00:00 Money for many people is a fear-inducing problem.
00:05 And it seems in the world today,
00:10 fear is crippling us for a myriad of reasons.
00:13 Part of it is we don't have a structure
00:14 to try to cope with it.
00:16 How do we address the fact that there are landmines
00:19 all around us, but if those landmines keep us locked indoors
00:23 that's not life either.
00:25 How do you become brave enough to challenge the demons
00:30 that you fear most?
00:32 - You do it incrementally.
00:33 Like if you're afraid of something.
00:36 I had a client who was afraid of using a telephone.
00:40 He had really crippling social anxiety.
00:42 - A telephone?
00:43 - Yeah, he couldn't talk on the telephone.
00:45 He had crippling social anxiety.
00:47 And he was an outcast.
00:48 I mean, people had bullied him his whole life.
00:50 He had a low IQ, so he was intellectually impaired.
00:53 He had some sensory deficits.
00:55 He had a rough time, but he couldn't use the phone.
00:57 He was afraid of it.
00:59 Well, so what did we start doing?
01:01 Put your hand on the receiver
01:03 and just wait till you're bored of that, right?
01:07 'Cause that means you've calmed down.
01:08 Pick up the receiver.
01:10 Wait till you're bored of that.
01:12 Put it by your ear.
01:14 Wait till you're bored of that.
01:16 Step by step.
01:17 You know, so if you have a big problem,
01:19 you kind of have to figure out a map
01:21 that allows you to differentiate it
01:24 into smaller and smaller problems
01:26 until the problem is small enough
01:28 so that you could address it.
01:30 And you have a conversation with yourself about that.
01:33 Oh my God, I can't handle that.
01:34 It's like, okay, is there some tiny piece of that
01:37 that would help a little bit that you could handle?
01:40 And it might be something so trivial
01:41 that you're ashamed to admit to yourself
01:44 that you had to pick something so small
01:46 to have enough courage to face it.
01:48 But like, join the club.
01:49 You know, everybody has these things.
01:51 They're afraid of arbitrarily.
01:53 And what a good behavioral psychologist can do
01:56 is break that into tiny pieces.
01:58 It's a good mode of problem solving.
02:00 Break it into tiny pieces.
02:01 So for example, I'm trying to sort my office out
02:04 'cause things keep flooding into it.
02:07 - I noticed all the books are these.
02:09 - Yeah.
02:10 - These walkway outside the house.
02:12 - Yeah, so I'm going through my bookshelf
02:14 and we did a bunch of renovations
02:15 and people send me stuff all the time.
02:17 And my office tends to be like the landing place
02:19 of a lot of stuff constantly.
02:21 And it's daunting to me and has been
02:23 because part in part because of ill health.
02:26 It's like, can I clean up that office?
02:28 There's mail in there that hasn't been open
02:30 for like two years.
02:31 And no, but I could go through one bookshelf
02:36 and probably take out four books today and that's enough.
02:39 But if I do that every day, it will be clean.
02:42 - Part of the challenge I find
02:44 is that people aren't even thinking of changing.
02:47 They have accepted the status quo.
02:49 The self-preservation benefit
02:52 of not going outside the door,
02:54 metaphorically, into the world.
02:56 The natural need I think we should all have
02:59 to expand ourselves beyond the normal boundaries,
03:01 which is I think what we're called to do,
03:03 get stifled, suffocated,
03:05 so that we'd rather just stay inside this little space.
03:07 And we build these walls to protect ourselves,
03:09 not realizing you're actually building,
03:11 you're caging yourself in.
03:12 - Yeah, well, and the outside tends to come inside too.
03:15 There's a snake in every garden.
03:16 - Anyway, right.
03:17 - Which is the deeper biblical symbolism.
03:20 So once you've decided to change,
03:23 you're actually probably 80% of the way there.
03:25 The tactics you're describing are pedagogical.
