HealthyGamerGG - Why You Feel So Helpless

Episode Date: May 23, 2022

Today Dr. K talks about acceptance, moving forward, obsessive thoughts, and learned helplessness! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/healthygamergg/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The problem with obsessive thoughts is that we get caught up in them, right? We start to think that our mind is correct. We start to think that our thoughts are facts. And so oftentimes what I do when I'm working with people who have obsessive thoughts is that they can sort of, with detachment, learn to accept that their mind produces obsessive thoughts. And so the solution there is to detach from our mind and just acknowledge that like there's a difference between I want a hamburger and my body wants a hamburger or my mind wants a hamburger. It's fine for your mind to produce these thoughts. The question is, do you want to act in accordance with the thoughts that your mind produces? Yes or no?

And that applies for delusions. It applies for anxiety. It applies for insecurity. That your actions and how you behave does not have to be in accordance with those thoughts. Acceptance versus learned helplessness. How can one distinguish between the two? Yeah. So this is a, it's a good question.

So a lot of people will wonder a little bit about, okay, what's the difference between acceptance and learned helplessness. So let's kind of talk about this for a minute. Some time ago, some psychologists really coined a very interesting concept, which is learned helplessness. And learn helplessness is this idea that over time, you learn to be helpless. So generally speaking, when we face challenges, it is the natural human response to try to overcome that challenge and like succeed in some way. So in the face of adversity, we're going to rise up to the challenge and we're going to learn how to beat it. What's happened, though, is that some people learn over time that, like, there's no way to win. So we'll see this in cases of, like, complex PTSD,

or see PTSD. We'll see this in a lot of other cases of abuse or trauma or things like that, where you kind of learn that resistance is futile, right? And so oftentimes you'll see this in cases of, like, you know, domineering parents or things like that where, like, you're, you sort of get divested of your own power and your own agency. And so then when you get faced with a challenge, what happens is instead of trying to rise above the challenge and address the challenge and things like that, what you end up doing is just giving up. Right. And so what happens with people with learned helplessness is that they learn to give up very, very easily. And so if something doesn't work right away, you just kind of like, you just sort of give up. And now recently what sort of happened is there's been

a big push for something called acceptance. So even in, you know, in like psychotherapy, for example, there's a kind of therapy called acceptance and commitment therapy or act, which is sort of rooted originally in cognitive behavioral therapy. And then what they sprinkle in is this Eastern concept of acceptance, which is that you have to like accept what's happened in life as opposed to focus on changing it. And it's kind of interesting, right? So like, the weird thing there is that if we sort of accept what happens in life instead of trying to change it, then don't we sort of end up in the same place as learned helplessness, which is like we're just going to let it kind of happen? And so this is a really common question and can be quite confusing, right?

So if I accept something, how does that help? Isn't that the same as not doing anything about it? And it's a good question, but in my experience, actually quite the opposite. So the first is that we can look at studies on things like acceptance and commitment therapy or act. And what we find is that those studies are very, very potent at revealing that sort of this acceptance philosophy can lead to good clinical outcomes. So Act is oftentimes used in addiction kind of scenarios, and we sort of see this historically as well. So if you look at Alcoholics Anonymous, which is a historically effective organization at helping people over. become addiction, kind of the first rule of alcoholics anonymous is, you know, you go up and you say,

hi, my name is Alok, I'm an alcoholic. And so it's kind of weird because if you're sort of like admitting defeat there, right, if you're saying I'm an alcoholic, period, then doesn't that mean that you're going to drink? And paradoxically, the answer is no. Paradoxically, what happens when you accept is it actually allows you to gain control over the behavior. So let's kind of go into this for a second. So oftentimes what happens in addiction, and this is what sort of act posits, is that it's our ability to like, it's our attempts to resist the addiction that actually cause us the most problems. And so by accepting the fact that we're addicted, once you sort of accept that foundation, then suddenly you can actually like gain power

