1
00:00:12,854 --> 00:00:14,319
Wow.

2
00:00:15,210 --> 00:00:17,211
So what I want to do here, if I could,

3
00:00:17,211 --> 00:00:22,346
is share with you a very simple,
yet powerful method,

4
00:00:22,346 --> 00:00:24,001
grounded in neuroscience,

5
00:00:24,001 --> 00:00:29,491
for turning passing experiences
into lasting structure, useful structure,

6
00:00:29,491 --> 00:00:30,569
inside our brain.

7
00:00:30,569 --> 00:00:34,858
In other words, turning experiences
into the happiness, or the resilience,

8
00:00:34,858 --> 00:00:38,710
or the other inner strengths
that we really want inside ourselves.

9
00:00:38,710 --> 00:00:42,459
I sort of stumbled on this method
when I was in college,

10
00:00:42,459 --> 00:00:45,856
but to explain the context,
I have to take you back a little before,

11
00:00:45,856 --> 00:00:48,390
into my own up-and-down childhood.

12
00:00:48,390 --> 00:00:53,749
So, I grew up in a loving home -
good parents, intact family -

13
00:00:53,749 --> 00:00:56,351
but I was very, very young
going through school -

14
00:00:56,351 --> 00:00:58,470
I have a late birthday
and I skipped a grade.

15
00:00:58,470 --> 00:01:04,110
And that combined with my kind of shy
and seriously dorky temperament -

16
00:01:04,110 --> 00:01:08,119
you know, skinny, glasses,
picked last for baseball, the whole thing.

17
00:01:08,119 --> 00:01:10,271
Well, what it lead to

18
00:01:10,271 --> 00:01:15,879
were lots of experiences of being left out
or put down by the other kids in school.

19
00:01:15,879 --> 00:01:18,413
Now, what happened to me was very small

20
00:01:18,413 --> 00:01:21,781
compared to, unfortunately,
what happens to many, many other people,

21
00:01:21,781 --> 00:01:25,980
but we all have normal needs
to feel cared for, to feel cared about.

22
00:01:25,980 --> 00:01:28,632
We're the most profoundly
social species on the planet.

23
00:01:28,632 --> 00:01:32,661
You know, as we evolved in the Serengeti,
exile was a death sentence.

24
00:01:32,661 --> 00:01:34,122
Causes have effects.

25
00:01:34,122 --> 00:01:38,402
And if we don't get the supplies
that we need, bit by bit,

26
00:01:38,402 --> 00:01:40,982
it's kind of like
we're living on a thin soup.

27
00:01:40,982 --> 00:01:42,793
You can survive, you can make it,

28
00:01:42,793 --> 00:01:46,182
but there's a hollowness,
an emptiness inside.

29
00:01:46,182 --> 00:01:49,302
In my own case - hopefully
this will work; yes -

30
00:01:49,302 --> 00:01:54,672
I ended up with lots of bad thoughts
and feelings inside of me as a result.

31
00:01:54,672 --> 00:01:56,257
Then I went off to college,

32
00:01:56,257 --> 00:02:01,381
and I began to notice something
really powerful and interesting.

33
00:02:01,381 --> 00:02:04,279
You know, some small,
good thing would happen.

34
00:02:04,279 --> 00:02:06,694
You know, a girl would
smile at me in the elevator,

35
00:02:06,694 --> 00:02:09,943
some guy would throw me the football
at intramural football and say,

36
00:02:09,943 --> 00:02:12,203
"Good catch, Hanson,"
that was really good.

37
00:02:12,203 --> 00:02:14,360
Or guys would invite me
to go our for pizza -

38
00:02:14,360 --> 00:02:16,723
you know, basic stuff of everyday life.

39
00:02:16,723 --> 00:02:18,763
And then I would
have an experience, right?

40
00:02:18,763 --> 00:02:22,933
I would feel a little included,
or a little wanted, a little appreciated.

41
00:02:22,933 --> 00:02:25,820
Then the question is,
what would I do with that experience.

