Good Life Project - How to Connect Deeper & Love Better | Rick Hanson, PhD

Episode Date: March 20, 2023

What if there was a game-changing relationship practice or tool or strategy that was capable of not only transforming your personal relationships, even the really tense one, but also your relationship with yourself, and even with the way to respond to others, even complete strangers, and embrace shaping the world to be a better place? Turns out, there just might be. And, this is where we’re headed today with my guest, Rick Hanson. As a psychologist, best-selling author, and expert on positive neuroplasticity, Rick has lectured at some of the world's top institutions and is here to share his insights on how to warm your heart, see the person behind the eyes, and ultimately shape the world to be a better place.TW: brief mention of suicidal thoughtsYou can find Rick at: Website | InstagramIf you LOVED this episode you’ll also love the conversations we had with Tara Brach about the practice of compassion and acceptance.Check out our offerings & partners: My New Book SparkedMy New Podcast SPARKED. To submit your “moment & question” for consideration to be on the show go to sparketype.com/submit. Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

These days, we can so easily tune out the realness, the piercing tenderness of what it's like to be another person. And so much of what we're advocating for is just start with one human heart at a time. If compassion is a kind of superpower, it enabled our species to survive. Let's tap into that superpower and be willing to be brave enough to make room enough for other people to land in your heart. swans, by the way, but also your relationship with yourself and even the way you respond to others, even complete strangers, and embrace shaping the world around you to be a better place. Well, it turns out there just might be. And this is where we're headed today with my guest, Rick Hansen. So Rick is a psychologist, senior fellow at UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, a New York Times bestselling author of seven books published in 31 languages,

including his latest, Making Great Relationships. He's the founder of the Global Compassion Coalition and the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, as well as a co-host of the Being Well podcast. And Rick has lectured everywhere from NASA and Google to Oxford and Harvard. He's an expert on positive neuroplasticity, and his work has been featured everywhere from CBS to NPR, BBC, and so many other outlets. He actually began meditating in 1974 and has taught in meditation centers worldwide for nearly five decades. And today, we're diving into the world of relationships, starting with how we relate to ourselves and to those around us, with a focus on

the role of compassion and self-compassion. We explore how difficult it is for many people to have self-compassion and really loyalty towards themselves, which can prevent us from being able to offer compassion to others, or how self-compassion makes people stronger and more resilient and is actually a way to stand up against our inner critics. We also touch on the importance of recognizing suffering in others and not tuning it out and how empathy alone can lead to burnout and depletion, while compassion activates reward centers in the brain that help really replenish the energy needed to be present and helpful to others in need. And we explore the importance of cultivating deep and meaningful relationships with others and something he calls warming the heart, which is the practice of

connecting with oneself and others on really a deeper level, which leads to more compassion and empathy. And we talk about the importance of seeing the person behind the eyes and putting no one out of your heart, even if you need to change the form or nature of your relationship with them and how anger can actually be useful if we observe a two-stage process of getting angry and then learn to use anger without letting it use us. And finally, we discuss the importance of setting boundaries, standing up for yourself and taking care of yourself while still really retaining an open openheartedness and benevolence towards others. I am so excited to share this conversation with you.

I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. Apple Watch Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS are later required.

Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg.

You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk. Which is really exciting to dive in to explore some of the many, many ideas from the book, but also even before we jump into that, curious around some of the work that you've been doing with the Global Compassion Coalition, because it seems like this is bigger than a project. This is a devotion

that brings people together around compassion, but it's built into the idea of what you have built here along with others is the notion of compassionate scale. So for those who've never have no exposure to this concept, take me into it a bit. Oh, sure. Thanks for asking, actually. So here we are, 8 billion of us living on planet Earth, and we take for granted ways of living that are completely unnatural, abnormal to our biological template, in which, for example, 97% of the 300,000 years our species has walked the earth, everyone who lived did so in the context of a small hunter-gatherer band, typically spending most of your days with the same 40 or 50 people with a little flow out and a little flow into your band. And we evolved a unique strategy for living together that was

extremely effective, unlike any other of the hundreds, several hundred primate species. We're unique because of our big social brains in establishing a social life on a foundation of what's called caring and sharing, or in other words, compassion and justice. A more primitive strategy called holding and controlling, these are anthropological terms, involves alpha dominance, in which alphas hold on to food and control reproductive access. Humans unleashed, our ancestors unleashed that primitive strategy on other bands, sometimes, often, but inside the band, they cooperated. It's remarkable to appreciate that that fundamental way of life is basic to us. But when agriculture came in with large surpluses, enabling large populations