over it, which I know sounds really paradoxical because if you accept that you're powerless in the face of alcohol, which is what AA espouses, then how on earth do you get control over it? that's kind of weird. But that's sort of how it works. We just sort of know that from a data perspective. And I'll try to explain a little bit of my understanding of how that works. So as long as I can win against alcohol, the addict's brain is going to like have a field day with that. And if you look at people who struggle with addictions, oftentimes what you find is this sense that I can win, right? I can manage it. I can fix it. I can reduce it. I can control it. but the problem is that all of those thoughts of like,

okay, I can manage it as long as I don't get a DUI. Drinking is fine as long as I don't drive drunk. Drinking is fine as long as dot, dot, dot, dot. Playing games is fine as long as dot dot dot dot. You know, I can get high as long as dot dot dot dot, right? That stuff doesn't apply to me. Like, I am in control. The problem is that when you have that thought in your head

that I am in control or I can gain control, oftentimes that is the thought that your addiction thrives on. That's what it uses because it tells you, because it knows that it's actually in control. The only way that the addiction can guarantee success is if it can convince you that you are in control. And so this kind of goes to almost like this saying that, you know, the greatest trick the devil ever pulled

was convincing the world he didn't exist. Right? So as long as your addiction can convince you that you're in control, and that you can handle it, you're going to keep using. And we sort of see that, right? We see that people who insist on getting in control, like, you know, like they're the ones who end up in the biggest problems. And so what Alcoholics Anonymous sort of realized, like what the original person,

the guy who wrote the big book, I forget his name, what he kind of realized is like the first step is admitting that you're going to lose. And interestingly enough, by admitting that you're going to lose all of the tactics that your addiction uses, the trump card that your addiction actually plays, it's like secret weapon that you don't even know that it's using it, right? Like, it's actually you think you're using it, but it's using you. It's controlling you. So what you're actually doing is taking away the Trump card by sort of saying, hi, my name is all I'm an alcoholic and I'm powerless in the face of alcohol.

Because if you're powerless in the face of alcohol, like going to the barbecue, you're not going to be able to resist. So don't go to the barbecue. If you're powerless in the face of alcohol, it doesn't matter whether you can control it or not control it, I got to go to the meeting every single day. That's what it takes. I have any shot of any kind of success. And failure is kind of around the corner. And so this is sort of what AA's kind of discovered with acceptance. A.A. has some problems with it, I think, generally speaking. And so, you know, there are certain adaptations, there's certain things about AA that don't fit with people, which I think makes a lot of sense.

So I personally think that AA is a little bit too disempowering. Like, I think it's better to understand the trick that your mind does than assume that you're actually powerless. Because I think you are powerful. You are in control. As long as your mind isn't tricking you. And so that's the attitude that I take. So I think there are a lot of issues with AA. And also it doesn't work for everyone, right?

So then this even it, so then what happened is people took this kind of, uh, ability of acceptance, and then they applied it to acceptance and commitment therapy. And they removed a lot of the bad stuff from AA, and they kind of applied it to act. Act as an evidence-based treatment for addiction, so that works really well. So then the question kind of becomes, okay, let's talk about you for a moment, and acceptance versus learned helplessness. And what's the difference? So learned helplessness is about the future, right?

So if we think about it very simply, in learned helplessness, I am here now, and there's no point in trying because of something in the future. I realize that that looks weird in the wrong direction. So like, you know, we're looking into the future and there's no point in trying because it's not going to work. So learn helplessness is forward thinking in its nature. It's like looking into the future and saying there's no point in trying now. The interesting thing about acceptance is acceptance brings you to the present. So acceptance is how you get out of the future and especially out of the past. So a lot of times what will happen is, you know, until you accept what has happened to you, you're kind of stuck in the past. You're like engaged in contrafactual thinking,

which I don't know if you all remember we talked about, but our mind has this ability to go back into the past and hypothesize a different set of outcomes. If only I had dot, dot, dot, dot. So when you're struggling in the present, sometimes what the mind does, it goes into the past and starts thinking, if only I had dot, dot, dot, if only I had studied harder, if only I had taken classes seriously, if only I hadn't dated this person, if only I hadn't done this, this, this, this. Then I wouldn't be in this scenario right now. And so what your mind actually spends its time doing is instead of focusing on the present and focusing on what you can do to get out of this, all it thinks about is what you should

have done differently to avoid the situation, which if you think about it as cognitive energy, that will never help you. Because you can't actually go back into time. it's like all of your problem-solving energy is going to rewrite the past, which is physically impossible, instead of trying to figure out what to do in the present. So this is where acceptance comes in.

