GUEST SERIES | Dr. Paul Conti: Tools and Protocols for Mental Health
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Welcome to the huberman lab guest series where I and an expert guest discuss science and science space tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew huberman and am a professor neurobiology and optimal gy at stanford school of medicine today Marks the fourth episode in our four episode series with doctor paul county about mental health. Today's episode deals with the topic of self care.

We hear the phrase self care a lot nowadays, but rarely, if ever, is self care precisely defined? For instance, is self care about pampering oneself visit, about self acceptance? Is self care about just making sure we get enough sleep and enough exercise and have healthy relationships? IT turns out that, yes, indeed, adequate self care about all of those things.

But true self care, the topic of today's episode is about far more as IT relates to our mental health. True self care is also about constructing a life narrative in which we frame our past, our present and future in a way that allows us to see what's gone wrong, what's gone right and the best path to navigate forward. So in many ways, true self care is really about Fostering a sense of self awareness and doing so within the context of a framework that is known to work.

And today, doctor or paul county shares with us exactly how to do that. He also touches on some of the things that, if not properly understood and processed, can inhibit our ability to take excEllent care of ourselves, including how to properly process traumatic experiences, something that he is expert in, among many other topics as well. He also touches on some of the things that can potentially service barriers to excEllent self care, including traumatic experiences, and explains how to frame those traumatic experiences so that we can best move forward.

He also shares with us various practices that include therapy, but also practices that we can Carry out on our own, such as specific forms of meditation journey in other ways of examining the self and Fostering Better self care toward our mental health. As I mentioned before, this is the fourth episode in our four episode all about mental health. I realized that perhaps not everyone has had the opportunity he yet to listen to the previous three episodes in the series.

If you haven't IT certainly won't prevent you from cleaning important information and protocols from today's episode, but I do encourage you at some point to try and listen to all four episodes in the series because at some level, they are interwoven at the level of concepts, end of practices. I'd also like to highlight the doctor paul county has generously provided some simple diagrams that can help you navigate today's material and the material in the other episodes. They are available as zero cost PDF by simply going to the shown up captions where you can view them or download them.

Before we begin, i'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and researchers at stanford. IT is, however, part of my desired effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science in science related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, i'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast.

Our first sponsor is Better help. Better help offers professional therapy with a license, therapies Carried out all on line. I've been doing therapy for more than thirty years, and when I confessed that initially, I was forced to do that therapy as a condition for being let back into high school over time, I learned that therapy is a tremendously valuable practice.

In fact, I consider doing regular weekly therapy as just as important as doing regular physical exercise in order to improve one's health. The beauty of Better help is that IT makes IT extremely easy to find the therapy that's excEllent for you. And we can define an excEllent therapy as somebody who's going to give you a lot of support, but in an objective way, as well as somebody with whom you can have excEllent report, and that can help you arrive at positively transformative insights that you wouldn't have otherwise had.

And with Better help, they make IT convenient, so that it's matched to your schedule and the other aspects of your life. If you like to try Better help, go to Better help that calm slash huberman to get ten percent off your first month again. That's Better help.

H lp 点 com slash huberman。 Today's episode is also brought to us by waking up, waking up as a meditation APP that offers dozens of guided meditation sessions, mindfulness trainings, yoga eda sessions and more. By now, there's an abundance of data showing that even short daily meditations can greatly improve our mood, reduce anxiety, improve our ability to focus and can improve our memory.

And while there are many different forms of meditation, most people find IT difficult to find and stick to a meditation practice in a way that is most beneficial for them. The waking up that makes IT extremely easy to learn how to meditate and to Carry out your daily meditation practice in a way that's going to be most effective and efficient for you. That includes a variety of different types of meditations of different duration, as well as things like yoga edr pe, which placed the brain and body into a sort of pu du sleep that allows you to emerge feeling incredibly mentally refreshed.

In fact, the science around organic is really impressive, showing that after a yoga eja session, levels of dopamine in certain areas of the brain are enhanced by up to sixty percent, which places the brain and body into a state of enhanced readiness for mental work and for physical work. Another thing I really like about the waking up up is that IT provides a thirty day introduction course. So for those of you that have not meditated before or getting back to a meditation practice, that's fantastic or if you're somebody who's already a skilled in regular meditator, waking up has more advanced meditations in the organizer sessions for you as well. If you d like to try the waking up, you can go to waking up dot com slash huberman and access a three thirty day trial again, that's waking up dot com slash huberman. And now for my discussion about mental health with doctor paul county, doctor countee, welcome back.

Thank you pleasure to be here for this series.

We've been focusing on mental health and really defining what mental health is and a road map to achieve mental health. And in episode one, you laid out for us a map essentially of the things that any and all of us can look at pretty much at any time, with essentially any degree of resources to trying get a Better understanding of ourselves and how well or not well, we happen to be moving toward. We're creating true mental health for ourselves.

In addition to that, you spell out for us what true mental health really is. And just a recap. A bit of that IT really boils down to these verb, state action, state of agency and gratitude. And then in episode, you covered some of the common chAllenges that you've observed in life and in your clinical practice. And we address some of the ways that people can overcome those chAllenges by going to the map, opening the so called covers, as we're referring to them, and asking specific sorts of questions. And then in episode three, we talked about how looking at the map and expLoring the map in those covers, in particular, can help people in relational aspects of life, romantic relationship, work relationships, family relationships and the relationship to self.

Yes, very important, very important. The foundation of all relationships outside of ourselves.

And i'm so glad that you highlighted the relationship to self, because today's episode, we will, of course, return to the map. And I should mention that if people have not seen episodes one, two or three, that's okay. Today's discussion will be entirely accessible to them. But I do recommend that at some point, they especially listen to episode one and hopefully episode two and three as well.

But today's discussion is really about the aspects of ourselves that exists in all people and the action steps, the powers of inquiry that are available to all people, that can allow anyone and everyone to improve their mental health, to move toward these ideals of agency and gratitude on a regular basis. yes. And as you point out, IT is a process. It's not that we arrive at agency gratitude. And just to reiterate, agency gratitude, or verbs, states they involve ways of being in the world.

Their active process is like life is an active process, right? There's not an employment we're trying to reach. We're trying to live.

And in thinking about today's discussion, you know accurate to both of us really that today's discussion is really about self care. No self care as a concept, I think, for many people, evokes notions of like, okay, you're gonna take a vacation or you going to kick your feet up or get a saw, see you things that sort. And certainly I can evolve those sorts of things. But just as if we were having a discussion about physical health, and we are going to talk about ways to take care of the physical body to enhance health span and lifespan, today's discussion is really about how to take care of the internal landscape, the mind right, which also qualifies very strong ly as self care. yes.

So if you would, could you tell us how you think about self care? You know, regardless of whether not you have a patient who's dealing with severe mental illness or somebody who's just hitting the same speed bumps of life over and over again or anything in between, you know what? Swords of self care practices and mindsets do you suggest people take on for themselves? And for that matter, how do you think about self care?

right? I think we start with with factors that are really just baseline factors ah that have to be in place in order to achieve good things upon them. So the basics of you, we have to be eating well enough to feel okay and hopefully eating really well.

We have to stay hydrate, we have to get sleep, we have to move the body. These are basics, but basics a lot of people are not attending to. Similarly, we have to be in a situation that isn't making fear and misery all the time.

So an example of an abusive relationship, right? A person has to be tested, navigate out of that before they can really start taking care of themselves in the way that builds goodness, right? So, so we look for the basic factors that we need to take care of. In order to that, look at the factors that become particular to each of us.

And what we're really looking for is self understanding, right? How much can we understand about ourselves, be knowledgeable about what's going on inside of us, why it's going on also, and very importantly, being aware that we don't know everything that goes on inside of us and being curious about that and looking at how we're engaging with the world around us are do we feel happy? Do we not feel happy? How do we define what happy means? How are we engaging with the world? Because as you are, same the agency and gratitude or verb state.

So how are we living life? How we engaging with the world? Do we feel like.

Life is a sequence of things I have to do, you know, for example, right? Or are we doing things we really, really don't want to do, right? Do we have to do those things? How could life be different? right? We start looking at ourselves to to assess how we are engaging with ourselves, the people, the world around us, in a way that is either general or not generated.

If we're in that state of agency and gratitude, then we are going na have periods of time where we feel peaceful, we feel sense of contentment and we feel delighted. So is any of that in my life right? If not, why can can I start thinking about that? Sometimes the answer is quite clear, like, oh, there's this thing I love and i'm not doing that right and and I can't do IT and then we visit like is that true that you can't do IT? I mean, a lot times that is not true.

And if IT is true, how does the person come to terms with that process that perhaps grieve right so safe? It's a loss of a person right, that can keep people, you know, terrible misery over years and years. So there maybe things we have to understand, we have to process so that we can get ourselves to that place of knowing ourselves pretty well and engaging in the world in ways that we have a pretty good understanding of, and that are adaptive.

And then we look to say, okay, now how do I make that Better? Because now we're thinking about preventive medicine, right? We want our bodies to be healthy because, of course, we want to be healthy today, right? But we also don't know what will happen in the future, right? Will there be an injury or an illness? I mean, eventually, like you know, we all have an injury and illness in some way, you're another.

So we're preparing for the predictable chAllenges that will come our way in the future, and we were well served by doing this about our mental health, too, right? There will be chAllenges that come our way. They're be losses and stresses and things that make us feel bad or feel scared, and these things will happen.

So the healthier we are, the Better today is, and the Better we set ourselves up to. Either make tomorrow even Better today or tomorrow gives me a chAllenge I don't have today. I can meet that chAllenging IT back to a Better place.

So if I understand correctly, IT sounds like one of the corner stones of self care for sake of mental health involves asking really good questions about oneself. Yes, yes. I don't think i've ever heard IT defined that way before. yes. And you, it's in such start, contrast to the other forms of self care, which I certainly subscribe as well, like making sure one gets enough rest and um you know avoid toxic people to the extent one can eeta or toxic environments and so on right you .

mentioned ask questions of the self but but the the logical next question to that is, well, what questions do I ask myself? Sometimes we know when we have an idea, right? Sometimes we don't. And this is where the construction of a life narrative that let me think about my life, let me potentially talk about my life with a trusted other person, let me potentially write down a narrative about my life, and we can learn so much from doing that.

So the person who things back and starts to tell the story of themselves and and let's say, this is an example, you know, that stories is going pretty well, and the person is feeling pretty good about themselves, and then say, something happens and IT starts to change, or then this thing happen. And then, you know, I started kind of spending time with different people, or I started dating different people, or I took a different kind of job, and and IT can gender the reflection of like, oh, things really kind of change then? Because, because the emotion systems within us don't care about the clock or the calendar.

The emotions, often of negative experiences, can back map into our lives. And someone who can tell you I was miserable ever since I was a child can then write out of a life narrative that describes a very happy childhood. Until something happened, there's something changed at a certain point, which could be something dramatic or IT, might be increasing pressures of school or increasing social pressures, or how things changed at puberty, right? And if we have an understanding of that, we may know the right questions.

Like for example, let's say afterwards, the person finds that they're drinking more. So an example would have come an example instead of taking that for granted. That's what I do right? Or the I can't cope any Better, right? The negative things people will say to themselves, the narrative can often point out, I can cope Better.

I did cope Better. I did feel differently about myself. The life narrative can really help us establish the road map. And part of what the life narrative does as IT guides us to the places to ask the questions.

if you would be so kindness to tell a little bit more about how one would do this on their own. So is this involve journal things out? I confess I have a file on my computer, uh, that has a bunch of other files that starts with age zero to five.

And then I have some noting there is not a not biography far from IT. It's just a highlights of events that I remember of six to ten and so on in a places I lived in. I use IT, just a kind of orient myself in time.

Yes, I actually don't know what the the purpose utility of IT is why I initially started doing this, but is an important file to me. And when I return to IT off and remember additional key events. So it's constantly growing. I mean that the things, while I are going quite large, again, with no specific purpose of writing this out at point, but just to oriented right.

right. You, you, you can not learn about yourself from doing that IT exposes truths of self IT makes you ponder about things that draws your attention to the ways in which you've changed, whether you think those ways are good or bad, right? That IT draws your attention to change.

IT draws your attention to the impact of external events. And as you said, is to do IT ground, you IT provides way of localizing one self in time. Like, I am here now, how did I get here? right? And in the thoughts and ideas of how we got here, very much help us, because often we don't do that.

You know, a sort of rushing headlong forward, because in many ways, our our society is prompting. As we live in a very, very fast moving society, we want information and gratification. And often we don't even want IT very fast, but it's coming at is very fast anyway.

And to stop and reflect makes a very, very big difference, even to think at times beyond our generations, right into the best of my knowledge, the vast majority of people on one side of my family, everyone was a shepherd for like every generation, until, like two ago, right? And thinking about that like this interesting way, that makes me, the man, grateful, so grateful for the opportunity i've had. But I also think while they lived in close in communities then, and what was that like? And we begin to see ourselves in a broader way, both in our own history and then projecting forward, which, which sometimes is about children and nurturing children.

But I can certainly be about other things that can be about friendship, IT can be about work. So we start to see ourselves in ways that are interesting, that are through the lens of truth, and that speak to our place in the world around us. And I think this engenders both agency and gratitude, right? If i'm aware of like him, what have I done? What if I accomplish when having I accomplish things? How might that be different? And and a sense of gratitude for IT being here and having opportunity and even be able to think about this. You know, my guess is when you read through those files that at some point you have a sense of marvel well, like, well, that's me, right? Whether it's a good memory or it's a difficult memory, no, it's all part of you that leads you through to today and you do have a Better sense of self through that.

