0:00

Misery is actually our ally because

0:02

there's energy in there, there's carrying

0:04

in there, there's motivation in there. Welcome

0:14

to the One You Feed. Throughout

0:16

time, great thinkers have recognized the

0:18

importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes

0:21

like garbage in, garbage out,

0:23

or you are what you think ring

0:25

true. And yet for many of

0:27

us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower

0:29

us. We tend toward negativity,

0:32

self pity, jealousy, or

0:34

fear. We see what we don't have

0:36

instead of what we do. We think

0:38

things that hold us back and dampen our

0:40

spirit. But it's not just about

0:42

thinking. Our actions matter. It

0:45

takes conscious, consistent, and creative

0:47

effort to make a life worth living. This

0:50

podcast is about how other people keep themselves

0:52

moving in the right direction, how they

0:54

feed their good wolf. Thanks

1:10

for joining us. Our guest on this episode

1:13

is Stephen Hayes, and this is his

1:15

second time on the One You Feed podcast.

1:17

He's a professor of psychology at

1:19

the University of Nevada Reno. Stephen

1:22

is also the author of forty three books

1:24

and more than six hundred scientific

1:26

articles. He's served as the president

1:29

of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive

1:31

Therapy and the Association

1:33

for Contextual Behavioral Science.

1:36

He is one of the most cited psychologists

1:39

in the world. His new book is A

1:41

Liberated Mind, How to Pivot

1:43

Toward What Matters. Hi,

1:46

Stephen, Welcome to the show. I am

1:48

good to be with you again again.

1:50

Indeed, yes, one of my favorite

1:52

interviews was our earlier interview, and

1:54

you have a new book out called A Liberated

1:57

Mind, How to Pivot Towards What

1:59

Matters. I'm really excited to jump

2:02

into that. But let's start like we always do,

2:04

with the parable. There is a grandfather

2:06

who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life,

2:09

there are two wolves inside of us that are

2:11

always a battle. One is a good wolf,

2:13

which represents things like kindness and

2:16

bravery and love, and the other

2:18

is a bad wolf, which represents things

2:20

like greed and hatred and fear. And

2:23

the grandson stops and thinks about it for a second.

2:25

He looks up at his grandfather. He says, well, grandfather,

2:27

which one wins? And the grandfather

2:30

says that the one you feed. So I'd

2:32

like to start off by asking you what that parable

2:34

means to you in the work that you

2:36

do and in your life. Well, it means a lot.

2:39

And I think it's becoming clear

2:41

to me that both of those wolves within

2:44

have a role. They both have a message

2:46

for us, and yes, we want

2:48

to feed one over the other, but

2:50

we want to kind of listen to both and

2:53

find even inside some of those

2:56

dark places that they go, that

2:58

we're yearning for something that is reflected

3:00

in the positive places that we know how to take

3:03

our lives wonderful. Yeah,

3:05

you're known for being one of the founders of

3:07

acceptance and commitment therapy,

3:09

which if I had to summarize, and

3:12

I'm summarizing a lot in a very

3:14

small amount, but a big piece

3:16

of act is not to eliminate

3:19

negative thought and emotion, but to learn

3:21

to live with them in a more skillful way

3:24

and then act sort of in a way that

3:26

is in accordance with our values. Yeah, exactly.

3:29

And that's been about a forty year journey of

3:31

both science and clinical practice and extending

3:33

it out almost any area that human

3:35

beings can think of, you know, in sports and

3:37

business and health matters and so forth.

3:40

So it's now sitting on top

3:42

of an enormous body of work, much larger

3:44

than when we talked, because it's happening so

3:46

fast now from the worldwide community.

3:49

But part of what I've not really

3:51

discovered, but that I've really kind of realized

3:53

going forward is that it

3:56

it's not so much just making

3:58

room for what's negative, but as

4:00

I said at the very beginning, even learning from

4:02

it, because there's something inside

4:05

our misery that is really

4:07

important to us if we know how to see it.

4:10

And it's basically, what is

4:12

the problem we're trying to solve or

4:14

trying to solve it in a way that creates

4:17

problems, huge problems, But

4:19

we're not trying to disturb ourselves.

4:21

We're not trying to get stuck and called a sex.

4:23

That's not the purpose. There's a there's

4:25

a good purpose buried in

4:27

there. And turns out those

4:30

are the same purposes that are

4:32

right inside the processes that we

4:34

now know sitting on more

4:36

than three thousand studies that lift

4:39

up and carry lives forward. And if you

4:41

see that, then you can be a little

4:43

kinder with yourself when you're struggling, because

4:45

you you realize there's actually something valuable

4:48

in there. It's just you can't

4:50

get there this way. And

4:52

that's what's the intelibrated mind is building

4:55

out that full realization which really sort

4:57

of makes the whole act work feel

4:59

a little more mature, and it

5:02

makes it a lot easier to apply to lots

5:04

of places that are beyond strictly mental

5:06

health or substance abuse problems. Right.

5:08

You say early in the book that the things that

5:10

have the power that causes the most pain

5:13

are often the things we care about most

5:15

deeply. The other directly linked. I mean,

5:17

it's easy to think about it. And

5:19

all you've got to do is take something you really struggle

5:21

with, start with the negative ones. It's one of

5:23

the most powerful ways in and

5:26

then just literally write it down a sheet of

5:28

paper, flip it over, and then write down what does

5:30

that suggest you care about? And yeah, you've

5:32

got a solution for it. You know, if you're really

5:34

feeling anxious given a talk, you know

5:36

your solution might be to get rid of the anxiety.

5:39

But when you flip over the sheet of paper and say,

5:41

what does that really care about? You know, if I could

5:43

just magically put fairy dust in your head

5:45

and you wouldn't have any anxiety, you

5:47

still wouldn't have accomplished what you came to accomplish.

5:50

And so maybe what you're anxious about, for example,

5:52

is being with people and being accepted in love.

5:55

Maybe it's making a contribution. Maybe

5:57

it's being genuine or authentic, or you

6:00

know, being a whole person, or being more mindful

6:02

and aware to be more present, to live your life

6:04

more fully. I don't know what it is, but I

6:06

know one way to find it

6:08

is to take what you're struggling with and just flip

6:10

it over and allow your

6:12

pain to speak to you. And it

6:15

will whisper to your messages about

6:17

your purpose. And it reverses

6:19

true too. If you think about where you really

6:22

really care about, you'll realize that those

6:24

are the places you're vulnerable. I

6:26

mean you can feel it. I mean, if you, if

6:29

you really care about being into intimate and

6:31

committed relationships, as soon as somebody

6:33

shows up where that might happen, you

6:35

find yourself, you know, squirm and

6:37

then creating fights for no reason,

6:40

and you know, not answering the phone, I

6:42

mean, what are you doing. What you're doing

6:44

is protecting yourself from her because

6:47

you know that, you know inside

6:49

the suite is the end of

6:51

it. You know we are going to

6:54

die. Life is limited, and

6:56

you know, just looking at your children in the face

6:59

or the eyes of your lover you feel it, you feel

7:01

vulnerable, and that's

7:04

the way it comes. That's the package.

