Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 443: More Than A Feeling | Saleem Reshamwala

Episode Date: April 29, 2022

Most of us have gotten at least a little emotional at some point recently.  It’s natural. But why do we have emotions and how much should we pay attention to them on any given day?  Can we learn to skillfully choose which emotions to listen to and which ones to just let move on by?In More Than A Feeling, the latest podcast from Ten Percent Happier, host Saleem Reshamwala goes on a real life quest to find the answers to these questions. He’ll experiment with neuroscientists, dive into stories with historians and philosophers, and document how musicians, therapists, hairdressers and airplane pilots work with emotions.About Saleem Reshamwala:Saleem Reshamwala is the host of More Than A Feeling, Ten Percent Happier's podcast about human emotions. He is an Emmy-nominated producer, for his video work on implicit bias with the New York Times, a winner in the Best Music Video category at Harlem's Hip Hop Film Festival, and a mentor for The Sauce Fellowship, a Southern youth digital storytelling program in conjunction with the New Orleans Video Access Center.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey, hey, a few weeks back, we had on one of my favorite guests. Brunei Brown is known in our little podcast world here at TPH as a big get. She's a best-selling author, Ted Talker, and researcher, her latest work focuses on something called emotional granularity. best-selling author, Ted Talker, and researcher, her latest work focuses on something called emotional granularity. The argument there is that the better we are at describing our emotions, the more equipped we will be to handle them. We hear at TPHR all in on this concept, the

better you understand yourself, the better you will be at surfing all of your emotions, urges, and inner storylines rather than drowning in them, which is why I am supremely psyched to share something we've been working on for the better part of a year in TPH land. The podcast team at TPH has created an entirely new podcast series that focuses on emotions, those mysterious forces that govern our lives. The new show is called More than a Feeling. It's hosted by Selim Reshamwalla, who's a journalist, filmmaker, and podcaster. On this new show, Selim conducts interviews and experiments with neuroscientists, actors, musicians, therapists, hairdressers,

and airplane pilots, among others, to find stories and insights that will help all of us handle our stuff. To give you a taste of what this new show is all about, we're going to drop a double feature down the podcast today. In the first episode, you'll hear Celine grapple with the big question of how we define emotions and why we all need more words to help us describe our emotions. That's more than a feelings, prologue episode, appropriately entitled, what's more than a feelings prologue episode appropriately entitled, what's more than a feeling. Then you'll get to hear the second episode in the series, it's called Get Me Out Of Here, which is all about an emotion with which I have an intimate

relationship, unfortunately. Fear, in that episode, you'll get to hear producer Mark Pagan facing a fear that has haunted him for years. So without further ado, here is more than a feeling. I got a question for you. How are you? It's probably the most common question we get asked every day. And most of the time, we answer it like, like that. But take a second and sit with it. Right now, how are you feeling? At the core of that simple, simple question, that is something that is not so simple at times. Because how we're feeling can be hard to describe, and sometimes hard to share. On any given day,

maybe I was lucky enough to catch you in a great emotional place. I feel very inspired, maybe. I feel like I'm crushing it. Talk to me next week and I won't be crushing it, but right now. Maybe it's one of those times when you're feeling kinda, eh,

but you're not sure why. Am I feeling judged in this moment? I think I respond better to negativity almost. Or maybe you're wrestling with some tough or even painful feelings that you wish you could get away from. I think I'm still learning how to overcome guilt and shame. If I do feel anxious enough,

it's hard for it to not show on my face. Being emotionally vulnerable with anyone is tough. Different emotions are running through us all the time. Think about it. How many different feelings have you had just since you woke up this morning? And that question of how are you might be the most important question we ask ourselves because our emotions, whether we can name them or not, they affect every decision we make. Welcome to more than a feeling. A new podcast from 10% happier.

I'm Salim Reshamwala and I'm obviously your host. You may have heard me on my other show, Farflung, over at Ted's Network of Podcasts. That one is a sort of travel show about ideas. But here we're traveling inward. Each week on more than a feeling we'll be investigating the sometimes mysterious, sometimes terrible, sometimes wonderful, but always human, world of emotions. Oh, and to be clear, I'm not claiming to be an expert in all this. I'm on this journey with you.

I've got questions, you got questions. My mission is to find us all some insights into what's happening in our minds and our bodies when we feel things. The point is to notice the daily barrage of feelings a little more often. Maybe in a clearer way. When we come back, I'm going to get personal and share how I interpreted emotions growing up as a mashup kid and now as a mashup adult. And don't worry, I'll explain what I mean by mashup.

Stick with us. What does it even mean to live a good life? Is it about happiness, purpose, love, health, or wealth? What really matters in the pursuit of a life well-lived? These are the questions, award-winning author, founder, and interviewer Jonathan Fields asks his guests on the Top Ranked Good Life Project podcast. Every week, Jonathan sits down with world renowned thinkers and doers, people like Glenn and Doyle, Adam Grant,

Young Pueblo, Jonathan Height, and hundreds more. Start listening right now. Look for the Good Life Project on your favorite podcast app. Hey, y'all, it's your girl, Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, singer, and entrepreneur. I'm a new podcast, a baby, this is Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, singer, and entrepreneur. I'm a new podcast, Baby This is Kiki Palmer. I'm asking friends, family, and experts the questions that are in my head. Like, it's only fans only bad.

Where did memes come from? And where's Tom from, MySpace? Listen to Baby, this is Kiki Palmer. On Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey y'all, this is Salim, and welcome back to more than a feeling. So okay, the mashup kid explanation. When I was little, I spent a lot of time in places where I didn't know what was going on.

I was born in the US, but I was a mashup kid. My dad's from India and my mom's from Japan, and my brother and sister and I frequently found ourselves in situations where we didn't quite speak the language. This was everything from holiday events where I was the only one who didn't know a tradition to dinner parties where every other kid knew what was going on, but me to international trips with rooms packed full of cousins, flipping languages in a way that I just couldn't.

It was sometimes disconcerting, kind of mysterious, often exhausting, but always intriguing. And I was always looking for signs, trying to figure out the codes, what's everyone thinking, how's everybody feeling, how am I supposed to be feeling? And it felt really important to get that right. I wanted to fit in not just to understand the mixed bag of cultural cues, but also to be seen by adults and other kids. I was just a little kid at a table watching bodies, faces looking for hints of when I should fake laugh.

Sometimes fake laughing so hard that it became kind of fun, cut to decades later. And I went from being a mixed culture kid in North Carolina, and occasionally India, to being a mixed culture adult, who people sometimes hire to tag along and document things. Now I've spent time trying to fit in in dining rooms, bars, train stations, and even barbershops on gigs everywhere from Senegal to Easter Island. And all these decades later, I still do that thing. Quickly try to read a room, feel out the cultural cues, maybe not the fake laughing, maybe a little bit of fake laughing.

But that's the thing. It wasn't until I got a lot older that I realized how much everyone is faking at times. How even when people speak the same language, so much of human interaction is this guessing game. This hunt for mutual feelings. On the surface level, there's this trying to fit in for sure. But it's also much more than that. You try to connect to see and be seen in a real way.

And this mix of all that normal human miscommunication plus jumping across cultures so much where there are so many different rules and languages, it got me a little obsessed with what I think is a very human question. Is what's happening inside me or you similar to what's happening to everyone else? How can we figure that out? How can we even talk about it? How much do we even understand our own emotional lives? Basically, can any of us relate to anyone? I know that question is big enough that it might sound kind of like 3AEB's stonery,

but it's at the core of so much of what we talk about. Our friendships, work negotiations, political polarization, they're all full of guesses as to what someone is feeling. We're going to ask some experts, the type of folks who study brain science about what they think, but before that, I thought I'd crowdsource a little wisdom from a group of people who teach me a lot all the time about getting on the same emotional page. This group of folks here about to meet have one big thing in common. And the context here is that I end up in a lot of hangouts

with people who've spent a lot of time moving from place to place. And a lot of those people speak multiple languages. So there's this thing that I like to do when I'm at a dinner party or late night hangout with these folks. And it's just ask, what's a word that you use in another language that you wish we had in English. Since dinner parties still aren't much of a thing right now, I simulated this.