And one of the feelings that most often come away from those excursions into those files with is one of gratitude because so much of what's in those files um uh recollections of others that I really appreciate summer so alive, some aren't and um what that meant to me and how that Carries me forward yeah so that's what I do. Um I i'm sure there are a new infinite number ways that people could do this. But what are a few that you've seen work really well that people can do on their own or perhaps with a clinic as well? In fact, that raises the question, should people share this sort of practice and the contents of that practice with with a .

trusted clinical right, right. yeah. I think sharing with with another person always should be a trusted other, right? Then we can kind of take stock of that.

You know of people have an an idea of who maybe safe and often people so how they're no one I could share something with. But really that often comes to a land of fear. You have exposure of itself, of rejection, of vulnerability, which often is warranted.

But sometimes it's not. Sometimes they really are effect often. And there are safe people, right? So the the act of doing something other than just thinking about something brings, as you will know, that brings parts of our brain online that then are thinking in a different way. So for example, the amb bring error correction mechanisms online.

So if i'm thinking over and over again that i've never been good enough to do anything, you know, that can be just automatic inside of me, but if I start to write or to talk, or even to formulate words, to talk to myself or to put words in my mind as if I were talking, now we come out of in a different way, and we can fair IT out the truth within us, which might be, you know, it's not true that i've never been able to do things or achieve things. And people often bring that online by doing something other than the same thought process that's gone often over and over. And it's non productive.

And IT brings down mood and IT raises anxiety, and IT also builds a sense of utility. I mean, I cannot tell you how often i've heard a person say, like, no good would come of this, or like, okay, try will try, but I know I can be. Have i've been thinking about this for ten years or twenty years, but what they've been doing is the same thing.

They've been ruminating on IT for ten years. They start talking. About IT and and people will say, oh, my goodness, like i've achieved more in two hours. You know that I did in years, right? But that's because you're doing something different in the two hours.

So I think that's very important, especially because we can't say, okay, go look in your unconscious mind and see what you find there, right? So then we need ways of accessing the unconscious mind. And the communication either itself in writing with others can be very, very helpful in doing that.

I also, I am a firm believer that knowledge is power. Many times I will feel like i've I have a sense of really having help someone, and the other person may have that sense. We can see the change.

And all that i've done is in part knowledge, right? When we all know different things. So often it's the case that I happened to have learned things that are different from what that other person learns.

And then I am communicating to them things that I have learned. So they know them too. And then they feel tremendously Better, right? Because if we put inside of ourselves the tools of understanding our unconscious minds, and sometimes our conscious minds, too, will work on them, will make use of them.

So so if you talk to a person, for example, about how trauma can impact us and how we can shove IT underneath the surface, and how we can spin off shame, and that person may take that knowledge away and come back with real understanding and the fact that we can do this on our own right, we can do this through good resources. We can do this by taking information into ourselves. That can be very, very helpful.

And IT doesn't require because the first place to start with things we can do that don't require professional help, right? And and sometimes we may come at problems that that do tell us that we should get professional help, right? So if we're having thought of self harm, thought of not wanting to be alive, thoughts of real despair, thoughts of real of hopelessness, that's telling us, okay, let's get some help.

There's a role in a place for professional help. But people come to professional help in other ways too, such as, for example, we're flecking on the self and and to real example, person thinking, you know, I really became kind of different when, you know, when things started changing, like after college, and then I thought, like, oh, i've kind of gotten in this place and i've got a good job and like, things really should get Better. But if they kind of have in right, and that was really a branch point, that person may have never really thought about that, or they may have thought about at ten thousand times, then show that underneath from from consciousness to unconsciousness, because it's a scary vulnerability and inducing things that seems scary.

Like how could I be that I achieve things I didn't get healthier? Now we're afraid of that, right? And and letting that come to the surface being able to say, oh, like that's true.

Like I don't earth to be afraid to shine light on that. Then a lot of times that alone, sometimes a personal solve their own problems. They think about IT.

They come in, they have all the answers. They thank me. I did nothing but listen. But the listen part is important. IT allowed them to come in and say what they needed to say.

And other times then it's not IT can be that, but it's not always that other times that informs us about what to work on clinically. And IT might not be something that's dire, right? IT might just be like, I want to understand this.

I want to be happier. I want to be healthier. I want to work towards these good things.

When people talk about that, they're always, if you really to show them, what are they talking about? Sense of piece, a sense of contentment coming at the worldful agency and gratitude. And and we can do that through self inquiry, including through therapy. IT doesn't have to just be for situations where all there is a significant clinical .

problem is IT the case that when somebody journals a bit of their life narrative or thinks about them great or sad ly traumatic events that perhaps happen to them at whatever stage of life, that there is something accomplished in that action or in that therapy session, if they're doing IT with a clinic.

But that when they go to sleep that night and perhaps in their waking states as well, that the unconscious is working, some of that through such that revelations come to mind. Later insights come to mind you. I'm certainly familiar with the fact that there are certain times of day and evening where my brain is in a bit of a liminal state, feels like somewhere between sleep and awake.

And I just have learned that provided a block against an outside sensory input as much as I can, in particular social media and the news that I also be doing, the dishes are preparing coffee. Something and something will come to mind that seemingly out of nowhere, it's not always a great insight. In fact, it's rarely a great insight. But IT IT always takes me a bit by surprise, sometimes a little bit of delight, sometimes a little bit of shock. Ly, oic, where did that come from?

Because IT came from your unconscious mind, IT was invisible to then I got thrown up and you wo you realize that while in in the midst of doing something relatively moune, right is doing the day you're engaging, your brain is highly engaged, which is great. But IT doesn't leave a lot of room right for the unconscious mind to do its millions and millions of things a second that can help you figure things out, which is the same reason.

It's uncanny. Any any psychology will tell you this that that people personal come in and say it's strange. You know, all the sudden when I can finally relax, like that's when I have a panic attack, right? Or they don't know, like then I can finally relax. I then my heartbeats fast and i'm sweating, right? Because that's when the panic attacks come as the person is laboring under something that is is causing them.

There's a constant distress when when you stop focusing outward and you sort of settle into an inward state, then the things that are underneath the service are going to come to the surface and there's something really bothering you that your brain is very that about a very afraid of, what does that throw up to the surface? A panic attack, right? But if you're in a good place, you're take care of yourself, you're in a generation stage, you're in a safe environment.

Then when you you stop putting all the attention outward. So we imagine then silences changes, and instead of a lot of asians being outward IT starts to be inward need just sort of meditate. If you're washing the dishes right in, there is room.

Then for your unconscious mind to throw something important to the surface is the exact opposite of how people can remember something if they're trying to think of IT. I mean, we all go through this like why I can't remember that person's name or that restaurant to whatever is. Try to keep thinking about IT and see if you figure that out, right?

The answer is not in your conscious mind. So if you keep bring your conscious mind to bear, you just generate frustration, right? But then when you stop thinking about the answers there inside of you, oh, I remember now, right?

So so that's how if we, if we have the conscious mind engage and something is not going to figure out right, then IT doesn't figure the thing out, right? And that works for our problems too. That's why a person can say, I thought about that for ten years. Now you ruminated about IT for ten years. I just ran over and over and over in the conscious mind and how ironic IT prevents understanding.

So it's very clear to me that asking certain kinds of questions about oneself and ones self narrative life history essentially can be very beneficial in the moment or moments of doing that practice, as well as the subconsciously, I guess, the appropriate way to refer to you as the unconscious, right? Okay, for those out there who like me sometimes say subconscious, it's unconscious. Uh, the unconscious can throw things up to the surface that can be real. Insights can give us not just panic attacks, which I think most people would like to shy away from, but as you point out, there's information in the fact that the panic attack is occurring under right conditions .

of stir up the part of the unconscious. And you put some new information in IT. IT can do new things that can figure new things out, which is why the process of self reflection, for example, and often the process of therapy is not always in, in fact, often is not a pleasant process, right? But then we take away from that hard work, renewed insights to someone this happens all the time, who who knows.

They know that a certain trauma is inside of them and has been affecting them, whether it's for days or weeks or years. They know that they don't know what to do about IT. They have a conflict about IT.

So they keep trying to show up under the surface. They finally accept, for whatever reason, to talk about IT. And what often happens then is to say, doing three or four successive weeks of hourly therapy mean that person is crying and that person is upset, or that person is angry.

And IT doesn't always happen as way, but IT does a fair amount of the time as they get Better and Better, right? Because they're discharging some of their energy, right? Maybe they're crying there.

They're sad because they're grieving something they haven't grieved for, right? Because they've just been angry, right? Or they've just been ashamed. The classic example is a death.

I mean, how many times do people think what that can be still affecting me? IT was x number of years ago, but they've never actually greeted because they Carry in them. Oh, IT was my fault, right? And and how many times do we hear that? I should have said something different before I should have gone.

You know, we've been back map something that makes us feel bad. And then from the guilt and shame comes the inability to process grief. So if the person then deals with thread, I feel so bad about this.

In fact, I feel so ashamed and I feel gets my fault. And so okay, we're let's talk about that right after after my brother's death by suicide, I felt responsible. I was not involved in any way in mental health, I A business career at the time.

And I finally went and saw someone, I wasn't a cultural that getting therapy with something one did. But I realized, hey, i'm not okay, right? So I didn't know.

I didn't know how right. I just knew the manifestation of IT, which was misery and risk. And I could just tell guy, know what IT feels like to not feel like this, and this is not okay. So so then I I call the insurance number. Eventually I going.

And and see a therapist and you know he did i'm sure he was a very good therapy, but he didn't in the sense need to be in the sense sometimes we don't need to use all the things we know we can do to something basic with someone. And that's all SHE did with me. I mean, he got me talking about IT, and then I talked about how ashamed I was because I was my fault.

And then, really, and then he showed me about that, and then in a nice way. But then he was became clear that I was so utterly shocked by IT, very far from IT being foreseeable to me, right, that the problem that I was having now was the shock of IT and the sense of shame and guilt that IT raised in me, and then me shoving IT under the surface, not knowing what to do with IT. Then it's making all sorts of misery in me.

And I can't actually grif right. So at some point during those sessions, i'm sad and i'm crying, right? And I know what he was thinking, right? She's good.

Okay, this is like this. Thank this is this person getting very, very, very little sense of relief because you can see him, he's coming out of risk. He's able to feel sad and he's able to aggrieve isn't been doing this before, you know.

So it's that it's that work way if we put into IT, that makes a difference, just as in physical health, I mean, I want to be stronger. I want to be more robust, like I have to go to the gym and work or I have to do something that's that's hard work and then I get the benefit of IT. And the same is true whether we're reflecting on our life narrative and IT brings us some difficult emotions to us or whether we're talking with someone or whether we're doing IT in therapy.

But that, that, that process of inquiry leads you know, to take some of the gordian, not in us. So to speaking in and to cut them, instead of trying to figure out I am going to feel OK about myself, even though i'm responsible for my brother's death, because I should have foreseen. I mean, that if that doesn't work, right, you have to say, I see what that thing is and that that has to go away, right? And then theri can lead us to the point world wasn't my fault then, oh, my good and some sad.

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To claim this special offer, I can see how self inquired is really powerful and certainly experiences that in my own life. And it's an ongoing process, right? This is not something that one does, and then stops that you do IT forever, just like physical fitness. And at the same time, I know that a number of people perhaps are wary of self inquiry, especially because of the pain points that can bring about and make conscious and that we have to really sit with um and most people would like to avoid this comfort. Um i'm sure there are also people who are doing quite well in life and therefore think, oh you know pattern err self I could do IT sounds like is more harm like why would I want to do that? But I think we both agree that there's nothing but good and progress and more agency and gratitude to be had by going through patterns of self inquiry.

I think that really highlights very important, which is that self inquit isn't always the right answer. Now I think just because things are going well, that doesn't mean self inquiry isn't the right thing to do. Self the inquiry is always the right thing to do.

If we want to understand ourselves Better in less. We're in a place where I can bring real risk to us. So when I was trying to think about myself, inquire, why was I so miserable? What's going on in me? And I reached the point where I really am not getting myself anywhere and i'm getting worse.

And like, this is, now this is not good for me, because where do the self inquired me to more guilt and shame? So then at some point I sort of pulled the rip court right on that I can do this on my own anymore, right? And and that's very, very important to anyone who's listening. If you feel like good, I don't think i'm in a safe for a stable place. Again, thought of self harm, thought of hopelessness, then IT probably is not.

Or let's aim on the side of being cautious, right? IT is not a good idea than to engage in self inquiry, but first, go see someone clinically, right? And I know that can be hard to do to stay in age, but if we really advocate for ourselves, we really push, you know, we really, we do whatever we can do to try and get in front of someone who can kind of help us understand what we may need. And maybe that person helps us with the process of self inquiry. Maybe that person reassures us, maybe that person then tells us that we really do need you more care, more help, and then IT leads to us getting that so that we can come back to the good place of being well enough for .

the self inquiry. I'm gratefully, you shared your path to working with a and the fact that just focusing on something on your own wasn't really working and there was there was something like a requirement for clinician to help guide you through that. Um IT relates directly to um what are most curious about at this moment, which is you know IT in the map that you established for us in episode one and that is Carry through all these episodes and and by the way of people are not familiar with the map. We will cover IT in top con to her in a little bit more depth in a moment here.

But one of the key things as or covers as we're referring to them, to look in in order to exert self care and improve once mental health, is this notion of self awareness, of a really understanding that there is an an I am me, and expLoring what that's really about in the moment, but also historical through narrative at sea, but also in this, a map is a covered that released assailants, what's most obvious? Or what do we default to, both internally terms of what source of thoughts we default and externally, what are we focusing on in the side world? And I think iron, perhaps many other people out there are wondering how to resolve any conflict between a practice that is aimed at increasing self awareness and perhaps even drawing to mind early traumas or chAllenges or recent traumas or chAllenges and saying, it's, in other words, if I were to take some moments or even an hour once a weekend so there, and really like think about the sorts of things that I don't want to think about, like that, that have been annoying at me below the surface for a very long time, the stuff that I you gain some proficiency at pushing down beneath the surface.