7:07

And so Act is all about how

7:09

to take the whole of it and

7:11

to to learn from both sides of it

7:14

and to focus on what's important and create

7:17

a life worth living. So one of the

7:19

fundamental ideas at the heart

7:21

of this book is the idea of psychological

7:24

flexibility. So tell me

7:26

what psychological flexibility

7:28

is. Well, it's kind of like

7:31

a box with six sides, or

7:33

you can sort of break it up into three pillars.

7:35

It's really turns out it's one thing. It's like it's

7:37

one box even though it has six sides. But the

7:40

short version would be psychological

7:43

flexibility is to be able to come into this

7:45

moment consciously with your

7:47

thoughts and feelings and memories and bodily sensations

7:50

that that moment contains as they are,

7:52

not as what they say they are you fear

7:54

them to be, and then be able

7:56

to direct your attention and the flexible,

7:59

fluid, voluntary way towards

8:01

what brings meaning and purpose into your

8:03

life by choice, not by

8:05

shoods and knots and must and have two is

8:08

not by guilt and shame, not by mama

8:10

telling you it has to be so, but by the choices

8:12

you make, and then to build

8:14

out habits of action, actual things

8:17

you do with your life moments that contain

8:19

those qualities. So you could

8:21

say it more quickly, it's accepting,

8:24

showing up, and moving on. And

8:27

that combination of being open, aware,

8:29

and actively engaged in life hangs

8:32

together. They all fit together, just

8:34

like puzzle pieces. You feel

8:36

the missing if it's gone, it's

8:38

like taking two sides out of a box. It would

8:40

be a floppy box the same way.

8:43

And we think we've kind of cracked the code. We think

8:46

that those six things are the simplest

8:48

formulation that does the most

8:51

good in the most areas

8:53

of human life. And I can say that

8:55

not as a hope or a wish or a claim or

8:58

personal experience. I'm now

9:00

sitting on top of an enormous body

9:02

of work by a very large community over

9:04

nearly four years, and it comports

9:07

with our wisdom traditions, it comports

9:09

with our personal experience, but

9:12

it also fits good old fashioned

9:14

Western science. And that's a really cool

9:16

combination. Yeah, yeah, it definitely

9:19

is. And so psychological flexibility

9:22

shows up and really

9:24

correlates very well with people's ability

9:27

to be successful in different things

9:30

they're doing. You reference a ton of studies,

9:32

but one of them showed that the level of psychological

9:34

flexibility overweight people have

9:37

correlates directly with their ability to

9:39

lose weight, engage in exercise, and stop

9:41

binging. Conversely, the

9:44

opposite of psychological flexibility is

9:46

psychological rigidity, and

9:48

that predicts anxiety, depression,

9:51

substance abuse, eating disorder, on

9:53

and on and on. So what is psychological

9:56

rigidity, Well, when you get entangled

9:58

with your thoughts and they're of woidant of your feelings,

10:01

memories, bodily sensations, and

10:03

you allow your attention to be jerked

10:05

to the past or future through rumination

10:08

or worry, you sort of buy

10:10

into that story of who you are and how you're

10:12

different, special from other people, whether it's

10:14

especially disturbed or difficult, or

10:17

or needy, especially wonderful and

10:19

perfect either way, that kind

10:21

of storied self and

10:24

then harnessing all of that to

10:26

trying to get approval and achievement

10:29

instantly, without trial and error, without

10:31

failure, slipping, falling and learning springing

10:34

forth from the head of zeus. You're just gonna

10:37

march on with this uh competence.

10:40

That's going to give you not necessarily

10:43

a deep sense of values

10:45

and purpose, but applause,

10:48

money, fame, and all those kind

10:50

of superficial things that the mind grasps

10:52

after or just plain happiness

10:54

to find as a happy, happy joy joyce

10:56

Miley face button, not the real

10:59

kind of happiness, which is this life

11:02

well lived as a whole person.

11:04

So it's pretty much a direct

11:07

inverse. And those six processes

11:09

also hang out together. They feed on each

11:11

other. They are like more like a

11:13

pack of wolves than a single wolf, and

11:16

they will eat anything you put

11:18

in front of it. I mean, if you want to have relationships

11:21

at work, or you want to be able to have a successful

11:23

business, or lose weight or diet

11:25

or exercise, or get through cancer diagnosis,

11:29

or deal with a substance use

11:31

problem or anxiety or depression, on

11:33

on. It accounts

11:35

for a large share, and

11:38

compared to other sets of processes,

11:40

more than any other that science can

11:42

name. So it's the There's

11:46

a lot of other things we can add and you

11:48

can build on it, and I'm very friendly

11:50

to that and open to that, but let's get the basics

11:53

down first. If you can get a solid foundation,

11:55

it's a whole lot easier to then build on

11:58

that solid foundation. And these

12:01

flexibility processes are like

12:03

building a house on rock and build

12:06

it on inflexibility. It's like

12:08

building on sand near the ocean.

12:10

Good luck with that. So the six processes

12:13

that you're talking about map towards

12:16

a big part of the book, which you refer

12:18

to as six key pivots.

12:20

So before we start going into those, let's

12:23

talk about what you mean by pivot.

12:25

A pivot is a connection

12:28

between a negative and the positive

12:31

set of steps. That's why I call them a

12:33

process just as a word meaning a procession

12:35

like a parade. It's a series of things, but

12:37

it's integrated that you're going from here and

12:39

towards there. You have the

12:41

negative ones, you have the positive ones, and they're paired.

12:44

But you know, a pivot is a little pin

12:46

and a hinge. And what a pivot

12:48

does is it takes energy that's going in

12:50

one direction and it moves it in another direction.

12:54

And you know, if you want to move, you don't want to be standing

12:56

still inertially kind of has to be

12:58

overcome if you do that. If you're antsing with somebody,

13:01

even if you're going to swing them around in a completely

13:03

different direction, it would be a lot better

13:05

to have them moving than to have them standing

13:07

still. And in the same way, it

13:09

turns out that misery is actually our

13:11

ally because there's energy

13:13

in there, there's carrying in there, there's motivation

13:16

in there. I mean, there's being screwed up

13:18

in there too, but that's

13:21

not what the way it has to be.

