Emily McDonald: Can You Rewire Your Brain?

23:26Emily McDonald:You ever heard the saying, seeing the world through rose-colored lenses? When you are in a positive emotional state, your brain actually constructs color as more vivid. So you actually see the world more vividly and more saturated. So literally the world is more colorful and you actually are seeing the world through rose-colored lenses. That means there's almost a scientific backing behind the phrase, woke up on the wrong side of bed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, your energy state is so important. And then that goes back to exactly what you were asking me about is, you know, how did I start to connect spirituality and these woo-woo things with neuroscience?

24:02Emily McDonald:And I think, you know, exactly when I was learning about these different systems and vision is just one of them. They all work this way. Like, for example, sound and the way that you hear, like the membrane in your ear is organized by frequency. And if you're on the woo-woo side of the world, you may have heard before that different frequencies of sound can have different effects on you. Yeah, like sound bowls and all of those things. Right, solfegeo frequencies, 528, 432. And both of those have studies showing that they do actually impact the brain in different ways and binaural beats and things like that.

24:34Emily McDonald:So literally, actually, it all clicked one moment when I was laying in bed one night in my apartment whenever I was in undergrad. And I just was listening to, and I sort of went on this spiritual journey toward the end of my first degree in neuroscience. And I read the book, The Untethered Soul. If you guys have ever heard of that, it's really good. And so I started meditating and I started doing like, and I was laying in bed listening to 432 hertz as I was falling asleep. And I was like, whoa, wait a minute. The membrane in the ear is organized by frequency. What if this certain frequency of sound is activating my brain in a specific way and actually changing the way that my state of mind is?

25:16Emily McDonald:And that's why these frequencies of sound work. and I turn over, pick up my phone, Google it, and there are papers showing exactly what just popped into my head. Like, yeah, 432 hertz has been shown to boost alpha wave activity in the brain. Alpha waves are associated with a sense of calm. And so, you know, people on the woo-woo side of the world say, oh, it's really good for meditation or sleep. And then in the science world, it has been shown to help people fall asleep, stay asleep, boost alpha waves in the brain. And so that was kind of my first moment of, oh, maybe there is some overlap and there are some kind of...

25:55Emily McDonald:Right, right, between the different worlds. Right. And so that kind of just started me on this spiral, this upward spiral of just connecting dots everywhere. And yeah, and I think I've just... And then moving to Arizona, I was just talking to your team about Arizona and the desert is a very spiritual place. And moving there while doing my PhD and just really growing in my spirituality while also, of course, doing a PhD in neuroscience. So really studying neuroscience to like the depths that you could possibly study it. And yeah, I just started connecting all these dots and then also connecting what I was learning with my own experiences as well.

26:31Emily McDonald:And I think a lot of people ask me, you know, where does this information come from? And most of it, the information I share is from my own lived experience. And then I'm like, huh, I wonder what's happened in my brain right now. And then I think about it, look into it, read some papers, and I'm like, that makes sense. And then I talk about it. We're going to continue this conversation right after this short break. Picture this. You're about to take off for a long flight, and suddenly you realize the Wi-Fi is out. Ladies and gentlemen, the Wi-Fi is not working. You've already seen most of the in-flight movies, and the book you brought feels more like homework than pleasure.

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29:23I wonder why slash how we got to a place where we got so comfortable dismissing spirituality or the ideas that come with like, you know, connecting to something beyond ourselves and having that clash with what we think of as like intelligence and knowledge. Do you get what I'm saying? I think religion had a big part in that. What do you mean? Because remember that once religion became a thing, people had to attribute their knowledge to something. It could never be, I just know it. You know, we always have, there's always this debate in the spiritual realm of, are you a human having a spiritual experience or your spirit having a human experience?

30:09and most people feel like when they discover themselves in the middle of their life whenever it is they were a human and now they're having a spiritual experience but I think it's the other way around and obviously literature has proved that and also when they speak to people who know that so religion always wait wait wait wait so you're saying because I mean we can never prove it

30:26Emily McDonald:I'm with you 100 % by the way no but we can never prove it but I'm intrigued by what you're saying you're saying the argument or the discussion is are we spirits that are experiencing being human yes or are we humans experiencing being spirits. Yes. Yes. Are we a human having a spiritual experience? Yes. Or are we a spirit having a human experience? So the thing is, if you want to prove, that's a small part of it and you can correct me if I'm wrong, M, that you are a spirit having a human experience. Iman. Please, get our guest's name right. Iman. Now you're going to confuse the listeners. No, no, it's M, it's M.

30:59Yeah, it's M, it's M. It's M. It's M. Before you have language, before you have experience, you always had intuition. So how do you account for that? So before you Yeah, no, I'm You see what I mean? So there's something There's a remembering That's coded in you already And as you grow older And you get interference Of signals Of society The time that you were born in How hard Or how easy your life was All of that gets numbed down And then you start living According to your experiences Yes, but this is what I'm trying to This is the question This is the question That I have for you though Go Like, I guess for both of you I guess in a way We are ready for There's two degrees between us Of separation Not Not academic

31:44Emily McDonald:That was a good one The The The The thing I find interesting Is Is this So I grew up in a very religious household Yeah Right And The thing that I always struggled with And grappled with was How churches And Leaders in churches and even members of churches would treat people using their religion as an excuse right and we see this all over the world but my personal experience i oftentimes found myself going wait is this so this is what this is what a christian does i was like i don't know man i don't know it just it didn't it didn't gel for me and so i think that created a an allergy to all religion in many ways as i've gotten older i've i found in like a humbling way i've gone like oh there are so many things that religion teaches people apart from like you know dogma yes that now science has sort of come around too so whether it's like prayer itself when you think about journaling and the effects of journaling and the processing and i'd love for you to speak a little bit about this closing your eyes and thinking about your day before you go to sleep i see all these things coming out now where scientists are like oh that really helps you Goatiously And it also helps your brain Sort of like just Switch everything off You know what I mean?

33:10But like So something like that Or Something like fasting Which most religions have Or all these You're starting to see More of the tie-ins Where science is sort of Catching up To old ideas And then old ideas Are showing themselves In science Like Where do you think The breakdown came Between People saying Oh We shouldn't listen to that And now we're going Maybe we should listen to some of that.

33:36Emily McDonald:Yeah, I think, honestly, there used to be a lot more overlap. There used to be a lot more in science and in research, especially in the 1900s. There was a lot of research, especially even with psychedelics and things like that. And what happened was there were a few scientists that just took it a bit too far. And it got to the point where in the science world, it became, yeah, I kind of started to have this dogma around it and this sort of association around it and it it became almost disrespected in a way yeah and it bastardized right and exactly especially with something as simple as hypnosis for example like there's so much um like judgment and woo woo around it but there's so much neuroscience around it as well but because it has this sort of um like i don't know well the gimmick as well right right and once you're making somebody jump on stage and they say they're a dog i think it undermines what hypnosis may or may not be.

34:33And I'm not saying that thing's not real, by the way.

34:35Emily McDonald:Yeah, I think that that's exactly the analogy that I'm trying to make here is that it kind of that happened with a lot of the different, you know, research studies that were going on. And it happened in not just hypnosis, but in other areas as well. For example, it's psychedelics. There used to be a lot more research on it. And then scientists took it too far. And then it became, oh, no, that's wrong. We shouldn't be doing that. And then we went from 100 to zero. And then now we're starting to warm back up to it again and we're slowly introducing it more and more into research and in studies. But also, I think it's still not really supported.

35:13Emily McDonald:I mean, whenever I was in the PhD, there's this one research lab that they studied mindfulness and meditation. That lab was not well-funded. That lab did not get a lot of money for research. And I think that still is the case today. So now, while we're seeing more research on spiritual concepts and spirituality, I think it's still not happening to the extent that it should be. And yeah, I think that that's been my experience. And then even now, when I'm talking about things that I'm talking about online, I'm doing research into really more hardcore scientific concepts like neuroplasticity, the default mode network, the reward system, all of that.

35:51Emily McDonald:And just knowing because I have such a solid foundation of that information. And then I'm learning about the law of detachment, and all these things. And then I'm connecting it to what I already know is true about the brain. So it's not necessarily that there's a specific study that shows detachment makes your goals come faster. It's more about me knowing that, yeah, when you are in desperation and in this neediness, then that's gonna boost cortisol. And when you are in a state of fight or flight, you get that deer in headlights tunnel vision where you're actually less open to opportunities and other things coming your way.

36:27Emily McDonald:And your brain is filtering for more of that lack and stress because that's the way the brain works. It filters your reality for whatever it is that you're focused on. So I just know how the brain works. And then I connect it to spiritual kind of concepts and things that I'm learning. Which are oftentimes easier to understand, I find. That's where I find science is often lacking, science and academia. My criticism of it is often the fact that, and maybe not of it, it does its job. and then I feel like there's not enough like sort of middlemen who are getting the message out. Yeah, yeah. So then it's just like a study and it's abstract and then it's just left to the devices of the world to be like, this is what it actually means.

37:10But then from the other side, there's very good salesmen. Yeah, yeah. People did try. I think I read a lot of books that were written by people who grew up in the 60s and were raised by hippies. The Gary Zukovs, Dr. Wayne Dyer, And all of those people who kind of understood that to sell spiritualism or spiritualism, you're going to have to be a bit commercial and go around and bring your life experiences. I'm a doctor. I was in the army. My experiences brought me this. But they knew that they were setting a time bomb that was going to explode in the future 30, 40 years down the line because people were not ready.