42
00:02:25,820 --> 00:02:29,244
If I dealt with it like I usually did,
which was to kind of ignore it,

43
00:02:29,244 --> 00:02:34,074
you know, let it pass along,
I kept feeling lonely and inadequate.

44
00:02:34,074 --> 00:02:38,559
But I began to notice
that if I did something different,

45
00:02:38,559 --> 00:02:42,676
if I stayed with it
a dozen or so seconds in a row,

46
00:02:42,676 --> 00:02:46,243
it felt like something
was gradually coming into me

47
00:02:46,243 --> 00:02:47,722
that was actually good.

48
00:02:47,722 --> 00:02:51,205
And I began feeling better
and better and better,

49
00:02:51,205 --> 00:02:52,684
and more confident.

50
00:02:52,684 --> 00:02:56,686
Any single time I did this
wasn't a mind-blowing moment -

51
00:02:56,686 --> 00:02:59,701
I had a few of those
through other means - but ...

52
00:02:59,701 --> 00:03:00,964
(Laughter)

53
00:03:00,964 --> 00:03:04,095
the good things really did add up
over time for me, definitely.

54
00:03:04,095 --> 00:03:08,343
And now, years later, many years later,
as a neuropsychologist,

55
00:03:08,343 --> 00:03:11,615
I began to understand
what I was actually doing.

56
00:03:11,615 --> 00:03:15,675
I wasn't just changing my mind,
I was actually changing my brain.

57
00:03:15,675 --> 00:03:17,913
That's because,
as the neuroscientists say,

58
00:03:17,913 --> 00:03:21,015
"Neurons that fire together,
wire together."

59
00:03:21,015 --> 00:03:24,936
Passing mental states
become lasting neural traits.

60
00:03:24,936 --> 00:03:28,545
Bit by bit, I was actually
weaving these resources

61
00:03:28,545 --> 00:03:32,205
into the fabric of my brain
and therefore my life.

62
00:03:32,865 --> 00:03:34,566
There are many examples of the ways

63
00:03:34,566 --> 00:03:38,095
in which mental activity
can change brain structure.

64
00:03:38,485 --> 00:03:41,873
For example, taxicab drivers in London
at the end of their training

65
00:03:41,873 --> 00:03:45,597
have a thicker brain
in a key part called the hippocampus

66
00:03:45,597 --> 00:03:47,727
that does visual-spatial memory.

67
00:03:47,727 --> 00:03:49,448
In a different kind of example,

68
00:03:49,448 --> 00:03:53,203
I don't know if anybody in here
experiences stress, right? Occasionally.

69
00:03:53,203 --> 00:03:55,866
Well, if we have the experience of stress,

70
00:03:55,866 --> 00:03:59,435
that releases cortisol in the body,
it goes up into the brain.

71
00:03:59,435 --> 00:04:03,234
Cortisol gradually stimulates
the alarm bell of the brain, the amygdala,

72
00:04:03,234 --> 00:04:05,924
so it rings more loudly and more quickly,

73
00:04:05,924 --> 00:04:10,299
and cortisol weakens, it actually
kills neurons in the hippocampus,

74
00:04:10,299 --> 00:04:12,675
which besides doing visual-spatial memory,

75
00:04:12,675 --> 00:04:15,904
calms down the amygdala
and calms down stress altogether.

76
00:04:15,904 --> 00:04:18,145
So this mental experience of stress,

77
00:04:18,145 --> 00:04:21,146
especially if it's chronic
and moderate to severe,

78
00:04:21,146 --> 00:04:23,314
gradually changes
the structure of the brain,

79
00:04:23,314 --> 00:04:27,085
so we become progressively
more sensitive to stress.

80
00:04:27,747 --> 00:04:30,397
The mind can change the brain
to change the mind.

81
00:04:30,397 --> 00:04:34,677
Knowing this is really valuable
because the inner strengths -

82
00:04:34,677 --> 00:04:36,818
to go back to the beginning
of my story here -

83
00:04:36,818 --> 00:04:39,919
the inner strengths that we all want:
happiness, positive emotion,

84
00:04:39,919 --> 00:04:44,707
determination, feeling love, confidence,
the virtues, the executive functions,

85
00:04:44,707 --> 00:04:46,999
those are all built out of the brain.

