Full Transcript for Why Knowing Better Doesn't Help Part 1

hungry is in your stomach. 00:05:04.319 --> 00:05:05.360 Thirst is in your mouth. 00:05:05.519 --> 00:05:07.600 They're directly mapped onto each other. 00:05:07.920 --> 00:05:11.360 This matters because it means drives are relatively simple. 00:05:11.519 --> 00:05:14.879 When you're hungry, there's not much mystery about what's going on. 00:05:15.120 --> 00:05:16.480 Your body needs fuel. 00:05:16.639 --> 00:05:20.319 The signal tells you that and where to put it, what to do with it. 00:05:20.720 --> 00:05:23.519 But affects are more flexible. 00:05:23.839 --> 00:05:27.279 And that flexibility changes everything. 00:05:27.920 --> 00:05:30.959 Many different things can trigger the same affect. 00:05:31.680 --> 00:05:37.360 A baby can cry from hunger, cold, wetness, pain, or fever. 00:05:38.079 --> 00:05:41.839 All different triggers, same response, distress. 00:05:42.319 --> 00:05:45.120 And many different things can reduce the same affect. 00:05:45.360 --> 00:05:46.879 Feeding can stop crying. 00:05:47.040 --> 00:05:51.199 So can cuddling, warming, cooling, or removing a diaper pen. 00:05:51.680 --> 00:05:53.680 Many solutions, same result. 00:05:54.000 --> 00:05:55.439 Reduce distress. 00:05:56.240 --> 00:06:01.040 This flexibility is what makes the affect system so powerful. 00:06:01.279 --> 00:06:04.720 It's not locked into rigid stimulus response patterns. 00:06:04.959 --> 00:06:09.600 It can adapt, it can learn, it can apply to new situations. 00:06:10.319 --> 00:06:15.199 But the flexibility comes with a cost, and that cost is ambiguity. 00:06:15.519 --> 00:06:21.519 Because many things trigger the same feeling, you may not correctly identify what's actually triggering it. 00:06:21.759 --> 00:06:28.000 You may feel distress and think it's about the meeting when it's actually about the conversation you had that morning. 00:06:28.319 --> 00:06:33.759 You may feel anxious and blame your job when the real source is a relationship. 00:06:34.079 --> 00:06:35.759 The feeling is accurate. 00:06:35.920 --> 00:06:38.560 The feeling's almost always accurate. 00:06:38.800 --> 00:06:42.399 It's genuinely detecting that something matters. 00:06:42.720 --> 00:06:46.639 But your story about what caused it might be wrong. 00:06:47.040 --> 00:06:50.079 This is where feeling and emotion separate. 00:06:50.319 --> 00:06:52.319 The feeling is the signal. 00:06:52.560 --> 00:06:56.160 The emotion is your story about the signal. 00:06:56.480 --> 00:07:00.720 And that story can be mistaken even when the signal is valid. 00:07:00.959 --> 00:07:05.439 I want to pause on something Tompkins described that I find compelling. 00:07:05.680 --> 00:07:09.920 A researcher named Richter did experiments with wild rats. 00:07:10.160 --> 00:07:16.480 He would catch them, put them into a bag, and then put the bag in water to see how long they'd swim. 00:07:17.040 --> 00:07:18.800 Here's what he found. 00:07:19.040 --> 00:07:22.079 Some of these wild rats would suddenly die. 00:07:22.639 --> 00:07:25.439 Not from exhaustion, not from drowning. 00:07:25.759 --> 00:07:27.600 They'd just stop. 00:07:28.480 --> 00:07:29.360 Give up. 00:07:29.759 --> 00:07:30.079 Die. 00:07:31.199 --> 00:07:34.800 When he examined them, he discovered something surprising. 00:07:35.040 --> 00:07:40.480 They didn't die from a fight or flight response, from sympathetic nervous system overload. 00:07:40.639 --> 00:07:42.399 They died from the opposite. 00:07:42.639 --> 00:07:44.879 It's called parasympathetic dominance. 00:07:45.120 --> 00:07:46.720 Their hearts slowed. 00:07:47.040 --> 00:07:48.560 They gave up. 00:07:49.600 --> 00:07:52.800 Richter interpreted this as hopelessness. 00:07:53.360 --> 00:07:58.160 When escape seems impossible, the animal didn't fight harder. 00:07:58.800 --> 00:08:00.079 They surrendered. 