June 6, 2019 • 46 mins
Chelsea is joined by her psychiatrist for an open discussion on her experience with therapy.
Credits:
Host: Chelsea Handler
Guests: Dr. Dan Siegel & Brandon Marlo
Executive Producer: Conal Byrne
Producers: Sophie Lichterman, Jack O’Brien
Writers: Jamie Loftus, Anna Hossnieh & Sophie Lichterman
Consulting Producers: Nick Stumpf, Miles Gray, & Anna Hossnieh
This episode was Engineered, Mixed & Edited by: Danl Goodman
Music by: Kingsbury
Order: "Life Will Be the Death of Me"
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi. I'm Chelsea Handler. Welcome to Life Will Be the
Death of Me, a production of I Heart Radio. I'm
sitting here with my psychiatrist Dan and my assistant Brandon,
because Brandon and I are attached at the hip and
hips and I wanted to bring Dan onto UM reminisce
about my therapy and how we met, which was on
(00:21):
my Netflix talk show Anyway. Hello, Dan, thank you for coming. Hi.
Good to be here. Hi. Hello Brandon. It's nice to
see you again after seeing you at my house this
morning earlier. Um, So, Dan, I met you when I
interviewed you around brain development, childhood, adolescent brain development, right,
it was more focused on that. It was focused on
that in a school we were in, like a school
(00:42):
whole way, Yes, yes, I remember that somewhere, yes, Um.
And you were talking to me about the brain, and
as I talked about in my book, you talked about
the brain in a very kind of literal sense, in
a in a kind of scientific way that was very
um easy for me to wrap my head around. I
(01:02):
was interested in that. And then I think when we met,
I did ask you a couple of questions about drinking
and about drug use, and you kind of said to me,
do you want to I think you said, would you
like to talk about your drinking that? Well, yeah, I
mean there are questions that were coming up that were um,
clearly you wanted to know more than just the show
(01:23):
was addressing. So I actually, UM, was just asking you
if you wanted to talk more about that, you know,
the impact of drugs on the brain. Yeah, yeah, you
seemed interested. Yes, I'm always interested in the subject of drugs.
And then yes, I mean obviously I was asking for
a friend, So a friend who lives very close to
(01:44):
your body. Yes, that one. Um. So then we went
rand and you didn't find it because I didn't go
to therapy right after the election. I I interviewed Dan
for my show, and then months later, I believe a
couple of months later, I asked you to reach out
to him an appointment and set an appointment. So that
was sometime in two thousand. Okay, So, um, let's talk
(02:06):
about our therapy. Okay. I know you don't feel comfortable
talking about this, so I have to constantly give you
permission to talk about my therapy because it's out. The
secret is out. Yes, So that's a great place to start,
because you know, usually um or I would say always
as a therapist, you know, I don't speak about the
therapy with anyone but the therapist in the setting of therapy,
(02:28):
and so you know, as a professional, I'm a psychiatrist.
Um it's good to know, extremely unusual to be in
this situation where you know, number one, you wrote a
book about our our relationship in the therapeutic experience and
it's been incredibly inspiring for people. So that was an
(02:48):
incredible gift. And then there have been now moments where
because it's public, people will ask you about it. And
we spoke one conference together where you know, uh, you
you brought up that I was the your therapist and
I had just given the keynote presentation right before yours,
and then we were on the stage together for a
Q and A, and people seem to really respond to that.
(03:10):
So you know, from the professional point of view, this
is extremely unusual. But because it's your idea that you
came up with it, and I actually think it can
do good in the world, then I'm open to really
thinking deeply about doing this, even though it's not the
usual thing that is done of a therapist and a
(03:31):
client a patient. You know, the person working with them.
Has this been a pain in the asked for you
at all? Me writing a book about us, not even
one moment. Well that's great news because the response I
got from the book was and the responses I got
on my on social media and all the mess direct
messages from all these strangers about all their experiences of
(03:51):
death and loss and grief has been so moving and
it was so unexpected. I mean, maybe it wasn't unexpected,
but I didn't really I thought I was telling my
own story and I didn't realize I was telling a
lot of people's stories, right, And I think that's you know,
And I've said this to you because I think your
work is really incredible gift. I'm sorry if you can
(04:11):
hold onto these compliments. I really think it's an incredible gift.
First of all, that you're willing to be so open
about what I think is a very courageous journey that
you've been on in therapy, and from you know, what
people are giving you feedback about it's inspiring them. And
we saw it at the conference Wisdom to Point Oh
(04:32):
that people would get to the microphone and say, you
are inspiring me to look deeply into myself and find
the parts of myself that have been blocked and I
want to get help, you know, in in therapy. And
so when you can do that to actually take people
have been you know, not moving forward and feeling like
I don't know what I'm gonna do with in my life.
And because your book is so clear and it's funny,
(04:55):
and it's really articulate and in so many ways brilliant,
you know you're able to the show people. You know,
this isn't magic. This is something you can do if
you've had a loss or trauma, that you can actually
seek professional support, do the reflective work in therapy, see
the benefits for example of meditation, and you know, as
you say in the book, turn your head around. And
(05:17):
so that's an incredible gift, and to me, it's all positive.
The biggest gift I think is learning how to sit
still with my feelings and in a moment when I
want to be reactive about breathing, like Brandon has seen me,
you know, freak out a lot over really stupid things,
like you know, if because I'm always rushing around and
like dropping things, and I freak out and you know,
(05:37):
and then I like lose my temper and I'm just
mad at myself because of my like helpless little girl feeling.
So now when things like that happen, the way I
moved through the world and like through my house is
just slow, Like I just take my time and like
think about what I'm doing, even if it's minutia and mundane.
All of the mundane nous in life I pay much
more attention to so that I'm not um rushing blasting
(06:00):
through it. The part that I didn't write in the book,
which is which is the part that's been happening since
I finished the book, is the my meditation. Really, like
I've learned how to meditate. I mean, I'm sure I'm
not there yet, but I'm getting close to like really
clicking in with that. Because you forced me to do
it for three months, Yes, I forced you did, And
I said I didn't want to do it for three
(06:21):
months because that sounded like a pregnancy, and then he
reminded me that pregnancies are longer than three months. And
then I did it for three months. And now it's
been like six or eight months. And I started at
Christmas last year. So where's Brandon? We whip up that calculation?
Six months okay, thanks, um, so I and now I
(06:41):
do it every day, and if I don't do it,
I feel off. Like I texted Brandon yesterday saying, remind
me to meditate because I got up and had to
rush off to something. So, um, it's definitely helpful. I
know that I have a long way to go though. Um.
But what I didn't get to address in the book,
which was all about our therapy and you pointing to
me where my kind of trapped pain us and my
un earth you know, trauma, so to speak, and all
(07:04):
the stuff that I was not being honest with myself
about or not tending to myself about, and my brother dying,
my mother dying, my father kind of dying after my
brother died, all of those things. So that was our
like journey, I have to say, because that's the only
word applicable to this, which is such an annoying word
to me. Whenever I would use it, you'd get really
a journey. It just sounds so corny. You could take
(07:26):
it back because a lot of people use it. Well,
I'm going to take I tak back to Orange, so
I might take back journey to Okay, But I don't
know how to Okay, let me think about taking that back.
What I haven't really addressed well because it didn't happen
until after the book was the real kind of um
presence of mind and consciousness that we've we talked about
a lot during therapy, but didn't click for me until
I started meditating, and until I started paying attention to
(07:48):
all the little things, and then I started to go, Okay,
this is what's like. Being mindful is and consciousness and
paying attention, not rushing and having exchanges with people and
breathing all day long, like checking in and going okay,
stop breathe, be in this conversation, noticing when your thoughts
go away from what you're focusing on. And my attention
(08:11):
is so much greater than it was when I met you,
when I thought I had a d D. What does
that feel like with the change? Now? Calm? And then
what's that feel like? Mature? Mature? I feel like like
a woman, like not a woman. I mean yeah, I
mean I feel more mature than I've ever felt. Like
you're the adult here, so and then now I'm acting
(08:32):
like one. So so literally, when you say calm and
when you say that you're mature, can you share with us.
What does it actually feel like? Because you're saying that,
you know, two years ago, before we started the work,
it was one way of being and then something happened.
We can talk about what actually happened. But now there's
(08:53):
a different experience of being on the planet that you have, Yeah,
say more about what that feels. It's like everything's much brighter,
like the trees and the leaves, and like being outside
is is much more vibrant. I feel like, uh elevated,
but not in an arrogant way. I feel like calm.
(09:13):
I appreciate everyone a lot more. I think when I
started seeing you after the election, I had lost my
faith in everything and now and everybody, Like I thought
everybody was unreliable, nobody could we could count on. And
then now I feel like I have faith in everybody,
Like even in people I don't like or are drawn to,
I kind of can see, Oh, everyone has goodness. People
(09:36):
who do bad things aren't necessarily bad people. They're lost,
like I realized I was lost, and so like getting
back on the track I think is I think I
see everything. I could go outside and sit on my
balcony like I did this morning, in silence, without music,
without news, without TV, and just think about my day.
(09:57):
And also, this is what's so important, is like rough alection,
like the time to think, the time you allow yourself
to think about the things you've done and the things
you're going to do is so underrated and undervalued, or
was with regard to my own you know, my own self,
So it's much more calm. What wran, Why don't you
chimm in right now? And excuse me for my voice.
(10:17):
I lost it because I've been talking about myself for
so many weeks in a row. I definitely think that
there was almost an instantaneous change from her sessions with
you coming home. It was immediately much like softer, more
thoughtful in her response time um and I guess that
was the biggest immediate change. And then over the last
year we've seen how she applies that in other ways.
(10:40):
So it wouldn't just be with me, to be with
other people in the house or her friends, or when
we're out places. We've gone on trips together, and I
see her being thoughtful about how she's going to respond
in the time she's going to take, so it's not
just like a knee jerk reaction to something She's feeling
now and before her going to therapy, it was easy
for me to rationalize those because I'm a lot like
her in that way. I have a very short fuse.
