Brain Tech Support Live - May 24, 2026

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]It's been hot all the the last couple days and I know for a lot of places in the world they're experiencing pretty significant heat waves have been experiencing that.

[00:00:12]And the the thing that I will often notice uh in myself and then I'll see it in others. I'll just see it in the neighborhood. I I noticed it last night actually in particular uh is that the heat forces us or triggers us to often retreat indoors away from nature. And so precisely at the time where we need to recognize that our relationship with nature must improve because we can see the negative impacts of not caring for nature as uh climate change gets exacerbated by all of the the all of the destruction uh and and the way in which we're approaching our planet. it's just pushing us, you know, indoors more away from nature. And so I worry that we uh as we encounter more extreme heat, the thing to do is is to spend more time in nature, but uh we're kind of retreating from nature and developing an antagonistic relationship with it.

[00:01:21]Let's uh develop a better relationship with nature.

[00:01:27]Everybody, welcome. Mincchi, it's great to see you. I hope you're doing well. Thank you for being a member on the the members channel. I appreciate the support and you being there.

[00:01:42]Samira Hyodong Yellow, it's good to see you all. I thought we had a a ton of questions on the Instagram on my Instagram profile earlier this week. I was recording a bunch of videos on intrusive thoughts for a course on interacting differently with thoughts and intrusive thoughts and images and all of that kind of stuff that'll be coming out soon.

[00:02:09]But there were so many questions I haven't even gotten them to them all yet. So I wrote some of them down so we could start things off with some of the questions from Instagram. Mr. Joe, it's good to see you.

[00:02:20]We'll start. Actually, I had kind of an order here because I noticed some of them went together. And I'm just going to check here so that I do them in this order that I noticed beforehand.

[00:02:35]We've got avoiding life and avoiding thoughts. Searching for the right strategy to fix unwanted brain stuff.

[00:02:43]Why do I keep bringing back previous intrusive thoughts?

[00:02:48]and the urge of checking constantly. Uh let's start with this one cuz it's pretty likely this is going to come up today. So, we'll cover it now.

[00:02:59]Searching for the right strategy to do to fix unwanted brain stuff and monitoring and ruminating about it. It it it is so common that we start doing compulsions to chase certainty and control around the brain stuff.

[00:03:19]It's one of the things or the kind of quirks or symptoms that came up that made me realize how how much our brains are seeking control, seeking control and certainty.

[00:03:36]So anything that brings up uncertainty about the possibility of some bad thing like the idea that oh I need to recover in the right way. I need to learn this right mental health approach so that I don't relapse again so that I get rid of the mental health struggles and all of that that is the same compulsion pattern. So, one of the things I always encourage people to look at is how much time and energy you're spending chasing right certain control around mental health practices and starting to give that time and energy to the things we want to grow in life. It's why I always emphasize giving time and energy to what we want to grow. We we have to start doing that. If we're just waiting to get some kind of right clean feeling before living our lives, we just end up chasing that right clean feeling like chasing any other clean feeling. So if we're searching for this right strategy to solve mental health and fitness, mental illness struggles, what if instead you gave that time and energy to doing something you want to do in life?

[00:04:40]Especially if you think, "Oh, I've got to solve the mental illness struggles before I go and live my life." That's the compulsion that is like I've got to get a clean feeling before I live the house. That is only going to create more avoidance. And that brings me into the second question. And this is how they were linked because searching for that right strategy before living life is just an avoidance compulsion in many ways. This next question touches on avoidance. How to stop avoiding life distracting with food and thoughts to get a different feeling. So I I think it's great that when the person was asking this question, you saw actually how connected all of these things are and how you're trying to get a different feeling. That is also what we're doing when we're avoiding life. Like oo I want to get a different feeling before I go and live life or oo I don't want to go and do the things I want to do because there might be an uncomfortable feeling and then we avoid it. There's no there's no simple way around this. And often right when we're looking for some kind of right mental health approach, what we're really looking for there we hope is some kind of special ritual that's going to make it feel good to stop avoiding life. And that uh is more of the compulsion is we're going to go and live life and that might feel uncomfortable.

[00:05:58]What we can do to start practicing with this though is to pick some simple activities in life that we avoid and we we see as very normal. The one I'll often share with coaching clients is just around procrastination. We'll just pick something or a bunch of things and we might say, "Okay, each week we're going to pick one activity that we would typically procrastinate on." And it might not seem like it's one of the compulsions, but it gives us the chance to work on doing an action and not avoiding an uncomfortable feeling so that we can learn how to do that. Cuz if we're always avoiding any random uncomfortable feeling, then of course we avoid the uncomfortable feelings that come up when there's some kind of extreme intrusive thought that's threatening. So we can start learning how to do that with some of the the more simple activities in lives that we we may also notice is a problem like procrastination often we'll recognize has become a problem.

[00:06:56]Mr. Macedon Farm Dylan thanks for being here. Thank you so much for helping out with the chat today. Yellow I appreciate uh you appreciating uh replying to the questions. Thank you.

[00:07:18]Yo, user uh that just finished the gym.

[00:07:22]I see you got the notification just as you were finishing up there and you're watching the cafe. Thank you for inviting us all to the gym. I'm glad I just came from the gym. Uh kind I I left the gym. I got dinner and then now we are here. So yeah, I hope you had a good workout.

[00:07:40]Let's cover two more questions from Instagram, but also everybody of course feel free to throw your questions in the chat and we'll roll right into them after these questions from Instagram. If you're new to Brain Tech Support Live, we explore the practice of doing more of what we want to do in life while having all of the thoughts and feelings and other brain stuff that our brains can throw up. uh the skills we explore grounded in uh evidence-based therapy practices, primarily acceptance and commitment therapy, but we'll throw in all the of the other uh fun uh tools that can be of assistance.

[00:08:23]And that's what we'll be exploring today. But of course, when we're exploring this stuff, I'll always share from my personal experience of applying these skills and tools that I found useful for making changes and sustaining those changes. And then I've been working with people uh in our community and then also as a coach uh for more than a decade and I'll share from the experience of seeing how many people around the world adapt these tools to the their context and the changes they're making. But none of this stuff is something to take as some kind of right magic ritual like we were already talking about. These are skills just like working out in the gym. You're going to pick up a workout. You're going to see some how somebody else does the workout, but then you're going to apply it through action to your life in your context. So these are tools uh that you can use to put together a toolkit that's effective for where you want to go and what you want to do in life. That's what we're exploring. And we'll talk about donuts and alpacas.

[00:09:26]Okay, two more questions here and then I see we'll get into some questions that are starting to pop up in the chat there.

[00:09:32]Here we go. Here's the question. The urge of checking might be there constantly. Felt like white knuckling with it. It's exhausting.

[00:09:43]When we feel a mental urge to constantly check an intrusive thought or check a feeling, it is very similar to having an itch on our bodies or some kind of uncomfortable feeling on our bodies that we would want to check and control.

[00:10:05]Right now, for instance, uh the recently I I sprained my ankle. I was sharing about this on the mental fitness discord server and so it's it's healing well everything's going fine but of course each day there's kind of this some odd discomfort with it and there's even a feeling sometimes that it would be good to kind of just like crack the kind of my ankle like I don't know if crack is the right word but just like kind of twist it and just like kind of check how it feels and right now that's just not something I'm going to do but also I can I can feel it all the time like Even how it's sitting right now, I can feel my foot that I sprained in a way that I I don't normally feel it in a way that I don't feel my other foot. I don't have to do anything with it. And so it's the same with stuff in our heads. Like just like any physical issue, yeah, we can have the feeling and there might be a sense of I should check on this. I should kind of twist it, move it, check it, test it. And we can practice not doing that.

