Transcription
[00:00:00] Casey O'Roarty: Hello, welcome to the Joyful Courage podcast, a place for inspiration and transformation as we try and keep it together while parenting our tweens and teens. This is real work and when we can focus on our own growth and nurturing the connection with our kids, we can move through the turbulence.
[00:00:30] I am your fearless host, positive discipline trainer, space holder, coach, and the adolescent lead at Sproutable. I am also mom to a daughter in her early twenties and a son who is at the beginning of his college journey and have walked right beside you. So on this path of raising our kids with positive discipline and conscious parenting, yes, this continues to be real for me, even as my kids no longer live at home, which is so weird by the way.
[00:00:58] This show is meant to be a resource to you and I work hard to keep it real, transparent and authentic so that you feel seen and supported. Today is an interview and I have no doubt that what you. Well, here will be useful to you. Please join me on my mission of supporting parents sharing truly is caring.
[00:01:16] If you love today's show, please pass the link around, snap a screenshot, post it on your social media, or text it to your friends together. We can make an even bigger impact. on families around the world. This week we are throwing it way back to 2018. I am sharing the first interview I did with Dr. Dan Siegel.
[00:01:37] He was on to promote his book, Aware, the Science and Practice of Presence. I was so excited. You'll hear it in the interview. I was so excited to finally get to talk to him and remember getting lots of feedback from listeners about how much they enjoyed this particular show. Presence. is everything. And in a world with so much distraction, our teens, the people we love, they really need to feel our presence to know that we are dropping in with them.
[00:02:07] And it takes a conscious effort. My hope is that you take away a bunch of nuggets about how you can be more present from this conversation. Enjoy the show.
[00:02:21] Welcome listeners. My guest today is Dr. Dan Siegel. Dan is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and the founding co director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. He is also the executive director of the Mindsight Institute, which focuses on the development of mindsight.
[00:02:44] teaches insight, empathy, and integration in individuals, families, and communities. Dr. Siegel is published extensively for both the professional and the lay audiences. We, by the way, are the lay audiences. His New York Times bestsellers are Mind, A Journey to the Heart of Being Human, Brainstorm, The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain, and three books.
[00:03:08] with Joyful Courage podcast favorite, Tina Payne Bryson, The Whole Brain Child, No Drama Discipline, and The Yes Brain. You all have heard me talk a lot about how Dr. Segal's work influences me and my work with parents. And he is on today to tell us about his new book. aware the science and practice of presence.
[00:03:29] I am so excited to have him on the show. Welcome Dan. Welcome to the podcast.
[00:03:34] Dr. Dan Siegle: Well, great to be here with you, Casey. It's an honor.
[00:03:37] Casey O'Roarty: Yay. Well, please share with the listeners a little bit about how you found yourself doing what you do.
[00:03:43] Dr. Dan Siegle: Well, you know, uh, I'm a person on the planet and a father of two kids who are now in their 20s and also, you know, I went through, um, medical school and initially pediatrics and then psychiatry and then I became a child and adolescent psychiatrist and then an attachment researcher and all that journey, um, I started both practicing being a parent as a dad, but also professionally, you know, being interested in how to help the parents I was working with bring optimal parenting to their own experiences with their kids.
[00:04:20] And then as a scientist, I really wanted to know kind of what's the grounding in research. for what optimizes a child's development. So, putting all that stuff together led to me combining all the fields of science into one framework. It has a fancy name called Interpersonal, meaning what happens between us, the inter and the personal, what happens within us.
[00:04:42] Neurobiology, so the sciences of all sorts of things, including what happens in the brain. And that field then allowed me to articulate for researchers, you know, a way of thinking about what development is all about and for my patients, uh, how to help support them the best I could. And then as a parent, for us in our parenting to really think about what's the science behind what we know about effective parenting that helps children thrive.
[00:05:13] And that's kind of. Where the journey brought me the idea of presence, uh, in this last book, The Wheel of Awareness, which helps you develop that presence. So for parents, it would be basically what the science says is the most important gift we can give to our kids is showing up with our mental presence, not just physically being present, but to have the state of awareness and be receptive and open to who they actually are.
