be running the marathon outside... Potentially, in a clouded or overcast day, but you're still getting some rays... You're getting to see a lot of nature, and whenever I get to experience more of the world, more of the nature, more of the natural things in the world, there's happiness that sort of comes with that. There's joy that comes with -- me in particular getting out with a mountain bike; I go out into the woods. It's great, because I'm exercising and I'm also experiencing the world. I can see the textures and the colors of the world, and it's different than my office, or my home, or my truck, or whatever.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right, but it's all real-time, Adam. All of that sensory information is live, so your brain isn't in fast-forward, like anxiety, about what's to come... And you're not depressed, going "Oh no, what did I do that I still need to do, that I forgot?" You're actually living live, now... And that's also what feels so good.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Being in the present, you mean? Being in the here and now.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Being in the here and now. Our brains are always wanting to hijack us; our emotions sort of move us to the future. Some people would offer than when it comes to mental health, we're really trying to manage aspects of chaos and rigidity. Just like that teeter-totter, too emotional, and I'm just -- all the chaos; or I'm too rigid, and everything has to fit neat and tidy into a box. But what's ironic is in life a lot of things don't fit neat and tidy into a box, and so if that throws you over into more chaos, now you don't have the same strategies or files to fit the things that are supposed to fit, and now you're in trouble because, because, because... All the things, as a result of that.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** \[24:08\] Coping kind of reminds me of habits in a way, because you have something that sort of cues this emotional charge, the emotion attached to whatever the scenario is and how you deal with it, the coping practices, how you navigate troubled waters, right? Like, that's what coping is. How you resolve something.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right, and that's why too you might be really skilled in one area, because that cue carries a different emotional charge than a different one. So you could say "Professionally, in my work, I feel incredibly competent and skilled and master, but then I move over here into relationships, and it's like, I'm back down at the novice, and maybe sometimes get up to beginner." But that isn't reinforcing then, unless you figure out a hack to be able to build in the positive feelings around this skill acquisition.
+
+So if it is that I wanna use exercise and that isn't very skilled for me, then I wanna go "Well, what other thing am I more apt to do, or that I would enjoy more?" So you can think about "Do I wanna hang out with my friends? I really wanna be able to go to dinner with them on Friday night." It's like, "Okay... Then what I'm gonna do is I'm going to schedule or queue up this aversive thing that feels hard, heavy or overwhelming just before that, or on that day, and then my reward gets to be that dinner with my friends thereafter.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. Kill it doing this, and then as a reward you get fun time with friends.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. So I'm also building that dopamine as coming from something else, but I've now linked it into something else that would feel more chaotic or undesirable.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** So what would happen then, if you didn't accomplish said hard thing that day? Would you just go to dinner anyways and feel bummed out, or what would happen?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** I'm so glad you asked... That's an awesome question. This is where really the shift -- we wanna move from being so fixated on outcomes, like "It has to look like A, B or C", to effort. I wanna reinforce and reward the effort, not a particular outcome.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Okay. So basically if I try, "Okay, pat on the back. You tried. You made an attempt to cope in a manner that is more healthy", rather than give up and not play the game, like we said earlier.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. Have you ever heard of SMART goals?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** It rings a bell, but I'm not familiar.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Whenever we're looking at goals, we want them to be SMART, like an acronym. So is it Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and that there's a time associated with it.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So if I just say I want to get better at X, Y or Z, that's very unspecific. There isn't a time coordinated with it, so I can't necessarily measure the effort I put forth. If it's related to a healthy habit, or something at work that's aversive, it would be that I'm going to spend 15-20 minutes on this project that I don't necessarily want to do. That is my measuring effort, as opposed to "I completed the project, I shipped it" or "I lost a certain amount of weight", or "I could fit into these jeans", but rather "I went to the gym" or "I went mountain-biking for 20 minutes, two times this week." Then it alleviates that pressure that it has to look a specific outcome.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** \[27:48\] I like the focus on the effort, because I think we all try. Sometimes we try harder than other times, sometimes we struggle to try harder etc. but the outcome is always the variable; the effort is always gonna be present, whether it's small or large... And I think we need to give ourselves some credit for even making the plan to try. There's so many people who just get stuck on that part alone. And I know for me - like you were just saying that, about the results - I often will attach my happiness to a result, rather than just showing up... And as we said earlier, showing up is half the battle. To get better at something, you have to show up.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Exactly, Adam. Exactly. I think that as well everybody's evidence of effort is going to look different.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** So it's still a variable. You can't really name or describe what the effort is gonna look like; it's gonna be different for you, it's gonna be different for me...
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+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. This is what I love with watching my son with his soccer team. All of the boys are around the same age, but their level of skill, and even personal strengths and weaknesses, are all varied. As a parent, I've had to practice going "How can I see evidence of his effort?" We have conversations before game days, and we work to identify and alternative goal that he can do, as opposed to whether or not they win.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** I'm like "Can you do a maradona?" That's one skill. Can you stay on your feet for X amount of time? I just want him to fall in love with the process of getting better and acquiring things that were hard, because then you learn -- really more of this grit, that goes "I can tether in the positive feelings while it still sort of sucks."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. It's also building on something over the long term, too. We often so focus on microwaving results, and actually results take a lot of -- I mean, it's varied, but there could be a lot of time involved, and just incremental... What I like to say "iterative change" or "iterative process." That's a thing to also focus on, because you can't microwave something and expect it to be amazing. You've gotta put in the time.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** You do. And that's why seeing those small changes repeatedly over time is so huge... Because we don't always see the gains we make without more perspective. So I want to be able to feel good about whatever it is I'm working towards, while I'm working towards it. Not because I hit that expert or master. I mean, you've been doing podcasting for how many years now?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Since 2006.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right... So why do you keep doing it?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I don't know. \[laughter\] I like it, it's fun, I get to meet people... Many reasons. It's now turned into my job, so I kind of have to like it...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** There's an aspect too that pays... And I would offer that part of what pays for you is that experience of learning, because each individual you interview or hear about their story, it makes you more curious. Then you get to interface with all sorts of different people, with different strengths, ideas, weaknesses etc. and that never gets old.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** In all honesty though, one of my biggest motivators has always been to be a servant... Because there's a lot of things that we've done through our main show (The Changelog) and others to serve the community of the software ecosystem, software developers, anybody in and around the software world - tech entrepreneurs, technology etc. It's the ability to be able to see somebody in need and help them through something, hear their story and reinforce something, whatever... But in a lot of cases it's really about serving the community.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[31:59\] Yeah, and so it pays for you to be able to help people struggle less. Because if more people have access to information -- and that's what I would say with this; if I don't know that there's other options for how I navigate my feelings, why would I choose something else? I didn't even know that it was available.
+
+So this is another thing when it comes to emotions - we can have expectations. And when those expectations go unmet, we're apt to have feelings about those... And going, "That doesn't infer anything about me, my value or my competency." But we're really apt to make meaning of things, because that's how we're designed as people; we wanna understand the value of different things. But we are all sort of in process, and even if I am struggling in this way over here, it doesn't mean I can't get over there. But if I'm going to make meaning and say that I can't, because I couldn't in this instance, now I'm gonna struggle, even more than where I was at the beginning.
+
+Moving right along, other options... This is an interesting one. Have you ever held a piece of ice for an extended period of time?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Sure.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right? This is an interesting one--
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Wasn't sure if it was a trick question or not.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Well, if you get a small piece of ice and allow it to melt in your hand, one - again, it's a process, so it doesn't happen immediately, but it also distracts you away from that internal chatter, or the other overwhelming emotion, while also sort of constricting blood flow. Because when we get activated and emotional, it's not surprising that our bodies react in multiple ways. So holding a piece of ice - one, it reminds me of the sort of crescendo and decrescendo that comes with feelings. When I first take a piece of ice, it's really cold...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right?!
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** It's almost jolting.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. And very unwanted. You're like "I should put this down!"
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** But if you allow yourself - and I'm not talking a huge piece of ice, but a small piece of ice, and go "Okay, this won't last forever. I just have to ride it." Sooner or later, the ice cube melts and your hand numbs out a little bit. And it then also gives you a file for what it's like to tolerate the negative emotion. When we're really super-emotional, it's really hard to remember time, and so when I do that, it's helping me go "This is a file that emotions can look like. It's gonna come up, and it's gonna go down." But when I'm activated, it's really hard to reason with myself and tell myself "It's not gonna feel this way all the time, forever and ever, always, amen."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right, right, right. Geez, I really wish I could tell myself some of these things whenever I'm at that critical moment of high emotion in a moment, because I think I would tell myself, given that I have rational thought now and not then, in those moments, "Chill out. Chill out, take a break", or "name it to tame it", "breathe deep", whatever it might be, hold some ice, do something that is not a negative response to this scenario, and something that delays potentially even dealing with it. I know we said earlier that could be kind of a bad thing, but maybe a delayed reaction to this thing might be better, because I can put my frontal lobe on, I can put my lid on, as you've said before, and rationally cope with the challenge at hand.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[36:02\] Yeah, and that isn't a bad strategy in that sense, but the key different is that you're actually going to come back to the thing or the feeling that's causing the upset, as opposed to just "I'm not gonna deal with it again."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So that's a really important distinction when we're talking about it.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** So maybe not have a deep conversation about something in the heat of the moment. "Let's pause this scenario here. This is important, let's talk about this, but just not right now. Let's talk about it when we're in better places, when we're not in HALT", or whatever it might be.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, I think of this a lot in working with couples, romantic partners, in that a lot of times in the relational dynamic there tends to be one individual who tends to be what we call the pursuer, who's going to come after, go after, relentlessly pursue... Whereas the other partner tends to be what we call the withdrawer. So imagine the withdrawer as sort of like the turtle who hides out, and the pursuer is banging on the turtle shell, like "Come out! Come out!"
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** "Let's talk about this!"
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right?! And the turtle is like "Just leave me alone! I'm in my cave!" \[laughs\]
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** This visualization I'm having right now is so crazy.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Well, so having a time specified... And I say never longer than 60 minutes, because the pursuer needs to go "I know we're coming back."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. And they're waiting.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. Whereas the withdrawer gets to be like "Phew... I get to breathe, hang out in my shell, my cave... Like, give me 60 minutes and then I can re-engage around whatever upsetting thing occurred."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** So what would you do during the breakdown?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Well, for the pursuer, the person who wants to have the conversation, writing things down. We've talked a lot about the "name it to tame it." Well, when I'm putting words to things, imagine that's still an action-based coping strategy, because I'm maneuvering the data and I'm utilizing additional parts of my brain. I have to actually pay attention to the words, the feelings that are coming out in words in my mind, and then I have to engage my supplemental motor cortex, as well as my frontal lobe... All of these different things in order to put the information down on paper. And then I'm ironically actually practicing for and advocating for myself in the relational dynamic.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. Let me also throw one more in there... What you're actually doing too is you're channeling the existing energy and the emotion. Since you said it has to go somewhere, well why not put it to pen paper? That's a methodology of allowing that emotion to continue to flow... And maybe when you get to the scenario later on, you're more calm about it, because you've actually had some therapeutic moments with yourself.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Exactly. And you feel far more equipped, because it doesn't come out just like this gibberish of information, but rather "Hey, I'm upset when you did X, Y or Z, because this how I heard you say that to me, and then I was offended, hurt, angry, sad", you name it.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So it becomes far more -- I would say the challenge it these sort of relationships is while you still feel vulnerable, you actually have to be your own advocate. And that's hard...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Super-hard.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. Well, you're activated and you're emotional, and it's like "I've gotta get this out, I've gotta get this out", because what you're trying to do is relieve the tension of that emotion.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. What about the turtle?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Well, the turtle - they're gonna do whatever they need to do as well. And I would still recommend the same strategies, with writing things down. Also breathing... We haven't mentioned that, but what a lot of people don't realize is ironically when they get upset, they hold their breath.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** \[39:54\] Oh yes, that's true. That's why I love my Apple Watch. My Apple Watch reminds me several times a day, even if I don't listen, to breathe.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. This is really at the heart of the beginning of panic attacks. And always there's more to it than this... But you start holding your breath, and then you can't breathe, and then your brain is like "Hey, you're not breathing...!"
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** There's an actual panic.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right, so I'm sending the signals, like "You're in danger, you're in danger...!"
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Which reinforces your concerns, yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Correct. You've catapulted a whole cycle. And that's why even just the five-count, breathing - breathing in for five, and breathing out for five. Breathing in for five seconds, and discharge and breathe out for five seconds.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Wow.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** I know.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** We should tell our audience to do that right now, those listening. Just pause this show and breathe.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. Ready?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Sure... \[laughter\]
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Here we go, we're gonna breathe in... Ready? One, two, three, four, five. And breathe out. Two, three, four, five. And one more time - in, two, three, four, five. And out - two, three, four five. How do you feel?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I feel better. It sounds like you've done this before. Is this not your first time doing that?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** It is not. Because this is what I help teach people how to do, and that's why it really is acquiring a skill. One of the things I also incorporate with deep breathing is what we call visualization, or a guided imagery. You can find these on YouTube, practices... And I wanna say there are other apps that have it; they're just not coming to mind right now. But what it is is imagining a scene, and oftentimes they're like a forest scene, a beach scene... It's some way in which, again, you're gonna utilize all the senses and walk through it. Maybe we do this in an upcoming episode... But we'd walk through what it's like when you come to a beach, and you can see the sun, and the water, and the sun glistening off of it, and you can feel the breeze that is at the ocean, and you smell the air. So I'm gonna walk you through and I'm gonna speak to every sense. Probably not taste, unless you're going to be eating something on the beach.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Well, you can taste the ocean water in the air...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Sure. Sure, yeah. So all of these things help remind your body that there isn't a real and active present danger that you need to react to.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I used to do something similar whenever I lived in Upstate New York and it was really cold. I would imagine Florida, or a beach... I'm not sure if it's the same thing, but I would basically trip my mind from thinking "Wow, you're really cold right now", to "It could be a little bit warmer, or whatever it might be.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Is that the same thing as visualization? Sort of a mind-trickery, so to speak?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** It is. Well, this is sort of -- I don't know, I think odd in some ways, but it totally makes sense... But our brains don't really know the difference whether it's real or imagined, because it has to run the same neural network. So whether I'm picturing myself in Florida at the beach, or I'm really in Florida at the beach, it's running the exact same thing. So imagine what you're trying to do is cultivate this entirely new neural network that goes "Here's my queue. I'm emotionally charged. And here's how I run that play." You just change the entire way in which an experience feels, because you've told your mind "This isn't the thread that you perceived it to be."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Is that similar to public speakers when they say "Imagine the audience naked?" Because if an audience is naked, they're the ones vulnerable. Usually, when you're naked, you're vulnerable.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Sure, yeah.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** So maybe they're less of a threat. Is that the same thing?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[44:02\] Yeah, yeah. It's a strategy to calm their brain, so that they're not in that anxious place around what is everybody thinking, imagining, perceiving etc, which... We're never in charge of how other people hear what we say. The things I've heard people say I've said, I did not say... \[laughter\]
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** That's really interesting, this mind-trickery. I think we've talked about this before, but this idea that you said our mind doesn't understand if it's real or if it's manufactured, so to speak. I like that, because it's a way you can acquire a skill even.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yes.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** If you watch somebody else do something that you really enjoy, maybe your brain thinks you've done it and somehow you've acquired this skill, and maybe even some courage.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Sure, because it's further enhancing that network that goes "This is the way we play." This is why it's even (I would say) used more often in athletics that you get filmed. When you see yourself being filmed, it also facilitates more of that comprehensive picture of you doing whatever skill or play, so that then you can picture how you want it to be done, and carry that out. This is why I'm so fascinated by the brain. There's so many things around how we can do our lives, and really to help them feel better, because we don't -- I don't know... We get a second go. I just want whatever we're walking through. I think life can be incredibly enjoyable. But if we're not considerate of or reflective around our minds as sort of our steering wheel, we're gonna feel like everything just keeps hitting us, and that we're not in charge of our lives and what happens to us.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** So what are some key takeaways for the audience then? If we're talking about coping and how to get through these emotional charges, and these irrational thoughts we have in a moment of HALT, or whatever it might be...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** One, it's really important, like we've talked about, that you can get where you wanna go, but that it's going to take practice, like all things, and we never get better at the things we don't practice. I often talk about approximating the live event, because whenever you're trying to learn these new ways, you'll think about it after the fact, like "Oh, I would have/could have/should have done X, Y or Z when I got upset, when I got activated, mad etc." But remember that when you're emotional, that same part of the brain responsible for emotional processing is memory. So it can be really challenging to retrieve some of these things that we've talked about, because they're new. So I would write them down, and put them somewhere in your visual field, so that when moments come, you know where to look and you don't have to rely on your memory in order to retrieve the things.
+
+So you can go let me pick from my list of five, and then experiment. Go try. Even after the fact, even if it feels silly... You won't find out; you forfeit vicariously if you never are willing to try.

Humans and habits_transcript.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,393 @@
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Mireille, habits are something we all deal with, right? We all have good and bad habits, and these habits allow us to do things like behavior change when we are doing something we like, or dislike we just wanna change that... Sometimes it enables or inhibits burnout if you don't do life well and you can't bend your habits, or break them, or make them etc. And at the core of all that is this life balance that happens, because of this core thing that is really scientific - a habit. So let's open up with habits, how they affect us, and maybe even deeper into what they actually are.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[01:39\] So habits, i mean from a science perspective, just a neural network that's been built repeatedly over time. I don't know if you're familiar with the neurochemicals, but what I mean by that is sort of like the messengers that are specific to the brain. There's a key neurochemical that we call dopamine, that is really at the heart of habit formation. So habits are this embedded neural network, wherein this neurotransmitter says "That feels really good. Let's do that again."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** "That's a positive thing."
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, it's a payout. So we are apt to repeat things that pay, very simply.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So how it pays for you, and how it pays for me, and how it pays for anybody else is going to differ, because who has the same brain?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So we are going to be more prone to repeat things, to do things over and over again that feel good to us, for one reason or another. And those things that we do usually have a cue; that cue is highly tethered to an environment. There's also a significant role of social, community as a part of whatever habit we do, that also is going to make us more apt to repeat a certain behavior.
+
+So habits, fundamentally, are - there's a cue, then there is some anticipated response that goes with it, and then a reward that comes from that. This is why they're hard to break. Because remember that - and I think we've mentioned this in other episodes, but we are electrochemical beings... And that means that we have this energy, and so there's chemical processes, and there's electrical processes. So where I've mentioned about how neurons either fire or they don't, it's an all-or-nothing sort of gig that when our brains are cued to respond, the neuron fires, and then it connects to all these other neurons, which together we call a network... And that, when I have that same cue, it's like, the current just runs; it runs the same play.
+
+\[04:02\] There's a lot more research around this, even within the field of sports psychology, in terms of training... Because you want to practice training the way you wanna play, because your brain doesn't know the difference, whether it's a game or it's practice.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Michael Phelps is a famous example of that recently in the Olympics, with his training methodology... How he wanted to execute his run, his swim, whatever it was, his meet or whatever term they use for that... So his daily routine was as if it was a winning day every single day.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Exactly, and there's been athlete upon athlete... I'm totally blanking, for whatever reason, but there's also a football player who always trained the exact same way. He was a running back and he would catch it, and run it to the goal as though it were an actual game... Because what you're doing is building that firing system to respond a certain way. Ironically, it was Tony Dungy. Are you familiar with him?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** No.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** He was the coach for the Indianapolis Colts for a number of years, but his whole methodology of coaching was based on this habituation, wherein he would train the player to respond or react without actually thinking; they would simply be faster in running a reaction, repeated over time, over time, over time, because that's going to be more effective than actually thinking through "What do I need to do now?" in that moment.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah, this idea of "Don't make me think", or having to put that -- I mean, if you even just think about it in terms of latency, in terms of executing something...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yes.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** ...if there's a measure of time in there, this latency buffer of a decision, if you can remove that, the timeline between cue-routine-reward is faster if you remove the thinking part. If you remove that buffered time for a thought pattern, or a new change, or a new choice. That might even be why it's so addictive, because they're so fast to do. It just happens before you even know it really even.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Exactly. So if you can even think of the acronym, CAR - Cue, Anticipated response, and reward. It's like, you're just getting in your car and running, all the time.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So the more that you cue yourself up in order to do a certain behavior, you're just going to repeat that over and over and over again, which is exactly why it's so hard to change them.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yes. Gosh...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right? So even thinking like "Why do I continue to do the things that I don't want to do...?!"
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Let me ask you potentially an Inception-level question - can a habit be a habit, so to speak? Are my bad habits actually habits as well? Am I prone to execute bad habits because that's my habit?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Precisely, yeah. We all are. It's not an Adam thing or a Mireille thing. It's a fundamental human thing, because we just practice them over and over again. You've heard of even muscle memory...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Which is very interesting. Muscle memory is super-interesting to me.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, your brain is running a play according to what's practiced. There ironically was a research study done around building thumb strength, and what they did is actually had people just practice moving their thumb or visualize moving their thumb, and whether or not it actually built strength in their thumb.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Is that right...?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Researcher - they're crazy, right?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Wow...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** They're just curious. The curiosity is endless.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So what they discovered was actually that even though just visualizing didn't build the same amount of strength in the thumb without doing the actual thing, it still did. It still did...!
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** \[08:06\] I'm so hopeful...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[laughs\]
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** There's something I'm doing right now; if I'm doing it, I am gonna be amazing. I'll tell you why in a second or two. Continue...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[laughs\] Well, that's the beauty of habits, and being able to change them... Because if you can identify the certain cue that's going to make you default into running that play, welcome to the payout. So whatever we do, muscles will be built; we're going to repeat the things that we practice.
+
+I've heard a story once about some guy who went over to his neighbors and he was fixing his lawnmower, or something... And he was like "Oh, better you than me. I'm just not very good." And just without any hesitation, the guy is like "That's just because you don't practice. You just don't wanna do it."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Oh, dang...! Burn!! \[laughter\]
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** We all make these choices around how much dividends it's going to pay, and dopamine is at the heart of that. So imagine you're gonna get a kickback. Your brain is gonna be like "Ooo, that feels good every time I do that behavior, because it feels good to me. It doesn't have to feel good to anybody else, but if feels good to me, so I'm going to then go redo it."
+
+So we have to learn -- everybody has a habit they don't like, right? How do I then change it? How do I modify bad habits I don't want? I have to repeal and replace. I have to acknowledge that there's a habit that isn't working well for me, and then look at how I'm going to rope in, how do I tether in a feel-good? Because that's why I'm gonna do the old bad habit. It still feels good...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. It's what you know, it's what you trust, it's easy, you've done it 1,000 or more, whatever... So it's what you know. It's comfortable.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** And the familiarity. It is, and this is comfort. You've got it. Because I'm gonna repeat, even if intellectually I can be like "That's not good for me. I really shouldn't do that", but my brain is still gonna be like "But remember...?! Remember that time you felt good? Here, I will give you a preview of what that felt like."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yes... My gosh, that is actually my inner dialogue..
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[laughs\]
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** What you've just said there is literally my inner dialogue. It's kind of funny, because we will choose that comfort, and we'll even rationalize to ourselves in the moment. Like you've just said, you don't wanna do this for all these reasons, however it's okay because we've done it before, or it's okay because we haven't been hurt yet, or this expected or anticipated result hasn't happened yet, so we still have time to correct things... "For now I'll just do it the old way, because it's comfortable."
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. A lot of people will look at this in terms of healthy habits. Be it exercise, eating habits, but also relationships. It's hard to break relationships. I always give the visual picture of the energy ball at the science museum; when you put your hand on it, all of the electricity goes to that area.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah, I love that thing.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** And so in all of our life, we're going to repeat things... It's like, whenever the energy is, no matter what. So if I can acknowledge that in some way, whatever I'm doing pays, then I can go "Alright, how do I hack it? How do I create an interrupt?" And interestingly, the way in which we hack it has to do with leaving the cue the same, and leaving the reward the same, but I'm going to run interference with that anticipated response, the middle.
+
+\[12:07\] So if it's in relationship, I'm always reacting, or I tend to yell when I don't want to yell. Or procrastination; I tend to put off, like "I know, I know it's not gonna pay to put this off, but it feels better right now to not do it."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yes...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** I have to go "Alright, how else might I imagine still getting some hit of dopamine, some feel-good from doing the less desirable behavior?" And the key is I have to look at what's literally going to pay for me.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** That could be as easy as just making a list and the initial interference is the list, and the reward is completing the list. If you wanna change a habit, sometimes just making yourself a list and completing a list is enough of an accomplishment, right? Because you wanna have some sort of positive thing that you can reflect on and examine as like, okay, when I hit this boundary again, I can remind myself of this successful thing I can do to start to create these large emotional states that begin to change and shape our neurons that fire etc.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, some of it is. Whatever we're putting off, it feels - because feelings also play a role in this - more aversive to us in the moment, so that's why always looking at what you don't wanna look at. I am going to just start by looking at that thing that feels overwhelming. So be it laundry, a work project, a bank account, our eating habits... Looking at the data that I don't wanna look at is a step. And then you'll be like "I didn't want to do it, and guess what I did...?" So now I get the emotional payout of like "I did the aversive thing, so... Yay, look at me! I can be proud of myself, because while that might not have been hard for anybody else, it was hard for me, and I know I did it when I didn't wanna do it."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So now I'm building strength. I wanna talk about some caveats to this, because I wish it were that easy and simple...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** But it's not.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** No. Well, one thing I wanna talk about - there's a social component to habits. This is also why they're harder to break. If I'm hanging around with a group of people who do things, do behaviors that I don't wanna practice, guess what I'm more likely to do?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** You're gonna be influenced by them.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Correct. Not because of desire... But if we take this whole sense of habit formation and put it way to the extreme, this would look like addiction. Be it I'm addicted to cigarettes, or I am addicted to alcohol, or any other more benign thing... But it's harder to quit when our friend group - or it's harder to change when our habits are embedded in our network, because who wants to lose out on that?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** I mean, I live in a predominant military community, and I don't think it's this way anymore, but once upon a time you got more breaks if you smoked when you were working on a ship.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** That's true. Yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right? And so not only do you get a break from your job, but guess what you're doing? You're hanging out with other people.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. You're mingling... It's the watercooler.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah! And we don't wanna lose out on that, because that too pays.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah, why would you wanna quit smoking whenever that's your buddy time, that's your hangout time...?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[16:06\] Exactly. So looking at going "Okay, in what way am I getting a hit of social connection when I do this habit?" I can talk about it from a more aversive standpoint, like looking at it from people who are fearful of or overwhelmed by going into the weight room in a gym.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I bet you about several thousand hands went up just now.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. Well, if you 1) are going for the first time, you don't hang out in the gym often, and 2) you're not where you want to be from a health standpoint, and then you add in "I'm unfamiliar, so I'm going to look less than intelligent, or less than competent in that setting", I've already got three hits before I've even imagined going in there. That's just in the imagination part; that's not in the actual doing.
+
+So I'm not going to then be prone to be like "Yeah, I think I'll go work out in a gym where everyone can watch me. I'm on display, I don't know what I'm doing, and hi, you can see too I'm not where I wanna be health-wise."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah, so much discomfort there, a lot of assumptions too about what other people are thinking... Because they're probably thinking the same thing. "Is he/she looking at me, judging me?" And then you've got this shame involved... How you feel about yourself is on reflection, big time...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** But this is why if you're like "Okay, so then would it pay more for me to adopt some other healthier habits, like exercise, in the comfort of my home, where I run interference with that obstacle? ...or what if I join a training group that's looking at doing a triathlon, or a 10k? Or I enlist another friend to engage in walking or running or swimming or Zumba, or you name it?"
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. That's why I like your idea of embedding the routine portion of it. You've got your cue... So to recap the mechanics of a habit - you've got your cue, you have this playbook that plays, this routine, and then as a result of all that you have a reward. So that's the ongoing system of a habit. But you mentioned embedding this behavior change into the execution, the middle part of it, so the routine that you play out.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Correct.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Embedding this change you wanna do into something else. On the note of health and fitness, one thing I've done to be more -- because my hand went up when you mentioned hitting gyms; I don't really care for gyms. And it's not because I don't like them, it's just I feel on display, uncomfortable etc. What you've just mentioned. So what I've done is I've embedded my fitness into something I actually enjoy, which is mountain biking.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yes.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** So now I'm far more fit today that I had been in the last several years because I'm habitually motivated by going out and mountain biking, and that's a very high-fitness -- you know, sometimes group activity, too. But it's not the gym. But I'm getting very similar physical activity. So that's one habit I've changed with physical fitness and health - by embedding this desirable thing into my routine.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right, but you hacked it. And I would say the social component for you might be other people outside of your family, but also your family.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So you're just loading on that dopamine, the rewards system, that's like "I'm doing something that's good for me, that's good for my family. It has far-reaching implications." So in that case, you don't have to have this whole jury trial about whether or not you're gonna exercise today...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right, yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** ...when you're trying to do the rationalization to say "Let's convince you that this is important, you know it'll pay out", wherein the other side of you is like "Oh, no wayyyy...!"
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** "No way!" Well, let me tell you the extended version of this.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Okay.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** \[20:06\] So my initial hack to getting to where I'm at is "Let me find something that's fun to do as fitness, rather than feeling like a drone having to go to the gym, and being a robot etc." Not that that's bad. If it's for you, it's for you, whatever; it's not for me. So one layer to this is actually now that I really enjoy mountain biking and I realize that I'm less physically fit than I wanna be, while I do get my fitness from mountain biking, it doesn't mean I get stronger because of it. Over time I might, but it's not like lifting weights, or strength training, or even particular training you might wanna do to be better at mountain biking, which is a lot of upper-body movement, a lot of legs, a lot of back, a lot of core...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yes.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** So now I'm motivated by my initial motivation to hack my routine, to go to the gym! Oh my gosh, right?!