[00:11:08]There's so many benefits to that too.

[00:11:10]Like an example, you know, where it's really important that we not get, you know, kind of checking it and itching it and so on would be if we had a wound uh that had a scab on it, like a there was we don't and we don't want it to scar.

[00:11:25]And so there might be that pressure to I just want to itch it. I just want to pick it off, but I'm going to let it heal.

[00:11:31]If that feels like white knuckling, I think it can be useful to look at why that is because that kind of implies that there's some kind of goal there uh that is adding additional pressure like and you could think of it like a physical issue. If you had a physical issue and the doctor said, "Hey, don't pick at this. Leave it." You're going to feel like you want to pick at it.

[00:12:01]What would help you do that?

[00:12:06]Something that I also found really useful exploring cutting out compulsions and I was sharing about this on the YouTube members channel and there's a little clip on I I posted on the public channel but there was a longer clip on the YouTube members channel about the fact that we can cut out compulsions completely.

[00:12:23]And something that helped me when I was cutting out compulsions was noticing that I was always kind of having a debate in my head about whether it would be okay to do a compulsion and whether there was like a right time and a reasonable time to do it and then getting into this kind of white knuckling battle with it.

[00:12:43]And I realized that I was just open to doing the compulsion like it was still on the table.

[00:12:49]So, it helped a lot to consider that I was really going to cut out a compulsion completely for good entirely gone and that the last time I did it was the last time.

[00:13:03]So, there was no special plan required, no process to go through to finally like resolve it and clean it away, right, and get some kind of good feeling about it.

[00:13:13]It was really useful to recognize it was just done. And so if you notice yourself in this kind of constant battle with like, oh, should I do a compulsion?

[00:13:21]Should I not do a compulsion? Oh, it feels so difficult. What if you were never going to do that compulsion again?

[00:13:26]So even when the brain's like, oo, you should do this. We're just like, yeah, I don't do that. It's like, it's not a thing I do. It's not going to happen.

[00:13:34]Brain, you are welcome to push me and tell me how much you want me to do the compulsion, but I'm never doing it again. It's already gone.

[00:13:44]It's done.

[00:13:48]Let us uh explore some of the questions that everybody is posting here. Thanks everybody for being here. Thanks for dropping by and uh thanks for sharing some questions here in the chat.

[00:13:59]Andrea, thank you for wishing everybody an easy weekend.

[00:14:05]Francisco, is it how to deal with pre-competition anxiety?

[00:14:14]One of the things that I find really useful and this I say everybody can apply this to anything you're doing where yeah you are going to be performing in some way. Uh so yeah you might be it might be in work but you're you know giving a presentation it might be a competition.

[00:14:34]Watch out for setting a goal you don't control. It helps so much to set a goal that is still going to be about doing that thing well, but is within your control.

[00:14:48]If we're even if we're chasing something like I want to win, uh that can create a lot of anxiety cuz we're like well how are we going to win?

[00:14:57]Shift the focus to the actions you'll do that could lead to winning.

[00:15:02]And this again applies in business too.

[00:15:04]what are the actions that could lead to the success that you're chasing after.

[00:15:08]So rather than focusing on the success, we are going to focus on the specific actions that we control that actually can lead to that success. So I always suggest people picking three and this is what I like to do too. Uh if I'm doing any kind of presentation, any kind of uh business activity or something like that, what are three things I want to give? And those three things will be actions you want to give that you control that also contribute to things going well. But the reality is there's all sorts of reasons something could go well or not go well at the end of it. We're just going to focus on and celebrate whether we did those actions.

[00:15:48]It very well may be that by focusing on those three actions to do the thing well that we reached that success we were looking for. But even if we didn't, we're still going to celebrate those actions because those are the actions of doing that thing well. So yeah, whatever the competition is that you're in, what would be three actions that would help you do well in it, but that you control and you can celebrate. So at the end, win or lose or tie or whatever, you can celebrate that you gave those things you wanted to give.

[00:16:23]And that helps us with the anxiety because part of the anxiety is us kind of targeting something we don't control which automatically uh brings up anxiety even if the thing we're trying to control is like not being judged by others like oh I don't want I don't want to mess up and have people hate me or I don't want to have people shout at me because I screwed something up. Ah we don't control that. What do you control and what do you want to give? And uh have fun with it.

[00:16:56]Oh, Mi, I hope your weekend goes well.

[00:17:11]I'm just quickly reading through the uh the questions points that are up there and then I'll pop back up. Okay, I got an idea of what's coming up. Landy said, "What recommendations do you have someone who obsesses over if breaking up with someone was the right decision?

[00:17:38]There are a um there are a variety of I'm going to say a variety of variations. Maybe that's already captured in the D varieties. There are many ways that this comes up. I'll often use the metaphor of us trying to be time traveling janitors.

[00:17:59]So if you broke up with somebody, why are you now spending time and energy on whether it was the right decision?

[00:18:12]Cuz is it cuz if it was the wrong decision, you're going to try to do something.

[00:18:21]Uh and so or if it's the right decision, you're going to do something else.

[00:18:30]Regardless, the amount of time and energy going into the obsessing is definitely uh going to create problems and take your time and energy away from doing things that would be more useful.

[00:18:49]So, it's it's not about saying like, oh, okay, it was the the right decision or ah it was the wrong decision, here's what I'm going to do or whatever. But is it useful for you for any kind of perceived wrong thing to try to do this time traveling janitor thing where in the present you were just time traveling to the past trying to get some kind of clean feeling about something that happened?

[00:19:16]What if we said there's not going to be any more time and energy spent on this question? That doesn't mean we're picking one or the other.

[00:19:26]What would you like to give that time and energy to instead that would be more useful?

[00:19:38]Stuart.

[00:19:42]Hey Stuart, it's it's great to hear these skills have been helpful on your journey. I hope they continue to be useful in everything you explore. Thank you.

[00:19:53]Yeah, thank you for dropping by to share that.

[00:19:57]Blooper 785, hello. Thanks for dropping by Hano.

[00:20:09]He said a mindset of not expecting anything good like staying low is a bad idea for intr embracing negative intrusive thoughts. question.

[00:20:22]Uh I yeah, I do. It sounds like a bunch of compulsions going on there. This like mindset of not expecting anything good like staying low. Uh yeah, I don't totally follow like what that's all about or like embracing we mentioned embracing negative intrusive thoughts. There's not like some embracing having any thought isn't like a stopping living life to go and do something with thoughts.

[00:20:50]Uh it's it's much more like seeing there's this kind of intrusive thought monster and then quickly scooping it up and putting it in your pocket while you go to do something that you want to grow and create in life. So not not needing some kind of elaborate ritual to stop and do with thoughts to be like look I am embracing the pile of dog in the street. No, like it can just be there. we can see it and we have more useful things to go and do. So yeah, rather than ask you about some kind of idea of like, oh, do I need to stay low or I'd be much more interested in what do you want to do in life? Uh, and yeah, that's something we can discuss here.

[00:21:42]Oh, Andrea, thank you so much. Andrea said, "Thanks for everything that you do. Uh, your videos, book, and courses really changed my life for the better.

[00:21:50]From what I've learned, I've been able to share mental fitness tips with the people that are close to me, and it's amazing to experience." Oh, Andrea, that's wonderful. Andre, thank you so much for sharing that. And it is wonderful that you Yeah. are have learned how to apply these skills in your life, but then can also share them with others. That's fantastic.

