Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 <silence>
Speaker 1 00:00:04 Welcome to the Heart Rate Variability podcast, where we explore the exciting science behind heart rate variability. The material discussed in this podcast should not be taken as medical advice. Please check with your medical provider to make sure any suggestions or strategies are right for you. Visit us at the optimal hr-v dot com website to learn more about the optimal H HR-V app. Download a free copy of Matt's book, heart Rate Variability, and also get show notes and additional resources around heart rate variability in his application.
Speaker 2 00:00:43 Welcome friends to the Heart Rate Variability podcast. I am back here with Ina and Ina. I am so excited you hooked us up with, uh, today's desk, uh, guest, Dr. Ron Siegel has been, I, you know, first time I've ever met Ron, but, but has really helped inform my work on trauma-informed care over the years. Uh, uh, Ron, I'm not sure how many talks I've, I've heard you give. Uh, I, I was just trying to figure out how many books I have on, on Audible, uh, from, from you, uh, but just really has have been, uh, inspiration and a teacher of mine, so to, to, to connect with one of my teachers who I, I could have spent the rest of my life probably reading everything you put out and never meet you. So this is a, a great honor, uh, for, for us to have you on this show. And I'm so excited, uh, for our conversation, uh, today. So, uh, well,
Speaker 3 00:01:36 Well, well, thank you. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 00:01:38 Yeah. So, so Ron, I, I, I think I could gush about you for the next 60 minutes, which, which I, I'm happy to do so, but, but I'd love, uh, for, for you just to maybe give our audience, uh, a little bit about your background, um, and, uh, before we kind of dive into your work, uh, just, just sort of, uh, where, where you're at and how you sort of got there, uh, in your journey.
Speaker 3 00:02:01 So, I'm a psychologist by training, and, uh, I'm also a longtime meditator having picked up mindfulness practices, really, when I was a kid, when I was about 17, 18 years old. And, um, you know, I've had the privilege. I, I, um, I've been, uh, I trained in and have been teaching in the Harvard Medical School system for, uh, for several decades. And I've had the privilege of being part of a group that actually started as a study group decades ago of, uh, psychologists, psychiatrists researchers, uh, who are interested in how what we know from contemplative practices might inform our psychotherapy work and how, what we know from modern neuro neuroscience and modern clinical, uh, explorations, how that might actually inform some of the ancient wisdom traditions that these contemplative practices came from. And, uh, so my work, and even though I've done other things, like as the chief psychologist of a community mental health center serving, uh, basically underprivileged, uh, kids and their families, I've spent, uh, many decades doing work with chronic pain and psychophysiological or stress related medical disorders. But the focus I've had most in in recent years has been on writing and teaching about this interface. You know, how can, what can we learn about, um, how to optimize, uh, psychotherapy and health from the world's ancient wisdom traditions? And what, how, how might these traditions evolve, uh, in the current context of modern science and, and, uh, and clinical work.
Speaker 2 00:03:43 Awesome. You, you know, I would love to, to bring you into this. And, uh, I, like I said, I could gush for 60 minutes how Ron's works and formed, uh, my thinking. But, but, but I, I love, you know, and what I love about Rod's, the, the ancient tradition stuff I find is just fascinating. It's kinda a hobby, uh, to read about Buddhism. I'm, I'm a huge fan of Daoism. It's really informed me of these, these ancient traditions across all kinds of cultures. Even as you think about, like, uh, on sort of the cutting edge of the biofeedback arena, that, that I don't think we anybody would necessarily call ancient traditions, but more of bringing technology into this field. I, I just love how has, uh, Ron's work really informed, uh, your thinking where you're looking at this intersection with technology.
Speaker 4 00:04:30 Absolutely. So you're looking for me to know gu about Ron for a while? <laugh>, yes. <laugh>. Happy to do that. Um, yeah, I've been, I've been learning for Ron for, you know, a couple of decades, um, at this point. Um, um, and, uh, I guess, you know, for me, the crossover e s um, in the, uh, way that both mindfulness and biofeedback get at, uh, self-regulation, um, you know, they're, they're both aiming to achieve a, uh, similar, maybe the same goal, but they're doing it in slightly different ways, and they're doing it in a very complimentary way. Uh, you know, you know, I guess mindfulness is more tap down, but feedback is more bottom up. But, you know, they're meeting, uh, in the middle in helping people find, uh, better ways to regulate their, uh, physiology, better ways to, uh, regulate their, uh, their emotions, uh, and their cognitive processes.
Speaker 2 00:05:22 Awesome. And, and Ron, sort of same question to, to throw, throw at you. We're, we're in this time of, I, I think every time I I Google bio feedbacks or there's another ring or watch or strap, uh, obviously we're trying to bring some of this science to the table as well. I, I'd love to, as somebody who's, uh, really versed in a lot of these ancient traditions, especially when it comes around, uh, mindfulness practice. Um, you know, I'd love to just get your reflection on the world that we live in. Uh, I, I, I haven't counted 'em, but I imagine there's over probably a thousand, if not 10,000 mindfulness apps out there, Google Mindfulness and Spotify or YouTube. A million things pop up. So, so I I, I'd love to kind of start our conversation about where you see the intersection of, of your work, uh, that you've done over the years in your study of these ancient traditions. And, and this, the, the sort of modern technology that just seems to be coming out every day.
Speaker 3 00:06:22 Well, I think these are all attempts to solve a common problem. And this common problem goes back millions of years to our evolutionary history. You know, as human beings, we have, uh, you know, our brains evolved essentially to help us to survive and to help us to reproduce and to propagate our genes. Anything that might've developed in the brain by accident, through mutations and, uh, and the like, or even through what we call epigenetics, which is changes to the brain that happen, uh, based on our environment and changes to gene expression that happened based on our environment, that, uh, you know, any of those that didn't facilitate surviving and successfully reproducing, they get lost. It's the ones that help us to survive and reproduce that, that get preserved. And two things that have really, really helped human beings to survive are our emergency response system.
