Existential Dread ft. Michael Reeves | Dr. K Interviews

yes so welcome and so people refer to you by your full name they call you Michael Reese um it's it's really whatever the flavor of what you're feeling is you what do you what are you because people that like you know it's interesting because I just look at you know who we're talking to today and I wanna see like your name with first name and last name yeah I've noticed that I not intentionally I've done that Michaels fun okay some friends call me Mike hmm okay what do you what do you prefer Micra Mike Michaels good okay cool so tell me is there something in particular you want to talk about today or not not really I just kind of came into it looking a talk of a conversation um see what you can glean out of it cool um there are a couple things that I think are like maybe like stereotypically kind of for a discussion like this sometimes you know there's like you know the classic like I get anxious a lot stuff like that but you know I'm really just looking at talk about whatever's and when you say you get anxious a lot what does that mean I've like I was thinking of things to talk about for the session it that's just like you know something that came up I often am anxious about many things so if that's someone you want to explore or it's really whatever you want to get into I mean so I'm so Michael think of me as a resource mm-hmm so I have a wide background of training from like meditation and spirituality to like neuroscience and psychiatry so is there something in that span that you're curious about or you think could be helpful for a particular dimension of your life I suppose is there like a little like your psychology sprinkled in there sure awesome helpful I I suppose yeah um I I do struggle with anxiety sometimes so maybe that's something yeah we can get sure I'm noticing a theme yeah yeah you get anxious a lot about a lot of things as you said yes yeah let's talk about that so what do you get anxious about um a lot of a lot of things very day-to-day things like like whatever I'm doing for work getting started with anything any kind of project lots of things coming on a show on Twitch that's not that wasn't too bad but is this a show on Twitch is this a show on Twitch yeah is that we are we a show is this a show I suppose it as a show okay I'm okay I was just wanted to get this fell under that umbrella but okay so you said getting started on stuff sometimes doing stuff on Twitch what else ah day-to-day stuff you know the normal normal human anxious things you know thinking about the long general future of your life [Music] sure long general future of your life what's your background in neuroscience actually so I did research for about I was a research assistant in a neuroscience lab for about 18 months to two years and then you learn a lot of applied neuroscience as in medical school and as a psychiatrist so what is applied neuroscience like how do you apply that knowledge because I have no idea what the field of neuroscience is like sure so applied neuroscience is if you have someone who is in a car accident and a part of their brain is damaged then what does that do to them and how do you work with that so that's like applied neuroscience another example of applied neuroscience so I do a lot of mind-body work so for example how does the brain change under prolonged periods of stress so just here's an example of applied neuroscience so let's say that someone is under stress so stress releases a hormone called releases a couple of things so first thing it releases a is adrenaline which burn or adrenaline epinephrine a couple of these short acting hormones those affect the brain in certain ways so one thing that adrenaline does is it collapses your peripheral vision from about 180 degrees to 30 degrees so that's an evolutionary thing that kind of causes people to focus in on like the center yeah interestingly I think that it does that psychologically too so generally speaking when people are under periods of stress they have trouble considering things that are not right in front of them the peripheral of you know your mine exactly so they get they kind of like tunnel down and just focus on one thing over time so you also release a hormone called cortisol which has a slower duration of action so adrenaline hits your body within seconds and lasts four minutes cortisol starts to kick in within the hour and will last for like it has different kinds of physiological and neurological effects for four to 24 hours one example is that it goes to this little part in the back of your brain called the reticular activating formation which governs sleep and so the reason that it does that is because when we were when we were evolving and we were like primates living in dangerous situations if you add an adrenaline response like if you saw a tiger in the woods you want cortisol to keep your reticular activating formation div and make your sleep easily disturbing mm-hmm right so like you want to wake up if you hear something yeah it's a evolutionary response absolutely so the downside though is that now when people are under mental stress because we don't have Tigers anymore but or etiology adapts to current circumstances mm-hmm so when I'm thinking about huh you can't differentiate right you can't differentiate your body uses what it has and so then when I'm worried about paying so today is July 8th so if I'm thinking about paying rent at the end of the month I'm gonna be in a prolonged period of stress which is gonna make it hard for me to sleep because every noise that happens it's going to wake up wake me up because my reticular activating permission is like highly active that's an example of what I would call applied neuroscience awesome oh that's very cool I was um I actually really considered that's interesting I considered getting into like psychology when I was in high school I was like a crossroads before I would choose I was either choosing like computer science video editing or psychology I drew computer science how did you make your decision oh I essentially just flipped a coin really just just very spur of the moment in which did you choose one computer science yeah oh I'm very happy I'm glad I didn't go in a video editing that's for sure so uh some thoughts about psychology but pretty happy with what I chose when you say you have some thoughts about psychology what has happened okay well you know I wonder what it would have been like if I had actually ended up pursuing psychology instead I was I was really interested in it and in high school but I'm quite glad with the decision I made do you like to understand how things work yes yes yeah absolutely yeah like understanding the inner workings of things I can see the attraction to psychology for you that yeah yeah looking at a phone you want to know how the LCD screen is a little LED screen works and I feel like I mean like you're never gonna fully understand maybe that's why I went with calm sigh it was because in psychology there's always more to do right you're never gonna fully understand the human mind 40 second do you think he can actually fully map out every inner working of the human mind is that like like a reasonable end goal psychology er sure why not I don't know I feel like like the minds and I don't know I'm not sure you would be able to like have reason for every thought that pops into a head you know like be able to map each and every little meme okay so let's think about that so the first question is are you talking about do you think it's unreasonable to map out the origin of every thought for every person are we talking about mapping out the origin of every thought for you other people I was talking in a general sense about you know any random you know X person on the street sure I think that sounds difficult what do you think about for you I don't to what extent um I think you probably get pretty deep in there about why I think the things I do i've degree mm-hmm I think that that's yeah I mean I I think that it's hard to understand other people completely but I do hope that you could understand yourself completely I think that's what there's this term enlightenment or workshop in Sanskrit which is like when people meditate for a while they gain enlightenment and apparently it's hard and happens rarely but if we think about just the the translation like it suggests knowledge mmm-hmm and so it's sort of a complete understanding of self and so I don't know if that's possible or not but I think that you can certainly make I mean I think you can understand most of yourself like I think that the human mind ultimately is reducible to scientific principles and if it's reducible the scientific principles as opposed to RNG then I think you can understand it I agree with that is that something you seek to do is to understand the way other people think or to help people understand themselves I'd say more of the latter okay so we can kind of come back to the anxiety over the long general future of your life so what are you worried about in terms of is it okay if I ask you talk more in the third person we can do that oh um dive in as far as you want I I've just always kind of struggled with anxiety that's just something that's like been very prevalent and my life since you know the early days I think of high school so can we actually pause there for a second when you say you struggled with anxiety since high school mm-hmm what can you tell me like show me what that like help me understand what does that mean like paint me a picture sure it's a lot of it started a lot of social anxiety so like not being able to talk to people in high school then getting you know I think I think I had a long very worried idea of what my future was gonna be in high school because I didn't have any plans yeah originally I had no plans for what I was gonna do after high school I was just kind of winging it yeah and so I think that was a very yeah prevalent creeping anxiety for you know what how am I going to survive after this and it led to like less planning because that meant you know accepting the fact that you have to do something after high school and yet that's yeah I don't know it just I I can't actually like pinpoint the exact time then it started happening but it started happening at some point where I become anxious about many things you know like I'm not able to sleep very well like I had that started in high school so where I'm up at night you know worrying about things it's gotten better I've you know gone through like sleeping techniques meditation techniques which are nice for free man yeah what do you worry about at night you know it's the weirdest thing it's less of like specific things and it's more like a nebulous just impending like not not impending but no just a nebulous anxiety about the current state of things even if everything is is good you know even if everything going on so would you call it like a nebulous red yes that's a very nice poetic term yeah I like that yeah so Michael I'd like to toss out a couple things and let's talk as scientist to scientist okay so what I'm hearing is that there aren't particular thoughts but that there's a feeling right so the first thing to understand is that sometimes people are anxious about something like they're anxious about a particular outcome like let's I think you may have experienced that so when you said not being able to talk to people what made it art in high school for you to talk to people I think it was just worried what what what would become of the conversation what I would say you know focused on the mechanics less unlike the actual interpersonal the reality of the conversation yeah so so in what were you worried would happen if the conversation became assert oh probably that I'd look like a jackass like you know look stupid right so probably feeling dumb high school mean so if we look at it that's a particular fear right it's a it's an anxiety that has form or shape those thoughts have like their thoughts like if I say this or if I don't say this they're gonna think I'm stupid hmm what you're describing to me now seems to be like a general sense of dread that doesn't it's not