← 10% Happier with Dan Harris
10% Happier with Dan Harris
Overwhelmed? Over-Scheduled? Burnt Out? Here's the Antidote. | Diana Hill
01:18:24
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- [00:00]
A
Few things feel better than knowing someone's looking out for you. That is the spirit behind the ATT guarantee. Staying connected matters. That's why AT&T has connectivity you can depend on, or they will proactively make it right. That's the AT&T guarantee, because connection should be dependable, especially in the moments that matter most. Terms and conditions apply. Visit att.comguarantee for details. @ and T connecting changes everything. It's the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello my fellow suffering beings. How we doing today? Even after all of my years of meditation and other forms of personal development or self care or whatever you want to call it, even after all the years of work I've done on myself, one of the things I still struggle with and I still feel shame about the fact that I still struggle with, is being overwhelmed, overloaded over scheduled, and then as a consequence getting tired, burnt out and snippy. I've known forever that this is a problem, this is a pattern, and I still repeat it. So I was very happy when I found out that I was gonna have a chance to interview for today's episode somebody who has put an enormous amount of thought into how to work with this problem. Diana Hill, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and author. She's written many books. In this interview, we're focusing on her latest book, which is called Wise how to Focus yous Genius Energy on what matters most. We talk about the concept of wise effort, which is basically aligning your energy and your actions with your core values. She'll unpack all of that. We also talk about the practice of defusing your thoughts. Three things that get in the way of wise effort, including being stuck in your story, avoiding discomfort and holding on too tightly the role of radical acceptance how to spot energy depleters in your world, a practice she calls yes, yes, thank you, thank you, and much more. Just to say before we dive in here, as you may know, wise effort is a key plank in the Eightfold Path, which is the Buddha's recipe for a good life. Our Teacher of the month over on DanHarris.com, Dr. Christiana Wolf, has crafted a custom guided meditation to go with this episode that is designed to help you cultivate wise effort in your meditation practice and in the rest of your life. These custom meditations are available to subscribers over@danharris.com, if you're if you sign up, you'll also get invites to our weekly live meditation and Q and A sessions. Christiana will be leading the next one on Wednesday, November 12th at 4 Eastern. We usually do these on Tuesdays at 4, but this Tuesday is a holiday in the U.S. so we're doing it on Wednesday. Also, a reminder, we're doing these lives on Zoom now instead of substack. Finally, if you want to meditate with me in person, I've got two events coming up. I'll be doing a live taping of this podcast in New York City on November 18th. It's going to be a conversation with the comedian Pete Holmes, who's not only very funny, but he's got a long and deep spiritual practice. This event will be a benefit for the New York Insight Meditation Center. And then coming up on November 23rd, I'll do an intimate little meditation and Q and a sesh at a lovely little hotel in the Hudson Valley called Troutbeck. There are links to both events in the show. Notes okay, we'll get started with Diana Hill right after this. You know those moments when someone just takes care of something for you? That's what ATT is doing. With the ATT guarantee, staying connected matters. That's why AT&T has connectivity you can depend on or they will proactively make it right. That's the AT&T guarantee. Because staying connected isn't optional, it's essential. And AT and T wants you to feel that somebody's got your back. Terms and conditions apply. Visit att.comguarantee for details. @ and T connecting changes everything. I chose Function because it's the only health platform that gives me the data most people never get and the insights to start doing something about it. Inside Function you get access to test over 100 plus biomarkers, from hormones to toxins to markers of heart health, inflammation and stress, and it's all tracked in one secure place over time. Function was really helpful for me because there was one biomarker that really gave me and my doctors a hint at an undiagnosed condition that had been totally obliterating my sleep. Apparently my ferritin levels were a little low and that allowed my doctors to diagnose me with something called restless leg syndrome, which is a ridiculous sounding syndrome. And anyway, now I'm on some iron supplements and one other medication and it's making a huge difference. So I give Function at least part of the credit for that. Meanwhile, in your life, the holidays can take a lot out of you, late nights travel and to do lists you might push through, but your body feels every bit of it. Function helps you explore how stress may affect key health markers inside your body. These Lab tests are a simple step to gauge how well your body's handling the season. It can reveal that your cortisol levels are high. It can show you what's going on with your thyroid markers, your glucose levels, and of course, the aforementioned ferritin. Low levels of ferritin can explain that deep, unshakable fatigue that coffee can't fix. Most people don't realize how much stress changes what's happening beneath the surface. Function can help you track it so you can reset and actually feel present this season. You can't avoid holiday stress, but you can see it coming and support your body through it. Learn more and join Using my link function is a near 360 view to see what's happening in your body, and my first 1000 followers get a hundred dollars credit toward their membership. Visit www.functionhealth.com happier or use the gift code Happier100@signup to own your health. Diana Hill, welcome to the show.
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B
Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.
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A
Glad you're here. All right, let me start with a very basic question. What do you mean by wise effort?
- [06:29]
B
Well, I think the listeners could just answer that themselves. They can think about their day or their week when they were not engaging in wise effort and when they were engaging in wise effort. So there's just the basic understanding of how we use our energy, our effort, and and when is it aligned with our values and when it's out of alignment with our values and what that feels like in our body and the impact of that in our lives. But wise effort comes from the Eightfold Path. It's one of the steps to enlightenment in Buddhism. And that's where I originally heard the word wise effort, or sometimes it's called right effort. And then I've thought about it more over the years in terms of clinical psychology and energy use. The the times when we're putting a lot of effort into something and it's draining us, and then times when we're putting a lot of effort into something and it's regenerating us. And there's a difference there. There's a wisdom there. So I see wise effort as using your energy in ways that align with your values, that are regenerative, that are using your strengths and that give to others and as well give back to you.
- [07:41]
A
It's really interesting to think about what you just said. It is possible to work at the same level of intensity on either the same project or two different projects and in some instances be in a state of flow or, you know, complete absorption or having a great time, feeling terrific, or feeling like you're being dragged by a motorboat by your head through a pond. And it's sometimes hard for me personally to figure out when I'm going to feel the former or the latter.
- [08:16]
B
I run a sangha on Tuesday mornings and we passed the mic around and asked this morning, what is it that you're dreading about today? It was an interesting hodgepodge. So one person said, I'm dreading going to my dad's house to clean out. My dad died and I have to go clean out some of his stuff. And another one said, I'm dreading taking my dog for a walk. And another person said, she's a professor. I'm dreading all the papers that I have to read. And last night I was dreading taking my. I had to go to Macy's to buy my kid a suit. I was dreading it, right? What is it about all of those experiences that in one situation you could be dreading, but another setting you could be so grateful to have the opportunity to have a kid that you could buy them a suit? Or that the experience of going and cleaning out your father's home, which is very difficult, it's very painful, but there's also something really beautiful in that. And I think that the quality, the way that we're approaching it, how we're relating to our experience, impacts so much of our well being in it. And it's not the experience itself, it's our relationship with it, which is a lot of what sort of my interest is in. All the interest in wise effort, but also things like psychological flexibility, how we're relating to our experiences, that we could either experience dread or we could experience freedom in them, or even gratitude potentially.
- [09:42]
A
I had this experience that is still with me in a big way. I was on a meditation retreat in 2018 and at the end of the retreat I was just for context in a particularly busy part of my life where I had a more than full time job at ABC News and was also the co founder of a meditation app, the host of this podcast, the author of ongoing books and giving a lot of speeches and like I was doing way too much. And at the end of the retreat I turned my phone on and looked at my calendar and I was like, I don't want to do 75% of this. And it really woke me up. It began after that serially divesting myself of professional responsibilities. And yet, you know, still to this day, sometimes I open up my calendar like today, and it Wasn't like there was any one thing that I was dreading. It was just too many things, not enough variety, too much zoom or whatever. For busy people in the world, this is a real problem, right?
