Talking Depression with Reckful [Pt. 2]

so it's almost like your life is like you've gotten to the age of 30 and you're in reckful z-- life but you like you're at the airport of your life but you left your bag at home how are you so the day after we talked last time yeah I felt a lot better I think I might message you about it yeah I woke up I felt more whole yeah great um then I remember having a moment though okay this is gonna sound really government I was sad the day after that and I remember being like oh I'm not fixed obviously I'm not it's not permanent there's no permanent fix to sound is gonna be up and down right it's just a dumb thought but I remember having that thought and being like ah you know even though it just it's just an automatic thing to think yeah but why do you think that that's a dumb thought it's a dumb thought because human emotion is always gonna be up and down right I'm not gonna be happy forever yeah but I mean I is crazy as it sounds I don't I don't think that's a dumb thought I think it's actually the opposite I think it's an important realization right so sometimes sometimes when when you have you know a powerful moment and life you feel transformed and then the next day rolls around and you're like oh [ __ ] we're back to square one and that's actually like I'm glad you feel that way because I think part of so you know this this is not about curing people this is about teaching you how to go in and out of the water so like you had you felt really good for a day and then you went you notice that like there were things about you that are still the same and so like the whole process of I think growth and healing is actually like is like having good days and then bad days and good days and then bad days and each time you learn how to move from one to the other and then over time you get better at like moving back and forth and then you get to control whether your days are good or your days are bad this makes sense yeah yeah I've been waking up every day every day for the last week I've been waking up and I start out in a I'd call it a sad state I started out in a sad state and I always have like this faint memory of some dream that was really annoying like I was in an airport and lost my luggage like these kind of just so I think that kind of affects the feeling when you wake out maybe a little bit then uh then I'm waking up and I'm like I'm like I'm it's probably most people probably wake up a little sad cuz you have a little energy a little maybe I don't know sure then uh house I'm getting from my day and starting to do some things I find fulfilling like talk to Tyler who's my friend who works on everything um then I'm feeling better and then uh after we stopped working for the day then I go into slump for a bit and then I try to reach out to friends to hang out and if they hang out with me then I'd go back in a happy time and then I get a little lonely and then I go to bed and that's my day yeah so yeah you're I'm gonna have to apologize because some of the interviews are starting to blur together but didn't we talk a little bit about how you had periods of time where you distract yourself from your base state and then you kind of get tired of doing so I mean I think this is this is so reckful this is all fantastic actually I mean I realize I say this way too much on screen but people will tell me something really [ __ ] depressing about their life don't be like that is fantastic what I think is fantastic is that you're noticing the patterns of your life okay right yeah they're noticing what's going on and the theories that we developed last time which is that you have this basic state of like unhappiness where you do like fulfilling stuff or distracting stuff and that kind of distracts you from that but then you kind of like come back to like your you're like neutral which is sad which we're gonna get into but I think it's really important to recognize that like you you're gonna have just to understand what's going on in you that you can do like dharmic you can do work that you find fulfilling and that makes you feel good and you can also hang out with friends and that makes you feel good but when you're alone and by yourself it sounds like you feel sad yes and I actually view that as okay I think about it like from I guess an evolutionary standpoint that humans needed other humans around them to survive and pass on their genes so if you didn't have other humans around you you'd be unhappy maybe it's like why do you do that driver because I mean so like yeah sure so I mean I'm a scientist but I mean I say sort of [ __ ] that because the whole goal here is for you to be peaceful and happy when you were alone right is your basic state to be peaceful and happy like that's the goal that would be awesome but yeah that would be awesome but then I I do like this feeling that I can if I feel terrible I'm like oh it makes sense I can step back and be like oh it makes sense I'm alone human beings were meant to be in tribes not alone so that's huge but I think the key thing there is not the rationale but your capacity to step back and accept the way that you feel to not judge yourself for the way that you feel hmm so the reason you do it is fine I mean whether it's evolutionary or whatever like I you know that's great but I think the important thing is that when you're feeling sad this I think is a little bit different is that I think you're you except that you feel sad and you kind of are okay with that in a sense yeah I'm somewhat okay with it so tell me about that tell me what you mean by somewhat okay with it I can imagine okay well I definitely didn't oh man when I was in high school or 20 or something I didn't see I didn't imagine that when I'm 30 I'll be a person who's alone this often I didn't think that would happen and I think that kind of thought in itself makes me a little more sad mm-hmm and I should just take things day by day more um III think streaming I have a lot of justifications for it I mean in my in my head I'm like okay well streaming as a job is very isolating you end up you do talk to people on the internet but you end up sitting in your room 10 hours a day many years in a row sometimes seven days a week I did before and there's not not gonna make a look not gonna make a lot of funds like that you know and then if you want to talk to other people who are streamers who are in the same field usually people meet people at their career but the other streamers are just as busy streaming all the time also so then I can't really expect them to give me their time you're gonna sit me yeah reckful I have a couple of just simple questions for you where what part of the world do you live in in the u.s. I'm in Texas right now I used to be in California how much exposure to sunlight do you get I get a lot so I walk every day I step I just actually look at my screen for a walk like a week ago but I walk outside for like five miles actually a day okay okay so you get point because I mean you could just be like vitamin D deficient you know my dad always thought that - yeah but I mean my God every time he visits me or I visit him he just hands me this vitamin D pills from Costco I mean if you're getting if you're walking five miles a day that's that's what like an hour and a half of walking yeah yeah I just brainstorm while doing it yeah what's your what's your ethnicity I'm Israeli okay so so people who have darker skin so people who are Israeli or Middle Eastern or Indian or African or African American we have lower our vitamin D apparatuses are not as efficient as people who are Caucasian and that's just because we were bombarded by sunlight like all the time which is why it makes me longer to get vitamin D yes okay so so like but still shouldn't be a problem in taxes but in the Northeast for example like I'm Indian so I'm almost certainly vitamin D deficient because my vitamin D like apparatus is not is efficient to someone who's Scandinavian by origin yeah okay so let me just kind of recap a little bit about what I heard so it sounds like things are moving in a positive direction that you're able to accept and understand that sometimes you still feel sad you're also able to this is really important sort of see how your life has influenced as you make the careers of the career that you committed to it has created the situation that your life isn't now which