[00:05:40] Casey O'Roarty: You know, I have to tell you that one of the first times that I saw you speak, you were talking about, um, you were here talking about brainstorm, I believe. And, uh, at the Q and a, a woman got up to the mic and said, okay, so. Um, you know, what do you, what do I do when I walk into the kitchen and my teenagers are being really short and disrespectful to me?
[00:06:04] You know, what are the practical things that I need to be doing with them? And this is when I decided like, Oh, I love Dan Siegel is because you said, well, you know, you're probably not going to like my answer, but really it's about what are you going to do for yourself? So, you know, and I'm paraphrasing something like so that you can be with their behavior in a way that's helpful for them and that's and I was just
[00:06:29] you're right
[00:06:29] Casey O'Roarty: so excited by that response and And so grateful that while that what you found in your work that you you connect so much to the mindfulness work That we as humans are, you know are invited into practicing and you really You know, I'm really appreciative because your books that the ones that you write for parents, um, the lay people take what we teach in positive discipline and really support it with science.
[00:07:01] And the whole brain child comes up at nearly every training that I lead, that I lead with parents. And, um, and really that idea that this is all this journey towards self regulation, both for our children, but also for us. And I say to my clients and my listeners, you know, our children are here to teach and grow us.
[00:07:22] And I think we don't even realize what self regulation is until we step into the journey of parenting. And I'm wondering, was that what led you to writing a book about presence?
[00:07:35] Dr. Dan Siegle: You know, it's exactly kind of how you're describing it is, um, I think the journey of being a parent myself, uh, really, it got me to really deeply experience how important it is for our kids that we do our own internal work.
[00:07:55] You know, I think when Mary Hartzell and I, my daughter's preschool director, wrote Parenting from the Inside Out based on the science of a textbook I wrote called The Developing Mind, um, it was to say, you know, how can you develop a coherent understanding of what happened to you when you were a kid, and that's called a coherent narrative, and that's what that book is all about.
[00:08:16] Aware. This book about presence really would help a parent say, okay, what do I do with my experience of just being aware? Beyond even just making sense of my past, what do I do with my present? And so this book is a practical guide to saying, well, what do we know about the science of that? And so what I do is I walk the reader step by step as if they knew absolutely nothing to start with about the science of the mind or you know the brain or relationships or anything like that.
[00:08:50] So it's definitely a book you can start with if you haven't written any other books. And then it takes you on a journey to practicing this reflective practice that I've been doing for decades now, you know, that I did systematically with 10, 000 people and recorded the results of those people who took a microphone and said, this is what I experienced.
[00:09:08] So this practice is called the wheel of awareness, and it's really quite simple. It's a drawing. In fact, my daughter, who's now in her 20s, um, is a wonderful illustrator, and she did the drawings for the book. She was able to really show in these beautiful drawings about how we all can visualize The mind as a wheel, where the center of the wheel, the hub, represents the knowing of being aware.
[00:09:36] So if I say to you, you know, Casey, hello, did you know that I said, Casey, hello?
[00:09:44] Casey O'Roarty: Yes. I heard you say it. Yes.
[00:09:46] Dr. Dan Siegle: Yes. But how do you know you've heard me?
[00:09:50] Casey O'Roarty: Uh, because I have a relationship with language. I don't know how I know that I heard you. I just know that I heard you.
[00:09:57] Dr. Dan Siegle: Exactly. So that phrase, I just know, is what awareness is.
[00:10:01] You were aware that I said hello. It's the, it's what's called a prime. You can't go any deeper than that. It's, it's a basic subjective experience of the mind to know I said hello. Then you have not only the knowing, you have the known. Now in this case, the known was hello. I could say ocean. And now the known would be ocean, but the awareness would be the same.
[00:10:24] That is, you'd have the knowing experience of the known, whether it's ocean or hello. So, anyway, when you look at it that way. It's amazingly empowering and quite simple to say let's integrate consciousness and what that means is integration is when you differentiate stuff when you make them different or distinguished and Then you link them or connect them.
