HealthyGamerGG - Why You Keep Making The Same Mistakes

Episode Date: October 4, 2024

In this video, we learn how embracing shame helps break the cycle of repeated mistakes. Check out more mental health resources here! https://bit.ly/3xsk6fE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So if I get bullied at school, I don't have to make these people, my friends. I can find friends on the internet. In addition, we're seeing the concentration in availability of things like THC and CBD go up, which helps us manage our shame. So now we run into a real serious problem. Now the problem is that since we can avoid contact, this emotion doesn't work the way that it's supposed to anymore. So, you know, something pretty simple, not too important, just something that we're going to

kind of teach you all real quick is, you know, how to stop making the same mistakes over and over again, keep progressing in life, you know, the way that you should. So here's the problem, is that we make mistakes. And when we make mistakes, the basic problem is not that we make the mistake, but that we make it again. And then we make it again. And then we make it again. And we keep making it. And if you're like me, you kind of look at yourself and you're like, man, I just wish I would stop doing this thing. And for me, it's like, it's playing video games. Like even last night. So 10 o'clock rolled around. My kids went to bed and I was like, man, I could turn in early, but did I turn it early? Of course not. Instead, what I did is play two games

of Dota 2. Thankfully, I won them so it wasn't very rage inducing, but this is what happens. 20 years ago, when I was in college, 22 years ago, when I was in college and failing out, like, I would tell myself, hey, I need to go to bed, and instead I would stay up so late. And we tend to make these same mistakes over and over and over again. Oh, I sabotage this relationship because I let my anxiety get the better of me. I like started going to therapy, but then I stopped, like whatever it is, for some reason, when we make a mistake in life, it seems to be very hard to correct it. Now, if we want to understand why this happens, we have to understand the apparatus that helps us learn from our mistakes. And it turns out that the human brain and the way that it corrects mistakes is actually being sabotaged or hampered by certain aspects of our society.

So what are we seeing? We're seeing an increasing number of people making some relatively consistent mistakes. There are challenges in the economy, sure, 50% of people under the age of 30 are living at homes. They're like absolutely external factors. But we're also seeing a rise in loneliness. We're seeing a rise in addiction. We're seeing a rise in depression. We're seeing a rise in anxiety.

We're seeing a rise in low self-esteem. We're seeing a rise in hopelessness. And what I'm really seeing a rise of is the inability to take corrective action. So today we're going to teach you all basically how the brain takes corrective action and what is getting in the way of you taking the action that you should be taking. Hey, y'all, if you're interested in applying some of the principles that we discuss to your life to actually create change, check out Dr. Kay's Guide to Mental Health. The guide synthesize my years of training as a monk, along with years of clinical experience

as a psychiatrist to cover common topics like meditation, ADHD, and trauma. The guides include over 100 additional videos. that can be navigated based on your needs or interests or in a more open choose-your-own-adventure format. The guides are now available in the YouTube store below, and if they're a little bit outside of your price point, you can check out a piece of them with our free resource packs, which are also linked below.

So definitely check them out. So in order to take corrective action, our brain needs to do two processes. The first is it goes through something called a counterfactual thinking exercise. So this is sort of like an analysis of what you should do. And this is where a lot of y'all may say like, oh, yeah, I figured out what I should do, but I can't do it. And that's where we get to piece number two, which is actually the motivational component, right?

So in addition to knowing what we should do, we have to have the drive to actually do it. So the way that I kind of think about this is imagine you have a car. And in order to get from point A to point B, you need a map. You need an intellectual understanding of where you are and where you need to go and how to get from point A to point B. right, you have to know that. And then you also need fuel in the car. And your brain needs both of those components. And the crazy thing is that for the majority of people I work with who have this problem,

they really focus on one component and neglect the other. So we're going to start actually with the motivation, not the roadmap. So we're going to start with the fuel, okay? So this is what's important to understand. Our brain has a couple of different areas of emotional circuitry. So we have this primitive part of our brain that includes the amygdala. So the amygdala is where we feel what I would call solo survival emotions. This is where we feel fear.

