Tara Brach - Unwinding Anxiety with Awareness (Part 2): A conversation with Tara and Dr. Judson Brewer

Episode Date: June 15, 2023

Unwinding Anxiety with Awareness (Part 2): A conversation with Tara and Dr. Judson Brewer - Anxiety is spiking around the world and we need the radical medicine of awareness to unwind it. In this two-part conversation, Tara and Judson Brewer look at how anxiety is a habit that can be unlearned as we cultivate a curious and kind mindful presence. Jud offers the scientific grounds for this "unwinding", drawing on his experience as a pioneer and leading researcher in the field of mindfulness and addiction. Together they explore the power of particular mindfulness-based strategies, including noting what is happening, recognizing our habit loops, arousing curiosity and cultivating self-care. They shine a light on the genesis of worrying, how it perpetuates anxiety and ways we can become disenchanted with the habit. If you'd like to join an online community that is dedicated to reducing stress and easing anxiety with the power of renowned neuroscientist, Judson Brewer's 3-step methodology, check out the new Mindful Friends Groups at Cloud Sangha.

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely, and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. You've described first gear and second gear, first gear meaning mindful of the loop itself, second gear, mindful of the quality of rewards so that we can sense, oh, this is disenchant. This is not the reward that I really want. Third gear? Third gear. I think of this. Yes. So I, I, I think of this as finding, you can, I think of the acronym, the BBO, the finding the bigger, better offer. And what I mean by that is, if our brains are set up to pick behaviors and perform the behaviors

that are more rewarding, let's give our brains something more rewarding to do. So if we become disenchanted with worrying, for example, how can we give our brain something more rewarding and potentially even more rewarding right in that moment when we're worrying? So another way to think of third gear is one way to think of it is stepping out of an old habit loop. So how can we step out of an old habit loop? Well, this is where I love there are two flavors of experience that we can bring in here. One is curiosity and one is kindness. So for example, if we're worrying, we can ask ourselves, well, what has it feel to worry?

You know, what am I getting from this? Or we can get curious. So if we're anxious, we can worry. worry or we can get curious about what that anxiety feels like in our body. So when worrying, it tends to go like this. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Right. What's going to happen is this going to last all day? Often my patients with generalized anxiety disorder, they'll wake up in the morning. The first thought is, oh, no, I'm anxious. How long is this going to be this way all day? They project into the future. So there's that, oh, no, that feels closed down, contracted,

restless, just not very pleasant. We can flip that and get curious. Oh. what's this anxiety feel like? And we can all explore this ourselves. What does oh, no, feel like? Can you feel into that closed, you know, contracted experience that wound up experience of anxiety? And what's it like to go, oh, what's this feel like in my body? And can I bring in that Zen beginner's mind? Like, oh, what does this feel like?

What are the sensations like? So what feels better? Worrying or curiosity? It's a no-brainer, right? We've even done studies. I won't go into the details because it's pretty obvious. Curiosity feels better. So this is awareness again, right?

That curious attitude when we bring awareness to our experience, when we're truly bringing that attitude of curiosity into our experience, it feels pretty good, especially compared to worry. So that's a bigger, better offer that we can train ourselves to bring in. You know, when we start to worry, oh, no, we can go, oh, I've got that, oh, no, attitude. And we can start to inject some curiosity right in that moment. And even in that moment, we can start to open up a little bit.

We can start to expand a little bit and let go a little bit. You have that wonderful mantra that you talk about. That's delicious. You want to share that? I'd love to. Yeah, for me, it's, you know, so for some people that's like, oh, that that's that awakening into curiosity. for me, it's often, hmm, you know, somebody asked me, you know, to explore something. I'm like, that's my natural reaction.

And when, you know, you tell me what your experience of, hmm, is like, but it's, it's a nonverbal, non-thinking way to drop into our direct experience and kind of awaken that curiosity. I love this when somebody's like, well, I can't be curious. Well, hmm, what's it like not to be curious? How does that feel? And surprise, you're actually bringing some curiosity and right in that moment when you're asking that question. Hmm, what does it feel like not to be curious right now?