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** So I'm still executing on this y'all, but I'm so much closer to actually getting to the gym, because now I wanna be a better mountain biker, and I realized my limitations, and what I'm gonna have to do to get there.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, but do you see how you braided in, you moved it on over, so that your brain can see the payout? As opposed to it being a rational, ethereal "I know this in a non-relatable way", your brain has real-time data that goes "Yeah...!!" So you just got rid of that whole internal conflict around whether or not I go, but rather you've found out that it's going to help you both now and later in a myriad of ways. So your whole system just exploded.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** I also wanna talk about the other aspect that is an obstacle, and that is willpower. Because you hacked over that, too.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. I'm still working on the willpower part. That's a daily thing. So if you study willpower further -- which I'm sure you have, Mireille; I'm mostly speaking to the general audience... Studying willpower is pretty intensive, because it's a resource that does have limits.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** It is.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** We've talked about this ourselves, either on some sort of episode, or in a side-conversation, but basically you only have so much to go around.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, that's the thing. Willpower is definitely a muscle. We have to consider that when we're looking at building new habits or new neural networks, because I know that what can be commonplace is ending up more frustrated with ourselves or with others, like "Why? Why can't I just fix this? I know better, but I can't sustain it." So it very much is rooted in this idea of willpower. I only have a limited supply. This is why it's always easier to adhere to a new behavior or new regimen earlier in the day, when that's bigger.
+
+I don't know if we've talked about this research study about the radishes and the cookies... Have I mentioned this?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** We've definitely talked about it; I'm not sure if it made it on tape, so retell it.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Okay, so there was this research study done by psychologists wherein they recruited a bunch of college students (I believe it was) and had them not eat for some hours (I think it was four hours) before they arrived for the testing.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Come hungry, basically.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Basically. And then they had plates of radishes and cookies in three different rooms. One group, they said "Hey, we just need you guys to sit here, and you can eat as many radishes or cookies as you want. Just wait, we'll be back in a little while."
+
+\[23:50\] The next group, they said "Hey, you guys can eat as many radishes as you want, but no cookies. You need to stay away from those." And the last group, they were like "I know you see this plates of radishes and cookies, but you need to just totally abstain, alright? We'll be back in a little while."
+
+So after some time passed, they came in and gave the different groups puzzles to solve. The only problem was that these puzzles weren't actually solvable. Right, always psychologists, I'll tell you.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right... Pulling some sort of game.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Uh-huh... So what they found out is that the group who couldn't eat anything, who had to abstain from radishes and cookies, gave up nearly immediately. They had spent all of their willpower to not eat that which was in front of them, when they were in fact hungry.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So they then didn't have it to spend, so to speak, over in this other lane. So the results went down successively from that. The next group then worked on the puzzles for a longer period of time, and the final group, who was able to eat freely, just continued to work, continued to work, and continued to work, because they weren't out of a supply.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So if you can, even in this process of modifying habits, be gracious with yourself, in recognizing that as there are other stressors, challenges, your resources internally are going to other things in your life, that you're considerate of those.
+
+I don't know if you've ever heard of the acronym HALT.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I think it rings a bell, but refresh my memory.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** HALT stands for Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** So I haven't heard of this one...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** It doesn't matter whether you're three, 23, 53 or 73. If you are hungry, angry, lonely or tired, you will inevitably make different decisions than if you're not any of those. I'd say willpower is sort of fitting in some of these. Because it's physiological. Your body is sending signals, "I am hungry. Feed me." "I need more energy. I need nourishment. I'm lonely, so my emotions are frontrunner." So there's all of these different things that contribute to our personalized experience of stress, which will then affect our willpower, which then in turn affects how we run our habits.
+
+So how do we then hack these and change our habits, considering these other factors? I would say one of the things is to take a minute to reflect on your resources. If you are in a certain season of life, so to speak, or psychosocial stressor that's taking more of an energy draw from you - that's probably not the wisest time to imagine creating a major hack in one of your habits.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Wow... Yeah. Timing has gotta be key then, right? Because you've gotta get through that time period to eventually be in a good place to do some change. So it seems like maybe even change can't happen as often as we might like, because we're often in stressful environments.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right, and at least identifying that as a component. What I want people to do is consider ways in which they can set more successful or attainable goals. If I'm trying to change a significant habit, what are sort of many wins that are gonna give me that hit of dopamine, that maybe it's not taking all of my willpower, but some of it. So then when during the day am I going to do that? I exercise first thing in the morning, and part of that is because I'm a mom, I work outside of the home, and my kids are in activities, my husband has other things... I have different roles and responsibilities. So if I don't do it first--
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** You won't.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[28:09\] Yeah. So then it's easy. It's not really a decision, because either I do it right now, or I don't. Period.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. Well, you have to think about your time, too. You might be able to put some time in in the evening time, but that would take away from other things you're optimizing for.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Sure. And I might go "Well, okay, so if I wanna hack that, I could look at other things I could do in the evening with my family." Or because seasons of my life have changed, and my kids are involved in activities that have access to a track that I could run in the evening, when I know my kids are cared for, they're involved in some activity, I could also run the track. That wasn't something that was accessible to me when my kids were under the age of five.
+
+So look at the context of your own life, and think about "Okay, where am I?" And let's start there. Because where you are, versus where your friend is, versus where a sibling might be... It's all varied.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** What's interesting is habits seem so simple... You mentioned before how we can shame ourselves because we just can't get it - relating to willpower - and we just can't seem to get over X (whatever it might be) because we feel like we just can't will ourselves over it. What's interesting is that to really examine habits, and as a human try to establish good habits or change bad habits, is that it really takes a lot of self-awareness. A lot of key ingredients that are required to even be aware of a bad habit or good habit, and then to establish things - like you said, take stock of your resources, look at the context of your own life etc. to be able to have the right kind of tooling to do the job.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, most certainly. And interestingly enough - and I look forward to talking more about this in upcoming episodes - remember that our frontal lobe is responsible for a lot of planning and organizing information, but also self-awareness. I don't know if I've shared this, but that is often impaired in people with brain injury, especially frontal lobe injuries. You could tell them something about what they do and they would be like "No, I don't. No, I didn't", because they literally lack that capacity in their brain.
+
+So self-awareness, aside from brain injury, is pliable. So you can grow, you can change your ability to be aware of yourself, and therefore what you're doing, so that you have access to different options and recognizing what is going to be the buy-in for me then, in light of these stressors; what am I willing to give up so that I can get this other habit or aspect of my life to feel the way in which I want it to feel?
+
+I really think that is a key part, because as we talked about initially too, feelings being fundamental to being human, not only are habits paying us dopamine, but other feelings, too. There's other emotions that it's like "I feel better. I feel more alive, energized, and even I like myself more when I don't yell at my family, or when I don't lose my temper, or when I'm simply more considerate and calm. I can enjoy myself, generally speaking."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I would also say that -- or at least that's the question, whether or not control is a piece of that, too. Because when we're vulnerable - which is a lack of control, right?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Sure.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** \[32:04\] ...a bad habit may induce vulnerability, and a good habit may induce the opposite of vulnerability. Strength. So when we're in bad habit zone - if that's a figurative place to be - we feel vulnerable, and therefore we just feel less in control of our life.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Sure, and I would offer that part of that is really your experience, physiologically and emotionally, would be one wherein your locus of control lies outside of you. So I am only able to manage myself to the degree that I can manage everything in my world that I actually don't have a charge over... Which doesn't work.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** No.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So what we're talking about, even with habits, is recognizing ways in which you actually have this internal toolbox, you have access to resources, strategies, skills, tools that help you do you to the best way that you can.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. Let's equip people then with some particular tooling that they can use to recognize good and bad habits, and the necessary components to actually being able to change a habit.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Well, one of the things I wanna -- because I tend to want to be specific and helpful... I don't like to put things in good or bad, simply because things aren't good or bad. But I would say habits as sort of preferable or not preferable.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Okay, I like that.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Or adaptive and maladaptive. Like it works well, or it works, but just not very well.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right, right. So we have to throw away the nomenclature of good and bad habits then, is that what you're saying?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Well, good and bad, because unless it's really aspects of morality, I don't want people to get stuck in more of a binary mode of thinking...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Gotcha.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** ...like it's either, or.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** We need more shades of grey in this scenario.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. As really functional adults, we should do our best to live more abstractly, in the sense like everybody has a different sense of strengths and weaknesses, or what they're more prone to practice versus not. But everybody -- I want everybody to be literally their best version of who they are. Because we all work together, because we are social creatures, we're all gonna do better when we are our best self.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I'm glad you said it that way, because I would even put that in the toolset to recognize the more shades between white and black, not just binary one or two, when it comes to understanding your personal habits, whether they're (as I said) good or bad... But in your case, you're suggesting that we be more flexible, and I agree with that, because -- I would actually see that as a tool to put in the folks' chest, or into their tool bag, to deal with habits.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Well, yeah, because ironically, our brain, when we're computing things as an either-or, then we're in trouble with ourselves, because "Now I'm on this side of the cliff, versus that side of the cliff, and there's a canyon or a chasm, and shoot-- now I'm screwed, because I'm on the wrong side."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right, right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So now I'm gonna amplify my brain's threat response of like "I'm in trouble", and this is dangerous, even when I don't want to be. So - awesome, I'm glad that's at the forefront of this.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I like that.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** We wanna think more abstractly. And you talk about optimizing - how do we be our optimized self, and does that have to look the same as anybody else's optimized self?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[35:56\] Second to that, we talk about having a sense of awareness, and the awareness would look like "Does it work for me? Does it take me closer to or farther from my goal?"
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right, the things you're trying to do in life, whether it's career, or personal, or whatever the scenario is. What your long term goal is, essentially.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, I love it - I don't know if you've read the book Essentialism.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yes. I say it faster because I love that book. One of my favorite chapters is Protect the Asset.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah...! And see, we are all so uniquely designed, and we're all designed to play a part within the greater whole. What we could do is amazing, amazing. But the whole premise of this book is like -- I love the initial chapter, where he's like "Quit doing everything that you don't wanna do."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** \[laughs\] That seems so simple. Great advice. Book done.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right?! \[laughs\] But for us to begin to see, "What do I just naturally do? What would I do independent of getting paid to do it? I don't need anybody to ever pay me to read a book. I'm going to do that. I can't help myself..."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Wouldn't it be nice to be paid to read books though? I mean, come on now...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[laughs\] It would.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** As many books as you read, if you had a penny for every book you read, you'd be a thousandaire, or something. I'm just kidding...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[laughs\] But recognizing that this is part of the unique design. So how then do I hack my unique design that's going to work? And I also think of that -- now I'm gonna pull in (while we're unique) that social component of going "We're all embedded in other relationships and families." So just like you talked about the way in which mountain biking not only works for you, but with your family, I think of it like my team - like, who's on my team? Who am most often around, that accompany me?
+
+In the world of brain injury talked about our board of advisors, because their brains didn't work as well. Like, "Who's on my board of advisors?" Who would assist me in being my best me, that my choices actually have a direct or indirect impact on them?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah, that's true.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** ...so that they're gonna help keep me accountable. Because we know that accountability, ironically, increases the likelihood of us reaching certain goals or habits that we want to achieve.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. For the simple fact that we don't wanna let people down. If I was counting on you to do something and you let me down, you would feel bad about that, and that's not a good thing, obviously. So you wanna feel good, and the natural thing would be to follow through with whatever I was thinking you should do, based upon our goal-setting, or whatever.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right, so identify how this new habit would actually not just benefit you, but work well for the other people with whom you're in relationship with.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah, don't put yourself in isolation with your decision-making, because if you've made a choice to change a habit that you felt was more desirable -- is that what you said, desirable/less desirable, in terms of the polar opposites in this example? If you went that route, then it was more desirable for you, it had a positive outcome, but it had negative outcomes on other people that were very close to you, then you might wanna reconsider that choice.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. Recognizing that it's not just me that gets to benefit from it. They're gonna help keep me accountable, and it's like there's additional dividends.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. So an accountability partner is a key aspect in this toolset of habit understanding, and formation, and change.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. It's just going to enhance it.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[39:53\] If we're looking at the social component, identifying our resources, then go "What nuances, what am I going to now replace it with?" I've identified how it doesn't work, how it's gonna benefit me, so I can hold that... And sometimes even putting that in your visual field, because we're all sort of dense. We just forget because we'll be distracted by X, Y or Z...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Oh, yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Ironically, we don't want to look at what we're not doing. So if I put up on a calendar, say it's like "I want to mountain bike four times this week", put an X on the calendar when you do it, because you're not gonna wanna look at a calendar that's empty.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right, yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** And identify then how you're going to replace it. So if I'm looking at my day, and the context, and saying "I'm gonna be more prone to do this in the evening, based on my work schedule and my other social relationships, my family can join me etc. I'm gonna put it up on the calendar", then I have to go "What's my default? What's my previous habit that I do?" For example, a lot of people, if they're working outside the home, I could imagine one obstacle or default would be they come home and they're like "I'm done. I'm tired. I'm not changing clothes. I'm gonna sit on the sofa and turn on the TV."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yes... Playbook plays out. TV watched. 11 o'clock. Now you crack open the ice-cream... Just kidding. \[laughter\] We've gone the whole wrong way. What I love though is what you said there, and I don't know if the audience heard this as clearly as I did, but you said "Look at what you wanna do, your desired outcome, the desired thing to do, and then look at what you're doing instead." So if it's me mountain biking or going to the gym or whatever it might be, and instead I get home tired and I just sit down, what's the routine that plays out as part of the cue of getting home? I wanna get to the gym by six; what am I doing instead of getting to the gym by six? Those are the things I need to replace. Is that right?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, yeah. So if that's the time that I've identified that that's when I'm going to implement a new habit, then I need to look at how do I hack it? And I would say "I'm not gonna go home."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Go right to the gym.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** I'm gonna go right to the gym, I'm gonna take my bike with me... And really brainstorm. It doesn't have to be just one, but you have to identify the replacement, because retrieval at that time, in that moment, is going to default back to--
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** To your comfort zone.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Because you're probably tired, lonely or hungry, too.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, exactly. On testing - there's all different ways to test. We can test via forced choice, like I will give you "Pick A, B or C", or there's like "Tell me - you have to retrieve the entire response, what would you do in this situation." Forced choice answers, multiple choice answers are always easier, because I don't have to do a full retrieval.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So in those moments when your brain has other things going on, the retrieval - not because of something that's personal to you, but rather because you're human - you're not going to be apt to withdraw in that moment.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah, that's so true. There's a lot of things in the moment we can't -- it often happens actually in forms like this, where you're speaking publicly, lots of people are listening, and you sort of get one chance to say it right; in retrospect, you're like "Oh man, I should have said that thing instead of this thing." But in the moment, there's just too much going on for you to truly recall what you might have wanted to do.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[43:50\] So imagine you're creating a forced choice option. I'm saying "I can take my clothes with me, I could change there at work, or I could figure out a way that a gym is in-between my work and my home, versus having to drive past my house. I could actually alter my route home so as to include that, or I could look at who I'm going to meet at work, or at home, or whatever, making myself accountable", so that I'm pulling on these different threads to help make me more accountable to the follow-through.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** So accountability, whether it's self-induced, or literally another human being - it seems like a key system to this as well.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** It is, it is. Because accountability - it's sort of like I can't lie to myself... So long as I don't say anything, it only exists in my mind. I didn't make it real.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right, right. Until it's real, you don't really do it. You can get away with it. I understand that so well, it's funny.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, because there's like this opportunity for judgment, which then we could look at guilt, condemnation, shame - pick the negative emotion - for the lack of adherence. So long as I keep it coveted internally in my own brain, nobody knows.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. So if there was one core takeaway for habits, behavior change, cues, routines, rewards, dopamine etc. around this subject, what would be the thing that gives the listeners confidence in changing habits and establishing good routines for themselves when they're typically doing something they don't like to do? What's a good takeaway here?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** I think that it's really important for people to recognize and identify that they have to get a buy-in. They're never gonna be apt to change a behavior unless they are really uncomfortable, can recognize that there is a way in which the alternative, the desired behavior provides them an immediate benefit, and that that has to be achievable and repeatable. If I can only hit the mark on one occasion, I'm not gonna repeat it. But I want whatever I set as the payout to pay out repeatedly, because I'm really working on building an entirely new network in my brain, that says "This is the way to work we go."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. It's interesting to think of it like that, too; it's like, you're establishing new pathways, and some expectation of forging new pathways is sometimes pain, discomfort, potentially pleasure... But there's a lot of the things that come in with the building process of anything, right?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. And that's just it. At the beginning it's always going to take more stamina, because I'm pushing a rock up the hill to do this harder thing, but it's just unfamiliar; it's just not well-practiced. So if you can give yourself the time and the opportunities to repeat it, then you are more likely to get where you want to go. But don't try to make these huge, sweeping goals and changes all at once. I mean, if I am hiking down a forest or pathway through a forest, it's gonna take me--
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** One tree at a time.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. So don't get weary, don't get upset when you don't reach what you expected to reach or get, and don't get weary... Because you'll get there. Maybe not in the time -- so I would offer to hold on to that intention, hold on to that desired idea of where you want to be and how you wanna feel, and not the specificity around a particular goal immediately at that time.

Managing our mental health_transcript.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,325 @@
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Mental health seems to be a really predominant focus in our world today, and yet it's interesting, because I'm not sure that everybody has a clear concept of what we're actually talking about or what is encompassed within mental health. What do you think?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah, I personally have questions about it, so I can only imagine that if I represent a fraction of the world, then it's gotta be true for them, too... Because I think mental health is this word we throw around, and it makes sense to, because we all have some sort of perceived or whatever mental status about ourselves, our positive thoughts or whatever, but I don't think that everyone really gets the clinical version of when we talk about mental health, what it involves and what it takes to create healthy mental health.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, and I think that when we talk about things -- one of the things that's important throughout this show is being able to develop a language. You guys have so many different systems within your world that are all different languages, right? So mental health I want us to conceptualize in the idea of a system. That being said, systems aren't static; they're always in flux. So just like we talk about our physical health, our mental health is a fluctuation of multiple systems within our bodies.
+
+That being said, I wanna delineate the difference between even our brain, versus mentality. Mental health is really this interplay between the physiological mechanisms within our body, our brain, as well as the interplay with the environment, and our thoughts. So it's kind of all of the workings coming together, dare I say.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** When you say that, you're not saying mental health isn't a healthy brain...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** No.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Mental health is the mind inside of our brain that is this interplay between the physical organ and all the memory systems, whatever it is that creates this thing we call our mind.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. Our health, when we tag on health, that's even different -- we're looking at wellness. How can we optimize, so to speak, the way in which our systems of our brain make sense of our world, our relationships - all of these different factors. Mentality is the way in which we think about things, so "How do I make sense of the way in which my brain organizes information and creates output in order to do my world, my day?"
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** You said before this idea of a symphony. Is it like that, where you've got physical attributes, you've got other things that sort of contribute to this perception of mental health, this perception of happiness, or this perception of just healthy behaviors? Maybe even those are societal things, where society says this is healthy or whatever, kind of thing?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** \[04:17\] There's different systems that sort of incorporate the ability for the symphony to sound good, you know what I mean?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Exactly, yeah. And just like when we're looking at physical health -- I mean, think about the way in which our understanding of nutrition has changed over the years. Is it the same today, even as it was six months ago, or four years ago? No.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah, it changes drastically. Fats are bad, fats are good...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** You almost feel like you're on this yo-yo system, and nobody really understand... But it's in the name of progress, I suppose. Then you also have good research to prove your hypothesis about nutrition, or different things... But yeah, it's always in flux.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. So this notion of symphony is very much -- there's different sections... There's woodwind, there's percussion... So if one aspect of the symphony isn't working well, it's going to modify the sound. That isn't good or bad per se, it just is. And then you wanna look at "How do I problem-solve around that?" Because we as people, as human beings, are never gonna work the same if we amputate an aspect of that symphony.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So when I'm talking mental health, I think it's important to look at what are some of the fundamentals or basics that make the fundamental system that we wanna start with whenever we're examining our mental health. And some of those fundamentals, ironically, really start with managing our body from a physical perspective. Because stress is something that is a part of life. In the same way I wouldn't expect to go into the ocean and never get wet...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Ha-ha! Good luck not getting wet if you go into the ocean.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[laughs\] Stress is a part of our day-to-day world, and so I can't imagine doing my life without things that I encounter that create stress in some form or fashion. There are fundamentals in going -- loss is a part of our life, so I can't imagine that I wouldn't do my life, the choices I make, the way in which I live, how I relate to other people, if I don't consider that loss is gonna be a part of that, so I have to figure out how to navigate that, and not oppose that and work against it.
+
+So I'm looking at these fundamentals physically as sleep, food, and activity. So because we are all unique, is this going to look the same for any individual?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. Well, you wouldn't think that it would be that simple, right? That some key ingredients for mental health being as simple as sleeping well, eating right, or just eating healthy-ish. Not even so much like on a diet or whatever, but having a lifestyle of maintaining health through food... And then this notion of activity. Because so many people abandon a couple of these at any given moment through seasons of their life.
+
+Let's say someone's on a speaking circuit and they've gotta travel quite a bit for a quarter of the year. Well, their sleep probably goes down, their activity goes in haywire, their routines and all that stuff get off-track... And you wonder why you hit this state of burnout, or this stage of just inability to do the day-to-day as easily as you had been able to beforehand. Well, it's because you've really taxed all of your core systems.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[08:05\] Yeah, exactly. I think it's helpful maybe if we talk about these things in terms of knowns and unknowns. There are generally things that are going to work for all people, all humans, regardless, and then there's specifics; those unknowns that are relative to individuals.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. Their experiences in life... You've mentioned loss before - whether or not they've lost a parent, or a loved one... Unique things that happen in individual lives.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, like somebody's health - if they have type one diabetes, it's gonna look incredibly different from somebody who does not.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah, because they have a daily anxiety that they've gotta deal with constantly. It doesn't leave them.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right, and then I can even create a further nuance with type diabetes is gonna look incredibly different than somebody with type two diabetes.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So bear that in mind as we talk about this, that generally speaking there are these knowns, and then these unknowns, or individual specificities within that.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** So are you saying that sleep, food and activity are these known knowns?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. Sleep - one of the things we know is that, generally speaking, we are all going to fare better with at least seven hours of sleep, and if you want to do better, eight hours is even better than seven.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yes.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Based on different backgrounds, experiences, it might be that you can function with 3-4 hours, or 5-6, but generally speaking, 7 hours is the optimal minimal level of sleep. And the reason that is is that during sleep is when our bodies recharge. It's sort of like defragging. I've gotta get rid of all the extraneous things, I have to sort and filter, because our brains want to always minimize how much energy we're expending. So if I don't have time to rest, that my brain can sort... I think in pictures so often, but imagine that our brain is very much like a post office, and sleep is the time in which it sorts all the packages. Where do things go? Is this one important? How urgent is this? Can this back off? Which is why when we're stressed or we have other thoughts, we have trouble sleeping, because we're not really sure that we can rest and relax and allow that to happen.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right, yes. That's interesting, too. We don't even think -- I would say everyday individuals probably do not consider what exactly happens when we sleep. Not so much just saying "Okay, great, you've gotta get seven hours, or eight hours, or whatever the number is, as a prescription. Go ahead and go do this", and whatever. I think sometimes actually breaking down what happens when you sleep. Do you understand that part of it yet, or do you know much about the things that get repaired and whatnot when you sleep?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Not in specificity. Like everything, there's so many specialists to look at just this one aspect of our physical bodies. But you know, I wanna say it was Malcolm Gladwell - and I'm forgetting exactly which book he talks about this - the law of 10,000 hours, and the research that if you wanna be an expert at anything, you need to spend ten years or 10,000 hours... But there are sub-studies even within those, which talk about the athletes who slept 8 hours over 7 hours, that they were even at that most upper echelon of the expert category.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Wow.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Athletes really know this - if they want to do better, they're going to sleep more. Because it allows your muscles to repair... Even in exercise, what happens when we're building muscle is ironically we create small tears in the muscle fibers, so there has to be time for the repair to occur, and if I don't rest, which is why I need to have a sort of rhythm of rest amidst my life in order for all the repairs to take place.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** \[12:11\] Yeah. That's actually a great point, because when we sleep, that's when people often even burn a lot of fat, too. There's a lot of fat-burning, there's a lot of digestive things happening at sleep, there's a lot of things (like you'd mentioned) in muscle repair etc. And I don't know why our brains need to sleep, why our bodies need to sleep, but for whatever reason it does significantly contribute to our physical health and our mental health.
+
+Something I learned several years ago - I heard somebody on the stage say "Work eight, play eight, and sleep eight." So while I may not success everyday at that, that's my goal. That's what I'm optimizing for. And I'm terribly doing one of those right now, which is sleep. I'm in a cycle right now where sleep is -- I get it, but it's not perfect right now. And I realize how that's taxing on me, too. My optimization is I wanna work eight, I wanna play eight, and I wanna sleep eight.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, and I think that's really important, Adam. When we're talking about these different things there's always this sort of ideal to aspire to; it doesn't mean that's where you're gonna get, but that's your goalpost. And it's not an all-or-nothing, like either I hit it or I don't, but rather I just want to work towards and always be trying to get to my best self.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. It's my North Star.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, amen.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** It's the way in which I point my boat, you know what I mean? I may be off a degree or two sometimes, or maybe way off, but I know I'm always looking at it, and that's the direction I'm trying to go. And when I'm off that - I'll just sort of sidebar this for a second - I sort of say "Is this a seasonal thing? Can I get off of this North Star focus for two or three weeks because of a reason?" And give myself a window where I forgive myself for being off, and having this focus. I realize it's just for a season, and I do my best to put some constraints on myself and not let it go beyond a certain measure. Then I've gotta pull back and start to create margin, and push back and say no to things etc, so that I get back to my North Star. I always keep it my frame of reference, but I may allow myself to deviate a little bit, for certain reasons.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yes. And I'm so glad you brought up that caveat, because we're all gonna encounter those. I can attest to that post-partum, after having children; there was a time where sleep was definitely not what I wanted it to be, and I made different choices as a result of that, because I knew it wouldn't last forever... But really holding on to the reasoning why.
+
+I wanna say, your will and your choices really play a critical role in that trajectory, to say "This is important to me and this is why for right now I'm doing this", so that you're riding driver's seat. You're not letting. It's really easy in our lives, with all of the intrusions, to just default to sort of Whac-A-Mole; whatever thing comes up, I just practice that Whac-A-Mole game, like "That's most important, that's most important."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** And so I'm never really directing my life. I tend to tell my patients a lot - we always fare better when we participate in the choice. I think we want to believe or imagine that so much more of life is forced choice. "I don't have a choice in regards to taxes." Well, you actually do...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** You might not like your options. It looks like you pay them or you go to prison, but it's a choice nonetheless. So recognizing "I'm choosing to sacrifice sleep for this season in time because of a greater good or other alternative goal." I just can't run that play indefinitely.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. That reminds me, too - I also give myself some forgiveness with the food aspect whenever I'm on vacation.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yes...!
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** \[16:13\] So often do we take vacations, and -- I'm always pretty critical, and I'm always trying to maintain some sort of healthy food direction, similar to my North Star with "work eight, play eight, sleep eight". I try to say "I wanna eat healthy. It's okay to have a bad day, but get back on the track." I'm not a failure because I didn't do well this day, but so often do I attempt to go into a vacation with some sort of plan of maintaining my healthy eating, and by day four I'm like "You know what - let me give myself at least a break... Because I deserve it, right?"
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, you're exactly right. That's the second key thing when it comes to the physical aspect of managing our mental health - it's food. Food provides us energy. So in the same way - if I don't put gas in my car, I'm not gonna get anywhere. I'm not going anywhere. So it is that I have no energy input to provide output. And our brains need food and fuel.
+
+We've talked about much of our template comes from having kids and raising kids, and I talk with my kids a lot about food that they wanna eat, and I'm like "That gives you no energy. Your brain has no idea how to compute that food into energy, because it has no--" like Cheez-Its, while they may be incredibly yummy to my children, they don't actually give them fuel.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** What?! They don't? Come on...!
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[laughs\] Yeah...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Okay, so let's dive in a little closer then... What foods do you know of that particularly enhance brain function?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Well, we know that fats and proteins are really critical. Carbohydrates are as well, but if you look at the four basic things, protein, carbohydrates, fats and fiber are what we're looking at. And this, within that - it's going to look different for all people as well.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah, it's true.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Because who's got the same genetics?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Nobody.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Nobody.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** We're all uniquely different, DNA-wise, for sure.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. So for whatever reason I'm aware of a number of people who have had their gallbladder removes, so their bodies aren't' gonna process fat in the same way in which it once did. So their diet is going to look different than somebody with another health issue, or somebody else who has -- you know, all of that, there's the health issues, but then there's also health preferences. Not everybody likes to eat the same thing, and the plant-based diets are really important. We want to eat our greens, because those provide vitamins, nutrients...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. You come here to Texas, you're gonna get barbecue. You go somewhere in Alabama, Mississippi -- Louisiana, in particular, they have an entire cuisine just based on Creole.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** And you go into Alabama and you've got Southern fried foods, South Carolina Southern fried foods... And you try to take their Southern fried foods away from them. I dare you.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[laughs\]
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** It's not gonna happen. It's part of their culture, it's part of their make-up, it's part of their heritage even...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. So with that, there's always caveats. Not all fats are created equal. Sugar is really more of a thing that's involved with fats; eating walnuts or pecans, which are high in fat, are not the same as eating Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, as much as I might like that to be.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yes.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[19:50\] But recognizing different foods provide different nutrients, and that since our health is never a set point, it means I'm never going to have to stop managing health. So this is a forever-gig, where I am trying to look for ways in which my body can optimize, in terms of whatever I'm doing. Again, if you have a very physically-laborious job, it's gonna look very different than somebody who has a very cognitive-demanding job, right?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** We've talked about this in the past, in terms of different nutritional ways in which we've bent, and I noticed a significant different when I did a higher fat, higher protein diet, because I do have a very cognitive, demanding job, as well (ironically) emotionally, because I'm holding all of this energy throughout my days with individuals that I work with... So I would tend to dip toward two or three o'clock in the afternoon, and then by the time I was done at five o'clock, I was totally wasted. I had zero energy, and it would literally take me nearly an hour to sort of get my brain back online after expanding and exchanging all of that energy.
