10.2 Inner Excellence/ACT: A Convergence of Ideas

[00:00:00] In this section, I set the stage talking about how I was introduced to Jim Murphy's work and then outline relational frame theory, including the cardinal experiments that support the theory that helped to describe how our subconscious uses language to derive relationships

[00:00:18] between seemingly unrelated things, all operating in the background of our conscious existence. Then Jim talks a little bit about therapeutic journaling, which operates as a form of diffusion to remain consistent with act concepts and goes on to talk about the purpose of our subconscious

[00:00:37] and how the story that we tell ourselves about ourselves influences each of us in our actions, behaviors, emotions, thoughts, and feelings. I assume about what it's like to play a game as a kid and he talks about how adult pressures consistently change that experience as we get older.

[00:00:57] He pushes us to find that inner child within us playing that game that is fully engaged in the moment, maintaining the result as secondary to their experience. We finish up talking about how these

[00:01:09] concepts go above and beyond peak athletic performance to just helping people to live their best in most fulfilled life. Let's get to it. Somebody get this guy some help! I went to medical school with John metal. Yeah, nice guy. He's the only guy in our entire medical

[00:01:36] school class who went through the entire four years, took every test and then decided he was going to start a water energy company. So then created focus with a friend of his and then that took off.

[00:01:50] They got Jack Harlow on board for a little while there. I was just randomly talking to him one day about the way that I explain mental illness, this fact that we've got this unique human

[00:02:03] internal relationship between our mind or our subconscious and then that conscious part of us that must have some residents in the front of the globe. Just in talking to him about it,

[00:02:16] he was like, man, you really got to talk to this Jim Murphy guy. You all talk about some of the same things and then when I'm reading your book and I'm asking about your background in acceptance

[00:02:26] and commitment therapy because there's so many similar concepts. I have to check it out. Yeah, it's based on an underlying theory called relational frame theory that really owns in on language and how that subconscious part of us that tries to create order in our world,

[00:02:47] orders things in this black and white way. In this yes or no, it does not appreciate the gray area and that's kind of how our thoughts again, the thoughts that we're not trying to have those

[00:02:59] more negative and trusive thoughts, the critic as you call it in your book, that's why the thoughts are so extreme a lot of the time. It's not I might fail it's oh my gosh, I'm going to fail

[00:03:11] if X Y or Z and then that message gets sent to that conscious front of the last stop and it's information processing journey and basically what makes us human is we have the ability to say,

[00:03:23] yes, let's go ahead with that behavior or no, I don't think that's a good idea or maybe I should gather more information before I engage in that that hallmark experiment associated with relational

[00:03:34] frame theory that talks about how our brains do work differently. It really does elucidate some of the ways that our subconscious uses this language and it's very simple, they take an 18-month-old

[00:03:47] baby and a chimpanzee and they flash up on a screen either in A or B and then they have levers corresponding to a C or a D that the chimper, the baby, press on. They create a situation where they

[00:04:03] flash 500 A's and 500 B's all in succession and whenever the B is flashed, if the chimper, the baby picks the C then they are rewarded we'll just say with a banana and so over 500 trials

[00:04:18] every time B is shown both the chimper and the baby learn to pick C. Well, the really interesting part of this is then they flip that and this is where relational frame theory comes from this ability

[00:04:30] of our minds to relate seemingly unrelated things together so then they flip it and they flash a C or a D on the screen and the baby and the chimpek between A and B. So when they flashed the C

[00:04:44] on the screen, humans and again I've asked so many people, so many patients about this. Everybody's like, well I would pick B and I'm like, but why? They're like, because when you showed me B and I

[00:04:56] picked C, I got rewarded. Yeah, but when I showed you C and you pick B, you've never been rewarded for that. The 18-month-old baby makes this relationship in their mind and influences what they choose almost always pick C because they've created this derived relationship. Whereas the chimpanzee

[00:05:17] there's not a thought in that poor little chimped head that says, oh I'm probably better off picking C. The chimpanzee randomly picks between that A and B and so that is one type of relationship

