Viktor Frankl, Meaning Through Suffering And What It Really Means To Live Well | Arthur Brooks

0:00Have you ever heard that word? No, I love it. Isn't it wonderful? Concupiscence. It means that idle curiosity for unsavory ends. That's amazing. It's like lingering on a photograph on Instagram that you really shouldn't because you're restricted in your relationship. That's concupiscence, right? Surveilling your ex is pure concupiscence. It's bad for you. Bad for you, but you want to do it, right? You want to know. But it's a drug. Yeah, yeah, it's satisfying like this little craving, but it doesn't satisfy any meaningful need But I guess that can be the same with anything. Oh, yeah, even if it's not a breakup.

0:34Oh, yeah You don't you know what's bad for you? Yeah, yeah, but you want to do it. Yeah, and here's the beauty of this Here's the most beautiful thing of all and and this is a big point in your work You have choices you got choices, right? I mean you've got The human prefrontal cortex is this the modern human brain 250 ,000 years old, which is relatively modern, from the middle place to scene period. This is when modern humans became modern humans. All the rest of the brain is more ancient than that. But what this gives you is executive judgment and decision-making capacity, notwithstanding your feelings.

1:09The biggest mistake that young people make today is they think that the most authentic thing about them is their feelings. That's actually the most inauthentic thing about you. Your feelings are liars. They lie and lie and lie because they want you to be on alert, etc. They want you to think you're going to be sad forever. So you should get back together with that jerk so that you don't feel sadness until you're 80. You don't feel sadness until you're 80. That's a lie. Your limbic system is lying to you, right? Big liar. Or if my book makes the times list, I'm going to be happy forever. Another lie.

1:41That's another lie. So here's the most beautiful part about the prefrontal cortex. You can make the executive judgment not to follow your animal impulses. you can decide to follow your moral aspirations you know this is what you do a lot you want people to be healthy but there's all kinds of incentives to not be healthy you know what the incentive is that thing that that that package of chips hanging up in the convenience store you call them crisps we call them crisps and you call the chips yeah exactly you know what we're talking about chips are french fries for you right it's a whole different language it's a whole different world tomato tomato yeah and so you know the the truth is that your animal impulses want you to do things that you don't want to do.

2:20And so you can have the moral aspiration to make a choice that's better. And the same thing is true with what you look at on the internet and the people that you date and who you go back to or don't go back to because they're good for you or not. And that's a beautiful range of action. My dog can't do that. My dog is a good boy. But he doesn't have the capacity to follow his moral aspirations because his prefrontal cortex is wafer thin. He doesn't have moral aspirations. He only has animal impulses. How do we train those? We train those through practice. We train those through like anything else that we do.

2:51So if I say, okay, you're super good at interviewing people in your podcast. How did you, like, did you just wake up one day and say, no, right? I bet if you went back to the early episodes, you'd be like, ugh. Right? Yeah. Of course. Of course. You learn through reps. Yeah. You learn through practice. The same thing is true. If you want to become metacognitive, it's another way of saying that you are managing your emotions and they're not managing you. you do that by practicing putting space between what you feel and the decisions that you take that's how you do it so if you're in a relationship for example and and you're you're having trouble you're not getting along and you're both volatile you're both emotionally volatile we call that the mad scientist emotional affect profile high highs low lows right then you're going to fight a lot but you don't want to fight a lot because you love each other and you don't want to yell at each other you don't want to say things you don't mean because you always end up apologizing We don't want to do that.

3:46You decide you don't want to do that. How do you do that? Here's how you do it. Every time you feel those things, you say, we're going to take two minutes. We're going to take two minutes. We're going to do it. And then you come back after two minutes, and you're kind of laughing. Why? That's a metacognitive decision. Let's put space. That's like, as you say here in the tube, mind the gap. Right? It's the gap between the car and the platform. Right? Make sure you're paying attention to that gap. But in this case, unlike the tube, make it big. make a big old gap and then practice and then practice and then practice and you can get super good at it that's what the Dalai Lama is really really good at, he has emotions just like the rest of us, he just has complete control over the decisions he makes about how he's going to act, he's not a victim of his emotions, he's not subject to his emotions he's the master of his emotions he's the master right and I guess that's the most important thing, it's like building up but it's also taking the observational approach in, which is so bloody hard when you're in an argument.