[00:10:48] So, you know with the whole brain child, you know The whole thing is about integration or parenting from the inside out. It's all about integration the idea here you know awareness is we can Differentiate the knowing and let's put it in the hub of a wheel and the knowns and put them on the rim and when you do that then let's say you're interacting with your child and you're getting upset with what's going on and you're filled with tension in your muscles and your jaw is tight and you're breathing fast and your heart is pounding and all that stuff is going on and you know it takes you over
[00:11:20] Mm hmm
[00:11:21] Dr. Dan Siegle: And it's as if you had like a small espresso cup size awareness in the hub and this tablespoon of salt of a challenge in life.
[00:11:31] Your, your, your child won't go to school or she's saying she doesn't like to do her homework or whatever the issue is, your muscles get all tense. That's like this tablespoon of salt that life is giving out to you at that moment. If your awareness, your hub is small, like the size of an espresso cup, if we put a tablespoon of salt in that espresso cup of water.
[00:11:51] Casey, what would it taste like? Salt. It would taste salt. It would be too salty to actually drink. Yeah. And you'd be flooded with the saltiness of it all and overwhelmed. Yes. What if we could give you a way, and that's what the Wheel of Awareness practice is, to expand the size of your awareness, the size of your hub, to be a hundred gallons.
[00:12:13] And now life dishes out with you the same dish out to you the same, you know, tablespoon of salt and we throw it in now a hundred gallons of water of awareness. What would that taste like if we stirred it up and then you sipped it?
[00:12:29] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah, we probably wouldn't even. Taste it.
[00:12:32] Dr. Dan Siegle: You wouldn't even taste it. It would be fresh water and you could drink.
[00:12:34] You would stay well hydrated as you were dealing with the challenges of life if you've learned to expand awareness. That's what aware is all about. It's what the wheel of awareness practice that I teach in the book teaches parents or anyone how to do to the point where it turns out that it builds on three pillars of strengthening your mind.
[00:12:57] Mm hmm.
[00:12:57] Dr. Dan Siegle: And it turns out when you look at the research on those three pillars, usually they're done separately, but in the wheel it turns out they're on one practice. When you look at those three pillars, they do all sorts of amazing things, and I'll say what the science shows, and if this wasn't published in the most rigorous, peer reviewed scientific journals that we have, I would say, oh, come on, this can't be true.
[00:13:20] But, you know, the colleagues who've shown this that I know are rigorous researchers, these journals are incredibly hard, uh, to get. Passed their review process, but here's what it shows when you develop the presence of that 100 gallon size Awareness when you develop this capacity to be receptively aware, which is what presence is you?
[00:13:42] improve the way your immune system functions You reduce stress hormone levels. You optimize how your cardiovascular system is functioning, including lowering cholesterol. You actually reduce inflammation by altering these molecules that sit on top of the DNA of your genes, called epigenetic regulators, to reduce inflammation.
[00:14:07] And There's an enzyme called telomerase that repairs and maintains the caps on your chromosomes that protect the integrity of your DNA. And as we get older and as we get stressed, these caps get whittled down. And as they get whittled down, the cells get sick and die and we get sick and die. So, presence, it turns out, optimizes the enzyme, telomerase, that repairs the ends of the chromosomes so that, as Elizabeth Blackburn, who won the Nobel Prize for this, and her colleague, Alyssa Eppel, have written in their beautiful book, The Telomere Effect, That when you develop this mental presence, you actually optimize telomerase levels.
[00:14:51] And when Alyssa was, Alyssa Eppel was reviewing my book to consider writing an endorsement, she wrote back to me after she finished the book and said, Dan, have you sent it to the printer yet? I said, well, actually, no, it's not quite at the printer. Why? What's up? She goes, well, I want to make a suggestion. I said, oh my God, some big change.
[00:15:08] I go, what's the suggestion? She goes, everything you say is accurate. I said, oh, that's good. She goes, but you've left one thing out. I said, what did I leave out? She goes, you should say that being present. in your mind slows the aging process.
[00:15:25] Casey O'Roarty: Wow.
[00:15:26] Dr. Dan Siegle: And I said, you're kidding. And this is like the world's expert in the aging process.
[00:15:30] I said, can I really say that? She said, not only can you say it, you should say it. You should let your reader know the truth. That's what we've shown. So, it also slows aging. So But if you would have said this 20 years ago, I'd say, Oh, come on, Casey. This is ridiculous. That's just too way out there. This is what has been shown.