+
+And when I went to this modified diet, I discovered that I didn't dip, and I didn't then dive and need an hour recovery. I can actually shift into whatever I need to now, immediately. But I know that isn't gonna fit for all people. So what I want to offer is -- food is at the forefront, but the way in which you do the food is going to be discovered as your investigation and the way in which you're willing to practice new things.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I like the fact that you mentioned that it's something you manage kind of forever... Because it just reminds you that -- similar to my story of the North Star, my optimization, what I'm optimizing for, similar in that way you've always gotta keep your mind, your direction on this particular thing, whether it's sleep, whether it's food, whether it's your activity, which we haven't gotten to yet... But these three things being key ingredients that you have to manage and maintain for your entire life to have a healthier, or healthy life... Whether it's mental, physical, interpersonal - all those things play on those kind of three core things. So if our mental health is hung on sleep, food and activity, and there's many more layers beneath that, if that's what hangs on that, then that means that society itself, the fabric of society depends on those key three things.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, it does. So many things are systems. In the same way my car won't run if I don't have oil, or I don't have water, or I don't have tires, God forbid.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right... You kind of need those wheels.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Just a little bit. So these are going to look different in terms of how we manage them at different ages and stages in our life... But the value is always present. So when we go about our lives, I think it's important to imagine -- we have different filters through which we see our world. So putting on this filter of "What does it look like to manage myself as based on my genetics, my background, my experiences and the specificities relative to me?"
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** And just like we've talked in previous episodes about your discovery with mountain-biking, and that that was so huge for you, that activity, finding out your buy-in to do something so that you could move - that's the other key thing when we're talking about managing our bodies and our mental health. We have to move.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I've got good friends who love cross-fit, I've got good friends who love to rock-climb, even the fake kind, in the gym... And I dig that. That's fun. But it's not something I can do on repeat. For me, I had to find an activity that was both fun, engaging, and then also taxing physically, to progress and just to maintain. Everybody is gonna have a different version of that for themselves.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[24:14\] Right. So I wonder if it's helpful for our listeners to think about this in terms of rhythms. You mentioned the eight-eight-eight. Everybody's gonna have a little bit different rhythm at different times, but the components that you're going to need are sleep, food and motion, or activity... Because there's all of this sort of bartering - like, output/input/output/input. And if I don't allow for my body to sleep, my brain to sleep, and if I don't input food to provide energy, and I don't discharge the negative energy, my mental health, my whole health is going to fare differently.
+
+It's interesting, because in working with people with mental health disorders, anxiety - one of the best things that people can do when they wrestle with anxiety, ironically, is actually move more... Because anxiety as an emotion is energy, so instead of trying to squelch or squash it, I wanna move it. I wanna barter. It's like, "I'll give you two, you give me four."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. I like the idea, and I think we've talked about it; it may actually appear on an episode - we talked about it like a lightning strike. It's gotta go somewhere. It's gonna come down from the sky, it's gonna hit something that it contacts with here on Earth, and then it's gonna continue, like an electrical charge. It has to go from emotions are energy, and they have to go somewhere (I believe you said somewhere). Is it similar to that?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, because there's all of these (again) physiological processes that occur when we move. So getting your heart rate up, moving your body - it doesn't matter what movement that is, you just want an exchange rate. So in the same way I'm gonna go to different countries and everybody utilizes a different monetary system, there's an exchange rate. So if there was no exchange rate, what would you do?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** So is your prescription then for anybody who is listening to this and has even light levels of anxiety, maybe even terrible levels of anxiety, that one easy prescription is "Move."
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Move.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** And find something that is your good movement. It might be mountain-biking, and if so, reach out to me and say hello. If it's cross-fit, don't talk to me. I'm just kidding... \[laughter\]
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** No, but say for example you have a very stressful, high-pressured - I don't know, I think like stock broker - position, that maybe you don't want a super high-energy, kickboxing, shouting at you sort of activity. Maybe it looks like yoga, maybe it looks like walking, maybe it looks like kayaking, or something that has a much slower rhythm or pace to it, because it feels too similar to your daily activities.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I've got one for you... How about this - what if you took a walk with your good friend, your mother, your dad, your wife, your husband, your kids, whatever, and combined this necessary thing for your daily life, and attach that to relationships?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. Well, this actually connects in to the next thing I wanna talk about in regards to managing our mental health, and that looks like both relationships and boundaries. I had a friend who is an amazing individual, so a lot of people wanted her time, and words, and energy, and she was just becoming fatigued as a result of this. So she started making it a sort of caveat to interact with her that she wouldn't meet people for coffee anymore, but rather it looked like going on a walk. "You can join me between X time, and we can walk." And it was amazing how just setting that boundary and changing the nature of the relationship - it really reduced how many people joined her.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** \[28:11\] Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** And so relationships are another key component of doing our mental system well.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I like how she combined both - both boundaries, as well as relationships. Because sure, we have boxes (for a lack of better terms) around us; constraints, boundaries, however you feel you wanna frame it... And in some cases we actually contribute, as you said before, to the choice, the design of those boxes. And in some ways those are societal and sort of forced upon us, based upon where we're at in time and history and geography, and some of that is actually manufactured by us, by our choices.
+
+I think it's important to recognize that box is there, but also to recognize that you can modify that box. And the same case with her - "Sure, I wanna meet with people, and that's positive for my career, for my mental health, for whatever it is she's doing, but I've also gotta get this too, so how can I combine the two of them?" That's genius, actually. I love it.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, because it just sort of controls the flow a little bit more, and it really offers to other people, like "How much effort do you wanna put forth? How important is this?" Because it's easy to just sit and have a cup of coffee, or have a conversation, but do you want to actually expand energy, or meet me where I'm at in order to have this interaction?
+
+One of the things that I've been incredibly cognizant of in working with people is when resentments come in, that resentment -- imagine that it's an indicator light to say "I gave what I actually didn't have to give." So in both relationship and our boundaries, our limits, to say "Look, I worked really hard to give you this gift, to give you my time, to give you my words, to give you my energy, and you don't know the cost that that was for me... So now I'm angry with you and resentful to you, because you don't recognize the value of the gift I gave you."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** But instead of it really being a shame on the other person, it should be a light bulb for ourselves to go "\[gasp\] I didn't have that energy to give." And so I have to be more deliberate and intentional about what I give to others in terms of my time and energy and initiative, because it's not on them to manage my input, my output, but it's my job. So to recognize that and go "I think I need to consider that." And really, it looks like "If I get nothing back, if I give this to you, and I get no money back, emotionally, either literally or figuratively, I shouldn't give it."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** How often does that happen to you? I don't know how often I hold resentment, but I can recall recently having a conversation with my daughter about value. That "This thing was in this condition - because I was gonna let her use it - when I gave it to you, so you're a child and you don't really understand the value of things and what it took me to get this in the first place", and the fact that it's seven years old and it still looks this nice, it's because I take care of my things... So I hold a certain value to that, and I have to somehow transfer that value to her, so that she can respect the item as well as I had, and treat it well too, so that it has the same lifespan after the gift, after giving it to her, for example.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[31:56\] Sure. And I would say to some degree it looks different with kids than it does adults in our relationships, because -- I always say "Kids are still cooking."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah, that's true.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** They are still very much in process... So I want to give them opportunities to grow and learn... However, with boundaries. And ironically, boundaries for kids, teenagers, pre-schoolers - kids all need boundaries in other to actually do themselves in their lives well, and they need us to help them figure those out. So one of the ways I would talk about this or explain is like I don't intentionally give my kids certain things that I'm not okay if they literally wreck.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** You're getting upset. Are you getting upset?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Well, no...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Okay... \[laughs\]
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** But I think this is huge, because my husband has a very powerful car, he's a car guy, and I say - if I give my 16-year-old son a Ferrari and he crashes it, that is not his fault, to some degree, because he has no idea the power that that car has. So as his parent, it's my job to go "Look, one, his frontal lobe is definitely not fully cooked." He's got dopamine in his brain that works like an adult, so he has a full-on gas pedal with no frontal lobe to break it.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So I as his parent, and his dad and I together, need to say "That's not wise." It doesn't mean he can't, but like, really? It's just not prudent, it's not considerate of him being where he's at. That is different than an adult, wherein I would create clarity around the expectation to go "Hey, this is a loan" versus "This is a gift" versus "This is a gift for three weeks." There's all those caveats and nuances. So you wouldn't imagine taking a job if somebody says "Hey, I want you to come to work."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** When should I be there? And when will I be paid? How much will I be paid?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Exactly.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** What work will I be doing? Who will I be working with? I can keep going... Anyways, I'll stop now.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[laughs\] But all of those things are relevant, because they are incredibly particular to you, in light of your North Star, in light of your relationships, in light of what you have to give. I mean, I would offer that one of the best experiences I ever had as a professional was when I worked in brain injury and I did job coaching for people of all different levels of skill and education. We're talking everybody from a store clerk at Target or fast-food drive-through, to engineers, attorneys etc. that my job after they sustained an injury was actually to help them troubleshoot live on the job... So basically I would go and learn their job, and then teach them troubleshooting strategies for whatever was wrong with their brain.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** The ultimate version of empathy, right? You put yourself in their shoes and gave them prescriptions on how to do what they do.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Exactly. So that whatever way in which their brain wasn't working correctly, we can sort of hiccup around it. And that really highlighted the vast degree of humanity and what we're capable of. And so what was hard for one person or what was a boundary for one person wasn't for another, and that was so good. It really helped me see the beauty of how varied we are as people. I don't think I've ever looked at going to get groceries the same way, because I know what it looks like to stock shelves...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** \[35:57\] Yeah. When you put it back, you put it back with the label out, on the edge, stacked neatly... I'm just kidding. Yeah, when you go to the restaurant - you're almost sort of self-preparing for the server to take the plates away, or whatever it might be. What do they call that - prebussing. We often do that a lot, me and my wife, because we've both been servers in our life.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Oh my word, yes, because you know what that is. Somebody who is in that job, doing that role, is going to look different in terms of managing their mental health, than say you or I in our jobs and what we're doing. I have an incredibly social job, but that is incredibly isolating.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yes, because you have so many people inputting, and zero output of their stuff, because hey, that's illegal. \[laughs\]
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Exactly, right. So I'm holding of this energy, so I have to barter in a way that doesn't look like how the input came in.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So understanding that this will look different for all people, and I really want to cultivate respect around that, and empathy too, because what fits for you won't fit for me... And hallelujah, that's a good thing, because this is the way in which the world works. So when we're managing our mental health, you are an \[unintelligible 00:37:20.28\] So here's fundamentals, here's the knowns, but the unknown is always through the filter of you.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. Your particular experiences, who you associate with, the relationships you've fostered, different skills you've picked up along the way on managing sleep, food, activity...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yes, and so with that, when we're talking boundaries, I wanna think of it in terms of constraints... And that constraints are a really good thing for my world, because I'm very much in the line of fire and I'm on the front lines... I say "I can't be a first-responder in all ways."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So where I'd like to give to other people - I've always said I wanna get paid to hang out with people and drink coffee... Which is ironically so much of what I do, because I care about other people and I'm fascinated by humanity, so I wanna hear the individual stories... But then I want to help, and I wanna problem-solve, and I wanna go "Have you looked at this? And what about that?" And I can't do that in all facets of my life, because I will have no energy left.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. You've just made me realize probably how important this podcast is for your output... Because you hold so much in, you can generalize a lot of your experiences as a psychologist, and obviously not reference names, so it's anonymized, whatever you're speaking of. These are your experiences as a therapist; this is an outlet for you to output, so that's cool. I didn't really consider it like that for you.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** I never even considered it in that way either, but you're right... Because I think I see these ways in which -- you know, they're broad strokes that are applicable to all humans, and I want people to 1) join in the social fabric to go "You know what? You get to be human, too. Oh, and you are, too! And you and I aren't gonna look the same."
+
+I can talk about things in terms of gender, or sort of expectations as being a female, a wife and a mom, and what those look like, but they're not gonna look like my friends or my patients, because there's -- I'm like "Nobody else has my husband." So I know... \[laughs\]
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** So we hope, yeah. Exactly, if you go back to the idea that DNA is unique, then we are all unique, and if our lives, if even our sleep patterns and our food patterns and our activity patterns and our relationships and our boundaries are all different, we're all gonna have a different life experience... And that perspective is crucial.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[40:07\] Yeah. And I would say it's really what contributes to the beauty. When you think about the sounds that you like to hear, and the people that you wanna interface with, it's really in the way in which we're different, because I can learn something from someone else, and I had no idea that this was true, or other people liked this, or do that. And when we can respect that, it just creates this gorgeous harmony. But what we have to lead with when we're managing our mental health is really this sense of empathy and respect, that I don't need another one of me. I need another every-individual. Everybody in this world is here for a reason, and I wanna take delight in the way in which that creates a symphony...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. Diversity, not conformity.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yes. So the next thing I wanna talk about with this - we've talked about the physical aspects when it comes to managing our mental health, but I wanna talk about specifically now there's a key piece, and that involves the cognitive part. And because we're talking about being individuals and we all have a different DNA, there's a difference between our brains and our minds. So when I'm talking mental health, I'm talking about the way in which the physiological mechanisms of our brain and our bodies, that our mind actually operates and puts that together.
+
+So it gets sort of modeled and nuanced, dare I say, when we start talking about this, because... Like insight, for example - our brain's ability to have insight of, or awareness around things, is actually a cognitive function, so it's a part of my frontal lobe function. But I can't just say it's one little part in the brain that does it, it's really a cacophony of systems that work together, that create my ability to see in terms of my mind's eye. Does that make sense?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. You have insight about insight, essentially. Awareness about awareness.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** It's almost chicken and egg.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, yeah.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** That's what it really gets to when we talk about our minds. That's why it gets so difficult to describe even, because like "Okay, well, it requires the organ, but the organ isn't the mind. It's the interplay within the organ", which is just really hard. Even neuroscientists have a hard time describing it.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Well, because it's so complex, and it's systemic, and it's always changing, the more that we know. It's just like we know that the way in which our lifestyle is changing with technology, that our brains are changing. But we don't know how. I can tell you that attention span is less. Far less than what it was.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** You mean as you get older?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** No. That with technology and with all of the distractions of our world, because there's so many pop-ups. Imagine, just like your computer has 12 file tabs open simultaneously...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Well, I think it's this aspect of conditioning, which you've mentioned before. If you're conditioned to ignore 50 things in a day in today's world, whereas maybe 10, 20, 30 years ago you only had to ignore or discard things five times. So if you put a multiplier on the ignorance level of something every day, then that's gonna contribute to you being more conditioned to ignore something...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Or just this aspect like -- because ignoring something is sort of an attention span mechanism, right? You want to pay attention to it or you don't.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Well, it's like a decision. There's so much to this... \[laughter\]
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** This could be a whole different podcast. Let's give a sliver of it though.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[44:08\] Okay. Well, attention -- there's all different kinds of attention. There's sustained attention, divided attention, and then even shifting attention. And so all of these things play a role. But one of the things we know -- email, for example... Researchers have looked at this and they say it's not really helpful to look at your email first thing in the morning, because it ends up putting you more on the defense, so to speak. You are reacting to your day, instead of planning out and deciding where you wanna go every day.
+
+I really want people to take home this sense of being in the driver's seat, and I want people to practice choosing with a deliberate or intentional way of where they wanna go as based on who they are and what they want. I do think -- this is cognitive aspects, like how our minds make sense of our world are very much this interplay of our background, as well as our environment. And I often tell patients, "It's not the eyes that see, and it's not the ears that hear. It's how our minds make sense of that information."
+
+I can say I have a sense of what starvation looks like, but I have never been to Africa. So my perspective, the way in which my mind makes sense of starvation is removed, is distant. It's only in book form or video form, or something distant. So that's gonna look very different than somebody who's actually experienced starvation.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. Everybody's experiences are different, and how we see our world is based on those experiences. We've said this before - my perception of it and your perception of it is gonna be similar sometimes, if we're in the same scenario, but also very different... And that plays a role in how we feel about these different things we're dealing with.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. And so going back to insight - that is really a key part when it comes to managing our mental health... And I have to be considerate around my background, individually, in terms of not only where I'm from, but my biology, my DNA, as well as my experiences, and the way in which they have shaped how my mind takes in the information.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** \[46:49\] Yeah. I had to google this real quick, just because I wanted to make sure that I had a dictionary-ish version of insight, so what defines insight. If I understand correctly, insight in the capacity we're talking about is the capacity to - and this is them saying it, not me - the capacity to gain an accurate or deep, intuitive understanding of a person or a thing. So to have insight is this whole separate thing, where it's like you're almost discovering secrets, right?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Is it kind of like that?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. This is ironically another part of brain injury, that often gets impaired... Because people -- their brain, literally, the physiological mechanisms don't work the same way for them to have awareness of themselves in that way. So we all have this... I might not see myself completely as I am... So you might interface with a person and you're like "How do they not see?"
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. "Come on...!" You're watching that Scary Movie - "Why are you going up the stairs?! You know better than that!"
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right?!
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** \[unintelligible 00:47:56.25\]
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, but this is at the heart of relationships and why it can be so challenging to interface with other people, because they literally don't either have the insight and awareness of themselves, or the way in which they're interacting with another person and/or hearing exactly what the other person is saying. So it's hysterical to some degree having children and watching this live, and hearing -- like, one of my kids will get upset with the other because they're like "You said I didn't like chocolate!" and they're like "That's not what I said!" Because one was talking about a chocolate chip muffin, and then he had to explain the way in which the chunks hurt his teeth, and he didn't want the chocolate chip muffin, not that he doesn't like chocolate.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Wow... This sounds like something you've actually experienced.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. But this is all of us, in different ways, to different degrees, all the time. So if we don't hold a certain degree of awareness of ourselves and what's going on and how we see things, it is invariably going to affect the way in which we make sense of our world and do our relationships with others, and vicariously manage our own mental health.

Respect, empathy, and compassion_transcript.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,303 @@
+**Adam Stacoviak:** When I think about healthy relationships out there, whether they're deeply intimate, like husband and wife, or partners, or spouses, or even with children, grandparents, whatever - immediate family - they are very much different than, say, communities, where you don't really connect directly, but you are both considered part of a community. This idea of empathy, compassion and respect really thrive in those kind of arenas and produce healthy relationships... But they're very deep subjects, and in some cases the idea of compassion isn't even possible for some, because it kind of requires this component called empathy.
+
+And then respect is always this sort of outlier that just hangs out there, and it's just so hard to really dig into relationships without these three being very much aware from the person's perspective and how they participate in community.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, I think you're spot on. These three work as a system, in that at the heart of being human I have to have respect around other people, because there's no other person that is identical to me. So without understanding and having an idea of another that is separate from me, that might not look like me, think like me or do like me - that gets to be okay, and actually is a really functional and adaptive thing. But then empathy is also embedded in that, because it also means with that sense of respect I can identify or maneuver myself to see things from another person's perspective, and how an experience or an interaction might feel to them... And then I'm onboarding compassion alongside of that. Because compassion isn't just this sense of sympathy, but rather some people would actually call it "suffering with" another.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So not only do I sort of hold an awareness of another person's emotional experience, but an ability to come alongside them and be present with them in a way in which I would also experience some of that emotion that they too feel.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right, to play an active role in maybe even alleviating their troubles.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yes.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right...? Because empathy is seeing their point of view and understanding from their point of view. Compassion is one step further, which is seeing that, feeling that, being there with them, but then also wanting to change that for them, and playing a role in that; kind of partnering them even.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[03:54\] Yeah, and I think that's the other piece of compassion - it cues something in us to want to do something for that person to alleviate the suffering that they're encountering. In my world I see this often in the experience of people grieving... Because grieving is an incredibly painful process. So people will offer solutions or strategies, or tell people what they should be doing, when grief is an incredibly individualized gig. And part of that is because it's rooted in the relationship that someone has with another, be it a person, or an animal, or something that they really cared about. So when we lose that, we have to make this maneuver of something tangible to an intangible place in our life... And that's a process.
+
+So nobody else is going to have that same relationship with that other person, but people are very quick to offer input around what people "should" be doing.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I love that, "should." "You should be doing this..." I can almost hear the contempt - which we'll probably talk about - in someone's voice, saying something like that to someone else... Because when you lack the empathy and compassion, I kind of can assume that contempt comes in there instead.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. Well, it presumes an awareness of another without that actual foundation. I might offer, what if we practiced being more inquisitive of someone's experience, as opposed to leading my response with a statement over what they coulda/woulda/shoulda done.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** How would that change an interaction?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** It's kind of like "Listen first, speak second..."
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Well, it's interesting; I think it actually prompts the other person to be more reflective, right?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** The other person meaning the person who has the troubles, and the person who's being contemptful?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right, right. So if you brought a problem to me and said "Hey, Mireille, I'm struggling with X, Y or Z", and I was like "Well, here's what you should do."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** That may or may not be helpful. Whereas if I said "Huh. What's that like?" To some degree, it's -- and I don't mean it in an insulting or derogatory manner, but rather like "Tell me what goes through your mind? What are you thinking on? When does that occur?" I don't know your world, your experience, so I wanna understand it, because without that sense of understanding I can't know.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. It's sort of the back-story, the context... And without context, we often don't make great decisions or can't give great advice, because we don't really understand what they've been through, why they've been through it, or why they think they've been through it, how they've already tried to remedy it... And it also gives you somebody's frame of reference of how they have really taken this thing in their life, this trouble in their life, and how it's become a big monster (or a small monster) to them... And it almost describes how they feel about it, you know what I mean? It's almost like the building blocks of this problem and what they think it really is... And it could be rational or not.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right, but think about how respect is really leading the charge... Because respect, if we're talking about it through that perspective that says "This regard for the feelings, wishes, thoughts, rights or traditions of another person", that's sort of my step one of going "You're not me, and you don't have to be." And if I don't start there, then I'm really already off-kilter, because guess what I'm using as a reference point? Yourself. We tend to use what we know to make sense of what we don't know. So I'm going to use my own template...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** \[08:04\] Which makes sense...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. Imagine I'm just switching which way my lens is focused, so I put it back on me to try to understand you, which it may not fit you...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. "Well, here's what I would have done... Here's how I would have thought about that" or "Here's what I would have said..." And then for some reason we're blabbermouths and we say that out loud... And sometimes we don't even mean to, really... Because it's just like a natural response to wanna help someone, and the first thing you can think of is like "Well, here's how I would have done it." And the next thing you know they're ashamed, and then now they're not even to tell you anymore.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. It's interesting, with working with people over the years, I tend to tell them, "I don't know what you should do. But I want to walk with you to help you discover what you think would be best." So if I sit here -- like, really, it actually comes from a place of superiority. I always say "I might be the expert in some of this information or knowledge base, but who's the expert on you?"
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. You are, of course.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, right?! So I wanna collaborate and work together so that we can help you be your best self, and figure out what you're going to do in living your life. I always say, "My ultimate goal is to work myself out of a job, that you would be able to do for you what I help you do for you."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** What I like about what you said there too is that if that person felt alone, they now are not alone. Even if you can't tell them what to do, they have someone else to bounce their crazy (or perceived crazy) off of. I'm like that; I tell my wife "Am I crazy? Here's what I'm thinking..." and sometimes she's like "Yeah, you're totally crazy."
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[laughs\]
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** And sometimes she's like "No, not really... I understand where you're coming from with that... But have you considered this, this or this?" And she partners with me and walks with me through the concern or issue.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. But see how then you've already stepped into that next thing, which looks like empathy? Does she say "Well, you shouldn't feel that way."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** No, I can't recall her ever saying... Sometimes, because she's a distinct helper, and she wants to solve my problems right away, because she wants to remove my pain. It's not that she wants to disrespect me and have lack of empathy, so sometimes yes, but I wouldn't say very often. She often asks questions before she offers solutions.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right, because she's trying to make sense of and have a respect for the fact that you're not her.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** And empathy looks like "I want to understand further how you arrived in putting those things together, because I wouldn't put those together... But help me understand you."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** It's interesting, even with parenting, in how we tend to do this a lot with kids... Thinking about kids who wake up in the middle of the night, like "I'm afraid of the dark." "There's nothing to be afraid of. You shouldn't be afraid."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. So you wanna diminish their fear, and almost make it not real.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Well, and the crazy part, ironically, is that you're telling them that their perception, their internal world isn't real.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah, and that's gotta be -- I mean, especially in the kids' place, where they're still discovering... They don't have experience, like we do, the wisdom we do, of many years or several decades. They're still learning about their environment, and even themselves. And truly, what is real and what's not real. There's a lot of fantasy in a child's mind. Kids believe in monsters, and things like that. Well, there really are monsters, they're just not quite the same kind of monster as a kid makes in their mind. So it's still real, but not quite real.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[11:54\] Right, and -- I mean, it's dark, and shadows are real... And our brains can assimilate light and dark into a pattern that looks like a monster.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yes.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** In what way don't we all have our own sort of shading that creates monsters? So I might be apt to see a monster, ironically, in my world, or (God forbid) in another person... Not because the other person is that, but because that's how their brain put together the information.
+
+When we talk about healthy or unhealthy adaptive or maladaptive things in relationship, this way of communicating is really significant... Because it happens in certain families where things are more covert. So I won't say somebody -- let's take for example drinking behaviors; there's a range of what is sort of social drinking, versus non-functional, or looks like abuse or dependence. But this way of communicating in that world is sort of a denial minimizing of the dynamics that are actually happening. And so I'm gonna say "That's not a big deal." So whenever I actually disavow or don't give credence to another person's view, I'm actually participating in that erosion of their internal world. Does that make sense?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. So they question themselves... They almost feel crazy, like "Wow, so what I'm feeling isn't true. So all these things I thought were true are not true", at least in that split moment, and they begin to think almost like they think they're crazy... Or question their mindset even.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. So it actually cultivates this undercurrent of distrust in themselves, or in yourself.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Wow... And how terrible is it to not trust yourself...?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. I will actually use the terminology of when people talk about anxiety in self-doubt. I feel like I live in a land of Swiss cheese, where I don't know when or where the hole is gonna come, I just know I'm gonna fall.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Oh, boy... \[laughs\] Yeah, that's paralyzing too, to feel like "Well, I always make the wrong choice. I can't trust my choices." So you have somebody that can't take a positive, trustworthy step forward in true life, and potentially just their emotions and relationships, because they're so paralyzed by this Swiss cheese effect, so to speak... "When will I fall?"
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. When you think about acquiring a skill... If I were to ask you, "Adam, what skill do you think that you have practiced well, that you have a lot of confidence in, that you can go into that lane without any sort of effort or consideration?", anything come to mind?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I think respect. I think I practice respect quite well. I like to consider where someone's at, understand what their concerns are, and then that evolves into an apathetic position... So I think I try really hard to \[unintelligible 00:15:26.18\] I'm not always good at it, but I'm definitely trying to practice it.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Do you think that there were things throughout your life, be it relational experiences or events that happened wherein maybe you totally misstepped and you didn't get it right, that helped you learn that? Or do you have any hypotheses as it relates to how you were able to cultivate respect?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I haven't had a half hour to mull on this and think about it, but I would say that - like with anything for me or anyone else - I've learned through trial and error, or by doing, or by in many ways failing... I'm sure I've failed many times in my life to respect someone else, which helped me understand how to respect someone else.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[16:14\] Sure. So re-learning, and going "I thought that this was okay, but maybe this doesn't work very well when I do it this way...", and really that's what I want people to take away, is that all of these things that we talk about are skills that we can acquire over time, and not everyone's in the same place. So often people want to correlate age with maturity, or age with skill.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah, that's not the truth. It's easy to assume that, and it makes sense to assume it, because you assume because someone's 30 they should be in a 30-year-old's mindset... However, their experiences in life, trauma etc. and you mentioned loss earlier, geez... Losing a loved one or parents truly changes you in quite deep ways. So someone who's 30 may not actually be in that 30-year-old mindset, because they've had some significant troubles in their life.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. I mean, in the same way we can look at how kids grow as based on their environments. Some kids -- I mean, you can talk to ten different parents about their expectations of their kids and what things they ought to be doing at that age, and some parents are perfectly settled about letting their kids do one activity or another, that another parent would feel is atrocious, like "Oh, that's so far beyond my child's reach, so I'm not gonna let them do that." The fundamental thing is we never - it doesn't matter who you are, none of us get better at anything that we don't practice.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I like this idea, for those listening thinking "Wow, I can actually change my position on empathy. I can get better at being empathetic." I like that, because that gives me hope that people who have difficulty with compassion, respect or empathy, that they realize that it takes practice, and that they can change, and it's not so much just forced change. It often requires some learning in that, and some time in that, and that it's okay.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Most certainly. And I do wanna input one little caveat, because I don't want people to fall on the other far end of the spectrum and then go "Oh, I ONLY need to be considerate of others and not myself."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Oh, boy...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Because that can happen, too.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah, there's definitely people who forget about themselves, basically. Self-care, all the necessary things to live healthily, or have a healthy brain perspective... Which is why I love doing this show with you, because I've realized that our brain is the most important; without it, we wouldn't be human, because we wouldn't have motor skills, or all the things that our brain does... But realizing there are so many things about the brain that explain how we are and who we are, and how we can work well with one another. That's what I love so much about this show, and that idea that people can change, and the brain plays such a key role in that.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** And it's interesting, because we might actually have a certain level of awareness or skill, and then something else will happen and then we go "Oh, man... Shoot, I thought I was a lot further along, or far more equipped..."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** "...and I'm not!"
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right...? So it's like, I can know how valuable sleep is. That if I want to do better with myself and with others, that probably sleep should be in my top three. But I'm like "No, I can just --" I mean, I don't know if it's just my individual thing, being a mom, being in the field I'm in or what, but I'm always apt to be like "Oh, I'll just keep pushing", maybe it's a little type A in there... But I will push harder and longer to get whatever needs to be done, done, without regard for the implications on myself. So it's interesting, we want to sort of put respect, empathy and compassion all in the lane of others, but let's flip it for a second and apply it to ourselves.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** \[20:29\] Yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** I think about it in terms of our limits. We want to infer that because I've done something at one point in time, I should be able to do that. Take, for example, staying up late, pulling all-nighters when you're in college or grad school, or doing whatever project startup etc. You can go full-tilt, and it's like "Dude, I've got coffee. We can just keep going."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. There are times when -- so this is my rationale with it; I've done this a couple times, meaning I've pushed the boundary and lacked the empathy and compassion for myself to do better self-care... In seasons. So I say to someone in that kind of moment, if you're encountering this notion of pushing yourself beyond your limits, understand that you're building some sort of debt. In software they call it tech debt. I don't know what you would call it in personal scenarios like this, but maybe just emotional debt, or just fatigue or whatever, but basically allow yourself to do something like that to push yourself beyond the limit, but understand that you do have a limit, and only do it for a season. So pick a timeframe - a month, six months; give yourself a timeframe where it's okay, and you understand what you're doing, but then you've got a certain limit to say "Okay, now I've gotta stop doing this."