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B
I work with executives quite a bit. And there's that classic rocks in a jar metaphor. Like we have a jar, which is how much time we have, how much space we have in our day. And then you are choosing which rocks you're putting in. And oftentimes what people are doing is they're not only are putting rocks in the jar based on. Not on their values, but based on what they think they should be putting in that jar. But then they're filling in every single space between those rocks with sand or little tiny rocks. So there's no room to breathe. There's no margins to be in your life. You're just going through the motions of the rocks in the jar. And that's what you were describing. I had all these things. Each one of those alone might have been a nice thing that you could enjoy. I also make the argument that sometimes we're in situations where we don't have a choice, like we have to put all these rocks in the jar, because these are all the things that we need to do in our day. And there is a way in which we could approach them and approach our experience so that it feels more alive, it feels more aligned. And that has a lot to do with our showing up in our values, showing up as the type of person we want to be. So the example of taking my son to go get a suit at Macy's at 8:45 at night, it's like my worst nightmare, right? But it's also an opportunity to be with my son. I mean, have a teenager, I rarely get to see him. How do I want to show up at Macy's? Do I want to grumble through it? Do I want to rush through it? Do I want to get in and out? Or do I want to say, this is it, this is life. Sometimes it's things that we don't want to do that we need to do. And we can approach it from a position of, I guess, radical acceptance, but also from being the type of person you want to be. What are your character strengths? What are your values and intentions in this moment? I think that's the wisest form of effort. When we do it that way, there's a. I think a tendency to think about our solution is to take things off of our schedule, which I think is a great solution if you have that privilege. But Some people don't have that privilege.
- [12:46]
A
That's a great point. Yes. When I made the decision to, as I said before, like, serially divest, I did it from a place of. I don't love the word privilege. So it feels a little like, as I sometimes joke, the type of shit you say in a senior seminar at Vassar. Nonetheless, it was, you know, luck, advantage, privilege. So, yeah, so we want to talk about solving these problems no matter where you are on the food chain. Before we get into that, because I want to walk through the sort of editorial or intellectual backbone of your book, and we're going to get super practical, including a deep dive on a word that you've mentioned several times already, which is values. Before we get into that, though, you are a practitioner of something called ACT acceptance and commitment therapy. And the ideas of ACT are shot through the book. And so I thought maybe, unless you think it's a bad idea, that maybe we would start by a brief overview of act and then we could walk through the book. How does that sound?
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B
It sounds great. Yeah. ACT is the foundation of a lot of what I write about, how I live, how I practice as a clinical psychologist, and how I train therapists. I also incorporate a lot of contemplative practice and wisdom to it. But act, it's pronounced one word. It's been around for 40 years. It was developed by Stephen Hayes and Kelly Wilson and many, many, many others. And it has a strong research base, and it's sort of like the next evolution of cognitive behavioral therapies. A lot of people have heard about cbt, and it was sort of described as the third wave therapies. It came along around the same time as mindfulness based stress reduction and dialectical behavior therapy. People may have heard some of those. DBT and bct. The difference between these types of therapies compared to something like traditional cognitive behavioral therapy is that it's not about getting rid of anything. So in act, our goal is not to get rid of symptoms even. Our goal is not to change your thoughts. Our goal is not to get rid of any inner experiences. The goal is really to help you become more psychologically flexible with everything that arises in your life and orient your energy towards what you care about most. So an ACT will say things like, you hurt. Where you care. You can identify, actually, if you think about something that's bothering you the most right now, the thing that's on your mind, that wakes you up in the middle of the night, that tells you a lot about what you care about, and then it becomes a big arrow to point you to where you may want to use your energy. So there's six core processes in act, and they have to do with how you are getting more flexible with your attention, getting more flexible with your behavior. Like having a large repertoire of flexibility around our behavior. We get more flexible with our sense of self, we get more flexible with our feelings, our emotions, and we get flexible with our motivation, our values. So these six core processes, they're like six sides of a Rubik's Cube that work together to develop your flexibility, your ability to show up in the world how you want to show up, even with all the inner obstacles that are in the way. And when they've researched psychological flexibility, they've found that this core skill, this core set of skills is useful for everything from anxiety and substance use to psychosis. But they're also using it with Olympic athletes and leaders. They're using it with war refugees. It's the World Health Organization is using it in Syria. So it's used with so many different aspects of living. And the reason why is because psychological flexibility may be sort of like the most important skill that you could ever have to adapt to life's challenges and to open up your life if you're feeling stuck or stagnant. These core processes.
- [16:53]
A
That's super interesting and a great summary. Just want to make sure there aren't any, like, dangling questions in the mind of the audience. You did reference CBT or cognitive behavioral therapy. Not everybody knows what that is. I'll do my best to say a little bit about what it is and how it's different from act, and then you'll jump in and correct me, because I will inevitably make a lot of errors. But my understanding is CBT involves a lot of cognitive reframing, sort of like working with and warmly challenging way with your thoughts, challenging some of the stories you've been telling yourself your whole life, that the culture may be telling you about how you are and how the world is and how you're supposed to be. And it sounds like ACT is a little bit more starting from a position of not being at war with reality, accepting, but then, of course, not being resigned, not being passive, developing a kind of psychological flexibility that allows you to engage with more sophistication and suppleness. How am I doing?
- [17:57]
B
Yeah. So I was trained in cognitive behavioral therapy. When I was in graduate school. My supervisor gave me a sheet with a piece of paper on it that I would look at before working with a client. Sometimes I even passed to my Client. And I would say things like, are you overgeneralizing here? Are you catastrophizing? You know, and many situations, yes, I'm totally overgeneral. I'm totally catastrophizing. But every once in a while, you get to a client's thinking patterns, and they're kind of true. You know, like, they're kind of accurate. They're super not helpful. Like, maybe I'm stumbling over my words a little bit when I'm giving a talk, and then all of a sudden, my mind gets really hooked by the fact that I'm stumbling over my words, and all I can think about is I'm stumbling over my words. And stumbling over my words becomes the biggest thing in my mind possible. You could imagine, like writing, you're stumbling over your words on the palms of your hands and then covering your face, and that's all you see. You may be stumbling over your words may be true, but it's not helpful. So with act, we get into the practice of something called defusion. Diffusing fronts, stepping back from our thinking, which requires us to notice that we're thinking in the first place, but then notice that my hands are over my eyes. And with my hands over my eyes, I'm stumbling over my words. How well can I see Dan? Not so well. How well could I see my kids? Or how well could I focus on my work if maybe what's in front of my hands are something like, I have cancer, Right. Sometimes it's true. So with a little bit of a nuance, there is. We're not labeling thoughts as you're overgeneralizing or what percentage of this is accurate or not accurate. We're asking about helpfulness. And ACT is all about workability. This is wise effort. Like, how much effort are you putting into controlling your thoughts or trying to avoid. Like, don't think about that thing. And is that effort preventing you from actually being in the very thing that you care about? So we diffuse from our thoughts, we step back from them, and there's all sorts of different exercises that I would do with a client to diffuse from their thoughts. You know, I may say, like, Dan, what's a thought that you've been having thoughts this whole time I'm talking. I know you have. Every single person that's listening has been having thoughts. What's a thought that you had in this last little bit since I was talking? Useful or not useful?
- [20:31]
A
This is not necessarily a thought that I had in the last 30 seconds, but a very common thought which goes back to the beginning of this conversation is I'm working too hard, too much. I'm out here preaching the gospel of equanimity and I'm loading my schedule with too much bullshit.
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B
Right. So I could imagine there's some situations where that's a helpful thought to have.
- [20:57]
A
Yes.
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B
Are you working too hard? Are you working too much? Are you overloading your schedule? I can also imagine that that thought is unhelpful to you from time to time. When is it unhelpful?
- [21:08]
A
When I'm trying to focus on listening to you and advocating for the listener, which I consider to be my job as the host of the show, Making sure things are clear and we're getting to actionable advice. If I'm stuck in a useless shame and self flagellation spiral, I'm doing what you described earlier of having my hands over my eyes.