37:44And obviously, if you think of if hypnosis was taken for what it is, hypnosis is one stage of past life regression. Is what? Is one stage Of actually doing Past life regression I don't even know What that means But when it goes To a show in Las Vegas And it becomes People barking like dogs Wait but you can't Just skip past What you just said Eugene does this To me all the time And then he just Says a thing

38:05Emily McDonald:I'm understanding What you said Yeah I'm not I'm not And I'm sure There's a lot of people Who are not But I don't even Care about them right now Just me What did you just say I think Yes Hypnosis Is just one part Of Of doing a past life regression What does that Yes What does that mean? So a lot of people There's a doctor I think you know about Brian Weiss I don't know if I do know He did a lot of work Studying people He was a professor A doctor In university He started having this patient Who was struggling With certain issues And then he did hypnosis And then they regressed Further and further back And then he realized Many One body Many lives As well as one of his books If I'm not mistaken So he found out That a lot of things That people deal with Is the body Remember or your mind remembers what happened to you in other lives.

38:53So when you go back in other lives, so people who have a fear of drowning, an unreasonable fear of drowning, they've drowned in another life before. And somehow there's something that happens that triggers that memory, the smell of water or sea water or salt that triggers that memory. So to cure that fear, you have to past life regress them. They have to go back into a life where something tragic happened. Yes. And that thing was associated with it. So it's funny, half of my brain completely rejects this idea. Yes. But I mean, you know me, I always tell you these things. Half of my brain goes like, no.

39:28The other half of my brain goes, we've had a trauma specialist on the show, studied trauma her whole life. And she has showed us that there's definitive research that has shown that trauma can be passed down through generations of people who haven't experienced the initial trauma. Yes. So there's half of my brain that goes like, oh, I can understand this being possible, but not in the... And that's what I mean by the woo-woo versus not woo. Does that make sense? In the world of woo-woo, what you've just explained is the fact that there's soul families. No, no, no. No, but look, look, look. We remember the pain together.

40:08Yes, but I get what you're saying. But do you understand what I'm saying? I'm saying like, so sometimes this is what I think happens. And this is why I enjoy your journey so much is we, I think we all live in a world where we are most comfortable with the reality that we've been brought up in and with the evidence that we've been taught to accept as being correct. Yes. Right? It is very difficult to shake that and it's very difficult to accept a possibility that something else could be different. But when you move through different worlds, you realize that it's necessary. So an example for me was there were a lot of criticisms levied at African mothers for how they would raise their children.

40:54Yeah. By like Westerners would come in, whether it was colonizers, whether it was, you know, whatever it was. Like they'd go, oh, this is wrong. This is wrong. This is wrong. The way African mothers, this is wrong. This is wrong. This is wrong. Things they would complain about, them wrapping the baby onto their bodies and like tying them up. And they'd be like, no, you should put your baby in a cot and you should leave them this. And then over the years when they started doing studies, there were scientists and there were groups that did studies where they found that having the baby up against the mom was really good for regulating their heartbeats, changing their respiratory patterns, calming them down.

41:31Fostering trust. All of these things. And then I remember this moment. Do you remember when they started launching the things that African moms had had their whole lives? And they started selling them in the Western world. And they're like, the new trend. You wrap your baby to your body. And now it was like$200 to buy a thing that an African mom did with a towel. I remember this for me being a moment where I went, oh, wow, yes. Even I was taught that that thing is like primitive. Your mom did it, but it was primitive. And there's a better way to do it. And then at some point science or, you know, researchers went, oh, actually, this is a great thing to do.

42:11And sort of didn't levy the credit that way So I'm open to some of these ideas I think some of the language throws me I'm not going to lie Because some people are more comfortable When you just like past lives Then I'm like whoa, whoa, whoa In my head I'm hearing a record go But when you explain the concepts behind it I find that maybe I'm not the only person who's a little more open To the possibility of understanding it It's just when you throw past lives flippantly

42:37Emily McDonald:The terminology is it really i'm not gonna lie it throws me yeah i think and no and i think that's i i like what you just described also because that's something that i really hold true for my own life is always following your own sense of intuition and i think that if you're waiting around for a study to show you that something is right or wrong then you're you're going to be waiting forever because science is really slow but also just because a study shows something too doesn't mean that it is right or wrong there are outliers in every single study and so just because something might work for one person you could be that one dot on the graph that it doesn't work for you know study as well and yeah and a lot of studies are very biased too i mean i used to do them so i would like i've seen the types of people you know and i'm not saying that you know they're people not trying their best but you know it's like humans are human and they are going to make human mistakes but i think what don't we understand about studies?

43:32Because as the internet has exploded, as TikTok has become popular, everyone I see on TikTok references a study. And I mean everyone. And I've seen everyone reference any study to say the thing that they're saying is correct. And then I've seen people pull up the same study and go, no, no, no, this is not the study. And then someone else says a meta analysis is more correct. So help us understand the study. So for everyone out there, for us as well, when you're conducting a study, help me understand the very basic mechanics of what is actually happening and how that leads to a conclusion that then like CBS this morning will report and be like, coffee makes you live 20 years longer.

44:17How do they get there?

44:18Emily McDonald:I think those, a lot of the claims that are made end up being in the discussion, which aren't even necessarily the point of the study. It's more just speculation of how these results can be applied to and extrapolated to other situations in life. But the way that a study begins is by asking a question, right? So we have this background of information. And I studied, you know, in my PhD, a very specific receptor that we thought got leaky when we were relapsing the drugs. Leaky brain. Yeah. Just a leaky calcium channel. We know one. We're friends with one.

44:57Emily McDonald:And yeah, and so you have this background of information, right? And you know some things about it from other areas of research and you're like, okay, it seems well-informed and you don't just make a random, ask a random question, but it seems well-informed. And so it's like, okay, now I think based on what I know about this calcium channel, I think it could have something to do with relapse. And then you have to basically say a hypothesis, right? Like I think that if I, for example, block this channel, then these, you know, then relapse behavior, relapse is either gone or it will happen more, right?

45:30Emily McDonald:So you have to decide one way or the other. And then you design a study that you think will help to answer that question. And now the way that that study works and the results of it is you, no matter what results you get, right? You either say that you either you don't ever say like oh i was right or i was wrong you're basically just testing to see if those if the results are more if one thing is more likely to happen than the other it's all likelihood it's never it's never a definitive yes or no it's this is definitely you know this is more likely to not be the case yes or it more likely is the case that you know if i block this channel, then these people are no longer going to relapse.

46:13Okay, okay. But what else is it affecting in their lives?

46:16Emily McDonald:Well, that's a whole other topic when we talk about pharmacology, which was a whole other kind of path that I went down whenever I was. Right. So whenever I would also like I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was in high school and I was on ADHD medication for a few years. And then I learned about exactly what you're talking about. Like what else happens and how do these drugs actually work? And then I made my own personal decision to transition off of them and go a different journey and then rewire my brain to be able to focus as well. But yeah, and so I think that a lot of times we tend to put these studies or research papers up on pedestals and say, oh, this study shows this.

46:52Emily McDonald:Therefore, this is the way things are. And I don't think that that's the way that it should be done at all. It can be used for information to inform, you know, yourself. But also, like you were saying, meta-analysis where that you take tons of different studies and kind of look at the results from many different ones. Because another thing that you'll realize is that if you look up something, you could probably find a study proving that you're right. And it could be, I could look up, oh, you know, this is bad for your heart. And I'll find a study proving that. And I could say, oh, actually, I think it's good for your heart.

47:21Emily McDonald:And I could find a study proving that too. And so that's the thing is you can find a study to prove whatever it is that you want. And so I think it is important to, you know, read a lot and read a lot of different research papers, but also have more of a foundational understanding is at least in my field of neuroscience, like having that foundational understanding of the way that the brain works is really important. And so, yeah, I think that the whole, it is becoming really popular that people are wanting to use a study to prove a point. And I don't think that there's anything wrong with that.

47:53Emily McDonald:But I do think it's important to recognize that, you know, you can find a study to prove whatever you want these days. How did you apply this in your life? Because I find the internet slash the world is full of people who are more than willing to dish out advice and then oftentimes don't seem to apply that advice to themselves. You know what I mean? and so you get these motivational speakers who when you meet them in real life aren't really motivated you you you have like relationships experts who have terrible relationships themselves you do you get what i'm saying and i'm generalizing but but but you'll often you'll find these what i found interesting with you is and you'll correct me if i'm wrong it it feels like you were also running these sort of experiments on yourself and i watched your life change in real time and over a very long period I noticed that because I went to DM you and I was like whoa you DM me like almost two years ago you were doing two years ago I asked you to come on the podcast but I've watched you go from that was all you did because no those DMs I say for you Eugene Eugene you up I represented you well hey you were like tell me more about this DM Presenting your fiance.

49:18Who comes to the show. So when I looked at your life, I went, it felt like just by watching you, I saw somebody who was sharing information whilst also applying that information to themselves. Conducting a real-time experiment. Yeah, and I'd love to know what your journey was like because everything about you changed over time. And over time is the key thing for me, the key phrase here. I didn't witness like a magical transformation. You know, like those YouTube - Videos. Weightlifting, they trick you all the time. Have you seen those ones? They're like, how I lost 40 pounds in six weeks. And then they show you a before and after picture.

50:04And really all they do in the before picture is they just push their tummy out, but they still have a six pack. And they just maybe drink a lot of water. I don't know. and then they get shredded but they were shredded yeah with you with all due respect it didn't seem like you were shredded in your life no and then i watched you slowly work towards the thing that you were telling people about like what was what was the what were the beginnings of those what did you start to learn like can you give me examples what were the moments where you went

50:31Emily McDonald:oh wow this is this is working on me yeah and i think if you do go back to the beginning and i leave all my posts up for that exact reason because I have students now, like clients that I coach. And I'm like, go back to the beginning and watch my own journey through content because you'll see it's a very accurate representation of my journey in my personal life. But I mean, I started out with ADHD. That was so bad. I would be depressed on days I wouldn't take the stimulants and I was super dependent on them. Obviously, we already talked about being addicted to nicotine. Couldn't focused, easily distracted, super impulsive, very emotional as well.

