The Cycle You Don’t Realise You’re In - Alain de Botton (4K)

Alanda Boton welcome to the show thank you so much where do bad inner voices come from well the way I like to think about it is that an inner voice is always an outer voice that got internalized you know we're very porous people the way in which we're spoken to becomes the way in which we speak to ourselves I mean if that if that sounds too weird think of language right all of us um arrive in the world not speaking any language and by the age of 3 4 5 6 7 you know we'll have learned a lot of words but the fascinating thing about human beings is um we don't know we're learning so we can be doing other stuff like you know doing handstands in the garden or drawing buttercups in the kitchen and we're becoming expert grammarians hundreds of words are entering our minds complex um grammatical constructions are entering our minds now the way I like to think about it is that that language analogy um holds true for emotional life as well so at the same time as we're learning a language of you know words and declensions we're also learning a language of emotions um we're learning things like what's a man like what's a woman like what happens if you give somewhat something to someone what happens if you're vulnerable what happens if you want to play what happens if you say no what happens if you say yes all of these are the syntax they comprise the syntax of our emotional lives and um it's an invisible syntax just as our grammatical syntax is invisible but it's there and it will operate throughout our lives and it will be immensely hard to change I mean you know what it's like if you're you know if you grew up speaking English and then you want to learn a foreign language you suddenly want to learn Italian well good luck to you you're going to be learning a long time it's not impossible can be done but I think it's helpful to think of how hard it is because sometimes people get very impatient in their attempts to change things about themselves they go like you know I want to change how I relate to people um in relationship say uh and I've read a book and I've I've been to three therapy sessions and um I'm really annoyed nothing works you want to go okay imagine this was Italian so you you you've looked at a book on Italian you've taken three classes and you don't speak fluent Italian and you're complaining so we do need some modesty here just in order to be properly ambitious I mean as you know you know the the the root cause of sort of early Despair and early retirement from things is a a false picture of what success demands in an area and I think in the area of emotional Improvement or maturation we sometimes let ourselves down by thinking it's going to have an ease which it won't have it's interesting thinking about how language shapes our experience of emotions and our experience of the world that German for instance has a colorful number of ways to describe certain emotions that you can't in other he said well does the fact that we have the word for it almost unlock that emotion in a way it allows us to do self investigation yes I I think you know philosophers philosophers watching this philosophers of language may have um arguments prone in it it's a big thing but I definitely feel that the more words we have the more we can attend to what we feel and in some cases the more we can feel um you know I I remember I remember learning the word anxiety when I was a teenager um and thinking wow that's a really useful word probably nowadays people learn anxiety a lot earlier but you know in those days um it was a fascinating word to learn and the more one's vocabulary stretches the more you're able to put a flag in bits of your psyche that are perhaps painful and I think if you think about why people go to psychotherapy or or even frankly what motivates a lot of friendship it's somebody else helps to give you a vocabulary for bits of your mind and bits of your experience that have not till now um you the of eluded definition and that definition is not merely you know it's not really a fancy thing it's it's a life-saving thing because the more you can Define um the easier life gets um Freud speculated that the the the the origins of language lie in an ability to Bear frustration so that if a child can think um you know I'm currently frustrated but you know mummy's coming back and I've got and the person's got those words then that can help you to Bear missing and and also bear excitement or you know all sorts of things things can become more bearable the more you can put them into language and I think you know adults know this when we we go about journaling right you know what why why is it so helpful to journal um to you know because we we know it is all research shows it it is um what is it about translating a feeling into a word for that feeling that's helpful and I think it tames it um contains and it Narrows the spread of difficult emotions it's very ephemeral right you've got these thoughts up here moving around floating about and then they have to be concretized and it right almost feels like it squeezes it through an aperture of some kind you say okay this is what I meant by that it's not this notion it's not this sort of ambient s somebody shouted a noise in the Next Room like oh no it's here I can touch it you can see it yeah yeah that's right and and you know think of think of relationships couples the more their vocabulary for what they're going through increases the more they can say you know I'm feeling this I'm feeling you know when you do that I feel this Etc and the enemy you know the sort of normal word is people say communication but it's really language it's it's putting language to to feelings and and so much goes wrong in life because we're unable to do it it start it starts with ourselves we can't do it with ourselves um there's a useful phrase that psychotherapists use to disassociation it's a fascinating concept what would it mean to disassociate and the way it's understood sort therapeutically is that you could feel an emotion it's so difficult tricky in some way and you then stop feeling it you you disassociate from the feeling that's in you it's still in you but you're no longer ready registering it tricky tricky and the argument is always the more you can associate um and the less you can disassociate the better off you will be um but look there are many bits of life that are unbearable to us let's let's remember this um you there's a wonderful quote in Middle March George Elliot big fat 19th century novel where she says if we could properly register the sound of the sounds the full sounds of life um we would lose our minds from the full richness of existence in other words if you were sensitive to everything that's around you would sort of go mad you know and I think if we think about what Madness is SoCal you know what colloquially call Madness think of people with severe mental illness very often what what has happened happened is that their ability to sequence thoughts is gone everything is coming at them and they can't grade thoughts they can't say this thought must go away now you know so they'll go I made a mistake 15 years ago and if you're balanced you'll go well that was 15 years ago and it's just it's not it's not a problem we can we we don't have to have it pressing down um if your if your reason is is buckling often everything that is alarming comes at you at once everything that is difficult at once and um so in a way I'm I'm sticking up for the ability sometimes to take distance from our feelings so you know I started off by going it's really important to to know what you're feeling but let's also remember at points the ability not to feel the full force of everything also belongs to health so it's it's double-edged sword there what's your advice for how people can heal a negative inner voice we've got this odd artifact that we've carried with us this inheritance of our life but kind of almost some previous life of ours Y where should people begin if they want to have a more friendly inner voice such a good question I'd say you have to start by finding the inner voice because it doesn't announce itself as an inner voice so how are we going to you know we're not we're not talking here about literally hearing voices some people do but we're not talking about that here what we're talking about is a way of speaking to yourself or way of you know way of conducting yourself in your own mind that owes more to something from outside than from inside and that is more negative or we can put it this way unfair to you and your chances your hopes Etc so how do we how do we detect this is even going on because I don't think it's necessarily obvious here I think that it's quite helpful to get people to do what I call sentence completion exercises where you start off with a sub sentence and then you have an ellipsis dot dot dot so men are women are life is I am I want if dot dot dot because dot dot dot and you say to people right here's a list these things without thinking too much very important important prompt without thinking too much just say the first thing comes into your head men are women are life is I am Etc um or or even beginnings of stories story completion exercises when I meet someone that die dot dot dot just finish finish that sentence and what people will come out with is fascinating they'll go you know men are cruel wow wow wow men are cruel are they you know person might even be surprised that they've said that then you say okay why's that come from where what what led you to believe that and often what you'll find is a story that owes more to something outside there something inside you know or um you know when when I meet someone what will happen is dot dot dot you know um they'll be very friendly to me then they'll turn against me wow wow where did that come from it's it's going to be a specific story in the past that you know is is being carried forward isn't it interesting that we're talking about maybe the thing people identify with most you know the texture of their own experience the landscape of their of their own mind but you're then saying well this may not fully be self-generated this might be something which you've absorbed from the past from society from Norms from cultures from the way that you've compensated for past traumas Etc or just habits yeah but it brings up an interesting question which is okay so who are you where are you in this are you that voice in some ways you are because you're inexorably linked to all of the experiences you've had yeah but then we have this sort of transcendent us which is better it's the better us yeah if only I could it's the me without the compensation the trauma the ETC such a good question you know we're not there sometimes this idea of you know the real me that is separate from everybody else we are penetrated by Society you know think of how we're speaking right we're using words as we speak to one another every one of those words is both spoken by us and was made by other people long before we were even a rumor in anyone's mind right we are we are penetrated by Society every one of the words that I am using is the result of generations and generations of people who've used those words refined their meaning Etc and then given them to me so that's literally the language we're permeated by social language um even our biology as we know you know our gut bacteria is you know both us and not us so the the neat you know Chris Al we are we are these sort of um you know entities where you can put a strict circle around now we're we're we're interpenetrated by Society biology history uh you know Etc so then the question comes well is there anything you know that's that's more me less me and I think here absolutely absolutely and I think that one of the journeys you know life's full of Journeys one of the journeys that I think we all are on is to start to separate out a little bit well what I I can understand there's a lot in me that was just put there by Society by the context in which I was born which of those bits do I want to keep or focus on and which of those bits do not fully represent you know my values my considered choices Etc and this is where life gets interesting because people start to say things like where I come from normal meant dot dot dot but the more I think about it the more I'm reflecting on who I really am the more I want to ditch that and that and that it's is a editing process self authorship absolutely and you know I think that the more mature someone is I'll use that word I could have used others um the more mature someone is the more what they do what they think uh the values they hold ow more to their own work their own sifting their own editing than it does to the context that they were born into um I think you know it's interesting if if you look at the Arc of a life right a a very small child is often remarkably authentic which is why we adults in small doses at least have such a great time with little ones because they they come out with stuff and you think oh my God I can't believe they've just said that thing you know they've just said that Granny's nose is too big or that this restaurant's boring or this very expensive thing is a load of rubbish you Etc they'll come out with stuff that is non-normative and that's very