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right, that's spot on. I can think back when I was in my first semester of graduate school... I think about it like allocating. We wanna allocate our energy, and that really starts with the respect over "What am I putting on my plate and what are the implications of those things I'm doing?" When I started graduate school I was still coaching a highly successful, competitive gymnastics team. It was new. I had a number of other life variables that were different, and the learning curve obviously was steep, or like "This is a whole other tier of education and commitment..." And my program was very hands-on focused; so not only was I learning things in the classroom, but then I also had to go out and do whatever I was learning live, be it with a patient... Oh, and then have supervision on top of that. And then it was like "Also, we're going to require you to go look at yourself and your own therapy, so we're gonna deconstruct the entire way in which you see your world."
+
+I thought I could just keep running as I used to once upon a time run. But when you start taking the pieces apart and going "Oh, you mean I have to shift gears, because the incline--" Just like a vehicle - if it's pulling more weight, do I stay in the same gear, or do I downshift, so that I can actually utilize more torque, more power, to be able to pull what I need to pull?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** And once again, who's the same?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I'll throw one more analogy in there, just because I'm a mountain-biker... And when you shift a mountain-bike -- or just any bike, I suppose, if you have fears... It's difficult to shift under load.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Okay...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** So if you have a heavy weight on you, or if you're pushing forward on the pedals and you try to shift up or down, you generally should let off the push in the pedal, just slightly enough to allow the gear to shift.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Oh, so it would be like you have some compassion for the struggle.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. That's a mechanical compassion. I love it.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right?!
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. You have to ease off of it a little bit.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[24:06\] Right. So if we're practicing thinking of these concepts in a system, be it with others or with ourselves, don't all parts count?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** All the time. And as one thing shifts, I have to also then shift or reallocate... Which is interesting, because ironically, that also poses another challenge, like we talked about previously with habits. Because we wanna automate as much as we can, because it takes less energy.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** That's right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** But I have to recognize that "Oh, I'm practicing doing a new skill, and so I have to sort of change up how I do it." Another example of what this might look like from a practical perspective is, you know, when I was in graduate school and trying to look at how do I reallocate, like "Oh wow, this first semester was not so good", hence why I was ridiculously sick by the time finals came... \[laughs\] But see - because my body gave me a feedback that said "Mireille, this isn't gonna work. You can't sustain this", then I had to go "Oh, I think I probably need to do some exercise. That might help me." But I still had that same demand. So it looked like even changing up my commitments in both school and work and personally, to go "I need to tether in something that is going to give me energy and discharge the negative energy, so that I can keep going." Because compassion and empathy doesn't just look like "Oh...! Well, that sucks. Keep going. Hoorah!", like I've got a cheerleader... But rather this reallocation.
+
+So I started to train with a trainer, just once a week, because I was like "That's what I can commit to. I've got X amount of time", and I didn't try to change other things. It was like "What one thing can I tether in, can I braid in to what I'm already doing, that would buffer?" So I think about it like buffering all of these other energy-depleting sort of responsibilities... Even if they're positive. So I don't want you to think like "Oh, this only is negative." It can all be good stuff, but it doesn't mean you're not outputting too much energy than what you've got to give.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** And then you get sick, or something... Something happens. There's some sort of feedback, from your ability to sleep, getting sick, snapping at your friends, not relating well with others, falling asleep in class... Who knows...? There's some sort of feedback that says "What you're doing and how you're doing it isn't working. You've gotta change."
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. So do you have any idea, if we're talking about this both in relationship with ourselves and with others, how or what indicator lights might emerge if I'm not being respectful, compassionate or empathetic. Because i think it's a question that's worth reflecting on, of going "How would I know that this is off-kilter, or I need to modify? Is it always something physical, or might it be feedback from another individual? Might it be my work performance? What sort of queues or clues might we be attentive to and listen to, so that we know, "Oh, wait, I really think I need to start to pay attention to this and reflect further."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah... There's a lot of things also... If you have a consistent relationship with someone and that relationship has some -- some awareness in that relationship might be "How is your communication happening? Has it become more frequent, less frequent? When you do talk, do you talk shortly? Do you talk in long-form?" I would say communication with someone might be a key ingredient. I would say potentially even arguing. If arguments ensue. Or a lot of disagreement comes around...
+
+\[28:13\] Whether it's somebody you're in close, intimate relationship, or if it's just somebody brand new that you're trying to essentially argue with over a point of view... And there's no winning, because you will both walk away not right, or both right, and never really resolve it. So maybe arguing, communication... Those are some physical ways, but... What do you think?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** I definitely think those are true, because ironically... Some researchers have contended that couples' difficulties with communication - because a lot of people will go seek therapy when communication is a problem... But how many couples when they're first dating have issues with communication?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** A lot, because you're actually learning quite a bit about the other person, and some people aren't comfortable with sharing extensive information, because of past hurt, or whatever... But there's some reason.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. But a lot of times they're actually close, because you have a strong desire to know and understand, right? So when relationships are working well, communication generally does come easily.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** ...flow very well, yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. And you actually come closer. So I might look at - you're spot on - proximity to others. Who do I routinely interface with, and what do those exchanges or interactions look like? Do they feel good in the moment? Do they pay dividends after the fact? How do I feel even going to work? How do I work with people alongside of me?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Well, what you're describing really requires a lot of self-awareness, and taking stock - I think we've said this before - of what's going on. "Who am I talking to? Who are the close relationships in my life? How am I performing at my job?" Not so much just performing, but how much do I even like doing it? Do I like going? How do I wake up? Do I wake up angry? Do I go to sleep angry? Do I have difficulty going to sleep? All these little things... How am I eating? Am I eating well? Am I eating in ways that are healthy for me and not detrimental to me? Am I getting enough exercise, or any at all? All these little things or all these little components that create a healthy human being, that can have empathy, compassion, respect and healthy relationships.
+
+I liked where you were going at though, which is what are some of the indicator lights of off-kilter, respect, empathy and compassion... So from a clinical standpoint, what does some of that manifest? We've given some examples, but is there more?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Well, I think that in some ways people -- some people might talk about depression and anxiety... Well, we talk about them in all sorts of ways, but some would say depression looks more like a certain sort of cognitive rigidity, an inflexibility in one's mind... Whereas anxiety is sort of like this never-ending chaos of like "I can't settle my brain, I can't settle my mind in any way." So imagine if I have trouble shifting the lens in my mind over and over and over again... It could look like depression. And depression is really this sort of feedback loop of learned helplessness, like "Nothing I do really pays off. I can make efforts to change, I can try to talk to somebody differently, I can try to get more sleep, I can try to exercise, but nothing really seems to make a difference."
+
+\[31:56\] But another key thing, even with that depression -- one of the key symptoms is actually sort of these excessive feelings of guilt. Guilt is actually an interesting indicator light, because guilt doesn't work. I always describe it like a hook. I can't feel guilty unless I allow someone to make me feel guilty. Like, I have a hook and I let people hang stuff on it.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right... Okay.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** And that isn't always true. Sometimes guilt actually looks like "I just didn't give somebody else what they wanted. Somebody else wanted me to do for them, that I couldn't actually give to them." Say you're working on a team and one person - I'm sure this never happens; ever, ever - does all the work, and another person isn't pulling their load... So I'm going to be upset, angry, irritable or feel guilty if I don't do my part and do enough, and ironically, compensate for this other person. But then when that person gets the good grade that ironically I also got, I might feel resentful...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Because I gave, I extended and output so much more energy than what I actually had to give, and now I hold hostility towards you, because of what you didn't give. But wait... Who gave it? I did.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah, you did, because it was your feelings and your choice...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** And what's really interesting to that is that all this happens without the other person having any interaction or true input to it. All they did was do what they do, and you manufactured it all in your brain.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right! And so welcome to the oddities in interpersonal exchanges, when you're like "What just happened?! What's going on?" Because you just had that entire scenario all by yourself.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. They're now a villain and they didn't do anything truly wrong.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. But so if I don't communicate, ironically, and say "Hey, I'm feeling like I'm doing a little too much work here... How can we reallocate?" or "I only have this bandwidth to give..." It doesn't mean that I don't want to give that, but it might mean that right now, in light of all my responsibilities, commitments and where I'm at, even physically/physiologically, I don't have that to give.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. This happens a lot in open source software. I'll give you a quick scenario... So in open source software you often have this idea of someone who creates it and maintains the software... So a creator/maintainer, someone who does a majority of the work. And then you have the idea of contributors. They can be just one time, or a couple times, they could be long-time contributors, they could be people who eventually become part of the core team... But you have this guilt in open source when someone uses your software, expects support, expects feature sets; meanwhile, they've gotten all of the thing for free... Which isn't the bad part; that's the point of open source, that it is free, and that it is open source, and that anybody can use or contribute... But it's this guilt factor that gets placed on maintainers and creators or contributors to essentially deliver value for someone that doesn't -- not exactly deserve it, but the person(s) don't deserve the expectation to deliver... Do you know what I mean?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. But so, ironically, then what would also be helpful to navigate that differently would look like creating clarity around the expectation. So "I expect to have X, Y or Z done or completed by such-and-such in time, on such-and-such a day... Or not." Or "Here's what I can do." Or "I can't give you any certainty, because I am juggling all of these other plates right now." It's okay to say "I don't have the bandwidth right now to give." So even if we reframe or create flexibility around this word No, that No really just means "Not right now." Then I can feel better about saying No.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** \[36:16\] It might also mean maybe never...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** It could... \[laughs\] It could. But that allows flexibility if you want to extend that, to say "I will put a sort of cursor/tab mark right there that I'm willing to revisit it at a later time."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** It kind of reminds me of the buffer you talk about with habits... It puts a buffer between the person and the other person; so the person who says "I can't right now" or "Not right now" or "No, not right now" kind of thing, and the other person who has expectations of that person. It's almost like they go to get upset with them, and then there's this thing in front of them which is the "No, not right now", and they're like "Okay, you're off the hook."
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Sure.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** There is no expectation. But one thing you said there, which was clarity and expectation - I'm a huge fan of, but not always perfect at, giving and receiving clear expectations. That alone in relationship - in all relationships, every relationship - is a key ingredient for this discontentment or contempt that can be manufactured, whether true or untrue. Because if there's clear expectation of what to do, how to do it, who's responsible, who's going next, however you can frame that - that really provides so much clarity for the next step... And no one can be upset about it, because it's clear; the expectation has been made clear, and you can't hold somebody to a fire or to a thing that they didn't know they were responsible for.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Amen. Yes, exactly. And that's why these are so significant in working in teams, but just living beside other people. I think another word we can talk about is this sense of cooperating; "co" being more than one, right...? Operating - that more than one is operating at the same time. So it's extending a certain degree of grace for others, which goes "You might have your own struggles, but I need to still \*cooperate\* with you in order to get this task done, or in order to..." whatever.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** We've talked around a couple words here, and you've mentioned this John Gottman's research... And I think it's positioned on marital relationships, but the four horsemen - these four things are kind of crucial to a healthy relationship. Can you walk through that with us, please?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yes. So John Gottman is the leading researcher when it comes to relationships. He has researched couples in romantic relationships for (oh, goodness) over 20 years. In fact, he's had over 3,000 couples, and some for as long as 20 years... And he's identified four key things when it comes to being destructive in relationships, which he references as the four horsemen.
+
+The first one of them is criticism. Sometimes criticism can be constructive... That it's feedback around what we could do differently, or do better. But criticism in the negative lane looks like making negative judgments or proclamations about other people in absolute terms.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** "You always do this..." or "You are always bad at that." Sorry, I had to jump in there. My bad. It's coming out, it's coming out...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[39:51\] Exactly. It was, because we teach this to our kids... And ironically, the other day I had said something about "always" or "never", and it was my child who reminded me, like "Mom, in this family we don't say always and never." I was like, "Thank you, child..." Because he gave back exactly what I'd been teaching him. And that will never (ironically) feel good, when criticism says "You are always, only ever, X or Y." And so "You are always so stubborn. You just never listen." It's like assaulting somebody with words, to say "This is who you are" as a binary thing. You are either A, or B. You are either stubborn, or you work well with me.
+
+Then we have defensiveness, which - this arises when we feel criticized or attacked. It's sort of like "I'm gonna not take responsibility", or again, blame this on another person. "Well, that wasn't my fault. You didn't tell me I was responsible to do X, Y or Z, so it's up to you to manage that, alright?" Think hot potato when it comes to defensiveness. Like, "It's not mine. Not mine. You take it. No, you."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** That's right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Then we're gonna talk about contempt. And contempt is really a far more destructive form of criticism, that involves treating your partner fundamentally with this sense of disrespect, ridicule or disgust. This is rooted in name-calling, like "You're such a jerk. I can't believe you would do X, Y or Z. How dare you...?" Just name-calling to the hilt, which - I don't care who you are, really; name-calling erodes the fabric of a relationship, because it's generally derogatory in nature, and it's binary. So we are categorically X or Y.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Sometimes even intentionally.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, yeah.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Sometimes you have contempt -- not so much accidentally, but not truly intentionally... But then sometimes you do it and you intend to really word-assault them, and hurt their feelings and shame them, or... Your intention is emotional pain.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. Another example of this would be like mean-spirited sarcasm, or rolling your eyes... I'm sure you've never encountered--
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I've never done that. No, I don't...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[laughs\]
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I just really don't do that, okay? I really don't. I said that as funny, but I really don't roll my eyes.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** There's a way in which it is so dismissive of another person, and just mean... To say "You aren't worth my respect." And it hurts.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I didn't think about that worth part. That's a value - you are not valuable. Your perspective isn't valuable. Your feelings aren't valuable.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right, and that's why this is such a powerful one, that of all of these four horsemen, contempt is the worst. And I would offer that the reason is because it's rooted in a fundamental sense of disrespect, or a lack of value for another human being.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So we offer this fundamental layer that says "You're human, and so we're on the same team." And if I wouldn't do that to a family member or somebody else I care about, maybe I shouldn't do that to a stranger either. And I can then also move it over into the lane of the self, and go "Do I allow myself to call myself names?"
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Wow, that's true.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[43:54\] Do I call myself stupid? Do I call myself a moron? It's a way in which we actually assault ourselves... Or even this sense of like "What's wrong with you? Why can't you just get it right?!" We reference this a lot in therapy, this inner critic, wherein there's no space to err or be human. It's like "Oh no, you will fall in line. No matter what day, what time, hop to, get with it, or shame on you!"
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. I'm so glad that you're reminding us to... When we apply these things - and we still have one more to go through - when we look at empathy, compassion, respect, or these four horsemen, to not just look at everyone else, but to the self... Because we often are our worst critics, and almost unanimously. We often think that it's a one-way street, these things; it's actually a two-way street. It's how do we feel about us, how do we speak to ourselves - because that could be the beginning of someone's issues. How they feel about themselves is stopping them from having these things for other people.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yes. Fundamentally.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** But continue, I don't wanna derail us. I just wanted to put that out there. I love that you're not only giving us the perspective of other people, but also ourselves.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. So this last one is stonewalling. Imagine -- it's just like the word sounds, you're putting a wall between you and your partner or another person by either withdrawing or shutting down, or sort of distancing. It's interesting, because in Gottman's research he talks about -- there tends to be a pursuer and a withdrawer... So stonewalling is very much this person who withdraws and retreats. A lot of times - I wanna say his research is like 85% of the time it tends to be the make in the relationship, and I would say that's in heterosexual couples, not that that applies across the board.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** But that this sense of "I need to go in my cave, so that I'm not overwhelmed by another person, and your emotions are just way too much; they've exceeded my threshold. So I'm gonna go away and I'll come back out when you're not that." So there's little hacks or tricks within this... It doesn't have to be, again, a binary thing, of either "I leave or I stay", because sometimes we do need to sort of temper...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Disconnect.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yes. We need to go away. So in our relationships, I would say there has to be a limit... Because the pursuer needs to know "Oh no, you're coming back. You don't get to just leave."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** You're not getting off of this...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right...? But the withdrawer needs time to be like "Hold on, I still need time to breathe and sort of recalibrate, so that I can come back to you, and remember that you're not like an ogre.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** \[46:47\] Right. Well, in any -- oh, I can't say that; in most scenarios there needs to be this sort of safe ground, this time to sort of decompress... Going back to HALT - when you're hungry, angry, tired or lonely - in those scenarios you're not gonna make the best decisions. You won't even make the best decisions about your emotions in regards to the other person that you're in relationship with.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yes.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** So you will not be your best person, say the best things in the heat of the moment. Give yourself some time to relax, reflect, and then come back to the scenario in a more calm manner, where you have empathy, respect, compassion at the forefront of this conversation, rather than just your anger, or just your emotion.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right, right. So we haven't really -- we've alluded to this, but no been specific... And I think that I don't wanna have these conversations without some sense of action. Because we can do a lot of motions, but if I don't have an action plan, I just end up treading water and not really getting to a different place that I wanna be. So... Awareness. Self-awareness, but awareness in general, is step one. If I can't practice the art and dance of self-reflection, of looking in the mirror and go "Who am I? What do I prefer? What feels like it fits? How might I enhance my understanding of another, so that I can feel as though my relationships, my world - both with myself and others - is this art of a dance, of changes in tempo, and changes in music, wherein we both get to participate in how it feels good" is the most fundamental step in the process.

The fundamentals of being human_transcript.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,297 @@
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** It's interesting having worked with people over so many years, because I think there's some common things or threads that start to emerge... One of those things is really just what it means to be human, and I would contend that there's these fundamentals that all people struggle with; and that part of when they come in to see me, where they're at is that they don't know how to reconcile some of these things. Either they've learned maladaptive coping skills or strategies, or they just sort of are trying to not have things be true that are in fact true.
+
+One of those, I would say, would be fundamentally we're designed to feel... And it's ironic, because people actually have feelings about feelings.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I'd agree with that...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right...? I think about it with crying, and going "I don't want to cry anymore, because that's an indicator of weakness." And if we're sitting with a friend, we'll be like "No, no... That's not weakness."But if you're sitting in front of your boss, you're like "Yeah, that's weakness...", right?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** For whatever reason, there's feelings about the feelings, but the bottom line is nobody gets to actually opt out of feeling. So with that, we're also all designed to be in relationship. We are fundamentally hard-wired to have social groups, and this sense of attachment. And because I'm sort of a geek when it comes to research, what researchers have found is that attachment - which that's what we label how we relate and connect with others - is 100% learned... Which means our genetics don't actually contribute to how we learn to stay in proximity with other people... And with that, that we all develop ways to manage the threat of the loss of a relationship, but nobody gets to opt out of going "I need to be in relationship with others."
+
+Think about it within the context of the prison system - why is it that the punishment for prisoners when they don't fall in line is isolation?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah, it's true.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right? That wouldn't be significant if in some way that doesn't actually harm our brain.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** It's almost like we need to have that echo from another human being to let us know that we're there, we're alive... Or just some sort of feedback loop. I'm not really sure how to describe that.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Well, it really is this sense of being "with." I can't fight battles on my friends' behalves, or on my kids' behalves. But the simple fact that I know of what's going on makes the difference, because I would contend it sort of like - I help them hold that weight emotionally. That actually leads me into the third thing...
+
+The third thing that I would say in regards to the fundamentals of being human is that we all struggle.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Oh, yes.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right...?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Big-time.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[04:06\] And we don't always get to pick the way in which we struggle, but we all struggle. So some of it I would say we actually participate in the choosing of that, and going, you know, if it's how I spend my money, or if I'm abusing this thing or that, that there's a way in which I participate in it. But some things we don't. I wouldn't say that we participate in the struggle of grief sometimes. Bad things happen to good people all the time, and it doesn't mean that somebody did something, or you did something per se to cause that grief, but... Struggle.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. I see that in humans, and I don't really see that anywhere else. I don't look at my fish tank and see my fish struggling; I don't look at my dog or my cat, or the squirrel outside struggling. It seems very akin to being human, right? I didn't really consider how much people struggle, but you struggle in many different ways; not only do you struggle physically, but emotionally and mentally with learning new things, or with dealing with relationships, or being in a relationship, or like you had mentioned before, the grief of losing somebody, being broken up with, or losing a loved one.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, and I think about it in terms of - while other life (animals and sorts) would "struggle" to stay alive, that's much more based on survival, and not struggle, in the same way. Struggle - an example I think of is like my brother and I; so I'm a twin, and when we were in elementary school, he was diagnosed with both ADHD and a learning disability. In school, he just struggled all the time. Everything was harder for him... Whereas I can't read enough, and love to read, and that's my idea of vacation, just reading more, by myself - that would never be what he would select, because it's just hard for him. His brain doesn't work in that same way, so now he has other obstacles all throughout his life as a result of that learning disability.
+
+So for somebody else, the struggle could be totally different. It might be that in their family history it's a substance abuse problem, or loss. You've just lost a lot of people and you're struggling with how to navigate that... Or it might be health - their health, your individual health, or someone you love. I think, honestly, trying to navigate one's health overall is a significant struggle.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** It's also like you're trying to comprehend life. The struggle really is a comprehension problem. You're trying to make sense of what you think is happening, what your truth is, in a sense; what's true to you, what's really happening. And the struggle is that comprehension process. But I also think of it like - as we approach these different topics of being designed to feel, designed to connect, or the fact that we all struggle, it's almost like we're enabling those that would listen to this show the ability to know truths about being human, and then therefore being able to enable or offer empathy to others, because of these truths.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[07:40\] Right, and I think that's really a significant lie, when we do struggle... That we're like "Oh my word, nobody's ever struggled like this. I'm all alone in this, and now I can't find a way out." That actually isn't gonna help us do that struggle any better, and that's why even looking at these things and going "You know, I do feel the way that I do and I have these emotions around this situation or experience, but also where are my people, who do I walk alongside me in life in order to navigate this struggle?" Fundamentally, we're all gonna struggle more when we don't know. This is why being able to name things really makes a difference.
+
+In the field of neuroscience we sort of say "Name it to tame it." What I mean by that is when we're able to put words to our experiences, it changes the way in which we navigate it.
+
+This might be a weird example, but I always think of The Little Mermaid; and if you haven't seen it...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** It's been a while.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[laughs\] ...I'll remind you. There's a scene in it when Ariel, as a mermaid, is eating, or goes to eat with humans... And she picks up the fork and she's like "Oh look, it's a dinglehopper!" And then she proceeds to use it to brush her hair... Which we all know a fork is not designed to brush your hair, nor is it named a dinglehopper. It's a fork, and it's an utensil we use in order to feed ourselves. So obviously she's going to struggle, in a certain way, if she continues to think that that's what it's used for.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** And so, in our lives, if we can say, for example with emotions, "Look, crying in and of itself doesn't mean that I'm weak. I can not like it, but emotions - it's a reflection of sadness. So I'm sad." And I can take it further and go "I'm sad because I lost a loved one" or "I'm sad because things aren't going my way, or I'm frustrated and I continue to try to make progress towards this goal, and I just keep hitting an obstacle." Those things help us be able to navigate it differently, because then I can take the next step and go "Who or what can help me take the next step, or move in some way to then change how I feel?"
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Well, since you said "feel", let's go deeper into that. Of course, we're human, and we're designed to feel, but how (in the world) are we designed to feel? Why are we designed to feel? What is it about us that makes us unique in the fact that we are designed to feel?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Well, it's helpful in this regard to understand the way in which the brain is designed, and I should say the human brain... So when we talk about humans, there's three key structures that we talk about in regards to our brain. That involves our brain stem, the limbic system, and then the neocortex.
+
+Our brain stem is really only responsible for essential functions, like breathing and heart rate. A parallel to this is if you think of the brain stem as the reptile, or reptilian brain; think lizard or turtle - they can't self-reflect; they're really just going about their life with trying not to die. To feed themselves and not die.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Eat and not die. That's their life.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Correct. But we have that part of the brain, the brain stem. Above that -- well, let me give you a little visual to help you as we walk through this.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yes.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So if you put your hand up, like you're being sworn in - so hold your right hand up beside you, and then fold your thumb across the palm of your hand, and then take your four fingers and fold them over the top of your thumb. In this analogy, your wrist would be synonymous with your brain stem, and then your thumb would be synonymous with what we call the limbic system, or the mammalian brain, which is associated with mammals. And then the four fingers on the front is part of our neocortex, but more specifically the frontal lobe, or prefrontal cortex. So it's one portion of the neocortex. That is what makes us human.
+
+\[12:15\] We sort of joke and say "Put your lid on", which is like "How can I manage my emotions? I put my human brain on." When we look at emotions more specifically, the seat or the emotional center of the brain is actually in that mammalian brain, so your thumb. It involves two key brain structures - your hippocampus, which is responsible for memory, as well as the amygdala. And that amygdala is what is the key part of the brain responsible for emotions.
+
+Now, bear in mind - and please, as we talk through this - the brain is always more complex than specifically saying "Oh, this part of the brain only does X, Y and Z." That's what we know for now, and research always adds to or modifies that.
+
+So there are ways in which the frontal lobe - we always say sort of the right prefrontal cortex - also involves emotion as well, but the primary emotional center in the brain is that amygdala.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Gotcha.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So this is why when I say "Name it to tame it" it is so critical, because language is -- you know, while animals can converse, they all have a language, so to speak, but it's not human language, like words. So when I put on my prefrontal cortex, so I put on my neocortex, I can use words to help me manage the emotions. So I'm living much more like a symphony of all of those different brain structures working collaboratively, not in opposition.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I guess that's why certain brain injuries might happen - you wreck your bicycle, or something like that... I did that when I was four years old; I got a concussion...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Really?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I never had any memory loss. I actually did for a couple of days I think, because I woke up in the E.R. and I was like "What's going on?" But the symphony aspect of what you're saying there is that if one system isn't working properly, are you saying that because of that, if you have a symphony, you obviously have the woodwinds, you've got the various instruments that totally make up this gigantic symphony...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Sure.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** ...if one aspect of that becomes injured in some sort of way, then it doesn't sound the same anymore. Is that the same, what you're saying here for our brains?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Sure, but this is what is the coolest thing about our brain - it's capable of being modified. We always say "Neurons that fire together, wire together." So a thought, at the most fundamental level, is a neuron. And that's just another word for the cell in the brain. And so once information or once we take in data, and it gets to a certain threshold in the brain, that neuron fires along, and then connects with other neurons to create a neural network.
+
+So if there's an injury, what can happen is that a neural network gets modified, and so... It's like you hit a wall, and now that information won't travel the same way. You can actually build new neural networks, but like anything else, it takes time to develop that new route or pathway in the brain.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. Is that why maybe some memories get lost completely, because they become "orphaned" from ever being reconnected?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Well, memories are an interesting thing, because... You know, ironically, whenever we retrieve a memory, we actually are then changing that memory...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Oh, really?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, because we're recalling it, and it's not happening live; it happened in the past... But I'm recalling it in the current moment, and now it has a different feel; or I got new information, and then it might get banked.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** \[16:04\] New associations... It's wild to think about how we can -- that's part of believing your own personal truth, your memory, and how my version of a story and your version of a story, even if we were both perfectly fine eyewitnesses - coherent, able, whatever - that your version of it and my version may be very similar, but not the same.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. It's actually interesting, because the research they've done with eyewitness testimony is that it is actually pretty unreliable.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Is that right?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** It is, because of the way in which people see things, which is exactly what you're talking about. You can even see this just through the vantage point of either siblings... You're raised in the same home, you sat at the same dinner table, but what you remember occurred and what your brother/sister remembers is not the same thing. Well, you're not the same people, you don't have the same exact background, and too you might have chosen to focus on one aspect of that interaction or experience than another.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** And back to the feelings, the way you would remember it would be based upon how it made you feel.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, and this is the coolest thing about that limbic system part of our brain, with our feelings - the one thing that we know is that the bigger the emotion, no matter whether it's positive or negative, we are more apt to remember that, because it works more like a vacuum seal. So I have an experience, I have a lot of emotions surrounding it, my brain is like "Oh yeah, bank that. Hold on to that, vacuum-seal it, so you can recall that for later."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** And you mentioned neurons, and it sounds like energy of some sort... And I understand we're energy-based beings; that's also core to how we are. You mentioned I think in a previous conversation - because we have lots - this analogy with the neurons firing this excitement. I think you used the carnival example. Can you recall that?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, so neurons operate by what we call the "all or none" principle, which means they either fire or they don't. So because I tend to see things in pictures, I think of it like the game at the carnival, where you take the hammer and you hit the metal thing, and whether or not it goes all the way up and hits the bell and rings - that's sort of how neurons work. Unless it reaches that threshold of excitation, then it won't fire and it won't move on or connect that neural play.
+
+This is how we actually can change how we think... Because we can look at focusing on something else; we can say "Where attention goes, energy flows." So the more I keep my attention on one thing, that's what is going to be reinforced. So I'm choosing the channel in my brain that I wanna focus on, and if I don't have that same electrical current or running that same play, I'm refocusing my attention; then that electrical energy isn't there. That embedded network or learned network in your brain dies off, or has less power, so to speak.
+
+Imagine thinking about the way you drive to work. I can't really use that with you, because you --
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I don't drive. I do drive, but I just don't drive to work.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[laughs\] But so you drive the same route to work, and it becomes so habituated - I'm sure this has never happened to anyone - that you get home and you're like "Holy cow, how did I get here?"
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right?!
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** "I don't remember that entire drive." So it's been so habituated, that neural network is so strong that you're like "This is just what we do", and sort of on autopilot you just do it.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** \[20:00\] That happened today, actually. We were driving somewhere -- it was last night for dinner; and I'm getting ready to make a left, and Heather is like "No, you're gonna go straight here." That happens often, by the way... But the point was when I'm at this particular stoplight I tend to make a left, because I'm going into Tomball, and not onto the highway to go to the Woodlands, or whatever. So my brain is like "When you're here, you should be making a left", and so I habitually was like "Left turn signal, gonna make a left", even though I know where we're trying to go.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. Because your brain has just been well-practiced. So if your attention isn't on where you were switching gears to go "Oh yeah, today we're going this way", then you're just gonna do what's been automated.