that thoughts result in dread mm-hmm whereas I would almost say that your thoughts sort of result in the feeling of anxiety in high school mm-hmm does that make sense like you have particular thoughts and those thoughts lead to feelings yes does the feeling come before the thought or does the feeling come after the thought it seems I I would say the the feeling comes before the thought yes okay almost as if it's stemming from from the feeling okay so that's the substitute so the interesting thing is that then we can say that your feelings can manifest as particular thoughts mm-hmm but your sense of dread does not manifest in any particular way it's just like a raw sense of dread okay what would you say to that I could agree it's hard to know what is the symptom and what is like like the cause it's hard to know if like you know I'm you know the chicken or the egg like if I'm worried about something coming up and that's creating the feeling or the feeling is there and I'm just applying it to something that's coming up great so I'd say it's hard to say yes it is hard to say so we can tunnel down into that so what you're what I'm hearing you almost suggests is that there's a possibility that the feeling will latch on to or hijack particular things in your life okay um I could say that it's like like I have latched on to as and I apply it to things how exactly yeah that's what I could agree with that yeah right so it's kind of interesting because then that's not actually like it's not that the thing in your life is the source of anxiety yeah exactly it's just something that you conflate with each other yeah so like I understand that you said earlier that it's hard to understand what's the chicken or what's the egg but the interesting thing Michael is that I think you actually have hypotheses baked in to your description of things because you I mean you said that like I don't know if it like picks up something that's happening in the future and kind of applies itself to that does that make sense yeah and if we think about how does someone say that sentence it's because they have noticed something that could be true okay do you think I'm already kind of have an idea for what's going on absolutely because I'm not actually telling you very much I'm basically repeating back to you what you said to me hmm so it because if we really think about it I mean you're the one who said it's like nebulous right so it's not specific to something but you've noticed something within your mind that sometimes this nebulous dread will like apply itself to something in the future yes yeah and and that's kind of weird because it's like then where does that come from because it does come from the future no yeah yeah it's just ever-present yeah so how does it feel to have ever-present threat you know it's not great obviously but I think I've kind of you know I've watched a lot of videos and read some things on how to deal with this type of you know anxiety and dread it's definitely better now like I think one that helped a lot was like it's it's not you're not supposed to or one of the ways of dealing with it is not like pushing it away completely like pretending it doesn't exist it's more like accepting that it is you know a part of who you are as a person and like learning to live with that in everyday life and that that is very helpful because then you yeah it's a I think it's a healthier way of dealing with it that's one that helped me okay so healthier way okay so Michael I think this conversation is gonna be a little bit different from many that we have on stream okay is it okay if I tell you how I think it's gonna be different and sort of get your permission to let it be different fairly lay it on me man so sometimes we talk about things that are like anxiety like so sometimes we talk about feelings we talk about emotions we talk about experiences when we may get there for you but I don't know if it's just the way I'm feeling today or the way that you're talking today or the background that you have or the way that you speak but I would really like to help you understand or maybe we can explore together like what the [ __ ] is going on here sure yeah what is it like what is it like how does that work like what is what is existential dread is it like is it anxiety because or is it like is you just born this way or like is this like repressive like what is that but your does the [ __ ] come from let's figure it out right right so so okay so in order to do that we're gonna have to really tunnel down into a lot of what you say because I think you have a lot of brilliant answers that you that Macross is sort of like unsure observations uh-huh so when you said okay we don't know what's the chicken and the egg and then you said I've read a lot about it awesome you know I've thought a lot about it great and what I have discovered or what seems to help is there are certain ways of dealing with it and then you said pushing pushing it away is not the best way to deal with it yeah sort of letting it be a part of you accepting it is like a better way to deal with it and it doesn't bother me as much yeah so now let's tunnel down into what you're saying okay so both of these have to do with responses to the existential threat yes that's do you see that that's completely different from the origin or getting rid of it mm-hmm and so I would agree with you that pushing it away is not that healthy is that something you've done before yeah I think that's like your initial reaction to any negative feeling right as a person like get you know fire hot back run is kind of the idea but I mean not the you know not the general way not the best way to apply to every negative thing you know this so how did you push it away I think just ignoring it and then ignoring it you know makes it worse so okay and how does one ignore it I try to put your focus on other things you know very good distraction or yeah a distraction what else I can think of none other than distraction okay so that's probably lucky because some people ignore it through things like using substances losing themself in gaming so that to sort a distraction yeah so I'm not yeah so those I guess those are the same let me just think about why do I think about that okay so let's just call that distract you every time you have like like dissonance in your mind do you try to go in and like fix it like every time you do you often do that what you just did where you wonder why you had that thought process and like go in and that look like what you just did right were you oh that's that's cool yeah I do that a lot I I don't see a lot of people doing it that's I don't see a lot of people doing it either you think it's important people go in and fix dissonance in their mind yes I think it's very important I think that's half of what's wrong with the world today yeah we got a mental health idea Aaron like that interpersonal tenna not even health or interpersonal I think just like human beings don't question the conclusions of their mind mmm because I absolutely I agree I agree yeah so I think we're not taught how to do that mm-hmm so I think it's a skill yeah I think self checking is very important yeah so it's interesting because if you want to take take a quick tangent and talk about like evolutionary neuroscience our brains are not decided to do that so if you think about it what our brains are decided to do is create certainty from uncertainty so like in a very simple sense like back in the day like you know let's say you wake up in your hut and then you're like where should I go look for food mm-hmm that is a cop a problem that is so complicated and you have so little information that it's impossible to answer where should you go look for food you have no [ __ ] idea north-south-east-west I don't know now later how far how long should I go north before I go east and so human females huh that's a complex problem yeah absolutely there's no way to answer so what our brain is designed to do is to take gigantic swathes of uncertainty and give us answers and it says hey hey you should go this way and you're like why and then your brain is like I don't know just do it we're gonna just assume that this is the right way that's how most of our brain works yeah yeah that's varies and then you get reinforcement over time as you find like a berry by the somewhere by the creek you go north you think sure arts is for food yeah and then even if you don't get reinforcements you still don't think you're wrong you still don't even if you don't get reinforcements you still don't know really yep thank you if I go like north for like five miles and I don't find any berry bushes I'm gonna be like pretty pissed right but I still think I'm not wrong nope you won't think you're wrong you'll be like let me go a different way okay okay sorry so there are modern manifestations of this too so there have been studies done on like you know like packaging and placement of items within a store so like if you place a prominent display of cookies at the checkout and then people by the the cookie and then you ask the person as they leave the grocery store why did you buy the cookie they'll give you a reason they'll say like oh you know Mike he really likes these cookies but that's not actually the deciding factor for why they bought it the reason that they bought it is because of the placement yeah and if it hadn't been placed there they wouldn't have purchased it so our mind is actually designed to fabricate logical reasons for illogical behavior that's what it's made for it works like backwards from the conclusion works backwards from the conclusion is a little weird it's shocking and strange yeah why why do you think it what does it do that because that's the only way it works because thousands of years ago millions of years ago we had to manually just think about out like an animal doesn't understand how anything works but it has to act with certainty uh-huh there's no [ __ ] idea like we have no like you actually don't know like if I stepped outside today I could get hit by a meteor that's a possibility like it's on you there's so much uncertainty in the world and we just assume like I assume that like my family is behind me in the house even though I don't know that oh I know that huh Michael is michael is quiet is that our urine thing or I can also turn it I turned you up a little bit okay great so yeah we I mean our our brain operates based primarily on assumptions that we assume or facts like everyday if you get up get in your car and you drive to work you assume that your workplace is gonna be there even though you don't know that okay like it could've been like swallowed by an earthquake okay all right is there like why do we do you think animals have to have that reasoning as well yes okay it's not just like food here food good it's like there needs to be a reasoning to forgetting that food no no I mean so it's a food here food good as that's real but like most of the world is uncertain like if you're a deer and I wake up in the morning I'm like where where are the Predators I have no idea but if I if I get paralyzed by the lack of knowledge I won't act so the reason that we act in ignorance is because that's like that's how most human beings function through most of their life like four-year-olds don't know what's gonna happen next and the problem existential dread so now we're gonna talk a little bit about where things come from let's come from the capacity to realize that you don't know what's coming back so Michael your problem in high school was not that was actually one of knowledge not ignorance okay it's like knowledge that I know very little yeah like you don't know what's gonna happen next which happens to most people in high school but some people tend to get worried about it and some people don't and generally speaking in my experience people who have more calculating who have more RAM and more computing power tend to have more excess existential dread what do you think about that um I don't know I feel like many I feel like a lots of people can experience existential dread I don't like sheerly based on like your ability to compute information I do not think it's