WEBVTT

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Human beings have the biological
equivalent of a sports car

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between their ears.

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And it’s wonderful 
that we have this device.

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Our ability to reason and problem solve;
to plan, predict, evaluate, abstract,

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or create is the envy 
of the rest of living creation.

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But you would not jump 
into a fast sports car

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and jam on the accelerator 
if somebody hadn’t told you

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where the brakes are 
and how to apply them.

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And this mind of ours, at times,
takes us in the wrong direction.

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And when it’s doing that,

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we have to know how to slow it down 
and to put on those brakes.

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And it’s not obvious where that is.

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Our temptation is to put on the brakes 
by jamming on the accelerator

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and swerving back and forth really fast.

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But it turns out the brakes 
are in an entirely different area.

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I’m giving this talk at a TEDx
that’s sponsored by the Davidson Academy,

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which is one of the treasures of the U.S.,

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a school for the gifted and talented,

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where young people who have IQs at the 
99.9th percentile or above are educated.

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And so I know I’m looking at people,
who over the next years,

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are going to make a profound difference 
to human society, very likely.

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But I’m also a clinical psychologist.

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And I know that I’m looking at people 
who are going to suffer.

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I know that I’m looking at people

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who are going to have thoughts 
come up very close like,

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“You’re not lovable,” or, 
“Life’s not livable.”

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Like, “There’s something wrong with you.”

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"Deep down you’re bad" or, "You’re mean,"
or, "You should be ashamed."

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Or, "You need to figure out a way 
to run from that painful rejection,"

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or betrayal or that traumatic thing 
that happened to you.

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And when that happens, 
I don’t care how smart you are,

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you’re going to need to know 
how to put on the mental brakes.

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And what I want to share with you
is the surprising science

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of where those brakes are.

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For the last 30 years, I and my colleagues

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have been studying language 
and cognition through the filter,

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through the lens, of a theory called 
Relational Frame Theory, or RFT;

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a perspective I developed decades ago,

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and the applied extension of that into 
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT,

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a whole set of methods that we use

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in many, many different areas 
of human suffering.

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And I want to explain to you 
what language and cognition is,

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why what we’re doing here
right now is different

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than what the bird outside 
the window is doing.

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Because when you see it,
you’ll know a little bit

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of how to actually push on 
the accelerator even more.

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That’s not the purpose of my talk.

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But you’ll also know why you cannot rely 
on that part of your mind

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only when you need to slow it down,

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when it’s taking you 
in the wrong direction.

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So I could summarize 30 years
of work in a little ditty,

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it’s kind of a little humiliating 
that you can do it, but you can,

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which is this:

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Learn it in one, derive it in two;

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put it in networks
that change what you do.

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That’s 30 years of work.

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(Laughter)

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And so I want to explain what that means

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and why we’re different than 
that bird outside the window.

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Let’s take the first two lines;
Learn it in one, derive it in two.

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Take the simplest thing; 
the name for an object.

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Very young children, human infants, 
learn that if something has a name,

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if I’ve called this a boo-boo, let’s say,
and then I said, “Where’s the boo-boo?”

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The infant, soon enough,
would try to find this.

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We’re the only creatures that do that.

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The language-trained chimps don’t do that.

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In controlled research they don’t.

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And by the way, please don’t email me 
about your really smart dogs and cats.

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(Laughter)

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I know you’ve got them; I've got one too.

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And they don’t do it.

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But we do do it.

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If you happen to know that, for example, 
that round red thing is called an apple,

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if I were to say to a baby

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who’s had enough exposure 
to a normal verbal community

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and is normally developing,
by around age 12 months,

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“Where’s the apple?” 
the baby will look for it.

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And then you can put it into networks 
that actually change what we do.

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If you knew that the name
for apple was also "yabuka",

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and then I asked you to imagine 
when you’re really thirsty,

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going to the refrigerator and getting out 
a fresh bottle of yabuka juice

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and pouring it into a glass, 
and then imagine bringing up

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that yabuka juice and smelling 
what yabuka juice smells like,

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and then having a couple of big, 
sweet gulps of yabuka juice.

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Can you imagine that?