86
00:04:46,999 --> 00:04:51,827
The question is how to actually
get them into the brain.

87
00:04:51,827 --> 00:04:52,997
The interesting thing

88
00:04:52,997 --> 00:04:56,844
is that most of the wholesome
qualities of mind and heart

89
00:04:56,844 --> 00:05:00,287
that help us cope with life,
including coping with hard things,

90
00:05:00,287 --> 00:05:04,657
and have a lot inside ourselves
to give to other people,

91
00:05:04,657 --> 00:05:06,899
most of those inner strengths

92
00:05:06,899 --> 00:05:11,318
are built from positive experiences
of those strengths.

93
00:05:11,318 --> 00:05:14,049
If you want to feel
more confident, for example,

94
00:05:14,049 --> 00:05:16,930
have more experiences
of accomplishment or coping.

95
00:05:16,930 --> 00:05:19,078
If you want to have a more loving heart,

96
00:05:19,078 --> 00:05:22,800
practice more moments
of compassion or kindness for others.

97
00:05:23,858 --> 00:05:29,631
The problem is that to get
these experiences into our brain,

98
00:05:29,631 --> 00:05:34,839
we have to overcome
the brain's hard-wired negativity bias.

99
00:05:35,238 --> 00:05:37,356
This negativity bias means

100
00:05:37,356 --> 00:05:41,318
that the brain is very good
at learning from bad experiences

101
00:05:41,318 --> 00:05:43,708
but bad at learning from good ones.

102
00:05:43,708 --> 00:05:47,378
In other words, good experiences
kind of bounce off the brain

103
00:05:47,378 --> 00:05:48,900
unless we do a little thing

104
00:05:48,900 --> 00:05:51,000
that I'm going to
tell you about in a moment;

105
00:05:51,000 --> 00:05:54,311
meanwhile, bad experiences sink right in.

106
00:05:54,311 --> 00:05:56,251
The reason for the negativity bias

107
00:05:56,251 --> 00:06:00,001
is that our ancestors had to pay
a lot of attention to bad news.

108
00:06:00,001 --> 00:06:04,102
Because if they survived it,
they had to remember it forever, right?

109
00:06:04,102 --> 00:06:06,251
Once burned, twice shy.

110
00:06:06,251 --> 00:06:08,840
These days we have
ordinary experiences of this -

111
00:06:08,840 --> 00:06:12,690
think about a relationship you're in
with someone you live with, work with,

112
00:06:12,690 --> 00:06:14,000
sleep with, whatever.

113
00:06:14,000 --> 00:06:17,021
You know, let's say ten things
happen in a day with that person.

114
00:06:17,021 --> 00:06:20,952
Five of them are positive,
four are neutral, one is negative.

115
00:06:20,952 --> 00:06:23,881
Which is the one we tend
to think about as we go to sleep?

116
00:06:24,161 --> 00:06:27,311
That's why a lot of studies show
that a good long-term relationship

117
00:06:27,311 --> 00:06:29,362
typically needs
at least a five-to-one ratio

118
00:06:29,362 --> 00:06:31,521
of positive to negative interactions.

119
00:06:31,521 --> 00:06:33,643
That's a cautionary tale, right?

120
00:06:33,643 --> 00:06:35,182
(Laughter)

121
00:06:35,182 --> 00:06:38,511
Alright, so that's the negativity bias.

122
00:06:38,511 --> 00:06:41,106
It creates a fundamental
bottleneck in the brain

123
00:06:41,106 --> 00:06:44,162
that creates a weakness
in both informal efforts

124
00:06:44,162 --> 00:06:48,532
and formal efforts to grow, to heal,
to train ourselves in different ways.

125
00:06:48,532 --> 00:06:51,952
Whether you're a psychologist like me
or a meditation teacher like me,

126
00:06:51,952 --> 00:06:54,853
or a corporate trainer,
or a coach, a parent -

127
00:06:54,853 --> 00:06:57,301
I'm also a parent, with my wife -

128
00:06:57,301 --> 00:07:00,010
or you're trying to help people
in one way or another,

129
00:07:00,010 --> 00:07:03,493
we tend to be very good
at "activating" positive mental states,

130
00:07:03,493 --> 00:07:06,573
but are we very good at helping people
install them in the brain?

