How to confront your inner critic (w/ Anu Gupta)

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "How to Confront Your Inner Critic" (w/ Anu Gupta)

Podcast: How to Be a Better Human (TED)
Host: Chris Duffy
Guest: Anu Gupta
Release Date: February 2, 2026

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Overview: Main Theme & Purpose

This episode explores how to recognize, confront, and transform our inner critics and biases—both personal and systemic—while cultivating a more loving and open-minded approach to ourselves and others. Guest Anu Gupta, author of Breaking Bias, draws on personal experience, neuroscience, and ancient wisdom traditions to propose practical methods for healing ourselves, breaking cycles of prejudice, and fostering belonging at every level of society.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Redefining Love and Bias in the Modern World

• Broadening Love: The discussion opens with Chris Duffy questioning whether love and care could be the default in society, especially in a polarized era (01:46).
  • “What would it mean to assume the best of the people we interact with every day, rather than preparing for conflict and assuming the worst?” — Chris Duffy [01:46]
• Direct Line from Love to Bias-Breaking: Both host and guest see a strong connection between love, open-mindedness, and bias reduction.

2. Anu Gupta’s Personal Journey with Bias

• Early Life in Delhi and New York: Anu shares formative experiences of being othered—first in India due to ethnic tensions, then as an immigrant in the US facing racism and Islamophobia (03:10).
  • “After moving to New York, I became those people. ... All based on the way I looked.” — Anu Gupta [03:27]
• Moment of Crisis and Hope: At one low point, Gupta contemplates suicide, but an unexpected moment of grace pulls him back. He recognizes that stereotypes are ideas imposed on people, not their reality (04:19–04:59).
  • “The stereotypes people reduce me to are just ideas. They’re not true.” — Anu Gupta [04:24]
• A Spiritual Shield: Anu describes the Dalai Lama’s foreword to Breaking Bias as a “spiritual shield,” underscoring the work’s importance for inner development in turbulent times (06:23).

3. Bias: Beyond Human Interactions

• Bias Includes Our Relationship with Nature: Gupta expands the concept of bias to include “biophobia”—the disconnection and domination of nature and other living beings, linking it to ecological crises like climate change (08:36).
  • “If we have to shift bias, it’s not just toward each other as humans, but toward nature and all living things.” — Anu Gupta [08:40]

4. The Inner Critic and Personal Healing

• Impact of Cultural & Familial Narratives: Gupta describes repression of his own pain due to cultural norms, leading him to internalize negative stories about himself (10:04–13:52).
• Seeking the Root of Bias: His exploration moves from legal studies to somatic and contemplative practices, wanting wisdom he could share even with his young niece (12:46).
• Talking About Suicidality: The show discusses myths around talking about suicide and the importance of holding on for “just one more hour” when things feel darkest (14:29–14:43).
  • “People already have the idea. ... Talking about the big horrible thing ... makes it less likely." — Co-host [14:32]
  • “Every hour has been that leap of faith. Since then, it’s been 16 years.” — Anu Gupta [15:13]

5. PRISM: Science-Backed Method for Breaking Bias

Anu introduces his PRISM framework as actionable tools for transforming bias (17:09):

• Mindfulness: Present-moment awareness, especially of bodily sensations.
• Stereotype Replacement: Noting and countering negative thoughts with positive or true examples.
• Individuation (Curiosity): Seeing ourselves and others as unique in the moment.
• Pro-social Behaviors & Perspective: Cultivating empathy, compassion, joy.
  • “Bias really lives in the body. ... We’re rewiring the nervous system that’s been wired with all these biases.” — Anu Gupta [18:06]

6. Bias as a Habit and Social Construct

• Not Inherent, But Learned: Gupta refutes the idea that bias is purely biological, highlighting that children are not born with specific prejudices—these are learned through culture (23:32–23:56).
  • “Bias is a learned habit that distorts how we perceive, reason, remember, and make decisions.” — Anu Gupta [25:14]
• When Bias Becomes Harmful: It’s not about having judgments, but about acting on them—especially in roles like policing, teaching, or medicine (25:14).

7. Subtle Forms of Bias in Connection

• Connecting Through Shared Experience vs. Reducing Identity: Anu and Chris discuss the nuance of connecting with people based on ethnicity or shared background, and how this can unintentionally reduce a person’s identity (27:09–29:49).
  • “My desire to connect ... was rooted in me and my experience and had nothing to do with the other person.” — Anu Gupta [27:41]

8. Language & Imagination as Tools for Inclusion

• Languages Preserve Worldviews: Learning new languages exposes us to new ways of being and belonging. The loss of languages means the loss of conceptual worlds (30:10–31:53).
  • “Language gave them permission to imagine that.” — Anu Gupta, on the Bugis people’s five-gender language [33:03]

