The One You Feed - Russ Harris Part Two

Episode Date: July 11, 2017

Please Support The Show With a Donation   This week we talk to Russ Harris Russ Harris is a medical practitioner, psychotherapist, and leading expert in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). His books include ACT with Love, ACT Made Simple, The Confidence Gap, and The Happiness Trap, which has now been translated into twenty-two languages. He lives in Melbourne, Australia, and travels internationally to train mental health professionals in the ACT approach. In This Interview, Russ Harris and I Discuss... The Wolf Parable The principle of connection in ACT Practicing attention in the shower The exercise of "notice 5 things" How to notice the person you come home to in a new way The physical practices of yoga and tai chi The observing self vs the thinking self The scientific study of spirituality Living a spiritual life even if it's not a religious life Values = desired qualities of action The difference between goals and values Examples of how you can live your values on your way to your goals Committed Action Examining your life to identify areas where your behavior is not reflecting your values The basic ACT formula of "Be Present, Open Up, Do What Matters"       Please Support The Show with a DonationSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Values are like the soil from which morals and ethics and codes of conduct grow. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other

people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallyknowreally.com

and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really No Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Russ Harris. This episode is part two of a two-part interview with

Russ. He's a medical practitioner, psychotherapist, and a leading expert in acceptance and commitment therapy, or ACT. His books include ACT with Love, ACT Made Simple, The Confidence Gap, and The Happiness Trap, which is now being translated into 22 languages. He lives in Melbourne, Australia and travels internationally to train mental health professionals in the ACT of First Order. And here's part two of Russ Harris. We are back with Russ Harris for part two of our interview where we are talking about acceptance and commitment therapy and how to apply these things to our lives. If you haven't listened to episode one, I recommend it.

You don't have to, but it talks about the first couple principles of ACT, which are diffusion and expansion, and those are pretty important to understand. But we're going to pick this episode up with the principle of connection. So welcome back, Russ. Why don't you talk to us about what connection is in this context? Connection is, it's not the official act term. The official act term is contacting the present moment. But I like to kind of talk about connecting with what is here and now. And that is a hard thing to do because we so easily get caught up in our thoughts and lost in our thoughts that we very often miss out or are only

half present to what is happening right here, right now. I'm sure we've all had the experience of being in a conversation with somebody and suddenly realizing that we don't know what they're talking about because we've just been lost in our thoughts. Or maybe we get to the end of a page in a book and we suddenly realize we haven't taken in a word because we were lost in our thoughts rather than actually reading. Yep. So connection means connecting with what's here right now in the present moment, kind of attitude of openness and curiosity to what's going on and engaging in what I'm doing fully, giving it my full attention. The more popular and current term, right, is mindfulness. Yeah, so I'm increasingly reluctant to use the term mindfulness because as it gets more and more popular,

there are more and more misconceptions about it. The most common one is that people think mindfulness means meditation. Another very common one is they think it means Buddhism. Others think it means relaxation. So I tend to stay away from the mindfulness word. It's kind of so many misconceptions. different things. So let's talk about a couple things we can do to strengthen this ability to connect because I think we all know, well, I should just be in the present moment. That's the place to be. And if I could just do that, and then most of us spend about a quarter of a second there, right? And then we're off again into our thoughts. And then at some point, like a week later, we're like, oh, yeah, I thought I wanted to be in the present moment. We might spend a second there, right? So this is a skill that we can train. So what are some of the things that you recommend as ways to get a little bit better at

this? Well, I mean, I think probably some of the easiest ways to do it are to pick pleasurable activities that you do on a regular basis and start to really savor those activities as if you'd never experienced them before. So a lovely one to begin with is having a shower. A warm shower is something that most of us really enjoy. see if you can actually savor it as if you're a curious child that's never had a shower before or a curious scientist that's wanting to explore what it's like to have a shower. Notice the feeling of the water on your back and the sound of the water and the feeling of your muscles relaxing under the water. And then, of course, you're going to get caught up in your thoughts about lots of other things, and you'll get pulled out of the shower and into your thoughts.

