Being Well with Dr. Rick Hanson

Whether at home or at work, it’s easy to spend more time dwelling on the faults of others than reflecting on the room for improvement in oneself. Unilateral virtue is what we draw upon when we focus on our own side of the street. Timestamps: 1:10: Where does unilateral virtue come from? 3:15: Being virtuous without becoming a doormat. 7:20: Fulfilling expectations and creating a framework of trust. 12:20: Doing things out of the kindness of our heart. 14:50: How can we establish our personal code? 18:00: Ways to set and keep personal commitments. 20:10: The difference between inner and other directed. 24:00: Other tactics for maintaining unilateral virtue. 25:30: Staying calm during an irritating interaction. 29:00: Staying humble about how righteous you are. 31:35: Feeling “at choice.” 34:15: Recap.

Dr. Hanson and Forrest discuss why it’s so important to our intimate relationships to warm the heart, and develop greater compassion and kindness as personal traits. Timestamps: 0:45: The less obvious reasons to be compassionate and kind. 5:00: The difference between compassion and kindness. 9:00: Loving at will. 11:30: Ways we can increase our capacity for compassion and kindness. 14:00: Respecting the boundaries of others. 16:30: Compassion and kindness while maintaining clear boundaries. 18:10: The protection of warmheartedness. 19:35: The difference between doing a negative thing and receiving a negative response. 20:45: Being loving inside yourself. 21:35: Two equally valuable ways to be loving and kind. 22:40: Loving others helps heal our wounds around love. 24:15: Recap

Dr. Hanson and Forrest continue their discussion of Intimacy by focusing on building empathy, which allows us to tune into and understand other people. Timestamps: 0:30: Why do we need to be empathic in order to be intimate? 1:50: Where does empathy come from biologically? 5:15: Summary of the three ways we can show empathy. 5:50: Is empathy a trait that can be developed? 8:15: Sustaining your attention to other people. 10:35: Letting yourself be truly affected by another person. 12:30: Empathic joining vs. problem solving. 13:55: Having empathy for perspectives very different from your own. 18:45: Ways to have empathy in the moment. 20:00: Feeling felt. 21:20: Using empathy responsibly. 22:00: Empathic imagination. 24:15: How to avoid playing the psychologist. 26:00: Being aware of true intentions. 27:40: Managing tone and using empathy to communicate. 30:25: Finding me and we through empathy.

Dr. Hanson and Forrest begin a new strength, Intimacy, with a discussion focused on how to balance two seemingly conflicting goals: maintaining our independence from other people while also forging emotionally intimate relationships with them. Timestamps: 1:40: How does intimacy support autonomy? 3:50: What does appropriate autonomy look like? 5:30: How does autonomy support intimacy? 8:50: The importance of choice. 10:25: Is there a biological basis for preferences for intimacy or autonomy? 12:35: The ways we inhibit ourselves. 16:10: Where do our inhibitions come from? 19:15: How issues with autonomy can disguise themselves as problems with intimacy. 21:55: The oppression of the internalized audience. 24:45: Focusing on your own experience. 26:20: How to build healthy emotional boundaries. 29:00: Remembering when things went well. 30:30: Asserting your autonomy inside your own mind. 34:15: The importance of balance. 35:20: Recap

On this unique episode, Forrest interviews Dr. Hanson about his personal story of motivation – including how to transform from someone who lacks a natural feeling of motivation to someone who can diligently pursue their goals. 2:00: Learning how to naturally motivate yourself. 5:00: Valuing your unique gifts. 6:30: Adding up an extra two hours. 8:30: Sustaining motivation through a long day. 11:45: Reducing the friction in your life. 14:10: The importance of taking decisive action. 17:00: The difference between motivation and discipline. 19:20: The feeling of commitment toward your goals. 26:00: Recognizing how limited our time is.

We all have things we know would be good to do, but it’s hard to do them. On this episode, Dr. Rick Hanson and Forrest focus on a key aspect of motivation: how we can incline our minds to break bad habits, and want the things that are good for it. 0:40: Why doesn’t just knowing that something is bad stop us from doing it? 2:55: How does motivation work biologically? 7:00: The importance of connecting good behaviors to direct rewards. 8:50: Becoming good at imagining rewards. 12:40: Internalizing reward along the way. 14:20: Imbuing simple tasks with meaning. 17:30: Bringing playfulness to what you do. 19:30: Is there genetic variation in how easily motivated people are? 23:35: Having empathy for biological differences between people. 27:40: The relationship between nature and nurture. 33:35: The value of fulfilling expectations. 37:25: Identifying novelty. 39:40: Finding the fun factor. 41:00: Self-nurturance vs. self-criticism. 46:15: Recap

On this episode, Dr. Hanson and Forrest continue the strength of Motivation by exploring how we can use healthy passion without falling victim to unhealthy righteousness, anger, and stress. Timestamps: 1:00: What’s the relationship between stress and passion? 3:50: Applying positive vs. negative emotion. 6:30: Why passion and “revving up” makes you vulnerable to stress. 11:30: Why can things BE great but FEEL wearing? 15:00: “Faking” passion, and the influence of culture. 17:20: Learning how to hit the gas, and then tap the brakes. 19:00: Four ways to stay in healthy passion. 27:50: Recap

