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The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
1KHO 433: Operating With Half a Brain | Steven Biddulph, Wild Creature Mind
00:55:57
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- [00:00]
Ginny Eric
My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for Career Day and said he was a big roas man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friends still laugh at me to this day.
- [00:14]
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- [00:30]
Ginny Eric
Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Ginny Eric. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside and I have a brand new guest today who wrote a phenomenal book that I am thinking about on a daily basis. It is wonderful. It is called Wild Creature Mind, the neuroscience breakthrough that helps you transform anxiety and live a fiercely loving life. The author, Steve Biddulph is here. Welcome, Steve.
- [00:56]
Steve Biddulph
Hi, Jenny, and hello to everybody there. Lovely to have this time with you.
- [01:02]
Ginny Eric
I really needed to read this book because I wake up every day with sort of a low level of anxiety about what I need to accomplish and where I need to get to. And your book taught me how to deal with it. And so what a wonderful, wonderful thing. Let's start with your background. A psychologist for 30 years, retired, but continues to write and teach. You have a lot of books. You sold over 6 million copies, 31 languages. Just such a phenomenal, phenomenal reach. A fun thing is that you were voted Australian Father of the year in 2001.
- [01:36]
Steve Biddulph
Yes, yes. That's when I. Back when I was young. I'm a grandfather now, and I was all ready to hang up my microphone and just go kayaking and make up silly songs for my granddaughters. But this anxiety thing happened, Ginny. I'm sure everyone watching knows it was a horrific thing that landed on this generation of kids. And so I'm still taking life very slow and my brain's very slow. I apologize if it's a bit slow today. But before I die, we have to do something about this anxiety. We've got to save a generation. And so I got myself together and wrote this one last book. Yeah.
- [02:22]
Ginny Eric
Wow. So there's a total of. It looks like about eight books about happiness and love and relationships and manhood and raising boys and girls, 10 things girls need most. There's so many great books that you can choose from, but this Wild Creature Mind is very, very timely. You also are interested in wombats?
- [02:40]
Steve Biddulph
Yes. My wife's called Sharon and she raises wombats, are a gorgeous little creature that lives. We live in Tasmania and wombats get around in the forest here, but sometimes they get hit by cars and they do a lot of damage to the cars because they're tough little critters, but they ends up little babies in the pouch. They're a pouch animal. So we rescue those babies and Sharon rears them. It takes two years to rear a wombat and then we set it back into the forest again. So around our farm, there are wombats who remember watching daytime television and eating chocolate biscuits and then they were out into the cold and their lives went back to wombat normality. Yeah. So that was a little strange aspect to our family, Ginny. But we.
- [03:33]
Ginny Eric
Yes, a fabulous, fabulous tidbit. The only thing I know about wombats is that when they poop, I think this is correct, that it's the shape of a cube.
- [03:43]
Steve Biddulph
Yes. They make towers. It's to mark their territory. They like to be. Not like anyone to bother them or even any other wombats to bother them. And so they make a little tower of their poos. And so they have to be square, otherwise the tower would fall. So it's like Lego, you know, you've got Lego in the US it's like they make a little Lego tower and nobody is quite sure how they manage to do it. You know, do they have to practice? Does their mom teach them? But look, you're getting me off the topic, Jenny. We'd better get it back. But it is wild. It is wild creatures. I guess so.
- [04:17]
Ginny Eric
Yes, it is wild creatures and it's their instinct. And there's a lot of kids that listen in, Steve, with their parents. So I actually think they're going to love hearing about wombat poop, that they stack like Legos. What an interesting thing to learn about. You kick off this book with this sentence. It's right at the beginning and you say either out loud, and people can do this as they're listening, either out loud or silently in your head. Repeat this sentence even though it probably isn't true. My life is going really well. Everything is wonderful. Then go deep into your body and notice what happens. And you write, you felt it, didn't you? And I did. Oh, my life is going really well. Everything is wonderful. I felt it. And you talk about that. This is our wild creature mind. This is a really interesting book because it talks about the left brain and the right brain. And this is interesting to our audience because we're trying to get our kids outside and play and do all sorts of hands on things. Our world is very left brain centric, I think, with all of the information that's flooding in and all of the things that we require of our children. And so I learned so much, Steve, from your book about the right hemisphere of our brain, all sorts of things that I didn't know know. So could you give a little background on the differences? And this is a really big topic, so it's a broad question. I have got pages and pages of notes just on this part. But I didn't realize that the left brain is the one that has the language and that the right hemisphere is the one where we can sense someone else's body language. Can you just give a general overview of the differences between the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere?