+
+In that same thing, I'm gonna take this a step further and tie it back over to that feeling, and going - so what can happen is we get conditioned around certain emotions, and be it reinforced or sort of punished, and say "Oh, I was criticized, I was bullied whenever I cried" or "It made me feel bad when I wore this outfit, or when I did math and struggled in school...", you name it. So now I've wired a network as based on that emotion, that says "This is how it feels to do math. This is how it feels to struggle in this way", so then I've now associated a negative emotion with a particular experience, behavior, subject, setting, etc. which just gets automated; it's like "This is now what I learned to expect in my world", which isn't always true, right?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** That's right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** It might have been true when you were in third grade, it might have been true when you were in junior high or high school, or it could have been true in your early twenties, but it doesn't mean that that is always only ever true.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** So are you saying that your feelings, as they evolve over time, you should always be confirming "Is this still true?"
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Well, I would offer up that feelings aren't facts, but they are feedback. So if I don't put my lid on, if I don't actually look at things through a process of self-reflection or repetition, i.e. looking at other data, then I'm apt to just allow my emotions to lead, without considering that there might be more to the story, or maybe that isn't actually true.
+
+The interesting thing actually with emotions is that they're actually really important when it comes to connecting with other people... And that route would look like empathy. When I talk about empathy, I wanna distinguish empathy from sympathy... Because I'm a word girl; language matters.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Well, help break that down then. What's the difference?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So I would say, Sympathy is sort of like "Oh, too bad. It sucks to be you."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right, "Bummer."
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** But empathy is so much more of like "Wow, I can only imagine if I were you, had your background, and was going through that experience - how bad that it hurt." Or like "Ugh, I would be so inflamed!" So empathy is much more my ability to see somebody's perspective from their perspective, not my perspective of someone's perspective.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Gotcha.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Because that comes across -- like, I would say sympathy to some degree has more of a component of judgment, whereas empathy is more like "Hey, I'm with you dude. I'm stuck in this elevator too, trying not to panic", right?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** It makes sense, yeah. I like that a lot; the way you break that down is pretty interesting.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[23:55\] And so because we're fundamentally hardwired to connect, then it means that we're all going to fare a lot better when we have other people that we can walk alongside with. Think about the kinds of individuals that you relate well with. Usually, you share probably similar hobbies, interests, likes, dislikes...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I think that you've said before "your people", and I don't know what you really mean by that, but I think it's probably the people you identify with, the people that maybe even are easy to empathize with... And as you mentioned, likes/dislikes, things like that. You need your people, right? And without your people -- you'd mentioned also the prison system, the idea of isolation and how that changes somebody. It could also kind of drive them crazy, because that feedback loop is missing, and they don't have their people. And I would even say in that scenario, in prison, your people probably are harder to find even... Just because of the scenario.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Sure, sure. That one's got a whole other layer to it... But even that gets at that sort of gang mentality,
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. "We have to band together to survive."
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Correct. That's how we started, was farmer or tribal, right? And social psychologists have actually looked at this in terms of the research, and they go "How is it that tribes can value their people so much, but then sit there and commit atrocities, brutalities against other tribes?" and it's because, ironically, we all have an in-group and we have an out-group. And if you're in my out-group, I can assign a different merit or value... Which I think is a little unsettling, honestly. Because I would contend that I don't care who you are or what you do, you have value because you're human.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** This is why we don't start testing like "Hm, I wonder what would happen with this drug if I tested it on humans." That's the last case after we test in all these other ways, because humans fundamentally hold a different value. And so, why is it that we can't begin to see everyone with a certain amount of credibility, that says "You don't have to be like me, you don't have to think like me...", but just a fundamental sense of respect, to say "You are human, and therefore you're in. We're good." But that being said, we're gonna gravitate to finding people who we can sort of get, or we feel like have more of a shared understanding.
+
+One example I think of is, you know, I grew up in the Midwest, both my husband and I - from different states in the Midwest... And we always joke about the difference in the way that people are, where it's like it can have been years without seeing friends, etc. from back then (because he moved away when he was an adult, and I haven't been back in years), but there's just a way in which you interface with these kinds of people.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Meaning that you have a past, and so it's easy to reconnect, or...?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** No, that there's just a shared sort of understanding. We can even look throughout the country and go "It's different being in the South." I've lived a lot of places throughout my life; I did my graduate training in Southern California, and so I've been on the West... I've been on the East Coast, I've been in the South, and now the North-West, and there's just a different vibe.
+
+Somebody was joking about the Pacific North-West people, and how as a general rule we're -- not mean, but we just sort of answer a question and then go back to what you were doing... Whereas if you're in the South, you ask somebody for directions and they start telling their story, and like "What are you here for?" and then they invite you over to their house for tea, and then they introduce you to their family... It's just a whole different world. But some of that comes from just a shared sort of way of life, but some of it can come from just interests.
+
+\[28:17\] Another example for me is having grown up more in athletics, and having coached competitive gymnastics for a number of years - I love being around people who are fit, and love to take on a challenge, and be like "Yeah, let's try a Tough Mudder or a marathon", or whatever. Whereas other people might be like "No way. I got up and walked to the fridge. That was good."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** "That's my workout."
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[laughs\] Or "Dude, I walked around the block. I parked far out, at the grocery store."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. "Second row, man..."
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[laughs\] But that it makes a difference in terms of, you know, this shared understanding to go -- think about the people that you wanna spend your time with; these are people where you don't have to catch them up and be like "Oh yeah, okay, here's my entire history" or "This is who I am. This is the context from which I'm coming", and so now I can say X, Y or Z.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. I'm almost thinking like -- there's certain words you've used... We said "designed to connect". I've heard you use the word "attachment" before, which has not just its surface-level meaning, but a different meaning in neuroscience... But then I'm also thinking like "relating". So what you're describing here is being able to relate with people. So because I'm from the South, or because I'm from the Pacific North-West or whatever, there's certain things I relate to.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. I think of shared understanding.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. What other words describe connecting though? ...that you can think of, that we can identify.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Well, I talked about empathy, and going there is a sense of feeling understood... Like, I don't have to give a whole explanation that I sort of share something and you have a sense of how that might make me feel... And to care about that. Connection is really about finding ways in which there's support, too... To say "I know you're going through a hard time, and I'm here for you."
+
+Where I live, there's a huge military population, and so we have a lot of families where -- husbands, generally speaking, but some wives too are out to sea and raising kids in that 0 to 5 age, when spouses are gone for 3, 6, 12 months at a time. And they're home. They're doing their life, trying to raise kids, and it's very isolating, because they need to go by the kid's nap schedule... Or they don't, and then they suffer in other ways.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. The backlash.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. They're trying to figure out "Who can I do life beside?", and if somebody needs to watch my kids or I have a doctor's appointment, like... A lot of them don't have family nearby, because this is a duty station; it's not where they live full-time.
+
+The other thing that's really important when it comes to connection is touch. There's some research which really shows how just the fundamental of embracing another -- I forget if it's 20 seconds or what, but having a longer embrace, like a hug... The way in which it helps buffer stress; it reduces arousal and reactivity because there's touch. You can hear the testaments of widows, women or husbands who've lost their significant other, and just how much they missed being touched, because they used to have the embrace all the time.
+
+\[31:59\] We can also see this in parenting. You hold babies, they're close to you. That touch. And some years ago there used to be orphanages, and the challenge was that these babies, these infants weren't tended to, and when they didn't have touch, they didn't survive.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Because touch is that crucial.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Touch is that crucial.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** It's probably a feeling thing too, but there's a chemical process that's happening there, too. I know that's a thing with newborns; there's the concept of skin-to-skin, or the idea of the mother holding the child within seconds, and what a big impact that makes on the child for the rest of their life, that initial attachment.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, because think about it - they were confined to this itty-bitty space, totally tethered to mom; and now, "Oh my word, there's just all this space, and I'm not confined... And where's my human?" Because skin feels different than other things. Not to mention hearing the heartbeat... Because think about how infants actually hear the mother's heartbeat for nine months.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** And then it goes away for that moment of the birth process; they're out, they get cleaned up, whatever, the suction, and they let them cry... There's certain processes that happen, that the doctor and the nurses feel good about, and then they're like "Okay mom, healthy baby - here you go. Congratulations!" That 30 seconds feels probably like a lifetime to the baby.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. And we're talking with moms, but it can be dads, too. Just the value of touch... And I would say just the proximity; I think about when people aren't well, and you find out a loved one is in the hospital - where do you wanna be?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right there next to them.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Exactly. Because there's comfort in touch. And when we can't touch people, hold people and really have a connection with people, we're lonely.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. A companion even.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right? I think about this with so many workforces being far more distributed...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** And while it's an awesome advantage and helpful in the workplace, it also has other potentially deleterious effects, of going like "Where's my people? I'm not touching anybody, I lose the visual data...", which I think we've alluded to this in the past, or mentioned this briefly, about empathy and the role of facial expression. There's this part of the brain, and we have mirror neurons that help us empathize with other people. And a huge component of empathy is actually facial expression. When I see people, when I look at a face, that contributes to me having a certain feeling experience as well.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. Like maybe sitting down for a one-on-one meeting; great conversation, but the person keeps looking down at their watch, or they keep looking at their phone... You know they're still listening to you, because you know how sound travels, but it seems visually, based on their face and their demeanor that maybe they've got other things that are competing for their attention. Or that you're just not a priority; so you start to feel like "Come on, man... What's going on here? Be committed to this time with me."
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** And it's not that they've said anything, it's that they're doing something.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Correct. So you're paying attention to these visual cues, that then you make inferences or judgments, that then create feelings, that then contribute to choices, which then might bring you closer to or farther from that individual and relationship.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Wow.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right...?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** What I'm hearing all along the way is the struggle. This connecting and feeling is a big struggle.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[36:06\] It is. You know, ironically... My husband always says "47 or 7, it doesn't matter." You still are trying to figure out how to live beside other people who make choices you might not make, and to stay in connection, as families, and going -- you know, we pick the people; we can't necessarily pick our relatives... We can pick our family, pick the people that you wanna hold close.
+
+In that example, say somebody has their cell phone out and keeps looking, or tapping their fingers, etc. Well, what if you gave them an opportunity by saying "Hey, by the way, what's up? Are you waiting for a call?" and you enquired, i.e. used your words, and then said "Hey, that just bothers me. I don't have a lot of time. I took time out of my day, so that we could have lunch or dinner, yadda-yadda, and I'd really love for you to be present with me here." Then if they can accommodate that, it's going "Oh, they took the feedback I gave them", and the next time they either clarified and said "Hey, you know what - I just have to keep my phone out because I'm waiting for this call. But as soon as that comes, I'll put it away."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** That would contribute to you feeling very different in the relationship with them... Because 1) they used their words; but you did too, and you said "Hey, it really bothers me when you do that. I'm uncomfortable/hurt/fill-in-the-feeling-word", and now I just created more of the fabric of the relationship.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Wow. I never really considered that, honestly... I mean, it's happened to me recently, and I never really considered the confrontation, which that's what it seems like it is, and there's a way you can approach it, with love and respect or not, this confrontation; describing to this person, giving them a chance essentially to share with you how they feel... Which goes back to the first principle of being human - or the fundamental, at least - being able to feel; you give them a chance to share how they're feeling about whatever it is that might be competing for their attention. And they might get a chance to say "I'm actually listening to you, but I've got this thing going on, so I've gotta pay attention." That might give them a chance to give an excuse that then you can have empathy for, and understanding, and continue on with... And then that negative feeling is now removed, it's squashed.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. What they did is when you shared your perspective and invited them to share theirs, you now built a context for where they were coming from, and you're like "Oh, so now I have more space, and now we can actually communicate with our words, and it actually brought us closer." Even you were using the word "confrontation" - ironically, I wouldn't call that a confrontation.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I would... \[laughter\]
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** I know.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** See?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** But we were talking about feelings - clarifying; I'm just clarifying. "This is what I've heard you say", or "This is what I heard you say to me. Is that what you meant?"
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** "Is that true?" Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. One of my favorite things is just doing the observational feedback of like "Hey, I noticed whenever we sit down you tend to leave your phone out on the table... And I'm just not sure how to make sense of that."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** And give them a chance to explain it.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. It's like the roundabout invite.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Some would call that -- so I said "confrontation", and some would say that what you described was passive-aggressive.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[39:44\] Touché. However, this is part of being an adult and being human. We have to use our own words, and if you feel like someone is being passive-aggressive, you can say "Hey, that didn't really feel so hot to me. I don't prefer for you to come in the back door in that way. Just tell me you don't like it." Everybody is different, but at least you had the actual interaction with the person around that particular situation... As opposed to leaving the setting, being ticked off or irritated, that like "Dude had his phone there the whole freakin' time", right? So you had an opportunity to actually shift your feeling in the actual context of the relationship real-time.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** What I'm hearing is that there's no opt out. As you'd mentioned, you can't opt out a feeling; you can opt out on how you may wanna feel about something, or change that, but it sounds like you can't opt out of struggling. You're stuck with struggle.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yup.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** So the best thing to figure out is how to cope with the struggle.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. And really, that's so paramount. In my field we talk about two lanes of coping with different struggle. We talk about developing emotional coping strategies, like "Can I journal? Can I meditate? Exercise?" things like that, that actually contribute to me feeling differently. But then there's also this lane of problem-solving coping, which is sort of like we just talked about with relationship, of going "What could I do or say to modify this interaction? Because I don't like it. It doesn't feel good, I don't want a repeat of this... So what can I do in order to create change?"
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** You mentioned before naming things being so crucial. Is just naming something -- how does that really help somebody to be able to identify what the real problem is? Why is that so crucial?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Because if I'm minimizing things or I'm using some way of distorting what's actually happening, it doesn't help me navigate it any better. I could look at Mt. Rainier and be like "It ain't that big... It's just a little mountain." I know it's a volcano... "I can totally hike that." But how would that actually help me make it to the top of Rainier, or even withstand any length of time to hike that trail? There's no way that minimizing that would help me do it any better. And so to acknowledge that there's training... And that's really a struggle. So many things in life are about skill acquisition. So if I'm not very good at something, to go "Do I wanna get better?" Because I'm not gonna get better at anything I don't practice.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah... Wow. It takes learn by doing, in most cases; iteration, patience... There's so many people who are so hard on themselves, especially programmers... Because you're often in uncharted territories; on the hourly, on the daily. So having patience for yourself and your own learning process, and understanding that you are gonna struggle - because we're human - but then figuring out how to get around those, or just giving yourself some slack by saying "You know what, I'm only human."
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[43:10\] Right. And bear in mind that especially if you're then frustrated because of the emotions that you're having, like "Ugh, I keep trying to work out this thing, and no matter what, I can't get past it. I can't figure out this code. What's not working?" Actually, the emotions that you have, especially the negative ones, are gonna run interference with your ability to actually both problem-solve and cope... Because it's like you're just living like a dog. You're just in that mammal brain, trying to contend with the emotions, as opposed to the actual problem.
+
+When we're looking at these ways that we struggle, it really is just true that nobody gets to opt out of humanity... And I would say that's really a good thing, because we can really enjoy our lives and have some really amazing experiences - relationships, emotions - and figure out how to get better. I'm fascinated by people; that's really what got me into this field - I'm sort of like a perpetual two-year-old; I always wanna know about why. "Why do they do this? Why does it work this way? Why did they do that?"
+
+It's interesting, I was having a conversation with a friend recently, and they were just shocked or appalled that somebody did X, Y or Z... And I was talking to them and I said "Really? You're really that surprised?" And they were like "Yeah." And I was like "Because I'm not surprised at all, because that's just what people do." People mess up. People do things to hurt other people. People do amazing generous things. Human beings are so fascinating, but you have to be willing to be curious, as opposed to trying to push back and be defensive around because you might not like a choice somebody made, or how they affected you, or a feeling that you had. So you have to practice switching the lens to go "Where can I see myself, my struggles in someone else?" and give them permission to be human, just like you.

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+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** My husband has often said, as we parent, more of the challenges that come along with that... So at one point in time he used to say "Seven or forty-seven", because obviously, he was forty when we had our son; that it didn't matter what age you are, we still struggled with relationship, and trying to figure out how to live beside people who make choices we wouldn't make, or do things that we wouldn't consider doing.
+
+I think in life we are just apt to struggle with relationships, because not everybody is like us, and we don't always know all of ourselves either. Some of the time when I talk with patients about ourself, or this notion of ourselves, I like to think of it as like a gemstone, in that there's different facets, depending on how it's cut. So when the light hits it, different aspects or sides of ourself show up, or are seen. Sometimes, throughout development, that goes a bit awry, so we end up with more like fragmented gemstones, where we might feel like "I'm not aware of this part of myself when I'm in this situation, or this relationship, but I'm more cognizant or aware of it in this one over here."
+
+But all of that being said, we're always going to be able to navigate our relationships with others more adaptively or more effectively when we figure out how to deal with ourselves. Would you agree?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I feel like learning more about yourself is about life experiences. Kind of like if you go on a camping trip, for example, in the middle of the woods, and you have your first overnight in, say, the Texas heat... And I don't want you to do that, camping in Texas, in the summer; you'll probably die. But let's just say you do that - you might learn some things about yourself. So through life experiences you begin to discover your facets.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yes. I like to think of that in terms of feedback. We can look at the feedback loop as conditioning, and go "Was it positive? Is it something I want to do more of? Or was it negative, and like woo-- that did not pay. I do not think I'll do that again", hence camping in Texas in the summer.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right, don't do that. So what is conditioning then?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Conditioning is really this notion of how we learn. You might hear people talk about it in terms of punishment or reinforcement, and basically that just means "Do I want a behavior to occur more frequently, or do I want a behavior to occur less frequently?" I could say "I would prefer that my child throws a tantrum less frequently", and so I'm going to condition them in a certain way, i.e. give them feedback that says "This is not what we do in this setting", or "Here's a different way that you can navigate that emotion, and it doesn't look like throwing yourself on the floor in the middle of the grocery store."
+
+With adults, conditioning might look like that positive feeling... Because feelings are always a part too of the feedback process.
+
+\[04:14\] I can have an interaction with a person, or go have an experience that was very favorable, like camping, or traveling to a certain place... I think a lot of families and individuals will tend to repeat a certain vacation place or idea because it's paid a positive emotional response when they do it.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** It's like the studies you hear where the animal - it could be a rat, it could be a monkey, or something like that... Where they're testing them. I saw this thing recently on a show on YouTube; I forget what's it's called. I think it's called Mindfield. And it was about these apes that had really amazing short-term memory, where they could see numbers on a screen, one through thirteen, all scattered about the screen, just see it for half a second, and it would go away... And they can tap everywhere the number was.
+
+And it's almost like those studies where you see those kinds of things happen, or where you see a rat go to get a drink of water, but gets shocked instead, and says "Well, I'm never going back to that water trough again..." Is it kind of like that?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** This feedback loop of like good things or bad things happen, and so therefore you learn to adapt or relate?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah... Bearing in mind that, again, we are designed to feel, that our feelings also play a fundamental role in the conditioning process. So if I have an experience that creates positive feelings, that part of my brain is going to consolidate that experience, and sort of bank that to remember. So it works both ways. If I have a negative experience, like for whatever reason no matter what I do, I frequently burn myself on the stove or the oven when I'm cooking... So I might be like "Dude, I'm out. I'm just not gonna cook, I'm not gonna use the stove, because it doesn't pay. It hurts." But that's my feedback loop; so if I just lived more in the emotional space of that experience, I might be apt to be like "I don't cook", and I would defer that responsibility to my husband, or I would live by a restaurant, I suppose.
+
+So whenever we're in a relationship - this is another thing that I think is super-interesting - is because feelings are involved, that means empathy is also involved. Because when I empathize with another person, what it is is that I actually have a sense of understanding of their experience from their perspective, not my perspective of their perspective.
+
+I can look in and say that somebody might not be struggling with math, or somebody might not have a hard time with exercise, because, well, I don't. But that doesn't mean it's true for all people.
+
+So when I'm in relationship with other people, it fares a lot better when I can practice setting my own perspective aside, and being willing to move or maneuver, that I could see their experience through their lens.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. I think it's important too to remind those listening to this why relationships truly matter to us, and that's because part of who we are is because of part of our relationship. Our mind and who we think we are is formed based on these interpersonal relationships. Whether they're strong, whether they're weak, they all form and inform who we are.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[07:58\] Yeah. Connection is key when it comes to being human. When I talk about the brain, and sort of thinking of it in terms of three brains in one, because the different structures in our brain are synonymous with (or similar to) other animals, like reptiles, mammals... And then what sets us apart is more of the neocortex. Well, that middle brain, which is our mammalian brain, is really what is connected to (for lack of a better word) our ability to be in relationship with others... Because mammals all feed their young with milk. So we know, ironically - and this research I think is fascinating - that when mothers breastfeed, that actually brainwaves between mother and infant are identical.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Really?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Is that humans too, or do you mean any mammal that feeds their young with milk?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** No, this was just done with humans, so I can't speak to other mammals. But for humans - which is fascinating, because oxytocin is a neurochemical that is sort of like our stress-reducing, positive emotion giving neurochemical, which is why it's super-adaptive for moms when they're feeding their babies, to be able to have more of that experience of calm... But that is also our attachment binding hormone. So it gets released in mom's brain, and it calms not only mother, but child as well.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Wow. So how does that play into relationships then? Obviously, a child who's been in the womb for potentially nine months or more, depending upon the pregnancy, that they come out - they're in a whole new, foreign world. That's where they connect with their parent.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yes, precisely. So there's a lot more talk about, around, and research on that skin-to-skin contact with mother and infant, immediate or primary caregiver; any person, human being, immediately following birth, because of the power of that attachment and how that actually helps the infant immediately. Because -- I mean, can you imagine how traumatic it might be to be in utero for nine(ish) months or so, and then be separated. And you went from no space, and cramped, and tight, to huge, vast space, and I can move, and an infant not having the awareness that their arms and legs are necessarily tethered to them, but just feeling that openness and emptiness. So to have another human, warm-blooded human that they can connect to actually is incredibly soothing.
+
+I think about this with adults - when we have someone we care about who is ill and possibly in the hospital, I would say where do you wanna be?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right next to them.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Exactly. So when we experience pain or hardship, we are apt to look for the connection. It doesn't mean that we get to opt out of the pain, but just knowing that we don't have to endure it all alone is critical.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** What about how relationships play into this notion of neuroplasticity? ...being able to reform and reshape parts of your brain.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Well, it's interesting that the research talks about that the first year of life - and some will say first couple of years of life - tends to be more right-brain development for infants... Which is ironically more of the emotional side of our brain. Always when we talk about the brain, we talk in generalities, as well as what we know as of now, that language is more left brain; while there's some right language function, it tends to be more left brain function... And emotions, relationships - more right brain.
+
+So when we talk about neuroplasticity, there's a way in which having another human with you actually facilitates more of the growth of those neural networks for infants and early toddlers.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** \[12:21\] Well, I've been doing a little research - not a ton, so I'm not vested or really up on this research, but there's also talks about... We've talked about putting your lid on before you've mentioned that, and this prefrontal cortex not even being fully formed until your mid-twenties. So when we say "We're dealing with a threenager now" - not a teenager, a threenager - that is three, but thinks he's 13 or 14, or whatever number it might be.
+
+Even when you go back to relationships and empathy, we have to realize that there are moments in people's lives up until the age of 25 where they may not have a fully developed, functioning brain. Sure, they've got the brain all there, but there's parts that are still in formation.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. Yeah, this is why even right now, with kids in sports, there's so much research around brain injury.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Oh, really...?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Well, protecting the younger brains. My son, at his age, for soccer, they're not allowed to do headers, because the brain is still developing and it's just more vulnerable to injury, so we just wanna be protective of that.
+
+When it comes to the brains, we want to have other people -- I would say as a parent we're sort of acting as the frontal lobe for our kids.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right, yeah. Good point. I like that concept a lot, actually.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, so I think about it like scaffolding; as our kids grow -- and it doesn't matter, I just always want people to have this sense of hope and optimism around like "Look, it's not over if you didn't get it in childhood, or didn't fully grow. Neuroplasticity is one of the most amazing and hope-filled things because we can continue to build this and grow all throughout our lives." So having another person participate in the development of our own mind, it's sort of helping build neural networks that say "Hey, I totally understand that you're upset as a threenager because you did not get ice-cream, and you think your world is now ending." You can still empathize, but that doesn't mean you necessarily give them that desire, right? Because I don't want them to be conditioned, i.e. I don't want them to have the perpetual feedback that when they're upset, that they just get to have the ice-cream that they want.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. Let's also say - we're using children as an example here, because for the audience to empathize with us, that's our breeding ground for research, basically. I can give an example where my son -- I can't recall the exact scenario, but there was a moment where I said to my wife "Hey, it's not that he is misbehaving...", because we were both in this crazy mode with him, and he wasn't behaving... And I was like "You know what, it's not that he's misbehaving, it's just that he can't right now. He's just too far gone. He's too tired, he's too exhausted, he's overstimulated, and his brain is just not developed enough to really get that we're asking him to behave, and desiring and expecting him to... But he's just not capable."
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** So that moment we both sort of just crawled into ourselves and just cuddled him, and were just loving to him, rather than "Why can't you get this?! Come on, threenager! Do this!", you know what I mean? So our breeding ground and research is our children.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, exactly. In my line of work I will see the people where this sense of attachment and connection and feedback loop didn't go so well. I always say it's sort of like they jury rig things. They learned how to best function in their lives, as well as they could, but we know this whenever we jury rig something and don't actually fix it the way it was supposed to be - what happens? It breaks down.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** \[16:11\] I'd like to earmark that too for future habit formation and breaking conversations we have around the whole -- you know, the cue, the response, the reward etc. Because that reminds me of habits even; this short-circuiting, this jury-rigging, as you're mentioning. It's almost like you're making your own path to a better connection or a learned behavior, whatever you wanna call it. That's not exactly good long-term.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** No, no. In fact -- so part of how we've developed this awareness of attachment and connection actually came out of research with nonverbal kiddos, early age, like 18-month(ish). And what they did was they had caregivers even these kids try to engage with, just like facial expression... Because there's a way -- empathy really involves facial expression; we'll talk about this too at other points... The role of mirror neurons and how they're connected to empathy. So it makes sense we have these neurons in our brain that help us see things, empathize with other people. So with young children we do that a lot in terms of our facial expression. If you notice a kid is crying, or upset, it won't just be our tone of voice that's compassionate, but we will actually look them in the eye and contort our face to be empathetic or sensitive to them.
+
+So what these kiddos would do is -- what they instructed the people interfacing with these kids to do is to be flat, and not actually provide any visual or verbal cues of engagement with the child. What would happen is that their level of distress would ratchet up, and ratchet up, and ratchet up, until they'd stop crying... Because they realized they weren't gonna get a response.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Wow. I don't know about you, but a lot of times I think my children have done things just to get a response.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. So if we can look at relationships and how we function in our world through this lens of conditioning and go "What was reinforced? What feedback did we get when we were upset? Did our parents comfort us? Did they just hold us?" The power of touch - I cannot attest to enough that when we can hold hands, embrace, 20-second hugs actually reduce our level of stress; they have a physiological impact.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** So when you see somebody who's really hurting, you're like "Just give me a hug."
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Because you have arms wrapped around you, somebody else's warmth... Some things obviously happening in your brain around serotonin levels and different stuff being increased to provide that relaxation... All these things give ourselves indications that we're safe.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Correct, so it reinforces that "I'm not alone" and that "I have a team." I have a group of people who I can go to as resources, that will help ease whatever pain I'm in." It doesn't mean that I totally feel all better and now I can just go do whatever and I'm not sad, hurt or angry, like I think of in grief, but it sort of helps modulate it, and just carries the burden.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** \[19:39\] So when you're an individual, some people -- we talked about conditioning; when they're conditioned to retract, conditioned to isolate themselves from others, in the end they're just trying to cope with whatever the issue might be, but they're also hurting themselves, because individuals in nature just aren't normal; we're designed to feel, designed to relate, designed to have relationships, and there's interaction in that.
+
+What I'm trying to really get at is that for those who think "Oh, I'm an individual. I've got it, I don't need anybody. I don't need your help, I don't need feedback loop from anybody. I'm cool on my own", in the moment you may actually get by, but in the long-term what's the effect...?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. I mean, think of that sort of like playing defense. That's actually more defensive than an offensive move, because we are fundamentally designed to be connected... So thinking about it back when we didn't have the resources we have today, that we can just go down the street where other people are always around us... It was much more tribal, right? So if I didn't have my tribe, literally I was far more vulnerable to being killed.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah, it's true.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So we know the role that social connection plays because -- I don't know if you've looked around, but we don't have orphanages for infants anymore. We once upon a time did...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** And that, in part, is due to the fact that if babies were not tended to, if they didn't have that social connection and relationship, that they didn't survive.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Wow.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah... I mean, you don't think anything of the fact that actual punishments in prison are social isolation? We wouldn't use that if it didn't have a reason that it was actually offensive to our brain, and I would contend really our soul, our fundamental humanity.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** The pain of it though - how does the pain come in though? If it's about conditioning somebody -- let's say in the prison scenario, with isolation, or removing them from the social gatherings and isolating themselves... If that ultimately hurts them, what's the process of that pain? Does it begin in the brain, is it the physical parts of yourself? Where does the pain begin or form?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Well, this is what is, I think, super-fascinating... And that is that the research has shown that the physical pain centers of our brain actually light up when we are rejected socially.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Really?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** So as if you got punched in the face and got rejected - same?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yup.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Wow.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So it doesn't stay there, it's just sort of like that part of the brain gets lit initially, and then you experience more emotional pain. And I think we can talk to this concept even later in understanding more about how pain works, and the overlap between even physical pain and emotional pain... Because I would always say, physical pain most often is localized. I can say "I hurt my knee" or "My elbow is hurting" or my neck, or back... Because I can localize where that's coming from. But emotional pain, and part of why it's so challenging to figure out ways to navigate emotional pain, is because it's diffuse; it's blob-like. There isn't a place I can say "Oh, this is exactly where it hurts."