So acceptance sort of takes all that crap from the past and then sort of, sorry, this way, takes all that crap from the past, and then kind of like lets it all go. And then you kind of accept where you are now, right? So if I accept, I'll say, but I didn't take it seriously, right? I did end up dating that person.

Or in the case of something like grief, like that person did pass away, right? I did lose a loved one. And that, I have to accept that. Because until you accept that, you're kind of stuck in that past. If only I'd done this, if only I'd done this. If only I'd done this. And that's part of the grieving process. So we also know that the grieving process involves acceptance, and that generally speaking,

is a healthy thing to go through. So when you actually accept, what it helps you do is sit in the present and then actually look forward to the future in a positive way. Whereas learned helplessness is all about making an assumption about the future that makes you not act today. And this is what's really confusing about acceptance is a lot of people think, okay, if I accept that I failed out of college, doesn't that mean that I don't do anything? No, actually the opposite. So when you accept that you failed college, okay, here I am now, I failed out of college. What am I going to do about it? Where do I go from here? and generally speaking, when you lean into acceptance and you learn how to accept, you accept your present circumstances,

and then there's a natural tendency to start looking to the future in sort of a positive way. But even looking to the future is not about looking out here. It's about, okay, what can I do now? What's the first step that I can take? That'll help me, like, put my life together. And that's what acceptance entails. So acceptance just helps us move to the present, helps us get out of the past. because as long as we're stuck in the past, it's going to be really hard to act.

And the problem with learned helplessness is that's when we're stuck in the future. And we assume that any action that we take is not going to be successful. But just because I accept that in the past I have failed does not mean that I'm going to continue to fail. Right. And this is what confuses a lot of people is they assume that, okay, if you accept that you are a failure, no, that's not what you accept. Right. I am a failure is actually learned helplessness. what you accept is that you have failed, period, and that if you had done things differently,

sure, you could have changed stuff, but you can still do things differently now, right? You still have a choice now. And how you choose to live the next day of your life, the next hour of your life, the next month of your life, is still up to you and under your control. And that comes through acceptance.

So a lot of this stuff is like all about developing a present focus. And this is what yoga essentially discovered. All this stuff is rooted in yoga. all this mindfulness stuff, DBT, ACT, it's all rooted in yoga. And I'm pretty sure that's a historically accurate statement. You know, I imagine I'm biased there, but also it seems like it's pretty historically accurate. So if you kind of look at that, like this present-focused stuff is what's really, really powerful in terms of putting your life together. And generally speaking, when people accept, it helps them put their life together, whereas learned helplessness is kind of like a, a,

strategy to avoid pain through avoiding effort. So since I'm going to fail, I might as well not try and then like at least I won't, I'll protect myself from the disappointment of hope. Because that's what really happens in learned helplessness, is that you learn over time that hoping and failing is painful. So what we're going to do is we're going to like shoot for like neutral and we're going to shoot for numbness. And by shooting for numbness and not trying to achieve anything, like we protect ourselves from disappointment and the feeling of failure. Can acceptance be used with obsessive thoughts? How do I use it?

Great question. This is why I love yoga. So what yoga would say is accept that you have obsessive thoughts, right? It doesn't mean that you have to agree with the thoughts, but you can accept that your mind is obsessed with something. And you could say, this is just the way that my mind is, right? So like, sometimes if you got an old war injury, and when the weather gets cold, your war injury aches. That's just what it's going to do when the weather gets cold. when it gets damp, my bones ache.