- [05:52]
Steve Biddulph
Sure, yes. Well, probably everyone who's listening will from somewhere in their school biology lessons or something. Remember that the human brain is very unusual. In fact, it's the same with all animals, lizards and fish. It's got two halves. It's very odd. It's like if you hold on, it'll just come apart like that. Like you're dividing up an orange for your kids on a summer's day. It just peels apart and so right down at the very bottom where it joins up. And so neuroscience people got very interested. Why is that the case? And here's what they found. You and I are talking to each other and we're using words. So I'm firing words to you and you're firing words to me. And words live just inside your head, just inside your left ear. That's where the words department is. There's two areas, create language and understand language. And they're both just right in there. And so basically my left brain is talking to your left brain right now. But at the same time I can see your face and we're kind of nodding and little facial expressions are happening that are helping us to get a sense of each other. So am I safe with you? Are you a nice person? Are you kind? Can I trust you? And the whole conversation is a bit like a dance. And we have to get the dance right. That's very complicated. You couldn't explain how to do that. Luckily, our right brains do the complicated stuff. So people, anyone who's listening right now, their right brain is picking up my tone of voice. There's pacing of my voice, my breathing, and whether they know it or not, that's getting processed in there. Fantastic supercomputer, giving you a reading on the whole picture. Now the real, real interesting Part is that the right side does all of that, but it has no words. It doesn't because it would be just too confusing if it was yelling across to the other side. So what it does in every tiger and every elephant and every orca, it talks to the body. And the message goes down into your body and you get a felt sense of, yeah, I'm safe. Yeah, that idea feels right to me. No, I don't trust this person. You know, one of my kids said something as they were walking by to their bedroom when they came home from school and I got a little kind of twinge in my tummy. That's your right brain giving you kind of updates. And it's so worth listening to. And also as we can talk about later, it's the key to anxiety and it's the key to boundaries and a whole lot of things that help with your mental health. But does that, it's the bare bones of it, does that make sense? Jenny?
- [08:44]
Ginny Eric
Yes, it's so interesting, Steve and I didn't know that. I didn't know that language was on the one side and that the right side doesn't have language. And so it communicates through the body. Ultra aware, receptive, socially wired and in tune to the natural world. It is designed to help us get along with each other and be at ease in our own skin. This is really fascinating stuff. Now you talked about how different things help us to stir that up. Reading, novels, movies, poetry, music, art, travel, dance, just going for a walk on the beach out in nature. And so I love this is such a perfect fit for this audience because the key to anxiety is here you talk about our felt sense before we get there. I just wanted to read this quick list because I loved it. You just gave some examples, but I this is one of my favorite parts. You were talking about these examples where your body says to you, it's your body, it says, look out, enjoy this, don't marry that person. Your 8 year old isn't telling you the truth. You're talking too much. Stop and give the other person space. Now is the time of the meeting to make a suggestion, get up and dance. That person's eyes are cold and don't match their smile. You need to go for a walk that encompasses. It does such a great job, Steve, of communicating how important this is because those things are critically important to know when your body needs to get up and go for a walk or to know when someone's eyes don't match their smile. So you go on then to talk about this Felt sense, this gut sense. Felt senses are what happens when you have a qualm or a misgiving. It's a physical sense. Why is that important to know?
- [10:21]
Steve Biddulph
All right, let me. I was thinking about today's podcast and talking to you, Ginny, and I thought there's a demonstration I would like to try out with you and with your listeners. Are you game for a demonstration?
- [10:35]
Ginny Eric
I love a demonstration.
- [10:36]
Steve Biddulph
Okay. I was so glad. Now it's very easy and you don't have to say anything at all if you don't want to, but. And people listening can do this as long as you're not listening. Driving a car, perhaps, but otherwise, give this a go. The way you do it is you choose two people from your life that you care about. So it could be any two people, could be two of your kids, it could be your parents, or could be two friends that you've got people listening. If you're a childless, parentless orphan with no friends, big hugs to you. But you could have your next door neighbors, it doesn't matter. So you've chosen two people and you've got that step. Now the next step is to choose one of those two. And so in your mind's eye, that's great. Yes, you see one of those two people, what they look like, their face looks like, and maybe even how their voice sounds. So you've conjured them up in your mind. And as you're picturing them in your mind, you go down into your body and you go down the middle of your body and you throw it in your chest, in your heart and your tummy. And what sensations do you notice when you think of that person? Don't say anything, but just what do you notice in your body when you think of them? What's going on down there? How would you describe it? And then when you've got that, just let it go and go to the other one, the other person that you chose and do the same thing mentally picture them, face and how they sound and what they're like. And now you're picturing them do the same thing, go down inside yourself. And what felt sensations do you have picturing this one? And how are they different to the other one that you did? Whereabouts are they located? What are they doing? And that's all you have to do. And so you can let it go now. And I don't know, Ginny, if you would like me to talk a bit about it or you've got anything you'd want to say about what you noticed.