[00:22:11]You have a question here as well. I said, 'I have one question. I keep relapsing on some compulsions around eating and swallowing food. I've identified what I like to get right, cutting normal compulsions along with clinical ones, but I keep relapsing on this one. I realized it's not really about swallowing as I thought, but about chewing. The compulsion here would be chewing too much. However, if I try to ignore the brain and swallow when it doesn't feel right, I just freeze.

[00:22:41]There there are a couple of things uh when I was uh like really getting into uh progressing with cutting out a lot of compulsions that yeah had seemed had been around for a long time and even connected with a lot of kind of very natural excuse me very natural processes and things we do in our lives like eating and food Especially as the compulsion seem to be closer to the body and involved with things in the body.

[00:23:18]Uh it was useful to take an approach that was maybe a bit longer and even was very similar like and felt very much like building flexibility and really digging into some scar tissue.

[00:23:36]This was where I explored the idea of what I call festivals of curiosity of giving a lot of time to just being curious about particular areas and exploring them over a lot of time. So even that was something I did around food. There were all sorts of foods that I did not eat because I would have uh like a gagging, nauseous, vomit reaction to them. So, I struggled with aophobia and then there were just tons of foods that even just the smell and even the thought of them I I would start to feel nauseous and I I would have a very difficult time eating them and I would you know feel like this kind of very bad physical reaction to them and it was you know very automatic.

[00:24:26]So with those it it was useful to really take uh very kind and gentle and and I just use the metaphor or the analogy of like or an image of melting it like it really was like seeing there was this like nasty nod of stuff and so just pulling at it and trying to fix it wasn't useful because just like a knot if you pull on something it would just tighten up. And so it was possible to unravel the knot. It was much more gradual. So with food, I I did a bunch of things with food, but one in particular around the foods that I would get uh nauseous and have that reaction around uh where like cuz even the textures of some of them, so if they were in my mouth, I was like I I would I would just feel like you you have to get this out of your body right away. Uh and then but then I was practicing eating it. I I took a month with stuff like that.

[00:25:31]I was often eating the foods every single day. There is a video I have on aapobia.

[00:25:38]Um, and I don't know if maybe aophobia I don't think a metaphobia is in the title. I think it's got like vomit in the title. Maybe has a great thumbnail though of of a a person rainbow vomiting on another person.

[00:25:53]That could be useful. That's from a live stream a couple years ago. That could be useful to go through for examples or yeah, feel free to message me or ask wherever you'd like.

[00:26:04]But could it be okay to do a month uh of a festival of curiosity uh around Yeah. eating? Yeah, you could you could present it as eating. It might be around chewing, but there might actually be some other things uh connected to that. Uh and so yeah, what if there was a festival, a real festival that was uh the festival of chewing and it was a month-long festival.

[00:26:36]What would you find useful to explore over that month?

[00:26:43]And yeah, have fun with it.

[00:26:52]English easy. He said, "I just realize now I must stop efforts for the recovery. I must start doing the things which I value because I don't want to repeat the same pattern of doing things I value only when I have a perfectly solved problem." Exactly. It's so useful.

[00:27:16]Lactogenian said, "I've been working on doing less and spending time outside of my head these last few weeks, but I've been getting stuck when the brain tells me how exactly do you stop engaging with thoughts?" Oh, the brain. Brain. Classic brain. Or what if you're engaging with the thoughts wrongly? How do I begin to drop this when I get so tripped up about the questions that come after the initial thought? Yay. Uh, Lex, I don't know if you caught it. There was I was kind of talking a bit about this at the start. There were some questions from Instagram that touched on a similar thing like the constant monitoring of our thoughts, wanting to get a right way to interact with them. And what if what if we there's no right way to interact with thoughts. There's and you're free to do anything you want to do in the brain. And the brain also 100% free to throw up whatever it wants to do whatever it wants. But if if we just look at what do you want to give time and energy to?

[00:28:12]Are there things you'd rather give time and energy to? So that even if you notice yourself engaging with the brain cuz brain's like, "Whoa, what what about thoughts?" And we're like, "Yeah, what about thoughts?" And then you catch that going, "Oh, wait a second. Actually, thoughts aren't that important to me."

[00:28:30]Thinking in some right way or wrong way also not important to me. What is important to me? Well, right now donuts are important to me. I'm going to go spend time and energy on donuts. It's just having some of those things ready that you can go and do instead can be so useful and and it's okay. Uh in acceptance and commitment therapy, you know, a great exercise that I always uh love to share is the idea of the monsters on the bus or as I describe it, the kids in the back seat.

[00:29:03]the the the kids in the back seat all are just constantly going to go, "Hey, hey, what's a thought?

[00:29:08]Are you thinking right?

[00:29:11]I bet you're thinking wrong." And like that's they're just kids and that's what they do. And they know if we react to it that it it bothers us and they're going to do it more. And so what if it's okay for the kids in the back seat to do whatever they do?

[00:29:28]What do you want to do? where do you want to drive the car? And it's okay if you engage with them. So, part of this is that we don't get frustrated at ourselves cuz we we like told the kids to shut up. And then, of course, the kids didn't shut up. And then we go, "Oh, I wasn't supposed to do that. I did that wrong." And the kids are like, "You did that wrong. You can't think good."

[00:29:50]They We've got to make it okay for them to do whatever they do in the back seat.

[00:29:56]Where are you driving that car?

[00:30:12]uh Andrea.

[00:30:15]So you sh Yeah, Andrea shared a bit more here and said, "Um, I do realize I've been putting a lot of pressure on myself to cut this compulsion and forcing myself, ending up shaking really badly for like 30 minutes after a meal." Yeah, it this this stuff it seems especially as we get into the physical stuff is very physical and so it's not going to be as like we're not just going to tell ourselves like like when I was working on the food like I couldn't just tell myself don't be nauseous, don't don't gag at the thought of this food or at the smell of this food or at the texture of it. I had to be okay to have the reaction and then also kind of like giving myself a lot of kindness around that.

[00:31:00]One of the ways I'll another metaphor that I'll often use around this is that it's like we're taking a kid to the amusement park and that kid has fallen out of a roller coaster before. And so we are now taking this kid to the amusement park who you know is your body in this scenario.

[00:31:19]And the kid knows that the roller coasters are dangerous. Knows that they're painful. Like you can't tell them, "Oh, it's not that likely you're going to follow another roller coaster.

[00:31:28]How often does that happen?" And the kids going to be like, "It happened. It happened to me. I know it is dangerous.

[00:31:34]I am not doing it." And they're going to have a very uh intense reaction to anything related to the amusement park.

[00:31:43]So if you look at your body in that way that your body is this kid who has had real experiences and is going to try to protect you uh from these real experiences, but you're also going to show them that it is possible to have a good time at the amusement park. How would you do that uh in a way that isn't isn't just shouting at the kid like go get on the roller coaster and have fun and uh the kid the kid is not going to have fun. So how do we have fun while also making space and acknowledging there there's a very real reason why we have that physical reaction. Uh, and so we can both understand the physical reaction, make space for it, um, and even make space for it still having it. Just like this is another reason I like a kind of physical injury kind of model concept for it. Yeah. If we had a physical injury with something in the past, it's it's okay that then when we're moving that joint again, we feel it.

[00:32:50]we're going to Oh, yeah. Of course, that kind of hurts or that's kind of stiff and or that's a really sensitive area for me. Making that okay, too. We don't have to perfectly clean this away. Uh making space for having the reaction.

[00:33:07]Being sensitive in that area can paradoxically actually help us um interact with things differently. Uh maybe not run into it in the future. But of course, again, it's okay if we do.

[00:33:24]Oh, and uh Mr. Mass form found the emophobia video. Oh, and it does have a metaphobia in the title. Thank you, Dylan. The title of the emophobia video is aophobia and food avoidance recovery.