9. Family Stories: Nuance Within One Person

• Contradictions Within People: Touching story about Anu’s grandmother, who both policed his gender expression and shared spiritual wisdom about gender fluidity (33:30–36:35).
  • “She went back to her ancient wisdom ... that all human beings have these two energies, masculine and the feminine.” — Anu Gupta [35:25]
  • “But that same woman also ... told me that I will never dance like that over her dead body.” — Anu Gupta [35:54]
• Bias is Socially Taught: Family, school, media, and environment all shape our biases.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “If you can imagine colonizing Mars, why can’t we imagine living on Earth without bias?” — Anu Gupta [16:36]
• “Just as biases are learned, belonging can also be learned.” — Anu Gupta [19:09]
• “Systems don’t change until people do, and people don’t change until our consciousness does.” — Anu Gupta [38:54]
• “For me, I’m building critical mass to get to that tipping point.” — Anu Gupta on societal change [40:12]
• “Often, the people who reject love and kindness the most are the ones who also need it the most.” — Chris Duffy [42:01]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00–01:46 — Introductions, theme of love beyond romance
• 03:10–05:33 — Anu’s TED Talk: personal stories of otherness
• 06:13–07:28 — The Dalai Lama’s foreword & need for “warm-heartedness”
• 08:36–09:56 — Bias toward nature: biophobia & ecological dimensions
• 10:04–13:52 — Anu’s struggles with self-worth, identity, and his turning point
• 14:29–15:13 — Debunking myths about suicide and healing hour by hour
• 17:09–20:07 — Introduction to PRISM; the neuroscience & practice of rewiring bias
• 23:26–25:14 — Bias as learned habit; dangers in decision-making roles
• 27:09–29:49 — How shared experiences can both aid and hinder connection
• 30:10–33:03 — Learning languages as a portal to other ways of being
• 33:30–36:35 — Complexity of family, tradition, and gender
• 38:46–42:24 — Advice for creating change: for the willing, the skeptical, and the resistant
• 43:06–44:42 — What is “natural” about kindness, bonobo society, and shifting narratives

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Actionable Takeaways

• Cultivate Mindfulness & Awareness: Start with noticing biases in your body and thoughts; use the PRISM framework.
• Practice Stereotype Replacement: When a negative self-story arises, consciously replace it with a positive or accurate one.
• Seek Curiosity over Assumption: Approach others with genuine questions and openness, stepping beyond surface connections.
• See Language as a Tool for Imagination: Explore other languages/cultures to expand your own narrative about identity and possibility.
• Build Critical Mass: Focus on shifting mindsets within yourself and your circles; systemic change follows personal transformation.

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Tone and Language

The episode balances vulnerability, scientific curiosity, and practical wisdom. Both Chris Duffy and Anu Gupta are open, empathetic, and conversational, inviting listeners into personal reflection and social action without judgment.

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Recommended For:
Listeners who want to challenge their inner critic, learn practical tools for self- and societal change, and better understand the links between personal healing and social justice.

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Transcript

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[Chris Duffy]

This episode is sponsored by Blue Apron. If you're trying to eat healthy, if you're trying to make delicious homemade things, it can feel like it's sustainable for maybe a week or two. And then it gets overwhelming. There's all of the shopping and the figuring out of what the meal's gonna be and the prep and it's just overwhelming. So Blue Apron is a great solution to that problem. And, and here's an incredible extra twist that is new. You don't even need a subscription to Blue Apron anymore. For the first time ever, you can shop Blue Apron with no subscription and get delicious and nutritious ingredients delivered to your door. For chef designed meals that take 30 minutes or less to prepare, it's an easy way to eat better without the hassle of extensive meal prep or a monthly subscription fee. Personally, one of the things I like.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

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[Chris Duffy]

Get to try all these new recipes that you wouldn't have come up with on your own. You have all the ingredients, you know that it's going to be easy and delicious and, and then afterwards, the recipes that I love the most, I keep the really nicely printed recipe cards they have. And it kind of builds like this customized cookbook where now I have all these recipes that I know are easy to make, I know are delicious and healthy. And I have like a file now of recipes from Blue Apron that I.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

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[Chris Duffy]

Order [e-mail] and get 50% off your first two orders, plus free shipping with code betterhuman50. The code is betterhuman50. Terms and conditions apply. Visit blueapron.com terms for more information. You're listening to how to Be a Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. February is a month where people are often thinking about love because of Valentine's Day. But love is so much more than just romantic love. And so today on the show, we're thinking about that broader understanding of love? What would it mean to approach the world with it? What would it mean to assume the best of the people that we interact with every day rather than preparing for conflict and assuming the worst? I mean, even just saying this out loud, I can immediately start building arguments against it. Do I honestly believe, given everything that we know, that it's reasonable to think that care and love could ever be the default? And I'll tell you the truth, I don't know. But to me, the answer lies in thinking more critically about our preconceived notions of how things are going to go and what other people are going to be like. In my mind, there's a direct line from love to cultivating open mindedness and pushing back on our biases. And I know that today's guest, Anu Gupta, deeply believes in this. Anu is the author of the book Breaking Where Stereotypes and Prejudices Come from and the Science Backed Method to Unravel Them. Here's a clip from his 2017 TED talk.