[00:15:49] So what's so exciting about the book aware is that I tried to make it really straightforward. Here's here are the findings. You have a choice. It doesn't cost anything. There's no money. You don't have to buy gadgets. You can learn to develop presence in your life. It'll create these positive physiological changes in you.
[00:16:10] Many research studies show that it'll also grow fibers in your brain that are called integrative fibers that link the widely separated areas to each other so you Your brain becomes more resilient, basically, more integrated. And the studies of well being show that an integrated brain, which this practice can create through these three pillar trainings, it will be, um, it is, in fact, the highest correlation in the brain with well being.
[00:16:36] So it will be a Brain aspect of what this practice can do for you that creates more well being in your life. That's just for you.
[00:16:45] Mm hmm.
[00:16:46] Dr. Dan Siegle: We talk about your relationship with your child and what the studies show about that kind of presence and what it does for attachment. It'll allow your child to have the four S's that we can talk about of attachment that are associated with your child having the optimal kind of growth that you can provide in terms of attachment relationships.
[00:17:07] Casey O'Roarty: So, it's self care on fire. And I just, I love all of this because, you know, we call it parenting, but really it's humaning, right? It's, it's human relationships and relationship with ourself and overall health and wellbeing. I mean, yes, we have a choice, but how can, I mean, it's really not a choice people, right?
[00:17:29] I mean, if we're here. To grow and develop as human beings and spiritual beings, you know, the, the practice, practice that you're talking about is why wouldn't everybody be big ole yes to it, right? So when you talk about presence, can you kind of tease that out and define what you mean by presence?
[00:17:52] Dr. Dan Siegle: Yes. So presence would be a state of receptive awareness.
[00:17:59] So let's, I'll give you an example. Let's say you're a parent, you know, and your child comes to, um, you know, she's 11 and she really wants to go, you know, uh, join the, the soccer team. But you had these visions for her, you know, being a singer and a dancer and being in theater, cause it's something you always wanted to do.
[00:18:21] And so you go, well, you know, the soccer team, I don't know, you know, the. The practice times are not so good. You know, the rehearsal times for the dance team. Now those work in with our schedule and that's all fine. I mean, the dance team, the dance team, you know, and you could take singing lessons and your child goes, well, I really want to play soccer.
[00:18:37] But you love singing, you know, you just go on and on. So there's nothing wrong with having ideas for your child, but when it prevents you from being present, you've got this filter that's not allowing you to see your child's passion for soccer, for athletics. So that would be an example where your body is physically there.
[00:19:00] You could be. At home all the time and physically available, but you're not mentally present because here's what research Suggests is happening and not just this with this one interaction about requesting Soccer versus you know theater, but in general Our children learn who they are through the authentic ways we receive their signals make sense of those signals and respond to them in a timely and effective way.
[00:19:32] And so when a child comes with us with a passion they have, and we quickly try to reroute them to something else, we're not reflecting to them in our response to them an authentic way that we've received who they are. And if this has been happening since the child was a baby. Then you can only imagine the not clear sense of self that that child has when the parent has not been present.
[00:20:00] Because
[00:20:01] Dr. Dan Siegle: when you're present, you're seeing a child and other people clearly. When you're filled with these filters, you're distorting what's happening or you're distracted. And in any of those ways, in very different kinds of ways, a child isn't seen authentically. And then they don't get to know themselves in an authentic way either.
[00:20:31] Casey O'Roarty: I appreciate that. And I'm, I have a 15 year old daughter, um, who is really good at letting me know when I'm getting it wrong. Yeah. Um, as they do. And so I get to, instead of beating myself up, because sometimes when she calls me out, It's really easy to be like, Oh, I'm doing everything wrong. But instead I choose to think, Wow, I'm so grateful that we have an environment where she knows that she can point that kind of thing out to me.
[00:20:58] So I help myself get through it. But I love, you know, your example, you know, of the soccer and the dance. That's kind of an obvious, more obvious one. I think that there's a lot of times that we can miss. Those authentic receiving moments, um, especially when our kids, you know, when they're exploring or saying things that just in our adult mind, we don't make sense to us.