I think one fear that I have, and so I have to assure other people have IT as well, is that if I were to bring that to mind, that I would overtake a lot of my waking hours, like it's I got to want to think about this thing or those things. And so now what saying into something negative, and when i'm focused on something negative, then i'm not able to be as generous as I would like you move my life, move forward toward my life goals. Now I I could even have the realization, the cognitive understanding that, okay, that's but that's necessary, right? Like this is like getting a wound fixed or or dealing with with a chronic injury, like sooner later you gotta deal with IT.

Otherwise, you're not going to be at your best. But that conflict between gaining more self awareness and also the understanding that what is most sAiling to us is kind of defines the quality of our daily life. Um that that conflict or friction seems like an important thing for us to drill into a little bit.

absolutely. And I would say this if you think there is something that you can't bring up into consciousness because it's onna take over your mind or as people often say, i'm going to curl up in a feedle position. I'm going to cry and never stop.

That is exactly the thing you must look at because syrians present itself in a whole array of ways. So if there's something inside of you that's that's strong enough, right, that is throwing itself up to the surface like, hey, maybe you want to think about me, your unconscious mind throwing IT up to the surface that is active in you and often IT. Although a lot of IT happens in the unconscious mind, IT happens also in the conscious mind.

And if the person then stops and things, how much might that thing that you are not thinking about be impacting you? How might IT be sAiling and in other ways? And sometimes a person will realize, like, yeah, that's all my mind.

He was that all my mind here all the time is a kind of on the back burner. But always there. And he will be on the back burner that you know that's like having a voice in the background telling you something very negative and very distressing.

And it's just one example where were often times there's a realization. That that thing is actually quite silent. Sometimes there isn't a realization until later. Oh, the silence of that is that that's how or what why don't let myself get ahead, right? They can come out later because, you know we don't know how much of IT is unconscious, how much of IT is conscious.

But but under the right circumstances, if things you're safe h, as we said, if there's not something going on that presents risk and warns clinical care, if there is something inside of you and you think I can't let that to the surface, then what that is telling you is I must let that to the surface. Now again, we want to do IT injudicious ways and do in ways that are safe. But that's that's the message.

I think it's especially important that you mentioned that if some thing is knowing at our conscious mind every once in a while, then IT absolutely has to be Operating below the level of our consciousness, maybe running a muck sy. So if ever there was a uh cause for expLoring something like that, um that's IT right because we can't be aware of the ways that's damaging to us. We are limit us again.

You know, somebody listening to this could be doing quite well. The thing i'm doing great, like, why would I want do any of this? Well, perhaps they could be doing that much Better.

Absolutely self .

awareness and addressing ones personal narrative and a sense of eyes is what we called covered one under the function of self. Now for those that listen to episodes one, two or three and they'll be familiar that I am talking about when I say I covered covered one function of self but um just for sake of getting everybody on the same page as we move forward here, maybe we could just return to the map of mental health um for a moment we ve talked to about agency and gratitude as verb states and you also described in previous episodes this key really sentier concept of this generation drive. So if you could just take a few minutes for us and really explain what agency gratitude are, how one goes about building those up and expressing those and what the general drive is and then we will return to the ten covers of inquiry under the structure of self and function of self which really represent the pillars and and all the stuff that guiza up into uh the simple but extremely powerful concepts and ways of being which are agency and gratitude.

Yes yes. So I really liked when you you brought the image of a guier right to mind. Because if we think about the structure of self, which is one pillar, and the function of self, which is another pillar, underneath those pillars there are the ten cubs we've been talking about, and they represent the areas of inquiry for us, because they're the aspects of the structure and function of self.

So that's where the answers are, right? The answers are in those pillars. The answers are in those ten cub ards.

So if we're doing that, we're looking there. We're honoring what we find there. We're becoming healthier then that guys are right.

I imagine IT coming out, you know, like the space in between the pillars, right? And and what IT is lifting up is first, empowerment and humility. But empowerment and humility are qualities is the the, the, the way and the way we're using them.

Their qualities are potential. So I have empowerment as opposed to being disempowered, right? So I have humility instead of, for example, a reactive grandiosity or even a reactive self oppression, right?

So I have these qualities of empowerment and humility. And then they become enacted, right? They become expressed by us.

And I imagine writing on the top is the agency in the gratitude is at the top of the guiza. And it's moving, right. The verbs we navigate life as life moves forward.

I will often think like being on like the the luge right in the cn the olympics. So it's going down the twisting path and it's like that's us moving through life, right? And we all have different pathways, but they can interconnect and they can cross.

But that's what's happening. Living is an active thing, right? So agency and gratitude are active things.

why? Because there are the ultimate expression of all underneath of the of them. That's where IT goes. If the pillars are in the right place, the guides are, can function. The empowerment and humility are with us. So we're engaging with ourselves, with others, with the world through lens of clarity and through lens of knowing we can make the world a Better place.

And no, our role in IT that very, very active and then IT brings to us the piece the contentment, the delight that weaves in and out as as you describe, that you will feel the peace, the contentment, the delight when you're doing the solo podcasts, right? But you're doing something very, very active, right? That's not it's not a passive endeavor, right, doing which you feel all those, but that makes sense, right? Peace doesn't mean nothing.

This right now, I can someone who's looking out the window with the garden they planted can feel that too. But there's life going on. And then also, right, they're contemplating the garden.

They know that they made the garden. So these are all active processes because life is an active process. And then we end up in this place of looking inside of us. These drives within us are both deterministic and determined, right? To think about how active a process that is where we have a natural bias one way or another because of our genetics, just like someone has a natural aptitude to be taller and someone shorter or to be more or less athletic. But we have potential within us when the genetics come together and and that may determine some sort of a set of parameters.

So so maybe someone who doesn't have the the blessings of being so athletic, perhaps myself, right? I'm not going to be the world's greatest athlete, right? But if I work hard like I be a lot more athletic and have been at times, right? And if I don't, I could be a lot less athletic, right? So so there are potentials within us that gets sort of genetically determined but have a wide array of a variance around them.

And then our choices determine where we are in that variance. If I don't take care of myself, I will be on the very low end of the athletic spectrum, right? If I do and I cultivate myself now, I can be on a higher end for me, right? But still, that's a lot Better than the lower, and there's a very big difference.

The same is true in our drives. So so the more we're taking care of ourselves, we're reinforcing the primacy of the generative drive and then the aggression assertion proactive by that drive in us is realized as best. We're gona realized that not everyone is going to be off the chart.

That's okay, right? But that drive is in a place that lets that person take care of themselves, you know, have A A job they enjoy and can do well at and make their homework Better. Whatever IT is that we can do, like we're more sort of we're more engaged and then that bring us more pleasure.

So the pleasure drive is not a heaton's tic drive. It's drive for things we enjoy like, we enjoy safety, we enjoy absence of pain, but we also enjoy friends and romance and sex and food like these are things that bring us gratification. And we can have that in a healthy place too. So there's not too much, not too little of the aggressive and assertion proactive drive, not too much, not too little of the pleasure drive. And then we're in a place where we can meet where those drives are at.

So if the pleasure drive is in a certain place in us, we can meet that, right? And maybe we Foster IT moving a little higher up, but because we're doing good things and we're taking care of ourselves, so if our romance is in a Better place, you know, then we can take more pleasure in our romance, right? If our physical fitness nesses in a Better place, we can enjoy that more, right? We can do more things.

So we are helping those drives to be in the optimal place to subserve the generative drive, which we are trying to optimize and vacation mize. And that puts us in the best place to have the things under those pillars in those covers in a good. And then on top of that guys is the empower ment in the humidity.

And then that gets enacted as agency and gratitude. We have more of the goodness of of peace and contentment and delight. And that reinforces the general drive. So that's what's going on.

And IT has never failed me yet to read or listen to someone communicating happiness either what they think IT is, how they found IT, what they're striving for, what they think IT philosophy icy is right. It's all that right. And it's not as as simple as a word right, because it's complex were complex.

But the beauty of IT all is the complexity is within us, but it's not out of our reach to understand ourselves Better and help ourselves. And if we do that, as we move further up the higher arch, IT gets simper approaching the world through agency and gratitude as verbs. And it's pretty straight, ford.

That's why that's the best metric for romantic compatibility, right? It's not this person plays a musical instrument and that persons a mathematician, so they're not compatible. No more than one plays the trumpet, one place, the the climate, and we assume they are compatible.

Where are those drives at our people healthy in a healthy place, we can then take the best care of ourselves, engage with others in a healthy way, understand who's a healthy other to engage with, right? Get ourselves out of unhealthy situations. And then we're building health within ourselves and around ourselves.

And that's how at the different levels of emergence, things get Better. So if I make myself healthier and you make yourself healthier, we will be healthier as a group of two. That's always how that is.

And if for healthier as a group of two, we can be healthier as parts of larger groups, right? Or if the groups aren't healthy, we're pushing towards greater health, right? We're engendering health, and that's how we see health grow until IT can be manifest.

Even on a cultural level where we're taking Better care of ourselves, we're less puncture or less rushing forward as a society and tramping the vulnerable, right. And we realize, oh, I could be the vulnerable, right? I care about other people even if I don't know them, because I can understand and empathy with what IT feels like to be vulnerable. And furthermore, I could be among the vulnerable. So we behave differently as a culture, and that's what we're searching for on an individual level, all the way up to a cultural level.

I have several questions but first I wanted just highlight what you said about restructure relationships and the fact that um as was exploited in episode three and you made so clear and IT just makes so much sense most of what people explore for when looking for A.

Manic partner or determining whether not they're existing romantic relationship could be Better or not is focused on the wrong things, right? These very kind of superficial notion of what people enjoy and even level of education, some of which can really matter, but that's not the critical issue at hand. And that the maps that the two individuals have in the extent to which they are expressing their generation drive um and agency and gratitude is far, far more important.

And so for those that haven't heard episode three and are interested in relationships, not just romantic relationships, but relationships of all kinds, work, families, relationship to sell friendship, I highly, highly recommend list in that conversation because it's it's truly spectacular in terms of its action, will take away in by action what I mean, actions, of course, behaviors and and also modes of thinking they can really serve people. I also just want to make one clarification that I I believe that when you said higher key, when you said move up the higher key um you were referring the higher key within the within the map that's been laid out here right as supposed to. I don't want people to get uh mistakenly uh distracted by the the possibility that we're talking about some sort of like external social herky.

Um so I just want to clarify that. And that's actually a perfect jumping off place for um going into the map with a little bit more a depth and detail and expLoring these covers that resides at the lower levels of the map and that are quite complex. okay. So for those of you listening who have not yet gone and access to the P D F that we put in the shown of captions, um you can do that at any point. But what we're talking about is a bunch of things down at the bottom under the these two pillar structure of self and function of self.

These cover covers, excuse me, that are extremely valuable for any and all of us to look in and explore and a specific questions because it's what resides within those covers that combine in a sort of recipe and then guys up into whether not and how much empower ment, humility, agency, gratitude, peace, contentment, delight in general drive, we are able to exert and um and experience for ourselves in life so imagine in your mind, if you will um and here i'm borrowing directly from um a picture model that doctor county provided um before the filming of the series which is the iceberg where below the surface of the water resides the bunch of stuff and then a little bit is above the water and maybe help us revisit that model now for a few moments but if you take nothing away at this moment um please understand that there's a lot of complex stop going on and breath the surface of the brain in mind. But a key feature of this map is that well, IT is very, very complex underneath. What emerges from that complexity gets simpler and simpler, especially as we move towards places of Better health and more effectiveness in life. Um so if you would could you describe the map in a bit more detail, especially what's down there in these pillars, the complex stuff and and the stuff that we should be looking at. And then we'll touch on some of those covered that we all have in the sorts of questions that we should all by asking in the context of some a common chAllenges, but also some very common and very effective paths to doing and feeling Better.

Yes, yes, the unconscious mind is the place to start. That's the deepest level of the structure of self. So imagine, imagine sitting on top of a biological supercomputer the size of a house, right? That's what's going on inside of us, alright.

The unconscious mind is that biological supercomputer, and if we're interested in ourselves, right, we become very, very curious about what is going on in IT. And and that's where even though it's not directly accessible to us, IT can be accessible through other ways, such as we talked about reflection or therapy and quiz are other ways too. But IT is accessible to us.

And we want to know what is in IT because what IT is in IT has such a strong effect on what's going on in our conscious mind, right? That's the the person on top of the biological supercomputer to the size of a house. Or the image we've been using is the top of the iceberg that's coming out of the water.

So we can look at that either way. But what is in IT has, of course, a huge effect on the part that we're ware of our conscious mind. And and I think the best analogy here, and actually I think quite a an an an algy that parallels very well, is to an access in the field of physical medicine.

So an access is an area of world of infection, right? So imagine that there's some infection for examples. Often in the optimal, there's there's some infection.

And that infection could be really dangerous, right? If that infection spread, we could go to the blood that the person could could die from that, right? So the body does a really good job of walling off that infection, right? And and that's a good thing, right?

Because of the infection weren't walled off, IT poses huge risk. But the world of infection does not represent a condition of health. So someone who has an access in them and doesn't know if this happens frequently in medicine.

And we see people coming to emergency rooms and know they've a low grade fever and y've had a low grade fever for a while and they don't feel good and they have low energy and they're not sleeping well, and they find themselves sweating a lot. There are pervasive experiences going on that are really detracting from life, like not feeling great all the time, even though the person doesn't feel really sick. That sometimes why IT takes a while for the person to come to medical attention.