and concentrations of wealth and power, that unique human evolved strategy for politics, for regulating power, for sharing resources, for protecting those who are vulnerable, was disrupted. And it's been more or less Game of Thrones for the last 10,000 years. Those are the facts. And what the Global Compassion Coalition is about is scaling what worked in our ancestors' lives for 97% of the time we've been on this planet. We're not going to go back to the Stone Age. This is not all about that. I like ESPN. I like ibuprofen. I like access to fresh food, et cetera. But how do you actually restore compassion and justice at the foundation of society? So especially for the 80 to 90% of the population in the world who live under the

boot of a tyrant in daily life, right? How do you actually do that? And it's clear that the only way to do that is to take a page out of our ancestors' book, and the many must join together to regulate the powerful few. It's not about making enemies out of the powerful few, but it's actually understanding that so much of the suffering that people experience day to day, like the fact that 10,000 children a day die of hunger worldwide, the fact that eight men possess as much wealth as 4 billion people. These are facts, and those facts drive vast systems of injustice that create so much preventable human suffering. So the vision of this coalition is to be big enough, to be strong enough, to actually make a dent in things like child poverty, child hunger, climate change, wealth inequality, discrimination at a global scale. I don't think

we'll see the results in my lifetime, but we have to start at some point, right? And that's the vision here, to create a new kind of global commons that is focused on four things, the study, education, application, and advocacy of compassion in a way that enables people at scale to pull their money, to pull their effort, to pull their time in a way that's big enough to actually make the kind of difference that we long for. Yeah. I mean, it's such a powerful vision, the way that you lay it out. And certainly we all live in a world where we feel the need for something that will allow us to see the humanity in others and hope that they see the same in ourselves so that we can feel more connected, more dignity centered, more empathetic, more

altruistic. What jumped out at me as you're sharing this is the size of the vision is so big. What you're talking about is so big. I'm curious whether, you know, as you build this out, this engine for global compassion, how do you actually get people to raise their hand? When you look at the scale of this, so many people don't actually even lift a finger to do anything that is in line with their values because they look at the size of the problem and they say, but who am I? There's nothing that I can do to make a difference. And when you present something like this, on the one hand, the vision is so astonishing

and you look at it and you say, yes, yes, yes, yes. And then you look at the state of the world and you say, how on earth could this actually even succeed? I'm curious because you've been in it. Yeah. How has it been rallying people and inviting them to really buy into the possibility of this being real? Yeah. Well, I appreciate you letting me rant here a bit and I'll try to be more succinct. Yeah, I'm really fascinated by it. From now on. It's a great question. First, I think a lot of people feel deep down that something has

just gone wrong. The game is rigged. Even for people who are quite privileged like I am, I'm appalled at the unfairness of the political system, whether it's here in America or around the world. Many, many people, I think, have a growing feeling of there's something crazy. And it's often the younger people who feel it. But with that is despair. Just like you said, you feel hopeless. You can't do anything about it. I think there's a feeling among people that the only way out is to come together at scale

that can stand up to corporate power, that can stand up in the countries around the world that are just beginning to develop civil society and have a long way to go. Now, if people don't want to participate, okay, fine. We're going to keep going. And our main focus is not replacing any organization, but celebrating the literally tens of thousands of people in organizations worldwide that are trying to make the world better. Yeah. With compassion at the center of that. Yeah. Response to suffering, preventable suffering, especially. Right. And at the heart of that is, you know, being able to actually not just move through life with an us and them mentality, which has been so ingrained in us from the earliest days

in our lives. It's sort of like you've limited, you know, there's scarcity of resources. And the only reason that you come together like is because the us is protected and then we get better access to the resources rather than we're at a moment where we all need to be the us and to mobilize on the scale you're talking about in the name of compassion and decreasing global suffering. Regardless of if we know the person, if they look like us, if they believe like us, is a radical yet profoundly powerful idea. I know. Thank you for saying that. And part of what's very hopeful is to realize that numerous coalitions have formed at scale to drive systemic change. Like I grew up in America in the 60s and 70s, and I kind of came of age politically in the late 60s. And I was still pretty young. I was a teenager. And I saw the civil rights movement, environmentalism, gay rights, women's rights, four major movements, transformational in America. How did they get successful? A small

group of people initially formed. It took generations. We still have a long way to go, but they came together at scale and they were willing to be diverse and heterogeneous in their scale. They didn't have purity tests. Basically, if you were for the central issue, that was good enough. If you were for it because you were a born again Christian, that was great enough. If you were for it because you were a secular atheist philosopher, that was great enough. If you were for it because you were a secular atheist philosopher, that was good enough. If you were just for it because you just were pissed off at injustice, that was good enough. You know, if you were for it because you had taken LSD and you had this

vision of a hippie world for everybody, that was good enough, right? You know, there are many examples of that. Also, I was just thinking recently about, remember how there used to be a hole in the ozone layer vaguely in the past? I remember that was like the big thing, everyone. It's largely healed now, isn't it? Exactly. A coalition formed to outlaw fluorocarbons of different kinds, you know, and spray bottles and things like that.

