Review of Daniel J Siegel MD's Mindsight PART 1: Become the Captain of Your Own Mind

In this episode Andrea revisits her 2019 conversation with Dr. Daniel J. Siegel to explore Mindsight — his science-based approach to understanding the mind, integrating the brain, and cultivating empathy. Dr. Siegel explains the difference between mind and brain, the benefits of the Wheel of Awareness meditation, and how Mindsight can change brain structure and improve health.

Watch full interview here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7pnea2Vbzc

Practical tips include daily Mindsight practice, naming emotions to build self-awareness, and simple emotional check-ins to make learning and relationships more meaningful.

This week, in our review of EP 28 with Daniel J. Siegel, MD  and his book Mindsight, we learned:

✔ The Difference Between the Mind and the Brain.

✔  The Benefits of The Wheel of Awareness Meditation.

✔ How to Understand and Apply Mindsight that gives us insight into ourselves, and empathy for others.

✔ How Mindsight can change brain structure and improve health.

✔ In order to make teaching and learning more meaningful, what we are teaching must have an element of emotion.

Welcome back to SEASON 14 of The Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast, where we connect the science-based evidence behind social and emotional learning and emotional intelligence training for improved well-being, achievement, productivity and results—using what I saw as the missing link (since we weren’t taught this when we were growing up in school), the application of practical neuroscience.

I’m Andrea Samadi, and seven years ago, launched this podcast with a question I had never truly asked myself before: (and that is) If productivity and results matter to us—and they do now more than ever—how exactly are we using our brain to make them happen?

Most of us were never taught how to apply neuroscience to improve productivity, results, or well-being. About a decade ago, I became fascinated by the mind-brain-results connection—and how science can be applied to our everyday lives.

That’s why I’ve made it my mission to bring you the world’s top experts—so together, we can explore the intersection of science and social-emotional learning. We’ll break down complex ideas and turn them into practical strategies we can use every day for predictable, science-backed results.

Episode 371:

For today’s Episode 371, we continue our journey into the mind with the next interview review. Just a reminder-this review series began back with Episode 366[i], where in Part 3 we discovered an important lesson: if we don’t like our results—or what we see on the outside—we need to shift our mindset and look within. True change always begins on the inside.

 

EP 369[ii] we learned how to Rewire our Brain with Dr. Dawson Church and his Bliss Brain Meditations, and then last week, EP 370[iii] with John Medina’s Brain Rules, we reviewed how important this understanding of neuroscience is, especially connected to education, teaching and learning.

Which brings us to today’s review, EP 371, where we revisit a very early episode with clinical professor of psychiatry from UCLA’s School of Medicine, Dr. Daniel J Siegel. He’s from EP 28[iv], that was recorded back in November of 2019. As we take this journey deeper into the mind, Dr. Dan Siegel offers the perfect place to begin, with his ability to bridge cutting-edge neuroscience and practical wisdom.

Dr. Dan Siegel, is well known for his books, trainings and courses that bridge cutting edge neuroscience with mindfulness and therapy. A reminder of his background-he’s a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and executive director of the Mindsight Institute[v] where you can find his courses, workshops, books and tools to help anyone understand and apply what can sometimes be complicated scientific concepts and make them easy to understand and applicable to our daily lives. At the end of the interview, I let Dr. Siegel know that I had been practicing his Wheel of Awareness Meditation, and ended up reviewing what I learned on EP 60[vi] where we explored the Science Behind a Meditation Practice.

You can watch the whole interview by clicking on the link in the resource section in the show notes, and learn all about Dr. Siegel’s work that encompasses schools, with resiliency, brain science and helping our next generation to understand how to apply these important strategies whether it’s in our classrooms, or workplaces of the future. Today we will continue to explore within, sharpen our mindset, and learn about what Dr. Siegel calls Mindsight.