131
00:07:06,573 --> 00:07:07,570
I don't think so.

132
00:07:07,570 --> 00:07:09,521
There's been this longstanding assumption

133
00:07:09,521 --> 00:07:12,522
that if we just get a good thing going,
somehow it will sink in.

134
00:07:12,522 --> 00:07:13,860
What can we do?

135
00:07:13,860 --> 00:07:16,552
We can learn to take in the good,

136
00:07:16,552 --> 00:07:19,042
to pop open this bottleneck in the brain,

137
00:07:19,042 --> 00:07:23,880
and gradually weave good experiences
into the fabric of our brain and our life.

138
00:07:23,880 --> 00:07:26,352
So I thought we could actually
do it here right now -

139
00:07:26,352 --> 00:07:27,811
something experiential.

140
00:07:27,811 --> 00:07:29,419
It is Marin county,

141
00:07:29,419 --> 00:07:30,372
(Laughter)

142
00:07:30,372 --> 00:07:31,400
we could go for it.

143
00:07:31,400 --> 00:07:32,742
We'll just try it right now.

144
00:07:32,742 --> 00:07:35,161
It's a little weird,
a little artificial - why not?

145
00:07:35,161 --> 00:07:36,162
Just go for it.

146
00:07:36,162 --> 00:07:38,812
So I'll take you through this
kind of informally,

147
00:07:38,812 --> 00:07:40,522
then I'll explain what we just did.

148
00:07:40,522 --> 00:07:45,672
So if you could, bring to mind someone
that you know cares about you.

149
00:07:45,672 --> 00:07:48,330
It could be a pet,
it could be a group of people,

150
00:07:48,330 --> 00:07:52,163
it could be a person in your life,
in your past, doesn't really matter.

151
00:07:52,163 --> 00:07:55,111
What you're trying to do
is have a good experience,

152
00:07:55,111 --> 00:07:58,504
a simple good experience
of feeling cared about.

153
00:07:59,191 --> 00:08:03,431
You're trying to help the idea
of this person, or the image, or a memory

154
00:08:03,431 --> 00:08:05,091
become a feeling.

155
00:08:05,665 --> 00:08:07,572
Okay, want to try it?

156
00:08:07,572 --> 00:08:09,822
And then once you get it going -

157
00:08:09,822 --> 00:08:13,432
you're moving out of
concept to experience -

158
00:08:13,432 --> 00:08:15,082
stay with it.

159
00:08:15,431 --> 00:08:18,984
It's kind of a critical
mass of time, a threshold.

160
00:08:20,304 --> 00:08:23,233
Things have to last
long enough in our experience

161
00:08:23,233 --> 00:08:26,941
to transfer from short-term memory buffers
to long-term storage,

162
00:08:26,941 --> 00:08:29,053
including emotional learning.

163
00:08:29,694 --> 00:08:33,092
And meanwhile, you could sense
that this experience is going into you,

164
00:08:33,092 --> 00:08:34,874
you're absorbing it.

165
00:08:35,523 --> 00:08:38,403
It's sinking into you, feeling loved,

166
00:08:38,813 --> 00:08:40,943
as you sink into it.

167
00:08:50,103 --> 00:08:51,932
A simple moment -

168
00:08:53,014 --> 00:08:56,733
10, 20 seconds usually
won't change our life.

169
00:08:56,733 --> 00:09:00,743
But bit by bit, it can really make
an enormous difference.

170
00:09:01,053 --> 00:09:03,873
I'd like to tell you the little steps
of taking in the good,

171
00:09:03,873 --> 00:09:08,505
they're very simple - I even have a clever
acronym that you can use to remember them.

172
00:09:08,505 --> 00:09:11,074
Our daughter thought
of the last word in the acronym -

173
00:09:11,074 --> 00:09:13,184
very important,
so I want to give her credit.