13:23

And just like if you push on a door in

13:25

one direction, the hinges move the door

13:27

in another direction, that opens up who

13:29

you can move forward. And those

13:31

are the pivots that I talked about

13:33

in the book. And so those six

13:36

things end up being six pairs, and

13:38

underneath them are six what I call

13:41

yearnings. You could call them needs,

13:43

or you just could call them motives. Needs

13:46

sounds to me a little demanding, but

13:49

I call them yearnings because that's the way they

13:51

often show up. I think if you sort

13:54

of settle down and really listen to yourself,

13:56

you can kind of feel yourself yearning

13:59

for up. Can I give you a sad example,

14:02

sure, please, Well, this is one of the saddest,

14:04

it's one of the most basic because it's the kind of

14:06

monkey we are. We yearned to

14:08

belong where the tribal primates,

14:11

where the small group primates where the cooperative

14:13

primates, and we come

14:16

into the world in such a way that if others

14:18

don't kick care of us, we die. But even as

14:20

adults, we get cast out from the troop. Literally

14:23

when the wild monkey land, you get cast

14:25

out from the troop. Is in the hominid

14:28

species, you very likely are not going

14:30

to live very long. We're even

14:32

wired for it. Our brain

14:34

is wired for it. You know, if you look at the eyes of

14:36

a brand new baby, they start dumping

14:39

natural opiates in their brain as soon as your

14:41

eyes lock onto them. Your genetics

14:43

are basically saying, yeah, that that's what

14:45

you want. You want that, you want that, and

14:47

you need to because otherwise you're not going

14:49

to be able to connect with others around

14:51

you. Right, So we come into that naturally.

14:53

But then we've got this new thing on the block

14:56

that you and I are doing right now, symbolic reasoning,

14:59

language, and cognition, and that's

15:01

probably on late Golli two

15:04

two million years old. That's the best guesses.

15:08

And when you're not too old, not

15:10

when you're a baby, not when you're a one year old,

15:12

not when you're that sweet innocent thing where

15:14

you just know how to connect and care, you

15:16

start talking to yourself about how

15:18

you're going to belong, and for the first

15:21

time you start to lie. For the first

15:23

time, you put on a mask. The

15:25

Greek name for a mask is the root of our word

15:28

personality. That's how basic

15:30

it is, you know. The claimant unmovable masks

15:33

were called personas, and

15:35

what that is

15:37

is the logical mind trying to

15:40

belong by producing specialness.

15:44

I'm smart, I'm loving, I'm

15:46

kind. You're kind all

15:49

the time with everybody. No,

15:51

you're lying. Of course you're not kind

15:53

all the time with everyone, but you dare

15:56

not even admit it yourself. That

15:58

persona, that clay, a fixed

16:00

rictus of a mask you put on has

16:03

to be maintained or otherwise you're not going to be let

16:05

in. And sometimes people try

16:08

to get let in by having stories

16:10

that are all negative. Oh i'm

16:12

so help so we have been

16:14

abused. It's sad, help

16:16

me, help me. And yeah, people

16:19

will let you in if you claim that your guy

16:21

grand or the weakest of the week. Either

16:23

way, you do get brought in. But

16:25

very soon people tire of it. They

16:27

see that it's a clown suit you're wearing, that

16:29

it's not a real whole open person.

16:32

They don't feel uplifted when they're around it.

16:34

Plus they themselves are struggling with the same

16:36

issue. So when you produce

16:38

belonging that way, it hollows

16:41

out. I can give you a really sad statistic.

16:43

I mean it just made me roll my eyes when I saw

16:45

it. Something like one out

16:48

of four, one out of five of your conversations,

16:50

especially when you're young, contain at

16:52

least a little white lie and exaggeration.

16:56

Oh, I only slept four hours

16:58

last night when you show up to your meeting,

17:01

Now you slept four and a half and you know

17:03

it, but you said four. Why

17:06

because then you're special. You're

17:09

someone who can function no

17:11

sleep. Here's like that.

17:14

Well, the people you tell those

17:16

tiny little white lies too you

17:19

now are significantly less

17:21

interested in ever speaking to again.

17:23

So isn't it sad We're

17:26

trying to earn our way in by these

17:28

little pretense and masks

17:31

and all that kind of stuff. Afraid

17:33

if we're just seeing as whole persons, that

17:36

will be rejected, which is the exact opposite,

17:39

because people yearn for connections like

17:41

that. You wake up when you have connections

17:43

like that. When people put aside the pretense,

17:46

but it's almost like we can't stop it because

17:48

the logical mind says you have to be special,

17:50

you won't be included, especially bad, especially

17:52

good, And then it hollows

17:54

it out. Even if it works

17:56

and they applaud and say you're so wonderful, part

17:58

of you says yeah, but if they really knew

18:01

your fraud, if they saw through

18:03

it, they wouldn't want to be with you. So

18:06

here you're trying to produce belonging, and even if

18:08

you get it, you don't get it. So

18:10

what I do in the book is walk through how are

18:12

you going to get belonging? How can you

18:14

get a real experience of belonging? And

18:17

it turns out you can get it by kind of a birthright,

18:20

which is consciousness itself. You go back

18:22

to that moment when your mamma looked in your eyes

18:25

metaphorically, you belonged

18:27

at that moment that you're seen by another

18:29

conscious being who's bringing you into

18:32

consciousness. And if you stop

18:34

dancing and prancing, and you

18:36

know all of the stories that you're buying into

18:38

and trying to make other people believe, and

18:40

you just slow down, open your eyes and look in

18:42

the eyes of the other people around you.

18:45

You're gonna see people wanting to connect

18:47

with you, and you're gonna see consciousness

18:50

there and similarity

18:52

there. Why because you're

18:55

part of the troop, you belong by birthright, you're

18:57

one of us, You're one of the goofy

18:59

CONTs as people, and so you know, instead

19:02

of playing for the pretense

19:04

and then getting nothing, why don't we go for

19:06

the substance. It turns out to be a

19:08

lot easier, it's a lot more

19:10

off lifting, it's a lot more real, and

19:13

yeah, it's more vulnerable. It is more vulnerable,

19:15

but it's so important

19:17

how the real thing, and you can

19:19

feel your life shift when you get it. So

20:00

let's turn to the first pivot, and it's

20:03

one that we talked about a fair amount in our

20:05

previous conversation, but I think is a really important

20:07

one, which is this idea of

20:09

diffusion. So it requires

20:11

pivoting from cognitive fusion to

20:14

diffusion. So let's first talk about kind

20:17

of what that is, because it's a pretty

20:19

core part of all of this work.