Did this as a Facebook call out? Researching words for emotions that are hard to translate into English suggestions, then called up some friends who responded to it. Raj, hello. I can only see half of your face if I do this. Oh, you can see my whole face. No, okay. If you close your eyes, maybe you can almost forget that we're sitting at our computers, and instead imagine a group of friends sitting around a table. Some folks are nursing their drinks, others are dipping bread into some goat curry,

there's a break in the conversation and I ask, so what's the word that you have in another language that you wish we had in English? Oh that's such a good question. I don't know how to say that in English. And most often the words people offer up are about emotions. My friend Fess talked about a word in Portuguese, which means something like missing someone. But I miss you doesn't quite get you there. Sao Daji. How would you describe the feeling that is contained in the word Sao Daji? the feeling that is contained in the word saudaji. So saudaji is almost like the act of missing, right? Or the act of longing or yearning, you know, so there's sadness attached to it, but it's also like a good

feeling to be missing somebody. You kind of want to hear, that somebody has saudaji, you for sure, that, you know, that they're missing you. That's beautiful. You do cut a want to hear that, sick, that they're missing you. That's beautiful. You do cut a wanna hear that, to know that someone's missing you. And saudage just adds that note of beautiful pain, makes it way more than just, is been a while.

Fess has a daughter, and recently after his dad talked to her, his dad said, that's a pretty much saudage. It his dad said, that's a beautiful thing. It means quite literally to kill the saudaji. Like he was like him talking to her, killed his saudaji for that short period of time. They'll say the same thing with hunger or being thirsty. But I'm a tell sage, to kill the thirst.

Like let me take a swig water to kill that thirst. Thank you for killing my saudagi. Dang, that's a beautifully cinematic way to wrap up a phone call. I'm gonna try and pull it off sometime. Another relatable feeling. Let's say you're in a room, people say some smart things,

you wanna say a smart thing, but you can't think of a smart thing until you walk away, and then it comes to you. Les prix de l'escalier, which is the story of my life, can be anything you wish you said. That is my friend Cecilia, bring it us some French. Specifically, Les prix de l'escalier, the spirit of the staircase. It describes the feeling of walking away from something like a meeting or a dinner party and you're at the metaphorical staircase heading out

and just a bit too late. You get hit by that feeling of, ah, I wish I had said, Bob, all their ideas come to you and they are so great and you're like, why I didn't think of this when it was a time to say these things, you know? I've constantly hit by how relatable some of these feelings are, even though these are words from totally different cultures. Like my friend, Nafisa, talking to me about a word used in Bengali and Hindi that might sound a little petty, but also really intense in that way that only someone super close to you can

trigger. Obeyman. My mom has a lot of opinions on how I should dress up for dinner parties and so if she were to tell me to straighten my hair and wear like a sorry aerosol workamuse for one of her dinner parties. And I explicitly kind of disobeyed her, disregarded what she said. Then there would be some opimon between us. There would be a sense of disappointment or a slight grudge or grievance. Ah, you feel that?

As soon as someone says a new word for a feeling I felt, I feel this charge. Ah, I've been there. This is more than just dinner party trivia. It's the magic of the perfect word. Think about the difference between some emotion words. Frustrated versus furious. A slight misunderstanding versus, you know, an all-out screaming match. And for my friend, Fraulket, figuring out what people are trying to express

and helping other people understand each other, that's literally her job. Often I find myself in situations where people use words that I just have to describe, even if there's not another word for it. So I have to kind of still find a way to say it. She's a translator. She speaks English, German, and Japanese comfortably. And being a translator sometimes means digging through documents, or setting up a business meeting, or figuring out techniques in this case for dealing with a maybe inappropriate joke from a German tour guide who's talking to a bus full of Japanese tourists.

He tried to be funny and he wanted everybody to have a good time. So I thought, oh, if I interpret this, it's not going to be funny. So I always said, the guy just made a joke and then everybody laughed. And then he was really happy because he thought I interpreted the joke and it worked. But everybody just laughed about me saying it like that. And it served its purpose of lightening the mood. So I thought in a way I did what he was intending to do. I love how literal that is.

She conveyed, hey guys, joke happened, and just say that caused the tourists to laugh, and everyone felt what they were supposed to feel. German tour guide felt happy, he believed he got a laugh from the crowd, which he did, indirectly. Tour participants laughed, and Fralke felt satisfied that everyone's desires had been met. That's when words do their best work. Keeping everyone in balance, we might say on the same page, everyone's on the same vibe, and it can cause a sort of emotional harmony.

When it's at its best, it can cause a deep, mutual understanding. But if we want to know if our feelings can truly be mutual, first we have to ask a deceptively simple question. What are feelings anyway? How do you define one emotion is? How do you measure it? And then I think you start realizing, like, oh, this is not actually as easy as a question

as I thought it was. That's Ashley Ruba, a developmental psychologist who also spends time with people with no shared language, just with a very different demographic than my friend Frauka. Ashley studies how babies and children learn about other people's emotions. I got super curious when I heard that because it kind of reminded me of what I was going through as a young kid at those dinner tables. Before I knew what the words meant and I was just trying to make guesses based off of faces and gestures.

So now I'm wondering, can a baby help us figure out if emotions or things were all born understanding or if we have to learn them all from scratch? Like does a baby actually know what a smile means? So when you smile, how is a baby perceiving that? What meaning are they attaching to that smile? How do they use your smile to decide what to do in a particular situation or how to regulate their behavior? Ashley Rubas said something that jumped out to me here. She said, Smiles might not be like a one-to-one mapping with happiness, for example, but probablyistically, maybe people smile when they feel happy most of the time. I like that, probably, realistically.

It's probably the case that many people smile when they feel happy most of the time. So a baby sees their parents smile and will pick up that the adult is probably happy. And the same goes for the parent seeing their baby smile, an emotion is being communicated, right? And same goes for other feelings, like fear, wide eyes, sad, frown, and so on.

That's what a major psychologist named Paul Ekman is famous for theorizing. These facial cues are supposed to give us the keys to recognize our true feelings. They help us pick up on what someone else is feeling too, which is obviously really important. Paul Ekman was arguing that there's a set of basic universal emotions. Happy set of anger, fear, disgust and surprises included in that sometimes. And his argument was these emotions are universally felt, they're universally identified, they're universally expressed in these specific kinds of facial configurations. And I think that's the work that's predominate the field.

Happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, surprise, contempt. Y'all might be like, okay, those are universal emotions. That's a pretty obvious list. Of course I smile when I'm happy, but here's the thing, nearly everyone who studies emotion has a different take on how universal emotions are or aren't. More work has come out, near people on the complete opposite side of the spectrum. He would argue that this view of emotions is very dated and isn't applicable at all. That first theory was how a lot of us might have first described emotions for a lot of our lives. Scientists have come to label this theory as, quote unquote, essentialist or universal.

As in everyone in any culture, universally or essentially equates a smiley face with someone experiencing joy or happiness and a frown with someone who's mad and so on. I know that sounds a little jargon-y, but we're going to come back around to this later in a way that I find very satisfying. Another major theory says that our emotions aren't universal things we're all born with. The idea is that our emotions are constructed through our experience and culture, it's known as the constructivist view of emotion.

There aren't these discrete categories like happiness and sadness and anger. There's more broad dimensions, so positive or negative, and then a rousal, which is ranging from lower rousal, which is a more calm state to higher rousal, which is a more excited state. And theseousal, which is a more excited state. And these are things that are measurable, not necessarily these specific emotional states,

like happiness or sadness, but more higher arousal, positive, or low arousal negative, or some combination of these things. But there isn't a one-to-one association. For example, you could say that laughter is something that happens when you feel something's, you know, funny. But think of me back at that party, trying to fit in. I definitely laughed at things I didn't understand. I learned to pick up on cues and laugh when people around me were laughing. And my laughter was a pretty good fake.

Sometimes I even had fun when I did it, but was it a good indicator of what I was feeling? You can't just hook up sensors to someone or code people's facial muscle movements and be like, ah, you were happy. It's basically our emotions are they something that you can really measure in this discrete way or are they kind of more nebulous. Right. Emotions can seem kind of nebulous.

Merky. Thinking about it this way helps me see that for a lot of my younger life, I was a lot like those babies Ashley Rubah studies. I was sitting at those parties with my brother and sister, not understanding the language, trying to interpret cues, copying what the adults were doing, never quite having the words in my vocabulary to understand what was happening, or express how I was feeling. Earlier, I mentioned that adults have to fake emotions at times, but when you look at emotions as way mercier, that might explain why we're all just kind of

faking it till we make it. And that thing we're making is emotions. If they're two very different cultures in the house and there's like two kinds of emotional display rules that are being learned, the kids have to navigate that. But kids, you know, even a monolingual household might have to navigate that.