And guess what? No more hole in the ozone layer. You know, in England, a coalition came together to outlaw the slave trade in the early 1800s. That's a good example. And so I just think it's important to appreciate that things do work. Things really do work, but we need to come together and we need to not be naive. It's free to join the coalition. If you have a belly button, you're qualified to join the coalition. And even if you don't, you probably still have. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're an AI, we're going to talk maybe, but okay. And organizations as well, there's no cost.

I mean, obviously we appreciate donations and to be able to have impact, but it's about numbers. It's about people basically saying suffering matters. Other people matter. These days, we can so easily tune out the realness, the piercing tenderness of what it's like to be another person. And so much of what we're advocating for is just start with one human heart at a time. If compassion is a kind of superpower, it enabled our species to survive through extraordinary climate change over 300,000 years and toolmaking hominid ancestors a couple million years before that. Let's tap into that superpower and be willing to be brave enough to make room enough for other people to land in your heart,

which of course is alongside letting yourself land in your heart too. Right. And feeling, I think, is terrifying to a lot of people right now. And I almost wonder if we feel it. I think a lot of the world has actually been so exposed to so much suffering in their community. And in the Western world, a lot of us have been, we've had more of an ability to sort of put it over there. And now it's kind of landing at every day's doorstep and the level has ratcheted up. And it's almost like people are, they're putting up even higher walls because they feel like if I let it in, I don't know if I'll be able to breathe, let alone actually act

in a way where I could be of service to myself and others in trying to actually relieve suffering in some way, shape or form. So it's almost like a defense mechanism, I feel like to a certain extent. I think you're right. And here's where a little brain science is actually super useful, besides being cool, but it's useful. It's that actually empathy alone can lead to burnout. You can lead to feeling flooded, even re-traumatized by what you're feeling. But compassion, because it's sweet along with the bitter, it's bittersweet. There's the sense of the suffering. So there's an empathy for the suffering along with a benevolence, a caring, a lovingness, a kindness, a friendliness, a respect, depending on the nuances of the particular situation.

And that aspect, the caringness aspect, activates reward centers in the brain because it feels good to be caring. It feels good to be social. It feels good to be social. It feels good to be loving, you know, to feel supportive, to be loyal, right? Those have reward systems in the brain because it helped our ancestors survive at the individual level and also at the group level in which genes were still shared. And so groups, in effect, were a unit of evolution as well, given that they bred inside their group to a large extent. So if you are not just empathic, but you move into

that compassionate energy, those qualities, then it's not overwhelming to open your heart. Yeah. Super powerful. getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman.

I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him.

Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. We've been talking about sort of compassion at scale and allowing others in at scale and relatedness at scale. Let's zoom the lens in a little bit here because fundamentally, we can talk about people on the other side of the world, but I often wonder whether people who say yes to something big and far away and then ignoring the people who are right in front of them, people who are right next to them. On the one hand, we've been talking about why people don't do this, why don't get involved.

And on the other hand, I almost feel like there's a pendulum swing in the other direction, which you sometimes see where somebody goes all in, almost as an avoidance mechanism for the difficult nature of a relationship with a child or with a partner or with a sibling or with a parent or, you know. So let's sort of zoom the lens in a little bit here and talk about how we relate to people right next to us on a daily basis. And this is certainly the focus of your most recent book around really how do we cultivate relationships that are deep and meaningful and nourishing.

You know, one of the things that you talk about early on, and the book is great, and I love the way that you actually set it up. It's really these 50 different things you can kind of dip in wherever you want. It's like a daily devotional almost to a certain extent. One of the things that you talk about early on is this notion of being loyal to yourself and how important it is and also how much people struggle with that. And as I was reading that, I'm thinking to myself, I get that. And I wonder if part of

what's going on there is also, it's hard to be loyal to someone that you don't really know all that well. And I feel like a lot of us really don't know ourselves all that well. That's really interesting. As a longtime therapist, I would agree with you. I'm reminded somehow of this line, I think, from James Joyce in the Dubliners, maybe. I'm not a super literary person, but I remember this line that Mr. Smith or somebody lived at some distance from himself, right? I think a lot of people live at some distance. I did. I entered adulthood as a

late teenager, let's say, numb from the neck down. That's how it felt. And absolutely. And I find also as a long-time therapist that half the people I saw coming into my office who had real issues, they cared immensely about the challenges and the suffering of other people. They were loyal to others. They would immediately mobilize. They would act. You used that word mobilize earlier. They would mobilize to do something for their friend, their mate, their parents, their kids. But given the same level of challenge or suffering in themselves, they were in relationship to it. They would not mobilize around it, even at the most basic level of bringing compassion to themselves for it, or a sense of that what was happening to them was unfair when in fact they were being mistreated by other people. And so igniting the pilot light, it's absolutely the very beginning because if that pilot light is not ignited,

you can read all the self-help books in the world. You can listen to all the cool podcasts in the world, you know, and it won't make a difference because it just, there's no pilot light there. So that's one of the absolute first things to do. And I find, especially for people who belong to any group that's been kind of systematically told that they don't matter as much as others, women as a group, people of color as a group, other different groups. If a person is a member of those particular groups, it's especially important to be loyal to yourself. And easier said than done. That's where, you know, my kids joke me. They say, how could you do it with your seven point plan for that one?