So what's going on is Better than not being walled off. But IT is not SONY mous with health. So what happens in physical medicine? Obsesses, identified, and then someone goes in, a surgeon goes in and drains IT, and then the person is Better, right? Think about that process, like surgery.

Surgery y is not a fun thing, right? There is anathema theis recovery, right? But surgery is great when IT curse the problem, right? So it's not that of the the physician in the emergency room with the family practice, the dog identifies that there's an access, refer to the surgeon, everything is great and happy and they're Better.

No, they have to go have a surgery and that's not an easy thing, right? But if they go and do that on the other side, the infection actually is gone. So they do not have the symptoms that I was constantly spinning off inside of them.

And they also don't have the risk that maybe that refreshing gets out of the access, and their life is then at risk. So the parallel is looking into the unconscious mind to what is inside of us that may be acting like that access. Even though this is an analogy, IT is not theoretical, like this happens all the time.

And the access inside that person emotionally may be the bullying that went on right around the time of puberty. IT may be that awful boss who is just so mean. And I took that good job away from me, right? IT might be that.

IT might be, you know, that assault. T that? I don't want to think about that really still with me. IT might be that death I still feel guilty about.

I don't know what IT is, right? But if there's an access in there, we want to understand that and then fix IT curate, right? And that's what the therapy process can do. And that's why at times the therapy is unpleasant. You know the crying and the anger, you know that's the parallel of going through the surgery, right? But on the other side, we've dissipated the energy inside of IT like we we've taken care of IT and and that's why IT is so important to go into the unconscious mind.

If there are things that are really troubling us, or if we don't know what's going on to cast the net of of inquiry that may lead us there, because trauma is so common, and we shove drama underneath the surface because of the guilt and shame that IT generates, and then IT stays in us like an access and spins off symptoms. They could be symptoms of dividends, they could be sentence of overusing a substance, and they could be symmes of avoiding good things in our life. But they are pervasive systems that are really harmful to us that we can understand and .

fix in addition to quality therapy. What are some other ways to access the unconscious? Earlier, we were talking about journal and spelling out once life narrative in written er and spoken form, either alone or with a trusted other. Let's assume that somebody either can't afford or is just not at the place where they are willing to do therapy yet um but they fully adopt this access model that uh or this obsess analogy um that you described, which I think is an exceptional one because um a you have the you know twenty plus years of clinical experiences knowing this exist but also I think we all at some level can understand that they're stuff happening within us that we can't explain and and I as a neuroscientist can absolutely say that you most of the neural machinery in your head and the parts of that that are in your body like we don't have access to IT.

We love to think that we do but do is just clicking away and there so let's say somebody wants to um make some progress to improve their level of mental health more take more agency and gratitude, improve all aspects of their life in the general drive. What are some ways that they can start to tap into the unconscious? Um and I guess is if it's not in therapy, it's going to be by looking at some in some of these other covers as you're describing them.

yes, develop and embrace curiosity about yourself, right? And if you can go for that curiosity, being dismissive ate right in in in the sense that you know talk about these files you have with with memories and events from your past like that's so good, right? Because you're expLoring your life, right? So, so someone who who wants to understand themselves Better do that for yourself.

Go look at pictures, talk to people you knew with different stages of life. Reflect upon how you behaved, the different stages of life, what you felt inside, anchor yourself to memories and then extrapolate from there, become curious about yourself. And if you can be this passion at this idea that sometimes gets called an observing ego, right? There are other words to put to IT, but it's not eager.

And a negative sense right here. IT means the ability to stand outside of oneself and go right, and you really think about oneself without the negative emotion were often able to either see the trauma, for example, or see the change. Like, um why did I.

Go from feeling really good about myself and I felt like I could do anything. And then this is a couple years later, I look at me on mopping in the pictures and know. And then they go was drinking more. I stop taking care myself.

Like that's a pretty big change, right? And then now like we're calling attention, what's that change? And a lot times a person knew IT, you know like I got rejected, I that terrible break up, right? And like they all, they knew I was a terrible break, but they keep shoving.

And under the surface, maybe they didn't know was a terrible break up. Maybe they can't figure out what IT is like. That's okay. Wait, even if they recognized that there was a change, then that will put the lie to what in this example is likely going on.

So that person likely frames themselves in a way that is very negative and always was true, right? So, so I can never achieve anything. I never feel good, no one likes me. I can find a part of whatever is we say to ourselves. The person is always been that way, right, because the negative emotion is so strong and that part of our brain doesn't care about the clock in the calendar.

And then the person goes back and thinks IT was not always that way, right? And IT comes to this a lot in therapy doesn't have to be, as you said, in therapy. But no, you know, I was a go getter, right again.

I'm looking the person, he said that I was a go get, and I was out there in the things which put the lie to her, saying that he was lazy, incapable, all those things that were not true, but SHE accept IT as truth, right? So SHE needed from that mathematical perspective to go back and question the givens, right? From our perspective worth saying, go look in the unconscious mind.

Go look in that part of the pillar of the structure of self. Go look there. That's the deepest part, the most complicated part. But IT doesn't mean we can understand IT.

And if we start to gain understanding, then we can think more about the conscious mind, like what ways I can? What am I thinking about? What do I think about that? right? Have I really thought about this is a just running over and over in my head.

What would I like to do about IT? Maybe i'd like to learn more. May be I wanna get a book that I think could help me listen to another podcast that could help me talk to a friend, like maybe I want to do those things. So now the flow between the unconscious mind and the conscious mind right becomes much more robust.

And that lets us look further right to look at the next level of the defense mechanism that grow up out of the unconscious mind and and we can have some understanding of them even though they're unconscious, right? So the idea of when something shifted in me, how did my way of engaging with the world kinds change? You know, like I was perseverance, and, you know, I would take some of that energy and me that wasn't so good, and remembers I could put IT into, like exercising and taking care of myself.

And then then that sort of shifted, and I became sarcastic and cynical. And now I started avoiding, you know, those of my friends who are really taken care of themselves in doing well because I made me feel worse about myself. So so that's a dialogue that is reflective of defense mechanism.

Now the person isn't necessarily say, oh, I used a lot of sublimation, which is good. And then I started using reaction information and avoidance just as an example, right? But they're going to understand that in in words that they can, whatever words they put to, they understand that there was a change they can start putting.

They put words to that they can understand that process of change is not OPEC. They're shining light on IT. And now they can gain a Better understanding of IT.

And they can change IT. Even that realization that I was much more functional, things were different. I mean, that can be a treasure trove of very relevant, very important and very positive information to bring to the current situation.

I think we often romance. The idea of the person who can just live life forward, doesn't look back, who just doesn't really explore their past, is just action oriented. Because after all, when we wake up in the morning, all we can control our actions going forward. We can we script the actions of past hours or others.

right? That is such a good point of what happens when we're just looking forward, right? We become like a sprinter who comes out of the blocks too fast. So if you think about the the beginning of a hundred, hundred hundred dash, right, they are the best sprinters in the world, say, right? And there they are in the blocks.

And if they come out of those blocks in the right way, they will gain momentum, they will keep their form, and they will run as fast as they can. But if they do not pay attention to what is behind them, the blocks that are supporting their body, right, the whole bigger picture here of the limitations within the body, right? They have to know what those limitations are.

They have to understand themselves. That's how they avoid coming out of the blocks so fast and then sprawling headlong onto the track. And we see that happen to so if we're just looking forward and thought an idea that's how to live life, we will be tripping forward and ultimately will be like that sprinter in, no matter how greatest sprinter, if you come out of the blocks too fast, you gonna trip forward.

Yes, I know said this in a different form a few minutes ago, but I think a lot of people are afraid of self inquiry because they just don't want the thing that they discover, which resides in their unconsciously access, if you will, or the a the damaging thought or thing that happened, which they are aware of, but are pushing down to take over their daily life in a way that doesn't allow them to be at least as functional as they are in the moment.

If you go visit the person who had the access cured by the surgeon on post up day one, that person will be less functional, right? They'll be in a hospital bed, right? They won't able to get up out of the bed.

They won, be able to exercise. You're going to feel, you're going to feel their best, right? That's okay, right?

IT is okay that we at times can become international tented, say less functional, right? In the sense that we're more upset than I am spending more time crying, right? That's okay because that's part of the energy, the effort, the choice that gets us to a Better place.

okay. So it's clear to me why expLoring the unconscious mind can be and really is immensely valuable. Just i'm convinced and I can't imagine anyone else there who would disagree with the idea that getting Better mentally, being able to function Better in the world as a consequence IT is not a terrific use of one's time even if IT um you know at the surface seems to take us off course a bit in in the moment or that for even a few days.

And I think is also a worth highlighting that it's not the case that if we do an exploration of the ung conscious mind or looking any of these covers so that matter that our entire day is going to be overtaken by IT or all of our sleep is going to disappear when we're not talking about a process in which everything is devoted to expLoring these covers. I mean, there are instances, of course, worse, that one hits a crisis and they simply can't function. But in that case, the thing they absolutely need to do is to look at these covers. What are some ways that we can explore this other covered under the pillar of structure of self h, which is the covered of the .

conscious mind. So we can also approach this through the curiosity of self.

We do a lot of things automatically, right, that we can stop and think about, like, why do I do that thing, right? And it's amazing what that can provide, right? So for example, I am working with the person who has been going to work for a long, long, long, long, long, long time, didn't need to go to work a long time ago, right? And there's so many other things this person wants to do with their life.

They're curious about things. They want to spend more time with older people in their family, right? But they had to stop and think, why am I going to work right now?

He starched enough that he doesn't have. He also earned. He had working.

He's diligent. He's fortunate, but he hadn't thought about IT. He's been going to work automatically for a long time. And IT was the thinking about IT that that made him well is where I I do that automatically.

Not why? Because it's rooted in in unconscious things, but that he is now bringing to the conscious mind, right? Because I value hard work and I value diligence, right? But him stop working doesn't mean that he's not he know he's not in actually hard working your diligence that for years and years and years and he can show IT in other ways like by you know how he wants to be attentive to older people who need help.

But there's a lot he can do, but he had to go back and look and then of course, there's a reason why he didn't realize IT right? And even though not even a bad reason, but but clue there was an an overvalue of hardworking, diligent and he didn't realize, oh, like i've done that right. I've done enough that i've convinced to myself like, I know i'm hard working, I know i'm gilgan so K, I don't have to sort to serve that internal master anymore and I can step away.

And now his whole life is changed. But how the change come about by asking what one might think is such a simple question to make no sense. Like why do I go to work each day? Why have I been going? He's off on the road to change.

So so that is one aspect of of how we can explore that the conscious ous mind and often lead us back to the unconscious mind, right? But it's awareness of our conscious choices, right? We can also then use tactics.

So for example, cognitive behavioral tactics like thought redirection, like if i'm aware that he is a thought that comes into my mind, a lad, and I start learning ways I can redirect away from IT instead of thinking about one hundred times, right? And if I learn how to do that, there is less of a negative emotion that comes from thinking about IT. And and I can start to feel Better, raise the basic premise of, but these are techniques that can really help us, and they involve understanding and guiding the conscious mind.

I'm smiling because i'm recalling an experience I had I A female friend who very impressive person really as overcoming on is a recovered alcoholic for many years um and takes at least by my really great care of herself and the other people around her and a spectacular sense of humor and a bunch of other things is Polly five six years ago that we were in conversation about something I don't recall what and out of apparently nowhere SHE SHE said.

I hate being busy and I just stopped me in my tracks because i'm somebody who 嗯 keeps very， very busy, and my schedule is extremely fall with things that I really enjoy, some things I don't enjoy. You are enjoy last. But fortunately, at this point, my life mostly things that I enjoyed at the time, I was very, very busy with many things, including many things I didn't enjoy.

And her statement just halted me, and I realized, you maybe I don't have to be busy like like this whole notion of doing a bunch of things I don't want to do. Like, sure, we have to make our way in the world and make a living and take care of ourselves and others. But but I realized that there was a lot of extra stuff that I was doing .

because I think, but what he meant and what you were reflecting on was I hate being automatically busy, right? right? It's not good to be automatically busy. And then IT makes you think about you how my busy ways that are good for me and how am I busy in ways that are not? Am I just taking up time to avoid something you start .

really thinking about IT? Yes, and the conversation stays with me to this day because until then, I never really thought about the possibility that some were a lot of the things I was doing were truly a waste of my time, like IT. Most of because I could be putting that energy into general things, right? General drives things that would bring me agency, gratitude, peace, contentment, delight, these sorts of things.

What i'm giving us, an example, I realize quite different than sitting down in a chair and asking oneself questions about oneself and and one schedule, and what wants the same but IT right, same end point. And and I bring that up because I think IT was the fact that IT stopped me in my tracks, but also the fact that I can't seem to forget IT. That means that you must have had significance and and I would say has had significance because, you know, I think most people are familiar with seeing these news articles that come out, women or men, you know, one hundred and four reflects on what really mattered in life.

And it's it's almost always the same thing is like close relationships at what you know, no one on their death bed says, I wish I spend more time at work. I might be one exception. I actually really enjoy my work.

So I, whenever I see that one, always think, no, I like my life. Without my life's work, IT would would be a diminished life for me. I think there are others out there as well, but I think it's very hard for us to place ourselves into the future of a person on our death bat, looking back and then make really good decisions. Now I think there are our ways to do that. But my seems that it's far more powerful to just think about what am I doing now and and make some you know and come to some realizations about what is really a value now and what is of less value and no value now and then make adjustments now as supposed to doing the death bed exercise.

You have no other option. If you're you going to make change. I mean, think about what are complicated and ultimately meaningless exercise.