If they have a parent who's like have to navigate that if they have a parent who's really emotionally reactive and then they have another parent who's not. They have to learn what's going to trigger one person's emotional reactions and they have to learn that maybe the other parent isn't so quick to anger. Yeah, whether or not you grew up around multiple languages,

you probably still grew up navigating conflicting expressions and understandings of emotions. Because how we understand and communicate emotions depends on a lot of factors, with language just being one of them. When we come back, why having the words to describe our emotions makes that whole process way easier. And might just overall be more important than you think. We're back. So, measuring emotions is tricky. We've got words and full circle to all those international emotion words that my friends were bringing up

They all fit into something I like to call emotional granularity Just kidding. I didn't coin that term. It's a psychological term, but it's a good one, right? Emotional granularity is basically the ability to tune into your own emotions and Put into a word or words what it is you're feeling. The more granular you get the closer you get to really expressing what's up with your feelings. As you get more words for what you feel you can do more than just say I feel excited or I feel sad. You can get into the gritty detail of an emotional experience and find that specific or granular word or label for it. The number of emotion words that people have in their vocabulary to describe how they're

feeling increases over the lifespan and becomes more fine-grained. Froucuit, my translator friend who you heard from before the break, has this perfect example. In German, there are very different words for anger. So I'm angry. I've been wütend. Das ist ein perfektes Beispiel. just a really strong anger that is so angry that you can even do things straight. I've been in a no so much way to get a gang in order. And this means I'm still so angry about the way I was betrayed. I think about somebody cheating on somebody, for example. And rusted or impert, impert, you know,

that is something, you know, often it's about, for example, social injustice or something. If you're angry about that, then it's more like impure. I think the more different words you have, the easier it is. Basically, that learning to name more feelings thing that we did when we were first learning to speak, that doesn't have to stop when we're babies. We can keep acquiring more and more words for feelings throughout our whole lives. We do know from research that having a more diverse array of words to describe how your feeling is related to better mental health outcomes.

And so I imagine that there's something similar going on. We're just being able to have like a singular word to describe a particular concept might feel good in that way. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that we've all been through some stuff the past few years. And I learned this phrase emotional granularity only recently, but it makes me wonder how many new emotion words could have been useful during all the intense, strange and challenging times we're still going through. In our research we found someone who is way ahead of be

collecting emotion words. It's got to his thing. How many languages do you have submissions in? Well there's over 150 so, which is actually just a drop in the bucket because there's some 7,000 worldwide, so it's really not just a work in progress, it's really just starting. That's Tim Lomas. He's a positive psychologist. That means he spends his time researching what can help people and society basically feel good. And it might be a good time to call on a person like that.

Tim used to teach English in China. That's where he got really into language. It's also where he got into Buddhism and meditation, which he still practices and also incorporates into his research. Among the many books and journal articles, he's written is one called Happiness Found in Translation, which, bad, that title, that is something I'm looking for. As a part of that, he's created this

online index that collects untranslatable words related to feeling good. We had some favorites in common. There are some really fascinating beautiful words relating to longing, so one of them comes to mind is a Portuguese and Brazilian one, shall die. You know, this actually was one of the examples that someone brought up in our early discussions. Right, I really, yeah. Why do you think it feels so good? There's this feeling when someone says a kind of feeling word that you can relate to. Where you have this feeling like, oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've been there. I get that. Like, I totally know that feeling. What's happening? What's

actually happening in the mind when we learn a new term like that? If there's a phenomenon that we can't identify or articulate or give a name to, it's frustrating almost like a weird visceral level, like a sense of hunger, and that when you find that word, it is almost like literally like taking something on board in a nourishing way, and you feel a bit more complete. And I think there's kind of insatiable curiosity, I think, to explore the world and to know it and to find out about it. And I think naming things and identifying them is like a crucial part of that process. It's like our maths are more accurate and we can navigate our way around our lives in a better way. It's about developing this language so that we can start to bring this granularity

to it. And then there's emotional granularity, but I think there's just experiential granularity with or conceptual granularity with just any area of life. And speaking of terminology and frameworks, remember those two emotional theories, Ashley Rubah talked about earlier? There's the essentialist theory, the one that says that all humans are born with the same universal set of emotions versus the constructivist theory, which claims that humans shape their own emotional experience based on past experience. Tim suggests that maybe the secret to understanding emotions lies somewhere in the middle. I think people the world over probably do have common feelings. The feeling of being in love, I'm guessing is similar to the world over it.

What it means for deeply in love with someone and to find one's soulmate, I'm sure there are such commonalities throughout the world across cultures because we are all human beings. But then the way we code that and interpret it and give meaning to it and the layers we pose upon that are culturally shaped through our language and where we're situated. So that's bringing in the constructivist perspective. So I'm joined up with any other work that can bring those two perspectives together because I think there's truth and merit in both. And it's often the case of, you know, what can seem like a dichotomy or opposites actually the truth is to be found somewhere and bringing them together. I'm always a fared of a mash up,

a dancer. I do think experience is fundamentally ineffable. It's very, very hard to put into words, but you know, words are almost like the best we have. It's the best we can do in a sense. And then even if it's only some crude representation of an experience, at least it is a representation, you know, it might not be like a photograph, it's like a crude crayon drawing rather than a photo. But it's still a drawing, you still get somewhere, you know. There is something nice in the trying and feeling like we're getting closer. That always feels good. It does feel good. And I think that's a beautiful spirit

in which to engage in this process. You know, because in some sense, everyone is their own unique universe. There are sort of mystery, even unto themselves, in a way. And so I think it's one thing to think of, I can't understand necessarily an untranslatable word from another culture, but I'm not even sure I can understand what another English person means when they say by happiness or love, because they have their own ways of defining and looking at these terms. And remember that big question from the top of the episode? Can any of us relate to anyone? Here's Tim's take.

If with a sort of negative cast of mine you might just think, well, people are fundamentally disconnected and impossible to understand, but I don't think that's the case. I think that's part of what connecting with and communicating with people is about is trying to get closer to them. And I think that's the extent to which you can do that when you're connected and that's valuable and beautiful. That's a journey to the heart of someone in a sense. And you won't see autism

because that is probably impossibility, but you can get some way inside. These are complicated topics. And the more language we give ourselves around emotion, the more we think beyond these big categories of feelings, the more interesting life gets. Think back to those multi-lingual dinner party guests from the top of the episode.

Every time I learn a little bit more about a Bengali word, I feel a greater sense of connection with my culture. You know, I think that all of my feelings, I'm glad that they are there. I think they are a little bit like the colors in the world. And you need all the colors. And if you had one color less, it wouldn't be the same. The next time you're annoyed with someone very close to you, maybe you can be like, this is Obi-Man. It's just a feeling that will pass. It happens to people all the time. Or maybe you'll need to think about it after you've already left the party. And that's okay too. Why the English don't have this

priedolese c'est allier? There's really no expression, right? In English, there's no equivalent to you sure, did you check? So here's what we're going to do this season. We look at the murky, complex, beautiful human world of emotions, with some help from scientists, researchers, psychologists, and therapists, as well as hairdressers, former airline pilots, composers, and DJs to name a few, we're gonna investigate our internal worlds. We've got questions just like the rest of you, and we're setting out to find out what's more than a feeling. Oh, you thought I was gonna add

or say the show title like that? That would've been cool, but I gotta tell you a bit about our next episode. We look very closely at an emotion that a lot of us hate, an emotion that we even hide from others. It's a feeling that a lot of us hate, an emotion that we even hide from others. It's a feeling that a lot of us will do anything to avoid, even though it's one role intimately familiar with. Fear.

We've got a story from one of our very own producers who's trying to confront a very real fear of something a lot of people do without a second thought every day. a lot of people do without a second thought every day. It is Friday, January 28th, 2022, and I'm about to get on the subway for the first time in two years. That's clear open, but we can all squeeze.

All right, cue montage music. and your montage music. How often do you get to hear someone open up fully and completely about something that flat out terrifies them? There's a lot of intimate and beautiful moments in this story. You do not want to miss it. See you all next time. By the way, if you have a specific question or story about an emotion you've been grappling with, tell us about it. Send us a voice memo at more than a feeling at 10%.com. You got to spell out T-E-N percent. You might end up hearing yourself on one of our future episodes. You can also hit us up on Twitter at podfeelings, P-O-D-F-E-E-L-I-N-G-S.

