Modern WisdomYou Can’t Change Without Breaking The Loop - Dr Rick Hanson
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,278 words- 0:00 – 17:24
Why Is Change so Hard?
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
In Buddhism, there's this, um, view th- in early Buddhism especially, that life is neh, (laughs) you know, very unsatisfactory, because everything keeps ending. Well, wait a second. First of all, if you're not attached to what's happening, the fact that it's endlessly changing is not itself a problem. And meanwhile, there's the endless arising. And so there's some physics about that. Why is there time at all? And, uh, one of the leading theories comes from this Professor, uh, Muller, M-U-L-L-E-R, at UC Berkeley, that the Big Bang universe is a four-dimensional spacetime universe. Space is expanding. There's evidence for that. And we don't notice it 'cause it's so big. We're continually being stretched just a tiny, tiny, wee bit. But time is the other dimension of the expanding bubble of the Big Bang universe. So maybe the next moment is simply what's occurring as the temporal expansion of the universe proceeds. So we are always, uh, in creation at the leading edge of now in the temporal expansion of the Big Bang universe. Whoa. And so things are ending because there's the endless expanding into the next moment. And isn't that the coolest way to kind of relate to-
- CWChris Williamson
It's-
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
... what up?
- CWChris Williamson
It's so funny that you decided to start your soliloquy-
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, uh, with that, because I wanted to talk about change. I wanted to talk about letting go today and, um, there's a ... I think a lot of people like the idea of being someone who can deal with change well, and I think a lot of people probably are. You know, if they were to look at their past, they actually probably did deal with change well-
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... when the change happened, but maybe not so well in advance of it occurring. Fear of change is a, a, a real source of pain for a lot of people. And it's interesting that, you know, you're right, the perfect cocktail is going to be drained at some point. You know, the dinner is going to finish. The friends are going to move to a different country. The parents are going to pass away. The career is going to end. The passions are going to become less enthusing than they were in the past and (clears throat) with that, needs two things. You need to be prepared to let go and I think the techniques of letting go, what that means, whether it's letting go of something that you still aren't 100% certain about, a relationship, a friendship, a career, uh, or something that's completely ended. This is, you know, uh, a, a person who's passed. This is a situation which no longer exists. Uh, that's one side, and then the other side is, okay, how do we step into the future more hopefully? So I think, uh, lots of fertile ground for us to get into here. It's nice that we, we came in and our, our astral minds had, yeah, had been linked before we even started talking.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
(laughs) That's fantastic. I had no idea that would be our topic and, um, oi, so much to say about it. Uh, I, uh, right off the top, I'm just reflecting on this, uh, kind of statement from Ajahn Chah. Ajahn's an honorific, uh, like minister or rabbi, anyway, in, uh, Thailand, no longer alive, major teacher in the lineage of Western Buddhism, um, Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, um, Joseph Goldstein, so forth, really a wonderful teacher, lived in rural settings and was really down to earth. He said, "If you let go a little, you'll have a lot of happiness." Or pardon me, "If you let go a little, you'll have a little happiness. If you let go a lot, you'll have a lot of happiness. And if you let go completely, you will be completely happy." That's kind of a good frame here, right?
- CWChris Williamson
That's pretty cool.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Yeah, very, very cool. Um, well, I'll say another little thing about it which is, you know, I'm a longtime therapist and, um, look, uh, understandably people are dealing with, with fear, a fear of change, let's say, and feeling unsupported and, uh, in Buddhist meditative practice that gets mature, sometimes people are so aware of the endless ending of the moment that it is terrifying. And it's very important whether it's in everyday life or in deep meditative practice, to feel buttressed and supported and buoyed and lived by the ongoingness of all rightness that is actually true, to the extent it's true, amidst the crud and crap. There's so much that's already okay continuously and bringing that, foregrounding that into awareness with a brain that tends to tune out what it habituates to is really important, right? We notice the things that are bad or that are ending. We don't notice what is continually buoying us and living us, you know, our own bodies, our friends, the goodness in our own heart, uh, the things in the world that are supportive. And anyway, just bringing attention to those parts of the truth, uh, amidst other parts that are concerning that we need to do something about, bringing attention to those parts of the truth is, as a regular practice and developing the habit of that is really useful.
- CWChris Williamson
Why is it so hard to let go? Why is that not our setpoint, our natural state?