really based on your ability to compute information but you've observed that I have observed that the smarter you are the worse your anxiety okay that's interesting so like if you think about anxiety what is anxiety anxiety is generally speaking worried worrying about consequences of future I mean worrying about future consequences of actions taken today present actions yeah right so if you can foresee more problems mmm what do you think happens to your anxiety no of course you have more yep and now we get to something really interesting which is if you have a part of your mind which latches on to things and sort of hijacks them mm-hmm and you give it more food for things to highjack on to what's gonna happen I just breathes more anxiety of course right absolutely right it's gonna find something yeah yeah yeah it definitely takes up a large amount of you know the other mental mental juice as it were so when you say it takes up a large part of I would think about it as a large part of your mental juices generating things and the more mental juice so there are different kinds of anxiety so there are so there are people for example with Down syndrome or other kinds of like cerebral palsy who will experience intense anxiety even though their computing power is pretty low but in my experience the flavor of that anxiety is different okay how so it's more like existential dread so we'll get to that in a second but so so some of that is more physiologic anxiety but it's not like neurotic anxiety so like we think about neurosis which is the tendency to worry so there's like neurotic anxiety which is kind of like you worry about lots of stuff and then some people just have feelings that they can't shape and that feeling will latch on to anything no matter how small it is okay so that because anxiety is not just a mental sensation as well right there's a physiologic component yeah your heart rate will elevate oh yeah I got that reading problems and all oh yeah exactly and so that to those physiologic changes will affect the function of your mind even though the root of it may not be mind so what I mean by that is that if you have if your heart rate is elevated you're gonna have a sympathetic nervous response you're gonna release adrenaline and what adrenaline literally does to your brain is starts to increase the speed of your thoughts make thoughts black and white and makes your thoughts that are possibilities feel like realities okay so it takes something that might be and it turns it into something that's definitely gonna happen certainty okay and that too is evolutionary because once upon a time there were two human beings who each faced a tiger and one human being saw the danger as a possibility and one human being saw the danger is a reality which human being is more likely to survive Nona sees it as a reality absolutely so adrenaline makes possibilities about the future feel real and that's what our brain is [ __ ] designed to do mm-hmm so anyway a physiologic anxiety can sort of reinforce certain thoughts but there's a physiological component there's a cognitive component there's sort of a neurotic yeah I see what you're saying yeah I don't think we've still got into the source of your existential dread but we're kind of mapping things out oh yeah I understand it better okay any questions so far cool no no I'm enjoying the ride okay now is this I never really thought about the differences and like different types of anxieties more nebulous or more focused that's cool yeah so I think part of the problem is that we use the word anxiety to describe a lot of different things yeah general kind of term so let me ask you something Michael by the way how you feeling right now I'm fine I'm just having a good interesting very interesting talk so you feel like this is a good use of our time yeah for sure okay so let me ask you something qualitatively would you say that your existential dread is like roughly the same or roughly different as being concerned that people are gonna think you're gonna look stupid roughly I couldn't repeat the question yeah like would you say that that's the same thing like existential dread and like the way they used to feel in high school like when you were concerned about inner interactions and looking stupid do those feel like different things to you or do they feel like the same thing I think it's a rat it's very close to the same feeling that I have okay I don't know if it is the same thing but it's it's close to the same feeling can you help us understand that feeling at all or is that difficult it's no that's that's a gut in the gut where it you know wrenches up and yeah you know it's like you're nervous you're very you're you're anxious you're okay what if this happens but so your existential dread also makes you feel things like physically in your in your stomach or your gut is it sometimes you know you know if I'm like really nervous about something if I'm like I'm like oh man I would really like to do this thing and then I like you know spend the whole day you know like being a jackass and playing Ballarat then I'll be like oh [ __ ] I should have done that thing then I'll you know I'll be anxious you know I'll have a like I should have been doing something else it's like you know I could have done this I could have done that yeah and then that's that's the gut feeling that's the like the neurotic anxiety feeling okay so I'm gonna call what you just said there self judgement I'm not gonna call that anxiety okay yeah lots of self judgment okay right so does that sort of make sense like like you're not worried so there's like so let's just look at that for a second so let's go back to Michael in high school is afraid of talking to someone because he thinks they're going to look stupid okay yeah so that is Michael being in the present and looking into the future got it self judgment is different because it's Michael beating himself up for the past yes okay yeah now there could be a future component to that too so I think I think about anxiety is something that's forward facing and I think about regret is something that's backward facing sometimes you can look at the past day and think about the consequences for tomorrow yeah absolutely do you do that yeah okay so then that I would classify as anxiety but I think self judgment is right so like self-judgement is like looking at yourself and saying I didn't do a good job I'm not good enough okay and you would say that's different from anxiety yes I would describe anxiety as worrying about the future okay I I think III probably the self judgement is probably a proponent to it it's like oh I [ __ ] this up maybe you know the future might change due due to it you know so so agree so there's like this whole cesspool of all of this negativity in all of our minds and so I think it's but the point I'm making is that if you can stop the self judgement then your anxiety has less fuel okay I think a fundamental reason like I don't is because I associate self judgment with like being better as like a person you know it's like it's like oh I'm gonna do that the next time all you know did you [ __ ] this X thing better yes so now we get to another really important thing which is just like everything else that I've described self judgement serves a very important part so I think the tricky thing about being a human is that a lot of what is good for us makes us suffer okay self judgement discipline kind of type beats absolutely right so like when I have people so I work with some people who are like very professionally academically or financially successful and boy do they beat the [ __ ] out of themselves and it's part of the reason that they beat the [ __ ] up that's why they're successful so the reason that like if you look at medical students medical students are super super anxious and highly neurotic actually neurotic is a better term and the reason for that is because like the reason they got into Medical School in the first place is because when other people were out partying on a Friday night they were afraid of doing poorly on the test they were at home studying so most professional success is correlated with - there's this thing called the five factor model of you heard of it before no I'm okay so it's a it's a well validated personality structure that way has been scientifically like studied quite extensively and basically what they found is that there are two factors one is conscientiousness and one is a neuroticism yeah the higher you are in neuroticism and conscientiousness the more professionally successful oh that's that's interesting that makes sense what are awful little so how do you deal with that because that sounds like a very like desolate piece of the human condition where it's like the more neurotic and self judging you are the more successful you become isn't that like kind of awful yes so I think desolate is a beautiful term to describe their lives so so it's that they they have a lot of success but their life feels empty it's actually a very good way to describe their lives so it's so good Michael that I wonder if you have experienced that yet you know for sure where it's like yeah I've uh I taught myself to it might have been the reason I I taught myself to code in high school was um it was worried well the reason was because I needed a job afterwards so you know I mentioned that I picked between like psych and video editing and Comp Sci and so I chose Comp Sci and I taught myself how to do it in high school and there was definitely like neuroticism behind that like I sat in my room for just like many weeks and months and just you know studied one thing and that's surely where that comes from but you know I've you know I've been through like the the gross like nine-to-five and all that and it's like like I've realized that you know just like working constantly is a very big pitfall you can fall into it's like it feels safe but if you just focus only on one thing it's it's detrimental to you is like a human being mm-hm so yeah I can I can agree that that's where some of it comes from I've been trying to do things different that's actually something I've liked I I think that's on my mind a lot it's like the balance between like doing a lot of work and not doing a lot of work and like being a human being you know mm-hmm yeah it's tough and I think I you know it's a beautiful word I I'd never really thought of it that way but their lives really are desolate and I think that just goes to show that I think you understand more about we're talking about them maybe you know because I think that that you know your ability to conjure that word comes from understanding like if you think about like how do we know what words to use mm-hmm so like tons from understanding yeah it stems from usually from experience hmm okay so let's just can I try to recap for a second and keep us focused yeah okay so the first thought is that there's you know there's different kinds of anxiety right so there's like maybe this existential dread I'm not even gonna call that anxiety for a second there's the physiologic components of anxiety and sometimes there are mental there's like a neurotic kind of anxiety which is worrying about the future there is self judgment which can sort of feed anxiety but it's not exactly the same as anxiety uh-huh so self judgment is kind of beating yourself up and then sometimes in that process of beating yourself up you start to worry more about the future because the more of a piece of [ __ ] you are the more bleak the future becomes right but interestingly enough so those two like self judgment and anxiety get together they tango and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts mm-hm so one thing you can do is focus on self judgment another thing you can do is focus on being in the present because anxiety is always future thinking so if you are thinking about the now you cannot be anxious yeah actually that's only true for neurotic anxiety if you have physiologic anxiety you can be in the now and it you can still be anxious because it's a physical sense yeah there's then also we kind of talked about that and then the other thing that you mentioned is that