And what's so interesting is like everything else, it's a habit. And we all have the capacity for curiosity because deep down, we want to know truth. I mean, we want to know the nature of reality, want to know who we are. And of course, that curiosity can get covered over by our fears and our control. but we can intentionally evoke curiosity. And that's the cool thing. By just going through the motions, by just saying, I wonder what's going on inside right now. That's the power of inquiry. Asking questions actually naturally kind of waters the seeds of curiosity. And as you described so well, it's it's so clear that when we're contracted, just getting interested even a little bit

opens up some space and the learning centers of the brain get activated and it's, you know, what you and many people call, it's really a growth. It gives us a growth space. You know, it really allows growth. And kindness does the same thing because in the same way that we love truth, we love love, because they're both the basic elements of what we are. So in any moment that we can even remember the word kindness, that's just something I've just noticed if I, if I even just have the word kindness, something softens and there's more space for what's going on. And there's no longer as much identification. There's more being the ocean that's aware of the waves.

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And with both curiosity and kindness, we talked about emotional contagion in the past. So let's bring that forward. Yeah. How's it feel when somebody's somebody is doing inquiry with with us, you know, that. curiosity can become contagious. How's it feel when somebody's being kind to us? It totally brightens our day and then suddenly we're like, wow, that feels really good. And then we're looking

around for opportunities, not even consciously to bring kindness to ourselves and to others. Because it feels good. Like it's rewarding. Talk about a bigger, better offer. You know, so these can be socially and emotionally contagious, especially in, you know, in collaboration in community with others. It's incredibly true, the contagion. And also that there's something in us that grows to trust. You had a quote there from James Stevens. It says curiosity will conquer fear even more than bravery well.

And there's another quote that our fear is great, but greater yet is the truth of our connectedness and love. And either one of those, and I think of them as the two wings of the bird, whether it's pursuing our interest in truth or our interest in love, either one of them opens us to a larger space of awareness than when we're hooked in the waves of fear. So they're both really, I love the languaging of they are our superpowers. Yes, yes, I really feel that way. They are our superpowers for sure. So perhaps you could, you know, in terms of the bigger, better offer and how we bring it alive, you have a lot of tools in your book that bring alive different qualities of awake awareness. You know, we know the basic answer is mindfulness.

The more we bring awareness, the more freedom there is. What are some of the practices that you encourage people to do to wake up mindfulness in the midst of habits? like anxiety. Well, there are, there are many. So, you know, curiosity itself is just that attitude can be a third gear practice. Just the attitude, I love how you say, just recalling the word kindness can kind of help us step out of a self-judgmental habit, for example. So certainly practices like loving kindness or just kindness can be helpful, but I have to say

a deep bow of gratitude to you for helping the world wake up to a very, simple acronym of rain, which I certainly have used it clinically. I talk about it in the book. We use it in our digital therapeutics and our apps. So, so helpful for helping people, you know, recognize, you know, allow, except, you know, there are many different A's out there for helping us just be with our experience. And then that investigation piece, that's curiosity, right? In fact, oh, what is this? So interestingly, when I had first learned non-identification that N and had been practicing it in myself, I was started, I just finishing up residency and starting to work at the VA hospital and was, you know,

playing with different practices, you know, how, what practices could I bring in in a 15-minute visit with a patient who might have a lot of complex issues? And so I was trying to think, wow, you know, what could be very simple? And as I mentioned at the beginning, you know, I'd been doing a lot of noting practice myself, found it helpful. And so I was thinking, well, N, non-identification, noting. Noting kind of helps with non-identification because it brings in that observer effect. So I started playing with bringing noting practice in for my patients, not even mentioning the word mindfulness or rain or anything else.