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Well, just think about our ancestors going back, you know, right, h- humans, hominids, monkeys, squirrel-like, rat-like creatures in Jurassic Park, uh, the creatures that maybe by genetic design were really super chill. (laughs) Chomp, they got eaten. They were like, "Unh, letting go, man. Yeah, you can have my banana. Yeah, you can have my girlfriend." Like, uh-uh, they did not pass on their genes. (laughs) The ones that were cranky and possessive and grasping-
- CWChris Williamson
My precious.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
... you know, they passed on their genes and we're their great, great, great, great grandchildren on top of the food chain right now, right? So that's, I think part of it.Gosh, we have a culture... You've really spoken well about this, that is r- very acquisitive. Again, hunter-gatherer times, you know, our biology is to not be able to possess very much 'cause you can only own, quote-unquote, what you carry with you. And in many native cultures, there's no sense of ownership particularly. It's the group, the band, or it's... You don't really own it. Mother Nature gave it to you for a little time, right? So there's that. Uh, so our modern culture that's very much about ownership and property and accumulating wealth and, and in a sense, the properties of status, including in a very status-seeking culture, your reputational property, the amount of likes you get, or followers, rah, rah, rah, more. And you know, people write about the molecule more, dopamine, and it's more complicated than that, of course, but that's a good part of it. So, I think that's another reason why it's hard for people to let go.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. It's... The weird thing is, it's not only letting go of things that exist. It's even letting go of thought patterns. You know, we have this sort of obsessive, ruminative thinking, these well-trodden paths that we go through. "Oh, and now I'm here, and then I'll think this thing, and then I'll think that. And oh, that really got to me, and da-da-da-da-da." Like, how many times do you want to replay the same insult that that person threw your way at the water cooler, uh, two months ago? "Oh, if I..." And then, uh, this weird fantasy comes in. "If only... If they... I would have said this, and then they would have said that. But I would have said this thing, and then that would have happened." And yeah, we are oddly even possessive over our own thoughts, even the ones that are mean to us.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Well, there's so many... That's so cool. Uh, I'm tuning into the way that when we ruminate, you know, we feel identified with. That's another extremely difficult thing to let go of, is identity. And yet, in some ways, it's one of the most useful things to let go of because then, you can let in. You know, there's this whole dynamic, obviously, of releasing and receiving. We can't, you know... Well, it's a true story, you know, proverb. Y- you may know it, I'll say it quickly. Um, a great scholar of Buddhism in Japan, in the history of Japan, went to go see a great m- Zen master for a conversation! And they sat down, and they had tea, and it was very elegant, and the Zen master was preparing it. You can imagine the, the movie of this. And, uh, they began chatting and they, uh, um, uh, the, the, the scholar asked the teacher a little question, and the teacher started to talk, and then the scholar would jump in and propound and expound for a while. "Hmm." And then, (laughs) the... Pause, they'd ask another question, the Zen master would start to talk a little bit, and the scholar would say so many things. And, "Ah." Meanwhile, the Zen master was perpouring tea, preparing tea, and so he started pouring it into the cup. Beautiful cup, lacquer table, thousand-year-old mug, something. Starts pouring it in, tea starts to rise, and the scholar's watching the slow rising of the tea in the cup. It gets closer and closer to the lip. And then, he's just thinking, "What?" And the Zen master keeps pouring! (laughs) And all the tea starts flowing over on this beautiful table, and the scholar says, "Wait, wait, wait, you can't, you can't put any more into a cup that's already full!" The Zen master puts down the cup and says, "Exactly." (laughs) So, we tend to get so involved with our stuff, right? In our own minds. That's part of it. And then another part, I'm just reflecting on you and me as people, um, who in... Uh, to put it kind of bluntly, are paid to be right (laughs) , to be... Or paid to know, in a way. We get valued and paid and praised not just in money and so forth. Uh, and so then what do we do with our, uh, attachment to view? One of the three major things that Buddha talked about that people get attached to is their view. The other is sense pleasure and identity, but view, um... How do you deal with that? (laughs) You form a view, you think it's right. I'm the same way. And yet, eh, that attachment to our view about politics or sports or people we're with, or even ourself. We have a lot of view about ourself-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
... when we get attached to it. How do we let go of these views, including our righteous case? I'm very aware of that in myself about this or that. How do, how do you work with that?
- CWChris Williamson
(inhales) I think I have a little bit of a get-out-of-jail-free card, at least publicly, um, because no one typically is coming to me as the expert. I'm... Mercifully sort of made a career out of being the most stupid person in every conversation that I've had, (laughs) so-
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Brilliant strategy. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
It is. So, there's something called jester's privilege, which is kind of what all of the comedians have at the moment, um, you know, from medieval times, the jester being able to say the thing to call out-
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... to the courtesans, and maybe even to the king or the queen themselves-
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... to be able to say the unspeakable thing, and they had a particular privilege. Now, I imagine that, uh, if you push it too far, the jester's privilege, it, it turns out that there's only so many times that you can do that, or there's a limit to it too, um, and they may need a new jester who takes his privilege slightly less, uh, seriously. But-
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... there is, uh, holding opinions lightly and sort of being prepared to change your mind, um, at least for me, publicly, uh, is, is not that hard.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I don't find it too hard, um, largely, again, because curiosity is quite a nice salve to this. It's a really lovely antidote. If you're curious about stuff, you just want to find out, you want to know, as opposed to... I suppose it's the difference between, uh, proselytizing or, or giving some sort of a sermon and interviewing or asking questions, um, because on one side, I just wanna know, and on the other side, I want to tell. And...... for the most part, uh, I'm pretty good at wanting to know. And the telling-
- 17:24 – 33:30
Is Rumination a Beneficial Process?
- CWChris Williamson
Rumination. What are we getting out of rumination? Like, wha- why is the brain so tuned to ruminate in that way?