4:45It is, it is. But you're not your emotions. Because you're not in your rational brain. Well, what will happen is, especially when you're having a fight, is that you'll have a phenomenon called amygdala hijack. I love that word. I know, I know. Because basically, it's like a hijacker gets into the cockpit in your brain. And it's your amygdala, which is your fight or flight. It's a bilateral little organ in your limbic system. And when it's activated, look out, right? Because it's supposed to activate so that you hear a twig snap behind you and you run and climb a tree before you ask questions. It's very adaptive for survival.

5:19Yeah. But it's not so great. It's maladapted in the way that we deal with other people. And so one of the things we have to do is to recognize when we have this stimuli, when we have these signals. I bet your parents have figured out how to do that together. They've learned together that that thing is happening, so let's go do something else for a little while, and that's one of the reasons that they fight better. The repair. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And to avoid, quite frankly. It's not being avoidant of your emotions, it's just being avoidant of what the bad things your emotions will do to you if you let them.

5:51Yeah, and it's also allowing you to connect to your mindful brain. Right. Right, that's like such an important part. And your mindful brain really is in your prefrontal cortex where you're going to be here now. Going to be here now. What was your favorite chapter in this? I suspect that my favorite chapter in this book is the least pleasant chapter to read which is never waste your suffering never waste your suffering the last chapter of the book before the conclusion of the book is about suffering because suffering is one of the most important ways that we find the meaning of our life and yet it's the hardest and worst because nobody wants to suffer and so I wrote that chapter because I really needed to understand And I mean, a lot of what my students, I have 180 students in my class.

6:39I have 400 on the waiting list. Why do they want to take this class so much? Not because they're happy and want to get happier. It's because they want to be less unhappy. That's why. They're all going to get psychoanalyzed. I can tell you that. I've been psychoanalyzed. No, I know. You're exhausted. You have to go lay down after this. I mean, they want to be less unhappy. And the problem is that we're lying to them. We're telling them that if they're suffering, there's something wrong with them. So they come into my class, a lot of them, thinking something's wrong with them because they're suffering.

7:09And that's a complete lie. On the first day of class, I tell my students, you're graduate students at Harvard University. If you're not sad and anxious, you need therapy. Something's wrong with you if you're not suffering because you're doing a hard thing on purpose, right? If you have a breakup with somebody that you loved and you're not suffering, something's wrong with you. Your brain isn't working right. When you're suffering, it means your brain is working. Now, it can be maladapted. I mean, clinical depression and generalized anxiety are no joke. These are real mood disorders. They may or may not be correlated with brain chemistry that we can actually alter with psychiatric drugs, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, et cetera, depending on different circumstances.

7:52But for the vast majority of us, in the vast majority of the time, our suffering is a normal part of life and it means our brains are working the way that they're supposed to. And when we work with nature, we can actually get a much, much deeper and better experience of life itself. That's what that chapter is all about, is the how-to manual on how to suffer right. I think it's one of the most understated areas of life. I really do. And I say it because although this book became a success, this book became a completely different book because I went through the hardest period of my life and I got my book till everything changed in my life.

8:27Tell me what happened. And I went into the hardest. Tell me the story. The hardest moment of my life. I mean, do I want to ruin it or do I want to go and buy the book? Buy the book, folks. Buy the book. What I will say is that I thought I was very, I mean, the book's based on self-compassion. That's kind of what I believe is the antidote to the foundation that we've missed out in health, right? We've missed ourselves out. We've missed on treating ourselves at the center stage of just being a bit kinder. And a massive relationship ended very dramatically. And you thought it was going to be your last relationship.