+
+So you get in an argument with your spouse, or you have an interaction with a friend, or you're left out of the group; everybody else is doing their thing and you are the only one not invited - it literally hurts, physically. But then you're just sort of stuck, unless you develop coping skills or strategies to navigate your way out in order to feel differently.
+
+And I like to think of these things when we talk about relationship and challenges that we encounter - people are unskilled. They just haven't learned other skills that work better. So if I've only ever learned how to play defense, I'm probably not gonna be the best offensive player. Period. And that doesn't mean I can't be... It just means I then have to practice playing offense, i.e. looking at the desires that I have, not simply trying to stay in self-protection mode, so that I'm always safe. Because bear in mind, our brains are always designed to keep us alive; that's their primary job.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Stay alive.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I love that.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[24:14\] I know. "How do I not die today?" So when we encounter pain, it can be challenging... Because remember, the emotional center of the brain is more that mammalian brain. So if you think of mammals, cats and dogs - they don't know what day of the week it is; they don't have language, right? So when we feel, we can sort of get lost in the ambiguity of the emotion, and not be able to orient to other things that help us remember, like "Oh yeah, my spouse - I actually like them." \[laughter\] "They're on my team, they're not actively trying to assault me right now, although my brain wants to tell me that they are."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right, right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Because it legitimately hurts.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Let's summarize the importance of relationships then. Obviously, they're good for feedback loops... We very lightly touched on the fact that relationships form our own personal mind, on who we think we are. They're a learned experience, this conditioning process. It's also required; if not, you'll wither and die, to some degree, whether it's literal or physical.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** What are some more summaries for relationships and their importance?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** I would say without them we are apt to struggle more. We know the benefits that relationships have, and especially when we look at the five people that we tend to surround ourselves the most with. I think about this as it relates to habits, choices we make, purchases, all of the ways we do our life. Because when you think about the influence of your relationships... I don't believe anybody who has struggled with addiction wakes up and is like "I think today is gonna be an awesome day to be an addict. That sounds fun!", but rather they're struggling, they're in pain, and it seems to be the people that they've surrounded themselves with say "Hey, try this. It worked for me."
+
+I want to be very intentional about the people that I surround myself with. If you think about even possessions that you value in your life - do you treat them differently because you value them? If you get a new car, versus a 1985 Pinto... I don't even know if they made Pintos back then. \[laughs\] But do you treat those cars differently?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I would say yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. So I would contend that when we value the relationships we have with other people, it changes the choices that we make and the way we allow them to affect us. Because I'm not gonna park next to anything or drive my car anyway if I feel like it's really special or I spent a lot of money on it.
+
+So in this way, if I can go "Look, I as a human being matter. Not relative to any other person, but simply because I'm fundamentally human, and I know that being human means being embedded in relationship..." Then I wanna be somewhat intentional, if not very intentional, about who I surround myself with, and recognizing the way in which I allow those people to influence me, the decisions I make.
+
+Because most of the time we will ask our friends and the people that we value what their feedback is about major life choices, right?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah, it's true. Phone a friend.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Exactly. It's a lifeline. And that actually is super-adaptive, and helps us to not just survive, but really thrive. And when you're vested in growth, I think that you always want to level up.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I would even add one more to that, which is just a different side of what you said, which was also the responsibility you have; if others have that influence on you, recognize your responsibility and the influence you have on others.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Touché, touché.

What are you thinking_transcript.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,347 @@
+**Adam Stacoviak:** We all have thoughts, but how often do we really examine the thoughts we're having, what we're thinking? Everyone thinks every single day, and what we think affects what we feel, how we act, how we behave... But how often are our thoughts distorted, not correct, and just not thinking about what we're thinking about?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah... Have you ever considered about the thinker behind the thoughts?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Like the Oz, the great Oz behind the curtain.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right, yeah. Very much so. And it's interesting, because if I'm not aware of 1) the thoughts that I actually have, how then would I even begin to evaluate whether or not they're accurate or distorted in any form or fashion. I mean, I would just go about my day as if there's nothing wrong with it.
+
+It was interesting, I was reading some research study and it was talking about exposure as it relates to learning; we would think that simply exposing yourself to something would result in knowing, and so they did this study to look at fire extinguishers in people's office or workspaces. One was this university professor, and they said "Go find where the nearest fire extinguisher is closest to you." And he goes and looks, and was totally stunned that it was immediately outside of his door. And this guy has been a professor for like 30 plus years, and he had no idea that that was in fact where the fire extinguisher was. Because obviously, there hadn't been a fire, so he didn't need it, so he wouldn't know to go look for it, right?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. And you know, there's so much in our life, especially in the visual environment that we walk around every day, even your office -- I probably couldn't spin around in my office here and tell you everything that's in the office exactly where it's at. Your sort of just let things blur into the background, and that's part of your awareness, and where you're focusing on your thoughts, and stuff like that.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Exactly. So attention plays a key role in being able to notice or having this awareness, and so I wanna take some time to even look inside at our thoughts, to go "Are you paying attention to the thoughts that you think?" Because what if how you go about in your day, if you were to imagine that how you think is very much like the soil in which you plant things - would you then care about how fertile, and the nutrients, and what's in the soil? I would be up to say "Of course!" because I don't wanna plant things that aren't gonna grow.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** That's right, yeah. I think the reason why that research that you read is possible is because we have a limited attention span. The human brain has a really hard time on doing two or even three high-intensive things. Try driving and talking on the phone... Pretty hard. Try driving and taking notes... Not gonna happen. Something like that. So I think, as you're walking into your office or doing your day, or just living your life, you're not seeing the details, which really is our thoughts.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[04:14\] Yeah, and so if I were to ask you, Adam, "Do you know if there's a problem with how you think?", do you know what you would answer?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I would wanna say "No, I'm perfect. I'm amazing." But I think if I examine them a little bit closer... I would need a frame of reference, you know?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I would need to know what is a bad thought, or maladaptive thoughts, as you like to say; not bad or good, but... What are thoughts that are good for me and thoughts that are generally bad for me.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Awesome. Ironically, there was a psychologist years ago who came up with some of this distorted thinking, or sort of template for how we look at distorted thoughts. His name was Aaron Beck, and he came up with ten cognitive distortions. I don't want to go through all of these today, but I want to give some of the ones that seemed most commonplace and run the most interference with us doing ourselves well... Because again, at the heart of this, I just want people to optimize for themselves. Like, "How does Adam be the best Adam? How does Mireille be the best Mireille?" And that starts with being considerate around the soil of my mind.
+
+One of the distortions, so to speak, is catastrophic thinking. The word itself gives you an indicator of what that entails, but it really is just imagining the worst-case scenario. So it's like Chicken Little, if you know the story. "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!" All the time I am worried about the sort of what-if catastrophe that could occur. Imagine that there might be some bit of truth in what I'm playing out, but it doesn't mean that the context actually fits.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. The focus there is on the worst-case scenario, right? So that's sort of leaning on the negative sides of an experience or an environment, rather than the positive sides. Too often people only see or magnify the negative sides of something, and not at all pay attention to or even acknowledge the good sides.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, so I can talk about this in the sense of all of the data that I take in, day to day, that I've done over the years and years in which I've practiced therapy. I mean, I hear of all the idiosyncratic situations which occur...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I bet... \[laughter\]
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** ...and so some of the things that my brain will pop up are based on what I've actually heard over the years. So I will imagine sort of the worst-case scenario because - guess what? I've heard it. I know that that's a possibility.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** We'll get to this later in the show, we'll talk about ways to navigate this, but it really involves then talking back to myself, not just allowing that data piece to run if it doesn't work. So context is key, of going "Okay, would that actually apply?" I mean, I could sit here and say "Well, I live in the Pacific North-West and I am afraid that Rainier is gonna blow any day."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** That's a possibility, sure.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Sure. But if I then focus on that possibility, wouldn't it change how I go about my day?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I would say so... It should.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** It should, right? And so I would probably think "I'm gonna avoid that and I'm gonna move somewhere else." But then I'm just picking between earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. We have hurricanes here, in Houston, often... Floods even too, because of it. Geez, it's terrible.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[08:01\] Right. Some researchers have looked at this too, when it comes to like losing a loved one... Because obviously, we've talked about loss in relationships, and that that would feel wretched, devastating. Nobody creates a relationship, invests in it for the purpose of having that good connection go away.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** And be destroyed, yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, and so when people have lost loved ones, what they've found is that it actually helps them fare better when they practice gratitude, instead of this catastrophe. As a parent, I can run all of the plausible plays that my brain can sort of conjure up, but that doesn't help me parent any better, because then I'm gonna lead with this fear. And that's really the feeling tethered to this cognitive distortion, is fear. "I'm afraid I'm gonna lose someone or something I care about, or that I'm going to be injured in some way, so I'm going to imagine it, so that I can then create a plan for how I'll navigate that." And then I'm not really living a life, because I'm worried about what could occur and might occur, and getting prepped, which is--
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Versus what is, yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. So it really takes me out of real time... Which is sad, because then I lose out on all sorts of things that I could enjoy.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. Something you said there, and I'm wondering what your thoughts are on this, is the idea of talking to yourself, sort of having a relationship with yourself. You know, this examining and taking stock of your thoughts and the way you think to me seems almost like "Is somebody crazy (for lack of better terms) for talking to themselves?" Maybe out loud that might seem -- but is it normal to talk to yourself? Is that sort of like borderlining on what we're talking about here, like talking to yourself, having a relationship with yourself?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** No, we all have different aspects to ourselves, and so can that be distorted and maladaptive? Sure, it would look like, at the most extreme form, like a dissociative identity disorder. Like, there's John, and Billy Joe, and Suzie... Like, I have all these multiple personalities, and it's really just sort of this fragmentation of oneself. But for most neurotic individuals, most normal people, we talk to ourselves, and we refer to that like as like internal dialogue.
+
+Imagine that I have these different aspects, and so -- I'll go with the health analogy of like I have one side of me that wants to be ridiculously healthy and make wise choices, and then this other side of me that says "Eat all the cake. Eat the cake. Eat the chocolate!" And so I then have this other side of me that is like the mediator between these, that goes "Hey... You know, we can't be mean to either one of you. How do we practice sharing?" So when we have these sort of catastrophic thoughts, that we practice talking back to our brain and saying like "Hey, compassion. Compassionate response. I understand that you're feeling really fearful or worried right now, but here are some things you could do to help that. Maybe there isn't a possibility that Rainier is going to blow today."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Or "You know what - why don't we be grateful for what we do have and that it hasn't done that yet, and look at what you've got to enjoy while you've been living here."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. You're saying the word "we" too, as if it's a unison inside.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. I think of it like a symphony, and that there's different sections. So there's woodwind, and percussion, and we want all of the sounds to come together, because that's what makes it beautiful, is this sort of harmonious sound. And so if I try to amputate an aspect of myself and be like "You don't get to play! No, you fearful little kid side of you... You have to shut up and shut down." Well, that didn't help me do it any better, and now I'm just in trouble and now I feel bad for feeling the way that I do, or now I'm in trouble for thinking what I do in fact think. That's not gonna help me do myself any better.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** \[12:10\] So because you're having these negative thoughts about Mount Rainier exploding and killing all of Seattle or whatever might happen, you're feeling negative, so you're thoughts are sort of affecting how you feel, and that's sort of this kind of circle of life with your thoughts; you just keep going round and round - negative thought, negative feeling, negative thought, negative feeling.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right, so then it definitely becomes like "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" Well, it's perpetuating, and that is why we have to start with the awareness... Because if I'm not aware, like "Hey, Mireille, you realize you're imagining a catastrophe right now?" "Oh...!" Yeah, so then I'm like, "Do I wanna keep focusing on that, or what else might you choose to focus on?"
+
+I could actually look - and we've talked about this in terms of coping - to identify the senses. Like, "Let's just go live" and that looks like--
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Grounding.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, sensory data that I am taking in in the here and now. And then, how might I practice gratitude? How could I be grateful for what I do have? ...not the what ifs that could happen.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Would it safe to say then because your fear is in what could happen, that sort of future-focusing, rather than real-time, right now focusing, that you're sort of thinking in the wrong timespace? That you're - like you said - not allowing yourself to consider what's happening right here, right now, and have gratitude towards it and be grateful that you're sort of like "This could happen, so my fear and my feelings are grounded in this fictitious future that may or may not happen."
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Correct. Yeah. I think I've alluded to this or stated this in the past, about wellness being very much rooted in cognitive flexibility, and that when it goes awry is when we have too much rigidity or too much chaos. So some of this anxiety would be like "I'm living in the future, and it's so chaotic that I can't differentiate up from down from left from right, because I told you, the sky is falling, Adam! The sky is falling!" \[laughs\]
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** "Do something about it! You are not listening!"
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, yeah. So on the opposite end, if I'm looking at it, another distortion would be this all-or-nothing binary thinking, which is more of that rigidity, that goes "I'm gonna live in the past." I'm sure you have never said this to your wife, that you're amazing, but to say "You never, you NEVER do the laundry right. You don't ever." You ALWAYS say it like that. \[laughs\]
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right... Well, this isn't a show about Adam and his life, so I won't say anything, but I would definitely agree that absolutes often come in... Whether it's with relationships, whether it's with yourself, which is - as we just said - a variation of a relationship; or with coworkers, or just your work. There's always some sort of this absolute. "I never do it right" or "They always do it this way."
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yes... "I can never get it, no matter what. I can't. Ever", yeah, and it's just not true... Because maybe you're not living up to your own self-expectations or the expectations of somebody you care about, but "always" and "never" - it just can't apply.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. What are good words to use instead? If you're having this particular distortion, how can you reframe my always or nevers?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** It really is in going "What is true about what I'm saying?"
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Okay.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So, "some of the time..." or like-- it's specific. I'll think about it in the context of interpersonal relationships, in articulating a scenario in which they did do what you're trying to tell them about. Like, I wanna tell my partner about a time in which they wounded me. So I would say "When you don't take out the trash, it upsets me. I feel hurt, I feel unimportant."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** \[16:14\] "That trash is really important around here."
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[laughs\]
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** That's funny. I like that example, it's fun. What I've heard you say though - you put a timeframe to it. Rather than this "always" meaning "every single time it happens", it's more like "when this... " You sort of put a timestamp on it, rather than like "it's an absolute" timestamp.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Correct, I'm doing a specificity. I'm going to identify a specific occasion in which this occurred, because of the all-or-nothing is rooted in conditioning of past experiences. I might say "You never follow through. You never show up when you say you're going to", and it's like, okay, well let's look back and go "When didn't I?" and then be open to hearing from that person how that made them feel, or what they could do differently.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. You're touching too on criticism, which I want to dive into at a deeper level on a different show... But whenever you criticize, you have to give different kind of data than just simply "You're always/never", because it's not correct feedback for someone to change.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. It doesn't help at all, because I don't know what to do differently. It's just -- you make it more of a global thing, instead of individualized and specific, so that then too it also breeds hope. If I feel like I never can get it right, I'm never going to--
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** You won't try again.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah! And of course, of course, if you feel like there's no opportunity to do different. This is why it's so eroding in interpersonal relationships. So imagine if you're telling yourself that. Like, "You can NEVER get this one program. You should just never try."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** One of my favorites stories I've heard was actually -- and maybe UnderArmour will have to clarify this for me... But imagine that so much of life is like hummingbirds. Hummingbirds move things from one place to another, and so it's like -- say you have a strength in one lane, and you can do it over here, but then I move it over to a different one and I just went from expert to novice. Well, UnderArmor, from what I've heard, they got their idea for the fabric of their gear from women's lingerie. So it was primarily then designed for football players because they didn't like getting tangled up in T-shirts, because they were too baggy... So here's a fabric that feels good, so people want to wear it, and it's more confined to the body, so it's not an additional obstacle when you are trying to do all these other things on the field, right?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So out comes UnderArmor and this awesome product. Well, then they realized that all of their smalls kept disappearing, and they were like "What is going on?" So then they moved it over into women, and they'd like shrink it and pink it, just change it up, and they moved it into another lane, and then had to build on that. So imagine that this all-or-nothing thinking is rooted to some degree too in fear and failure, and that just because you struggle, you're gonna run interference with it and go "We're just starting at novice and struggle is a normal part, because it's new and it's different... So what can I do to help bolster myself, so that I can have some successes?" So now, I've tethered in positive emotions, so guess what I'm gonna wanna do? I wanna go practice more and get better at cultivating that skill.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** \[19:59\] Yeah. Awareness plays a big part of this... Awareness and expectation. If you are aware of -- like you had said, if I'm gonna go into this as a novice, I should expect certain things and be aware of how that's different from when I'm an expert, as an example.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** So if you're walking into a scenario where you're more of a novice, or you're still learning, or you're still growing, you should expect some struggle. And to go into it not thinking that is just setting yourself up for failure.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, exactly! And it's really, totally unrealistic. That's why we call this a distortion. Bear in mind, as we're talking about these, there's always a nugget of truth to these distortions. Just imagine that I'm standing in sort of like this concave or convex mirror. It's still me, but--
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** It's just not the same typical Mireille when you stand today into a typical mirror, a flat mirror.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[laughs\] No, and then I would have a very different self-concept because of that mirror. Isn't that crazy to think about?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Well, I think what is interesting to -- and I think you did this already, but to specifically say it, like... There is truth in these distortions, and so you're not -- you know, if you're listening to this and you're examining some of the thoughts you're having and saying "Wow, I'm thinking catastrophically" or "I'm an all-or-nothing binary thinker. It has to be this way or that way, and it's always or never", whatever... That doesn't mean that you're crazy and that it's not true. There is truth in there, but you have to understand what the distortions are of that truth, and how those are affecting how you feel.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Exactly. So with that, I wanna talk about the next one, which - listen really close as I say this - we shouldn't should on ourselves. \[laughs\]
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Okay... That's funny to say. I like that.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** I know, but it's that same thing. I have an external construct, and I say "This is what I expect of me, so I should on myself."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** And just because maybe I'm good at this over here, then I expect or anticipate that I'm gonna be good at it over here, when in fact I'm struggling. So then I start putting in like "What's wrong with you? You SHOULD be able to do this." And now I just start the berating.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Isn't that a source of encouragement though? At what point does that blur into this distortion? Because I say to myself "Adam, you should do these things", and I can examine my thoughts and know they're not distorted in this case (like a distortion), and it's like, my inner voice - this "we" we just talked about before - is encouraging... You know, the positive Adam is encouraging the negative Adam. "Adam, we should do this. We should do this." When does it blur?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** It already did. \[laughs\]
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Okay... Okay, good. Let's dive in.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Because the issue with a should is that it is an external construct being applied to fit internally. And that doesn't really matter. So I would rephrase it or reframe it and say -- instead of considering it as though it is an encouragement, I would go "Do you want to?", not "I should." Is there is a desire to do it? And if you can harbor/hold onto the desire, then go do it. But it's very different if I'm to say "Here's the mold. Adam, you should do this." Why? Because Joe and Bob are doing it? Or because Adam wants to do it and there is a desire that you're responding to.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. And we've already talked before about the importance of playing a role in your choices. A should seems to be, based on what you're saying, that the choice is outside of me, and I just have to fall in line to the mold, rather than being an active participant in choosing.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Amen.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Okay.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[23:53\] Yes, yes. Because it's a qualitative feel, and that's why the should can be, to some people, oppressive. Because I would say too that to some degree personality style and past experiences play a role in this. I know from my experience in sports and athletics -- I mean, my coaches weren't always the most kind of individuals... Not that they didn't have my best interest at heart, but I can hear very much a sort of internal narrative that's demeaning, that's unrelenting, that it's like "I don't really care that you're not sleeping, or that you're sleeping three hours a night. You \*should\* be able to get this done. Everybody else does. Look at what they're doing." And you see how even in my tone I changed.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. You were like "You \*should\*." It was not nice.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[laughs\] No.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** You shouldn't speak to somebody like that. See, I just used a should. Are they all bad then? Come on... You can't say that all shoulds are bad. Is that what you're saying?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** No. Ha-ha, you're going back to the bad...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I'm just trying to -- it's like, I feel like there is a blurred line there where shoulds are maladaptive, I should say.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** But why should that be true? What measure are you using? Again, if we look at some of what we've talked about, let's be more specific. Why is it important to you? If I were to say "I should write", because you know, I want to write. But should, if I'm saying "I should" - it's going to create some resistance, because every time I don't write, guess what I'm gonna do.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** You're gonna feel negative.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah...! Yeah.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** You're not living up to your expectation, or some expectation of you. The mold you should fit in.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. I still hold that desire, but now I'm like: "Look, I failed... So why should I try again?"
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I don't know. I'm having a hard time grasping this one, if I'm being honest... Because I feel like there's times when I can see it being good, and being bad or distorted. I'm struggling on this one in particular.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Well, maybe I think that part of it might be the nuance in how you've used it with yourself...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** True, yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** And that maybe it hasn't felt negative. Am I right, you have a military background?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** And I'm pretty sure drill sergeants weren't the most compassionate of people?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I loved them all. They were all amazing. I'm just kidding there. \[laughter\] Some of them I can actually recall their face right now, saying "Beat your face, soldier!" which means do pushups.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah... \[laughs\]
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Just... Yeah, I suppose. Where are you getting at?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Part of the nature in this internal dialogue has to do with the voices that we internalize.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Okay...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So the more we're exposed to this \[unintelligible 00:26:46.13\] we all have varying degrees of conscientiousness. They've done research around this in terms of employees, like personality factors that make the best employees - and we can talk about this in upcoming shows - and the most important one is conscientiousness. That is the biggest indicator of a great employee. And do you know why?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** What is it? What is that? Conscientiousness?
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** It's being aware of all the things. If I'm conscientious, I don't need somebody to tell me what to do, because I've already told myself to do it.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Gotcha, okay.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So if I have a high degree of conscientiousness, I'm already knowing I need to do these 24 things on my to-do list, and then my boss comes to me...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah, you're autonomous.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** ...and is like "You should do this." Now I've loaded more on... And he's not wrong; I should do them, because they're my responsibility, but I've already, if I've "should" on myself, because I have that narrative in my brain. I've already had a full jury trial, convicted... Like, I am sentenced by the shoulds.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Hm... I see.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So part of it has to do with our individual hardwiring...
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[28:00\] Does that make sense? Some people are more indifferent, careless... They're just not as concerned with all of the factors, and so then that would contribute to hearing should in a different way. Because if I'm already at 95% and then my boss, or a friend, or my spouse is like "Hey, let me remind you of this 25% you're really not doing so hot on..."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** It feels like crap.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah...! Yeah, yeah. So maybe part of what you're trying to talk about is like it's nuanced, and it isn't always not assistive.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** You know what - I think when you said that though, I actually can admit to some clarity... Because hearing you say it back again, what you're talking yourself is shoulding on yourself. So your internal voice telling yourself "You should..."
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yes.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** And I can understand that better. Hearing it again, the way you said it, clarified it for me... So I'm less blurred now. I will forfeit that.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[laughs\] Well, so let's talk about another one. What about mental filter? Do you want me to explain?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yes, please.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Mental filters are picking out a single negative detail and focusing on it exclusively, so that all of your vision of what's going on becomes dark or negative.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. I can dwell there... So I really identify with this one in particular, because I can pick out a negative detail in my life and focus on it exclusively, and my life -- this is the exact definition - becomes not completely dark, but I can see how the cloud comes in and it covers more things than I want it to. It doesn't just cover the thing that I think is negative, it begins to cover the positive things, too. And then I start losing sleep, or I dwell in my negative thoughts more, or something like that... And this is one that actually gets to me probably more often than I'd like.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** I don't know about you, but... That's me.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Well, I tend to be -- and I would say that from my experience just always wanting to do the best, be my best, sports, grad school, I'm always looking for how I could do things better, so it's easy to focus to some degree on the negative, because there's some truth to that. I can do it better, or different, or just some variation.
+
+So if I then focus on a detail, imagine that I just blow up that balloon bigger and bigger... And what happens to my vision as that balloon gets bigger? My vision of the whole picture gets smaller, and so it makes it -- and this is maybe at the heart of some of what we're talking about in how we think... It's that we don't want to only be focused on the negative, and that even if there is negative - because there is; there's horrific, horrible things that people encounter every day, and I'm not saying these things to undermine those, because those are real... So denying or disavowing or undoing those doesn't help us, but rather we want to be more considerate that the positive gets to count too.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. I think living in denial, or this naive aspect, this bliss aspect, is not good. You have to be -- you can't lie to yourself about the positive and negative. You can't discount the negative for the positive, and vice versa. It's kind of like the idea of bitter and sweet - you can't have the sweet without the bitter, and you can't have the bitter without the sweet. It's kind of like ying-yang, it's this sort of coupling that happens throughout many, many examples in humanity and life.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[31:59\] Yeah, so much of why I wanna talk about these and why this is helpful is just recognizing if your channel of your thoughts is always on the negative, you're probably not gonna feel very good going about your day.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** It doesn't mean that there aren't things you can be positive about or around, but it's just gonna make it far more challenging. Again, I wanna talk about this more, but the idea of what do we do to combat it is we sort of -- imagine how you put on glasses every day, that you could put in front of you what you want to try to look for throughout the day. Have you ever bought a new car and you'd never saw so many on the road, but then you're like "Oh, my goodness, they're like all over!"
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yes... For some reason, that's a reality. I don't get it, but it is.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Well, I'm pretty sure they didn't just go dump a bazillion of that car on the road, but what changed?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** The fact that I know it existed.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Exactly. So then you were focused on it and you looked for them.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Okay...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So when we look at this mental filter, what do I do? Well, I want you to put on a different lens.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. Realize they're there, and understand them, and when they pop up, identify them. Maybe even take a note even, like "Hey, that's a negative mental filter." We should be aware of that more often.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** But here I am again, I said "We should." See, there is a blurred line...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[laughs\] Maybe -- here's the reframe... You say "It would be helpful."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** It would be helpful. I don't speak that way though... But I like the idea. Continue...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So, you know, I do this with my kids, because I'm trying to help train up their brains to see things differently when -- you know, it can be challenging when you're a kid to only see the negative... And so I started off at the beginning of school always asking them when I picked them up, what was the highlight and what was your disappointment, or what was the thing that upset you, and a positive thing... And then they came home with their teacher had done this exercise and talked about it in terms of roses and thorns. So they said, 'What are your roses for today and what are your thorns?"
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So then I tweaked it ever so slightly more, and I said "For every thorn, every upsetting or negative or hurtful thing that you encountered today, you have to give me two roses." And I'm probably going to keep increasing that, because so much of -- I mean, imagine how the weather affects you. I want you to imagine that the weather of your thoughts, that that contributes to the environment and how you feel going about your day every day. I want people to recognize that we have to sort of set our minds to look for -- it's not just not doing these things, because to some degree we're gonna do them. I don't want anybody to be alarmed or shocked, or go "I do that!"
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** "I have the distortions... What's going on?!" Everybody has this. It's a thing.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, come join the rest of us.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. Join the club. You already have.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[laughs\] Right, got the T-shirt. But what am I going to do so that I can change and move in that direction. I want to be intentional about the way that I live, that I am looking for the things that help me feel better and do better, because guess what I'm then going to build a snowball around? "How I feel is better, and look at the effort I made, and there's a positive outcome to that effort", and like "Oh, this sucked and it was so hard for me and I didn't want to do it, but I did it!" And so now I am practicing tethering, ironically, my positive emotions to my efforts and not to outcomes. This is so important.
+
+\[35:53\] We talk about it in learning, because we're not always in charge of outcomes, and this is part of managing our humanity. I can imagine losing someone I love and just how horrific that would feel to me. I don't think there's any amount of time I could spend with those I love that I would be like "That's good! I've had enough."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** "I've had enough", yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So it's going to be painful at whatever time. But if I can learn to practice putting on gratitude, and I have had to practice this with my kids especially, because I love them; I'm so grateful for them, they were wanted... So every time a thought pops up of imagining something happening to them, or whatever it could be, that I have to go "Thank you. Thank you", as long and as much as it takes in order to change that channel, because this is how I'm building a new neural network.
+
+Remember when we talked earlier about "neurons that fire together, wire together", so the more that I think a thought, the more that I'm running that play, my brain automates to that. So I wanna practice automating around the positive, that I can just see it.
+
+There is a psychologist who wrote this book some years go called The Happiness Advantage. His name is Shawn Achor. He studied at Harvard, and he had this experience which prompted a research study around thoughts. He'd been playing Grand Theft Auto all night long, and he went out the next morning to go to class, and he saw the Cambridge Police, and he is like "Oh my gosh, I would get the max amount of points if I stole that police car right now."
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** \[laughs\] Oh, boy.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** And he was mortified. He's like "What? What in me-- I'm training to be a psychologist and I'm having these thoughts. What the heck?!" Not to mention that the policeman was in the vehicle, and that didn't deter him. So, he did this study and had students play Tetris for - I forget the length of time, whether it was 48 or 72 hours, but consistently, and then report on their experiences. And what they said is everywhere they went after that, they say Tetris shapes. They'd go to the grocery store and they were like "If I just flip this cereal box, I'll lose a line. I'll go to the racetrack. If I flip this brick, I'll lose a line." So much of what we focus on is what we feed, and then what we see. This is at the heart of why it's so important to be aware of the thoughts behind the thinker.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Because of the importance. The more you think of something, the more it's gonna appear in your life, whether it was always there or it's suddenly there, because you're now having this thought pattern.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Mm-hm. And one other thing that I wanna talk about in terms of what we can do differently is using the best friend test. It's going "If I have this thought, would I say this to my friend?" For example with the should: "You should be doing that", "You should get A's", "You shouldn't have any trouble doing that coding." Would I say the same thing to my friend?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah... Probably not.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Exactly.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** But when you say "probably not" is when it's...
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Problematic.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right, because there's something-- context doesn't fit. And context is so much at the heart. Like we've talked about specificity, and saying "Look, much of these distortions - all or nothing, catastrophe - they're not rooted in context." They are generalizations or they're global, as opposed to specific.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah, they're not based on facts.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[39:43\] Right? And we're all different, and so I want to recognize that I am different than everybody else, and nobody's had my experiences, nobody has my exact genetics... All of those things. I always find it fascinating with siblings, because people are raised in the same house, by the same parents, but are they the same people or remember the same things?
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** No.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Never.
+
+**Adam Stacoviak:** Never.