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Well, wanting to stay in this beautiful sandbox, um... Well, it is really interesting because our closest genetic relatives, chimpanzees, say, and bonobos, they don't ruminate. Uh, it's possible that the cetaceans, you know, big brains, we're not quite knowing what's going on there, but they don't... Uh, certainly, uh, chimps don't ruminate because they don't do mental time travel. They don't have the neurological basis for it in their cortex to, uh, systematically envision a future, you know. "If I do X, will she like me? If I do Y, will she like me?" You know, they don't do affective forecasting, on the one hand, nor do they reflect a lot on the past. "Why did I do that? How could I have done that better next time? Why did they treat me that way? Yuck, yuck, yuck."They just don't do that. And one of the great advantages in human cortical evolution, as the brain tripled in its size over the last several million years, was the development of the neural substrates for mental time travel and, uh, the ruminator in which we simulate different potential futures and we generate little mini movies about the past. So on the one hand, when you think about trying to survive in Stone Age times, it's really useful to be able to systematically learn lessons from your past or systematically, uh, anticipate or project different futures. So on the one hand, we have this incredible thing. What a great piece of hardware, and it's really saturated as well with a sense of self, which again seems much more elaborated and developed in humans compared again to our closest primate relatives. Um, (clears throat) and so on the one hand, thank you mother nature, we're blessed by this. On the other hand, it's really easy to get lost in it. And what I notice about it is that, um, there's a lot of anticipatory reward embedded in the ruminator. Uh, if we just solve the problem that we're anxious about, there will be a reward. Or if we just revisit the past and work it through, there will be some realization around it or some release around it, or we will get the reward of establishing that, "Yeah, I was right all along, and they're assholes for do- having done that to me." You know, we're... There's a kind of a subtle, I think of it as like the inner ad agency in which, uh, these reward systems that are quite agent, a- ancient are exaggerating how good it will be to have figured this out finally after looping around the ruminator track several dozen times. And no, 'cause once you loop around the track a few dozen times, for one, it's painful to loop the track. And even if you do eventually kind of, sort of resolve something, like how great did that feel? How great was that benefit compared to the cost of running around the ruminator track? And then the other thing, uh, so you're, you're asking kind of why we do it. And, and part of the why is because it, it also tends to, um, reinforce and reify the sense of self, the me, you know, both the witness of the little mini movies of future and past. And that's the sort of I, the subjective, subjective point of view. And then there's the character me in those movies, what they did to me, that me, or what they, what could happen for that me in the future. So there's a lot of that, that's very rewarding people get in that.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Um, especially if you feel beleaguered in your sense of self, if you feel attacked or a lot of the content of rumination is negative, it's around resentment or hurt or guilt. And, um, it kind of shores us up weirdly as a self to do that, but it's, and that-
- CWChris Williamson
How, how do you mean sh- shores us up as a self? Can you dig into that a little bit for me?
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Yeah. Uh, it is sort of, it's useful to observe what's implicit, what's the ground distinct from figure. So the figure, quote unquote, what I mean is the story, the event, like let's go back. Um, something happened in a restaurant maybe with a person you were interested in romantically. So there you had this conversation didn't go quite well. You felt misunderstood, you reacted a little bit. They seemed to overreact. Maybe you were missing something. So that's, that's the figure, that's the content.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
But what's the frame in which you're ruminating about that content in that frame? There's, there's, there tends to be a, uh, an implicit background strong sense of self, including the somatic sense of self, which again, because it's in the frame, we don't tend to notice it. It's the sky. We notice the cloud, the figure, you know?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
The content, but the sky is what's really important because also neurologically we are reinforcing the frame by going through it again and again and again.
- CWChris Williamson
Why is reinforcing the frame in relation to the self a bad idea?
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Great question. I think sometimes it's good if you're reinforcing a frame of a sense of your own innate goodness and that you're a nerd but not a wimp. Uh, that's good. But from, you know, from a wisdom standpoint, uh, this is, yeah, from a, if to the extent we get attached to self and, um, identified with it, that tends to lead fairly quickly into forms of craving, like self wants things or it tends to lead quickly into a pretty developed sense of, you know, me, myself and I that, uh, others are not treating well and we tend to take, we tend to take things more personally. That's a good way to summarize that. So self is a, we want to use the sense of self, but we don't want to be used by it. That's a deep topic.
- CWChris Williamson
I'm interested to learn more about that. I think this, uh, relationship between taking things personally, because I, I, I don't understand really how you can ruminate without taking things personally. They, they seem to be intrinsically linked.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
That's exactly right. And that's part of the problem. So when you ruminate, so, so why, what are the problems with rumination? Um, one, it, it's affectively unpleasant. It's not an enjoyable experience to be in the ruminator, A. B, whatever you're ruminating on, which tends to be emotionally negative and, uh, things like resentments or, you know, uh, deep guilt, um, feelings of hurt, uh, that gets reinforced. Neurons that wire- that fire together, wire together in the ruminators. So you're reinforcing it, you're reinforcing reactivity, and you're sensitizing your brain.... to re- to reactivity because little bits of cortisol are released, you know? They go into your brain and sensitize the alarm bell, the amygdala there, and, and make it more reactive to stress. So you're... It's not good to do laps around the rumination track. Also, functionally, uh, rumination often has the function of keeping at bay softer, more vulnerable feelings. You know, while we're rehashing that argument in the restaurant with this, let's say, a woman we were pursuing-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
... um, you know, and we're kinda right about it, and we're going to the movie, and we're having the repetitive thoughts about it, in our case, and then we're thinking about how other people would think about it, and why haven't they thought about it the right way and been a better friend to me about it, or... While we're doing all that, what's underneath it all that's being avoided as an experience? Softer feelings of hurt, despair, feeling like a failure, feeling defeated, what you're saying, projecting that sense of defeat into the future. "I will always be defeated. I will never find love." Those, those deep, even younger, going all the way back to, "Oh, I never got a good girlfriend when I was in high school," you know, going all m- all the way back. Rumination functions as a defense, often against deeper experiences which we need to open to, to get a complete release and move on to the next good thing, and that's not good either.
- CWChris Williamson
Rumination feels stiff, tight. This sort of obsessive... It's, it's, it's very... You're right. It's- it's got structure to it. It's not free-flowing. Um-
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And it seems to me, like... Going back to your hominids, chimps, when did we get the ruminator, uh, (laughs) room installed into all of our brains? It feels like rumination's kind of a survival mechanism gone rogue. Feels like it's a, a useful tool, the effective forecasting. "What do I... What should I have learned from that thing that just happened?"