And they could pick it up pretty quickly, right? Even in five minutes and I would check to see, would they actually talk about it at their next visit? You know, that was an indicator of whether they're just nodding their heads or actually trying it out. And so I was thinking, well, could we use, you know, could we bring noting practice into our app-based mindfulness training programs as a core foundational practice? And then how could we simplify things to, you know, and so we started bringing, well, we're like, well, let's try noting in, kind of substituted in as a, I don't want to say a placeholder, but a pragmatic

application of non-identification. So we didn't have to just, you know, kind of describe the concept of non-identification, just like, oh, note. note like crazy. I will say, and I love how you've followed your evolution of rain over the years where, you know, this beautiful evolution into nurture, which I think is actually super critical and also challenging for people to grasp right off the bat. So it would be whether now or later, it'd be great to geek out with you on how you really bring that in in a pragmatic way. But, you know, to answer your question, we use, we use rain and we bring in the noting practice as, as part of rain as a like, what's the simplest, what's one of the simplest ways that we can

bring this non-identification to fruition like in just a couple of minutes, for example. And it's, you know, with our with our clinical trials at least, that that seems to be an indicator. You know, for example, we got five times the quit rates of gold standard treatment for smoking cessation by bringing that in as one of the core practices for helping people work with cravings. Beautiful. And there's no question. Noting, which is really an extension of recognizing. I think of recognizing and then you allow it, you make space for it, you investigate it, you explore it more deeply, and then noting is again naming on a deeper level. So what you've done is you've leaned in on the recognition, mindfulness, curiosity side of the equation,

and which is fine. And then you'll also need in some separate practice to help people cultivate the heart quality that allows them to undo the judgment because most people, and many are familiar with the two arrows, the first arrow of pain is the experience of anxiety. And the second arrow is I'm deficient because I'm an anxious person. We attack ourselves. And most people that are anxious and depressed, and I've experienced this and myself, add on some sense of failing or falling short because of it. And that sense of self-judgment actually locks in the habit.

Yes. Because if we feel bad, we feel like we're failing. It feeds more anxiety and it just fuels the cycle. It's a shame-based cycle. So there needs to be in the core tool set. there needs to be a really good tool on awakening self-compassion. And one of the reasons I like it in rain is because when you do the work of recognizing, allowing, and investigating, if you investigate and it's very embodied, it's a real felt sense. So you get in touch with the ouch, this hurts.

The alchemy of compassion is that when we actually touch suffering, there is a tenderness. and we can ride that tenderness and whether it's by putting our hand on our heart or sending a message of kindness, we can begin to what are the seeds of compassion. And the challenge is because so many people feel unworthy, learning to nurture is a life path. It's a life practice. It's not one that it takes just like cultivating curiosity or being able to remember to remember. It's something that deepens with practice. But there are a lot of avenues and everybody needs to experiment. I mean, we each need to experiment as to can we, is there some words we can offer to ourselves?

Is there some touch? Is there some imagery that helps us to soften and open? Is there another person that we can sense offering it? And that would be a whole different exploration for us to get into. But it does feel like an essential element of unwinding any habit that causes pain. Yeah. Well, yeah, I'm sure we could talk for weeks about this, but you're you're describing exactly what I see both clinically and also in our in our programs is that, you know, we focus a lot on loving kindness as part of that self-compassion piece and are actually starting to build in specific self-compassion practices because we're finding exactly what you're describing, which is this lifelong practice of nurture requires different doorways in. in some people this doorway, some people this doorway, others, you know, et cetera, et cetera. But even for some, and it's so interesting to watch this, when people can just be just open

to the felt experience of the suffering, like you're talking about that, the quivering of the heart just can often just break open by itself. And then boom, there's this compassion and you're like, oh, I feel so much better to simply take care of myself. There's as an example, I was literally just talking to a clinician this morning who does these complex care, he works with complex care patients, a lot of issues. And he said, there's this one person who was using our unwinding anxiety program and she had complex PTSD and had been really struggling. And there was, she was, there was something on that, on one morning where she was sitting on a bench and one of the instructions was find a comfortable position,

you know, like to start practicing. And it was like, oh, I'm sitting on this uncomfortable bench. Why am I doing that? And then she went and moved to someplace more comfortable in the, you know, for her, that was a big awakening. Like, oh, I could nurture myself. It's beautiful. Yeah, I love it.