[Anu Gupta]

When I was growing up in Delhi, my town was often under police lockdown. We couldn't leave our homes because of ethnic tensions. So at school I'd ask my teachers, why is this happening? They'd say, because those people are bad. Wait, what's bad about them? They're not like us. They're different. After moving to New York, I became those people. Apparently I worshiped cows. Apparently I was stupid, dirty, ugly. These definitions were accepted as fact before I even said a word. All based on the way I looked. So I decided to assimilate and become American as quickly as possible. I changed my accent. I changed the way I dressed. I even went by the name Andy. Yet all too often just walking down the street or riding the subway, I'd hear, hey Osama, go back to where you came from. Every time I heard that, my heart sank. I'd already changed everything I could possibly change about myself. For years, I just ignored it. I took comfort in the science. When I was in high school, the Human Genome Project proved that race is a story, that people are 99.9% genetically identical regardless of what we look like. But emotionally, I began to feel disconnected from my peers and the country I now called my own. Over time, I just couldn't imagine living this way. So eight years ago, I found myself on the ledge of my 18th floor window, contemplating jumping off. As I stood there looking at the teeny tiny cars below, I had a flash of insight. The stereotypes people reduce me to are just ideas. They're not true. I Realized people aren't seeing me. ANURAG ENTREPRENEUR, LAWYER People are seeing ideas of me. And it was those ideas that kept me depressed and paranoid all these years. And I realized I wasn't alone. But I don't want to live in a world where we live in ideas of one another. I want to live in a world where we live in the presence of one another, the real people. This is why I've committed my life to Breaking Bias.

[Chris Duffy]

We're going to hear all about Anu's life and his work right after this quick break. Today we are talking about what it would mean to approach the world with love and to try and see the full humanity of the people around us.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

With Anu Gupta.

[Anu Gupta]

Hi there. I'm Anu Gupta, author of Breaking Bias with a foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. And I'm also the founder of Be More with Anu, an edtech company that trains individuals and organizations in building belonging within workplaces and communities.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

I guess let's start with that, which is. It's pretty unusual for a book to have a foreword by the Dalai Lama.

[Anu Gupta]

Indeed.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

That must be a big honor. And also, how did that come about?

[Anu Gupta]

Yeah, I feel like it's a spiritual shield for this work. You know, we're living in these quite uncertain times where there's just such rise of polarization and division, not just in the US but around the world. And I think His Holiness, after he read the book, really felt that and the potential of this book. And he wanted to lend his name to this work because, like him, I believe that the 21st century isn't just about technological innovation. It's really about inner development, particularly development of warm heartedness and other tools that I talk a lot about in the book.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

It is not a moment in the world, especially politically, where it feels like warm heartedness or diversity, equity and inclusion are. They don't have, let's put it, the winds behind them.

[Chris Duffy]

Yeah, the wind is not in the.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

Sails of those concepts at the moment right now. So how do you adjust to going from a time where there was kind of broad cultural support for these ideas to now broad cultural repression of these ideas?

[Anu Gupta]

Yeah, I think what's been a real gift for me, particularly like using the mindfulness and the mind, the Buddhist mind sciences and the neuroscience. Is that the gift of time, this work of breaking Bias? It's really about deep time and the evolution of human consciousness. And I look at it that way. I'm also really aware of history and where our species has been not just 100 years ago, but a thousand years ago, 10,000 years ago. So knowing that deep time really gives me comfort that this is really, this is how we become better humans. Breaking bias is not just a path that's rooted in social justice or fairness. It's really a path to more profitability, to success, to belonging, to healing, and so many other things.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

So your book Breaking Bias, one of the things that I think is so interesting about this is that instead of it just being looking at bias and how to be more inclusive, instead of just looking at that in a kind of narrow framework of what do we do right now? I mean, you quite literally go back millions of years. We're talking about like the geological formation of the Earth, which is not what I expected from a book about bias.

[Anu Gupta]

Yeah, it's interesting, right, because when we think about bias, we really think about our relationships with each other as human beings is that we have to also shift our relationship with nature, with the living earth, with what's known as more than human beings. You know, animals, birds, fish, insects, the whole ecology of things. And we're living through a time of the Anthropocene, right, where human beings have become so powerful that we have caused so much destruction to ecology. So I think for me, when I think about bias, of course we think about racism, sexism, anti Semitism, Islamophobia, you know, transphobia, and the standard human based biases. But I think we also have to include biophobia, like deep hatred of the earth, the need to dominate the earth, you know, speciesism, you know, what about the other beings with whom we share this planet? And I think for me, going back into geological time and just seeing how we as a species have evolved has really been helpful to really think about all these other living beings as our kin and how breaking bias isn't just something that will enhance human relationships, but it's really the root cause or root solution to every single problem we face individually, locally and globally. Whether it's climate change or ecological destructions, or of course, polarization, misinformation, breakdown of democracy. Bias is really the building block of all these challenges.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

You said you've come to this work because of who you are and your background. Tell me about that. What is the personal history that brings you to this?