(11:01):
Things irritate me, and the irritate me to a hundred,
like there's no middle ground. Yeah, I don't like the
same question twice, like I'm like, fuck you if somebody
did that. I had no patience for any for anything right, like,
don't waste my time, You've already asked, let's move on.
And that's how I was. So when she would get
like that, I could see myself in that and acknowledge,
like I know how she's feeling. She's frustrated, or if
(11:22):
it was technology, if it was someone around her, it
was that she was getting mad at herself, not necessarily
at the situation. It was like, why can't I control
how I'm feeling? Like I don't want to feel like this.
And it wasn't until actually a few months ago, probably
she was. She was so caught up in herself that
I had to step away from being the assistant and
look at her as someone I care about and say, like,
your wound very tight? Are you okay? Like she was
(11:43):
standing there with her shoulders up to her ears, and
I could just tell like something wasn't right, Like she
had to take a minute to be like, oh, someone
else is acknowledging this in me now, like I don't
know what's wrong, like this person was after I spilled
a YETI this is the yetti of ice on myself,
Like driving down the driveway, it fell all over my
lap and I lost my ship. And I was on
(12:04):
a video app with him talking to him, so he
saw it happened and he saw me like really lose
my ship. But there's also a moment in that video
where when it gets done, after the initial uh, you know, frustration,
we'll be live streaming this video so everybody can enjoy it. Yeah,
that's good. Um, But there there's a moment at the
end where she's like why can't anything ever just go right?
And that's something I say to myself, like why is
(12:26):
everything difficult? Like why can't just put this cup in
the holder and it not fly out of the fucking car,
Like that's something that happens to everyone, but it feels
like it's only happening to you. And so when it
got done, she was like calming down and she had
to do that for herself, Like she had to pull
over and breathe. And it's those moments where I'm like,
therapy helps not just you know, people who have gone
through extreme trauma, but people who feel out of control
(12:47):
because there's so much going on nowadays that they have
to take a moment to stop themselves and breathe. And
that's been a huge, you know change, I think, fantastic, fantastic.
You know, there's so much to say about, you know,
how these changes came about what do they really mean
in terms of, let's say your brain and what's changing
in your brain. Because the brain continues to grow throughout
(13:09):
the lifespan, and when you have a certain kind of
focus of attention that therapy can provide and meditation can provide,
it actually changes the brain in some really helpful ways.
And so it isn't just like a temporary change. It's
actually changing the structure of your brain to allow you
to have the mind, which in part is related to
the brain, is not the same as the brain, but
(13:30):
allow your mind to have the spaciousness. People call it presence,
you might call it mindfulness, you could call it just
open awareness. But this idea is that you're feeling from
the inside and Brandon, you're seeing from the outside what
those changes actually involve, and they're calming and they're maturing,
and they give you the sense of flexibility. And there's
(13:51):
all sorts of other positive things we can talk about
that are likely going on in your body, like reduction
and stress, improvement of cardiovascular functions, actually a reduction in inflammation,
improvement in the mune system, and even there's an enzyme
called telomerase that repairs the ends of your chromosomes. And
when you have the presence you're experiencing Chelsea and that
(14:13):
you're witnessing branded, you actually optimize that enzyme, so it
repairs the ends of your chromosomes, kind of like if
you have a shoe lace and you have that cap
on the shoe lace, it allows you to put it
through the hole in the shoe. Well, when you have
the caps on, chromosomes get whittled down from stress or aging,
then what happens is the chromosomes your DNA aren't able
(14:35):
to help the cells function or reproduce. They get sick
and die, and you get sick and die. So actually,
mental presence, where you're experiencing now optimizes an enzyme that's
going to help repair the ends of your chromosomes and
slow the aging process. Okay, well, I think that's all
(14:55):
you need to really cares about, especially in this town.
But Dana does seem like what you say. And a
lot of what Chelsea remances in the book is the
identification awareness modification. What is the acronym that you use?
A yeah, and we came up with that together. You
may think I had that before, but I'm telling you, Chelsea,
being in therapy, let's say our relationship, it changes me.
(15:19):
So we're talking right and something comes up and I'm thinking,
what can I say now so you can remember this?
And that's the first time the I am acronym came
up was in that moment between you and me, and
so I would think of it as we created it.
Now you love the word way too. It's not just see.
This is something I need to be reminded of because
(15:40):
at first, with self care, self help, self awareness, you
want to get better at being you, you want to
be a better person. But then you become very self
absorbed in that trying to be a better person. It
can become self involved and self absorbed, and the very
thing you're trying to get away from is to be
less self involved. And then so I understand it takes
a certain amount of time that you have to focus
(16:01):
on yourself to get healthy. And then after that, how
do you you know when you you talk about other
people and your community and the rest of the world,
because I don't want to be about me. I want
to be about everybody else as a collective. Um. I
do feel like the therapy there isn't and there is
an aspect of me that feels like, especially with all
(16:23):
the stuff I'm listening to and everybody I'm reading right now,
which is all about mindfulness and being present, it feels
like you can get to be like a spiritual narcissist. Yeah,
you know this is such an important point. So you
just said it so beautifully. I'll just if it's okay
with both young going to repeat what you just said. Um,
(16:43):
and I know you don't like repetition. I get myself
ready for Chelsea's reactions. So here's what you just said
so beautifully. That some people interpret, whether it's therapy or meditation,
as kind of some self indulgent, you know, self reinforcing
thing that's all about me, me, me, me when actually
(17:05):
the it's the surprise reality that when you dive into
let's start with therapy, when you take the time to
focus on your inner feelings, your inner sensations, so this
would be the sensations of your body, which are the
origin of emotions. And then emotions have not just the
bodily sensations, but they also have the meaning that's up
(17:28):
in your higher part of your brain. So we talk
about body sensations. Be aware of what's happening right now.
Like in therapy, Chelsea, sometimes I would say to you,
please stop talking. Maybe sometimes I didn't say please, but
please stop talking and just be with what your body
is feeling. And there's a reason for that. It wasn't
just like, oh, this is kind of just what I
feel like doing. No to slow down and just let
(17:52):
the body speak to you. Because you actually have a
brain around your intestines and a brain around your heart.
The first brains are your heart and your intestinal brain.
The headbrain came next. It's your third brain. But up
in that third brain, your headbrain, you also have autobiographical memory,
where things like the death of your brother will have
(18:12):
a certain kind of meaning the impact that happened. Then
when you were nine, and all the ways in which
that then goes back and as you change, what your
body is feeling like and ache in your heart because
of that incredible loss of chet. Right. So now you
can't be aware of that as the nine year olds
too much, especially because no one's supporting it, and so
(18:33):
the comfort zone of I'm not going to feel my
heart gets embedded in the way the head brain functions. Right,
So at that moment in therapy when I say to you, Chelsea,
please stop talking, the talking is from your left hemisphere right,
which is so interesting, a lot of word word where
And you're unbelievably smart. I'm just gonna say it. So,
you're really, really bright, and your left brain has got
(18:54):
incredible ideas and thoughts, and you're amazing with language. But
autobiographical memories in the right side of the brain dominantly,
and it's the right side of the brain that takes
in the signals from the body. So while both sides
of the brain are emotional, it's the right that's more
about the tender emotions of our social connections and what
the body is feeling. The left is more about I
(19:15):
want to control when I'm feeling the right is just
feeling it and not be in control of it. Right,
They're both important. And where does your ego lie and
your right or your left? You know, that word ego,
as we've talked about, you know, can be used differently
by different people. So Freud used the word ego to
put it in between the id which would be kind
of lower structures in the brain if you want to
put them in the brain, and the super ego, whch
(19:37):
would be your conscience, and the ego is like in
between working things out. Other people like a car toole
and others use ego more like um, you know, it's
all about the separate self versus I'm as my wonderful
colleague Auto Charmer talks about it, you know, an ego
view versus an eco view where you realize you're part
of a system. So that's another way of using the
(19:58):
term ego. So you know, that's probably an area of
the brain that's called the default mode that's on both sides.
And when you sit in a scanner, for example, and
people say, okay, don't do anything, just wait and you're
in this big old scanner, well, it's these mid line areas,
the middle that are in the front and the back
if you want to know the names of the medial
prefrontal cortex and the posterior singular cortex and other areas.
(20:22):
But just think about it in the middle and so
left and right. Middle is busy, busy, busy. Me me, me,
me me. And by the way, what do you think
of me? Oh, and you think that of me? Well,
this is what I think of you, and this is
what I think of me and all this stuff. So
it's the midline area. It's a good area, it's a
great area. But when it's overly active, you get anxiety,
(20:42):
self obsession, depression. And if that's anywhere where the way
you're using ego, that's probably quote how it is functioning
in the brain. So the good news about this this
all these practices, both psychotherapy, especially mindfless meditation, help that
default mode become less self pre occupied. Now here's coming
to what I started with, which is the amazing things
(21:03):
you said. When people come for therapy or when they
do really powerful forms of reflect a practice called meditation. Meditation,
by the way, just means training the mind. Ironically, they
seem like self indulgent things. But when you can take
let's say, your life story that has a blockage in it,
(21:25):
and I call it an incoherent narrative, you know, And
there's lots of ways we can talk about that, but
the bottom line is when your life story has got
a blockage in it, you need to do the work
to work on the blockage. And ironically, when you deal
and heal with that blockage, you come to realize that
who you are and that word self is a tricky word,
(21:46):
but the self expand so you realize, yes, you're in
a body, but you're also connected to other people and nature,
and so it's not going from me to we where
you have what's sometimes called the spiritual bypass. You go,
I don't I'm not going to deal with my tra
almost let's just go to the collective. No. I like
to use the word we, M W E because you
want to have a coherent narrative of your own life history.