And the moment you realize that's happened, you kind of acknowledge it, oh, just got caught up in my thoughts, and you bring your attention back to the shower again, noticing the water and the feeling on your body. And then you drift off again. Your mind pulls you into your thoughts again, pulls you out of the shower. And the moment you realize that's happened again, you acknowledge it, just drift it off and bring your attention back to the shower. So it's this kind of drift off, come back, drift off, come back. And any kind of pleasurable activity is good to practice this with eating, drinking, playing with the kids, stroking the dog. These are things that we just often take for granted. We don't kind of savor and appreciate them. So that's probably the easiest way to start

is with naturally pleasurable experiences. I use the shower as a way to do that also. And one of the ways to become more present in the current moment is to sort of focus on your body, right? And kind of do a body scan of how you're feeling different parts. And for some people, myself included, a lot of that is like, well, I don't feel anything like there's just nothing there. But in the shower, if I do that, there's always something happening. There's, you know, there's water running down. I mean, it's just, I have just found the shower to be an easy place to practice because the stimulus is intense enough that it can keep attention. Another one that you've talked about that I really like is, I think you call it the

five things exercise. Yeah, I'll take your listeners through that right now. So first of all, whatever you're doing right now, just see if you can notice five things that you can see. Just notice five things that you can see right now. Notice at least three or four things that you can hear right now. Notice if you can just breathe in the air. Is there anything in particular that you can smell or sense in your nose? And notice what you're doing, where your arms and your legs are, where your hands and your feet are, what your body is.

So kind of get a sense of what you can see, what you can hear, what you're doing, what you're doing with your body, where it is. And notice, if relevant to you, what you can smell and taste right now. And if your listeners are doing this right now then they're starting to expand their awareness get a sense of all the things that they can see and hear and touch and taste and smell right now so that expansive awareness immediately starts to get us in contact with the present moment and is uh kind of overlaps with uh we were talking about in the first conversation about diffusion.

So as I start to get more and more present with what I can see and hear and touch and taste and smell and what I'm doing right now, that starts to help me unhook from all of those thoughts that are whirring through my head. I really like that exercise. Another one that I sometimes do is I try and see, like, let me try and find everything that's red in my field of vision or as I'm walking along or everything that's that's blue. I find that things like the five things or the red or blue, a little bit of a prompt, a little bit of something to help me train my brain to how do I be present? You know, what does that mean? I find those extraordinarily helpful as ways to stay in the present moment longer than the quarter of a second that I described before.

That's right. That's right. And at the same time, you know, we don't want to get into, you know, kind of being perfectionists about. Right. We don't want to try to become Zen masters. Even a little bit of being more present can make a difference. So another thing I recommend very often is if there is someone in your life that you come home to, when you first come home, see if you can make them the focus. Really notice what they look like, what they sound like, their facial expression, as if it's the first time that you've ever greeted them. If this might be your child or your flatmate or your girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever,

but see if you can notice them with absolute curiosity, their facial expressions and their tone of voice and how they hold their body and what they do with their arms and their legs as they're talking to you. See if you can really have that kind of intense connection rather than just kind of getting into the habits that many of us do when we come home to the same people over time and taking them a bit for granted. Yep. I think that point you made too about perfection is so important because I mean, I say the quarter of a second kind of jokingly, but I also say it because that was really my experience a lot. And I think that's very easy to give up on these things because you think, well, I'll be in the present moment and then we don't do it for more than a second. And it is a thing that is challenging to do, but I love the idea of just saying like any little bit of it helps.

And another one is that, you know, a meditation practice will help develop this muscle. Yeah, for sure. If people are willing to do mindfulness meditation, it can certainly help. Unfortunately, most people don't keep it up for very long. long also things like yoga and tai chi are are also mindfulness practices but more physical practices let's move on to the next concept which is a little bit similar to both connection and diffusion, which is this idea of the observing. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer.

We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today. How are you, too?

Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really No Really. Yeah, really. No really. Go to

reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really No Really and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The forces shaping markets and the economy are often hiding behind a blur of numbers. So that's why we created The Big Take from Bloomberg Podcasts, to give you the context you need to make sense of it all.

Every day in just 15 minutes, we dive into one global business story that matters. You'll hear from Bloomberg journalists like Matt Levine. A lot of this meme stock stuff is, I think, embarrassing to the SEC. Amanda Mull, who writes our Business Week Buying Power column. Very few companies who go viral are like totally prepared for what that means. And Zoe Tillman, senior legal reporter. Courts are not supposed to decide elections.