You know, we're like a four by 12 matrix, you know. And you very graciously, like with every time you ring up like one of these 50 different things, you're like, and I'm going to give you something to do also. So here you go. To a fault, you know, I think about- Nothing wrong with that. I know. Show, don't tell, right?

You know, a little soul of great advice. All right, how do I do it? What do I do? Thank you, Captain Obvious, right? Oh, be loyal to yourself. Or some of the other chapters, admit fault and move on. One of my favorites, right? Oh, be loyal to yourself. Or some of the other chapters, admit fault and move on. One of my favorites, right? Or see the being behind the eyes or stand up to bullies. How do you actually do it? How do you actually do it? Say what you want. How do you actually do it?

Give them what they want. How do you actually do it? So I'm a maniac for that sort of thing. I find about being loyal to yourself, there are three things clearly you can do. One is to recognize the fairness of it, that it's moral, it's principled, particularly not because you're wanting to become some philosopher at Harvard, but because many people have a belief system that somehow it's bad to be on their own side. It's a sin. They're not allowed. It's selfish. It's selfish. I'm going to give less to others. There are all these beliefs and it's really helpful to just challenge them and say, wait a second, I would want my friend to be loyal to themselves. I could also recognize that as people take care of themselves objectively, they have more to offer to others. It's generous to others to fill up your own cup.

Oh, but gee, do I apply that thinking to myself? Usually not. So that's first, it's principled. Second, to bring the heart into it, to realize, wow, my suffering matters. The way I'm sad, I'm frustrated, I feel let down, I'm beleaguered, I'm worn out, I feel like I'm running on empty. That matters. And I'm not wallowing in self-pity to bring myself self-compassion. There's a warmth there. There's a warm feeling. And then the third aspect of being loyal to yourself is muscular. You just,

you have moxie. You just have this fundamental sense of, like you would for a friend. Like, I think about Gandalf, you know, because I'm not Lord of the Rings, not, you know, that barred door, the bridge, you know, the, whatever, that creature from the depths, where the Balrog's coming up, you know. Gandalf was like, you shall not pass, you know, and has that strength to it, to bring that kind of strength to ourselves or on our own behalf, that dimension of moxie. So any one of those three are good ways to be more on your own side, to be for yourself and all three together are a good combination. Yeah. And as you mentioned, you know, and this kind of ties in with a couple of the other things that sort of fall under the befriending yourself, you know, if we're going to be in relation to

others, part of it is we really actually need to be in relation with ourselves first. And then you just mentioned, like, it's this notion also of self-compassion. And we've been talking about compassion towards others, but we're human. We mess up all day, every day. Like, we're not the people that we thought we would be. We're not where we thought we would be in life. We haven't accomplished this, that, and the other thing. And the notion of having compassion for ourselves and then forgiving our humanity at the same time, again, is something that I think when you sort of offer it up cognitively, people are like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

But in practice on a day-to-day basis, it seems so hard to operationalize. Well, you're taking a great summary. You have now summarized probably 50 studies on or 500 probably at this point, show that compassion for yourself makes you stronger. People are more resilient. They're also more ambitious because a lot of people are just hammered by an inner critic. And if you have compassion for yourself, that's a way to stand up against the inner critic. And it's also a way to foster a greater sense of worth. I've known a number of people who have very high self-esteem. They can give you a long list of their positive qualities, but they feel bad about themselves deep down. They feel inadequate, ashamed, like a bad person, unlovable, broken, damaged goods. Compassion for yourself is very

healing for all of those things, you know, when something happens. So there you are, you're interacting with your boss, your partner, your kid, your neighbor, and you start to realize, whoa, something's bothering me here. Something happened. You know, maybe they said something weird. Maybe you said something and now you're mad at yourself about it. You didn't get what you wanted. They kind of put you down in some way, maybe, or just ignored you. First, recognize it. Be mindful. Second, be compassionate toward yourself. Third, be active. Do something, maybe inside your mind alone. And what you do is you think to yourself, I'm not going to talk to that person anymore. Or, you know, that was the last time I'm going to go on a date with them or do a business project with them.