is like somewhat lonely yeah that's I mean so what I'm hearing from you is that you say sad but what I'm hearing is is lonely I equate that I relate those two are very related to me okay the feeling of loneliness it makes me sad yeah but I mean a lot of things make someone sad but what I'm hearing from you is like the the meaning of sad or the origin of sad is really loneliness like when you wake up in the morning and you feel sad okay knowingness because I just remembered when you said that I remembered I was at twitchcon at a party and I tweeted I'm in a room full of people but I've never felt so alone something like that and uh I guess I equated to not relating to people near me maybe yeah so so I think let's remember that being alone and being lonely are like two different things okay yeah yeah so what's the difference um well you can feel lonely you can feel lonely if what I just said though if you feel lonely for not relating to people around you right or you don't feel a close connection with them yeah even if you're around people and when you wake up in the morning like what what do you mean by feeling sad can you help me or us understand that yeah I want to try to okay I want to try to word it better so let's say I'm not trying we put really put myself in a situation just woke up I wake up and I'm like already nervous about something or anxious is the word maybe sure and I don't know what it is and then I think that maybe it's the dreams but I don't remember then I I like to not look at my phone too quickly when I wake up because I realized that already kind of puts me in a bad state of mind so I just sit there and like breathe and think for a little bit and then when I finally do look at my phone I like go through some message I might have gotten I don't really get that many but you know that I respond as people and then sometimes uh-hmm I'm walking myself through it but I'm not really getting anything okay um I'm just curious about dreams do you have dreams that are kind of like negative you sort of always negative things bad things happen to you in your dreams yeah dreams of flying or falling falling yeah falling okay not flying and like if I remember them it's it's some weird things like I was falling and I woke up yeah what about dreams of I don't know how to say this but not so like persecution isn't the right word but like dreams of like disappointing people or like being like I don't know how to describe this but like dreams of like showing up to class and forgetting that like forgetting your homework at home does those are my most common type okay showing up there's always something I forgot somewhere I am I don't have something I'm not yeah exactly that's the feeling well I mean maybe a lot of people do I thought when I just was at the airport and I like lost my bag or something it's hard to remember exactly what it was or just something was lost while I was there and I just kept he was an it was so long I just kept looking for it forever and I just couldn't ever find it and I was just stuck in this loop for so yeah okay yeah so let's just put a pin on that for a second so and when you feel sad like let's say let's talk about going to bed then when you go when you go to bed how do you feel depends on the day I guess if I feel if the specific day I felt like I'm made some progress toward my game finishing or back before when I see a stream a lot if I stream that day and I liked the stream I'm going to yeah or if I hung out with some people who were I felt a connection with like a friends or whatever um then I'll go to bed it like more fulfilled and calm and a lot of times I'll just go to bed though uh go to bed a little bit lonely I mean ya know how else to describe it I think that's a good word so I think I'm gonna try to offer something else I think there's loneliness there and I think there's also life not turning out the way you thought it would like this is not the life that you expected to be living yeah I feel like it could be a lot better and it doesn't seem like it would be that difficult to get there I could have more friends around somehow I've tried to force it to happen sometimes like really try to get people to move to be near me and things like that like friends to do that yeah but it's led to bad situations when I did it yeah give me just a second okay yeah yeah so it's almost like your life is like you've gotten to the age of 30 and you're in reckful z-- life but you like you're at the airport of your life but you left your bag at home like this is not how things were supposed to wind up you know it's like this this is not it's not that anything is like wrong per se like everything else is right but there's just like one thing that's just missing like this is just not how things were supposed to be and not enough friends around and I think the challenge here reckful is that you know we can in a bizarre way I'm gonna actually ask you to kind of move past a lot of what we talked about last time so I think living a life of Dharma and like building Everland and stuff like that is actually really important I think it's good that you're doing it and I want you to just notice that I think to a certain degree like that's your that's your medicine and the problem here is that like as long as your life is the way it is you're always gonna need medicine to make it feel better the goal is yet okay but we the goal is the goal is I feel good without medicine exactly right so like it I don't I really don't see that ever happening and I know that's part of the problem no it's not it's not part of the problem no no no so don't do that to yourself don't you don't judge yourself no I think it's it's a completely reasonable logical and intelligent conclusion because you have 30 years that have told you it's not gonna happen so why the [ __ ] would you like so this is this is where like I don't like this power of positive thinking and like you know hope and I mean like hope is good but like let's understand what where hope comes from what so I think this is yeah no I don't think that's part of the problem that's fantastic that's where we start so let me so what I'm getting from you reckful is that there is just a seed of like discontent that is actually like pretty deep yeah that no matter like what you do you can start to feel better but there's just this one thing that you can't shake yes so and and you know there's a there's someone else who kind of and you're pretty successful like would you describe yourself that way um I go in and out of thinking I'm successful not let me put it this way do you think that other people would be happy to be in your shoes without my mental state yes okay the circumstance they have their mental state yeah yeah yeah and I do have some questions for you about like your relationships and things like that but I'm just gonna save those for a little bit later so like you know who else kind of felt like you did really famous person there's a religion that's sort of based off of teachings there's a religion based as long as teachings of Confucius no would that oh okay we're gonna talk a little bit about Buddha for a second so what do you know about very little although wait um okay wait I read the book Siddhartha or something okay when I was do you know what what like what was blood this job do you remember I feel like he was like a prince or something and then he left us that no bill yeah he was a nobility and then he left and Truckee wasn't happy there and then they just wandered around so let's stop right there that's that's fantastic reckful so why did it why was he unhappy do you remember what do you think felt unfulfilled I did imagine ya just sitting there he was born into wealth he didn't have to do anything uh he wants to somehow feel like he's helping the world and some way maybe yeah but he wasn't something like that yeah so I think this is so you're in a very I think you know you kind of say you're in a hopeless position but I think that you're in a in a difficult but wonderful position which is that you're in you're in the position that Gotham would this started off with which is he woke up one day and we have we all have this idea that a certain thing is gonna give us happiness like and this is easy if you're one of the have-nots right like if I wake up and I'm poor and I'm broke and I have like credit card debt and I'm we're gonna get