there are ways to deal with it so one way to deal with it is you put it as pushing away or distraction great and another way to deal with it is to learn how to sit with it let it be a part of you not push it away and that seems to help so mm-hmm yeah sounds like a pretty good summary of what we've covered no good recap okay so now let's go back to the existential dread first of all any questions no no no okay so let me ask you something how long have you felt the existential dread I attached the word existential to it because that's yeah maybe since probably like around the start maybe the middling of high school okay I think it's it might have started with like how am I gonna like survive after high school because I'm very like I seek to be self-sufficient I don't like to seek help a lot so like I didn't I very much didn't want to like rely on anyone after you know becoming an adult getting out in the world I need good you know why not then it's just a personality trait I have a you know hard time asking for help okay good aspects and bad aspects to it okay so let me ask you something how long have you been self-reliant what do we mean self-reliant so like you said how long have you not wanted to depend on other people very long very I'd it's I've wanted to be self-reliance and for a long time okay can you tell me when you started to feel that way you know I can't really pinpoint it but it's definitely like when I look back like a lot of the like conflicts I've had like like with parents for example like even before high school weird stemmed from and want to be self-reliant right okay so surely further back than high school like it's just kind of been like a personality trait that I've you know recognized you know in the in retrospect can I think first yeah go for it you you would you say that your existential dread kind of feels like worrying that you won't be able to take care of yourself um yeah yeah yeah that's a good way to put it you okay can I have another second to think yeah you you you I'm trying to figure out what direction to go and I won I'm relying on my mind to generate some idea of certainty from uncertainty do you see multiple paths through it again I do see multiple paths it helps that we've been able to define your existential dread because that's half the problem I didn't think we would get there I think about it a lot now the problem that I have is I feel like I know the answer I just don't know the question hey you want to lead me somewhere yep right I have a hypothesis I just don't know how to investigate it okay so the first thing that I want to say is that so we've talked about different kinds of ways to deal with this right so there's existential dread self-judgement amplifies things right so that's like a multiplying effect there are coping mechanisms like distraction there are other sort of coping mechanisms like acceptance maybe that's not quite coping unclear whether coping is the right word there but there are ways to deal with people through math of it mm-hmm there are things that amplify it we still have not gotten to where it comes from and there's another question which is can we actually yank it out root and stem can we find where this feeling originates and if we find its origin does that help us in some way okay a lot of questions those like six questions on that sentence yeah I don't know does finding the source of something mean that it helps I think maybe in some way maybe an understanding right sure but you know just cuz you I don't know it's a good example just cuz you know you're the you know the the fact that you have a cold doesn't mean you don't have a cold anymore you can understand it right but you stopped a cold yeah I think it helps for understanding or for treatment right if you know I've yet you have a cold you go and get you know sudafed or whatever yeah I would agree so so that's why we asked the question because let's not make the assumption that discovering the origin will fix it yeah one is does it help uh yeah I think it yes ah hard to say right this is sure it's not a cold it's something else I think it's if at the very least it's worth trying to get to yeah so so let's do that and let's see let's be scientific so let's not make assumptions that this is going to be helpful maybe it'll help maybe we can find maybe it doesn't have an origin maybe it does we don't know right so you kind of said that the existential dread is like and this is like you said something about an anxiety about the long general future of your life it is that also like generally speaking could I describe that as worrying about whether you're gonna be able to take care of yourself um in some kind of way I like logically I I think with like I think I'll always be able to I even if worse comes to worse like I lose I get like everything I don't know I get like you know my credits stolen or whatever I think from the ground up I will be able to like come back from just about anything great so I think that's a really important point because that tells us that that sensation of not being able or worrying about taking care of yourself doesn't come from logic no no it's a logical hundred I have accepted this absolutely it's I'm at a point where like I I know that I could you know like get a job you know doing computer science somewhere and it's like it's not rooted in logic absolutely not you're still there yep so then we can also acknowledge another interesting consequence of that which is that there are parts of our mind that are not do not originate in logic okay so let's go back to this so you said that a lot of your conflict with your parents had to do with like your desire to be independent well it's more like I I recognize that I have that desire to be independent and I can go back and see oh this was you know the this was why we had this conflict and I'm like oh it's is because we it's because I wanted to be you know more independent and I didn't give us an example it's it's like oh okay I'm sure I in high school very much wanted I decided to do you know computer science and so I instead of so I stopped paying attention to classes in high school just like kind of just you know I showed up did my thing sometime I have like my computer and I was just like I'm gonna learn one thing it's it's computer science right so that you know cause problems cuz you know your parents obviously want you have good grades so that caused a large conflict learn you know we get in touch with a counselor everyone's like stop doing this you know pay attention in school but that's you know that's an example of how I how did you feel when you got taken to the counselor oh you know I was a little pissed right cuz I'm like man I just want a job after high school like my English class isn't really helping me for for job security in the future at least I knew I wasn't gonna be you know a writer or anything so you know a little mad but you know I I just kind of ignored it yeah a little pissed right you know yeah little pisses on you I'm trying to do this thing for job security but I understand like my mom is a first generation Filipino immigrant my dad is he is very nice but sometimes he's weird like as a person and so like there's not always like a huge level of Understanding between me and my parents cuz I don't know we different backgrounds obviously it's you know we still you know love each other obviously you know but I kind of you know learned to accept that we're not always gonna see eye-to-eye on something and I just you know I kept going with what I was doing I was you know [ __ ] you guys I'm gonna keep doing so now we get to an interesting and my mind I have an interesting chicken-or-egg question which is like does the existential dread of worrying about not being able to take care of yourself come from your independence or does your independence come from from yeah I don't know how to I'm gonna stop that I I kind of I kind of got what yeah I'm picking up what you're putting down I don't you mean yeah I know I I have the thought that yeah okay and what do you think tick you late [ __ ] a long round it doesn't really matter but hmm very hard to say I don't know why they have to be like mutually exclusive I think they're related I'm just trying to figure out so let me just ask a different question um you said that your dad is kind of a weird guy and y'all have trouble seeing eye on things he's nice it's it's like he's a nice guy he is nice my dad's nice sure but it's like we do not we're very different people mm-hmm I don't know how I became in that like in my family very like strange person and like in my family III thought yes yeah but it's just now long have you been a strange person in your family uh you know pretty is the beginning yeah what when I say strange it's not like it's more like we're just kind of fundamentally different people me and you know the other would you say that they don't understand you like to what level of understanding me as a person I I have some level of understanding it's mostly they they do care about me that's it's that at least I know I'm not I I don't doubt that they're nice that they love you and they care about you've never suggested anything suggesting there's a lot of luck yes well what I see I got to put that there so I don't sound like an [ __ ] yeah so so good and I'm sorry I don't mean to no III know I'm just I'm just [ __ ] uh saying I know what you're asking i I don't maybe not fundamentally no I think that's the answer you're looking for no yeah I mean it's it's my hypothesis but don't just give me the answer I'm looking for it give me the answer that's true no that's the answer that's true I think you got it you got it okay so let me ask you something what happens to a child who is not understood they they do their own mean they go in their own kind of adventure yeah and they do go on their own adventure and what does that mean about reliance on other people I think that leads to independence absolutely what does that mean about reliance on other people huh so so a child who becomes independent how do they feel about relying on other people oh I suppose you don't like it right just realize is that yeah I think in a way yeah so when you're super passionate about something and you're concerned about something and then you get taken to a school counselor and you're told that you should stop doing what you're doing did you feel like they weren't taking your concerns seriously um I don't know if it may be on some you know deeper level not consciously it was I like they don't understand like what I'm going for not consciously but maybe on you know like a some kind of yeah so now we get to a basic problem of what we're doing so I don't know how much I'm leading you or pushing you in a direction cuz it's starting to feel that way and also I think the whole reason that it's not conscious like I agree that it's not conscious and that's why it's this weird [ __ ] feeling of existential dread that you haven't done a conscious understanding of where it comes from well right so it's it's tricky because now we're getting into the territory where maybe I'm putting words in your mouth because I'm really eating you in a particular you're like hitting the nail on the head just right I feel like leading me in a direction exactly or if I'm sticking a nail in it it's hard for us to tell scientifically right yeah yeah absolutely and um but I feel like you know where I'm going and yeah where do you think I'm going what do you understand about my line of questions I hey well I think your line of questioning is trying to get to the conclusion of where the dread comes from right yep do you have any sense of what my hypothesis is yeah it's somewhere along the lines is you know different as a child must provide for themselves or not provide but you know it seeks into great independence from that independence comes a sense of dread because you're the only reliance right yeah is that kind of where your thinking is yes is that how you feel Michael I don't know are you leading me with questions no I'm asking no I don't know anymore now ai ai ai ai ai think yes I think okay so let me ask you something Michael and I want you to be