Courts are not really supposed to play a big role in choosing our elected leaders. It's for the voters to decide. Follow the Big Take podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. Self, can you explain what that means? Yeah. So in the last exercise, I asked listeners to notice stuff, notice what you can see, notice what you can hear, notice what you can smell. In the first conversation, we talked about noticing your thoughts, noticing your feelings, noticing what you're doing. So there's this aspect of a human being that is able to notice everything. And another metaphor I'm fond of is that, you know, life is like a stage show.

And on that stage are all your thoughts, all your feelings, everything that you can see and hear and touch and taste and smell. And this show is changing all the time, constantly. And there's this part of you that can step back and watch the show, can kind of zoom in and take in the details, zoom out and take in the big picture, dim the lights on some parts of the stage, bring up the lights on other parts. And this part of you that can kind of step back and watch the show, And this part of you that can kind of step back and watch the show, we don't really have a good name for it in everyday language. So in the app model, we often call it the observing self as distinct from the thinking self, this part of you that's thinking all the time.

There's this observing self, this part of you that does all of this noticing and doesn't actually think, but simply notices. And the problem is when we use the word mind, we lose track of the fact that there's these kind of two very distinct aspects. So if we can start to talk about the thinking self, the mind, and we can talk about the observing self or the noticing self, it helps us kind of get a different sense of these two parts of ourselves. Right, that observing self is the one that's able to practice diffusion, is able to practice connection. And I do think that's such a key idea. And you're right, we don't have very good words for it in the Western world. It's certainly a topic that is explored in great detail in some of the Eastern traditions, Buddhism in particular. In my mind, it sits behind everything else. And I love your analogy, actually, of being out on the stage, you know, or being in the audience and seeing everything that's on the stage. I think another

word for it is just, you know, awareness, that there is just this awareness that we have that we can tune into, and it's always yeah i think that's a that's another good term for it actually uh pure awareness is uh it's probably a better term because when you call it an observing self it makes it sound like it's a little personal entity whereas it's really just a process it's just pure awareness we have all different kinds of people on the show and you know we've had spiritual teachers on and, and they are talking about this pure awareness exactly in the way that we are here, and they're describing it as sort of that is the nature of the self.

Now, I think that, again, this is, you know, I like ACT because it stays pretty clearly on the scientific and practical side, and yet it seems to, a lot of the concepts seem to end up in the same place that a lot of certain spiritual traditions point to. But I'm curious what your concept of a self is. What does that mean to you? You know, what is a self? So Stephen Hayes, the guy who created ACT back in the 1980s, ACT started when, so Steve is from a very scientific tradition in psychology called behavior analysis and in the early 1980s steve wrote a paper called making sense of spirituality which was looking at spirituality through the scientific lens of behavior analysis

which was a radical thing to do 30 years ago. Not now, but 30 years ago. It's like, well, we are behavior analysts. We are serial scientists. What's this spirituality stuff? But Steve's point, you know, was that behavior analysts are interested in human behavior and spirituality is such a fundamental aspect of human behavior across all cultures, across all periods of history. We better study it. And it was that kind of scientific study of spirituality that led to ACT. So it's not surprising that you kind of get these commonalities across with other traditions. But the ACT take on self would be you're all one. There's no separate bits and pieces to a human being

no machine or scanner has ever shown a mind separate to a body there's no tool or device that can show an observing self separate to a thinking self you're all one these are convenient and practical ways of speaking about different aspects of what it is to be human. And so that would be the act taken. And that would be my take too. I think one of the things I fell in love with with act is that it enabled me to live a very spiritual life without following a particular religious path. I'm not anti-religious. I just have never found a religion that I've taken to. I've read about many and explored. But I can live a. I've read about many and explored, but I can live a very spiritual life, living by my values, living in the present moment