00:08:00.319 --> 00:08:02.639 And the surrender killed them. 00:08:03.040 --> 00:08:05.040 And here's the remarkable part. 00:08:05.279 --> 00:08:15.040 If he caught the rats, held them briefly, and then released them, and repeated this a few times before the swimming test, they didn't give up. 00:08:15.279 --> 00:08:19.040 They swam just as long as domesticated rats. 00:08:19.199 --> 00:08:22.319 They learned that escape was possible. 00:08:23.439 --> 00:08:29.360 The difference between life and death was whether the animal believed escape was possible. 00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:35.200 I think about this research often because I see the human side of it in my office. 00:08:35.759 --> 00:08:38.000 You've heard of fight, flight, or freeze. 00:08:38.240 --> 00:08:40.480 Those are the classic stress responses. 00:08:41.039 --> 00:08:44.720 But there's a fourth response that doesn't get talked about as much. 00:08:45.360 --> 00:08:48.559 Giving up, collapse, surrender. 00:08:49.600 --> 00:08:52.240 It's not dramatic like fight. 00:08:52.399 --> 00:08:54.080 It's not active like flight. 00:08:55.039 --> 00:08:57.679 And it's not tense like freeze. 00:08:58.799 --> 00:09:00.159 It's the opposite. 00:09:00.480 --> 00:09:05.200 It's letting go over the rope and can be lethal. 00:09:06.720 --> 00:09:10.879 What do you think the giving up response looks like in human beings? 00:09:11.519 --> 00:09:21.360 It looks like the elderly person who becomes isolated after losing a spouse and stops eating, stops going outside, stops engaging with life. 00:09:21.600 --> 00:09:26.879 The body is still working, but something essential has been surrendered. 00:09:27.679 --> 00:09:36.080 It looks like a teenager who spends all their time online, has thousands of followers, and feels utterly alone. 00:09:36.960 --> 00:09:41.120 They're connected to everyone and attached to no one. 00:09:41.759 --> 00:09:46.480 They're surrounded by stimulation but starving for something real. 00:09:47.039 --> 00:09:52.960 It looks like the successful professional who has achieved everything they've aimed for, but feels nothing. 00:09:53.200 --> 00:09:57.600 No joy, no

excitement, just going through the motions. 00:09:57.919 --> 00:10:03.600 What these have in common is the loss of the two positive core feelings. 00:10:04.480 --> 00:10:09.600 Remember, Tomkins identified two positive feelings that pull us towards life. 00:10:09.919 --> 00:10:12.879 Interest excitement and enjoyment joy. 00:10:13.039 --> 00:10:15.039 Interest pulls you forward. 00:10:15.440 --> 00:10:18.240 Joy rewards you for arriving. 00:10:18.559 --> 00:10:25.919 When both of these go offline, something essential dies, even if the body keeps walking around. 00:10:26.399 --> 00:10:29.840 Here is why isolation is so dangerous. 00:10:30.080 --> 00:10:32.720 Not just uncomfortable, but dangerous. 00:10:32.960 --> 00:10:36.320 The research on loneliness and mortality is clear. 00:10:36.639 --> 00:10:42.320 Isolated people die younger, not just from depression, though that's part of it. 00:10:42.559 --> 00:10:44.320 They die from giving up. 00:10:44.559 --> 00:10:50.480 The title of my podcast is The Meaningful Happiness Podcast, and that's not a random title. 00:10:50.799 --> 00:10:53.440 Meaning comes from interest excitement. 00:10:53.840 --> 00:10:56.639 Comes from engagement with something that matters. 00:10:56.960 --> 00:10:59.600 Happiness comes from enjoyment, joy. 00:10:59.919 --> 00:11:03.679 Satisfaction from connection and accomplishment. 00:11:04.399 --> 00:11:08.799 Without both, you can survive, but you can't thrive. 00:11:09.120 --> 00:11:11.120 And sometimes you can't even survive. 00:11:11.279 --> 00:11:18.639 Digital natives, people who grew up with screens instead of faces, are showing as something alarming. 00:11:19.120 --> 00:11:23.360 You can have endless stimulation and no satisfaction. 