(22:09):
You want to know where you sit in terms of
a history, and sometimes racial issues and gender issues and
religious issues, those are all important about the me. Then
we we need to realize we're also deeply interconnected. And
it's that m that helps you see I can do
my meditation to take care of my presence and really
(22:29):
open up this mental space. And as I do that,
and as you did really in an emotional way, people
couldn't see it. But I can see it in your
eyes when you're saying, you know, I see the positive
and all these other people, even people I don't like
or don't share their inferring political views, I can see
there's something positive and they may be lost. And that's
(22:50):
not the way you used to talk, right, So then
you come to realize, Wow, I'm connected to other people
and there's something positive in everyone, and I'm connected to
nature too, and this is the wee aspect. And so
the irony is that doing the reflection of meditation and
the work of therapy freeze you up to realize the
(23:11):
deep interconnection and love we all share, which is just
such a nice, nicer way for me to live. Like,
I mean, a lot of people already know this, and
a lot of people probably don't, but for me, I didn't.
I always thought awakening was just like you know, it
was just like Vagina talk like it was just a
part of like I was like meditation universe. Blah blah blah.
(23:32):
I've said this all before. Okay, We're gonna take a
quick break and we'll be right back. Brandon. Don't you
think you need to start meditating after talking about this,
I still haven't committed. I do think it's becoming more
accessible though, and the way that there are so many
meditation apps now that will really guide you through the experience,
so you don't have to sit there and just think, like,
how the fund do you meditate? Do you just sit
(23:54):
here for a few minutes and try to not think
about anything? You know, these apps like you like Headspace, Yeah,
like that space because I just yeah, I don't find
him annoying. And that's the first thing is you have
to find something that doesn't annoy If you're me, you
have to find something that doesn't annoy you. And a
lot of it's like the time. I don't know, Dan,
you can speak to this, but a lot of it's
the time of day. Some of it works better for
people in the morning. Or what about meditating now, I'm stoned, Dan,
(24:16):
because I find my meditations. When I'm stoned, I get
a I'm more excited to meditate, And when I'm stoned,
I have great creative meditations where like all this stuff
comes to me that I write down after I'm done.
You know, anytime you con meditate, that's great. So when
you're stoned, that's good. And that's that's that part in
(24:38):
brandon your question about like when and stuff. You know,
there's a lot of interesting things. There's one thing just
to say is, you know, there's ancient contemplative practices that
are have been around for twenty years dred years, you know,
on systematic ways of training the mind called meditation. Then
there's in the last oh gosh, you know, about twenty years,
(25:00):
there's been systematic science studying some of those ancient practices
and they've come up with three things at least that
are kind of foundational to do in meditation. And those
three are easy to remember. One is and you've described
all of them. One is, you know, learning to focus attention.
(25:20):
So even if that's just for like a minute where
you say I'm gonna focus on you know, let's say, um,
a rock in front of me, or I'm going to
focus on my breath if that feels safe and comfortable,
or you know, my toes, whatever it is a minute,
I'm gonna do that, and when I get distracted, I'll
return to the focus that I've chosen, and whatever it
is the breath has got some interesting positive things because
(25:43):
it's a cyclical thing in and out, in and out.
But for some people who have been abused, for example,
it can be pretty scary um and evoke all sorts
of memories in the body, and so they can get
a panic attack just by focusing on the breath. So
if you ever do any app or anything, you know that,
Chelsea and I talked about it with Brandon. You're here,
we're talking about it. If you start doing something, be
(26:05):
very sensitive to your own specific needs, you know. But
the idea of that presence you're talking about, Chelsea, is
to be able to sit in awareness. And you know,
I think of it like a wheel, but like the
hub of the wheel, and if all the things you
can be aware of are on the rim and awareness
itself is in the hub, to sit in that hub
and be able to say, bring it on. If there's
something that's giving me a panic attack, I'll stay away
(26:28):
different from now. Maybe I need to write in a
journal or go to therapy. I need to work on
why that's giving me a panic attack, Because there should
be no part of your body that gives you a
panic attack. If it does, it's a little signal like
maybe there's a little work to do, and don't bypass it,
use it as an invitation to do some work. Yeah,
I think that's the thing we always want to get
(26:49):
rid of our self doubt are bad thoughts or I did.
I always thought, oh, how do I get these thoughts
out of my mind? And it's like the only way
to get those thoughts out of your mind as to
quiet your mind and accept those thoughts instead of trying
to reject them. Exactly well, and you know, the research
is really really clear. Is exactly what you said. Acceptance,
let's take that exam. And resistance to change also is
(27:11):
something I've learned to not resist change, to not resist
a situation that doesn't work out the way you want
it to work out, to accept it and to move
through it, and in a like, you know, in in
a way that is to not fight change all the time,
because you know, that's I think was one of my
biggest wake ups is to not resist to go, oh,
(27:32):
this friendship is shifting or this situation is changing. Instead
of being no no, no, no, no no no, that
can't happen. That can't happen, It can happen. It's going
to happen, go with the flow of it instead of
against the flow. Let's talk about that because first of all,
and I'm not going to do this too much, but
if you want me to do it more, I can.
But two researchers, David Chrisswell is one of his colleagues,
(27:53):
as Steve Hayes and colleagues have both shown in this
powerful way that acceptance, just like you're saying, is the
key element for why these practices work. So what you're saying,
Chelsea has got tons of science, great science backing it
up as as usual. So the acronym I'd like to
(28:13):
use as you know, Okay, do you like Half the
people like them, half the people hate them. I don't
know what to do because I'm an addict. It's actually
an addiction I have. I need your help for that.
They just come to me like the I am that
came to us. So coal means curious, open accepting. There's
the acceptance and loving right. And so even when you
(28:35):
look at these three things, like the first is you're
focusing attention. That's the first of these three pillars. The
second is your opening awareness. And this is the idea
of acceptance because if you say you know something, and
both you, Brandon and Chelsea kind of show elements of this,
and Chelsea, I think from before you could really resonate within.
Brandon may still be there with you. You know, we
(28:55):
go around life and the brain is called an anticipation machine,
so it's always getting ready for the next thing. Now
why does it do that? That's how we survive. If
you're just completely in the present moment without getting ready
for next, then when that saber tooth tiger comes because
you didn't smell it or didn't hear it around the corner,
(29:18):
you're dead. You don't make babies, you don't pass on
the trade. So the brain is just naturally getting ready
for next. That's what it does. It anticipates next. So
for some people, depending on their personality, and personality is
kind of something that grows out of both your attachment
experiences and you're primarily genetically determined temperament, so we can
talk about that later, but temperament you're born with. Attachment
(29:41):
experiences are kind of your relationship experience in your family
and experiences in general combined to make your personality. So
for those two reasons, some people have super strong filters
getting them ready for next. And let's just call that expectation.
This is how the world should be. You know, your
cup is not supposed to fall out of its holder
(30:03):
in the car. Let's say that brand for the example
you gave. So let's say you're a person. In your brain,
your head brain, you know that the way you work
through your childhood, the way your temperament combined with your
attachment formed your personality. So in your personality you've got
really strong expectations. That's great. You're a big feelings if
Chelsea is correct, your sensitive you know, and your emotional
and that's beautiful, and you can have high expectations. So
(30:26):
what this means is that your brain is always getting
ready for next. And it says cups should not be
out of their holder in a car. Well, now the
car bumps. The cup didn't exactly fit in there, and
now it falls out right. Not a huge deal, but
it's a great example. You gave that, right, So now
in your brain what happens is holy shit, this is
(30:48):
not right. The world is falling apart. The way I
comport myself in the world is I expect what is
supposed to happen, and when those things aren't happening, then
what should have been and is not there, I am
now shooting on myself, right, does it feel like that
you're smiling? Yeah, because everything you're saying is so reflected
in my actions. Let's here, let's here, Well, my reaction
(31:11):
to that is anger, which is why it's so easy
for me to see that in her her adjustments, because
if it's not done the way I think it should be,
and as an assistant, I have an opinion on how
everything should be done at all times. So yeah, it's
it's normally like a very quick this is not the
way it should be done, and how I want it
done is the way it should happen. So then if
it's not done that way, it is an immediate irritation, anger, frustration,
(31:36):
But it's normally not the other person's fault. It's not
you know, that's me, Like, that's something I have to
reflect on after the fact, even though normally I've already
yelled at someone by that time. So exactly, so let's
go with that. So anger, there are three huge, you know,
systems below your higher partnerment, your court takes. Anger is
one of them. Will talk about the others later, but
anger is an emotion. It's really constructive. Actually, it's when
(31:59):
something right is happening. It's the you know, an emotion
that we can get to the big discussion that. But
emotion evokes motion and it's all about meaning. So in
that moment the cup comes out of its holder. The
emotion is what you know. The meaning of that is
it wasn't right, and now the activating state in your
whole body, called anger is let me right the wrong right.
(32:23):
It's like that. So because the shoulds, the expectations, pre
existing ideas of how things should be, those are called
judgments or something. You know, you are living this life
filtering everything through this kind of cone, if you will,
like a little filter, a little funnel that says, was
this thing is supposed to happen or not? Because the
(32:44):
way everything is gonna be okay is I've got this
whole grid of expectations in the world. So what Chelsea
is inviting is to consider that acceptance means you have
a spaciousness of awareness that's beneath all those judgments, those expectations,
those should That just says the cup came out, I'm
(33:05):
really mad that it's spilled. I think I'll get a
smaller cup, or you know, I'll get one of those
rubber things to put in the holder to hold it
more tightly, or whatever you do. You can even feel
the anger arise but doesn't burst out of you. You're
not yelling at people you know, or yelling at yourself,
And there's a clarity. So it's not that it gets
rid of the emotions. It kind of like creates a space.
(33:28):
I'd like to think of it, like if you can
imagine awareness as like a container of water. So some
people have a container of awareness that's like the size
of an espress. Soak up, and let's say a challenge
like the cup coming out of the container is like
a tablespoon of salt. Right if your container is only
the size of an espresso cup and Life dumps the
tablespoon of salt in there, oh my god, it's too
(33:50):
salty to drink. But imagine if you could do like
Chelsea has done, these practices and working through your narrative
to make a coherent instead of blocked where awareness now
becomes a hundred gallons in size. Now Life shoves a
tablespoon of salt at you as a challenge, and what
does it taste? Like when it's stirred up in the
hundred gallons. Not much, it's fresh water. That's what this does.
