0:00

You know. As I put it, we've got a brain that's like velcrow

0:02

for the bad, bitep long for the good. Welcome

0:13

to the one you feed Throughout

0:15

time, great thinkers have recognized the

0:17

importance of the thoughts we have, quotes

0:19

like garbage in, garbage out,

0:22

or you are what you think, ring

0:24

true. And yet for many of

0:26

us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower

0:28

us. We tend toward negativity, self

0:31

pity, jealousy, or fear.

0:34

We see what we don't have instead of what we

0:36

do. We think things that hold us

0:38

back and dampen our spirit. But

0:40

it's not just about thinking. Our

0:42

actions matter. It takes conscious,

0:45

consistent, and creative effort to make

0:47

a life worth living. This podcast

0:49

is about how other people keep themselves moving

0:51

in the right direction, how they feed

0:54

their good wolf. Thanks

1:09

for joining us. Our guest this week is

1:11

Rick Hansen, PhD, neuropsychologist

1:14

and author of Hardwiring Happiness,

1:16

The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm

1:19

and Confidence. His other books

1:21

include Buddha's Brain and Just One

1:23

Thing. Rick is the founder of the well Spring

1:26

Institute of Neuroscience and Contemplative

1:28

Wisdom and an affiliate of the Greater

1:30

Good Science Center at UC Berkeley.

1:32

He has been an invited speaker at Oxford,

1:35

Stanford, and Harvard and teaches

1:37

meditation worldwide. And before

1:39

we start the interview, a lot of you might have noticed

1:41

that Eric has been doing some one on one coaching,

1:44

which we've mentioned on various episodes. And

1:46

up next, real quick, I just wanted you to hear one of

1:48

Eric's coaching clients, Anthony described

1:51

what was going on in his life that prompted him to

1:53

sign up for the one you feed coaching program.

1:55

Some of you might be able to identify with him

1:57

as you listen to this story. Here's Anthony,

2:00

followed by the interview. Basically,

2:02

I've been listening to the podcast for a while and

2:04

I had a bunch of goals set for

2:07

myself that I wanted to accomplish,

2:09

but it was just sort of falling short, I

2:11

guess, in in general. So

2:14

I wanted to get a little bit of encouragement

2:17

and accountability from an

2:19

outside source. You know,

2:22

maybe wouldn't be so easy on me. If

2:24

you're interested in learning more about this program,

2:26

send an email to Eric at one

2:29

you feed dot net. Here's

2:31

the interview. Hi, Rick, Welcome

2:33

to the show. Eric. It's a pleasure to be here, truly.

2:35

I'm I'm happy to have you on your combination

2:38

of a couple of things. I'm really interested in. One,

2:40

you're an actual neuroscientist and be

2:43

You've also got a lot of experience

2:45

in teachings in Buddhism. So I

2:47

find the two of those to be very um

2:50

compelling together. So I'm excited to get

2:52

to talk through some of that, right. I think of

2:54

the intersection of that is neuro dharma. Yeah,

2:56

I don't think it'll ever be a household word, but it

2:59

does kind of sum up what we might be talking about

3:01

here exactly. So our show

3:03

is called The One You Feed, and it's based on the

3:05

parable of Two Wolves, where there's a

3:07

grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He

3:09

says, in life, there are two wolves

3:12

inside of us that are always at battle. One

3:14

is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness

3:17

and bravery and love, and the other

3:19

is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed

3:22

and hatred and fear. And

3:24

the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second,

3:26

and he looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather,

3:29

which one wins? And the grandfather

3:32

says the one you feed. So

3:34

I'd like to start off by asking you what

3:36

that parable means to you in your life

3:39

and in the work that you do. Yeah. Um,

3:42

well, if I've I've heard that story

3:45

in in different formulations, including

3:47

the one that you offered there, and and it touches

3:49

me deeply every time. Um.

3:51

I literally sometimes in talks, I'll tell that

3:54

story and I get the shivers

3:56

every time I tell it, because to me, it

3:58

speaks to two real important

4:00

things. One, the presence of the wolf

4:02

of hate or the wolf of bad or the

4:04

bad wolf as you put it. You know that

4:06

capacity or inclination, and almost

4:09

everyone certainly me for as

4:11

you say, hate, violence,

4:13

aggression, jealousy, envy,

4:15

ill will, etcetera. And

4:18

um. The second thing, though, really

4:20

more to our point, is that everything depends

4:23

on who you feed, what you feed,

4:25

and especially what you feed each day.

4:28

And that gets to something that I think is

4:30

extremely hopeful, that we

4:33

truly can cultivate wholesome

4:36

qualities of mind and heart based

4:38

on our daily efforts, and no matter

4:40

what's happened in the past, and no matter how tough our

4:42

circumstances are, no one can

4:45

stop us from feeding the good

4:47

wolf inside our own mind and

4:50

in attention to that being very hopeful, it

4:52

also takes responsibility. It's

4:54

on us because no one but us

4:57

really can actively feed that good

4:59

wolf every day, and then that's our job to

5:01

do. Um And as a

5:03

neuroscience guy or a very practical

5:05

neuroscience guy, I produced a little research.