careful about your logical mind mm-hmm and try to tap into your emotional mind Michael do you feel alone sometimes I mean everyone does sometimes is that the feeling that we're talking about do you feel like a lot like does the future of your life and I know logically it doesn't include just you but does it feel like it's just you like you're the only person you can count on can count on from a feelings perspective yes yeah I can be honest about that yeah like sheer feeling no logic it's like I I know they're like this you know a great support group around me logically but feelings wise right now it's like I know at least I can always count on me right yeah so now let me ask you something okay so not gonna ask I'm just gonna say okay so I'm gonna stop asking leading questions because I think I don't know how much I'm biasing you I don't think I am I think you're pretty good yeah but let me let me run you through my hypothesis and we can look at it as scientists so first thing is like who worries about not being able to take care of themselves oddly enough you may think that it's people who lack faith in themselves but it's funny because that's not where that comes from okay the worry about not being able to take care of yourself is built on an assumption that other people are not gonna be around as well okay yeah I know I follow you does that make sense yeah that's actually where this comes from because why do you live in a world where you are the only person that you can rely on and we see we see threads of that like in your independence uh-huh like we see that like this is part like I think the reason that this existential dread is so hard for you to understand is because I think it formed it is it's a primitive formation okay and the reason that's primitive is because it was formed when you were very young okay so generally speaking when our mind forms certain ideas about ourselves that idea hairy's the maturity at which it was born okay so right so like if I if I sit down and I draw a picture at the age of four that picture stays that way yeah it's a very young thought it's like a very carnal thought right absolutely concept right like that like you're just like there's no one and then like if we think about it so then my next thought is that okay so you know who is it that worries about not being able to take care of themself there's a lack of confidence we don't get any of that from you I mean do you would you say you lack confidence in yourself yes oh yes yeah interesting here yeah no I know I come off as like a confident person I'm an incredibly unconfident person okay so maybe I just about entirely sohere's because the reason I asked that question is because now we have to we have to question my assumptions so worrying about not being able to take care of yourself comes from two places one is a lack of faith in yourself okay and the second is a lack of faith in others because you're the only person that you can look like I just lack faith across the board sure yeah and and that's what happens to people when they're young they have general swathes of beliefs about the way that the universe works and they those thoughts stay that way they stay that way and then as we grow old and we're mature like we have logical things that tell us because how old are you now Michael twenty-two okay so you're 22 right so you have 22 year-old logic that tells you this is not [ __ ] that you have to worry about yeah but there's like five year old Michael who's like I can't count on myself and I can't count on anyone else and I think those are actually related sick that's badass that's so [ __ ] cool how like I've never really thought about that so do you personally do you ever like replace those thoughts in your head like say you have like a core understanding about yourself that was formed at a very young age do you is like your goal to replace that with the logic of an older smarter you or like what what do you do about that you personally like do you ever go back and you're like I developed this worldview young am I going to change it now how does that work can I ask a question before I answer yours yeah sure you said that's badass which is not the response I was expecting oh it's cool it's that's cool I like learning about this okay I like it's interesting right what is interesting about that concept of you know you're young and you because I just gained a little understanding about myself right that's cool right okay so now now Michael we're gonna rewind a little bit sorry I have a couple more questions I'm a happy to answer yours okay so don't let me get away from it I got it I'm making a note so now we get to the earlier question which is does understanding help you remember they asked this earlier so you've gained a little bit of understanding do you think it helps yeah yeah for sure okay ma'am right do you remember what your earlier answer was it was uncertainty absolute yeah so now now we get to an even more interesting question which is how on earth are you saying for like like literally ten minutes ago it was uncertainty and now your answer is literally for sure let's have that now I have the reaction to finding the root of that or or at least so strand of in what way then I feel like you've been helped because you do feel you feel helped yeah well I feel you know a level of understanding which is in this case made me feel helped right yeah so so let maybe we can explore that down the road but I think that in and of itself is gonna be part of your answer so you have to understand what has changed in you because something just changed okay that'll help us understand like the science of how this [ __ ] works okay okay so we can table that first maybe we can go back to that because we still get to kind of go back to existential Venza but if your question was do I go back and and remap the short answer is like absolutely okay so here's the reason why so like when we think about it like so man I just okay I've always like wondered how that this I call or that you know the the psychologist psychologies there no this is a call catch-22 oh yeah well I think you know you know what I mean by dr. kay spam spam spam like a little little pep og emote okay can I go into teaching mode yeah do you understand how the [ __ ] works I'll tell you how it works okay so it's funny I was teaching this like an hour ago geez huh really to whom to our coaches so this is what I teach our coaches um oh nice okay so we're gonna try this let's see so you're a question let me just make sure I remember it okay so you're a question hold on hold on a second let me just think about what we're saying let me think about how to teach this and help you understand and I may just recap for my own benefit if that's okay yeah okay so something you just learned something so like what just happened and then your question was do I go back and like reanalyze things from the past and then does that help me in some way and the answer is yes okay so here's what I'd like to do I'd like to explain like how that works in your mind okay so there's the engineering portion of it not necessarily like the psychology this is more about like the science of the mind all right so here's my general hypothesis about somewhere along the way you grew up and like your parents were not able to like relate to you or understand you in a way that made you feel quite isolated it doesn't mean they didn't love you yeah yeah and I think we sort of hear that when you say like your dad was kind of weird all right like what does that mean that means that like it's not that he's weird to you it's that you're weird to him like weirdness is like yeah a 2-person yeah yeah yeah right so so there's some kind of fundamental disconnection where I suspect when you were young and we can we can see if this is the case I mean this is also one of those things that's like it's probably true of everyone but so you have to be careful about like whether you have a story like this but like I would suspect that in your past there were several times when you were quite young and like people did not fundamentally like understand and this school counselors story is a fantastic example because you knew something that was deeply important to you and will told you you were [ __ ] wrong that's how you feel alone when the people who are supposed to help you and support you and understand the way that you feel tell you that you're [ __ ] wrong for feeling that way and you new start so they just don't understand like they just don't understand it and you just don't understand that hmm that is a world where everyone speaks a language that you don't speak okay and then the world becomes a [ __ ] scary place and the future becomes uncertain because you know you're gonna screw up at some time but people the reason that people have faith in the future is not just because of themselves it's because of the people around mm-hmm now the interesting thing there's another interesting so then the world becomes a scary place and it's hard to like have faith in the future because you don't know if you can count on people like that's what it comes down to yeah and the future is filled with dread like there's a general dread if you live in a world where you can't count on other people uh-huh is that and I'm not trying to put words in your mouth so please God say no and it was helpful when you said yeah I don't have any confidence in myself but like I mean is that how you feel do you feel like in the future when you think about your future is it a multiplayer game or is it a single-player game I'm not talking about what you think I'm talking about what you feel I mean I think my world view of it is like is that like it's always like I can always depend on myself right and any supplement to that is just like is a bonus right yeah like being able to depend on anyone else is like a great bonus but sure it's not something that I see is like like a hugely necessary they're not not necessary no sorry not saying it's like not necessary I want other people in my life right yeah here's what I'm hearing okay what I'm hearing is it's it's not a multiplayer game it's a single-player game with NPCs ah that makes me sound like an [ __ ] yeah so we have to be careful Michael I don't think you're an [ __ ] at all I'm saying that I think that's the way you're describing it right like because it's not an [ __ ] it doesn't mean that you don't care about other people it doesn't mean that other people care about you it's that there is a corner of your mind that feels like at the end of the day if other people are around and they do nice things for me that's supplemental it's extra but at the core of the being like it's just you yeah I think a good way of putting it as like like I don't like there's not like I don't rely yeah like rely on yes other people first survival yes I guess bringing it down to it's like most big yeah thanks so so now we get to another important point which is where do people learn to not rely on others own for survival because generally speaking that's what we do right like we rely yeah as for survival yeah so my hypothesis is that this is a learned thing for you for you you learned at some point that you kind of couldn't count on others because I think you were young so you also like you may be a genius and sometimes this happens like I'm not saying that to like you know like make you feel good about yourself or anything but like yeah I noticed that so one of my teachers once told me that kids with high IQ or actually special needs kids okay think about that that's very interesting you know actually I I'm like inclined to agree with you for some people because I definitely went to school some very smart people who were just different right like genius I went to school awesome like really smart people and some of them were like III guess mm not not normal but do you know what I mean like yeah so but others were like like different people you know yeah so sorry smart yeah I think I think what I the point there is that I think that like kids who are smarter or just think different it's not like I mean we make smarter like we place a value judgment and I want to steer