Speaker 1Hello, everybody. How you doing? Hope all is well. Welcome to another lecture today. And we are talking about Alain de Bouton's Self-Knowledge. Great book. I recommend you go pick it up. If you're in my class, we're looking in our bibliotherapy book at page 112 to page 114, where we have some excerpts in our On Coping chapter that I think are super useful. So before we get to that, I want to present what I think will be a useful suggestion for executing some of these exercises that de Bouton presents for us. And it comes from a handbook for new Stoics by Massimo Pagliucci and Gregory Lopez. And what they suggest we do is instead of thinking in the first person, so let's say thinking also in writing, as again, we always talk about self-writing here, instead of thinking in the word I, or seeing problems from the I perspective, or seeing solutions from the I perspective, or our day-to-day thinking and feeling from that perspective. We might want to adopt a you perspective. So by that, I mean, instead of thinking I'm not going to get angry today, tell yourself you will not get angry today. And I think there's a couple of really great reasons for this. So one, it's a good way to shift our perspectives to give us, I think, some distance between how we're feeling and what we're thinking, right? And that distance is useful. The unfortunate reality sometimes, or maybe a lot of time, is that we give really good advice to others. We tell people, you shouldn't do that. You should do this. And we either don't follow it ourselves, or we're very bad at giving ourselves effective advice. I think a part of that, and Debutan will help us here, hopefully, is that we don't ask ourselves enough questions. We're dismissive of our own suffering, of our own victories too. And we might find that we're kinder to others than we are to ourselves. I think that's common. It's relatively common, right? So you want to work on that. So I think changing the I to you is useful in that regard for sure. Gives us the distance. And then also, I think it can cultivate a sense of belonging. It can cultivate more of, let's say, like a friendliness, right? We want to be our own best friend in a way. So I think that you, once again, resituates us with certain thinking and feeling and acting such that we could see ourselves having distance and seeing ourselves as friends to ourselves, which I think is a good thing, right? So that's maybe a simple change, but I do think it could be a powerful one, right? So think about that when we get into these exercises, because he's asking here, you know, he's asking us to think about ourselves, our own thinking, our own feeling, and that perspective shift might be useful, right? So on that note, let's get into a little bit about what Deb Witton's offering us here, right? So he says, quote, life is generally far more alarming than we allow ourselves to accept. We constantly have to navigate an uncertain world. Very true, right? Then he goes on this paragraph to list some really common questions that might bother us, right? You know, where are we going to be five years from now? That's a common one, right? Everything from that to where's the nearest bathroom to when do we need to leave, right? So all these questions that might cause anxiety, that might be anxiety-inducing, right? And what he asks us here is to do the following, right? He says, take some time for a meditative session, right? In this time, we need to give all our anxieties a chance to understand themselves. For three quarters of our agitation is not that there are things to worry about, but that we haven't given our worries the time they require, to be understood and diffused. Only by being listened to can anxieties be drained of some of their intensity. So I want to make this clear, right? He talks about a meditative session. One of the first things I often hear when I suggest this to people is that they don't have time for it. But here's what I think is interesting about this, right? If you don't make a little bit of time for some type of meditative session of this type, and there are others too that could be really useful, right? What you end up doing, I think, is sometimes being tortured by anxieties more frequently. And you end up spending more time on them anyway in your thinking and in your feeling and potentially even in your acting than you would if you got good at habitually making focused time for a meditative session that might be as little as 10 minutes every other day. Again, whatever works for you. But if you don't make time for this, I find that, once again, you end up thinking about it more frequently and you spend more time than you would anyway if you were disciplined about it. And not only that, but it makes you slower at doing other things, right? So if you're not doing it right, you're not doing it right. So if you're not doing it right, you're not doing it right. So if you're not doing it right, you're not doing it right. So if you're constantly anxious, I really think that does tax your energy such that doing other activities, again, whether it's work or having relationships, just don't run as effectively. So although it's adding something to your life, it actually, I think, makes you more effective at living the rest of your life and doing this, because again, being anxious is a natural part of being a person, right? Such that you actually end up saving time, right? So I want to make that note because the