(34:15):
That's why you're seeing a change in Chelsea, because Chelsea,
you have expanded the container of your awareness. So it's curious, open, accepting,
and loving. It's cold, right, it's really cold. And there
you go. And now what you're doing is you've built
your focused attention to do this, your opening awareness. And
the third pillar is you're developing this loving intention, this
(34:36):
kind intention. And it's amazing that this naturally arises and
you can speak to Chelsea, how does it feel each
day to have this access to a feeling of tenderness
and love for not just your inner life, but people
in the world around you. Yeah, I feel much more mature.
I feel like adults ish for the first time in
(34:58):
my life. Like I feel centered and I feel grounded.
I feel very much in control of every situation without
inserting myself. I feel I'm not where I'm going yet.
I understand that this is just part of the journey,
but I know that, Like, oh, I feel so nonreactive
(35:20):
to so many things. And it happens all day long
where somebody will say something to me and I'm like,
what would old you do? And what is the new
you do? And and the answer is always like, don't react.
There's no need for it. And half of the time,
I when I think about it the next day, it's
not even necessary to respond or react. You know. Obviously
I'm not perfect. I screw up a lot too, and
(35:42):
sometimes I do react to things. But I definitely have
a sense of awareness now, like I'm aware of my
behavior before I do it, when I'm doing it, after
I'm doing it, not just maybe before. In beautiful you know,
in the you know, in the science literature, here's what
we would say about the credible thing you just said.
(36:02):
Two big things. One, there's something called meta awareness. In science,
we use the letters M, E, T A to talk
about a thing on itself. So like meta cognition is
thinking about thinking. Meta awareness is you're aware of awareness,
so you're aware of the contents. A lot of people
(36:22):
don't have that. You've now developed that, so it's the first.
But I do feel very self absorbed with the amount
of time I spend thinking about how I respond and react.
That makes me feel like I am well a little
too self involved, I know, So Chelsea, I know how
hard you can be on yourself. And this is a
good example of a moment where you may not appreciate this,
(36:45):
but the changes you've made in this short amount of
time are huge, and so it's new. So you're comparing
what would the old me do? What's the new me doing?
And so it's natural to you know, be very aware
of that. And as time goes on, it's going to
become more you know, natural, and you're not gonna have
to do that kind of reflection. Now. It's fine and
(37:06):
you don't need to beat up on yourself. The second
thing I want to say about the science of this
is there are two big brain states that we can
be in. And you know, if you want to do
the exercise to evoke this, we can certainly do it
if you want. But one is a receptive state. The
other is a reactive state. So you said earlier, I
realized I don't need to react. Reaction usually involves four
(37:28):
fs of survival kind of reactivity. That's fighting, back, fleeing, freezing,
meaning tightening up your muscles and being temporarily not able
to move so you figure out if you're gonna fight
or flee. Usually, but the fourth F is fainting, or
some people call it feigning death where you collapse out
(37:50):
of helplessness. Now, all four of those fs are what
our mammalian nervous system has to deal with threats. So
when you use the word reactivity, I don't know if
you meant this with this kind of specificity, but before
you and I work together, I would bet you that
if we could get inside your nervous system, you literally
(38:10):
were in reactivity mode. You know, things were a threat
to your expectations for all sorts of reasons you can
get into if you want, but that you had a
high like brand and a high expectation filter, and so
when life didn't fit the way you thought it should go,
you didn't just say, oh, that's frustrating. No, you got
into reactivity, fighting, fleeing, freezing, fainting. You know, all these
(38:32):
fps get activated. It's very exhausting for the nervous system,
for the whole body to being a reaction to threat
mode all the time. So the word reactivity for clinical
use and scientific use is used for this notion of
a state that is activated when a threat. Is there
a threat to one's own integrity in life, that's in
(38:56):
very um contrasting distinction. That's different from you know, a
receptive state, right right, which was what it felt like
after the election, especially reactive. Okay, well this sounds like
a good time to take a break. Uh what can
you tell me what you thought when you met me?
(39:16):
What was your impression? Could you tell that I was
really stuck and in pain? I mean, you are a professional,
so I would assume, yeah, you know, it's so interesting
when I was asked to do your show, just to
start there. You know, I'm really busy writing books and
editing books. I don't have to have seen my show
or know who? Right, Well, that was what I want
to say. So I felt that my my assistant was
(39:37):
madly in love with you, and she said, you got
to go on the show. I said, really, they said,
she said yeah. I said, okay, so it's on my calendar.
I don't look much. She just tells me what to do.
And I showed up there and I was actually teaching
another class in another country in the other room, and
then I come out there. So then, so the first
time we met was when you're interviewing me about the brain.
(39:58):
I actually had no idea what we were doing. Scepted
I was in a school, and that's cool. I love
schools and love kids. So, um, when you're asking me
the questions about the brain, first of all, I thought
you'd some really smart questions. Second of all, um, you
told me what we're going to talk about. But then
it started getting a little focused more on this one
(40:19):
issue of drugs and the brain and brain and drugs
and at what age, you know, do you really screw
up your brain? And so I was looking at you,
you know, and so for me, professional and personal you know,
have to be distinguished. But in the end, we're all
just people. And so I know you were doing a show,
a professional show, so I'm looking at you as a
person who's doing a professional show, and I'm going, wow,
(40:39):
you know, there's something up here. I don't know what
it is, you know, but whatever. And so I think
I joked with you about something, and I said, you know,
do you want to talk more about this? You know?
And I think you even said, you know, I'm the
funny one, whom or not you or something something that
was really cute whatever. So I just thought, that's fun. Whatever,
And then the show was over and I said goodbye,
and that was it. I didn't know whatever hear from
you again or to you again. So when my assistant said, um,
(41:03):
Brandon called, and you know, Chelsea's assistant is setting up
this appointment, I said, okay, And so I guess it
didn't surprise me because it seems like things you want
to talk about more and um, you know, as you
mentioned earlier, you could get piste off at people were
irritated or whatever. So I figured, Okay, I guess I
(41:23):
didn't irritate you. You know, so that's kind of night
that felt like a nice thing and didn't irritate you
enough to say, you know whatever. So when you showed
up and now we're at our first session. You know,
therapy is like one of the most amazing things to
be in because you bring your whole self as a
therapist to sit down and let's take that first session
(41:44):
you and I had. You know, I'm there as a
human being. We've had this small encounter before. You're now
sitting in the office in the chair across from the
chair I'm sitting and you're a human being, and now
we're sitting there right And so for me as a therapist,
it's this moment where perhaps because you know I've been
(42:06):
like obsessed with the idea of what's the mind and
what's mental health and what's healing all about for all
these decades. For me, the mind now that's created between
the two of us is something that I couldn't create
a loan and you couldn't create a loan. So we're
doing this together. So it's really the beginning of a relationship.
And in that relationship that was unfolding, I could feel um.
(42:30):
And this addresses your question, a kind of pain that
I had no idea what it was. I knew nothing
about your history or anything, you know, except that you
decided to come for that session, and so I could
feel something was up. And as you probably know, this
isn't gonna be a surprise to you. You do a
lot of talking, or you did a lot of talking,
and it was really fast. And I think maybe even
that first session when I said to you, you know,
(42:51):
please stop talking, not not in general, but about a
particular please stop talking, it was because because I know
a little bit about the brain. You know, um, it's
like where attention goes, neural firing flows and neural connection grows.
You had a whole bunch of left brain talk which
is fine, and my left brain is able to keep
(43:13):
up with you whatever. Um. And then I want to
invite your right brain into the therapy session, which means
letting the left brain not shut up, but just take
a moment to breathe. Let your right brain become more present,
which doesn't have the words that the left brain has.
It has some language, but not the kind of language
(43:34):
of left has. And as I mentioned earlier, you know
it's going to start getting you in touch with what
your body is feeling, so bodily sensations and autobiographical memory,
whereas the left doesn't have direct access to those things.
So by asking you to please take a pause from
all the talk, in that moment, I could feel you're
(43:54):
asking me what I felt. I could feel there was
some some stuff up, and I had no idea you
could have. I'm telling you, you could have absolutely said
this is too weird or I like talking, screw you
or whatever, and you could have not come back, you know,
ever again. So I want to just really put it
out to you that you had the courage to have
(44:15):
some guy tell you to stop doing what your inclination was,
which is to talk and make jokes and all the
kind of stuff and for me to see how bright
you are, how left brain strong you were, and how
you needed to develop more of your right hemisphere. So
to me, it's all about a process called integration, which
means honoring differences and promoting linkages. And it felt like
(44:35):
the push to keep on talking and this reactivity had
a kind of left sided dominance. So the feeling inside
of me was that there needed to be some integration
in your life. You could call that healing, you could
call it, you know, working on blockages, whatever words you
want to use. But yes, I felt like something was up,
and I felt really, um ah, deeply moved that you
(44:59):
wanted to come do something that was really difficult to do,
which is to look inward at stuff. I didn't know
what this stuff was going to be. I had no idea,
and I don't know if you did. Did you have
some did you have? Why? Why did you come? I
just what didn't think of my life was working out
for me at that particular point. I was just too
angry and I thought it was about Trump, and I realized,
you know, that's not the root of my anger, that's
(45:20):
just a symptom. And I finally had something identifiable to
put my anger on. So no, I didn't know that
I was going to come in and like let it out.
It just kind of happened naturally, which you know is normal. Okay, Well,
thank you very much Dan for being here, and thank
you Brandon. We will be back next Thursday with a
brand new episode of Life Will Be the Death of Me.
(45:42):
I have added some stand up tour dates to my
Life Will Be the Death of Me sit down comedy tour.