[00:33:41]and Andrea uh following up on this said, I'll definitely implement curiosity more and giving myself more time to explore kind of latches on other things like I can't work out for one hour today because I didn't eat enough. Uh and even with that, one of the things that I find so useful is even making it making it okay for it to be easy. So even one thing that springs to mind when exploring like curiosity around this stuff is if you said um I want to make sure that I'm nourished well. I want to fuel the things I want to do. Uh and so yeah, if you notice there's going to be a bunch of just controlling going on around how you're eating and what you're eating and stuff like that and and that's going to interfere. Are there are there ways to sneak around the brain? So like one of the things that jumps to mind there is like like whether it is like having a protein shake or something like that. Uh what what is going to help you do the things you do want to do while you explore this? So also that we don't have to be super rigid with it where we're like I'm I told myself today I'm working on chewing so I have to I don't know chew something really hard and if I don't chew a hard thing I I don't get to eat like we don't again we don't have to punish the kid. Uh yeah like the kid if you're taking the kid around the roller coaster park and the kid you're you're about to go get lunch and the kid's like, "Oh, but that's the lunch I had before I fell out of the roller coaster.

[00:35:13]I can't eat that again." Yeah, like you you can find other ways uh to nourish the kid. You don't you don't have to like force them to only do it one way or or else. Uh so I find with this kind of stuff we we really pick a direction that we want to go in and we're going to go in that direction but then we do that with a lot of care and gentleness and flexibility around how we go there. Uh because going in that direction is what's really important is how we're going to define success.

[00:35:51]So yeah, I hope I hope you can take the kid uh to have a fun time at the amusement park.

[00:36:06]Reinhardt Reinhardt, I hope you can appreciate the irony of this. You said, "I currently have an obsession regarding whether I have free will or not. What should I do?

[00:36:20]Uh, Renard, what would you like to do?

[00:36:32]Oh, and I believe this is George, I think, uh, said, "I just bought your book, You Not a Rock. Thank you. Thanks for reading."

[00:36:42]I said, "Although I'm doing better to try to accept everything my brain thinks, although I do experience weird physical symptoms, when I try to stop compulsions, yay." And you'll see in the book I describe uh compulsions around any feeling that includes physical feelings. You could see them as unwanted experiences. And it's it's just very and we'll say this for everybody, everybody. If you're cutting out compulsions around unwanted experiences in your head, recognize that it's very likely the unwanted experience is going to move to something else.

[00:37:21]You may perceive it as moving to your body. But remember, the thing that tells you, hey, here's a painful, uncomfortable, unwanted experience is always your brain.

[00:37:34]So that's why and even a lot of people will notice that the brain seems to flip between anxiety and pain like physical pain uh intrusive thoughts and physical pain very uh seamlessly. We uh you know culturally tend to see those as quite different but they're they're happening in the same organ. The thing that's interpreting physical pain and emotional pain that is that's one organ. So yeah, we perceive it differently, but it's really useful to recognize that these skills we explore for interacting differently with unwanted, uncomfortable experiences are for all of the unwanted uncomfortable experiences, not just a particular cognitive, mental, emotional or physical unwanted experience.

[00:38:26]Metaphysical Mike said, "As soon as I stopped my addiction, excuse me, as soon as I stopped my addiction, all of this shame from my past came up. Is this normal? Why are years of feeling ashamed coming up out of the blue?" I never felt this way before in my life.

[00:38:50]I I always say that the brain's favorite compulsion is judging us and hating on us.

[00:39:00]If there is yeah something really uh uncomfortable that comes up uh when we notice that judging uh we can have a lot of compassion and care for that.

[00:39:19]It's understandable, right? Like we do not like doing things wrong. We do not like feeling responsible, making mistakes and so on. And that that is so uh common uh and something we can apply a lot of these useful skills to.

[00:39:38]There's all sorts of reasons as well uh that if you you dug into that, you may notice why uh that's the brain's not coming totally out of the blue there.

[00:39:49]Like I I can't help but notice that you have a a a username that says metaphysical mic. Uh which suggests to me there's probably this is probably not new stuff. There's probably been a a bunch of time and energy spent on um certainty and control around ways of doing things. Uh so yeah, it could be could be useful to if it feels like oh this is different and this is out of nowhere. Uh maybe it's not. Uh but yeah, this is the brain's favorite compulsion.

[00:40:25]So it's welcome to do that. You can throw up whatever it wants. What do you want to do? Uh, where do you want to drive the brain? Well, it tries to shame you from the back seat.

[00:40:39]Wolve raza. So, you said, "So, what's the difference between aophobia and hypocchondria?"

[00:40:45]Uh, yeah. I mean, the these are all just terms, right? Like none of these terms, none of these labels we've come up to categorize different sets of compulsions or different sets of obsessions. Yeah. like they don't exist. They're just attempts over the years of many different people trying to categorize different sets of compulsions. Uh so yeah, there's not because and by that I mean it's not like there's a ahobia bacteria inside of one person and then another person has a hypochondriacis bacteria inside of them. Although both of those people would be very scared to know there's kind of a weird bacteria uh that can cause that.

[00:41:24]That's not what it's like, right? We're just categorizing. So somebody also right I had many health anxiety compulsions as well. Uh the key difference between a metaphobia or why somebody would use that term uh is specifically around the fe the fear of vomit and so even what the term means is fear of vomit. And usually somebody with metaphobia is going to have that kind of physical reaction I was mentioning earlier. So there there are going to be things in the world that they will have this vomit reaction to which is then creates this feedback loop of oh these things make me feel like I'm going to vomit. I'm afraid of vomiting. Therefore, I will avoid these things. And but then it it it kind of creates this uh self-fulfilling loop where any hint of those again will bring up the vomit reaction which creates more avoidance which only confirms more to the brain that those are dangerous and they're more to the body that they're going to cause us to vomit because we almost did and then we do more avoidance and so on. Uh whereas uh somebody just with health anxiety if you ask them like hey does this the idea of this food make you vomit many people with health anxiety would be like nah that I mean who cares uh so yeah that's usually the difference but you could have a metaphobia and uh be a hypochondriac as well you can collect all of the Pokemon aerial Ariel, he said, "If my partner is busy, do I assert dominance by being busier or be passive until he chats me first?"

[00:43:17]The confusion I have right now. I don't know how to express there's that all just sounds like a bunch of extra compulsions to me and I do not I do not have a response for that.

[00:43:32]If your partner is busy, your partner is busy.

[00:43:47]Oh, George, that's great. You got the book in physical form. Uh, and so yeah, enjoy uh enjoy reading it. Yeah, the exercises at the start will go through like really setting useful mental health goals and values. Yeah. Oh, Mr. Maston Farm, thank you for the the kind book review.

[00:44:07]Lena said, "I've cut out many compulsions over the past few years, but I noticed that I have some that I have difficulties to cut out for a few weeks.

[00:44:17]It's okay." And then they come back. So, I think these are compulsions I'm doing that I don't consider as compulsions.

[00:44:24]But it can also be a compulsion to try to clear all compulsions.

[00:44:28]Uh, sure. But we can cut the compulsions out. So you think and this Yeah. So you may have missed this. I mentioned I I was sharing about this on the YouTube members channel and then there's a little clip if you go to the YouTube shorts. Uh the most recent clip is on this. And I think this is there's a interesting nuance here.

[00:44:51]We can completely cut out the compulsions for good forever. mental compulsions and physical compulsions. It is totally doable. It is also really enjoyable to get there. Also very challenging.