[Anu Gupta]

A lot of the slurs directed at me for being a heathen, being a pagan, being a terrorist. You know, after 9, 11, I was in New York City and I would just have people call me Osama bin Laden on the street and ask me to go back to where I came from as A young person. I didn't know how to deal with any of these things. These things weren't sexy to talk about, so I would just repress them. I would just be like, okay, well, I'll just ignore them. They're just ignorant and go about my way. And the way I thought I could really succeed in this new home of mine was just, you know, to, you know, excel academically, professionally, which I did. You know, I went to college, I went to grad school at Cambridge, you know, graduating top of my class, then went off to law school. And throughout this time I was kind of following the thread of what is this thing called bias? Why are people cruel to one another just for no other reason than their being, you know, I went to law school to study human rights law, civil rights law. And we're studying like all of the case law that has made us who we are. Civil rights legislation, international human rights norms. But whenever I would talk about my own experiences with bias, you know, I would just meet, you know, dead silence, awkward pauses, and oftentimes gaslighting, basically denial of my own emotions. So I was a young, you know, 20 something year old person and never been to therapy, had never done any kind of healing work. I was just in my head and I started believing that, oh, maybe everything what people are saying about me is true, you know, so it wasn't just the societal narratives about my humanity because of my intersectional identities, but it was actually my own understanding of who I was because I was trying to go away from being brown, being an immigrant, being gay. I was still closeted. And it was actually right before the second year of my law school. I found myself on the ledge of my 18th floor window about to jump off. And the interesting thing about that night is I did jump. But I have no explanation for this. But for the grace of God, I'm alive because instead of falling forward, I fell backwards into my apartment. And within that moment I just thought to call a friend, another queer Asian American person and who lived quite far away from me. If you all know New York. I was in midtown, and she lived in Harlem, but she happened to be walking on my block that very moment. She just took the elevator up to the 18th floor, sat in my apartment for hours, and the next day I began my own breaking bias journey. I was like, whoa, I can't believe I was almost not going to exist. And I think it was for me, the journey really began with my own self, my nervous system, my body, my brain, my emotions were the. They were the lab and I basically went after so many different technologies, ancient technologies, modern technologies, talk therapies, somatic based therapies, just to see what is this thing, why do I believe all these stories about myself? And I wanted to understand where these stories came from. Stories about being wrong because I'm gay, stories about, you know, being inferior because I'm Indian or I'm brown or my family is Hindu or Buddhist and not Christian. Stories about being wealthy or poor. Where do these stories come from? And that's where I think my journey really began. I knew a lot of those stories already from the media, from education. You know, I was working as a lawyer after law school, working on issues of racial and gender equity. Really passionate about trying to use root cause analysis to understand a lot of these systemic problems. You know, oftentimes you think about systemic racism or patriarchy or misogyny, what is the cause of that? And you get really cerebral answers. And I wanted to get to the root of it, like how do I explain this to my 6 year old niece, you know, who's experiencing this herself? And that's how I came to understand that, oh, this work is really about inner development.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

There's so much that's really important there. One thing that I want to start with is, well, first of all, I'm very glad that you are here.

[Anu Gupta]

Thank you.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

And that you survived. And I think that is not a given. And one thing that I've learned in my, in my personal experience with having loved ones who, you know, have been in similar moments of, of suicidality is that two of the kind of biggest myths around suicidal thinking or, or suicidal actions are that talking about it makes it more likely.

[Anu Gupta]

That's right.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

We think that if we talk about it, they're going to get the idea.

[Anu Gupta]

But that's right.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

People already have the idea. And then the other one is that you need to fix it right.

[Chris Duffy]

Right away.

[Anu Gupta]

That's right.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

And I think the idea that really what you need to do is hang.

[Chris Duffy]

On for one more hour.

[Anu Gupta]

That's right.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

And then one more hour becomes another hour. And that there's the possibility of big change by very, very tiny changes by just making it one more hour. And then also this idea that we, if we talk about the big horrible thing, that it doesn't make it more likely, it makes it less likely. And I wonder if you do a very direct parallel between that individual dealing with, of pain and of wanting to not be alive.

[Anu Gupta]

Yeah.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

And also the societal level of judgment and cruelty and the kind of horrors that we can inflict on Other people.

[Anu Gupta]

Yeah. And oftentimes those horrors that we inflict on others, we inflict on ourselves. That's what I've come to realize. I think for me, it was really interesting because I also came from a relatively conservative Asian Indian family where it's not just okay, I mean, it's not just about being gay, but it was also like mental health is just not talked about. It's something deeply, deeply repressed. So I think for me it was just not having a space to be for a very long time. But, you know, I just, I think I, at that moment I just took a leap of faith. And I think every moment, like you said, every hour has been that leap of faith. Since then, it's been 16 years. And I still remember that day, you know, so fresh in my mind. And I know that I'm here for a reason. Because I am a living, breathing, walking, dancing, singing example of what's possible. Because the technologies that are going to help us to overcome that self loathing, that depression, that chronic stress, that anxiety, the loneliness, it's just so pervasive in our society right now. They've been with us for thousands of years. Our neuroscientists in the last couple of decades have given it new names. They have given us evidence that they work at the neural level, at the somatic level, at the emotional level. So for me now it's really like, how do we apply all this information that we have? You know, I feel like we've moved past the information age. We have so much information. What we really lack is wisdom. And I think for me, it's now applying all that wisdom to imagine what's possible. You know, if you can imagine colonizing Mars, why can't we imagine living on Earth without bias? You know, what's happened to our moral imagination? I feel like that's what the century is really calling for us to do.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

When you say technologies, these technologies that we've had, what are some examples of those technologies that you're talking about?