51:06Emily McDonald:Just fight or flight all the time, always stressed and also health issues, like physical health issues as well. I was in and out of doctor's offices when I was younger a lot. And doctors told me I had all these different problems, like depression, anxiety, all these different things. And not just mental health problems, but physical, like hormonal imbalances and things like that. So I think, you know, that is what I, I always just kind of thought that's the way that I was because that's something that, you know, doctor gives you a diagnosis like this is you this is your brain this is who you are yeah uh good good luck like that's gonna navigate that now for the rest of your life and I thought that's just the way that it was like oh I was diagnosed with ADHD I'm gonna struggle focusing for the rest of my life and you know I'm gonna need these stimulants and then I think learning about the brain as I was studying neuroscience I started you know neuroplasticity the ability for your brain to rewire and change and adapt I started to realize that oh wait maybe the brain can change and I learned about epigenetics as well.

52:02Emily McDonald:I actually TA'd a class in the PhD on neurogenetics, which is epigenetics is the ability to change the way your DNA is expressed, the genes that are expressed. The way your DNA is expressed. Right. Can you elaborate? Yeah, yeah. So I have this visual in my mind. I'm like, if I had a little model, I could really show it. Did you bring your DNA model, Eugene? Lift it in the car. Always, this guy. Just when we need it. This guy. Next time. but basically the way that you could think about it right is like basically you have this ball and then you have like yarn like around the ball right and so it can either be the yarn can be tightly wound around the ball or loose and basically like how tightly if it's super tight and the the yarn is your dna okay and so you know there are little proteins that come in and they read your dna and then when they read your dna they build proteins based off of what it reads right if it's super tightly wound it can't come in and read and so no proteins are going to be expressed or built off that dna that's tightly wound because it can't be read you're not open minded right so or you can literally you can be openly wound right and then the proteins can come in and read your dna and build proteins right and so um that's just one example you know it can be more tightly around we call it like methylated phosphorylated you know there's all the different yeah there's all these different if they said tightly wound i would have had i would have a degree methylated uh no guys you'll find me in the streets methylated phosphorylated yeah you don't have to agree i don't have to go home with this guy yeah probably but um but that's you know so yeah and so that's kind of what i mean so basically your environment it basically it can it can alter the how tightly or loosely wound your dna is okay And your environment, and this is like the way your environment can actually impact which genes are expressed.

53:58Emily McDonald:So you're not changing your DNA. You have the same DNA. Okay, got it. But it's like which proteins can be made based off of that. Based off of your DNA, okay. Right, and that is going to depend on a number of factors. Your environment is one of your mindset. If I was to use like a, this is a crazy analogy. You're making it make sense. That's what she does. Now you get it. Whoa. Crazy analogy that I would use. You should check out my content. I've never seen your content. I've literally never seen your account But now I understand I feel like you would like it Based on what you're talking about Yes you're making it Sorry to cut you off There was this experiment Not really an experiment But people were comparing A generation of people in South Africa That were raised by grandmothers Versus those that were raised By their parents No no no parents Yeah And going to a crutch or kindergarten Yeah And they found that The ones that were raised by grandmothers had more independence, more empathy, and they knew how to clean, to cook, to take care of everyone, and they were more patient.

54:57And the ones that went to kindergarten were more structured and institutionalized. And they believed that other things can be done by someone else. But those that were raised by grandmothers found that they also settled very early. They are very big on bonds. So it was a generational thing for people that grew up in the 80s and the 90s because kindergarten was not a thing. So usually we'd get shipped off to go live with our parents before we start at school. This is why I want to, you have once again inspired me to talk about my business that I want to launch. Yes. Yes. My idea is we create old age homes that are kindergartens.

55:34Yeah. Because old people.

55:36Emily McDonald:They've done that. Wait, they have? So they've done a research. They stole my idea? Come on. So if, no, no, no. So they haven't done this for like as a business. So go into it. Oh, it's okay. My idea is still safe. No, but there is actually research to show your idea would work. If I'm clear on your idea. This is why I need you in my life. Let me tell you something. You know how many times I say things to people and then they'll be like, I don't know if that, and if I had you around, you could be like, there's research to show. Bam! Not you, Bam. Bam in general. But yeah, so they took a bunch of old people and they put them in this house that was decorated like it was the 80s.

56:08Emily McDonald:And like say music, like decorations, all of it. And they actually came out with biomarkers that showed that they had sort of reverse age. You get younger. Yeah. Yeah. I always say like, young people make old people younger, just like their vibe. Whenever I see like grandparents and grandchildren together, and then the inverse as well, I find like grandparents help young kids grow up with that like, so I've always thought, why do we put old people in an old age? Why do we like send them off to die? I completely agree. Why don't we send them somewhere to live? And then why are we struggling with the kids?

56:39We should have told Zoran this. He wants childcare in New York. Grannies, yeah. Grannies, yeah. We could start like a whole thing, grannies.com, and then it's like a whole vibe and then you don't feel like your grandparents are just stranded and they get to see new life growing around them and then the kids get to business. I'm going to give you a percentage. You were here for this and you're going to be handling our scientific division and then Eugenie will be my spokesperson. Spokesperson? Yeah. How about R &D? No, no, no, no. R &D? What are you researching? What are you researching? I wouldn't know that.

57:10I thought I was R &D.

57:14Don't go anywhere because we got more What Now? After this.

57:46Only V is October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a middle without parent. Netflix's new series, East of Eden, is a bold reimagining of John Steinbeck's masterpiece. Following generations of the Trask family through love, betrayal, and the choices that shape our humanity. Starring Mike Feist and Christopher Abbott as the conflicted Trask brothers. And Florence Pugh as Kathy Ames. The complex, dark, and fascinating anti-heroine determined to build the life she wants, no matter the cost. Dark, epic, and impossible to look away from.

58:14Emily McDonald:Watch East of Eden, October 1st, only on Netflix.

58:44to shop designer deals for your home.

58:53So with your life, so you're talking about all these things and you were telling us how you started finding it, change your life and how you applied it.

59:01Emily McDonald:Way to bring that back. I'm always in, I'm locked in. Yeah, and so I think it kind of began for me with, and my journey of really initially the first step was understanding the brain. That was the first step. Understanding the neuroscience of reality. We talked a little bit about the visual system, how you hear and understanding. And honestly, like the study that kind of changed the game for me whenever I was an undergrad was learning about this kitten experiment. It's a super classic experiment, like 1970. And they took these newborn kittens and they raised them in complete darkness, except for a few hours a day where they put one group and they were alone, each of them individually alone, in a cylinder with only vertical black and white stripe lines.

59:43Emily McDonald:and they took different kittens, a different group, and they put them in a cylinder with only horizontal black and white stripe lines. They let their visual cortex develop. And then once they were fully developed or close to that, they put them in a normal everyday environment with everyday objects. And what they found was that the kittens that were only raised to ever see horizontal lines, they didn't respond normally to vertically shaped objects. No way. Vertically oriented objects, like they would bump into table legs because they couldn't see them. And so their brain actually, you know, didn't put together that image because it wasn't raised to see that.

1:00:20Emily McDonald:And so I, you know, and vice versa with the kittens that were raised to only see vertical lines. They wouldn't jump up on tabletops and perch because they couldn't, they didn't really, like, their brains didn't, you know, respond normally to horizontal objects. so I kind of just was sitting there like damn like if these kittens are only really able to respond in a way that in an accurate or appropriate way to things that they grew up seeing what am I not seeing because of the way I was raised right like what like the jobs like money you know opportunities a relationship relationships especially like we grew up seeing certain types of relationships between our parents education like what am I missing now that is probably right in front of me but my brain's not constructing that experience because it isn't programmed for it it's not so obvious to you right and so that i think was like the one of the first realizations i had where i was like okay like you know what i'm wanting my future to look like if it's different than what my past has looked like then i'm gonna have to change my brain so that i can construct that experience it shows sorry it shows this little gap that has become a huge crevice in society where science has replaced art because academia replaced art because kids used to, art used to be a way to measure who likes what.

1:01:39So now it became a thing of who can count, who can remember the best. And then you get channeled that way. But if you let how to draw and then building blocks, how do you see the world according to your eyes versus we're going to sit you guys in one room and show you the world. And we're going to show you to calculate and whoever remembers to calculate the best, the quickest. Yes is the one that progresses in life I never thought of art like that That's beautiful actually I genuinely never thought of art like that It is the perfect Petri dish To see how everyone else sees the world The coloring book and the building blocks Because remember how every kid used to But the image is the same Do you remember this Like we'd go I don't know if you did this I used to see other kids coloring books And I'd be like Why did you Yeah why did you use brown I'd be like why would you use that color I was just shocked at how we all had the same picture Yeah And everyone chose completely And they're like, this is how I see the world.

1:02:27I was like, man.

1:02:28Emily McDonald:None of us even see color the same way. Yeah, that one's still. Or remember the building blocks? You'd be like, what is that? They'll be like, it's a house. You'd be like, that doesn't look like. Right. Well, that's why I always say like, we also didn't even come to this planet to live in the same reality or experience the life the same. Like we didn't come here. Getting hot now. We didn't. We didn't come here for that. Like I actually had a dream about that recently because I was sitting here thinking, you know, I literally a few weeks ago, I had a dream about this, maybe a couple of months ago, where I was kind of like, how do I not care what other people think?

1:02:56Emily McDonald:How do you not care what other people say you should or shouldn't do? And then I literally had this dream about the neuroscience of reality and how no two people's brains are constructing the same experience, right? Because your brain is what's constructing your experience, not your eyes. We've already discussed that. So it's like, okay, no two people are experiencing the same reality. Therefore, how can you take anybody else's input and apply it to your own life verbatim, word for word. It doesn't make sense. It's like trying to play Mario Kart with the rules of Call of Duty. You shouldn't do that.