IT is to try and project ahead into a future when one is on ones death bed. And like what is that like? I mean, we can imagine that and we don't know who's there.

Like whatever that situation may be for any of us, it's not going to be what we imagine. So then we just make something up and we train what extrapolate our lives in a way that that gets us to this place where we're on our death bed. We're not unhappy.

okay. IT just brings us right back to the future like because it's actually simple, right? That is so complicated, what the things can be like on our death?

Pt, what will happen between now and then? All things I don't know. So it's impossibly complicated. So then you take IT back to to the present, right? Like what is that i'm choosing?

I am the eye right now that is moving through time or is on the loose of life for wherever we want to say. So what am I choosing right now? That's how we make our lives Better.

But and we're ware, of course, I know there's a future. I want to lead towards a Better future. I I don't a cryo ball. I can't vision what that's going to be, but I can do my best now to guide my life as best I can, and that's going to have to lead me to the best future. What, whatever all the variables are that I don't know yet.

The next cup red under the pillar of structure of self is defense mechanisms. I have several questions about defense mechanisms, but the first question is, can we be aware of our defense mechanisms and is their value in that? And if so, which defense mechanisms are accessible? toss? And I guess the third question would be, how does one go about expLoring defense mechanisms?

It's sort of fantastic imaging, right, that there is this iceberg, right? Paris underwater, paris above water. And then from the part that's underwater come these ort of branches, right? So, so where imagine that?

Is there the branches of ice that can be clear and have light passed through them in a way that is high fidelity, right? Where they can be sort of twisted and unclear and and they distort the light that passes through them. Now they rise up from the unconscious mind, meaning defenses are unconscious.

They are automatic, but they're not outside of our ability to go looking for them. They're in the unconscious mind. So so it's not that we can understand them is that they're elusive and there has to be a process of inquiry, but we can learn about them just like we can learn about other things in the unconscious mind.

And and here again, knowledge is power. So i'm not gonna learn anything new. I'm unlikely to learn anything new about my defense mechanisms if I don't think about them, right. But if I start to think about them, then I can start to learn things and to draw conclusions.

You know, how am I behaving now as supposed to before? Do I notice that, like, i'm coping or awesome, think coping, but coping is conscious, but we can access that. How my coping? What am I doing? And what does that mean?

For example, someone who after some difficult experience, right then starts avoiding right, can be doing that without an awareness of IT. Avoidance is a defense. So avoidance of situations or people, or potential negative emotion and so self reflection can help us understand which defense mechanisms were using and what may have changed in us.

So an example, an example, see all the time is someone who say, had, as a primary defense mechanism, sublimation before some difficult to vet. Then the sublimation is taking energy, taking, say, access aggression, turning IT into something positive. It's a good way of handling distress within so healthy, right? And now after some change in their life, they find that say they're drinking more and they're relying more and more on alcohol and you might say, well, there's zoo ing with alcohol.

Yes, there's soothing with alcohol in one sense, but what else might that mean, right? And often times what you'll see is that the person is using alcohol because they're matter someone, they are puni shing someone, that someone is probably, then they get to have the short term soothing, but then to feel worse about themselves the next day, right? And the alcohol is in part of search, pursuing, but it's in part in acting out against the self, which is a different kind of defense mechanism that is not healthy.

So the process of reflection or of inquiry can help us understand the branches that are coming up from the iceman, from the unconscious mind. How are they in me? Are they arranged in a way that sort of elegant? And and they're clear in the lightest passing.

Few more there thinks that he becomes so twisted. Okay, what is that? What exactly is that? How do I go change that, right? I don't want that branch that is sort of opake, the light can't get through, is distorted. So so I can go look at that because even though defense mechanisms are unconscious, if i'm working on myself, I can take away that, so to speak, diseased branch, right? Or that branch is not healthy and put in its place something healthier.

That's how we can change our defensive structure, right, those branches of our defense mechanisms, because even though they're unconscious, right, we can reflect on them, bring them to to consciousness and then bring ourselves to bear to make ourselves healthier. And IT can indeed get healthier. And as IT gets healthier, IT affects the next level around IT, which is the person's character structure.

So remembering we're using fantastical image, right? Because around the iceberg blowing above the water and the branches that come out of the part of the facebook under the water, and how they array themselves, were imagining that there's a nest that's encompassing all of that, the unconscious mind, the conscious mind, the defense mechanisms. And that nest is the character structure.

It's a way that we contain and define the self that rides on top of everything. IT is into that nest that the self settles and from which the self grows. Because the character structure is more than just the conscious mind.

It's so the conscious mind in action, the defense mechanisms in action, all the things that are going on underneath the surface in the unconscious mind in action. And then that's how we be, you think be as an active word, right? That's how we are or that's how we actively be in the world, how we're engaging with the world.

So you described the character structure as the nest that is up above the surface of the water, and that includes things like these unconscious defenses and all other aspects of what comes from below. Then you also said that the self, our cells reside in the nest. And you, and I don't recall the exact wording, but you said something to the extent of the self grows within that nest.

yes. And as you said that I immediately had the imagine mind of a nest that is either incredibly nurturing and can really Foster themself in its best ways and can give rise to empowerment, humility, agency, gratitude, peace, contentment, delight, general drive, all these one derful things. I also imagined a nest that, you know isn't as clean as IT could be, or that has some holes in IT.

Or that isn't stable in the wind and these sorts of things. Is that sort of imagery that's coming to mind for me? Is that is that a decent way to conceptualize?

yes. And I think this is this is a very important point. This self nests in the character structure, and from nesting in the character structure, IT grows.

We are the self that grows from within that nest. And that tells us a couple of things. One, I am something now. Well, right now, things i've done, the things i've thought, the things that have happened to me, like there's self now.

So, so one might think then what grows out of the nest right is what I am now, hence the concept of acceptance of self. That's what I am now, right? But I am also responsible for tending what is growing.

I'm responsible for reading IT, right, are responsible for planting healthy seeds in IT. And I think that captures the truth of the acceptance of ourselves. This is what I am now.

This is who I am now. But isn't IT beautiful that I can tend and nurture IT? And we know is as you'd computed, what happens if you don't tend IT, there's a lot of weeds.

Things aren't going well. Things started to get unstable of that's not good and we can go that way too, right? That's where agency gratitude.

You're part of how IT all cycles through, right? Because our unconscious mind is still working like it's all still happening. And that's how we tend the garden of the self, so to speak.

That's how we best tended so that what grows up from IT is self that we recognize in the way that we want to recognize ourselves. We see self that we can feel proud of. We see self that we understand well enough to guide forward. We see self for which we have enough respect and humility within us to understand that we don't understand everything, and it's from that self that we engage with the world .

i've heard many times is before in the circles of psychology and self help and um elsewhere that you know we need to all learn to mother and father ourselves to some extent. And i'm not a developmental psychologist, but my understanding is that the unconscious mind, the conscious ous mind, our defense mechanisms, the character structure, all the stuff that makes up the nest, which the self resides and hopefully can grow, are least at some stage of life, perhaps all stages of life determined by genetics and by how we were raised, nature and nurture.

But this phrase we have to learn to parent ourselves IT is thrown around a lot these days, certain ly on social media, but elsewhere too and often times that brings to mind some of stereotypes of mothering and fathering. And these steroid pes break down quite a bit these days um things like, you know we have to be nurturing to ourselves and self respect, self love, self protection, right healthy self protection and these kinds of things and all of that sounds finding good but it's always seemed a rather vague to me like you i'm telling myself i'm OK or you know is that mothering and fathering myself? I don't know.

I mean, IT doesn't seem as concrete as as perhaps I would like and others would like because because it's not spelling out to paci c action ables. What you're describing here makes so much more sense to me, even though some of these concepts are a bit abstract because the idea of this nest in which the self read sides and and emerges from character structure um one can immediately see why it's so valuable and it's such a key component of mental health and self care. To tend to that nest and written into that is the fact that the nest is malual, that we really can make changes, right, that we can create a Better internal environment for ourself. By going through these covers.

you're pointing out another crucial factor here, which is if I am the garden himself that grows up from all of that and I am responsible for tending the garden, i'm also responsible for tending to the whole structure. And that's so important. If i'm going to take care of myself in the ways that we've talked about, i'm going to attend not just to the garden that's growing out that I can see on the surface, but i'm going to attend to all of me, to the entire structure of self.

An example here that I think can illustrate IT pretty well is, so imagine a person who's doing well, you know that the part of the export ground of the water is solid, right? The consciousness on top is sold, the defense mechanisms are clear, the nest is good, the garden of self is flourishing, and then there's a significant trauma to that person. There's a car accident, someone is hurt, there's a death of someone around them.

They have a serious illness. They lose a job, right? They can even be.

They spent too much time contemplating and looking at news from murders around the world and all the awful things that we can spend too much time with. Something traumatic then goes into the unconscious mind, right? The trauma happens.

And what often happens, not always, but what very often happens is the guilt and shame that are raise causes to push the trauma underneath the surface. Now that in the unconscious ous mind, and it's impacting IT and that the ability is threatened, right? Mean, it's all riding on top of this giant part of the iceberg that's underneath the surface of the water. And okay, we don't have to worry too much about IT, right? If things are going well, but if IT starts to get fragmented, IT starts to shift IT threats, everything that rides on top of IT, which is why taking care of ourselves means taking care of all elements of the structure of self.

That all makes very clear why tending to the garden is so key, and why we, as individuals, are really the people most fit to do this, right? Of course, when one can that work should be done with somebody who's really terrific clinic of guide that process, and where one can work with the clinic, one would hope that they would take a structure approach to this, which is really what we're talking about here and in the other episodes.

And keeping in mind, as is keeping in mind that tending to the self means, tending to the whole structure of self, right? If we keep that in mind, we won't go wrong, right? Will pay attention to the surface, but we will pay attention to the things that are under the surface. We pay attention to the whole structure of self. We will share with ourselves forward as best we can.

I'd love you to tell us about the function of self. The second pillar that resides alongside structure of self, and that serves to guide up into how we show up in the world, hopefully with empowerment, humility, agency, gratitude. But sometimes no.

And as we've established, uh, there is always, always, always tremendous value to expLoring these covers. So how does one go about expLoring the different covers under the function of self in which probably start that conversation by? And what are the covers under the function of self?

I'll started off by saying all the covers under the function itself will reference the structure of self, right, which makes sense. There's a structure, and the function arises from the from the structure is good for us to have that in mind as we're thinking about the elements of the function of self.

So the deepest element, say the the bottom of the pillar right is self awareness, right? The sense of an I right on top of that, next up the pillow are defense mechanisms in action. Right up from that is sAilings.

What we're paying attention to inside and out, the next level above that is behavior, and on top of that is our striving. So if we go back to the the bottom layer, the deepest, most complicated layer, it's the sense of self awareness, the sense of an I and there are a lot of ways that we can fost yourself awareness. So like the unconscious mind in the structure, we can just go there and fully understand what the eye is, but we can do things that can really, really help us.

So for me, thinking about what am I and how my navigating the world and having in mind the structure of self, like there's an unconscious mind working, is away in me. There's my conscious mind. Even being aware of the first pillar can be part of Fostering the self awareness of the second pillar.

Another way that can happen is self reflection, for some people, can happen in meditation contemn lation of the self. There are many ways that we can help ourselves understand that living is an active process, that idea of the lose of time and where you we're moving down IT, it's an active process and that is the I that i'm guiding through that process. We can fost yourself awareness in a number of ways, but what we're trying to do here, the same as with the the bottom of the structure of self pill, is the most complicated parts.

There's a lot that's unconscious. There's a lot that's unknown to us. So what we're trying to do is no sum of IT, right? And no more of IT over time, bring some of those automatic or unconscious things to consciously warehouse so that we can have a Better understanding. Because if we have an understanding, we can utilize that to make everything Better.

I can see right off how this first covered of self awareness and an exploration of the eye is so critical and realizing that we have a physical, that we have agency in the world to do least certain things um and in an earlier episode you mentioned a practice actually of of looking in the mirror and focusing on this reality that we have a physical body, we reside in IT and then we have agency.

We can do things in the world as a way to reinforce self awareness such an interesting practice and one that I started on immediately after well, that evening yeah and the next morning after hearing IT from me as some interesting things came to mind, and I encourage people to try IT. It's eyes open just for a few minutes or so, two, three minutes. In my case, some interesting understanding came about, especially when coupled with thinking about, know some of my life narrative and things that have happens.

So I highly recommended people explore this, this practice you described, and also interested in the sorts of narratives that we have about ourselves. I think everyone has narratives about what they're good at, what they're less good at, what happened to them, why IT happen to them. Could you tell us what you think about expLoring our narratives, right? Not just expLoring fact, we have a physical body, but expLoring our, our stories about .

ourselves. Well, self awareness is just the awareness of an ee, right? So we can use our conscious mind to help that, right? So this this aspect of function himself isn't about what the narrative means, right? That comes later. This is about the awareness of.

And I so when you were talking about the narrative, you set something along the lines like their stories and and you're not thinking of like, oh, that is the same me in in these stories if if you approach the narrative in a different way, the world is like there's an ee, right? There's an me like, i'm the point of all these stories, right? That's why they're here.

They're all in me in some way or another because I remember them and they're important enough that I wrote them down. If you look at IT that way, we are just apprehending an I like home, there's a me to whom all of this supplies. That's how we can use the conscious mind of the narrative in order to Foster yourself awareness. It's not yet about meaning. It's about the awareness of an ee.