- [21:27]
B
Right. And it's blocking you from your values, which I just heard in your description. Because I, as a ACT therapist, I'm always listening for values. Your values are about helping me be able to communicate actionable steps. Right. If you're thinking about, oh, I'm, you know, this self shame spiral, you can't act on that. You're not connecting with others. There's sort of the self absorption that can happen when we're caught up in our thoughts, and it also prevents you from maybe in the time that you are actually working, producing the work that you care about, that you want to produce. So when we're caught up in our thoughts, and this is just one component of act, when we're caught up in the thoughts, what we need to do is just first notice that we're caught up in our thoughts and we don't actually have to change them. I won't even argue with you, Dan, about that. I wouldn't even argue with it. Because the nature of arguing with you is that you could argue the other side, you could argue both sides. And as soon as you are arguing with me about your thoughts, you're in your thoughts and you're not here. So the more effective approach is to notice you're caught up in your thoughts and then get out of your head and into your heart and ask yourself what matters? How do I want to show up even with this thought? And that thought can be here, but I don't have to let it run the show. It can just sort of be in the background or it can be like a sticky note on my table. I can look down at it from time to time and then I look back at Diana and what I'm doing, and that's psychological flexibility.
- [23:00]
A
I have this perhaps too glib line that I like that's coming to mind in this context, which is the view is so much better when you pull your head out of your ass. And I think that's what we're talking about here. If you're not so owned by your thoughts, you can see reality in a much clearer way.
- [23:19]
B
Sometimes the view is better when you pull your head out of your ass, but sometimes the view is quite painful. You have your head in your ass for a reason. I'm serious.
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A
Yeah. No, no, I'm laughing. I believe you.
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B
I mean, I work with people that have their head in their asses for a reason. They're working all day long. Why? Because their marriage is a complete bore. They're working all day long. Why? Because they don't want to face that they're getting older. They're actually not doing the work that they wish that they were doing. So a huge component of why we put our head in our ass is because we are sometimes experientially avoiding what's here. And the view that's here is not a good view. Sometimes we're avoiding the, like, the discomfort of just stillness or allowing ourselves to see the view, which is a whole nother aspect of why people work. Work, work, work.
- [24:14]
A
I totally agree with everything you're saying. And I would build on it to say that some people have their head up their ass because they very justifiably don't want to deal with trauma, dissociation. As, you know, as a therapist, unlike me, I'm trained in nothing. Dissociation is a huge aspect of, and an adaptive aspect of, at least at the beginning of trauma, kind of. We're in a bit of a definitional thing here because when I say the view is better, I just think in my own experience, my nervous system, even if I'm looking at what is hard to face. Side note, as you know, as somebody who's practiced some dharma, one of the translations of dukkha, the word dukkha, in the ancient language of Pali, which we currently often translate as suffering, but one of the original translations is hard to face. But I actually think that if you're looking at things, even if they're unpleasant, it's better than the constant effort that is required for compartmentalization, for dissociation, for the paddling we have to do in order to avoid. There's a relief when we can just look at things squarely, agree or disagree with all of that. Yammering I just did.
- [25:29]
B
I agree with it fully. And what I write about in Wise Effort is that there's three things that misdirect our efforts, and these could be three things that are contributing. You could check in with yourself, Dan, on this. Like, why am I working more than I want to be working or doing more than I want to be doing? The first is the thoughts thing. So we're stuck in a story, and we inherit stories from our parents. I remember my bedroom was right up against my dad's office. And so I would hear him. He was an attorney, and I'd hear him typing at night. It just sort of was like, oh, that's what you do at night. Right. To be successful, you type until midnight, you know, on the typewriter, of all things. Right. And then I'd wake up in the morning, and I would see the, like, bags of food that he ate while typing at night. And he. He smoked a pipe. This was very, like, 90s. He smoked a pipe. You know, like the pipe. All the things that were the signs of that. Right. So we're stuck in a story.
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A
Wait, you think pipes were 90s? I feel like pipes are 50s.
- [26:31]
B
Well, no, but there was, like, a resurgence among the hippies. Like, they started smoking pipes. Like, he had, like, a beard. He smoked a pipe. He was doing est. He was. You know, so it was cool.
- [26:41]
A
I'm getting a picture, though. You're painting a nice picture. I like it.
- [26:44]
B
So we have stories about what it means to be successful or productive. Or maybe we have stories about our worth being really inherently linked to our productivity, which is a very common one. You know Rupi Kaur's poem, Productivity Anxiety. You know, I have this anxiety that I need to be working all the time to prove myself. That can misdirect our effort because we're just letting the story, the expectation about ourselves, drive us. But there's two other things that can misdirect our effort as well. So besides being stuck in the story, we also may be doing things because we're avoiding discomfort. We're avoiding feeling something that we don't want to feel and that will push us around in all sorts of ways. As long as you are avoiding discomfort, what ends up happening is you end up doing things that. To avoid that discomfort that cause secondary problems. Even if it's just as simple as, I'm picking up my phone because I don't want to deal with the silence, with the boringness of my partner. Right. I mentioned boring partners. That in itself will erode your relationship. Even more you. Also all the other things that we see in clinical psychology in terms of avoiding discomfort by getting back in bed when you're depressed, avoiding discomfort of social anxiety by not going to the party, avoiding discomfort of your trauma by never talking about it and sealing it up. Right. We know those types of experiential avoidance are at the roots of much of our psychological suffering. So we're avoiding discomfort. And then the third thing that can misdirect our energy and our efforts, which is a newer one in psychology but an ancient one in contemplative practice, is holding on too tight. Experiential attachment. We don't want things to change. We're afraid of the uncertainty and unknown. We feel so much more comfortable when we're in control. As you know, the nature of everything is impermanent. So the more that you hold on to things that are changing, the more rope burn you will experience in life. And that can totally misdirect our efforts. I don't want my kid to grow up or I don't want to move to a different job. And avoiding change, trying to hold on to change, holding on too tight will lead you to engage in very unwise efforts. So those three things stuck in a story. Avoiding discomfort, holding too tight.
- [29:05]
A
Yeah. As you're saying those things, I'm just like, yeah, got it. Check. I relate to all of them. Coming up, Diana Hill talks about three key tools for cultivating wise effort. How to channel, which he calls your genius energy, and how to put your values to work. Few things feel better than knowing someone's looking out for you. That is the spirit behind the ATT guarantee. Staying connected matters. That's why AT&T has connectivity you can depend on. Depend on, or they will proactively make it right. That's the AT T guarantee, because connection should be dependable, especially in the moments that matter most. Terms and conditions apply. Visit att.comguarantee for details. AT&T connecting changes everything. I'm recording this from a hotel in Dana Point, California, where I'm giving a speech and I'm spending a lot of time in the gym because I've got spare time here. And I'm wearing my new ARM Ultra sneakers during my workouts. And these things feel great and look great. I think the other people in the gym are a little jealous. We all know that building new habits requires a strong foundation that starts from the brain and goes all the way down to our toes. And that's why I love Altra Running, because they actually have reliable, intentionally designed shoes. That make every step feel supported. It's not just for hiking or crazy long distance runs, even though they work great for that. The Ultra Fit is designed to let your toes spread out naturally, which provides comfort, balance and strength wherever you are. When you're not bothered by cramped feet, you can get back to what matters. Building new, healthy routines free your mind and your feet with Ultra Running and the Ultra Fit experience. Check them out now by visiting ultrarunning.com that's a L T R A running. And remember to stay out there. You have done a great job of kind of thus far in the interview. Not only of like putting up with my annoying questions, but you've also done a great job of describing the problem. Your book primarily, however, dwells on the solutions. And so I'm going to pivot in that direction if you're cool with it. You recommend that we and now this is back to the idea of wise effort. That if we're interested in wise effort, we engage with three tasks. Task number one is to get curious. Can you say a little bit about why that's important?
- [31:45]
B
Curiosity is the foundation of everything. So even just getting curious and asking yourself, am I stuck in a story? Is an intervention in itself. Sometimes you don't even need to answer that question. Just ask yourself, am I stuck in a story here? That little opening of curiosity about what's keeping you stuck can help you get unstuck, right? Curiosity and the nature of curiosity is that it doesn't have judgment associated with it. There's that interest curiosity that Jud Brewer talks about, which is one question leads to the next question, which leads to the next question, which is very different from how we often approach our problems and ourselves when we're stuck, which is more of a space of judgmental criticism like we're trying to get to some answer. So curiosity has an openness to it. I was just talking with Jonathan Schooler, he's at UCSB and he's one of our incredible researcher in the area of mind wandering and curiosity. And he studies openness. We all know that a wandering mind is an unhappy mind. That Killingsworth, classic study, but he's studying how a wandering mind is a creative, curious mind. And then we actually need a little bit more mind wandering and openness of the mind and awareness of when our mind is wandering and open in order to solve some of our problems. I mean, most of our problems are solved on our hikes and our runs and our walking of dogs and when we have a little bit more space so we get curious about the places we're stuck. We get curious about what our strengths are and we get curious about our values. And the curiosity about our values is that part where we drop from our head down into our heart. I am actually curious about what you really want, what is important to you. Asking ourselves that on a regular basis with a curious, open mind. And you'll see what shows up and what comes to you. And that can help direct you to the next step, which is opening up and the final step, which is focusing your energy.