Speaker 3 00:07:17 Our ability when we're in a pinch to either fight freeze, which we do sometimes, or flee, uh, and our capacity to think right, to imagine what might happen, to reflect on what's happened in the past, and to strategize what's gonna help me to survive optimally, uh, in the present. And each of those systems is marvelous, brilliant, incredibly useful for survival. You put 'em together and we have a bit of a recipe for disaster, because what's happening is this system that the fight freeze flight system, which was designed to protect us from the lion or tiger out there, is now activated every time a fantasy of something going wrong passes through our minds. And, uh, we have on top of this, uh, you know, a real difficulty, which is what's been called the negativity bias, which well established by cognitive scientists, which is that our brain isn't just our thinking capacity isn't just some neutral observational machine or some computer, but has this really strong bias to remember bad things and anticipate them happening again.
Speaker 3 00:08:34 As my friend Rick Hanson puts it, the brain is like Velcro for bad experiences and Teflon for good ones, the bad ones stick the good ones slide right off the pan <laugh>. And if I can just go into this a little more, 'cause I, I know its a little bit, please, please do, please do. But I think this, I think this is really how to understand how both mindfulness practices and biofeedback come together and why they're so necessary. Now, if you could imagine this out there in the African Savannah looking at an ambiguous stimulus, uh, let's say it's a beige shape behind some bushes. We could make one of type one of two types of errors that roughly correspond to type one and type two errors in modern scientific research. We could look at this shape and say, oh my God, it's a lion when it's really just a beige rock.
Speaker 3 00:09:18 That would be a type one error, right? A false positive. Or we could say, ah, it's probably a beige rock when it's really a lion. Now we could make countless type one errors and still survive to talk about it and pass on our d n a one type two error thinking it's a rock when it's a lion. That's the end of our d n a line. So we developed this very, very strong bias in our thinking to remember the bad stuff and anticipate it happening. We might imagine that there were happy hominids back in the day, um, you know, holding hands and exchanging stories about dynamite sexual encounters and luscious pieces of fruit. Who, who didn't have this negativity bias, right? But they were not our ancestors. 'cause statistically they died before they got to reproduce. Our ancestors were the ones wandering in the, around the Savannah going, oh my God, it is a lion.
Speaker 3 00:10:09 Not one of those poisonous snakes, another cliff. Oh, that plant with the spines. Remember what happened to Uncle Tommy last time? You know, those were our ancestors because that is actually good for survival. But it is absolutely miserable for our wellbeing. And whether you start in through the, uh, doorway of biofeedback, or you start in through the doorway of mindfulness or other meditative practices, it doesn't take long to notice. Oh my God, my mind is constantly agitated. I'm constantly worrying about things. I'm constantly in a state of tension or constriction. What's this all about? Well, it's not that you're particularly crazy. Um, maybe I'm particularly crazy, but it's not that you're particularly crazy. It's that this is our evolutionary, um, gift, our evolutionary inheritance. This is simply how it is to be wired as a human being. And it sets us up for so many things, so many difficulties.
Speaker 3 00:11:11 Not just subjective discomfort, although that's a big one, but it robs us of creativity. It makes it hard to sleep. It interferes with our sex lives. It, it causes a whole host of disorders like chronic musculoskeletal, pain of every sort, from the neck down to the back, and the knees and shoulders and elbows, and, and, you know, and it causes, you know, eczema and other chronic skin disorders. It causes all sorts of gastrointestinal distress. I mean, this accident really sets us up for a lot of trouble. So it's not such a surprise that cultures worldwide tried to figure out a way to work with this. And one of the things I came up with was meditative practices, which actually work to step out of the thought stream a bit, so that the organism has a chance to return to a baseline a little bit closer to what other animals that don't think as well as we do experience most of the time, which is, you know, when your dog is lying there after eating, I, he's, or she's probably not worrying about, you know, you know, the, um, the 4 0 1 k and, you know, am I gonna have enough money to make it into retirement?
Speaker 3 00:12:22 Stuff like that. 'cause they, we, they, you know, other animals don't have this symbolic thought, gift and curse, right? So these meditative practices are designed to help us calm down. We can talk about the different ways that they do help us not to have every thought generate this. And another avenue is the whole world of biofeedback, of basically finding some indicator to show us when we're in one of these arousal states, when we're in our emergency response system, so that we can experiment with, gee, how do I get that indicator to calm down a little bit? And through trial and error, we learn how to do that in, in biofeedback systems. So biofeedback systems are, are in many ways a modern attempt to do what for thousands of years cultures have been trying to help people to do. Because whether it's four and a half million years ago or now, we've had this problem for a very long time.
Speaker 2 00:13:18 Amazing. So this is just, I, i, I, in my free time, like I, I love to, to read and study history. Uh, not an expert at all, but, but I wonder, like one of the questions I, I think with your knowledge, and I I I, I love the, the story. I, I use similar e examples to talk about that, that negative bias. Do, do you see in, in your study, um, of these ancient traditions? Oh, was there just a point where we hit like there was enough safety that we lived behind walls that we, that there was enough food around where we got to the point where we're like, okay, maybe this is not functional anymore. We, we need to breathe. Do have you found anything in your studies historically about, you know, and, and I know written history came probably after some of these traditions started, but do you have any insight to like, what made us, you know, stop long enough, um, from running away from that beige thing on the horizon to think, Hey, maybe we should develop, uh, techniques to over overcome and, and handle this anxiety?
Speaker 3 00:14:27 You know, it's, it's hard to know what the origins are of, of some of these practices. You know, there, there are clay figures. You, we've got, you know, written records of this going back two and a half thousand years, really, you know, in Buddhist traditions, there are clay figures found in the Indian subcontinent of people in full lotus posture that go back, you know, over 5,000 years. So it looks like they were doing this in yoga traditions, um, quite some time ago. Uh, but, you know, recorded history is not that long, right? You know, uh, our ancestors, you know, orthosis is like four and a half million years ago, and we're talking about 5,000 years ago, you know? Um, so I don't think we know. Um, there, you know, there's some speculation that meditative practices evolves cross-culturally in part, to aid in hunting that, um, humans weren't very good at running after prey.