00:11:23.600 --> 00:11:28.879 You can have constant, indirect, connection and profound loneliness. 00:11:29.279 --> 00:11:34.159 You can have a feed full of content and a life empty of meaning. 00:11:34.879 --> 00:11:40.159 Screens can spark interest, but they're not very good at triggering joy. 00:11:40.799 --> 00:11:46.480 And they're terrible at the kind of face-to-face connection that human beings evolved to need. 00:11:47.679 --> 00:11:56.080 When I see rising rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide among young people, I don't think the problem is that they're broken. 00:11:56.559 --> 00:12:09.039 I think the problem is that they're being fed information without connection, stimulation without satisfaction, interest without enjoyment and joy. 00:12:09.360 --> 00:12:12.639 The two positive core feelings need each other. 00:12:12.879 --> 00:12:16.799 Interest and excitement without enjoyment and joy become obsession. 00:12:17.360 --> 00:12:20.159 Joy without interest becomes stagnation. 00:12:20.399 --> 00:12:21.440 You need both. 00:12:21.679 --> 00:12:27.039 And increasingly, our world is structured in ways that make getting both very difficult. 00:12:27.279 --> 00:12:45.360 I want to pause here and make an important distinction because if you've been paying attention to psychology and wellness in the last decade, you've probably heard a lot about the nervous system, especially polyvagal theory, regulation, ventral vagal states, fight-flight freeze, as I mentioned earlier. 00:12:45.679 --> 00:12:53.120 This language has become popular, and for good reason, it gives them a way to understand their body's stress responses. 00:12:53.600 --> 00:13:01.039 It normalizes experiences that used to be pathologized, and it points towards body-based interventions. 00:13:01.440 --> 00:13:05.840 But I want to be careful here because something is getting lost in the conversation. 00:13:06.159 --> 00:13:10.720 The nervous system and the feeling system are not the same thing. 00:13:11.039 --> 00:13:14.720 Let me use Richter's rats to show you what I mean. 00:13:14.960 --> 00:13:20.480 When those wild rats gave up and died, it was a nervous system event that killed them. 00:13:20.639 --> 00:13:24.559 Their hearts slowed, their parasympathetic system took over. 00:13:24.799 --> 00:13:36.399 Specifically, what Stephen Porgius would call the dorsal vagal circuit, the oldest, most primitive part of the autonomic nervous system, came online shutting everything down. 00:13:36.639 --> 00:13:40.559 This is different from Freeze, by the way, though people often confuse them. 00:13:40.879 --> 00:13:42.799 Freeze is a hybrid state. 00:13:42.960 --> 00:13:50.240 Your sympathetic nervous system is highly activated, your heart is pounding, adrenaline surging, muscles ready. 00:13:50.960 --> 00:13:53.120 But you're also immobilized. 00:13:53.360 --> 00:13:55.039 Think of the deer in the headlights. 00:13:55.200 --> 00:13:59.360 It's locked in place, but there's tremendous energy in that stillness. 00:13:59.600 --> 00:14:02.480 If something shifts, the deer bolts. 00:14:02.960 --> 00:14:05.120 Dorsal vagal collapse is different. 00:14:05.360 --> 00:14:06.879 There's no energy in it. 00:14:07.039 --> 00:14:10.240 The system has given up on fighting or fleeing. 00:14:10.480 --> 00:14:14.639 The heart doesn't race, it slows down to almost nothing. 00:14:14.879 --> 00:14:17.600 The muscles don't tense, they go slack. 00:14:18.159 --> 00:14:22.480 It's not tense immobility, it's surrender. 00:14:23.200 --> 00:14:28.639 In Porges' model, this is the oldest circuit, the one we share with reptiles. 00:14:28.879 --> 00:14:33.440 When a mouse goes limp in a cat's mouth, that's dorsal vagal. 00:14:33.679 --> 00:14:38.799 The system has concluded that escape is impossible, so it shuts down. 00:14:39.279 --> 00:14:44.399 Sometimes the mouse dies during the shutdown, not in the cat's teeth. 00:14:45.039 --> 00:14:47.360 That's what happened to Richter's rats. 00:14:47.519 --> 00:14:49.440 They died from giving up. 00:14:50.000 --> 00:14:51.440 Now here's my question. 00:14:51.679 --> 00:14:54.799 What caused the nervous system collapse? 00:14:55.679 --> 00:15:00.799 The dorsal vagal shutdown is a nervous system event,