[00:21:26] We've been having a lot of conversation at our house, just around kind of spiritual beliefs. And my daughter was real quick, um, you know, she, right now everything is not, you know, it's not us. It's, it's the opposite of everything we think. One of the things that she said to me yesterday was well, I would tell you what I believe But you're just gonna tell me that I'm wrong.
[00:21:50] And so it was this great opportunity for me to Recognize Wow, do I do that? And when do I do that? And how can I start doing something different? And I'm grateful that she's able to be so clear with me, um, while also like, ah, wow. And so I'm coming back to that little cup, right? Versus the a hundred gallon container.
[00:22:15] And I'm wondering if, cause we talk about in positive discipline, we talk a lot about, well, what's the belief behind the behavior. And in those hot moments with our kids, it's hard to remember. Not to focus on the tip of the iceberg, but to really pay attention to what's happening under the surface here and how can I meet my child there versus You know, wanting to squash the annoying behavior.
[00:22:40] And so when I think about a larger container, a bigger wheel of awareness, a larger hub, that also creates space for remembering that it's not necessarily about the behavior that's being presented. There's always something deeper going on. So is that kind of a part of this whole practice is. Increasing the hub so that we can, you know, see our kids for where they're at and meet them there and kind of do our own self regulation so that we're not flying off the handle because we've been triggered and our emotions are taking over.
[00:23:13] Is that kind of what the hub is about? Is that space?
[00:23:17] Dr. Dan Siegle: Exactly. That's exactly what the space is.
[00:23:20] Casey O'Roarty: Okay.
[00:23:20] Dr. Dan Siegle: And it gives you, you know, this state of receptivity of openness that really allows you to have with a hundred gallon analogy in mind, you know, the ability to take in anything that comes in. Right?
[00:23:36] Yeah.
[00:23:36] Dr. Dan Siegle: And, you know, so if you think about the rim points as anything you can be aware of, like me saying Casey or hello, or, you know, in this case, the parents hearing the child wants to do soccer, you know, when you're lost on the rim and you're aware of what's going on, but you're lost there, it's like you have that small espresso cup size.
[00:23:56] But when you have this expanded hub, It means you take in the wide expanse of the whole rim. So, okay, so you say, I'm hearing my child be interested in soccer. I'm also aware on the rim, there's my dream that I wanted to be a singer, and I wanted to be in theater, and now there's a dream that I want my daughter to be in theater and be a singer.
[00:24:17] Oh, well that's kind of interesting, isn't it?
[00:24:19] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah,
[00:24:19] Dr. Dan Siegle: she wants to do soccer. I would rather her do singing. I'm also aware of the memory that I wished I was a singer. Oh, I see. I may be laying my stuff on her. Maybe that's not a good thing to do. Now she may love theater, but she can't do it to make up for what I didn't do.
[00:24:37] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. Yeah. So with my daughter, it would be, okay, I'm hearing her giving me feedback around how I'm showing up for her. I know my own experiences of being criticized growing up and I can, and I also have tools for this. Like I know how to respond differently for her. Those are all things on the rim. And because my hub is expanded, I can be with all of that instead of that's not, you know, instead of the other response, which is, that's not true.
[00:25:04] I don't criticize you. Am I onto something here? Exactly.
[00:25:09] Dr. Dan Siegle: So that spaciousness is really a way you strengthen your own mind to strengthen the relationship you have with your, your child, really, because this is where presence is such an awesome thing to know about. Number one. And then to see the steps to cultivate it.
[00:25:28] Number two, uh, you know, as a scientist, I'm also interested in like, wow, like what's the science of all that. So in the aware book, you get the practice and then you also get the backup of the science. If that's something that's interesting to you, you don't have to get into that at all, but if you want to, it's all there.
[00:25:43] And what's so fascinating about the science is when you as a parent cultivate presence, It's a win win win thing. One win is, as we mentioned, it improves your physiology and
[00:25:57] your
[00:25:58] Dr. Dan Siegle: health. Has you age more slowly? That's amazing. Number two, for an attachment research point of view, it's the number one thing you can do to be present in these ways of being receptively aware so you can take in your child's signals and then make sense of what's going on in their mind.