You know, maybe it's just entirely in your own mind. But the point is compassion for yourself is not where you end. It's where you start. It's where you start. And then you keep on going. No, that makes a lot of sense. And bridging that gap, it sounds like, well, of course it makes sense. But then to actually do it, it's a practice. I would imagine, you know, like little

steps and over and over and over until it becomes more just your way of being, you know, you start out talking a lot about, okay, so let's really get acquainted with ourselves because that is the core of, of being able to relate to other human beings. And hopefully they're doing the same in some level. And then you move into sort of an exploration of different ideas around a category that you would call loosely warming the heart. Opening up that conversation is the notion of seeing the person behind the eyes, if I remember the language. Yeah, that's right. Take me a little bit deeper into what you mean by that. Well, to do it in real time, as soon as you started talking about it, within a couple of seconds, you know, we're doing this online, you know,

your two-dimensional thumbnail on my screen. And yet, boom, suddenly I'm tracking you in a different kind of a way. And it's not to be weird or stare at people in some new age, invasive sense, like, whoa. But it's to realize that like, you're a cool guy, you're articulate, you're, you know, you're intelligent, you know, and all the rest. And behind the words, behind the personality, behind the persona is a real person, is a being as process. You know, I have a Buddhist orientation. So I think of the self as a process, self-ing, being, be-ing. There's being there that you matter to you, right? There's a real person there. And as soon as I slow down to get a sense of a being there behind your eyes, you know, I could close my eyes. I would still be aware of, you know, the being in you immediately moves me to treating you better. Not that I've been treating

you badly, but to be alert in a whole new kind of way, because it's like, there's a sensitivity there. There's a person there. This is a totally wacko metaphor because I've never golfed in any serious way, but I think about golf shoes with those little spikes, I guess they have. And I just think that we're all wearing golf shoes, kind of walking on top of each other, you know? And it's when you realize that there's someone over there who's really affected by how they're treated, you take off your golf shoes, you walk it with socks on, right? Instead of these prickly things that are so wounding to other people. Yeah. I think it's so powerful.

And I often wonder how technology affects this capacity. On the one hand, it flattens the world where, you know, like I'm in one place, you're in another place. Tomorrow I could be talking to somebody literally on the other side of the world. And it's like, we're side by side on the same screen. It's fantastic. You know, we're not Luddites. It does so much to help bridge the gap between people who, but for the fact that it exists,

would never actually be in conversation, in partnership. And at the same time, it is so much easier to not see the person behind the eyes, to say things that you would never dream of saying had you been standing in front of that person with their five-year-old child holding their hand next to them. It's true. I have a hint of, you know, the hair on the back of my neck is up a little bit and I want to say something or I'm going to drop a comment here online. You know, like this is sort of like taking a page out of your playbook here. It's like,

I really want to just connect with the fact that this person is a human being and they're struggling and they've got burdens and they've got things that they're carrying and they've got family and they've got love and they've got, and I think it really, when you can just literally take a beat and say, you know, like there, but for God's grace, go I, it really, when you can just literally take a beat and say, you know, like there but for God's grace, go I. It changes the way that we not only see, but relate to people as, you know, like living, breathing units of dignity that deserve to be treated with that level of respect. That's beautifully said, really beautifully said. I find also that when we can just be rested in ordinary human relatedness,

almost old school neighborliness, just being present, slowing down enough to really just be present with other people and to create an opening in which they can be present as well. When we do that, it actually puts us on stronger ground to assert ourselves if we need to. Yeah, that makes sense. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever,

making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Something else that you talk about sort of under this warming the heart umbrella is this notion of putting no one out of your heart. You're going after it. I am. This is good. Because this is something that I struggle with. I have to imagine so many people struggle with the notion that you

feel somebody wronged or harmed by somebody. And all you want to do is literally figure out every wall that you can put up so that they don't exist in your world, in your life, in your heart anymore. You don't want them because that way you can't be re-harmed. You can't re-experience it. Like you're just jettisoning it. But you have an interesting invitation to explore a bit of a different approach. It's important to realize that, classic line, proverb, fences make for good neighbors. Paradoxically, autonomy supports intimacy. It's a fancy way of putting it. And so we need to retain the right to put someone out of

our business if they don't come to work regularly, or we need to put someone out of our bed. It's just not going well as a romantic partner. But do we need to put them out of our heart? We may need to put them out of positions of power. We may even need to put them out of mainstream society, at least for a while, notwithstanding the enormous issues with the whole penal system and all the rest of that. We may need to do things like that, but do we have to put them out of our heart? And that distinction is really powerful, retaining for yourself the right to do what you need to do to protect yourself and those you care about without turning that other person into an enemy, without turning them into an it. You may know the

structure you probably do of Martin Buber, these three kinds of relationships, I-thou, I-it, it-it. And I think about the ways in which we tend to it people. You can just see in the rationale for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the itting from the side of Putin of the Ukrainian people. You can think of the itting of certain people over the centuries, and you can feel it when someone is itting you, when they are not holding you in their heart rather than thou and you, even if they disagree with you. And for me, it's just turned into a beautiful practice that retains an inner freedom. Instead of being hijacked, played like a puppet by the inner strings of the reactive mind that want to thrust people out of the heart with grievances and anger and vengeance and punishing ill will