- [12:41]
Ginny Eric
I would love for you to talk about it. Because this is one of the premises in the book. Yes, because I also, like I said, I wake up most mornings and I feel fairly anxious. And your book talks about like, where is it in your body and what does it feel like and allow it to come and it's so interesting. I guess I'm thinking about it, Steve, and because I've been thinking about this so much since reading your book, it's like the feeling that I have is like tight. Like in the morning I wake up and I am very overwhelmed most days, like with what I need to finish and accomplish. We have five kids that are all school age and so like that feels tight and it feels like in my gut and even in my, like across my chest and like around my heart and you know, so.
- [13:26]
Steve Biddulph
Yeah.
- [13:26]
Ginny Eric
But when I think of the person that I love or even when I say the thing at the very, very beginning, how you open the book, my life is going really well. Everything is wonderful. I feel warm, I feel open, I feel relaxed, I feel filled in a good way. It's really, really interesting, Steve, to do these exercises and to notice the differences.
- [13:51]
Steve Biddulph
Yes. Anyone who is listening, who just did it as we did it just then, what we find, because I've done this now with thousands of people in, mostly in Face to Face, in a live audience, is that for every say you choose your children, as people often choose two of their kids, the first one might feel, oh yes, there's a kind of melty feeling in my heart that's kind of soft, but there's also a little kind of CL in my tummy. And then it's different with the other child. I feel kind of like I still have this, but there's kind of this up here in my throat or something. So you have like a reading of where you're at with them and it's in real time. And so if you'd had an argument with them this morning, that would be part of that body sensation. The other thing about it is that it's always fresh. It's never the same from one minute to the next. I had an experience, Jenny, with a really lovely, very elderly friend. And his wife of 50 years had just passed away, lost his wife, a 50 years marriage. And he called me, he said, steve, can you come around? He said, and he's a very savvy and wise person. He knows about grief and he knows what was happening with him. But he said, I feel stuck. So I feel frozen. I think I need to just have someone to talk to. And so I went around and we were talking and I said, look, can I try this thing with you that I'm very keen on at the moment? Where is it in your body? When you say you feel stuck, where is it? And he said, oh, no trouble telling that. It's like a stone, it's like a big heavy stone in my tummy. And I said to him, okay, can you just send it a feeling of make it welcome, make it feel noticed and understood and give it some space. And he did that and we can talk to people in a minute about the steps of this, but he made some space for it. And what happens with a felt sense in your body, Jenny, is when you pay attention to it, it starts to change. It's like a wild creature emerging from the bushes and you're quietly making it welcome. I said, what's it doing? And he said, it's coming up, it's coming up in my body, it's around my heart now. And so we sat just patiently there for just a few seconds. And what's happening now? It's in my throat. He says, I can hardly breathe. And I just said, look, can you just soften and let it do what it seems to want to do? All of a sudden this great wailing sound came from his throat and it was the most, probably the most moving experience I've had in my whole life. And just all the grief coming out as sound and tears and sobbing and we laughed about it afterwards and you know, said, you know, you could have gone to a psychologist and had 20 sessions, you know, but you, all we have to do is just listen to our wild creature side and welcome it and let it guide us through. Because human beings are designed for incredibly harsh things, you know, the toughest possible things in the natural world and they've got the equipment to do that. And the guide is where does it live? You know, and if you're talking to your child, child comes home from school and is upset, say, you know, okay, well you know, you sit with them and you, you steady yourself and you calm yourself down, get in touch with your own body and you're sitting on the bed alongside your, your 8 year old little fella and, and he says, I just feel really awful. And you say, I can see that, you know, and it's, can I ask you, whereabouts is it? And you know, oh, it's in here, you know, okay, okay, that's good, you're doing great. So it's in there, what's it doing? It's kind of going like this and say, okay, it's going like this and what's coming into your head? And he said, well, I got into trouble at school cause I hit Jonathan. And you say, jonathan, he's your best friend, you know. And he said, yeah, I don't know why, I just belted him. And I think you're going to get a letter from the school and you're saying, okay, what's going on with Jonathan? And he said, Jonathan told me this morning he's going to move to Canada. And the little fellow starts crying and he's suddenly realizing he was caught up. A little boy not sure what his emotions are. He couldn't put a name to it as many little boys struggled to do. But his body was doing that. And by staying with that it could move and he could kind of get a window into his own heart, Jenny, if that makes sense. It makes me kind of just teary just to think of it, you know. So his mum would be able to say things like, you know, that's really sad that he's your best friend. You know, boys have often only got one friend. And we'll have to have him over for a sleepover, you know, before he goes. So we can really, you know, give him a send off and we'll get his address and stay in touch and who knows, maybe we'll go visit him in Canada sometime. But we got to say goodbye to him because he's special to you. It's all the usual things that mums do and dads do with their kids. But it's turbocharged by this pathway that your body gives you. Because often we don't know why we're upset, it's complicated. But our right hemisphere, it's wired into our memories, it's wired into our body. Your right hemisphere remembers where you left your keys. But not only that, it's the thing to do. It applies to the hippocampus where all your memories are. It knows where you left your keys in 1997 and it's all there. And so when one of your kids has an uneasy feeling around someone and they don't want to go back to that piano teacher again, it's just that there's something that some connection they're making with their memory banks that tells them this isn't quite safe or this isn't quite right, you want to raise our kids to listen to those signals and you do that by us listening to them. I'm going a bit fast now. I've got all excited, Ginny, but I'll calm down and let you take charge and direct me what you want.