20:21

It's key and underneath the acceptance

20:24

and commitment therapy work as a whole research

20:27

program on a thing called relational frame

20:29

theory. Geeky stuff but we

20:32

think we've kind of figured out what is the core

20:34

of human language and cognition, and so we've

20:36

taken the time to build

20:38

an edifice that includes a really active

20:40

basic science program about how

20:43

is the world different when you begin to do

20:45

what you and I are doing right now. You

20:48

know, even non human animals

20:50

want to understand. They want things to fit together,

20:52

They want them to be predictable. You know,

20:55

non human animals will work for signals

20:57

that tell them what's going to happen, even

21:00

if it's going to tell them that something bad is going to

21:02

happen. You would think

21:04

you would not want to know the bad news. Humans

21:06

often don't, but non human animals

21:08

will work and work for little signals

21:10

that will just tell them things like you're

21:13

hardly going to get any food over the next ten

21:15

minutes, or there's a shock coming,

21:18

uh, and it doesn't stop the shock, but at

21:20

least you kind of know the lay of the land, right

21:22

And you think of how important that would be to a non

21:25

human animal to be able to survive. To do

21:27

that, you can see why you would want to explore

21:29

your environments, know what's going on and how it fit

21:31

together, know how they all kind of relate

21:34

one to the other. Once we've

21:36

got language going, we want to do the same thing.

21:39

But here's the problem. Language

21:41

is something that isn't just learned by experience.

21:44

It's learned by derivation. Anything

21:46

can relate to anything in any possible

21:49

way. Let's see if we play

21:51

a little game. Let's see if we can do it. I want you to

21:53

think of a noun any now, but don't tell me what

21:55

it is. I'll think of one too. It's one of my desktop

21:58

here, and then I'm going to say mine,

22:00

and I'll ask you to say yours. But we'll think of a relationship.

22:03

Let's do a weird one, like is

22:05

the father of Okay? So,

22:08

how is a pen the father of

22:10

an apple? An apple? Okay? If

22:12

you can't come up with an answer, your

22:15

life is going to end. So Eric better,

22:18

you better produce pen drew the apple?

22:21

Awesome? Pretty apt fits

22:23

right? Perfect? Yeah, except

22:25

here's the problem. I've done this hundreds

22:28

of times and there's always

22:30

an answer. So

22:32

either God so arranged the world that everything

22:34

is related to everything else in all possible ways.

22:38

Let's just do it. How's the apple the father of a pen?

22:41

It produces the ink for the pen. Good?

22:43

Yeah, it's good. Actually, when they came in

22:46

my mind is that you ate from the tree of knowledge,

22:48

and that gave you the capacity to produce

22:51

things like pan Then you absolutely could

22:53

make apple based ink. Of course you could, so

22:56

you see the game. So now here's the problem

22:59

if language allows, is that there's a two

23:01

way street between everything, but not

23:03

just same as also

23:06

different from opposite to better

23:08

than every possible

23:10

relation you can think of, even goofy ones

23:12

like is the father of I mean, how often

23:14

do you say that you

23:16

can always come up with an answer and the answer is

23:19

good. I mean, it fits, it's right, it's

23:21

real. No, it's not real. You

23:23

made it up. And so how

23:25

are you going to rein in that kind of a

23:27

wild horse. If what you seek

23:30

is this experience of understanding

23:32

and everything fitting together, so

23:34

let me apply it. Think of something

23:36

that you're proud of, and

23:39

let's just do self esteem the way people

23:41

usually try to do it. I'm

23:44

and then say the rest of the sentence, that's

23:46

so great and you're proud about go

23:49

ahead, and let's do it. I'm kind,

23:51

I'm kind. Listen real carefully,

23:54

and what do you hear? Does your

23:56

mind just settle down on that say, yeah, you are, I'm

24:00

kind accept when

24:03

I'm not exactly

24:05

For example, when I you

24:08

may not want to share this one when

24:11

I get irritated with my girlfriend. Awesome,

24:15

But what that was right there earlier?

24:18

I just brought it out right? You

24:20

with me on this, okay.

24:23

So if you're yearning for coherence

24:25

and understanding, that's built into

24:27

you even before language shows up. But

24:29

then language gives you two opinions about everything.

24:32

Do you know four year olds understand goofy on

24:35

one shoulder with horns and goofy on the other shoulder

24:37

with halos. Four year olds

24:40

they understand that it means they've already got

24:42

the argument going on inside their head. So

24:44

how are you going to get to peace of mind? Never

24:47

mind? Purpose? And that's really

24:49

what people want. I think it's people peace of mind,

24:51

but purpose, that's what people really want, is

24:53

a big part of what they want. And

24:56

so what we teach an act is to

24:58

give up on coherence

25:00

in it all fitting together inside

25:03

the language world literally,

25:07

because there's always a yep, but there's

25:09

always a pro and con list. If you try

25:11

to go all pro will give you cons. If

25:13

you try to go all con, it'll give you pros I'm

25:16

the worst of the worst, the lowest, lower human scum.

25:18

No one's lowered me. No,

25:20

I'm not that bad. I mean,

25:22

you'll argue with both sides, right.

25:25

So what we teach instead is

25:28

to learn how to

25:30

be guided by language. Take what's

25:32

useful, allow that to be a

25:35

kind of understanding. It

25:38

works, it's helpful. This is useful.

25:40

And then the cacaphony continues and you

25:42

notice it. Thank you mind very much for

25:45

trying to figure this all out. And

25:47

I've got some other things to do. I've heard that story

25:50

before. But if it says something in

25:52

that cacaphony like, oh, by the way, uh,

25:55

the text headline is one week away, This

25:57

is a good thing, you might miss

25:59

it otherwise. Oh, by the way, you've gotta the

26:01

one you feed podcasts. Remember that

26:03

that that was right there in your Google candle. Thank

26:06

you mind. I appreciate that. But

26:09

a lot of stists say it's just useless

26:13

to live in your life. So can we instead

26:15

learn how to take what's useful

26:17

and leave the rest. It

26:20

turns out we can, and it's a

26:22

big part of what the mindfulness traditions are

26:24

doing. It's a big part of the wisdom traditions are

26:26

spiritual traditions, or prayer traditions

26:28

are psychotherapy traditions. And

26:31

when we've kind of cracked that code, we've created

26:33

several hundred goofy

26:36

little things that you can do in thirty seconds

26:38

that sort of bumping in that direction, Like take

26:41

a negative thought that really grabs way too much

26:43

attention and sing it, say

26:46

it in the voice of your least favored politician,

26:50

to still it down to a single word, to say it over

26:52

and over again rapidly on an articoast.