toward them. Instead of that, to retain a fundamental freedom that one, your or mine, one's expression, radiating, outflowing of decency and compassion and humanity is unconditional. It's like a radiating field of caring and kindness that others move through. Now, we may change the form of our relationship. We may put them out of our company, put them out of our bed, put them out of our halls of power, but our fundamental stamps of open-hearted benevolence and clear seeing of sentience in both humans and non-human animals, the quivering vulnerability of all sentient beings, you know, to hold that recognition means retaining a fundamental inner freedom that says, you can take all kinds of things from me, but you cannot take from me my capacity to see the good

in you. You know, it was immediately, as soon as I first read just the notion, immediately comes to mind is the metta meditation, loving kindness meditation, where for those who aren't familiar with it, you recite any variation of lines, which sort of says, you know, like, may I be healthy, happy, well. But at some point, then you bring to mind somebody

who, you know, is who you love or you care about. So you bring to mind somebody who's a you love or you care about. So you bring to mind somebody who's a perfect stranger. And then somewhere down the road, you bring to mind somebody who you struggle with. Maybe that person who's brought you wrong. And the invitation is wish these same things. It was the same goodness towards that person. And I've struggled with that part of the meditation in the past. Not that I'm at odds with many people in my life, but on occasion where there is, where I really kind of think about someone who I maybe don't even know, but maybe it's out there in the world that I feel is not doing good things. But I feel like it's a really powerful practice to keep bringing them into that expression of

openness and compassion and wishing well. because almost like on identity level, I want to see myself as I'm the type of person who is able to hold this no matter what comes my way. Maybe selfishly do it more for me than for anyone else. What you said there is really true that while there's a moral basis for resting in this stance, and why, in all the world's spiritual traditions, as well as in secular humanism, there's a valuing of this non-referential. In other words, it's not about any particular being. It's a general stance, omitting none in the language of early Buddhism, omitting none. In addition to the moral aspects of that, it's enlightened self-interest through and through. And people can feel it, that as you rest in that sense of openheartedness and good wishes,

in a context in which you are taking care of yourself, you're standing up for your own needs and rights, you're protecting yourself, setting boundaries and all the rest. As you rest in that feeling of open-hearted, warm-heartedness, it feeds you as it flows through you. It protects you. It helps you feel less upset about the people who've wronged you. And it also puts you in a much more, a much stronger position pragmatically to elicit better treatment of you from other people. And for those moments where you just can't let something go, and of course, we've all had them. Had them in the past, we'll have them again. Or maybe you're just, you know, you're bound up

in a conversation or a negotiation or an argument or some kind of conflict with somebody who maybe you don't care if they continue to be in your life, but maybe you actually really do. Maybe the partner that you have, you love them dearly, but you're in a moment of conflict. Anger can flare up. All these different emotions flare up in one of the invitations that you offer. And this again is, or you just mentioned, it's important to also not be a doormat in moments, stand up for yourself, you know, like be, you know, find the strength to actually express who you are and stand in it. You also explore the notion of anger in that context and the idea of using it and not letting it use you.

Yeah. I'm glad you highlighted that. And that's been a journey for me personally, to appreciate that while I do not think of myself as a typically angry person, when I get angry, it can have real impact. And there's an interesting neurological fact that of our so-called four types of negative emotions, anger, sorrow, hurt, or shame, and fear, the big four. People don't like feeling anxious. They don't like feeling inadequate or ashamed or remorseful or hurt.

And they don't like feeling sad, okay? But anger, anger actually activates reward systems in your brain involving dopamine and norepinephrine. You know, yeah, there's that rush and it's organizing and it serves a function of highlighting what's problematic and mobilizing energy. It's helpful. And especially if a person belongs to a group that's been systematically mistreated, often while having their anger suppressed and being told that it's their fault or it's a pathology. It's especially important to hear that I'm not talking about suppressing your anger and all the

rest of that. Still, anger of those four emotions is the most consequential interpersonally. A lot of research shows that expressed anger is much more negatively impactful than expressed sadness or shame or fear typically in relationships. And we know what it's like to be on the receiving end of somebody who's been angry at it. There's a proverb that describes anger with its honeyed tip and poisoned barb. So what to do about it, right? For me, what's really helpful is to observe the two-stage process of getting angry. Again, this is science here, that very often there's a buildup phase in which we're getting primed. Maybe we're kind of hungry. Maybe we're irritated from the long commute. Maybe

there've been a series of small things. These are like little match heads in a corner and that's the priming. And then finally the spark comes. And even if it's a small spark, it's that proverbial final straw that broke the camel's back and off goes the flame. So one of the keys is to catch stuff early on. That's huge in relationships. And to either talk about it early on or to let it go. But to just have it fester in the corner while you're ruminating about it, building up resentments, that's just tossing match heads in the corner, waiting for a spark to land first. Second, when something does trigger you, really, really, really try to slow it down. I mean, from my own experience, my own mistakes in relationships often