Speaker 3 00:15:23 They were much better s hanging out quietly with a spear and waiting for prey to come near them. And if you could self-regulate so that you weren't spooked by all your thoughts, yeah. And you're able to actually just sit there and wait for the prey to come calmly and quietly, that would have an advantage in hunting. So there, there, you know, the speculation, um, about that, but I, I don't think it's an accident that virtually all of the world's cultures have, you know, some often religious or philosophical tradition. It's basically about how to calm oneself, you know, how, how to feel, how to be less reactive, um, uh, in this way. And, and I think it's just because of the accident of these, these two, uh, survival mechanisms, both of which are so powerful and so helpful. Um, the other thing is we still do need our fight or flight response, right?
Speaker 3 00:16:19 Yeah. If you step off the curb and there's a bus barreling down the road, it's, it's super helpful to be able to leap out of the way quickly. Um, it's just, it gets activated, um, nowadays, so often by symbolic threats, right? You know, I'm afraid I'm gonna be embarrassed. I'm afraid I won't do a good job in this podcast so that, you know, my heart starts beating more quickly. You know, we're afraid we're gonna get a bad performance review at work, or, or we're simply afraid that we're going to be uncomfortable. You know, uhoh, you know, the temperature's changing and I'm starting to get cold. Or, you know, uhoh, you know, I think I'm afraid somebody's gonna reject me, and I'm gonna feel sad. I mean, you know, this, this system, which originally was designed to help us respond in an emergency, um, to physical threat, is now activated by every conceivable symbolic threat.
Speaker 3 00:17:13 And, and many of those, many of those are actually threats to our self-image, right? We, we like defend our self-image with the same or even greater, uh, enthusiasm than we might, uh, defend our bodies against an assault. Um, and, uh, we can get into this, uh, my most recent, uh, main project has been, um, writing a book about how we are tortured by the self-evaluative thoughts. It's, um, we were just meant talking about before we started, uh, it's called, uh, the Extraordinary Gift of being Ordinary, finding happiness right where you are. And it's about all these symbolic threats to who we think we are, and all the striving we do to try to keep our self-esteem afloat, which keeps us terribly stressed out as well. And interestingly, almost all the world's, uh, religious and wisdom traditions have worn, Hmm, this isn't a great pathway to wellbeing, you know, trying to build yourself up, trying to have good self-esteem, trying to be a winner in, in, in whatever area. And yet, we all fall into it quite regularly.
Speaker 2 00:18:20 Uh, absolutely. Uh, so I, I wonder because I, I wish I could do this, uh, with my own journey around mindfulness, and basically my answer to this question would be just breathe, because that's what I probably needed. But I know you've been, you've been practicing mindfulness. I believe you threw out 17, uh, when you may have started this. I wonder what today's Ron would tell 17 year old Ron, with all the wisdom. Uh, now, now that you're a world class, like one of the, the go-to experts on, uh, the science and the practice of mindfulness. Um, I, if you're, if you're like me looking back, I just kind of laugh at that, uh, person back there trying to, to do this for the first time. I, I just sort of wonder what would you, uh, for that 17 year old Ron who may be some of our listeners right now, uh, just starting a practice, what, what would the wisdom that you've accumulated over the years, what would that conversation be like to, to give maybe some insight and instruction to your 17 year old self?
Speaker 3 00:19:22 It's a, it's an excellent question. Um, you know, the first thing that comes to mind is an experience that I have, um, with, uh, mindfulness retreats, whereas where, uh, a situation in which you decide to ramp up practice and, uh, spend a week or some period of time all day long doing variations of mindfulness practice. And I lead these retreats for therapists sometimes and sometimes for the general public. And I've participated in a lot of them. And when I was younger and I was participating in them, I was, uh, very taken by transformative states of mind by these moments in which, uh, thoughts actually kind of quieted down. And, uh, I was really tasting food and really noticing nature, and was so engaged in this way, and basically was getting kind of stoned on meditation practice. <laugh> was, was really sort of enjoying the altered state of high sensitivity.
Speaker 3 00:20:19 And I thought of that as a goal, and I would intensify the practice to try to get those states back. Hmm. And it took me a while to realize that, hmm, no, that's not exactly the goal. The goal of these practices is to really see how our minds make ourselves miserable, to really see the patterns of thinking, the patterns of reactivity that cause psychological suffering with the goal, not just of being humiliated, but <laugh>. But the goal also of, if we can see the patterns clearly enough, then maybe we can make different choices. Maybe we can actually change the way we relate to things. So that, for example, if I start to notice in my mindfulness practice that I'm constantly comparing myself to other meditators, and I'm convinced that they're able to follow their breath and they're able to stay focused, and I'm a basket case who can't do this at all.
Speaker 3 00:21:14 'cause my mind is, is, is a wild monkey jumping around, uh, from window to window in a chaotic house, uh, that realizing that, oh, you know, it's the propensity to be comparing myself to others all day long that's causing myself the misery. It's my getting addicted to wanting to be good at this, wanting to be better than others, to, to start to see the dynamics of the mind that are revealed in mindfulness practice. The more I could see that, the more, then when that would come up again, I'd have a little bit greater flexibility, a little bit more of a chance to realize, oh, God, there I go, comparing myself again. Oh, there goes the mind again, you know, worrying about in this case, you know, how am I doing? And self-esteem, that kind of thing. So it's, it. So I, I think the thing that I would wanna point out early on to the 17 year old self is it's not about getting high. It's not even about getting calm necessarily. Although that is one of the things that happens in the practices and is a benefit. It's about really gaining insight into our craziness, into how all day long we make ourselves miserable with various patterns that we're in. And, and it's okay to see them, even though it's upsetting, 'cause we can learn from them. And everything becomes grist for the mill of, of awakening, of becoming a little clearer, a little sane or, um, uh, a little bit less caught in patterns that are destructive to ourselves and others.
Speaker 2 00:22:47 Awesome. You know, you know, and I, I sort of, you know, wi with your, your most recent book, wi with the Extraordinary Gift of Being Ordinary, I, I, you know, I, you know, tell me, you know, after reading, I, I believe it was the, is it the mindfulness solution? Uh, as I say, you know, if you wanna take a masterclass in, uh, mindfulness without it being watered down, because I, I think a lot of times mindfulness is just a word that you've probably seen this in your career, just gets thrown around so much on so many things that, that, uh, I, I look in and recommend your book as sort of this masterclass that if you don't have a whole lot of expertise in this and you want to develop a lot of expertise in this, that, that, that's the, the, I think you do just a great job in that book.