Share the show with your friends. We would really appreciate that. If you like what you heard in this episode and you want to let us know, give us that five star rating on Apple Podcasts. It helps other people find us. More than a feeling is produced by Riva Goldberg, Mark McGahn, Will Coley, Palace Shaw, and Kim Baikama.

Our Managing Producer is Kimmy Regler. An Executive Producer is Jen Poient, scoring mixing and sound design provided by ultraviolet audio, production support for this episode was provided by Connor Donahue. Our theme music was composed by L. Michael's affair. Shout out to Leon Michaels and P.A. Malik

for this beautiful theme song. They made it especially for us. Thank you to Danny at Big Crown Records. Additional music provided by APM. Music licensing help by Rebecca Greerson of 64 music. Fact checking for this episode provided by Robyn Palmer. Special thanks to Jess Goldberg, Ben Rubin, Dan Harris, Matthew Hepburn, and Tony Magyar. This show could not have been created without you.

But a motion of feeling right now is love. All of all, y'all. Okay, that was awesome. But there's more. Stay with us for the second episode of More Than A Feeling. Coming up, producer Mark Pagan tells us his own story about his fear of endeavoring into the New York City subway. Okay, here we go. Episode two of More Than A Feeling.

Hey y'all, this is Salim, the host of More Than A Feeling. We wanted to give you some special context about this episode before it starts. This episode is about fear and the story we tell focuses on the New York City subway of all things. In a lot of ways, we think of it as an ode to the subway system and to the city itself, but we started work on this episode many months ago. Now in the aftermath of the recent attack on the New York City subway system, it would feel strange to release this episode without acknowledging this terrible moment for the city

and the victims and their families. This show, more than a feeling, is meant to be informative and fun for sure. But we really hope these episodes can offer useful tools for listeners to use when dealing with a variety of emotions on any given day. And after talking to a bunch of folks about it, that's part of the reason we think this episode could be really useful for a lot of people right now. So we're releasing it. Again, acknowledging that it's about fears, some folks experience while riding the subway. If that's a trigger for you in the context of what just happened, we understand. But not to spoil anything,

this episode has a lot of heart, hope, and humor. And except for this intro and an addendum at the end, we steer clear of the recent incident to tell what I think is a pretty warm and universal story of what we can all do in the face of fear. We're really proud of it and hope you find it useful in your own life. Hope you're all taken care.

Thanks y'all. A very long time ago, I lived in Queens, a story near the end of the Ed train. I was working three jobs for a bit, during the day doing data entry at a shipping company, at night doing shifts at a blockbuster video store, that dates the story. And in the midst of both,

I was teaching SAT prep sporadically in the city. I was tired and really, I mean, I was down. I was mopping a floor at midnight of one job, and now about to get up at seven, and ride a trade to buy other job. But there is this moment in transition that I loved. I get on the entry to the city underground, it's dark, it's crowded.

All of us passengers are done with the city and it's a literal tunnel underwater Which is a mystery to be how that works even now As I know the side of subway says we're passing into Queens But how could anyone tell we're in a different burrow because we're still underground Then we feel the train start lifting and catch a literal light at the end of the tunnel. We get raised up and the subway is no longer sub-editing. The subway is in the air.

You be all of us are in the air above Lug Island City. There's graffiti going on all over the place. There's a new art museum in the distance. And at the same time, a guy is maybe energetically doing pull-ups on that grip bar that runs over the train cars. And people are kind of laughing. And honestly, it's just beautiful. That rise up out of the subway into the sun got me every time. It was possibly my favorite part of that whole crazy mess of a city.

When you live in a city moving through these hyper-specific spaces and transitions every day is a loop of experiences. And these repetitive experiences are like songs. So much of how you feel about them depends on what you associate with them. And right now, what my friend and colleague Mark associates with them is... Fear. On this week's episode of more than a feeling... Fear. And how to work with it. We'll be back after this quick break. I'm a school, a school, a church, a church.

Life is short and it's full of a lot of interesting questions. What does happiness really mean? How do I get the most out of my time here on Earth? And what really is the best cereal? These are the questions I seek to resolve on my weekly podcast, Life is short, with Justin Long. If you're looking for the answer to deep philosophical questions, like, what is the meaning of life? I can't really help you.

But I do believe that we really enrich our experience here by learning from others. And that's why in each episode I like to talk with actors, musicians, artists, scientists, and many more types of people about how they get the most out of life. We explore how they felt during the highs and sometimes more importantly, the lows of their careers. We discuss how they've been able to stay happy during some of the harder times, but if I'm being honest, it's mostly just fun chats between friends about the important stuff. Like, if you had a sandwich named after you,

what would be on it? Follow Life is Short, wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen to Add Free on the Amazon Music or Wondering App. Hey y'all, this is Salim and welcome back to More Than A Feeling. I'm gonna throw a blanket statement out there. We are all scared of something.

I don't think I'm saying they're wildly controversial there. So I'll say it again, we're all scared of something. And we have all been scared of something for a very, very, very long time. If you go back a few million years, there were creatures such as T-Rex, not very smart. So how was T-Rex able to protect himself or herself with its amygdala?

So the amygdala sits there in the brain and it monitors what's going on. That's Tom Bunn. Tom is not a paleoanthropologist. He's a licensed therapist and former aviation pilot. We'll get more into that in a bit, but one important nugget to remember is that the amygdala's been part of mammals like us

for a very, very, very long time. And millions of years ago, as mammals evolved, the question of what to be scared of was probably pretty simple. Something really loud or fast coming towards you, well that could be a pile of rocks falling off a cliff, or a predator running at you. In either of those cases, running awayigawa is a great instinct to have. Cut to Betty, Betty years later, and maybe you've reacted to something like a jump scare in a movie and you twint your move and you think, oh that's my animal instincts kicking in.

But sometimes it can feel like fear has sort of morphed into this bad antiquated software programmed in our bodies. Yes, you can still be scared of lions, tigers, and bears. But there's the modern equivalent of scary roars everywhere. All sorts, both external and internal, from the things on our phones to knowing you've got a big meeting coming up. big meeting coming up, fear seems to be everywhere. From fear of public speaking to something as existential as a fear of failure, everyone is scared of something, including one of our senior producers, Mark Pagan. And the journey he went on in learning about his fear and maybe the journey you're about to go on,

learning how to manage yours. Well, it wasn't quite what I expected. Sure, I learned about the processes that can help a lot of us better engage with our most anxious feelings from a clinical psychologist. So whenever we feel afraid, our brain says it's horrible and you wanna walk away. And when we walk away, we teach our brain, yeah, that's dangerous. To our former. Yeah, that's dangerous.

To our former airline pilot, Tom Bunn, in order to have a fear of flying, you have to have intelligence so you can think of a thousand things that could go wrong. But the takeaway today won't be a poof. Fear is over, sort of thing. The reality is fear is there for a reason. And it's not something we just solve. What if instead of running from it, what do we embrace fear as a form of connection? This is going to be an introspective intimate journey, y'all. Not so much chasing fear as talking with it. But first sit back and meet our colleague Mark Pagan and the thing that's been terrifying him. Mark, man, why are we here? What's going on with you?

I don't know where to start exactly, but I'll start where we are today. We're talking January 2022. I'm talking to you from my adopted home of New York City, and I have not been on the subway in two years. I mean, there's an obvious first question, which is, is that pandemic related? The problem isn't so much the germs in my mind, it's the escape. Mark's particular flavor of fear started showing up during plane travel

that in big crowds, and eventually, claustrophobia hit him in the most inconvenient way for a New Yorker. In its subway, Mark's main mode of transportation around New York City. The first inkling of subterranean blues came when Mark was living back in his hometown of DC. He was on the Metro one day when it stopped mid-tunnel because of a fire. While stalled, the car he was sitting in, filled with smoke.

I remember looking at this couple in front of me and it was one of the first times I recognized somebody else's fear. It was a man and a woman and the woman, once we all started noticing the smoke, I just saw her hand grab his and I saw her body, just get very stiff and That that triggered just a little something for me. Oh seeing other people be afraid. Yeah, and

Occasionally Mark would become aware of a pack train car or feel that pressure when speeding through certain tunnels But it all came crashing in during one particular subway ride on my formerly magical and train route. Halfway through the tunnel between Queens and Manhattan, the train stopped. And you and myself and everybody who's taking the train knows that this is an inconvenience, but it happens for whatever reason. So we were on the train for about 10 minutes.