clear of value judges I don't think you're a bad person I don't think you're an [ __ ] in fact everything that I've heard about you makes you sound like you're a wonderful guy and and you know I I don't think that you don't love your parents I don't think your parents love you but I think we have to look at the mind as what it is and like try to not let our judgments interfere with what we see yeah and in my experience there are some people who have like I think you're a special needs kid and I don't mean that in a bad way I mean I think you had special needs growing up like I think that when your program you when you're teaching yourself to program in high school because you're worried about a job you have some needs that other [ __ ] high school kids who are sure that they're gonna be fine for the rest of the life don't have okay I'm not saying you're dumb or in fact I think that that's a special need that comes from I understand what you're trying yeah I really do I got it so it's funny what you put like that no but really like it's like it blew my mind when they were like and she's like you know smart kids or special-needs kids because they have special needs you can't treat them like everyone else hmm you know like yeah yeah you try in fact if you try to treat them like everyone else which is exactly what your parents and your counselor did it's harmful oh yeah it's a problem i I I think it it a lot of it boils down to like the way that we perceive what schooling in general should be and how it you know I I'm sure you have ADD you've had a million talks about how schooling is broken and it just benefits one type of like learner one type of kid I think a lot of that boils down to that because I'm not I'm not very good at schooling yet personally so the that's that that supports your your idea yeah because I I did very bad poorly in all manner of school so yeah so I think so kind of going back to your earlier question about okay like what do we do about it right so like like now do you go back and you reprogram things absolutely so I'm sorry I'm bouncing around a little bit is it okay if we go back to that no no it's nothing yeah I go back hey it works okay we were trying a new format and I wasn't sure if it was gonna work but thankfully my are like producers and our geniuses on the healthy gamer team oh wow this is great okay okay so here's the idea okay so the first thing is we have different parts of our mind okay so the first part of our mind is called Manas and so this is the emotional mind and it is the part of our mind that likes or dislikes and it is the part of the mind that reacts okay so let me ask you this Michael what's what's the most recent food that you tried for the first time maybe some like like like time was it what's just like a new food that you tried maybe I think it was like eel okay did you like it yeah yeah it was pretty good I'm not a big i member picky eater okay but I yeah it was alright okay so let me ask you something how long did it take you to like it or dislike it um I don't remember ever tasting it before this is like my first recollection of trying you know yes good just like just I bit into it it was I I don't usually like seafood so it had a little barrier to it but it tasted good tastes like chicken how long did it take you to like it or dislike it few seconds even that long maybe maybe one second right so it happened fast and rightly mechanically one second yes yeah like like okay so less than one second okay and so if we think about you know let's say like so the Manas tends to act fence it's the first part of the mind so it's usually zero to one second is when the - activates so if we think about liking or disliking something there's nothing logical about it there's nothing rational about it it's just like you put it in your mouth and you're like then it's good or that isn't good mm-hmm similarly if we think about emotional situations those two can be kind of you know they tend to be instant so if you like you know someone walks up to you and you're in high school and you're like you know someone's been bullying you and you see them in the hallway your emotional reaction happens like in less than a second does that make sense yeah and so then what happens is like sometimes we'll have an emotional reaction like you have the sense of existential dread and then sometimes you'll use your rational mind to try to fight it okay did that make sense yeah so I but the your rational mind is so you say you don't like Seaford so did you fight a little battle with yourself before you try to ill yeah and so what were the two parts of your mind how would you kind of describe it you know like a guttural I don't like seafood and then uh just try it for head its food it's it's you know try different foods experience new things kind of kind of mean yeah man ate it experience new things okay mm-hmm so that the thing to notice is that like I like this word got it oh sure you're good with words Michael so thank you it's cool so the modest is kind of guttural it's visceral and it's like reactionary and then our booty which is so this is kind of our emotional mind that's the other way we can think about it and then our booty is like our analytical mind or our intellect okay okay so then like you have this little war where your Manas is like I don't like it and then your buddies like just try it man like experience new things come on bro uh-huh and then they fight a little war and then depending on you know which one wins you'll either try the eel or you won't try that you okay so the interesting thing is like so how well-developed do you think your Whoopi is when you're given not not at all not absolutely at all how well develop do you think your Manas is when you're young all the way not not all the way but it is in control yep and so else you get older Manas may say roughly the same but would be changes over time okay that's the difference between old and young mm-hmm okay and so the interesting thing is that you know the the thoughts and impressions that are laid down in the mind at a young age are gonna be like lobe with deep thoughts they're not gonna be like nuanced or understood they're gonna be like so the existential dread is that like a mana sort of would be thing sounds like a Manas thing absolutely right so it's like just this like raw sort of got a little beautiful word sort of sense within you so now I'm going to run you through a couple examples so let's say that so this is my favorite example and I'm trying to come up with another one but we're gonna choose this one because that's the best one I can think of so let's say that I'm walking down the street with my four-year-old and she sees a dog and she pets the dog and the the dog kind of turns around like nips at her a little bit mmm-hmm what do you think the first thing that happened what's the first thing that happens in her mind fear dab SOG bad right fear don't know okay so that's her - reacts with from zero to one side and then what's the next thing that happens in her mind dog bad okay it's funny I had the same problem teaching with this example earlier because most of the people that we teach don't our kids so what does my dog do probably seeks refuge with her parents absolutely seeks refuge with their parents is such a you know twenty-two-year-old thing to say what does she actually do cries and hugs or a father or mother absolutely hogs daddy picked me up mm-hmm so this is a thought right she tells me daddy picked me up she holds up her ops mm-hmm so at this point this is actually her booty but it's like not very well developed okay okay and then so so then what happens is like I say oh you know like I check her out turns out that you know the dog was just sniffing her wasn't actually biting her and then she cries I comfort her a little bit and then I say oh look there's an ice-cream shop do you want some ice cream and then she says yes ten minutes later she's got ice cream in her hands and what's going on in her mind she is happy with the afternoon absolutely and what kind of thoughts is she having do you think um not about the dog absolutely she's just having normal thoughts she's telling me about him buying the ice cream you know she's eating eating the ice cream she's telling me about this picture that she colored she's telling me about like you know how she's like played with the ball yesterday just like normal thoughts yeah okay so now let me ask you something Mike Michael where did these feelings go the the feelings about the dog mm-hmm are they gone no they probably manifested and some they're probably she remembers them right sure like in some way she has a fear the next time she sees a dog she'll probably been reckless exactly right so the next time she sees a dog so the next day we're walking down the street she sees a dog what happens in her mind the dog bit me last time that's not the first thing that happens in her mind is it fear absolutely hmm right so she freaks the [ __ ] out and if you guys have like dealt with kids who are scared of dogs like you know it like all they have to do is just see the dog yeah and then they start freaking out there mm-hmm right and so the question is like where does that fear come from from that previous experience so where did the fear go between here and here somewhere in her head right absolutely so this gets stored in her unconscious mind is something called a sauce sky some sky some sky si M s ka ra so this is a ball of undigested emotion okay okay and so now let's think about you so let's say Mike Michael you're going down the street and you see a dog and you pet the dog and the dog bites you what's the first thing that happens in your line ow dog bad a fear fear fear fear right okay so then then you have a thought your first thing is a reaction dog bat and then what happens in your mind the reaction move away from the dog sure you move away you mean after that yep what comes after that what do you think after you move away from the dog dog bad I hate Sherlock okay all right um I don't know what comes after that so like you may check to see if you're hurt okay right and then you may like start to think about the situation yes like what kind of thoughts would you have about the situation I wonder whose dog that was that I just went up in pet and bit me yeah wonder if I need to go to the hospital for a rabies shot yep um but why did the dog bite me yep no lots of thoughts yep and then how are you feeling in ten minutes probably okay I'm probably chillin mm-hmm okay and then you're feeling feeling okay great so now the next time you see a dog since I probably since I you know more developed I will think that is not the same dog unless it is in which case it's an [ __ ] and what's what's the first thing that happens in your mind oh probably again fear yep and then what happens if it's not the same dog I may try to pet it again okay hold on hold on is it the same dog yeah if it is that's a problem right but that's a thought yeah yeah so now like even though you get this some degree of fear your response to it is different right so this is like lower fear got it so the question is like why does my daughter react with essentially the same amount of fear and you react with last year that is your question yep my worldview is different from it okay so what changes why is your worldview different from her worldview because I understand it's not the same unless it is the same dog in which case why okay so what do you say I understand what part of the mind and we're in this process does your understanding come from the booty right is that absolutely trying to go for all right so this is also the part of the process that's different right here okay so like what you do here is some amount of processing okay you like you essentially go from fear to feeling okay and what's in the middle is this so you kind of like process with yourself and then you're kind of like okay maybe I shouldn't pet dogs on the street you kind of work through the problem and then you're feeling okay and then you may still have a visceral reaction but then you're not gonna like it's not gonna be exactly the same whereas for her like this this step