26:54

We have, you know, example after example

26:56

after example of ways that you can

26:59

essentially put a leash

27:01

on that word machine in between

27:04

your ears and allow yourself

27:06

to breathe even as it

27:08

keeps chattering. And so what we're trying to do

27:10

here with diffusion, then is

27:13

to I'm going to quote part

27:15

of what you said, seeing thoughts as they actually

27:17

are ongoing attempts

27:20

at meaning making, and

27:22

then choosing to give them power only to

27:24

the degree that they genuinely service. So what you're

27:26

basically saying is that our

27:28

whole thought process, as you described

27:31

in the relational piece before, we're

27:33

trying to make meaning, we're trying to make narrative

27:36

out of what's happening. And

27:38

it's easier to then

27:41

see through that process

27:44

than it is to untangle that process.

27:46

And the examples you just gave

27:48

of this is linked to this, which is linked to

27:50

this, you can create relationships, is

27:52

that that linkage is so vast and

27:54

so complex that when we start trying

27:57

to pull on part of it, we're

27:59

pulling on all of it. So it's easier

28:01

just to see through the whole mechanism.

28:03

Yeah exactly. I mean, suppose apples

28:06

really freaked you out for some reason.

28:09

Well, now we've got a whole another way

28:11

to get to it, and you and I just did it. All I

28:13

have to do is say pen you

28:17

know, so it's just helpless

28:20

that you're gonna be able to clean that mess up.

28:22

And when you go in and try to rearrange

28:25

this, it's like trying to rearrange a black

28:27

widow spidernest. Have you ever seen one of those

28:29

things? That they exist here in you know?

28:32

And I've taught my son to recognize

28:34

it when it's quite young, because babies

28:36

can be hurt by back back widows and

28:39

very old people. Maybe I could be heard, but

28:41

but they have a very characteristic web. It looks

28:43

like an insane web, you know, like they've been eating

28:46

their own poison or something, because it's

28:48

just a tangled nothing of

28:50

a well, welcome to the

28:52

human mind, and you're gonna

28:54

go in there and say, oh, I don't like this thread. No,

28:57

because when you we've one more thing,

29:00

the whole thing may rearrange like a fractal

29:02

disc. And

29:04

you've had that happen, you know, You've had things like

29:06

a bad experience and now everything

29:08

looks different or a dream even so

29:11

it's happening when you're not even controlling it, and then your

29:13

whole day is influenced by the freaking dream,

29:16

even if you can't remember, it has a felt sense

29:18

that goes with it, and things look different. So

29:21

instead of trying to, you know, rein

29:24

in that wild horse, let's learn to back

29:26

up a little bit and watch it. Take

29:29

what's useful and respectfully leave

29:31

the rest, not leave it like an eraser, like

29:33

getting rid of it. I don't want to put my hand

29:35

in that web to try to get rid of it. I'm

29:38

just going to make more of a mess of it, and

29:41

I'm going to be building lots and lots of connections

29:43

to things that I've hoped it would

29:45

be smaller in my life, thus making

29:47

them bigger in my life. Like I've just made apple

29:50

bigger for everybody who's listening, kind

29:52

of stupidly bigger and bigger. But

29:54

it's bigger now and in a way that is

29:57

not very useful. Pen Apple

29:59

is just not very full. But somebody in this

30:01

audience is going to think pan apple over the next

30:03

hour. In fact, many

30:06

many people, right, And in fact,

30:08

if you try not to, there's data

30:10

on this. It's really important

30:13

not to think apple,

30:15

pan or pan apple. I

30:18

now have doubled the likelihood that

30:20

you'll think that, Thank

30:22

you very much, professor, right.

30:26

But of course we do that inside our own struggles.

30:29

We try not to think about the betrayal

30:31

of a former lover, or the

30:34

traumatic experience we've had, or the painful

30:36

emotion we felt, the scary

30:39

thought that showed up. So

30:41

we need to learn to do something else with that,

30:44

meaning making engine in between

30:46

our ears. You gave a couple of strategies

30:49

for cognitive diffusion then, and

30:51

and the examples we just kind of walked through

30:53

are sort of one of the critiques of cognitive

30:56

behavioral therapy, which part of

30:58

cognitive behavioral therapy is is hey,

31:00

just change your thoughts in your life

31:03

will get better. My question for

31:05

you is is there a place for

31:07

that though if your thoughts that you're having

31:09

are clearly mistaken.

31:11

So as an example, let's say I say

31:14

Bob passed me in the halliday

31:16

and did not look at me, so Bob hates

31:19

me, when the truth is Bob had a stomach

31:21

ache. Isn't it helpful for me to know the truth

31:24

in that case? And I see your point about you start

31:26

to weigh into the web, But I'm kind of curious

31:28

when you think, like, sort of all right, it's

31:30

worth if our thoughts are just playing incorrect

31:33

to to sort of correct them versus

31:36

completely disengaging. Yeah,

31:38

there's two places. If you actually look at the data

31:40

on cognitive reppraisal, cogn modification,

31:43

etcetera. In cognitive therapy CBT,

31:46

CBT is the most powerful set

31:48

of techniques. Act as kind of part of that family,

31:50

part of that tradition. I've been president of those societies,

31:53

etcetera. We kind of play nice with that

31:55

larger tradition, but we have some different assumptions

31:58

than classics CBT. But

32:00

if you look at the data on it, when reappraisal

32:03

and cognitive modification of cognitive

32:05

restructuring is helpful. It's helpful

32:07

because of cognitive flexibility,

32:09

of being able to think multiple things and then be

32:11

guided by the ones that are useful. And

32:14

it's even there in classic CBT, for

32:16

example, to still down to an irrational thought,

32:18

do a behavioral experiment. This

32:21

is even before people are trained to the technological

32:24

errors and challenge the thoughts, and

32:26

already that's producing some

32:28

of the larger effects sizes that are in CBT,

32:31

and some of the most movements. So we

32:33

found in controlled research

32:36

that here the critical parts

32:38

of this. If you truly are ignorant, you truly

32:40

don't know, information can be helpful.