On this episode, Dr. Rick Hanson and Forrest begin the strength of Motivation with an episode that explores how we can pursue our goals with passion and purpose, without becoming painfully attached to them. Timestamps: 1:20: Why are liking and wanting different? 4:45: What causes us to tip from liking into wanting? 8:25: If liking is good and wanting is bad, why is it so easy to tip into wanting? 12:30: Forrest’s experience with video games. 16:45: Addiction and moments of lucidity. 19:10: Identifying wanting through drivenness. 21:00: Things that pull us into wanting. 24:30: How can we stay in liking? 29:00: The danger of auto-wanting. 30:45: Delusional desire. 32:45: Recap

Dr. Rick Hanson and Forrest conclude the strength of Calm with an episode dedicated to exploring seven ways we can work with anger skillfully. 0:35: Understanding the costs of anger 3:05: Never speaking or acting from anger 6:15: Reducing the priming for our anger 7:00: Reacting in proportion 10:00: Avoiding the habit of irritability 14:20: The tendency of fault-finding 16:30: The pitfalls of various kinds of talent 18:10: The story of the two monks 21:30: Know our near-enemies 24:30: The biology of slowing down 29:50: Walking away from excessive righteousness 33:00: Moral outrage in society 37:20: Recap

Dr. Rick Hanson and Forrest talk about managing one of our most difficult emotions: anger. Specifically, they focus on how we can distinguish between skillful and unskillful anger, particularly relating to issues of social justice. 1:15: The physical costs of anger. 3:40: The interpersonal costs of anger. 5:15: How can we remove the costs of anger without turning into a doormat? 11:00: Finding the line between skillful and unskillful anger. 18:00: Using anger to find our deeper wants and needs. 19:45: What tends to lie under anger? 24:45: Tribal anger and social justice 29:50: The importance of saying “I’m sorry.” 31:50: Tribal leaders and the value of mobilizing anger. 33:55: Outraged vs. enraged 35:45: Recap

Dr. Rick Hanson and Forrest discuss how we can fight back against fear and learn to feel safer. They explore ways to reduce anxiety, identify resources, and deal with the real challenges of life. 0:30: What causes fear? 2:30: Feeling reasonable safety. 7:15: Anxiety in the body. 9:00: Identifying the resources we have to fight threats. 12:30: How can we feel safer during REAL threats? 14:25: The importance of growing resting-state resources. 16:25: Three ways to deal with immediate threats. 20:00: Ways to approach the fear of truly dreadful things. 24:55: Reducing steady-state anxiety. 27:50: Dealing with anticipatory dread. 34:00: Recap

On today’s episode of the Being Well Podcast, Dr. Rick Hanson and Forrest discuss how to manage and reduce a particular kind of fear: paper tiger paranoia. This fear is characterized by needless anxiety that comes from the brain’s creation of imaginary threats. 1:00: What does “paper tiger paranoia” mean? 3:25: How do “tigers” appear in the modern day? 4:45: Why paper tigers crowd out real ones. 6:20: Hidden costs of paper tiger paranoia. 8:20: The insidiousness of fear. 11:00: Recognizing sources of needless anxiety. 17:45: Fighting back against fear. 20:30: Fear, agency, and acceptance. 23:30: Recap

On today’s episode of the Being Well Podcast, Dr. Hanson and Forrest begin a new series of episodes exploring the strength of Calm. Particularly, they focus on how we can learn to activate the calming wing of the nervous system to fight back against stress. 1:30: Why is calm an important inner strength? 3:20: The dangers of being hijacked by fear. 7:05: The biological basis of calm. 11:05: Modern culture and the sympathetic nervous system. 12:30: Understanding your needs. 15:15: Developing a wide range of response. 17:20: The ease of being driven from the green zone. 19:20: Ways to calm down. 23:00: State calm vs. trait calm. 28:00: The importance of tranquility.

On today’s episode of the Being Well Podcast, Dr. Hanson and Forrest wrap up the strength of Confidence with an episode dedicated to the experience of “feeling like a good person.” 0:30: What is “feeling like a good person?” 3:00: Why is it hard to feel like a good person? 6:00: Comparing part of our lives to all of another’s. 7:00: Why is it good to feel like a good person? 11:00: Ways to grow the feeling of being a good person. 17:00: Top-down vs. bottom-up 20:00: Recap

On this episode of the Being Well Podcast, Forrest and Dr. Hanson discuss the two “characters” we all have inside our minds: the inner critic and inner nurturer. Particularly, they focus on how we can manage our inner critic while building up a strong inner nurturer. 0:40: What is an inner critic and an inner nurturer? 2:15: Do we have these voices in balance? 4:30: 3 things we can do to limit the influence of the inner critic. 7:55: Balancing too much and too little criticism. 10:00: What value can we take from the inner critic? 11:50: The experience of a child. 14:15: Building up your inner nurturer. 17:20: What the inner nurturer feels like. 19:00: How we feel inside vs. how we act towards others. 20:30: How to stop the inner critic before it gets going. 24:00: Recap