5:07

I consume a lot of research, and I especially

5:10

apply it. And in that context, it's

5:12

amazing to appreciate how much your brain is

5:15

continually changing. Right, We're

5:17

always feeding one wolf for another inside

5:20

our brain, because our brain is designed to be

5:22

changed by our experiences. But what we pay

5:24

attention to and how we relate

5:26

to what we're paying attention to, so

5:28

to me, the kind of bottom line takeaway,

5:31

using the fancy phrase these days experience

5:34

dependent neuroplasticity,

5:36

it's the idea that your brain is continually

5:39

taking its shape in a very

5:41

real, concrete material sounds

5:43

from whatever you rest your mind upon routinely,

5:46

particularly given the bias of the brain towards

5:50

taking its shape from negative experiences,

5:52

the negativity bias of the brain. That's why I

5:55

think it's so important to do what you can to rest

5:57

your mind and therefore change your brain by

5:59

rest in your mind upon the authentically

6:03

real, beneficial experiences

6:05

of everyday life that are usually enjoyable,

6:07

little moments of feeling connected

6:10

or grateful or peaceful or mindful

6:13

or happy, or accomplished, or

6:15

loving and caring towards other people, And

6:17

through repeatedly resting your

6:19

mind on those things, you will gradually

6:22

wire those strengths into your brain,

6:25

thus fundamentally feeding a good

6:27

wolf. I've got a bunch of questions

6:29

for you based on what you just said

6:31

there, and I'm going to start with one that I've been pondering

6:34

out loud a couple of times lately. And you talk

6:36

a little bit about the negativity bias. You

6:38

talk about how and we talked

6:40

about on the show a lot. We're kind of wired that way,

6:42

right. It's it's better to be safe

6:44

than sorry, so to speak. As far as what you

6:46

pay attention to from a survival

6:48

basis, is there any sense

6:51

of does anybody know

6:54

or is there any way to think about when do our

6:56

brains start to actually catch

6:58

up evolution genarily? Now, I

7:00

know it's been an enormously large amount

7:02

of time, um, but we've seen

7:05

in things like, uh, you know, studies

7:07

with people breeding foxes and trying

7:09

to turn them closer to dogs that in

7:11

a relatively short time period they were able

7:13

to make pretty substantial changes there,

7:16

our brain is ever going to catch up. Well,

7:20

let's see. First, you're talking about biological

7:23

evolution, you know, in terms of breeding foxes

7:25

into um, let's say wolves

7:28

or something like that. And you know, biological evolutions

7:30

pretty slow. Uh, you

7:33

know, resets on the clock of the generations,

7:35

maybe you get four or five generations per century.

7:39

Uh. So I think that, uh,

7:42

it's gonna be a long time before we no

7:44

longer have this hardwired negativity

7:46

bias in the brain. You know, as I put it, we've

7:48

got a brain that's like velcrow for the bad,

7:51

bit teflon for the good, because

7:53

that's what kept our ancestors alive

7:55

to live to see the sunrise, you know, and pass

7:57

on jenes that passed on genes. So I

8:00

think in terms of pure biological evolution,

8:02

it'll be quite a while before, if ever,

8:05

we somehow, as it were, breed

8:07

that bias out of the brain got

8:10

the three bees there, you know, a little alliteration.

8:13

But meanwhile, we have cultural

8:15

evolution, and we have opportunities for

8:18

psychological evolution. Um

8:20

the real question is not, um,

8:23

you know, what kind of wolves do you have

8:25

in your inner kennel? The real question

8:27

is is you put it from the very beginning here?

8:30

What do you cultivate and what do you restraint?

8:32

And even if we do have a hardwired

8:34

tendency to over learn from

8:37

our bad experiences and under

8:39

learned from our good experiences, which

8:42

is unfortunate, because learning

8:44

from our good experiences are beneficial

8:47

experiences, which are usually enjoyable,

8:50

is the primary way to hardwire

8:52

those psychological mental resources

8:55

into ourselves for coping with

8:57

difficulties and feeling happier

9:00

and also having more to offer other people.

9:02

Even though all of that is true, we

9:05

still have opportunities many

9:07

times a day using mindful

9:09

attention to tilt toward

9:12

beneficial experiences and

9:14

make sure that we in particular install

9:17

them, that we don't just have them, because merely

9:19

having beneficial experiences is

9:21

momentarily pleasant, but it but it produces

9:23

no lasting value because those beneficial

9:26

experiences are not installed, They're not

9:28

encoded in some way as a lasting

9:31

change of neural structure or function. But

9:33

if we do the dozen seconds

9:35

or so of really savoring, really

9:37

kind of marinating in our

9:40

ordinary authentic beneficial experiences

9:43

a handful of times every day.