interesting because as an adult you recognize a kind of you know you recognize your own spontaneity that's been lost normally so it's kind of Bittersweet you think o you know you don't want exactly the child's version of it because that would lead you into trouble but you want an adult version and it's very hard to get and and and probably the high Watermark of the opposite is when you're 14 and a half and you're at school and your most fervent wish is to be like everybody else you you want your parents to be like everybody else you want your name to be like everybody else you want your appearance Your Hair Etc you cannot bear difference and then slowly slowly you you individuate you know um and and that's a very exciting Journey seeing I don't think anyone everyone sorry anyone individuates in all areas so I think the first choice is what are the areas that matter a lot to you um I'm interested in individuation but when it comes to clothes you might have noticed um I kind of you know it's a really interesting area but I just just that one for another time you know I'm just not engaging with that um similarly food fascinating area you know very interesting yeah not quite on my radar yet but you know other areas what I'm reading very you know opinionated very individual so I don't think all of us can do it in all areas but we choose and that's also part of what makes someone an individual I love the idea of uh children being unencumbered by sort of expectation in that way and uh yeah trying to find the balance between what would the mature childlike version of ourselves do or say in this moment where we found ourselves too swayed by the opinions of others by Expectations by societal Norms Etc do you remember that story of Picasso who was going around an art school like little kids were doing art and some kid was s scrolling you know mummy whatever and and this kid was seven and he Picasso said famously when I was this when I was his age I was painting like Raphael you know one of the great Renaissance artist and it was sort of true I mean young Picasso um and then he went and it's taken me all my life to remember how to paint like this unreal um now he didn't you know an adult painting like a child is not a child painting like a child it's something different you know which is why people go oh a child could have done that well when a child does it it's one thing and when an adult does it it's another thing and I think it's quite different and I think that's why you know when you look at Picasso and there are lots of artists and lots of figures you could sort draw that analogy with but you know when you're looking at a painting that Picasso did when he was 90 what 90 you know at the end of his life and it it's got elements of stuff that a child might do but it's gone through you know that this guy has been doing so much other stuff so he's got deeper reasons did you ever read his dark materials by Philip pman no okay uh of children's books ostensibly I guess this was my favorite series when I was a kid uh and in it the protagonist Lyra um finds this truth teller uh it's called an leomer and for some reason uh this particular device it takes an entire lifetime of study to be able to read it and as a child she can do it immediately so it's this beautiful Arc and it's the first time I ever thought about it and pman takes you through unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence to conscious incompetence to conscious competence and one of the final scenes of the entire book at the very very end uh she goes back to the uh n where she was being raised 5 years ago before the Story begins and uh she's lost the ability to read it she hits puberty and it's kind of this fall it talks about kind of the awareness that her and her partner now have and she says I can't read it anymore and the nun turns to her and she says uh my dear it's going to take you an entire lifetime but the depth of knowledge you have will be greater than was before and it's that Arc unconscious incompetence unconscious competence conscious incompetence conscious competence and that finishing side something that's been earned you found your way there through effort agency self-authorship is um yeah yeah it's it's it's special yeah and I think you know it's it's interesting isn't it when when people who read a lot thought a lot Etc come out with stuff and it sounds very very simple and I think our society gets a bit puzzled by that because the the sort of obvious respect goes to people that speak in a very dense way and you can't quite understand what they mean so you know philosophy discipline I started out in you know the heroes there or people like Vicken Stein or um Hegel K Etc very very hard not superbly accessible to make Headway and then you know you turn to the east you look at Eastern philosophy um you you look at the Poetry of someone like baso in um Japan medieval Japan it's so simple it's you know it's four words on a piece of paper and um very easy to go mumbo jumbo or or or or Child's Play or whatever and to be kind of mature enough to go okay I'm going to bear with the anxiety that this is very simple sounding simple sounding um in the East the idea is that um poetry for example can sound very very simple the point is that it's an interaction between the reader and the work so not everything is in the poem or the saying you bring yourself to it and therefore the ultimate impact of that work is a collaboration between you and the work fascinating so the Western of you might be go there's not that much in there uh and it's the artist's fault job um whereas in East views well it's a collaboration so if you're not seeing anything it's because you're not bringing enough of yourself so very interesting to get you know lots of the Arts I me think of that Eno you know in in in uh you know just a circle this is the whole of Life whole of life it's just you know you're just doing a circle with your your brush and um amazing amazing the the courage to say okay we're going to go with this we're gonna you know the whole of existence is this circle and if you meditate profoundly enough on this you will see the world not just in a grain of sand but in a circle Etc and we really meet a fault line here in the western understanding of depth and profundity where this takes a bit of time for the Western mind to kind of get to grips of that we're like come on is this a joke and they you know they just pedaling as something yeah probably not sleep isn't just about how long you rest but also 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the Pod 4 ultra by going to the link in the description below or heading to 8sleep.com wisdom using the code modern wisdom a checkout that's EIG ghts sleep.com wisdom and modern wisdom a checkout why do you think we struggle to connect with our emotions fully um come on let's be honest here with the audience and you know we know what emotions are like they're not just lovely cuddly things they're absolutely terrifying a lot of the time um think of what it takes think about love right so people we think that people spend their lives looking for love and half true that's a half truth they spent a good deal of time running away from love as well in all sorts of forms we are as assiduous in our Escape From Love as we are in our Pursuit perhaps more so why because it's terrifying it's especially terrifying if you come from a childhood a young world where there was some kind of disruption in your attachments in your you know in your experience of Love um the next time you then meet love as an adult half of you is just wanting to run away and I think people don't still not fully appreciate enough the the strength with which we are going to resist love if our earliest experience of it was in any way in any way difficult um and this explains a great deal of the misery of the world it's very interesting to think about how much we try and push away the thing that we're also wanting like how we are complicit in creating the scenario that we're so terrified of having happened been thinking a lot about um second order emotions third order emotions so um you have a thing that happens you feel agitated and then you begin to tell yourself a story and you become stressed at your agitation and then you become resentful at your stress about your agitation and then you become anxious about and I that additional layering uh this you know kernel that we began with with regards to the emotion sort of explodes out and before you know it you're feeling an emotion that's not only the thing that started but it's an entire universe way yeah and this is now the problem not this yeah that's right and and I'm not sure if I understand you fully but is it is it really the case that you are not accepting the the Primary Emotion you know so let's say uh you go somewhere it should be nice you're disappointed you can't be disappointed it's meant to be nice you can't you can't accept that disappointment and then you're angry with yourself for feeling disappointed um and then you know and and on it whereas if one could just go okay maybe it's it's all right to be disappointed I mean it's not it's not brilliant but but there it is or I'm feeling sad okay well that's not wouldn't be what I wanted but let me not be sad that I'm sad or angry that I'm sad I think this is why we have certain signature emotions that feel like home Bay yeah there's ones that we're intimately familiar with and there's ones that scare us a lot more yeah and uh a unsatisfactory but familiar emotion is often more safe to us than a slightly novel more exotic but uh scarier one and and also I think happier one I mean you know talking just a minute ago people escaping love people also Escape happiness I mean the way I think about it is that very often we're in a situation of it's like being a prisoner you've been kept in jail for a very long time your diet's been restricted it's not been much fun then the gate opens and you're allowed to walk out um it should be a great day fantastic you're free nah you know we know what happens uh let's say you've been on a calorie restricted diet suddenly someone says you know here's a buffet you can eat anything you like you don't want to eat it you can't you can't digest it you can't process it it's too much so you know something similar goes on in our attitudes to to happiness often I mean it's useful to say to yourself ask yourself in the circumstances in which I grew up what did it mean to be happy and for some of us it meant upsetting a parent it meant challenging the dominant mood in the household it meant taking away attention from somebody else it meant it meant danger um and that's odd because we think why would it be dangerous to be happy well but there are all sorts of risks associated with it and so in our deep Minds sometimes in adulthood um we simply cannot um accept the circumstances of our lives and and therefore go about spoiling them um so that they so that we put the more you know there's a wonderful paper called something like a criminal Psychotherapy paper criminal in search of an offense um a sense that you've done something wrong if you carry that from your past and you think how am I going to get rid of that feeling oh I know I'll do something wrong and then and then I won't feel that feeling anymore some you know it's a bit like that it's like saying um I'm feeling happy but I shouldn't be happy what should I do oh yes I'll make myself unhappy or you know I'm feeling loved someone's offering me love that's not normal I don't I don't recognize that feeling oh what should I do oh I'll drive them away yeah I'll um I I'll I'll go and be rude to them or go and have an affair with somebody else or whatever it is something to spoil something that's nice so the impulse to spoil is really deep happiness and love are hard to bear I suppose if reality is not delivering our model of the world our expectation of the world our prediction of the world we have discordance between the two and there are two things that we can try and do we can try and bring our model of the world up to reality or we can try and bring reality back down to our expectation exactly beautifully put is there a danger of intellectualizing challenges of emotion for smart people people that like to read and consume YouTube channels like yours or podcasts like mine and we like to investigate ourselves we want to understand ourselves and the world around us and maybe we've even got the theory from evolutionary psychology that explains why this is adaptive and and and we're ancestrally we are made up of blah blah blah blah how how much is that a prophylactic against us actually having to feel things and how can we better break through this intellectualizing of emotions and rationalizing of them away let's start with compassion you know we are the way we are you know for point reasons not you know we didn't get to be that way you know think of the think of the bookish child you know think of the child who's reading a lot um often it's because life's life arounds quite difficult now it's great to read it's good to read Etc but if you spend all your time in books um it's often a sign things are things are challenging and so often people who excel at intellectual Pursuits Etc are in flight from an overwhelming situation um I'd wish them well um in that in