[Anu Gupta]

Yeah, well, I think for me, one of the things about the modalities that help break bias, I call it prism. And PRISM is an acronym for these five tools. And we start at M and move our way up to P. And it's really a mindfulness based, somatically informed practice. So we start with mindfulness, which is just present moment awareness, you know, just noticing what happens one after another, whether it's our breath, whether it's our thought, whether it's our emotions, but especially our body sensations. Bias really lives in the Body. And we can't really begin to belong in the body until we heal that in our bodies. You know, every ancient technology, which is basically wisdom traditions, whether it's Christianity or Judaism or Hinduism or Islam, they've all said awareness, be still and know that I am. You know, that's what's written in the Bible. I didn't make that up. And that's where we begin. That's mindfulness, the foundation. Then we move to stereotype replacement for us, which is really when stereotypes arise, you know, so socially we've been like conditioned to think that, oh my God, I'm bad. And then kind of, then you feel shame, you feel guilt, you feel blame. But actually all we have to do is shine a light on it. Oh, that's a stereotype. Okay. But instead of letting that just stay there, we replace it with a counter example, a positive example. For me, this was a really powerful tool. Like every time I had that critic come in and still does. You know, you're silly, you're stupid, you're dumb, like, whatever, I take a moment, okay, I listen, I hear you. And I'm also the exact opposite. I'm also kind, I'm also sweet, I'm also charismatic and constantly doing that. That's how we're rewiring the brain. That's how we're rewiring the nervous system that's been wired with all these biases. And then we move to I, which is really about individuation, curiosity, interest, being with the person, being with ourselves, just as we are in this moment. Because there's a broader wisdom that we are going to evolve. We've been evolving since we were born and also others too. And lastly, we move to pro social behaviors and perspective, taking the R and the P. And these are really heart based practices. This is active cultivation of empathy, compassion, joy, altruism, imagination. This is what the Dalai Lama calls warm heartedness. And oftentimes again in our society, we've been conditioned to feel that we just born with these tools. Actually, no. Just as biases are learned, belonging can also be learned. All of these tools can also be learned. We can actually rewire ourselves through these practices. And that's basically what I teach in the book. And what I've been teaching to thousands of professionals for the last 10 years is how do we really rewire our nervous system? How do we rewire our brain to really build a healthier relationship with ourselves, with one another, with nature, as well as with our imagination to see what's possible?

[Chris Duffy]

We're going to take a quick break, but if you can imagine it, we are going to be right back with.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

More from Anew in just a moment.

[Chris Duffy]

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. With Valentine's Day right around the corner, you might be feeling like everyone else has it all figured out when it comes to their love lives. But whether you are single or dating or even marrying, the truth is that most of us are still figuring it out and finding our way. And therapy is a great way to take some of that pressure off yourself and help you determine what it is that you really want and what might be weighing your relationships down wherever you are in your romantic journey. And I know for myself, therapy has provided some really important tools to help.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

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[Chris Duffy]

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[Co-host or Interviewer]

A way that you talk about this in the book is that bias is a habit. So can you tell us a little bit more about that?

[Anu Gupta]

You know, when I started my own Breaking Bias journey, I was like, well, what is bias? And I would go to the literature, the sociological literature, and a lot of the common trainers on this topic and they would say that, oh, we're just born with it. It's a survival instinct in us. You know, our amygdala brain is fearful and we kind of divide ourselves into in groups and out groups. But I was like, wait, wait a minute. When my niece was born or my nephews were born, they didn't think that, you know, boys are better than girls. They didn't think that light skin is more beautiful than dark skin. This was taught to them. And the more I went into the neural mechanisms of how bias is learned, I was like, whoa, bias isn't inherent because yes, we have the survival instinct. We need to know a difference between a cute little puppy and a lion because of danger. But if we have two human beings who are exactly part of the same species, why is it that we treat them differently? That's the learned part.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

But sometimes these kind of immediate frameworks, they're helpful because it's easier and quicker to have a connection with someone.

[Anu Gupta]

That's right.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

So like I see a person and I sort them into a box and then we can connect based on that box. I don't have to do all of the mental labor of exactly who is this person and exactly who am I? We can connect.

[Anu Gupta]

That's right.

[Chris Duffy]

So there is a piece that's efficient.

[Anu Gupta]

Absolutely.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

I guess what I'm saying is if you were to walk down the street and truly see every individual, you passed as an individual. I don't think you would ever be able to move from point A to point B. And yet what we don't want to do is go so far the other way that we don't see the humanness of the people who we were walking past on the street. So how do you find the balance between those two?