but what triggered it? 00:15:01.120 --> 00:15:02.399 Hopelessness. 00:15:02.799 --> 00:15:06.480 The rats concluded that escape was impossible. 00:15:06.720 --> 00:15:11.919 They lost something essential, the felt sense that they could get out. 00:15:12.320 --> 00:15:17.679 And that loss, that affective event, triggered the nervous system to shut down. 00:15:18.240 --> 00:15:26.799 When Richter gave them brief exposure with release, catch them, hold them, then let them go, he wasn't directly manipulating their nervous systems. 00:15:27.120 --> 00:15:30.480 He was changing their relationship to possibility. 00:15:30.799 --> 00:15:33.039 He was restoring hope. 00:15:33.279 --> 00:15:42.399 He was reigniting something in the feeling system that said, escape exists, fighting matters, life is worth continuing. 00:15:43.039 --> 00:15:47.679 That affective shift is what prevented the nervous system from collapsing. 00:15:47.919 --> 00:15:49.759 Do you see the distinction I'm making? 00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:51.919 The nervous system is hardware. 00:15:52.080 --> 00:15:54.720 It's the circuitry that produces states. 00:15:55.039 --> 00:15:57.200 Calm, activated, or collapsed. 00:15:57.519 --> 00:16:01.519 Polyvagal theory maps the circuitry beautifully. 00:16:02.159 --> 00:16:04.320 But feelings are something else. 00:16:04.559 --> 00:16:09.360 Feelings are the system that evaluates, amplifies, and motivates. 00:16:09.679 --> 00:16:15.840 Feelings determine what matters, and feelings can trigger nervous system states. 00:16:16.080 --> 00:16:21.440 If you want to use computing metaphors, affects core feelings are firmware. 00:16:21.679 --> 00:16:29.039 Hopelessness, the loss of the two positive affects, interest, excitement, and enjoyment joy, can trigger dorsal vagal collapse. 00:16:29.440 --> 00:16:32.000 Fear can trigger sympathetic activation. 00:16:32.159 --> 00:16:35.840 Safety and connection can trigger ventral vagal engagement. 00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:37.440 The feelings come first. 00:16:38.080 --> 00:16:41.039 The nervous system state follows. 00:16:41.360 --> 00:16:44.320 This matters enormously for how we think about healing. 00:16:44.480 --> 00:16:48.320 Right now, there's a lot of emphasis on nervous system regulation. 00:16:48.559 --> 00:16:53.360 Breath work, vagal toning, polyvagal exercises. 00:16:53.679 --> 00:16:54.799 These are valuable. 00:16:54.960 --> 00:16:56.480 I'm not dismissing them. 00:16:56.799 --> 00:17:04.720 But if you only work at the level of the nervous system, you're working with effects, not causes. 00:17:05.440 --> 00:17:18.799 You can tone your vagus nerve all day, but if you're living in chronic hopelessness, if you've lost access to interest and enjoyment, your nervous system will keep getting pulled towards shutdown. 00:17:19.119 --> 00:17:21.359 You're fighting the current. 00:17:21.920 --> 00:17:32.640 You can do all the grounding exercises in the world, but if anticipatory shame is running constantly in the background, your system will keep activating as if threat is present. 00:17:34.079 --> 00:17:37.920 Because to your feeling system, threat is present. 00:17:38.160 --> 00:17:40.480 The shame is the threat. 00:17:40.720 --> 00:17:42.960 The nervous system doesn't evaluate. 00:17:43.119 --> 00:17:46.319 It doesn't decide what matters, it responds. 00:17:46.720 --> 00:17:48.880 The feeling system evaluates. 00:17:49.440 --> 00:17:59.039 It determines whether this moment contains possibility or threat, connection or isolation, something worth approaching or something to avoid. 