with this solid science underpinning it. I really like that also. And I'm kind of that way with religions too. Like I probably mostly identify with Buddhism, but at any religion, I get to a point where there's suddenly a leap into believing something that I'm just like, well, I just don't know. Like, you know, reincarnation or karma or, you know, whatever those things are. And so I kind of creep up to like an edge in all of them. And then I start looking and I'm like, well, I'm just not quite ready to go there. But act has a lot of the things that you would find in a religion, particularly as we now move into the next key principle of act, which is your values. And, you know, religions tend to have a, you know, a moral aspect to them. And values does too, although it's not an externally imposed morality in any way, shape, or form. But it is about recognizing what's important to you. So can you talk more about values? Values, like the word mindfulness,

there's often people have different meanings about the word values. So the way that we define values in ACT is as desired qualities of action. In other words, kind of what qualities do I want to bring to my actions here and now and on an ongoing basis? How do I want to behave as a human being? How do I want to treat myself and others and the world around me? So it's this sense of the qualities I want to bring to my behavior in the present moment and on an ongoing basis. And we often want to tease out the distinction between goals and values. So goals are things that I'm aiming to achieve or to do in the future. They're kind of outcomes that I'm aiming for, results I want to get. Whereas values are how I want to behave right here, right now, how I want to behave

as I pursue my goals, how I want to behave if I fail at my goals. So if I can just give an example, so marriage, if you want to get married, that's a goal. It's something that you're aiming to do at some point in the future. And when you've completed it, you've achieved the goal. Marriage number one, tick. Marriage number two, tick. Marriage number three, tick. Whereas if your values are things like being loving and kind and caring. So notice if my values are, if the way that I want to behave as a human being is to be kind and loving and caring. I can do that right now in the present moment. Even if I never get married, even if I never find a boyfriend or girlfriend or partner, I can be loving, kind and caring to myself, my neighbors, my dog, my cat, even my pot plants.

There are many ways I can live the value even if I don't ever achieve the goal. Yeah. And I like the idea you've talked about. If you look at the goal and you go a level deeper, like what is it about this goal? What am I after with this, that that can lead you to your values? Absolutely. Values are really your heart's deepest desires for how you want to behave as a human being right now and on an ongoing basis. as a human being right now and on an ongoing basis. And they're different to morals in the sense that morals convey a sense of, if we can think about it, values are like the soil from which morals and ethics and codes of conduct grow, if you like. So in a sense, they're deeper than all of that.

There's no kind of right or wrong in a value or good or bad in a value. It's just expressing these are the qualities that I want to live by. And then what happens is your group or your culture will then start to kind of say, well, these are good values and those are bad values. And this is the right way to act on your values. And that's a wrong way to act on your values. And if you do it this way, then you're a good person. And if you do it that way, you're a bad person. And this is how you start to get virtues and ethics and morals. So we're going, I would say, at a deeper level than all of that.

Just deep in my heart, what do I want to be about? I love the idea that you can be living your values right now on your way to your goals. And one that I think about really often is I know a lot of people talk about my goal is I want to do meaningful work in the world. You know, I want to contribute, I want to make the world a better place. And where I see a lot of times that we can get stuck with that is we think that's going to happen when we get the type of job that does that on a grand scale. Like, well, when I'm finally living my dream of feeding children in Africa,

then things will be a certain way. And what I've found, and I'm someone who is, you know, at the same time, trying to get to different places career-wise and do more things and also still having, you know, what some people would refer to as like the day job, is that I found that if those are my values, I can start applying them right now to the job that I'm in right where I'm at today. And I think

that's such a great way of looking at the world and the way that you guys describe values as a way of living, even on your way towards your goals. Yeah. I mean, that's a really lovely example and a common one that comes up, you know, it's like, great, okay, so let's brainstorm what needs to happen over the next 10 years so that you can get a career where you're out kind of helping build orphanages in Ethiopia. But in the meantime, if your values are around helping and caring, what's a little way that you could live that in the next few hours? Oh, well, I could make mum a cup of tea. what's a little way that you could live that in the next few hours oh well i could uh i could make mama a cup of tea right let's start there you know right don't have to wait or i don't have to wait till i'm a brain surgeon before i start living my value of helping people you know i can do it right here right now yeah i love that idea well let's turn to the final of the principles

of act that we've been discovering, which is committed action. We've said several times in this conversation that our emotions and our thoughts don't have to drive or guide our behavior. That's another... I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like... Why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all's baffling questions like... Why they refuse

to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom

Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Brian Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really No Really, sir.

Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really No Really. Yeah, really. No really. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition

signed Jason bobblehead. It's called really no really. And you can find it on the I heart radio app on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. They're one of those things that's pretty easy to say and a whole lot harder to do. So what are some principles or approaches I can take to taking effective committed action, even when I've got all this other stuff that's swirling around in my brain? Committed action is so important. Remember, it's acceptance and commitment therapy. So it's not passively accepting what life is giving you. commitment therapy. So it's not passively accepting what life is giving you. It's accepting what's out of your control and committing to action that will improve your life and make it as good as

it possibly can be, even if you're stuck in a refugee camp. The analogy we use a lot is that values are like a compass. They kind of give you guidance. They give you direction. They help you find your way. But a compass won't give you a journey. The journey only happens when you start moving your arms and legs taking action. So we can use our values to set goals. We can break our goals down into action plans. And then, of course, the key factor is actually doing that stuff. What I generally say to clients is, first of all, start noticing where are you already doing this? Most of us, if we start to pay more conscious attention throughout the day, we'll find there's lots of little things throughout the day where we're

already living our values, taking action, doing things that are important. So let's become more aware of those and let's appreciate those. And then, again, it begins with this awareness. Where are there areas of life where the way that I'm acting is going against my values, is pulling me into what in fact we often call away moves, moving away from the person I want to be. So again, it begins with this awareness, this contacting the present moment or connection. So I start to notice those areas of life where my behavior is not reflecting my values. Then I start looking at little ways, something that I could do differently. And I always say to clients, start small, think small. I suppose you're interested

in improving your health. Your goal is to improve your health. The value you identify is self-care. And your mind goes, all right, I'm going to go to the gym three times a week, right? Well, that's a pretty big goal if you've done no exercise for 20 years. So I kind of say, let's make that a secondary goal. There's a lot to do to achieve that. You've got to get gym gear. You've got to take out a gym membership. You've got to arrange a babysitter for the kids. Is there something much smaller, simpler, easier that you can do in the next 24 hours? A little action in line with self-caring. Oh, well, I guess I could go for a 10-minute walk at lunchtime today. Great. Let's start with that. So start small, think small. What a tiny

little steps I can take to start, you know, kind of acting on these values. I agree a hundred percent. Those small steps are, are so critical. And I, you know, I really live by the idea of that, like a little bit of something is better than a lot of nothing. And that's where I think so many of us get stuck is we think, okay, I'm going to, I used to do this with meditation. I would meditate for a while and then I'd fall off and I'd read a book that would inspire me to do it again. And I'd go back and I'd try and meditate for 30 minutes every day. And that did not work for me. It was way too hard. So I would fall off. And, you know, finally when I went, well, you know what, three minutes of meditation every day is

better than the none I've been getting for the last month. And I think I can sustain that. And that's kind of when meditation went from an on-off thing for me to something that I do, you know, pretty regularly by starting small and slowly building from there. Yeah, absolutely. As the saying goes from the Tao Te Ching, you know, the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Yep, exactly. This has been a great conversation and we could go on, but I want to try and take all this because all this boils down into a basic act formula. Can you share with us what that is? Well, it would probably be, you know, coming back to what we talked about in the first conversation, you know, be present, open up and do what matters.

So be in the present moment right here, right now. Open up, make room for all the thoughts and feelings that are showing up for you in this moment, whether they're pleasant or unpleasant. And do what matters. Kind of connect with those values and do anything, any action, small or great, that is living those values. Be present, open up, do what matters. Yeah, that's wonderful. Another way I've heard you say it is you use the letters of act. So accept your thoughts and feelings and be present. C, connect with your values. And T, take effective action. So very similar to what you just said. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to come on.

I've enjoyed both of these conversations. You've got several books out there that approach this from different angles and I highly recommend them all. There's lots of exercises in them and I think they are great. We'll have links to those books, to your websites, all that in the show notes.

But thanks so much, Russ, for coming on. I've enjoyed it a lot. Thank you. It's been a real pleasure chatting with you. Okay. Thank you. Bye. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation to the One You Feed podcast. Head over to oneyoufeed.net slash support.