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
"What's the lesson to take away? Well, well, that thing was emotionally salient to me. That thing was really... That thing made me feel something. I should pay attention to it. Maybe I should think about it. Maybe I should think about it a lot. I should mine this well deep. There must be insights, and gems, and, and, and, and treasure (laughs) de- deep down in there." Um, so yeah. I- it seems to me that rumination is hijacking the brain's desire to do problem-solving-
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... whilst usually probably not solving a problem.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Yeah, I love th- the fact that you, um, deep in practice, tuned into the feeling in your body of ruminating. You know, as you put it, tight, contracted, right? And, you know, and even... There can be a kind of, depending on our temperament, a certain aggressiveness, an attack mode in the rumination.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Other people, maybe by temperament, are more f- fearful in their nature, and they would be more like withdrawal mode. Um, others might be more centered in a kind of anxious, insecure attachment style in which there's a beseechingness. I'm speaking to the frame of the rumination, the, the backstory in which the plot is unfolding of what we're talking about. So yeah, you were... You're very a- alert to that in the bodily sense. And, and I, I agree that what we're seeking and the brain is seeking in the rumination is some kinda result, except the way it's going about it is preventing a result. We don't get to clarity. We don't get to, "Oh, okay, I sorted it out," you know, effective problem-solving. Uh, you, you work it through. "Okay, I know exactly... I, I have felt this fully. I've clarified the facts. I have s- clarified my values here. I know what my plan is going forward. I know what the lesson is going forward, and I'm released. I'm free." Rumination, we're bound. A tr- traditional metaphor is a dog chained to a stick. You know, it can orbit the stick, but it doesn't get release. It's not free. S- it's not truly autonomous. We're captured by our ruminations.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
They seem so beguiling, right? They're seductive. We get caught up in them, and we're, we're captured by them. Th- that's not good, so yeah, think productively about things and feel the feelings along the way. Um, I'll, I'll s- I'll say for me that, uh, there are a couple keys w- that can be really helpful. So, when you find yourself starting to ruminate about something, be aware of it, and what you can do is to continue to reflect on whatever that was or let that movie play, but go wide. Try to get a sense of your whole body, your whole mind, because when we ruminate, we're locked onto that particular tile in the mosaic of consciousness. Other stuff's happening, but we're m- we're, we're sucked in to that part. And so, it's, it's good to kinda go wide, because when you go wider, y- you don't suffer so much and you take more into account, and what that does technically... Uh, rumination typically involves a lot of activity in the midline cortex, including the rearward portions, the default mode. Um, and so when we go wide, that tends to engage networks on the sides of the brain, especially right hemisphere for right-handed people, 'cause that's gestalt processing, holistic processing, and that tends to quiet activity in midline cortices. Wow. So go wide, and including go wide to all the many things that were involved in that conversation at dinner that didn't go well, you know? This... W- where she was coming from, where you were coming from, the other people, the stuff that was happening, big picture. Going wide really helps. And then also, especially as you can, try to feel below the surface. What's really going on here that's being kept at bay by the hamster wheel of ruminating?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
What's underneath the surface? And then third, try to come to a conclusion.What's the takeaway, you know? What's the takeaway? What's the wisdom from here? How are you gonna operate from now on? You know, what have you realized? So those three things, going wide, feeling below the surface, and going after the takeaway. Then that makes rumination productive, and you're using this incredible neurological hardware-
- 33:30 – 43:19
Why we Fear a Lack of Control
- CWChris Williamson
I'm intrigued about why, not only with rumination but with the sort of planning for the future, we're so prepared to keep ourselves trapped inside of something that we don't enjoy. We've been here before.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, we've, we've, we've been across this terrain, and we know that it's filled with upturned tacks, and we keep stepping on them, and all of them are painful. And you go, "Yeah, I know, but it feels, it feels familiar." And I wonder whether... I wonder whether there's a relationship here between the fear of a lack of control, the uncertainty-
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Oh, very nice. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... uncertainty is so abhorrent to us, to our brain-
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Wow.
- CWChris Williamson
... not knowing, that we would rather fantasize a catastrophe than deal with uncertainty.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
That's super brilliant, and do you think that's particularly common in people who, um, uh, w-... Have a career or a, a life history in which they've been rewarded a lot for being in control and having control and directing things in, in particular ways?
- CWChris Williamson
Certainly, s- certainly, I think, for people who have been rewarded for being right, for performing. Um, there is a, a particular sort of free-flowingness that you have around the friends that, "Ah, I don't know what I'm gonna do tomorrow. Ah, you know, I don't have the..." And in some ways, their outcomes in life can be a little bit more, uh, high variance, you might say, diplomatically, um- (laughs)
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... because (laughs) they don't plan for the future in the same sort of way, and they-
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... don't necessarily foresee all of the potential pitfalls and the, um... They don't have the, the structure that, at least in the modern world, for most people, bears a lot of fruit, right?