00:18:00.559 --> 00:18:05.839 Working with the nervous system asks, how do I calm this activation? 00:18:06.400 --> 00:18:11.279 Working with the feeling system asks, what is this activation about? 00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:14.880 What is being evaluated as threat? 00:18:15.359 --> 00:18:18.240 What is being evaluated as hopeless? 00:18:18.960 --> 00:18:22.880 What has happened to interest and enjoyment? 00:18:23.119 --> 00:18:28.319 These are very different questions, and they lead to very different interventions. 00:18:28.799 --> 00:18:31.359 I'm not saying that one is right and the other is wrong. 00:18:31.599 --> 00:18:34.799 I'm saying they're different levels of the system. 00:18:35.519 --> 00:18:40.559 And the feeling level is, in Tompkins' view, primary, and I agree with him. 00:18:40.880 --> 00:18:45.200 Let me put it another way: you can't bore yourself into dorsal vagal collapse. 00:18:45.359 --> 00:18:48.720 Boredom is uncomfortable, but it doesn't shut down your heart. 00:18:48.960 --> 00:18:52.319 You can't be mildly annoyed into sympathetic overdrive. 00:18:52.480 --> 00:18:56.880 Annoyance is activating, but it doesn't flood you with adrenaline. 00:18:57.920 --> 00:19:03.119 What makes the difference is the intensity and meaning of the feeling. 00:19:04.000 --> 00:19:07.680 Terror activates differently than mild fear. 00:19:08.640 --> 00:19:11.759 Despair activates differently than disappointment. 00:19:12.000 --> 00:19:19.279 The feeling system determines the magnitude, and the magnitude determines the nervous system response. 00:19:20.319 --> 00:19:24.880 This is what Tompkins meant when he said that affects are amplifiers. 00:19:25.359 --> 00:19:35.200 They don't just accompany experience, they determine the intensity, they set the volume, and the volume is what the nervous system responds to. 00:19:36.000 --> 00:19:40.000 So what is hopelessness in feeling system terms? 00:19:42.240 --> 00:19:43.279 I think I hinted at this. 00:19:43.440 --> 00:19:45.839 It's the loss of the two positive affects. 00:19:46.400 --> 00:19:49.839 Interest excitement is the feeling that pulls you towards the future. 00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:56.480 It says there's something worth moving towards, something to explore, something to engage with. 00:19:56.720 --> 00:19:59.519 It's the forward lean into life. 00:20:00.799 --> 00:20:04.480 Enjoyment, joy is the feeling that rewards arrival.

00:20:04.640 --> 00:20:12.079 It says, this is good, this is connection, this is accomplishment, this moment, it's satisfying. 00:20:12.319 --> 00:20:16.559 It's the contentment that makes effort worthwhile. 00:20:16.960 --> 00:20:20.400 When both of these go offline, what's left? 00:20:21.279 --> 00:20:23.279 The negative affects are still there. 00:20:23.519 --> 00:20:29.920 Fear, distress, shame, anger, these can still fire. 00:20:30.319 --> 00:20:34.000 But without interest excitement, there's nothing pulling you forward. 00:20:34.240 --> 00:20:38.160 And without enjoyment, joy, there's no reward for getting anywhere. 00:20:38.400 --> 00:20:40.079 That's hopelessness. 00:20:40.640 --> 00:20:43.440 Not as a thought, things are hopeless. 00:20:43.599 --> 00:20:45.119 It's not a cognition. 00:20:46.079 --> 00:20:48.319 It's an affective state. 00:20:48.640 --> 00:20:51.599 The positive affects have gone dark. 00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:54.160 The future has no pull. 00:20:54.480 --> 00:20:56.640 The present has no reward. 00:20:56.960 --> 00:20:59.920 And when that happens, the nervous system gets the message. 00:21:00.160 --> 00:21:01.920 There's nothing to fight for. 00:21:02.160 --> 00:21:03.759 There's nowhere to flee to. 00:21:03.920 --> 00:21:06.559 The only option left is shut down. 00:21:07.680 --> 00:21:10.880 This is why hopelessness is so dangerous. 