evicted at the end of the month and no one loves me then like it's easy to think if someone loves me or ideal like if the credit card debt goes away or if I have stable housing or things like that then I'll be happy with me so then then you always have yeah you always have a progression path when you have a progression want yeah what was what this progression path he when he was a nobility doesn't know what it's like would this like he's he's nobility's a prince he's respected he's loved he has power he has wealth he's married to a beautiful woman with others down the line should he want them yeah and so he wakes up and he's unhappy and he is way more [ __ ] than the broke person why well this is really funny you asked me because I had a one time I got clipped saying being poor seems fun and it was really bad did the people like it that were really mad at me yeah but I just wasn't context there sure those thing there's a progression path for you yep you have something to do which is exactly we're talking about so yeah so wait why is what the more screwed than the person who's broke because he has he doesn't know what to do to seek fulfillment exactly in fact he has done everything to see like all of the goals that people strive for that give them meaning and progression in life but that is just [ __ ] because he's gotten all of those things and it's like well now what it's like imagine playing a game that you beat and the game doesn't end like that is the most [ __ ] boring game in the world depends on the game but yeah sometimes right well no I mean like imagine there's like nothing like your post the last boss and you're like in the chamber where you've like slain the last boss and you're just hanging out okay yeah okay there's nothing to do in the game yeah you'd have to be able to go back to previous levels yeah but like that's not that you know that's not like I mean so would that could in theory I guess he could go and and well that's what he did right is he he gave up his welfare you gave up what about the previous levels yeah he didn't do game plus right yeah and and so I think this is a subtle but important point because I think that and so there's a great text called Patanjali Yoga Sutras and so sutras are translated as like threads or lines there so like the old like Hindu and Buddhist texts or Sutra so they're not like texts they're like they're like poems or they're like hundreds of lines long so they're each like kind of like an equation so there's not like any filler there's no explanation there's no it's like all like equals a MC squared y equals MX plus B like it's just a bunch of equations and the idea and the reason is because they were passed down through oral tradition they had to be memorized so like if you if you can memorize 50 equations like you can understand algebra and you can teach algebra and things like that does that make sense I was trying to follow well while I was trying to follow I realized I had to pee and then I was like why am I getting distracted by this and then also your mic cut out one time and I got a strike okay so go pee go pee but just kind of going back to sutras so like sutras are there they're like lines so they're very short and there's a weird thing in Patanjali yoga sutras which is that the first word of his sutras is now and it's kind of a weird thing like if you have a if you have just like a list of it like math equations like the word now doesn't belong there does that make sense like if you ever read a book that starts with the word now I remember what word most books start with like like there's no textbook that's like now we're gonna talk about algebra like that's something that you say if you're making a transition but like no written thing starts with the word now okay this reminds me of the power of No yeah well that's that cart toll right yeah but so the interesting thing about it and so a lot of times people were wondering like for Patanjali who's his his sutras are like really really dense so for example one of his sutras or one of the lines of his sutras is great is says that Yoga is something that's yoga chitta vritti nirodh aha' which means Yoga is the practice of cessation of fluctuations of the mind it's a practice of cessation of fluctuations of the mind yes that's the point of Yoga is to stop the fluctuations of the mind so it's like really like dense kind of like meaningful sort of things and so it's weird that he starts with the word now because and people were like why on earth is he saying now like isn't it obvious when you pick up a book that you're reading the book to make it more present do you think about the present moment maybe so on the contrary so like what what people sort of hypothesized is that actually he says that Yoga starts with desperation that like now so is his first line is now the science of yoga and reckful I think now you are ready for yoga because you have reached a point where like nothing else is giving you happiness and that is when the path of yoga begins it starts out of desperation your it starts with wood the wood though like what wheat what most of us think of as the endgame is like beating the game is where Buddha started and Buddha's journey of yoga oh yeah like Buddha's path for enlightenment began at the end of most people's games right he achieved everything or was given everything that most people strive for and so like the search for spirituality starts like actually when your material desires are fulfilled and you wake up one day and you're unhappy so then you're like oh [ __ ] now like I'm just [ __ ] I don't think that this is ever gonna get better that's the conclusion you come to because all of the things that you think are gonna make it better or things that maybe on some level you already have right so I think like the other thing here is like I'm not I'm curious about your relationships cuz that's not something that I know anything about but I wonder about your sense of loneliness and better relationships yeah but generally speaking I think this is actually a great place to start because you're sort of desperate because nothing is gonna fix your problem and that's when you really go looking so that was another long time yes and Buddha was too and then but they decided I don't think you need to do this but but they decided that he was like I'm gonna I'm gonna give this up and go look for an answer because I've heard out there that there are ways people who supposedly claim that they can lead to like peace and contentment and I'm gonna go look for that and all this stuff is not bringing me happiness I didn't do it to the same extent Saul riding around I didn't do it to the same extent but I just like stop streaming go travel do things that people say make some happy things like yeah and so you've explored just like would the did and now you need to start the path of yoga which is like sadhana saadon that means like dedicated spiritual practice so this is like learning how to and you know we can talk about how you can do that but like so the path that I follow is something called Raja yoga and Raja Yoga is the kings path or the Eightfold Path and it believes that the way to get to enlightenment is like a stepwise sequential thing you level up basically it starts with personal observances and societal observances goes to yoga postures breathing techniques sensory deprivation or sensory withdrawal techniques which is techniques that allow you to withdraw the attention from your senses too and redirect it inward so generally speaking our attention like is engaged in the senses all the time so to redirect that inward to focus to meditate and then to gain a state of temporary enlightenment I when you said breathing I realized the way I breathe any time I find myself and start manually breathing I feel instantly happier yes I think the way I breathe my automatic breathing can I train my automatic breathing to be in a better way or is it too late yes because it's always like short breaths you know yep but when I really think about it and breathe deep I feel calmer yeah so that's exactly why the fourth step of this process is Brown I am Brown I am is breathing techniques and the reason is because the way to control the mind is through the breath so but Anjali figured out that each mood that we have and I've done this before on screen but we can do it again because by the way our