- [20:15]
Ginny Eric
Yeah, I wonder Steve, how many people listening already know about this because I just didn't okay parents, let's be honest.
- [20:24]
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- [21:49]
Ginny Eric
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- [23:08]
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- [23:36]
Ginny Eric
It was interesting for me to try it out. You know, you read different books and some books you have things that you try and some things you just have things that you think about. But this concept you can try right away. And like I said, I just wake up in the morning, I, you know, immediately just feel anxious and overwhelmed. And I've resisted that. I resist it because it feels weak and it feels like I'm a baby. It feels babyish. Why can't I just be more mature? I'm an adult. I can get the things done. You know, why am I making such a big deal out of these things? Very kind of scolding. Right. And resistant to it.
- [24:07]
Steve Biddulph
Yes.
- [24:08]
Ginny Eric
And it's like almost a daily thing. So then I read your book and I love books. People who've listened to this podcast, a bunch of the episodes will know because I've said this before, but I love books that give you step by step instructions with the verbiage. So because we don't know what to say. So the question is, can you feel inside where the bad thing is? Can you sit with it in a friendly way? So you say you notice it. You say there's something going on in there. You locate it, where is it? You can talk about its shape or its quality. You can tell it welcome and thank you. And then it does just seem to sort of dissipate. That is remarkable to me. It is remarkable. You would think that you should resist it. And also I think for me in particular, it's a message, right? It's a message of, well you probably should adjust how you're doing your life. If you wake up every day and you feel overwhelmed, then maybe you should do something about that.
- [25:03]
Steve Biddulph
I love. Yeah, you know what?
- [25:05]
Ginny Eric
Maybe I should make sure I'm carving out time to read a novel or do the things that you talked about in that spot. So I just found this to be very, very, very valuable. You said this. It's for us and for our kids. Even for children with great parents and happy lives, childhood is still an intense time. There are unavoidable wounds and hurts which are just a part of growing up. Life has sadness built in sometimes, and all we can do is be there for our kids as they suffer through that. So I'm just wondering how we don't know this. Why don't we know any of this? Because you talk about sort of how we've almost like we've turned off the right side. We've turned off that wild creature mind. We're very left hemisphere focused. Do you know, like, when did that happen? Why did that happen?
- [25:52]
Steve Biddulph
Yes, Jenny, can I go one step at a time? Because I'm back with the anxiety still, and I. I thought I'd like to give listeners a. A protocol that they can use. Is that okay if I spell it out?
- [26:05]
Ginny Eric
You can go any way you want. Yes.
- [26:08]
Steve Biddulph
That's really kind. Now, there's this trick which comes from a friend of mine who's in the States called Ann Weiser Cornell, and she's a focusing therapist. And she also was linguistic. She trained in linguistics, and she got very interested in the way we phrase things. Now, if you think about the way we talk in English, if we're anxious, then what you say is, I am anxious. That's our way we've put it. Or if you're angry, I am angry. And as you say it in that way, anyone listening, you say, I am angry. They think I am angry. It's very total. It's like your whole body. It's all of you. I am angry. Now, in Ireland, I used to go to Ireland sometimes, and in Ireland, people say, sadness is on me. Instead of saying I'm sad, sadness is on me. Today in France, people say I have fear rather than I'm frightened. So I have fear. Isn't that. I love your facial expressions. That's exactly. Yeah. It's a bit strange now, back in the old days, back in the time of Jane Austen, you know, Jane Austen books and movies, people used to talk with a lot more precision. They used to use language very beautifully, clarity. And they'd Say things. There's this expression they used to say, there is something in me that yearns for the sea. Or there is something in me that wants to give him a good smack in the mouth. That's probably not Jane Austen, but there is something in me. It's clearly saying, it's not all of me. I'm not about to run away to sea. It's just this part of me that wants to. And so Anwiser Cornell took this, started to use it with her patients. So instead of saying, I am anxious, and this is what, when I used to wake up in bed, very similar to you, lots of things to worry about. Wake up in bed, racing heart, three in the morning. And there is something in. Instead of saying, I'm anxious, I tried this out. There is something in me that's anxious. And. Yeah, and I love how quickly you get it, Jeannie. And soon as you say it that way, there's a kind of separation. There's just a little bit of separate, a little bit of spaciousness inside you. Like, there's me and there's something that's anxious there in there. And so the logical next question is, okay, something in me is anxious. Whereabouts is it? And in my case, probably, okay, it's down in my way down in my tummy. It's kind of a clenching down in my tummy. Now, the next thing is you're wanting to bring your left brain to talk