came from flashing my anger, flaring at people in different ways. Even in ways that struck me as seemingly mild, like exasperated or rolling my eyes, had a lot of impact. And there's this distinction you probably know from diversity work between intent and impact. We can have pretty mild intent or just positive intent. We're trying to help someone we care about do better next time. Okay, it's well-intended, but the impact's really negative to recognize that. And so for me, slowing it down and also feeling into what's under the anger, because very often what's under the anger is frustration or fear or hurt. And if we can speak about the frustration, feeling obstructed in attaining an important goal, or being anxious about something, being worried about something,

feeling threatened in some way, or feeling hurt, feeling let down, feeling mistreated, you know, affronted, provoked by another person. If we can just talk about those deeper, softer feelings, first of all, it's usually going to go a lot better with by another person. If we can just talk about those deeper, softer feelings, first of all, it's usually going to go a lot better with that other person. And second, you're going to be more in touch with yourself. Instead of getting hijacked by righteous anger and identifying with the case that emerges in your mind, I would have been a good lawyer. And thank goodness I did not go down that road in a lot of ways because I might have gotten hijacked by it. I went down a become a therapist road and become a mindfulness teacher road instead. Man, we can get so hijacked by that case. I'm right. We build up our case.

Watch out for that. Don't let it hijack you. And one great way to prevent that is to get in touch with the softer, deeper feelings underneath the anger. So those are different ways to practice with anger. It's a big practice. So what I heard is you're saying that there actually is a difference between lawyers and therapists and meditation teachers. Well, I'm for lawyers, you know. You're talking to a former lawyer in a very past life. Oh, I had no idea you were a covering attorney. When decades passed at this point in my life.

But the point you make that, I mean, like all kidding aside, there's information in anger. Yeah. And like, what is it? The frustration? Is it the fear? Is it the sadness? Is it the grief? Or did you just sleep really badly the night before and you don't have the capacity to just be human for a day?

And you just need to walk away and go take a nap, which I've done. You know, almost everything that we're talking about here though, like what strikes me is that there's an underlying assumption that we haven't really surfaced yet, which is that in order to do any of these things, in order to recognize any of these things that we're talking about requires a certain level of self-awareness. And if we don't have that level of self-awareness, it's very hard to realize when you're in the priming stage of anger or realize when you're in the triggered stage and then actively try and slow it down or realize that it's actually fear speaking or sadness speaking

instead of this. And similar with all the other things that we're talking about. And you as somebody who, as you mentioned, has been in the Buddhist tradition for many years and teaching, I'm always a little bit amazed that awareness is such a touchstone of our ability to actually be intentional in the way that we treat both ourselves and others around us and craft the world that we want. And yet it's something that is not really trained or offered in any broad educational sense, unless we actively go and seek it. And most people don't until they reached a crisis point in their lives. But it is sort of like the meta skill for everything that we're talking about. Why do you think that so many people are so unaware? Knee-jerk reaction would be to say the pace of society, technology, but this is not a new issue. Yeah. Part of it has to do with attention, right? And getting

control of attention. One of the great refuges for me in my fairly unhappy childhood, personally, my parents, loving and decent people, not their fault, complex reasons. I was quite unhappy as a kid. And one of the refuges for me was science fiction and also being out in the woods near my home in Southern California. And in both those settings, whether it was in my imagination or the characters I identified with and saving the space station, right, or going out in the woods and being able to camp a little bit or make a campfire safely, in that was a valuing of agency, of autonomy, rather than being a nail, being more to mental health, coping, success, lifetime earnings, relationship satisfaction, physical health, lifespan, et cetera, et cetera.

It's this fundamental attitude of taking responsibility for your own life. What follows from that may be the ultimate pilot light, right? That your life matters and you're going to bring your heart to it and you're going to make effort. Immediately then, it follows you need to know where you are, what's going on, awareness, in other words. In other words, I'm kind of responding to the topic of awareness and reflecting on what underlies being motivated to develop greater and greater awareness. And I think when people are not aware, they're kind of helpless and they're vulnerable to being buffeted by all kinds of things, the sneaker waves of life that they just didn't see coming,

but they could have, or the accident, you know, a hundred feet down the road, because they're only looking 10 feet down the road in front of themselves. It's really vulnerable, really, really vulnerable. And so, gosh, if there's, I was just thinking recently about how do you, I wonder, how do you look back on your life and judge it? And what are like major values, you know, as people reflect on their life or they can take refuge in and feel good enough today. And three stand out for me lately. I've been reflecting on them. One is, did you bring a good heart?