idea of a meditative session, I think, is a great way to look at, all right, today for 10 minutes, I'm going to carve out time. It's going to help me move everything else along more efficiently, thus saving me time and energy, right? So just things to think about, right? Let's get to the first one, exercise interpreting anxiety. Here's what he tells us to do. Write down what you're anxious about. Find at least eight things. Each entry should only be a single word or just a few words at this point, okay? Don't worry if the anxieties look trivial or huge. It doesn't matter. Write them down, okay? If you're having trouble, he gives us some suggestions. here to get our suggestions kind of going, right? So think about work, think about relationships, think about children or parents, think about health, money, and things you might have to do, right? And he's saying here, I could really attest to this and I agree with it, right? There's a kind of release that comes just from making a list of these items, right? Because I think one, for me, again, self-writing, we always talk about it. You're getting out of your mind and you're finally doing something, right? Thoughts respond to action, usually better than they respond to more thoughts, right? So you're getting stuff out, right? And he says here, right, this relief can kind of become what he calls unpacking and anxiety, right? So we start with the list. We should get a little bit of relaxation there. Okay, we're taking action and also we're seeing them more clearly and that clarity should give us a little bit of peace, right? Cool. So then we have to get into the unpacking. And for him, there's two different unpacking. One is practical unpacking, which is when we walk ourselves to the practical challenge. And he has three questions here to motivate this inquiry, right? What steps do you need to take? What do others need to do? And what needs to happen when? So be a little careful with two and three. A lot of that's going to be out of our control, right? All of it pretty much, right? But the first one, what steps do you need to take? Those are the ones you want to focus on and the ones you want to execute on with, let's say, with the most focus, right? So make those as perfect as they can be. Don't be perfectionist about it. We have other episodes on that. Avoid that. But really put your best effort into that, right? And once again, even just by acknowledging, listening, seeing more clearly your answer to the second two, right? There's a sense of relaxation there. This is, again, practical unpacking of an anxiety so we can soften our anxieties, not necessarily so that we can succeed perfectly, right? Again, that doesn't even exist. But this, I think, is great advice for becoming less anxious, right? And then he adds to this, and this connects to my first suggestion, right? It's very useful to have a calm and sympathetic part of yourself or even a friend. Listen to the detailed descriptions of what needs to be done, right? To address the issue that you're anxious about. At that point, as he says, it's no longer merely an anxiety. It is a set of steps, which is great because that step, that set of steps gives you a direction that you can move in. Once you start moving in it, right? Life gets meaningful. Life becomes engaging. Then you're almost inherently less anxious, right? Taking action in the moment is also a great way to get rid of some anxiety, which, again, is a future-driven thing, right? All these steps might not be easy, de Bouton says, but at least you are clear about what they are. And as I said, that clarity should definitely give us a sense of peace, right? Second type of unpacking, emotional unpacking. This is where we have to, as he's saying, talk yourself through an emotional challenge or a set of doubts. Describe the feeling in more detail. What do you feel it points to? And this is a great question, right, that he provides us. I think we have to be very aware if the anxiety points to something in our past. It may be evidence that we're simply carrying something that we shouldn't be, or we're holding onto something for too long and or in the wrong way, right? A lot of my anxieties, for example, might come from, really, the word might is an understatement. They definitely probably come from certain things that happened in my past. And I think that's a great question. Right. Moments where I was speaking and someone said I sounded stupid and now I'm concerned about, I have to record this 20 times, you know? So that was an overshare. But ultimately, that's really what we have to get good at acknowledging too, I think. Because sometimes it really isn't what it is. That's in the moment. And that's especially true for anxiety. And by that, I mean, and we talked about this in our guided meditation, right? A lot of what we think will happen in the future just doesn't happen. That's good or bad, right? Yeah. That being said, also in the moment, sometimes let's shift from anxiety for a moment to being upset or being stressed out, right? In the moment, we might be perceiving things incorrectly because as I just said, we're carrying something from our past. The first few lines of this episode, when I tried to record them the first few times, probably weren't that bad. They likely weren't as bad at the very least as I think they are because I'm judging myself too harshly because I was once judged harshly by a stranger when I was just talking. Things