to your right brain, kind of get your team together. And so you bring in the words. And so you say, you try and find a word that fits the sensation. So I'd say, okay, so it's like a kind of clenching in my tummy. And here's the clue for everyone who's going to try this out today. Your first guess is never right. First try is never right because this is a wild animal. It's coming out of the shadows. It won't come out clearly until you're really very patient and safe to come out to. But you're paying it attention and it likes that. And so you'd say, is it clenching? And it kind of like. No, it's more like a kind of churning. And in fact, it's churning. It's actually, it's moving to the middle a bit now and it's churning and it's in the middle and you're noticing what shape it has, what it's doing. And so I'm lying in bed and it comes up and different things can happen. Sometimes it's like a little shudder happens, like a little Shiver goes through me sometimes. 9 out of 10 times it just kind of softens. And I think you use this word, Ginny, it dissipates. It just kind of just gone. Because what your wild creature knows is I'm in bed in a safe place in my house. Nothing to worry about right now. Can let go and it's, and you're fine. One time in ten it moves and it comes up and all of a sudden there's this kind of strong or kind of fierce kind of feeling in my chest or in my shoulders that what I'm thinking about is actually not going away. In fact, it's getting clearer in the book. The girl who starts the book called Ellie, the 14 year old girl, when she gets help with her anxiety, it doesn't turn to feeling peaceful. We're not talking about sedating our emotions here. Her anxiety turns into incandescent rage. She gets really, really angry about what's happening to her and the girls in her town. And she gets her and her therapist do things about that. So just letting people know. Sometimes this isn't about just getting back to sleep or feeling dreamy or blissed out. Sometimes it says, okay, that wasn't right what happened with me and my 10 year old yesterday. I'm going to have to talk to their teacher about that. I'm going to have to do something. But either way, you're in a much better place. You're either calm or you. Or like you said, you know, I've got to fix my life. And you know, and you. It's like having a panther that walks beside you, you know, a big black panther ready to stand with you and help you. And you've got your ally now. You've got your wild creature wide awake. The two of you walk into the principal's office or wherever you need to.
- [31:40]
Ginny Eric
Go and yeah, yeah, it's really powerful, Steve. It does sort of, I guess like you said it kind of, you know, obviously you said there's different situations, but like for me it just kind of brings me back to the present moment. Like I'm okay now. And you talked about this McGill, I think Ian, maybe. Ian McGilchrist.
- [31:58]
Steve Biddulph
Yes.
- [31:59]
Ginny Eric
I'm not sure if that's how you pronounce it. Dr. Ian McGilchrist is convinced that the real reason for the terrible problem today with mental health is we can't enjoy things. We're never satisfied. We aren't at home in our own skin, we or the sensory world around us. So it's really very helpful. There's a very Helpful book. I read it. I'm thinking about it every day. I'm using it constantly. This is an interesting story to Steve. Normally I don't tell so many stories. You're the expert. But it made me think of a lot of different things. Yeah, I thought this was so interesting. You talk about the jackrabbit, like, movement, motion changes emotion. And I think this is very critical and important in this podcast because we're getting our kids outside and movement helps with a lot of things. So here's the experience. I went to do a book signing. I'm sure you've done many of those. And it was, I guess, kind of like my first one. And I had suggested it to the bookstore. It was my idea. I was like, oh, I can do a book signing, thinking all these people are going to come. And hardly anybody came. It was like seven people. Two of them were my in laws. So, you know, it was just. It was awful. It was like I sat there for two hours at this desk with nobody in the middle of the store, and it was, like, humiliating and it was awful. It shouldn't be that big of a deal, but when I left, now a couple of my family members had left and I still. My daughters were still there. And when I left, we went out. We went to go get dinner after. I just kept, like, moaning or I'm not quite sure, like a. Almost like a guttural sound, like a. And I probably did it a dozen times. I've never done that before in my life. But it was just like, in me, and it's like I had to, like, let it out. And you talk in here about yelling or crying or moving or humming or shaking or raging like you talked about. These things help adrenaline run their course. Like the jackrabbit that would shake and then move on. I just think this is such an important thing to know about. Can you explain to us and to the parents are listening and the kids are listening, what are some physical things that we can do and should do to help move on from hard? I mean, whatever. Not getting anybody at your book signing is not like some hardship. I just. I felt really awkward. I felt bad for the lady that had me in. It was like, very conflicting in my mind. I just felt dumb. But this whole concept of motion changing emotion and movement and shaking and vibrating, it's really interesting discharging our adrenaline.