1:03:28Emily McDonald:You're playing Call of Duty. Although that would be a dope game. I'm just going to throw that out there. I'll also take shares in this one. But it would also make you worse. I'll do R &D on this one. I'm just going to throw in before Eugene jumps in. Eugene, you're the spokesperson for this game as well. But right, you'd be really bad at that game. So why are you trying to play your game of life while taking somebody else's rules when they're playing an entirely different game? They don't live in the same video game or experience the same game that you do. This is, wow. There's two thoughts that I have when you're saying this.

1:03:58The first one is, and I'm sorry to do this to you, Gene, but I think of - You've done worse. I think of why VAR is so interesting in football, in soccer. So VAR, video assistant referee, they had it in American sports for a long time. I don't know why it took so long to get to soccer, but they'll pause the game at a crucial moment when there's like a big foul or a goal that was scored or not scored. Point is people don't agree on what happened. And then they'll start replaying what happened from multiple different angles. And it's sort of what you're saying. I've watched myself, my friends, the commentators, and everyone who's observing this start to realize that their reality is changing depending on the perspective that they're, so they'll go, that's definitely a foul.

1:04:45And they'll show you another angle. And you'll be like, it still looks like a foul. And they'll show you another angle. Then you're like, did he touch him? And then the final angle, you're like, no, he didn't touch him. And what you're just saying is sort of that, is like we're living in this world where we're all watching from our own camera angle. And then we're going, why don't you think it's a foul? Why don't you think it's a foul? How can you say it's a foul? And then the second thought I was having, just based around this is I go, you're talking about a world where we're all not designed to have the same experience.

1:05:19But doesn't that mean there's a huge swath of society that is always pushed to the fringes unless they are part of the monolithic experience? As somebody who was diagnosed with ADHD, I've been diagnosed with ADHD, right? I've often felt like having ADHD, there's nothing wrong with it, but you're in the wrong society and world right now because a lot of what the world is is designed not for you with ADHD. You're in the wrong timeline. You really are.

1:05:47Emily McDonald:You're playing the wrong video game. No, you really are, yeah. Because I spoke to one therapist who was talking about how, and these are like hypotheses, but they said people with ADHD were probably really beneficial to a tribe and a society when you would go out like hunting together because some people really just need to focus on picking the berries. And some people need to be like, what's that? What's that? Do you guys hear that? Yeah. What's that? You guys hear that? But you can't all be going, what's that? What's that? Because then no one's going to focus on the berries. Yes. And you can't all be focused on the berries because then no one's going like, yo, guys, did you hear that?

1:06:21What was that? What was that? Pattern recognition.

1:06:24Emily McDonald:So willing to go explore and be curious. Exactly. And so you need all of these different minds doing and thinking different things so that we can all function together. But to sort of what you're saying with arts equity and what you're saying now, aren't we're creating a world where we're compressing everyone into one we're going like you all have to do this all have to go to school at this time all have to learn these subjects all have to sit in an office all have all we're trying to yeah that creates a lot of resistance yes yes i've had this conversation with teachers at my daughter's school since she started high school and all of it was if if she really applied herself to the math and the science and i used to say to them just relax school fees will be paid she will pass you won't have to deal with her for long Just relax.

1:07:08And then the conversation I'd have with her every time was, I don't want great grades. I want you to have the best time possible during this five years of high school, but just pass so I don't have to pay for it again. So that was the conversation for the longest time. And funny enough, I saw a TikTok of someone just the other day who posted all of their high school achievements, their badges, their certificates, and they go, in the real world, these count for nothing. It's like you have Monopoly money in the real world. So you've missed out on an entire five years of experiencing your growth and your fundamentals or how you would have been forming as a young adult trying to achieve and impress people you'll never see again.

1:07:47Well, it's funny you say that. I think people would are and would be shocked at how many of the biggest, most successful icons that they look up to never finished school. Do you know what I mean? So they'll be like, oh, yeah, Mark Zuckerberg, you know how big he is. And you're like, he didn't finish. They're like, what do you mean? he went to yeah he went to the university and then he didn't finish he left to do this thing that we call facebook what do you mean countless names where they go they they went to the university and they dropped out and they started a business and they and they left no but to your point yeah absolutely but but we think that the one thing leads to the other so we're living in this world where one thing leads to another you're living in this world where one thing leads to another what was the first breakthrough i'd love to know even like on the adhd side because what you're saying to me sounds like a magic trick your brain can't focus you you you you know you're

1:08:42Emily McDonald:you're stuck in and now i'm in this place where i literally i'm writing a book right now and i can go and sit for seven hours and focus okay so now let's walk through that how do you get it um how how on earth did you start where was the what was the first step so like you said it's been a journey over time yeah like that's the way that neuroplasticity works it's repetition over time And so the beautiful thing about the brain is that it can change and it does change. And so, you know, I think a lot of people now, it's not that they can't focus. It's that they have super well-practiced distraction.

1:09:14Emily McDonald:And you get really good. Oh, you can't just move on from that. High definition LED television. You can't just move on from that. Say that again, please. Mic drop moment. So a lot of people think that they can't focus or they're bad at focus. But really what it is Is that they have Super well practiced Distraction Remember I told you yesterday I said if I didn't go Fetch those sneakers At that time It would have ruined my day Yes but now Okay now I know we're gonna go On a tangent here But I want you to help Eugene on this Only now we're going On a tangent Yeah but I'm saying I'm acknowledging the tangent Oh okay For this specific moment Because this is about you now Only as Eugene How would you have Helped Eugene with this So Eugene Help tell the story I've helped Eugene with this No no no No, I want you to, here's an actual brain.

1:09:59Yeah. Walk us through the story. What happened? So I ordered these sneakers online. Okay. And then they arrived. But I didn't count for how far they were. In my head, I was like, it's six and a half kilometers. I can probably make it. But we had this as well to do. So I spent an hour thinking, if I go there, then I would save myself all the grief of thinking about going there while I'm doing this. But so basically, but also you're leaving out the most important thing you told me, which was -

1:10:23Emily McDonald:We're leaving out a lot of details here. Yeah, yeah, details, Eugenie. Yeah. Tell me. Okay. Because how much time did we have? I'm going to tell you the story. I'm going to tell you the story. This is what happened to Eugene. Are you here to convict me? No. Or to save me? I'm like, for all I know, it's 10 minutes before you've got to be here. And you're talking about traveling all the way to Brooklyn. So let me explain. Let me explain what happened here. It was Brooklyn. We were talking about it before we started. That's how much on his mind this event is. So I'll explain what happened. Because my friend told it to me.

1:10:49So what happened was Eugene ordered sneakers. the only location that would have the sneakers was in Brooklyn Eugene was in Manhattan Eugene looked up where the store is he was like oh I gotta get this it's near the Barclays Center Google Maps told him how long it could take to get there Eugene was like I think I can do this now the time was going to be like super tight but he's like I can do it I get there and then I spend like 26 minutes getting there and then I'll spend two minutes buying the shoes because how long does it take to buy shoes you just gotta pick them up and then I got gotta get back in the car and then I come back to Manhattan and then I've got the thing now I was like but Eugene wouldn't isn't that going to be stressful then you just said no if I didn't go pick up the shoes I would have been more stressed about the shoes the whole day so when we're recording an episode of the podcast I'd be like I can't I can't even think about anything Trevor because all I'm thinking about is those shoes and while I'm talking to the guests I'd be like shoes shoes shoes shoes shoes what time did the shoe place close no then he so he went and he got the shoes first right no he made it okay but it was a stress so now i would like you to explain i swapped one stress for another from a brain perspective no relief whatsoever i swapped one i'm like i was like go war or stay married?

1:12:12War. So, help us understand. So,

1:12:16Emily McDonald:it was one stress for another because you sat there overthinking for a period of time and then you had less time to go and actually do it and were you stressed on your journey? And you were stressed about getting to the podcast now. I was stressed on my journey going there, I was just coming back but in my head, I was like, that stress compared to the stress of the whole entire day of not having the shoes. Because when would you have been able to get them if you didn't go right before? You see? any other day no I'm not asking you no any other day any other day any other day is the answer and by the way I'm not judging you because I too you know I didn't even once even never you never did well what were you guys doing before this because you were late today so this was this was all on me this is not this is not him tell the story this is not him at all this is not him at all you are a therapist now this is not him at all my point is though I'm just gonna tell you I have I'm just going to tell you.

1:13:11Emily McDonald:Okay. I'm just going to tell you. You said it was technical difficulty. So let me tell you. No, but I wouldn't throw you under the bus. I would never do that to you.

1:13:23Why are you this person? Go ahead. So there's a technical, there's a part of the podcast that I specifically like to be a part of. Like it comes to like, you know, when we're working with the transcriptions of the podcast, what's happening with like the titles on YouTube. like I like to be involved yeah many of the geeky parts right so what I'll often do is I sit there with my laptop or my iPad and I go through the thing and I do it then I do it long story short the program that I use didn't want to work for the episode that we were doing because we had multiple Africans on the same episode now I'm not blaming the racism of technology in this I'm just explaining to you what happened but it could not for the life of it discern between the Africans Sometimes it couldn't even say what language they were speaking They were speaking English by the way Now in the program's defense In the program's defense One of our friends says like Wack instead of work And he says like swordfish But that's Joe And in his head he sounds like Hugh Grant You'll understand this when you listen to the episode All of this will make sense I'm also not blaming Joe for how Joe is But because we needed that And the whole process relies on me doing that part Then I was like Like we need it We need it We need it Then I'm like I'm like a hacker Like give me 10 I gotta get in 10 minutes I gotta get Give me 5 more minutes I gotta And so that's the thing But I want you to first Fix the shoes thing

1:14:49Emily McDonald:Well it's the same thing though Right So You I have a thing How did you fix it? I don't really Let's hear what it is first Yeah So my thing is I don't like to rush I don't like to rush Because when you're When you put When you rush You're in fight or flight And then death was corosal And that actually makes you dumber. So if you're sitting there right before this episode and you're trying to figure it all out, now all of a sudden you're stressed about figuring it out. That actually makes you less able to figure it out because you're turning down activity in your prefrontal cortex and raising activity in your amygdala.