Love it. And love to hear these stories of people just waking up through just the simple, you know, the power of these practices. I'm right there with you. And one of the things that brings to mind is the power of unwinding anxiety with each other. Because that also helps us to soften our hearts. And, you know, I've seen so many people once they get into small healing groups of whatever, whenever there's an authentic healing group, whether it's, you know, through the 12-step programs,

I'm imagining this happens in your groups. It certainly has happened to groups I've offered through the years. In the Buddhist tradition, there's Kaliana Mita, the spiritual friends groups, and now we have through Cloud Sanga, the mindful friends groups, it's amazing. I've had people come out of groups and say, you know, it took away my shame about the anxiety because I realized that it wasn't my anxiety personally. It was our cultural shared anxiety. and it didn't feel like such a flaw.

And I've had people come out saying, just when I'm in this group, I actually feel less anxiety because there's a sense that, you know, others have my back. There's a sense of caring. Now, there's huge social anxiety in this world, so it doesn't always swing that way.

But connectedness can make such a difference. And the thing, as one person most recently came out of a mindful friend's group and said, you know, my, I kind of came in hopeless and I feel like I have some hope or some trust because I'm watching other people use these tools and changing and sensing these glimmers of what's possible. It's like we remind each other of what's possible. You tell me your story, Judd, and I go, wow, yeah, that's actually how it can work.

And it kind of gets me more inclined to being more curious or, you know, so we. you know, we're social creatures. And so I just want to encourage those listening to, whether it's one friend or a mindful friend's group at Cloud Sanga or some situation where you get to name out loud a bit of what's going on and have it not be held inside an individual psyche so much. So I'm curious, Judd, just to share any thoughts you have on this. Oh, 100%. You know, it's so one, I hear this all the time with anxiety. Oh, it's not just me. right? And that in itself helps them soften and open and be more open. But at the same time, they get some social contagion of kindness, of connection, because those both feel really good.

So I would wholeheartedly, you know, and I think what you're doing with Claude Saga is beautiful, you know. So just just to say, as you know, and this is for all of you, we are now offering anxiety groups that are very, very much based on Judd's book Unwinding Anxiety. So this is a bit of a pitch, but it's such powerful stuff. I can't hold back on it. And it's wonderful to hear that because this is really, you know, I think you and I can probably be on safe ground and saying, I think we probably share this. It's like, how can we help? How can we help people wake up? And it's so beautiful to be in community. And I love what you all are doing with Klahtong. It's like, building genuine authentic community because authenticity is the currency of the day and that

and that currency is not losing value anytime soon. Authenticity because they have a culture of truth telling. And if you have truth telling, that's where the curiosity and the kindness comes in. So yeah, so maybe a kind of a final question for us because I realize you've been really really generous with your time is I often think in terms of the evolutionary process we're in, in untangling anxiety and its implications. And I know when I think of us as a collective right now and the contagion in the world, how unprocessed anxiety and fear is just the recipe for division and how it just keeps promoting deeper divides, more silos, more of a sense.

sense of more acting out of violence and that to the degree we can learn to process fears, the more possibility of collaboration in responding to our global challenges. And then I also think of it individually that the word worry, I think you probably know this, Jed, comes from the word strangle, which always catches me because worry is, it strangles us and it stops our life from flowing so much and it cuts us off. And so this untangling we're talking about actually gives us access to our full aliveness, our creativity. You know, it opens us up to a wholeness of being.

So it's very, it feels like a very powerful evolutionary process that we're exploring. And I'd love any words you might want to share as to what your sense is of, the hopes and potentials of what we're talking about. Well, so very briefly, this reminds me of how we hold emotion as memory in our bodies. You know, it's called somatic memory. Maybe you've talked about this or taught about this. And I think of the eyes as one because the eyes holds so much wisdom. And so when we're when we're divided, so let's say we're irritated or frustrated or angry

with somebody or a group or whatever, what do our eyes do? They tend to get narrow because they're focused on, oh, I don't like this and I'm focused on changing it or fighting or screaming or posting on social media or whatever, outrage, you know. What happens when we're curious? What happens to our eyes? Do they get narrowed? No, they get wide. If you think of wonder or awe, our eyes are huge. We're opening to our experience.