- [33:43]
A
We will dwell upon opening up and focusing your energy and hardy ways eventually. But let's just stay with this getting curious because you mentioned a few things, more than a few things that are worth following up there. I believe you just now said something about getting curious about what your strengths are. The term you use in the book is your genius energy. So maybe describe that and why it's so important to tune into it.
- [34:08]
B
I'm treading lightly into the concept of genius energy because people have a strong reaction when you use the word genius. When I talk about genius energy, I'm talking about what makes you. You. The unique strengths to, like, Dan. I mean, all of your listeners could think about what is Dan's genius? What is it about him? It's like this interesting combination of humility and curiosity. Average guy feel, but not average guy feel. There's this unique aspect to you. And when I look at it from sort of the psychology of that, I see our genius energy as a combination of our personality patterns. Both, you know, our temperament that we're born with, but that's also shaped by our life experience, our geniuses, our interests, what gets us into flow. Like when you were in flow in the past week, what were you doing? What were you interested in? Our genius also has to do with our emotional intelligence. This isn't Stanford Binet IQ genius. There's a tremendous amount of research around emotional intelligence. The importance of that, our character strengths, that comes from Martin Seligman's work in positive psychology. Humility is a character strength. You would probably score high on humility, Dan. And our geniuses are abilities, things that just come easy to us that do not come easy to others. There's certain things that you do that are just like, yeah, I just can do that. For me, it's public speaking is pretty easy for whatever reason. Maybe it's because my dad was an attorney and he did a lot of his, like, prep in our living room. And so I was just. Was always comfortable with, you know, that sort of like acting out. But for Other people, public speaking is like their worst nightmare. But there's something from that other person that public speaking is their worst nightmare. That's really, really hard for me. So our abilities and our strengths, and when you put those together, you get sort of the je ne sais quoi that what makes you you, and what can happen is that genius energy. We want to get curious about that, and then we want to use that. We want to apply that with our values. And when you do that, when you get the combination of your genius and your values and you have a little wisdom in there, then all of a sudden the world opens up and your plate gets too full because you're doing all these great things that are just a flow of energy. There can be some, you know, other things that happen, like your genius can become your problem as well.
- [36:35]
A
People have a negative reaction, you said, to genius energy. I imagine, because most people at least are humble enough that they don't want to call themselves geniuses. But I suspect, the way I heard it, I know I'm not a genius, and yet I did not have a negative response to genius energy, largely because I heard it as like, everybody has their own special genius. And that, I think, is what you're talking about here.
- [36:59]
B
Yeah, everyone has many geniuses. The field of psychology has shifted quite a lot more recently. There's even a new word in psychology called ideonomics, the study of the individual. The study of the individual in context. Right. Because so much of psychology has been about categorizing people. You know, the whole diagnostic system is about putting people in boxes. But when you start to look at those boxes, you'll find that there's way more variation and diversity within a box of depression or a box of anxiety. Right? Then there is, you know, similarities amongst those people. So we need to start looking at people at the individual level. And part of that is looking at their. Their geniuses, their strengths, what makes them uniquely them, and how we can honor that in people. When I used to run a treatment center for eating disorders, and what's fascinating about an individual with anorexia is that they are often doing everything society has told them to do to be successful. They're just doing it at the nth degree. They're the Olympians of striving. I sit across from them and I'd get really deeply curious. What if they took that energy that they were using, you know, to run 10 miles up a hill a day or perfect their tiny little bar that they eat? What if they were to take that energy, that persistence and they were to take that persistence and they were to use it towards their own recovery or maybe even towards something else that they care about. You could turn that genius around instead of it being something that's problematic for them. So for in every human, there are strengths, there's abilities, there's interests, there's emotional intelligence that is unique to them that they can utilize. And that's the study of ideonomics, the study of the individual in context.
- [38:55]
A
How do we prevent our special genius from becoming a problem?
- [39:03]
B
Has your. Do you mind if I put genius qualities on you, Dan? Do you. Would you agree that humility and curiosity are some of your geniuses? Would you add to the list?
- [39:12]
A
Well, my wife might quibble with the humility part. Yeah, yeah, but sure. I honestly haven't really thought it through, which I think is a problem. But yeah, off the top of my head, those sound pretty good.
- [39:24]
B
Okay, let's think it through a tiny bit more and then we'll talk about how it becomes a problem. When people ask you for help, like friends call you and they need help from you, what do they ask for?
- [39:34]
A
This just happened to me two nights ago. I was on the phone with an old colleague who was asking me for help. And two things became clear to me quickly. One, he didn't have a clear sense of what he was asking for and that he actually knew the answer already. What he really wanted, although was probably not able to articulate it, was somebody to listen with patience and warm curiosity and help him arrive at the thing he already knew.
- [40:02]
B
So would you say that's one of your geniuses, to be able to listen to somebody with patience and curiosity and help them arrive to what they already know?
- [40:09]
A
Yeah, I think that's a recent skill. It was in me, but it was papered over with a lot of anchorman energy.
- [40:16]
B
Yeah, right, right, right. And these develop over time. Here's a question for you. Does that patience and curiosity. Can you ever think of a time when your curiosity and patience backfired on you? Maybe you didn't use it where you needed to use it, you didn't offer it to yourself, or you were just being so patient and curious and that problem kept on like I needed a little more action, needed you to step in.
- [40:44]
A
It's funny, this may be annoying because it might derail where you're trying to go. I cannot actually think of an example of what you're saying, but I can think of an example where some of my character deficits impede my patience and warmth. Mainly anxiety, self centered anxiety. Often centered around career status, finances. Bullshit like that gets in the way of what I think I'm most happy doing.
- [41:17]
B
Yeah. You describe those as character deficits.
- [41:20]
A
Your anxiety, probably. That was too harsh.
- [41:23]
B
Here's my guess, is that your anxiety could use a little bit of your patience.
- [41:29]
A
Yes. Yes.
- [41:30]
B
And your anxiety could use a little bit of you trusting that you can come to an answer and come to a conclusion. You're going to be okay in the way that you offered that to another person. So sometimes what our genius qualities, we are really good at offering them to other people, but we're not as great as offering them to ourselves. And I picked up on the character deficit thing because that's just loaded with judgment, and that is not a curious way of talking about anxiety. If I ever had a client come into my office and they said that they were anxious and I said, that is a character deficit, they would not come back. I'd be a pretty crappy therapist. So I don't see anxiety as a character deficit. I actually see anxiety. The things that we are anxious about are the things that we care about. You're not anxious about things that you don't care about. And so if you can identify, oh, this is something that I care about, and this is how my body and mind tends to react to that care. It makes up scary stories about it. It has a physiological reaction to it, then we don't see it as a deficit, but we see it as like, oh, okay, then how can I help out my body and my mind so that I can take care of this thing that I care about, which is a different way of relating to it. And that would be a curious question to ask of yourself.
- [42:50]
A
No, that's very helpful. Did I derail your ability, however, to talk about how our genius can become our problem?
- [42:57]
B
No. Our genius becomes our problem when it's either overused, underused. So in your case, I would say it's being underused towards yourself.
- [43:05]
A
Interesting.