174
00:09:13,184 --> 00:09:16,384
So, in the first step,
have a good experience.

175
00:09:16,384 --> 00:09:19,795
We've got to activate it,
we've got to get it going.

176
00:09:19,795 --> 00:09:22,625
The brain is like an old-school
cassette recorder.

177
00:09:22,625 --> 00:09:27,795
It records the music by playing it -
we have to have an experience.

178
00:09:28,065 --> 00:09:31,548
In the second step, enrich the experience.

179
00:09:31,548 --> 00:09:37,974
Help install this activated mental state
into your brain as a neural trait.

180
00:09:37,974 --> 00:09:40,675
You know, let it last,
help it grow in your body,

181
00:09:40,675 --> 00:09:42,804
help it become increasingly intense,

182
00:09:42,804 --> 00:09:44,485
give yourself over to it.

183
00:09:44,485 --> 00:09:47,125
And in the third step
of taking in the good,

184
00:09:47,125 --> 00:09:48,654
absorb it.

185
00:09:48,654 --> 00:09:51,334
Sense an intent
that it's sinking into you.

186
00:09:51,334 --> 00:09:52,874
This will prime memory systems.

187
00:09:52,874 --> 00:09:56,265
This will sensitize them
so they'll be more efficient

188
00:09:56,265 --> 00:09:59,995
at encoding the experience
into neural structure.

189
00:09:59,995 --> 00:10:03,614
And then, if you want to,
the optional step,

190
00:10:03,614 --> 00:10:07,704
is to link the positive experience
with something negative.

191
00:10:07,704 --> 00:10:09,755
You've got to be
a little careful about this

192
00:10:09,755 --> 00:10:12,282
because you don't want
to be hijacked by the negative,

193
00:10:12,282 --> 00:10:14,374
but if you can stay strong
with the positive,

194
00:10:14,374 --> 00:10:16,572
it will gradually
associate with the negative -

195
00:10:16,572 --> 00:10:18,935
"neurons that fire together,
wire together" -

196
00:10:18,935 --> 00:10:22,344
and it will go into the negative
to soothe it, ease it,

197
00:10:22,344 --> 00:10:24,064
even gradually replace it.

198
00:10:24,064 --> 00:10:26,324
And you can use this step
of taking in the good,

199
00:10:26,324 --> 00:10:28,375
where you're linking
positive and negative,

200
00:10:28,375 --> 00:10:32,135
for yourselves, or for children,
or for clients, students

201
00:10:32,135 --> 00:10:33,645
or others you care about,

202
00:10:33,645 --> 00:10:37,844
you can use this method
to heal old pain or neglect,

203
00:10:37,844 --> 00:10:39,754
whether in adulthood or childhood,

204
00:10:39,754 --> 00:10:42,620
even reaching down
into young parts of yourself.

205
00:10:42,926 --> 00:10:44,355
To kind of sum it up here,

206
00:10:44,355 --> 00:10:48,176
we have four steps
that become an acronym: HEAL.

207
00:10:48,176 --> 00:10:49,833
It's an easy way to remember it.

208
00:10:49,833 --> 00:10:51,105
Have it.

209
00:10:51,584 --> 00:10:54,445
Enrich the experience
to begin installing it in your brain

210
00:10:54,445 --> 00:10:56,745
once it's activated in your mind.

211
00:10:56,745 --> 00:10:57,754
Absorb it,

212
00:10:57,754 --> 00:11:02,392
and, if you like, link it
so it really becomes a part of you.

213
00:11:02,672 --> 00:11:04,603
Now, this may seem a little complicated,

214
00:11:04,603 --> 00:11:06,585
we all know how to take in the good,

215
00:11:06,585 --> 00:11:09,815
we all know how to help
some good life lesson land,

216
00:11:09,815 --> 00:11:11,723
some good experience with other people.

217
00:11:11,723 --> 00:11:14,064
We know how to let these things land.

218
00:11:14,064 --> 00:11:18,274
In a nutshell, this whole thing
boils down to - all my verbiage here -

219
00:11:18,274 --> 00:11:19,556
to four words:

220
00:11:19,556 --> 00:11:22,294
Have it and enjoy it.