So it's actually much simpler er than i'm making IT out to be at some level at that level. Yes, got IT. Then at some point, we will return to this theme of narratives, narratives that serve us, perhaps narratives that don't serve us, meanwhile.

take us into that second bin under .

the function of self, the defense mechanisms in action. I find these infinitely fascinating, and I think many other people do too, because sublimation denial, these kinds of things, you know, they really provide so much, much of what does doesn't happen to you at and um yeah so if you if you could tell us how we can think about our defensive mechanisms and action in a way that can improve .

our health course. Defense mechanisms are under the structure of mind. Defense mechanisms in action or under function of mind, right?

There are unconscious processes that we can gain sometimes a very good understanding of by directing our conscious mind towards them. And this is a place where we can use narratives, right? We can use an understanding ourselves.

So as an example, someone who thinking about themselves and and what they want to do for a living if they want their job and where they want to live, and you know, who's thinking about self can realize, you know, he's going to a feel good when i'm doing something for someone, when we hear this a lot, especially people who then direct themselves towards helping professionals, like, what did I like about that job? IT wasn't that I had a great salary? IT wasn't that the hours were good in? I like that I was really helpful to people, or or, you know, there were people that were underneath of me in the hierarchy that I could really kind of nurture right, and then think right.

And I love putting food out for the birds and the square. Like, is that you can be a realization of self that guides us towards consciously apprehending and thinking about altruism as a defensive mechanism. Because altruism is that defends is a healthy defense, where if you can do something good, you do something good, make something good, that's the end point of IT, like you don't need that to translate into something else, is a defense mechanism is a good one.

And you can certainly see how that fits with the good things we're trying to build on top of IT. And sometimes through that process of reflection, the person becomes aware of that they haven't chosen jobs by the obvious things that even they thought they choose jobs by. Where's the job? What does IT pay IT? Wasn't that that what they really and what they then started choosing upon might have been something that they weren't aware of until they think about IT.

And that leads them to the defense mechanism the same way. Another example could be rationalization, right? Someone who thinks about their life and they think, you know, his can't tell myself something is Better than IT is right? And then ultimately, I got disappointing myself. No, I told myself like you're doing really well at work and i'm not really working hard enough. And then when I have that review, I feel lousy.

You and that last person who broke up with me and said, you know, just weren't being a reliable partner or, you know, that person was right and then I learned to, oh, what's going on? I always think things you're going pretty well when they're not with as guiding us towards rationalization as a defensive mechanism. And again, a person doesn't have have to say, uh, I conclude amusing rationalization as a defense mechanism.

But there can be words put to that of seeing a pattern in the cell with when this is done as part of their apex tic inquiry. We're often looking to identify the defense mechanisms, and that can be great too, but it's not always needed, right? Defense mechanisms result in patterns, right? So a person just seized the pattern that can be enough to recognize the pattern and either, say, follow the pattern of altruism m as a defensive mechanism, or how do we work against? How do I work against? The pattern of rationalization is a defensive mechanism.

Can we conclude that patterns that we don't like are the reflection of unhealthy defense mechanisms in the patterns that we like are the consequence of healthy defensive mechanism? usually?

Yes, this were some thought in some reflection in putting together. Like what exactly are the the pieces of that? But basically the answer to that is, yes.

In an earlier episode, you mention one defense mechanism in action that is often observed in people is acting out no this um immediately sounds I can unhealthy defense mechanism um so to keep with a conceptive the patterns are often more observer able then are the underlying defense mechanisms would have be the case for instance that um if somebody you know has a repeated set of failures like that's a pattern or is repeatedly in friction in a particular relationship in their life, maybe even just with one person, like all other relationships are going great, but then there a lot of friction with this one other person. So there's a pattern from that pattern they could explore. What I mean, is that important that they get to a verbal identification of the defense mechanism? Or you know what what sort of steps would want take going from a recognition of the pattern to understanding of the defense mechanism, perhaps in a way that moves .

them forward to the understanding of the defense mechanism, can be very helpful, but isn't always need IT, right? If you can recognize a maladaptive pattern, oh, this is happening a lot, and it's not good for me. You you become able to change that pattern, right? So understanding the defense can be helpful.

And again, the more understanding the Better. But it's not always necessary here, I think to understand the the defense mechanism, we should first define acting out because we think of acting out just hearing the words as something that's violation ally done, right? But that's not what we're talking about, right? Defense mechanisms are unconscious.

So there's an automatically to the response that the person can see by reflection because this isn't conscious choice to act out. That's something different. That's bad behavior, right? But what we're talking about here is the thing that's automatic and unconscious until we bring IT into our conscious mind and acting out isn't always dramatic either.

So so here's one example, right? So let's say in a relationship situation, right, you have one person who always does the dishes well, the person does something different, right? That person does the dishes, right? And you know it's honner's st. People are busy lives.

It's only stuff, do a lot of dishes and and every time, like things aren't going so well, there's a little bit of conflict between them, right? The other person makes twice many dirty dishes, right? This is exactly the kind of thing that happens in relationship situations where this little thing becomes a little cracking in the door, that opens more, and there is a foot in the door.

Now there is a big problem because we act out in these ways that we're not aware of. So again, the person isn't deciding i'm going to do that so that that that person has to do more work. But there's an automatic icy to IT.

And upon reflection, sometimes a person could realize i'm doing that right. Or in real example, person who realizes I just make much more difficulties right around the house, like I make a lot more difficulties from my partner as a wow, like this person doesn't want to be doing that, right? That's not.

They love that person. They don't want to be doing that. But by realizing that when they can bring a process of change, of just being more self aware and say, look, I don't want to do that.

I don't want that to be a defense anymore. If I have conscious awareness now, I can control IT. And maybe that person is doing that.

Other places may be because, you know, kind of goes that way at work too. You know, I can contribute to a project and make something easier on a person. And I realized, I don't do that right.

If if i'm feeling in and I get away and we can go fine, okay, what might the roots of that bee did? For example, did a parent role model that behavior? Was that done to them, where the parent was really good to them if they were behaving in the right way and like, they make their breakfast right? And if not, well, you know, you make IT yourself for, oh, so there's no milk me like these things happen.

And then the person gets in them some array of circumstances, feelings, responses. All the stuff goes on in the unconscious mind that then throws up to the surface this kind of acting out as a defense mechanism. So I think it's it's important to point out is a good example because IT is unconscious and a lot of times how we're doing IT is not dramatic.

What about silence? This covered under the function of self that I think we are all all too familiar with you know what we pay attention to internally and externally. Um I have a sort of bizarre meditative practice that i've talked about before on the pod test.

I don't know why I came up with this, but it's more of a perceptual exercise that I do from time to time, where if I feel like two in my head, I literally to focus my visual attention outward, I try to place on a horizon or some object out there. And other times, if I were in the world too much, and I want to get back into myself, close my eyes and do a moment or two or more of more traditional, what mean what people think of his mediation? The proactive involves setting aside a mini or two and deliberately stepping through close eye meditation, like just it's not really meditation again, it's it's just returned.

I myself, like here, contained within my the skin of my body. Then I open my eyes. I look at my hand. This all sounds very silly as as I describe this. But and then I think about a bridge like my perception can be split between my awareness of self internally in my hand. Then I look out some distance, tend to your feet or so, and do the same as a bridge to self bridge, self awareness with external awareness.

And I step out to the horizon, and then I sometimes like to do the exercise of IT goes with with a popular mean, know that we're just like this, like pale blue dot. I think about myself right here. But then the fact that i'm planet is like spinning and you know in that in space and and then right back into myself and then I go about my day, and I developed two years ago more on the basis of what I know about visual perception and interruption or recognition of inside versus extra reception. Just fancy language for recognition and perception what's outside but um that's my practice of of orienting myself in life um because then I feel like I have A A Better buffers against what happens around me and how much I am reacting or not reacting. That's my practice um I don't a feeling IT IT touches into a few of these bins um but not but IT certainly doesn't get IT at um you know approaching a specific problem or thinking about where problems might exist beneath the surface that i'm not aware of right because .

is only one part of the equation. It's paying attention to sail and see what you are doing, then you are grounding yourself in order to change silence right and and that is a strategy you said I believe it's silver. This is that not is an understood and known strategy, for example, that variations of that are what people can due to prevent panic attacks, right? To change the sAilings.

If the saying is i'm going inside of me and i'm feeling panic and I just know just a feeling of all in this, right, you can change that sAilings by grounding yourself to the world around you, right? We tell people, place, place your hands on the table. Look at the specifics of exactly what time IT is.

Look at the shape of a dornoch right ground yourself, so that you can change sAilings. Because now, as we move up the hierarchy of of function of self, we're getting to using the conscious mind. right? Things that are silent to us can be external, they can be internal.

And if they're internal, they can be conscious. And sometimes you're unconscious. So it's not all about the conscious mind, but we're bringing the conscious mind to bear here to think about sAilings, which, combined with everything else, can help us see what's under the surface. Most of the time.

What we're doing is that act of self observation, right? What is going on inside of me, which can be, what am I thinking? This is how the person can realize over and over oh my goodness, i'm saying to myself, exam for the first time, they say out loud and realized the thing they've set to themselves ten thousand times, right? Or IT can be a feeling state, right? Well, what's sAiling IT to me is a feeling state, say, of vulnerability, and then everything seems threatening, right? So silence is a form of self awareness that we can could say, using the conscious mind now to tend to that garden of self, right? To look at that garden of self and say, what's really growing from IT, right, is all things I like.

To me, never all things we like is, is a process. But am I happy with I? Am I not happy with IT? Are there, you know, weeds that are coming up all over the place, those that could be the intrusive thoughts.

So we're using metaphors, but is actually very, very concrete, right? The silence part is what is going on inside of me, and that's a very interesting inquiry and informative, right? It's interesting because it's informative.

Do you think that's an inquiry that's best done in meditation like states you know set or setting aside some deliberate time to um to think about what I am I thinking about what am I paying attention to? How am I allocating my thoughts yeah or my thoughts being allocated I guess we have to respect the unconscious component here like we're not we don't just walk around, place my attention spot like there.

My thinking here want to be aware of things. No, no, that's respectful. That's appropriate humility because it's true.

So i'm assuming this ratched directly into the covered of behavior. Um you know what we're actually doing um is that covered best explored by listing off perhaps on paper and our minds what we're doing each day is that is that one way to explore like how am I spending my time um again, not as an efficiency exercise but as a way to start to explore the self and and the mind uh for sake of a building up to more agency and gratitude.

Right the routes to to most effective self inquiry, right to bringing the conscious mind to bear, really differ widely by person there are some people who they are so well served by doing that when they're meditating, right? There are other people who they can really get at that when they're playing a sport. He was going on inside of them, along with the other things that they're doing.

Some point, people find IT in the shower. They find IT when they wake up in the morning, or they find IT when they're with an animal they love, or they might find IT when they're reading a certain kind of material, and then they read IT, and then they kind of the reading trails off and they're thinking the a revery sort of inside. So how we can engender the best use of our conscious minds is going to differ by person.

But and we can think about that, like what really works for me. Let me do more of that. Someone, it's interesting.

We see people sometimes, I see people a lot of the time where they're trying to meditate to understand themselves and like not working great. And as a guy must know how to meditate in order to understand myself. Well, it's not necessarily true. IT might be. I must go on more hikes in order to Better understand myself, because that's how IT works for me.

So that process of reflection can be very, very helpful to us because we're using our conscious mind to try and either look inward what is sAiling IT to me, including understanding that I don't understand everything, but I can understand a lot of IT and outward, what behaviors are I engaging in? What are my behavior patterns, right? And to be reflective about that, to think about that, can be immensely helpful to us, say, how my spending those hours of the day, what am I doing with my time? My wasting my time, do I always get mad and say something mean to somebody? why? Because I had a negative thought about something.

Am I doing that now? Have I kind of change since something unpleasant happened? And, you know, now i'm not so nice to someone in the household, right? Or am I taking a lot Better care of myself? You know, like since I started doing x whatever x may be, learning more about myself right now, doing more the things I like, got left that old job.

I was so hard for me to leave. You know, I do actually get myself to the gym, right? So it's a reflection upon self because a lot of what we do, we do automatically, right? And that's very important, right? The example that often is given is, okay, think about how you last.

Brush your teeth right? And the answer like a blank, right, because you brush your teeth in an automatic way, right? Most of us don't remember that because we just skip RAID over IT.

So IT makes sense. That lets us think what we're doing, things that lets a lot happen automatically in the physical world, right, just as IT happens inside of us automatically. But we can.

There have so too much of a good thing where too much is happening automatically. And we wanted stop and think. And its remarkable house, sometimes when people stop and think, they might save.

In real examples, I don't want to be spending five minutes a week at the bar and i'm spending five nights a week at the bar. why? Because I go home a certain way from work and there's a bar along that way. And then I think, oh, i'll just stop in and maybe see a friend and then I know that once I get in there, i'm going to have a drink and I know want to have a drink.

I'm onna get three and three and I see this pattern of behaviors and how like I don't decide i'm going to go to that bar instead going home to see my wife for my husband, my kids or whatever IT may be. And I don't want to behave that way, right? Because they are.

That is a great example of how you can stop that from happening. But once its starts happening, the domino start falling. It's very, very hard that people don't generally realize, oh, my god, is some in the bar? And i've had one drink, and I am going to have two more.

That's not the time. But the understanding, the reflection upon behavior patterns can lead a person to stop those behaviors to understand and recognize them, get their arms around them, shine the light of day on them, and then have greater agency, right? Greater gratitude.

I'm great for I can go home to my family, and that's what I choose to do, right? And I can do that. I do not have to end up at that bar and i'm not going to end up at that bar.

I'm going to drive a different way home. And if I can't get myself to do that, i'm I have a friend in the car with me. And if I can do that, i'll be in the back seat, right? But i'm not doing that thing I choose not to do. And you know, that is a more dramatic example, not an uncommon one. But we can apply that the whole way up the list, from nuances of our behaviors down to more dramatic behaviors.