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If you had cotton in your mouth 
and spit it out, many of you,

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your cotton is now heavier, because 
you’re salivating to yabuka juice.

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And unless you’ve lived in Croatia 
where apples are called yabukas,

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you’ve never heard it before, 
until this old bald guy said it to you.

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That’s how fast it happens.

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And it’s wonderful as we begin 
to then learn other relationships

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other than names, 
like "before" and "after",

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"cause" and "effect",
"bigger" and "smaller".

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And little kids break free 
from the formal properties of events.

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A little kid thinks a nickel 
is bigger than a dime,

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but a four, five, and six-year-old 
know a dime is bigger than a nickel.

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But wait a minute.

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If a dime can be bigger than a nickel,

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then no matter how successful you are, 
maybe it’s not big enough.

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You should have been so much more.

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This same problem-solving tool
that we’ve got can turn on us,

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and it does.

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And what are you going to do when it does?

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Let me just show you some of the problems

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of just trying to rely on problem-solving 
only to put on the brakes.

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Take an example like this:

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I don’t want you to think of jelly donuts 
that are filled with crème filling.

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So when that thought comes in your mind 
or you look at that and see that,

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I don’t want you to think of that;
don’t think of that, it’s bad.

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It’s important you not think of that.

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What I suggest you think of 
instead are hats.

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So when you think
of donuts, think of hats.

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Hats; remember hats.

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Think of donuts, think of hats. 


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Hats, hats.

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You get it? You got it?

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Now it is true in the moment 
that you’re thinking of hats,

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it seems like this works.

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This is where obsessive-compulsive 
disorder comes from,

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as we push it away, 
push it away, push it away.

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But I can show you that that’s not real.

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That sense that you’ve got it 
under control now,

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this logical problem-solving mode of mind 
has eliminated that bad donut,

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I’ll show you it’s not true.

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What comes to mind if I say this?

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Black...white, right?

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Hot...cold, right?

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Hats...

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(Laughter)

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Donuts.

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(Laughter)

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That’s how fast it happens.

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Learn it in one, derive it in two,
put it in networks.

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The network is now bigger,

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and just because you say “is not a” 
doesn’t mean that it’s not related.

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Opposite is a relation,
different is a relation.

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And so the network’s gotten bigger.

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And now hats will remind you of donuts.

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I’ve now put that in your head.

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(Laughter)

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And other people are putting 
things in your head.

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It wouldn’t be so bad if everything 
in our head we put in there, but we don’t.

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The television screen, or your sibling,
or a parent when they’re really mad

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and criticizing you, or just things 
that occur to you;

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things go into your head.

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And once they go in, that’s an issue.

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Suppose I were to tell you,

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- this is to see how fast it happens -

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I’ve got three numbers 
that I want you to remember.

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And the TED Talk people in cooperation 
with the Davidson Academy,

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maybe the Davidsons themselves,

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have given me the money 
such that when I ask you

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what the numbers are that I’m about 
to give you a week from now,

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if you remember them, 
I’ll give you $10,000,

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so it’s really important.


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Here are the numbers:

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One, two, three.

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Now don’t forget it.

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Ten grand is on the line.

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So if I tap you on the shoulder 
a week from now and I say,

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“What are the numbers?” you will say…

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One, two, three; good, don’t forget it;
it’s really important.

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I lied; there’s no money.

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(Laughter)

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But do you doubt that a week from now 
if I came up and said,

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“What are the numbers?” You could tell me?

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How many people think you 
couldn’t tell me?

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How about a month from now?

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Are there people in here weird enough
that a month from now

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you’ve taken up that gray
matter, and that white,

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you’ve got one, two, three
in your head? Really?

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How about a year from now?

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There’s some people in here a year...

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How about on your deathbed 
with a really old man?

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“What are your numbers?”

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(Laughter)

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Why?

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Just because I said it, that’s enough.

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Because that’s the way 
the human nervous system works.

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It’s like having a calculator 
where there’s no minus button,

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and there’s no delete button, just pluses 
and equals and multiplies.

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Once in, it stays in.

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I can tell you as a psychologist,

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there is no process in psychology 
called "unlearning".