[00:45:10]On the way to doing that, we want to have a lot of kindness because like I was talking about with the shame, the brain's favorite compulsion seems to be hating on us. So will it seems I I like to call it my self-sabotaging streak. I had a it was so useful to recognize I had this tendency to like do the compulsions so that I would hate on the fact that I had done the compulsion again and then I would have this new thing to clean out.

[00:45:39]So yeah, we don't want to get in that loop. But it is completely possible to cut out the compulsions and be done with them.

[00:45:48]Sometimes when I talk about boundaries, I talk about how it helps to set immovable boundaries with the pressure of resting one finger against a door.

[00:46:00]So, we're going to rest this one finger against the door without any kind of force or anger or pressure, but we are going to hold that door shut. We're not going to let it open. And we take a similar approach with the compulsions.

[00:46:14]So it might be that we really change how we approach them rather than needing to have the energy of frustration and shame to fuel us to fix them. So we don't do that anymore. We don't need to keep that cycle going of, you know, relapsing, going way off the path, hating on ourselves, being like, "Okay, I'm so angry. I am going to change it this time."

[00:46:40]We don't need to rely on that kind of fuel. In many ways, that is the fuel that fed so many compulsions.

[00:46:49]Now, we're going to use values and we're going to do that with precision and consistency, but lightly.

[00:46:59]So, we don't need to force us or force ourselves or pressure ourselves into cutting out the compulsions and doing what's useful.

[00:47:08]But we are going to do what's useful.

[00:47:11]We're going to do what we value with the force of lightly taking a step in a direction that's beneficial to ourselves and to those around us and our communities.

[00:47:26]So we we do do it, but we don't have to push on it in a way that kind of hearkens back to the the that old engine and the old compulsion that actually helps us with cutting out normal compulsions.

[00:47:46]This is where I'll often talk about being unreasonable.

[00:47:51]So also, yeah, we'll cut out some of these things we've done always in the past that we saw as very normal, but now we recognize as leading us back into the more distressing or clinical compulsions. So in my book or if you have the mental fitness 101 course, the exercise to look at is the compulsion journey. So I cover it in the relapse diagnostic course as well. So, if we keep going off, uh, I put together a course of all the tools that I find useful to identify where we keep going off.

[00:48:26]And so, we're adjusting this not to fix it.

[00:48:30]And, you know, see ourselves as a problem that needs to be fixed and cleaned, but we are fixing this because there's a new direction we want to go that we know is better for us. a new direction we wanted to go that we know is going to help us grow the things we really care about.

[00:48:47]So we can go there. Yeah. We don't have to keep getting lost because we're like, well, it would be a compulsion to to perfectly stop getting lost. Uh yeah, so that's we don't have to be like, I must be perfect and never get lost. But also, we don't have to get lost.

[00:49:05]We can go in the direction we want to go. Yeah. Does that uh Lena, does that make sense? This kind of this nuance to it. Yeah. We're not going to hate on ourselves for going off the path, but we are going to stop going off the path.

[00:49:22]So, what would help you stay on the path with gentleness and kindness, but sustaining it cuz it's useful.

[00:49:34]Yeah. Mr. Mas on farm. Uh thank you for sharing about the uh the relationship question.

[00:49:44]Oh great learner. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. It is a really important nuance I think to explore. We could even say it's kind of the theme of the day. uh cuz I've yeah there's a bunch of things I've seen whether it was the questions uh coming up that uh I was talking about but also just seeing I've I've received uh some questions and links this week on the topic of recovery and uh yeah the the reason we explore uh therapy modalities like acceptance commitment therapy, exposure and response prevention is because they are an effective uh path routine we can take to recovery.

[00:50:32]They're not uh for managing mental illness or keeping it around. Now yeah in research absolutely if you look at research uh when people you know will do therapy as a treatment sure lots of people doing any one of either of those modalities to treat a mental illness. Yeah there's going to be maybe only a small percentage of people in the study uh yeah who recover who see significant results.

[00:51:07]That does not mean that the those therapy modalities don't work or that those people have some kind of special treatment resistant variety.

[00:51:20]This years ago, I was giving a talk at Stanford at the the Medicine X conference on the importance of taking the same approach we would bring to design to how we uh structure uh label and approach uh recovery and treatment for mental illness because we do it we currently do it in quite an odd way in that we put people into a treatment program. If they don't respond we just declare them as treatment resistant.

[00:51:56]But you you would never hear about that happening with say physical fitness. You would never hear about that happening with a product and product design. If somebody makes a product or a service and only a few people engage with it, this is like say you uh you start a startup with an app and you only get a very very small number of people engaging with your app. Does that mean you need to design the app better to fit in people's lives or does that mean that those people not signing up for your app are appresistant?

[00:52:33]there's just some kind of problem with them. They they have this special illness that prevents them from interacting with your app. No, we recognize that if you are asking people to do things differently in life, it's on the people creating the process to improve the process to fit into your life.

[00:52:54]When somebody struggles to make changes through any kind of therapy modality, that doesn't mean it doesn't work and that doesn't mean they uh can't make those changes. That just means we have to look at how do we make it easier for somebody to access those changes and those skills. Uh because making changes for all humans is very challenging.

[00:53:20]Again, with physical fitness, there is a very large percentage of the people who sign up for a gym membership at the start of the year who are not going to the gym by the end of the year.

[00:53:32]And I don't even think it's by the end of the year. It's like by June. The the percentage is ridiculous when you look at it. That doesn't mean all those people have some kind of uh gym resistant whatever.

[00:53:45]Yeah, there's so many different reasons that can get in the way of a person making a change, sustaining a practice that they want to do and that's just very human. And so we have to always look and this is the thing I get most excited about. Uh we have to always look at how do we make that more accessible?

[00:54:02]Uh how do we make these skills and practices easier to access for people so that they can apply them? Uh because there's yeah there's no there's nothing with cutting out a compulsion and giving time and energy to what we care about that doesn't work like that that is just that is an enjoyable way uh to live. We don't have to give our time and energy to random brain indigestion. We can give it to the things that we care about and we want to grow in life. Uh but there are many different challenges that a person will encounter to doing that. So how do we address those challenges so that people can do what they want to do?

[00:54:39]Prince but he said how to handle the fear of relapse uh by doing the actions that uh you want to do. Just like if somebody said in a swimming class, how do I handle the fear of drowning?

[00:54:56]Learn how to swim. So the the thing is not about giving more time and energy to the fear. The thing is about where do you want to go? So that's why I keep emphasizing that. Uh if we don't want to relapse, amazing then give time and energy to doing the things uh that are useful to you that support you. If you stop doing what's useful to you just to focus on the fear uh that tends to just spend a lot of time and energy on the fear and grow it well. Oh wow. And even Mr. Farm uh went and uh dug up the Stamford video from way back in the day um on talking about uh yeah looking at the context around why somebody's uh not making changes. Thank you so much for finding that. I appreciate it.

[00:55:48]Yeah. And that was in in particular cuz that health conference that's an uh it it stopped during the pandemic. I was involved in the conference for several years and what was great about it uh was that so yeah academic uh healthcare conference very yeah very focused on the intersection between healthcare and technology too like yeah being you know Stanford and Silicon Valley but with a a huge emphasis on patient experience and leveraging patient insights to guide and design better healthcare. So recognizing what I was just sharing about there is kind of across the board something that's increasingly recognized in healthcare that when we roll something out we need to incorporate a design perspective into it of h like how do we make this so that it adapts to the context and the challenges that people run into in life.