- [34:38]
Steve Biddulph
Yeah, well, bodies are designed to get us through. See, the reason we get anxious, the reason we have an anxiety epidemic is half of it, is that the world is just really Terrible. There's reason for it. But the other is that our solution has been wr that people think, okay, I've got to go into my left hemisphere. And even the psychologists with their cognitive behavior therapy and things which you're now realizing just can be so degrading for the patient try to talk you out of it. You know, you shouldn't feel that or it doesn't not logical to feel that. And you know, when we go in our left hemisphere, we go round and round and round in words trying to escape. Whereas over on the other side there's this wise system for doing it. And so the jackrabbit gets chased by a cougar across the, you know, across the savannah or wherever and it almost gets eaten. You know, it's about as traumatic as you could imagine. It's almost dinner for this cougar, but it gets away and it's in its burrow and down in that burrow. And they filmed this. It's amazing to watch. The jackrabbit goes like this for about maybe three, three or four minutes. Not just a little shiver, three or four minutes. And what it's doing is like all that adrenaline is shaking out, burning up so that it down regulates and you don't get traumatized. Jackrabbits usually, you know, they're back out there the next day. And we put in a whole chapter in the book at the last minute on tremoring. And tremoring is a way to start off this way in this, with this drawings and you lie on your back and you put your knees up and you separate them a little bit. And what'll happen is that because it's hard to hold your knees in that position, they start to vibrate a little bit. And if you allow it, what happens is that your tummy starts to vibrate and then your chest and so you're lying on your back kind of shaking like a jelly. And I was doing this and I'm a 71 year old psychologist, was raised in northern England in the 1950s. I'm not exactly your new age emotional guy. And my body's just vibrating and it's like, whoa. And then all of a sudden, Ginny, I had this memory or this physical memory and what it is was something pressing on my face and it was, was a bit ick and I, and I sort of in the instructions of tremoring, it's do whatever you feel like. So I rolled over onto my side and then I felt better and I, and then it came to me when I was four years old, I Had my tonsils out. And when the nurse bought the pre med, which is a little drink you have as a sedative. I'd been in an English 1950s hospital at the age of four and the pre med was blue. It was this blue drink and I went to drink it. I don't like this. Blue isn't a good color for drinks in my book. I spat it out all over the sheets, all over the nurse's uniform. She was so furious, she just stormed off and didn't give me a second go. So I went into the surgery with no sedative. And when they put the anesthetic on, I fought like a banshee. And my last memory was this nurse that I thought I liked who looked a bit like my mom who was, you know, my guardian was. Was trying to murder me. Ginny. It was horrible. And now I got, you know, I got over that. I hadn't thought about it for sort of 66 years, you know, but here I am lying on the carpet in 2024 and out it comes. Now you'd have to think. And we tell far more important stories in the book about paramedics and people who are in terrible shape. Have you ever spotted McDonald's hot crispy fries right as they're being scooped into the carton? I. And time just stands still.
- [38:47]
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- [39:18]
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- [39:49]
Steve Biddulph
James, I'm sure you read that story. It is. It's unbelievable. And so moving. He has crippling anxiety. He's about. He can't do his job anymore. His marriage is not. Is almost on the rocks. He works with this very caring, very solid woman therapist. And in the third or fourth session, she asks him, you know, just sitting here today, what's. What's going on inside you? And he does that thing with the body crying. And when that's through, he goes very quiet. And she. She says, what's. What are you thinking? And he says. She brings him back into his left hemisphere. What are you thinking? And he says one word. And the word is a girl's name. It's Anita. He says, anita. And she says, what's the story with Anita? And it was a little girl who, of all the many, many things that a paramedic deals with, was a little girl hid outside a school by a car. Her mom was there. It was just the worst thing. And he put that little girl in the ambulance, and they got her on a morphine. But before they got in there, he told her, it's okay, honey. You'll be all right. And she wasn't. She died in the ambulance. And as crazy as it sounds, but it's also kind of. I know everyone listening could be able to feel this. He felt bad that he had told her she'd be all right. Now he did everything exactly right. Of course you reassure. Of course you care for everyone. But in his mind, he went from being incredibly just anxious to having a very specific situation that he felt he needed to address. And so he went with the therapist and they went to the graves of the little girl, and he said sorry to her. And it was addressed, it was dealt with, and it was a ritual that they, you know, got to the heart of what he needed to do to feel okay. And he was just totally different after that. But until then, no one knew what was wrong with him. He didn't know, but his body had lodged somewhere in his right hemisphere, knew it's not just anything. It's this specific thing. And so you address that and you can move again. Now, when our kids play outside, it's as simple as you're saying, Jenny. It doesn't have to be big. They're running around and they just feel a big wave of anger come up, and they come over and talk to you about something that's made them angry. Because it's just come to mind when I go hiking, the first day of hiking, all the old arguments out of my life sort of come to mind. I'm sort of hiking, kind of relitigating old arguments where a journalist misrepresented My views or somebody didn't do a good job of building a house or something. And so it seems like my body is just processing it all and moving it along. And now I know that I just think, okay, where does it live? Okay, my legs feel really. Let's walk that out. So you intuitively found your way to something with Outdoor Time. Ginny. That is fantastic mental health tool. It automatically puts outdoors, puts you in your right hemisphere. It's now, it's here, it's sensory, it's all over. And even just an hour outdoors will always rebalance your organism. And so it's magic. It's totally magic.