time the overwhelming situation could get a little less intense and they could get a little more of reality into their intellectual world I mean I'm describing myself perhaps you you know you you want to try and see reality for what it is and if you're warding it off with intellectual structures um you know let's let's say thank you to those structures I I think it's really important whenever whenever you look at people people doing stuff that seems a bit suboptimal or a bit strange they're reading too much they're jogging too much they're trying to make too much money whatever um that they're feeling too much they're feeling too little all all of these departures from so-called Health normality Etc always ask yourself why are they doing it and it's normally a defense it is a defense against a situation that was very difficult at some point they learned that defense and even though it would be optimal now to let go of that defensive structure they're still clinging on to it because that what feels safe it feels safe to make jokes all the time it feels safe to be very serious all the time it makes it feels safe to be depressed it feels safe to give up um it feels safe to try and win at all costs including your own health ET all all these are defensive structures that once kept us safe that I think in order to evolve we almost want to say thank you thank you to your younger self for working this out for finding a way of coping with reality but but could we learn to cope in a slightly different way so great I'm interested just taking that one step further in the difference between knowing ourselves intellectually and knowing ourselves emotionally uh I think even I I've in my less equanimous moments uh when I do journaling uh I find myself writing more of an essay than a personal inquiry and uh yeah the difference between knowing ourselves intellectually and knowing ourselves emotionally again for the cerebral minded praying at the altar of cognitive horsepower people um yeah it's a coping mechanism it's a a way to distance yourself from this yes and I think I think our minds it's it's it is much easier to um have the the headline than the meat of the topic and very often we we reach a sort of uh an uncomfortable state of half knowing ourselves and we think oh I've covered it I know in my childhood there was this and you know then there was this then there was that and you youve kind of go of a headline you know tension with my dad or you know tricky with my mom or whatever it is and we think oh I've got that I've got that I know it now let's go back to the the Eastern you know Enzo Circle right and the East says meditate for hours repeatedly on the thing that looks obvious the thing that you know so they're saying the whole life is that Circle so look at that Circle and keep coming back to it and the more you look at it the more you will see in it now the Western approach is a bit bit in it's too impatient it'll say all right yeah it was tense with my dad I know that I go hang on hang on hang on that's an Enzo of its own I it was tense with my Dad we you could meditate around that for you know an hour a day or an hour a week or whatever is you can keep coming back to that it's never there are so many things still to be dis discovered there it's not dead and so I think I'd almost want to excite you know those who are listening to think okay I think I know something do I really know it might I go back there um are are real experiences tend to be so much richer than our worker day sense of them um think about think about a holiday right so have you ever been to Greece oh yeah I went to Greece um all right have you've been to Santorini yeah I've been to sanini okay so so we think we covered that one person's being to Center really hang on first of all our minds are amazing mechanisms of capture you know we got cameras around sound equipment Etc nothing beats the human mind for capturing absolutely everything um often the time to explore this is is sort of Twilight um your mind is you're going to sleep or waking up if you say to yourself yeah curini what was that like what was it what was it really like and you realize oh my God I remember there was a tile hallway that led to a blue door and I actually remember there was a flower in a little vase and there was a light coming in from I think it must have been from the left and actually if I looked to the right there was a little window ET and it's all there it's all in your mind just waiting to be asked waiting this is the famous can I talk about PR what Marcel PR great French novelist 19th early 20th century Etc came up with this famous idea of the prian moment some of you know it some of you won't it's basically a moment when you take something sensory like a sip of water or a smell imagine the smell of concrete after rain or the smell of snow just after a snowfall Etc and suddenly you you you get that sensory experience and a world opens up you think oh my God I'm 5 years old again and I've just gone outside of the garden of the yard where I grew up and there was a brick wall and there was that exact smell and I'm there again and suddenly your world becomes so much richer and these are just little moments of of of expansion around a topic like after a snowfall or first day of spring or santarini or whatever it is so in other words many of the things that are in our minds in intellectually compressed forms can be expanded with the addition of I mean you know the sort of fancy trendy modern word is meditation but but you know some people don't get on with the word meditation let's just say by giving you some time by allowing an experience to assume its proper shape and we we do Rush past our experiences things are very compressed and that's why at the end of an average day my goodness how much we've seen how much we've felt how many little things cross Consciousness if we were able to give some of that space how much lighter we would start to feel but we we live so much and we experience so little we see so much and we notice so little what would you say to the obsessive person who wants to learn to let go a little more a lot of what I see in the circles that I move in is a need for control a desire to limit down the potential paths that the future could go down to sort of constrain how unpredictable reality could be and I think the optimization life hacking productivity world is very much a part of this plus a denial of death if I can fit more into less time than maybe kind of like living longer um but yeah that that need to control that obsessive sort of uh requirement to be able to Wrangle reality as you wish people learn to take their hands off the wheel a little bit more easily well I think I mean I think um the simple answer is that these people are running away from something um which is painful and difficult Etc and they're not allowing themselves to think about it they're not even allowing it inside Consciousness so think of the think of mania you know but when we say so and so is in a manic mood or so and so is doing something manically what we really mean is that they're doing something in order not to do something else normally not think about something or feel something and we all end up in certain points in manic states where you know we're we're scrubbing the kitchen just a little bit too assiduously or we're jogging a bit too hard or we're scrolling our phones a bit too much and really the question to ask ourselves at that time is a very simple one which is if you weren't able to do what you're doing now what might you need to think about or to feel and the answer is there waiting for you if you can if you can bear it's could be a very very awkward question to ask yourself in other words you know if you weren't able to clean the kitchen manically or go jogging Etc but you just sit with something what what do you need to sit with you know the old saying you don't just sit there do something don't just sit there and think do something well imagine you don't just do something sit there and think you reverse it you reverse it and what is it that you need to think about yeah yeah yeah uh the coping mechanisms that we have and the inventive ways that we come up with alchemizing and and justifying well a lot of the time uh people will say it's better to be addicted to the gym than be addicted to drugs I don't think that's a particularly controversial statement if that's if that's the binary choice of course um but then I realized recently but maybe over the last year so I spent a lot of time meditating toward the end of my 20s and um trying to turn myself out of the adult infant into maybe an adult Adolescent and um most people would look at meditation you know sort of an emotion arises inside of you you notice it you release and allow like that's you know a common sort of tempo that you have brilliant you know you you you are no longer as at the mercy of this particular emotion uh but it was only when I started doing therapy uh as first ever suggested by Charlotte one of your ex staff from the school of Life uh it was only after doing quite a lot of that that I realized that even meditation or maybe breath work or going to the gym or whatever it might be is still another way of not having to actually investigate where emotion has come from and meditation particularly or or something more like breath work perhaps is a not nefarious but it's a a very it's it's so close it's internal it feels sort of self- investigative uh it's mindful this is brilliant you go yeah but that is going to continue to come up and you now have a coping strategy it's not drugs it's not even as obvious as you running 50 miles a week but there is another strategy which is not forcing you to turn the eye back down to where's this coming from and why does it keep on arising and if you have this very good strategy to release these things as they move through you uh that will that cycle will continue and I don't think I think that uh those emotions are worthy of Investigation so so Chris how do you define therapy or how do you how do you define what therapy might might bring you that's a bit different from meditation in this I my my I did uh twice a week Psychotherapy for the last year or so um and it was I've said this before it I learned more about myself in a year of twice weekly Psychotherapy than I did in 1500 sessions of meditation and if you could characterize what what was different about how therapy operates you have another party investigating your statements the language that you use I used the analogy that it felt like um living in a house your entire life and then one day just inviting somebody else in yeah and they're walking around and they start pointing out doors in a house that you know intimately well every inch and they start pointing out doors that you never even knew existed and you go what's that over you go and you open the door and you realize that the back of the kitchen actually leads into I always wondered how those two things came together and it's this sort of odd it's very humbling I found it very humbling experience to see somebody else who knows me for a 100 hours yeah Point yeah and say what about yeah what about that but I think I think one has to be really I mean that's a beautiful way of putting it um has to be totally relaxed about that and just say in the same way that you you you can't see the back of your head it's just one of those things um it's not it's not you know we just we can't see some very obvious things I mean a therapist a trained therapist can see within minutes things that have eluded someone for their whole life um very humbling very humbling but but but you know someone can do it for the therapist as well it's it everybody is like this we're just that's how we're wired and best thing to do is laugh it's it's funny I mean it's funny how inept we are um but as everybody's in on the joke um we can we can laugh together in other news this episode is brought to you by element element contains a science-backed electrolyte ratio of sodium pottassium and magnesium with no sugar no coloring no artificial ingredients or any other BS it plays a critical role in reducing muscle cramps and fatigue while optimizing brain health regulating appetite and curbing Cravings this orange salt in a cold glass of water is like a beautiful sweet salty orangey nectar first thing and it's how I've started my day for nearly four years now actually I adore it I keep putting it in my body because I feel the difference and you can too also they have a no questions ask refund policy so you can buy it completely risk-free if you don't like it for any reason they'll give you money back you don't even need to return the box that's how confident they are that you love it right now you can get a free sample pack of all eight flavors with your first box by going to the link in the description below or heading to drink l M nt.com slod wisdom to get all of this that's drink LM nt.com slod wisdom you said uh talking about the emotion thing just from before and I think that this sort of comes into when you're regulating opening up with someone whether it be a therapist a friend a partner or whatever the sort of Need for uh comfort and reassuring kindness look you can say these things yeah I I'm not running away I don't find you despicable yeah yeah it's actually