As you know, we're in the middle of a big series on work here on the pod cast, which was a good time to point out that, even if you love your job, you will experience stress. However, stress does not necessarily have to be a bad thing can actually be something you harness to your own advantage to help you navigate stress this fall. We ve taken one of our most popular courses from the ten percent happier. a course called stress better and we turn it into a meditation challenge. You will learn from a renowned stress researcher, at columbia, university, professor majuba economic and from the amazing meditation teacher. Seventy selassie, but teach you how to use stress to your advantage. It's a seven day, stress, better challenge and a kick

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the uproot delusion, along with the other two poisons greed and hatred. Only then can you be enlightened, my guest today, Two valiantly make the case that delusion or self deception actually has an upside several upset. While he concedes that self deception can, of course, be massively harmful here use that it also plays a vital role in our success and- being in that it holds together friendships, marriages, even nations, understanding this he says can make you happy or more effective and crucially, more apathetic with people with whom you, The great shocker verbatim is the host of the incredibly popular and very, very good podcast and radio show called hidden brain. His new book is called a useful delusions, the power and paradox of the self deceiving brain. In this conversation, we talk about the many ways in which our brains filter and alter our perception of reality. Why we evolve

for such a robust capacity to lie to ourselves and how his research on delusion has colored his view of the chaos and fusion of our modern world one in four, order of business before we diving with shocker, though, and it has to do with a very common human condition that you could argue is based in delusion Anxiety. If you are anything like me, you may know anxiety, very well. We want to teach you how to build a healthier relationship with your anxiety in our brand new taming anxiety series, a series of episodes that will kick off next week right here on the package, will be bringing you for brand new episodes that or the science of anxiety the way it shows up in your life and what to do about it and we'll be answering the many many questions that you sent us over the last couple of weeks. Thank you for doing that by the way, and there's more good news, while I'm at it to help you put everything you're going to hear in this special podcast series into practice. We are also

during a free, taming anxiety challenge in the ten percent happier app what you ask as a challenge here's, how work every day, you'll get a short video featuring me in conversation with an anxiety, expert and also a phenomenal meditation teacher, and then that video will slide directly into a ten minute guided meditation if you are at all article about the notion of doing a meditation challenge check out. This quote from a podcast listener who participated in our last challenge here at it, I've literally listen to dance since this podcast began. Finally, at the peak of frustration with the pandemic, how poorly I was managing stress, work politics. I joined a challenge. I complete My twenty one day challenge. I had never meditated so consistently before More aware- and I am alone. Covered is still here. Uncertainty still here how I choose to manage all of it has changed.

Listen to your that, so, whether you're a long time practitioner or you ve, never sat on a cushion ever you can come join literally sound. of other meditated all finding new ways. Tame anxiety at the same time to sign up just download the ten percent happier app today for free wherever you get your apps or by visiting ten percent dot com. That's ten percent one word all bailed out one more thing before we dive in here, just want to give you a little heads up that this conversation does include a brief reference to abuse, as well as a discussion about mental health and mental illness, Ok, here we go now with my guest today. Shun curve and autumn shock overdone some thanks for coming on Thank you for having me down. I'm really delighted to be here

did your here. I'm a fan and I think the idea you're exploring in this new book is fascinating. So I think maybe let's start there. I I'm curious, I, how did you get to this question of whether self deception, which generally doesn't have the best pr and the world of whether self deception can actually be good in some way. How did you get to that question here? I have to say I am probably the most unlikely person in the world to have written a book that I just have written down, because I consider myself to be a deeply rational, logical scientific person, and I think I've spent most of my life trying to disabuse people of their self deceptions and to preach the dangers of delusions, and I said leave those things? But I think, over the last few years I've really come to understand that there are elements in our life that, in fact, are well served by certain amounts of self deception. The subtitle of my book is the power and the

dogs of the self deceiving brain, and there is a paradox here. Self deception can indeed do great harm to us, but it turns out, paradoxically, that it can sometimes do great good for us the shot point for my expiration. Here was a very unusual story involving a con call, the charge of love and, in the course of investigating the on and how it worked. I came to understand that self deception can sometimes help people, even though we generally think it can't. Can you tell us that story short, worse so the church of love was a very unusual candid unfolded in the united states in the seventies and eighties. At its heart was A con man named Donna lowry, he was a balding middle aged guy living in a small midwestern town. He was also rider and in the early seventies he invented various characters. Literary actors, young women, any call these women angels and then somehow he

on the idea of writing love letters in their voices to thousands of men scattered across the united states. many of the men receiving the letters believed they were corresponding with real women. Some of them fell deeply in love with the people. They were hearing from many of them centre in huge amounts of money, support the women that they believe they had fallen in love with, and the most remarkable part of the story I've been down. Lowry was finally arrested and brought to trial on charges of male fraud. Several members of his organization, which was called the church of love, showed up at the courtroom to defend him. I found this astonishing wise it when the car is being revealed

Why would the marks show up to defend the con man and in some ways that was the starting point for my expiration of the potential value that self deception can sometimes play in our lives? Why did they show up to defend? Well, I think, for some people, the church of love had become so central to their lives, such an important part of who they were. These relationships were so valuable to them. These men believed that they had found their sole made, so they had found an anchor. that giving up those anchors and also made seemed unbearable. A couple of people at lowries trial said that the letters from

the angels had saved them from alcoholism and drug addiction. Two people said that they were on the verge of committing suicide and the letters had pulled them back from the brink, and so in many ways the story of the church of love is how self deceptions can sometimes aid us in moments of great crisis or great peril, and at those moments it becomes easy for us to see how self deception can sometimes play a salutary role in our lives. You haven't said this yet, but I have the sense that part of what was informing this quest for you was clearly evolution bequeathed us a brain. That's pretty good at self deception There must be some something adaptive about self deception. Emma am I something with that. I think you are onto something because in some ways this has been a great mystery for a long time. Over the last twenty or thirty years, especially researchers and social scientists have d

Commanded all kinds of ways are behaviour. Departs from rational decision making the whole field of behavioral economics, for example, is focused on the ways in which human behavior deviates from rational economic decision making and the typical way we explain these deviations. As we say in our ancient evolutionary history, some of the biases that we had held us in good stead in those ancient environments, but we still have the brains that were handed down to us from evolution, and so we continue to have

Those biases, even though there are no longer functional in the here and now now that is possible, and that is plausible, and certainly there probably does explain some of the biases that we have in our minds. But I think part of what I'm trying to explore in my book is: is it possible that sometimes some of these biases and some of these errors are in fact playing a functional roar and if we were to read our brains of these vices and these errors, we wouldn't come out ahead? We might in fact find ourselves set back so again bias self deception, not generally words that people use in a positive way. What are the surprising upsides of dissent that you found well. Let me give you a couple of really simple example: is to try and start to make the case that self deception can sometimes be functional at any given moment dan. This is work by a neuroscientist donald half men is found that the human eye takes in about a billion bits of information.