- [43:23]
Ginny Eric
I just find these to be such important tools for adults and also with our parenting because, you know, you talk about the tremoring in here. I'd never heard of that, Steve. So people can read more about that in the book. Like you said, there's instructions. You were talking about it in the case of having nighttime anxiety. And you say that 10% of adults have insomnia at one time, 30% will experience it in their lifetime. And it's just a double edged sword because you're anxious about falling asleep, because you're anxious about what's going to come next and you're wasting your sleeping time away. And so this concept of just discharging adrenaline and using movement or crying or making a lot of noise, and in order to do that, making a lot of noise somehow reduces physical pain. This says, that was super interesting. There was a part about like, if you hit your hand with a hammer, you know, you yell, ow. What would it be if you couldn't say anything? It would all just like, stay. I was like, that's really interesting. I've never considered that. And I think the wording is so great for children. Like, you talk about just animal friendly methods, like what would they do? The jackrabbit would tremor for three to four minutes. Like what? We, we could take that, I think, into our parenting and do so, so much with it instead of saying, and I saw this in my notes earlier, but I don't know if I'm going to be finding it. It was something like, you know, there was the old method which is like, stop that crying. You know, you all give you something to cry about. You know, that was sort of the older method of parenting and that this is a different way, like what's going on and being inquisitive about it. We started with wombats. I want to, I'm going to circle back to something that's a little more random, but I thought this was super interesting. One of the things I really love, Steve, was there was a really cool picture in the book. Oh my goodness, what a cool picture. The brain with the neural network. If people get the book, it's called Wild Creature Mind, it's on page 21. It was really cool that you included this in the book. The neural network coming from the brain and all this is going. And you talk about the vagus nerve, the wanderer nerve, it goes everywhere. So there's just lots of really cool things that you're going to learn in this book. But you talk about there's the corpus callosum and then the brain connects at the bottom. I guess I get near the brain stem. I might be butchering this. You can just fix it if I'm wrong. When you talk about dreaming, at the onset of dreaming, the two sides suddenly light up like a city coming out of a power cut in some sort of resonating dance. Our two minds are very busy when we dream. It's clearly some kind of collaboration. I thought this is kind of a cool thing to talk about because you're talking about the importance of sleep. Good sleep will fix a whole lot of your other health issues. You talk about teenagers in their sleep and how important it is they have a time shifted sleep cycle wired into their bodies. They need to sleep late in the mornings. So I don't know, there's really no question. I just love this part about. You could probably talk about a lot of things, but how it kind of, when you sleep, it's connecting. Normally it's not really connecting too much.
- [46:22]
Steve Biddulph
Yeah. Yes, it's, it's, it, it really shocked the researchers to see it dreaming, it turns out, is when we fix stuff up. So whatever's happened during the day, our dreams fix it up and try to tidy it all away so that we have a clean brain in the morning. And so the kind of way that it just kind of goes and both sides are sort of like, what do you think? What do you think? And zipping it back and forwards to get it all sorted out. And if it's too much, then, you know, it becomes a nightmare, literally. And the problem with a nightmare is not that we're having it, it's that we get too scared and wake up. It's just a bit much and we wake up. And so if one of your kiddies has a nightmare, then the thing to do is to sit with them and do the body thing again and say, you know, okay, honey, you know, just, can you see you back in your bedroom. I'm here with you. You know, you can see the color of, of the walls and my dressing gown and you can feel that you're here in bed. But there's a bit of it left over, isn't there? Just those kind of dreams. You get a bit left over from it. How are you feeling just sitting here? And she says, oh, I'm still a bit, I'm a bit upset, Mum. And here's the question, as always, whereabouts? Where do you feel it? This is the question we didn't know about in my earlier books. We knew we had to identify feelings and affirm feelings with children but sometimes they just don't know. And so it's in my throat or it's in my heart or I feel really kind of. My arms are really kind of. Or my legs are really stirred up and so. Okay, so you're noticing that you got lots of energy in your legs. That's great and maybe that's something. Next time you have this dream you can use your leg energy to do something or your arm energy and just feel how strong you are and get them moving along a little bit and they'll be sort of like the story of the little boy Ravi. In the story his mum talked to him about his sister growing up and not being as interested to play with him anymore. And his mum was really sad. But Ravi, as soon as he told her, he's like, anyhow, I got to catch the school bus, Mum. So off he went, you know, and so she's sitting there with like, oh, childhood is sad, you know, and he's fine. That's the thing, you know, he's fine because he's got, got it out there and sometimes, you know, I was hoping the book would be that a 12 year old could read the book Ginny, because they, that's when they start having a lot of anxiety. And the animal idea would, you know, to think, okay, there's a wild animal inside me. Sometimes I have to give it a cuddle and soothe it and take care of it and not drive it crazy with all the worrying thoughts. I've just got to concentrate on soothing this wild creature. Sometimes it's like a grizzly bear and I'm going to have that next time I talk to that friend that did bad things. I'm going to feel that grizzly bear part of me. They're very comfortable with animal things. Yeah. So you've covered a lot of stuff, Jenny. I hope I haven't exhausted everyone listening or.