1:15:19Emily McDonald:Now you're in fight or flight, scanning for threats, and you're not really in a position mentally to figure it out. That's why when you're in a rush, you spill your drink or you forget your keys. You drop things, right? You're not working at optimal performance. Can I throw something at you that might... it's based on what you told me about the kittens though. Only because you told me the kitten story. What if I grew up in a life that was so stressed and so high paced that that's actually when I'm the most relaxed? Because I've lived in horizontal lines for so long. It's sort of like matching.

1:15:49So I'm like, what if I'm the opposite? Like I can, I become smarter. I can move better. Like I don't spill my drink. I don't bump into anything. You perform well under pressure. I don't miss a plane. I don't, like you've seen me in an airport. You thrive in that. Let me tell you something. You made us drive like crazy people. If shit is going down and you need to rush.

1:16:07Emily McDonald:It's you, you're the guy. You call this guy here. Nothing will get forgotten. Do you know when I've forgotten things? Is when I had copious amounts of time. And I mean copious amounts of time. I was going to a friend's wedding recently. Em, when I tell you I had time, packed the suitcase two days before. I was like, you know what? You. Let's not rush. Two days before. Imagine. You know me, my friend. That sounds like suicide. Exactly. Not you're going to come back ever. I was like, you know what? I'm going to pack this. I want to be so, because I didn't want to rush. I'm going to pack the suitcase.

1:16:44I'm going to prepare everything. Put the shoes in. Put the tuxedo. The thing. You name it. I was like, I got this. I'm going to be so, because I don't want anything to go wrong. I was like, you know what? Okay. Not that things go wrong. I was like, I don't want anything to go wrong. Let me try this thing. So let me do this thing. But you're focused on things going wrong.

1:17:02Emily McDonald:when thinking about how you don't want things to go wrong. This is why you're around. This is great, by the way. So I was like, you know what? You know what? You manifested calamity. So I was like, let me just do this. Packed everything. Got there. Wedding. You name it. The night before, I'm hanging up all my clothes. Putting everything up. I had jackets. I had shirts. I had no bottoms. You didn't pack any bottoms? You got all the way there And you didn't pack any bottoms So because the pants went off for tailoring A lot of things are making sense now The pants went off for tailoring They came in a different bag And I put the bags And I was so comfortable and calm When I was doing the thing But when I normally pack I fly in And I sing a song And I'm like flying through it I'm like shoes got your socks And then your socks Got your pants And then your pants Got your underwear And then your shirt And then your shirt That's actually the song you sing?

1:18:03Yeah, every time. I've never left anything behind. I've never been a person who's like, oh, I didn't bring my toothbrush. No, I'll nail it. And I mean this honestly.

1:18:12Emily McDonald:Okay, well, that's a completely different situation though. So could I have like the opposite brain of? Yes, you could. But also what you're describing is completely different. What you're describing is why athletes are way better at shooting free throws when they're not thinking about it versus whenever they're thinking about it and they have time, then they miss, right? Because you have it saved in muscle memory and you're trying to introduce conscious thought into something that you shouldn't. I'm a packing athlete. You heard it here first. There's this famous... Don't come here with no casual packing.

1:18:39Emily McDonald:Exactly. I'm a packing athlete. But you did that. You did that. You came through with some casual packing and that's what you did. I'm so grateful for your presence here for so many reasons. Before you go on this, I want you to now go with Eugene's one. Because I've experienced... By the way, no. We diagnosed Trevor. I've experienced Eugene's one. So I want you to talk us through because I think a lot of people will relate to this. Help us understand Eugene's thing. How would you have coached Did we finish Eugene's situation? No because yes Because he had the shoes He was fired But then as he said He introduced He swapped one stress for another What was the other stress?

1:19:10Emily McDonald:So the one stress The other stress would be I would be sitting here And then when the guest is talking I would be thinking You know this 30 minutes So what was the Exactly how long it takes To get to Brooklyn But what was the stress That you swapped it for? What ended up being the stress? Oh the stress was I was going to make it on time The driver is driving too slow Why is the school bus In front of us? Why is there traffic? There's always a school bus when you're eight. How long did you wait to make that decision to send it? Almost an hour. Oh. So, I mean, I think, you know, I was saying this before we started recording, that I don't negotiate with myself.

1:19:46Emily McDonald:And so - You don't? What does that mean? I don't, like, for example, you're sitting there going back and forth. Like, do I want to go get a date? I do that. I just make a decision. I don't like to waste time. But why? What is the thinking behind this? I think it's exactly what happened to Eugene, right? So he wasted an hour just going back and forth. And then he had doubled the amount of stress because not only was he overthinking a situation, then he was also stressed about having less time to do it. Right. So again, it's kind of similar to where I was thinking, where I have this thought process of when I visualize my best favorite self, who are they?

1:20:23Emily McDonald:What are their habits like? What is their mindset like? What are their beliefs like? Like in this situation, it's like, okay, when I visualize myself tomorrow or myself later today, like, or my best favorite self, what does she do? Like, how does she act? She doesn't sit here going back and forth. Should I go get it? Should I not? It's my podcast. If I want to go get shoes, I'm going to go get shoes. And if I'm going to be 10, 15 minutes late, I'm going to be 10, 15 minutes late. And I'm not really going to stress about it. And that's why I said, like, I don't like to rush. Like, if I'm going to be, that doesn't mean that I give myself ample time all the time.

1:20:56Emily McDonald:I don't always have ample time. And sometimes I am five minutes late. I'm kind of chronically five minutes late to everything. I wasn't today, but I am. But that's because I wasn't alone, right? So he's on time. And so, yeah, I think when I think about that, if I were in your shoes and I'm like, this is something that I want. These were nice shoes, by the way. From the beginning, you had ample time. If you didn't waste an hour thinking, you could have gone there and back and not been stressed at all. If it's something that you want to do, that's going to make you happier. And that joy is the best performance enhancing drug ever.

1:21:29Emily McDonald:So if I'm going to go get these shoes and make myself, I'm wearing my boots. You guys both said you like my boots. We both said we like your boots. They are dope boots. And when you are feeling like your best self, then you actually perform better, right? Joy enhances your performance. And I knew, Em, that those shoes would do that for me. Exactly. We had two back-to-backs. You came in with swag, I won't lie. I knew. You just had like a vibe about you. what you just said you see now coming back to so if you just hear it on the woo side of things people go like visualize your best self think about who you want to be and then i've seen a lot of people and i've probably been one of them at some point who goes oh come on you just visualize your best self and if you could then you would and then you're teaching your brain how to act in situations in life that's why identity shifting is so powerful so i read i read a paper that was written about athletes the other day.

1:22:19And this was an interesting, I'm not even sure that it was a study per se, but it was a really interesting article that I read. And it talked about the difference between like elite athletes and just athletes who are good by the fact that they are athletes, right? And it said the difference between the athletes wasn't necessarily the fact that one group was nervous and the other group wasn't nervous in a high stress situation. The difference was the one group who were the elite athletes were able to visualize themselves overcoming the obstacle that they knew was incoming. And the other group could only focus on the obstacle itself.

1:23:01Yes. And so you watch, you know, LeBron James, you watch a, you know, an Erling Haaland, you watch a, you know, whoever it is, you know, Saquon Barkley, Eugene, fine. but like you watch any of these people, whoever it is, and you go, wait, how are they doing that in those moments? And it seems like what you're just saying, they are able to visualize themselves doing the thing that they haven't done yet. And then that, what we'd say magically or scientifically, means that they're more able to realize it. Help me understand that part.

1:23:40Emily McDonald:It trains the premotor area of the brain. So your problem yesterday was that you were focused on the problem and not how the best version of you moves through situations. And so there's, I actually just filmed my own podcast episode on this. And it's like three of my favorite different types of visualizations. But what's the podcast called, by the way? Planet M. Planet M. I love it. Welcome to my world. And so the one type of visualization I talked about, though, was sort of like resilience training visualization. And this is exactly what we're talking about. So, and it's what athletes use. NASA, like astronauts at NASA use this.

1:24:17Emily McDonald:And it's basically the process of visualizing yourself on the path toward achieving or doing whatever it is, but kind of facing challenges as the best version of you. And so you start out in this visualization, sort of just identifying who that is. And then you can bring up a challenge. For example, you could do this. Bring up the challenge from yesterday. Start your visualization with your favorite version of you, the best version of you, and then bring up the situation that happened yesterday. And then you watch as that version of you moves through that situation. And you can do this for so many different things.

1:24:51Emily McDonald:You can use this as confidence training. If there are things that, as a creator, for a while, certain comments would get to me. Visualizing my best self, reading those comments and how she would react to them, trained my brain to react in a way that is aligned with who I'm wanting to become. You're becoming your own role model, essentially. It's because I have this theory that in a meditative state, when you are doing a mantra, you're basically doing a simulation of something that will happen in the future. So when you face that situation, like the athletes and high stressful, they've already done this before.

1:25:22Emily McDonald:They've already faced it. You know, like a challenge is only difficult when it's like, not only difficult, but it's a lot harder the first time you do it. And then the second time, third time, fourth time you face it, it's not even a challenge anymore. It's just like, oh, yeah, this is just one of those obstacles you just got to go through. And that's what happens when you visualize your best self going through it. And also you're sort of preparing yourself for it and how you want to act. If you don't do that, then you are just putting yourself in a position to allow your default mode or your subconscious to react to a situation.