[00:56:49]uh rather than uh just saying like oh this person is treatment resistant that really the treatment resistant thing really hearkens back to the stigma um the systemic kind of I guess we would say yeah structural uh stigma that has always been so present in uh mental healthcare and psychiatry you know because it originated and is so grounded in the era of asylums you know, hearkening back to like Bedlim and places like that.

[00:57:23]So, that really built up this idea of kind of, you know, somebody's presenting a treatment, you either do it or the problem is with you. And and we just don't take that approach in anywhere else. Like if if uh yeah, an app is a great example. If a piece of technology, which is what a therapy is, if a piece of technology is not designed well, then people aren't going to use it in the way that it's intended or aren't going to be able to access how to use it. Uh, and exact same with therapy. It has to be designed to fit people's lives and challenges. And if not, that doesn't make patients uh treatment resistant.

[00:58:03]That just means uh it's not designed effectively for all of those situations.

[00:58:11]George asked, "Is it normal for meditation to make you feel worse during and after the practice? I used to enjoy meditation, but now it is when the feeling and the urge to do a compulsion is the worst." So, I'm curious there.

[00:58:29]Uh when you say that it makes you feel bad, do you mean that feeling the urge to do a compulsion is what feels bad?

[00:58:39]And I I have one more question from Instagram that I will share right now.

[00:58:48]On Instagram, they asked, "Why do I keep bringing back previous intrusive thoughts to test my reaction?" uh because it is a classic compulsion. It is a reassurance compulsion.

[00:59:03]It's great to recognize in so many ways and I'd say for a lot of people if if you think oh I don't bring back thoughts to check uh and test my reaction but do you do other things to test your reaction to them? It is a classic reassurance compulsion and it's also one of the ways that we can see how we may have developed a reliance on compulsions and intrusive stuff. At first we may say ah I hate intrusive thoughts. I hate anxiety. I just want to get rid of it.

[00:59:37]But over the years we may have come to see the solving those as a way to get safety or to even feel happy.

[00:59:49]And so what happens is when we no longer struggle with intrusive thoughts and anxiety because we've cut up the compulsions. We may often do the compulsion to bring them up to test them again or to create a problem so that we can feel good about getting rid of them again because we've come to see that fixing approach to thoughts and feelings as the way we practice safety.

[01:00:20]you are going to develop new ways uh to practice safety to explore happiness in your life but you'll probably have to be very intentional about them if we look at the brain as just being helpful. So also if you see it as automatically throwing up this stuff just to check how you react that totally normal uh totally makes sense and can also be an opportunity to consider that the the brain wants you to be happy. It wants you to feel safe. And we have taught it that the way to do that is to have a problem to fix.

[01:00:56]Whether I'm like, I'm gonna have this thing about me and I've got to make it better or to have some kind of anxiety, have an uncertainty, have something stressful, have a conflict, and then I'm going to solve it and then I'm going to feel good that we're safe now because we solved the bad thing. If we've developed a cycle like that, then yeah, the brain is just going to keep bringing it up because that's the only way we've known how to feel safe. and successful.

[01:01:21]So we break that cycle not doing the compulsion to check for reassurance anymore and we explore healthier ways uh new proactive ways to give safety and care and happiness to ourselves that don't depend on having a problem to fix. We join nothing to fix club.

[01:01:44]Hope oh and I see hope I'll share what hope asked and then I see uh Mr. Master Master Masters on Farm replied to it.

[01:01:54]I'll share that and then we'll discuss.

[01:01:56]So, Hope said, "How do we cut out compulsions completely and completely is in bold uh big capital letters are the sneaky micro compulsions we're sometimes not aware of included?" Yes.

[01:02:10]So, Mr. Massadon Farm said, "Uh, I think it's useful to have a phase of heavily cutting out compulsions, but I think we can easily get caught up in treating compulsions as contaminated and trying to clean them away." Yeah, it's so it is finding this way to navigate it with nuance. Uh because yeah, if we're going I've got to clean these away or else uh then we're just doing it out of fear.

[01:02:34]It is so useful to make changes like even around those ones we'd see as normal or sneaky. It helped me a lot to not see them as normal or sneaky. I helped me to see them as just the ways I practice those patterns throughout life.

[01:02:49]like if for example uh somebody you know checks messages just to just to make sure I didn't say something wrong or just to make sure that person uh responded quickly. Uh so I'm going to assume they still like me. So you see that might seem normal, but that person uh might also struggle with compulsions around the fear of losing control and hurting somebody. And if we look at what they're afraid of there, we may see that they're afraid of losing control and hurting somebody because everybody else would judge them and hate on them. And see, so that checking the messages to check to make sure people don't dislike them is the exact same pattern as trying to get certainty that I won't lose control because I'll hurt somebody and then everybody will judge me.

[01:03:42]So with the say that pattern I I find it really useful to cut it out completely that in you are not a rock in the mind workout the exercise for looking at that is the path tool and I'm making this motion with my hands right now for anybody just listening I'm I'm making imaginary columns in the air with my hand which they probably did not look like imaginary columns but the path tool is for creating three columns you draw them out and that middle column is where you put these actions that follow the same pattern as the big compulsions but don't feel like a problem.

[01:04:18]I credit uh really sustaining recovery and just generally enjoying life and taking care of my mental health and fitness with really nailing down that that middle column.

[01:04:30]we don't have to go back to practicing these patterns, but cutting them out is about giving time and energy to the things we care about rather than trying to clean them away. Like Dylan mentioned there, yeah, it's not about coming up with a new fear because if we're doing it to control a fear, we're all we're still in the same pattern. Like that itself would be one of the the actions that would go in the middle column. So, we're not going to do these cuz we're terrified. We're going to do it because there's just other things we want to give our time and energy to cultivating to growing in the garden of you. Just Venenzo, it's good to see you. Just Venenzo, thank you for being a member on the YouTube members channel too and and joining so many uh live streams.

[01:05:19]Uh Febra, so you said, "Could you share a personal tip that helped you handle anxiety when it gets hard to handle? For example, start exercising or something like that. Sometimes meditation won't help me shift the focus." And yeah, meditation is not for that. I I would not recommend meditation in that kind of situation. Uh and that is 1,000% not what meditation is for. Uh it is not a compulsion to fix and control feelings.

[01:05:45]That would be in many ways the opposite of meditation because meditation is to have experiences in the present without judgment. But if we are doing it to try to clean away a feeling then we're not really meditating.

[01:05:59]So I wouldn't approach it that way. But that like what you're asking for there I would see uh as a compulsion rather than trying to change the feeling. It helped me way more to look at what supports I can put in place so I can continue doing the action I value while anxious or while having any uncomfortable unwanted experience. So this is really useful with intrusive thoughts too.

[01:06:28]Working with intrusive thoughts yeah is going to feel like the end of the world.

[01:06:33]It is going to be the most intense anxiety.

[01:06:38]We don't need to, you know, push ourselves into doing some like even more extreme activity, but we are going to do the action we value while having those feelings. So rather than looking for a new compulsion to try to clean away anxiety, because you've already seen that isn't going to work, what supports could you put in place that could help you have that anxiety?

[01:07:04]So, you are going to have anxiety that's going to feel like your uh entire uh head and spleen and baby toe is going to explode in this dimension and all of the others.

[01:07:17]What's going to make it easy to do the thing you want to do while having that feeling? Making it easy is not about like getting rid of the feeling so it's easy to do what I want.