[00:05:32] that our minds make in the background of our lives. If you look into relational frame theory, there are about a half dozen to a dozen different types of relationships that our minds create

[00:05:45] kind of outside of our awareness. They're trying to create order in the world, but in the world that we live in with technology and information overload, it creates a lot of errors in our thinking. That experiment just absolutely fascinated me and really kind of pulled things together for

[00:06:03] what was going on in the background of my conscious life for so long. Interesting. Even at that very young age, you can start to see major differences in the way that we utilize language internally to create this system throughout our lives that when we get to

[00:06:21] our older years, some of those rules that are ingrained in that subconscious can really end up weighing us down. Thanks for sharing. You should know what if they're a pudic journaling? There's a professor at the

[00:06:33] University of Texas in Austin, Penabaker is his name and he did this study in the 80s on therapeutic journaling and it's actually been referenced over 400 times or repeated and looked at other studies spun off of his original study and it's pretty simple. You journal 15 minutes a

[00:06:53] day, four days in a row. You're going to journal about something that's been traumatic for you or something that's been weighing you down. You keep writing nonstop for 15 to 30 minutes. The basic idea is when you have an experience that's traumatic or painful or embarrassing or

[00:07:10] anything like that is just feelings and you don't know how to process it. But when you put it on paper in the words, now you're translating those feelings into a language that you can understand.

[00:07:20] And that's been shown to really help people a lot and so I've taken that therapeutic journaling and added some interre excellence to it. In fact, I was doing an interre excellence retreat with some Texas long horns in December. I was just starting to use that therapeutic journaling with

[00:07:36] the interre excellence part of it and then I looked up just to make sure I got the scientific part right and I saw the professor was that UT still and I was there in Austin. So I emailed them

[00:07:47] and I said, hey, I'm here with some of your long horns doing this and he's like, oh, that's great. He's somebody a long email, it's somebody about it. I saw it from Huberman, you know,

[00:07:54] Huberman's lab to therapeutic journaling can really help. So much of this revolves around the way that we utilize language. We have a mind that really operates much more like an animals brain focused on survival and any possible thing that could threaten our survival or any

[00:08:11] possible thing that we're not doing that could be pro survival. It just hammers away at us but it presents these things in such extreme fashion and it's always focused on problems. You know, always tell my patients people think that their mind is different. Oh, everybody else has these

[00:08:28] rosy beautiful pictures that are being displayed in their mind and I'm like, no, if you want that, you have to insert that consciously and it's not a fake it until you make it. It's that you have

[00:08:40] very negatively focused or problem-focused aspect of your brain nowadays in the world that we live in. It's notifying us that if Jim Murphy doesn't like me, then I can't maybe put it into words

[00:08:54] but I feel like I could maybe die from this. Like I have this intense feeling of anxiety even though I consciously know that's not the case. 100,000 years ago, this part of our brain, it would have

[00:09:05] actually notified us of problems that would threaten our survival. You would have thought about food and water and shelter and so the way I explained it is that our subconscious mind, one of its main roles

[00:09:17] is to protect us and so it doesn't need to protect us from good memories and things that we like is just the painful ones and it doesn't matter if it's physical or a real danger or perceived

[00:09:26] danger. It puts it in the same filing habit and it could be a real life-threatening danger or it could be something that you're just embarrassed about and you could feel the exact same threat in your body that would be life-threatening. Like what you're saying many years ago,

[00:09:41] it was mostly just the life-threatening ones that we were concerned about. And now there's all the social constructs and the comparison in social media and the fears of being judged and all that that our subconscious puts in the same filing cabinet and then it feels just as serious.

[00:09:57] Yeah absolutely. I mean the therapeutic journaling I think is very similar in concept to what's called diffusion and actor and RFT where if you have a fused mind and conscious self, then everything that you feel you're going to feel like it's an absolute truth.