9:45

In effect, given that we have a

9:47

brain that's tilted towards

9:50

survival but against quality

9:52

of life, when we tilt towards

9:54

beneficial experiences and in particular

9:57

really take a dozen or so seconds

9:59

to in turn realize them, to take them in. If

10:01

we do that tilt, then we just level

10:04

the playing field. But if we do that,

10:06

and we can all do that, even though

10:08

we've got a stone edge brain, if

10:10

we do that, over the course

10:13

of the day, we learn a lot more

10:15

from that day. We grow, We develop

10:17

through this installation of beneficial experience

10:20

as we hardwire happiness and as

10:22

well as other inner strengths into

10:24

ourselves. And then if you add that up over

10:26

time, a handful of times a day,

10:29

day after day after day the years

10:31

of our lives, it makes an extraordinary

10:33

difference for people over the lifespan. And

10:36

you call this process taking in

10:38

the good. And UM, I'd like to get

10:40

a little bit further into how to do

10:42

that, but let's start off

10:44

by UM, you know, the

10:46

people who listen to the show know that I

10:48

am a notoriously skeptical

10:51

of positive thinking, which I know this

10:53

isn't so, but help me understand the difference between

10:56

taking in the good, which you're saying is resting

10:58

your brain on the good things that do happen, versus

11:00

sort of delusional positive thinking. Yeah.

11:03

Absolutely, Um, I don't believe in positive

11:05

thinking like you. I believe in realistic

11:08

thinking. So I want to see the

11:10

whole mosaic of reality. And

11:12

you know, given our common interest, let's say in

11:14

Buddhism, it's I think no accident

11:17

that it's said in Buddhism that the fundamental,

11:19

deep root of suffering and evil

11:22

is ignorance or delusion, not really

11:24

recognizing what's actually true. So

11:26

the fundamental framework for me here is

11:29

to really recognize what's actually true.

11:31

And as part of that recognition,

11:34

it's true that we have a brain that is

11:36

negatively biased, especially in terms

11:38

of how we learn from our experiences.

11:41

And second, it's also true that

11:44

in terms of the mosaic a reality, there's

11:46

a lot of crap out

11:48

there. You know, every life

11:50

has difficult, hard, painful things,

11:53

and many lives are saturated in

11:55

difficult, hard, painful things. So it's precisely

11:58

out of that very clear

12:00

eyed, noble take on

12:02

both the negativity bias of the brain and

12:05

the reality of the challenges that we

12:07

will all face in this life. Based

12:10

on that, uh, to me, it's really important

12:13

to recognize in that mosaic

12:15

of reality in your life the good

12:18

facts as well as the bad facts. And

12:20

we have a brain is biased as a kind

12:22

of well intended universal learning learning

12:24

disability to overlook the

12:26

good facts, generally speaking, while

12:29

we continually scan for the bad wounds. And

12:32

then if you do recognize a so called good

12:34

fact, you know, you finished the dishes,

12:36

you finally got the kids in bed, the

12:39

thing you worried about did not happen. Someone

12:42

has smiled at you. You see a flower

12:44

blooming. You're still alive today.

12:47

You recognize something inside

12:49

yourself like grit

12:51

or resilience or toughness, or

12:54

some kind of character virtue like patience

12:56

or generosity, whatever it might

12:58

be. You see the good fact,

13:00

and you let yourself feel something

13:02

as a result. Because most people, number

13:05

one, don't see all the good facts

13:07

or even a fraction of the many good

13:09

facts in daily life,

13:12

including in a tough, hard life. And

13:14

then second, whatever they tend to see,

13:16

they usually don't really feel it very much.

13:18

And then if they even see it and feel it, they

13:21

usually don't help their brain internalize

13:23

it encoded by resting attention

13:26

on the beneficial experience

13:28

that they're having for more than a few seconds

13:31

in a row. But if they don't stay

13:33

with it for more than a few seconds in a row, that

13:35

experience minimally, if

13:38

at all, encodes from

13:40

short term memory buffers to long term

13:42

storage. The fundamental process

13:45

of conceptual learning. But

13:47

more to our purposes here, the

13:50

process of feeding the wolf

13:52

inside wolf the wolf back inside.