[01:07:29]That's not what we're doing here. We are lifting the weight. So, is there a support that can help you lift the weight? Uh, so for example, if uh I knew I Yeah. So if I knew I was going to have a lot of anxiety to say go back and check something or even a lot of anxiety to kind of like preemptively start checking things in the morning cuz when I knew that I wasn't going to do a check-in compulsion before leaving, I would start to do all sorts of compulsions before even getting to that point. So I I had to make it easy to leave the apartment because I was going to practice having the anxiety and not checking. So how could I make it as easy and as fast as possible to get out? So it's stuff like that. So it might be for instance setting up a bunch of things the night before or even I noticed I would do a lot of compulsions in the morning around intrusive thoughts and I would just stay in bed doing compulsions and you know checking thoughts running through thoughts like hating on the thoughts etc. Making breakfast the night before was an example very concrete example of making it easy in the morning because if there was this uncertainty of like ah what am I going to eat or I don't have anything to eat it was then very natural to just default to well I have this other thing I can do which is fixing intrusive thoughts setting up breakfast the night before was a way to say I am going to get out of bed and go and get that breakfast and so the thoughts would just have to come along with me So, what would make it easy to bring the anxiety with you?

[01:09:23]I'mma play GTA.

[01:09:25]Said, "Does distracting myself with anything to avoid rumination considered a compulsion? not to avoid thoughts and feelings, but not to do any compulsions about it at first with a bunch of compulsions.

[01:09:42]I'll often recommend to clients to yeah, block anything, anything they want. This comes back to the idea of making it easy. Uh, you know, if somebody has a bunch of compulsions on their phone, let's block all the apps. Let's like just make your phone useless for a week.

[01:10:02]Same with things like ruminating and other mental compulsions. We might set up having a bunch of things to do just to start to get in the practice of doing something different than the old compulsion.

[01:10:17]I always cap that at like a week or 10 days. So we say we're going to have this period of time just to show the brain we can do a different thing.

[01:10:28]And I I always think of that as kind of loosening up the knot. So right now everything is very rigid. Uh it feels like we must do the compulsion and it we may want to not do the compulsion at all but that will feel too impossible. So what if we just did a different thing? So we're not doing the same old compulsion. We're just doing something else. Just to start to recognize it is possible to do something different here. That's that is a real thing. And look at it. Even though I put all sorts of supports in place to make it easier to do something different, I did something different. And so then we've introduced the reality that there are different options.

[01:11:11]And then in the next week, we would look at how do we start to create some time where you don't have to do a distraction and you don't have to do the compulsion.

[01:11:22]But you would start with something really small. Think about a physical fitness exercise. It might be like 20 minutes. I was sharing with somebody the other day about exercises I did when I first started to work for myself at home because I I just wasn't used to working at home, not around other people.

[01:11:39]So at first I would do a a small amount of work that I knew I could do successfully focus and then I would go to a cafe work there and while I was working there I would write down I would of whether it would be an email or some kind of text that needed to get typed up. It might be a presentation something like that. I would make it on paper so that then when I would go back to my computer, I would just be copying what was on the paper.

[01:12:08]So I could just get in the practice of being at home. So that's then I would go back home and write copy what was on the paper. Then I could get in that practice of being at home doing work. But then after I was done that task, maybe I would practice doing maybe 20 more minutes of work and then leave before it became too difficult. and then just over time gradually increased that amount of time without needing the extra supports and distractions.

[01:12:41]So if you're doing that with mental compulsions, yeah, you might set up a whole bunch of things just be like, look, I'm not going to engage with the brain. I'm going to do this stuff. And then after you've done that say for seven or 10 days, how do you want to start introducing an amount of time where you don't need a distraction and you also don't need to do the mental compulsions?

[01:13:05]You can just be and you don't have to do a thing.

[01:13:10]Learning how to not do a thing in our heads is so enjoyable because the brain just gets so used to like always doing a thing. We got to do a thing. What about a thing? Come on, let's control a thing. It's like this machine and once you turn one of the machines on, all of the machines get turned on. So learning how to not do a thing in our head is just so beneficial for every other possible compulsion and change we'd want to make. So enjoy exploring how to not do a thing and just gradually increasing that amount of time.

[01:13:46]Maxis edits I said, "I've developed a compulsion towards a game called Geometry Dash, and I feel like if I don't beat a level, my entire life is over.

[01:13:59]How can I get over this and do treatment for it?" Uh, so I don't do treatment.

[01:14:05]And even like the whole getting over it idea. Uh yeah, like what what if you don't have to get over it, but you can make a change.

[01:14:18]I'm also very curious about what other areas in life you see similar patterns coming up because if we just focus on on one area, we say I've developed a compulsion towards again geometry dash, I just want to get over it. That is such a small narrow piece of the puzzle that it suggests to me there's a whole bunch of other compulsions going on. And if you don't also take a look at those, it's just going to keep popping back up into some new thing.

[01:14:54]We want to live our lives. And so if we are reacting to the brain going, you've got to do this right or your life is over.

[01:15:02]Even if we get some kind of resolution, treatment, deal with thing to fix it, we haven't addressed the big fear of I'm not like I'm going to ruin the world and my life and I'm going to miss out on this stuff that I really care about.

[01:15:22]So rather than geometry dash, I think it was called geometry dash.

[01:15:29]This could this could be an ad for Geometry Dash.

[01:15:34]What is it that you want to be taken care of to live your life?

[01:15:43]What are the actions you want to do to care for and grow what really matters to you? So if we looked at those things you you care about in life as a plants.

[01:15:56]So we consider those things you care about are plants that you're growing in a garden. And right now the brain is going, "Oh no, like if you do this game wrong, the plants are going to wither up and and die."

[01:16:08]And so we can say, "Okay, brain, but rather than focusing on this game, like I I get it. The brain's looking for some kind of ritual to get certainty that the things we care about are going to be okay, but I know geometry dash doesn't actually control that.

[01:16:25]What are the actions that actually contribute to those plants I want to grow in life?

[01:16:31]How can I do those actions today?

[01:16:35]Because then when the brain throws up the worry about the game, we can recognize that as just a useful reminder.

[01:16:42]And this for everybody, this applies to all of the different intrusive thoughts the brain can throw up. It's like, oh no, if you don't do this, this terrible thing is gonna happen to the people or the things we care about. Okay, thank you brain. Congratulations so much.

[01:16:56]Thank you so much for reminding me that I care about those.

[01:17:00]So rather than go and do a bunch of compulsions and pay attention to the brain, I am going to go and do the actions to care for these things. Quite often those things are living our lives.

[01:17:10]We like being ourselves and we don't want to miss out on life. Spending time and energy on the brain stuff is choosing to mess with life. So we're not going to spend time on that stuff. we're going to go and live our lives. So, how are we going to go and do that right now? Being really clear about those actions is one of the ways we can make it easier like I was talking about earlier because the brain will throw up very specific intrusive fears that like, hey, you've got to solve the game in the right way or this bad thing is going to happen. And we'll initially just have a vague abstract idea like I want to live my life.

[01:17:49]And so it's not clear what we want to do. The fear is very clear. I've got to go do whatever with the game. I've got to close it in the right way. I've got to close it with this right thought lined up. So many different compulsions can happen there for everybody when you're working on making these changes. One of the supports you can put in place for yourself is making the valued action really clear. It needs to be clearer and easier than the compulsion because if the compulsion is the really specific thing, it's just so much more natural and easier to default to the compulsion.

[01:18:29]So, let's make the valued actions really clear.

[01:18:33]And everybody, we're uh yeah, we're going to wrap up soon. Uh so, yeah, throw any other questions if you got them, put them in the chat, and then we'll uh we'll finish up soon and we'll go and try to stay cool.

[01:18:45]Oh, and Mr. Master played Geometry Dash.

[01:18:49]It is a good time. So, everybody, this is a promo for Geometry Dash. We are not sponsored by Geometry Dash, but uh maybe everybody will have a good time playing later.