00:21:11.119 --> 00:21:17.839 It's not just a sad feeling, it's the absence of the feeling that makes life worth living. 00:21:18.160 --> 00:21:24.160 And that absence tells the nervous system that there's no point in continuing to mobilize. 00:21:24.880 --> 00:21:27.440 Richter's rats didn't die from exhaustion. 00:21:27.599 --> 00:21:35.519 They died from the conclusion that escape was impossible, which collapsed their positive affects, which triggered dorsal vagal shutdown. 00:21:35.839 --> 00:21:42.880 The intervention that saved them didn't just reduce their fear, it restored their interest excitement in the possibility of escape. 00:21:43.200 --> 00:21:45.680 It turned the future back on. 00:21:46.319 --> 00:21:52.640 Let me take this idea of anticipatory affect and apply it to something I see constantly in my practice. 00:21:52.960 --> 00:21:54.400 Chronic shame. 00:21:54.720 --> 00:21:56.400 Remember what Tompkins said? 00:21:56.640 --> 00:22:00.319 Avoidance behavior doesn't go away even when the punishment stops. 00:22:00.559 --> 00:22:00.960 Why? 00:22:01.200 --> 00:22:06.559 Because every time you avoid the feared thing, you're rewarded with reduced anxiety. 00:22:06.799 --> 00:22:08.640 The avoidance works. 00:22:08.960 --> 00:22:12.720 It successfully decreases your anticipatory fear. 00:22:12.960 --> 00:22:14.000 So what do you do? 00:22:14.240 --> 00:22:15.519 You keep avoiding. 00:22:15.680 --> 00:22:20.160 And you never learn that the fear thing might actually be survivable. 00:22:21.119 --> 00:22:23.440 And this is the neurotic paradox. 00:22:23.759 --> 00:22:28.000 You're trapped by a solution that worked too well in the short term. 00:22:28.880 --> 00:22:30.799 Now apply this to shame. 00:22:31.119 --> 00:22:42.559 Someone grows up in an environment where they were shamed for being themselves, for having needs, for making mistakes, for standing out, for not being enough, being too much. 00:22:42.720 --> 00:22:46.240 The specifics vary, but the pattern is the same. 00:22:46.559 --> 00:22:49.680 Being seen meant being shamed. 00:22:50.079 --> 00:22:52.880 So they learn to avoid being seen. 00:22:53.119 --> 00:22:54.319 They learn to hide. 00:22:54.559 --> 00:22:57.359 They learn to perform, for example. 00:22:57.839 --> 00:23:03.279 They learn to anticipate what others wanted and deliver it before anyone could be disappointed. 00:23:03.440 --> 00:23:06.640 They learned to keep their real self out of sight. 00:23:06.880 --> 00:23:08.079 And it worked. 00:23:08.319 --> 00:23:12.160 Every time they hid, they successfully avoided shame. 00:23:12.400 --> 00:23:19.920 Every time they performed, instead of being authentic, they reduced their anticipatory anxiety about rejection. 00:23:21.200 --> 00:23:22.640 But there's a trap here. 00:23:22.880 --> 00:23:26.960 Every successful avoidance reinforces the avoidance. 00:23:28.160 --> 00:23:32.559 Every time hiding worked, they learned that hiding was necessary. 00:23:32.799 --> 00:23:43.119 They never got the chance to discover that being seen might not result in annihilation, that shame while painful is survivable, that some people might actually want to see the real them. 00:23:44.960 --> 00:23:47.599 This is what I call chronic shame syndrome. 00:23:48.720 --> 00:23:52.319 It's not that shame happens occasionally, which is normal. 00:23:52.799 --> 00:23:56.880 It's that the whole system is organized around avoiding shame. 00:23:57.359 --> 00:24:08.559 Anticipatory shame runs constantly in the background, scanning for any possibility of exposure, and avoidance has become the default response. 00:24:08.799 --> 00:24:17.200 The cruel irony is that the avoidance that protects you from shame also prevents you from getting what you deeply want. 00:24:17.519 --> 00:24:21.359 To be known and accepted as you actually are. 00:24:22.559 --> 00:24:25.920 You can't be truly known if you're always hiding. 