[00:26:15] I call that mind sight. Where you're seeing the mind beneath your child's behavior, and that's what research shows children really need from us. So that's the second win. And the third win is that as you actually offer this way of seeing your child so clearly, you're being a role model for your child on how to really be resilient in life.
[00:26:39] And it's a way, it's not a fact they're learning. It's an experience of connection that they're immersed in with you. And that's the third win, as they go off, you know, and listen, the days can be long, but the years are really short. You are out in the world, and you know, I remember the transition especially was so painful, because you know, you love your kids, and you love having them around, as challenging as it is.
[00:27:03] And then they launch off into the world, and When you see that they've taken this immersion and presence that you've offered as, you know, difficult and challenging as it can be, you know, to really be wide awake and to be receptive and to be open to what's going on is a lot, in many ways, more filled with just allowing connection to happen rather than trying to control everything.
[00:27:29] Because parents who try to control everything Of course, have this, um, you know, it's called authoritarian stance where they say I'm going to determine everything that happens to my child. And you can understand on one level, okay, well, this parent means well, and so they have a specific set of things in their mind for how to control all those things.
[00:27:50] And if a parent who's like that is listening, they're going to say, that's right, absolutely. But when you look at the research on what child development requires, It isn't authoritarian parenting, it's authoritative, and there's a big difference between those two. Authoritarian is, if you were my daughter Casey, I'd say, Here's the truth, I don't really care about your point of view or your feelings.
[00:28:17] This is the way it is. That's authoritarian. Authoritative would be saying, you know something, communication is very important. So we're gonna have dinners together so we can have a meal together, have time together, look at each other face to face, put our phones away, and we're gonna connect with each other.
[00:28:37] What's on your mind? That's authoritative, right? Yeah, this family has structure. We have principles. And we're going to have relationships that are respectful, compassionate, and curious about what's going on inside the other person's subjective experience. But at that table, I don't say to you, Casey, You know, I only want to hear you say exactly what I have in mind for you to say.
[00:28:59] No, I want to say, what's on your mind? And then the conversation deepens and widens. But we have the conversation. You know, rather than the other extreme, of course, is laissez faire parenting, where you just say, Hey, you know, I don't really believe any of this science, or I don't believe any of this anything.
[00:29:17] I'm just gonna not have any rules, and not do anything. Some people call it permissive parenting. And whatever, we don't have to have meals together, we don't have conversations together. You wanna be on your phone, that's fine. You can be on your, your video games, you know, ten hours a day, that's fine. I'm sure it'll all work out.
[00:29:34] Actually, no, it doesn't work out. Your children need structure.
[00:29:38] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:29:39] Dr. Dan Siegle: Yeah, they need structure. And so, children who don't have structure You know, have all sorts of other things during early, the early years that take over that aren't so good. They have a hard time regulating themselves, for example. And then when they get older in adolescence, they haven't been given the foundation of structure to know how to contain a lot of the big changes that happen in there as their brain is remodeling.
[00:30:03] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. You know, I had to open up my husband just read brainstorm. Yay. He really appreciated it and I had to open up my positive discipline for teenager's book early. My daughter just finished her freshman year of high school and I was really appreciating the pic, like there was a paragraph, I think you'll like this too, that says, do kids raise with positive discipline, which is authoritative, a model of authoritative parenting as best as the user is.
[00:30:28] You know, practicing it. Do kids raised with positive discipline rebel as teenagers? And the very first sentence is, well, yes, you can't interrupt brain development. Like brain development still happens. Like adolescent brain development is still going to happen. And so, you know, there's a variety of different ways that kids choose into rebellion, but that was really comforting.
[00:30:51] So, um, I don't know if that's a good way to put it, but I think it's important to remember that, okay, yeah, there's, there's brain development happening here. There's science here that I can lean on and actually made me feel freer as a parent versus like, oh my gosh, what's happening. Although I do have those moments too.
[00:31:05] Dr. Dan Siegle: Yeah, exactly. And it can be. Listen, parenting is probably the hardest job in the world and I think the reason, you know, I take the time to think deeply about these topics and not only, you know, understand the science of them and so I can do well as a therapist, but the reason I write the books is that, you know, this information is transformational.