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Being able to know what tomorrow looks like, iterating on habits, compounding interest of saving money and knowing when you're going away and knowing what time you need to wake up in order to be able to make it to work on time so you don't get fired. You know, all of these things are really, really important. So you say, "Okay, the more control I have-"
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
"... the better my life gets. The less control I have-"
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Including about many of the things you talk about, you know, your own optimization, your own physical fitness, your own workout routines, your vitamin intake, and all the rest of that, yeah. You know, or for me, a lot more around the, the mind. You know, the more control I have over my own consciousness, you know, the better it goes, right? So yeah, we... Uh, those of us who... Uh, yeah, and I think also, just to go into it, there was a lot about my childhood that was... It was fine, and I just felt like, "Whoa." (laughs) I got dropped in (laughs) to a stream in which there wasn't that much control. They were bigger than I was, right? They had more power. They were doing all these things. They were upset about this and that. They... Like, "Ugh." Um, and so yeah, then internally, for me, what... A refuge-... was to develop a growing sense of autonomy where I did have control. And I would increasingly create little domains in which I was in charge-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
... including what I was thinking about or paying attention to. So maybe, in part, if people have a turbulent, um, dysregulated, (laughs) you know, childhood or youth, then they're gonna be more particularly appreciative in healthy ways even, that can then hijack us in not so healthy ways, uh, to, you know, have to be in control, have to be, have to know, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, and I, (clears throat) I think it, it's just a, it's such an ironic tragedy that we would rather fantasize a, a catastrophe way worse than anything that could reasonably happen in the real world. I guess we're sort of going into forecasting as opposed to ruminating here, but-
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... uh-
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
That's a kind of ruminating, where you're caught up in imagining a future and-
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Yeah. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. And, uh, yeah, it just, I, I had this... I read this sentence, which it's kind of funny. I'm such an addict to, um, memes or aphorisms that I'll happily take something that didn't mean what the author meant and then repurpose it into my own. It's kind of like when I first read, uh, Harry Potter when I was a kid, and I'd never, (laughs) I'd never heard the name Hermione read out loud. I'd only ever seen it written down. So I went four and a half books of Harry Potter convinced that it was Hermione, and then they released the movie and they called her Hermione, and I sort of rejected their interpretation of the author's... of, like a word that, you know, a name that's relatively common or whatever, but that I'd never heard. And I was like, "No, no, no, this is the way that, this is the way that I do it," right? "This is the-"
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
"... this is the way that, that, that, that I'm going to see it." And, uh, it's kind of the same, it's kind of the same with this, that we have our, we have our perspective on things. This is, this is the way that this thing is going to be. And, uh, for me, I saw this sentence written, and, uh, it was this, this author talking about thinking in superpositions. Uh, you know, you have this Schrödinger's, uh, there's a degree of uncertainty, we don't know whether the cat is dead or alive, and then he was talking about how most people abhor the uncertainty so much, they, they need to collapse the superposition down into an answer, and this is what we do. When we fantasize catastrophe, we-
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Mm-hmm.
- 43:19 – 45:27
Reflecting on the Power of Poetry
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Do you, do you write poetry by any chance?
- CWChris Williamson
I've actually started. I did it for the first time, uh, a couple of months ago. I really enjoyed it.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
That was just an intuitive sense of how your mindstream unfolds.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. I, uh, I've been hanging around with musicians a lot more, uh-
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... over the last few months, and I always had this sense, I, I, maybe everybody has this, that they assume that their particular, uh, mode of communicating or their particular art form is the one that sort of maximally, uh, uh, allows for, you know, effective communication. And I knew that, I knew that music was able to say things that words can't, because there is sort of emotion, and there is tension and release, and there is swelling, and there is harmony, and there is rhythm, and there is all of this stuff. But I don't think I'd ever considered fully that lyrics can say something that-
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... prose can't, that words, you know, uh, th- the, in absence of words, you're actually able to say more than if you need to be more explicit, that-
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... th- vagaries can be m- sort of more educating and insightful than precision can. And, um-
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... yeah, that, that I guess, if you're not musically minded, which I'm not, um, the closest approximation that you can get to doing that is poetry.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Hmm. That's really lovely. Yeah, I, I, uh, don't think... Well, I wrote a paper in college that was an epic poem (laughs) . That was the closest I ever got to ever wr- doing poetry, and I'm not sure it was any good. Uh, yeah, uh, the, the best poetry is like what we're talking about. It stops your mind, you know? Like, e- humor's the same way, the jester. I'm thinking of Lear's Fool, King Lear's fool, right? The jester who has privilege. Uh, they, you have that moment where your mind stops, and in that-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
... space is possibility, right? And the best poetry does that for us.
- 45:27 – 53:09
Why do Emotionally-Charged Memories Often Resurface?
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
- CWChris Williamson
What about letting go of emotionally charged memories, you know, stuff that has happened a good while ago, and yet when we're at our, when we're sleep-deprived, when we're feeling scared, when we're a little bit more vulnerable, or we're a bit more agitated or whatever, um, this is the sort of thing that keeps coming back up? How do you come to think about letting go of emotionally charged memories from the past?