And so I love, you know, this evolutionary feature of our. eyes being able to tell us, one, what's happening if we can't connect with ourselves in the moment, like, oh, what are my eyes doing? Are they narrowed? And then we go, oh, my eyes are narrowed. Oh, and that, oh, or that, hmm, what are my eyes doing? Can help us automatically just start to open them. Or we can just open our eyes really wide. How easy. So here's the challenge for anyone, how easy is it to be frustrated or angry or irritated with somebody when your eyes are really wide? Will your body let you get angry? Because it's a mismatch. Our brain says, oh, my eyes are wide. I'm not supposed to be angry. So that's something that we can all practice

any moment that we remember to remember to do it. And so here I would say, you know, May these simple types of things help us all awake into the power of curiosity and bring in, may our eyes help us bring in more kindness to ourselves, to others, to connect with each other and go forth together. And notice how rewarding that is, how togetherness is this bigger, better offer, much, much bigger, much better than divisiveness. Yes. Thank you, my friend. That's a beautiful takeaway, just to have the eyes open in that way. And okay, for all of you listening, a reminder, Judd's book, Unwinding Anxiety, the apps, check them out. They're powerful.

If you want to join a mindful friends group on anxiety, you can find Cloud on my home page. Thank you for listening. And again, deep gratitude, Judd. It's been a pleasure to be with you. It's been an absolute joy. Thank you. So, friends, I'm hoping there were a lot of takeaways from this conversation on anxiety and worry. And most everyone knows what it's like when the weather system of anxiety takes over and sometimes for quite a prolonged stay.

And whether you're working with chronic worry are really a more full grip of fear there are ways of awakening awareness that can help free you up in profound ways. You know, in the Tibetan tradition, there's a phrase, the lion's roar. And it refers to a quality of confidence that arises when we realize that we can handle whatever comes, that whatever life presents, we have the power of awareness, we have the curiosity, the kindness, and the presence to be with it. It allows us to trust that we can be the ocean that has room for the waves. The lion's roar brings a gratification that's really deeper than classic happiness. You can imagine if you are trusting that you can handle what

arises, then rather than anxiously tensing against an unknown future, you're free to relax. You're free to live these precious moments of life fully. So I thought we'd end this podcasted session with a poem I love from Rumi and a short rain practice that can help you in working with fear. So these are the words of Rumi. Be empty of worrying. think of who created thought. Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open? Move outside the tangle of fear thinking. Live in silence.

Flow down and down in always widening rings of being. And now my friends, a practice to help us open to those widening rings of being. A core practice is the weave of my own. mindfulness and compassion that's presented in rain in the acronym rain. When we get hijacked by fear, when we're hijacked by the survival brain, it's really hard to remember the way home. Our executive functioning is offline. Having an acronym that we just know is there, recognize, allow, investigate, nurture, and

I'm going to go through the steps. that in our pocket, it's like even when we don't have executive functioning, it gives us a structure that we can walk through that gradually actually brings online a much more integrated brain. We have more capacity, more access to our heart and to awareness. Each of you is going to have to customize, and this is true with any meditation or exercise, and you'll be customizing for your clients and your patients as well. We have to go with the different ways that we already kind of know how to do things and then kind of shape it from there and we'll talk about that some.

But the basic sequence, let me just kind of walk you through it and then we're just going to do a short meditation together with it. Recognize. Recognize means to notice what's going on, whatever's predominant and it helps to name it. allow means to let it be there rather than judging it or ignoring it or neglecting it or whatever. It's some basic part of us that says, okay for now. We're not fighting this moment.