I'm coming to St. Louis, Minneapolis, Nashville, New Orleans, Westbury,
Long Island, Atlanta. So those are on sale now. And
what else, and don't forget your book is still sale?
Oh yes, oh yes, oh so sexual Life will be
(46:05):
the Death of Me. It's available wherever at your local bookseller. Hopefully,
Life will Be the Death of Me as a production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Hi. I'm Chelsea Handler. Welcome to Life Will Be the
Death of Me, a production of I Heart Radio. I'm
sitting here with my psychiatrist Dan and my assistant Brandon,
because Brandon and I are attached at the hip and
hips and I wanted to bring Dan onto UM reminisce
about my therapy and how we met, which was on
(00:21):
my Netflix talk show Anyway. Hello, Dan, thank you for coming. Hi.
Good to be here. Hi. Hello Brandon. It's nice to
see you again after seeing you at my house this
morning earlier. Um, So, Dan, I met you when I
interviewed you around brain development, childhood, adolescent brain development, right,
it was more focused on that. It was focused on
that in a school we were in, like a school
(00:42):
whole way, Yes, yes, I remember that somewhere, yes, Um.
And you were talking to me about the brain, and
as I talked about in my book, you talked about
the brain in a very kind of literal sense, in
a in a kind of scientific way that was very
um easy for me to wrap my head around. I
(01:02):
was interested in that. And then I think when we met,
I did ask you a couple of questions about drinking
and about drug use, and you kind of said to me,
do you want to I think you said, would you
like to talk about your drinking that? Well, yeah, I
mean there are questions that were coming up that were um,
clearly you wanted to know more than just the show
(01:23):
was addressing. So I actually, UM, was just asking you
if you wanted to talk more about that, you know,
the impact of drugs on the brain. Yeah, yeah, you
seemed interested. Yes, I'm always interested in the subject of drugs.
And then yes, I mean obviously I was asking for
a friend, So a friend who lives very close to
(01:44):
your body. Yes, that one. Um. So then we went
rand and you didn't find it because I didn't go
to therapy right after the election. I I interviewed Dan
for my show, and then months later, I believe a
couple of months later, I asked you to reach out
to him an appointment and set an appointment. So that
was sometime in two thousand. Okay, So, um, let's talk
(02:06):
about our therapy. Okay. I know you don't feel comfortable
talking about this, so I have to constantly give you
permission to talk about my therapy because it's out. The
secret is out. Yes, So that's a great place to start,
because you know, usually um or I would say always
as a therapist, you know, I don't speak about the
therapy with anyone but the therapist in the setting of therapy,
(02:28):
and so you know, as a professional, I'm a psychiatrist.
Um it's good to know, extremely unusual to be in
this situation where you know, number one, you wrote a
book about our our relationship in the therapeutic experience and
it's been incredibly inspiring for people. So that was an
(02:48):
incredible gift. And then there have been now moments where
because it's public, people will ask you about it. And
we spoke one conference together where you know, uh, you
you brought up that I was the your therapist and
I had just given the keynote presentation right before yours,
and then we were on the stage together for a
Q and A, and people seem to really respond to that.
(03:10):
So you know, from the professional point of view, this
is extremely unusual. But because it's your idea that you
came up with it, and I actually think it can
do good in the world, then I'm open to really
thinking deeply about doing this, even though it's not the
usual thing that is done of a therapist and a
(03:31):
client a patient. You know, the person working with them.
Has this been a pain in the asked for you
at all? Me writing a book about us, not even
one moment. Well that's great news because the response I
got from the book was and the responses I got
on my on social media and all the mess direct
messages from all these strangers about all their experiences of
(03:51):
death and loss and grief has been so moving and
it was so unexpected. I mean, maybe it wasn't unexpected,
but I didn't really I thought I was telling my
own story and I didn't realize I was telling a
lot of people's stories, right, And I think that's you know,
And I've said this to you because I think your
work is really incredible gift. I'm sorry if you can
(04:11):
hold onto these compliments. I really think it's an incredible gift.
First of all, that you're willing to be so open
about what I think is a very courageous journey that
you've been on in therapy, and from you know, what
people are giving you feedback about it's inspiring them. And
we saw it at the conference Wisdom to Point Oh
(04:32):
that people would get to the microphone and say, you
are inspiring me to look deeply into myself and find
the parts of myself that have been blocked and I
want to get help, you know, in in therapy. And
so when you can do that to actually take people
have been you know, not moving forward and feeling like
I don't know what I'm gonna do with in my life.
And because your book is so clear and it's funny,
(04:55):
and it's really articulate and in so many ways brilliant,
you know you're able to the show people. You know,
this isn't magic. This is something you can do if
you've had a loss or trauma, that you can actually
seek professional support, do the reflective work in therapy, see
the benefits for example of meditation, and you know, as
you say in the book, turn your head around. And
(05:17):
so that's an incredible gift, and to me, it's all positive.
The biggest gift I think is learning how to sit
still with my feelings and in a moment when I
want to be reactive about breathing, like Brandon has seen me,
you know, freak out a lot over really stupid things,
like you know, if because I'm always rushing around and
like dropping things, and I freak out and you know,
(05:37):
and then I like lose my temper and I'm just
mad at myself because of my like helpless little girl feeling.
So now when things like that happen, the way I
moved through the world and like through my house is
just slow, Like I just take my time and like
think about what I'm doing, even if it's minutia and mundane.
All of the mundane nous in life I pay much
more attention to so that I'm not um rushing blasting
(06:00):
through it. The part that I didn't write in the book,
which is which is the part that's been happening since
I finished the book, is the my meditation. Really, like
I've learned how to meditate. I mean, I'm sure I'm
not there yet, but I'm getting close to like really
clicking in with that. Because you forced me to do
it for three months, Yes, I forced you did, And
I said I didn't want to do it for three
(06:21):
months because that sounded like a pregnancy, and then he
reminded me that pregnancies are longer than three months. And
then I did it for three months. And now it's
been like six or eight months. And I started at
Christmas last year. So where's Brandon? We whip up that calculation?
Six months okay, thanks, um, so I and now I
(06:41):
do it every day, and if I don't do it,
I feel off. Like I texted Brandon yesterday saying, remind
me to meditate because I got up and had to
rush off to something. So, um, it's definitely helpful. I
know that I have a long way to go though. Um.
But what I didn't get to address in the book,
which was all about our therapy and you pointing to
me where my kind of trapped pain us and my
un earth you know, trauma, so to speak, and all
(07:04):
the stuff that I was not being honest with myself
about or not tending to myself about, and my brother dying,
my mother dying, my father kind of dying after my
brother died, all of those things. So that was our
like journey, I have to say, because that's the only
word applicable to this, which is such an annoying word
to me. Whenever I would use it, you'd get really
a journey. It just sounds so corny. You could take
(07:26):
it back because a lot of people use it. Well,
I'm going to take I tak back to Orange, so
I might take back journey to Okay, But I don't
know how to Okay, let me think about taking that back.
What I haven't really addressed well because it didn't happen
until after the book was the real kind of um
presence of mind and consciousness that we've we talked about
a lot during therapy, but didn't click for me until
I started meditating, and until I started paying attention to
(07:48):
all the little things, and then I started to go, Okay,
this is what's like. Being mindful is and consciousness and
paying attention, not rushing and having exchanges with people and
breathing all day long, like checking in and going okay,
stop breathe, be in this conversation, noticing when your thoughts
go away from what you're focusing on. And my attention
(08:11):
is so much greater than it was when I met you,
when I thought I had a d D. What does
that feel like with the change? Now? Calm? And then
what's that feel like? Mature? Mature? I feel like like
a woman, like not a woman. I mean yeah, I
mean I feel more mature than I've ever felt. Like
you're the adult here, so and then now I'm acting
(08:32):
like one. So so literally, when you say calm and
when you say that you're mature, can you share with us.
What does it actually feel like? Because you're saying that,
you know, two years ago, before we started the work,
it was one way of being and then something happened.
We can talk about what actually happened. But now there's
(08:53):
a different experience of being on the planet that you have, Yeah,
say more about what that feels. It's like everything's much brighter,
like the trees and the leaves, and like being outside
is is much more vibrant. I feel like, uh elevated,
but not in an arrogant way. I feel like calm.
(09:13):
I appreciate everyone a lot more. I think when I
started seeing you after the election, I had lost my
faith in everything and now and everybody, Like I thought
everybody was unreliable, nobody could we could count on. And
then now I feel like I have faith in everybody,
Like even in people I don't like or are drawn to,
I kind of can see, Oh, everyone has goodness. People
(09:36):
who do bad things aren't necessarily bad people. They're lost,
like I realized I was lost, and so like getting
back on the track I think is I think I
see everything. I could go outside and sit on my
balcony like I did this morning, in silence, without music,
without news, without TV, and just think about my day.
(09:57):
And also, this is what's so important, is like rough alection,
like the time to think, the time you allow yourself
to think about the things you've done and the things
you're going to do is so underrated and undervalued, or
was with regard to my own you know, my own self,
So it's much more calm. What wran, Why don't you
chimm in right now? And excuse me for my voice.
(10:17):
I lost it because I've been talking about myself for
so many weeks in a row. I definitely think that
there was almost an instantaneous change from her sessions with
you coming home. It was immediately much like softer, more
thoughtful in her response time um and I guess that
was the biggest immediate change. And then over the last
year we've seen how she applies that in other ways.
(10:40):
So it wouldn't just be with me, to be with
other people in the house or her friends, or when
we're out places. We've gone on trips together, and I
see her being thoughtful about how she's going to respond
in the time she's going to take, so it's not
just like a knee jerk reaction to something She's feeling
now and before her going to therapy, it was easy
for me to rationalize those because I'm a lot like
her in that way. I have a very short fuse.
(11:01):
Things irritate me, and the irritate me to a hundred,
like there's no middle ground. Yeah, I don't like the
same question twice, like I'm like, fuck you if somebody
did that. I had no patience for any for anything right, like,
don't waste my time, You've already asked, let's move on.