[00:31:29] You know, and so you really want to help. We want to help each other. So if the science can be translated in a way that's really honest with the science, but really practical for the user, the reader, the parents, um, then that's a real joy to be a part of that conversation.
[00:31:57] Casey O'Roarty: So when you work with people who show up and their practice is reactive. Versus receptively aware. What are some practices that you encourage your clients and your readers? to engage in so as to grow that hub from the tiny espresso shot glass into something that's more spacious and open.
[00:32:22] Dr. Dan Siegle: Yeah, exactly.
[00:32:23] Well, you know, where, you know, I talk about an actual person, I've changed her name to Mona. You know, who has that exact challenge in front of her, you know, she's got three young kids and she's really having a difficult time, you know, in part, just because she doesn't have much support from her partner or, you know, any neighbors or family members around, and, you know, we really were.
[00:32:46] meant in terms of our evolution to have this thing called alloparenting, where we share the caregiving of children. I mean, that's the village, the village, and you know, and there's only a select few other village members, but there's a village. So modern times, you know, are really stressful for, for contemporary parents because we've lost that village.
[00:33:07] We've lost the family support. People are so mobile and they're going here, going there. And anyway, so that just by itself Is kind of living in a very stressful, unsupportive environment for young parents, so that's That's the first thing she and I talked about, Mona and I. Um, but the next thing to say was, okay, let's try to work on that the best we can, but how do you work literally from the inside out to understand what, um, she would be flipping her lid a lot and going into a rage.
[00:33:40] You know, what that rage is all about, what the flipping your lid is all about. So we went over the hand model of the brain. We started the Wheel of Awareness practice because what the practice does in a very straightforward way that's accessible, Basically, to anyone who tries it, is it distinguishes the hub from the rim.
[00:33:59] Mm hmm.
[00:33:59] Dr. Dan Siegle: And as you do the simple practice of, and I do the Wheel of Awareness every day, you know, you, of just resting in the hub and then sending this metaphoric spoke of attention out to the first segment of the rim, which is your first five senses, what you hear, see, smell, taste, and touch. Mm hmm. You then move the spoke over to the second segment.
[00:34:20] And you explore the internal signals of the body, the sensations of muscles and bones and the organs like the intestines and heart. And then you move the spoke over, and this is all done slowly and systematically. You know, you move the spoke over to the third segment of the rim, which represents knowns like Emotions or memories or thoughts or ideas, hopes, dreams, longings, desires, all those we can just call mental activities.
[00:34:46] And then you move the spoke over to the fourth and final segment of the room, which is your sense of connection to other people, to the larger planet, you know, and there's even a more advanced stage where you bend the spoke around or retract the spoke into the hub itself. And so you explore awareness of awareness and for Mona to get the visual image that the experience of being aware was distinct from that which she was aware of, even just the image as we started.
[00:35:16] To learn the idea of the wheel and then she started to practice it that idea Started to change everything What what people experience when they do the wheel as a practice? Is that there's a spaciousness of mind called the hub as a metaphor That there's a whole science description in the book, but we don't need to get into it here But there's a spaciousness of awareness that can be cultivated so that you go from an espresso cup size to a hundred gallon size.
[00:35:46] And as you do that, there's a tranquility that's there. There's an openness, a receptivity. There's a feeling of joy even and a feeling of connection that Mona could cultivate. And then even when she get lost on the rim and start flipping her lid. She knew there was another thing that she could access and over time it became more and more accessible for her to sense when something on the rim was turning into a flipping your lid moment and she could back off from that if she did flip her lid.
[00:36:20] It was easier for her to get back into more of what we call an integrated state where she could be able to connect productively with her kids. And over time, you know, these episodes got less and less, less frequent, less intense. She got back to baseline more readily. And then basically they kind of stopped generally happening and of course any of us it can still happen, but um, this was her course.
[00:36:43] So I described her journey in a lot of detail. You get a bit of it in the beginning, you then do the practice yourself, then you hear the science of it, then you get deeply into how did this Wheel of Awareness practice really change Mona and the others, the other four that I described in detail.
[00:37:00] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. I love that.