I heard you describe the unconscious mind in some of its interconnected workings with the analogy of a no phantom in the driver seat. And we're in the back seat of, of course, all within one person, right? This idea, which has been taken places that we don't want to go or that we know we shouldn't go or that we can't really figure out why we're going there.

And we have some idea, but we're just not certain about what's going on. It's not necessarily um related to really destructive action either. I mean, I can be but what you're describing sounds to me a lot like a climbing out of the back seat and um maybe sitting in the passenger seat and looking into the drivers. See, oh, there's something else going on here. Course, all of this is one mind um and in doing that, taking some control of the vehicle.

right it's about understanding what is that phantom? Where did IT come from? That's how we get rid of this.

So how do we get back in the drivers? Y we don't grab the phantom and throat out of door were thrown in the back seat, right? It's a femoral.

We can't grab IT, right? So how does that go away? IT goes away through understanding. So very common example that the phantasm in the driver's seat is trauma. That we have pushed in an unconscious place.

And now that whole under the surface structure of the iceberg is is fragmented and a sort of royal. And there's a big problem there. And we go at that problem and whatever it's spinning off, right? That's the ability, but it's a bad one and it's spinning off a lot of problems.

And that's why the phantom is in the driver seat because healthy things are not built on top of that fracturing and roiling part of the iceberg, right? We see that a lot. The phantom could also be something different.

IT could be one defense mechanism is unhealthy that we are really over relying on. And then we can understand the food at land. So there are just a few examples.

But if if you if we sort of wake up in the back seat of the hard, so to speak, and the phantom is driving recklessly, then how we get the phantom out of the front seats is by understanding, then always imagine, prove that goes away. Because now not driving my life anymore, right? I'm driving my life. It's gone.

The message that i'm hearing over and over again in my head is that no matter how well or how poorly any of our lives happen to be going, that by looking in these covers under structure of self and function of self, we can have so much more positive control.

Yes, yes, that's why ultimately, what we're talking about is optimistic. We can't help ourselves if we don't honour truth, right? And the truth is that there are complex aspects of this.

So okay, we want to go look at that. We want to look at how things can go wrong. And that's all very, very important, but that's all wrapped in the best truth, which is that we can change IT, we can make IT Better. That that's why the self, the garden of self, is on top of the structure of self, right, and the top of the function of self, or our strivings.

That's what comes next after behaviors, is like, what are my behaviors doing? What am I doing? What am I striving towards? What am I doing literally? Am I going to a job I hate and my doing things I don't want to do, and I accepting treatment that I don't want to accept? Am I treating people in ways I don't want to accept? How can I strive for Better? And striving and hopefulness, or so intertwined.

So the pinnacle of the function pillar is striving. The pinnacle of the structure pillar is self. And we can see how the self, the strivings, right?

What we're doing now is combining the pillars where IT comes together. And you know your imagine of that's where the guys are comes from. And we want that guides are to be healthy, right?

It's a stream of clear, clean water that's coming out of IT. That's where our empowerment is. But empowerment is a condition of being, right? I am empowered, but empowerment rest within me.

That's where humility comes into the picture. Humility also something within me, right? I have humility.

They're not verbs, but empowerment. And humility then gained their expression at the top of that guide. When agency and gratitude, those verbs arise from empowerment and humility.

What you've drawn for us is an incredibly compelling picture, because the picture of the map is really a road map. It's a path to ideals. And and you've been talking about these ideals of agency and gratitude um across the series and um they just encompass so much and as you mention before, they are interconnected um and they are verb states and a critical component of the guides ing up from the pillars tored agency in gratitude are these two components of empowerment and humility and tell us a little bit more about empowerment and humility and how we should view empowerment and humility in the context of self care.

Empowerment is a state that we can create for ourselves if we're taking care of the pillars, right? So we're looking in the colors. We're doing things that make our map clear and clear, right? This idea that, oh, that seems like a good path, but IT gets clear and there's a swamp there, right? Or that didn't seem like a good path because it's circuit is, oh, know, but they're good things along that path.

So the map gets clear as we tend IT to the covers in the pillars and that empowers us, right? We're in a state. There's a state inside of us that is a state of potentials that are now stewed in a good way, right? That's what empowerment is, is like.

It's not something that happens. It's a state that we then bring to bear on what happens, right? The same is true of humility. Humility does not mean not acknowledging things that are good about you, right? And we often can very much this character's humility, because that person being weak is IT false humility.

Or people often who are conscious don't want acknowledge good things about the moon on not that smart, like that's not humility, right? Humility is consistent with truth, right? So if he keeps saying enough that smart, but the world around you tells you that you're that smart, right, then acknowledge that you're that smart, right?

That's coming through the lengths of truth and right we go down to the pillars and the covers and say, okay, how does the person get to acknowledge ing that truth, right? So it's only by by squaring the way the things that humility isn't right IT is not denigrating ourselves and and we see that in a lot of people i'm humble. So and then the person often tells you why they're accepting something that's not good to accept, right? So humility is about acknowledge ing truthfully the characteristics that you have within yourself. Good and that.

And here is where we can identify things that we're not so happy with, right? We have to have humility within us in order to make ourselves Better, right? Just like I have to say, look, i'd like to be more fit if i'm going to then get myself in a more fit state, right? So saying I can be no, I can be a little bit so snippy with people if i'm irritated or I can be a little bit condescending, or I can, I can be little selfish at times, is hearts admitted these things to ourselves.

But if we have the humility to to acknowledge those things right, then we also get to have that broader humility about just being a person like, wow, look how complicated this is to navigate life. I mean, these pillars are not simple, and when we go down to the the real base, elements of them can get very complicated. So then we have a compassion, right, for self and for others.

Like sometimes i'll take to a person, or I should be doing this, I shall be doing that. They think they should be doing something perfectly. And I will say to them it's it's amazing that, that we're moving forward, right? Mean, let's start with with wild.

It's not easy to be human. It's not easy to navigate this world. And that kind of humility can then allow us to feel good about what we build on top of IT, right? It's not easy to navigate this world and humans are pretty vulnerable by and large.

But i'm applying myself, right and and i'm proud that i'm applying myself, that i'm persevering. But also i'd like to be a little more compassion, like it's that sort of thing that combines with empowerment. So empowerment and humility are these potential states that then express themselves or become inactive, however we wish to put that, but they change into the active verbs of agency and gratitude.

And agency and gratitude are ways of being right? Their verbs, they are active. So that's the point of IT from the sense of how we are living, right, how we are being.

That's why agency and gratitude is, in some sense, its own end point, right? But because there's a circular aspect of this, right? Our active being is not the end point.

If we're being in a healthy way, then we get to experience things right. Peace, contentment, the light. We experience them because we are healthy.

So we get to be through the lens of agency and gratitude. We get to experience peace, contentment and the light. And that makes a healthier us. The drives and their expression aren't Better bounds. The general drive is Foster and strengthens.

And the drives underneath of IT the aggression assertion, proactive, right? We're really using that in a good way, and we're mining all of IT within us. Like I want to bring that to bear and I can bring more of IT to bear, right? That's very, very good.

And the pleasure drive is active in h. I'm enjoying the things I do. I feel good about the things I do are making good choices. And that state of health, what IT promotes, the pillars, the cub ards, to stay clean and clear and healthy, right? But life is life, and the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, the sling and arrow of life, will continue to come at us and cause us to go back and look at the pillars in the cover.

And even if they don't come at us, those things are never perfect, right? But that's not bad, because by tending to them, where do we bring ourselves? We bring ourselves back to the active verbs of agency and gratitude, the active verbs of living. And here we are in this cycle that if we pay attention to IT, we use IT to understand ourselves, we use IT to improve ourselves, can bring us to Better lives.

How do you think about a person? And i've confess i've been this person, perhaps still lam to some extent, who can really have a sense of agency and gratitude in certain domaines, maybe even many domains of life, and yet feels as if there are certain areas of life that are just so much more chAllenging than others by this like start contrast like this stuff works can do that.

But this stuff is just really, really hard um and maybe that continues long enough that IT almost starts to feel like or the person wonder whether not, you know, maybe that part of life is inaccessible to me. It's just never going to be successful for me um you know how do you think about these car routes functionality and lack of functionality that's prying not the right language but I think this is important because um IT relates directly, I believe, to kind of narratives that we tell ourselves. I mean, they are narratives, right?

I think it's important to think about this because um you know they are intermixed with and perhaps even the consequence of narratives that we have like stories about ourselves that we have internally. And then you know the first to admit that I felt this way for much of my life um certain things I can do other things far, far harder. And sometimes I felt outside the reach of possibility.

I have a very concise answer to this one in that its nine words, don't make yourself special in ways that hurt you. And we tend to do that as humans. Oh, I get have A, B and c, but I don't get have D.

I get to have professional success and i'm pretty good shape, and I have a lot of friends, but I want to have a relationship, I mean, over and over and over because the relationship part is so emotionally late. It's the part that gets carved out, right, falsely carved out the the most right. But I can happen in any arena of life where we make ourself special in a way that really is black.

Magic is being cursed, right? You have the machinery, right? The ability, the function to go about pursuing the things you want and get them right. That sounds like a pretty good paradigm, except about something really important to you, right? That can't be right.

We're applying the same machinery of self because we were talking about things people want in a broad scale, right? Like I would like professional success. I would like personal success. I would like to do well in my family unit and be a good family member.

I would like romans, right? So we're talking about areas of self, right? And we will make ourselves special by carving out one and then applying black magic or some cursed state that then takes that away from us.

And that creates tremendous conservation that will throw all of those covers in those pyrates of baLance. Because like, we don't like that. Like that seems mysterious and ominous. You know what is there that you don't know that's about being cursed, so you can't have something. And then that makes anger and frustration in us.

And more likely, that will act out or will be frustrated and we start enjoying things less, right? Sometimes a person can wall something off like that, and they can go forward with the rest of life affects them, but it's not obvious, is not on their mind all the time, which is why the process of self inquiry can reveal important things like, oh, my guy pretend that I don't even care about professional success, and is the only why I do that. The only thing i'm not doing very well and because I think it's it's impossible for me is not something I get.

why? Because I got other things so I don't get that. okay. Now we're really curious about that.

And sometimes IT causes very, very big problems where a person who who a person can build an external sense of self that sees some of their vulnerability so they can present in a certain way. But underneath of that, they're hiding the sadness of the pain of what is missing. But that is then sort of eating away at them. And their feelings of self on the inside don't match what people see on the outside. We see a lot of this.

And the process of self inquiry, of self exploration, of curiosity about self can lead us to realize what we've carved out if we don't already realize IT or IT can help us to see that the car vote makes no sense, right? It's as if you said, well, you know, there are nine roads around my home and know there are all the regular old roads I can drive on eight of them, but not the knife and so what doesn't make any sense if, though the similar IT IT requires the same set of skills raft in order to drive the car and the visual acuity, why wouldn't you be able to to drive down the knife? But even though that's a very mundane example, but it's that, that we apply to very important and emotionally charge aspects of our life.

I get have physical fitness and friends and career success, but I don't get to have love. I mean, we hear people say this, and that's a very powerful way of taking us away from what we want to achieve in life. IT takes us away from the active agency and gratitude, all the good that comes of that.

What you just said makes a lot of sense, especially the point that, you know, if we have nine roads around us and we can drive down eight of them, why not the knife um because IT places us back into the verb tense and the action tents of like the car lic were a vehicle eye that we can take through the world right? Sure, conditions matter.

Maybe road number nine has boldness on IT, but you know IT can't be that roads one through eight were all just smooth superhighways either. Those had chAllenges and um we are not to use myself as a good eye for whoever he is doing this sort of excise had a mind that was able to work around those boarders, right? Of chAllenging people, of limited finances of these are all things i've experienced you and of course, people come into the world with different levels of chAllenging and privilege and accessibility at that are we don't want to denial of that. But but those other eight roads are rarely, if ever, perfect.

least worth roads. It's why it's it's completely about the self, right? And it's the realization that if I brought myself to bear and I got down the first eight, I can bring myself to bear and get down a knife.

And you're pointing out is not like the first eight. We're easy, right? Maybe one of them was really pretty smooth, right? But there's gonna a couple of them in there that have raised really in a strong, difficult to these things to surmount and to overcome.

And it's from that place of understanding that we find within ourselves to courage the strength to go down the night road, even if we see greater barriers, even if we are come aware now. But i'm also aware that I avoided that night th route for a reason, right? The boarders and the pot holes, right? They're more severe on that road.

In fact, i'm kind of worry that it's that it's impossible, but I mean, I can be impossible, right, if there's bodder there all go rents and excavating equipment are all filling the potholes way. And that's how we get ourselves to go forward and tend to acknowledge in validate like i'm afraid of doing that. If I weren't afraid of doing that, I would have done that already, right? But I now realize what what the truth is and what I brought to bear in the first eight.

And i'm going to bring myself to bear for the night. There's also when we recruit often resources around as well. You might me tell a couple of good friends about this, or a clergy member or a therapist, a trusted other, and let me explore this more in myself.

And and that's often how in making ourselves Better, we engage more with the people around us. And then the support from someone else that may help a person do that is support given back to the other person. And if this is also how we build the beyond self, is that the the path to travel down the night road, so to speak, we don't have to travel alone.