This is where we feel anxiety. This is where we feel anger. So these are things that like even a reptile can feel fear and anger and territoriality and things like that. So this is a very primitive emotion. But then we have this other part of our brain, which is where we experience the higher human emotions that are more social in nature. So these are emotions like guilt and shame. And if we kind of think about it, like, why does the human brain experience guilt and shame? Why does it, why do guilt and shame feel so painful?

This is very important to understand. So in the situation that our brains evolved, which is very similar to, like, chimpanzee brains and like monkey brains and things like that, these are social creatures. So we have social emotions. And in order for a social emotion to function properly, it requires social circumstances. Okay. I'll give you all a simple example. So when I was growing up, I used to get bullied a lot.

And I'm sure that many of you all do too, it absolutely sucks. But when I was growing up, I sort of didn't have a choice except to socialize with my bullies. So I had to go to school every day, as I'm sure many of you all do. And I would get bullied every day. And then I would feel ashamed of myself. And then this negative emotion would induce some kind of behavioral change. And this is important to understand. Anytime our body or our brain makes us.

feel bad, these are very, very important drivers for corrective behavior. So if we think about some of the most painful experiences in the world, these are things like hunger, thirst, right? Even something like asphyxiation, the inability to breathe. I one time had a patient that was having an allergic reaction and they could not breathe. And the amount of panic and suffering that a human body and brain will experience when they are unable to breathe is astronomical. Crazy thing is that this is also why panic attacks are so painful and so scary and actually

so traumatic because you feel like you can't breathe. So anytime the body has something that is very important for your survival, if you do it, don't do it, your body will make you feel incredibly bad, right? So hunger hurts a lot, thirst hurts a lot, asphyxiation hurts a lot, shame hurts a lot, guilt hurts a lot. So with these signals like hunger and thirst, it's really simple, right? So when I feel hungry, this is my body's way of telling me, hey, I should take corrective action. I should eat and then I will feel better. With thirst, I should drink something, then I will feel better. With asphyxiation, I should take a deep breath, then I will feel better if only it were that simple. What about things like shame and guilt?

What is the corrective action? So this is where, you know, if I feel ashamed of myself, oftentimes this is inspiration. So if I got made fun of because of the way that I look or my weight, either I'm too skinny or I'm too fat, then this shame, since I'm going to see these people again, can be motivational fuel for me to take corrective action. I'm going to the gym, right? And this is what we know. We know that sometimes when people are ashamed of themselves, they will do something to no longer be ashamed in themselves. I'm going to get my hair done. I'm going to start going to the gym. I'm going to start feeling better about myself. I'm so embarrassed to be unemployed. I feel so ashamed of myself. I'm going to work really hard to get a job because I never want to feel that shame again.

That's the purpose of shame. Now, here's the problem. In today's society, we have one alternate solution to shame, which did not exist a couple of here, a hundred years ago, which is escape. So now our society has become so escape and avoidant heavy that I no longer need to face my shame. So if I get bullied at school, I don't have to make these people my friends. I can find friends on the internet. If I feel ashamed of myself, I have an electronic device that can make me feel take all of that malice and that, take all that shame. and turn it into malice and resentment and turn it into toxicity on the internet by crapping on the people that make me feel bad, right? I can do all of these things to avoid my shame.

In addition, I can also like this literally suppresses those circuits of the brain, but there's also things like substances. We're seeing the concentration and availability of things like THC and CBD go up, which helps us manage our shame. So now we run into a real serious problem. See, the only reason that shame worked is because I had to go to school every day. There was no way to avoid the consequences. And this is the way that shame evolved. Because when we think about a tribal situation, we think about chimpanzees, like if a chimpanzee is ashamed of itself, it has no choice but to interact with these same people.