Speaker 2 00:23:32 Uh, you know, helping folks, uh, go if they, if they're starting at zero, going to 60 and getting that knowledge, you know, so, so you've got all this and then looking at, uh, the gift of being ordinary. So I would love to hear, I always love to ask authors because I always usually find that there's insights along the way into a book journey that maybe you discover something, um, yourself along the way. And I just kind of, how'd you come to this topic? And were, were there any insights that, that you came away from, from this project with?
Speaker 3 00:24:05 Well, it's a great question, and you, you've actually, um, set up the context beautifully. 'cause, you know, I've been practicing mine from this since I was, you know, basically an adolescent Yeah. Been writing about it, studying about, I've also been a clinical psychologist, right. Working with patients. And, you know, some years ago I was in my own therapy for some time, and you would think that all of these enterprises would lead to either something like a coherent sense of stable self, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> or, or the mythical elixir of security, right? No longer being insecure, no longer caring about other people's judgments of me no longer caring about how, how my achievements were going or not. And there I was in my sixties, still hooked on all this stuff, <laugh> still having my, uh, you know, my appraisal of myself going up and down as a good friend of mine and of in's, uh, uh, Paul Fulton once put it.
Speaker 3 00:25:01 Yeah. He, he's also a, he, I mean, he's a, around my age and, uh, very wise and competent psychologist. And he once said to me, yeah, my sense of myself as a psychologist is about as good as the last session <laugh>, right? If it went well, I think, you know, I'm really good at this, you know, Hey, I'm a great psychologist. Look at all, all my experience, how it's come to fruition here. If it went poorly, you know, I should turn my attention to playing music, which he also does quite confidently, <laugh>. But, but that, you know, this is not my calling. And, you know, noticing the same thing for me about everything, whether it's how I did on a, you know, on a podcast, and not that I'm getting graded, but my own evaluation of this, how my last session went. You know, uh, how many people showed up at a workshop that I attended?
Speaker 3 00:25:45 You know, I'm going up and down, up and down thinking, what's up with this? So my first hypothesis was, well, I never got over being picked last for teams in elementary school, <laugh>, you know? Uh, and maybe, you know, I'm, I'm not saying that isn't a component, um, but my other hypothesis was, no, there's something more universal about this. 'cause I, as I looked over my caseload and I realized, gosh, everybody who I work with, and they're at all levels of, you know, external measurement of success, um, everybody's struggling with this, right? They're, everybody's trying to feel good about themselves. They're trying to get the next success. So as to rest for a few moments in the feeling of, I'm okay, or maybe I'm even better than, okay, I'm special. But, but basically to try to ward off the, oh, somehow I'm no good in one, in one area or another.
Speaker 3 00:26:37 It's not necessarily about professional achievement. Everybody gets hooked on different things. For one person, it's, um, you know, how popular I am. Do people like me, do, do people really know me who like me? Or do they just like an image of me for somebody else? It's about, you know, artistic ability and, you know, sense of style or taste for somebody else. It's about moral issues. Mm-hmm. You know, um, am I, uh, you know, am I a good person? Am I a good son or daughter or sibling or, or parent or, or husband or wife for, you know, among meditators, this gets really simple, you know, really silly, uh, in a way among meditators. It's like, you know, who's less concerned with ego. Yeah. You know, who's, who's less self-focused and concerned with self-esteem issues, you know, I mean, you know, which is absurd. It's just, you know, taking the same energy and, and, you know, applying it to becoming free from these things.
Speaker 3 00:27:36 So it was really my, my realization that I'm still caught in this, that got me interested in are there reliable pathways out of this? And, you know, what do we know from evolutionary psychology? What do we know, uh, from clinical work? What do we know from contemplative practices? You know, how can we free ourselves? So, frankly, it was a bit of a self-treatment book. The whole project. At, at one point, I, I sent a, an email to, um, to my editor, and I said, I have good news and bad news. The good news is, you know, this work on this book is really productive. I'm really feeling somewhat less self preoccupied, somewhat less, you know, concerned with, um, with keeping my self-esteem afloat. The bad news is I don't need to finish the book. Who needs another book? <laugh>. She thought I was serious. You know, I mean, I was a little serious.
Speaker 3 00:28:27 She thought I was serious here. She said, no, no, this topic is useful. It really is. You know, uh, don't, don't abandon the book. And I didn't abandon the book, but there was some truth to it also, you know, that, that this is a, you know, this is part of our motivation for so many things. And, uh, so that was actually the, the inspiration. It was like, how come the mindfulness practices haven't quite worked for me enough in this, in this particular arena? Um, and as I looked around, how come, you know, gosh, we all get hooked in this because, you know, we're like fish and water. The society gives us so many messages suggesting if only you could be more successful, fill in the blank in terms of the, the realm, you would be happier. And it's in part because we are for a few minutes, right? Like when we, um, let's say you feel this podcast goes well, and I feel it goes well, well, we're gonna leave this podcast feeling better about ourselves for a few minutes, right? <laugh> until, until the next thing comes along. And we feel like, oh my God, I just did a terrible job at this, or my kids yelling, or on and on and on. Um,
Speaker 4 00:29:35 Awesome. That is, that is such, that is such a good point. Uh, and I think so incredibly important. I I can't wait to, to read this book and, you know, give copies to everybody around me. Um, you know, with, uh, you know, even with biofeedback, we, we see this, you know, all the time when I'm working with, you know, super competitive people, you know, athletes, elite, military, you know, high level, uh, executives, you know, they, there is a competition, you know, you know, is my H I v higher than all the other people <laugh>? Or, you know, is my H R V higher than my teammates? Or, you know, how, how do I compare? You know, that's, uh, uh, you know, a very, one of the most common questions I probably get is, you know, how do I do better than some you than someone else? Absolutely. Um,
Speaker 3 00:30:17 Look, I'm a, I, I, I'm a psychologist, a meditator. I wrote this book, and my first response to checking out my H R V is, what are the norms and how do I fit <laugh>? Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:30:29 That's right.