- [49:47]
Ginny Eric
No, I think they're Gonna really like it. I think if they're like me. This is fairly new and I find it to be sort of easily life changing. It's kind of something that you can grab onto immediately and just put it right into your life. And it makes a lot of sense. You know, our body holds secrets waiting until we finally listen. So instead of resisting, let it come and listen. And I think that there are implications for ourselves as parents and implications for our children. And I think that this will have a generational impact. You also talk in this book about loneliness. There's some important information in there about that as well. There is a lot in this book. I learned quite a bit and I was thrilled to learn it. I was thrilled to learn about the inhibitor neurons, and I was thrilled to learn about that we should acknowledge these things. I was thrilled to learn that 80% of our nervous system is devoted to bringing information back to our brain, especially the right hemisphere. I didn't know that stuff. And I have found that it, like, changed my life right away and was very helpful right away. And so I'm so glad you wrote it. I'm so, so glad this. You talk about creativity in this book. Creativity is a thing that's really important, especially in this world where we're sort of experiencing what other people have created all of the time instead of making our own things. So I really found it a very worthwhile read. And like I said, it's one of those things that I'm using like every day because every day I feel a little anxious. And so I'm working on it. I have like, tools now that I can use to work on it. So I really, really appreciate you being here, Steve. The book is called Wild Creature Mind, the neuroscience breakthrough that helps you transform anxiety and live a fiercely loving life. It's one of eight books. The website is wildcreaturemind.com there's also a funny website called Stephen stephenbidoff.com because it's old. And I went there and I.
- [51:41]
Steve Biddulph
The world's oldest website, it was done with chalk.
- [51:47]
Ginny Eric
I really liked. I actually went there. It says on that website though Hurry is the enemy of love. And I was like, oh, I really loved that. I got to see that. I actually enjoyed it. I enjoyed looking at that website. But the newer one is called wild creature mind.com we always end our brain. We always. I said, we always end our brain. I was reading, I had put a thing that the title might be operating with half a brain. I don't know if that's what I'll go with. But I was looking at my notes, so that's why I said that. And I'm always sort of stumbling over my words, and I think it's bizarre that I have a podcast, but here we go. We always end our show with the same question. The question is, what's a favorite memory from your childhood?
- [52:27]
Sponsor Voice
Steve, that was outside.
- [52:29]
Steve Biddulph
Oh, yes. When I grew up, it was Yorkshire in the 1950s, and Yorkshire was the world capital of negative parenting. It was. It. You know, it was. But my. I was. My dad took me to the football to watch the football on a. On a cold, windy field by the North Sea. And it was so cold. And all of a sudden here you had a lot. Long overcoat on. English people with the long coats with a little flat cap and the soccer players running back and forwards. And he just opened his coat up and I backed inside the coat and he buttoned it across my ear so my little face could stick out and watch the football. And I just felt like, oh, you know, because we didn't do hugs. Hugs weren't invented in 1953. But I could feel my dad's body behind me, warm and snug and his arms holding me and. And there was this exciting world outside, and I just felt like it was bliss. It was a lovely, beautiful time. Yeah.
- [53:32]
Ginny Eric
I just have enjoyed this so, so much. What an honor to get a chance to talk with you. The book is out now. People can find it wherever they get their books. Wild Creature Mind. Steve, thank you so much for being here.
- [53:43]
Steve Biddulph
Oh, yeah. You're very natural and unaffected, Ginny. It's beautiful because you're also very smart, but you don't wear it. You wear it lightly. It's really. Yes.
- [53:57]
Ginny Eric
I so appreciate that.
- [53:59]
Steve Biddulph
Beautiful to talk to you and love to everyone who's listening and hope that there's things that will help you have a much, much easier life. Thank you. By.