And that's how I was. So when she would get
like that, I could see myself in that and acknowledge,
like I know how she's feeling. She's frustrated, or if
(11:22):
it was technology, if it was someone around her, it
was that she was getting mad at herself, not necessarily
at the situation. It was like, why can't I control
how I'm feeling? Like I don't want to feel like this.
And it wasn't until actually a few months ago, probably
she was. She was so caught up in herself that
I had to step away from being the assistant and
look at her as someone I care about and say, like,
your wound very tight? Are you okay? Like she was
(11:43):
standing there with her shoulders up to her ears, and
I could just tell like something wasn't right, Like she
had to take a minute to be like, oh, someone
else is acknowledging this in me now, like I don't
know what's wrong, like this person was after I spilled
a YETI this is the yetti of ice on myself,
Like driving down the driveway, it fell all over my
lap and I lost my ship. And I was on
(12:04):
a video app with him talking to him, so he
saw it happened and he saw me like really lose
my ship. But there's also a moment in that video
where when it gets done, after the initial uh, you know, frustration,
we'll be live streaming this video so everybody can enjoy it. Yeah,
that's good. Um, But there there's a moment at the
end where she's like why can't anything ever just go right?
And that's something I say to myself, like why is
(12:26):
everything difficult? Like why can't just put this cup in
the holder and it not fly out of the fucking car,
Like that's something that happens to everyone, but it feels
like it's only happening to you. And so when it
got done, she was like calming down and she had
to do that for herself, Like she had to pull
over and breathe. And it's those moments where I'm like,
therapy helps not just you know, people who have gone
through extreme trauma, but people who feel out of control
(12:47):
because there's so much going on nowadays that they have
to take a moment to stop themselves and breathe. And
that's been a huge, you know change, I think, fantastic, fantastic.
You know, there's so much to say about, you know,
how these changes came about what do they really mean
in terms of, let's say your brain and what's changing
in your brain. Because the brain continues to grow throughout
(13:09):
the lifespan, and when you have a certain kind of
focus of attention that therapy can provide and meditation can provide,
it actually changes the brain in some really helpful ways.
And so it isn't just like a temporary change. It's
actually changing the structure of your brain to allow you
to have the mind, which in part is related to
the brain, is not the same as the brain, but
(13:30):
allow your mind to have the spaciousness. People call it presence,
you might call it mindfulness, you could call it just
open awareness. But this idea is that you're feeling from
the inside and Brandon, you're seeing from the outside what
those changes actually involve, and they're calming and they're maturing,
and they give you the sense of flexibility. And there's
(13:51):
all sorts of other positive things we can talk about
that are likely going on in your body, like reduction
and stress, improvement of cardiovascular functions, actually a reduction in inflammation,
improvement in the mune system, and even there's an enzyme
called telomerase that repairs the ends of your chromosomes. And
when you have the presence you're experiencing Chelsea and that
(14:13):
you're witnessing branded, you actually optimize that enzyme, so it
repairs the ends of your chromosomes, kind of like if
you have a shoe lace and you have that cap
on the shoe lace, it allows you to put it
through the hole in the shoe. Well, when you have
the caps on, chromosomes get whittled down from stress or aging,
then what happens is the chromosomes your DNA aren't able
(14:35):
to help the cells function or reproduce. They get sick
and die, and you get sick and die. So actually,
mental presence, where you're experiencing now optimizes an enzyme that's
going to help repair the ends of your chromosomes and
slow the aging process. Okay, well, I think that's all
(14:55):
you need to really cares about, especially in this town.
But Dana does seem like what you say. And a
lot of what Chelsea remances in the book is the
identification awareness modification. What is the acronym that you use?
A yeah, and we came up with that together. You
may think I had that before, but I'm telling you, Chelsea,
being in therapy, let's say our relationship, it changes me.
(15:19):
So we're talking right and something comes up and I'm thinking,
what can I say now so you can remember this?
And that's the first time the I am acronym came
up was in that moment between you and me, and
so I would think of it as we created it.
Now you love the word way too. It's not just see.
This is something I need to be reminded of because
(15:40):
at first, with self care, self help, self awareness, you
want to get better at being you, you want to
be a better person. But then you become very self
absorbed in that trying to be a better person. It
can become self involved and self absorbed, and the very
thing you're trying to get away from is to be
less self involved. And then so I understand it takes
a certain amount of time that you have to focus
(16:01):
on yourself to get healthy. And then after that, how
do you you know when you you talk about other
people and your community and the rest of the world,
because I don't want to be about me. I want
to be about everybody else as a collective. Um. I
do feel like the therapy there isn't and there is
an aspect of me that feels like, especially with all
(16:23):
the stuff I'm listening to and everybody I'm reading right now,
which is all about mindfulness and being present, it feels
like you can get to be like a spiritual narcissist. Yeah,
you know this is such an important point. So you
just said it so beautifully. I'll just if it's okay
with both young going to repeat what you just said. Um,
(16:43):
and I know you don't like repetition. I get myself
ready for Chelsea's reactions. So here's what you just said
so beautifully. That some people interpret, whether it's therapy or meditation,
as kind of some self indulgent, you know, self reinforcing
thing that's all about me, me, me, me when actually
(17:05):
the it's the surprise reality that when you dive into
let's start with therapy, when you take the time to
focus on your inner feelings, your inner sensations, so this
would be the sensations of your body, which are the
origin of emotions. And then emotions have not just the
bodily sensations, but they also have the meaning that's up
(17:28):
in your higher part of your brain. So we talk
about body sensations. Be aware of what's happening right now.
Like in therapy, Chelsea, sometimes I would say to you,
please stop talking. Maybe sometimes I didn't say please, but
please stop talking and just be with what your body
is feeling. And there's a reason for that. It wasn't
just like, oh, this is kind of just what I
feel like doing. No to slow down and just let
(17:52):
the body speak to you. Because you actually have a
brain around your intestines and a brain around your heart.
The first brains are your heart and your intestinal brain.
The headbrain came next. It's your third brain. But up
in that third brain, your headbrain, you also have autobiographical memory,
where things like the death of your brother will have
(18:12):
a certain kind of meaning the impact that happened. Then
when you were nine, and all the ways in which
that then goes back and as you change, what your
body is feeling like and ache in your heart because
of that incredible loss of chet. Right. So now you
can't be aware of that as the nine year olds
too much, especially because no one's supporting it, and so
(18:33):
the comfort zone of I'm not going to feel my
heart gets embedded in the way the head brain functions. Right,
So at that moment in therapy when I say to you, Chelsea,
please stop talking, the talking is from your left hemisphere right,
which is so interesting, a lot of word word where
And you're unbelievably smart. I'm just gonna say it. So,
you're really, really bright, and your left brain has got
(18:54):
incredible ideas and thoughts, and you're amazing with language. But
autobiographical memories in the right side of the brain dominantly,
and it's the right side of the brain that takes
in the signals from the body. So while both sides
of the brain are emotional, it's the right that's more
about the tender emotions of our social connections and what
the body is feeling. The left is more about I
(19:15):
want to control when I'm feeling the right is just
feeling it and not be in control of it. Right,
They're both important. And where does your ego lie and
your right or your left? You know, that word ego,
as we've talked about, you know, can be used differently
by different people. So Freud used the word ego to
put it in between the id which would be kind
of lower structures in the brain if you want to
put them in the brain, and the super ego, whch
(19:37):
would be your conscience, and the ego is like in
between working things out. Other people like a car toole
and others use ego more like um, you know, it's
all about the separate self versus I'm as my wonderful
colleague Auto Charmer talks about it, you know, an ego
view versus an eco view where you realize you're part
of a system. So that's another way of using the
(19:58):
term ego. So you know, that's probably an area of
the brain that's called the default mode that's on both sides.
And when you sit in a scanner, for example, and
people say, okay, don't do anything, just wait and you're
in this big old scanner, well, it's these mid line areas,
the middle that are in the front and the back
if you want to know the names of the medial
prefrontal cortex and the posterior singular cortex and other areas.
(20:22):
But just think about it in the middle and so
left and right. Middle is busy, busy, busy. Me me, me,
me me. And by the way, what do you think
of me? Oh, and you think that of me? Well,
this is what I think of you, and this is
what I think of me and all this stuff. So
it's the midline area. It's a good area, it's a
great area. But when it's overly active, you get anxiety,
(20:42):
self obsession, depression. And if that's anywhere where the way
you're using ego, that's probably quote how it is functioning
in the brain. So the good news about this this
all these practices, both psychotherapy, especially mindfless meditation, help that
default mode become less self pre occupied. Now here's coming
to what I started with, which is the amazing things
(21:03):
you said. When people come for therapy or when they
do really powerful forms of reflect a practice called meditation. Meditation,
by the way, just means training the mind. Ironically, they
seem like self indulgent things. But when you can take
let's say, your life story that has a blockage in it,
(21:25):
and I call it an incoherent narrative, you know, And
there's lots of ways we can talk about that, but
the bottom line is when your life story has got
a blockage in it, you need to do the work
to work on the blockage. And ironically, when you deal
and heal with that blockage, you come to realize that
who you are and that word self is a tricky word,
(21:46):
but the self expand so you realize, yes, you're in
a body, but you're also connected to other people and nature,
and so it's not going from me to we where
you have what's sometimes called the spiritual bypass. You go,
I don't I'm not going to deal with my tra
almost let's just go to the collective. No. I like
to use the word we, M W E because you
want to have a coherent narrative of your own life history.