[00:10:14] Like it is a definitive threat. Like it's something that you have to address right here and right now and by putting it out on paper or by defusing it, I just had the thought that Jim Murphy

[00:10:27] is not going to like me, then you immediately knock your mind down a notch and you allow yourself to consciously appraise that situation. I can't tell you how many concepts while I'm reading your book

[00:10:40] I'm like this is literally almost word for word and some of the same things that I say to my patience. Yeah that's amazing. That sounds like there's so many similarities out with ACT and RFT and what you're doing for sure. Yeah I use that exercise of

[00:10:55] imagine that you're sitting at your 80th birthday and if we're talking about your values in your professional life, everybody that you've ever worked with is sitting there with you. And is it how much money you've made that is going to feel really powerful in that moment or is

[00:11:13] it the characteristics that people are going to say to describe you? And again, your life can go however you want it to go between now and then what words stick out for you that you really

[00:11:25] want to hear other people describe you. And as you said, then you derive your values or what's important to you what gives your life meaning only then do you use that to figure out what your goals

[00:11:38] are? The outcome is always secondary because it's in the outside world. Right. Very very limited control over the outside world. Yeah exactly. One of the big things that I do is how people understand their story and are more truthful away because what happens to people is they start

[00:11:56] telling themselves the story about who they are and it's not true. So I work mostly with professional athletes and professional athletes are human so they deal with the same thing at all the rest of us

[00:12:06] do. They come to me and their story is untrue and I help them see what's possible, the truth about what's possible in their lives. Yeah so you know I realized as I was reading your book that

[00:12:18] as a kid you always think bottom of the night two outs, bases loaded were down one. I need a hit and thinking back on my own experience I always delivered the hit. You know I think there's

[00:12:32] something that happens to our consciousness when we go through puberty as our brain matures that opens up this door for more of that self-criticism. It opens up this door for us to then

[00:12:46] imagine the possibility on the other side, not of being the new type of goat but of being the old type of goat. What do you make of that kind of shift and how kids they're able to harness this

[00:13:00] love for the game and just be fully present in it? What do you make of that? How would you recommend or how do you teach others to train your mind to find that childlike love and presentness within any

[00:13:14] game? Yeah so what happens is we get older when you're in say three grade you're playing football it really says because you love it but then you start to get into a fourth, fifth, sixth grade and then

[00:13:25] you're traveling and then you're like okay this is a bigger deal they're driving me all this way or whatever and then maybe junior high you see your name and the newspaper like whoa and then you're playing

[00:13:33] a night game and they got these fancy lights so it becomes a bigger and bigger deal and then you have parents who they they give you love when you perform well and take it away when you don't

[00:13:43] and this is the majority of parents especially in America what happens when Bobby hits a home run and has a great game and the parents aren't just sitting there going oh okay another game they're

[00:13:52] jumping up and down and they're like okay we're going McDonald's afterwards and we're celebrating right it's so they're really excited but what happens when Johnny's over fourth, four strikeouts they're not jumping up and down and they were home McDonald's they're like it's okay Johnny you

[00:14:06] hanging there or worse but most of them are definitely could be worse the most of them are you just hanging there but physically and subconsciously what's happening give love when I

[00:14:16] perform well take it away when I don't and so it provides a lot of pressure on the kid as we age that's what happens is we're starting to see oh this is a bigger deal and then parents are putting this

[00:14:28] pressure on the opposite of what they're trying to do is what most parents are doing and then there's the whole social comparison social media that in the last four or five years has

[00:14:38] greatly multiplied the anxiety because anxiety is a mine that has two many thoughts two many concerns and now it's 24 seven you've got all these concerns and people judging you and so the ability

[00:14:49] to be judged and to be relentless and continue to be out there even though you're constantly getting judged it's really hard thing to do so in a restaurant to the belief is that your heart is

[00:15:01] what's running your life it's not your mind it's your heart and soul the deepest part of you it's where your greatest fears are and your biggest dreams are in your heart and we're much more

[00:15:08] than thinking machines if you want I help someone you got to get to their heart and we want to train the heart and so in a sense this is about heart transformation and getting that heart where what it

[00:15:18] loves most is most empowering and like you were saying earlier if what you love most is your looks so if you grew up in your very good looking you're going to have a hard time when you get older