The conductor had already made his announcement, you know, like, sorry, there's whatever there's to play. 10 minutes or so, Ann, I'm just hanging out with my friends. He makes an announcement again. And I don't remember exactly what he said, but he used the word emergency. And I don't remember having heard the word emergency when somebody is my conductor or my pilot or anything like that, but the word emergency, just automatically set off an alarm in me.

And pretty much right after he used the word emergency, I looked and I saw another, an MTA worker who was squeezing in between the train and the tunnel wall to try, I guess he was trying to get to the front of the train and you can almost hear the like, woo, I guess the train window. And I turned to my friend, Robin, and I said, I'm having a panic attack. A panic attack. According to Mark, this was the first time he'd ever had one.

It just felt different from any fear response he'd experienced before. I just couldn't breathe. My memory is like it was both hot and cold. The blood in my body, I was sweating. My heart was just pounding outside of my chest and it was sort of like a feeling of, I'm about to lose control.

More in the sense of, I think I'm just going to pass out from not breathing. After about 45 minutes, the train started moving and long story short, the emergency was a soccer ball in the middle of the tracks. But innocuous threat or not, this set off a very present alarm for Mark that had him avoiding train routes that went between burrows and bringing paper bags on commutes just in case he hyperventilated. It was mostly this sense of escape to the point where I just avoided trains all together. And Mark, he knows all the statistics. It's not like he's not convinced

that centuries of tunnel engineering actually works. Cognitively, he knows the chances of anything happening are actually pretty slim, but that doesn't matter from what I understand. It's like, how do I get out of here? Well, I may not have this fear and may not know anyone else with it. When it comes to this hidden fear,

he's not the only one in this must-stay above ground, underground community. So when was the last time that you were at this station? 2013, maybe. Mark's former colleague, Nazarene, is also a fearful subway rider. And not only did they decide to record a conversation in the loud, unpredictable ecosystem

that is the MTA transit system, they specifically recorded in the York Street subway station. A station where Nazarene had it been in almost a decade. Same as Mark, she had her first bout with claustrophobia when it trained stalled in the tunnel. She was a teenager then, working as a camp counselor, bringing a group of kids into Manhattan. It was rush hour, and we stopped,

and I looked around and there were a lot of people. And I looked outside, and it was just pitch black. And that was it. It just started freaking out. And I didn't forget publicly, like I think it was just pitch black. And that was it. It just started freaking out. And I didn't forget publicly. I think it was on my face. I felt similar to how I'm feeling right now, even sitting here, that weak in the knees,

questioning everything. Mark and Nazrin sound like they're in a secret society. They have all these rules to keep themselves safe. Like, one, always ride in the first car. Because then I can see out the front. And if I can't see out the front, at least, always ride in the first car. Because then I can see out the front. And if I can't see out the front at least I'm like with the conductor. Or two, not taking a train if it's coming

just after another one left, because that second trade is more likely to pause mid tunnel. In my mind, those trains were so close together that either that train waited at the last stop or it had to stop in the tunnel in order to make room for the last one to go. I sometimes look and it's like can I scan people's faces and see who here is relieved?

Yes. Every time the trains come this direction into Brooklyn, I know that feeling when you see the light at the end of the tunnel, even in like a regular, even not through the water. And then when the train is here, I'm like, that's doom. That is impending doom for those people. This could sound silly to some, but is it all that different from how hyper aware

we all get when we're scared of something? And just like all of us with our fears and phobias, sometimes it's not actually the fear itself that's the problem. Sometimes it's how it's affecting our lives. I guess one thing I'm curious about is, how much is not taking the subway affecting your New York life?

So I'm just curious what's making you wanna tackle it. Mostly it's comfort and how can I move this to other areas of my life in which I'm not feeling comfortable? Both Mark and Dizreen have seen this show up in other areas of my life in which I'm not feeling comfortable. Both Mark and D'Srene have seen this show up in other areas of their life, like plane travel, elevators, crowds, back theaters. But some of those are things you don't need to do every day.

The subway for most New Yorkers is like air. And it's not just about the need to get from point A to point B. It's a very embarrassing part of my life. So it's a complete disruption to my lifestyle and it's also, it's a point of pride is in New Yorker. That's what I was going to ask about. You're such a New York identifying dude that I was curious if that's a part of it. I can't imagine based on your other stories, you're not taking a subway. I see the humanity in York during my subway trips. These are these daily moments that happen on the train, just the things you observe, the beautiful moments of like a parent reading to their kid, somebody offering their seat, the

ridiculous things that happen on the train, you being on the train with one other person and there's like a person at the end who's very inebriated and you make eye contact with the other person like this is a weird situation. Like just humanity is like is is I miss that, especially with with the pandemic. It's your sort of a daily dose of not just reality, but connection with your neighbors. Aside from the inconvenience, there's another thing they've realized about this phobia.

It messes with their value system. From sacrificing their dream job opportunities because of a train commute, to driving cars at a place with some of the most extensive public transportation systems in the world. The claustrophobia also impacts my values with my reality so much. It's like I got a car in November 2019 and it's been amazing and I also hate the people of cars in

New York City. They share many of the same habits, many of the same feelings, not just a fear of this type of commute, but also a mix of shame and disappointment at times. But there's one area where they're different, what they wanna do next with their relationship to underground train travel. Mark wants to bring the subway back into his life and get comfortable with the option of taking the train

wherever it needs to go. But Nazarene, she's not quite ready yet. So I feel like in a way I've actually just started to live with it so much that I like justify it to a point where I like, I can't even regret it. Those decisions because like, I could justify why I didn't do it and I feel so confident in that. I mean while at the same time I it sucks and I wish that it didn't exist and I wish that I could change it and like probably if I went to

enough therapy and they like forced me to go on a train that I would do it but I don't want to do that. So like there's a little bit of just disappointment in myself because I feel like I'm like I'm a go getter. I like when I set my mind to something I'm going to do it. I haven't had that moment that's made me decide I'm ready to like really do what it takes and quite frankly, I don't know if I'll ever get there. And I'm kind of okay with that, which is probably why. Neither of them have been on the train for two years. Nazarene is going to stay put.

Mark's going to try to become a commuter again, starting with his old subway stop. This is the Carroll Street stop. It's one I've used many times. Can't tell you how many. There it is. Not many. There it is.

Oh, feeling a little antsy. I'm down here, definitely my heart is not racing, but I definitely feel a bit faster. I feel like my mouth is a little drier. There's another train coming and like even the thought of getting on it. My legs are feeling a little dryer. There's another train coming and like even the thought of getting on it. My legs are feeling a little weak. I didn't see the light. I think I've done enough today. It's a pack car. I'm not getting on that. Okay, step one. I guess almost taking the train. This is where Dr. Luana Marquez comes in. Of when it works. And why does it work? It makes us feel comfortable. We all want to feel comfortable.

Dr. Luana Marquez, she's a clinical psychologist and focuses on CBT, which is cognitive behavioral therapy. And beyond that, she's an expert on helping patients navigate fears and anxieties. And one of the things is acknowledging what Nazarene, myself and many other people do, which is avoidance. On average, avoidance tends to limit our lives and make our life smaller. So how much is interfering? How much is upsetting you? Or those around you?

Is there a long-term consequence to avoid it? And so, in therapy, specifically, in cognitive behavior therapy, we spend a good amount of time asking people to approach instead of avoid. Basically told her, like, I think this is a fear inophobia. I have anxiety back in on a train, but this is a fear of trains. This is a fear of the actual train travel. And she said that there's, in this case, a lot of sense that there's a biological component to fear inophobia. PENIC, clinically, by definition, is when you have a host of physical symptoms, difficulty breathing,

sweating, heart pounding, dizzy, hot and cold flashes. They come really fast, right? And they come and they usually pick within 10 minutes. That's when we're talking about a panic attack. First thing, because I have a more fragile component to it. CBT also helps us understand their emotions are always valid, but they're not always reliable. And one of the things that Dr. Marquez talked about is something called cognitive distortions, which is not just a good slash bad name for a high school punk rock band.