kind of interesting yeah maybe it's Charming for you to do this I mean this is so you know this is really very much at the core of what we could understand by the word love you know if a think of it in childhood a loving parent right the the the child a young child gets an experience that who they really are is acceptable to someone else so you know child little child will go I hate the teacher and the parent you good parent is able to bear that even though it's not perfect the parents able to go oh okay what wonder wonder why what what's you know why why they upset you sounds like they might have upset you rather then someone would go don't be so silly the teacher's the teacher and they work very hard to give you an education so don't complain wow that's you know that's a tough comment your emotion is not valid your emotion is not Val I mean you know parents do their best but goodness me stuff happens in in that Crucible of childhood that is a bit suboptimal um but you know love come back to love what love is is is accepting you know um I don't want to see Granny okay you don't want to see Granny all right or or I really love you or I really hate my sibling or I really like the dog or I want to live forever or you know all the stuff that little children come up with or I'm terrified of daddy actually I don't like Daddy oh okay well let's think about that what does that mean so being able to accept and then in later life again having someone it could be a therapist it could be a friend um who's able to Bear the really difficult bit bit of our psyches which we all have I mean we're all so much weirder than we're supposed to be so much sadder so much more worried Etc and to be able to have someone you know it might only be one person or two if we're really lucky and three if we're you know God's Gift um who can bear and who we've allowed into that sort of private um sanctum that was one of the realizations that Charlotte first taught me and then I learned through my therapy over the last year one of the very unique uh parts of a therapeutic relationship is that you're allowed to be as small or boring or Petty as you want and those are areas that with a friend or a partner it's really difficult to do yeah because you're managing Optics in some way you're thinking well it's my job to kind of entertain this person even if they're there to to sort of sit and listen with me like not that not the fact that the way that the lady in the canteen ladel my today seemed a little bit disparaging or dismissive or something and like oh my God how shameful for me to think that that's something that should play on my mind so small I you know the story I tell second third fourth order emotions come in and um that is one of the very few it's that and your mom a kind of you know not even your mom because most as you say most relationship was all relationships you have to manage and you have to curtail the fear of being abandoned you know if you if you are too honest this again the canteen lady and the beans again this is the third time in two months think of how this plays out in couples right so people come together um because they're fed out with being lonely right you know you you it's lonely so you try and find a special person and we we dignify this concept by saying I'm in a relationship you know I'm I'm a a special friend I'm getting married Etc we got these words but really what this means is I'm no longer so alone in a terrifying world so you have a special person and in the early days of love it's thrilling that you can say stuff that you wouldn't say to anyone else and it's so delightful you can say things like you know I still long for my teddy bear and they go I long for them too and then you know hug to the teddy bear and it's so amazing because you know you're you're the CEO and you know you're an important lawyer doctor banker and actually you're clutching your teddy bear and it's it's amazing or you can go I really want to put you know mayonnaise on the pizza and that's great and then you know you you push it further and and then and then you go I'm going to go to a museum but I don't like any of the art I don't like it either or I've never read that book but I always pretended I did it's just thrilling and you know and then and then sex gets invited into you go I I like this strange sounding thing and they go I like it too I like this other thing Etc and you're building a wonderful universe but um you know this is the the challenging thing about love because you know let's imagine you're with this person and you shared all this stuff Etc and then you go to a cafe say and you you say waight is hot and then you look at their face and they're like look really quite heartbroken that you've just commented on the you know visual appeal of waiting staff and they they feel hurt and they feel jealous and they feel upset and suddenly you think oh my goodness there's a choice here between you know kindness and honesty and I think that's what we're circling around which is can you be you know what at what moment does honesty run up against the limits of kindness or the you know the requirements of kindness I think what you're saying about therapy is you don't have to be kind to the therapist because it's 50-minute session you're giving them money and do people go oh it's a boore that you're giving the money well you know Freud thought long and hard about this about the role of money in therapy and his view was it's an agent of Liberation it's a good thing you can pay the therapist and that's why you want people to bring cash and leave the cash on the table uh at the end of every session now nowadays you might you know put your card on but but the the point is um it's it's a way of saying um I can be fully myself because I have earned this person's attention some people go but they don't really love you Etc and you go maybe they don't really love you but that's a Liberation because you there's no obligation no obligation obligation just lingering on that uh balance between transparency emotional openness and um you said kindness but I think that there's other reasons to edit too is there a place for editing yourself in a relationship should we not be open honestly communicating all the time this is how I feel you want to see the inner texture of my mind don't you I mean you're putting your finger on on a big paradx I think the idea that you should be yourself in a relationship is one of the most disastrous ideas um because the untr self uh is a frightening Spectre um Best Kept For You know you and your therapist you in the mirror you know um if you if you have to confront your partner with your of Consciousness at all times um you can't do this you know parents don't do this with their children obviously our partners are not children but it's telling us something about love in a loving relationship at points you edit yourself you know it's 11 at night I'm not going to bring that issue up they're very tired I'm not going to bring that up um I'm feeling stressed and raw I'm not going to start a subject that I won't know how to handle Etc no all of us fail at points all of us fail in this area but I think as an ideal it's it's a good ideal I mean I could stick up for a word which sounds very odd in the context of Love politeness you know it's it's a good idea to try and be polite like oh that's fake that's fake well it's also kind you know to edit yourself to uh put a veneer of civilization on certain things yeah why not there's a a very slippery slope with that though a lot of people especially if they have started doing therapy some self Inc inre some emotional work than God like I I I should push the uh amount that I'm emotionally open I should improve my transparency for so long I'd played a role I was terrified of making my my needs known my desires putting myself first realizing that I even have needs I'm putting those out there and now there's these odd bits of territory that I shouldn't stray into yeah what happens if I Stray over there and the tendency for you to overcorrect and go in the other direction and uh Neil Strauss says uh unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments right and you know we have this yeah balance between the two yeah you're absolutely right there are some people who need to work on being more transparent more communicative and others who need to be less technical word I think for it is reactive you know they're not you shouldn't come out with whatever it is that you that you're feeling at all times in its full force it just depends I mean you know that classic anxious avoidant attachment pattern we might say that on the whole avoidant people need to work on their communication skills you know and they need to to be more transparent and avoidant and anxious people need on the whole to contain certain feelings you know and it's just yeah horses for courses on this one what would be your advice to uh people in the classic anxious avoidant relationship the two polarities coming together understand understand understand where each one's coming from I mean why is someone in avoidant they're not evil they're not mean they're not you know it it it can be pretty horrible to be on the receiving end of certain kinds of pattern of behavior but let's try remember why why does this exist uh someone becomes avoidant when they've grown up in a calorie emotional calorie controlled diet uh environment where they have had to get used to very little the way they survive is Mom's not so interested D not no caregiver around um lot of disappointment I'm just going to hunker down and get used to very little literally like a like an animal that gets used to a very thin diet um that is what has happened to an avoidant person um and then when they get to to love and someone goes I adore you let's spend every evening together let's you know um you're you're marvelous um they feel and but often they don't even understand that they're feeling it totally engulfed they feel overwhelmed they feel their very identity is in threat of dissolution by by something that's lovely but it's too much too soon and they need is an experience of Love titrated they need the titration of Love um but often they don't know how to ask for it they don't even know often they they might smile through it and and go I'm not really feeling this and then they can't bear it they can't bear and then they run away um or just act become weird or something you know so so explanation you know hello I'm somebody who had to get used to a very you know calorie controlled diet emotionally um uh you know I really feel warmly this relationship is matters a lot to me but the kindest thing is not to be too kind to me in an overwhelming way the most generous thing is not to be too abundant not because I don't want this but because I grew up in a situation of deprivation so that's our avoidant friend anxious friend similar kind of story of explanation why do people become soall anxious normally because unlike the avoidant person they have had an experience of love so some ways the anxious persons had a better childhood better journey through life in a way they have experienced love but they've also experienced loss and the disruption of that attachment so someone died someone went away someone had to go to you know the Army someone some something happened to disrupt the bond it was very intense but it was disrupted and um that person needs to understand that they are you there's a wonderful sentence from Donald winot great psychoanalyst who said the catastrophe you fear will happen has already happened and the key thing is it's been forgotten you forgot the catastrophe and that's why you keep seeing it in the future whereas actually it belongs in the past so what you need to do is understand this structure and repatriate the emotion um and put it back where it belongs so the avoidant person at dinner you know on an early date needs to go um you know I really want to believe in your love um but if you say you love me I might not be able to believe it very easily and what I will do is test it and the person might oh test oh fine fire away and the anxious person should go yeah this test is going to be quite unhealthy quite quite horrible you know it's it's going to mean that when you say um I love you I'm going to start to act up because I want to see if it you really do so I'm going to be really difficult around you because not because I don't want you but because I want to test whether your affection is really real and the only way I know how to do that because I'm carrying this stuff from childhood is to act up play up and so when we're in a nice restaurant and you tell me that you know things are great I'm going to say actually the food's not that nice and I don't really like the clothes you're wearing and I'm going to cause a drama why to test whether the Love is Real very unfortunate so the more the anxious friends can get on top of their anxiety the more they can translate everything I've just said into something that sounds like it's been processed and can be understood by another person then the better it can be so um you know anxious and avoidant people are walking wounded and they need to be able to explain the nature of their particular wound so that appropriate care can be uh set up awareness awareness which is why you know