+
+**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. Because different things stand out to us, in different ways, at different times. But so much of own experiences that are individual are going to affect not only what we think, but then how we see our world. So for our listeners, I would say, what do we take away? What's your next step of action? So we talked about four of these sort of cognitive distortions today: catastrophic thinking, shoulds, the all-or-nothing, and mental filters. So I would identify -- you might even create a little chart, and notice (just track for a day or two) when you do these things. Or maybe you're just gonna say "I'm going to pick one. I'm gonna pick shoulds, because I'm very aware that I should on myself a lot" and just track it.
+
+Then what I want you to do is write the alternative you are going to replace it with. So not just "Okay, now I'm aware." I always talk about this with patients in terms of getting better at improving you and your life is twofold. There's acknowledging, and then there is action. So we are gonna acknowledge the thing we're not doing well, where I'm struggling, and then I'm gonna identify the action that replaces the thing I don't want to do. Because whenever we're trying to change how we think, we change our neural networks by starvation. So I starve that old thought, and I replace it with the new one. It's so much repeal and replace. Repeal and replace. I'm gonna take away this not helpful way of thinking and I'm gonna replace it with a new one.
+
+I would love to hear from you guys. We've got Brain Science on Slack... You can comment in terms of which distortion you chose and what you are doing differently.

What are you thinking？_transcript.txt

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+[0.00 --> 2.58]  Bandwidth for ChangeLog is provided by Fastly.
+[2.96 --> 4.84]  Learn more at Fastly.com.
+[5.08 --> 8.16]  We move fast and fix things here at ChangeLog because of Rollbar.
+[8.30 --> 9.98]  Check them out at Rollbar.com.
+[10.22 --> 12.40]  And we're hosted on Linode cloud servers.
+[12.76 --> 14.74]  Head to linode.com slash ChangeLog.
+[16.74 --> 22.22]  This podcast is for educational purposes only and does not constitute a doctor-patient relationship.
+[22.58 --> 27.46]  If you have specific questions or concerns, we encourage you to consult a health professional in your local area.
+[30.00 --> 36.66]  From ChangeLog Media, this is Brain Science, a podcast for the curious.
+[37.20 --> 45.04]  We're exploring the inner workings of the human brain to understand behavior change, habit formation, mental health, and what it means to be human.
+[45.04 --> 51.78]  It's brain science applied, not just how does the brain work, but how do we apply what we know about the brain to transform our lives?
+[52.04 --> 53.08]  I'm Adam Stachowiak.
+[53.38 --> 54.76]  And I'm Dr. Marielle Reese.
+[54.76 --> 64.66]  We all have thoughts, but how often do we really examine, you know, the thoughts we're having, what we're thinking?
+[65.26 --> 71.54]  You know, everyone thinks every single day and what we think affects how we feel, how we act, how we behave.
+[71.54 --> 77.66]  But how often are our thoughts distorted, not correct, and just not thinking about what we're thinking about?
+[77.66 --> 78.16]  Yeah.
+[78.16 --> 78.92]  Yeah.
+[79.06 --> 84.22]  Have you ever considered about the thinker behind the thoughts?
+[84.56 --> 86.00]  Like the Oz, the great Oz.
+[86.32 --> 86.92]  Right.
+[87.46 --> 88.02]  Behind the curtain.
+[88.48 --> 88.50]  Yeah.
+[88.50 --> 89.94]  Very much so.
+[90.24 --> 102.78]  And it's interesting because if I'm not aware of, one, the thoughts that I actually have, how then would I even begin to evaluate whether or not they're accurate or distorted in any form or fashion?
+[102.78 --> 107.58]  I mean, I would just sort of go about my day as if there's nothing wrong with it.
+[107.78 --> 108.70]  It was interesting.
+[109.40 --> 115.72]  I was reading some research study, and it was talking about exposure as it relates to learning.
+[115.86 --> 120.46]  Like we would think that simply exposing yourself to something would result in knowing.
+[120.62 --> 127.24]  And so they did this study to look at fire extinguishers in people's office or workspaces.
+[127.24 --> 135.86]  And so one was this university professor, and they said, go find where the nearest fire extinguisher is closest to you.
+[136.06 --> 142.78]  And he goes and looks and was totally stunned to discover that it was immediately outside of his door.
+[143.00 --> 150.64]  And this guy had been a professor for like 30 plus years, and he had no idea that that was in fact where the fire extinguisher was.
+[151.36 --> 157.12]  Because obviously there hadn't been a fire, so he didn't need it, so he wouldn't know to go look for it.
+[157.56 --> 157.82]  Right?
+[158.78 --> 159.14]  Yeah.
+[159.38 --> 168.98]  And, you know, there's so much in our life that especially, you know, in the environment, the visual environment that we walk around every day, even your office.
+[168.98 --> 174.54]  I probably couldn't spin around my office here and tell you everything that's in the office exactly where it's at.
+[174.62 --> 177.54]  So you sort of just like let things blur into the background.
+[178.28 --> 181.78]  And that's part of your awareness and where you're focusing on your thoughts and stuff like that.
+[181.78 --> 182.34]  Exactly.
+[182.76 --> 188.64]  So attention plays a key role in being able to notice or having this awareness.
+[189.10 --> 197.74]  And so I want to take some time to even look inside at our thoughts to go, are you paying attention to the thoughts that you think?
+[197.74 --> 205.72]  Because what if how you go about in your day, if you were to imagine that how you think is very much like the soil in which you plant things?
+[206.24 --> 206.32]  Yeah.
+[206.32 --> 212.78]  Would you then care about how fertile and the nutrients and what's in the soil?
+[212.78 --> 218.56]  I would be apt to say, of course, because I don't want to plant things that aren't going to grow.
+[219.12 --> 219.46]  That's right.
+[219.70 --> 219.90]  Yeah.
+[219.90 --> 230.74]  I think, you know, the reason why that research that you read is is possible is because we have a limited attention span.
+[231.22 --> 238.80]  You know, the human brain has a really hard time on doing two or even three high intensive things.
+[238.84 --> 241.20]  So try driving and talking on the phone pretty hard.
+[241.38 --> 243.62]  Try driving and taking notes.
+[243.74 --> 244.54]  Not going to happen.
+[244.96 --> 246.32]  You know, something like that.
+[246.32 --> 255.14]  So I think, you know, as you're walking into your office or doing your day or just living your life, you're not sort of seeing the details, which really is our thoughts.
+[255.80 --> 255.94]  Yeah.
+[256.04 --> 260.98]  And so if I were to ask you, Adam, do you know if there's a problem with how you think?
+[261.36 --> 262.42]  Do you know what you would answer?
+[263.48 --> 265.56]  I would want to say, no, I'm perfect.
+[265.62 --> 266.12]  I'm amazing.
+[266.40 --> 271.64]  But I think if I examine them a little bit closer, you know, I would need a frame of reference.
+[272.14 --> 272.40]  You know?
+[272.76 --> 273.06]  Yeah.
+[273.06 --> 276.22]  I would need to know, like, what is a bad thought?
+[276.32 --> 285.52]  What are, you know, or maladaptive thoughts, as you like to say, not bad or good, but, you know, what are thoughts that are good for me and thoughts that are, you know, sort of generally bad for me?
+[285.92 --> 286.24]  Awesome.
+[286.24 --> 296.88]  Well, so ironically, there's a psychologist years ago who came up with some of these distorted thinking or sort of template for how we look at distorted thoughts.
+[296.88 --> 298.26]  And his name was Aaron Beck.
+[298.38 --> 301.88]  And he came up with 10 cognitive distortions.
+[301.88 --> 312.64]  And I don't want to go through all of these today, but I want to give sort of some of the ones that seem most commonplace and that run the most interference with us doing ourselves well.
+[312.64 --> 318.44]  Because, again, at the heart of this, I just want people to optimize for themselves.
+[318.72 --> 321.96]  Like, how do I, how does Adam be the best Adam?
+[322.34 --> 322.48]  Yeah.
+[322.48 --> 324.34]  How does Marielle be the best Marielle?
+[324.34 --> 328.80]  And so that starts with being considerate around the soil of my mind.
+[329.12 --> 335.10]  So one of the distortions, so to speak, is catastrophic thinking.
+[335.52 --> 340.22]  And so the word itself sort of gives you an indicator of what that entails.
+[340.22 --> 343.64]  But it really is just imagining the worst case scenario.
+[344.20 --> 347.50]  So it's like Chicken Little, if you know the story.
+[347.58 --> 348.44]  The sky is falling.
+[348.54 --> 349.46]  The sky is falling.
+[349.46 --> 355.64]  All the time I am worried about the sort of what if catastrophe that could occur.
+[356.18 --> 362.02]  And so imagine that there might be some bit of truth in what I'm playing out.
+[362.02 --> 365.56]  But it doesn't mean that the context actually fits.
+[366.44 --> 366.54]  Right.
+[367.22 --> 370.28]  The focus there is on the worst case scenario, right?
+[370.28 --> 378.84]  So that's sort of leaning on the negative sides of an experience or environment rather than the positive sides.
+[378.84 --> 388.46]  Too often people only see or magnify the negative sides of something and not at all pay attention to or even acknowledge the good sides.
+[389.10 --> 389.20]  Yeah.
+[389.30 --> 397.64]  I mean, so I can talk about this in the sense of all of the data that I take in day to day that I've done over the years and years in which I've practiced therapy.
+[397.82 --> 401.98]  I mean, I hear of all the idiosyncratic situations which occur.
+[401.98 --> 402.42]  Yeah.
+[404.24 --> 404.52]  Yeah.
+[404.72 --> 411.52]  And so some of the things that my brain will pop up are based on what I've actually heard over the years.
+[411.52 --> 417.70]  And so I will imagine sort of the worst case scenario because guess what?
+[417.98 --> 419.34]  I've heard it.
+[419.44 --> 421.64]  I know that that's a possibility.
+[422.20 --> 422.42]  Right.
+[422.42 --> 428.44]  And so we'll get to this later in the show, but we'll talk about ways to navigate this.
+[428.44 --> 438.52]  But it really involves then talking back to myself, not just allowing that data piece to run if it doesn't work.
+[439.04 --> 439.26]  Right.
+[439.48 --> 444.64]  And so context is key of going, OK, like would that actually apply?
+[444.64 --> 451.74]  I mean, I could sit here and say, well, I live in the Pacific Northwest and I am afraid that Rainier is going to blow any day.
+[453.14 --> 454.56]  And there's some possibility.
+[454.88 --> 454.96]  Sure.
+[455.04 --> 455.34]  It is.
+[455.56 --> 455.82]  Sure.
+[456.06 --> 461.08]  But if I then focus on that possibility, wouldn't it change how I go about my day?
+[461.56 --> 462.44]  I would say so.
+[462.54 --> 462.98]  It should.
+[463.42 --> 464.08]  It should.
+[464.32 --> 464.74]  Right.
+[464.84 --> 469.64]  And so I would probably think I'm going to avoid that and I'm going to move somewhere else.
+[469.64 --> 473.82]  But then I'm just picking between earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes.
+[473.82 --> 474.26]  Yeah.
+[474.94 --> 477.48]  We have hurricanes here in Houston.
+[478.00 --> 478.48]  Often.
+[478.62 --> 478.70]  Yeah.
+[479.12 --> 479.38]  Yeah.
+[479.64 --> 479.82]  And so.
+[480.02 --> 481.02]  Floods even too because of it.
+[481.12 --> 481.42]  Jeez.
+[481.76 --> 482.02]  It's terrible.
+[482.22 --> 482.32]  Right.
+[482.82 --> 494.52]  And so, you know, some researchers have looked at this too when it comes to like losing a loved one, because obviously we've talked about loss in relationships and that that would feel wretched.
+[494.88 --> 496.18]  I mean, devastating.
+[496.18 --> 503.20]  Nobody creates a relationship, invest in it for the purpose of having that good connection go away.
+[503.20 --> 503.84]  Be destroyed.
+[503.92 --> 504.06]  Yeah.
+[504.44 --> 504.68]  Yeah.
+[504.78 --> 516.66]  And so when people have lost loved ones, what they found is that it actually helps them fare better when they practice gratitude instead of this catastrophe.
+[516.66 --> 522.44]  Like, as a parent, I can run all of the plausible plays that my brain can sort of conjure up.
+[523.06 --> 527.38]  But that doesn't help me parent any better because then I'm going to lead with this fear.
+[527.38 --> 528.28]  Mm-hmm.
+[528.28 --> 533.22]  And that's really the feeling tethered to this cognitive distortion is fear.
+[533.74 --> 534.02]  Yeah.
+[534.38 --> 534.78]  Right.
+[534.84 --> 540.06]  I'm afraid I'm going to lose someone or something I care about or that I'm going to be injured in some way.
+[540.18 --> 545.56]  So I'm going to imagine it so that I can then create a plan for how I'll navigate that.
+[545.66 --> 551.50]  And then I'm not really living alive because I'm worried about what could occur and might occur and getting prepped.
+[551.56 --> 552.48]  Versus what is.
+[552.48 --> 552.96]  Yeah.
+[553.28 --> 553.60]  Yeah.
+[554.32 --> 554.84]  Yeah.
+[554.92 --> 561.64]  So it really takes me out of real time, which is sad because then I lose out on all sorts of things.
+[561.86 --> 562.22]  Yeah.
+[562.52 --> 563.36]  That I could enjoy.
+[563.36 --> 570.88]  Something you said there, and I'm wondering what your thoughts are on this, is this idea of talking to yourself.
+[571.42 --> 573.22]  You know, sort of having a relationship with yourself.
+[573.38 --> 586.80]  This, you know, examining and taking stock of your thoughts and the way you think, to me, seems, you know, almost like, you know, is somebody crazy, for lack of better terms, for talking to themselves.
+[586.80 --> 588.84]  Like, maybe out loud, that might seem.
+[589.38 --> 589.56]  Yeah.
+[589.66 --> 591.16]  But is it normal to talk to yourself?
+[591.26 --> 596.44]  Is that sort of, like, borderlining on what we're talking about here, like, talking to yourself, having a relationship with yourself?
+[596.82 --> 597.04]  No.
+[597.16 --> 599.20]  We all have different aspects to ourselves.
+[599.40 --> 602.80]  And so can that be distorted and, you know, maladaptive?
+[603.44 --> 603.66]  Sure.
+[603.74 --> 607.90]  It would look like, at the most extreme form, like a dissociative identity disorder.
+[607.90 --> 611.58]  Like, there's John and Billy Joe and Susie.
+[611.70 --> 613.56]  Like, I have all these multiple personalities.
+[613.98 --> 617.48]  And it's really just sort of this fragmentation of oneself.
+[617.86 --> 618.22]  Yeah.
+[618.32 --> 625.68]  But for most neurotic individuals, most normal people, we talk to ourself, and we refer to that as, like, internal dialogue.
+[626.40 --> 629.52]  And so imagine that I have these differing aspects.
+[629.52 --> 636.22]  And so I'll go with this sort of health analogy of, like, I have one side of me that wants to be ridiculously healthy and make wise choices.
+[636.56 --> 639.26]  And then this other side of me that says, like, eat all the cake.
+[639.36 --> 639.88]  Eat the cake.
+[639.88 --> 640.12]  Right.
+[640.22 --> 640.66]  Okay.
+[641.06 --> 641.92]  Eat the chocolate.
+[642.38 --> 651.40]  And so I then have this other side of me that is, like, the mediator between these that goes, hey, you know, we can't be mean to either one of you.
+[651.50 --> 651.90]  Right.
+[652.12 --> 653.62]  Like, how do we practice sharing?
+[653.62 --> 664.56]  So when we have these sort of catastrophic thoughts that we practice talking back to our brain and saying, like, hey, compassion, compassionate response.
+[664.56 --> 671.00]  Like, I understand that you're feeling really fearful or worried right now, but here's some things you could do to help that.
+[671.14 --> 676.28]  Like, maybe there isn't a possibility that Rainier is probably going to blow today.
+[676.38 --> 676.86]  Right.
+[677.36 --> 679.02]  Or, you know what?
+[679.22 --> 683.08]  Why don't we be grateful for what we do have and that it hasn't done that yet?
+[683.08 --> 686.38]  And look at what you've got to enjoy while you've been living here.
+[686.74 --> 687.14]  Right.
+[687.26 --> 688.54]  So you're saying the word we, too.
+[688.62 --> 691.56]  So as if it's a unison inside.
+[691.56 --> 691.76]  Yeah.
+[692.08 --> 692.48]  Yeah.
+[692.52 --> 695.74]  I think of it like a symphony in that there's different sections.
+[695.90 --> 697.06]  So there's woodwind and percussion.
+[697.36 --> 706.46]  And we want all of the sounds to come together because that's what makes it beautiful is this sort of, you know, harmonious sound.
+[706.46 --> 711.12]  And so if I try to amputate an aspect of myself and be like, you don't get to play.
+[711.44 --> 714.76]  Like, no, you fearful little kid side of you.
+[714.84 --> 716.82]  You have to shut up and shut down.
+[717.38 --> 719.98]  Well, that didn't help me do it any better.
+[720.08 --> 720.84]  Now I'm just in trouble.
+[720.88 --> 723.56]  And now I feel bad for feeling the way that I do.
+[723.56 --> 727.28]  Or now I'm in trouble for thinking what I do in fact think.
+[727.78 --> 727.88]  Yeah.
+[728.46 --> 731.62]  That's not going to help me do myself any better.
+[732.32 --> 739.22]  So because you're having these negative thoughts about Mount Rainier exploding and killing all of Seattle or whatever might happen.
+[739.72 --> 741.50]  You know, you're feeling negative.
+[741.50 --> 744.00]  So your thoughts are sort of affecting how you feel.
+[744.08 --> 752.96]  And that's sort of this kind of, you know, the circle of life with your thoughts is that you just kind of keep going round and round of negative thought, negative feeling, negative thought, negative feeling.
+[753.38 --> 753.50]  Right.
+[753.58 --> 756.72]  So then it definitely becomes like which came first, the chicken or the egg.
+[756.88 --> 759.30]  Well, it's perpetuating.
+[759.30 --> 762.00]  And so that is why we have to start with the awareness.
+[762.18 --> 767.72]  Because if I'm not aware, like, hey, Mariel, you realize you're imagining a catastrophe right now?
+[768.62 --> 769.68]  Oh, yeah.
+[769.68 --> 772.84]  So then I'm like, do you want to keep focusing on that?
+[772.94 --> 776.26]  Or what else might you choose to focus on?
+[777.18 --> 783.28]  So I could actually look, and we've talked about this in terms of coping, to identify the senses.
+[783.62 --> 785.28]  Like, let's just go live.
+[785.64 --> 785.96]  Right.
+[786.02 --> 790.80]  And that looks like what's, yeah, sensory data am I taking in in the here and now?
+[791.04 --> 793.04]  And then how might I practice gratitude?
+[793.56 --> 799.20]  How could I be grateful for what I do have, not the what ifs that could happen?
+[799.20 --> 812.88]  Would it be safe to say then, because your fear is in what could happen, that's sort of future focusing rather than real time right now focusing, that you're sort of thinking in the wrong time space?
+[813.00 --> 823.28]  That you're, like you said, you're not allowed yourself to consider what's happening right here, right now, and have gratitude towards it and be grateful that you're sort of like, this could happen.
+[823.28 --> 830.94]  And so my fear and my feelings are grounded in, you know, this fictitious future that may or may not happen.
+[831.44 --> 831.74]  Correct.
+[832.10 --> 832.34]  Yeah.
+[832.34 --> 842.10]  So, you know, I think I've alluded to this or stated this in the past about, you know, wellness being very much rooted in cognitive flexibility.
+[842.62 --> 846.72]  And that when it goes awry is when we have too much rigidity or too much chaos.
+[846.94 --> 857.06]  So some of this anxiety would be like, I'm living in the future and there's, it's so chaotic that I can't differentiate up from down from left from right because I told you the sky is falling, Adam.
+[857.22 --> 858.16]  The sky is falling.
+[858.72 --> 859.48]  Do something about it.
+[859.48 --> 859.84]  Yeah.
+[860.48 --> 860.92]  Yeah.
+[861.08 --> 861.88]  You were not listening.
+[862.52 --> 862.96]  Yeah.
+[863.62 --> 863.92]  Yeah.
+[864.38 --> 877.06]  So on the opposite end, if I'm looking at it, another distortion would be this all or nothing binary thinking, which is more of that rigidity that goes, I'm going to live in the past.
+[877.06 --> 882.04]  Like you, I'm sure you have never said this to your wife, that you're amazing.
+[882.04 --> 887.30]  But like to say, you never, you never do the laundry right.
+[887.52 --> 891.14]  You don't ever, you always say it like that.
+[891.54 --> 891.76]  Right.
+[891.76 --> 913.80]  Well, this isn't a show about Adam and his life, so I won't say anything, but I will definitely agree that, that absolutes often come in, you know, whether it's with relationships, whether it's with yourself, which is a, as we just said, a variation of a relationship or with coworkers or just, you know, your work.
+[913.80 --> 917.80]  There's always some sort of absolute, I never do it right or they always do it this way.
+[918.20 --> 919.36]  I can never get it.
+[919.44 --> 919.64]  Right.
+[919.72 --> 921.12]  No matter what, I can't ever.
+[921.66 --> 921.82]  Yeah.
+[922.42 --> 936.88]  And it's just not true because it, maybe you're not living up to your own self expectations or the expectations of somebody you care about, but always a never, like that, it just can't apply.
+[936.88 --> 937.32]  Yeah.
+[937.94 --> 939.34]  What a good word to use instead.
+[939.54 --> 945.16]  So if you're having this particular distortion, how can you reframe my always or nevers?
+[945.64 --> 949.52]  So it really is in going, what is true about what I'm saying?
+[949.68 --> 950.00]  Okay.
+[950.34 --> 953.74]  So some of the time or like, it's specific.
+[953.74 --> 962.94]  I'll think about it in the context of interpersonal relationships and articulating a scenario in which they did do what you're trying to tell them about.
+[962.94 --> 966.74]  Like, I want to tell my partner about a time in which they wounded me.
+[967.00 --> 973.96]  Like, so I would say when you don't take out the trash, I, it, it upsets me.
+[974.06 --> 974.74]  I feel hurt.
+[974.84 --> 975.82]  I feel unimportant.
+[977.40 --> 978.54]  It doesn't mean that's true.
+[978.54 --> 979.56]  The trash is real important around here.
+[981.54 --> 982.16]  That's funny.
+[982.70 --> 983.78]  I like that example.
+[983.90 --> 984.20]  It's funny.
+[986.18 --> 986.58]  So.
+[986.98 --> 992.82]  What I heard you say that was you put a timeframe to it rather than like this always meaning it every single time it happens.
+[992.82 --> 999.08]  It's more like when this or you sort of put a timestamp on it rather than like it's an absolute timestamp.
+[999.58 --> 999.74]  Correct.
+[999.88 --> 1001.30]  I'm doing a specificity.
+[1001.64 --> 1011.06]  I'm going to, to identify a specific occasion in which this occurred because much of the all or nothing is rooted in conditioning of past experiences.
+[1011.54 --> 1011.70]  Yeah.
+[1012.04 --> 1016.54]  So it can, like, I might say, you know, you never follow through.
+[1016.70 --> 1019.20]  You never show up when you say you're going to.
+[1019.20 --> 1023.26]  And it's like, oh, okay, well, let's look back and go, when didn't I?
+[1023.98 --> 1032.60]  And so, and then be open to hearing from that person, like, what, what, how that made them feel or like what they could do differently.
+[1032.96 --> 1033.30]  Yeah.
+[1033.42 --> 1039.94]  You're touching too on criticism, which I want to dive into at a deeper level on a different show.
+[1039.94 --> 1047.16]  But whenever you criticize, you have to, you have to give different kind of data than just simply you're always or never.
+[1047.28 --> 1050.30]  Because it's not correct feedback for someone to change.
+[1050.76 --> 1050.94]  Yeah.
+[1051.58 --> 1055.78]  It, it, and it, it doesn't help at all because I don't know what to do differently.
+[1055.78 --> 1065.40]  It's just, you make it more of a global thing instead of individualized and specific so that then, too, it also breeds hope.
+[1065.76 --> 1069.50]  If I feel like, I mean, like I never can get it right.
+[1069.66 --> 1071.98]  I, I'm never going to, you know.
+[1072.00 --> 1072.76]  You won't try again.
+[1073.20 --> 1073.48]  Exactly.
+[1073.74 --> 1074.06]  Yeah.
+[1074.06 --> 1083.78]  And of course, of course, if you feel like there's no opportunity to do different, this is why it is such, it's so eroding in interpersonal relationships.
+[1084.00 --> 1090.46]  But so imagine if you're telling yourself that, like you can never get this one program.
+[1090.68 --> 1092.60]  Like you should just never try.
+[1094.08 --> 1094.44]  Eek.
+[1094.86 --> 1101.04]  I, one of my favorite stories I heard was actually, um, and maybe Under Armour will have to clarify this for me.
+[1101.04 --> 1105.62]  But imagine that so much of life is like learning, like hummingbirds.
+[1105.74 --> 1107.72]  Hummingbirds move things from one place to another.
+[1108.70 --> 1112.86]  And so it's like, say you have a strength in one lane and you can do it over here.
+[1112.86 --> 1116.98]  But then I move it over to a different one and I, I just went from expert to novice.
+[1117.66 --> 1117.72]  Yeah.
+[1117.72 --> 1126.50]  Well, so Under Armour, from what I heard, they got their idea for the fabric of their gear from women's lingerie.
+[1126.50 --> 1135.18]  And so it was primarily then designed for football players because they didn't like getting tangled up in t-shirts because they were too baggy.
+[1135.70 --> 1137.92]  And so here's a fabric that feels good.
+[1138.02 --> 1141.70]  So people want to wear it and it's more confined to the body.
+[1141.88 --> 1147.60]  So it doesn't, it's not an additional obstacle when you're trying to do all these other things on the field.
+[1147.60 --> 1147.88]  Right?
+[1148.10 --> 1148.22]  Yeah.
+[1148.70 --> 1152.48]  So out comes Under Armour and this awesome product.
+[1152.48 --> 1158.12]  Well, then they realized that all of their smalls kept disappearing and they were like, what is going on?
+[1158.58 --> 1163.38]  So then they moved it over into women and they're like, shrink it and pink it.
+[1163.76 --> 1165.70]  Like just change it up.
+[1165.72 --> 1169.18]  And they moved it into another lane and then had to build on that.
+[1169.64 --> 1176.10]  And so imagine that this all or nothing thinking is rooted to some degree too in fear and failure.
+[1176.10 --> 1187.00]  And that just because you struggle, you're going to run interference with it and go, we're just starting at novice and struggle is a normal part because it's new and it's different.
+[1187.26 --> 1192.14]  So what can I do to help bolster myself so that I can have some successes?
+[1192.76 --> 1195.30]  So now I've tethered in positive emotions.
+[1195.44 --> 1197.46]  So guess what I'm going to want to do?
+[1197.86 --> 1201.18]  I want to go practice more and get better at cultivating that skill.
+[1201.18 --> 1201.74]  Yeah.
+[1202.18 --> 1208.12]  Awareness plays a big part of this because awareness and expectation, right?
+[1208.20 --> 1218.84]  If you are aware of, like you had said, if I'm going to go into this as a novice, I should expect certain things and be aware of how that's different from when I'm an expert in an example.
+[1218.84 --> 1225.94]  So if you're walking into a scenario where you're more of a novice or you're still learning or you're still growing, you should expect some struggle.
+[1226.34 --> 1231.46]  And to go into it not thinking that is just setting yourself up for failure.
+[1232.10 --> 1233.56]  Yeah, exactly.
+[1233.94 --> 1236.16]  And it's really totally unrealistic.
+[1236.46 --> 1238.28]  That's why we call this a distortion.
+[1238.98 --> 1244.70]  Bear in mind, as we're talking about these, there's always a nugget of truth to these distortions.
+[1244.70 --> 1249.16]  Just imagine that I'm standing in sort of like this concave or convex mirror.
+[1249.30 --> 1250.22]  It's still me.
+[1250.82 --> 1255.42]  It's just not the same typical Marielle when you stand into a typical mirror.
+[1256.26 --> 1256.70]  No.
+[1257.00 --> 1257.42]  A flat mirror.
+[1257.90 --> 1263.84]  And then I would have a very different self-concept because of that mirror.
+[1264.60 --> 1266.00]  Isn't that crazy to think about?
+[1266.52 --> 1266.90]  Well, yeah.
+[1266.90 --> 1275.10]  Well, I think what is interesting to – and I think you did this already, but to specifically say it, there is truth in these distortions.
+[1275.32 --> 1283.00]  And so you're not – if you're listening to this and you're examining some of the thoughts you're having and saying, wow, I'm thinking catastrophically.
+[1283.08 --> 1285.68]  Or I'm an all-or-nothing binary thinker.
+[1285.76 --> 1288.26]  It has to be this way or that way and it's always or never or whatever.
+[1288.26 --> 1292.78]  However, that doesn't mean that you're crazy and that it's not true.
+[1292.94 --> 1299.96]  There is truth in there, but you have to understand what the distortions are of that truth and how those are affecting how you feel.
+[1300.30 --> 1300.70]  Exactly.
+[1301.02 --> 1306.54]  And so with that, I want to talk about the next one, which listen really close as I say this.
+[1306.66 --> 1306.90]  Okay.
+[1307.44 --> 1310.90]  We shouldn't should on ourselves.
+[1311.32 --> 1311.80]  Okay.
+[1313.24 --> 1313.76]  Right?
+[1313.88 --> 1314.44]  That's funny to say.
+[1314.56 --> 1315.10]  I like that.
+[1315.36 --> 1317.04]  I know, but it's that same thing.
+[1317.04 --> 1323.28]  I have an external construct and I say this is what I expect of me, so I should on myself.
+[1324.50 --> 1334.42]  And just because maybe I'm good at this over here, then I expect or anticipate that I'm going to be good at it over here when in fact like, oh, no, I'm struggling.
+[1335.22 --> 1338.22]  And so then I start putting in like, what's wrong with you?
+[1338.28 --> 1340.84]  You should be able to do this.
+[1341.02 --> 1341.18]  Right.
+[1341.78 --> 1343.46]  And now I just start the berating.