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There’s extinction, et cetera,
but that’s inhibition.

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That’s not unlearning.

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You can learn it again faster 
the next time,

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even if you’ve forgotten it, which means 
it must be there somewhere.

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One, two, three will be in your head 
for the rest of your life.

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(Laughter)

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But suppose it was something
really painful.

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Suppose it’s your girlfriend saying, 
“I don’t want you.”

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Suppose you’ve been betrayed 
in some deep way.

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There’s no place else for that to go.

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And when it gets up close,

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when that voice starts telling you 
that you’re unlivable;

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that you’re unlovable 
and life’s unlivable,

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when that happens, you’re going 
to need to put on the brakes.

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And this little ditty orients us 
towards where that might be.

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It’s not the “learn it in one, 
derive it in two, network” part.

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You’re just building networks when 
you’re arguing with yourself.

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True, if you don’t have information, 
okay, get the information.

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If you just need to think 
more flexibly, okay.

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But most of the things 
that we really struggle with,

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we’re thinking that we’re going 
to get an eraser,

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or a delete button,
and that doesn’t exist.

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But the last line tells us what we can do:


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change what we do.

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There are ways of changing 
how your thoughts function,

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how they work when they show up.

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What are the numbers?

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(Laughter)

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We’ve been riding this tiger
of language and cognition

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as long as homo sapiens
exist, and probably,

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based on brain size, 
some of the early hominids.

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That’s probably 400,000 years old.

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We know it’s not more than 
2.8 million years old

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because the chimpanzees don’t do this.

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But we do.

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But we’ve been riding this tiger 
and been trying to figure it out.

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And, actually, if you want
to pick one place

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as to where we might get some
ideas about what to do,

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it’s not going to be in the 
problem-solving part of our culture;

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it’s in the wisdom traditions.

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It’s in our spiritual 
and religious traditions.

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And that will help us orient 
towards what the process is.

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How do we change what we do?

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And once you see that, 
then you can see there’s other ways

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that are outside those traditions.

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And we’ve come up with them in the work 
on RFT and ACT and tested them.

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Everything I’m going to tell you about

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has been tested 
in multiple scientific studies,

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literally hundreds of studies on RFT 
and close to 1,000 studies on ACT.

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So let’s just take this first one

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that does directly come out of the 
spiritual and religious traditions,

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which is mindful awareness of thoughts,

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because it will help us see the principle.

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If anybody’s in here a meditator,

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you know that your job
is to simply watch your thoughts

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unfold as a process with a sense 
of dispassionate observation.

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You don’t have to put a big religious 
wraparound to do that.

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Anyone in here could do it.

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You could do it by simply watching 
the clouds in the sky go by,

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and with each thought that shows up,
stick another one in the cloud.

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Don’t push it away; the cloud
goes at its own speed.

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Don’t cling to it;
you’re not controlling the clouds.

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Just put it there and let it go,
if it comes back again, put another one.

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Or pick anything, 
like cars going by on the freeway

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or leaves floating by on the stream;
practice this, and you’ll get this sense.

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And what is the sense?

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That’s where the brake is.

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Here’s what the sense is:
to watch your mind do its work

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with a sense of distance 
and dispassionate curiosity.

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Not to buy into the thoughts
and look at the world structured by it,

00:14:17.133 --> 00:14:20.578
but to watch the process 
of thinking in flight,

00:14:20.578 --> 00:14:25.128
and that’s what you’re doing with your 
contemplation and meditation.

00:14:26.168 --> 00:14:29.208
That puts on the brakes.

00:14:29.875 --> 00:14:34.255
It’s just like watching a spider weave 
a web, a little cognitive web.

00:14:34.590 --> 00:14:35.940
Look at that. 


00:14:35.940 --> 00:14:38.078
Isn’t that interesting?

00:14:38.078 --> 00:14:39.919
That puts on the brakes.

00:14:39.919 --> 00:14:44.239
And if that’s what’s going on here, yes, 
of course contemplative practice,

00:14:44.239 --> 00:14:46.909
I suggest it to everybody,
it’s a good thing to do.