1:25:50Emily McDonald:But when you take the time to visualize and kind of practice the way that you would want to react, then you're going to react in that in real life in a way that you actually feel proud of rather than. It's like pilots and simulator jets, right? Right. You don't have to crash the real plane. in a relaxed state you're flying using all the gizmos all the buttons you've simulated a crash you've simulated the crash you've simulated a nose guy you've simulated a stall you've simulated right so do it practicing so what is that help me understand what that's actually doing in your brain now like is it is it because you spoke earlier about like tunnel vision for instance so help me understand what some of these things are causing in us as people that we don't realize our brains are doing to us please splice that with a concept of time as well So, add it in there.

1:26:36Emily McDonald:All right. We won't interrupt you for a long time. All right. So, I mean, there are many different points here. So, when we are kind of practicing, what we're doing really is just practicing, right? We're practicing facing challenges. We're just like an athlete. We're practicing, you know, what happens if somebody runs up on us and we have the ball. What are we going to do? We're just practicing that. And so, the same way that you want to practice free throws, you want to practice facing challenges. And so you're just activating those pathways in your brain. Like if I'm visualizing my best self reading those comments, I'm just practicing and training my brain to react in a way that I would want to react.

1:27:15Emily McDonald:So you're just activating those pathways. Like the way that visualization works is a lot of the time, especially when it's highly vivid and you're using imagery and context, your environment, the emotional state, your brain doesn't necessarily differentiate between what you're seeing through our eyes and what we're imagining in our head. And if you think about like what I talked about, how your brain constructs everything you see, it's no different because your eyes don't see it anyway. Your brain is constructing everything you see. So what's the difference between your eyes being closed or open?

1:27:44Emily McDonald:It's the same. You're seeing it in your head and it's being constructed by your brain either way. And so what's happening, for example, especially with kind of motor activities like in athletes, they're really training the pre-motor area of the brain. And the motor area is what sends the signals, right? So the motor area is what tells my hand to pick up this cup and take a drink. The pre-motor area is what plans the movement. And so what you're doing when you visualize this is you are training your brain to plan the reaction, plan the movement better. So that way, when you actually are facing the situation in real life, your brain already knows the plan.

1:28:24Emily McDonald:But what happens when you are in it in real life and you haven't done this and you haven't ever thought about it, then there's no plan and your brain is going to go based off of an old version of you, a past version of you, especially if it's a stressful situation and you're in fight or flight, then you're kind of... The body freezes. Right. And what's going to happen is it's really just your subconscious sort of programming from the past that's doing the reacting, that's doing the responding. It's not a conscious response or a plan. It is just sort of you reacting in real time based on old programming that you may or may not want to be, you know, directing your behaviors.

1:29:01Emily McDonald:And so, I mean, the perception of time thing here, I don't know necessarily how that's going to fit into this story. You'll make it work. But I mean, actually, I could. I could. So, I mean, conscious awareness and having this plan does dilate time. And so when you are present, you have more time to respond versus and also, right, if you've practiced the response, if you've practiced this situation, if you've been here before, whether it's in real life or in your imagination, then you're not going to have the same stress response that you would if you've practiced it and you've been here before, right?

1:29:35Emily McDonald:Then you're going to feel more present, more calm. When you're feeling present and or calm, then time dilates. You have more time to respond rather than being like, oh my God, I have, you know, just reacting. Then you're going to be able to sit back and respond in a way that feels more conscious. And so and then to bring in sort of the tunnel vision piece that you asked about, if you are in your situation where the shoe situation and you are stressed and you're limited on time and you're like, I don't know what to do. And you're in this fight, flight, freeze. My brain's not really thinking super straight.

1:30:12Emily McDonald:Clearly, what you get is tunnel vision because stress, if you think about the saying deer in headlights, they're in fight or flight, deer in headlights, they're frozen. They have extreme tunnel vision. They can't, they're not looking around at the possibilities of what's going on. They are - They're looking at the other deer going - They can only see the problems right in front of them, right? That's what happens when you're stressed, when your nervous system goes into fight or flight. You are that deer in headlights. You can only see the problem. You're not putting your brain in a position to scan for all the different, you're not thinking logically and solution-based and open to different possibilities or other ways of thinking.

1:30:50Emily McDonald:That's not the state that your nervous system is in. Your nervous system is in a state of this is this situation at hand. This is the problem. We need to think about this problem. And I don't know what to do. And we don't know what to do. But your brain's not in the position to even think about other avenues or what to do, other paths. It's not even in the position. And so that's when you're in the situation you're in where you sit there for an hour debating and negotiating with yourself and you're not ever coming to a real solution. And it's because, and, but, and maybe the way that you want to go about this next time is to stop for five minutes and take some deep breaths, calm your nervous system.

1:31:24Emily McDonald:And then you would have been able to make a really educated decision based on your position. You know, when you think of the deer in the headlights thing, just when, yeah, the way you break it down, I go, the deer is never in that position when it's being chased by a predator. Never. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. There's no deer that's like, oh, a wolf. No, it runs. It immediately, to your point, because it has so much time to learn from the time it was like a calf and all the way through. It's sort of simulated and it's learned and it's practiced and it's learned and it's practiced and it's learned and it's practiced.

1:31:55But the car is a new thing in its world for the most part. So it's just like, wait, what is it? It's a new idea that it has never simulated. That's when you put it that way. It's amazing. I would love for you. No, I remember one of your. 100%. I remember one of your videos that really, really touched me was when you were talking about how the brain, the mind, and these learnings apply to love and how we process relationships. And I remember this, you know, at the time I was reading a lot about attachment theory. I was listening to people's stories. Even in therapy, I was talking about like, how do I process what a relationship could or could not be based on the relationships I've seen or have not seen?

1:32:41What are the triggers that I think of that another person wouldn't? And what are the things I'm missing that another person wouldn't? And then you shared like a beautiful story of your journey with love, talking about this, seeing what we couldn't see before or learning to not see what we didn't need to see before. walk me through this and and help me understand how you got to the beautiful place that you're in

1:33:06Emily McDonald:now yeah if i'm understanding your i'm not i don't if i'm understanding your question i remember because you had this video and i mean this was like years ago i think but you you were talking about the brain and people saying for instance oh i'm lonely there's no one out there you never meet anyone you don't see anyone and no one sees me and blah and and then you shared your own personal story i remember at the time talking about how you changed something and i'm forgetting the exact details but you you worked on changing something about how you were perceiving your world and it opened up opportunities for love to come into your life but you were like the world didn't change it's just how you were perceiving and presenting in the world can you explain that yes i understand now so it's not necessarily about relationships alone this is just about life in general and it all goes back to the kittens, right?

1:34:02Emily McDonald:The kitten couldn't see the table leg or respond to a table leg normally because it had only ever seen horizontal lines. I grew up not necessarily seeing a relationship, like what a healthy romantic relationship looked like. So my brain didn't know how to filter for that, right? My brain didn't know and still is learning how to you know filter for that and feel safe in that as well right because you just got done saying that you feel safe what you described really is like does my brain have this opposite what you're describing is your brain feels safe in those chaotic environments familiar right yeah and so your brain like and so i you i had to teach my brain right like what to even look for like what does that look like like what does a healthy loving relationship look like and and can and also feel safe in that and that started with myself like having that relationship with myself in what way um sort of treating myself like I was my dream partner like I would walk around calling myself babe and like oh like oh no problem like literally I remember sitting down and maybe the video you're talking about is I remember sitting down to record a video and I was like oh like you need some better lighting, honey.

1:35:21Emily McDonald:And I remember getting up and I'm like, wow, I really talk to myself how I would want my dream partner to talk to myself. And it really just boils down to treating myself how I would want to be treated, right? And having that dream relationship, like, do I want to be taken out on dates? Am I taking myself out on dates? Do I feel safe in that? Or am I going to reject that because my nervous system doesn't feel safe in that because it doesn't ever experience that? Your nervous system feels safest with whatever it's experiencing, whether it's what you want or not. Simulation. Whether it's what you want or not, right?

1:35:56Emily McDonald:So you can sit around all day asking for certain things, but if you've never experienced them, then your brain is not going to experience those things as feeling safe. It's going to feel unpredictable and unpredictability feels unsafe to the brain. So you've got to make what you want predictable, right? By showing it more of that or normalizing what you want. And there's so many different ways to do that, like visualization. But also, for example, when I was wanting to buy a house, like let me go drive through this one neighborhood in the mountains in Arizona with all these beautiful homes to show my brain this, to normalize it.

1:36:28Emily McDonald:Right. So so many different ways. And then the other piece that you were kind of getting out as well was, yeah, I used to say this all the time. Oh, dating sucks in my city. Yeah, yeah. Everybody says that. And I've lived in many different cities. I was talking for probably 30 minutes before you guys got here about all the different places I've lived. And I would say it everywhere I lived. Oh, whether it was in the small town where I did the PhD or whether it was the big city when I lived in Miami, no matter where it was, oh, dating sucks in my city or whatever. And I hear people say that all the time.

1:37:02Emily McDonald:And that's sort of a belief, right? It is an instruction to your brain. Your brain filters your reality or remember, it constructs everything that you see based on your beliefs. Yeah. Based on what you know or think to be true. And so if you, the person, your dream person could be right in front of you, but you won't see them because you don't believe that dating is good in your city. You think it sucks in your city. And so this guy. And you made up your mind. Right. And so this guy could come right up to you and offer to buy you a coffee at the coffee shop. Says who? You've always got a chance with me, Achini.

1:37:38Emily McDonald:But also like taking the stress thing into account as well, right? Like especially add stress on top of that. If you're in fight or flight or stressed and you walk around throughout your day stressed out, then again, your brain's not going to be filtering for the dream partner or the job. And I've had people, someone came to one of my masterclasses once and he said he had been looking for a job for two years. And within two weeks after the class, he got his dream job. And nothing changed in his world. Like nothing changed in the physical world. What changed was in him, his beliefs. It's not magic.