32:44

And if you're thinking too narrowly and

32:46

you're not staying open up, open enough

32:48

to be guided by experience, thinking

32:51

more flexibly is helpful. But

32:54

the problem is, and the reason I've always been a little

32:57

concerned about it, is not that traditional

32:59

CBT he is trying to make people get

33:01

into these artificial thought

33:03

loops. But boy,

33:06

you don't have to go very far on the internet before

33:08

you find a lot of people who have internalized

33:11

this rule in CBT kind

33:13

of messages, which is don't

33:15

think that, think this. Yeah,

33:18

But as soon as you say don't think that, you just thought

33:20

that again, yeah. And if

33:22

you link it to thinking this, thinking this will

33:24

remind you of that. And

33:26

so you're right

33:29

on the edge of these suppressive,

33:32

self amplifying, artificial processes

33:34

that are known in the literature. And

33:36

why go social close. It's like we're playing

33:39

on the edge of the cliff. Come back away

33:41

from the edge of the cliff. And the part

33:44

of reappraisal modification, now that's really

33:46

important is thinking flexibly.

33:48

So for example, if the person passes,

33:50

you know, one possibility is they're mad

33:52

at you. Another possibility could be they had

33:54

a bad sleepless night,

33:56

or they have gas, or they're thinking about something else.

33:59

And now the next time you've

34:02

got multiple possible

34:05

alternatives. Let's let experience

34:07

teach you which of these thoughts are most

34:09

workable, which one help you the most

34:12

move you forward? And you know,

34:14

not what's literally true, because

34:17

to get in there, we really have to get into

34:19

the pros and colm lists and all of that. I mean,

34:21

we're into fully into the spider web

34:24

when we really now there's times

34:26

there are times, I know, for figuring

34:28

out where the thoughts are really true.

34:31

But mostly it's holding them more

34:33

lightly and getting more evidence and allowing

34:35

to be guided by you, and also remembering

34:37

there's a lot more to you than your logical

34:40

mind. You know things

34:42

at the level of your guts, of your intuition.

34:45

It's not magic, it's not woo woo,

34:47

it's experience that goes beyond language.

34:51

Can I give you an example, please?

34:53

All right, there's a little exercise I

34:55

do in the book and Imagination that have done it actually

34:57

in a research study that's going to come out soon, to

35:00

ask people to picture something they struggle

35:02

with it's really difficult, and

35:04

then to show me with their body, them

35:07

at their worst with that issue,

35:10

as if their body is like a sculptor,

35:12

and the only thing people would get is not a story

35:15

from you, not a word, but just to see your body,

35:17

and then they would know what's going on inside. And

35:20

then they asked them to do the same thing you

35:22

at your best with that same exact issue.

35:25

Now here's what shows up. Almost

35:28

universally, you at your best, your

35:30

head is up, your eyes are open, your arms and hands

35:32

are out, it's an open posture. Almost

35:35

universally. You at your worst, your

35:37

head is down, your eyes that are closed. You may fall fold

35:40

it over like a fetal position, your arms and hands around

35:42

your fists, maybe clenched. You're in

35:44

a defensive posture. Okay,

35:47

we all know that, but

35:49

we all defend ourselves when these things show up. So

35:53

we have the knowledge, but

35:55

we don't know how to implement the knowledge. In fact, we don't

35:57

even know we have the knowledge, because when we say

35:59

we know it, we mean no. Verbally,

36:02

we mean can say the sentence. Well,

36:04

there's more to us than that.

36:06

That's what emotions are for, That's

36:08

what memory is for, that's what felt sense

36:11

is for. This is not woo woo. It's

36:13

other learning processes that are a thousand

36:16

times more ancient than what you and I are doing

36:18

right now. Let let them play too, and

36:21

they'll be helpful to you in producing

36:23

a real sense of coherence and understanding

36:25

and feelings and competence in

36:27

the other things that are inside the other

36:29

pivots. We don't have time to walk through all six,

36:31

but every one of them, every pair has

36:34

a deep yearning that everybody's

36:36

got, And if you mismanage

36:39

it, life gets screwed up. Maybe you manage

36:41

it while life opens up and the book walks

36:43

through the data on that and how to do it. Let's

37:14

pick another pivot to talk

37:17

about, because we are going to run out of time

37:19

here soon. What do you think self

37:21

acceptance values? Why

37:24

don't we take values just because it's so

37:26

central? Okay, it's really

37:28

close to a word evaluate,

37:31

and it's almost the exact opposite of that,

37:35

because values have to have this quality

37:37

of just because assume

37:40

if you don't like it, meaning

37:42

by choice between me and the person

37:44

in the mirror. It's informed by our culture,

37:47

it's informed by our family. It's informed

37:49

by I don't mean you alone

37:51

in the corner, but I mean taking

37:54

responsibility. This is what

37:56

I want, not what I want as an

37:58

outcome, but what I want

38:00

right now to be revealed in

38:03

my behavior. And

38:07

you know I mentioned earlier flipping over pain

38:09

and finding purpose there. You

38:11

can do it with sweet spots too, but

38:14

let me do one that's kind of neat. I think that

38:16

comes from this sense of

38:18

belonging and connection. Especially if

38:20

you can get some of the diffusion in there, you

38:23

begin to see people around you who you

38:25

respect, who you view

38:28

as heroes and as guides. So

38:31

take anything that you're struggling with, anything

38:34

that's difficult, any place where you're

38:37

you know, threatened by meaninglessness or depression,

38:40

or where you know this logical

38:42

thing that tells you you're going to die, the world

38:45

is going to die, et cetera. That's also doesn't

38:48

know how to channel that into a sense

38:50

of vitality and purpose. And

38:52

here's my question. If

38:54

you could pick anyone as a guide who

38:57

would help you in that anyone

39:00

ideally someone you know, but it could be a spiritual

39:02

leader or something you only read about. Who would

39:04

you pick? And then if you slow that thing

39:06

down, here's

39:08

one thing you're going to see. The way

39:11

that person carries themselves,

39:13

holds themselves, moves through the world,

39:16

contains things that reflect how

39:18

you want to be manifest

39:21

in the world. You pick

39:23

guides who are your heroes? Think

39:26

about it. I bet you did, and

39:29

I bet you it's kind of

39:31

what you would hope other people I

39:34

would see in you. And

39:37

there it is. There's that sense of meaning

39:39

and purpose by choice, the

39:41

whole of you, not just your mind telling

39:44

him you have to or mommy's

39:46

you know, shaking her finger at you. But

39:49

you're owning your own life

39:51

purpose, really

39:53

purposes, because we have many,

39:56

and that will lift you up.

39:59

We have so much day now that if you connect

40:01

to what brings meaning and purpose

40:03

into your life by choice, it's sometimes

40:06

called autonomous choice. I kind of don't

40:08

like that because it sounds too western and individualistic,

40:11

but but I know what they're getting to. What they really

40:13

mean is by choice, not

40:16

by shame and blame or have to. But

40:18

between you and the person in the mirror, these

40:21

are the qualities I want to what

40:23

I want to get as a result. Yeah, of course things will

40:25

happen, but these are the qualities I want to have reflected.