Speaker 4 00:30:30 Absolutely. And those norms are conveniently there, right? So you can use them to value, to judge yourself. Um, but yeah. And that yeah. Uh, to connect with your, you know, previous point that the symbolic, you know, danger has become so much more prevalent than the physical danger, you know, that, uh, the statistic that floats around, that there is a lot more people are concerned, you know, and are afraid of public speaking than there are people who are afraid of death. Right? So, you know, at our funeral, you know, as, uh, Jerry Seinfeld quips, you know, at a funeral, people would rather be the ones in the, in the casket than the ones giving the eulogy <laugh>. There's, there's something very upside down on that one. That's
Speaker 3 00:31:07 True. That's true. I mean, I, I, I think, you know, in, in fairness to the diversity of the world, there, there are people who are in situations where it really is dangerous mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, you know, where survival really is an immediate issue. Yeah. But, you know, in the developed world, um, that's not most of the population, most of the time. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 00:31:28 <affirmative>. So I, you know, I'm really fascinated with, and, and I think Ana's work, like around flare, uh, really is helps me, gives me a really good tangible tool about mindfulness, both as a practice and a skillset. And, and I, I would, I don't know if I even know how to frame the question, right, but I, I've started to compare it to, uh, growing up playing basketball. Uh, you know, we practiced free throws a lot. And, uh, to me, to this day as a fan, free throws are the most boring part of basketball. Unless you're like, in the last couple minutes of the game. I don't even know why we do 'em anymore. It's just like, shoot it from where you're at. If you make it, then let's keep the game going. Uh, you know, and, and, but I practice free throws because I, I, I'll be honest, I never get really excited for my morning mindfulness practice.
Speaker 2 00:32:18 I'm always glad I did it, but I'm not like, oh, I cannot wait to wake up and do mindfulness, and maybe I need to get there, my own journey. But, you know, it, it's building also what I found this set of skills. So while my daily mindfulness practice might be practicing free throws, I do that to carry this set of skills with me into the game when things get stressful. And again, ADA's work with, with flare. And, and really, I think any sort of structure to think about those skills, I, I'd love to ask you sort of, you know, do, do you, again, trying to prevent people from just throwing mindfulness on top of everything they do, like, 'cause, because I think we lose something, uh, if we just totally water it down. I wonder, thinking about mindfulness as a skillset, I, I'd just love to kind of throw that out there to, to sort of get your thinking and insight. Um, obviously the practice is important, but do you see it going beyond that a as a set of skills people can use tangibly throughout their day?
Speaker 3 00:33:21 Uh, yeah. No, absolutely. I, I mean, I, I, you know, I, I, I think your, your experience of, gosh, I don't feel like sitting down and doing it, but I feel better after I've done it. Uh, there's an an and i analog there to a lot of forms of physical exercise, right? Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know that, Hmm. Do you feel like getting up and going into a cold swimming pool or going to the gym as opposed to going to the fridge much of the time? No. The fridge is more appealing than the gym, right? <laugh>, uh, uh, however, we have this repeated experience that when I do go to the gym right afterwards, I feel better. And then, you know, it's kind of nice that when I'm crossing the street and the car's coming, I can run across the street and I have the energy, and I can go up the stairs and I can lift things, and I can bend and I feel awake and alert and, you know, so we notice all these benefits from it.
Speaker 3 00:34:12 Mindfulness practice is a lot like that. You know, the actual practice of meditation can be a mixed bag, because invariably, when we're going through our day, we're distracting ourselves from hundreds and hundreds of painful experiences. I would say for me, more than 50% are actually in this self-esteem regulation area. You know, that they, they have something to do with either, you know, feeling afraid of something or not so good about myself or something like that. But those are kind of painful experiences. So they get, get pushed out of awareness, or we have, uh, you know, a frustration or an interaction with somebody that goes poorly painful. We'll push that out of our awareness. Yeah. When we sit down to meditate, everything we've pushed out of awareness comes back as, as one of my patients put it quite aptly. When we bury feelings, we bury them alive.
Speaker 3 00:35:02 Right? And, uh, and other patients said, and the hole's never deep enough, um, that, you know, this is our reality. We either stay agitated, stressed, and distracted, or if we do allow ourselves to have open space through formal mindfulness practice, or even for that matter, you know, taking a walk in the woods, all these things are gonna come back into awareness. And the things that we can come back are often going to be painful. So we're sort of deciding we're gonna open ourselves to some discomfort for the goal of not being stressed all the time, and being able to integrate these and being able to increasingly have the courage to feel pain as well as pleasure, those skills, the ability to feel pain as well as pleasure, and not to be always in fight or flight. Uh, those are enormously helpful skills to bring into everything else in our life.
Speaker 3 00:35:54 But the process of getting there, yeah, it's, it's, it's hard. The same way going to the gym. Yeah. It's hard. Um, you know, especially if we feel tired, even though afterwards we may feel more energized, um, it's, it's hard. It's hard to get ourselves, uh, to do this. I, I will say that there's, um, you know, coming back to sort of mindfulness and biofeedback, you know, what they both have in common is finding a way to relax a bit our, um, emergency response system, the, the sympathetic nervous system being, being aroused. And, uh, we might have, so what, you know, what's the benefit of that? Well, one is of course, to not ruin the body with all the stress related disorders, but there are others. Um, there's a discussion in, in neurobiology, the, these days between, uh, the distinction between panoramic and focused vision. And panoramic vision is kind of the way we literally look at the world when we're not under threat.
Speaker 3 00:36:56 We're taking a walk, and we notice the birds and the, you know, especially if we're on a, you know, a, a path that's clear. You know, we notice the birds, we notice the trees, we notice the play of light. We allow ideas to come in and out. Focus vision is, did I hear a gunshot? Is there a hunter? Yeah. Here, you know, in which we're, we're just focused on the threat. When we're in fight or fly, fight, freeze, flight, we're very much focused in our vision. You know, we're, we're, we're narrowly paying attention to the threat. The same thing's true when we're in a drive state of hunger or thst or even sexual interest, where, you know, we're focused on the thing that's going to satisfy, uh, the desire. And in those states, I mean, they're useful states. They have, they have their place in life.