221
00:11:22,294 --> 00:11:26,045
Alright? Especially enjoy it
so it becomes a part of you.

222
00:11:26,045 --> 00:11:30,625
This is not about covering over
negative truths, right?

223
00:11:30,625 --> 00:11:33,274
Paradoxically, the more
we take in the good,

224
00:11:33,274 --> 00:11:36,911
we're more able to see the bad
and do something about it.

225
00:11:36,911 --> 00:11:41,091
In fact, this is about taking control
of the brain's stone age bias

226
00:11:41,091 --> 00:11:46,984
in the 21st century to excessively focus
on the bad and over-worry about it.

227
00:11:47,494 --> 00:11:50,545
Any single time we do it
isn't going to change our life.

228
00:11:50,545 --> 00:11:52,435
But the gradual accumulation,

229
00:11:52,435 --> 00:11:56,605
both in the flow of our day
and at special times if we want to,

230
00:11:56,605 --> 00:12:01,513
like at meals, or at nighttime before bed,
or after meditating or a workout,

231
00:12:01,513 --> 00:12:04,520
we can gradually
build this up inside ourselves.

232
00:12:04,520 --> 00:12:07,307
You know, I think of it
as the law of little things, right?

233
00:12:07,307 --> 00:12:10,904
It's usually lots of little bad things
that take us to a bad place.

234
00:12:10,904 --> 00:12:15,255
And it's lots of little good things
that take us to a better one.

235
00:12:15,255 --> 00:12:18,257
There's this saying they have in Tibet -
I think about it often.

236
00:12:18,257 --> 00:12:20,985
They say, "If you take care
of the minutes,

237
00:12:20,985 --> 00:12:23,466
the years will take care of themselves."

238
00:12:23,466 --> 00:12:26,425
I find that so helpful, isn't it?

239
00:12:26,425 --> 00:12:29,665
What's the most important
minute in your life?

240
00:12:29,975 --> 00:12:31,856
It's the next one.

241
00:12:31,856 --> 00:12:33,471
Can't do anything about the past.

242
00:12:33,471 --> 00:12:36,588
A few minutes in the future,
we start losing a lot of influence.

243
00:12:36,588 --> 00:12:40,290
But the next minute
is a phenomenal opportunity for us.

244
00:12:40,290 --> 00:12:43,356
Like me back in college,
or any one of us today,

245
00:12:43,356 --> 00:12:45,106
or over the course of this evening,

246
00:12:45,106 --> 00:12:48,418
what will we do with the most
important minute in our life?

247
00:12:48,732 --> 00:12:50,873
And especially,
what will we do with the good

248
00:12:50,873 --> 00:12:53,629
that's authentically
available to us in it?

249
00:12:53,629 --> 00:12:54,837
Will we waste it?

250
00:12:54,837 --> 00:12:58,008
Or will we, a few times
a day, or even more,

251
00:12:58,008 --> 00:13:00,408
actually take it into ourselves?

252
00:13:00,408 --> 00:13:02,007
For me, there's a Buddhist saying

253
00:13:02,007 --> 00:13:04,868
that really speaks
to the heart of the opportunity

254
00:13:04,868 --> 00:13:07,378
in the most important minute of our life.

255
00:13:07,378 --> 00:13:08,879
It goes like this:

256
00:13:08,879 --> 00:13:13,259
Do not think lightly of good,
saying, it will not come to me.

257
00:13:13,259 --> 00:13:16,409
Drop by drop is the water pot filled.

258
00:13:16,409 --> 00:13:20,469
Likewise, the wise one,
gathering it little by little,

259
00:13:20,469 --> 00:13:22,169
fills oneself with good.

260
00:13:23,359 --> 00:13:27,219
So, may you, and I,
and all beings everywhere,

261
00:13:27,219 --> 00:13:29,688
little by little,
fill ourselves with good.

262
00:13:29,688 --> 00:13:31,260
So, thank you.

263
00:13:31,260 --> 00:13:33,589
(Applause)