(22:09):
You want to know where you sit in terms of
a history, and sometimes racial issues and gender issues and
religious issues, those are all important about the me. Then
we we need to realize we're also deeply interconnected. And
it's that m that helps you see I can do
my meditation to take care of my presence and really
(22:29):
open up this mental space. And as I do that,
and as you did really in an emotional way, people
couldn't see it. But I can see it in your
eyes when you're saying, you know, I see the positive
and all these other people, even people I don't like
or don't share their inferring political views, I can see
there's something positive and they may be lost. And that's
(22:50):
not the way you used to talk, right, So then
you come to realize, Wow, I'm connected to other people
and there's something positive in everyone, and I'm connected to
nature too, and this is the wee aspect. And so
the irony is that doing the reflection of meditation and
the work of therapy freeze you up to realize the
(23:11):
deep interconnection and love we all share, which is just
such a nice, nicer way for me to live. Like,
I mean, a lot of people already know this, and
a lot of people probably don't, but for me, I didn't.
I always thought awakening was just like you know, it
was just like Vagina talk like it was just a
part of like I was like meditation universe. Blah blah blah.
(23:32):
I've said this all before. Okay, We're gonna take a
quick break and we'll be right back. Brandon. Don't you
think you need to start meditating after talking about this,
I still haven't committed. I do think it's becoming more
accessible though, and the way that there are so many
meditation apps now that will really guide you through the experience,
so you don't have to sit there and just think, like,
how the fund do you meditate? Do you just sit
(23:54):
here for a few minutes and try to not think
about anything? You know, these apps like you like Headspace, Yeah,
like that space because I just yeah, I don't find
him annoying. And that's the first thing is you have
to find something that doesn't annoy If you're me, you
have to find something that doesn't annoy you. And a
lot of it's like the time. I don't know, Dan,
you can speak to this, but a lot of it's
the time of day. Some of it works better for
people in the morning. Or what about meditating now, I'm stoned, Dan,
(24:16):
because I find my meditations. When I'm stoned, I get
a I'm more excited to meditate, And when I'm stoned,
I have great creative meditations where like all this stuff
comes to me that I write down after I'm done.
You know, anytime you con meditate, that's great. So when
you're stoned, that's good. And that's that's that part in
(24:38):
brandon your question about like when and stuff. You know,
there's a lot of interesting things. There's one thing just
to say is, you know, there's ancient contemplative practices that
are have been around for twenty years dred years, you know,
on systematic ways of training the mind called meditation. Then
there's in the last oh gosh, you know, about twenty years,
(25:00):
there's been systematic science studying some of those ancient practices
and they've come up with three things at least that
are kind of foundational to do in meditation. And those
three are easy to remember. One is and you've described
all of them. One is, you know, learning to focus attention.
(25:20):
So even if that's just for like a minute where
you say I'm gonna focus on you know, let's say, um,
a rock in front of me, or I'm going to
focus on my breath if that feels safe and comfortable,
or you know, my toes, whatever it is a minute,
I'm gonna do that, and when I get distracted, I'll
return to the focus that I've chosen, and whatever it
is the breath has got some interesting positive things because
(25:43):
it's a cyclical thing in and out, in and out.
But for some people who have been abused, for example,
it can be pretty scary um and evoke all sorts
of memories in the body, and so they can get
a panic attack just by focusing on the breath. So
if you ever do any app or anything, you know that,
Chelsea and I talked about it with Brandon. You're here,
we're talking about it. If you start doing something, be
(26:05):
very sensitive to your own specific needs, you know. But
the idea of that presence you're talking about, Chelsea, is
to be able to sit in awareness. And you know,
I think of it like a wheel, but like the
hub of the wheel, and if all the things you
can be aware of are on the rim and awareness
itself is in the hub, to sit in that hub
and be able to say, bring it on. If there's
something that's giving me a panic attack, I'll stay away
(26:28):
different from now. Maybe I need to write in a
journal or go to therapy. I need to work on
why that's giving me a panic attack, Because there should
be no part of your body that gives you a
panic attack. If it does, it's a little signal like
maybe there's a little work to do, and don't bypass it,
use it as an invitation to do some work. Yeah,
I think that's the thing we always want to get
(26:49):
rid of our self doubt are bad thoughts or I did.
I always thought, oh, how do I get these thoughts
out of my mind? And it's like the only way
to get those thoughts out of your mind as to
quiet your mind and accept those thoughts instead of trying
to reject them. Exactly well, and you know, the research
is really really clear. Is exactly what you said. Acceptance,
let's take that exam. And resistance to change also is
(27:11):
something I've learned to not resist change, to not resist
a situation that doesn't work out the way you want
it to work out, to accept it and to move
through it, and in a like, you know, in in
a way that is to not fight change all the time,
because you know, that's I think was one of my
biggest wake ups is to not resist to go, oh,
(27:32):
this friendship is shifting or this situation is changing. Instead
of being no no, no, no, no no no, that
can't happen. That can't happen, It can happen. It's going
to happen, go with the flow of it instead of
against the flow. Let's talk about that because first of all,
and I'm not going to do this too much, but
if you want me to do it more, I can.
But two researchers, David Chrisswell is one of his colleagues,
(27:53):
as Steve Hayes and colleagues have both shown in this
powerful way that acceptance, just like you're saying, is the
key element for why these practices work. So what you're saying,
Chelsea has got tons of science, great science backing it
up as as usual. So the acronym I'd like to
(28:13):
use as you know, Okay, do you like Half the
people like them, half the people hate them. I don't
know what to do because I'm an addict. It's actually
an addiction I have. I need your help for that.
They just come to me like the I am that
came to us. So coal means curious, open accepting. There's
the acceptance and loving right. And so even when you
(28:35):
look at these three things, like the first is you're
focusing attention. That's the first of these three pillars. The
second is your opening awareness. And this is the idea
of acceptance because if you say you know something, and
both you, Brandon and Chelsea kind of show elements of this,
and Chelsea, I think from before you could really resonate within.
Brandon may still be there with you. You know, we
(28:55):
go around life and the brain is called an anticipation machine,
so it's always getting ready for the next thing. Now
why does it do that? That's how we survive. If
you're just completely in the present moment without getting ready
for next, then when that saber tooth tiger comes because
you didn't smell it or didn't hear it around the corner,
(29:18):
you're dead. You don't make babies, you don't pass on
the trade. So the brain is just naturally getting ready
for next. That's what it does. It anticipates next. So
for some people, depending on their personality, and personality is
kind of something that grows out of both your attachment
experiences and you're primarily genetically determined temperament, so we can
talk about that later, but temperament you're born with. Attachment
(29:41):
experiences are kind of your relationship experience in your family
and experiences in general combined to make your personality. So
for those two reasons, some people have super strong filters
getting them ready for next. And let's just call that expectation.
This is how the world should be. You know, your
cup is not supposed to fall out of its holder
(30:03):
in the car. Let's say that brand for the example
you gave. So let's say you're a person. In your brain,
your head brain, you know that the way you work
through your childhood, the way your temperament combined with your
attachment formed your personality. So in your personality you've got
really strong expectations. That's great. You're a big feelings if
Chelsea is correct, your sensitive you know, and your emotional
and that's beautiful, and you can have high expectations. So
(30:26):
what this means is that your brain is always getting
ready for next. And it says cups should not be
out of their holder in a car. Well, now the
car bumps. The cup didn't exactly fit in there, and
now it falls out right. Not a huge deal, but
it's a great example. You gave that, right, So now
in your brain what happens is holy shit, this is
(30:48):
not right. The world is falling apart. The way I
comport myself in the world is I expect what is
supposed to happen, and when those things aren't happening, then
what should have been and is not there, I am
now shooting on myself, right, does it feel like that
you're smiling? Yeah, because everything you're saying is so reflected
in my actions. Let's here, let's here, Well, my reaction
(31:11):
to that is anger, which is why it's so easy
for me to see that in her her adjustments, because
if it's not done the way I think it should be,
and as an assistant, I have an opinion on how
everything should be done at all times. So yeah, it's
it's normally like a very quick this is not the
way it should be done, and how I want it
done is the way it should happen. So then if
it's not done that way, it is an immediate irritation, anger, frustration,
(31:36):
But it's normally not the other person's fault. It's not
you know, that's me, Like, that's something I have to
reflect on after the fact, even though normally I've already
yelled at someone by that time. So exactly, so let's
go with that. So anger, there are three huge, you know,
systems below your higher partnerment, your court takes. Anger is
one of them. Will talk about the others later, but
anger is an emotion. It's really constructive. Actually, it's when
(31:59):
something right is happening. It's the you know, an emotion
that we can get to the big discussion that. But
emotion evokes motion and it's all about meaning. So in
that moment the cup comes out of its holder. The
emotion is what you know. The meaning of that is
it wasn't right, and now the activating state in your
whole body, called anger is let me right the wrong right.
(32:23):
It's like that. So because the shoulds, the expectations, pre
existing ideas of how things should be, those are called
judgments or something. You know, you are living this life
filtering everything through this kind of cone, if you will,
like a little filter, a little funnel that says, was
this thing is supposed to happen or not? Because the
(32:44):
way everything is gonna be okay is I've got this
whole grid of expectations in the world. So what Chelsea
is inviting is to consider that acceptance means you have
a spaciousness of awareness that's beneath all those judgments, those expectations,
those should That just says the cup came out, I'm
(33:05):
really mad that it's spilled. I think I'll get a
smaller cup, or you know, I'll get one of those
rubber things to put in the holder to hold it
more tightly, or whatever you do. You can even feel
the anger arise but doesn't burst out of you. You're
not yelling at people you know, or yelling at yourself,
And there's a clarity. So it's not that it gets
rid of the emotions. It kind of like creates a space.
(33:28):
I'd like to think of it, like if you can
imagine awareness as like a container of water. So some
people have a container of awareness that's like the size
of an espress. Soak up, and let's say a challenge
like the cup coming out of the container is like
a tablespoon of salt. Right if your container is only
the size of an espresso cup and Life dumps the
tablespoon of salt in there, oh my god, it's too
(33:50):
salty to drink. But imagine if you could do like
Chelsea has done, these practices and working through your narrative
to make a coherent instead of blocked where awareness now
becomes a hundred gallons in size. Now Life shoves a
tablespoon of salt at you as a challenge, and what
does it taste? Like when it's stirred up in the
hundred gallons. Not much, it's fresh water. That's what this does.