40:28

When you own that, everything lifts

40:30

up. Right. Examples of

40:32

that being things like being a caring parent

40:35

or a dependent friend, or being loyal

40:37

and honest. Right. Yeah, they're

40:39

not goals. They are, you say,

40:41

qualities of being and doing. Qualities

40:44

of being and doing. You can almost always find them by

40:46

could they easily be an adjective or an adverb?

40:49

So with your kids, you know, lovingly

40:51

I, or genuinely

40:54

I, or with

40:56

care I you

40:58

know? So what would take for

41:00

you to put lovingly in

41:04

your life? A part of what's cool about

41:06

that at the moment you say you want

41:08

that, you're already doing it. To

41:11

see it, I mean, at the very moment you own

41:13

that you're already doing it because

41:15

part of the doing it is to take

41:17

responsibility in

41:20

its original sense. Do you know the word responsibility

41:22

used to be two words. There's a response

41:24

space ability. You

41:27

have an ability to do this. You can respond.

41:30

I mean, if you're Nelson Mandela in a cage,

41:33

you can still decide the one thing

41:36

that captors can't take away. You can

41:38

decide what is

41:40

this about for you? And

41:43

if it's about hate and retribution, when they let

41:45

you out, you could produce a civil

41:47

war. If it's about justice

41:49

and caring and connection humanity,

41:52

when they let you out, you can produce something different. So

41:57

you know, life can conspire against you,

41:59

so you can't see what comes out. You

42:01

know, it's like water in a bowl. It's

42:03

contained. If you drill a hole in it, then you can

42:05

see that gravity matters and

42:08

the water kind of wants to go down. In the same

42:10

way, if I put you in a cage,

42:12

it's not very much loving you can do, except

42:15

maybe to your guards. I picked

42:17

Man Deevil, and it turned out he was pretty loving towards

42:19

his guards. You

42:22

know. In fact, some of the guards have written stories

42:24

about how it was to care for him and how that moved

42:26

They were by him and his dignity,

42:29

and that's an example of a hero, right, So why

42:32

did that come to mind? And why do we resonate

42:34

the heroes like that? Why

42:36

do these stories that we tell? But

42:39

when you started your podcast

42:41

with because right inside

42:43

those stories are our heroes,

42:47

our our our cultural guides as to

42:49

how to be whole and free, how to be

42:51

human. So in

42:53

the book, I kind of walked through how

42:56

to do that, what gets in the way, and show

42:59

the ginormous amount of data that

43:01

says, boy, this matters everywhere.

43:04

You want to hollow out a human life, turned

43:07

it into a valueless life, and you'll see

43:09

what happens, and you know, acceptance

43:11

and commitment therapy to sort of kind

43:13

of come back to it as a whole. Is this

43:16

idea of accepting

43:19

what we feel and what we think

43:21

and then committing to act according

43:24

to our values exactly? Sounds

43:27

like a simple formula, it's and it kind of

43:29

is simple, but it's not simple

43:32

in this way. It's tricky because you've got this

43:35

problem solving engine in between your ears

43:37

that claims it knows everything, and Mr

43:39

smarty Pants will just constantly

43:41

be tempting you into doing things that are give

43:44

you the short term gain and the long term

43:46

pain, and how to flip

43:49

that from smaller sooner at

43:51

the expense of larger later too. Now

43:53

I'm doing larger later and

43:56

you know, so, for example, there's research

43:58

on things like this. You make the values

44:00

choices, now people are more

44:02

willing to do emotionally hard things.

44:05

The smaller sooner problem is immediately there.

44:08

For example, let's say it's really your values,

44:11

in your values to be loving and caring, and

44:13

you've been noticing that you haven't talked

44:16

to a friend who's headed into an

44:18

addiction, and you can see him heading into

44:20

it, and you know it's not going to be a good conversation

44:23

to talk to him lovingly about your concerns.

44:26

Yeah, well you're just going to watch this train layer and

44:29

slow motion? Is that what

44:31

you want to be about? Well, it'll be

44:33

emotionally hard to have a conversation, Yeah,

44:36

it would. But if you go in there

44:38

in a posture of love and care, not

44:41

judgment and shaming and blaming,

44:44

who knows what you could do? And

44:46

if you don't, what happens

44:48

when you get that text message video? Did

44:51

so? You know, values it's not

44:53

a happy, happy, joy joy. None

44:55

of these things are. It's happiness

44:57

the way happiness really is, which

45:01

is the whole of us, sweet

45:03

and sour, all of us, you

45:06

know, never a cartoon. And

45:10

that empowering journey is

45:12

what people seek and

45:15

don't know how to get to. And

45:17

as I say, I think we've kind of cracked part

45:20

of the code um

45:22

and I'm really pleased to see that some of

45:24

these processes are inside lots of other traditions.

45:26

So I'm not here of saying act uberallis

45:29

we've got the answer. I'm saying, you

45:32

know, dealing with this mashup of

45:34

language and cognition and these other processes

45:37

is kind of our life's journey, and let's

45:39

use all the tools, all hands on deck.

45:42

No need to get grabby about credit or

45:44

naming. I don't care if you call act

45:47

anything or nothing. I

45:49

don't care if you call it act at all. But I

45:51

do care about whether or not you have what

45:53

you need to be lifted up and empowered.

45:56

I hope that the research work in the

45:58

book that I that I summarize there reaches

46:01

people that way. Whatever particular journey

46:04

there on, right, So much of what's

46:06

here does resonate

46:08

through or come through in

46:11

in lots of other traditions. I mean, if we just

46:13

look at the first few pivots,

46:15

you know, diffusion self and

46:18

you know, acceptance in presence. I'm a Buddhist

46:21

practitioner. Those things are right in the heart

46:24

of the whole thing about being

46:26

able to pivot on what those things are,

46:28

you bet you, And you know I'll take to the Buddhism

46:31

thing. You know, although I've been exposed to as

46:33

any hippie was you know, Suzuki

46:36

and Watts and people like that as a you

46:39

know, and I've lived on a religious commune

46:41

with a Yogi split

46:43

off from Paramahansi organanda, so I've

46:45

been exposed all that hippie dippie stuff. I'm old

46:47

enough to have been part of that are and lived in California.

46:49

But uh, you know, all of

46:51

the wisdom traditions, you know, whether it's Sufi's,

46:54

the Jewish mystics or the Christian mystics,

46:56

all mess around the literal, analytical,

46:58

judgmental thought. All

47:00

try to produce a quality of presence.