- [43:06]
B
Or it's misdirected. Some of the geniuses that I've discovered in myself are things like emotional sensitivity. I was a kid at Thanksgiving that knew who was drinking, who was arguing. I knew the whole scene. Right. I was super sensitive to everything that was happening at the dinner table, and that would end up becoming my problem because I was so overwhelmed. I was so sensitive to everything. I was like, I didn't have emotional skin. Right. I mean, I didn't have skin protecting me from everything. I was so porous that that genus became my problem. I was able to redirect it. You know, it's really good if you're in a group therapy setting to be able to feel what everyone's feeling in that setting, but not at a dinner table. And I also had to turn some of that emotional sensitivity towards my inner world, not just to the outer world. So learning how to work with your genius through your values, through wisdom and sort of like, if you could think about your genius, energy is like a flow of river. And you can be the wise guide. You can have to be the banks that help that flow in directions that matter to you.
- [44:18]
A
How do values, which is a word you've used a lot in this conversation, how do values fit into this discussion?
- [44:27]
B
So I think of values as the how we use our genius and the compass in which we direct it. Values is really the cornerstone of act. Going back to ACT again. It's what sets ACT apart from a lot of therapies in that we spend a lot of time clarifying values. And this is different from, you know, I'll work with organizations and they'll have their values and their mission statement on their website, or they'll have it on the bulletin board. But what I see values as is they're more like verbs and adverbs of how you are showing up in your day. If someone were videotaping you, Dan, throughout this, not just this interview. Yeah, this all gets videotaped. But what happens in the 10 minutes before and the 10 minutes after and in that 10 minutes before and 10 minutes after, is that how you want to be? If that were, we were put some descriptors there on the 10 minutes before this interview. When I was just in. I have a kid home from school right now. How I interacted with him, does that align with how I want to be? Was I present? I want to be a present parent. I want to be a kind parent. I want to be a fun parent. Was I present? Kind and fun? So I see values. If you think about. Remember the Stephen Covey book of the Seven Habits of Highly Successful People?
- [45:49]
A
I never read it, but I know it.
- [45:51]
B
Yeah, yeah. So I picked it up at, like a garage sale, like 10 years ago. This is how old it is. He talks about putting your ladder against a wall. If you're climbing ladders in life and be careful what wall you put it against. I would add to that is like, when you're climbing that ladder, how are you climbing? Are you stepping on people? Are you harming yourself? If someone were watching you climb, would they say, wow, this person really values adventure? Or this person really values humor, or this person values creativity, or this person really values focus, or this person really values humility. And sometimes our values match onto our genius energy, but sometimes they don't. There's things that I value that I am not a genius at and I have to work at. I really value risk taking and I really value courage, but that has not come easily to me at all. And so I use the values to help guide my genius. And values end up being at the end of your life. I mean, they are what bring you vitality, but they're also can be huge motivators to do hard things in life.
- [47:02]
A
This word values has come up in several podcasts this fall. So I'm going to ask you the question I've asked others, which is the word can sound a little anodyne or boring. It's also been weaponized in particular by folks on the right, you know, family values. I'm thinking back to the my early days as a reporter. How do we figure out what our values are and then put them to work in our lives?
- [47:28]
B
There's a couple of different ways that I'd work with a client on this. Here's a fun one. What do you regret? Daniel Pink has that book, Power of Regret. In his American Regret Project, he identified these, like four primary forms of regret. You know, we have foundational regrets. I regret not wearing sunscreen and all those tanning beds I did in college. The things that accumulate all over time, right? We have connection regrets. The moments where we didn't look up from our phone or somebody was sharing something painful about their life and we just turned it back on ourselves. Right? We didn't connect. We have boldness regrets. The times that we didn't step up and say something, we didn't protect somebody. We didn't put ourselves out there in some way. And then we have moral regrets, the ways in which we've harmed ourselves or others. If you were to go down those four types of regrets, spend a little time on them. You'd have to open up to some uncomfortable feelings. And it's not get consumed by your regrets, but actually ask yourself, why do I regret this? Then you will have a to do list for the next year of ways in which you could act in this world. Right? I could start taking care of my skin. I could start, you know, being present when I'm engaging with somebody because I regret whatever. Somebody, a client that I work with, their past marriage, that they had all those connection moments that they regret that they didn't connect around. So your regrets can Tell you about what you value, and they can actually then give you some action steps that you can live out. Because I said before, I see values as verbs and adverbs. They're how we live our life. They're action we can take in the here and now. They're not some kind of moral thing out there. They're not a should. They are unique to you. They're chosen by you. So when I work with clients, it's not about my values. It's about their chosen values. What are you here to work on? Not what I want. I want you to work on your drinking. What are you here to work on? You know, because that is unique to them, and that will be. If you can identify your own personal intrinsic values, then you will have. And there's a good amount of research on this, you will have something that you can turn to that will always be there. I've done a lot of work in the area of exercise and health behavior change. If you bank your exercise on some extrinsic goal like weight loss or how your body looks in a mirror, or whether or not you can walk faster or run faster than you could last week or last year or 10 years ago, that will come and go. But if you have an inner, deeper reason that you care about, then that will be an intrinsic motivator that is always there, that you can always draw upon. It's like a deep, deep, deep well.
- [50:21]
A
Okay, that's very helpful. Resetting a bit. We talked about how in your book Wise Effort, there are three tasks you recommend so we can move from unwise striving to wise effort. The first was getting curious, specifically around your strengths, AKA genius energy. How the genius energy can become, perversely a source of your problems, and then the role of values in terms of how you want to move through the world. The second task, which is going to be built upon the first is opening up. What do you mean by opening up in this context?
- [51:00]
B
Well, I talk about a number of different ways that we can open up. We can open up our minds. We can open up to feeling, we can open up our sense of self. And then we can open up to change. And I see all of those as necessary to engage in wiser efforts. Right. So opening up our mind. If we go back to, you know, being stuck in a story, I go to Plum Village in the summers and we take our kids. And when we were there a couple of years ago, I think it was the 40th anniversary of Plum Village, and there was these big banners that were Plum Village's Thich Nhat Hanh's monastery that he developed over 40 years ago, and it's in southern France. And there was these big banners along our walking meditation. And one of them that was as we were walking along in our walking meditation was just the simple gate. Are you sure? It was so helpful to me because we were doing this silent walking meditation. It's like 700 people and my kids are there, and they were two adolescent boys. And you try and bring two adolescent boys in a silent walking meditation, and they're like, punching each other and they're like, you know, causing all this disruption. And I'm in my head about, like, ugh, I have to control my kids. And then you look up at this sign and it just says, are you sure? Are you sure? So we open our minds. Like, open our minds. Are you sure? And that can help direct us towards wiser efforts. Opening our minds. But then opening up to feeling is really linked to the values that I talked about before. I said we have to look at our regrets to be able to figure out what we care about. And that requires opening up to and being able to be with uncomfortable feelings. Or maybe you want to change something that's going to be uncomfortable and that's going to require feeling something. And the avoidance of the feeling is what's keeping you stuck in the thing that you don't like. So we have to open up to feeling and then opening up our sense of self to that wiser self so that we can change.
- [53:04]
A
What do you mean by opening up to your wiser self? And how would we even do that?
- [53:11]
B
Last time you made, you needed to make an important decision. How did you contact your wiser self? A wiser self, like, not just your head, not the pros and cons. We all want to do the pros and cons list. That's useless. Pros and cons list because you could just list pros and cons all day long. How did you get to something bigger, something deeper than a pros and cons list?
- [53:32]
A
Honestly, often if I have a big decision, I talk to smarter people than me. So, like Joseph Goldstein, who's a great meditation teacher, helps me make many decisions. I don't always listen to him talk about regrets. My wife, my brother, my CEO, etc. Etc. So that's one way in which I open up to my wiser self. Because if you think of the self as unbound by this particular meat sack that we're walking around in, that the self is dialogic in dialogue with the surround. And part of that is like, who are you engaged with? So that's one way for me.