So these emotions evolved under the circumstance of permanent contact that was unavoidable. Now the problem is that since we can avoid contact, this emotion doesn't work the way that it's supposed to anymore. Okay? So now what happens is when we create this alternate scenario where, okay, I don't have to experience the shame because I can avoid these people. And what does that mean for my corrective behavior? Now that I'm no longer experiencing the shame, now that I'm no longer avoiding those people, I don't have to fix the problem because, remember, fixing the problem was the antidote to shame. That's the whole purpose of shame. But if I can avoid the problem, then I never have to fix it. And this is literally what happens with people.

who are ashamed and guilty, they just avoid the social circumstances and therefore avoid the shame. So this is where, I know it's kind of crazy, but like we have evidence-based techniques that we've sort of dug into as to what to do about this. And I hate to break it to y'all, but it's to stop avoiding the shame. So my favorite example of this comes from Alcoholics Anonymous, where they have a particular step where they're kind of like, you know, doing all this internal work and they feel ashamed of themselves because they've like, you know, drank a bunch of alcohol and they've ruined their lives and they've ruined relationships that are carrying a bunch of this toxic shame. Oftentimes the toxic shame precedes the alcohol addiction.

And so they have a really important step called making amends. So then what they do is they make a catalog of all of the people that they can think of that they've wronged in some way. And they're ashamed of their behavior. There was that time that I got really drunk and passed out and I couldn't drive you to the airport and you missed your job interview and then you didn't get the promotion and like everything got worse for you. Very shame inducing, right?

and I used to run away from that. I used to blame you for my failings. This is what happens when people are addicted to alcohol. So instead, what they do is they go back and they embrace the shame. They engage with the shame. They go back to all of those people and they say, hey, I screwed up. So they're no longer running away from the shame. When you stop running away from shame, you start gaining accountability.

And once they start gaining accountability, their life moves in the correct direction. The shame becomes a positive motivator. Now, there's an important caveat here, which is that there is a a version of shame called toxic shame. Now, toxic shame is a completely different feature. So this is where, remember, shame is designed to induce the right behavior. But toxic shame is when people make you feel inappropriately ashamed. And in that case, there is no corrective behavior because no matter what you do, they'll still shame you for it. We have other videos about toxic shame. And if that relates to you, by all means, check those out. So this is

where the fuel comes from. And the basic problem is that the most powerful motivators for human behavioral change are actually negative emotions. And our social negative emotions are incredibly strong at that. But the moment that we start avoiding those circumstances, we lose our motivation. And then you end up just watching a bunch of videos about how to gain motivation instead of actually facing up to your problems and going to the gym or saying hi to people or asking someone out on a date, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Now we come to the second part because it's not just emotion. We also need a roadmap. And this is where we also fall into another kind of problem, which is that oftentimes when we are trying to come up with a solution, we lean too far into theory crafting. So we have this part of our brain that does something called

counterfactual thinking. Really, really important circuit in the brain. So this is the way that the circuit works. Anytime I do something and I screw up, my brain does something really interesting, right? It goes back in time and it says it fantasizes about what I should have done differently. My favorite example of this is that this occurs like usually when you're going to bed and your mind reminds you of some random memory, right? And for me, growing up, it was like clever things that I would say when someone made fun of me. So someone was like, oh, you know, like, oh, look, you're such a loser. Like, all you do is play video games or like, I remember one day I was, you know, in recess or PE class. And we were playing football.

And then like someone threw a football and I dropped it, right? I couldn't catch the football. And then like what happened is they made fun of me. and they're like, oh, like, did they not teach you how to catch a football when you play your Nintendo? That's what they made fun of me. And then what I would do is like six months later, I'd be like, yeah, well, no, no, I can't even think about what I came up with then. But then six months later, your brain is like, oh, this is what I should have said. Six months later, it sort of thinks about, like, how you could have done things differently.