it's great for people to go to therapy it's great for people to explore themselves um it's not merely fancy it's not really whatever it's a serious indicator of an easier life with them I mean if you're if you're with a partner who's able to go okay hang on a minute I I think I'm slipping down I I I think I'm confusing you with my mother at the moment uh or I think I think an anger that actually belongs to my father is is weirdly in the room because that's what happens when you start to explore your past you see the intermingling of past and present all the time um and the more you're able to get a handle on that and warn your partner the easier it is I mean we don't need people to be perfect we need people to understand how they're imperfect and War us of the coming imperfection or retro respectively apologize for it in relatively civilized terms that's what we need trust really is everything when it comes to supplements a lot of Brands may say they're top quality but few can actually prove it which is why I'm such a massive fan of momentos they make the highest quality supplements on the planet if you've been struggling with your Sleep Quality their sleep packs are one of my favorite products 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slod wisdom and modern wisdom a checkout how malleable are our attachment Styles the foundations of them able to genuinely be moved or is it a case that the best we can hope for is to just compensate for them in adult life um I'm hopeful here that you know we can definitely make progress and wherever we start we can make progress that you know a temperament where we're inclined to close ourselves off because we constantly think that no one will be able to understand us once we start to think okay this is what I do I feel very easily misunderstood and I go and essentially sulk once you notice that that's a big step you know and we're so good at marking Milestones it's somebody's birthday let's throw a party it's you know somebody's just run a marathon let's uh give them a medal Etc we we need different kinds of medals you know the medal for the avoidant person who understood that they sulk rather than explain dong let's put them on television let's give a game show in their honor these are major Milestones let's give a party let's give a party to the person who's understood that that's going on to Mark there's much more significant than their birthday you know what I mean which might not be tracking anything significant that's a significant Milestone so we we should you know give more public within our circles public recognition of moments of emotional maturation and how much is that you know I think lots of people uh Envy the other side if only I could have a little bit of a little bit more of that anxiousness if only I could actually lean in a little bit more if I could feel a little bit more easily if I could communicate or God if I could just be a little bit more distant if I didn't need the reassurance in this way if I didn't have this requirement to feel safe in order to be able to feel comfortable I wasn't externalizing my own sense of selfworth onto somebody else quite in this sort of way uh yeah I think it's a a question you attachment styles are kind of the the hot new girl in school psychological emotional work at the moment very trendy um it's been around a while in a good way and it's based on very solid science you know it's we've been going at this for 50 years I looked at some really interesting stuff recently that um attachment Styles like everything psychologic Ally genetically predisposed not necessarily predetermined but predisposed uh and given that you are raised in the environment which is probably the uh breeding ground for that very predisposition it gets reinforced yeah so not only have you got the raw materials to make this thing happen but unless your parents have somehow managed to sort of pivot in the opposite direction you then get this additional boost which is oh well the environment uh nature came along and nurture then enhanced it yeah uh yeah it's um it's interesting it's going to be interesting I think over the next few years to see what sort of interventions we have to be able to help people to ameliorate yes and I think um not not trying to sound trendy and you know think but I think AI is going to have a real impact on us uh in the sense that so often what happens is we lose sight in the moment of things we know but are no longer in our mind right and so people will have you know let's say a couple have a rather s Torrid time difficult time and then each one goes to therapy in in the week and then they will come back and they're kind of they're starting to you know they're back on track they can they can see things more clearly again or they spent some time alone they've journaled Etc um I can imagine a world where we allow technology to nudge Us in the same way that you know we've learned that technology can nudge us awake nudge us asleep nud just to eat this n just you know um you know Imagine A little nudge for an avoidant A little nudge for an anxious person Etc a little reminder hang on hang on hang on what you know you're slipping you're sliding um and you know psychotherapists talk about the window of Tolerance where it's a window in which you're you're in charge emotionally or you're kind of in control and you slip out of the window of Tolerance into something you know you you lose command of of yourself and and you can imagine a little AI helper just nudging you to stay within the window yeah your attachment strap has piped up and said notice you're a little bit stressed at the moment this might be because of X Y and Z yes and you know it sounds Supernatural and strange and you know a lot of people would say things like oh it's not you know I don't want to give my data blah blah okay I grant all of that and you know it could be spooky Etc it's no different from think of the people who got there first were religions religions understood that if you want to keep people on track you've got to get them repeating stuff it's not enough to tell someone something once you need rituals systems of Memorial izing the important things that's why you know if you're an Islam um if you're Muslim you know you'll be praying a num multiple times a day you'll be saying the same words because those words have as it were been forgotten not intellectually but emotionally their full resonance has been forgotten um in Judaism uh you're reading the Torah every Saturday in synagogue you're reading the Torah and you you just go back over it you don't just read it once you keep reading you keep going back to to to to the same important text we're very bad at that in the modern world we think oh well I read this book on attachment it was quite interesting and and now that's it I know it now I know know now no you don't you need to go back you need to read it all the time that's why you know the idea of nudging is not as strange as it might sound not as futuristic it's a very old idea that you might give you life to one of the most uh shameful or humbling realizations of going down a personal development Journey for a while is that the tool that you're looking for to the problem you're encountering now is not only something that you know it's one of the first things that you ever discovered when you began this journey it's maybe something you wrote about it's maybe something that you practiced for a very long time and I often get asked I was doing these Live Events recently and one of the most common questions is um what advice would you give yourself 10 years ago the interesting thing about that question I think is that the answer that you give what you would tell yourself 10 years ago is almost always invariably the answer that you right now need to hear as well because the big problems Remain the big problems because they're so fundamental to who you are if they weren't fundamental to who you are they would probably not be the big problems if you were able to detox that it's it's the anciliary stuff it's the extraneous outsides that you end up tinkering with but the core you know the the middle of the cake is his chocolate is it strawberry uh that's really where it is and um yes to think not only is this challenge that I'm encountering I you know to uh break the fourth wall I've used a number of videos from the school of Life over the last decade when I've encountered the same situations like I already I I've not only have I watched this there's been periods where I've learned entire passages from this as a little Mantra that I can reflect on I go I'm going back to the same but that you're right this temptation novel new there is a there is a better answer well we're 5 years hence there must be something that's come out in the last however long and um I guess this is what art and Heritage History uh does that it helps to sort of strip that away yeah what's stood the test of time what's been sufficiently Lindy that it's still with us now yeah you know it's TSL is in the four CeX say you know we return to the place where we started it's the idea of that that's kind of part of every journey is you come back to the place where you started the entire story of The Alchemist by Paulo qua right right exactly and so I notic also when you were speaking just now you smile on your lips and and that's not coincidental I think the more you know one Journeys through life um the more there's really only one major solution which is a smile on one's lips at the sheer let's put it bluntly idiocy absurdity absurdity of oneself you know at the school of life we we we did a class on confidence and we wrote a little book about confidence great book and thank you and the I remember sitting with my co-author great friend of mine called John Armstrong and I said to John because we we started the topic she was like okay what what makes us confident you know and we we'd read a few books each of us on like bestselling books and you know saying things like repeat yourself how great you are repeat yourself your potential get in touch with you know what's and I said I read all these books and I'm starting to feel humiliated feel bit depressed like I know that I know that it's kind of wise but I don't know and then I remember John saying to me okay what makes you for confident and I said if somebody goes it's okay you can just be a total idiot it's all right you you're a bit of an idiot and it's okay not you're an idiot but we're all idiots that makes me feel I'm ready to play I'm ready to have fun I'm ready to take risks removes the seriousness remove well remove the an un an inhuman expectation of what a human life can be pressure and and accept that when all of us Blockheads who can't really make very much progress and um and you know there's a wonderful painting which we put in the book by bral um the ship at Sea yeah well the Ship of Fools and and well anyway I forget this exact title but it's showing people doing Mad things silly things one person's eating his foot the other one's walked into a wall the third one's jumping off a cliff and it just shows human Folly in all its exaggeration and and you think yeah that's us that's we humans and that opens up such an Avenue of compassion you just think okay compassion for yourself compassion for the other uh we're all flailing back in the darkness and if we can have a a relaxed relationship to our foolishness uh and our blindness that's a huge confidence booster yeah I want to I want to try and Linger on that as well I think um again the sorts of people that listen to the show the sorts of people that that read your work um they'll probably take life seriously they think it's a a thing that you're supposed to apply Earnest pressure to perhaps a kind of sort of dynamic persistence but maybe more persistent than Dynamic and um what's your advice for people to try and embrace some more playfulness when it comes to life serious serious things I want to be taken seriously I want to do things I want to make an impact in the world I don't want to grip too tightly I know that when I grip too tightly it kind of yeah ruins the entire Point well I think I think the way is not to not to say oh what you need is bit you know lighten up and and tell a few jokes cuz I think that's not going to that's going to rile people up I think the thing to do is to um push some pessimism their way because it's actually if you think about what a joke is a joke is always basically a bit of pessimism wrapped up in in you know artfully wrapped but it's basically pessimism um one of my favorite sayings by the stoic philosopher senica he goes what need is there to weep over parts of life he says the whole of it calls for tears and everyone who hears that sort of gets a smile on their face and you think the guy wasn't trying to tell a joke he wasn't trying to make it funny he was just trying to be Bleak um and say how it is and then it makes a smile out of relief and the relief is phew it's not just me um Arthur schopen how another great pessimistic German philosopher said uh today it is bad tomorrow it will be worse until the worst of all happens death um you know totally Bleak and you read that and you think I feel a bit better about today already I'm starting to cheer up um I think we really get it wrong but we think we think the only way to cheer