00:14:46.909 --> 00:14:50.786
But I’m going to give you some things 
that will seem silly, that will seem odd.

00:14:50.786 --> 00:14:55.296
but I’ve been shown in scientific 
research to be of some help.

00:14:55.653 --> 00:15:00.023
My first suggestion;
give your mind a name.

00:15:02.261 --> 00:15:04.116
If it’s named, it’s different than you,

00:15:04.116 --> 00:15:08.016
you can listen to it with a sense 
of distance and watch it babble on

00:15:08.016 --> 00:15:09.176
and make some choices;


00:15:09.176 --> 00:15:11.084
are you going to be guided by it or not?

00:15:11.084 --> 00:15:13.142
Sometimes it has good
advice, sometimes bad.

00:15:13.142 --> 00:15:16.112
You don’t have to argue with it
or make it stop talking to you.

00:15:16.112 --> 00:15:17.879
You don’t have to change its opinion.

00:15:17.879 --> 00:15:21.632
Just go, “Okay, thank you, George;
What else you got to say?

00:15:21.632 --> 00:15:23.473
Uh, okay. Thank you.” 


00:15:23.813 --> 00:15:25.543
I call my mind "George".

00:15:26.013 --> 00:15:28.628
If you don’t like George, 
pick your own name.

00:15:28.628 --> 00:15:33.313
If you don’t have one come to mind, 
you can pick Mr. Mind or Ms. Mind

00:15:33.313 --> 00:15:38.175
and literally get a bit of separation
when you’re having that painful thought,

00:15:38.215 --> 00:15:40.509
recognize this is your mind 
talking to you.

00:15:40.509 --> 00:15:43.835
And some of this may be things 
you came by honestly, things you heard.

00:15:43.835 --> 00:15:45.105
What are the numbers?

00:15:45.107 --> 00:15:48.067
It isn’t necessarily anything 
you have to do anything about.

00:15:50.270 --> 00:15:53.532
If you have a thought up on you and 
you need to put it out there,

00:15:53.532 --> 00:15:54.704
not to make it go away,

00:15:54.704 --> 00:15:59.349
but just you can see it as it is, instead 
of just seeing the world structured by it.

00:15:59.349 --> 00:16:00.619
Same with a thought.

00:16:02.050 --> 00:16:04.616
If you’re having a thought, 
an archetypal bad thought,

00:16:04.616 --> 00:16:08.446
like “I’m bad, I’m really bad,” and you’re
really feeling down on yourself,

00:16:09.381 --> 00:16:12.421
I suggest singing that thought.

00:16:13.094 --> 00:16:16.794
In absence of any other suggestion, 
how about to “Happy Birthday”?

00:16:17.573 --> 00:16:20.983
(Singing to tune of "Happy Birthday")
"I’m really, really, really bad.

00:16:20.983 --> 00:16:23.343
I’m really, really, really bad.

00:16:24.193 --> 00:16:29.508
I’m really, really, really, really, really
I’m really, really, really bad."

00:16:29.508 --> 00:16:30.548
(ends singing)

00:16:30.548 --> 00:16:31.488
(Laughter)

00:16:31.488 --> 00:16:32.553
Thank you, George.

00:16:32.553 --> 00:16:34.651
(Laughter)

00:16:35.461 --> 00:16:38.023
This is not to ridicule your mind.
I’m not doing that.

00:16:38.023 --> 00:16:40.803
It’s just to remind you 
that it’s just a voice talking.

00:16:41.464 --> 00:16:42.965
And whether you do with it,

00:16:42.965 --> 00:16:46.297
base it on your heart and your values 
and what works in the situation,

00:16:46.297 --> 00:16:49.708
not just on the automatic
pilot, the push-pull,

00:16:49.708 --> 00:16:54.161
click-click of learning it in one 
direction, deriving it in two,

00:16:54.161 --> 00:16:55.469
and putting it in networks.

00:16:55.469 --> 00:16:58.889
You can’t trust that problem-solving mode 
to give you the right answer.

00:16:59.382 --> 00:17:02.482
Here’s one, and I’m going to ask
for some audience participation.