We experience a lot of counterfactual thinking when we go through something like a breakup, right? So your mind is thinking, okay, like, this is what I should have done. This is what I should have done. I would have shown him if I did this. So our brain kind of gets lost in this hypothetical world that doesn't exist. Now, in the worst cases, this becomes something like maladaptive daydreaming, where we get so lost in the counterfactual thinking that we get divorced from reality. That's also, this is probably where counterfactual thinking meets ADHD, which has

been implicated in maladaptive daydreaming. We have a video about that if y'all are interested. But this is basically how our mind corrects mistakes, is that it engages in counterfactual thinking. Now, here's the problem, is that when we start to look at. live an avoidant life, our brain's capacity for counterfactual thinking becomes weaker. So if we think about what it takes for counterfactual thinking to be the most successful, is we actually need as much data or evidence as we can get our hands on, and we actually don't

want a theory craft purely. So usually what I see in the people that I work with who struggle to learn from their mistakes is they will theory craft what they should do. But, since they have so little experience, the data inputs for the theory crafting are not optimal by any means. And if you all have theory crafted in a video game, you kind of know what I'm talking about, right? So if you're like playing a particular game, you're like, hey, I'm going to do this build, and it's going to be great. I'm going to do a four-pool rush, and I'm going to Zerg Rush with Fourpool, and it's going to be awesome, and I'm going to send a drone with it. You come with all these wonderful ideas of how you're going to make this game work and how you're going to make this character build. And then you go and you like actually play the game and you're like, wow, that doesn't really work at all.

And then you have to adjust your theory crafting. If you're enamored with the idea, you'll give it an adjustment, you'll try it again. And then you do many iterations. And then sometimes you can even make the build work, right? You don't have to just read the meta builds and follow them. Now, this is the problem is that in order for counterfactual thinking to work successfully, that's actually what we need to do. The first iteration of the solution that your mind comes up with is not going to

going to be very accurate because you have a minimum of data and evidence. Now, here's where we fall into another pitfall, which is that oftentimes when our theory crafting, when we're theory crafting, the way that we actually address this problem is with more theory crafting. We never actually queue up for a game. So if I'm struggling with my motivation, what I'm going to do is watch a bunch of videos on YouTube about motivation. I'm going to read books and browse discussion forums and do all of this stuff instead of gain experience and data and evidence, right? If I'm struggling to date, I'm going to read a lot of like, am I the asshole posts on Reddit to try to figure out something about relationships?

I don't even know what you're planning on learning over there, right? Or I'll watch videos on YouTube and all this stuff can be useful. Don't get me wrong. But that's all in the category of theory crafting. And if we look at our brain, our brain doesn't respond very well to theory crafting. Our brain does theory crafting with evidence. So we can't like theory craft our way from zero to 100. And this is the critical mistake that a lot of people make,

is that they never give themselves the opportunity to get data and get evidence. And when I talk to people and I work with people who have done something successful in terms of like making progress in their life or correcting their mistakes, there is always a data gathering or evidence gathering process. Now, a lot of people who are listening to this will be, but I do have. evidence. All of this stuff happened in the past. This is a fact about my life. This is why people, it's impossible for me to date. I have all of this evidence. So this is also where we've got to be a little bit careful. So when we're talking about collecting evidence, it's not just have these things happen in the past. What we want to do is something that's like a prospective trial. So anytime we're doing

science, there's retrospective data and there's prospective data. And retrospective data is way lower quality than prospective data. So when we're thinking about really feeding our brain the right kind of data to correctly develop a counterfactual, I know that's a mouthful, so I'll say it again. See, if we want to hypothesize, if we want to build this roadmap, we actually need to give it as much data as possible. And generally speaking, people who correct their mistakes, it's not like they correct their mistake once.

It's like, okay, I struggle in relationships. Let me date. Let me date again. Let me date again. Let me date again. and as I date 15 different times, then over time, the natural model that my brain will construct about how I should fix my mistakes gets more and more and more robust. The good news is that you actually don't have to work very hard at this.