stream is blown up gigantically since our time together so thank you for that but we can do this again so like let's just talk about breath for a second let's help you understand breathing and what effect it has on your mind and what the relationship between mind and breath is so first of all reckful what do you think is the relationship between your mind and your breath hmm well I guess the breaths are the food of the mind right what does that mean it means the oxygen surely to the air so I'm gonna offer a couple of very difficult ground rules no philosophy no Theory no science just experience okay okay that's better I like the better okay so let me write what is the relationship between your breath and your mind well like I was saying if I am my automatic breathing he always feels a little hurried and if I take a moment and breathe deeper then I feel calm so I guess my state of mind depends on how I'm breathing to some extent I I wouldn't say that the outside influences don't matter at all because some people will go to that extent but for me that isn't true sure but uh so breath influences mind yes it does influence it for sure does mind influence breath yes okay so so are there certain patterns of so let me ask you this I want you to I'm just gonna breathe and I want you to tell me what I'm feeling nervous or I guess people call it anxious or you're scared maybe even okay now this one what is that do it again I think that's just tired just you've worked out or something okay that's not it it's not what I was going for but that's okay okay that's fine so let's do this one it right so let's just think about this for a second okay let me try to see if I can do another one okay I'm gonna do a couple of difference you're a little worried about something absolutely right little worried about some then there's this you're starting to be afraid yeah right so worried and fear so just let's just think about what you're doing right now how are you able to determine what is going on in my mind what are you observing the breath well maybe a little bit of facial expression too but it's the breath right I could do it with the eyes closed I think yeah yeah actually you were doing it better with eyes closed like there was a time I don't know if you noticed but what do you closed your eyes and you listened and that's when you could tell right so it's kind of weird and then so the first thing to understand is that like there are patterns of breath that are associated with certain moves so now the question is is it a two-way street if I adopt a pattern of breath that is anxious or fearful will I become anxious or fearful I think you will become a little more anxious and fearful yes absolutely right so now let's think about that what does that mean for the moods that you experience reckful well it means I can start a pattern of breathing that will make me more calm and maybe I could achieve the serenity I want absolutely that yeah so you I mean this all started because you discovered this on your own you said oh [ __ ] sometimes like when I'm feeling bad I noticed that my breaths are shallow and if I change the way that I breathe I feel better instantly and as a whole humanity understands this because what do we tell people who are freaking out take a deep breath absolutely right and look why the [ __ ] does that like why do we say that is that just like societal or is there some physiology from dollars we learned over thousands of years we keep back absolutely it's [ __ ] it's not rocket science right it's just like hey man like slow the [ __ ] down take a few deep breaths tell me what's going on right that's what we tell people and then the mind-blowing thing is that that that this [ __ ] works that it actually works and so if you can control your breath which is what the practice of brown I am is then you can control your mind so there are a couple of things that we're gonna tunnel down a little bit further okay so what are the different qualities of breath so like how do i how do I like the different patterns of breathing that I was giving you what are the different things that how are those things different how are those patterns of breath different like what are the qualities of them like what are the stats or attributes of different breathing patterns mean excellent perfect that's it got it beautifully enough okay so let's just think about this if I am breathing rapidly and shallowly what emotion do you think that is worried absolutely right so if I'm breathing shallowly and slow what emotion do you think that is shallowly and slow shelley and [ __ ] a rare one it's net weight shallow and slow pay attention to yourself because I breathe you breathe that way a lot I think you breathe that way in the morning in at night oh man really okay well I know my feeling but that's not everyone else's fact my feeling is like cares about everyone else's feeling okay so my feeling that I'm having when I'm breathing this way is I need to be ready at any moment I need to be ready at any moment to answer someone with something they'd like can we just call it being at the airport without your bag not sure okay what's that anxiety maybe it's anxiety but uh what I'm feeling okay like a lot of times I'm hanging out with people and I put this pressure on myself to be the person who keeps the conversation going so I'm having these kind of breaths that I'm kind of ready to fill the shallows empty space okay so I think there's something I don't know if you want to turn to chat at some point we can also remove chat to help us out or we are talking what do you think we should do charts interesting let's see what they're saying so chat what do you guys think that shallow and slow is which is weird because generally we think about shallow and and it's like if we're breathing slowly we associate that with long a lot of people said sad or anxiety but I feel like I breathe like that all the time yeah so I think that's on the sadness spectrum and that anxiety is more like rapid and shallow right when I think about someone who's anxious oh man and then just like kind of slow breaths that are more shallow I think of as more of sad someone with spending insecurity which is not false not false so there I mean I'm simplifying the breath but they're there all kinds of nuances to the breath which we can dig into further and further and further there's a whole branch of yoga called soiree yoga which is all about the different mechanisms of breath and they even get so not only like which nostril is more open than the other because that correlates with mood like right now everyone thinks that both of their nostrils are open all the time but one of your nostrils is open at a time usual and like which one are your nostrils is more open can you tell the right one okay so we'll check and if you want you if you want to switch it you let me know I'll show you how to switch it so they're there more so we're gonna sort of start with some people I don't know right now how do you switch it okay I mean it's it's gonna interrupt the flow of the stream though because it takes some time but we can do it yeah I mean we could do it if y'all want to so this is this will be our formal meditation technique at the end of the art tak talk today okay someone it's that's it left game later okay there sing later yeah so then then let's let's go through a couple of other emotions so what is rapid and deep breaths what emotion is that what would you guys say that is there's think panic or anger all right so I'll show you one more time reckful what is yeah I is this the one that I said you just worked out and I messed up or no just what do you think it is forget about what you said earlier you just you just got past something hard okay I mean that's what I would but that's just me specifically yeah so I think this is important so I'm talking like I have answers but it's important to remember that everyone's perspective is gonna be different and so you guys should explore this for yourself so in my mind that's anger so when I what I do when I create that pattern of breathing is I think about something that no I don't hang out with a lot of angry people I don't think that's okay yeah so the other thing is one person some people in my chat said sex and I think sex is a spectrum so if you breathe deeply and a little bit more slowly than anger then I think it's arousal right