someone up is tell them someone cheer something cheerful I think the the Brits have understood this you know right we you know great this country's got lots of problems but one thing it understands is melancholy and the the relief available in dark humor um and and you know bless our American friends but they don't get it um as as much you know if if you up in LA and someone goes how are you and you go you know it's bad today tomorrow it be worse the worst of all happens they'll have you sectioned it's not you know your life in Los Angeles is not going to take off you know what I mean yeah I I've heard you refer to Melancholy as tragedy well handled absolutely well handled I I Adore that I think it's so great you know Sam Harris has something he says something very similar you know you you have to smile at the absurdity of life these situations just as things were smooth something comes along and completely sideswipes what you had planned yeah um and an interesting Insight I suppose that the volume that you complain is probably proportional to the amount that you aren't you're inable to see life for what it is which is not at your whim life is going to have problems thrown at you yeah but Chris let's let's not do down complaining I mean it's one of the great pleasures it's one of Britain's great pastimes well you know it's one of everybody you know and and you know being able to complain to a loved one and and you know you'll have to listen to their complaints too but um to complain without expectation of a solution I mean the big complaint that every Mortal uh you know directs to the sky ultimately is why do I have to die and you know and then you work your way down from that to why do I have to go to work why you know all these things but um yes life would be a poor thing if we if we weren't allowed to spend a good deal but part of it I've heard you say that uh adult relationships are a litness test of our emotional development that there a moment where your past catches up with your present how so why is that the case so the way we love as adults always Bears the imprint of the way which we were loved and we loved as children and that hugely restricts how we're able to behave and explains the very peculiar often nonsensical often counterproductive ways in which we love um we're not free to love just anyone and and this you know I'm sure you all have had this in your life met people Etc who will say things like seem to have ended up with quite a difficult person for me you know they're really they're quite challenging for me why can't I go in love somebody else why am I so in love with this person who's quite challenging and often it's because what's challenging sits on the very area that was challenging in your past and that's what makes them attractive now before you know we want to jump off a cliff at this the pessimism involved let's be a little optimistic here um in a good relationship um we are drawn towards people who yes carry some of the puzzles some of the knots some of the challenges of a parental figure or figure of a caregiver um but they hold out the promise of a different ending so whereas in the relationship with parent or caregiver it ended up with shouting and you stormed out of the house and you're no longer in touch with them Imagine The Joy imagine the sense of triumph over sort of adversity and human non-communication if you are together as a couple able to move towards understanding and mutual growth I think that explains why people hang in there with people who you might think you know you know talk about um attachment Theory you know an anxious person who who teams up with an avoidant one you might want to go why why are you with this avoidant person you look at this other I'm going to present you with a perfectly securely attached person and you go oh they're a bit boring don't really want them you think why what's going on is this pure perversion let's be generous towards that impulse they're trying to find a different ending to probably a very painful early situation um and to be able to do that to be able to grow together is literally I think one of the most exciting and lovely things it's rare which is why successful love is rare um but yeah to grow together away from your early attachment wounds Powers a lot of the ambition of Love we'll get back to talking to Alan in one minute but first I need to tell you about function stop guessing about what's happening inside of your body staying on top of your health requires more than just an annual physical which is why I partnered with function they run lab tests twice a year that track over a 100 biomarkers and monitor for early signs of thousands of dis diseases they even screen for 50 types of cancer at stage one which is five times more data than you get from an annual physical you receive insights from a team of expert Physicians who provide a detailed written clinician summary of their observation and phone consultations for any critical findings the world of healthcare has kind of changed we don't need to be reactive we can be proactive we can catch things before they happen and this is one of the best and most accessible ways to start right now you can discover where your health stands by going to the link in the description below or heading to function health.com wisdom that's function health.com slod wisdom seems like deciding whether to stay in or leave a relationship can sometimes be a protracted decision uh which might be surprising given that we have this short time on Earth and and we don't want to waste it I think a lot of people have problems breaking up with someone even though they they might not make them particularly very happy yeah why do people get stuck in unhappy relationships in that way um there are you know I I think the the mood of the modern world the mood of modern Instagram I've observed is all about ditch them Chuck them run away it's it's a pure pathology you are you are sticking around someone suboptimal for purely pathological reasons um that's got to be true in some cases it is definitely true in some cases but because it's so well known nowadays that that's true let's stick up for the other side um sometimes it's hard sometimes we we stick around very challenging situations because um we want to try and grow together we want to try and make progress um and sometimes we can sometimes we can't so you know it's a balance I don't want to Advocate you know an endlessly unfulfilling relationship but but good relationships will be marked by heavy dose whaty psychist called rupture and repair a break and a repair um and the ability to you know the thing crashes at night but the next morning it's fixed you know our friends in the East you know the Japanese tradition of kinsui fixing that that bowl with golden lacquer fixing the break it's a very very important and satisfying part of all relationships um yeah yeah what about the what about the people who are in a relationship but don't have the courage to leave they probably have this s they feel stuck sort of stuck in this unsatisfactory not abusive not terrible but just they have that fear pulling the pen making that move you know you talked about primary secondary emotions let's not shame these people right let's not add to their woes that they are deficient and Ill in some way um they're finding something very and that's okay let's bear with how difficult it is you know again I it I I'm frustrated by the modern temper which is like get out shoot the awful person you know and and join the liberated Uplands maybe maybe and maybe that is what they're going to do but you know let's be very thoughtful about why they've ended up there let's not you know this might just be they might find hundred things in life quite easy this is what they're finding difficult and let's acknowledge that let's be very kind to that um and let's hold their hands through it you know why what's what's difficult for them is it that they think that um they'll be judged by other people right what what's the fear what's the fear I'll be judged by okay how does that fear Stu up with what might really happen or I'll never meet anyone new okay let's think about that let's not immediately say oh you will maybe they won't you know let's take it calmly Etc I just I'm really resistant to some of this narrative which is you know get out get R awful underperforming people and get into that golden relationship that's been promised to you in heaven it's not you know that may be the direction of travel let's just acknowledge the bumps yeah I think it's unrealistic you know there's a lot of people who just don't want to make a fuss that there's this sort of fear this question is it fair to want what I want you mentioned before how do people that from the outside you go why why her with him why him with her why why would that Union happen and um we don't get to choose what we love in many ways you know absolutely not we are we are you know we we think we've done away with the arranged marriage no we haven't it's just become an emotionally arranged marriage internally arranged rather than arranged by our parents yeah I think uh again for the cerebrally uh predisposed you kind of rail against that why can't I why if only I could can you not get in line with you please all of the things they're there in front of me they they have the and and we get literally irritated and and just to be able to understand it it's it's like saying you know why can't Mount Everest be smaller why can't the sky be less blue whatever we're trying to change a constituent element of reality and and I think we need to have as much respect for the inner architecture as we do for the outer architecture you wouldn't look at a building and go I just want to get rid of that Wing immediately you you'd understand that it was incredibly difficult it's the same thing just because it's intangible doesn't mean it's not incredibly stubborn and hard you know it's hard to change do we need to uh build create the capacity to give up on people in that way does that help um yes I think some of us do you know the you know again it's life's all about finding what's the thing that what's the lesson you need to hear so there are some people um not everyone but some people really need to hear um a little lesson about how sometimes they should give up on people that sometimes making excuses for people or trying to understand where people are coming from Etc it can go too far that that those very nice traits can go too far and that the next best thing that you need to do is to be able to say goodbye without too much regret that might be the lesson that you need to do and let's remember the people who on the whole find it very hard to give up on people are people who couldn't give up as children can't on parents who were very unsatisfactory you can't expect a 5-year-old child to give up on a parent so a parent can be beating the child every night and the child will think oh maybe it's my fault because the child cannot bear to give up on the parent and do the thing that would be natural to do which is to say I'm in the hands of an abusive parent you can't do that when you're five you got no access to lawyers you've got no money you can't go anywhere you are trapped and therefore you become a world expert in not giving up on people but some of what adulthood requires is precisely the opposite sometimes getting perilously close to people pleasing here uh and that sort of tendency to put other people's emotions y ahead of our own make their emotional state our responsibility if you're not okay I'm not okay how how can we better alchemize that and understand that that tendency I mean look let's remember so the psychology of the so-called people pleasing person is someone who no one tried to please for themselves right in other words they were in an asymmetrical relationship probably with a caregiver or parent who um didn't care about their feelings they didn't prioritize their their needs Etc and they had to adjust to to to them so you know if you've got a parent with a volcanic temper where anything might set them off well what you say or think is going to Disappear Completely because all you're going to be doing as a child is managing the mood of a parent they will be an infant essentially and you will have to be in the parenting role and you'll have to put aside your needs and um children are great Geniuses at reading the room and doing what needs to be done to survive it's a survival strategy I will become a people pleaser not in order to annoy people in later life but in order to survive in order to get to the next stage of existence in order to reach adolescence let's face it and um the problem with in this as in so many other neurotic struct structures is a very good idea outlives its use and so it's still operating in circumstances where it's no longer needed so what we need to tell what the what the people pleas and needs to tell themselves is it was amazing that at the age of five I cleverly worked out that I needed to people please in order to cope with my intemperate father but that Situation's now gone and if I keep doing this with my partner with my colleagues Etc it's going to annoy everybody and it's going to create serious problems um so what needs to be done is that person shouldn't feel shamed they should be made to feel