The brain will do the computation on its own. All you need to do is feed at the right data. Now, let's talk about it. But Dr. K, it's not easy to do that, right? It's not just easy to go out there and collect data. Well, why not? Well, that's because of the motivation. So if I'm struggling with dating and I go out and I date once, what do I feel?

I feel ashamed of myself. I feel so pathetic. And then what do I do? I avoid. So this is the cool thing. We already addressed that in the first half of the video. That's why it's structured this way. And this is the key thing that you all need to understand.

See, anytime we're stuck, the basic problem is that we are not utilizing the corrective circuitry of our brain in the right way. Our brain has the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere, right? And I know that some of that stuff has been debunked, but a lot of it is true. So we know that the left hemisphere focuses on analysis and the right hemisphere focuses on emotion. And we also know that the most productive and successful state of human consciousness is something called the flow state. And what do we see in the brain of the flow state? We see harmony between the left brain and the right brain.

We see an activity of emotion. along with an appropriate level of analysis. And if you're struggling to fix your mistakes, chances are that these two circuits are not working together. It is insufficient, and this is the biggest mistake that I see a lot of people make, is they think that it is one or the other, right? They think like, oh, I feel so ashamed of myself, I should just focus on the shame.

That's a great place to start, but then you also need to feed your counterfactual circuitry so that it can develop the right models to help you succeed. And we do this in the gaming. world, right? Like, when we play video games, we do this successful where it's like, okay, I'm going to make up a build, and I'm going to try it. That didn't work. I'm going to adjust my build. I'm going to try it again. I'm going to adjust my build. I'm going to try it again. And then eventually, like, we kind of make the build work. Like, we're capable of doing it. The problem is that in real life,

we do not give our brain the same level of data. So we have to address our emotions. We have to be super careful about avoiding shame, because when we avoid shame, all we experience is the pain of shame without any of the corrective behavior. So then what happens if I'm avoiding shame, I don't actually fix anything. And the next time I leave the house, I feel ashamed of myself again. And then the next time I leave the house,

I'll leave the house, I feel ashamed of myself again. So what we actually create as a really crazy situation where when we avoid shame, we create a persistent, shameful existence. That's crazy. Instead, what we need to do is harness that shame. Use it as motivational fuel to fix our problems.

That needs to be combined with a very robust, counterfactual apparatus that allows us to analyze our problems and we need to feed it the right inputs. What makes it hard to feed the right inputs? The shame that we experience causes us to avoid. So when I work with people, these are usually the two components. It's about unity between the left brain and the right brain. And literally when people are able to do this in a more robust manner, this is what we call the flow state. So if you're stuck in life, if you feel like you're making the same mistakes over and over again, ask yourself these two questions. Number one, am I just theory crafting my way all the way from the earth to the moon without ever building a spaceship and never launching something?

Or it's probably that it's not never, it's that it's very rare. What's the percentage of theory crafting you do? And what's the percentage of data collection you do? The other question to ask yourself is when you feel shame, are you harnessing it to create a change in your life? Because it's one of the most powerful motivators in existence. or are you avoiding that shame and perpetuating your current existence? And hopefully what will happen is as you ask these two questions, you will learn from your mistakes and start to progress more in life.

Hey, y'all, if you've watched our content for a while, you're probably pretty familiar with our core concepts. And that's why I'm excited about YouTube memberships. Memberships allows us to dive deeper and in a lot more detail on these core concepts. We've also explored more advanced yogic or spiritual concepts, like Vassana and Glishtha, which will help you understand how habits form in your mind and how to break those habits. Memberships are also community-driven, which means that y'all get to vote on which lectures I will be preparing for the next month. They're $10 a month, and if you don't like the vibe of it, it's painless to cancel.

So I hope y'all definitely check it out, and I hope to see y'all next month.