Speaker 3 00:37:42 But if we're chronically in those states, we never have the access to creativity. Really, that comes from having a more relaxed perspective, taking this, this kind of panoramic, um, vision. So one of the things about, uh, trait mindfulness, in other words, having it be in our nature to be more mindful, is we have, we have more moments that are like this. You know, my friend, um, and colleague, uh, Judd Brewer who runs the research arm of, um, contemplative practices at Brown University, uh, nowadays, um, Judd talks about just noticing when our general body posture is one of constriction and tightness versus openness and receptivity. And yeah, when we're in sympathetic arousal, it's like this, when there's more parasympathetic activity, it's more like this. And it's a sort of, um, very accessible biofeedback, if you will, that we can do by just watching our bodies. Of course, this gets, um, uh, amplified and sensitized if we use actual, um, biofeedback device devices that either look at muscle tension or look at heart rate variability or, or look at one of these variables to give us, um, the feedback.
Speaker 3 00:39:00 Something else I'd like to say about this trait, mindfulness is this whole art of learning how to be with discomfort. Yeah. Because when we're sitting in meditating and discomfort comes up, and it could be an itch or an ache, or it could be a wave of sadness or a wave of shame, or a wave of an emotion, we increasingly start to relate to both the emotional and the physical as moment to moment sensations, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, because discomfort is ultimately a moment to moment sensation. Um, if I maybe do this as an exercise, 'cause I think it's an important illustration. Um, if you're not in a car and you're watching this, just, you know, you're not driving. Just close your eyes for a moment and take a breath or two and generate a little bit of sadness. Not the saddest thing ever, but just a little bit of sadness. And notice where you feel it in your body, and even put your hand over the part of your body where you feel the sadness, just to feel it as a bodily sensation. And notice, oh yeah, sadness. Sadness is a bodily sensation, isn't it?
Speaker 3 00:40:08 And then generate a little bit of anxiety or fear, again, not the worst thing ever, but just a little bit of anxiety or fear, and notice where that is in the body and, and put your hand over that area and feel that sensation. And then try anger. A little bit of annoyance again, not the worst thing ever. If you're a really nice person and you never get angry, just think of somebody of what somebody in the other political party said, whoever that might be for you, you'll get angry and feel the anger. And just notice where that is in the body. Maybe put your hand over that.
Speaker 3 00:40:56 And just to include pleasant things. Now, generate a little bit of joy, something that brings you happiness. And notice that as a bodily sensation, and put your hand over the area where you feel the joy, and you can open your eyes. Again, and I don't know if this is your experience, but my experience is, gosh, all of these emotions, they're, they have a somatic signature right there. There's a sensation in the body where I feel this one things we do with mindfulness practice is we practice just staying with it, just feeling it that way. And as we do, we, our capacity to be with the feeling increases. And this becomes enormously useful, um, for living a life. Because if you think of what you're afraid of, for example, most of what we're afraid of, we're afraid something's gonna bring up an upsetting feeling. Something bad's gonna happen, and I'm gonna feel upset, you know?
Speaker 3 00:41:59 And so we go into fight or flight outta fear of that happening. Well, if we get more and more accustomed to being able to be with our sadness, or fear, or anger or joy, or sexual interest, whatever it is, if we're able to allow all these different experiences to arise and pass, we're gonna spend a lot less time being afraid of it. Freud who, you know, obviously he was, um, he reflected his times, but he, he said something that was very interesting. He said, A lot of our anxiety is signal anxiety. We're afraid of some feeling that's gonna come up. We're afraid of some memory that's gonna come up, something we've pushed out, awareness. We're afraid it's gonna flood into consciousness, and we're gonna get upset by that. Just noticing that brings an awful lot of, of freedom. So, so there's, there's that level where mindfulness is a trait, winds up, um, helping us out.
Speaker 3 00:42:53 It also helps us out, simply practicing, coming back to the present moment. Take a moment to think about something that frightens you shouldn't take long. Got it. Okay. Whatever that is, is it the past, the present or the future? And you'll probably notice that you're afraid of something in the future. Sometimes people say, no, no, no. I'm really frightened about something that happened this morning. But on closer analysis, it's, I'm afraid I'll be incarcerated this evening for what I did this morning is more the problem than this morning. 'cause the morning's passed. It's like, what are the future consequences gonna be? So the fact that mind in mindfulness practice, we're constantly bringing our attention back to the present, back to the present, back to the present. We actually discover that we can take refuge in the present, and that the present is actually safe, even though the future is terribly uncertain.
Speaker 3 00:43:46 Again, exceptions, if we're actually, if somebody's attacking us, if we're really running outta food, okay? But if we're in a reasonably safe circumstance, the present is safe. It's these fantasies of the future that's the problem. And finally, and this loops back to the, um, the extraordinary gift of being ordinary and, and the need to work with our self appraisals and our addiction to, to trying to feel good about ourselves. Um, when you think of the thing that made you anxious, I, I don't know how many of our listeners were thinking of global climate change being the problem. Now, global climate change arguably is a big problem. Yeah. But that's not usually the first thing that comes to our mind, right? The first thing that comes to our mind is something happening to me, or my loved ones, right? <laugh>, you know, some, something much closer in.
Speaker 3 00:44:37 So if we can gradually, gradually shift our focus from what does this mean about me mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and what does this mean for me to a little bit of a broader perspective of really looking at the, you know, the good for all and the planet and the world, you know, a little bit broader perspective, and to actually experience ourselves as part of this larger world, rather than experiencing ourselves as an isolated separate me. Mm-hmm. Um, that's gonna, that's gonna help a lot. And interestingly, all the traditions that evolved, mindfulness practice, they were always in a, what we might call a spiritual or religious context. It was about identifying with something larger than yourself, because our fight or flight gets activated when it's about me. When we have a broader view where lesson, fight or flight. So there are, there are all these different ways that mindfulness practices actually work to shift our relationship to our life and shift our relationship to our world. And they do the process of helping to not be so reactive, not to be in this, this sympathetic reactivity so much. Um, not purely through focusing on relaxing, but rather shifting our relationship to life so that we don't experience life as so threatening anymore. Um, amazing.