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Yeah. Well, I, that's been personally m- important to me, and it's also professionally, kind of, squarely in my wheelhouse and what, uh... S- short version for me, (clears throat) here, would be we, we can't let go until we let in fully. And so very often when we go back to things, it's because there is some non-experienced experience that has been trapped in the neural nets of memory that needs to be released. And so the revisiting of that material, sometimes in the frame of a kind of doomed quest, like, "If only I could do this or that, I'd get the, finally the blood from the stone-
- CWChris Williamson
Redemption.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
... I've been seeking." Yeah. Oh, that's right, or r- redemption, absolution, et cetera. Exactly. Um, so we, we tend to go back to it, you know, again and again and again. Uh, and so therefore, to truly let go, we have to really open, and then resource ourselves, so we can feel it most fully. But what typically happens when you feel it most fully is it whoo, moves through you. You have to be a little careful with the white-hot core of trauma. So what I'm saying here is not necessarily true for that, because there are certain experiences that once they do get into emotional memory, they are not going to go. Um, what's around them can change over time. The context, the understanding, the sense of self related to that terrible trauma, let's say, um, you know, can shift. Uh, and you can become more regulated about not being so hijacked by that, by that memory. But I think realistically for people, sometimes you can get a complete release, but just sometimes we have to live with it, and then how do we live with it? Well, that's a whole topic, um, which I think a lot involves letting ourselves turn a corner from it after we've really worked it through. You know, every time we recall that episode, we feel like crap, s- so we deliberately help ourselves to turn a corner so we don't keep revisiting that episode. That's, that's a piece of truth. But I think, so that's, it's hard won wisdom, you know, um (laughs) . A version of this, another story, so I was a kind of fearful kid, and lying there in bed, very active imagination, uh... As an adult, I was prepping for the psychology license in, in America where they, they grill you on things, and you have to know about the Rorschach, the inkblots. And so I took a Rorschach, uh, to prep for the license exam. I'll reveal something that I hope will not come back to haunt me, which is... So I did the Rorschach with a someone who knew me well as a grad student, grinding away, parent of young kids, getting a lot of stuff done, late 30s at the time, and then she came to me with the results. She said, "Are you feeling okay, Rick?" Like-... well, I'm busy. I'm doing my dissertation, I'm trying to get licensed. I got two young kids, and I'm the sole provider of my family. But yeah, I'm feeling okay. (laughs) She said, "Well, there are some kinda psychotic features here."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Like... And I was like, "What?" And she said, "Well, this is why. Because when you looked at a, uh, inkblot, you would give, like, six different possible images, and you could elaborate a lot of why you saw it and all the rest, and that sometimes happens with people who are crazy," you know. And, and I said, "Huh, I'm not..." You know, she said, "It also happens with people who have a very rich imagination, and are kinda creative, and have a lot of access." At that point, I'd done a lot of psychedelics, a lot of inner work, you know. And I'm a performance kinda guy. I'm like, "Hey, how much of anything can I see? I'm gonna see a lot of things. I wanna get a high score," right? (laughs) So, my point is, I have a good imagination. So, there I was, 10 years old, in bed, scared to death 'cause I was convinced there was a monster under my bed, and I could hear little sounds, and I was alone, and uh... And I finally did one of the, the most, the bravest things I've ever done. I kinda screwed up my courage. I said, "Okay, I'm sick of this. If you're under there, eat my face." You know, and I tucked my head, you know, I leaned over the bed to what was underneath it, knowing it could eat my face, and no, just a bunch of dust bunnies under there. But I had to enter into it. You had to be, I had to be brave enough, you know, to go into it. And, uh, I think that's what we have to do sometimes to get a full release from some of our deep material.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. To face it. And I, I imagine that the, uh, experiences that you had in psychedelics probably reinforced that as well.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Yeah, uh, yeah, exactly right. I had... Some of this is quite intimate to, to myself. I'll kinda leave it alone a little bit. But I, I had a lot of, um, e- early experiences in psychedelics in which I'd look at a... Oh, I don't mind talking about it, actually. Uh, I'd look at a, uh, uh, kind of a screen, like a ceiling, uh, white ceiling, and very quickly there would be these demonic devouring faces, bloody teeth just... Like, whoa, I didn't like that, you know? And that was fairly recurring, and I mean, hm. Um, and then a year or two or three of that pa- ha- passed with probably half a doz- maybe five to ten, uh, trips during that time, closer to ten. Finally, I was in the desert in California, a place I actually love, Joshua Tree National Park. Uh, highly recommend it if you make it to California. And I was staring at a bush with thorns. You know, in a desert, there's a lot of thorny bushes. And every thorn was a devouring face coming at me. And at that point, I just had had enough of it, and I said, "Okay," and I dove into the face, dove into the devouring faces, demonic devouring. Kinda feminine, witchy, you know, bloody, sharp teeth, jagged. And then in that moment, uh, whoom, I got a release and realized that that, what that was were these disowned, pushed down and away parts of myself that were witchy. Kind of the opposite of my masculinized, logical, Spock-like, top-down, leading with intellect MO. Just like the wild witchy... And nice. I was very nice. I'm a nice boy. And this was this disowned part of me. I can feel the shivery in my body right now as I talk about it. And it was, it was disowned, sent away. And I had, and I... And there was an integration of it in that moment. Um, and, uh, ever after, I've never had a nightmare since.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
I've had dreams that were a little uncomfortable, like someone's trying to get me. But... So yeah, tha- tha- that's another... Th- these are extreme examples-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
... that are, have a heroic... Not to praise myself, but just to say to other people, it's noble to step into the pain, or to, like, go for it, into it. It's noble, it's heroic to do this-
- CWChris Williamson
I l-
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
... to feel it fully.
- 53:09 – 1:04:47
The Importance of Everyday Successes
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
- CWChris Williamson
I love the idea of, um, ordinary victories, sort of-
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... mu- mundane successes like that. I've been thinking about these more and more recently, that there's a lot of things that we overcome that are so kind of normal, and unceremonious, and unimpressive, uh, and inward, and, and idiosyncratic as well.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Hm.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, they're so u- they're such a part of us that even trying to unpack and explain, which you've very successfully managed to do there, but stuff that's even less grand than that. But you win. You win over this sort of little part of yourself. And I think that, you know, when we're talking about letting go, about dealing with change well, about being brave in the face of uncertainty, these are, these are things that nobody is going to really pat you on the back for. That, "Oh, you dealt with the inbuilt uncertainty of living in a universe that you don't have full control over. Congratulations. Well done. Like, everybody has to do that. You just did it. But this time you did it with more grace. This time you did it with more equanimity. This time you did it more quickly, more deftly, you did it more peacefully. You did it without castigating yourself. You did it without staying up all night ruminating."