(34:15):
That's why you're seeing a change in Chelsea, because Chelsea,
you have expanded the container of your awareness. So it's curious, open, accepting,
and loving. It's cold, right, it's really cold. And there
you go. And now what you're doing is you've built
your focused attention to do this, your opening awareness. And
the third pillar is you're developing this loving intention, this
(34:36):
kind intention. And it's amazing that this naturally arises and
you can speak to Chelsea, how does it feel each
day to have this access to a feeling of tenderness
and love for not just your inner life, but people
in the world around you. Yeah, I feel much more mature.
I feel like adults ish for the first time in
(34:58):
my life. Like I feel centered and I feel grounded.
I feel very much in control of every situation without
inserting myself. I feel I'm not where I'm going yet.
I understand that this is just part of the journey,
but I know that, Like, oh, I feel so nonreactive
(35:20):
to so many things. And it happens all day long
where somebody will say something to me and I'm like,
what would old you do? And what is the new
you do? And and the answer is always like, don't react.
There's no need for it. And half of the time,
I when I think about it the next day, it's
not even necessary to respond or react. You know. Obviously
I'm not perfect. I screw up a lot too, and
(35:42):
sometimes I do react to things. But I definitely have
a sense of awareness now, like I'm aware of my
behavior before I do it, when I'm doing it, after
I'm doing it, not just maybe before. In beautiful you know,
in the you know, in the science literature, here's what
we would say about the credible thing you just said.
(36:02):
Two big things. One, there's something called meta awareness. In science,
we use the letters M, E, T A to talk
about a thing on itself. So like meta cognition is
thinking about thinking. Meta awareness is you're aware of awareness,
so you're aware of the contents. A lot of people
(36:22):
don't have that. You've now developed that, so it's the first.
But I do feel very self absorbed with the amount
of time I spend thinking about how I respond and react.
That makes me feel like I am well a little
too self involved, I know, So Chelsea, I know how
hard you can be on yourself. And this is a
good example of a moment where you may not appreciate this,
(36:45):
but the changes you've made in this short amount of
time are huge, and so it's new. So you're comparing
what would the old me do? What's the new me doing?
And so it's natural to you know, be very aware
of that. And as time goes on, it's going to
become more you know, natural, and you're not gonna have
to do that kind of reflection. Now. It's fine and
(37:06):
you don't need to beat up on yourself. The second
thing I want to say about the science of this
is there are two big brain states that we can
be in. And you know, if you want to do
the exercise to evoke this, we can certainly do it
if you want. But one is a receptive state. The
other is a reactive state. So you said earlier, I
realized I don't need to react. Reaction usually involves four
(37:28):
fs of survival kind of reactivity. That's fighting, back, fleeing, freezing,
meaning tightening up your muscles and being temporarily not able
to move so you figure out if you're gonna fight
or flee. Usually, but the fourth F is fainting, or
some people call it feigning death where you collapse out
(37:50):
of helplessness. Now, all four of those fs are what
our mammalian nervous system has to deal with threats. So
when you use the word reactivity, I don't know if
you meant this with this kind of specificity, but before
you and I work together, I would bet you that
if we could get inside your nervous system, you literally
(38:10):
were in reactivity mode. You know, things were a threat
to your expectations for all sorts of reasons you can
get into if you want, but that you had a
high like brand and a high expectation filter, and so
when life didn't fit the way you thought it should go,
you didn't just say, oh, that's frustrating. No, you got
into reactivity, fighting, fleeing, freezing, fainting. You know, all these
(38:32):
fps get activated. It's very exhausting for the nervous system,
for the whole body to being a reaction to threat
mode all the time. So the word reactivity for clinical
use and scientific use is used for this notion of
a state that is activated when a threat. Is there
a threat to one's own integrity in life, that's in
(38:56):
very um contrasting distinction. That's different from you know, a
receptive state, right right, which was what it felt like
after the election, especially reactive. Okay, well this sounds like
a good time to take a break. Uh what can
you tell me what you thought when you met me?
(39:16):
What was your impression? Could you tell that I was
really stuck and in pain? I mean, you are a professional,
so I would assume, yeah, you know, it's so interesting
when I was asked to do your show, just to
start there. You know, I'm really busy writing books and
editing books. I don't have to have seen my show
or know who? Right, Well, that was what I want
to say. So I felt that my my assistant was
(39:37):
madly in love with you, and she said, you got
to go on the show. I said, really, they said,
she said yeah. I said, okay, so it's on my calendar.
I don't look much. She just tells me what to do.
And I showed up there and I was actually teaching
another class in another country in the other room, and
then I come out there. So then, so the first
time we met was when you're interviewing me about the brain.
(39:58):
I actually had no idea what we were doing. Scepted
I was in a school, and that's cool. I love
schools and love kids. So, um, when you're asking me
the questions about the brain, first of all, I thought
you'd some really smart questions. Second of all, um, you
told me what we're going to talk about. But then
it started getting a little focused more on this one
(40:19):
issue of drugs and the brain and brain and drugs
and at what age, you know, do you really screw
up your brain? And so I was looking at you,
you know, and so for me, professional and personal you know,
have to be distinguished. But in the end, we're all
just people. And so I know you were doing a show,
a professional show, so I'm looking at you as a
person who's doing a professional show, and I'm going, wow,
(40:39):
you know, there's something up here. I don't know what
it is, you know, but whatever. And so I think
I joked with you about something, and I said, you know,
do you want to talk more about this? You know?
And I think you even said, you know, I'm the
funny one, whom or not you or something something that
was really cute whatever. So I just thought, that's fun. Whatever,
And then the show was over and I said goodbye,
and that was it. I didn't know whatever hear from
you again or to you again. So when my assistant said, um,
(41:03):
Brandon called, and you know, Chelsea's assistant is setting up
this appointment, I said, okay, And so I guess it
didn't surprise me because it seems like things you want
to talk about more and um, you know, as you
mentioned earlier, you could get piste off at people were
irritated or whatever. So I figured, Okay, I guess I
(41:23):
didn't irritate you. You know, so that's kind of night
that felt like a nice thing and didn't irritate you
enough to say, you know whatever. So when you showed
up and now we're at our first session. You know,
therapy is like one of the most amazing things to
be in because you bring your whole self as a
therapist to sit down and let's take that first session
(41:44):
you and I had. You know, I'm there as a
human being. We've had this small encounter before. You're now
sitting in the office in the chair across from the
chair I'm sitting and you're a human being, and now
we're sitting there right And so for me as a therapist,
it's this moment where perhaps because you know I've been
(42:06):
like obsessed with the idea of what's the mind and
what's mental health and what's healing all about for all
these decades. For me, the mind now that's created between
the two of us is something that I couldn't create
a loan and you couldn't create a loan. So we're
doing this together. So it's really the beginning of a relationship.
And in that relationship that was unfolding, I could feel um.
(42:30):
And this addresses your question, a kind of pain that
I had no idea what it was. I knew nothing
about your history or anything, you know, except that you
decided to come for that session, and so I could
feel something was up. And as you probably know, this
isn't gonna be a surprise to you. You do a
lot of talking, or you did a lot of talking,
and it was really fast. And I think maybe even
that first session when I said to you, you know,
(42:51):
please stop talking, not not in general, but about a
particular please stop talking, it was because because I know
a little bit about the brain. You know, um, it's
like where attention goes, neural firing flows and neural connection grows.
You had a whole bunch of left brain talk which
is fine, and my left brain is able to keep
(43:13):
up with you whatever. Um. And then I want to
invite your right brain into the therapy session, which means
letting the left brain not shut up, but just take
a moment to breathe. Let your right brain become more present,
which doesn't have the words that the left brain has.
It has some language, but not the kind of language
(43:34):
of left has. And as I mentioned earlier, you know
it's going to start getting you in touch with what
your body is feeling, so bodily sensations and autobiographical memory,
whereas the left doesn't have direct access to those things.
So by asking you to please take a pause from
all the talk, in that moment, I could feel you're
(43:54):
asking me what I felt. I could feel there was
some some stuff up, and I had no idea you
could have. I'm telling you, you could have absolutely said
this is too weird or I like talking, screw you
or whatever, and you could have not come back, you know,
ever again. So I want to just really put it
out to you that you had the courage to have
(44:15):
some guy tell you to stop doing what your inclination was,
which is to talk and make jokes and all the
kind of stuff and for me to see how bright
you are, how left brain strong you were, and how
you needed to develop more of your right hemisphere. So
to me, it's all about a process called integration, which
means honoring differences and promoting linkages. And it felt like
(44:35):
the push to keep on talking and this reactivity had
a kind of left sided dominance. So the feeling inside
of me was that there needed to be some integration
in your life. You could call that healing, you could
call it, you know, working on blockages, whatever words you
want to use. But yes, I felt like something was up,
and I felt really, um ah, deeply moved that you
(44:59):
wanted to come do something that was really difficult to do,
which is to look inward at stuff. I didn't know
what this stuff was going to be. I had no idea,
and I don't know if you did. Did you have
some did you have? Why? Why did you come? I
just what didn't think of my life was working out
for me at that particular point. I was just too
angry and I thought it was about Trump, and I realized,
you know, that's not the root of my anger, that's
(45:20):
just a symptom. And I finally had something identifiable to
put my anger on. So no, I didn't know that
I was going to come in and like let it out.
It just kind of happened naturally, which you know is normal. Okay, Well,
thank you very much Dan for being here, and thank
you Brandon. We will be back next Thursday with a
brand new episode of Life Will Be the Death of Me.
(45:42):
I have added some stand up tour dates to my
Life Will Be the Death of Me sit down comedy tour.
I'm coming to St. Louis, Minneapolis, Nashville, New Orleans, Westbury,
Long Island, Atlanta. So those are on sale now. And
what else, and don't forget your book is still sale?
Oh yes, oh yes, oh so sexual Life will be
(46:05):
the Death of Me. It's available wherever at your local bookseller. Hopefully,
Life will Be the Death of Me as a production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,
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