Welcome to the JoyLab podcast, where we help you uncover and foster your most joyful self.
Your hosts, Dr. Henry Emmons and Dr. Imi Prasek, bring you the ideal mix of soulful and scientifically
sound tools to spark your joy, even when it feels dark.
When you're ready to experiment with more joy, combine this podcast with the full JoyLab
program over at joylab.coach.
Hello, I'm Henry Emmons and welcome to JoyLab.
And I'm Amy Prasek.
Here at JoyLab, we infuse science with soul to help you uncover joy.
To do that, we focus on building the elements of joy, the positive emotions and interstates
that become the building blocks for a joyful life.
The element for this episode is hope and resilience as we've been covering in this series of episodes
actually.
And joining us here for the first time or have missed some episodes, you may want to
head back to episode 53 because we're working through a series on the roots of resilience.
Of course, if you're thinking, no, calming my mind sounds like exactly what I need right
now, the title of this episode.
Then absolutely stay with us.
You can go back after.
All right, to start us off, I want to share a conversation I had with my four-year-old
a few days ago, we were getting ready for school and she stopped putting her shoes on
and started tearing up and said, mama, I had a scary thought.
So as we do, I asked her if she wanted to share it because we like to do this little
exhaling practice to let go of thoughts that we're sort of done with.
She said she wanted to share it and she told me that her thought was that she floated away
in a balloon.
So I asked her, do you think it's true?
She responded, yeah, my brain was thinking it.
So it was true.
So it just reminded me how powerful this belief is that our thoughts are true.
It was kind of her first impression of it.
And especially those visceral ones that activate our stress response.
We think it, we feel it, it must be true.
And that makes sense on the surface.
We want to trust our thoughts.
We want to trust that what we think is true, but so often it's just not, which is both
hard to accept.
The things I think are often false and so freeing.
The things I think are often false, free.
And the good news here is that we have some power.
We can work with our mind to quiet the stress response, to notice and let go of false thoughts
and maybe even reduce the amount that pop up to begin with.
So in this episode, we'll look at a few strategies we can use to create some space between ourselves
and our thoughts so that we can embrace what really is our natural calm mind.
I just love that your daughter said that.
It's pretty cute.
If my brain is thinking it, it must be true.
That is a pretty good summary of what gives us so much trouble.
Sometimes I think that the internet is a little bit like our collective brain, you know,
so that if it's on the internet, it must be true, right?
And we know how ridiculous that sounds.
And yet, tell me sometimes believe that if it's there, or if I'm seeing it in print
or a picture that it is real, we are living in a very interesting time where reality
and truth are being called into question oftentimes.
Hard facts are sometimes considered subjective these days.
So part of me is really optimistic about this, thinking, well, maybe we just need to go through
this kind of thing collectively in order to wake up to the power that our minds have,
or just to realize the truth and what a lot of spiritual teachers have said for eons
that we create the world as we experience it with our minds, you know, our perceptions,
our beliefs.
Buddha put it very succinctly in the first lines of the Dhammapada with our thoughts.
We make the world.
I think there can be a huge advantage just in realizing the role that we have in creating
our day to day reality.
You know, we do it by where we put our attention or what we believe to be true.
And we rarely realize how much power our minds have, at least to change the quality of our
experience.
And I think we need to own that.
If we don't, you know, we could get floated away by a balloon or something, or maybe even
worse.
Yeah, it makes me think of that balloon boy hoax where that six, I think a six year old
boy supposedly floated away in a balloon.
Do you remember that?
Yeah, vaguely.
So journalists really didn't know vetting and viewers didn't ask questions.
I didn't.
You know, most of us didn't process questions like, hey, can that balloon actually carry
a 50 pound kid?
The answer was no, but so many of us just took it as truth.
We let our minds, like you just said, float away with that hoax.
And I think what's hard to understand sometimes is that letting external sources like internet
gossip, like the balloon boy story or conspiracy theories, sometimes letting our attention run
away with all those external stories seems more comfortable than just sitting with our
own inner thoughts.
We've talked about that a lot here at the podcast.
Sometimes our thoughts are scary.
Sometimes our inner world is gnarly.
As you've said, Henry, love that.
Sometimes it just feels like too much to be with our thoughts.
And so it's super tempting to just grab our phone and get some dopamine hits if we're
too alone with our thoughts.