I have all this information was transmitted to the brain. Our minds will quickly become overwhelmed because our brains are doing many different things. I don't just taking in visual information that taking auditory information and information from touch and taste and we're thinking about things and having come nations with people and planning things, our brains are doing lots and lots of things, and so the brain basically filters this information it's only about a million bits of information gets to the brain and then off this million bits of information. The brain takes about forty bits of this information and actually processes it sought or the billion that first came into your eyes, you're. Basically, looking at about forty at any In moment now an engineer might say what has unfolded is a profound self deception, a delusion because What you're seeing bears little resemblance to what is actually come again through arise. Little resemblance to reality. now the reason your brain does. All this filtering is not because your book

spain has a distaste for reality, but it turns out that filtering reality in this way allows us to keep on top of what we actually need to keep on top off. In other words, we can focus our attention on what we need to pay attention to and focus on other things when we need to pay attention to other things. So a great deal of what the filtering that happens in the brain happens in order so that the brain can function efficiently can function frugally if you will and attend to a great many things at the same time, one concentric circle up from that might be when you think about self deceptions in our personal relationships, for example, research has shown that people who have self deceptions about their loved ones. If you believe you are in our personal romantic relationship with someone who is very handsome are very beautiful, are very kind or re generous, even if those things are not completely true. Your self deceptions about your partner, your positive illusions,

your partner will mean that you are likely to be happier in your relationship and you are likely to be in a more stable relationship, and so you can see how sometimes not seeing reality accurately could turn out to be good for us. I think you say in the book that this is true for parenting to you. You many of us believe we have the most special kid in the world or suppose special kids in the world and back and help you do. your revolutionary hub of raising your kid, but it may not actually be true exactly and in some ways I think the parent child relationship might in some ways be the almost economical example of house after, option can be functional. I know that when my own daughter was born. I had him the feeling that this was the most incredible me. Call beyond all miracles and that she was the most special child in the entire union and I think many parents feel this way, especially, I think when their first child has been born, that their experiencing something

credible and magical that has never been experienced before in the history of the universe. And, of course this is untrue. Its clearly it self deception is clearly a delusion, but it turns out to be a very useful delusion because, as I learnt as soon as I became apparent, parenting is not easy and tried. It's quite challenging. It's time consuming it's difficult, its frustrating your often sleep deprived and if we were to perform a mere cost benefit analysis about the valley of our children, some of us might conclude that our children are not quite worth it that, in fact our children are more curse than blessing, and so nature has thought fit in some ways to endow ass was vast amounts of self deception when it comes to our offspring, based on the very wise conclusion that, if we did do so, we wouldn't be good parents and in all of us, everyone whose alive today, everyone is listening to the show, comes from very, very long line of survivors, that's chain of survivors goes back not just to the force humans who arrived at

planet, but many many millions of years before that two other species on the planet and throughout that long, unbroken course of survival. You see this common relationship between parents and children and again the self deception that parents have had about their offspring, have caused parents to undertake great difficulties to protect their children to ensure that children are re securely to adulthood. So the fact that you and I are present on the planet today testifies to the valley. of self deception, on the part of our parents and grandparents and our ancestors and the fact that we have self deception about our children testifies why are children I likely to grow up in happy and well adjusted. Households have a six year old laughing figures are of six year old boy and he likes to make fun of me the other day he was me dummy lovato having the name of the popular

and I'm never more proud of him when he comes up with a good way to make funding their self deception. Indeed I mean, can you imagine someone in your workplace, calling you dummy, lovato and and not only do not get outrage? You're, not insulted what you actually say, my god, what a clever insult, absolutely self deception at its finest then going back to intimate relationships. Yes, I can see how my carrying the story, as I do that my wife is the most beautiful woman in the world is a useful self deception, but there are lots of useless or pernicious self deception. Is I might carry it? she's. Always this way when I have ex problem, etc, etc, or she never does act. When I ask her to Do it so this seems like a very much a double edged sword: absolutely I think this is where the paradox of self deception comes about and me.

Than even the examples that you cited sort of the everyday frictions that happen in personal relationships. You can see examples of personal relationships that are abusive where self deception can play a very harmful role. So the person who gets a black eye from their partner but rationalized behaviour to themselves and says you know, my partner is really a very good man. They just sometimes he loses his temper or sometimes he's not quite aware of what he's doing their reason, which south to set it can end up harming us in truly profound ways. This is, I think, great dilemma of self deception down, because you can simultaneously see examples in the same domain, where self deception is functional and where self deception is harmful, I grew up in india and one of the great indian epics is the mahabharata and it's a story of a kingdom falls into ruin, because a prince is basically lead

the kingdom into ruin? He is an evil. Young man and part of the premise of the story is at his father who the king is unable to see the evil that his son is doing and in the story of the mahabharata. The king. is actually literally blind. So his literal blindness is a metaphor for his. The blind that he has in his love for his child, and I think all of us this in many ways in our present times as well, you can see how parent love can be so blind that it causes parents to do things that in fact are unethical or harmful. We had candle some time ago involving parents being their way into colleges so that their kids can get admission into top colleges. You can see how parent or self deception and dilution can go off the deep band and cause great. Arm, but if I were to wave a magic wand and say what we all be better off, if pair did not have any more self deceptions about their children. It would be, be better off. If we didn't have self deceptions about our partners, I would have to say I dont think that would be a good thing. I think

On general and on net, I believe that these self deception, in fact our functional, is another great life from the mahabharata. If memory. Miss correctly that somebody's asked what's the most wonderful thing in the world, and the answer is that we can all be surround goodbye aging, illness and death and somehow believe it's not gonna happen to us That's right here. I remember that line dead, it's a marvelous line because it's the other question, that's paused to this very wise man is, and what is the most surprising was strange things in and he says exactly as you as you know, we see death and dying around us all the time, but all of us in our heart of hearts believe that is not going to come. For us, or that we will not be the next person to die, and again you know when you think about it. Human beings, perhaps uniquely on the planet, have a very clear sense that in fact the immortal creature said

We know that we are going to die. We know that our lives could come to an end, could come to an abrupt end, and yet, if we actually had this thought, if we had to carry this thought around with us all the time, this would be a drag, it would be very difficult. You know we would. Have no difficulty interacting with people. It would weigh us down, and so what do we do? We come. with ways to distract ourselves from the knowledge of our impending death are impending doom. We come up with rationalizations and self deception that keep us focused and optimistic and hopeful again you can sort of sea ways in which this could be harmful, but clearly, I think we can all see ways in which This could be helpful if we all spend our days agonizing about the fact that we are mortal and we're gonna die. Clearly we would not leave very good, very functional lives to be buddhist about it. There is a middle path here, if you're wallowing in the morbid. Yes, that could be paralytic but denied

Wall of death isn't the only answer. The other answer is actually to get quite close to mortality because it vivid feiss the present moment and leads inexorably to gratitude and a sense of healthy urgency. I'm a natural happen: buddhism better, but also in the momentous marie notion in christianity. So there is a way here that actually losing this delusion can be quite useful. Yes, I think I agree with that. There has been great wisdom passed on to us from numerous spiritual and religious traditions. I basically point to the idea. That in some ways a flickering thought of are impending doom can cause us to actually enjoy what we are doing much more. When I tell myself, this might in fact be the last time I'm having opposition with someone. It might make me more attentive and more mindful of the conversation. If I tell myself when I'm meeting my friend this might be the last time I meeting my friend and in fact it

be the last time a meeting. My friend I might be more attentive and my friend is speaking to me. I might be more compassionate more for giving more empathetic to my friend, and so I completely agree with you, sometimes allowing ourselves a fleeting thought bout, our own mortality, could in fact be functional about even go a step further than that down and say that for people who are practitioners, people who I meditated, for example, it might be- I suppose, even to contemplate our mortality on a more regular, consistent basis and not feel as overwhelmed with it as a sort of a layperson might feel. So I think there are spiritual and religious traditions that have thought about mortality in very complex ways, but I think it's fair to say that I

for most people on the planet, who have not sort of engage in these spiritual practices, the self deceptions the daily distractions that we come up with the youtube videos that we watch, the jokes. We tell it happy hour. These in some ways are a defence against our fears of mortality. What this gets sue, I think, or for me at least, is a really important issue here, and so they are. I came in this conversation wanted to talk to you about, which is: how can we, at the level of our own minds, sort between useful delusion and harmful delusion? Here I've been struggling with this question for a while then, and its come up repeatedly as people have asked me this and I have to confess I'm not sure there is a simple clean line, that d markets, the two things we ve talked about intimate relationships for example, and how its helpful in some intimate relationships to believe that you are with the right person. If you believe that you are with the right partner

You are likely to be happier in your relationship now. Is it useful to actually topped the person on the shoulder? Who has his belief and say is what you're seeing actually real? Is it actually true that actually helpful? If you and I down you know- could go on a road trip this coming year? We start by every couple getting married in the united states, and we asked, im on their wedding day? What are the odds you're going to get divorced? You know very few people are going to give you the statistically correct answer, which is the odds of getting divorced at forty to sixty send very few people and their wedding day, I'm gonna, put their odds of getting divorced is one in two, even though those in fact are the odds, and I think both of us would it read that anyone on their wedding day, who says my odds of getting too forced our one in two. That person has not even had personally likely, not gonna, have a very happy marriage. They might be statistically accurate but in some ways the belief that they have that their marriage- it's gonna last forever- might

fact been important ingredient in the marriage lasting for a long time. It may be an important ingredient in the success of their marriage. In many ways, I think we have to judge the you Kennedy or the disutility of delusions. By seeing the outcomes they produce in the world so when we have these delusions that led us in some ways to be kinder people to be better people to be more empathetic people to be more compassionate to each other. I would call these good delusions and useful delusions and functional delusions when the deceptions and self deception cause us to exploit one another to harm one another to lead another astray to take advantage of one another. I think those would be ways in which I would call the dangerous solutions, but I dont know the practitioner himself or herself, where the vacant no as they are experiencing the delusion. Whether something is useful or not useful. You might actually have to wait to see what the outcome. Sir. Do you think it's possible to live a life where

you have the ability to look at your own mind and see I so yeah. I know one some level that my son isn't the cutest six year old, walking the planet but I believe that, and I see no harmon in that's all- I can to try to challenge that view whereas I might notice I o clock when I see somebody with certain pigmentation, I I whole bunch of negative associations. My come up in, in mind that are totally involuntary and, and I can see how that would cause harm, especially when scaled up to the level of society yeah. So I am going to actually challenge those thoughts that seems doable to me. But what's your view

it is probably doable. I don't think it's easy to do, but I think it is doable, but I will point out that in some ways you are doing what I was suggesting a second ago, which is your asking yourself. What is the outcome of this self deception? I think in the case of your six year old child, it is entirely to his benefit and your benefit for you to believe that he is the cutest six year old child in the world when it comes to the self deceptions that cause us to lead one another astray. I think it's absolutely right to say that these self deception can be harmful when it comes to the biased, as we have about r r associations of vienna when it comes to race or gender or sexual orientation, for example, is absolutely right to say what are the consequences of the self deception of these automatic believes. What I liked about what you just said Dan, is that I think it's possible to be mine,

all about what we are experiencing and then tell ourselves in some ways. I'm gonna allow myself to experience this thing that I'm experiencing, because in fact I can see good coming from it or I can choose to say. I'm noticed that, in fact, I'm having the self deception, and I want to choose not to go down that road in a right before we started talking down. I was eating a bite of lunch and as I was eating my lunch, I was reflecting on the fact that, when we taste food, the sense of taste that we have is not, in fact in the food, the sense of taste that we have is in the mind. So you know by the definition that I'm using about delusion A delusion is something that is a product of the human mind. The taste of the sandwich that I just eight was a taste that was produced by my own minds. If I was being very mindful about it, the way I would describe it as I would say, this is a delicious sandwich deliciousness fact, is produced by my mind as a result of various chemicals on the sandwich hitting the receptors on my tongue and pass

signals onto my brain and my brain interpreting the sandwich as being delicious. In fact, it's entirely functional for me to believe that the sandwich is delicious and I'm going to embrace the dilution and enjoy the sandwich that I'm eating as You could do that. I think it would be taxing to do that. All the time to live your life, we are very mindful- and I know there are some buddhist practitioners- I think you are able to do that on a moment to moment basis, I try and do that, for time to time, but I find I'm really able to do it for more than a few minutes at a stretch. So what is the take away of this insight that self deception can be adapted and positive, where have you landed in terms of how this impacts your own life and your own management of your own mind, I will say it taught me to be a little bit more compassionate towards myself and a little more compassionate to what other people

I've noticed, for example, down in my own life that when I'm going through difficult times, my mind is just as capable as other people's minds for reaching for fantastical beliefs Let me give you a couple of really simple examples. All of us have been through a very difficult year with the global pandemic, and I remember that throughout the pandemic, starting in march twenty twenty, I told myself a story that liberation was at hand and it was about four weeks away. At every stage of the last year I told myself, liberation was four weeks away. It was a month away and in fact, if you asked me now, I will tell you today that liberation is probably month away now at some level this is probably a self deception. I think probably does a self deception that I knew was a self deception, but the notion that we were going through something

did not have an end in sight fell to painful to contemplate. So I came up with the self deception almost as a way to soothe my own anxieties. To tell myself all you have to do is hold on for a month and then liberation is gonna, be at hand. The inner you see the same advice if you look at groups like alcoholics, anonymous or addiction, recovery groups or people who are counselor people who have long prison sentences. The admonition is often you take your life one day at a time. Why should we take our if one day at a time. Why not look at our lives twenty years at a time? And then- knows if your life, in fact, is filled with many many difficulties is filled with despair. It is, in fact, helpful think about. All you have to do as getting to tomorrow. S surviving till two. And then tomorrow you, you know you create enough twenty four hour deadline. So in some ways breaking up this monumental challenge into bite. Size portions makes it easier for ass to navigate monumental challenges. So I think, suddenly, I have come to be more compassionate about the ways and

My own mind works, but perhaps more importantly, I think I have become more compassionate about the ways other people's minds walked. I think this is really one of the most important in sites that the book has and the most important areas where the book might have something to offer the people all of us come by other people whose views we disagree with, and sometimes those views are so outlandish that we find ourselves bewildered. How is it possible that this person could believe? what they believe. I think when we encounter those things. Invariably we are very judgmental. I know that throughout my life would have come by believes that I think, are flat out wrong I find myself getting angry with those beliefs? I find myself getting angry with those delusions and say how is it possible that you can believe what you believe that? Some years ago down, I was having dinner with a friend of mine, and I have seen for many years a college friend of mine, and he spend the dinner explain to me. Why thought? The united states was behind the nine eleven attacks. Why the cia and f b I had planned and carried out.

On eleven attacks and I remember getting angry with him got angrier and angry or as a dinner progressed, and then we spend ninety minutes arguing and into the ninety minutes. Of course, I hadn't convinced him that the united states was not behind the nine eleven attack. All that had happened was that we'd had an argument for ninety minutes and he left the country I believe that I was the one who had the dilution. I think, if I was to do that conversation over today after having thought about and written this book, I would approach that conversation differently. I would start with empathy, I would start with compassion, and I will start with questions ryan impose argument and provide evidence. I would try and understand why it is my friend believed what he believed, because I think one of the fundamental insights of my book that delusions when they occur, are often playing a psychologically functional purpose.

They might be wrong, they might be inaccurate, they might even be harmful but they're playing some kind of rule that suits or answers a psychological question that we are experiencing. So if you want to disabuse people of their delusions, it's not me. enough to provide them with the facts that tell them that they are wrong, you actually have to get under the hood of the delusion and ask what psychological purpose is playing in this person's life and is there a way that I can find a way to provide for that person? Psychological need some other way allowing them to give up this delusion. I think that's gonna be a more effective way to combat dangerous solutions. Let's take a current example that I know is top of my for many people, which is anti vaxxers. How would this by the way I love your inside? I think that's very powerful

How would we operational eyes this insight? If you know we're talking to somebody in our life whose just refusing to get a vaccine against all the evidence about the safety and efficacy? Let me give you an example from my own life dan. Many years ago I was a rapporteur at the washington post and I was covering various controversies about early childhood vaccinations and mistaken belief that those vaccinations are associated with an increased risk of autism and I'd. I was writing articles about it for the poor first and front page stories about the problems with people who are hesitant or in a worried about the vaccines. The lack of evidence connecting the risks of autism to the childhood vaccines then my own daughter was born and I had to decide whether I have to get my own daughter vaccinated and, of course, I remembered all of the research that I had reviewed. I've thought about it a great deal at spoken to some of the most respected vaccine exports in the world. But when the pediatrician told me it's time to get your daughter vaccinated, a thought went through my mind

the thought that went through my mind is: is it possible? I am doing something that harms my daughter and, in some ways its terms again from what we talked about earlier? In the conversation, the deep and irrational love that parents have for their children, and the desire that you want to do what is best for your child? No matter what you want to do what's best for your child, and so that caused me to have a moment's doubt a moment's hesitation, a moment's fear, and what I did was I told my daughter, speed. fishing. I told him, I fear I said you know I mean I know all the research. I know that there is no scientific connection between those two things, but I have to confess I'm worried about it and he did something really valuable. Instead of presenting me with research, what he showed me what I already knew he said you know I thought about the same question and I have multiple children and I've thought about this question. As I have got my own

been vaccinated, and I know that what I'm doing right now is in fact, in their best interests and in some ways what he did was he didn't belittle my fears. He didn't have contempt for my fears. He in fact told me that my fears were justified, that my fear, son from my love for my daughter, and that was fundamentally a good thing to do. Let's look the same idea in the context of vaccine hesitancy right now in the ear of covert and- and I share your concerns down that- I think you are expressing that truly it's a dangerous thing that thirty to forty percent of united states, does not wish to get vaccinated. I think that this is a dangerous idea. It's a mistaken idea. I do believe that we would all be better off if we got ourselves vaccinated, but let's say we encounter someone who is hesitant to get a vaccine rather than tell them. You know the data linking vaccines to blood clots or their data linking vaccine to something else is weak. We should ask people the question: what is it? That's worrying you? What is it? That's bothering you tell me about your

here. Let me understand what it is. That's making you afraid now doing. This does not automatically mean that the person is going to say. Ok, you persuaded me, I'm gonna get a vaccine, I'm not suggesting that there's a panacea or a silver bullet. But I do believe that if we actually approached people at the level at which they think about their own lives, you know people are not. They not idiots, then I'll. Try to harm themselves. They are trying to do what's best for themselves if we assume those things and go into it saying I know that you are trying to do what's best for you what's best for your family, what's best for your children and best where community you just come to a different conclusion that I have left

We understand what your concerns are. Let's have a conversation where I can empathize with you and tell you that I share your love for yourself for your family, for your children for your community. Let me explain to you how I might approach this question differently. I think in some ways we would dial down the temperature on the conversations that we have very often I thing when it comes to delusions and self deception. We end up having screaming matches with people like I did that dinner with my friend from college and at the end of the conversation, all that's happened is that we like one another, a little less and no one has persuaded any one of anything. I know this is

very old idea, that goes back all the way to buddhism and mindfulness. But the idea of starting with empathy of starting with compassion is, I think, a truly powerful way to disabuse people of dangerous self deceptions, given how dangerous delusions can be e g and I've e g, the election was rigged, given how dangerous these solutions can be. How far should we go with it, I see yeah great question, and I think you know there might be limits to where we want to exercise us empathy, because, let's say, for example, let me pose a hypothetical to you. Let's say somebody knocks on your door and has a rifle in their hand and their knocking on your door, because they believe that you are evil incarnate

come to kill you because that's, I believe not. This is not a useful time to be exploring the psychological basis of self deception and delusion in a situation like that, the appropriate thing to do is not to say. Let me sit down and understand where you're coming from and let's get under the hood of the way that your mind works? The appropriate thing to do at that point is to call nine one. One when people storm the? U S, capital on January, sixth believing the election was rigged. You can't advance is psychological explanation at that point and basically say: let me try and unjust and what it is. That's motivating your anger. At that point, you have to call the police, you have to call the national guard to basically protect the capital. The point that I think I'm trying to make Dan

Is that a forty million people believe what the people who strong the capital on January? Sixth believe you cannot call out the national guard to disabuse forty million people of their beliefs ran a belief is shared by large numbers of people. In fact, that is precisely when you have to turn to psychological explanations and psychological interventions and by the way, some of the psychological interventions can also take advantage of our minds. Capacity for sale, deception. So let me give you a simple example: when it comes to vaccine hesitancy, for example, there are numerous ways in which we can recruit the self deceiving brain to help us spread the message of vaccinations. So, rather than tell people about the number of people who have not been vaccinated, it may be important to tell people about the number of people who have been vaccinated. People discover this in anti smoking, panes that it was much more effective to tell people that most people around them were nonsmokers. Then too, to the minority of people who are smokers and partly what this is getting at is a huge

beings on norm followers. We follow the social norms, the social scripts of the community's around us. If we believe the community's heading in a certain direction, we ourselves are likely to head in that direction, the more can communicate that more people are on board. With the idea of getting vaccinated, number or we can in some ways recruit the capacity of the south deceiving brain. Another useful idea is to introduce the idea that there might be some scarcity with vaccines, one of the things that happens when we go to a shop or a store. The store basically says you know these are the last two items on sale partly with the story is trying to do, is induce a sense of scarcity. In your mind, to tell you if I dont act now I'm gonna lose the chance to act going forward? I was in a conversation with the nobel prize winners down your car. And richer sailor and the social psychologist robber child any last week, and One of the recommendations that they had is what, if we actually labelled every, I've, those that we have with some one's name and basically said this doze is met

for you down harris, and you can. Let us know if you want to have this doors or not. But if you decide that you don't wish to have the stoves we're going to give this to somebody else. Maybe we're even going to get the steelers to somebody in another country, so you have the choice to get this does, but if you decide not to get it you're going to lose that choice altogether and in some ways creating some mechanisms of artificial scarcity. We might be able to use the self deceiving brain to get more people vaccinated, thats, really interesting. Speaking of our tendency to judge people's deception in lapse into self righteous. Can you explain what the phrase naive realism means shore naive. Realism is a principle in psychology that stems from the fact that when we look at the world it's impossible for us not to. I urge that the world, as we see it, is in fact the way the world is, and it must be. The that everyone else also sees the world or should see the world one of the simplest way too

when strayed nigh realism is to cite the comedian. George Carlin, who once said, Have you ever noticed when you're driving everyone going? after than you is a maniac at everyone, going slower than you is an idiot Really what column was trying to get us there was that we assume that the way We drive must in fact be the way every one else should be I think so anyone who's driving faster must clearly be a reckless person must clearly be a bad driver. Anyone who's, driving slower, must clearly be an idiot because they can see how in fact their slow down traffic? We believe that we are the norm in the way that we see the world is the correct way to see the world when I first came by the story of the church of love that we discussed earlier on. The story of this room, google com that unfolded in the seventies and eighties. I looked at that story through the lens naive realism, I asked myself what would I do if I were to receive one of those letters, and I told you

south. If I received one of those debtors, I would probably throw it away after reading, maybe the first line it would hold no interest to me and therefore that is the correct way that everyone should be looking at those letters. And so when I saw people who did not read the letter is the same people who, in fact loved the letters wanted more and more of the letters believe they were corresponding with real women fell in love with those women. My initial response informed. My naive realism was that there was something wrong with the members of the church of love, because clearly they were seeing the world wrong tonight realism is a really powerful force that causes us to believe that the way we think of reality is in fact not just the only way to see reality by the correct way to see reality and in some ways it keeps us from exercising the empathy and compassion of understanding that other people might see the world differently. The ultimate take away the book. It

is that you can be a little easier I'd yourself at others around self deception. Along those lines you make the point that love to hear you say more about it. That, for you, in questioning in this is the term you use in questioning the temple of rationality, you actually came to see that foregoing the session, is necessarily just about being educated or enlightened. It actually like dropping self deception, could also be a sign of privilege and that we need to look at the fact that some people are. You are in the throes of self deception because they really have no other choice that's exactly right, you as the old saying down there, there are. No atheists is in the foxhole. I think this really is one of the key ideas that I haven't we book in its ironic. In fact, a few months ago this is well out of the book was written as I was awaiting occasion I had experience in my own life that showed me exactly how this works. I was several

was away from my home in washington, and I was unloading, a bike from my car, and the handlebars spun round and hit me right below. I write, I just feel like a jar, but you know I it's small bruise on my cheek, but nothing else, but that over the next twenty four hours I sat at sort of seeing a shadow fall across my eye, and I have a family history of retina problems, and I understood that what was happening to me was. I was experiencing a retina detachment for your those who are not familiar with this, the retina is the film behind the eye. The light falls on the retina. The retina is basically sending signals up through the optic nerve through the brain. So if the retina on hinges from it's moorings, you basically will lose vision in the eye and once a certain amount of the retina has detached. You are very likely to lose sight in that eye altogether, and I could tell that you know the shadow that was falling across my eye was sort of going, and I could literally in some way, see myself going blind in one eye. As I mentioned, I was,

far away from my home in washington. I couldn't get back in time to see the eye doctors whom I have in my hometown, and know how to find an eye doctrine, and it was very difficult where I was to basically find somebody who could help and finally managed to locate somebody who is allows away from me. I drove to the city that I had never been too in my life before and he very kind he opened his practice for me at nine o clock in the night. He diagnosed me with the retina detachment, and you told me that I didn't get into surgery in the next few minutes. I was gonna lose the ice. Are we literally when directly from his office, to the emergency room of the local hospital where he perform surgery on me now, as it turned out here, brilliant doktor, he ended up saving my eye, for which I am profoundly grateful. But at the moment he diagnosed me and TAT

with me. We had to wheel you into surgery in the next few minutes. I think back to my own behavior at that point, because at that point I did not have time to evaluate what he was telling me. I did not have time to get a second opinion. I did not have time to even look up reviews to see if this was a good doctor or a bad doctor, and so I did what all of us do in situations like this. I put all my trust and faith in this man. Now, let's say for a second that he had not been a brilliant surgeon. Let's say he had been a charlatan, let's say being a con man would, it have been any less likely for me to put my faith and trust in him, and I would argue the answer to that is now. I would have been just as likely to put my faith in him, because my faith in some ways was not driven by him. My faith was driven by I was going through at that point, the vulnerability that I was experiencing at that point, and so absolutely, I think, when we think about the self deception of other people- and we respond with judgment when we respond with anger and contempt. Very often what's happening is that we are outside the challenge.

Is that that person is experiencing, and so I've come to realise that in some ways not practising self deception, foregoing self deception, ironically might be a form of privilege of your own life is going perfectly well. if you have a great job, if you're in great health, if you're in a wonderful relationship with someone and everything's going swim, For you, you really have no need to turn to the kind of self deception said we ve been talking about, but all of our lives, of course, can take a turn. It the moment and when they do take that time, I think all of us very quickly lies that our minds prove very fertile ground to the wildest self deceptions. So could another name for self deception be hope. I think that certainly is one of the most important functions that self deception and has to offer an in our minds and again, if you look at it from an evolutionary perspective, this makes perfect sense. Our time on earth is not as limited. It's really a very small amount of time that we spend its not just as a whole.

At any point, but it's actually a very limited amount of time that we get to spend on the planet. Let you stepped back for a second, you know if you think about life on the planet as a whole. our individual lives. You know eighty years hundred years, you know they are basically almost nothing in the context of the entire planet. Our planet itself is one of you know, a tiny speck in a solar system and the solar system is one of millions and millions of solar systems just in our own galaxy, and our galaxy is one of maybe two trillion galaxies in the known universe, so our individual lives human beings, in fact, are completely inconsequential. We are easily garden. We are easily erased and, of course, to think about these things to see completely our own place in the universe his dispiriting. I think this is why all over the world, it every culture and every time human beings have come up with ways to give their lives, meaning and purpose, and you can look at some of the ways people do that the rituals they turned to the belief that their spouse and you can look at them, it can

and so to say those beliefs are irrational. Those police are a logical look at the foolish things that people believe without sort of asking the deeper question. Why is it that people are turning to those believes what role is serving for them, and I completely agree with you providing hope is probably one of the most important ways our minds turn to deceiving themselves much more. My conversation with sugar of autumn read after this you I've heard about master glass for years, but I'd, never actually checked it out, which is now making me feel a little bit stupid, but the news is the folks over at master class. Are now sponsoring this show and they gave me a subscription, and as I look at this as I realise that this is a great place to feel a lot. Less stupid the lineup on this is incredible. The people there recruited to teach it just kind of blows my mind. They ve got Aaron sorkin on screen,

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if you are truly things that are delusional and people assume that what this meant was that, when you're mentally ill you're, somehow detached from reality that mental illness involved not seeing the world clearly and mental health involve seeing the world exactly the way the world is over the last thirty or forty years. I think people have come to challenge that contention and challenged it by looking at a handful of conditions, especially conditions involving depression and, to some extent, anxiety as well, which show that patients who have depression in fact, are able to see the world quite clearly and in some ways at least in some experimental settings they are able to see the world. More clearly than people who according court mentally healthy- and this presents a great conundrum- a great paradox here, because if you think about mental illness as being the delusional stay, how is it that people who have certain mental illnesses like depression are seeing the world more clearly, one of them most provocative ideas that I've come buys. I was reporting and writing this book is the idea

in some ways part of being mentally healthy might involve not seeing the world clearly but seeing the world through a delusional sense of optimism through a delusional hopefulness and in fact some of the people who are depressed. Some other people are experiencing anxiety, their experience not be functional, but in fact they are seeing reality exactly for what it is in some ways. I think it makes the case that I've been trying to me throughout our transition day, which is that sometimes seeing reality for what exactly it is might mean that your seeing the truth- but this might not be functional, might not help you wake up in the morning and get to work and be a good parent and be a good partner to your spouse and be a good colleague to your coworkers and a good neighbour to your community. All these things might require in some way a sense of optimism, a sense of delusional optimism when you think about the covert pandemic that we ve all been through. They know it's not unreasonable to look at what we be so this terrible global pandemic, the enormous cost into

of lives and livelihoods that we experience not just in the united states but around the world and if not impossible, imagine that we would be shaken by that we would so to say the world apparently in dangerous place, to be, let me retreat from the world and yet, all of us or many of us, have almost the opposite reaction as the pandemic. A sort of winding down, at least in some countries, many of us are looking forward to basically getting out and about to basically putting it behind us and its unclear whether we are doing, in fact, is merely seeing reality accurately. You could argue that seeing reality accurately might mean that, in fact, we continue to think about the enormous costs. The pandemic acted in terms of lives and livelihoods, but you can also see how that would be deeply dysfunctional if we didn't go about our daily lives, if we didn't in some ways resume our prior lives, which argue

might have been blind to the risks that will confronting us. I want a free associate on this for a second. The upside of self deception is tough for people like me who come out of the buddhist context, because in buddhism, there's three primordial pernicious psychological phenomena that were we're trying to stop rude and our practice. Greed, hatred and delusion or confusion blind us to the reality of the human situation

So maybe it's possible that that, yes, it does make sense to have some delusion, or else you're going to be stuck in a sort of a nihilism or a complete paralytic depression about the fact that we're going to die and everybody else we know is going to die if everything's changing all the time so rapidly that we don't have that much control, but maybe with the right container like a meditation practice and a good teacher and the right tradition, seeing things clearly can actually be liberating cause. That would be the proposition from the buddhist side What does any of that make sense to you? It does make sense to me and in some ways I think there are some overlaps between the arguments that I'm making and I think many ideas in buddhism. Certainly, I think the man

it that I ended up with in my own life, and certainly in my book is the mandate for empathy and compassion, and I think, to the extent that I understand buddhist practices, I think empathy and compassion are very closely at the heart of at least how, if you're, a good buddhist, presumably you're, going to experience a certain amount of empathy and compassion. and for the world. If you're doing it right, you don't end up with more anger and contempt for the world, it up with more understanding and sympathy and compassion for the world, so I think they're sort of an overlap there. I certainly think when it comes to greed, you can think about the self deceptions that cause us to have great so, for example, the insatiable appetite that we have to own more and more things or to acquire more and more money. We can look at those things and if we look at them clearly we can sort of say well is actually driving this desire, that we have

acquire more and more. This desire for more and more possessions for wealth for status. Where is that coming from, and is it possible that, in fact, this is leading me astray, and is it possible that in some ways by seeing this dilution clearly, we can actually step away from great, and so to that extent I think I'm absolutely on board with the idea that seeing some of our delusions clearly can in fact produce things that are functional. That can can make us happier if we were less driven to basically just mindlessly, acquire more and more things at a very deep level, one of the things that I've been wrestling with in recent months. Actually this is after I wrote the book. I came by this idea from greek philosophy called the ship of theseus and You'Re- probably familiar with this, but for those of your listeners who are,

Theseus was a great greek warrior and, according to the myth, when he finished his travels in his exploits sir, and he came back home, his ship was stored in the harbor, almost as a museum piece and over the following decades and centuries, the planks of the ship, rotted and decayed, and when that happened, people replaced the planks with new planks until eventually, all the planks on all the components in every part of the ship of theseus was in fact made of a new part and Two piece, a new component and the question that philosophers, starting with plato onwards, have asked is so. Is this new ship that we have built that's constructed entirely of new materials? Is this still the ship of theseus or is in fact an altogether new ship and philosophers after plato have asked an even deeper and more complex question, which is if we could find all of the

old pieces of the ship of theseus and we could reassemble them into a ship with that ship, in fact be the real ship of theseus and not merely a replica made up of other. and the reason I been thinking about this in the reason. This relates to the question that you're asking about the connection with buddhism and the themes that I'm writing about in the book is that the ship, a thesis in some It is a metaphor for our own lives and for our own bodies and for our own minds at a very material level. All of us are made up of particles that inside ways are tony over all the time the cells that made up dad harris ten years Go, I'm not the cells that make up dad Harris today. In fact, at a physical level, you dad, a completely different down than you were ten years ago or twenty years over thirty years ago. So the question to ask is: are you still the same down is still the same ship, a thesis and at a psychological level,

at an even deeper level below the level of our minds. Our minds also are the product of invent gin and reinvention and layer upon layer of beliefs and norms and attitudes leered one on top of the other and in some ways I think of my life, and I think of myself as being one person who sat one history, that goes back all the earth from when I was a child to who I am today as an adult to whom I we'll, be one day as an older person, and yet I think the question that arises from the ship a thesis- and this is a question that I think has been wrestled with by people who are both this and meditated is. Is this actually true is actually the case that there is in fact one figure, one creature, one person oneself. That in fact, is a consistent presence through all these different stages of life. I'm not sure. I fully understand that.

buddhist questions about whether the sense of self that we have. Is that an illusion, but I think one of the questions that I've been wrestling with is: is it possible that my own sense of myself as being the eye, and in that I was when I was a child, and I am the same person, I'm gonna be when I'm an older person that sense of self that I have that. I think we all have in our minds. Is that also in some ways, a self deception, profoundly dangerous and in a disturbing self deception, perhaps, but also very national, because in fact, if I was to believe that I was the same person that I was a child that I am now that I am the same person

that? I will be years later? I will do things in some ways to serve that future creature, because I believe that future creature is me, but in fact is that true I mean you said you weren't sure you understood the buddhist case for the illusion of the self, but you you everything you said leading up to. It would indicate that you do understand it and it was really well said. I don't want to represent myself as somebody who's a buddhist scholar, I'm more of a like a sort of buddhist practitioner who episodically grasps some of these really difficult concepts and the most difficult to the mall. For me, at least, is this notion that the self is an illusion, but you know really does kind of go back to what I was getting at, which is around the case for and against self deception. It does seem pretty clear to me after

the dozen years of practice that there is no core dan. If I closed my eyes and look for him, I won't find some homunculus of dan between my ears. It is something worth constructing moment to moment, even though the sense of it is very real right so on one level it Israel, like, I am my name- is Dan. I need to put my pants on. I need to make appointments for myself under the name of death, and I need to you know, get on various zoom calls goes. Somebody named Dan is expected in yes on some level That is all true, but on some deep level there, is no core dan and that self deception can have enormous leave negative consequences. You know it because I'm labouring under the delusion that I am real. That's the wellspring of greed, that's the wellspring of hatred, because I need to fend off

nobody who isn't dan, who might be coming after my ice, cream and and so yeah. The point of buddhist practice in some ways is to see through that illusion, and that can be terrifying. You know there there's a phase in practice. That's called the rolling up the maths phase, because you start to see he that this sense of me, the sense of I, is just an illusion and that's terrifying, but it does go back to what I said before, which is that, if in the right container, seeing the truth of the human situation with the right teachers with the right tradition with the right

This is yes, it can be terrifying, but in the end, while sure these self deception might have some data days day, sort of quotidian value actually uprooting them is more valuable, because that allows you to return to the world to see that, yes, I do have to put a label on this process. That is dan, but it is just a process, and I then let go of the agreed and hatred that can flow out of it, and so so get kind of is just a deeper way to think about. The pros and cons of self defence. and does anything, I just makes us you a lot of it makes sense. I will confess that when I think about the self is an illusion: I'm thinking about it more is an abstract idea. I have not personally had the sense that when I look in word, there is no. Instead. In fact, I am I I feel very much that I am I, although. as I think about it, I have to ask myself the question: is that sense that I have? Is it in fact an illusion,

I think I ve arrived at that question from the point of view of thought of thinking about the signs. about how the mind works in thinking about how functional and in fact it is to have that sense of self. If you, I the idea that our brains and minds are the product of a process of natural selection, a process of evolution. Then you have to ask: why is it that what's in our minds, is in our minds and you can look at the different facets of the mind you consider say: why is it we have a sense of fear and you can readily see what happens if you dont have a sense of fear, I would want into the lions cage and try and that the lion- and I would come to a sorry end and you will quickly realized? This is why, sure has endowed me with a sense of fear. Why do I have a sense of love and your quickly see again when people who are incapable of experiencing.

Or wanting love or needing love or being able to show love. You can see how their lives are affected and all kinds of ways, and so I would draw the conclusion that nature has thought fit in some ways to invent the emotion of love, because an invention is useful. Its functional, I believe the same, is true of the south as well, that I think natural selection and evolution have in some ways invented the idea of the south in the mind, partly because it is functional now. Is it possible that human beings discover that there is actually a way out that, in fact, the mines that have been produced by natural selection and evolution. I now minds that are not just you are experiencing. The sense of self are not just capable of you know in some ways, transcending the sense of self but discovering that that transcending is a good thing, which is, I think, the case that you are making that's possible. I would, I think, as a card carrying scientist, I was to come down at the sight of saying that, if forbid

in years of evolution has produced a sense of self. In my mind, it's probably there for a reason. And I would be wise if I'm gonna tamper with it to do so with which some caution agri, all that. I would just sort of add that evolution is an ongoing process and I think the buddhist proposition at least current day buddhists, who are aware of evolution, is that the next phase of human evolution would be to see yet to keep the useful parts of the self and discard the not so useful parts of self in that the buddhist often talk about it, as thinking about reality is having to levels, there's convey external reality or shared reality, which is the day to day. Yes, you our sugar and yom dan, and we got operate in the world and shop up on, zoom calls, etc, etc. That's

conventional reality or relative reality and then there's the and this phrase him. But the utter sounds like something that I might have named my punk ban when I was in high school, but ultimate reality is sort of a deeper level of reality and on that level of reality you can look. Shocker can say, me and my eye and you have the sense of yeah I'm here, but then, if you just add another question which is who's asking this question, you can't I defy you to find that person right and so and you have to look too hard to see that this is an illusion and they can have a negative knock on effects and so on. I suspect and get unbiased here. Here we go with that word again: I'm biased, given my buddhist practice that there's a way to hold the positive aspects of self and discard the negative ones. I'm not going to pretend that I've done that, though right. Let me,

ask you a question if I could and am asking you this as somebody who is or as you are and in some ways a practitioner but not an expert, and I admit that the question might sound like it's overly clever and I apologize for that in advance. But it's a genuine question which is that if you buy the idea that the brain is in some ways designed to come up with self deception of all kind, you know its design in some ways to produce the sensation of deliciousness. When I bite into a sandwich is designed to produce a sensation of love when my child is born, is designed in some way to produce the illusion of self. To give me us,

Instead, I am I- and you know I am not you if it's designed to do all these things of the brain in some ways is a machine of self deception, but it's also the machine that we have to use to pierce the veil of that self deception. Does that not present a problem to us, because the very machine that we have to probe the self deception is itself the machine that is an organ of self deception? Yes, it's a huge problem and welcome to the world innovation. You get a ride, this flawed horse, all the way to enlighten it's it's. Why it so damn hard, because it keeps the delusion keeps reasserting itself and that's why the buddha describes his teaching is against the stream you're. Just fine It gets these currents of forgetting in denial and and they're. Not

in your own mind there in your culture. So yes, you you're stuck with this very unwieldy vehicle. Until that proposition is until you get to the brazen nor nirvana new, whatever I honour, whatever I have those things all I have experienced is that meditations sucks and it's really hard. What life is way worse without it and you get glimpses of yet. What is it like when I'm not owned by not go by this faulty sense of the center of the universe? S fascinating I have say I'm not quite sure I have the courage to go on the journey that you are on as yet dan. I am comfortably ensconced in this sense of self that I have

and even when I recognise in passing that it might be an illusion, I think I'm exploring. That more is an abstract thought, then, is something that I I want to probe too deeply. I am reminded of them. I don't have this reserve if he meant this is a joke. Right, I think, was saint augustine. Who once was ass. Yahoo has he was praying to god and asking for courage to practise a life of chastity that I might be completely miss remembering there. So I'm just doing this off the top of my head. He said something like no give me chastity or lord, only not yet, and an were rather its true or not, and whether my memory of saint augustine or not is correct. I think that's very much the way I feel I mean rigged by the ideas. But I'm not sure I'm ready to vote sure into actually exploring that terrain of my own brain yeah, I mean look, I'm firmly ensconced in my sense of self, just less comfortably than you are,

and actually I've found that that has really salutary effects. Let me just give you one and I'm stealing this from my meditation teacher. Joseph Goldstein is a really great person and it's kind of a linguistic trick that he's come up with that really takes this abstract and sometimes like sort of headache. Producing notion of no self or selflessness are not self. So, when you're next time, you expect it's a very powerful, emotion or desire, and instead of framing it in your mind as I am hungry, or I am angry just to slightly change it to there is anger or there is. his desire or whatever, and you start to see that these thoughts and emotions that we think are us, are really meteorological phenomena.

Or, as one great monk has said, you know to claim anger is. Yours is a misappropriation of public property, which I love and that's liberating that's where, instead of fearing this practice, you can say. Oh no. This practice actually helped me moment to moment to be less of a jerk to myself and others. Yes, absolutely, and I completely agree with you on everything you just said, and I think I try and practice that through my life Certainly I think, when it comes to how I'm thinking about my own emotions, I try and regularly remind myself that I am not my emotions and that my emotions are things that I have and to me they are not? Who I am and also reminding myself, that these emotions sometimes are transient that that they come and they go and that being patient with them in some ways is the way to sort of see the

than those emotions. I think I am. I draw the line when it comes to probing too deeply the sense of self, but I think there is deep psychological wisdom dan instead of the idea of in some way standing apart from the experiences that we have you, you two could argue that in some ways this is at the heart of all psychotherapy when we talked to a psycho therapist when we express what's happening to us in therapy, one of the things that the psychotherapeutic will do is eventually help you to listen back to yourself talking and in some ways. It's very helpful. Sometimes to do this. If you dont, have a psychotherapist adjust record what you're feeling onto a voice for quarter and then just listen back to yourself and when you hear yourself through a voice recorded in some ways, you can hear what's happening but still stands likely apart from it in some ways, instead of becoming the experience her

You become the observer and you know, and sometimes it's possible to be bought at the same time the experiencer and the observer. At the same time, as I said, I'm with you in ninety five percent of the way, I'm not sure I'm with you when it comes to challenging my sense of self that I'll take the ninety five percent so just let lasting I want to do here. Sugar is to get you to run and everybody of the name of the book and where they can get it and when they can get it and then also you written of previous book called hidden brain which turned into a pod cast a great pot cast, and I would love to get you to surf plug that too. If Europe, for it helps italy, thank you for the opportunity dan. So the book is called useful delusions. The power and paradox of the self deceiving brain its co, authored with the science rider bill messner. It's available everywhere, that books are sold its available online and in your local bookstore, and it really is it's a call to action,

and to understand our minds better and to exercise greater compassion, especially when we come by delusions and self deception set up, set us greatly at a very basic level. I think the book will help you think about your own life differently, and it will allow you to approach difficult conversations in a new way and I think, in a more effective way, then you ve been doing before useful delusions in some ways is an out cross of my first book, the hidden brain which looks at all the ways in which our unconscious mines effect are daily behaviour. The book the hidden brain has shown into the pot cast hidden brain and the public radio show hidden brain and, in the show, we explore on a weekly basis or the complexities of the things that make us human. We have expectations of spiritual traditions.

And philosophical ideas, lots of aspirations of psychology and sociology many people tell us that is they listen to hidden brain. Sometimes they stop listening to the show. I start thinking about their own lives and in some ways I think those are the best hidden brain episodes where our episode becomes a vehicle for you, to think about your own life differently. Certainly I, that, when I listen to the very best, podcast shows that the experience that I have, I think back to the relationships that I have the stories that I have in some ways it becomes a form of reflection and if I can use the term cautiously of course, in this context, it could even become form of meditation of meditating on who we are, why we're doing we're doing how we come to be here and in some ways understand and where we are in the world and how we can live more happy and fulfilling life sugar. Great job with this interview, congratulations on the new book and it's a pleasure to meet you. Thank you. Thank you down, I'm so grateful. You had me on the show.

The case of sugar really appreciate him come in on the show before we had out. I just do want to one more time mentioned to you. Our upcoming taming anxiety challenge, which is gonna, teach you how to respond skilfully to any anxiety you might be experiencing. The challenge starts Monday june. Twenty first over on the ten percent happier app download that app wherever you get Europe's to get ready. They show, which is a massive undertaking, is made by some incredible people, including Samuel Johns, DJ cashmere came by coma marie. We're tell and jan plants with audio engineering by ultraviolet audio, as always a huge shut out to my abc news, comrades rank kessler. Unjust co hand will see well on friday for a bonus a prime members. You can listen to ten percent happier early. And ad free on amazon, music downloading,

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