proud there should be a little ceremony where they're able to say to their 5-year-old self thank you thank you little whatever it is um thank you for carrying me to a later stage um and working out something so clever and this this applies for all defensive neurotic structures I mean let's imagine somebody who can't feel very much who's invulnerable doesn't open themselves up to other people and in relationships that person may be shamed oh oh so and so oh they they they're afraid of intimacy you want to go okay shaming this person is not going to help you have to ask a another question which is in what circumstances did their current behavior make sense first question and they it always will make sense you go back in time and you say right in those circumstances of course it may you know your father was dying your mother was absent of course it made sense not to feel anything you would have been destroyed by your feelings therefore very clever 5 or six-year-old you to work out that it's best not to feel problem is you're now 35 or 45 and there's lots of reason to feel because there's someone loving nearby or there's you've got children or whatever um and therefore we need to say thank you to the younger self and then we can move on but shame is not going to do it to to wag a finger and go oh another one who's afraid of intimacy that no one ever change like that yeah the uh realization that doing that internally being a tyrant to yourself also isn't necessarily the best way to encourage you into Behavior change whipping yourself to submission yeah also it's it's it's missing the logic of of why you're doing what you're doing as I say so much of what we do as adults makes no sense even to us you know why am I worried every morning again ask yourself the question it's a key question for your viewers listeners um when did the current behavior which now doesn't seem to make sense when did it once make sense in what circumstances did this pattern develop this pattern that is now in verts mad or destructive or boring or counterproductive when did it make sense and if you can start to see a logic and there always will be one I I would suggest almost always will be one there will be a moment when to feel anxious every morning was bound up with your safety and your survival to the next stage of life so if you can recover contact with what that stage was you'll then be in a position to honor the defensive strategy but also say goodbye to it what are some of the uh best and worst ways to tell somebody that it's over in a relationship um look one of the worst ways is not to explain at all why something has come to feel necessary in other words just running away and leaving someone no sense because that then leaves the person to imagine everything and most of our imaginations are dark places in this Regard in other words we think that someone hates us boundlessly or is trying to humiliate us or deliberately want to be cruel to us or Etc and in many many cases I vent to say most cases when someone leaves someone it isn't those things it's the truth is the truth is better than we think it's still tough you know it's very very tough um you know those attachment ruptures uh in everyone's life they're some of the most painful things we will ever have to go through to to to build a life with someone and then see that life disappear I mean we need we need space to mourn you know in in Judaism when someone dies you lose a a spouse you you're allowed a year of mourning you allowed you wear black and you have allowed a year of mourning where not too much is expected of you both professionally and personally you can go a bit mad and that's all right everyone looks after you they know you're in mourning we kind of need that when we're heartbroken when we're seriously because we're dealing with something that is from an emotional point of view as serious this is as serious um as a as a I mean this literally is is a lot someone has died you know and um so we need we need that space so so to come back to your question how to break up um to to be able to explain diplomatically kindly generously some of the real reasons why and as the person who's leaving not to feel that those reasons not to be ashamed of those reasons you know people feel relationships don't have to go on forever sometimes relationships have a cell by date they are there they formed for a particular purpose unconscious to to carry us to a next stage and maybe that stage has come to an end for for someone and we can explain that we can try and you know verbalize that um but also Clarity and sometimes people try to be kind in ways that end up being very very cruel um I want to leave you but but let's go on holiday together really is that is that a wise thing or um I won leave you but you know let's be touch every day day you know and I'll just still call you what I used to call you you know when we were very intimate that's tough that's tough so we may you know couples May out of kindness out a mutual respect go you know there's still a lot of love there still a lot of affection but probably we shouldn't be in touch that much for a little while you think a bad idea for exes to try and be friends um look it depends but I think I think you know there needs to be healing doesn't there needs to be um a break that's marked and honored so that two people can um recover how do you come to think about the balance between fixing our patterns investigating them and and dwelling on them it seems like a lot of criticism is thrown at sort of reflecting on our past as akin to indulging in it in a way uh not allowing us to move forward yeah this is a a common debate that I'm seeing online at the moment yes some people I think are very afraid about responsibility here aren't they they're very afraid that someone will go oh I'm sorry I did that thing but the thing is it's my childhood and that's why it you know and that people will evade um basic responsibility so I think one can take full responsibility full ownership while still explaining it people are also very worried about blaming parents often that's another one that comes up a lot you know people will go um if I start to investigate patterns Etc the only solution is then to get angry with my parents well again there's a real you know people are lied where it's like anger blame Etc you can you can say this happened because of childhood Dynamics no one really wanted it maybe no one's evil but it definitely happened and you know we can't evade that um you know is the result anger Fury it doesn't have to be sometimes it could be um uh yeah so look it's so many of these lessons it's it's horses for courses we we we broad Strokes are very difficult with stuff like this I understand that but yeah I think think um dealing with an unhappy childhood retrospectively not resenting things that happened to us then and we're now at the mercy of uh wanting to be able to investigate why we are the way we are whilst not allowing that to Define us um I don't know there's there's an interesting movement at the moment almost towards denial we've you know the Horseshoe was Hors shoed back around it's been rated a couple of times and uh I wonder whether this is just a a requisite push back to some of the over pathologization of normal human emotions you know the use of therapy Language online that somebody hasn't been mean to me they've caused me trauma that that person isn't selfish they're a narcissist exactly and um yeah I I'm starting to see now a little bit more of a lean away from reflecting on why you are the way you are uh and again it's very much this is just one Co of people saying that cohort of people over there that strategy doesn't work for me and vice versa yeah um look I mean we're a car that needs different gears you know some sometimes we need to go forward some we go backwards we need to turn right we need to turn left we we need full maneuverability right and I think when people discover an exciting idea the great tendency is to go well this toolkit will explain absolutely everything and and this will be the only thing I need and you know this is why we need the whole history of ideas this is why well stocked mind has got in it you know some some books on the stoics as it were some ideas from the stoics some ideas about you know resilience and about shutting down emotion and about turning towards pain and all that we need that sometimes we need an aristocratic side we might have read Neer and his aristocratic sense of you know needing to overcome and you know what doesn't kill you makes you stronger Etc sometimes we need naturee but if you only dieting on nature you may also need you know John Balan attachment Theory but if you're only snacking on John Balby so we need a well stocked mind and I think that um as I say I I appreciate that people fall so in love with certain ideas that they think that's all they're going to need it's rather you know it's it's monotheism um you know only one God correct and you know the great thing about paganism you know ancient uh Roman or or or or Greek religion but you know find in India too and other parts of the world there were many gods there was the god of the river but there was also the god of the sky and there was the god of the cloud and there was the god of rain and there was the god of sunshine and God many many gods and we need many gods um and uh just as in our social lives let's remember um you know total monotheism doesn't you know it's like I need one lover and they will answer all my needs Ah that's quite tough on the lover um you may also need a friend who's brilliant at that thing and there's a friend who's also good at this so we need a um a paganism of ideas yeah my friend ginda has this idea called the golden Hammer when someone usually an intellectual who has gained a cultish following for popularizing a concept becomes so drunk with power he thinks he can apply that concept to everything exactly uh exactly we think it's the yeah the hammer that the one size fits all yeah this is everything looks like a nail that slots into your very specific very fancy gilded uh piece of work look but you know we can forgive it it's it's very exciting when you come across an idea that you think ex and does explain a lot of the world I this what happens when people discover Marxism think oh my goodness this model explains everything and then no it's really good explain certain things and then they discover Freud freudianism it explains everything no you know go steady we need multiple tools I wonder whether this helps to constrain some of the complexity of the world as well what if I have one book if it's meditations or if it's if if if it's some ancient Chinese text if if we're looking at some Lau or something you think well that one thing answers everything I don't need to look elsewhere yes and the the problem is that we're finite creatures yes surrounded by infinite complexity so the the battlefield is stacked somewhat the deck is is offset against our favor and if we can constrain down the complexity that we're fighting with we say well we've got this one person and he's got all of the one guy has all of the answers M I don't and you know we see it in religion we see it in politics one person has got you know it's got everything and and it can't be true but you're right I mean we're drowning in inputs and that leads us to a certain kind of um yeah remorseless quest for the one input um and I remember it was remember there was a um reading a book there's a line that says something like all of us are going to die with a book half read on our bedside that may not literally be true but there capturing something important there that um our exploration will be unfinished quite daunting it's very sad very sad thought you know that we won't and of course the book that we really won't finished reading is the book of ourselves we won't have understood more than a a share of ourselves that's that's very frightening we all have you know on an average gravestone it should say you know here lies do you know who half understood who they were they only half understood that's very weird like you have you know you're you're on your deathbed and you don't really know who you have been was it Gerta that on his deathbed pronounced uh nobody really knows me I don't really know anybody else nobody knows anyone really yeah yeah yeah yeah so that kind of Despair um surrounded by friends and family what a way to Curtain Call see you later on yeah exactly speaking on that do you think it's inevitable for deep thinkers to be more lonely is the the Deep or sensitive thinker kind of fated to have a bit of distance you know it's a ticklish topic isn't it because to say um you know I'm I'm not doing so well in life I'm a bit isolated from things because I'm so marvelous you know could go come on you know um however let's face it um you know look it's like imagine imagine you had a very sophisticated diet and you walked through you know we're in London now you walked through aage Street of London um there would be fewer restaurants and eating places and supermarkets that you could go into to get the food that you need because your dietry needs will be quite complicated there's a version of this around social ability um if you only need to talk about certain things you know if you are I don't let's imagine your