How to Better Understand Yourself | Dr. Paul Conti & Dr. Andrew Huberman

0:00 There is a lot of emphasis,

0:01 including on this podcast, on learning to sit with stress,

0:06 learning to sit with anxiety and not just letting it out or experiencing it.

0:12 And sometimes I wonder despite knowing the immense value of those tools.

0:16 I mean, I've benefited so much from things like non-sleep, deep rest,

0:19 and meditation and things like that, and I know others have as well.

0:23 But I mean, how much should we be trying to control our states?

0:28 I I do wonder if it's good for us um to think

0:32 that there's something wrong for us if we feel a certain way.

0:37 Period.

0:38 I think controlling our states in order to help us be at our best

0:43 is different from trying to control

0:46 our states so that we change ourselves, right?

0:48 So, so if you you're finding um you know

0:51 a deep state of peace that's not sleep, right?

0:54 You find oh that helps you be a better you, right?

0:57 that finding that peace just it gives you some groundedness and you

1:00 feel healthier for it and you're better able to solve problems.

1:03 So, you know, you're learning something and doing something because it

1:06 serves you well and it helps you be at your best, right?

1:08 That's different than thinking, oh, I need to be different, right?

1:11 If a person thinks, well,

1:12 I need to be different and I need to be calmer or more more peaceful.

1:16 What does that what does that mean?

1:17 And is that person imposing something external on themselves?

1:21 So, there are people who are very active and and yes,

1:23 you could they can sit quietly sometimes, right?

1:26 But they're not really built for it, right?

1:28 They're active people and it works for them to be active and they

1:31 may be quite meditative when they don't seem to be quite meditative, right?

1:35 They can be doing something and you know we see a lot

1:38 of movement in them but but inside they can be in a meditative state.

1:41 So it's it's so easy for for us to we're

1:45 it's well-meaning in that we're trying to understand, right?

1:47 We're trying to understand ourselves and we're trying

1:49 to understand others and we're trying to find patterns,

1:53 but but it's so tempting to think that we know something, right?

1:58 Because we're just observing someone in a certain state

2:00 or we're observing someone talking or not talking, right?

2:02 To go, what does that mean?

2:04 And we have to ask the right questions, right, in order to get there.

2:10 So, so the only way we really know the answers for a person

2:13 is we have to understand that person and we have to understand their context.

2:18 So, we must ask the right questions.

2:19 You know, you had talked about trying to write

2:22 practical routes of approach to ourselves in the book, right?

2:25 I'm I'm doing that because, you know,

2:27 think of if someone wanted to learn physics,

2:29 would you say, well, just stop, go somewhere and think about physics, right?

2:32 Like, no, there there has to be a route of approach of saying, well,

2:35 well, here's some of the basic knowledge,

2:37 you know, think about this, approach that way.

2:39 um read from this book and then that book, right?

2:42 Like there are ways that we're guided in how to learn things.

2:45 And it's interesting that we don't have these guides for what's most important,

2:49 which is learning about ourselves.

2:51 So it brings us back to why it can make us so uncomfortable,

2:54 so anxious to say, okay, we're going to sit with ourselves.

2:56 It's like saying, well, sit with yourself and and you know, learn horiculture.

3:00 It's like, I don't know, like I'll sit with myself, but but you have to help me.

3:05 you have to help me figure out how to learn that or I'm going

3:07 to feel anxious about sitting there if I don't know how to go about it.

3:11 Right?

3:11 So, so if we have the prompts to look at ourselves now,

3:15 what we're doing is we're making it real.

3:17 We're asking the right questions of ourselves to think,

3:20 oh, what how do I function?

3:21 What does work well for me?

3:23 You know, how do I think of myself?

3:24 How do others think of me?

3:25 Am I introverted or extroverted?

3:26 Am I a combination of both?

3:28 Do I sometimes feel in one state and sometimes in another?

3:31 Is it working for me?

3:32 Right?

3:32 Is it working for me in the big picture?

3:34 Are there parts of the small picture that work for me or things

3:37 I really don't like or things where I really don't feel uncomfortable?

3:40 Now, we're bringing curiosity.

3:42 And yes, we we want to learn from patterns

3:45 and and learn from all the knowledge we have of the world,

3:47 but we're taking that and saying, "Hey,

3:49 none of that actually means anything until it's directed towards me.

3:54 If I'm the person reflecting about myself or if it's a helping process,

3:57 we're helping a friend or or you know, we're in a a process." you know,

4:01 we have to take everything that we know and then

4:04 it's all seen through the lens of that person.

4:07 We have to do it that way or we'll lead ourselves astray.

4:11 If you're willing, um I'm curious about uh throwing

4:16 out a sort of a generic clinical session example.