that's how you get the sex it's just a little all I have to do is breathe a little deeper than lust lust so this is this is lust right so okay oh the eyebrow is involuntary because it's like yeah so so that's that's like that's arousal so arousal is also kind of an emotional state so we can look at other things right and then there's calmness which is sort of like then there's chilled out and then there's like calm which are two different things like there are so many gradations of the state of our mind so chill this is kind of like you know we're gonna we're gonna smoke weed and we're gonna chill out and we're gonna like you know like just that's like the as I killed out and then there's like true like sort of peaceful kind of like meditative breathing right and if you do this you're gonna have like a respiratory rate of like four per minute there's one time in my life I remember I was in Amsterdam and I had just done a very big mushroom dose but it was after it ended and I was sitting in a Chinese restaurant with a cup of tea and it was the most peaceful I ever felt I've never experienced this feeling again I want to be there yes so that's what needs to change right so I think that like we could talk about the hunt of all all you want to we can talk about getting you know we can talk about like treatment of depression and sadness but I think at the end of the day reckful what needs to change for you to truly be not lonely anymore it needs to like you need to cultivate that part of yourself you need to give yourself that experience time and time and time again and just like your breath through which you can train like voluntarily first and eventually it becomes involuntary kind of like driving right like when we learn a skill I really want to be involuntary I would love that but I yes how much training do you think huh I mean I want to do it no matter what but how much time will it take for my breath to involuntarily be deeper and slower so science says somewhere around eight weeks I'd say it somewhere around a year yeah a year okay like so talk about what I'm talking about is not even science that's beyond science but science all of the clinical trials that look at meditation for treatment of depression and anxiety and things like that show a clinically significant all of the effect sizes and average all of the duration of trials there are 12-week trials there are four week trials there are six week trials or eight-week trials basically like my conclusion is that if you average all that [ __ ] together the average person needs eight weeks have dedicated meditative practice to create a clinically significant improvement in depression or anxiety so my answer to you is very long eight weeks but I think that that's for depression or anxiety I think to get to what we're talking about which is looking at your cup of tea is gonna take way longer you may have moments but you want to be able to like have that sense of peace within you and I think that's really what you're what is missing so I think like you don't you don't there's something like missing in you like something fundamental and this I don't think it's necessarily like go ahead I was gonna say what are you feeling you hit me that's it okay so just notice yourself notice your breathing so as you change the breath the mind changes yeah you don't have to change the mind you decide whether you want to feel what you're feeling and let the breath be natural or you want to control the breathing I'm fine okay good job so what so let's just think about what just happened right so like something you felt something something resonated and then the emotions came up your mind started to think and experience certain things are not quite sure what and using the breath you restrained or calm to those feelings and you know I think last time I guess the track we got on was to explore those feelings this time I want to teach you something else so it's not necessarily about exploring those feelings right now unless you want to but I think leave that there's that whatever in me that's missing that I can fill it so this is the other really important thing to understand that thing within that is missing within you is also a calling I think I have the calling though now I feel like I have four career feeling I feel like I have it what I want yes so calling is about more than a career right so this is something within you that is not allowing you to be content this is something within you that is stripe that is pushing you to explore and learn and grow because this is not it's not read it's not satisfied so that's the same thing that would the head like he just like felt like something was missing and so so and you say like nothing is ever gonna change that because for 30 years nothing has ever been able to change it I just want to wake up and be around a lot of friends and have a lot of people laughing and about random things yeah maybe sit on a couch and take turns playing some games casually okay that's and then I wanna that that's the other thing I always feel like it was missing that I want yes but the thing is with the career um I always felt like that was missing but now that I'm working on my game I feel like that part I I do what I want okay doing what I always wanted to do maybe I'm not there yet and like my game will come out and then when I'm actually seeing people play it and I'm patching it you know and taking their feedback and things like that and making it better then maybe it'll feel it's more in the state of where I want to be okay you know so reckful I think we've got one of two choices so one is that so my hypothesis is that you should strive to create a life filled with people who enjoy your company and who you feel relaxed and like fulfilled by and I suspect once you get that one day you're gonna wake up and you're gonna be like oh [ __ ] this feeling isn't gone yeah that's scary cuz at least right now I have a goal because I don't have a goal that I want some friends around if I have a bunch of friends around and then I still feel empty inside I I don't know yeah so so let's talk about friends for a second so tell me a little bit about are you tell me a little bit about your situation like um you know it seems like you're really hunger in for relationships and companionship you okay well the first thing I came in mind is just being in school um I I don't know why for some reason when I was in school no one liked me now people like me on the Internet but uh I didn't have any friends um very isolating going to school every day having no friends you see but also good friends for years you don't have any um but I feel like I could get over that what is it really how did you feel when you were in school I mean I felt terrible what does that mean I don't know it's hard to put myself back it's unrelated I mean people will understand what it is I don't have to actually like put myself in the emotion and experience it again sure people like the feeling of not being included in things or [Music] I don't I don't really know how to describe it exactly yeah I think not being included is a great way to start because what I'm hearing from you is inclusion is what you're looking for right like what would this this picture that you painted of like people just being around yeah yeah reckful like you want to grab some food like yeah man like you want to play some Smash Brothers like it yeah man yeah like okay so right before we did our talk I went live on Instagram I got text like five people no one want to get food that day and I went live on Instagram and asked if anyone wanted to get food with me and then I met up with a viewer to get dinner like that's how much I'm seeking like someone to talk to you yeah yeah we talked about some scars last time a lot of the terminology the harm I remember that one but a lot of the terminology I don't remember so I think I'm just thinking about timing I'm just trying to think about how to say this stuff in a way that doesn't make it seem obvious or informational but can it be a little bit more impactful or transformative I'm wondering if I should tell you some more stories or something for my do you like to listen to people's childhood and things like that it's very open yeah yeah I'm I'm also just thinking a little bit about time because I don't want to lose track of the earlier stuff that we were talking about and I'm