00:17:02.482 --> 00:17:06.088
You’re going to have to help me here
or I’m going to look really stupid.

00:17:06.275 --> 00:17:07.749
This was invented by Titchener,

00:17:07.749 --> 00:17:11.486
a father of American psychology 
more than 100 years ago,

00:17:11.486 --> 00:17:13.576
or actually, exactly 100 years ago.

00:17:14.302 --> 00:17:16.692
And he had this theory
of language and cognition

00:17:16.692 --> 00:17:18.088
that oriented towards what?

00:17:18.088 --> 00:17:22.485
This idea that, if you took language out 
of context, it would lose its meaning.

00:17:22.485 --> 00:17:25.765
And the way he did that, 
in public talks and demonstrations,

00:17:25.765 --> 00:17:29.454
he would have people repeat 
a word out loud really fast.

00:17:29.454 --> 00:17:30.895
We’ve done the research on it.

00:17:30.895 --> 00:17:32.922
You get a diminishment of distress,

00:17:32.922 --> 00:17:36.132
a diminishment of believability 
at about 30 seconds.

00:17:36.530 --> 00:17:39.579
And so I’m going to do it just 20, 
because you’ll get the sense,

00:17:39.579 --> 00:17:42.119
and I don’t want to drive
people crazy on YouTube.

00:17:42.338 --> 00:17:44.797
But what I’m asking you 
to do is to take a word.

00:17:44.797 --> 00:17:45.797
We’ll take milk.

00:17:45.797 --> 00:17:48.534
Why? Because most of us 
know what that’s like.

00:17:48.534 --> 00:17:52.003
And take just a minute 
to think of what milk is like;

00:17:52.003 --> 00:17:55.083
what it tastes like, what it smells
like, what it looks like.

00:17:55.961 --> 00:17:59.881
Cold milk, white milk, 
the perceptual functions.

00:18:00.235 --> 00:18:02.794
And then the thing I’m going
to ask you to do with me,

00:18:02.794 --> 00:18:06.864
I’ll do it with you, 
so I’ll be as foolish as you are,

00:18:07.439 --> 00:18:11.299
is to say the word milk out loud,
fast, for 20 seconds.

00:18:11.299 --> 00:18:15.477
And then just see what happens to white, 
cold, creamy, glug-glug stuff.

00:18:15.477 --> 00:18:19.662
Are you willing to be complete idiots 
for just 20 seconds?

00:18:19.662 --> 00:18:20.692
Help me out here.

00:18:20.692 --> 00:18:22.407
You willing? 
All right.

00:18:22.407 --> 00:18:24.117
Ready, set, go.

00:18:24.117 --> 00:18:24.829
Loud.

00:18:24.829 --> 00:18:29.699
[Everyone repeats “milk” for 20 seconds.]

00:18:29.699 --> 00:18:30.819
A little louder.

00:18:35.159 --> 00:18:36.319
A little faster.

00:18:39.322 --> 00:18:42.957
Okay; the longest
20 seconds of the whole talk.

00:18:42.957 --> 00:18:44.537
(Laughter)

00:18:44.857 --> 00:18:48.507
What happened to white, creamy, 
cold glug-glug stuff?

00:18:49.127 --> 00:18:52.095
It started going away, 
it started going away.

00:18:52.095 --> 00:18:53.385
And other things showed up,

00:18:53.385 --> 00:18:56.097
like how hard it is to say that word 
over and over again.

00:18:56.097 --> 00:18:57.665
Your mouth started getting tired.

00:18:57.665 --> 00:19:00.215
And the weird sound;
isn’t it a weird sound?

00:19:00.775 --> 00:19:03.941
But look, some of these difficult thoughts
are just programmed,

00:19:03.941 --> 00:19:05.271
like what are the numbers?


00:19:05.271 --> 00:19:06.393
One, two, three.

00:19:06.393 --> 00:19:09.703
At one level they’re nothing 
other than sounds.

00:19:09.703 --> 00:19:11.977
You’re going to turn 
your life over to that?

00:19:12.580 --> 00:19:13.750
Really? 


00:19:14.000 --> 00:19:15.467
It’s not safe.