[01:19:04]Saturated said, "Do you have any tips for working with false memory, real event OCD?"

[01:19:10]Also, thank you for making these videos.

[01:19:12]Yeah, the thing I often bring up with real event and false memory uh compulsions is what I just mentioned there that we can start to take these as reminders of what we care about.

[01:19:26]brain is just throwing up like hey what if this bad thing happened in the past because of why right like what is it you're afraid you're going to miss out on or what is the bad thing that's going to happen because of that and then we pivot so in acceptance and commitment therapy there's a a technique or a concept that has I've been sharing a lot about this uh recently this week uh which Stephen Hayes refers to as the pivot and it is to quickly see this nasty intrusive terrible thing that the brain throws up and rather than go oh that's horrible and like I have false memory real event OCD I have these intrusive thoughts to recognize oh yeah this is the brain pointing out that there's something I'm afraid of losing over here that I care about so rather than giving my time and energy and doing all these compulsions around the stuff it's throwing up I'm going to treat that like a bell. It is a bell that is reminding me that I care about this thing over here. And so we do that pivot from the unwanted experience to the thing it's actually pointing at that we care about. I care about growing uh this thing in my life. I care about these people in my life. And yeah, you're right, brain. If that horrible thing had happened, that would threaten them. We can clap for that. You're so smart, brain. You're totally right. That thing that you're throwing up in my head would threaten this thing I care about.

[01:21:00]So, I'm going to practice actions that care for that thing right now because also I am not a timetraing janitor. So, anything in the past is not anything I can uh clean up. But what I can do is give to the things I care about in a way that I value right now. And so I'm going to pivot to that and do that.

[01:21:28]Vax editis Vaxis edits.

[01:21:34]You said I feel like I'm kind of trapped and I don't know if it's related but I have become anhidonic.

[01:21:44]So when I look into valued actions nothing feels like it has value anymore.

[01:21:48]Ah, so valued actions have nothing to do with feeling. So watch out if if there's some kind of sense of like oh like valued actions because even that like checking for a feeling with valued actions I I would see that as an example of the compulsion. Uh if we're constantly checking things to get some right feeling then we're not going to have it. Valued actions are like recipe directions. They they do not come from inside of us. they they do not have to feel right. We are identifying some like a recipe, something that we want to bake. And we're getting actions that are going to help us bake it. If we just like if it came to baking, if you started to like mess with the recipe to be like, "Oo, I don't I don't really feel like this. I want to add a little bit more of that, a little bit less of that." That can really mess up your baking. Doing baking by vibes. There are some bakers who can bake by vibes, but most people need to be very uh intentional with how they're going to follow the recipe. Uh yeah, valued actions, they they are not they're not special to us. They don't have any kind of feeling.

[01:23:01]It helped me so much to recognize even that initially the valued actions I was going to do that would be beneficial to my mental health would probably feel wrong because the compulsions felt right. And then I could see that those didn't work out well. So it made sense that actually doing the things that were useful wouldn't have a good feeling, wouldn't feel right. So if we've consistently been struggling with our mental health and we see that that's connected to actions that we often felt we needed to do then we know that the feelings aren't uh beneficial for us or like a useful guide. Uh so what can be a more beneficial guide? Uh when it comes to values often we'll be borrowing values from people who have gone places that we want to go. often we'll be picking up yeah different values for different activities that we've never done before. So we do it with curiosity uh to see to see if it's useful.

[01:24:05]We're just picking directions in the wilderness and we'll be curious. Maybe they'll take us where we want to go, maybe not, but it won't be about a feeling. It'll be about really objective data and seeing if these actions take us to places that are beneficial to us.

[01:24:21]Mr. Joe, thank you so much for the donation. I appreciate it. Thank you for being here. Thanks for being part of the members channel and supporting the live stream today. I really uh am uh grateful for your support.

[01:24:46]Groovy Basil. Uh if you're looking for help with harm isn't really important to connect with mental health care services in your area, connect with a skilled professional you can talk to that can provide support and that can you know help you learn about some yeah kinder uh healthier ways to interact with experiences.

[01:25:16]Justenzo said, "I'd like to explore the value of being relaxed, funny, and playful, but I'm thinking this could be a compulsion, getting attentions instead of giving." Do you have any idea about it? Yeah. I'd just be curious about what those mean. I didn't like find it useful to go for values that are like adjectives cuz I did I didn't know what they would mean. And so it was so easy then in any situation for the brand to be like ah do this this is playful this is funny but I found that didn't often link or help me go where I wanted to go.

[01:26:03]So what what do those mean in really practical terms and yeah then that can also help us start to look at why we want to do them. Uh because if we keep them as adjectives, it's it's kind of also they're abstract. So, it's pretty easy to be like, "No, I'm I'm doing this because of whatever thing I want to give." It kind of stays in that realm of feeling totally uh not a problem.

[01:26:28]Mint, thank you so much for sharing the sunshine.

[01:26:32]I saw that pop up. It was It is very sunny. I hope it's sunny uh with you uh as well this weekend. It's probably pretty hot there, too. We were having quite the heat wave in Hanoi. Uh so uh it was and like it's sunny. Usually it's it can be pretty cloudy here quite often, but with the the intense heat there are no clouds. The like just walking around you could feel the the sunshine shooting up from the the sidewalk and and off the the buildings.

[01:27:05]So it was a good day to stay under trees. I hope everybody got a chance to stay cool and talk to some trees today.

[01:27:13]I hope you're talking to trees and not talking to LLMs. The tree will give you more useful information.

[01:27:21]Roshu said, "Sometimes it's easier to see everything as a checking trigger.

[01:27:25]Now I see them as an experience I can have. What is borrowing values?"

[01:27:30]Yeah, borrowing values is uh just picking up basically recipe directions. So if there's something we want to do in life, so a easy example here is like starting a business. Say somebody is always putting off starting their business because they're like, "Well, I got to clean away the brain stuff first."

[01:27:49]That is an example of a compulsion. Uh and so say you're going to give time and energy to starting the business or or whatever organization or thing like that that you've always wanted to start. Uh if you've never done that before, then it'll be useful to borrow a set of values from somebody who has done it successfully. And that's just talking to people who have done it successfully to ask about what are the actions that would be more useful to do and then practicing those actions because that's the direction you want to go in.

[01:28:19]A minci sunny eh thank you for sharing the sunshine with us. And with that everybody uh we'll wrap things up.

[01:28:29]You will probably have a sunny weekend wherever you are in the world.

[01:28:34]Use lots of sunscreen. Be kind to your brain. Protect your brain. Your brain, as much as we say mean things about the brain, it's still good to keep it cool and keep it protected. So, enjoy spending some time in nature, enjoy taking care of the brain, enjoy that pivot. I think for all of us, that's something we can explore this week.

[01:28:53]Having whatever nasty intrusive brain stuff, it can be there. And we're going to see that it's a reminder that we really care about living, that we really care about doing the things we want to do.

[01:29:05]And so rather than spending time and energy on the brain stuff, we're going to give that time and energy to what we value.

[01:29:12]Let's practice doing that. Everybody, thank you so much for sharing your questions, sharing with each other to uh Mr. Mastadon Farm. Thank you for taking care of the chat. As always, I really appreciate the support and keeping an eye on things and sharing tools and supports with everybody.

[01:29:32]Mr. Joe, thank you so much for the donation. I really appreciate it.

[01:29:39]Oh, back is thank you for the support for the brain tech support lives.

[01:29:44]Blooper 785, you're welcome too. All right, everybody. Thank you so much.

[01:29:49]We'll see you in two weeks. Take care of your brain until then.