- [54:12]
B
Yeah. Thich Nhat Hanh talked about our. Our second bodies when he used to take the monastics through the airport. He'd assign everyone a second body. So the monks would go around, they'd be like, okay, is your second body in the bathroom? How are they doing? Do they need. Do they leave their suitcase somewhere? You know, so our wise self. Our self with a capital S is more than just our small little self. That's right in the pros and cons list. Right. And sometimes our wise self, we can access it through leaning on and having conversations with wise people and even just being in their presence. There's that whole, like, neuroception that happens where you're in the presence of a calm, wise, stable human and you are just receiving that energy. Our wise self. A lot of times people, when I ask that question, when I ask this question of clients, they'll say, like, oh, I go up to the top of this mountain, or I go to the ocean, or I go sit under a tree. Anne Lamont has this great line. She said, if you want to start any kind of creative writing project, start with there was a tree. And sometimes I'll assign that. Like, I'll work with groups, and I'll have just one person sit in front of the other person and just give them this prompt. There was a tree. And talk about it. And what shows up when you start talking about this tree? Dan? There was a tree. What would you say?
- [55:31]
A
I literally went right to a tree that was in my childhood backyard that we hung a tire swing from. Yeah, that's what I went to.
- [55:39]
B
Yeah. And how does that tree represent wisdom to you? What did it offer you?
- [55:43]
A
I don't know.
- [55:45]
B
What did it offer you when you went to that tree with that tire swing? Was it like a literal tire? We had like, the tire, like, my dad brought home from, like, the shop in actual tire. I know. There's, like, spiders in the whole part, you know?
- [55:56]
A
Yeah. Disgusting.
- [55:57]
B
Yeah, it's disgusting. Yeah. But why did you go to that tree?
- [56:00]
A
I mean, I don't know that I can give you any poetic answer. It was like, it was a good tree to hang a tire from, and you should avoid it if you're sledding.
- [56:09]
B
Well, you should avoid. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. There's a tree. Maybe it was a stable. It was like a source of stability there. It was like a tree.
- [56:16]
A
Yes.
- [56:17]
B
Yeah. So some people have memory, and people have all sorts of memories. Of nature as grounding forces. That's a source of wisdom. Some people find wisdom in their ancestors, people who have passed, they find wisdom in just greater belief in something bigger that's here. Wisdom of the body. You know, we've all had the experience of our body saying no, or our body saying yes and we override our whole body. No, and we say yes and we override our whole body yes and we say no. Your body has a tremendous amount of wisdom. So how do we get to this wiser self? It's through all of that. It's through all of that or maybe through meditation, right? Opening through the back of the heart and expanding into open, awake awareness. Right? Just the love, the field of love that is here, that's a wiser self. When we practice with that and we start to welcome that more into our life, that can help guide us in our decision making, in what we say yes to and what rocks we put in our jar or what rocks we don't put in our jar. Or maybe how we can allow ourselves to be in the space between the rocks. And how we are going to choose to use our energy, our most precious resource, like this chi within us or prana, whatever you want to call it, that genius energy.
- [57:34]
A
Coming up, Diana talks about how to open yourself up to change. The role of radical acceptance. How, how and where to focus your energy. How to spot what she calls energy depleters. And a walking meditation practice that she calls yes, yes. Thank you. Thank you. I'm recording this from a hotel in Dana Point, California where I'm giving a speech and I'm spending a lot of time in the gym because I've got spare time here and I'm wearing my new ultra sneakers during my workouts and these things feel great and look great. I think the other people in the gym are a little jealous. We all know that building new habits requires a strong foundation that starts from the brain and goes all the way down to our toes. And that's why I love Altra Running. Because they actually have reliable, intentionally designed shoes that make every step feel supported. It's not just for hiking or crazy long distance runs, even though they were work great for that. The Ultra Fit is designed to let your toes spread out naturally, which provides comfort, balance and strength. Wherever you are. When you're not bothered by cramped feet, you can get back to what matters. Building new healthy routines free your mind and your feet with Ultra Running and the Ultra Fit experience. Check them out now by visiting ultrarunning.com that's a L T R-A running.com and remember to stay out there this time of year. It's sensory overload everywhere but one feeling that we're all chasing cozy. And BOMBAS has the socks, slippers, tees, and basically everything you need to get there. There are lots of ways to get 10% happier. I would say comfortable socks have to fall into that category. I got some BOMBA socks recently and I love them. In fact, my wife and I have been competing to see who can wear them. So maybe that is reducing my happiness just a little bit because it's leading to marital stress. Anyway, the socks are great. Super comfortable, super cozy. And the sock scientists at BOMBAS have found a way to channel that energy into everything from slippers with the sink in cushioning to satisfyingly weighty tees. And that feeling, it does not not stop after one wear. It keeps going. I can attest to that. Also worth noting, bombas makes gifting easy. They've got answers for all of your gifting questions like what do I get my son's new marathon training girlfriend? Bomba's running socks have sweat, wicking and impact cushioning. What about your neighbor's fussy newborn baby? Bombas fit like a hug and they're designed to feel soft and stay snug on even the wiggliest toes. One of the best things about bombas is that they're mission oriented. For every pair of Bombas you purchase, BOMBAS donates one to somebody facing homelessness on your behalf. So anytime you get something cozy, somebody else does too. Head over to bombas.com happier and use the code happier for 20% off your first purchase. That's B O M B A S.com happier code happier at checkout. So just to reset again, we're talking about these three tasks that you recommend in order to, you know, move from unwise striving to wise effort. And the second task is to open up. And we've been talking about how to open your mind, open up to your feelings, open up to your wise self. And then the final thing you recommend within opening up is opening up to change. Can you just say a little bit more about what you mean by that specifically and how it's done?
- [61:14]
B
Yeah, my brother in law is a roboticist so he designs self driving planes and Segways and the robots that go into mines like in Afghanistan. I was having a conversation with him once and he said the most important thing that he ever programmed into a robot was the get unstuck button. And the get unstuck button when it's deployed, what it does is everything possible in its repertoire. So it'll do like a backflip, it'll jump up and down, it'll crawl down real low, it will spin around in circles, it'll go backwards as fast as it can. And guess what it does? It gets the robot unstuck. And so open up to change. What we know about human behavior is that we have a tendency to. To do the same thing, just harder. Until the point that we're so sick of doing the same thing harder that then we give up. And you can think about this in terms of your exercise program or stuck spot that you're in with your teenager or your partner or your parent, any kind of health behavior. So getting unstuck and opening up to change. The first part of that is variability. This is at the foundation of evolution. You know, we need variation in order to evolve. So we practice getting unstuck, we practice opening up, we practice wise effort by doing things that are different than the way that we always do them. And then we start to identify what works, what is helpful, what is reinforcing of your values, what uses your genius well, and then we work towards retaining that, reinforcing it, doing it again. And that is how we open up to change. It's the principles of behavioral psychology. But it's also just sort of like being effective in the world is that most of the time when clients are coming in to work with me, it's because they are either doing the same thing, just harder, or they've given up altogether. And we need to open up to change. Trying something different, a different dance move, a different outfit. I have the same hairstyle that I had when I was like 17. Right. Why? Because it's uncomfortable to change. I'm like, I know this one works for me, but if I were to go brunette and short, what would happen? What would happen? Hair grows. It wouldn't be on the end of the world.
- [63:34]
A
One of the things you talk about in this section of the book is radical acceptance. And so I'd be curious to hear you say more about that. And with an eye toward dealing with what I imagine you hear all the time, dealing with the resistance that some people have to acceptance because they hear it as resignation or passivity.
- [63:59]
B
Yeah, I mean, sometimes I won't even use that word with a client because they associate acceptance with like, you just need to accept your mother in law or you just need to accept that you have a health condition. And radical acceptance does not start with the words you just right what we're talking about here with radical acceptance is can you open to. Can you allow for, can you welcome. Many of us associate the words radical acceptance with Tara Brock. I first heard them from Marcia Linehan, who's the founder of Dialectical Behavior Therapy. And I was working in dbt. I was working in a mental health center for folks that were chronically suicidal and were doing a lot of cutting behavior. And one of the early skills that we would teach people is radical acceptance. Can you open to and be with this intense experience that you are having right now without trying to make it go away? Can you ride it like a wave? Can you notice that it, whatever it is you're craving, your desire to cut, your desire to escape this conversation, your desire for this to end, you don't want it to be in here anymore. And can you get on the wave and watch it rise, rise, rise? It gets to a point where you're like, I can't handle this anymore. I'm going to die of this craving or I'm going to die of embarrassment, or I'm going to die of anxiety. It's like peaking gets to this point where you. I just. I can't do it anymore. Right. No one's ever died of embarrassment. No one's ever died of a craving. No one's ever died of anxiety. But they've died of some of the things that they've tried to do to get rid of that. So we practice writing it. We practice, we practice, we practice and then we notice it, most of the time comes back down again. And that is riding the wave of acceptance. So when we're talking about acceptance, or when I'm talking about acceptance, I'm talking about acceptance of the sensations and inner experiences that you are having. Which is different from saying, I'm approving of someone else's behavior or I'm proving of the situation outside of me. I don't approve of a whole lot of things, but in order to make the changes that I need to make, I need to accept my inner experience to be able to move towards even making a change around something that I don't approve of in the outer world.