9:00Yeah. You thought you were going to get married. I was on a plane to get proposed to him. What? Now, the important thing for people who are watching to keep in mind is not, it is that it was generative. It was a generative experience because you actually lived through it. But the important thing for people to keep in mind is that you lived through it. You're two years past that. And you're actually, I can tell you right now, you're fine. Oh, yeah. I'm great. I'm in a good place. So everybody watching, folks, you're going to be okay. Your limbic system is lying to you. Your dorsal anterior cingulate cortex is telling you lies.

9:30But you have to do the work. Yeah. You have to do the work. And here's the funny thing. Let me make a prediction you tell me if this is right. So you had a ton of pain. Yeah. And the pain was inevitable because that's your brain working right. Painful, painful, painful, painful. If it wasn't painful, that meant that you were not attached to him and that you were not in love with him. Exactly. And you were attached to him and you were in love with him and you were getting on that plane so that he could propose to you and you could live happily ever after, or at least live after. Ever. So, right?

10:03Because it's, you know, happily sometimes, right? Okay. Yeah, we're not on a fair time, but you know. So there's tons and tons and tons and tons of pain. So you've got a couple of different ways that you can deal with it. You can deal with it by, you know, pharmaceutical-grade analgesics, right? You can medicate yourself. You can distract yourself. Or you can stop resisting it. Let go. Now, here's the reason that's important. And this is a formula that I actually got from the Dalai Lama. Suffering equals pain times resistance to pain. Pain multiplied by resistance is suffering. Suffering and pain are not the same thing.

10:38I was talking about pain and suffering. Suffering is chosen on the basis of your... Part of it is that it's out of your control because the pain, pain goes up, suffering goes up. But if your resistance to pain goes down, your pain can be high and your suffering can go down. And that's how people get over these things. That's what people get over these things. Stop trying to get rid of your pain. Start understanding that this is how life works, and stop resisting it. Every major religion and philosophical tradition talks about non-resistance. Now, there are times when you should resist it. You've got a bad headache, you should take a paracetamol, right?

11:11Take a little Tylenol, I mean, for Pete's sake. You don't have to be stoic about it, right? Yeah. And I'm A tomorrow, right? That kind of hurts, you know, I've been on a plane, right? Yeah. But fundamentally, if my back, I mean, I have like a chronic back thing, actually. And I know perfectly well, because I read the literature and I have a science background, that I shouldn't try to lower my pain too much. On the contrary, I need to lower my resistance to back pain, which will actually keep me in the gym. And it will actually keep me with a proper attitude toward life so it doesn't embitter me.

11:45And that's part of life itself. And that's what you learn after a really, really bad breakup. You're just like, I want it to go away. I want it to go away. I want it to go away. I can't make it go away. I can't make this thing go away. And a year goes by, actually six months goes by, and then a year, and then a couple of years. And you realize by not resisting it, by trying to understand it, by treating other people with compassion who are going through it, by dedicating your work on this podcast and in this book to people who are in that process of suffering, that that non-resistance per se didn't lower the pain, but it lowered the suffering to the point that it has meaning for your life and it's bearable.

12:23And it did create meaning. For sure. For sure. And I think that's the thing about what so many people don't speak about is the suffering that maybe they've gone through. I think the most important thing for this podcast is when people come on here and just speak the truth. Yeah. Because fuck me, it relates to people. Yeah. It's so easy to come on here and be an expert and be like, you should do all of these things. And someone listening to this is just like, you have no fucking idea how I feel. This is really tough. I bet. And actually, like, when you can be like, no, I've been in there. I've been down there with you.

12:53Yeah, yeah. Like, I get it. Yeah, yeah. Which we all have, by the way. Which we all have. You can pretend you haven't. But a lot of times, you don't come across that on socials. You don't come across that in conversations. No, the curated version of people's lives. Who puts on Instagram, junior failed math again, brutal. It's like, just had a screaming argument with the missus. No. I expect that on your social media post tomorrow. I know, I know, I know. I expect that on your social media. I know.