How many distortions are waste where our brains sort of either exaggerate, maximize, testifies scenarios. So for example, you know, you've had two or three incidents in the subway, they're pretty upsetting, right? Scary. But now you're brain saying every time I'm in the subway is going to be the interest, right? So nice and magnifying what that was and it's only focusing on those two pieces in error. First, we need to identify that our brain is looking at data in a way that perhaps is not the most accurate. And to help somebody get to some more balanced ways of seeing the world.

There's a few things that Dr. Micah has mentioned, which I'm going to try with these next steps for getting back on the train. It's something called the temp cycle. Tab is an acronym, T-E-B, for thoughts, emotions, behaviors. And it's a way of doing a self-assessment and it's a technique to really to press pause. The temp cycle is one way for us to create a framework of what's happening in our brain, but also a way to sort of slow it down and understand, wait a minute, what's going on here? Can you bring some curiosity? Can you understand what's causing some of the anxiety, tension, or this conflict? Another thing too, which is part of the process I'm going to start

this week is something that she calls looping and something that very much moves us away from avoidance. And that is becoming what she calls comfortably uncomfortable with a situation. So every time, or he walks by a subway, you see this subway and you're like, I'm going to walk home or I'm going to take a Uber or a left or whatever, your brain's sort of getting this message of like, okay, this is so uncomfortable I have to walk away. The opposite's based on the idea of exposure therapy, which I quite comfortably uncomfortable,

which really is the idea of training your brain to be able to approach this comfort so that you don't have the same response. And the only way to do it is to be able to look, which means repeating the same thing over and over again. It is Friday January 28th, 2022. I'm going to attempt doing this with Dr. Marquez's tebbit cycle. Thoughts and feelings, healing nervous. Heart is going a little fast, not super fast.

Like's are there, little wobbly, but not like super, not jello. And the train is a train. Oh, Mark, you went on a train. How did you get to getting on a train? How did you get to that position to get on a train? Did you just dive in like kid's swibbig or did you do the looping? I told some passengers.

I was like, when this train comes, no matter what, just throw me on it. Uh, I was like, I'm going to be on a train. And New Yorkers, they got your bag. The train, the next stop is Stas Cleared Up and Millie. Alright, cue montage music.

I went back to the same station and I pretty much said, you know what, I've set the conditions for myself. This is a train that's going gonna go to an above ground station. I'm only gonna do a few stops above ground and just go back and forth as long as I feel comfortable. I walked inside the train and I think my fear level was at like a six or five or six or 50 or 60 out of 100 but the doors closed and then I just went

So far so good all right Now we're gonna turn around do it again We're gonna loop it We are looping and so I went two or three stops Well, okay, turned around, got on the other train, went back and I did it. I don't remember like three or four times. And it was fine.

Let's call the day for now. All right. So loop that and I thought, you know what? The next step is I'm gonna go further underground. You know I've got these above ground stations and I'm gonna go like a few stops underground. And there's there's the third attempt. We're gonna do this. And I started going underground.

It got dark. Still at a six. Uh okay yeah, got dark real quick. We are underground. It got dark. Still at a six. Okay, yeah. Got dark real quick. We are underground. I am out of seven. Seven to eight. The tunnel felt long and my mouth got super dry. Yeah. I started to get really, my body got a little hot. And I just had this feeling, like this feeling of clawing. I wanted to claw out of there. I'm gonna turn around.

I'm gonna, yeah, I think one stop. That's what I'm gonna do right now. I'm gonna turn around. I got off of the station. I was like, I can't, I can't continue this. Yeah, my legs are weak. My legs are weak. I got't continue this. Yeah, my legs are weak, my legs are weak. I got off on this at the next stop and I thought,

I need to figure something else out here. One of the things I've decided is like, I can't do this alone. When we come back, we find out who's going to hold Mark's hand when he's underground. And why? Welcome back. Before the break, Mark experimented with getting life back on the tracks. It didn't go exactly as planned, so he started telling me about how he can't do it alone. And something came to mind. It was Mark's first story of being a smoke-filled train car where he saw a couple sitting in front of him and one of them got visibly scared.

You mentioned someone holding a hand, right? Interesting parallel with what's happening around panic attacks and travel is I've heard of the technique of, you know, people rubbing one hand into another to calm themselves down, but especially having someone else hold your hand. The holding hands thing, that actually came up. Nazarene was talking about the comfort of holding her partner's hand that mostly reflected during her time's flying. Also, Nazarene and I are both scared of flying. If I start to feel anxious, like, he'll, you know, hold my hand or like, rub my back.

And I almost wonder like if he did that all the time, if in those moments that would have the same effect that it does. This brings us back to our history of evolution voice from the beginning of the episode. Tom Bun. Tom Bun is a former aviation pilot turned license therapist, which is not really a career transition. Many of us think of, but he did it. And he came on my radar initially

because I was looking for help with my flight phobia. I'm also scared of flying, huh? But his techniques can cover other phobias. In order to have a fear of flying, you have to have intelligence so you can think of a thousand things that could go wrong and vivid enough imagination to make them real in your mind so that you produce stress hormones. And then the stress hormones rev you up. And when you get enough stress hormones, you can run into this problem of not being able to really intuitively separate what's imaginary

from what's real. Most fearful flyers slide into panic so quickly that they're overwhelmed, and they have no cognition left to do cognitive with. He talks about this idea of the stress hormones. The amygdala or ancestral part of our brain that tells us when something's not right. What's happening here is the stress hormones are getting us ready to run or fight. So the amygdala sits there in the brain and it monitors what's going on. So when something changes, something unexpected happens, stress hormones are released. And you do get

urged to run. Sometimes you don't notice it, but it's there. And so you pay attention and you intellectually decide whether this is a false alarm or not. Where people go wrong here is that if you get enough stress hormones, you lose the ability to separate what's imaginary from what's perception. So I told Tom Bunn about this observation that you and I both had on about this observation that you and I both had. And that's the way people will sometimes soothe by maybe holding somebody's hand in a scary scenario. And this was really interesting to him and it pertains to this conversation we're having because this is how he developed a program to specifically deal with your flying. It's a technique he calls the strengthening exercise. And while it's directly used for flight phobia,

it's also useful for people who suffer from varying degrees of claustrophobia and panic. Stephen Porsche just points out that what happens when when the face voice and touch activate the parasympathetic nervous system is the Vegas nervous stimulated. And he says that if you're in a car with an automatic transmission and you put your foot solidly on the brake, you can pump on the gas and the car is not going to go anywhere. He says if you fully activate the parasympathetic nervous system so that the vagus nerve is fully

stimulated, he says it causes vagal braking. It slows the heart rate down about 20 beats per minute. And he says that even if you then introduce stress hormones, it has no effect just as in the car. If we can get the parasympathetic nervous system to operate, we can override the stress hormone. So, I played around with the idea, what about shifting from an anxiety-producing thought to some other unrelated kind of thought? So I started asking clients, is there something you've done in your life, which is a kind of a big deal?

Tom Bunn mentioned one client that talked about the joy of running a marathon. And so Tom linked certain elements of running a marathon like this client's experience with triggers of getting on a plane and being in flight. And it seemed to work for that client, but like you and I, and most people, we don't necessarily run a marathon, and we don't necessarily associate running a marathon with joy.

Yeah, that's true. And then I had an interesting situation. A woman told me that she was going to link being on the airplane to nursing her child. And Mark, what I thought was she's nuts. She's going to get on the plane and think she's never going to see her kid again. She called back a week later, perfect flight. The way she described her flight, nobody had gotten such good results. But I didn't know what else to do with that. But after it happened a couple more times, I thought something's going on here that I don't understand. So I started looking into it.

Sue Carter is one of the big experts on oxytocin. And it turns out that when a mother nurses a child, she produces a massive amount of oxytocin. When you produce oxytocin naturally, you're probably going to shut down your fear system for a half an hour. But this is just a memory of that oxytocin producing situation. So that was helpful. But there was another thing that was puzzling. And that was when a client linked getting engaged to being on the plane, or when a client linked saying wedding vows to being on the plane, that was effective too.