- [66:25]
A
Yes, it's like radical acceptance as I understand it. Well, it's many things, but in particular, when you're talking about pushing back against the concern that it leads to resignation, it's like, no, no, you just need to. As they say in aa, the first step is admitting it. The first step is to see things clearly so that you can. From an embrace of reality, from a sane Acknowledgment of how things are, take the right steps.
- [66:52]
B
Climate change is a perfect example. So I'm part of this. You had Alyssa Apple on, talked about. She's a really good friend of mine. She has this whole expertise in telomeres and stress. And she also is a complete badass researcher. And she has initiated this 10 UC campus wide research project to train undergraduates across all 10 UC campuses in resilience skills. Because our college students are facing the reality of a whole slew of problems that they did not create, but that they are going to have to face. And in order to move out into the world, they need to both radically accept the reality of what's happening, have climate grief, have anger, have anxiety, all the things that are difficult to have. How do you accept the reality of what's happened to our climate and then take action? This project that I'm part of with Alyssa, I'm part of the UC campus part of it, we do a lot of work around radical acceptance, being with discomfort, taking care of ourselves. And then we also do a lot of work around climate action and they do all sorts of fascinating, interesting projects that are unique to them. Talk about genius energy college students. They create all sorts of really unique and impactful things that channel their energy of climate grief into positive action as a result of this course. And then Alyssa's doing all sorts of research, outcome studies on it and its impact, and we're trying to scale it bigger and bigger so it can reach lots of students. Because if there's one consensus amongst climate people is that we might have already past that little tipping point that they've been warning us about. And now the best thing we can do is radically accept so that we can deal with it.
- [68:56]
A
Okay, let's turn to the third task in your book, which is focusing your energy. I'll put it the same way I have every time. What do you mean by that term, focusing your energy? And how do we do it?
- [69:10]
B
Well, focusing your energy is identifying what matters to you in this moment and putting the right amount of effort and energy into that. Sometimes that's dialing back, sometimes that's adding more. If you think about a camera that focuses, sometimes focusing means we need to expand our aperture. We need like a broader view. Sometimes we need to narrow in our view. And it's the wisdom that, you know, helps us decide that, like a camera operator has experience and wisdom that decides that. So for me, last night I couldn't sleep. There could be a lot of different ways in which I could focus My energy. When I'm not sleeping, I could focus on, oh, I'm having an interview with Dan Harris tomorrow and I should go through my notes because I can't sleep. Or I could worry about something that's related to my kids or. Or I could worry about not sleeping. Right. Those would all be unwise use of my energy. And actually what I ended up doing is like this is the classic thing that I always. It's like my go to now because I had variation and it worked. I tried the get unstuck button and this worked for me. If it doesn't work for me at some other point, I'll do something different. Is I went outside, we have a really big full moon right now. And I went outside and I looked at the full moon and I was barefoot and I could feel. Feel the hard concrete under my feet and it was kind of cold and I looked at the moon, I felt the bare concrete under my feet and I just like did a little moon bath and then I went back inside. It's a great use of my energy. It took a little bit of activation energy to get me out of bed, you know, but it was taking up a lot of energy for me to be in my head. So I see that as. That's a wise effort move. I mean kind of wild. But that to me is wise wisdom combined with genius energy, which is my emotional sensitivity, knowing what I need.
- [71:04]
A
I love it. I say that as a fellow insomniac. In this section of the book, you talk about focusing your energy as it relates to at least four different areas. Relationships, your body, your work and creativity. Let's just work through these if you're cool with it. One of the things when you're talking about relationships specifically is you. You use this phrase and use part of this phrase earlier so it will sound familiar to close listeners. But use this phrase defuse from depleters. So can you hold forth on that concept, please?
- [71:41]
B
I think everyone can think about positive energizers. People that when you are around them, you feel their positive energy. You're energized by them. It could even be like your barista and energy depleters. I know you have some Dan people that suck the energy out of you and oftentimes we think that the solution to that is just cut them out. But sometimes they're like connected to, you know, like, but wait, I'm married to this person and you're related to them, so I can't really cut you out. You keep on having to show up and if I were to do that, it might, you know, be problematic. Right. So how do I defuse from them? How do I notice the thoughts in my mind that are unhelpful? We use that example of your hands in front of your face. Well, when you're around that depleter, you may be around them with a whole lot of story that you are putting in front of your face that are preventing you from actually being present for yourself. So that is one way we can diffuse from depleters is actually look at our own minds and our own thoughts and how we are adding on. And usually when you add on a story, you can think about a depleter. Right. Now I won't make you name any names. Do you have one?
- [72:53]
A
My cat Toby is coming to mind. He's a total depleter. All he does is beg for food. And he's £25 and he wants to sit at me and it's uncomfortable. So let's go, Toby.
- [73:02]
B
Okay, okay. Toby's a safe one. So Toby is a depleter in your life when Toby is begging for food. What is a story? That's an unhelpful story that goes on in your head about Toby. That makes it worse.
- [73:19]
A
This fucking cat is monomaniacal and total pain in the ass. Can I give him to a neighbor?
- [73:26]
B
Okay, so you have that story in your head about this fucking cat is manonical, whatever, horrible. Can I give him to a neighbor? And when you are stuck in that story, where does your attention go?
- [73:37]
A
Away from what I'm trying to do in the moment, which is usually work, which is what he has interrupted.
- [73:42]
B
Right. So it's depleting you even more from your work. What do you do behaviorally? If I saw you, would you be like, oh, you fucking cat. Would you be like giving him an elbow? Would you be.
- [73:52]
A
Usually I'm ushering him out of my office and closing the door. Sometimes he will jump up and dig his claws into me when I'm ignoring him and hang. And As I mentioned, £25, that's incredibly painful.
- [74:06]
B
Big cat.
- [74:07]
A
So at that point I might yell.
- [74:08]
B
Yeah, okay, so your attention goes to things other than your work. Your behavior goes to trying to usher him out the door. And what do you prioritize?
- [74:17]
A
I am prioritizing in those moments, my own comfort and focus over his comfort and happiness.
- [74:23]
B
So those three questions come from the work of Elise Lohnen and Courtney Smith, who, who wrote Choosing Wholeness Over Goodness. And they have a lot to do with how your energy gets pulled off track by De energizers, especially when you are stuck in a story. And so I'd like to follow it up with three more questions that have to do with where you actually want to put your energy. What would be wise effort in the situation? And the first question is where do you want to be placing your attention?
- [74:52]
A
If I was watching that moment from the perspective of my 85 year old self, if I live that long, I think I would hope that I could just take 90 seconds and give the cat what he needs, which is food and maybe some hugs, and then go back to my work rather than being so monomaniacal myself and thinking that my work should take precedence over every other living being in the house.
- [75:20]
B
Okay, so you want to pay attention to 90 seconds worth of your cat and then the rest of the time.
- [75:27]
A
Back to your work or whatever it is I'm doing.
- [75:30]
B
Yes, or whatever you're doing. The behavior you want to do is like, I'll give you some of this, but not all of me.
- [75:34]
A
Yeah.
- [75:35]
B
And what do you want to prioritize?
- [75:37]
A
Well, this is a values question, right? It's hard to come up with a non annoying or cheesy word here, but I want to prioritize. I use this word in a very broad sense. Love. You know, just giving a shit, being kind. And this kind of goes back to the view being better when you pull your head out of your ass. Being stuck on my own to do list and priorities, which are important, of course, but you can't get so focused on that and can't lard that list up so much that you have no bandwidth left for the other beating hearts in the neighborhood.