just trying to decide a little bit about the cost-benefit of like really hammering something down like would you be better served by just hammering down the breath and implementing that change or by like really opening up this topic in like a new way because I feel like if we talk I want to open it up in a new way yeah okay so then then okay so then tell me a little I mean um although the breath thing yes things more direct and it helped me right away yes so I I'm actually gonna do something that I think a lot of people including yourself are gonna find unsatisfying sorry about for a while sorry I was gonna say I'm actually thinking about doing something that you and probably twitch chat will find unsatisfying because I think we're on the cusp of something important for you but at the same time I think it is important to recognize that change is not necessarily following change doesn't come about by following the thing that we feel like doing change comes about by doing the thing that we really need to do and I think we're actually at that juncture right now where the last time we talked there was something kind of emotionally transformative about our time together and now we have another opportunity to basically do like episode 2 of last time but what I'm really wondering is are you gonna be better served by doing episode 2 of last time or by you actually like settling down and like Nate or like nailing in nailing down I guess this with the work that I'm phrase I'm looking for this issue of the breath and starting to implement that change like a year from now which one is yeah so I'm just trying to think a little bit about timing and like which one I feel like we should do the breath thing first even though I imagine that that will feel unsatisfying to you it's not super incessant like I could do it okay okay so I'm gonna try to yeah so I think this is what we have to do and we can talk about emotions and childhood and Loan we got to dig into that but I think that's gonna be like a whole nother hour at a minimum so I think this is what I want you to do I'm gonna try to give you a sense of the teacup that you had on shrooms which is hard because you weren't shrooms but we're gonna try to get you there a little bit okay so which of your nostrils is open now right okay the right one so the right one you're sure about that yeah okay so I want everyone to check right so you can do it this way and one of them is gonna be more open reckful now what I want you to do so this is great because your bread is in the picture I want you too late because your bed is in the picture sure I want you to lay down on your bed oh wait not yet not yet still hear you with the speakers okay so so but don't do it yet because I want you to so this is what I want you to do when you lay down in your bed I want you to with each breath and you guys should do this at home too with each breath notice which of your nostrils is open so just focus on the nostril that's open and then when you feel the shift I want you to sit and feel that shift as closely as you can try to feel that shift from right to left it with as much attention as you can okay and then we're gonna talk about what that experience is like and the practice ends when your other nostril switches and is like securely there for like ten breaths okay I lie down yes and Payet H breath which are focusing on close your eyes with each breath focus on the which of your nostrils is open and then you're gonna feel a transition and try to sit fully within that transition and then the transition we're gonna get it from the right nostril to the left you're not trying to get it it's gonna happen on its own and you're just gonna watch it and as it so this is what I want you to do imagine that you're the wave is coming in and out from the ocean and sometimes you just stand and you just feel the water right you're not doing anything to the water you're not bringing the water the waters are doing it on its own you're just sitting in the water so I want you to just sit in the transition and just feel it lay down on your right and just put full attention to which of your nostrils is open on your right so right side down yapper it oh so put put put put your arm put put your right arm under you right arm under like this yeah under under under your body yeah yeah so just lay down on your right side I know you don't I know you don't I know you don't but do it this time and try to be yeah don't curl no no no curling just lay down yeah so just scoot down a little bit so this is [ __ ] weird I know fold the pillow in half and tuck it under your head yes perfect close your eyes and watch you guys do it - lay down on whichever side the nostril is open and then close your eyes and watch watch your breath it's gonna take a couple minutes so be patient both of them are rarely are gonna be fully open so check with your nose you may notice a subtle difference between the two if you think they're both open no it's not enough to put the head on the side as nothing to do the head has to do with the armpit [Music] I'm trying to respect being quiet for reckful but we can answer all these questions okay so some people are saying this and say okay so both of your nostrils really shouldn't be equally open all the time that's the perception that people have but if you check with your your finger you'll notice that one of them is more clogged so if it changes I want you guys to sit in that transition and just notice that transition is it happens the [ __ ] someone just gifted a bunch of subs what the hell thank you how we doin reckful right nostril still open okay just sit with it okay so you can you can curl up put you I mean not like super uncomfortable but you can put your hand under your head if you want your right hand under your head yeah yeah yeah but then you're tipping forward which isn't good but that's okay you did he miss it okay come back okay I'm left okay your left gang all right so let's just see like who procedure eyes up huh yeah I'm left gang okay so this is what you've got to do reckful so if you want to feel if you want to get back to the teacup you can't miss it because you missed it yeah I didn't notice what happened so like for what I watch all to do is like when you guys do this practice you can just lay down on the on the side that your nostril is open and watch as its gonna shift it's just hard to describe you're gonna feel it and so pay attention so right now what we need to do is get you to be able to pay attention to that damn leg how do you feels a little different is left going than right gang I was thinking just now it is it is different so the the not the nerves in your left nostril connect to in Turner ons that innervate your your parasympathetic nervous system what and the nerves in your right nostril connect to in Turner ons that innervate your sympathetic chain ganglia which is your so this is essentially like Sun and Moon or yin and yang so your sympathetic nervous system is more active when you when your right nostril is open and your parasympathetic nervous system is more active when your left nostril is open so if I want to be better at what do I want the left nostril open and if I want to be better at what do I want the right one if you want to be physically active or like passionate mental activity then right nostril is better if you want to be calm if you want to have sort of clarity of mind without passion then left nostril is better if you want to rest left nostril is better if you want to yeah left nostril is better although we're having this conversation and I want to go deep left nostrils better but didn't you say left nostril was for being really calm and then if I want to where do you say can you stick in the right nostril yeah so right nostril is your sympathetic nervous system so it's fight or flight if I'll have you know yeah like any sort of physical activity or be like have a passionate mind then right now someone's gonna have a passionate mind right now it depends do you want to experience more emotion or do you want to understand yourself better oh I want to understand it then laughs nostril okay so if so this is what and I encourage you guys to explore this right so in my experience and according to the yoga Shastras left nostril is gonna make you feel a little bit more chill and right nostril is gonna make you feel a little bit more active and