So then back to what you just noted, Henry, we're only seeing the world through all of
this stuff we consume, whether it's true or not.
And because we've sort of outsourced our thinking, it's really hard not to get swept
away by it all.
Wow.
I like that term.
We've outsourced our thinking.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Kind of true, isn't it?
I think so, especially the internet.
As you noted, it wants to take it all away.
Yeah.
And then there's the dopamine hits, like you mentioned, which there is a place for, you
know, but we don't want to let our minds be run by this addictive need for dopamine,
at least not if we want a calm mind.
So I mentioned earlier that I think of myself as an optimist, at least I try to be.
And there's one very simple reason for that.
It makes me feel better to see the good rather than the negative.
I'm just happier when I'm hopeful or when I learn that when I believe that things are
going to work out fine.
Some years ago, I read this book called Learned Optimism.
And it was written by Martin Seligman.
He's really one of our heroes here in Joy Lab because he was, you know, an early pioneer
in the field of positive psychology.
Anyway, one of the things that he said in that book really stood out for me and that
is that he was acknowledging that pessimists probably do see the world closer to actual
reality.
But there is this strong correlation with thinking pessimistically and being prone
to depression.
You know, it just weighs down your mood.
So choosing to be more optimistic, whether it's always true or not, and then training
yourself to do it can really be a powerful preventive for depression.
Now, I'm not sure, frankly, if I'm an optimist by nature or not, because I've had lots of
times where I'll go down that sinkhole of negativity.
But whether it's my nature or not, I know that I have to choose how I see things.
And I have to make that choice again and again, not just one time and I'm done.
And at first, frankly, it's a lot of work, but it does get easier over time.
In other words, this is a skill and skills can be learned and improved with practice.
I think the first step in learning that skill of kind of owning how we see the world, it's
just to have that realization that you are thinking.
You know, it might sound obvious in saying it, but I think that most of the time we're
actually pretty oblivious to the fact that we're thinking.
And until we become aware of that, then we are really at the mercy of our thoughts.
So we do have a powerful ally in this, and it's usually called the observing self or
the observer.
It's located somewhere in our minds, but it's not the same thing as the thinking brain,
which is what we often perceive as the mind.
The observer is that part of us that is aware that we are thinking.
In other words, aware of our awareness, thinking or feeling.
So the observer is able to step back, stay above the fray and see what's happening without
getting pulled into it.
Right.
So that first step is to become aware that we are thinking.
Of course, I want to dig into an obstacle here because I am a pessimist by temper,
I like to say, because tuning into that observing self can be tough at first, as we suggested
a bit already.
So there's an obstacle there.
It can be hard to take that first step.
In part, I think because many of our cultures of overstimulation and also stigma around thoughts,
you know, believing that everything we think has to have some profound or repressed meaning
or some interesting origin.
I just don't believe that.
Sorry, Freud.
So it's really natural to feel some hesitancy and discomfort to get a little quiet and enter
into our own inner world and the role of the observer, which reminds me of one of my favorite
studies speaks to this obstacle.
I have to share it.
I've been so excited trying to find the moment to share one of your.
How did you wait?
How did you wait this long?
Pins and needles has been terrible.
So this is a study from Dr. Timothy Wilson and colleagues called just think the challenges
of the disengaged mind.
So I want to tell you about it.
There were a total of 55 participants.
Each one sat alone in a boring looking room and were first told to rate the pleasantness
or unpleasantness of some positive stimuli on a screen and then some negative stimuli,
namely an electric shock that they were given.
So the part, so funny, the participants were then asked if they were given $5 would they
pay any amount of that money to avoid another electric shock.
42 of them said they would pay to avoid it.
Don't shock me again.
I'll give you money.
Kind of interesting.
Here's where it gets really interesting.
Participants were then instructed to sit by themselves in the chair in that boring room
for 15 more minutes to knock it up and to stay awake with the goal of entertaining themselves
with their thoughts as best as they could.
They were encouraged to have a pleasant experience and were given three pleasant activities,
examples they could think about, or they could just think about anything else they wanted
that was pleasant.
Here's the twist.
They also had the option at any time during those 15 minutes of hopefully pleasant thinking
to press the button to self-administer the electric shock they got earlier.
Okay.
So guess how many of those 42 participants who said they would pay to avoid another shock?