it's the ten second to ten minute that I did what what did I do for her you went and got ice cream afterwards right a structure right so this is processing these are the important questions if you don't have a chance to like sit down and think about what happened to you and what you did right and what you did wrong and what the dog is then you wouldn't you may let be left over with a some scar but when you use distraction or like a parent you know like you know distracts you from it then that fear basically goes dormant is this some spar and then rises up again okay if you treat it with distraction if you treat it with distraction and this is what we'll call processing okay okay so now we think about now we go back to your earlier question which was do I go back and think about stuff that happened to me when I was young abso-fucking-lutely okay and what I do as an adult is this I add this step over here um so I recall and experience all I'll tell you one so this two makes my dad sound like kind of an [ __ ] but he's not nestlé he's a great guy huh so when I was 13 I started a business God and what I did is I started a BBS you know what that is nope so a BBS is something called a bulletin board system so this is in the days before the internet you got a dial-up connection and you had a server and what would happen is like people would use their dial-up connection to call your house it would connect to your computer which was a server I mean and your server like you had some persistent thing so people could log on to like my server and they can play different kinds of games they could post on forums they could post like pictures and things like that that's gonna they had to log off but only one user could log on time oh wow okay well that's cool all right and that's like the early days of the internet before it was like a persistent universe like you had to log on to one person server and you had to interact with them yeah yeah and so I ran a BBS and I charged people $10 a month which was a ridiculous amount of money back then for access to my BBS and I had like 13 people I started $10 a week and then I had 13 people that would be like users on my BBS and I was making 130 bucks a week back in like 19 like 94 or something so after a couple and the interesting thing so I was lucky enough to have parents who were wealthy and so I never really like needed money for anything like I never had an allowance or whatever my grades were good I got whatever I wanted my grades were bad I didn't get whatever I wanted all I ever wanted was video games so it was like sort of simple I wasn't like period materialistic I just yeah and so I had kind of like Tiger parents who were like sort of like yeah you can't play games unless you're you're great you're gonna do so I think selected ton up like so I knew money was good but I don't really have any use for money so I just the wad of cash I'm like hundreds of dollars just like sitting somewhere not like I did it but one day like my dad found and then like he comes to me he's like what is this and then I told him that Ivan started a business and then he said can you any idea what he said how did he ask if you were selling drugs yeah so I explained what the business was good yeah okay and he was not impressed with the business yeah so it's funny right so actually I think he was impressed and he still shot it down he was like I shouldn't be doing this right now you shouldn't be focusing on your studies but I remember now that he was kind of smiling when he said it because he could tell that I was a clever kid but he still shut it down and he took my money away the money you had no value to me but he took it away and so I was like okay well I guess like you know whatever hmm and so years later I I was I guess I still AM so I was a faculty at a particular academic institution and there was someone at the academic institution who had been very supportive for me so they had actually been like supportive to me when I was a medical student and they even like you know were supportive to me in terms of figuring out where I went to become a psychiatrist and so they really like they've been nothing but nice and then I had started to develop something at a hospital that I was at that was like pretty good and pretty robust and was doing very well and for some reason I became paranoid that like this person was gonna try to take credit for it and it was really really bizarre but like it's like it's what worried me and I was I was going through some training slash and part of that training was to kind of be in my own therapy and so I was I was talking with someone who's who is a therapist and we were kind of talking about they're like okay so just pick something so that you know we can work on it and I said okay well this is what's bothering like I'm afraid that this guy's gonna like take credit for my work and as we dug into it I realize like this is completely idiotic the guy has done nothing but be supported for years why on earth do I think that he's gonna take something that's mine and what we kind of came down to is like oh I have this some scar are people who are like positive figures in my life taking away I have built I and it's really bizarre because like no one had ever triggered this before because the person has to be like in order for my mind to associate this situation with what happened to me in the past uh-huh like they have to meet certain requirements right like it can't be a cat it has to whoa yeah yeah it needs a bit like a like your father like someone you trust no exactly someone I trust someone who cares about me and I'm building something that is wildly successful and then they're gonna take it away because this is what happens cuz that's how the brain learns mm-hmm because my brain learned hey when these things happen you get [ __ ] so watch out because you're gonna get [ __ ] and so now we get to your question which is do you go back and do you analyze it and the answer is absolutely okay because if you want your source of existential dread to go away I'm glad you feel helped by it okay I'm gonna switch back to the other layout do you have questions about this format or like anything that were mad I mean sorry questions about the diagrams or any of those terms or anything sorry I've we've been using diagrams oh [ __ ] man I just I'm watching you talk about your subs guys the last 25 likes cool all over Oh see there's a soft start what Dyke okay here let me show you oh god I'm so sorry Mike come on let me do this oh god I screwed up hold on okay hold on I will rectify it oh [ __ ] so everyone watching at home knows this because I've been doing diagrams okay I'm glad that they got this okay sure this okay there I've been writing I've been taking down oh wow okay so let me let me run through this real quick okay let's let's catch up my politics can you see this now it's fine yes I can see this okay okay well thing okay so here's the first thing so between zero and one second you know the - happens first so it's emotional it as likes and dislikes it reacts its guttural the booty is analytical and it this was kind of the war that we talked about between oh you don't like seafood and then you were telling yourself just try it yeah okay so then we get to the first scenario which is my daughter so this is daughter mm-hmm so in the first second between zero and one second we have - okay so this is - and then we have thoughts after that so this is where would the activates okay wow dude you're a boss if you were following this without seeing the diagrams you know it might have been easier like I'm not I'm not great at looking at diagrams okay I kind of like the personal rhetoric style sure okay so then what happens is distraction right I give her ice cream and then she's happy and then what happens is this fear lives in the some unconscious as a some scar and that it emerges the next time we see a dog right and in your case this part is the same this part is the same but then you're booed these steps in in this critical step and helps you process and then you end up feeling okay and then the next time you see a dog you still have that reaction but then you don't freak out again because you've sort of processed some of that emotion so there's some scar is smaller okay got it does that make sense yeah okay we're gonna go back to this and then we're gonna do this and then we're gonna do this okay sorry about not showing you the diagram it's not as fun so you asked me a question do I go back and re-examine things that happen to me in my life and the answer is absolutely yes okay can you and what happened back to yourself huh I'm just looking at myself right now oh very introspective mirror cut I'm sorry I think so now what what I would encourage you to do is to think a little bit about like you know where this sense so this is what you've got to do is like go bet I can think about like times in your life where you felt a lot and you felt like the only person you could rely on was yourself mm-hmm because I can I would bet money that that's the way that you felt when you got walked into the counselor's office yeah I'm sure yeah right yeah and and so like that strengthens the some scar that's like you being bit by the dog the second time and so the reason that your feeling of existential dread is so pervasive is because you've been bit by a dog hundreds of times okay and so you're some scar is quite large now and you have it lives with you all the time doesn't even need a trigger it's just like there all the time okay and I'm sure you can imagine that if you've been bit by a dog hundreds of times you don't even need to see a dog to feel anxious about nothing yeah it's just like there could be a dog yeah and and so I would encourage you to think back like you know can you imagine can you remember the first time that you felt like your parents like you couldn't count on your parents and I know we're making him sound like [ __ ] I'm not saying they're [ __ ] I know my dad was a good person but everyone winds up with some scars that's just how it works it's because our mind is not well formed mm-hm can't thing back that I don't know I get I had a similar experience to you where I started a small business not as smart I was selling sodas at school but they shut that down very similar actually I don't think that's it though I don't know I can't think back to so tell me about your dad being weird he's just he's funny in social situations with other people definitely he's a you know like is he funny with you when you say what do you mean by funny whatever you mean by fun what do I mean by funny yeah he said he's funny with other people in social situations I like what about like I don't think he he's not very good at social norms like when talking to people okay okay that's that's what I mean by funny um yeah that's what I mean by weird it's not like now I'm never gonna social queues okay okay oh it's not in the way I think okay so that's a whole other conversation so I think that makes sense in terms of some of your self-reliance because it sounds like there may be some so a lot of confidence comes from empathic mirroring okay so if we think about something else to mirror from huh like from something else mirror yeah so like the way that a child learns to move confidently in the world basically has to do with how secure they feel with their parents and how secure they feel with their parents depends roughly on how much their parents impact like a mirror their emotions okay so when when a child like like like the world is a safe place when I bump my head and I hurt and my parents run over and scoop me up and express concern then the world like becomes a safe place because when I'm hurt there are people there that express concern and like that makes sense because the world reacts the way that I feel oh that sort of makes sense yeah yeah absolutely and and so a lot of times confidence happens when conference problems happen when there are parents who can't mirror what a child's emotional needs are because then the world becomes a confusing place where shockingly the only person you can rely on is yourself uh-huh because the rest of the world