to think about. Let me move on here. I'm going to stop here. I'm going to stop here. I'm going to stop here. I'm going to move on here. And he tells us, right? So we're not trying to solve all the anxieties. It's not our goal here. It's to start to get to know them and to experience the relief that comes from this, right? right? So once again, clarity is helpful emotionally, right? When we get down to what it points to, we start seeing the source. This is a great quote, I believe from Al-Kindi, right? You cannot find the cure if you don't know the cause. And I'm paraphrasing there a little bit, but that's a beautiful idea, right? You have to know the cause of the pain so you could treat it effectively. So what does it point to is beginning that conversation, I think, really meaningfully, right? And then it becomes also, for me at least, it becomes easier to laugh at the anxiety because you know it's not real. Or again, even laugh at the stress. It's not real. My perception is flawed, right? So hopeless exercises are useful. Again, try to think about them not only with the I, but also with the you, right? Now, he also gives us an exercise to interpret being upset, which is kind of what I was just thinking more so about a moment ago, right? So he says, as quickly as you can and without bother, to how petty, unreasonable, or pretentious it might sound, write a list of current upsets or things that currently get you upset in your life, right? The more, the better. How have others hurt you? What are you sad about, right? What are you nostalgic or wounded about? And allow yourself in the present safety, and this is, again, I really suggest writing this because when he says present safety, it immediately calls to mind for me the power you get with the self-writing in terms of privacy and clarity. That, you know, advantage is overthinking and speaking, those are two major ones for self-writing, right? And really let yourself be upset about even things that are seemingly ridiculous. Large problems, small problems, whatever it is, right? Got to do it. Okay, now you have to ask yourself, this is according to Debutant, if this had happened to a friend, how would you advise them? What might you say? So once again, kind of back to that you perspective. And again, we're not attempting to resolve these issues as yet. The primary crucial issue is to become a self-righteous person. And if you're a self-righteous person, you have to be clear about what is actually distressing us. We're allowing our troubles to acknowledge themselves. So as the title of the book implies, right? Know thyself, the Socratic maxim, obviously coming into close focus here. The book title itself, Self-Knowledge, right? This book is full of really great exercises like these. And I think these are exercises that really fit nicely into a conversation about how we can cope, right? I think even, and this is something I have been thinking about myself recently, looking at problems not as problems. And again, this is not for everything, of course, right? But for a lot of, especially the daily life problems, right? Looking at them more as a set of questions. That's a good way, I think, to propel us into taking action, into looking inward and gathering what resources, experiences, skills we have that might be useful. And it prevents us, I think, from getting anxious or afraid, right? So even the way we talk to ourselves can change, as I said earlier, with the you versus I situation, right? Like, instead of saying, why am I not as, let's say, physically fit as I would like to be, right? Putting it that way, instead of just condemning ourselves. I'm not as strong as I want to be. I'm not as, let's say, again, just I'm not as physically healthy as I want to be. Okay, well, turn it to some questions. How can I improve on this? What can I do today? Why, maybe, do I have some of these habits? How can I change them, right? What am I going to eat next that might be healthier? So we turn a statement into a question, and all of a sudden, we get some growth out of it, right? Condemning ourselves and damning ourselves is really only useful in that it hopefully gets us to grow. But we don't grow if we don't collect new knowledge, if we don't start new things. Questions are a pathway to that, right? So self-inquiry, and then, of course, also inquiry into the world through questions is a really good pathway to, you know, to cope with our, let's say, even our self-perceived shortcomings, or again, even with the world too, right? The world could be better in a lot of ways. Well, we have to, as he's saying here, grapple with what is in a way that is as kind to ourselves as possible, such that we're open to continuing the inquiry, learning more, and then making even better decisions, right? So hope this is helpful. Try these exercises out, right? I would suggest, hopefully, listen to this. This will end in about a minute. This is about 50 minutes. But really take some of these questions seriously, right? I would say sit down 10, 20 minutes each exercise, see what you come up with. And hopefully the other bibliotherapy might even also be helpful for encouragement in regards to how we can then build on what we might realize during these exercises. So hope this is helpful. Hope these exercises are useful for us in coping with whatever we're dealing with. And I'll talk to you soon. Thank you for listening. Take care.
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