Didn't know why. And it took years for that, that answer to arrive. Stephen Porgis has done research that shows that when we're with a person who is completely accepting, that is a person who is safe physically and a person who's safe emotionally, when we're with such a person, we unconsciously pick up signals from their face, from their voice quality and from their body language or touch, that activate our common system, the parasympathetic nervous system,

the system that overrides the effect of stress hormones. Tom Bunn thinks that a number of things are linked. He thinks these things are linked. Number one, oxytocin producing memories, which reduce stress hormones and memories of acceptance, which stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system. So the idea is that both of these elements, both of these have a calming effect. And so the link for Tom Bond and the link was that when you release or when you have an

oxytocin releasing memory, that's a key ingredient to putting a break on the stress hormones and making fearful, scary experiences more palatable, which is phenomenal. This is really truly phenomenal and simple, so simple in a lot of ways. So now we had two ways to go that were finally understood. One block the triggers with remembering a situation that produced oxytocin and override stress hormones if any are produced a ride stress hormones, if any, or produced by connecting those triggers and the feelings coming from the triggers to the memory of a face, voice, and touch. When we have someone who really accepts us, I tell you, it's like a jar of peanut butter. You can spit it on as many crackers as you want.

You can take one person you're okay with, and you can apply it to, is a resource to any place that you need to have some calming. It's really fascinating to me that for you, maybe a memory of a touch could also be calming. I have one specifically that I used for flying a memory of a touch could also be calming. I have one specifically that I used for flying for a long time, and my father who is no longer around

I don't wanna create too many generalizations, but my own generalization of Caribbean men is that they can be very tender. He was the family member I'd say goodnight to. And so I usually lock in in this one memory. I was 12, probably around 12 or so years old and he had an office upstairs. He just sat at his desk and sort of brought me in and my father had a cup the back of your head embrace. But he would cup the back of your head embrace. But you cup the back of my head and caress my hair, caress my head, and his embrace was so, it was just so full and he smelled,

I used the word masculine, it was probably like old spice cologne. It just felt completely safe and he'd say, could night me haul, you know, I love you. And that was it. And in my memory, that is an epic, that is an epic tone. It was probably like three seconds, you know, maybe longer, maybe I lingered there, could have been 10,

but it wasn't long, but it's the memory of that. And there's something really beautiful about that idea of like, I think in some ways, it is the facing fearful situations in which you, you can project those areas of your life in which you felt fully supported and fully seen, even if it's like a snapshot. So what you're doing is you're answering getting revved up with intentionally down regulating yourself. And if you practice this, it gets me a habit.

Let's, instead of linking to walking on the plane, sitting down on the seat and so on and so on, let's link to driving your car and hit the tunnel, and then you're just inside the tunnel, and then you're a quarter of the way through the tunnel and halfway through the tunnel. Or the elevator, you go into a building, you see the elevator, you go over to it, and you wait for it, and then it stops, and people get out, and you step in, and you hit a button. And if you keep at it, it'll become something

that works underground. And it'll even be knocking out the anxiety before it reaches a conscious level. I think I'm gonna need to do this. I'm gonna need to both do it in my daily life and in my own life of like finding my safe places and people and building a sense of like community and safety, as well as like using what I've experienced the beautiful moments to map those on to nurturing when somebody can't be there to hold my hand. Something that's so cool to me about what you're talking about

is the process itself encourages you to hunt beauty. It's just kind of cool that there's a process to deal with something so stressful that also involves looking for beautiful things. Okay, so what's your next step? I am not going to get on the train until I think I need a companion on the train, which is very embarrassing. If I'm going to engage with this fear, if I'm going to use the subway, I either need to go back into my memory and build some connections related to riding the train

and or I need to build those connections in real time with people in my life here in New York City. And they're on the boat to go. Do you wanna sit? So I went on the train with Kim Baikima, who is one of our producers on the show. And she was nice enough to come with me, a company me. So right now, we are in Carroll Street.

We are going towards Bergen Street. My palms are sweaty. We decided to go a few stops underground. She was of course documenting, but she was there to act as a companion of sorts. She knew that I had this fear and also knew things like the cycle on ways in which panic might manifest. But was also just very supportive. Does it help having someone here? It does. So we went two stops underground and did pretty well.

How are you feeling? Well, that felt good in the end. We'll see how this next run goes. I'm still a little parched. The mouth is dry from feeling a little anxious. And then I said, all right, let's turn around and let's go back. That's a lot.

It's a lot significant. So we went and turned around and we went in the opposite direction. So we are now going back into the tunnel train is slowing down a little bit Six six Yeah, six six six right now Is that out of ten out of ten? Yeah 60 out of a hundred six out of ten we started going to the next stop and then the train was slowing down. We are stopped in the tunnel and then it stopped. No. I just want to be

sure I just said this is your first, this is your first real significant underground ride real significant underground ride in how long and over two years. And it stops. And it stops. So I was, I had talked to you about the sort of marking where, where in the range of one to 10 or one 10 to 100 I was. And I was at an eight or an 80. And I talked it out with Kim. So right now we are stopping the tunnel. They made an announcement which we can't hear. I feel an eight, maybe a nine, maybe an eight, eight. I've been in this situation before,

getting sweaty. We can you walk me through what that was? Yeah, I was saying, okay, well, I'm thinking the train is going to be stopped here for a long time. I am worried that the train won't move. I'm worried I'll have panic attack. I'm worried that it'll embarrass myself. But I know that I will breathe.

I know that my body physiologically will do that. I'm with, I'm not alone here I'm with a colleague and a friend who understands my situation and We're just sitting here nothing's happening and it actually helped moving very very very very slowly right now That's... So we're here. We're here. All right, that was an eight.

I think the biggest thing, and Kim said this to me, is that I was at an eight, and I didn't go above that. Like I didn't be in earlier times, it'd been like, 678 or not, you know, it's like, ah, it's a this, but I'm freaking out. And it was totally, wasn't perfect, but I just did not go above that eight. You did make it through the thing you were afraid of.

Yeah. At an eight. Well, I would not wish a stop train on anyone in any average situation, even. Yeah. It feels almost good in a way that you had that happen with someone with you. You know, and now you kind of know

what a stop train feels like now and now that you've got some techniques. Yeah. I feel this isn't going to turn around overnight. Like I'm not hopping. I'm not Mr. Subway again. If there's ever a Mr. Subway pageant, I do want you to try and get that pageant though, please. I will.

I promise you. I will take home some kind of sash. But I think that this is a positive memory that will move towards future rides. Spoiler alert, there's no makeover moment ahead. We're not going to reveal a new panic-free mark. Even after trying multiple techniques and some successful encounters with something that scared him, Mark still has the spear. He knew going in that removing it

wasn't necessarily the end goal, more a goal of how to manage it. But the idea of eliminating fear and this is really important to point out, it led to a revelation of sorts to us, especially when we looked at how this fear showed up for Mark and adulthood. How did you feel about becoming afraid of this so far?

How did you process the fact that something in you had changed? My honest response is it felt like a sense of failure. Oh man, yeah. I'm very guilty of this fear, feels like something that needs to be cured So I have to get to a point where I'm completely over this and if not it's failure I mean, that's also why things don't I think why things don't change is because I'm not gonna open up about this with people Besides my own discomfort and just not feeling comfortable and being on trains. I'm embarrassed by it Has that shifted through this process? Yeah, it has.

It has actually. I know it's easy to interpret, subble what you're about to hear as looking through rose-colored glasses. But what if in this case those glasses point to something grand about the human experience? I've been thinking about the motion of fear. Nobody wants to be scared of anything.

And when it happens, it's like, this is the worst. And we diagnosis this isolating thing. It's like, I have to be alone with this. I have to huddle. I have to survive. We don't tell people we're scared. We don't want to show it. We're embarrassed all of these things. I would like to offer fear as this sort of like a re-evaluation of fear. Yes, it's needed for the reasons that we need to survive as a species. Maybe also using it as an emotional tool for deeper bonds for connection. Because it's so relatable. It's so relatable and it immediately, it can immediately create an automatic bond. When we open up about it, when we talk about it, we make that connection with people. It is a tremendous human bridge. What I initially told you about this fear when

you started to learn more. What was your impression? How did you feel? It's such a cliche to say, but it immediately makes you human. It is something where I'm like, oh, you're a three-dimensional person as soon as you acknowledge a fear. And it didn't make me wanna ride the subway with you. It immediately made me wonder like, oh, what am I supposed to do to be helpful to this person?

Such a practical kind of actionable takeaway to be like when you're afraid of something what happens when you don't think of that as something to be concealed but think of it as something to be shared? You know, I will take that. If it's not an episode that quote unquote, cures a fear, but it's an episode where the process of making this made you feel better about a fear you have.

I'll take that man, that's a baby step in the right direction. Like, I will be super happy that we're all on the same team going through this process. If the result of this fear discussion is just feeling better about fear and feeling less shame about it, that's good.