And is that unfortunate? Sure. Does it cause you some degree of pain? Absolutely. Does it suck for you? Yes. And you can just kind of accept it. And so oftentimes what I do when I'm working with people who have obsessive thoughts is that they can sort of, with detachment, learn to accept that their mind produces

obsessive thoughts. And by doing that, what you actually do, the problem with obsessive thoughts is that we get caught up in them, right? We start to think that our mind is correct. we start to think that our thoughts are facts. This is in cognitive behavioral therapy, what's called thought fusion. In yoga, it's called attachment.

And so the solution there is to detach from our mind and just acknowledge that there's a difference between I want a hamburger and my body wants a hamburger or my mind wants a hamburger. There's some distance that you can gain from. And especially when I work with people who are psychotic, that works very well, delusional. And it's like, I have no idea whether you're correct or incorrect with your delusions.

It's not my place to say. I'm not the arbiter of truth. It's fine for your mind to produce these thoughts. The question is, do you want to act in accordance with the thoughts that your mind produces? Yes or no. And that applies for delusions. It applies for anxiety. It applies for insecurity.

That your actions and how you behave does not have to be in accordance with those thoughts. You know, when I work with people who are delusional, what they do. tend to discover is like, that works really well if they practice it and they give it a shot. And they may sometimes feel terrified if they think the FBI is watching them. It's like you can't convince them by nature of their illness that their FBI, FBI isn't watching them. I can't give them proof. And who knows? Like maybe the FBI is watching them. I actually had one case of someone that was actually being followed by the FBI as it turns out. So you have no idea. What's going on?

It's bizarre, I know. So, but the point is like, like the question at least, you know, when I'm working with a patient like that is like, do you want to keep the FBI watching you from leaving your house? It's like if you leave the house, like forget about whether the FBI is watching you or not. Do you want to leave the house or not? Well, I hate being at home. Well, like, do they watch you at home? They're like, yeah. All right.

So then go out anyway. Like, if they're watching, you might as well go to a park and hang out and have a good time. And then eventually someone's like, oh, okay, I'll try that. And I'll be like, how'd that go going to the park? And they're like, well, you're right, the FBI followed me. That's like, I'm not sure I ever said that. But, you know, at least I had a good time. I was like, cool.

So you can do it again this week? They're like, yeah, I'm thinking about going out again this week. That's great. Right? So you can detach from your thoughts. And that's very possible. It's hard. Don't get me wrong.

It's not easy. It takes effort. And this sort of things like practices like meditation, even doing things like psychotherapy, can be very helpful. But you can absolutely detach from them. How do you avoid falling from detachment into apathy? The two are completely different. Okay?

So this is the big problem that people have with acceptance. They think that acceptance means apathy. Apathy is actually in the learned helplessness. Right? So if we think about apathy, I don't care. There's no point in trying. That's apathy. But detachment is not not caring.

it's acknowledging you can still want things and be detached. The difference is acknowledging that things are kind of like out of your control. So I can want to go on a date with someone, but I also don't have to be attached to it. It's like, yeah, it'd be great if this happened. I'd really enjoy it. I'm really looking forward to it. And at the end of the day, there are a thousand reasons why it may not happen. And if one of those things comes to pass, so be it, right?

Like life is the kind of situation where you don't get every. that you want. And then if you go into learn helplessness or apathy, so then why bother trying? No, no, no. That's where you cross the line. Right. So this person didn't want to go on a date with me, which is okay. Am I disappointed? Sure. It would have been awesome if they were willing to give me a shot. And there are other fish in the sea. Right? So I don't have to let it get me down. I can try again. There are lots of different options out there. I can also have a fruitful weekend If I'm not going to go on a date with this weekend, I can go hang out with my friends, I can play some D&D.