[Anu Gupta]

You know, so the way I define bias is it's a learned habit that distorts how we perceive reason, remember, and make decisions. So I think that last portion about making decisions is really essential and important. Most people who walk down the street, of course, you know, we have our own preferences, but it's not really bias. It's just like, oh, yeah, judgments will arise. We just notice the judgments. We're aware of them, but we're not making any decisions toward them. For me, it becomes nefarious when you're a doctor and you're making decisions around the types of medications you're going to prescribe or diagnosing a treatment and creating a treatment plan for them. If you're a teacher disciplining students, if you're a hiring manager, hiring certain people, you're making decisions that affect other people's livelihoods. And those micro decisions then aggregate at an institutional level, at a systemic level, into disparities, into inequities, inequalities, and so much human suffering. You know, we've seen it, you know, with police violence in the U.S. for example, or other countries around the world, whether it's France or Germany. What's happening in the nervous system of those police officers? You know, why is it that they see the phenotype of a certain person, black or brown skin, and then suddenly they feel fear? That fear is stored in the body, and they haven't been trained. So that's what I'm really talking about when it comes to breaking bias. It's really a disconnection from ourselves and one another, and we're basically unregulated in our nervous systems. And what the PRISM tools really help us do is really regulate our bodies.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

You and I share that. We both taught English in South Korea.

[Anu Gupta]

Yeah.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

Which is wonderful. It was a great experience. I loved being there. I know you loved being there, too. I mean, you talk about how you recognized in yourself that often if you encountered someone who was of Korean ancestry or was South Korean, that you would try and find a way to immediately talk to them about this experience.

[Anu Gupta]

Yeah.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

And what I like about how you did it in the book is you said there's nothing inherently wrong with this, but what you realize is that you're not really seeing the wholeness of this person. You're just like, oh, here's an opportunity for me to connect on their Koreanness. And as soon as I read that, I was like, wow, that is 100%, like, not even the kind of thing I've done, but, like, exactly the thing.

[Chris Duffy]

Where I'm like, oh, you're from Korea. I lived in Suwon.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

Let's talk about that. And I wonder if you can talk a little bit more about the nuance of this.

[Anu Gupta]

There's so much to unpack there. But I do think that the cultural narratives around branding people and canceling people are incredibly unskillful. They're incredibly unwholesome because they keep us in a cycle of shame. You know, one of my favorite scholars, Brene Brown, says shame is a deeply, deeply painful feeling rooted in this belief that we're unworthy of love, belonging, connection, that we're flawed, there's something wrong with us. And that's what's happened in the last 10 years in our cultural zeitgeist. We have basically said, some people are just bad. People aren't bad. Bias is just part of our neural circuitry. And, you know, as I talk about, we've learned these biases from five causes. All of us, regardless of who we are, how many dominant identities we have, how many subordinate identities we have, we all have them. So I think for me, that began to give me a lot of leeway into being like, oh, like, of course I have thoughts that are biased towards people because of their skin color or their sexuality or their gender, but they're just thoughts, and I can become aware of them, and I can begin to switch them. Now, the question around the South Korean is because I've done this for years, and it was only until actually I started reading the. Writing the book four years ago that I was like, wait, this is kind of problematic because what I began to realize is that my desire to connect with someone of Korean ancestry was rooted in me and my experience and had nothing to do with the other person. And it's actually quite harmless. I'm like, oh, I just want to share with people that, hey, you know, I lived in Korea, but how would I feel if, you know, someone walking down the street came up to me like, oh, I went to India last year, and I loved it. And this has actually happened to me a lot of times. And I always feel like. I mean, it doesn't bother me that much, But I'm also like, I'm so much more than my skin color. And my ethnicity. So that's where I was like, oh, I think there's some nuance here. We often just connect with one another based on, like, race and gender, primarily, those two, like, very clear markers. And I think, for me, if we want to imagine building a world where all beings belong in the fullness of our diversity, we actually have to practice that within ourselves.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

So in an attempt to do that with you, rather than ask you about something that I think would be reductive and not be a part of your identity that you like to talk about from reading the book and from doing some research about you, I believe that something that you really enjoy is learning languages and being a polyglot. I know you've studied Japanese.

[Anu Gupta]

Actually.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

How many languages do you speak and which languages fluently?

[Anu Gupta]

I speak three. I would say, you know, Hindi, Urdu, and English. But I have studied, like, a dozen others over the span of my, you know, lifetime. You know, I've studied Persian, Arabic, Korean, Japanese, French, and a few others. Learning languages has been really beautiful because it's given me access to different cosmologies, different ways of imagining the world. And one of the things, you know, I talked a little bit about how we're breaking bias is really the root cause of every challenge we face in the world, and we're living through a time where we're losing a human language every 14 days. So basically, with that library of wisdom, of imagining what it's like to be in relationship with ourselves and the elements around us. And that's why I feel like, you know, this is why it's so important for us to begin to really retain languages and begin to. Language is a way to communicate, to commune with ideas.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

I also love learning languages.

[Anu Gupta]

What do you speak?

[Co-host or Interviewer]

I'm similar to you in that I don't really speak many fluently. I can speak English and French pretty. Pretty well, and Spanish also pretty well. But then I've studied Korean and Greek and Senegalese. Wolof.

[Anu Gupta]

Oh, beautiful.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

And one of the reasons I love it is because there's always conceptual framework in a new language where either there's a specific word that you can't translate literally.

[Anu Gupta]

That's right.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

Or there's a way of framing things that's different than how I frame it in my native language.

[Chris Duffy]

English.

[Anu Gupta]

That's right.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

And it just makes me realize that the world is not one set way.

[Anu Gupta]

Exactly.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

To me, I think that's at the heart of so much of what you write about in Breaking Bias.