00:24:26.319 --> 00:24:32.880 You can't be accepted for who you are if you only show people what you think they want you to be. 00:24:34.160 --> 00:24:37.039 The protection that you have becomes your prison. 00:24:37.839 --> 00:24:42.480 And the anticipatory shame keeps the whole system locked in place. 00:24:43.440 --> 00:24:46.720 You feel the fear before anything actually happens. 00:24:47.119 --> 00:24:51.359 You avoid before there's anything to avoid. 00:24:51.680 --> 00:24:58.160 You're being rewarded constantly with reduced anxiety, so the pattern never extinguishes. 00:24:58.480 --> 00:25:00.079 So what's the way out? 00:25:00.880 --> 00:25:04.480 This is where I want to

introduce something I call de-alarming. 00:25:04.880 --> 00:25:08.319 And Tompkins gives us some clues about how it works. 00:25:08.799 --> 00:25:12.160 Remember Richter's rats, the ones that gave up and died? 00:25:12.319 --> 00:25:16.319 The intervention that saved them was simple brief exposure with release. 00:25:16.480 --> 00:25:19.599 Catch them, hold them, let them go, repeat. 00:25:19.839 --> 00:25:29.359 They learned that escape was possible, and that knowledge, that felt sense that they could get out, changed everything about how they responded to the next challenge. 00:25:29.680 --> 00:25:31.839 Pavlov found something similar. 00:25:32.160 --> 00:25:38.240 He could take electric shocks, painful stimuli, and turn them into neutral or even positive signals. 00:25:38.559 --> 00:25:39.200 How? 00:25:39.519 --> 00:25:43.440 By introducing them gradually and pairing them with something positive. 00:25:43.680 --> 00:25:54.720 If the intensity was slowly increased and the animal was fed during each stimulation, the shock stopped being alarming, it became a signal that food was coming. 00:25:54.960 --> 00:26:00.880 Same stimulus, different response, because the gradient and context had changed. 00:26:01.359 --> 00:26:04.319 It's one way to understand my concept of de-alarming. 00:26:04.559 --> 00:26:07.359 It's not about feeling the fear and doing it anyway. 00:26:07.519 --> 00:26:12.799 It's about changing the conditions under which you approach the feared thing. 00:26:13.119 --> 00:26:15.039 The gradient matters. 00:26:15.519 --> 00:26:20.400 What's terrifying when sudden can be interesting when it's gradual. 00:26:20.640 --> 00:26:22.160 The context matters. 00:26:22.400 --> 00:26:26.319 The same stimulus paired with safety and reward becomes tolerable. 00:26:26.480 --> 00:26:31.440 I know this all sounds a little bit complicated, but I'm going to break it down in a minute here. 00:26:32.400 --> 00:26:34.160 The sense of escape matters too. 00:26:34.400 --> 00:26:38.799 Knowing you can get out changes everything about the experience of being in it. 00:26:39.200 --> 00:26:48.000 This is where agency actually lives, not in overpowering your alarm system, not in ignoring it, but in working with it intelligently. 00:26:48.559 --> 00:26:53.119 You can't talk yourself out of feeling in an alarm state. 00:26:53.519 --> 00:26:57.519 The alarm system doesn't take orders from the thinking system at all. 00:26:57.759 --> 00:26:59.759 But you can change the conditions. 00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:02.720 You can adjust the gradient, the steepness of it. 00:27:02.880 --> 00:27:07.039 You can create contexts that pair the feared thing with safety. 00:27:07.279 --> 00:27:11.920 You can build the escape routes so your system knows it's not trapped. 00:27:12.160 --> 00:27:14.720 That's agency without self attack. 00:27:14.880 --> 00:27:16.240 That's the alarming. 00:27:16.480 --> 00:27:22.640 Well, folks, that is the end of Why Knowing Better Doesn't Help Part 1. 00:27:22.880 --> 00:27:29.680 Thank you for listening, and Why Knowing Better Doesn't Help Part 2 will be out shortly. 00:27:30.400 --> 00:27:31.119 See you then. 00:27:31.279 --> 00:27:31.920 Take care.