[00:15:29] for most people because as you're getting older you're losing that attention and your identity is going to change or if you have a lot of money or whatever your treasure is that if it's unstable then

[00:15:39] you're going to be unstable whatever you love most the idea to love what's immutable or unchainsable that's the most powerful my patience it's different but it's not you're coaching people to be excellent at a sport or at their craft but you also mentioned that totally intersects with the

[00:15:57] ability to be your best self how do you translate that onto the field that concept like specifically yeah I don't coach people in their sport I teach them how to be fully engaged hard-mine

[00:16:09] and body in their life so it doesn't matter they could be a psychologist it could be a dentist state home dad or Olympic athlete it doesn't matter I do the same thing with everybody

[00:16:19] and it's really getting clear on who you are and what you want most and that flow of resonance when you're in the zone was it take for you to get that and unconnected a love is the

[00:16:29] underlying theme that this is the most powerful force in the universe and everyone knows what that is or I should say everyone knows what love is because and it has various forms but if you're

[00:16:39] pro athlete then most pro athletes love their sport at least they did at one point not every pro athlete loves their sport but feeling something that makes you come alive that's the power

[00:16:49] that we want to harness and then understanding how do I get more of that and my name parent that has kids so they have this real love for their kids taking that energy and applying it to your life

[00:16:59] and so that's what we do with interactions we help people understand what their heart deeply wants most and the thing that it wants most is to be fully known and fully loved and so understanding

[00:17:08] that unconditional love is the most powerful force in the universe and then how the mind works we have a subconscious mind that is always working to protect us and always looking for

[00:17:17] things that are in the past were painful or embarrassing or anything like that the way it works is that we go through our lives we have some sort of embarrassing or painful experience subconscious

[00:17:27] is going to lock it in it's going to put it in the same filing cabinet as a real physical threat and so you could feel just as scared trying to serve a volleyball in bounds as you could be taking

[00:17:39] fire in Afghanistan or in Gaza or anywhere which is crazy how could you feel just as scared or more scared in some sort of sporting event and a safe venue when there's people that are in wars

[00:17:53] and they can have more peace and confidence than you can I'm not saying they do but I've seen that's definitely possible and I think there's definitely maybe seals and people like that that have had more peace and confidence in those pressure situations than some of us have had

[00:18:06] in playing volleyball or baseball or whatever. Rect League basketball at the free throw line for me but it sounds like you're talking about the way that we create rules and one of the big

[00:18:21] differences in the human brain is we do not have to have the same experience a second time in order to apply a rule from a previous experience if our mind is able to relate it

[00:18:36] to that first experience in a definable way or demonstrable way then we can try to apply that same rule to a situation that may be way different whether it be if we are bitten by a dog at

[00:18:51] a young age and then we find ourselves at a much older age with a much smaller animal our mind has said this animal is a threat it's not just a dog there's an interesting

[00:19:04] experiment that sheds a little bit more light on this where they have two groups of adults walk into two separate but identical rooms that have a game in them and group one is given

[00:19:17] one rule that applies to the game and group two is not given any rules in that first room in the first game group one is able to complete the game faster and finish it then they go into a second room

[00:19:32] a few minutes later with a different game and they even tell them that the rules from the first game do not apply here but the first group is still trying to apply the rules of the first game so

[00:19:45] they are way slower in the second game than group two is but it is this idea you know if we're told that a young age especially repeatedly the old mantra that men don't cry we might not just

[00:19:59] find ourselves later in life not being able to cry even when it's a very appropriate situation we might find ourselves having applied that rule in a much more general way that men don't express

[00:20:11] emotion and then you end up living a very blousey life because you may not be aware of those rules like I said there's so much crossover and I think you've talked about trying to bring some of

[00:20:24] that subconscious baggage to light acknowledge it consciously and understand the story that you are living by and then start to poke holes in it and create a more realistic story I'm such a

[00:20:41] believer that when we do these things consciously it feeds back to our subconscious even though we don't consciously realize it.

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