[Anu Gupta]

Yeah. I'll give you an example that I found so Fascinating. Studying again how gender and binary gender in particular came around. And I discovered a tribe in Indonesia, the Bugis people. In their language, they have five genders. So like everything that they conjugate is based on those five genders. You know, basically what in our language it would be basically a CIS man, a CIS woman, a trans man, a trans woman and an androgynous person. Generally intersex people. And you know, despite colonization, despite Islamization, that's still part of their language, their conception of humanity. And there's nothing wrong with the isness of these five genders of humans. And it's just so beautiful. Right. And it's because of language. Language gave them permission to imagine that. And I feel like in the English language and other Romance languages, we're beginning to innovate, you know, in the English language for non binary identities. We've been using they them. It's an experiment, we'll see where it's going to be. Right. But it's allowed so many humans finally to feel like they belong in the way they communicate and conceptualize their existence. And that's really the beauty of language.

[Chris Duffy]

Okay, so with this idea that there's.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

Language and nuance, a moment that really struck me is you talk a lot about your personal story, you also talk about your family and you have this nuance even within the same person. And so you have these two interactions that you write about very movingly with your grandmother. One is where she's kind of very quite aggressively tells you to not dance like a girl.

[Anu Gupta]

That's right.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

And you feel really shut down. But then there's this other time where she explains to you.

[Chris Duffy]

The cultural idea.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

That there's a vastness of gender, that there's just one spirit that puts on many different clothes.

[Anu Gupta]

Clothes. Yeah.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

And I think the fact that it's the same person who gave you both of those interactions.

[Anu Gupta]

That's right.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

Is quite revealing about like the nature of people in the ways that we have these biases too.

[Anu Gupta]

And it's kind of drilled, you know, for me, making sense of that was really. Because I began to look at her and her humanity and how bias was drilled into her, particularly bias toward herself as a woman. She's no longer with us, but she was married off when she was in the fourth grade. I think she was 13 years old. And then she started having children at 15. And a lifetime of being othered, someone who was so wise, so smart, but just wasn't given any opportunity for no other reason than her body parts. Right. Because she was born A girl because she was born a woman in a conservative Indian society. Again, she went back to her ancient wisdom, right? Her spiritual wisdom, which basically says that Shiva shakti, that's her idea of yin yang, that all human beings have these two energies, you know, masculine and the feminine. And for me, that really came up. When I was a young boy, I started noticing the third gender in Indian society. What are known as kinners or hijras. These are generally intersex people or, you know, people who are born as men but feel like they're women. So trans women, and they dress, they live as women. And I was like, wait, how is it that men can dress like women? And this was, I think, coming from a deep curiosity within myself because I couldn't explain my sexuality at that time. And I was like, is it okay for them to dress like a woman? And she was like, yeah, of course. Because that's the energy that's predominant in them. But that same woman also, like you said, you know, I remember dancing to a Bollywood song as like a six or seven year old in front of some of her guests. And she took me aside and really, like, told me that I will never dance like that over her dead body until she dies. And I never did. She was really attached to a story that was drilled into her through a lifetime of experiences of a binary gender. Boys must be men and girls must be women. And they have very, very specific roles that they play in society and then policies. And that's what she taught me, Samaj kiniyam hai, which basically means the rules in society. And these rules are really about our bodies and our identities. And that's how she kind of justified everything. And then again, it gets. The way each of us learns these biases is through social contact. The environments that we're in, whether it's built environments or virtual environments, our trusted spheres of influence, you know, education, what we learn in school, what we don't learn in school, a lot of misinformation there, and then media. So I think for me it was like, whoa. Like, it was just in front of me all this time.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

I wonder for people who are listening right now.

[Chris Duffy]

Let's start with the people who are.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

Listening who are inclined towards this. Yeah, they believe what you're saying. This resonates with them. They kind of feel like naturally drawn towards all of these things. There's not a lot of resistance.

[Chris Duffy]

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[Co-host or Interviewer]

What can they do to create more of this kind of breaking of bias in the world and in themselves?

[Anu Gupta]

Yeah, I think that's really a beautiful question and I feel like for me, you know, systems don't change until people do, and people don't change until our consciousness does. So it's really about shifting our mindsets. And what I found really helpful is a contemplative practice and it's really again taking the attention from external stimuli inward to begin to notice our own bodies, to notice our minds, notice what's happening in our minds, how we're treating ourselves and others in our own the intimacy of our homes. And I think folks for whom this resonates are those people. They're contemplatives they're mystics. They feel like they're connected not just to one another as humans, to themselves, but also with nature, with the living earth, with the elements, and they're living more holistically, you know, in their body, what I call neck down as well.

[Chris Duffy]

What about people who.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

They hear what you're saying and maybe.

[Chris Duffy]

What do you say to the people.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

Who are like, I'm inclined against this. I feel strongly against this setting.