1:38:09Emily McDonald:No. It is. It is magic. Yeah, but I mean, it's not. I do believe in magic. No, no, no, no, no. I do believe in magic. But this is what I mean by it's not magic. We get you. It's not something that's inexplainable is what I mean. Yes, yes. I do want to pause though and say that there are things that are unexplainable. Yeah. And I believe in that as well. So, I mean, that's a whole other conversation. And I do believe in things that are unexplainable. like science is a lens through which you can look at life. It's not the only lens through which you should look at life. And if you're only looking at life through one or two lenses, then you're missing out on a ton.

1:38:42Emily McDonald:But I do appreciate when you can explain these sorts of things with neuroscience because yeah, it makes it feel like real and super understandable and also actionable, right? Because it goes from life feeling random to all of a sudden, oh wait, now I can have control over this situation. I'm not seeing the relationship that I want. I'm not getting the job that I want. Oh, maybe my, maybe it's there. It is there. Like it's there, the money, the job opportunities. It's all there. The world is so abundant with so many different things, but you have to believe that. And you have to move through life with that belief and knowing.

1:39:17Emily McDonald:Otherwise you're going to turn down opportunities or you might just not even see them. You won't even apply for the job because you won't think that you'll get it. Right. It's just, there's so many different ways that your Rain will hold you back. What you're saying is so key because I was actually telling him and said, I want to show him my diary from about six years ago. This was the hardest time of my life. And I started reading these books and I got into it. I started listening to these podcasts. And what I started making a choice of was simulation or assimilating. So if I had assimilated, I would just carry on with people around me and what they do.

1:39:49In that case, it would have been comedy. But in my simulation, in my mind, in my meditation, I knew what I wanted to do. and I knew where I wanted to do it. So I started to write it down. But the next step from writing it down was to visualize, have visual references of it. So I started having screensavers of the city that I wanted to do this thing at on my phone. Then the next step was, I would say, I want to be paid in this currency. Then I would start saying that over and over again. And remember, I could assimilate or I could be in this simulation. And slowly the simulation started feeling normal and normal and normal.

1:40:23Then I realized, if I want to hear this being said, I must say it to myself. Then I'll take everything that I wrote down and I'll say it in the mirror. Then I was like, yeah, I can hear it. The vibration thing that you said makes sense. I could hear it, I could hear it, I could hear it. The more I said it, when I sleep, I'll dream about it. It took five years. The five years, the opportunity happened in exactly the same place, in exactly the same way, in exactly the same currency that I'd written down. And I'd written down dates on the diary. And I think I've told you about this before. Yeah, you did.

1:40:51And I even, so in the same year, I'd done a reading with a medium who said exactly the same things that I'd written down as my thoughts and as my visualization. And when I asked her, she said, remember that as a medium, I'm not saying anything that's not in your reality. I'm just basically reminding you and giving you cues and clues of what to follow and what paths. But it seems like if you've written it down already, you remember it quite well. And what you're saying makes sense because when you try to explain to someone, and that's what I find with people who are gifted, who are talented, naturally talented at something, trying to explain their success, I often think you're cheating someone who's facing the same conundrum of the real experience.

1:41:31Work hard, do this, do that. But no, it's sometimes just thinking about the thing that you want to do and actually thinking and thinking and thinking and visualizing it. And those small neurological pathways start becoming little footpaths and then they become little two lanes. Then all of a sudden they become freeways and you become a master at weaving your wand and creating your reality. And that's what I think is missing.

1:41:53Emily McDonald:Yeah. And I think, and don't get me wrong, I'm all for working hard. I wouldn't be where I am if I didn't work hard. But I think when you have the mindset piece and you wire your brain to align with what you're working hard for, that's when you become unstoppable. And that's when it's inevitable and it's going to happen no matter what, right? But if you're working so hard and your brain isn't wired in alignment with what you're working hard for, then you're beating a brick wall. That's when you start to face all this resistance. And I mean, there's so much research that shows, you know, like mindset and belief in yourself is a bigger predictor of success than talent or intelligence.

1:42:31Emily McDonald:But yeah, and it's so important. And I've been asked many times, like, what was the thing that you think really shifted your life? And when did you start to really like feel different and do different and be different? And it was when I had this crazy, I mean, I had a crazy DMT experience, but it really opened me up to the spiritual world, but also like to start believing in myself. And when I started believing in myself, everything changed. I became unstoppable and it didn't matter what happened, right? Because the tests are going to come, the trials, the tribulations, the challenges, the things are going to happen.

1:43:07Emily McDonald:But when you have that belief in yourself, it's like you keep going and you keep and belief in yourself improves your performance. it's a biological advantage to believe in yourself my DMT experience was ayahuasca what was yours? DMT so you took it orally how did you do it? Out of a crack pipe well I can tell you something I didn't expect that twice in the history of this podcast way more crack than I thought would be on this podcast I'm not gonna lie if you ask me about my journal from years ago I can safely say I did not write that You know, judging of our races, people would just throw... Someone would have expected ayahuasca from you and crack from...

1:43:47Crack pie from Trevor. And crack pie from you. You cheated. I said it first. It found me. No, you got me. You got me.

1:43:53Emily McDonald:It found me. You already threw meth my way. I can only have one. Okay, okay. I'll take crack. I can only have one. You take the crack pie. Okay, you take ayahuasca. Okay, perfect. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, no, it definitely found me. I didn't go seeking it, but it changed my life and it really taught me. It changed my meditation practice forever. To this day, I have this lightning bolt that strikes through me and my whole body's vibrating and I'm divinely guided and protected and charged up and electrocuted by the divine. So, I mean, it changed my life. But also going into the PhD, this happened right before I went into the PhD.

1:44:26Emily McDonald:And I just went with this like such a deep trust and surrender to the flow of life. And I had trust and surrender written on sticky notes like all over my apartment when I first got there. What does that do for you, by the way? To surrender? No, no. When you write, because I've seen you talk about that. What is that doing to the brain or to our minds when we like write something and put it everywhere and just constantly see it? Well, so writing it down activates those parts. It's similar to affirmations. So just the act of writing down an affirmation actually has been shown to activate reward pathways in the brain, which boost dopamine.

1:45:08Emily McDonald:So it makes you feel good in the moment. But also, it serves as a visual cue and reminder every time you look at it, which activates that pathway in your brain every time you look at it. And then that pathway becomes through Hebb's law, neurons that fire together, wire together. The more often that you activate the pathway, the stronger it becomes. And then it can become your dominant way of thinking, feeling, and acting. It becomes the default. It's called calligraphy and rock art throughout the ancient times, right? If it's written down and it's there and it's beautiful, you're meditating while writing.

1:45:41So it means you believe in it. It goes into the...

1:45:43Emily McDonald:I'm a big fan of handwriting, especially affirmations. like for for example i do this identity shifting visualization i like to write down who i saw by hand it actually it improves your ability to remember whatever it is versus typing our brain didn't evolve to type yes yeah that's writing this motion versus yeah i also just see like especially journaling yes by hand i i notice patterns in my thinking and i get ideas for content and stuff like that way more than if i'm typing let's talk a little bit about um psychedelics in general over the past let's say five years and maybe a decade i've noticed science slowly opening up and being allowed to open up to like in its defense you know because the u.s government changes and you see these things changing around the world but we've seen a shift now in how people treat even the conversation around psychedelics where once it was considered you know like this hippie thing that'll just destroy your life etc etc now we've seen you know the government doing tests around like mdma therapy and what it could do for veterans and looking at psychedelics and how terminal cancer patients completely subvert how they feel about the possibility of dying when they've now consumed psilocybin or people on dmt ayahuasca etc what do you think or what have you seen that has sort of like opened up a different area of how we see the brain and the mind because of psychedelics like because i'm the research now is still like young in a weird way even though we've had it for long and then we have some old stuff that's that's applying to now but in the very beginning it was cocaine that was the cure all for everything wait really yes that's why i was trying to say earlier you know we think we view this as a new mode of you know investigation but it's not at all like psychedelics were popular way back in the day.

1:47:37Emily McDonald:Drugs were popular way back in the day. Yeah, yeah. Whenever I was in the PhD and studying drug addiction, I learned about how all these came to be. And there was this book - Before I forget, there's something I want to ask you about that though. How do we define an addiction? I think a lot of people struggle with this. I might be one of them, but I know a lot of people will go, I'm not addicted. Sometimes people go, I'm not addicted to my phone. I just use it and I like keeping up to date with stuff, but I'm not addicted. And someone else would be like, oh no, I'm not addicted to that. I'm not addicted to this.

1:48:10How do we actually define addiction?

1:48:14Emily McDonald:Yeah, well, I mean, there's a whole DSM-5 criteria. And, you know, but I think when you think about just behaviorally, it's tolerance and dependence. Tolerance and dependence and withdrawal. Right, I mean, and withdrawal kind of can go in with tolerance and dependence. But when, I mean, really like in the science world, we don't even really use addiction. We use like, you know, dependence. Okay. Or substance abuse. And really what I look at, and when people ask me that I work with, right? Because there are people that, you know, smoke weed or different things. Should I stop? How do I know? And really it's tolerance and dependence.

1:48:50Emily McDonald:Do you have the ability to stop? Like, is that a conscious choice? If you were to, would you feel bad? That's dependence and tolerance, right? What happens when people say, I can stop anytime I want to. I just don't want to. because you hear people say that and i know you're just genuinely i've heard people say this and then i don't know yeah but i don't denial it's denial and i think again you can't you can't stop unless you want to and that's kind of what i was saying earlier yeah you cannot convince somebody to stop a behavior if they don't want to stop the behavior and so that's i mean obviously we know from objectively outside looking in okay you're probably dependent on this thing if you want to stop, then you're dependent on it.