Guess how many of them actually shocked themselves during their 15-minute thinking period?
Listeners, take a guess.
Henry, you too.
What do you think?
Unless you already know the study.
I never asked you.
I do not know this.
I'm going to guess 12.
12.
So, I don't know.
43% of those 42, 43%.
I think it's also a bit interesting to note that 12 of the 18 men or 67% of the men shocked
themselves with an average of one and a half shots.
Not even just once.
Most of them did twice.
One guy did it 190 times.
An average of one shot, 35 seconds.
I mean, these weren't little shots.
They were like, walk across the living room with socks on the carpet and then touch a
piece.
I mean, it gave you a pronounced moment of, huh, it was 6 to 24 women or 25% shocked themselves
with an average of one shot during that 15-minute period.
So there's like a surprising gender difference there.
But still overall, 43% of those 42 participants shocked themselves.
And I think it's pretty telling just overall being alone with our thoughts can be really
tough.
Many of us would rather shock ourselves.
Right?
So, let's get into that.
How can we take that first step to calm our mind, to be with our thoughts in a way that
doesn't feel so difficult?
Well, first, two things about the study.
One, I can see why this is one of your favorite studies of all time.
I love it so much.
And then secondly, I just don't understand why so many researchers like to use electric
shocks.
It's funny.
I mean, it makes for a good sharing of studies.
So I think for all the other animals, without consent, it's about time we shock some more
humans.
Just saying.
All right.
So let's talk about the observer with that.
So I know that this concept can seem kind of vague at first, but once you've experienced
sitting quietly and observing your own thoughts and feelings, you won't forget it.
It's kind of like learning to ride a bike.
Once you get it, you get it.
Now, you might not be very good at it at first, but you can ride that bike and get better and
better.
So the reason that this is so helpful is that it begins to give us back our freedom.
So when I can see that this is just a thought and nothing more than I actually have a choice,
what do I do with it?
Do I choose to believe it or maybe opt for a different thought instead?
Do I want to see what's wrong with you or what's wrong with me or would I prefer to
see what's right with you or me?
So in other words, we can take back the power that we have given away to our unconscious
thinking.
Now, back to resilience for a moment.
A few episodes ago, we used this metaphor of a water cooler that we need to keep just
full enough with this magical elixir of resilience to keep us afloat.
Now, imagine, instead of the water cooler, that we have this big lithium battery in us
and we draw our own energy from it.
Now, there's this concept known as phantom power where, let's say we leave cords plugged
in around our house and they'd keep drawing power even if what's plugged in is not being
used.
And this is called energy vampires.
So our negative unconscious thoughts are a lot like these energy vampires.
But as soon as we become aware of them, we can choose to unplug them and then we stop
the loss of our energy, our resilience.
And that gives us a chance to find some other ways to charge ourselves up again.
I love the idea of unplugging those thoughts.
So we work on that a lot here at the podcast, probably in every episode.
We're working on an aspect of this.
We also do this really step by step and enjoy that program.
So join us there for some really powerful practices.
And we've got another resource to help you do this.
We have a calm mind meditation over at our new community.
You can head over there and give it a try.
Just go to natural mental health.com and tap community on the top nav bar.
And big bonus, when you join the community, you'll receive some really helpful tools to
support you as you uncover more joy.
And you'll also help us keep this podcast free.
Oh, those super annoying middle of the episode advertisements and those like five minutes
of advertisements at the beginning of in here lately, I get it, man.
We just don't want to do that here.
It smashes the flow.
So you can help us keep that flow supportive and joyful.
And you can also help us shape some of our episodes because even though Henry and I could
talk all day about this stuff, we want to make sure that it serves you all in the best
way possible.
So I hope we see you over at the community.
So let's close this route of resilience.
We can look to some wisdom from Alan Watts, one of my favorite writers, thinkers.
Here's what he had to say about our resilient nature.
What I am really saying is that you don't need to do anything because if you see yourself
in the correct way, you are all as much extraordinary phenomenon of nature as trees,
clouds, the patterns in running water, the flickering of fire, the arrangement of the
stars and the form of a galaxy.
You are all just like that.
And there is nothing wrong with you at all.
Thank you for listening to the JoyLab podcast.
If you enjoyed today's show, visit joylab.coats to learn more about the full JoyLab program.
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