00:19:15.467 --> 00:19:17.117
Put on the brakes.

00:19:17.676 --> 00:19:21.156
So if you have “bad” up
on you, do 30 seconds.

00:19:21.156 --> 00:19:25.236
It turns out 30 is about right,
really fast, on bad.

00:19:26.351 --> 00:19:30.337
I gave a talk at Stanford;
it was to a large, prestigious group.

00:19:30.337 --> 00:19:33.006
I was talking about the amount
of money that we’d spent

00:19:33.006 --> 00:19:35.716
on sleeping medications 
and how it’s gone up to about

00:19:36.764 --> 00:19:40.367
well, the slide said three, and what 
I should have said is, "Three billion,"

00:19:40.367 --> 00:19:43.720
and instead I said, 
“It’s gone up to three trillion dollars.”

00:19:43.720 --> 00:19:45.282
(Laughter)

00:19:45.282 --> 00:19:48.533
Then I went home to my hotel
and I went to sleep.

00:19:48.533 --> 00:19:52.105
And at 3:00 in the morning 
I sat up bolt upright and said,

00:19:52.105 --> 00:19:55.445
“Three trillion dollars, you idiot! 


00:19:55.445 --> 00:19:56.665
(Laughter)

00:19:56.665 --> 00:19:58.545
That’s not right.”

00:19:58.545 --> 00:20:01.223
I leapt out of the bed,
I’m marching back and forth.

00:20:01.223 --> 00:20:04.387
“They probably recorded it;
I did it at Stanford.”

00:20:04.387 --> 00:20:06.377
(Laughter)

00:20:07.387 --> 00:20:10.497
I said, “You’re stupid;
how stupid could you be?”

00:20:10.497 --> 00:20:13.788
And that reminded me of word repetition.

00:20:13.788 --> 00:20:16.727
If you just said over and over again,
“How stupid can you be?”

00:20:16.727 --> 00:20:19.169
there’s enough gaps there, 
that keeps its meaning.

00:20:19.169 --> 00:20:24.118
But instead I sat on the bed 
and really fast said out loud, to nobody,

00:20:24.118 --> 00:20:26.515
“Stupid, stupid, stupid, 
stupid, stupid, stupid,

00:20:26.515 --> 00:20:28.231
stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid."

00:20:28.231 --> 00:20:29.761
And then I went to sleep.

00:20:29.761 --> 00:20:32.143
(Laughter)

00:20:32.143 --> 00:20:34.783
I recommend it; it’s a brake.

00:20:36.486 --> 00:20:40.666
Oh, dear; here’s one
that seems very, very silly,

00:20:41.200 --> 00:20:43.350
but it makes a very dramatic difference.

00:20:43.648 --> 00:20:47.348
If you have a difficult thought that’s up 
on you, say it in different voices,

00:20:47.348 --> 00:20:49.977
maybe your least preferred politician.

00:20:50.552 --> 00:20:52.370
I won’t guess who that might be.

00:20:52.370 --> 00:20:54.529
(Laughter)

00:20:54.529 --> 00:20:57.802
Or if you don’t like that, 
how about a cartoon character?

00:20:57.802 --> 00:21:01.193
If we were taking that thought like, 
“I’m bad, I’m really, really bad,”

00:21:01.193 --> 00:21:04.255
I guarantee you it will feel a little
different if you’re saying,

00:21:04.255 --> 00:21:07.885
“I’m bad. I’m really bad.”

00:21:07.885 --> 00:21:10.244
(Laughter)

00:21:10.244 --> 00:21:13.025
Now be careful; I’m not telling you
to ridicule your mind.

00:21:13.025 --> 00:21:14.120
Really, I’m not.

00:21:14.120 --> 00:21:17.549
And at the very end I’ll explain a way 
to make sure that comes together.

00:21:17.549 --> 00:21:22.189
It’s to get a little separation, 
to get some air in the room.

00:21:22.986 --> 00:21:24.096
Slow it down,


00:21:24.096 --> 00:21:26.273
so you can make some choices.