47:04

They all include some sort of contemplative

47:07

practice or dancing or repeated prayer,

47:09

cohens or something that messes around

47:11

with a logical problem solving mind. And

47:14

so the only thing that we brought

47:16

to the table really that's any different than anything

47:18

else is we took the time over nearly

47:20

twenty years of what looked to the world like

47:22

silence. I tell that story in the book, but

47:25

it wasn't. It was just we were off doing geeky

47:27

stuff that nobody cared about until later

47:29

on where it saw our atlant of

47:32

trying to create a psychology

47:35

more adequate to those questions so that

47:37

we can move them over into

47:39

Western science. And what it's really

47:41

good at Western science can validate

47:43

things that are out there, and that's good. You can do a

47:45

randomized trial on a meditation retreat,

47:48

that's good. That's fine. And you can put

47:50

the monks in an fMRI I and show how the

47:52

brains are different. That's fine. But I

47:54

wanted, not in a sacrilegious way,

47:56

but in a caring way to pull these things

47:59

at their joints and to find

48:01

what are the processes underneath, and

48:03

then see could I move it with other

48:05

processes? Uh.

48:08

You know John Kebot's in I had a conversation

48:10

with the years ago and I said, John, do you care more about

48:12

the process of the technique, you said, the process,

48:15

I said, And you want to put it out there in the world that

48:18

I can go right under the factory

48:21

floor with Joe six pack, or you only want

48:23

ten days silent retreats. They're mostly for

48:26

the educated elite or for the young.

48:28

And he said, I want it for everybody. I

48:30

said, Okay, John, You've

48:32

got me for the rest of your life. I'm with you, you

48:35

know, because if that's what we're up to, this

48:38

is cool work. Yesterday,

48:40

my colleague David Sloan Wilson, who's I've

48:43

written several books with, is kind of in this work,

48:45

and evolutionary biologists have a beautiful

48:47

conversation with the Dalai Lama.

48:49

And so you see these kind of coming together. A very

48:52

different Western science, evolution

48:54

science, you know, kind of geeky

48:57

stuff is now met up

48:59

for the first time the history of the planet with

49:02

these ancient wisdom traditions. And who

49:04

knows what we can create by doing that. Yep,

49:07

not in the sacrilegious way. We're not coming there to

49:09

tear down, pull apart in any kind of not

49:11

no, no, no, but but I you

49:13

know, I worked for many

49:16

years in the South and if somebody wants to run the other

49:18

way. If you say the word Buddhism, well then let's

49:20

not say the word Buddhism. Yeah. Yeah,

49:22

let's say another word, situational

49:25

awareness exactly. You

49:28

know. For me, I find this

49:30

time to be very exciting because we

49:32

are seeing some of

49:34

this more ancient wisdom

49:37

being validated by science.

49:39

And I find it when when I see those two

49:41

things sort of come together, I

49:43

feel like a sturdiness to it. Right.

49:46

If it's just some ancient wisdom and there's

49:48

nothing really on the science side,

49:50

then I'm like, Okay, it's interesting to explore it, but

49:52

it's it's not doesn't feel as sturdy. And

49:54

same thing if I see something scientifically that

49:56

sort of doesn't tie back into that. But when

49:59

I see those two things come together for me, but

50:01

this is just me personally, right, given my interests,

50:04

When I see these two things come together, it feels

50:06

really sturdy to me. Well, that's awesome,

50:09

And can I add a third thing please?

50:11

And we are part of the development of it. So

50:14

your ideas about new things

50:16

that have never been done before, but

50:18

that you think touched the deep processes

50:20

that are inside the things you know about

50:22

in the science actually, so it's helpful

50:24

to you. They have a place at the table too,

50:27

But we but we need to evaluate them. We need to

50:29

look at and giving a fair look, look at the data. Let's

50:31

see. You know, that third

50:33

piece is important because I don't want to

50:35

just live inside a traditional thing. I

50:38

can with my spiritual religious work. I'm

50:40

in a particular particular dharma

50:42

or whatever. But when we're

50:44

talking about the modern world, you know, the world

50:47

people are living in now, I'll give you

50:49

an example. We're living inside

50:51

a world where there's more prosperity

50:54

physically ever in the history

50:56

of the planet. If you had

50:58

to pick a time to be born on, and you can only decide

51:01

when, but not where, this

51:04

moment is the very best choice on

51:06

almost any measure health, violence,

51:09

malnutrition, starvation, you just make

51:11

it. Make a list, okay, except

51:14

anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and accept

51:17

mental well being. Those

51:20

things are going to the opposite direction. You

51:23

know, our young people are a standard deviation

51:25

worst than they were just a decade or two

51:27

ago. And it's not just

51:30

blah blah blah. They're actually killing themselves.

51:32

So don't just be telling me it's self report.

51:35

It is not in that

51:37

modern world. I think comes

51:40

that this fact that science and technology

51:43

has given us a huge exposure

51:46

to pain, to comparison,

51:50

and to judgment and

51:52

difference, and those put

51:54

together have attacked this the

51:57

core sense of we that

51:59

this you know, this tribal primate

52:01

relied on. We better invent

52:04

a new way, We better invent

52:07

things that have never been done on the planet, because

52:09

our challenges on the planet are different

52:11

than have ever been and

52:13

now we have the capacity to do things

52:15

like make the planet unlivable,

52:18

blow ourselves off, off off the planet,

52:20

etcetera. So you

52:22

know, time's up. You know, we've got to get

52:24

serious about it. So it's all hands on deck, and

52:27

that includes you know, folks

52:29

who are underneath the tree thousands of years

52:31

ago, but it also includes you. What

52:33

are your ideas? And I think

52:35

Western science is a cool way to vet

52:37

that we can't rely on the slow

52:41

traditions of religious

52:43

evolution, for example, that takes hundreds

52:46

of of years, and we need

52:48

some of these answers in a matter of tens of years.

52:50

So that's my little

52:52

rant, and it is what we've tried to do inside

52:54

the act work. Yep, yep. Well,

52:57

that is a great place for us to wrap

52:59

up. Thank you so much for coming

53:01

on the show against even It's been a real pleasure, been

53:04

awesome to talk to you again. And I do

53:06

want to say to the listeners when I said that includes

53:08

you, I'm talking to them too. So

53:11

what are your ideas and how can we move

53:13

the ball down the down the field?

53:16

Because humanity requires

53:19

something different. I think we all know it, we all

53:21

sense it, and Western

53:23

science can be of help, but it's not the whole answer.

53:25

It's going to take all of us. Amen to

53:27

that. Amen to that. Well, Thank

53:30

you Stephen, thank you bye.

53:48

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