+[1344.20 --> 1346.12]  Isn't that a source of encouragement though?
+[1346.12 --> 1349.44]  So at what point does that blur into this distortion?
+[1349.92 --> 1353.14]  Because like I want to, I say to myself, Adam, you should do these things.
+[1353.14 --> 1359.14]  And I can examine my thoughts and know they're not distorted in this case, like a distortion.
+[1360.14 --> 1368.32]  And it's like my inner voice, this we we just talked about before is encouraging, you know, the positive Adam is encouraging the negative Adam.
+[1368.52 --> 1369.28]  Adam, we should do this.
+[1369.34 --> 1370.12]  We should do this.
+[1370.50 --> 1371.12]  When does it blur?
+[1371.88 --> 1373.04]  It already did.
+[1373.30 --> 1373.60]  Okay.
+[1374.16 --> 1375.00]  Okay, good.
+[1375.32 --> 1376.32]  Let's dive in.
+[1376.32 --> 1385.40]  Because the issue with a should is that it is an external construct being applied to fit internally.
+[1385.72 --> 1387.80]  And that doesn't really matter.
+[1388.48 --> 1395.86]  Like, so I would rephrase it or reframe it and say, instead of considering it as though it's an encouragement, I would go, do you want to?
+[1395.86 --> 1397.76]  Not I should.
+[1397.88 --> 1398.38]  Well, no.
+[1398.50 --> 1400.14]  Like, is there a desire to do it?
+[1400.20 --> 1404.22]  And if you can harbor hold onto the desire, then go do it.
+[1404.30 --> 1407.44]  But it's very different if I'm to say, here's the mold.
+[1407.90 --> 1409.46]  Adam, you should do this.
+[1409.58 --> 1409.76]  Why?
+[1409.88 --> 1412.36]  Because Joe and Bob are doing it?
+[1412.40 --> 1412.70]  Right.
+[1412.82 --> 1416.58]  Or because Adam wants to do it and there's a desire that you're responding to.
+[1416.86 --> 1417.10]  Right.
+[1417.10 --> 1421.60]  And we've already talked before about the importance of playing a role in your choices.
+[1422.34 --> 1433.38]  So if the choice, a should seems to be based on what you're saying, that the choice is outside of me and I just have to fall in line to the mold rather than being an active participant in choosing.
+[1433.90 --> 1434.16]  Amen.
+[1434.58 --> 1434.84]  Okay.
+[1435.56 --> 1435.94]  Yes.
+[1436.26 --> 1438.48]  Because it's a qualitative feel.
+[1438.96 --> 1443.28]  And that's why the should can be, to some people, oppressive.
+[1443.28 --> 1450.26]  Because I would say, too, that to some degree, personality style, past experiences play a role in this.
+[1450.46 --> 1459.20]  I mean, you know, I know from my experience in sports and athletics, I mean, my coaches weren't always the most kind of individuals.
+[1459.56 --> 1472.70]  Not that they didn't have my best interest at heart, but I can hear very much a sort of internal narrative that's demeaning, that's unrelenting, that it's like, I don't really care that you're not sleeping or you're sleeping three hours a night.
+[1472.70 --> 1476.94]  Like, you should be able to get this done like everybody else does.
+[1477.12 --> 1478.34]  Look at what they're doing.
+[1478.82 --> 1481.40]  And you see how even in my tone I changed?
+[1481.98 --> 1482.20]  Yeah.
+[1482.54 --> 1482.86]  Yeah.
+[1482.88 --> 1483.90]  You're like, you should.
+[1484.04 --> 1486.36]  I just, it's not nice.
+[1487.02 --> 1487.42]  No.
+[1487.84 --> 1489.20]  You shouldn't speak to somebody like that.
+[1489.50 --> 1490.54]  See, I just use a should.
+[1490.82 --> 1491.98]  Are they all bad then?
+[1492.12 --> 1492.62]  Come on.
+[1493.02 --> 1493.26]  No.
+[1493.26 --> 1494.58]  You can't say that all shoulds are bad.
+[1494.70 --> 1495.62]  Is that what you're saying?
+[1496.38 --> 1499.68]  No, I'm, you're going back to the bad.
+[1499.68 --> 1508.14]  Well, I'm just trying to, because like, I feel like there is a blurred line there when shoulds are, you know, maladaptive, as you say.
+[1508.64 --> 1511.66]  But why should, should that be true?
+[1511.86 --> 1515.24]  Like, it's instead, what measure are you using?
+[1515.38 --> 1518.76]  Again, if we look at some of what we've talked about, let's be more specific.
+[1519.24 --> 1520.84]  Like, why is it important to you?
+[1520.84 --> 1525.88]  So if I were to say, I should write, because, you know, I want to write.
+[1526.26 --> 1533.38]  But should, if I'm saying I should, it's going to create some resistance, because every time I don't write, guess what I'm going to do?
+[1534.06 --> 1535.16]  You're going to feel negative.
+[1535.60 --> 1536.04]  Yeah.
+[1536.24 --> 1536.50]  Yeah.
+[1537.02 --> 1537.36]  Yeah.
+[1537.50 --> 1543.88]  You're not living up to your expectation or some expectation of you, the mold you should fit in.
+[1544.30 --> 1544.60]  Right.
+[1544.68 --> 1547.72]  I still hold that desire, but now I'm like, look, I failed.
+[1548.04 --> 1549.84]  So why should I try again?
+[1550.84 --> 1551.84]  I don't know.
+[1552.34 --> 1561.36]  I'm having a hard time grasping this one, if I'm being honest, because I feel like there's times when I can see it being good and being bad or distorted.
+[1562.12 --> 1564.30]  I just really have, I'm struggling on this one in particular.
+[1565.08 --> 1570.92]  Well, maybe I think that, you know, part of it might be the nuance in how you've used it with yourself.
+[1571.04 --> 1571.14]  True.
+[1571.30 --> 1571.50]  Yeah.
+[1571.60 --> 1573.88]  And that maybe it hasn't felt negative.
+[1574.00 --> 1575.16]  I mean, am I right?
+[1575.22 --> 1576.30]  You have a military background?
+[1576.60 --> 1576.82]  Yeah.
+[1576.82 --> 1577.14]  Yeah.
+[1577.14 --> 1577.52]  Yeah.
+[1577.76 --> 1582.02]  And I'm pretty sure drill sergeants weren't the most compassionate of people.
+[1582.84 --> 1583.72]  I love them all.
+[1583.92 --> 1584.56]  They were all amazing.
+[1584.74 --> 1585.26]  I'm just kidding.
+[1585.60 --> 1592.88]  Some of them, I can actually recall their face right now saying, beat your face, soldier, which means do pushups.
+[1593.32 --> 1593.54]  Yeah.
+[1593.54 --> 1596.86]  You know, just, yeah, I suppose.
+[1597.04 --> 1597.14]  Sure.
+[1597.18 --> 1597.86]  What are you getting at?
+[1598.50 --> 1606.56]  Well, part of the nature in this internal dialogue has to do with the voices that we internalize.
+[1606.82 --> 1607.08]  Okay.
+[1607.08 --> 1615.26]  And so the more we're exposed to this and be it, we all have varying degrees of conscientiousness.
+[1615.54 --> 1615.74]  Yeah.
+[1615.86 --> 1623.20]  Like they've done research around this in terms of employees, like personality factors that make the best employees.
+[1623.20 --> 1625.36]  And we can talk about this in upcoming shows.
+[1625.50 --> 1628.64]  But the most important one is conscientiousness.
+[1628.90 --> 1631.60]  That is the biggest indicator of a great employee.
+[1631.74 --> 1632.48]  And do you know why?
+[1632.86 --> 1633.56]  What is it?
+[1633.96 --> 1634.78]  What is that?
+[1635.36 --> 1635.76]  Consciousness.
+[1635.76 --> 1635.88]  Consciousness.
+[1636.34 --> 1639.68]  Well, it's being aware of all the things.
+[1639.82 --> 1645.34]  If I'm conscientious, I don't need somebody to tell me what to do because I've already told myself to do it.
+[1645.44 --> 1645.70]  Gotcha.
+[1645.98 --> 1646.20]  Okay.
+[1646.22 --> 1653.60]  So if I have a high degree of conscientiousness, like I'm already knowing I need to do these 24 things on my to-do list.
+[1653.60 --> 1657.90]  And then my boss comes to me and be like, you should do this.
+[1658.46 --> 1660.90]  Now I've loaded more on.
+[1661.40 --> 1662.46]  And he's not wrong.
+[1662.90 --> 1665.56]  I should do them because they're my responsibility.
+[1665.76 --> 1674.68]  But I've already, if I should on myself, because I have that narrative in my brain, I've already had a full jury trial convicted.
+[1675.42 --> 1676.58]  Like I am sentenced.
+[1676.72 --> 1677.00]  I see.
+[1677.34 --> 1678.28]  By the shoulds.
+[1678.28 --> 1681.74]  So part of it has to do with our individual hard wiring.
+[1682.02 --> 1682.28]  Yeah.
+[1682.78 --> 1683.44]  Does that make sense?
+[1683.44 --> 1687.30]  Like some people are more like, I mean, indifferent, careless.
+[1687.30 --> 1690.76]  Like they're just not as concerned with all of the factors.
+[1690.76 --> 1696.08]  And so then that would contribute to hearing should in a different way.
+[1696.64 --> 1704.60]  Because I already, if I'm already at 95% and then my boss or a friend or my spouse is like, hey, let me remind you of this 25%.
+[1704.60 --> 1706.44]  Like you're really not doing so hot on.
+[1707.56 --> 1708.08]  I'm like.
+[1708.08 --> 1708.52]  It feels like crap.
+[1708.94 --> 1709.34]  Yeah.
+[1710.08 --> 1710.52]  Yeah.
+[1710.88 --> 1711.12]  Yeah.
+[1711.52 --> 1716.20]  So maybe part of what you're trying to talk about is like it's nuanced.
+[1716.20 --> 1719.70]  And it isn't always not assistive.
+[1720.12 --> 1720.66]  But I would say that.
+[1720.66 --> 1729.76]  I think when you said that, though, I actually can admit to some clarity because hearing you say it back again, it's what you're talking about is shooting on yourself.
+[1729.76 --> 1733.60]  So your internal voice telling yourself you should.
+[1734.18 --> 1734.38]  Yes.
+[1734.44 --> 1735.62]  And I can understand that better.
+[1736.08 --> 1739.36]  That hearing it again, the way you said it clarified it for me.
+[1739.36 --> 1740.98]  So I'm less blurred now.
+[1741.10 --> 1742.98]  I will forfeit that.
+[1744.22 --> 1748.18]  Well, so let's talk about another one.
+[1748.58 --> 1750.44]  What about mental filter?
+[1751.40 --> 1752.48]  Do you want me to explain?
+[1752.80 --> 1753.42]  Yes, please.
+[1753.52 --> 1765.68]  So mental filters are picking out a single negative detail and focusing on it exclusively so that all of your vision of what's going on becomes dark or negative.
+[1765.96 --> 1766.28]  Right.
+[1766.74 --> 1766.94]  Yeah.
+[1766.94 --> 1768.76]  I can dwell there.
+[1768.76 --> 1772.82]  So I really identify with this one in particular because I can.
+[1774.08 --> 1779.90]  I can pick out a negative detail in my life and focus on it exclusively.
+[1780.74 --> 1783.52]  And my life, this is the exact definition.
+[1784.20 --> 1791.66]  My life becomes, you know, not completely dark, but I can see how the cloud comes in and it covers more things than I want it to.
+[1791.86 --> 1794.82]  It doesn't just cover the thing that I think is negative.
+[1795.06 --> 1797.38]  It begins to cover the positive things, too.
+[1797.38 --> 1798.38]  Yeah.
+[1798.38 --> 1805.30]  You know, and then I start losing sleep or I, you know, dwell in my negative thoughts more or something like that.
+[1805.66 --> 1811.30]  And this is one that actually gets to me probably more often than I'd like.
+[1811.66 --> 1812.10]  Yeah.
+[1812.10 --> 1815.20]  I don't know about you, but that's me.
+[1815.76 --> 1824.32]  Well, I tend to be and I would say that from my experience, just always wanting to do the best, be my best sports, grad school.
+[1824.32 --> 1828.76]  Like, I am always looking for how I can do things better.
+[1828.92 --> 1832.52]  So it's easy to focus to some degree on the negative.
+[1832.84 --> 1833.10]  Yeah.
+[1833.20 --> 1834.72]  Because there's some truth to that.
+[1834.84 --> 1840.56]  I can do it better or different or just some variation.
+[1840.56 --> 1847.22]  So if I then focus on a detail, imagine that I just blow up that balloon bigger and bigger.
+[1847.48 --> 1851.40]  And what happens to my vision as that balloon gets bigger?
+[1851.90 --> 1856.24]  My vision of the whole picture gets smaller.
+[1856.24 --> 1856.96]  Mm-hmm.
+[1857.58 --> 1866.94]  And so it makes it – and this is maybe at the heart of some of what we're talking about in how we think is that we don't want to only be focused on the negative.
+[1867.96 --> 1870.82]  And that even if there is negative – because there is.
+[1870.88 --> 1875.66]  I mean, there's horrific, horrible things that people encounter every day.
+[1875.98 --> 1880.18]  And I'm not saying these things to undermine those because those are real.
+[1880.18 --> 1884.90]  And so denying or disavowing or undoing, those doesn't help us.
+[1884.96 --> 1889.66]  But rather, we want to be more considerate that the positive gets to count too.
+[1890.40 --> 1890.50]  Yeah.
+[1891.22 --> 1899.20]  And I think living in denial or this naive aspect is – this bliss aspect is not good.
+[1899.26 --> 1903.74]  You have to be – you can't lie to yourself about the positive or the negative.
+[1903.84 --> 1906.60]  You can't discount the negative for the positive and vice versa.
+[1907.18 --> 1909.88]  It's kind of like the idea of bitter and sweet, right?
+[1909.88 --> 1913.20]  You can't have the sweet without the bitter and you can't have the bitter without the sweet.
+[1913.84 --> 1914.24]  Yes.
+[1914.38 --> 1915.32]  It's like kind of yin-yang.
+[1915.50 --> 1921.52]  It's this sort of coupling that happens throughout many, many examples in humanity and life.
+[1922.12 --> 1922.24]  Yeah.
+[1922.30 --> 1934.00]  And so much of why I want to talk about these and why this is helpful is just recognizing if your channel of your thoughts is always on the negative, you're probably not going to feel very good going about your day.
+[1934.22 --> 1934.44]  Yeah.
+[1934.44 --> 1942.58]  It doesn't mean that there aren't things you can be positive about or around, but it's just going to make it far more challenging.
+[1942.58 --> 1961.54]  You know, again, I want to talk about this more, but the idea of what do we do to combat it is we sort of imagine how you put on glasses every day that you could put on, like put in front of you what you want to try to look for throughout the day.
+[1961.54 --> 1969.86]  Like, have you ever bought a new car and you'd never saw so many on the road, but then you're like, oh my goodness, they're like all over.
+[1971.06 --> 1971.46]  Yes.
+[1972.46 --> 1974.16]  For some reason, that's a reality.
+[1974.38 --> 1975.56]  I don't get it, but it is.
+[1976.00 --> 1980.46]  Well, I'm pretty sure they didn't just go dump a bazillion of that car on the road.
+[1980.60 --> 1981.80]  But what changed?
+[1983.08 --> 1984.50]  The fact that I knew it existed.
+[1985.12 --> 1985.54]  Exactly.
+[1985.54 --> 1985.62]  Exactly.
+[1986.16 --> 1989.86]  So then you were focused on it and you looked for them.
+[1990.14 --> 1990.52]  Okay.
+[1991.34 --> 1995.46]  So when we're looking at going this mental filter, what do I do?
+[1995.62 --> 1997.82]  Well, I want you to put on a different lens.
+[1998.14 --> 1998.38]  Right.
+[1998.70 --> 2000.72]  Realize they're there and understand them.
+[2000.90 --> 2003.86]  And when they pop up, identify them.
+[2004.00 --> 2005.18]  Maybe even take a note even.
+[2005.58 --> 2008.38]  Like, hey, that's a negative mental filter.
+[2009.06 --> 2010.58]  We should be aware of that more often.
+[2011.22 --> 2011.94]  But here I am again.
+[2012.00 --> 2012.68]  I said we should.
+[2013.00 --> 2013.46]  Oh, see?
+[2013.66 --> 2014.70]  There is a blurred line.
+[2014.70 --> 2015.62]  There is a blurred line.
+[2017.48 --> 2019.02]  Maybe here's the reframe.
+[2019.10 --> 2020.58]  You say it would be helpful.
+[2020.92 --> 2021.58]  It would be helpful.
+[2021.76 --> 2022.88]  I don't speak that way, though.
+[2024.22 --> 2025.18]  But I like the idea.
+[2025.46 --> 2025.78]  Continue.
+[2026.52 --> 2032.22]  Well, so, you know, I do this with my kids because I'm trying to help train up their brains
+[2032.22 --> 2038.30]  to see things differently when, you know, it can be challenging when you're a kid to only
+[2038.30 --> 2039.22]  see the negative.
+[2039.22 --> 2045.62]  And so I started off at the beginning of school always asking them when I picked them up, like,
+[2045.90 --> 2050.04]  what was the highlight and what was your disappointment or what was, you know, the thing that upset
+[2050.04 --> 2051.16]  you and the positive thing.
+[2051.28 --> 2055.44]  And then they came home with their teacher had done this exercise and talked about it
+[2055.44 --> 2057.26]  in terms of roses and thorns.
+[2057.26 --> 2061.04]  And so they said, what are your roses for today and what are your thorns?
+[2061.38 --> 2061.50]  Right.
+[2061.92 --> 2064.54]  And so then I tweaked it ever so slightly more.
+[2064.58 --> 2070.12]  And I said, for every thorn, every upsetting or negative or hurtful thing that you encountered
+[2070.12 --> 2071.86]  today, you have to give me two roses.
+[2071.86 --> 2080.72]  And I'm probably going to keep increasing that because so much of, I mean, imagine how the
+[2080.72 --> 2081.58]  weather affects you.
+[2081.72 --> 2089.04]  I want you to imagine that the weather of your thoughts, that that contributes to the environment
+[2089.04 --> 2091.78]  and how you feel going about your day every day.
+[2091.92 --> 2098.00]  I want people to recognize that we have to sort of set our minds to look for that.
+[2098.00 --> 2102.82]  It's not just not doing these things because to some degree we're going to do it.
+[2102.96 --> 2103.06]  Yeah.
+[2103.74 --> 2107.90]  It, I don't want anybody to be alarmed or shocked and go, oh, I do that.
+[2107.90 --> 2108.78]  I got distortions.
+[2108.92 --> 2109.76]  What's going on?
+[2110.16 --> 2110.42]  Yeah.
+[2110.66 --> 2111.74]  Everybody has this.
+[2111.86 --> 2112.64]  It's a thing.
+[2113.08 --> 2113.22]  Yeah.
+[2113.32 --> 2114.20]  Come join the rest of us.
+[2114.20 --> 2114.50]  Right.
+[2114.96 --> 2115.66]  Join the club.
+[2115.74 --> 2116.12]  You already have.
+[2116.68 --> 2117.12]  Right.
+[2117.26 --> 2117.96]  Got the t-shirt.
+[2119.24 --> 2123.00]  But what am I going to do so that I can change and move in the direction?
+[2123.00 --> 2128.28]  Like I want to be intentional about the way that I live, that I am looking for the things
+[2128.28 --> 2130.14]  that help me feel better and do better.
+[2130.22 --> 2131.18]  Because guess what?
+[2131.22 --> 2134.14]  I'm then going to build a snowball around.
+[2134.90 --> 2136.30]  How I feel is better.
+[2136.38 --> 2137.80]  And look at the effort I made.
+[2137.90 --> 2139.96]  And there was a positive outcome to that effort.
+[2139.96 --> 2141.22]  And like, oh, this sucked.
+[2141.28 --> 2142.38]  And it was so hard for me.
+[2142.40 --> 2143.34]  And I didn't want to do it.
+[2143.60 --> 2144.62]  But I did it.
+[2145.02 --> 2145.16]  Yeah.
+[2145.16 --> 2152.38]  And so now I'm practicing tethering, ironically, my positive emotions to my efforts and not
+[2152.38 --> 2153.04]  to outcomes.
+[2153.48 --> 2153.80]  Yeah.
+[2154.28 --> 2156.06]  This is so important.
+[2156.12 --> 2160.76]  We talk about it in learning because we're not always in charge of outcomes.
+[2160.76 --> 2162.90]  And this is part of managing our humanity.
+[2162.98 --> 2170.58]  I can imagine losing someone I love and just how horrific that would feel to me.
+[2170.80 --> 2174.36]  I don't think there's any amount of time I could spend with those I love that I would
+[2174.36 --> 2175.66]  be like, that's good.
+[2175.74 --> 2176.50]  I've had enough.
+[2176.50 --> 2177.16]  I've had enough, yeah.
+[2177.58 --> 2179.82]  It's going to be painful at whatever time.
+[2180.22 --> 2185.82]  But if I can learn to practice putting on gratitude, and I have had to practice this
+[2185.82 --> 2189.62]  with my kids especially, because I love them.
+[2189.70 --> 2191.16]  I'm so grateful for them.
+[2191.32 --> 2192.06]  They were wanted.
+[2192.82 --> 2198.74]  And so every time a thought pops up of imagining something happening to them or whatever it
+[2198.74 --> 2201.20]  could be that I have to go, thank you.
+[2201.52 --> 2202.12]  Thank you.
+[2202.12 --> 2207.54]  And as long and as much as it takes in order to change that channel, because this is how
+[2207.54 --> 2209.16]  I'm building a new neural network.
+[2210.02 --> 2214.36]  Because remember when we talked earlier about neurons that fire together, wire together.
+[2214.70 --> 2214.76]  Yeah.
+[2214.84 --> 2219.98]  So the more that I think a thought, the more that I'm running that play, my brain automates
+[2219.98 --> 2220.84]  to that.
+[2221.48 --> 2226.98]  So I want to practice automating around the positive that I can just see it.
+[2227.34 --> 2227.60]  Yeah.
+[2227.60 --> 2233.34]  There's a psychologist who wrote this book some years ago called The Happiness Advantage.
+[2233.44 --> 2234.64]  His name is Sean Aker.
+[2234.88 --> 2236.04]  Aker without the N.
+[2236.42 --> 2237.20]  Aker without the N.
+[2237.66 --> 2240.56]  And he studied at Harvard.
+[2240.80 --> 2245.36]  And he had this experience, which prompted a research study around thoughts.
+[2245.36 --> 2248.38]  And so he'd been playing Grand Theft Auto all night long.
+[2249.04 --> 2252.78]  And he went out the next morning to go to class.
+[2253.22 --> 2255.36]  And he saw the Cambridge police.
+[2255.36 --> 2258.80]  And he's like, oh, my gosh, I would get the max amount of points if I stole that police
+[2258.80 --> 2259.38]  car right now.
+[2260.96 --> 2261.62]  Oh, boy.
+[2261.98 --> 2263.28]  And he was mortified.
+[2263.34 --> 2264.04]  He's like, what?
+[2264.16 --> 2265.02]  What in me?
+[2265.02 --> 2267.44]  I'm training to be a psychologist.
+[2267.72 --> 2268.74]  And I'm having these thoughts.
+[2268.92 --> 2269.94]  Like, what the heck?
+[2270.80 --> 2274.86]  And so not to mention that the policeman was in the vehicle.
+[2275.50 --> 2276.94]  And that didn't deter him.
+[2277.56 --> 2284.08]  So he did this study and had students play Tetris for, I forget the length of time, whether
+[2284.08 --> 2286.40]  it was 48 or 72 hours, but consistently.
+[2286.82 --> 2288.70]  And then report on their experiences.
+[2288.70 --> 2293.96]  And what they said is everywhere they went after that, they saw Tetra shapes.
+[2294.06 --> 2295.02]  They'd go to the grocery store.
+[2295.04 --> 2297.88]  And they're like, if I just flip this cereal box, I'll lose a line.
+[2298.00 --> 2299.24]  I'll go to the racetrack.
+[2299.28 --> 2301.60]  If I flip this brick, I'll lose a line.
+[2302.12 --> 2308.40]  So much of what we focus on is what we feed and then what we see.
+[2309.04 --> 2314.60]  This is at the heart of why it's so important to be aware of the thoughts behind the thinker.
+[2315.46 --> 2316.86]  Because of the importance, right?
+[2316.86 --> 2319.68]  The more you think of something, the more it's going to appear in your life, whether
+[2319.68 --> 2325.54]  it was always there or it's suddenly there because you're now having this thought pattern.
+[2326.26 --> 2332.68]  And so one other thing that I want to talk about in terms of what we can do differently
+[2332.68 --> 2335.60]  is using the best friend test.
+[2335.82 --> 2336.22]  Yeah.
+[2336.74 --> 2342.86]  Is going, if I have this thought, would I say this to my friend?
+[2342.86 --> 2344.22]  For example, with the should.
+[2344.60 --> 2345.92]  Well, you should be doing that.
+[2345.92 --> 2347.08]  You should get A's.
+[2347.24 --> 2350.06]  You shouldn't have any trouble doing that coding.
+[2350.82 --> 2353.32]  Would I say the same thing to my friend?
+[2353.88 --> 2354.08]  Yeah.
+[2354.74 --> 2355.56]  Probably not.
+[2356.20 --> 2356.52]  Exactly.
+[2356.52 --> 2359.58]  I guess that's when you say probably not is like, is when it's.
+[2360.46 --> 2360.94]  Problematic.
+[2361.12 --> 2361.34]  Yeah.
+[2361.90 --> 2362.32]  Right.
+[2362.36 --> 2365.52]  Because you're going, there's something, context doesn't fit.
+[2366.68 --> 2367.20]  Right.
+[2367.20 --> 2369.90]  And context is so much at the heart.
+[2369.90 --> 2375.78]  Like we've talked about specificity and saying, look, much of these distortions, all or nothing,
+[2375.98 --> 2376.42]  catastrophe.
+[2376.42 --> 2378.76]  It's like they're not rooted in context.
+[2379.52 --> 2385.14]  They're generalizations or they're, you know, global as opposed to specific.
+[2385.62 --> 2385.70]  Yeah.
+[2385.70 --> 2386.74]  They're not based on facts.
+[2387.20 --> 2387.70]  Right.
+[2387.70 --> 2388.86]  And we're all different.
+[2388.86 --> 2395.76]  And so I want to recognize that I am different than everybody else.
+[2395.76 --> 2397.24]  And nobody's had my experiences.
+[2397.44 --> 2399.04]  Nobody has my exact genetics.
+[2399.60 --> 2400.60]  All of those things.
+[2400.66 --> 2405.46]  I always find it fascinating with siblings because people were raised in the same house by the same parents.
+[2405.46 --> 2407.82]  But are they the same people or remember the same things?
+[2407.82 --> 2408.22]  No.
+[2408.90 --> 2409.42]  Never.
+[2409.80 --> 2410.12]  Never.
+[2410.34 --> 2410.68]  Never.
+[2411.48 --> 2412.04]  Right.
+[2412.36 --> 2416.22]  Because different things stand out to us in different ways at different times.
+[2416.66 --> 2426.10]  But so much of our own experiences that are individual are going to affect not only what we think, but then how we see our world.
+[2426.50 --> 2429.62]  So for our listeners, I would say, what do we take away?
+[2429.70 --> 2431.64]  What's your next step of action?
+[2431.64 --> 2441.12]  So we talked about four of these sort of cognitive distortions today, catastrophic thinking, shoulds, the all or nothing, and mental filters.
+[2441.74 --> 2451.98]  So I would identify, you might even create a little chart and notice just for like track for a day or two when you do these things.
+[2451.98 --> 2454.16]  Or maybe you're just going to say, I'm going to pick one.
+[2454.28 --> 2458.58]  I want to pick shoulds because I'm very aware that I should on myself a lot.
+[2458.58 --> 2461.16]  And just track it.
+[2461.34 --> 2466.30]  And then what I want you to do is write the alternative you're going to replace it with.
+[2466.66 --> 2468.76]  So not just, OK, now I'm aware.
+[2469.28 --> 2475.60]  I always talk about this with patients in terms of getting better and proving you in your life is twofold.
+[2475.72 --> 2477.68]  There's acknowledging and then there's action.
+[2478.44 --> 2482.80]  So we're going to acknowledge the thing we're not doing well, where I'm struggling.
+[2482.80 --> 2488.04]  And then I'm going to identify the action that replaces the thing I don't want to do.
+[2488.44 --> 2496.02]  Because whenever we're trying to change how we think, we change our neural networks by starvation.
+[2496.66 --> 2501.04]  So I starve that old thought and I replace it with a new one.
+[2501.14 --> 2504.46]  It's so much repeal and replace, repeal and replace.
+[2504.58 --> 2509.70]  I'm going to take away this not helpful way of thinking and I'm going to replace it with a new one.
+[2509.70 --> 2513.34]  And so I would love to hear from you guys.
+[2513.54 --> 2515.86]  We got brain science on Slack.
+[2516.28 --> 2523.30]  You can comment in terms of which distortion you chose and what you're doing differently.
+[2525.66 --> 2526.48]  All right.
+[2526.56 --> 2528.72]  Thank you for tuning into this episode of Brain Science.
+[2528.72 --> 2530.44]  If you haven't yet, please join us on this journey.
+[2530.56 --> 2531.90]  We have so much to explore.
+[2532.34 --> 2535.86]  Subscribe to this podcast at changelaw.com slash brain science.
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+[2541.30 --> 2541.86]  Follow us on Twitter.
+[2541.96 --> 2543.26]  We're at Brain Science FM.
+[2543.82 --> 2545.14]  You can also join our Slack community.
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+[2546.22 --> 2548.98]  Talk about all things brain science with me, Marielle, and the rest of the community.
+[2549.54 --> 2552.90]  And if you have topics or suggestions for the show, you want to hear them.
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+[2555.66 --> 2558.42]  Huge thanks to our partners Fastly, Rollbar, and Linode.
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+[2577.78 --> 2578.62]  Thanks again for listening.
+[2578.92 --> 2579.70]  We'll see you again soon.
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