00:21:26.273 --> 00:21:29.009
If you’ve already done the work 
and you’re really tired

00:21:29.009 --> 00:21:32.683
you’re sick and tired of a particular 
self-criticism or self-evaluation

00:21:32.683 --> 00:21:34.082
and you’re ready to let it go

00:21:34.082 --> 00:21:36.402
don’t do this until you’ve done the work,

00:21:36.402 --> 00:21:39.552
because the final step
is kind of a public declaration

00:21:39.882 --> 00:21:44.140
as a way of taking that deep, dark secret 
and sharing it with others,

00:21:44.140 --> 00:21:49.600
because it turns out the big joke 
is our secrets are the same secrets.

00:21:50.588 --> 00:21:53.396
Write it out and stick it
on your chest on a sticky note,

00:21:53.396 --> 00:21:56.076
or if you really want to, 
order it for a t-shirt.

00:21:56.081 --> 00:21:57.671
And just see what happens. 


00:21:57.671 --> 00:21:59.785
Just wear it out in public.

00:21:59.785 --> 00:22:03.480
And I guarantee you that thing
is going to drain out the energy,

00:22:03.480 --> 00:22:05.320
almost by the minute.

00:22:05.610 --> 00:22:10.784
Robyn Walser, an ACT person in Palo Alto,
came up with this working with veterans

00:22:10.784 --> 00:22:14.624
who have to face some really difficult, 
really difficult thoughts.

00:22:14.624 --> 00:22:17.459
We ask our soldiers
to do such tough things.

00:22:17.459 --> 00:22:21.199
And they’re having things 
like "murderer" on their chest.

00:22:22.280 --> 00:22:26.511
And by God, you know, 
I’m not going to run around

00:22:26.511 --> 00:22:29.871
and have that running
my life anymore, here.

00:22:30.153 --> 00:22:34.400
They wore it almost like 
boy scout badges, yeah?

00:22:34.400 --> 00:22:37.648
The first time I ever did it,
when I heard that Robyn was doing this,

00:22:37.648 --> 00:22:40.684
I was giving a workshop 
at a church camp up at Lake Tahoe,

00:22:40.684 --> 00:22:42.694
and I wrote down the word “mean.”

00:22:43.436 --> 00:22:46.425
And I remembered
this memory of being caught

00:22:46.425 --> 00:22:50.906
when I was about six years old with a 
magnifying glass at El Cajon, California

00:22:50.906 --> 00:22:55.014
figuring out how fast tarantulas go 
if you really heat up their rear end.

00:22:55.014 --> 00:22:56.534
(Laughter)

00:22:56.534 --> 00:22:59.457
And the look on my mother’s face 
to this day, Iike...

00:22:59.457 --> 00:23:00.537
(Grimaces)

00:23:00.537 --> 00:23:02.417
I’m really bad.

00:23:02.417 --> 00:23:05.227
You know, that’s the kind
of weird thing little boys do.

00:23:05.739 --> 00:23:09.129
And, yeah, I shouldn’t do that
to spiders, I get that.

00:23:09.406 --> 00:23:13.597
But here I am in my 60s or 50s by then,

00:23:13.597 --> 00:23:17.215
walking around with “I’m mean” 
for the rest of my life.

00:23:17.215 --> 00:23:18.215
Really?

00:23:18.215 --> 00:23:20.125
So I stuck it on my chest.

00:23:20.125 --> 00:23:21.795
But it was so hard.

00:23:21.795 --> 00:23:26.807
When we took a break and I went 
to get coffee from the church camp cook,

00:23:26.807 --> 00:23:28.927
I went like this so that 
he wouldn’t see it.

00:23:28.927 --> 00:23:30.823
(Laughter)

00:23:30.823 --> 00:23:33.871
And now it’s completely gone;
I get it, I get I have a history.

00:23:33.871 --> 00:23:34.781
Okay.

00:23:34.781 --> 00:23:37.354
But I’m not mean.

00:23:37.544 --> 00:23:40.904
I’m not going to be running from 
mean for the rest of my life.

00:23:42.529 --> 00:23:45.158
An easier way to do it, 
a little small version on this,

00:23:45.158 --> 00:23:48.548
is put it on your screensavers, 
the kind that have words come up.