1:49:31Emily McDonald:And if it's going to make you feel emotionally, you know, worse and you feel worse if you don't use it or do the thing, like for example, the phone, if you want a day without it, would you feel a raise in anxiety levels? And there's been studies on that. And that's shown that people do feel an increase in anxiety without the phone. I personally feel a decrease. I don't like, I love not being around my phone. But yeah, if you are going to, like we were saying earlier with the nicotine, if you're going to quick cold turkey does that increase your anxiety levels well that's dependence and also tolerance is do you need it more and more and more over time yeah um and so that's another way of knowing you know am i becoming dependent on this drug um am i good addictions then can you be addicted to good things absolutely like working out you can be addicted to anything that all drugs of abuse boost dopamine in the reward centers of the brain okay every single one and so if you anything that is anything that boosts dopamine in the reward centers can technically be addictive, right?

1:50:29Emily McDonald:Okay, got it. Especially if you have an addictive personality. And I think, yeah, there are things that, you know, you can become addicted to that, like personally for me, I love the grind. Like I love the feeling of sitting down and being at like working for like seven hours straight. Like, it feels so good to me. I love it. And, you know, being in college, I, and recently was writing my book. I kind of forgot like, damn, this makes me feel really good. It's sort of addicting. and you know I have this mindset of like I really am my own biggest cheerleader because every time I get up to go to the bathroom or get some water I'm like you're doing such a great job and like you got this and I get so much dopamine from that and then also that pride in yourself whenever you after you've done it it's like that feeling is addicting so absolutely like you can be addicted to good things for sure so now so sorry going back because you were going down the path you were talking about the work that we've done in and around understanding the brain and how psychedelics and all of these things affect them.

1:51:24You're talking about in addiction, et cetera, et cetera. So going back down that pathway, what are we starting to understand that we've maybe forgotten or what are we picking up on in the fields of neuroscience and psychedelics and how they can help people and how they can maybe not help people? Or what does it even help us understand about the brain itself?

1:51:44Emily McDonald:Yeah. I think one of the coolest things that it's taught us about the brain is about quieting the default mode network of the brain. You know about that? Okay. Yeah, I think that what we've found through psychedelic research, especially psilocybin, LSD, and also meditation quiets the default mode network as well, so does hypnosis. But what we've found is that when you can quiet the default mode network, you actually can alter your sense, your self-concept, your sense of self, habits. You can alter, you know, past memories and or trauma. You can really alter things in a way that we haven't really had the ability to before.

1:52:25Emily McDonald:And you come out of that experience a different person is the point. And when you alter your self-concept, like if you go on YouTube and you look up, oh, quantum leaping, every single hypnosis for quantum leaping is all about just altering your self-concept. Like that's really what it's about. When you alter your self-concept, you alter the story that your default mode network has saved as who you are. Like I'm a shy person. Right. I'm a messy person. And when you alter your self-concept and who you are, that story of who you are, then your default mode network is not only responsible for who you are, but also your default mode of thinking, feeling, behaving, your decision making, all of it.

1:53:06Emily McDonald:So when you alter your self-concept, now your default mode of thinking, feeling, and behaving is different. and so it changes you forever rather than just over time working on reducing your stress or no when you change who you think you are and who you know you are the person that you are then it changes it changes everything so essentially it's almost like yeah these are just external tools and as you said meditation or internal tools but fundamentally what it's able to do is change which lines you're perceptive to as your kitten you're like shifting you're I'm a horizontal kitten or I was a vertical kitten my whole life and it's like oh no no no now you can you can work on changing that and you're like no no no I'm not a horizontal kitten anymore but I think Wayne Dyer said it nicely when he says change the way you see things and the things you see will change I love Wayne Dyer he was incredible and it's how Oprah changed her life right and changed the course of her show when she started giving things away and making people feel good and recognizing people were working hard was because she was affected by the book She had read the book and she thought it's not about salaciousness and gossip and about conflict.

1:54:15The show could be about giving and sharing. And she started reading these books and the book club and introducing people to these concepts. And then they started seeping into the Gary Zukovs and them, into the zeitgeist of what America started being about when they thought of a talk show, right?

1:54:29Emily McDonald:Right. And these drugs, of course, they also boost a lot of neuroplasticity as well. And that helps to change the brain long term too. So it's kind of a combination of a lot of things happening all at once, which is why these drugs can make such huge differences in people's lives very quickly. And we can do those things, you know, over time. But also, you know, these drugs, they alter people's state of consciousness. They allow you to look at the world in a way that you've never seen the world before. And when you do that, there's no going back from that experience, right? You can't unsee it. I remember the first time I ever looked at the moon and saw like, you know, when you look at the moon and it's like a waxing crescent or something, you see a crescent moon.

1:55:13Emily McDonald:And I remember the first time I looked at the moon on psilocybin and saw the entire moon, but just that the sun was coming from over here only lighting up that little bit. And I was like, oh, wow. And I saw it in a way that I can never unsee ever again. And it's the way that it actually is. And I think, you know, and this is my personal kind of opinion or theory on this, but like we've talked about, the brain constructs everything that we see. It constructs our entire experience. And so these mind-altering drugs, they kind of allow you to see those different, like what you were saying in the video, in the replay.

1:55:49Emily McDonald:Different replays. They allow you to see the different replays from all these different angles, right? And have this all of a sudden brand new perception on life. and you don't come out of that the same. You come out of that viewing the world completely different. You know, it's funny. I've always thought that's why alcohol is legal and all these psychedelics have always been pushed to the fringes of illegality because alcohol, from what I've experienced and what I've seen, is something that sort of dulls your senses in that way. It's a depressant. Yeah, and it's a perfect tool to keep people living in a system that has you suppressed and oppressed in a certain way.

1:56:31And then psychedelics, I don't know if you ever read, this thing, it really blew my mind, was in and around like the whole free love movement and, you know, Vietnam and that whole time. One of the biggest things that scared the US government at that time I think it was Nixon, I stand to be correct I'm always bad with the presidents But I think it was his administration One of the things they talked about internally was they said These drugs are undermining the very principle that America is built on And that is people aiming upwards to be like manager, manager's manager, district manager Because people were just like, no, do you need a ride?

1:57:07Jump in do you need some food come on let's go hey come hang out with us people just walking around like free love movement yeah but it now became they're like we need to shut this down because it goes against the structure that we're building which is get as much as you can from as many people as you can and just fight to stay there in your own little world we can't allow that but alcohol ironically does the opposite if you go to a job that you hate and you hate your world and you hate your thing you have alcohol

1:57:34Emily McDonald:makes you feel better about it it makes you forget about it even more than that and it just it just numbs you makes you feel less about it yeah makes you feel less about it and then you go do it again and then you go do it again and then you go do it again but if you took psilocybin or if your manager took psilocybin there's a good chance they might just be like hey man I don't know take Friday off who cares about Friday did you do the work but I'm a trial lawyer but that's what the judge imagine the judge or you might just be like hey you know who even needs this defense like the judge yeah a person might be like actually aren't we already in prison I'll go in It's fine You know And I say this You're right No no no You're absolutely right It makes sense It's joking but at the same time Yeah I mean I've had experiences Where I'm like you know Maybe I should just Live in this you know National forest That I'm in right now This would be awesome And never talk to anybody And not have a phone Like that would be great Yeah And it really has you wanting that That's what I mean about Like the further The further we get And disconnect Em we could talk to you forever And I mean that's why You wrote a book That's why you have your podcast That's why you have all these things If you were to leave us with one, I mean, you've left us with so much there, but if you were to leave us with like one, just like one idea or one concept.

1:58:44In terms of starting, you know, people talk about journaling, people talk about meditation, people talk about people. But what would you say was just like just the first catalyst that you would say to somebody, hey, just just do this and do it repeatedly. And it might not change everything. But I think that this is like the the first step that you might want to take to just start changing how you see the world and yourself in it.

1:59:09Emily McDonald:Yeah, I would say the first step, and we touched on this a little, is starting with your internal sort of conversation and how you think about yourself and about the world and just kind of rewiring that. That's where I started. I would get up every single morning and I would go on a walk and I would listen to affirmations on YouTube. I actually still have that playlist of affirmations on YouTube completely available to everybody. So if you want to go and listen to it, go for it. but start rewiring the way that you think, and that will change everything. When you change the way you think, we talked about you change the way you look at things, the things that you look at change.

1:59:50Emily McDonald:And the first step in changing the way that you see the world is changing the way that you see yourself and changing the way that, and we talked about this with relationships too, like everything changes when you change how you treat yourself and you will no longer settle for anything less than you deserve. And you'll believe in yourself, which is extremely powerful. So I would say that really is the first step is working on your own self-concept and how you talk to yourself. And that's the best place to start. Because even if your external reality doesn't change, which I think it will, your internal reality definitely will.

2:00:23Emily McDonald:And you'll start to feel better. And at the end of the day, what's the point of doing any of this work of rewiring your brain if you don't feel better? That's the point. That's the whole point is to feel better. We get so caught up in manifesting this or manifesting that or this achievement. But life, the majority of our life is the time between the achievements. It's the journey. If it was about the destination, it'd be called death. It's about the moments between the achievements. And so how can we make those moments more enjoyable? And it really just comes down to how you treat yourself, how you talk to yourself.

2:00:57Emily McDonald:That'll change every—it does change everything when you change the way that you talk to yourself and treat yourself. So I would start there. you've changed everything. Thank you for joining us. Thank you guys for having me. Genuinely amazing. This has been great. Did I not tell you this would be one of your favorites? I wrote that down in your journal, buddy. Are we going to be friends now, Eugene? Yes, we are. Yes, we are. No, Em, for real, thank you so much. Em, you're amazing. Thank you for your generosity. Yeah, thank you guys for having me. This has been awesome. Thanks, y 'all. You never lied, eh?

2:01:29What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Day Zero Productions in partnership with Sirius XM. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin, and Jess Hackle. Rebecca Chain is our producer. Our development researcher is Marcia Robiu. Music, mixing, and mastering by Hannes Brown. Random Other Stuff by Ryan Parduth. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week for another episode of What Now?

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