You know, I can do all kinds of stuff. So that's where detachment comes in. Detachment isn't about not enjoying life or being numb. It's about letting go of the outcomes of your actions and actually fully devoting yourself to the action itself. And this is where like even when I work with medical students, a lot of medical students are very interested in getting A's because that's what they've been conditioned to do their entire life. Middle school.

high school, A's, college A's, applying to med school. I've got a 3.98 GPA. And are they so resentful, it's not a 4.0? And then they wind up in med school. And eventually I have to have a conversation with them about your grades don't matter. I don't think you get it. A few years from now, like you're going to be in an elevator and someone's going to have a heart attack. Are you going to be able to save that person's life or not?

Who the hell cares whether you get an A or not? I don't think you understand. You're here to learn medicine. So learn medicine and forget about the grade. recognize that what we're teaching you will either save lives or you won't learn it well enough and you may not be able to save that life. That's what you should focus on. So focus on the learning, not the outcome. And the med students who get that do really well, paradoxically, once again, right? Because then they focus on learning the material, which tends to translate into doing well on the tests.

But they're learning the material for the sake of learning the material. And so it's that same kind of thing. it's really tricky, it's subtle, but detachment and apathy are the opposite. Apathy is not caring in the sense of like numbing yourself, whereas detachment is about acknowledging that there's only so much that you can do and then actually giving it your all, because usually people who are detached can give it their all. Because once you free yourself from all the shame and all the other crap, then you can just focus on the thing. Right?

I can ask this person out, and it's because I'm looking for a relationship and like, I'm to give everything that I can to this relationship. And if it didn't work out, it didn't work out. So be it. I can't control another person's behavior. I can't control the circumstances of their life. But I gave it everything I could, and the next time around, I'm going to do the same damn thing. So detachment paradoxically allows you to live life with the opposite of apathy. And it sort of protects you against a lot of the suffering. How do you know if you're avoiding the emotion by being in the present, like rationalizing? So that's a great question. rationalizing is not being in the present, first of all.

So rationalizing is avoiding the emotion. So what's happening in rationalizing is the emotion is fueling a rationalization that allows you to discount the emotion. Being in the present is usually sitting with the emotion. So it's not being in the present and avoiding emotion are not, those are mutually exclusive. The whole point of being in the present is you're there with whatever's there. Avoidance of emotion is about moving away from the present, right? Like, does that make sense?

Because I'm feeling sad right now, and I want to avoid that emotion. I'm not being in the present. The whole point is avoidance, like, this is what is, and I'm, like, moving away from that. That's where rationalizing comes in. You can't avoid the present. In fact, moving into the future and moving into the past are the ways that you avoid the present. Like, does that make sense?

It's, like, so simple. But, like, you can't be in the present and the future in the same time. That's what your mind does. That's why we engage in contrafactual thinking, which is going back in time and rewriting history. Because we're avoiding the present. That's why we think about the future. That's why we have daydreams like maladaptive daydreaming. That's also why we are hopeless about the future. Because the interesting thing is if I'm hopeless about the future, it gives me a free pass in the present. I don't have to do anything right now. You ever think about that? It's kind of weird.

But you have a pass for doing nothing in the present. Right? So if I'm doing, to be alone forever because the opposite sex or whatever sex I'm attracted to is all shallow and useless and all they care about are things that I don't have, then if it's futile, then I don't have to do anything, right? All I get to do is bitch at people on Twitter all day long about how unfair the world is instead of actually doing anything to fix my life. And I can blame the world. And then I don't have to do, then my body doesn't have to get up out of the chair and start exercising and clean my house and all this other crap that my body doesn't want to do. I don't have to clean out my fridge and go buy groceries and cook every day

and wake up at 6 a.m. Like think about how much your body and mind hate doing that crap. And when you give up on the future, when things are helpless, when you have learned helplessness, you have a pass for all that stuff. You don't have to do any of that little crap. Why bother? Right. So really what your mind is getting out of that is the ability to be like completely chill in the present. The absolution of all responsibilities from today. That's what learned helplessness buys you. And just think that's why it's so hard to kick.