Speaker 4 00:46:01 That, uh, that makes, makes so much sense. Um, and, you know, bringing, you know, heart ability, um, you know, into this, again, kind of from that, from that other end, um, you know, when we are, um, able to increase our heart triability in the moment, or we're trained to increase our heart, heart durability over time, uh, it increases that, uh, sense of safety. And then there is less need to be focused on what does this mean for me? Then we're able to, you know, open up to what does this mean for the world and, you know, for the greater good, uh, et cetera. So, you know, when we combine, uh, you know, mindfulness and h i v practice, uh, together, you know, it probably, uh, you know, optimizes, uh, the, that internal state of, uh, uh, being able to disengage from, you know, me, me, me, um, and, uh, being able to open up to, to the world.
Speaker 3 00:46:50 Yeah. So very, very interesting. You know, there's very interesting observation about people who've experienced trauma that relates to what you just said. You know? Um, a lot of times people who've experienced trauma find themselves, you know, triggered by innocuous stimuli. They're, they're innocuous on the surface, but because of the, the person's association based on something bad that happened, it connects to a memory, and suddenly they find themselves in full flow, full-blown fight, freeze flight response. Um, the interesting thing that happens when our body is aroused that way, we secondarily interpret it as, I must be in danger. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, in other words, we, so we, we actually, William James wrote about this, you know, the, the so-called father of American psychology around 1900. We said that, well, actually what happens is we experience this arousal state and we draw conclusions about the state of the world or the state of our condition in the world based on the arousal state. So if we're hyped up, I must be in danger. And then it, it, our minds, um, our minds go down the path of thinking about everything that could go wrong and all that. But when we are calmer, our minds do that less so. So it is interesting how, um, you know, how we can approach this from different angles. If we learn simply how to calm ourselves more, our minds are gonna spin less in this way. Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:48:10 Absolutely. Well, well, I know we're, we're getting close to time here, so I, I could not leave without asking this question. Uh oh. And I'm so glad I'm in the position to do this. What does your mindfulness practice look like? So, so what, what does the day of, uh, Ron Siegel look like as far as where you've evolved your, your practice to be?
Speaker 3 00:48:33 It's very variable to, uh, to tell you the truth, it, it, it really depends on the week and on the month. I go through different phases. Uh, with this, um, I will say it's enough of my life, so that whenever I'm in any kind of open space, in other words, where there isn't some focus, goal-oriented task that I have to, uh, pay attention to, I'm bringing my attention back to sensory reality. So that, for example, we had a, a big snowstorm here. This is January, it's New England. And, uh, I was out cross country skiing. And, you know, the mind goes in all different directions, all sorts of thoughts. But moment by moment, I'm cross country skiing. I'm trying to bring the attention back to the sensations of the legs, moving, looking at the trees, taking a breath, that kind of thing. Um, and that's, that's somewhere in the interfa, uh, the intersection between, um, formal practice and informal practice.
Speaker 3 00:49:25 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, because, um, I really am focusing on trying to be present, and yet I'm also doing something else. I'm cross country skiing, if you'll, um, so that, that is the most universal part. Um, the other universal parts that I think of is, no matter what I'm doing in terms of rhythm of formal practice, um, when I go to bed at night, I'm meditating. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I, you know, I'm lying there, I'm following the breath and seeing what happens. Uh, with that as to my structured formal practice, it varies a lot. You know, when, when my plate is full, it dwindles a lot and I'm not doing a lot of it. When my plate is emptier and I'm on vacation and I have open space, you know, it becomes much more regular. You know, it's, uh, um, maybe 45 minutes of sitting at a time, um, doing that.
Speaker 3 00:50:13 Luckily for my work, I get to teach people mindfulness practice. So I have a lot of opportunities. Um, just came back from, uh, leading a retreat for a week in Costa Rica, where, you know, many hours of the day we're doing some form of mindfulness practice. And after a while of having done this, I can be leading the group, and I'm pretty much, it's, it's not that different from just practicing on my own. Yeah. In other words, the, the, the, how to speak out loud, the instructions is sufficiently, uh, well practiced that I'm mostly meditating and also guiding the group at, at the same time. So, um, so I consider myself, you know, blessed and privileged that I get to have my work often be Yeah. The practice. But the actual rhythm is, it's, it's really quite variable. And, and, and I share that partly just to be honest, and partly to encourage people that if you find your practice waxing and waning, that's okay. Just keep coming back to it. Um, again, the whole realm of self-judgment and oh, I'm a horrible meditator, and, uh, you know, that, that tends to get in the way of optimizing the experience. It doesn't add a lot. We don't, we don't, we don't do well by beating ourselves up for, for failing. We do much better by saying it's okay. Everybody has, you know, waxed and wanes. But one of the things I notice is when I'm meditating more, I'm sane. Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:51:36 Absolutely.
Speaker 3 00:51:36 I didnt say I'm sane, but I'm definitely sane, you know, than I am when I'm not. And, and it's like, so, so sometimes it's like, you know, I have to wait till I'm really crazy. You know, we're seeing myself as being quite reactive or having trouble sleeping or something. It's like, all right, Ryan, you gotta go back to it. You know? Yeah. Um, uh, the same way, you know, one could fall off the exercise wagon and realize, gosh, I got winded going up the stairs. I gotta go back to the gym. <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:52:05 Well, and I think it's just great to hear you, you ebb and flow a as well, because like I said, my motivation, I, I've been pretty steady now for about 15 years, but before that is like, you know, and I was beating myself up because I was bad at mindfulness, like, you know, which is sort of ridiculous, but that was the mindset that I was in. And I think a lot of people get there. I think I, I saw a nugget of research, and if it's wrong, I'd rather not share this, but it's like almost being bad at mindfulness early on in practice where you catch your mind wondering and bring it back to focus actually may have showed some neurobiological, uh, advantages. So, so when I learned being bad was being good, like I needed that cognitive just nugget to say, oh, okay, so I can really stink at this and still get benefits. And
Speaker 3 00:52:54 It, you know, to, to loop back to the title of the book, anything that can help us Yes. To feel okay about ourselves as an ordinary human being, stumbling through life is going to be a good thing. Um, you know, uh, I mean, ina and I are, uh, um, and Matt, you as well, you're a clinician, right? So, you know, you, um, you know, most of our clients are patients. They come into treatment secretly wishing for a whole new personality. Oh, it would be such a relief if I didn't have to be Ron anymore, if I could be like those other people who are good or sane or, or, or like this. And if treatment goes really well, what happens is when people are ready to end, they're very much who they were at the beginning. Only they've made friends with that person, and they're okay with being the particular constellation of genes and environmental history.