Were you basically decent and kind and being helpful? Or were you mean and cruel, callous? And we can be mean and cruel and callous quite easily, but instead, did you bring your whole heart? Were you good-hearted about it? All right, good, good on you. Second, did you make effort? There's no replacement for effort. I'm a long-time therapist. I've gotten nicer, but I've gotten tougher. There's no replacement for effort, right? Making, you know, reasonable effort, which means that at a certain point in the day, you clock out. And then did you learn along the way?

Was there learning? A lot of people don't have a learning curve. And in my own work related to positive neuroplasticity, I'm really interested in how people can convert states to traits and grow the good inside that lasts. There's a whole shtick about that. Maybe for another time. Right there. Like when I look back and I have my self-doubts and self-criticism, things I have remorse about.

I've completed 70 laps around the sun. Pretty wild what a long, strange trip it's been. And it gives me comfort to look back and go without arrogance, really. It kind of brings you almost to a sense of modesty or humility to look back at your life and go, you know, did I bring a good heart on the whole? With some lapses, but on the whole? Did I make efforts, sincere efforts on the whole? And did I grow? Did I learn? Did I correct? Did I implement correction as I understood it along the way? And then if you can answer yes to those three, that's a pretty, the good life project, right? That is a good life project.

You just kind of stole my thunder from my regular final question for every guest. Well, counselor, you still have a closing argument to make. I'm thinking about how many of the kind of members of the jury, so many of the, my wife and I enjoy watching B plus TV. That's what we call it. B plus TV, about an hour and a half a night.

And I could watch a couple of shows and I think they're mainly about lawyers, either lawyers or doctors. Yeah. Can't get away. Can't get they're mainly about lawyers, either lawyers or doctors. Yeah. Can't get away. Can't get away from us old, old recovered or current or whoever it may be. Yeah. The notion of, as we start to come full circle and, you know, we've talked about broad, large scale compassion, really understanding and allowing space for the suffering of others as almost a source fuel for us actually taking action and saying, I feel compelled to do something about this. And then we kind of narrowed the lens a bit to

we're in relation with people just in our own world and starting with us, like, how do we actually, we need to know ourselves. And then some of the major touch points that come up with other people, as I mentioned earlier, for those listening, we've just dipped into a handful of ideas, but Rick lays out 50 or so, all different things. And to really, it's an enjoyable and also really valuable read to dive into these different ideas. And you also have a whole thing about building cases in there, by the way, everything keeps circling back to this lawyer. We tend to feel slighted. Drop the case is what it's called drop the case because i'm yeah watch out for the case you build against right we're like secretly gathering

evidence in your mind for like the big thing um you know really i think you brought this home so beautifully which is really like if we really come back to um becoming self-aware on our own level and really starting with just like what do do we genuinely believe in? Like, what are the values I hold dear? And am I showing up as often as I can and living by them? And I think that makes a huge difference. So as we come full circle in this container of good life project, and like I said, you kind of answered this already, but I'll see if anything else comes up. If I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? It's a group of three that overlaps when I said, I had a period of my life in my mid-20s when I actually thought about killing myself. And I wasn't too miserable, but I was asking myself, what's the point? Why keep going? What's the why? That's how I relate to your question. What's the why? And I realized that

generally almost every why boils down into one of these three categories. First, quality of life. Good life consists of a combination of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Both the hedonic well-being, which I'm experiencing a lot of right now, Jonathan, with you, the fun, the ideas, the camaraderie, the humor. It feels good, you know, drinking my cup of coffee, looking out the window and seeing a sunset, hedonic well-being, and then eudaimonic well-being, a sense of meaning and purpose, you know, which also is present here for me that it can feel like, you know like there's something fulfilling in doing this. My capabilities are being used to some extent. So quality of life values, which include

lovingness and caringness and all that. The second major why is around service. So independent of quality of life, people want to serve. They want to help. Even if it's painful, even if it puts them at risk, like working in a war zone for the sake of others, they want to serve. They want to contribute, independent of any personal payoff in terms of their quality of life, broadly. And then the third major category of why has to do with learning, including the ultimate forms of learning that have to do with awakening, whether one does that in a religious context or not. The complete liberation of the mind and the heart and a resting fundamentally in the ultimate ground of being, whatever that is. And so for me, the good life is one that

is rich and full in all three of those areas. Thank you. Hey, before you leave, if you love this episode, safe bet you will also love the conversation that we had with Tara Brock about the practice of compassion and acceptance. You'll find a link to Tara's episode in the show notes. And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app. And if you found this conversation interesting or inspiring or valuable, and chances are you did since you're still listening here, would you do me a personal favor, a seven second favor and share it maybe on social or by text or by email, even just with one person. Just copy the link from the app you're using and tell those you know, those you love, those you want to help navigate this thing called life a little better so we can all do it better together with more ease and more joy. to listen. Then even invite them to talk about what you've both discovered. Because when podcasts

become conversations and conversations become action, that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. We'll be right back. risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary.