The Pursuit Of Peace: Why My Brain Keeps Getting In The Way

Welcome to the happiness podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

Do you have any goals right now that you're working on?

Perhaps you want to lose 20 pounds for a wedding that you're going to this summer.

Or maybe you're single and you want to find a relationship and you're looking for that soulmate you can spend your life with.

Or perhaps you're listening to this podcast because you want to be happier.

You don't find a lot of peace and contentment in your heart.

When it comes to working towards things,

I think it's fair to say that we often know exactly what we need to do in order to achieve that goal.

If we want to lose weight,

We need to eat a little bit less and exercise a little bit more.

If we want to find our soulmate,

We need to get out there and meet new people that could potentially be our soulmate.

If we want to be happier,

We have to do things like live in the present moment,

Change our negative thinking to positive thinking and things like that.

There are things that we can do to make changes to improve our lives in a variety of ways.

But the question is,

Often we just don't do it.

Why is that?

In many ways,

The answer is somewhat simple.

It's not that you don't have enough discipline.

It's not that you're weak in heart and just can't do it.

It has to do with your great,

Great,

Great,

Great,

Great,

Great,

Great,

Great,

Great,

Great ancestors.

You see,

A long time ago when we were just getting started as humans,

We lived a pretty primitive life and mostly it was a survival life.

We needed to do something to get by right now.

Otherwise,

We'd die.

We weren't thinking about our pension plans.

We weren't thinking about where we retire and how we travel around the world.

We were thinking about when our brains were being developed about survival,

Getting through the day.

And the brains that were more wired to survive,

Survived.

And those who were more lackadaisical died.

After all,

Sitting around smelling the roses could get you killed by a saber-toothed tiger.

But what the heck does this have to do with us?

There's a part of our brain called the amygdala.

You may have heard of it.

And a good definition for it is the brain's fear center.

It keeps us fearful so that we can stay alive.

The wonderful news is,

Which we all know,

That most of us don't live in lives that are in a state of constant threat of dying and being killed by something else.

We can be far more relaxed,

Enjoy life,

And actually plan for the future and make choices that are beneficial for us not only right now,

But in the future.

But unfortunately,

Our brains are really wired to deal with what sounds good right now.

And so we go there.

And what's ever most interesting,

We often pursue that.

And that's what gets us in trouble.

It's really not that we don't know what to do to make changes in order to reach our goals.

And today we're talking about the goal of living a happy life.

We often,

Most of us know exactly what to do.

The reason we don't do it is because of that stress response inside of us that says,

Go to what's most interesting right now.

It used to be,

Be careful,

Pay attention,

Something's going to eat you.

Now it's like,

Be careful,

Pay attention,

What's most interesting?

See the difference?

Let me use an example to illustrate what I'm saying.

Perhaps it will be a little bit clearer.

Imagine that we're going through a rough time right now.

Perhaps we don't like our job,

We're having a difficult time in a relationship we're in,

Or we're just struggling with health issues.

Now,

In order to rectify that and make it better in the long term,

We should meditate,

We should take time to exercise,

We should reduce the stress on our life and spend time in nature.

But all those things are long term benefits.

In the short term,

What would meet our anxiety,

Our fears,

Our worries in the quickest way would be to come home and have a bottle of wine or opening up the cupboard and having a whole box of cookies or sitting in front of the television to something mindless that may be distracting,

But also disturbing.

And then we get our mind off our worries,

Our fears.

It works in the short term,

But in the long term,

It's not very good for us.

And we know that,

But we do it because in the short term,

It addresses our fears and our anxieties and our worries far more quickly.

It doesn't fix them,

But it does numb them.

And for a K person type brain,

That's perfect.

Just fix the immediate problem.

Don't worry about the future.

Stay alive.

And so our brains work on keeping us alive,

But it's not about staying alive.

We're just having a hard time and we know what to do to fix it,

But we turn to the quick solution instead of turning to the solution,

Which will ultimately make our lives better in the long run.

Now,

I want to defend us right now because I know this is really hard to do,

But what's happened is the saber tooth tiger has become marketeers.

They're the ones out there trying to convince us to watch their show,

To eat their product,

To drink their drinks so that we'll be happier in the short term.

And in the long term,

It isn't good for us.

Now,

Again,

If you're a marketer or have a business,

I'm in no way trying to discredit what you do,

But they make money out of our fears.

They make money out of our immediate gratifications and desires.

They're going to spend a lot of time and energy that activate our amygdala and make us make short term decisions instead of looking at the long term decisions.

It's immediate gratification and they're really good at it.

And more than ever in history,

And I really mean this,

If you're younger,

You have the toughest time of all because right now they've gotten really good at it.

Just the other day,

I was watching a video about a man who's a teacher and he loved helping the kids that he was working with,

But he decided to quit and get out of the teaching business because he tried so hard to get the kids off their phone and pay attention during class.

And he did it in a very positive,

Loving way,

But no matter what he did,

He couldn't do it.

They were so addicted to their phones that they just couldn't be off of it long enough not to be distracted during his class and pay attention to what he was teaching.

And he just decided he couldn't do it anymore.

So he decided to quit being a teacher.

So what I'm suggesting is there are a lot of temptations out there that distract us,

That put us in that desire mode or that fear mode.

And it's very alluring and very tempting to go down that path.

And once we're on it,

It's so hard to get off of it because we're just being inundated throughout the media,

Throughout the world,

Throughout everywhere we go saying,

Get this,

Buy this,

Be afraid of that,

Be fearful,

Be excited.

It's truly overwhelming right now in our world.

Now,

How does this relate to happiness?

How do all these distractions relate to being happy?

Well,

Think of it this way.

Imagine the cave person way long time ago,

If instead of fighting off one saber-toothed tiger,

There were hundreds all around him or her.

And then all these delicious,

Beautiful berry bushes started sprouting up all over too.

And they had these temptations to leave the cave and get the berries.

And they had the fear of going out there and facing the saber-toothed tigers.

It would have been overwhelming.

Could you even imagine how tough it would be for them?

What's it really like that for us in many ways,

We know what to do,

But our amygdala is being bombarded by fears and desires.

That's overwhelming.

And we just get so distracted that the things we know are good for us,

Which in the long run take a while to become manifest.

We just don't do because there's so many things that meet our immediate gratification of fears and desires.

And it's truly overwhelming.

So even though,

Like I said,

We know what to do,

We know that being kind is important.

We know that slowing down and smelling the roses is important.

We know that being around people that are positive and being positive ourself is important,

But there's just so many things fighting us from doing these things.

So we struggle with being happy.

So I don't mean to be overly depressing.

Let's talk about what we can do instead to make our lives work and really find happiness amidst all these saber-toothed tigers and these berry bushes.

Well,

The saber-toothed tigers would be the things that are bad for us.

Things that we know are truly harmful for us,

Like watching a really negative show about people being murdered and killed and tortured.

Those aren't good for our soul.

Or watching videos about crashes or people getting injured.

Those aren't good for our soul.

Or listening to music that has really hateful or harmful words in it.

Those aren't good for our soul.

Or responding back with cruelty or unkindness when someone we feel has injured us.

Those are not good for our soul either.

And then it comes to the berries of life.

We have to see these desires or these berries as poisonous,

Meaning yes,

They'll taste good in the short term,

But in the long run,

They're going to make us sick.

A simple example of this would be a bunch of college students getting together for the weekend and having a great time and they're going to party and they're going to drink themselves into oblivion because they love the way it feels to get super drunk.

And then they wake up after the weekend's over feeling miserable.

Or a person who's in a relationship where yes,

There's pockets of times that are really great and wonderful,

But then other times where their partner is vicious and cruel and they stay because of those few pockets of joy that they experience and forgetting all the pain that's there too.

So how do we really then find happiness amidst all these sabertooth tigers and all these poisonous berries?

Is it even possible?

Like I said,

We know typically what's good for us and what's not good for us.

I think if we sit down and be quiet,

We know what to do.

It isn't as overwhelming as we think.

We don't like the answer sometimes because sometimes an immediate result is painful.

We need to lose 100 pounds because we're having health problems.

That means we need to make changes in our life,

But those changes hurt and they're uncomfortable.

It's just more easy to meet the immediate gratifications and address that immediate fear or that desire and have it be gone.

But in the long run,

That's not very good for us.

So when we're aware of that,

Then we can begin to make choices and saying,

Okay,

I really do want to have a happy life,

But that means I have to be more diligent and I have to be aware that those things that I'm doing that seem inconsequential,

Not that important,

Like just sitting down for a few hours and watching a show about people cutting each other down and hurting each other or throughout the day being on my phone and looking at things that probably aren't again,

Good for my soul.

They're stimulating,

But are they feeding my soul?

And that's what we ask as we do things throughout the day.

Is this in the long run going to feed my soul?

Let's say,

For example,

You have a half an hour and you have a half an hour to do whatever you want.

You could spend that half an hour listening to some good podcasts,

Maybe even a happiness podcast.

And that probably at the end of listening to them would make you feel better.

Or you could spend a half an hour watching the news and seeing all the destruction and chaos going around the world.

And even though you've seen it a bunch of times,

You just watch it again and see it perhaps from different angles,

Which in the long run is good for your soul.

We all know the answer,

But what's hard about this,

It is difficult sometimes doing things that are good for us.

And it's easy to do things that aren't so good for us because they meet our immediate gratifications of feeding our fears or feeding our desires.

And so we go that path because that's what they do for us.

But when we're aware that in the long run,

This isn't good for us,

Then we stop doing it as much.

And we really work on being disciplined.

And sometimes we have to be very strict in our discipline.

I mean,

Think about alcoholism or drug addiction.

When someone gets free of alcohol or drugs,

Do they do it casually on the side?

Do they just drink a glass of wine on the weekend or do they never drink again?

They never drink again.

I'm not saying we're not going to indulge in certain things,

But doing them on a much smaller basis or sometimes not at all might be the choice we need to make.

It can be radical if we're really struggling with an addiction.

If social media is overwhelming us,

We may need to take a break from it.

And remember the truth is for a lot of our addictions,

The marketers out there have gotten really good at what works and they know how to kick in our amygdala and have us be afraid or have us kick into our desires and have us really want that thing because it's stimulating,

Because it feeds our primal sense of survival.

And we like the excitement,

The immediate gratification,

But always in the long run,

That immediate gratification leads to a path of unhappiness.

And if we want to be happy,

We have to really work on realizing that everything we do,

And I do mean everything,

Has an impact on us.

Doing anything for a limited amount of time will impact us.

So here's a key question to keep at the top of our head throughout the day.

Is what I'm doing right now feeding my soul or is it feeding my fears and my desires?

Because if it's feeding my soul at the end,

We're going to feel better after we do it.

And if it's feeding our desires and our fears,

We're not going to feel better in the long run,

Maybe in the short run for sure,

But definitely not in the long run.

And again,

Everything matters.

Nothing is innocuous.

No matter what we do,

It is having an impact on us.

So as we go through our day,

Let's ask ourselves,

Am I going to spend my day being afraid of the saber-toothed tigers and the poisonous berries?

Or am I going to live my day with joy and happiness and do things that make it that my life is rich,

Is full,

And is wonderful.

And I will make choices that feed that sense of peace,

Harmony,

And happiness in my life so that when I take my last breath at the end of my life,

I'll say,

That was a good life.

Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.