the other tip I'll give you guys just one really simple thing is after you eat a meal you should lay down on your left side for about five to ten minutes and just see how you feel afterward after a meal we want to be lay down on the left side so we get the right nostril activated yes okay so yeah this is some crazy [ __ ] so there's some science behind it but the science behind it is not very good there's not what it's not very good so I think what the the best thing that I recommend about this stuff cuz this is not really something that has been although I'm sorry I don't know I it's transmitting over here water so I'll try to find you guys references for what science supports with this stuff but this is not this specificity of breath and meditation has not really been like scientifically studied like this is generally speaking in plant trials and it didn't not not to this degree of specificity right so remember that like inhaling is that if there were trials with a couple hundred people it would be true but you haven't been yeah because no one is like that's just it's just way too specific and there isn't a foundation so generally speaking let's remember how like research works we research something very generally and then we start researching things like the next study is gonna be a little bit more specific is gonna be a little bit more specific is gonna be a little bit more specific so right now there are just general studies being done on mindfulness or meditation in general there are very few studies that look at different kinds of meditation or explore like physiologic effects of like different techniques very few we're just sort of starting that we're still trying to figure out whether this stuff has any merit or not right can meditation help with arthritis can meditation help with depression there are some preliminary studies that suggest different kinds of meditation have different effects on your brainwave patterns so that's the resolution that we're at is do are two kinds of meditation even different and is there any evidence of that and the answer to that is yes there are convincing studies of that that I can look you but we have nowhere nowhere no one has explored this degree of specificity and research because we're just not there yet right it's sort of like we have to remember that you know let's say penicillin was discovered I think sometime between the 20s and 50s and so that was like like our understanding of microbial microorganisms and antibiotics is like a hundred years old and so over a hundred years we've had a lot of time to study now we know a lot about different kinds of microorganisms and antibiotics we've been studying meditation for like twenty to thirty years and so we really have an anecdote yeah so for me haha if I had started doing magic mushrooms five years ago for depression people would have called me a lot crazier than they would now that it's getting fda-approved for as a breakthrough therapy Yeah right [Music] but it would have helped me just as much five years ago we didn't know yeah so you have to remember that science so like this is the difference because two years ago even in I mean there's been knowledge or exploration of meditation for like the better part of five thousand years and they learned a lot and science is like by comparison science started studying this [ __ ] like 30 years ago so there's a there are the you know what what the Yogi's understood about meditation which I do believe I mean not to say that everything that they say is right but I think they're they're brilliant because a lot of the work that I do is based on their stuff and I think like people say your credentials a bit because people in the chat might not know they do tune in and random times in and out oh no sure so by the way someone gifted like a hundred subs so thank you to that person so so might be but Gumpy I'll do my I'll do my Andy thing so intro Andy so my name is all okay noise I'm a psychiatrist I studied meditation for an yoga for about an Eastern medicine Ayurveda specifically mostly a little bit of Chinese medicine for about seven years originally with the goal of becoming a monk and then ended up going doing neuroscience research for a couple of years and then went to medical school and trained to become a psychiatrist and now I do integrative or holistic psychiatry like incorporating complementary alternative medicine meditation yoga and things like that into treatment for depression anxiety PTSD stuff like that and then I'm are trained in a faculty at Harvard Medical School yeah I'm a Harvard Andy so I did neuroscience research they're trained to become a psychiatrist there and I'm on faculty there so where did I learn meditation so I learned meditation from like dozens of people so I traveled to India every year for a period of about seven years and spent about four months a year in India and studied with different teachers different ashrams different lineages learned a lot of different kinds of meditation techniques from a lot of different people and then now I sort of use different kinds of techniques to help different kinds of people but a lot of this like fundamental stuff about how to understand the breath like in and this is the thing like I don't think you can find speaking of science I don't know if there's actually a study that tells us what the pattern of breathing for different emotions is I've never seen a study like that maybe that's out there but like that's the kind of simple formative stuff that sometimes science like misses right but we can sort of test that ourselves just and it's kind of like common sense so I think science is really fantastic and you should make evidence-based decisions when you're doing treatment but I also think that as I've learned time again and again as a clinician it doesn't matter what sign says if the patient if it doesn't work for the patient so even if you know the overwhelming evidence suggests that a good treatment for depression is an SSRI or antidepressant like prozac if it doesn't work for you it doesn't [ __ ] work for you so what side says kind of doesn't matter right so you like a lot of what I advocate for is individual exploration Rosic yeah when my brother killed himself he had just started taking Prozac yeah how old was he 21 so I don't know if people are aware of this but there's a black box warning placed by the FDA that soon after taking SSRIs it actually increases the risk of suicidality which is but completely bizarre some people hypothesize that when you're super depressed you don't feel like doing anything so even though you're suicidal your lack of motivation prevents you from killing yourself and I mean no none of this no one really knows this but when I asked people when I asked my professors like you know why is it that SSRIs actually increase the risk of suicidality like what the [ __ ] is up with that one person told me well I think actually as crazy as this sounds what happens is that it fixes motivation problems before it fixes suicidality so there's a brief window of time where people still feel suicidal but the prozac is giving them like enough pep in their step to actually go and try to hurt themselves so it's kind of like a really bizarre sort of instance but this is like there's literally a black box warning which means when you get a medication there's like a black box on it from the fda that says that taking this medication increases suicidality yeah the warning happened because a lot of people like your brother killed themselves and the warning is really applies to adolescents and teenagers but I think it also fits for young adults it seems to not have that effect nearly as much in older people or it seems to be absent so we're not sure why that happens yeah so if they had known back then that mushrooms were good for depression and instead of Prozac then he might have been alive I shouldn't think that way you know yeah what do you what does that thought what do you what are you thinking what are you feeling can't blame anybody they're trying I mean I guess they're trying to discover what's good for depression right that's not what you're doing what are you doing reckful regret yeah yeah also blame also wanting yeah also at its core you want things to be different you want things to not be this way yeah that's that's the crux of it is that you're not ready to accept the