4:21 Let's assume you know something about the family

4:25 background of a patient and there's nothing glaringly

4:29 obvious in the background about trauma or maybe

4:32 there is but you know that there's nothing

4:34 really to dig into there just yet and the person comes to you and says yeah

4:40 I don't know I'm like I'm like work is okay but this and so and so

4:44 at work at that and I guess this is good and you know and they're I

4:48 don't know they're dating they're in their life

4:49 and I swear I'm not trying to get a free therapy session Here I'm I'm just

4:52 trying to imagine so someone says you know

4:55 and then like the news is really bothering me

4:56 and that you know and just kind of reporting right

5:01 you observe human patterns I mean your pattern

5:04 recognition is presumably oriented towards where there's

5:07 emotion where there's patterns in them how it

5:10 matches to templates that only you could harbor

5:13 the same way that a really amazing

5:14 neurosurgeon would look into the brain and see

5:17 a pattern of epileptic seizure and would be

5:20 like okay this Even without remembering those specific cases,

5:23 I know which direction to go at this to explore.

5:26 When you hear all that stuff,

5:28 and the stuff I'm talking about here is deliberately meant

5:31 to reflect what you see a lot of on social media.

5:34 Upset about that political team, upset about that politically.

5:37 And my life is this.

5:38 But this, but this, but what does that tell you?

5:41 And what does it tell you specifically about where

5:44 that person should invest effort into thinking or doing?

5:48 I realize it's impossible to give a a pan prescriptive here,

5:52 but like what does that mean when somebody's just really absorbed

5:55 by all the things going on around them and things feel good, but Mhm.

5:59 where do you start to probe and where do you

6:02 start to um encourage them at least until the next session?

6:07 The way to probe is to encourage reflection, right?

6:10 Because with what you said, I think,

6:11 well, I'm hearing somebody reporting, right?

6:13 It's like they're just telling me the news, right, of what went on.

6:15 I'm doing this, I'm doing that.

6:17 my mom did this and my dad did that.

6:19 It's kind of an inventory or a laundry list, right?

6:21 So, what it makes me think is, huh, I [clears throat] wonder how much of that

6:25 you're really choosing, right?

6:27 Or how much of that is is intentional or how much of that is just a reflex?

6:31 The behaviors that in their life,

6:33 how much of it they're choosing or how or the reporting?

6:36 No, the the behaviors, how much of what they're reporting,

6:38 like how much of that are you really choosing, right?

6:40 How much of that is what you want to be doing?

6:43 How much of that is working for you?

6:45 Right?

6:45 What we're trying to do then and what I want to do then is

6:48 is encourage like to have some interest in examination of like well why am

6:52 I doing all of this right maybe some of this I really like

6:55 and I am interested in and others of it I'm just doing because it's habit

6:58 or it's routine I don't even know why I'm doing it or you know

7:01 if I'm dating what who am I dating why why am I dating how

7:05 am I choosing is that is that also just something that I do how

7:08 much am I just kind of along for the ride of what I'm doing

7:11 that just has forward momentum versus what am I really choosing Now,

7:15 if we stop and we look at it that way, what are you really choosing?

7:19 And and also what's working for you now,

7:22 we're we're off to the races of an examined life.

7:26 And you know, we see this as I know you know, we do a lot of intensive work.

7:30 We do it with individuals.

7:31 We do it with couples where we try and move this process

7:34 forward very very very um rapidly of looking at one's own life.

7:39 And it's very interesting that sometimes, you know,

7:41 by midway through the second day of an intensive process,

7:44 the person wants to revisit almost everything.

7:47 They realize, you know, 10 20% of of of all those things I just said,

7:50 I this is what I do, right?

7:52 I I really I really value and and I want to be doing more of the others.

7:56 I'm not so sure of, right?

7:58 I don't know why I'm doing some of those things.

8:00 And now again, we we are we're really along

8:03 the process of change because we're looking at ourselves.

8:05 And it may seem strange that someone would see

8:07 the 80% of what I just told you I do.

8:09 I don't know if I want to do or if it's working for me.

8:12 But that happens all the time when when we're not examining our lives.

8:15 They just kind of run forward and we accumulate what we accumulate, right?

8:18 And and it's like, well,

8:19 this is what we we are because this is what I've accumulated by, you know,

8:23 grabbing and carrying with me as I'm moving through life.

8:25 And there's not an organization to it.

8:28 So, so this idea that we must examine our our lives

8:31 is at the the heart of all of this.

8:33 That's how we we keep mental health

8:34 and our structure of self and our function of self.

8:37 We keep our our drives in balance.

8:39 We set ourselves on a path where where we are in a place to to meet

8:45 future challenges from the best health we can

8:48 have and also to to meet future opportunities.

8:50 So, just like we want to do with our physical health, right?

8:52 We want to build good physical health.

8:54 Likewise, we want to build good mental health when that's the best way

8:58 to be when life throws us whatever curveballs are going to come our way.

9:01 And it's also the best way to have a good life, to be on the front foot of life.

9:05 But we need to examine ourselves and we need a process and a structure

9:09 in order to build good mental health the way we build good physical health.

9:13 And ultimately, that's how we build good health.

9:19 [music]