That's not bad. That's not a bad result for this. I'll take it. I will take it. And you saying that and us reflecting on that, going back to you asking me has that changed it has. So that's a success. You know that feeling of like that sense of failure has changed it has changed significantly. So I'm speaking in sort of like a theoretical philosophical but very reflective

way of like what this journey has meant to me and especially sort of a moving forward as I embrace this emotion and embrace fear more in my life. If we look close enough, sometimes the places that scare us the most, they offer us the most connection. Yes, even in New York's subways. in New York's subways. I was getting on the R-Train rush hour, empty seat, my eyes were like, do do like what's going on? I was about to be really upset and I turned and It was this woman and she had her hand on my back and she just totally non verbally Just nodded just sort of like nodded and pointed her eyes at the seat and we both looked at the seat and there was a puddle.

And I was like, oh no. True person that lives here would not let a person sit in that seat. That's right. That's right. That's what I'm saying. That's that's real New York. I love that. I love that. And our interaction was nonverbal. It was just like, I got your back and you better believe stranger. I got yours too. It was just like, I got your back and you better believe stranger. I got yours too. And so that's the New York subway in New York I want to get back to, but I still remember my heart is here and sort of like this fear and so much about it has also led me to sort of not reevaluate to it's immense my the way this place functions as community and

also functions as, uh, as support. Okay. As I mentioned at the top, most of what you just heard was planned, recorded, and edited a long time ago. Now, as I'm recording this, it's Friday, April 15th, just a few days after a shooting incident on the subway. And it felt like a good time to check back in with Mark who helped guide us in choosing to release this episode.

Mark, man, when I heard the news, you were the first person I thought of, because we've been having all these pretty intimate conversations about what you feel when you're on the subway. I know you talk regularly to some of the folks that in the episode with that conversation like, so what was that like for you? I'm still digesting. It's a really frightening thing and the proof will be sort of in the pudding of when I'm on a subway again. And whether this is going to be now something that's in my sort of visual and imaginary landscape. Is there anything you're doing to kind of think ahead on that?

It really is a technique because I was thinking about the subway ride that I had with Kim, our producer on the show. And how like Luana Marquez's techniques, even in, you know, a situation where a subway will stall and I'll think of my head, maybe my brain will accelerate to like, what if there's an attack? One of the first things is using that cognitive distortion within the tab cycle to go, mark how many times have you been on any motor transportation and anything remotely like that has happened? Paying as much respect to people who have suffered tragedy in their life because of an attack. But overall, in the scheme of things, it's a very small percentage that most of us will face that in our lifetime. So there's some hope there, and I'm actually, I've got a event coming up in a few weeks

and the commute to go to that event, it would make no sense to do anything else with other than a subway and I'm sort of gonna work towards that and even in the midst of that and sort of say, I think I sort of have a New York attitude about it too, being like, this, we're gonna keep working, we're gonna keep going. I was curious, you know, one of the first things

that we were talking about with other producers on the show was, should we just not release this? Yeah. Like, is it too soon after? And it's very helpful that you are representative of the crowd who it would be triggering for if someone was to be triggered my first thought was oh boy Yeah, this is the timing is really eerie

It's really eerie and we can't we just can't do this right now and Sort of looking surveying the landscape a little bit and seeing as well some posts that people are making This like any incident whether you live in New York whether you live in New York, whether you live in Topeca, Kansas, like it raises very, very human responses, fear of your surroundings. Regardless of if it's a subway or regardless of it's, you know, sitting in a movie theater or just going out in the world. So I think the first, my first thought is I would, I would want to hear this. Part of the reason that I pitched this as an, as an episode idea is I don't have this episode as a listener anywhere. This is a phobia that I'm not privy to a lot of people talking about, but it's a daily reality for me.

And so the thought that this would, this is a resource, especially in the context of what happened that wasn't available to me all of a sudden, I thought that's such a resource, especially in the context of what happened that wasn't available to me all of a sudden. I thought, that's such a shame, that's such a shame. The other side of it too is I think that, like I said, these incidents that are localized become these national and these internal moments of our own response to the biggest fears in our life. Who wouldn't be afraid of being attacked? It's such an immediate human fear or just feeling like a lack of control or a lack of escape and whether or not you ride the subway or have claustrophobia, I would hope

that some of the resources and some of the work that we're doing in this episode can act as maybe something that people can use. I'm glad we're doing it and I hope this story and this episode was helpful. It was helpful for me. That's the biggest indicator for me right there. Thank you for your vulnerability throughout this episode and your energy throughout this episode and your vulnerability

and energy in this conversation right here. You make it very easy, Selim, and it is my pleasure. On our next episode of More Than a Feeling, we visit a place where two people have created a real sense of belonging for anyone who walks in the door. Man, you look gorgeous. Thank you. There are just when it comes to hair.

This beauty salon, y'all, it's where you want to be. You need to write it if I love her. She loved her shampoo so much. She would moan. It wasn't moaning. It was, wow. Going there can be as therapeutic as therapy. Each person that sits in your chair has different needs.

I think there's a little therapy going on at times. The story, it'll give us some insights into coping with the really hard life stuff that can happen at any age. Right, and they'll say it right to you, now I feel better. Now I feel more like myself. Now I know I'm going to be okay, you know. Isn't it beautiful? Can you see out there the snow and stuff? Yes.

It's gorgeous, huh? By the way, this show, more than a feeling, is part of the 10% happier podcast network, our companion meditation app, also called 10% happier, has an excellent meditation course called Taming Anxiety, featuring Dr. Luana Marquez, who was in this episode. The course teaches you how to overcome your own particular anxiety feedback loop while building the skills of mindfulness, compassion, and bravery along the way. Because you listen to more than a feeling, you can try the course and the app for free

for 30 days. To try it out for free, visit 10%.com slash more. That's 10% all spelled out. .com slash M-O-R-E or go to the link in our show notes. If you've got a specific question or story about an emotion that you've been grappling with, tell us about it. Send us a voice memo at more than a feeling at 10%.com. Again, you got to spell out T-E-N percent. You might end up hearing yourself on one of our future episodes. You can also hit us up on Twitter at podfeelingspod.defeelings.

If you like what you heard in this episode and you want to let us know, give us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts. That'll help other people find us. Another way is just share this show with your friends, email to them whatever we sincerely appreciate it. More than a feeling is produced by Riva Goldberg, Mark Pagan, Will Kohli, Palace Shaw, and Kim Baikama. Our bandage-age producer is Kimi Regler, and executive producer is Jen Poient, scoring mixing

and sound design provided by ultraviolet audio and huge thanks to Violet Boynton for that awesome scream at the top of the episode. Production support for this episode was provided by Connor Donahue. Our theme music was composed by L. Michael's affair. Much love to Leon, Michael's, and P.O. Malik for this beautiful theme song. They made that just for us. Thank you to Danny Akeleps at Big Crown Records. Additional music provided by APM, Music Licensing by Rebecca Gerson of 64 Music, fact checking for this episode provided by Diane Kelly,

Special thanks to Jess Goldberg and Ruben, Dan Harris, Matthew Hepburn and Tony Magyar. This show could not have been created without you. I was gonna say huge thanks to this fearless team, but they're not fearless, we all got fears. It's okay if you do. I will see you soon. Huge, huge thank you to Selim Reshemwalla and Mark Bagan and the whole more than a feeling team for joining the TPH team. We're extremely excited about this new show and all of the new shows we're launching at

TPH. Don't forget about Childproof with Yasmin Khan. If you enjoyed, and I hope you did, this debut of more than a feeling, there are more episodes coming out each week, wherever you get your podcasts or You can listen ad free over in the TPH app the show comes out every Tuesday We hear on this show. We'll see you back here on Monday for a brand new episode Actually, this is huge. We are launching into a whole series a special series. We're gonna do On the TPH flagship show for Mental Health Awareness Month,

the month of May, every week we're gonna do a deep dive on one specific topic and our first week is gonna be on sleep. So coming up on Monday, we're gonna talk to the journalist, Diane Masato, who wrote a very comprehensive memoir, slash self-help book about all the things she learned on her own Odyssey in the land of sleep disorders. And then we'll follow it up on Wednesday with a neuroscientist who studies sleep. So deep dive on sleep coming up next week starting on Monday

with Diane Misedo. We'll see you then. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and ad free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash Survey. at Wondery.com slash Survey.