You know, much of the time that often almost always wasn't in the person's mind, right? They perceive it's a three person job. We have to go down and say, great, you have two .

friends yeah certainly where i've been able to travel down certain roads, um the key features have been A A desire to go down that road, a recognition of the landscape but not trying to take on the whole thing all at once and then finding really good people and and Frankly really trying to avoid people that that seemed you know poisonous to the journey, right, that we're going to you know throw a toxic things into the engine of my vehicle and and that's putting a lot on them. But um you know I just felt as if going down those other roads was too valuable and expedition to spend time on and with people that IT wasn't helpful to spend time with. And at the same time there have always been good people that have presented themselves with um examples. I think you know this where IT comes to mind that you know it's not always the case that you know got a friend who says you can do this and here's why, or therapies that can do this and here's why but that um their examples in the world of like this person did this um I think when we have chAllenges in a certain domain that nth roads, so to speak, I know for myself that I know him in a place of of futility when I start to reflexively orient towards others, that i've had a problem getting down that road like I like I recognize other pursues, get IT roads one to rate, but not nine and IT occurred to me during the course of a series, really that, you know, why not pick different examples?

So if you're going on a journey and it's a really important journey and it's a difficult journey, but IT can be awesome, bring good people, right? Have them on your journey beyond there journey and then you think, or why would a person not bring good people if I were going on a journey? And it's gonna be arduous, but wow, we could see amazing things along the way.

Can bring couple of people with me. I don't want to choose a couple of people who are lazy. You know, some who use you don't look at the world around them and you know some that won't be helpful to somebody else needs.

Like why would won choose that right? IT comes back to the self, right? If a person, I was not about any journey because is the journey of life right?

If a person is choosing people you wouldn't choose to be on the journey with you is because you don't think that you're worth Better. And if you think that you're worth Better, you won't choose the people. You say I want other people like me.

I can be diluted, perceptive, collegial, CoOperative. So i'm going to surround myself with people like that. And if we we look beyond ourselves at groups of people and a culture, the healthier we are, the more we lie with healthy people, and the more healthy we are.

Because we're making ourselves healthy, we get healthier are groups of people. The journey is Better for all of us. And this is how we can make the whole culture Better, right? Potentially, this is how we can make life on the planet Better.

About IT. IT has to start somewhere. So IT has to start .

with the I i'd love, love, love the message that, you know, if you're heading off on a journey that's really meaningful to go with and make sure that you interact with good people is actually a place where um your reference to social media and online communities is actually worthwhile and can be very beneficial. Know I think it's easy for us to roll ize IT like self have been things like that.

On the other hand, their communities online that I consider myself a part of, but which I am, many other people drive A A lot of strength of, a lot of reassurance and confidence, right? Because a lot of people are isolated. They might have access to one or two people in their community that they really value.

But those people are perhaps also busy with other people or um I can remember being a student alone in my studio apartment as. As an undergraduate, i'm feeling very much against the grain of my local environment. You know, too much parting for me at the time, meaning I wasn't parting and there was a lot of parking around me.

And had i've been a Better soon in high school, I probably would have been able to, health lily, engage in that. But I just wasn't able, so feeling preiser later, but knowing I was on a path. So in that case, IT was one professor, one graduate student and a hell of a lot of books and music that, to me, just Carried me through, you know, nowaday. I'm fortunate to have many more directory resources in my life of amazing people.

But I just want to mention that because I think in this discussion around self care and the various practices, I think there are sure to be people who are, you know that the kid, that woman, that man that you know like alone in the rooms and you like, okay, but how right? I see that the grocer once a week, and I and I see my neighbor and they don't even say hello, you know? And you know how to start to access some of these Better connections.

Navigating the online world is navigating the world, right? IT comes down to understanding and choice. So for understanding as best we can, we're making choice as best we can, then we'll find great things online. They're great things to find online. Same is true of life.

If we're searching for something that, for example, allies us around hatred, around acting out, around things that make us unhappy, even around commiseration, instead of thinking about how we can make things Better, right, then we bring ourselves in a different direction. That's life. If we understand and we choose as best we can, we will lead ourself to Better places. Such an .

important message and is a perfect segway into a question that I and i'm certain many, many other people have about anger, and not just anger from interpersonal conflict like somebody said something and I really upset me, but stuff that we see, something that we observe in the world, could be acts against other people, words against other people or you know that we take reference to an think many people feel yanked around by um you know even dragged a by something they see and and they can get IT another head.

Now there could be all sorts of reasons related to each, all of us, why we can get out our head work that we need to do what that but according to the map of mental health that you've laid out for us, things that get in the way of that generated drive are are really quite poisonous to our well being and the well being of the world, because that generate drive is about learning creation. And yes, a tends to be pro social. Yes, in so many ways, tell us about anger and how, from a frame of reference of train, engage in self care, we should think about our anger and work with our anger in ways that can perhaps even help us and not harm .

in in order to really understand this, and this is so important, we have to define three words right in the world to start with this effect. So affect is aroused in us, right? Meaning we don't have control over IT.

So anger is an affect. IT is aroused in us. The idea being that if a person is walking down the street and someone jumps in front of them and shoves them, anger is aroused in them.

They don't choose to be angry. In fact, the body reacts and has also to fight or flight responses before the person even realizes that they're angry. So we can control what is arouse in us in the immediate term.

We can in the longer term. If I have a short views and I get angry really easily, you know, I can't really control that in the next ten minutes, right? Meaning the affect that arouse in me. I can two different things with that, but I can't change what's created in me.

But if i'm living a Better life, taking Better care of myself, the general drive is Better expressed, I have more pleasure in my life, then what happens is the mechanisms that arouse so much anger start to arse less anger. So by taking care of ourselves, we arouse less anger. But anger is aroused in us.

Okay, the next word is feeling, right? And there are different definitions for these words, but the way we're defining them, affect is aroused. Feeling is when we take that affect, and we late IT to the self.

It's the next thing that happens on the way up, because the arousal of affect is very deep in the brain as IT comes up. The next thing IT does is relate that affect to self. So this is where that the classic example of person who spills something, they are angry. That thing is spilled, that raises anger in them.

Then they become aware, and they matched the anger itself and say, what a dummling right? What a jerk. I never do anything right? They say, IT inside, right, because the anger gets enacted against the self.

Now how would we like that to go where the person taking Better care of themselves? So when they spill something, less anger is aroused. And by the time that gets the consciousness, there's less anger.

So it's easier to manage, and there's a stronger sense of self or the other aspects of the pillars. And the cubs are are in a good place. Then the person is Better able to manage what anger makes IT right to feeling and then to say, no, okay, everybody spell something now, then, whatever, then to clean IT up.

And the person doesn't have to enact the anger towards to themselves. I so affect feeling in the emotion. So emotion is when we relate the affect in the feeling to others in the world around us. So for example, a person might spill something and then that arrows as anger and now they get to the feeling part. But they have a set of unhealthy defenses and they don't think they're responsible for things they're responsible for.

So they just keep that that load of anger right that that affect uh, upwards until they get to emotion and then they decide that was, in my thought, was yours and that's why maybe they kick the dog or they slap somebody or they say something mean, like this happens. So if that happens, a lot like this is part and parcel of what's going on us, a lot about negative emotions, whether can be dramatic examples, but there are smaller examples that are winding their way through our lives. And the Better we take care of ourselves, the less aroused negative effect we have, and the Better we cope with IT. When IT gets to the level of the eye and when IT gets to the level of the u.

right? And if we think about prosocial collaborated behaviors verses the inaction of anger on a large scale, right? If by the time IT gets to you, there's still a lot of anger there.

IT is very easy to then paint with a broad brush, right? All the problems of that demographic, right? The problems are those people who aren't like me, right? That's where anger is at its most dangerous.

So the idea of having the negative effect under control, having the understanding and the control mechanisms that keeps us from getting to that broader level, the level of you and then working in ways that are not prosocial, but our anti social. And and this, I think, also relates to what we can find online, right? We can find online everything we can find in the world.

So then we have a choice. Are we going to work on understanding what choices are we're going to make about how we're engaging in the world? And if for choosing the good things, we're taking Better care of ourselves and we're Better as citizens of our relationships, of our family units and ultimately of our societies.

I've observed anger, directed my way, certainly far, far from perfect. I have thousands of laws and i've directed anger towards others in ways that I I wish I hadn't um a common of observers i've had about myself and others is that when angry, a lot of valuable time is wasted. Instead of placing my efforts within the general drive, creating things that I really value, the anger becomes an immense distraction.

No and i've seen this a lot um not just on university campuses but one place I have seen IT is um when I was a graduate soon or postdoc, there would be some interaction be either between them um in the laboratory I was in although rarely um but more often IT was about some interaction with between a student post stock and someone in the outside world and so they come in and if you really upset about IT and there's a tendency to you know trying to support one another, which I think is healthy. But then he was like the this would just continue and continue in the person who we like sitting in their chairs. Like, really upsetting.

And sometimes these were really upsetting occurrences that warrant to taking some time and just really stopping, but often I felt like things just kept spiraling ing up and spiraling up and is like halfway through the day. And i'm not immune from this but but I observed IT more than I felt IT. Certainly what's a lot of time wasted like just days and perhaps even weeks and months and then there's the sleep lost that goes with anger.

Um I think that's one of the things about social media, online communities that new and unique is that I used to be when kids went home from school or we go home from work. You would something might have happened there but you didn't have access to more incoming you know people weren't calling you on the phone, telling you, you know things that you don't like. You're talking about others in ways that you don't like. Where all you have to do now is pick up social media if you're not really deliberate in how you interact with social media and on the internet, in which news articles you read in which once you he scroll past, I mean, that could be accessible at two in the morning when you're up about the thing that was angry you during the day that is new, right? And requires IT elevated levels of diligence.

right? High levels of anger bring volatility and confusion, right? And that doesn't serve anyone or anything well. Lower levels of angry can be healthy, right? I'm angry at that and and I want to try and make IT right. Or i'm angry if that could have my say and wrong going to have my vote in IT or whatever IT may be lower levels of anger, okay, they can inform us, they can guide behaviors. But when we get to high levels of anger, its volatility and confusion, the person ceases to then be effective.

And he's an example when you are telling me about how you feel when you're doing the solo podcast, right, and how your agency and your gratitude are really in action and your feeling you feeling the the peace and and you delighted and the general drive is at the four in. right. And then I said, what if we add a little bit of anger even right, to kind of make you and then your response like, oh, would all come off line, right? Because there you're doing something that calls were like you to really be at your best wiring on all cylinders.

So even a little bit of anger is too much, but it's a good example because IT shows that you're able to do this thing that that is so good for you. You're living in the place if you can have all of existence be like you feel then right, you would love IT you could bring to all the rest of your life like that's the nervous a where we're going for and you're actively living IT, but we could throw IT off and ruin IT with even a little bit of anger, right? So it's it's an example that cut models for us how higher levels of anger cause problems in situations that are not so verified as that high levels of anger makes somebody board out, somebody attacking somebody, somebody saying something they should in, somebody making a bad decision.

No, anger isn't good for us at high levels. And we can decrease IT by making ourselves healthier. Then we make less of IT, and we control IT Better.

And we keep ourselves at the low to moderate levels of anger, hopefully low. And no, anger is not good. High anger is not good.

Let's try and live in the low range. Occasionally something is very distressing. We rise up to moderate. That's where we have anger in a healthy place.

When we set out on this uh journey to explore what is mental health. Um I had no expectation um that you would deliver to us this credible map of how to explore our inner territory and that you would spell out such crisp and clear ideals of states and ways of being and things to access nor did I know anything about the general drive and the other drives that reside within us.

You in thinking about self care and in thinking about the sorts of things that people are chAllenged with, often, you know, I made out a little list, not just anger, but things like scared, embarrassed, grieving, dejected, tired, confused, stuck. Then I wrote, you know, infinite number of these, right? I mean, there have to be at an infinite number of chAllenges that people face, an infinite number of circumstances, and perhaps even an infinite combination ation of those things that people face in circumstances that can make IT all seem like a giant oppressive cloud within us and around us. And yet what you've provided is really a path of clarity because it's a path that certainly includes a lot of complexity down in those pillars in the bottom, the structure of self function itself. But you've directed us toward looking into that complexity, looking into those covers as a way to arrive at answers that brings us tored more simplicity, empowered humility, agency, gratitude, peace, contentment, delight and this incredibly attractive thing, the general drive that, that is really accessible to any and all of us.

It's there. And every one of .

us in providing this path of clarity um and again, I want to remind people that whether not you feel you're doing well in life, maybe even in all domains of life, or whether not you're experiencing chAllenge in any perhaps in all domains of life going into those covers is clearly of immense value and you so graciously spelled out how we can do that regardless of resources really IT sounds like all IT requires a desire to be Better and feel Better and do Better and A A willingness to to explore curiosity if I to .

summarized the whole thing in two words, I would say be curious, right? Because curious opens the door to all of IT. Curiosity about self, curiosity about life, leads to all the good things.

Well, what you've given us is of immense value. And it's something that I know that I and many, many other people are going to um take on as as a positive set of goals, not just for immense chAllenges, but really for always right for living forward and understanding the past. I mean, I never before have I been presented with something that felt like I had as much power and potency to do good as this.

So that's great. I'm happy to hear that what's .

absolutely true. And um I really want to thank you on behalf of myself and and everybody else for you sharing with us your your time, your intellect, your willingness to build this structure specifically for this series and IT for laugh Better word. It's it's so generous. It's and and i'm sure that people have tons of questions and tons of experiences of their own to share terms of using this and and they can share that with us. And that's one of the wonderful things about pod gases. They can put those to the comments on youtube or or else where we really the comments on youtube would be the place to share those questions in comments and feedback and in crafts going forward, we can explore the self, the psychic relationships and ways to improve all of that and our lives going forward.

Yes, yes, this has been great. It's been invited ating and fine. And thank you so much.

Thank you for joining me for today's discussion all about true self care with doctor paul county. This Marks the ending of the fourth episode in our four episodes series, all about mental health with doctor county.

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