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
And, uh, yeah, winning mundane victories and boring successes, I think is a, uh, uh... And no, we should, we should congratulate ourselves even more for those. 'Cause the big success is everyone else gonna congratulate you for. "Oh, the new book was so fantastic." "Oh, tha-"... podcast episode- oh, congratulations on the wedding. It was so beautiful. You looked am- the- look at how well your kid's doing in school.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Like, yeah, you know, like, things, the things that are kind of obvious but slightly more normal successes, all the way up to the Nobel Prize and the- you got the most recent title, all the rest of the stuff, whatever, j-job, job promotion. Um, yeah, uh, cultivating, uh, reducing down the bar of what constitutes worthy of praise and success, even if it's just inwardly, or maybe outwardly as well, like, "Hey, I did this thing today. I had this great..." I'll, I'll re- invert you and I'll do story time. So I had this really, uh, lovely rancher and wrangler, a guy called Dry Creek Dwayne, on the show, uh, about last year. He is a older fellow from Wyoming, um, seven kids, old school guy, big beard, permanently got a cigar in his mouth, cowboy hat, old school, old school as fuck. You know, s- big man raw mangled hands from ranching and wrangling and ge- picking at, at horse shoes and stuff for an entire career. And, uh, he has spent a long time dealing with, I think, quite a sort of classic that generation anger from, for a sort of masculine, uh, discontent. Uh, and he's found himself at a really sort of beautiful place of peace, uh, and he considers himself sort of the anti-grind set bro person. He's very much, maybe the answer to your problem is to grab a cigar and sit on the back porch and read a novel and, and think about it a bit. You know, he's not, "You... Here's the notion template that you should use and the five-step process that will allow you to track time, block the calendar for the next..." He's none of that. And, um, he was explaining this day where there'd been a particularly difficult horse, and he was trying to, um, break, domesticate, tr- train this, this particular animal. And he had got up kind of on the wrong side of the bed that day. He wasn't feeling it, uh, but he had to go to work, and this is what he does. So apparently he went and he saw... So him, not in his best state, horse, not in their best state either, and he went and he said he sat down and he just looked at the horse. The horse was in its stable. He sat down on this stool and he lit up a cigar. He said, "I smoked the first cigar, and then I lit up a second cigar." (laughs) "And I smoked the second cigar, and I puttered around a little bit, and then I came back. And my wife asked, 'So honey, how was your day?' And he said, 'Well, I didn't break anything,' and that's a success." I just thought that was so wonderful-
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... to be able to drop down... Yeah, everybody loves this idea of grand victories, right? Uh, uh, but yeah, we've got this... I think you've, you've referred to it as your one wild and precious life, right?
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Mary Oliver's quote, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, it- which is beautiful, and in-built in that is this kind of pressure, "Oh, I need to make the most of my day. I need to, I need... This, this needs to be done now because if I do this now, then I can do something else next after now, and then tomorrow that's now can also... I can..." Ma- uh, like, it's almost kind of like a denial of death in a way.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Ah, interesting.
- CWChris Williamson
It's like, "If only I could fit more life into my life, it would be like I pushed death further away from me."
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, and inherent in that, in a meritocracy, in a capitalist world, in a world where people are growth-minded and they want to achieve a lot and, "I wanna get things done. Fuck, I wanna make-"
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
"... Yeah, I'm gonna fit lots in," uh, there's a pressure to do lots of things in that. And in some ways, that's impressive, right? There are objective differences between walking 100 meters in a day and walking 100 miles in a day. There are, you know, there, there are differences in the experience. But on the flip side, if you can be the sort of person like Dwayne, for whom walking 100 meters is able to generate for you the same level of content and wellbeing as for someone else takes 100 miles, who's got it better?
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Hm.
- CWChris Williamson
Because... Yeah, and I, I don't know. I just think it's a really nice redress to the more, more, more hungry ghost type approach that people have for achievement. And that's not to say if, you know, you're looking at a poster child for trying to make things happen and agency and autonomy and all that sort of stuff, but I certainly know that when I play with things with grace and ease and sort of more... I don't grip things so tightly and I'm less attached to the outcomes of stuff, that it doesn't really matter because I'm happy no matter what.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
It's, you know, it was an enjoyable experience because so much of the unenjoyability of the thing is the gripping of it. And on top of that, the outcomes, uh, oddly enough, in some weird circular way, the outcomes tend to be better as well. Um, so yeah, I, I, I've been thinking an awful lot about, um... It's another, uh, another fork on this. I was talking to, uh, a, a friend, Alex. We did this huge four-hour-long episode a couple of weeks ago, and, uh, people really liked it, and there was this bit in there that I really want to work on. I'm gonna try and write about it over the next few months and, uh, maybe do an essay on it. (clears throat) I think a lot of people are quite ashamed about taking pleasure in simple things. It sounds lovely. It sounds like a lovely thing to do, you know, just a, a cup of coffee and a, a, a, a fresh morning or whatever it might be.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, but there's a little bit, at least in my mind, of, "Really? This, this is what considers... Thi- thi- this is what constitutes, like, impressiveness to you? How, how pitiful, how shameful, how, how unimpressive is life for you to only need... Well, you know, you should be..."... conquering mountains and, and, and forging, pioneering forward and doing all of this stuff. It's that sort of masculine drive for more, this, again, very sort of 21st century Western "I want it, want it, want it, I'm gonna build it." Um, and the more that I kind of see, "Huh, I actually quite like simple things. I actually don't need to be all that impressive." And in the same way as Dwayne saying, "Well, I didn't make anything worse today. I didn't break anything," and for him to go to bed and consider, "That was a good day," I think cultivating that same thing, being able to get the pleasure from 100 meters that you could from 100 miles, being able to feel a sense of satisfaction in the boring and the mundane successes, in overcoming that little part of yourself even just once today that you did, I just think, yeah, that's a lovely, uh, a lovely redress to the hungry ghost that sort of sits inside of all of us.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Wow, really, wow. And you're nudging me to reflect on the relationship, the linkage between identifying with a heroic narrative that is your ego ideal, that you're identifying with, everything has to be big, big, big lights, and the difficulty in actually feeling deep feelings of rejection, failure, and defeat. If we become more able to tolerate experiences of, in the sandbox, rejection, or more broadly, defeat, failure, "They won. They scored on me. I will never get justice here. They scored." I was once walking down a hallway in high school, I went to a large high school in California, 2,700 people, and I was just kind of spaced out and, as I was walking past all these kids at, you know, transition period, somebody punched me hard in the stomach and just walked on by. And I was not a kid who fought a lot, I didn't have active enemies. Someone just clocked me for no reason, you know? I... bam! And I'm, like, stunned. I turn around. A couple seconds have gone by. I see a sea of moving heads going down the hallway. I'll never score on that kid. I'll never get justice for that boy, I'm sure, who punched me. So do we accept that? But if we can accept rejection and failure and defeat and not being special, then we get less hijacked by and we have less ruminating about this heroic narrative of the magnificence-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
... uh, that our, that our life must be, and anything short of which is (scoffs) not acceptable.