- [76:12]
B
Right. You want to prioritize love. And you loaded that word love with all these other words like this is cheesy and this is we gotta just own the love and like get over ourselves that it's cheesy. There's a reason why love is central to so many songs and central, you know, even though it's cheesy and it's trite, it's the truth. So prioritizing love in that situation. And when you get really clear, okay, I got this depleting cat, I got a depleting in law, I got a depleting workmate, I got a depleting kid, I got whatever it is, a depleting person in front of me in line at the grocery store. When you are in unwise effort, you are prioritizing things, you are behaving in ways and you are focusing your attention on things that are unhelpful. To you and them. And when you're engaging in wiser efforts, you're connecting with your deeper value is how you want to show up. And all of a sudden you can reclaim a little bit of your energy back. You're defusing from some of the thoughts that are pulling you off track and you get to reclaim that energy and love. If you want something that's energizing, invest in love. That's better than any workout plan you can find on the planet. Love will energize you instantly. Instantly. It's like if you're a parent or a partner of somebody, you know how love can motivate you to do all sorts of sorts of things and you can feel alive and love for your cat, you know, your 80 year old self sure will have had many cats, but Toby will be the memorable one, you know, so you gotta, you gotta give a little love.
- [77:51]
A
Well said. There's so much in this book. I did not get nearly through my list of questions, but in our remaining time, let me just kind of at random, pick one. We have been in this section of our conversation talking about the third task in your book, which is focus your energy. We just talked a little bit about how to do that within the context of relationships. You also talk about how to do it within the context of your body. And you have a little mantra that you recommend that. I don't actually know what it means, but I'm curious. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Thank you.
- [78:23]
B
Oh, it's a little walking meditation. I think I learned it at Plum Village. But it's a very simple walking meditation where you take one step. Yes. Another step. Yes. Another step. Thank you. And another step. Thank you. With that you can also take a breath and it's beneficial for lots of different reasons. When we think about wise effort in the body, oftentimes we're relating to our body not from a yes stance or a thank you stance. We're relating to it from like a control stance or disconnected. So it gets you back into your body, having gratitude for your body, savoring this one body that we have pretty much every function that you have right now. Your ability to write, your ability to look at me and see me, your ability to hear me. If you can hear, you will not have at some point. And if you are walking, maybe you're not walking, maybe you're wheeling a chair and maybe you could say yes, yes, thank you. Thank you. If you were lying in a bed and you don't have that capacity and you're, you have the capacity to breathe. But everything that we have with our body, we will lose. Part of this book I wrote in Jack Kornfield's little hut. So he has a little hut at Spirit Rock. And I was pulling my hair out writing this book with two kids at home in a schedule of too much stuff, and Trudy Goodman, who's my second body, we would write together, we'd pull up our zoom. I have, like, strong self criticism when I'm writing. And at one point I was like, I'm just really struggling, Trudy. And she said, go up to Jack's kuti. It's called the kuti. Go up to his hut. I went up there, did a lot of walking, meditation, a lot of quiet, and wrote some of this book and discovered again, like, the place that I often have to come back to over and over again with wise effort, which is gratitude being present. Yes, yes. Thank you. Thank you. And in his little hut, he had the little piece of paper, besides, like, all the cool books that he had this little tiny piece of paper that had the five remembrance on him of everything we love we will lose. I think that's a good reminder with wise effort in the body that everything we love, we will lose. And then maybe we treat our body a little bit differently.
- [80:44]
A
Let me just add some detail on a few things Diana just said. Jack Kornfield, for people who don't know him, is his legendary meditation teacher. He's married to Trudy Goodman, herself a legendary meditation teacher. And Jack was the prime mover behind the Spirit Rock Meditation center in Marin county in California. All of those were mentioned by Diana. You also mentioned the five remembrances. These are these five things that the Buddha recommended we call to mind every day. Thanks to somebody, I suspect. You know, Vinnie Ferraro, great meditation teacher, who I interviewed earlier this year. I started doing those five remembrances twice a day. And they are as you nodded toward. This body is of the nature to die. This body is of the nature to get sick. This bodies have the nature to get older. We will ultimately lose everything and everyone we hold dear. And fifth, this is where, as Vinnie says, the Buddha pulls out the knife. Like, we do have one true possession, and that's our actions. Those are our actions. And so to me, all of those point right toward wise effort, giving us the wisdom to make the right decisions based on the non negotiable truth of change. Am I hunting in the right direction here, according to you?
- [82:00]
B
Yes. I think the Buddha was also a behaviorist at his heart, engaged Buddhism and behavior, or that actions are our only belongings. Wise effort is about how we act, how we choose to act, where we choose to put our energy, knowing that everything, including our cat, is impermanent in our bodies, in our relationships, in our planet, then how are we going to act on it?
- [82:23]
A
Yeah, and this is kind of another radical acceptance thing. Like you want to see clearly the often painful truth of the matter, which is we're all going to die. Everybody we know is going to die. Not as a source of hyper vigilance or the type of clinging that as you said earlier, can give you rope burn, but as a wise acknowledgment of the truth that can then help us make wise decisions in that light.
- [82:52]
B
Right. It'll help you choose knowing that how you spend your time today, what you choose to add to your list today or choose to say no to on your list today, if you repeat that to yourself twice a day. One caveat. I don't recommend it. For folks that are severely depressed or suicidal. I'm giving that assignment. They are highly aware of that. I give actually another assignment around focusing on savoring what is good that is here. Savoring your accomplishments, savoring good people in your life, savoring the kind person at the grocery store, the positive energizers, the warm sun on your skin, the tree outside your window. You know, so it's a little bit of a different attentional focus and attentional flexibility if you're feeling particularly down.
- [83:44]
A
That seems smart. Two final questions which I ask habitually. I'm a little worried about this first. First one which is. Is there something that you were hoping we would get to that we didn't? There are a lot of things we didn't get to. But is there something burning in you right now that we really should cover and have failed to cover?
- [84:04]
B
Is there something that you hope to get to that we didn't?
- [84:06]
A
Dan, there's a lot of stuff in here about how to do wise effort in community. That's something I'm interested in. There's a lot of stuff in here about wise effort as it pertains to creativity. So I feel badly that we didn't get to it. But again, people can read the book.
- [84:22]
B
Yeah. Thank you.
- [84:23]
A
Which leads me to the final question, which is can you remind everybody of the name of the book and anything else you've put out into the universe that we should know about?
- [84:30]
B
The book is called Wise how to focus your genius energy on what matters most. You can learn more about me@wiseeffort.com I have a lot of resources there. I have a lot in the arena of act if you want to take deeper dives into act. A lot in the arena of training therapists and coaches. I have many different efforts that I put out into the world, but they all sort of under this bigger umbrella of wise effort.
- [84:55]
A
Been a huge pleasure to talk to you. Thank you. Really appreciate it.
- [84:59]
B
Thank you.
- [85:04]
A
Thank you to Diana Hill. Great to talk to her. Don't forget there's a guided meditation that comes with this episode. It's all about how to cultivate wise effort in your meditation practice and in your life. Our next live guided meditation session is coming up on the 12th, which is a Wednesday. We usually do these on Tuesdays, but the next one is on Wednesday. The 11th is a holiday in the US. Christiana Wolf, our teacher of the Month will be featured on the next live session. And if you want to meditate, we'd me in person. Don't Forget the the two events I've got coming up. One on the 18th in New York City with Pete Holmes, the great comedian, and then a solo event I'll be doing up at the Hotel Troutbeck later in the month. Links to both in the show notes. Finally, thank you to everybody who worked so hard to make this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vasily. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer, Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer, DJ Kashmir is our executive producer and Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme. Introducing Family Freedom from T Mobile. We'll pay off four phones up to $3200 and give you four free phones all on America's largest buy 5G network. Visit t mobile.com familyfreedom up to 800 per line via virtual prepaid card typically takes 15 days. Free phone via 24 monthly bill credits with finance agreement. Example Apple iPhone 16128 gigs $829.99 eligible trade in example iPhone 11 Pro for well qualified credits end and balance due if you pay off early or cancel. Contact us.