doesn't get ya the rest of the world doesn't react the way you feel yeah I see what you mean and so then you become a pillar it becomes a single-player game and you can't count on other people okay so I wonder a little bit about you know whether that plays into this because you're saying that your dad doesn't like pick up on social cues so also then yeah I mean unclear it's just another piece that could contribute yeah so that by the way is attachment theory if you're interested in reading like attachment theory sort of talks about like how security from a child comes from empathic mirroring of parents that's that arresting okay yeah so in terms of practically what do you so questions for me actually let's start there no not really okay so let me try to give you like so you're one of your questions is like okay maybe I don't know if this is only your question but what do I do about it okay yeah that's a good standard yeah yeah so I would say that you know try to notice that feeling of X is Central grad whenever it's there and find out first of all analyze it with your would be because the more you analyze it with your buddy I mean not just accept and sometimes analysis involves like sitting with it too but really like re experiencing it and then like be a shepherd for yourself okay so imagine that there's like six year old Michael or 13 year old Michael who's getting taken into the counselor's office mm-hmm and imagine the way that you felt and then imagine that there's like twenty-two year old Michael who's like older and can be reliable and if nothing else if you can't rely on anyone else you can at least rely on 22 year old Michael okay yeah and 22 year old Michael is like gonna go back and tell 13 year old hey man like I know a lot of people don't understand you bro and I know you feel alone and isolated but like it's okay and you're gonna be okay and you don't have to be alone in this world and there are people that love you mm-hmm okay how do you feel about that I like that like being your own kind of pillar to mirror back on yeah yeah okay I like this so when you think about when you feel that way that feeling of existential dread see if you can do that with yourself or see if this feeling reminds you of something in your past okay and then sit down and like think through it in that way okay okay and then if you do that over time I think what's gonna happen is the feeling of existential dread will get back okay like this and my hope is that for them you don't have to feel that way all the time every yeah be nice yeah and then the last thing that I'll point out is that I don't know exactly how you had that moment of feeling helped and then you said for sure it helps I don't know what that was but I think if you continue doing this it'll result in more of whatever happened for just a fraction of a second mm-hmm that's the way you cultivate more of those responses and you're sure it helped like user like you're like yeah for sure and then as you do that for a while I don't know exactly how it works but it helps and then one day you're gonna wake up and it's like not gonna be that big of a deal okay I like this right yeah how you feel yell I'll try that out not feeling good yeah okay also if you if you need some guidance and this kind of thing so the other thing is that that you know that emotional processing that Woody does therapy also basically works on that principle mmm so it's one of the ways so the other thing you can think about is is if you huh helping you process yeah so it like that's how that model of the mind like that's how I understand what therapy is doing okay so you can also think about seeing a mental health professional depending on how bad it is okay I mean I I consider I'm despite that I'm a generally pretty happy person yeah I can tell you assam um but maybe i mean if it if it helps I could consider it I'll you know try it on my own first oh yeah just think the recommendation yeah any other questions for me or thoughts not really I mean I'd yeah I enjoyed the talk like cool very insightful learned a lot it's interesting sometimes I people how to meditate are you interested in in doing that today sure yeah I I've tried meditation before I I don't know like what are there different types of meditation yeah because I've done the one where you just like try to empty all thoughts and just try and be completely present mm-hmm that and that's the one I've tried before it's nice okay do like a different kind of one yeah I do a lot of different kinds of meditation depending on what the goals are okay so there are some meditations that are more cognitive some meditations that are more physical some meditations that are more psychological some meditations that are more spiritual okay what do you recommend what are you what do you want what do you want to be different about um I think I think acting being in the present more would definitely help because I act a lot in the past and in the you know thoughts of the future so something to help you be in the present okay are you up for doing something that's a little bit more physical sure are you okay feeling a little bit silly own stream yeah my like pork on the like kind of like a one of those what is that nothing nothing yeah no we'll go for it okay so I'm gonna ask you to push your your chair back sir and I'm gonna ask you to stand up I'm gonna take off my headphones okay okay can [ __ ] hear that Kenny I can't hear you but that's okay can you hear me okay so I want you to close your eyes okay all right just stand up straight and now I want you to your mind to just go where it goes so I start thinking about the past start thinking about the future I'm really thinking about I think about what you're gonna be doing next I still can't hear you but what I would be being soon ok so just think about the future think about the past think about what you're gonna do later today think about who you're gonna see now I want you to open your eyes and look at me okay now I want you to do this raise your arms above your head okay and then I want you to take your right foot and put it above your right knee good and now I want you to close your eyes and think about who you're gonna see later okay so go ahead and come back down so and as you adopt the position so now we're gonna do it again you can try with the left foot please you dock the position I want you to know that set your mind it's gonna force you into the crust okay you're not going to be able to think about other pests okay so let's try again just try to maintain the position you can open your eyes open your eyes open your Eska and focus what are you thinking about balancing yeah he can't [ __ ] hear me why am I talking that's fine I can't I can't hear when you speak like that but yeah so just just notice what you're thinking about right yes I feel the present I feel pretty focused on right now it's hard to do this and not be focused on right now okay we can't hear you but that's okay oh I know okay so go ahead and come on that okay so so now all right what were you thinking about when you were bowed out about balancing I was thinking about balancing so now I'm gonna ask you an interesting question so were you actually thinking about balancing or were you focusing on balancing what's the difference that's that's what I mean so like when I'm eating food I can think of better eating food or I can actually just enjoy the food uh-huh did that make sense yeah yeah the difference what are you like thinking like oh this is me balancing were you just like your attention I was doing the act of balancing yes so that's how you come to the present because you can't be in the past of the future when you're doing that yeah if you try difficult things so I had to be focused on it yes okay and so the easy mode is with your eyes open so your your sense of balance comes from three neurological parts it comes from your vestibular system which is in your ears it comes from your eye and it comes from your dorsal columns or your proprioception or your sensation of like position in space okay positioning yeah I got it okay so the interesting thing is that if you close your eyes it becomes more difficult to balance because you're losing yeah you're not focusing on one spot you're losing one of those three rays yeah so it becomes hard so at the beginning if you need to balance with your eyes open go for it and then at some point you're gonna get good at it and then your mind will start to wander and you won't need to focus anymore and when your mind starts to wander close your eyes and then it'll become harder okay so in general I think Michael for whatever reason I feel like maybe body is a good for you to focus in the present so I'll also tell you like do you out do you do yoga done yet no I do not okay so I think about maybe learning yoga and the reason to learn yoga is because yoga is not about like it's not about physical health the reason that yoga was developed is because when you do a yoga posture it's not about how much you stretch it's about focusing your mind on the present so the reason that people do yoga is because when they do yoga properly you can't think about anything else just about yoga yes and so what you want from yoga is a position that is stable and brings your mind to the present and that way if you have a position that you can hold for 10 minutes and it brings your mind to the present then you can be in the present for 10 minutes and it's like op2 just use your body to force yourself to do that you don't have to have to worry about emptying your mind like you you can you can try as hard as you want you to think about stuff and you won't be able to okay that's that's cool yeah that's very interesting I never I didn't realize yoga was developed with that intent yep that's cool you can also do like other things like you can just go like this I'll try it out and then if you just hold this for a while soon like you can think about things but as your arms get tired they're gonna start to demand your attention no just hold but using your body to force attend yeah just just hold it for a while and at some point your body's gonna be like hey put our arms down and you're gonna be like nope not yeah and then you're gonna be focused on so just focus on that sensation you won't be able to think about anything else all right Janet's my exercise is therapeutic that may be different but that's alright yeah I'll try it out any last thoughts or questions before we wrap up Michael Reaves no I think is pretty fun productive enjoyed talking thank you for the appreciate it having me on yeah man thanks for coming on and Mars yeah man I'm I'm a big I like you a lot thank you have you ever when you're talking about the ear thing then inner ear for balance have you ever seen those you can stimulate the inner ear with electrodes to make a person balance to one side or not so you can you can you can send electrical signals through the vestibular system to like manipulate balance it does just a fun tidbit I I thought of what you were talking about yeah that makes sense so so usually like under neurons transmit electricity yeah and and generally speaking when we come to applied neuroscience you know you can stimulate different parts of the brain with electrodes to do all kinds of stuff so yeah that's that's cool yeah as a little tidbit you can just like buy those [ __ ] cool yeah odds are that you might be interested in sticking electrodes in your ear does that sound like a good idea it's not yeah I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me yeah man thanks for coming on and thanks for being open and honest and and present man I appreciate it yeah of course thank you and good luck to you and you don't have to fear the future any other people around thanks you'll be okay bro all right take care is it you as well right all righty

Channel: HealthyGamerGG

Views: 1,076,654

Rating: 4.9671311 out of 5

Keywords: mental health, drk, dr kanojia, healthygamergg, healthy gamer gg, twitch, psychiatrist, michael reeves, michael reeves offlinetv, michael reeves drk

Id: UUC8qF5iDag

Length: 112min 28sec (6748 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 09 2020