The eye is investigate and as many of you have caught on, the investigation is primarily somatic. Now that doesn't mean that we're not sensing, well what am I believing right now? because that's a really useful question. But the primary part of investigating in the body, our issues are in our tissues, that's where it is. And then the N is to nurture, to bring kindness in some form to what we discover. After that, it's what I call after the rain,

is when we just rest in the presence that has emerged. And that's where we actually can discover the reality of what's called non-identification, where we're no longer so caught as the fearful self or the angry self. There's more of a resting in the witness or the awareness itself that's just noticing what's happening, non-identification and also a sensing of wholeness. So enough explanation for now. I want to invite you to take a moment to find a position that will most support you and we'll actually just dip right in and go through the steps together of rain. Let yourself

find a way of sitting that's upright so you're alert and also at ease. You might choose to close your eyes or lower your gaze and take a few full breaths to help to gather the attention, taking a few long deep breaths to help you collect the attention to settle some. You might even sense with the out breath that you can let go of any unnecessary tensions or tightness in the body, the mind. Scanning perhaps the last few days, noticing a time where you felt stuck in some strong emotion. It might be as you were in a conversation or relating with somebody else. It might be as you were at work in some way, it might be something to do with your own health, but where you felt yourself in some way caught in an emotional

reactivity, maybe judging, fear, anger. I wouldn't choose something that you feel brought down a full experience of trauma, it won't be so useful for you to examine right now. Maybe anger. Let that situation come closer in so you're actually visualizing where you were. Another person's involved seeing their face, expression on their face, hearing the words, and mostly sensing, you know, what was the worst part of this for you? what was really triggering you?

What were you afraid of? What were you upset about? Beginning rain with recognizing. So just to notice whatever's most predominant, what's the feelings most predominant in the moment. You might mentally note them whispering, you know, fear or anger, hurt, judgment, anxiety, whatever word most captures the feeling. And the A is allow.

And for now that's in a way just agreeing not to fight the reality of what you're experiencing. Just to let it be there for a bit. You might simply say let it be, let it be. Allowing is in some way a wisdom that recognizes, well this, this belongs, like a wave in the ocean belongs right here and right now, it's okay. So that you can then begin to, I, investigate. And you might ask yourself, well, what am I believing when this is going on? Is there some deep core belief, you know, that if somebody's behaving this way they couldn't

love me? Or this means I'm not worthy. Or this means something really bad is going to happen, I'll get punished. means I'll never change. This means, there's a this means in some way to you if there's some deep sense of how you're believing right now. Just to notice that. Most important, when you're believing this, when this is going on, what's the feelings in the body? Just invite those feelings to be wherever they are, maybe it's the throat or the chest or the belly. If it helps you to put your hand on your body,

sometimes just a hand on the heart that helps to come into the body and to invite the feelings that are there to be there, just to breathe with them, feel them. You might even to get more in touch with the feeling, let your posture show the feeling, let your facial expression show the feeling. Feel the face, feel the surface of the face when it's expressing the fear, the hurt, the anger and then feel back into the body and sense where is it most expressed? Where are you feeling it the most and deepen your attention there? Sensing what most wants attention in there.

Perhaps inside the anger there's hurt or fear, what's most wanting attention and just feel right into the core of the vulnerability that's there. staying connected. And we begin to shift to nurture by asking, what is this place most need? What is it most need right now? And as you ask that question, just listen with the kind of the ears of the heart,

the high self. Does this place most need to feel accompanied? That sense of you're not going to leave. You're going to stay right there with it. Does it need to feel accepted? Does it need to feel forgiven? Does it need to feel understood? Does it need to feel loved?

Listening, maybe taking a few full breaths so that you can even more fully inhabit the wisdom, the compassion of your high self, of the most awake part of you. And sense the possibility of offering inwardly what's needed. that hand on the heart and you can just kind of offer some warmth and some care. Maybe there are words, I'm here and I'm not leaving. I care about this suffering. Trust your goodness. Whatever message, most feels natural to send.

And if it's hard to feel that you're offering it to yourself, you might call on a loving or wise being, someone you know, someone you know, some. someone you can just imagine, just ask for their presence to be here and let that love and that care and the message come through them through your hand into your heart, the sense that you can be bathed in care. Let it wash in the cells and the spaces between the cells, letting the deep intention be, can I receive? Please, may I just let myself receive?

permission to receive, letting light and warmth wash in. In these last few moments, when that place of a witnessing and awareness just sense the quality of presence, it's here. Perhaps a bit more space, a bit more tenderness, more awake. Perhaps you can notice the shift from the stuck self at the beginning to more resting. in and as the awareness that you are and that this goodness is more true than any story, that you can trust this.