13:55

That would care about feeding um

13:57

resilience and determination, is feeding

14:01

gratitude and happiness, contentment, feeding

14:03

a sense of um

14:06

uh, you know, relaxation inside, a

14:08

sense of closeness with other people, a commitment

14:10

to sobriety, commitment to exercise, what have

14:13

you. If that's what we care to feed

14:15

inside. That's a two stage process

14:17

of learning that moves from short term

14:19

memory buffers to long term storage, from

14:22

state to trade, from activation to

14:24

installation. And what I'm

14:26

talking about is recognizing

14:30

the ordinary good facts of daily life

14:32

that are real that you tend to overlook. And

14:35

then on the basis of that recognition

14:38

or on the basis of any beneficial

14:40

experience you're already having, like

14:43

a sense of completion, when you get a tough

14:45

email out the door, or a

14:47

sense of fun or fellowship

14:49

with friends, or a sense of spiritual

14:52

development of any kind. When you're having those beneficial

14:55

experiences at least a few times

14:57

a day, don't waste them. Don't

14:59

let them pass through your brain like

15:01

water through a sieve. Meanwhile, with

15:04

negative experiences getting caught every time

15:07

routinely, and instead of that, actually

15:10

take charge of the structure building

15:12

processes of your own brain from

15:15

the inside out. The essence

15:17

really of a tough minded self reliance

15:20

at least a handful of times every day,

15:22

you know, staying with those beneficial experiences

15:25

to really register

15:28

them, so you gradually internalize

15:30

them um increasingly

15:32

as resources you could draw upon when

15:35

the going gets tough, and also draw upon

15:37

just for ordinary happiness. You

15:58

call this process taking in the good, and

16:00

you have an acronym for it or for the steps,

16:02

which is heal um. Have

16:04

a good experience, um,

16:08

enrich it and then absorb

16:10

it. And then the last is to length the positive

16:12

and negative material. I want to

16:14

talk a little bit about steps two

16:17

and three. So have a good experience. I think

16:19

you talked in the book a lot about a big part

16:21

of that is actually be aware of and paying

16:23

attention to things that are positive

16:25

and and I agree with your point, there

16:28

are there are good things in nearly

16:30

every life. UM, I am

16:32

not good at those next two steps about

16:35

enriching and absorbing. An example

16:37

I would give is like I will do

16:40

gratitude, UM,

16:43

but it it tends to be more of a mental

16:45

exercise sometimes, which is not I

16:47

still think it's better than not having the mental exercise.

16:49

But how do I take a UM,

16:52

you know, somebody says something nice to me during the

16:54

day. How do I enrich

16:57

and absorb that? What are Because I've

16:59

played with that since I've been reading your book, and

17:02

I'm seeing benefits from the whole process.

17:05

But I feel like I'm not getting those steps

17:07

two and three very well. Well thanks for

17:10

saying all that, Eric, You've made

17:12

me think about using your metaphor

17:14

of the wolf you feed, I mean when

17:17

you have it. So let's kind

17:19

of make it real. Let's suppose that, UM,

17:22

maybe in your family you have a

17:24

nice sense of connection or closeness with

17:27

a child, or let's

17:29

say that just in an ordinary

17:31

day, it's been a stressful, rushing

17:33

about day. Finally you

17:36

get a chance to sort of relax

17:38

maybe take a shower, or maybe a work

17:41

out a little bit, maybe just sit and watch

17:43

some TV with your family or

17:45

by yourself, whatever's it. Relaxing.

17:47

Okay, you're having some kind of a beneficial

17:49

experience. So to use the metaphor of the wolf,

17:52

you're holding a food, you

17:55

know, against the wolf's mouth, and

17:57

maybe even the wolf is tasting

17:59

it. The wolf is now chewing on

18:01

this experience of closeness with family

18:04

members or relaxation

18:06

or accomplishment. But then the question

18:08

becomes, if you really want to feed that

18:10

wolf, the wolf has to swallow

18:13

the food the wolf, Yeah, it has

18:15

to actually take it in and then metabolize

18:17

it from the inside out. And to a larger

18:19

point, you know, Um,

18:21

we continually learn things,

18:24

and we continually often go about teaching

18:26

people things, but how often do we learn

18:29

how to learn? Or how often do we teach

18:31

how to learn? And in the words, we say, it all

18:33

depends on the wolf you feed. How

18:36

do you get that wolf to swallow

18:38

and metabolize whatever it is we're

18:40

feeding him? Or let's say, so that's what

18:42

we're getting in here in the second and third steps exactly

18:45

right. So the neuropsychology

18:48

of learning. UM has been

18:50

widely studied in terms of more conceptual

18:53

material. Unfortunately, it's not

18:55

been very studied in terms of

18:57

emotional, motivational,

19:00

attitudinal, social, somatic,

19:03

even spiritual kinds of learnings that we really

19:05

care about. Right, So what I've done is applied

19:07

to those sorts of learnings, very standard

19:10

findings that come mainly

19:12

from the realm of cognitive psychology, but are

19:14

really well established and they make common

19:16

sense. Basically, it says that,

19:18

look, if you want to steep in the learning

19:21

curve, including from an experience

19:23

let's say of gratitude, there are

19:25

five well known factors that

19:27

will steep in your learning curve from that experience

19:30

over the course of five, ten, or twenty seconds

19:33

one duration. You know, as you know,

19:35

there's a saying in neuroscience UM neurons

19:37

have fired together, wired together. So

19:39

the longer those neurons are firing,

19:42

the more they're going to be wiring five

19:44

ten, twenty seconds in a row second

19:46

intensity. The more intensely you

19:49

experience let's say, gratitude, UM,

19:51

you know, you really feel

19:54

it, are you really think about

19:56

it, like, oh my god, I am so grateful,

19:59

you know for that particular thing, the

20:01

more intensely those neurons are firing, the

20:03

more intensely they're going to be wearing. A third

20:05

factor, I sum it up with the word multimodality.

20:09

All I mean by that is the richer

20:11

the experience, the better. There's

20:13

a place for internalizing

20:16

thoughts represented my language

20:18

were more sort of visual or

20:21

imagery based, like a sense of perspective

20:23

or a framework for how we look at

20:25

things. All right, So there's a

20:27

place for internalizing the thought of gratitude,

20:30

like wow, I'm very fortunate that

20:32

my parents, you know, made efforts

20:35

to bring me up in this world are

20:37

all. I'm grateful for living in a time

20:39

in which you and I can communicate

20:41

with each other through a technology like

20:43

Skype. That's great, but it's

20:45

just a thought. It doesn't have that much impact.