00:23:48.548 --> 00:23:50.944
Take difficult thoughts, 
put it on screensaver,

00:23:50.944 --> 00:23:54.360
give yourself a regular opportunity 
to notice those thoughts and see:

00:23:54.360 --> 00:23:56.220
does that really have to run your life?

00:23:57.062 --> 00:24:00.552
My students, I’m sure it was them,
snuck into my office over here.

00:24:00.871 --> 00:24:04.660
And I’m sure they did it, 
because I’m in there having a meeting.

00:24:04.660 --> 00:24:06.160
I look over at my computer.

00:24:06.160 --> 00:24:09.526
And it says over there, “Deep down,
there’s something wrong with you.”

00:24:09.526 --> 00:24:11.851
(Laughter)

00:24:11.851 --> 00:24:13.971
I’m going to eventually 
find out who did it,

00:24:13.971 --> 00:24:15.924
don’t think I’m not.


00:24:15.924 --> 00:24:17.754
Somebody snuck in.

00:24:19.344 --> 00:24:22.414
I said that I would try to get 
the emotional feeling for it,

00:24:22.414 --> 00:24:26.153
and I want to finish my last example 
of hundreds that we have developed.

00:24:26.153 --> 00:24:30.293
You can access it in these self-help books
and so forth under the ACT work.

00:24:32.483 --> 00:24:35.039
If you have something 
that is really up like this,

00:24:35.039 --> 00:24:37.219
that has a history that goes 
back a long way,

00:24:38.190 --> 00:24:40.812
picture yourself as young as you can go

00:24:40.812 --> 00:24:43.352
having a thought 
like that or things like it.

00:24:43.658 --> 00:24:47.267
And take a little time to picture 
what you looked like at that age:

00:24:47.267 --> 00:24:49.647
what your hair was like, 
what you dressed like.

00:24:50.519 --> 00:24:53.780
And then, in imagination have those words


00:24:53.780 --> 00:24:57.040
come out of that child’s voice,

00:24:57.040 --> 00:25:00.500
out of that child in the voice of a child.

00:25:01.596 --> 00:25:04.374
And I guarantee you,
it will stab you through the heart.

00:25:04.374 --> 00:25:06.631
To hear some of the things 
we say to ourselves,

00:25:06.631 --> 00:25:08.789
when you hear it out 
of the mouth of a child.

00:25:08.789 --> 00:25:13.576
And it will pull from you the kind
of self-compassion and kindness

00:25:13.576 --> 00:25:16.436
that is the purpose
of these kinds of methods.

00:25:16.436 --> 00:25:17.946
This is not about ridicule.

00:25:18.631 --> 00:25:23.351
This is about learning how to deal 
with a language tiger

00:25:23.902 --> 00:25:28.972
and to ride it, without having it run you 
right off the edge of the cliff.

00:25:30.221 --> 00:25:32.392
So I’m giving you just some ideas

00:25:32.392 --> 00:25:36.312
in the surprising science 
of where the mental brakes are.

00:25:36.573 --> 00:25:38.442
They’re not in just figuring it out

00:25:38.442 --> 00:25:40.842
and evaluate it and making
your thoughts change.

00:25:41.213 --> 00:25:45.363
They’re more in taking a self-kind, 
compassionate posture,

00:25:45.363 --> 00:25:48.456
and looking at that little
mental spider doing its work

00:25:48.456 --> 00:25:51.866
with an attitude 
of dispassionate curiosity.

00:25:52.497 --> 00:25:54.467
Let your mind do what it’s doing,

00:25:54.852 --> 00:25:58.472
but figure out when it’s pushing you 
in the wrong direction,

00:25:58.472 --> 00:26:00.342
how to put on the mental brakes.

00:26:00.664 --> 00:26:03.464
You need that skill; we all do.

00:26:03.796 --> 00:26:07.113
And mental brakes avoid mental breaks.

00:26:07.113 --> 00:26:08.813
I hope I’ve been useful to you.


00:26:08.813 --> 00:26:09.639
Thanks.

00:26:09.639 --> 00:26:12.099
(Applause)