Speaker 3 00:53:46 That is them. Yeah. And they even experience themselves as lovable with all the quirks and craziness. And that's, you know, that's what we're inching toward here. We're, you know, we're, we're really inching toward, um, can we, you know, can we appreciate Yeah, yeah. I've heard it expressed recently. I, I find this really helpful in clinical work, you know, to change the conversation from what's wrong with me, to what happened to me that formed this being the way this being is here. Um, 'cause of course, we all come to who we are quite naturally, um, by genes and by everything we experience in our lives, and to the extent to which we can be friendly in our relationship toward the organism that we happen to be, uh, that that's what we're trying to do. And, and, you know, by feedback and, you know, as part of self-improvement in a sense, but, you know, that self-improvement, you know, I think needs to happen in the context. I once heard a, a zen master paraphrased as saying, um, you are perfect just the way you are. And there's room for improvement, <laugh>, <laugh>, and, and, and it, it's kind of holding those two together, you know, lightly enough. So yeah, we can keep working on stuff and we can do it with, in a general context of, of loving acceptance.
Speaker 2 00:55:08 I love it. I, I think that's a great way to start to wrap up. Uh, so, so let me, let me make sure I get all this right. The extraordinary gift of being ordinary, it looks like it's on pre-order right now, so I was like, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 00:55:20 Wait, wait, why
Speaker 2 00:55:20 Do I have this one? Yeah, it's so, well,
Speaker 3 00:55:22 I dunno, when the, I don't know when the podcast is going to, um, come out exactly, but the, the, it's, it's available on Kindle at the moment, in the print copy as of January 31st, 2000, uh, uh, 2022. Um, but my understanding is that print copies are gonna be available within a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2 00:55:40 Awesome. And, and I, I plugged the mindfulness solution as my, my recommendation to, to folks that wanna, like I said, I I, the words I use as a masterclass, um, in understanding mindfulness and, and really applying it, uh, a as well. But, but I wanna let, let me ask you a question. I don't wanna put, uh, my conclusion of your work, uh, as forefront. So, uh, let's say, let, let me ask you two questions. One, what if I'm new to this, uh, mindfulness thing, what, which of Ron's books should I pick up? And like I said, I I, I answered, for me it was mindfulness solution, maybe a more advanced practitioner. Uh, besides the new book coming out, which it sounds like we all need, uh, where, where would you recommend in, in your work that tho those two groups might, might start?
Speaker 3 00:56:30 Yeah. I, I think for most people the mindfulness solution, everyday practices for everyday problems is, um, is a good place to start. I mean, basically the first half of the book sets up mm-hmm. <affirmative>, why mindfulness practice and how you Get one started, how, how you build it into your life. And the second half of the book is all about how we would use these practices to work with everyday problems, anxiety, depression, um, interpersonal challenges, the, you know, the challenges of aging, um, stress related medical disorders. It really goes through, um, a wide range of difficulties that we run into living a life and how, how we might use mindfulness practices for that. And it's written for the general public, although it's also used by clinicians. Yeah. Um, because it does talk about these different problems and, and, and how you might deal with them.
Speaker 3 00:57:21 Whereas the, the latter book is, uh, it has, mindfulness is one of the tools that are, that's in it for sure, because we wanna really catch ourselves in the act of this constant social comparison and really see how, how we get caught in it. And we wanna use the mindfulness practices to be able to heal the past hurts. 'cause when we've got injuries, whether it's being picked last in teams in elementary school, or perhaps more profound injuries, um, unless we can heal those past injuries, then everything new now that reminds us of it is gonna get us going. So that, I mean, for example, um, you know, if a person experienced, uh, you know, a, a lot of rejection in their family of origin, well, of course they go through the world, you know, hungering for acceptance and fearing rejection. And we have to be able to go back and feel and heal, um, the past hurts in order to free ourselves now to not be so, so stuck on self-evaluation and not to, not to have our thermostats so much on the outside of the room where other people can control our feelings about ourselves by, you know, tone of voice or, or what, what happens.
Speaker 3 00:58:30 So mindfulness practice plays a role, uh, there as well, but in, in this more focused project of, you know, is there a way I can get outta my own way and maybe be at peace more and more connected to others and more engaged in, in life rather than worrying so much about how I'm doing?
Speaker 2 00:58:50 Awesome. Well, uh, you can go to dr ron siegel.com, uh, to, to find all this. We'll put, uh, Ron's bio with a lot of links in the show notes as well, so that, that will, uh, take you to his work. And Ron, I just wanna, I wanna thank you one as a fan. Thank you for all the work that, that you've done. Um, like I said, you, you've been a teacher for me for, for years, uh, especially around the intersection of mindfulness and trauma. And, uh, I just appreciate your work. Um, and, and just an open invitation. If you can think of anything you'd like to talk to Ina and I about, uh, we would love to have you back on as a guest. This has been quite an honor for me, uh, both, both, uh, professionally and personally to, to have this, uh, uh, time with you.
Speaker 3 00:59:35 Well, thank you. It's, it's, it's been a delight. You've asked thoughtful questions ina you've made really useful, uh, insightful, um, contributions and, uh, I appreciate having the time with you both.
Speaker 2 00:59:47 Awesome. Thank you very much, Ron. Thanks so much. It was a really delightful hour. Yep. And thanks everybody for joining us. Again, optimal h hrv.com, um, or the heart rate variability podcast.com. You can find all the show notes. Um, and please, we'd love any questions or feedbacks too. So thank you and thank you Ron and Ina for joining us.