20:48

The more that we allow the experience

20:50

to be um sensed

20:52

in the body, and the more that we have

20:55

it has an emotional component,

20:57

And even the more that we link

21:00

a sense of desire to the experience, the more

21:02

modalities in other words, of experience

21:05

that we're engaging, the richer

21:07

than neural traits. As you know, any fourth

21:09

grade school teacher knows, and then

21:11

really fast the fifth and the fourth and fifth

21:14

factors of enriching our novelty.

21:16

The more that we can relate to our experiences

21:19

kind of through the eyes of a child. As

21:21

you know, there's probably as you probably know, there's a saying 'sen

21:23

mind beginner's mind. Um

21:25

yeah, the more we're gonna you know,

21:28

encode the experience. And then last, the

21:30

more we have a sense of salience, personal relevance.

21:33

Why should I care? You know, why would it matter

21:35

to me? Let's say, to deepen

21:37

the experience of gratitude. That's

21:39

those and you don't need to do all of those.

21:42

Where it mostly shows up for people is around

21:44

duration, intensity, and

21:46

feeling it in the body. The more

21:48

the better. Okay. Then what

21:52

also can steep in the learning curve from

21:54

different from episodes of learning

21:56

opportunities? And when I say learning, I don't mean memorizing

21:58

the multiplication table. I mean internalizing

22:01

a growing sense of grit or resilience,

22:04

or loving kindness or compassion for others.

22:06

That kind of learning. You know, if

22:08

you sense and intend that

22:11

this experience is really sinking into

22:13

you, in other words, you're absorbing it, that's

22:16

the A step in the H G A L.

22:18

He'll acronym you're absorbing it. As

22:20

you said, the more you sense and intend

22:22

that the experience is going into you like water coming

22:24

into a sponge or um

22:27

kind of giving yourself over to the experience

22:30

or warmth spreading out into your

22:32

body. The more that you do that, the

22:34

more that you will be um

22:36

priming and sensitizing memory

22:38

making systems. So that's the essence

22:41

really, if you think of it, the fundamental

22:43

neuropsychology of learning. I didn't

22:46

invent it. I've only tried to kind

22:49

of summarize and

22:51

apply this really well

22:53

established understanding about learning,

22:56

and to do so in a context

22:58

in which I think people in

23:01

psychology, human resources,

23:03

training, character, development of children, self

23:05

help, you know, practical wisdom

23:08

coaching, mindfluence training, etceteracetera,

23:10

etcetera, me included, have

23:13

overvalued the activation

23:16

phase of learning, the initial step

23:18

around having some kind of

23:20

beneficial experience. That's important.

23:23

You know, the brain is

23:25

not like an iPod. It's like an old school cassette

23:27

recorder. You record the song

23:30

by playing it. We need to have the experience

23:32

in the first place. That's activation, all

23:34

right, But most people

23:36

be included, certainly in the past, in

23:39

the general territory of psychology or

23:41

self help or human development. UM

23:44

have not paid enough attention to the

23:46

installation phase of learning, the two

23:48

second and third steps that you've properly

23:50

highlighted here. And because

23:53

we haven't paid enough attention to

23:55

the installation phase of learning, we've

23:57

lost many, many opportunities

24:00

to turn passing beneficial

24:02

states into lasting beneficial

24:05

traits. And that's why if a person wants

24:07

to really steep in their learning curve as they

24:09

grow through daily life, don't

24:12

just notice the beneficial experiences

24:14

you're already having, or look for

24:16

natural opportunities to deliberately create

24:18

them. Don't just do that that's

24:21

good, that's just the beginning. Take

24:23

the time a dozen or those seconds

24:25

at a time to enjoy the

24:27

experience, stay with it

24:30

so you don't waste it on your own brain. Yeah,

24:32

I mean, I think that is so true,

24:34

that idea that particularly

24:37

in our culture today. I think we learn so

24:39

much, we consume so much information,

24:42

and so little of it translates into

24:44

anything that sticks with it

24:46

or is actually becomes part of

24:48

our life. Uh, something that we do.

24:50

I often say, it's not what you know, it's

24:53

what you do. UM Or I think I'm

24:56

I doubt, I'm the first person that said then, but and

24:58

I agree with what you're saying. So let's

25:00

think about this installing process.

25:03

So I have a good experience and

25:05

I'm looking for duration

25:07

and intensity, and what I find happens

25:10

is that similar to like what I'm

25:12

trying to be mindful, like meditating, I

25:15

feel the good experience. I think, okay,

25:17

I should should feel more of this good experience,

25:20

or I should dive deeper into it than my mind

25:22

wanders, or my mind goes into what you

25:24

know, it's it stays and

25:26

is it? Is it just a matter of continuing to try

25:29

it and getting better at it like anything else. Yeah,

25:31

I think that the short version is that

25:34

we all know how to take into good If

25:36

I was to really summarize all the

25:39

neuropsychological complexity here,

25:41

it would be in four words, have

25:43

it, enjoy it. In other

25:45

words, have the beneficial experience,

25:48

usually because you're already having

25:50

it in the words, you're already are you

25:52

know, feeling close with your partner, or

25:55

you're already relaxing,

25:57

or you're already um for

26:00

only determined and capable you

26:02

know to face the challenge, or you're already

26:05

having a sense of accomplishment or completion

26:07

around some tax task. It's

26:10

already happening, right. And

26:12

another key point here is that these

26:14

experiences and also opportunities for

26:16

experience are typically

26:19

mild. These are not million dollar moments.