[Anu Gupta]

For me, it's kind of finding a middle ground. So certainly people who are craving this are going to be readers. So it's like the 206020 rule. And then I'm really going after the 60% in the middle who are indifferent, who just don't know, but they can be persuaded. And for me, those of them who are more inclined to rational thinking, who like the sciences, I'm just extending an invitation. Hey, let's just try this. You know, be a scientist of your own experience, Try these tools. Try doing loving kindness every day for a week toward yourself. See how you feel, and then make a decision. Right now, I'm not inclined to go after the people that are opposed to this because, you know, I feel again, being rooted in my own ancient lineages and that our goal right now is to really build critical mass. For me, I'm building critical mass to get to that tipping point. And once we reach that tipping point, the people that are, you know, they just don't find this appealing at all, or they're averse to it. They'll begin to notice things around them shifting. Their partners are acting a certain way. Their kids are acting a certain way, their co workers are acting a certain way. They're hearing different messages in their church. They're like, whoa, okay, there must be something to this. You think of them as like, Luddites who, like, finally give in, right? People that were like, oh, I don't want a phone, but eventually they got a phone. Oh, I don't want to get any apps. Oh, eventually they got apps. And we're seeing this right now. I don't want to get on ChatGPT and slowly, you know, they'll adopt onto it. Listen, of course there are people that will resist until their last breath, which is okay. That's their choice. But for me, I think folks that are not willing to even try it are. I would just say that they're living from a very limited sense of who they are.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

Look, I know this sounds like the most patronizing, condescending thing I could possibly say, but I do genuinely feel like, it makes me sad to think about it because often the people who reject love and kindness the most are the ones who also need it the most.

[Anu Gupta]

That's right.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

And so I think that the way you just framed it of if we create a world where love and kindness are not rare luxury commodities.

[Anu Gupta]

That's right.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

Where they are more common, everyone benefits, and even the people who are most. Who believe themselves to be the most actively opposed to it will benefit as well. And they'll see that slowly over time.

[Anu Gupta]

It's like, I think about. There was this one time when I was teaching, actually, and I used to call my students dear ones, too. What's up, dear? And. And one angsty teenager is like, I am not your dear. Don't call me dear. I'm like, great. You don't feel like my dear right now. And that's okay. You know, you're allowed to have your feelings, but to me, you'll always be dear, regardless of what you do.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

For me personally, unlearning some of these ideas about what is natural has been really helpful. I was interviewing a scientist who studies bonobos and something that this scientist told me.

[Chris Duffy]

She said, bonobos are a society run by females and the way that they solve conflict is by physical pleasure and connection.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

And chimpanzees have a society that is.

[Chris Duffy]

Much more anger and violence based.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

We have always learned in school and.

[Chris Duffy]

In the west, we're told, like, chimpanzees.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

Are our closest relatives. And most people have really not heard about bonobos.

[Anu Gupta]

Bonobos, yeah.

[Chris Duffy]

And her point was, like, the idea that that is natural, that to hurt people and cause pain is natural. It's actually no more natural than it.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

Is to cause pleasure and to have physical connection and to be inclusive. But there's the narrative and the cultural history of what we're told about that.

[Chris Duffy]

And I just cannot stop thinking about.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

That since I learned that this idea that, like, there's no reason why we wouldn't learn that it's actually just as natural to be a bonobo as to be a chimpanzee. I think that goes to some of the assumptions that I think come out through prism.

[Anu Gupta]

That's right. And you know, the science is showing that actually it's more natural to be compassionate, to be kind, to be forgiving. But again, we've been socialized to be averse to those emotions, and as a result, we've blocked them in our own bodies, which is causing us anxiety, stress, you know, depression, suicidality, because we haven't been trained on how to really work with these emotions. And you know, one of the beautiful quotes that I love is, you know, nature permits, culture forbids. So our nature allows us to be in love with whomever we want. It allows us to try new things, but it's a culture that we build around it that forbids it. And these are the narratives of stories that we buy into that limit our own potential. So if you think about bias, it really operates at four levels. At the internal level, the interpersonal level, the institutional level, and then systemic levels. And this is our work for the century to really break these biases.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

Well, Anu, thank you so much for being here. This was an absolute pleasure talking to you.

[Anu Gupta]

Thank you. It's been an honor to be here.

[Chris Duffy]

That is it for today's episode of how to Be a Better Human. Thank you so much to Anu Gupta. His book is called Breaking Bias. I am your host Chris Duffy and my new nonfiction book, Humor How Laughing More can make you present, Creative, connected and Happy is out now. You can find out about me and the [e-mail] how to be a Better Human is put together by a team of extremely kind and thoughtful people. On the TED side, we've got the full humanity of Daniela Valorezzo, Van Vanchang, Michelle Quint, Chloe Cha, Cha Brooks, Valentina Bohanini, Lainey Lott, Tanzika, Sung Minivong, Antonia Le and Joseph De Bruyne. This episode was fact checked by Mattea Salas, who not only breaks bias, he also breaks misinformation. On the PRX side, we've got the Dalai Lamas of disk drives and microphones, Morgan Flannery, Norgill, Patrick Grant and Jocelyn Gonzales. Thanks to you.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

That's right, you for listening.

[Chris Duffy]

We really appreciate you.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

So without you, this would not be a podcast.

[Chris Duffy]

Please share this episode with anyone you.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

Think would enjoy it or anyone who.

[Chris Duffy]

Desperately needs to hear it. We will be back next week with even more how to be a better Human.

[Co-host or Interviewer]

Until then, take care and thanks again.

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