Because if you can do something about it, then it maybe is your fault. And if you can do something about it, maybe you do need to work your ass off. But the thing is, I don't want to work my ass off. And I don't want it to be my fault. So what I'm going to end up doing is leaning into helplessness. Because that's how my addictive mind can just play video games all day. Easy. You all get that?

It's tricky. Yeah. As Fern DeLoon is saying, take back your agency, 100%. You don't even have to, I mean, take back is a good sense. I'd say pick it up. Because it's not like you gave it away. You just set it down. Right?

But how you start with the smallest thing that you can do today. you live in the present. So when people say the smallest thing, why do we use the word small? It's because if we think about something big, what does your mind do? It sneaks in. Oh my God, that's too hard.

Oh my God, it's not going to work. Oh, my God, I can't afford to mess it up. So the second you start adding, because if something is big, then the dimension of time enters. Right? I can't, you can eat healthy today. You can 100% eat healthy today.

but you can't diet for 10 weeks. Like, that's hard. And so your mind is like, oh, it's hard to diet for 10 weeks. So why bother eating healthy today if I can't do it for the full 10 weeks? If I need my beach bod in 10 weeks' time, that's going to be hard. So don't bother. So the second the dimension of time enters, you're screwed. And what happens, your mind is tricky.

It's sneaky, right? Because what it looks at is it looks at, oh, my God. Like, imagine how many years it's going to take to put your life together. And it may not even work. and the mind is like, eh, don't bother. It's not worth it. Right? So the second time enters,

helplessness enters with it. Because then your mind says, it's futile. What's the point of eating healthy for one day? And this is where a detachment comes in because it doesn't matter because we're not worried about the outcome. Who cares about the outcome?

Whether it succeeds or whether it fails, I'm going to eat healthy today. It's the one thing I'm going to do. And your mind is like, no, no, no, no. but don't do that. What do you mean? We care about the future.

No, no, no, no, no. You've got to think about the future. It's not going to be enough. What do you mean? You're not going to give me a cheeseburger? What the fuck, bro? Come on. Right?

Koji Korma saying, what's the point of not smoking a blunt? Exactly. Like, why bother? Just smoke the blunt. Because what your mind wants is the blunt. It wants the cheeseburger. It wants the video games. It wants that dopamine.

wants to relax, wants to be numb, wants those cannabinoids, like whatever, whatever you want. It doesn't want to deal with those emotions that you've been bottling up and bearing inside you for a long time. Right? Because if you start to eat healthy today, like the feelings of inadequacy come up, the feelings of, oh, what do you think you're doing? You think you're going to lose weight, you ugly sucker, right? You look at yourself in the mirror and all the self-loathing comes up. you have to deal with all that crap. And it's like, no, we're going to set all that crap aside.

I'm just going to eat healthy today. As the demon says, that sort of hit home. I had a guy tell me today that we weren't fit for the long term after I told him I had anxiety and it was sort of getting to me. But a lot of my anxiety comes from what I've dealt with. Yeah, 100%. So I think the other thing that you've got to be super careful about is assuming that his statement of we weren't fit for the long term is a response to I have anxiety.

Because if you're not careful, you're going to learn. a bad lesson from that, which will protect you, because then if you don't tell people that you have anxiety, maybe they won't say that, which is the lesson that your mind will learn. But then what's going to start happening is you're going to start not living authentically, which is going to cause more problems down the line. So the hardest thing for someone with anxiety is giving someone the opportunity to reject them, which you should absolutely be doing. Because once you give someone the opportunity to reject you, you also give someone the opportunity to accept you. You also give someone the opportunity to accept you. And once you show people how busted you are and they stay anyway,

that's how you get fixed, right? That's when someone sends you that really important signal, which is you matter, and I don't care that you have anxiety. You have intrinsic worth as a human being that your anxiety does not wipe away. And the problem is that that's the message that like you really need to heal. The other big challenge is that sometimes that message is most easily delivered from another person, right? Which is what I'm saying is like we have a responsibility to each other to like try to support each other through this stuff because it's not like life is not a solo player game. It's just not.