26:21

Most of them, you know, on the zero ten intensity

26:24

scale. They're the ones and twos of everyday

26:26

life. But when you're having

26:29

them draw upon the

26:31

natural um inclination

26:34

of the mind to lean towards what's

26:36

enjoyable, I will say, you're

26:39

just what you're saying, um

26:41

For. One of the interesting things is

26:43

that when people start

26:46

getting interested in this practice of actually

26:49

internalizing, uh,

26:51

you know, half a dozen times a day or so, if

26:53

not more, the ordinary

26:55

beneficial experiences of their day, they start

26:57

discovering amazing things. One they're not having

27:00

experiences they're completely in their head.

27:02

That was me, you know, throughout most of my childhood

27:05

into young adulthood. I was numb from the neck down.

27:08

And or they

27:10

are having fleeting beneficial

27:12

experiences that have more of an emotional

27:14

and embodied quality and therefore

27:17

have more of the raw material for

27:19

truly producing, you know, for

27:21

truly feeding those those

27:23

the good wolves, you know that that we want to develop.

27:26

I noticed that the good wolf is not about

27:29

memorizing the multiplication table or

27:32

you know, locating the I don't know what the

27:35

capital of the wolf of wolves. Yeah,

27:37

yeah, no, no, no, these are about character.

27:40

Terrible jokes, right, these are

27:42

experiential character qualities. Anyway.

27:44

My point is that, um,

27:47

you know, what people often bump into as

27:49

well, is they feel a kind of I

27:51

don't know what shame or

27:54

fear or inhibition about

27:57

just staying with a

27:59

beneficial experien areas for ten seconds

28:01

in a row, you know. And

28:04

what happens, though, is you start

28:07

this pride. You initially start, like a

28:09

lot of things, with deliberate top down

28:11

attention and intention. You know, you

28:13

say to yourself, Okay, I'll listen to Rick.

28:16

I'm gonna try this. No one needs to know I'm doing

28:18

it half a dozen times a day. When

28:20

I'm having this nice feeling, I'm going to give

28:22

an extra dozen or two dozen seconds

28:24

to really sense that it's sinking

28:26

in, to sink into it and let it

28:28

sink into me. All right. Uh. In

28:30

the beginning, it takes a little deliberate attention,

28:33

But what starts to happen is your body

28:35

knows. Your body naturally knows

28:38

how to stabilize in and rest

28:40

in a beneficial experience,

28:43

and so you,

28:45

you know, you start shifting from a kind of

28:47

white knuckle, top down effort into

28:49

more of a kind of intimacy with your own

28:52

body, a kind of inside out

28:54

receptivity where

28:57

you just it's

28:59

like and down next to a warm fire.

29:02

I think we all know how to come in from the cold

29:04

and sit down next to a warm fire and

29:06

just kind of receive it and

29:08

be humble enough to open

29:11

to it and let it come into ourselves.

29:38

You have a part in the book where you

29:41

you say, I'm just going to read it because I think it said

29:43

so well. And we talked about this

29:45

stuff on the show a lot.

29:47

You say when something difficult or uncomfortable

29:49

happens, when a storm comes to your garden.

29:52

The three ways to engage your mind give you a very

29:54

useful step by step sequence. First,

29:57

be with your experience, observe it and

30:00

accept it for what it is, even if it's painful.

30:02

Second, when it feels right, which could be a matter

30:05

of seconds with a familiar worried mind,

30:08

or months or years with the loss of a

30:10

loved one, begin

30:12

letting go of whatever is negative. Third,

30:15

again, when it feels right, if you've after

30:17

you've released some or all of what was a negative,

30:20

replace it with something positive. You got

30:22

it. That was

30:24

a tricky paragraph to write. It's

30:26

in, as you know, chapter one because it creates a

30:29

framework and it speaks to I

30:32

think. What I just think of is the three

30:34

great ways to engage the mind

30:36

to practice, the first being just be with what's

30:39

there. The second reduce what's negative.

30:41

Third, grow what's positive. And if

30:43

you use the metaphor of a garden, it

30:45

means first witnessing a garden,

30:48

second pulling weeds, and third planning flowers.

30:50

So I'm focusing here with you mainly

30:52

on planting flowers, but it's in the larger

30:55

context, and I would point

30:57

out that to be able to simply be with

30:59

them owned even in a radical

31:03

meditative sense of choiceless awareness,

31:06

bear witnessing. To be able to sustain

31:08

that choiceless awareness, you need to grow

31:10

a lot of flowers in your mind through training

31:12

so that you can stabilize that kind of

31:15

receptive, spacious awareness. And

31:17

then also if you reduce

31:20

the negative, if you, let's say, let go of

31:22

some belief that you're worthless

31:24

or you'll never find love, if you cannot

31:26

fit into your old pair of jeans if

31:29

you let that thought go, or maybe you release

31:31

some negative desire like wanting to get

31:33

hammered every night or what have you.

31:35

Um, it's not enough to just pull the weed.

31:38

You need to replace it with a flower otherwise,

31:40

as any gardener knows, the weeds come

31:42

back, right. So yeah, that's

31:45

why I think that one of the most powerful

31:48

um personal growth practices I

31:50

know, and I've been exposed to a lot of them,

31:52

both in the spiritual traditions as well as

31:54

in Western psychology,

31:56

one of the most powerful practices I know is

32:00

to use positive

32:03

experiences that are the natural antidote

32:06

to the old pain or old

32:08

deficits you carry around inside yourself,

32:11

and UM, by having

32:14

an experience today, that's the

32:16

natural antidote to that old pain. Using

32:18

myself as an example, if I were

32:20

to feel truly cared about today

32:23

and especially included

32:25

in a group, because that's a lot of where my pain

32:27

was as a very young, shy um

32:30

isolated kid growing through school, to

32:33

feel today that I'm included

32:35

and wanted in a group m

32:38

is a very powerful antidote

32:40

experience for me that addresses

32:43

directly those early experiences

32:45

I had in the words, those old experiences

32:48

of rejection, shame, feelings

32:51

of inadequacy, and so forth. And

32:53

so if I then use the linking step

32:56

um of holding both of those

32:58

in awareness at once, in effect act,

33:00

I'm using wheat apartment, I'm using flowers

33:03

to pull weeds. I'm using the here

33:05

and now current experience that's

33:07

authentic and legitimate, in

33:10

my example, feeling wanted

33:12

and included in let Santa group, I'm

33:14

using that here and now experience today

33:16

to gradually ease, sooth,

33:20

bring wisdom to, and

33:22

potentially replace those

33:25

old feelings of pain. And you

33:27

know, any single time you do this usually

33:30

will not be a million dollar moment. You won't

33:32

change your life. But the gradual

33:34

accumulation again, just like you

33:36

know, feeding of the wolves, the gradual

33:39

accumulation of food and the

33:41

gradual accumulation of which

33:43

wolf we choose to feed makes

33:45

an enormous difference. You

33:47

know, Bye bye bye Sinaps by sent

33:49

apps over the course of a person's life.

33:51

Yeah, there was a part in the book where you were explaining,

33:54

you were talking about exactly that you're

33:57

when you were younger, feeling not connected

34:00

and um and you said something that really struck

34:02

me, And you said you spent a lot of years thinking

34:05

that if you piled up enough achievements that

34:07

would fix it. And and and I think it's obvious

34:10

on one level, like, no, that doesn't work. But the way

34:12

you put it became really clear to me why it doesn't

34:14

work. Right, that's not even the problem.

34:16

The problem you're you're using

34:19

the wrong tool for the job in that case,

34:21

not that piling up achievements are doing

34:23

positive things. Achieving can't

34:25

help you feel better in other areas

34:27

of your life, but it's not going to fix it that right,

34:30

Um, You're exactly right, and thinking

34:33

of a way into this um. One

34:35

of the things that motivated me to

34:37

write the book, which is far mass a

34:39

general audience UM hard borrowing happiness.

34:41

But but also I was motivated

34:44

as someone who has

34:46

a deep interest and that

34:49

enormously psychological theory

34:51

of human suffering and happiness that was

34:54

created by the Buddha years

34:56

ago. Those summary being the four Noble truths.

34:58

The idea, as you know, there suffering

35:00

suffering as a cause, the cause being

35:03

craving. That's the second truth, the third

35:05

being there can be an end to that cause

35:07

and thus an end to that craving UM.

35:10

And then there's the fourth noble truth of

35:12

what's the path leading

35:14

to the end of craving in therefore

35:16

suffering? Well, I work backwards,

35:19

you know, in terms of reverse engineering, and I try to

35:21

operationalize what in the world

35:23

is going on in the brain of a Buddha or

35:26

you know, a sage or a saint or any one of

35:28

us when we're in a really good place,

35:31

what's going on? And that had led

35:33

me to developing a framework that

35:36

um, you know, is very rested

35:38

end frameworks that other people have developed that are

35:40

very solid connected to the

35:42

three stage evolution of the brain from

35:45

its reptilian brain stamp through

35:47

its mammalian subcortex with

35:49

stuff in it like the magdala and

35:51

hippocampus, and then the primate

35:54

and especially human cortex

35:56

that sits on top of that. And that

35:58

three stage evolution of the brain gives

36:00

us a framework, a kind of roadmap

36:03

for identifying what are those

36:05

experiences that will help us

36:07

the most when internalized

36:10

again and again and again, I say, ten

36:12

thousand times, ten seconds at a time

36:15

gradually reset our personal

36:17

brain so that we move

36:19

increasingly from states

36:22

of underlying sometimes

36:25

often subtle background senses

36:27

of deficit or disturbance that

36:30

are the underlying causes of the craving

36:32

that causes suffering and harm in

36:34

the second noble truth, and we gradually,

36:36

over time, through repeated internalization

36:39

of UH certain kinds of

36:41

experiences UH, move out

36:43

of that underlying sense of deficit

36:46

not enoughness, to a sense of fullness.

36:49

And we move out of that underlying sounds

36:51

of disturbance increasingly to a sense of

36:53

balance. And those three stages

36:56

of the brain's evolution give us

36:58

the roadmap in terms of what I think of

37:00

as our three basic needs for safety,

37:03

satisfaction, and connection, which

37:05

are very linked to that

37:08

reptilian and Melian and primate

37:10

human layering as it were

37:13

of the brain. So long story short,

37:15

if you realize as I did, that

37:17

my real needs were having to

37:19

do with connection,

37:22

not with satisfaction or with safety,

37:25

then it means that to address

37:28

your real need you need to take medicine

37:30

as it were, or vitamins

37:32

that address your need. And so in

37:35

my own case, even though my issues were

37:37

very much in terms of connection and feeling

37:40

rejected, excluded and whatnot, I

37:42

tried to pile up experiences in which

37:44

I felt tough and manly and defended

37:47

to you know, take care of safety. Well,

37:50

maybe that's good to a point, but it did

37:52

not address my need for connection. It

37:54

was as if I had scurvy in terms

37:56

of my needs for connection. I needed vitamin

37:59

C. So I'd go out and I would take all kinds

38:01

of iron, as if I had anemia

38:03

in terms of safety needs. But it didn't

38:05

help me. And also, as you said, I

38:07

tried to pile up a lot of accomplishments, gets

38:10

lots and lots of satisfaction, have

38:12

a lot of fun, you know, enjoy my life

38:14

in a lot of ways. Okay, maybe there's a place

38:16

for that too, But that was like taking B

38:19

vitamins for my scurvy. It didn't

38:21

work. It was only when I started really

38:24

really looking for what would help that

38:26

things changed for me. That makes a lot of sense. I

38:28

wanted to ask you. You've you've written

38:31

several books. You are a researcher,

38:33

You're always reading other people's research. I'm

38:36

curious what ideas are you being

38:38

introduced to now or pursuing or

38:40

reading about that have you really excited? Wow,

38:43

that's a great interesting question.

38:46

You know. I'll tell you a couple. One

38:49

is the idea that and

38:52

these are linked ideas that

38:54

um at a

38:57

macro scale, the

38:59

human in species today

39:02

actually planet wide, has

39:05

the know how and the resources

39:08

for the very first time in human

39:10

history. Maybe roughly this has been the

39:12

case for twenty

39:15

forty ors so years, but basically

39:17

for the very first time in our

39:19

entire duration on this planet

39:22

as a species hundred fifty thousand

39:24

years or so, let alone

39:26

our ancestors going back another

39:29

two million plus years, two ancestors

39:32

that first began making stone tools. During

39:34

the entire time, there were not

39:36

the object of conditions

39:39

that would enable us truly

39:41

to take care of the safety, satisfaction

39:43

and connection needs, you know, the inner

39:45

lizard, mouse, and monkey inside us, all

39:48

of every human being on the planet. And

39:51

yet now we actually have the

39:53

resources to be able to do that. We

39:55

as a species, like the will. We're

39:58

not making sure, for example, that

40:00

a billion people don't go to sleep

40:03

hungry every night, which is the case

40:05

worldwide. We have not made

40:07

sure in the richest country on the planet,

40:09

America, that we

40:12

don't have one in five children nationwide

40:14

living below the poverty line. So obviously

40:17

we have to bring will to bear, and it's

40:19

not just enough even to have the

40:21

physical resources available for people

40:23

we have to help people really

40:26

register the felt sense of

40:28

core needs, safety, satisfaction and

40:30

connection being met. Otherwise, we have

40:32

lots and lots of people who,

40:35

even though they have plenty of safety,

40:37

they still feel afraid. Even though they have you

40:40

know, plenty of resources, money in the

40:42

bank, food and refridge, consumer

40:44

goods hanging in their closet, they still feel an

40:46

emptiness inside they're trying to fill with various

40:48

pleasures. And even though they're

40:51

you know, really well connected to

40:53

other people and they're not actually being threatened,

40:56

they still are very attached to us

40:58

versus them, tribalisms, various

41:00

kinds. But the net of it all is that

41:02

new science is showing you really do have the wherewithal

41:05

to make a fundamental change in the course of

41:07

human history, so that we have the actual

41:10

material conditions that would

41:12

enable every brain on the planet to actually

41:15

rest in what I call the green zone,

41:17

which is a kind of quick and dirty approximation

41:20

to the third noble truth in Buddhism mind

41:22

in which there's not much basis if at all, if

41:24

any at all for craving. That's one thing

41:26

that gives me jazz. Well, I think that is

41:29

a great place to end this

41:31

has been really enjoyable. Rick, I thank

41:33

you for taking the time. I know you're getting ready to go

41:35

on some extensive travels, so thanks

41:37

for freeing up some time. Eric. It was truly

41:39

a privilege to be here. I mean, what you're doing

41:42

is a big service, and um

41:44

I look at the quality of your other

41:46

guests and I'm very honored

41:50

to be in their company. Well, thank you so much.

41:52

I appreciate it. Take care, take care of you to m

42:11

you can learn more about Rick Hanson and this

42:14

podcast that one you feed

42:16

dot net slash Rick. Also,

42:18

if you're interested in the one on one program,

42:21

don't forget to send an email to Eric

42:23

at one you Feed dot Net. Thanks

42:26

bye,