Brian Cox we don't I don't know Brian Cox personally and you really just really love interplanetary phenomena um you not going to meet that many people who who will Who will really be able to meet you on on those topics I mean or even be that interesed it might go O'Brian I loved your show but just you know enough with the black holes enough the black holes you know and so he might find himself a little bit lonely I mean who knows about his life I'm sure he's you know but but used to be a rock star do you know that yes yeah yeah yeah but you know or or or imagine if you are I don't know imagine if you were Freud and um Freud was you know he had some collaborators but he also fell out with a lot of them and um didn't get on with you know lots of people so one might argue the complexity of mind um militates against um easily finding um fewer people like you you're going have to work harder in order I would say that's fair enough that's fair enough yeah I we mention we sort of touched on it earlier on I think it's maybe worth just revisiting a little bit trying to the deeper thinker the most serious person the earnest person how can they find more fun inject a little bit less of that uh loneliness in they're in an area where maybe people don't resonate quite so much they don't have quite so so many of the conversations that they can I answer a slightly different question just because look I think it's really important to think that the deep thinker the the earnest person Etc um I want to I don't want to suggest that there are these people called Geniuses wandering around the world and they've got they're so different from everybody else I love this quote from Emerson where he says in the minds of geniuses we find our own neglected thoughts so key in the minds of geniuses we find our own neglected thoughts I think what he was saying there was Geniuses don't have thoughts that are categorically different from the ones everybody has what's different is they hold on to them they look at them they feel them um you could say in the minds of artists lie feelings that you know liely our own neglected feelings in other words artist genus Etc they're just paying more attention to the stuff that's in everybody's mind it's not that their stuff in their mind is completely radically different which is why often when you when you hear a great song or a great um piece of poetry or whatever or read a great book sometimes you think I kind of knew that that was already in me that I'm merely being put back in touch with something that's in me already because what the so-call clever person has done is just pay it more attention so let's not deify these people and let's also open up you know quickest way to become a genius pay more attention to your own neglected thoughts I'm interested you know having followed your work for a very very long time and it's been one of the most reliably influential things I think on my intellectual Journey so I want to thank you for uh Paras socially guiding me through an awful lot of of situations uh I'd like to say that I remind myself of your work when things are good but it does tend to be the sort of thing that I go to when I need a little bit more guidance uh but I'm interested in what drives you the sort of primary motivating forces that are behind your studies and sort of thinking over the years so it's brutally and horribly simple um just to help me get through the day it it is um extremely personal um and motivated entirely by you know a desire for selfhelp um if it helps anybody else I mean people start to say things like gosh did you you must have studied a lot um how did you know that about me and I'm like frankly I have no clue it's just I was just doing my stuff and it's beautiful and lovely that it should Echo into somebody else but that's not how I started it started always with me um and you know I became became a writer I wrote my first book when I was 22 and it was not you know it it was a it grew out of writing a diary it grew out of trying to solve my own confusions it was um a way of trying to stay afloat uh emotionally psychically um and it had nothing to do with a career in that sense later on became some of the accoutrements of a career but uh as I say it began and it still is to this day an emotional necessity I would say it's a way of coping I am I'm an intellectual not sort fancy fancy thing but I'm intellectual in the sense that I intellectualize pain I you know if something horrible happens my immediate impulse not to jog or drink or or do all sorts of things people do but it's it's to try and think about well what is this thing what can we what what lesson is there here um and that lesson is is being fished out for me if it helps anybody else fantastic but I do it I do it anyway that's how I operate I've found an odd resonance with what I've done with the show as well um you know in many ways there is a a temptation to do what maybe popular or trendy or accumulate the most exposure or status or make you look good and that's always there and uh neither of us are immune to uh those incentives um but I think one the reasons that I resonated with your work and hopefully some microcosm of people resonate with mine is it very research very much is me search in this situation and the fact you're right how could you have seen The Human Experience has been really sort of shown to me that it's like you've turned the mirror around to myself like that's it's almost like you're speaking to me well because there's broad buckets of people that sort of fall into similar kind of cohorts and it would appear that perhaps me and you are in a nonto dissimilar cohort and this I think is a reason for confidence uh in our own work and in listening to our instincts um rather than trying to work out what the market the audience the reader wants yeah just saying okay well what would be useful to me right now what would have been useful to me previously especially given the fact that the thing you need to hear right now is probably the thing that you would tell yourself 10 years ago so it's still it's the same lessons over and over it's what looking at that Circle um and I think it is a it is the best justification for selfishly following your instincts when it comes to an intellectual investigation of yourself of the world around you uh because if you think a thing if you feel a thing if you're challenged with a particular issue it's probably reliable that some non- insignificant AB majority perhaps of other people are feeling the same how [ __ ] narcissistic do you need to be to we the only one me yeah me this is a because that's too mean that's too mean because we don't think of it nastily we think of it shamefully we think I've been singled out for particularly personal curse yeah we don't think I'm so great and I'm alone we think oh god I've been cursed broken yeah I'm uniquely broken yeah and and you're absolutely right it's so important to bear that in mind by the time you're feeling it other people we feeling it to and it's so hard to hold on to that thought because we well frankly because we see no visible evidence of it we don't see people talking about it in our vicinity in the in the hundred people we know and move around no one's talking about it openly they're feeling it up but they don't talk about it and um and and so we have to hold our nerve and you know there's a there's a uh a lesson here about um capitalism here and business you know which is fascinating I mean it's not naturally area fall into more you know you've talked a lot about this but so many great businesses start precisely like this that somebody thinks there's this thing I really want and need or or that Thrills me and it sounds quite weird to everybody else and the person just sticks with it and just has a hunch about it just is many many business failures are all about someone going someone doing something and then if you if you say to them do you want this does would you buy this thing and then they go actually no I wouldn't you know so why are you making it for somebody else if if it's got no resonance with you you know careful careful the you know the biggest business disasters of people making stuff that they haven't asked themselves would I really want this yes the word uh grift is thrown around on the internet a lot and I was I've asked people to Define it you know this person is grifting or Shilling for a particular product or company or or ideology whatever it might be and um I ask the best definition that I've ever heard that I actually accept I don't like the word because I think it gets patent matched incorrectly almost all the time but the best definition is uh somebody promoting something that they themselves would not use or believe right I think and that's good and and there's an intellectual version of that when someone reads a book Etc and they've lost touch and they and they're spouting K or Hegel or viit or whatever it may be or attachment and it's not fitting them and therefore there's something you know wrong but I think many hours ago now we began in in this place which is how difficult it is to hone that authentic muscle where you feel something you hold on to it you think no one else is talking about it but let me let me stay with that because I think it's a thing for me so it may be a thing for somebody else even though no one's mentioning it takes a lot of Courage how much better have you become at understanding yourself over the years how much have you been able to nudge those fundamental physics of of your system um I've made some progress yeah definitely made some progress and I'd say that I understand myself more than I've been able to change myself and one could go oh so nothing's really changed what understanding is a thing as well that is its own legitimate thing you know do I always make you know wise choices now am I always you know no but I do understand things better yes I think I've um also better understanding my unconscious and by that I mean you know it's also what people call their gut instinct um I do think that there are things we know without fully knowing why we know them or how we know them and to allow a little bit more for that slightly mysterious form of knowing um you know we talking about sentence completion exercises where you're completing sentence you're letting something Bubble Up from your unconscious um I try and do that more and more um I ask myself simple questions like you know what's what's re what am I really feeling here don't don't overthink this what's really going on you know you've met this person what do you really feel around them just say it say it to yourself don't you know what do you feel and then and then holding on to that that something quite important's gone on there that your answer captures something that more thought Laden answer might not um and and trusting that a bit more um in love in work in friendship in in areas of daily life I would say that one of the biggest contributions at least that I've seen from your work for me personally is that Stark assessment of The Human Condition uh a very sanguin uh some would say British slightly self-deprecating honest admission of how flawed how insane how irrational uh how silly shameful we can be a lot of the time and uh yourself Oliver burkman if you're familiar with Oliver as well um again you know sort of really embracing that British melancholic sort of tragedy well- handled type thing yeah uh you know I this has been a very long time coming I've wanted you on the podcast since before I began it uh I went back and looked at my first ever set of notes that I had that has your name in I'm sure there's stuff that's a little bit earlier than that and that was 2017 so it's late to the party perhaps in the broad scheme of things but very early to the party in my intellectual trajectory and uh making people feel less alone in the ch challenges that they face the day-to-day minations this personal curse that huh I didn't know anybody else felt like that at least I'm not at least it's not just me at least I've not had this thing sort of thrown down on me from above and uh yeah I definitely when I find myself embracing that with the show uh with the content that I create with the thoughts that I have with the way that I try to direct things with the way that I try to uh push people forward um especially at my age I'm 36 and this is there's a number of different directions that I can kind of go down um and the one that's pulling me the most at the moment is a much more Stark assessment of the silliness and irrationality and shamefulness of The Human Condition and I just like to say thank you very much for helping to be a uh a role model for me to be able to do that more thank you so much Chris lovely words so generous thank you where should people go if they want to keep up to date with more of the stuff that you're doing um so uh School of Life the organization that I started um if you if you follow our stuff every every day I'm writing stuff for for our website for our app Etc so there's content coming out all the time and we got a lot of books I've written 15 books under my own name I've written about 70 books uh under the School of Life uh together with my colleague John uh so we got a lot of stuff out there um yeah I appreciate you so much thank you mate thank you thank you Chris