- CWChris Williamson
How do you think about the role of humor and sort of play with this? You know, (clears throat) I get the sense that-
- 1:04:47 – 1:27:10
Being Earnest is Better Than False Projection
- CWChris Williamson
but I wonder how you come to think about sort of the role of, uh, absurdity, uh, humor.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Well, for myself, um, yeah, I, I... playfulness. So I... one detail is that, um, research shows that little juvenile rats who play with each other have more neurotrophic factors in their brain which promote new connections. So play is actually a factor of learning. And so if you care about learning broadly, you know, development, healing, like, what happens in therapy, playfulness i- is a real aid. People listen, let's say, to you or to me, and it's, it's nice in the moment, and is there some interest in an ROI? Uh, not out of needing to have this magnificent narrative of constant growth in your life, but just plain common sense. "Yeah, I'd like to have some kinda lasting gain from listening, um, let's say, to you or to me." And so, uh, playfulness promotes that kind of learning. And I think back on how many therapy sessions I did with people that were so somber, so inert and numb, there was no playfulness, and they didn't get anything out of it, you know? While they're nodding their heads, "Oh, yeah, doc, that's right," (scoffs) no lasting learning. So play really promotes lasting learning on the one hand. On the other hand, you're, you're, you know, you're kind of raising the question about certain ways of being that maybe in particular cultures or gender-socialized types are, are, um, devalued, like earnestness. You know, it's sort of embarrassing to be really earnest and sincerely earnest, not just in some problematically ponderous or pompous earnestness-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
... but a, a kind of vulnerable sincerity-
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
... in which there's a-
- CWChris Williamson
Beautiful.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
... wanting the best. "Please, sir, may I have another bowl?" Think of the risks a little character-
- CWChris Williamson
There's no escape valve there.... there's no escape valve.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
There's no, there's no get out of jail free card.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
You're revealed.
- CWChris Williamson
There's no, "Oh..." Yeah, exactly. You are, you're seen. You're seen as no... I didn't keep-
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... half a foot out of this situation.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
It's fine.
- CWChris Williamson
This is me, opening up.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Yeah, you are pegged to this stake-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
... with the risks that, with... that are entailed.
- CWChris Williamson
This is what I wanted, and this is really what I wanted, and I really wanted it, and I said it.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Yeah, yeah. And to me, to go back to... I love what you said about really appreciating small victories, so forth. To go back to the nobility, um, and I kinda relate to that in a early Buddhist frame of, these are the truths for noble beings. Not noble by birth, but noble by effort. Uh, there's a nobility in letting yourself feel deeply, or be revealed deeply. Like, to go back to that, maybe, conversation at dinner that went bad, to say, "You know, at the end of the day, I was there in good faith. Maybe I was unskillful, I said this or that, there's lessons to learn for the future. I was there in good faith, I was there with, with my whole heart, uh, deep down, and I was brave enough to be earnest and sincere enough to kinda lay it out." Like, yeah, take pride in that.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Healthy pride, you know, appreciate yourself for that. The, the heroism, the nobility in that, and the uncommonness of that. I mean, to me, that's, that's where real bravery is.
- CWChris Williamson
That's really cool. Yeah, I love that. Uh, I get the sense as well that this is one of the reasons why allowing yourself to be puppeted by your own fear, to not show up... Th- there's an equivalent in the world of content creation, which is audience capture, so, uh, continuing to throw red meat that is, uh, predictably going to be liked by the audience but doesn't necessarily resonate with you as a person.
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, it's actually, you know the word grifter? Have you... Do you-
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Oh, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... have you familiar with that? Right, okay. Um, so I asked... I, it's a word that gets thrown around on the internet a, a lot, and for all manner of different individuals, and I genuinely was interested. I said, "Hey, for the people that use the word grifter, what is the best working definition of what that word means for you?" Because it's a s- it's just kind of a slight, it's just a slur, it's like calling s-... Yeah, it, it, it's just a very odd, nebulous term that, that people tend to use for someone that you think might not be fully authentic. Be like-
- RHDr. Rick Hanson
Mm-hmm.
Episode duration: 1:35:44
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