03:27 - Well, there's even a precondition to that.
03:28 And that's the decision that you're insufficient
03:30 in your current form, which is of course always true
03:33 and a terrible burden and a terrible reality.
03:35 And no wonder people want to avoid it.
03:37 But there's also hope in that, right?
03:39 Because if things aren't good enough,
03:42 probably you could be better.
03:44 And so thank God for that,
03:46 that you could actually be better.
03:47 And not only that, you probably know some manner
03:50 in which you could be better that would work
03:52 if you would just do it.
03:53 So that's a pathway, man.
03:55 - As I look at so many--
03:57 - That's humility.
03:58 - Humility, but as I look at so many people today,
03:59 they actually, they almost like the anger.
04:04 - Oh yeah.
04:05 Well, anger is a positive emotion, actually.
04:07 It's a weird emotion.
04:08 - It is?
04:09 - Yes, yes, it's a mixture
04:09 of positive and negative emotion.
04:11 Positive emotion makes you move forward, right?
04:14 That's how it's tied to your body.
04:16 And anger is a forward movement,
04:18 and it suppresses fear, right?
04:20 And so would you rather be angry or afraid?
04:23 Well, angry is hard.
04:24 It's really stressful physiologically,
04:26 but it has a positive emotion.
04:28 That's the self-righteousness.
04:29 That kind of comes out in self-righteousness
04:30 and self-aggrandizement, you know?
04:32 But so, and so it's attractive for that reason
04:37 and because it suppresses fear.
04:40 You know, like if you chase a cat around with a broom,
04:42 which you shouldn't do, but you know,
04:44 this is just an example.
04:45 And it'll run away 'cause it's afraid,
04:47 but if you corner it and then it can't escape,
04:50 the cat will attack eventually.
04:53 Because fear isn't working, it can't run away apparently.
04:57 So then anger comes up, suppresses fear,
04:59 and the cat will attack.
05:00 Now, you know, the cat might get killed,
05:02 you know, in a natural circumstance,
05:03 but anger definitely suppresses fear biologically.
05:06 - So the fact that many people revel in their anger
05:11 is, it shouldn't surprise me or anybody.
05:12 - No, no.
05:14 - I mean, if you get stuck--
05:14 - It's very stressful, anger,
05:16 because anger makes you hyper-prepare, right?
05:19 Because you have to prepare for everything
05:22 when you're angry.
05:22 You're ready for combat.
05:24 It's extraordinarily demanding psychophysiologically
05:27 and that can really do in your health across time.
05:31 - My goodness.
05:32 Well, now this is all coming together for me a little bit
05:34 because we have a lot of people who are very angry
05:37 and I guess it's because it suppresses their fear
05:39 and it's a positive movement.
05:40 Then we have people who are in fear,
05:42 sort of stuck in that same axis.
05:43 Some people are realizing that they're inadequate
05:46 and their inadequacy is making the world inadequate.
05:48 But that doesn't, those parties
05:50 don't always talk to each other.
05:52 - No, well, the thing, one of the problems with anger
05:55 is that anger generally means you've identified the problem
05:59 in someone else and that's also comforting.
06:01 But the problem with that is that,
06:03 well, you know, what are you gonna do about it?
06:05 Are you gonna go to war?
06:06 Well, maybe, but you know, my sense,
06:09 and this is partly 'cause I'm a psychologist, I suppose,
06:11 is like, look to yourself, fix yourself up.
06:13 You got, that'll occupy you forever.
06:16 It's much better.
06:18 And whatever you see out there in some other person
06:20 that you think is terrible is also in here, that's for sure.
06:24 If you can quell that in here and really do that,
06:26 then you can understand what it is that you're hating
06:30 and you'd have a better time,
06:31 you'd be better able to address it anyways.
06:35 It's also in line with the idea of humility.
06:38 It's like, so, yeah, anger is dreadfully attractive,
06:42 but it's really hard on people.
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