way things are yeah and unless what are you gonna hold so when you don't accept what happened to your brother and you don't accept your own depression what does that mean for you like what does that mean for your life what is that lack of acceptance feeling what does the lack of acceptance feel like unfulfilled I don't know I don't know what answers like there's some something [ __ ] missing yeah that's unfulfilled right yeah and so when you wake up in the morning and you feel like something is unfulfilled when you feel like something is missing like that's where that [ __ ] comes from and as long as you hold on to that I'm not saying that you should it's easy to let go or that you're ready to let go yet because I don't think you are that that sense that fundamental sense something I've let go of it like [ __ ] a hundred [ __ ] times in my life you know it just comes up sometimes yeah so that's because you haven't let go because you don't want to let go you're not ready to let go you're not ready because lucky you don't you still blame things for what happened you blame science and you blame yourself and you blame your brother and you don't blame your brother you learn to forgive him but there's still a part of you that is just not it just it shouldn't be this way it shouldn't have been this way this shouldn't have happened it shouldn't have happened to him and it shouldn't have happened to you yeah I was just thinking something interesting um when I was kid remember they died my grandma my dad she was really old already she's like 85 86 no 87 she's 87 and my dad didn't want to tell her that he died so she would ask where's guy how come he hasn't visited in a while you just say oh he's really busy that he was getting his pilot wings for a while but then he got his pala wings a little bit for um and we never told her and I was in on it to never tell her I was kid she died never knowing that he died she was like in the hospital and she like fallen in the shower and broken her hip and she was in the hospital and she was wondering where he was but it was better not to tell her that he was not that round we never told her yeah why do you bring that up now it just came in my mind yeah why I'm not sure what is that story about some closure feeling I guess yeah by closure feeling it that stories about the impossibility of acceptance that story is about like not knowing that story is about a version of reality that you in a bizarre way longed for in a bizarre way I'm looking for a version of reality that your grandmother had like a version of reality where my parents are looking for it a little more I'm sure I yeah yeah have you ever talked I mean I'm sure you guys have talked but have you talked to your parents about your brother passing away not for this yeah like what are this conversations go like they don't go well okay good yeah what does that mean I don't want to thought they were probably listening right okay sure yeah so I mean I I think you know speaking of community and loneliness I you know reckful them it's better if I talk to them directly right yeah sure so I mean I I think the challenge here is that we're talking about you letting go but like I don't think I I don't think it's just you that needs to let go right you told me about how your relationship with your other brother kind of changed and like this is you could [ __ ] my halo so I was I was just saying I don't think this is just about you letting go this is yes is about like you because it's gonna be very hard to let go when other people are holding on in some way and you guys are like connected and that my dad my dad told me about a year ago that he finally feels okay here's what he said but I remember when I was really young I overheard him talking to his friend I don't know I was like 12 that he told his friend that he wanted to kill himself I was weird to hear my dad say that yeah reckful do you have a therapist I've gone to therapy a few times but not I've never saw it as useful enough to keep going this time I do well okay this is not therapy but I [Music] yeah it was so okay so look look man so this is what we got to do so either so I think this is way more longitudinal like there's something this is way more longitudinal right so I think we have to do a we got to figure something out so either you need to talk to someone about this because you understand things that you didn't understand before or like I can't do one offs like we can do one offs about meditation and random [ __ ] but if you really want to get into this if you want to get into loan this we got to do it like in sequent like we got to do it sequentially like we got to do fine with that we got to do it you know get started yeah so let's let me just think about that it doesn't have to be online but you know if you want to do it online that's fine but then I think we have to do it consistently and how could you have done I mean I would say probably every week for like four to eight weeks that's not that long I mean it's not that long but I mean it's I'm willing to do that if okay well yeah I mean I'm willing to do it because I I mean I think you just have to think about whether you really want to do that huh and yeah I think you just gotta think like you gotta just I my thing is transmitting though I don't know I think it's I think it's disorder it's gotta be disclose sorry discord uh I don't know like I think I don't think I'm yeah it's discord my people are - cuz I'm sitting here [ __ ] pulling out my hair cuz I'm thinking that if I like move back it stops I think it's discord but it might because that time I was watching it sensitivity you tried changing it oh well I mean I think it should be the same as anyway so going back to going back to what we're talking about so I think let me just think about it let's figure out how to do this you just sleep on it and then you let me know like tomorrow or like whenever you want to let me know and then we can start we got to talk about it for like four to six weeks okay so so do you want to start having I want I want in the morning I want you to do a practice of 433 rounds of thirty forceful exhalations like this whoa are you tapping your foot no what does that sound I don't know just me exhaling so really breathe out with your with your like contract your stomach okay all right so kind of like this yeah pull your stomach in eyes closed okay with each exhalation contract the stomach like like a bellows good that's right stop good now close your eyes feel close your eyes and feel just feel if I thought talk feel endorphins I think stop analyzing just feel sit oh [ __ ] okay again 30 okay and then don't say anything I don't know if it's I don't know what the [ __ ] that is okay we don't matter your mouth and stop yeah man ride that [ __ ] you just feel feel how amazing that breath feels someone of the feeling after working out I don't know why I keep analyzing I'm sorry it feels really good good so stop analyzing do three rounds of that so 30 breaths 3 times don't overdo it and sit with the middle okay and then if not I've never done cocaine I promise just forget about cocaine okay okay so you got to get out of your mind and just sit in that place okay let me do it again no no no I mean you can do it if you watch you learn yeah sure okay you got you gotta go yeah I gotta go okay okay thank you so much for your time I had a very good time well do you want to begin in two weeks or a week yeah I'm gonna be out for Christmas but let's think about starting maybe the first week of January Christmas yeah yeah okay so I'll message you will figure it out let's do like maybe January seventh eighth ninth tenth like sometime in like the second week of January and then we'll do like I got survived a long time on my own I got this yeah I mean you can mess it like I can talk to you in between that I just won't be straight you can just message me do this message me okay all right strong word reckful right okay I think

Channel: HealthyGamerGG

Views: 443,444

Keywords: mental health, meditation, drk, dr kanojia, healthygamergg, healthy gamer gg, reckful, reckful depression, reckful wow, reckful byron, reckful psychiatrist, reckful psychiatrist reaction, reckful psychologist, destiny on reckful depression, reckful depression reaction

Id: 2yQpzk_xhH0

Length: 81min 54sec (4914 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 18 2019