[00:37:02] And it reminds me of I'm a trained coach and the language that we learned in coach training was growing our observer, you know, being an observation of ourselves. And I feel like when I listened to you talk about Mona, you really helped her in developing and growing her observer and having that. You know, or we'll say like, what does this look like?
[00:37:27] I'll say to clients, you know, how can you in the moments where, and I love your hand model. I talk about it all the time. My listeners are very familiar with your hand model of the brain and really how, you know, something that I think is so useful both for us to be teaching our children, but for us to be learning about ourselves is.
[00:37:48] The physical experience of being flipped and how it doesn't just show up all of a sudden that it really there's all sorts of messages and signals that we get from our body and to start to pay attention and I guess that's where presence comes in right to know that you can pay attention to that and as that experience happens also being able I'll say to take a balcony seat so you see that your child is having a problem you see that you are And you see that there's lots of different ways to tweak and shake up what's happening so as to support your child in getting through their problem, but also support yourself and staying calm and available for them.
[00:38:33] And that is what is coming up for me as I listen to you talk about the hub. And you also write about. Monitoring, I love these two words, monitoring and modifying in the context of developing a stronger mind. Will you talk a little bit about that? About those practices?
[00:38:50] Dr. Dan Siegle: Sure. I mean, this is the fascinating comment to make as we get into monitoring and modifying.
[00:38:56] It's amazing that the word mind, M I N D. doesn't have a definition in essentially any field that deals with the mind, whether it's psychology, which I'm trained in, or psychiatry, which I'm trained in, or the field of philosophy of mind even says you shouldn't define what the mind is. Um, and it's been said that Uh, in academic circles, and I'll say what they say, but I don't think this is the full story, that the word mind really is a synonym for brain activity.
[00:39:26] Brain activity may be related to feelings, thoughts, and behavior is one way people describe it. And Hippocrates said that 2, 500 years ago, and William James repeated that basically in 1890 with the principles of psychology, the father of modern psychology. And the issue here is, I think the mind can be defined.
[00:39:47] Beyond just saying it's brain activity, which if it's just brain activity, let's drop the word mind and just have the word brain activity. So, part of what I've been doing, you know, on the professional side of things is saying, wow, this is fascinating. We have a field of education, of parenting, of, of, uh, psychology, of psychiatry and all these fields of mental health, you know, philosophy of mind.
[00:40:11] No one's saying what the mind is. Gosh, maybe we should say what the mind is. And so I say what the mind is. I mean, 25 years ago, I kind of offered a definition. And that definition, it's a long story, but the bottom line is it talks about the mind as this self organizing emergent process. That's both within your whole body.
[00:40:30] So we say it's an embodied process, but it's also relational, like happening right now between you and me, Casey, and also between us and anyone listening. The mind emerges relationally. It's a betweenness as well as a withinness that happens in your whole body, not just your brain. Now the mind includes subjective experience, the feeling of what happens.
[00:40:51] Your awareness of that, so there's the consciousness piece. Information processing, like using a computer or a book, you know, that's not necessarily inside your body even, but that's a part of our minds. It's called extended cognition, as well as embodied cognition. But it also includes this other aspect that gets in the monitoring and modifying part, which is, when you see the mind as this emergent property of what's called a complex system, what that means by being a self organizing emergent property is that it's regulating.
[00:41:21] and the particular thing it's regulating is energy and information flow. And that flow is happening both within your body, including your brain, but not limited by the skull, but it's not even limited by the skin. It's also happening in our relationality with each other. Now, once you say something is regulatory, The natural thing to say is, you know, what is a regulatory process and think about regulating a bicycle, you've got to watch where you're going, so that's the monitoring part, and then you have to modify it, you know, you have to pedal, you have to steer, you have to brake, so any process that's a regulatory process, like this proposal of a definition of the mind, means that you can tease it apart as having two aspects, monitoring and modifying.
[00:42:08] Then once you take the bold step and define something, you can then say, okay, well, I've defined it. Then you can say what's a healthy mind. And this is also something I've been writing about for about a quarter of a century that says that a healthy mind is a mind that emerges from optimal self organization, which actually Okay.
[00:42:30] comes from integration, the linking of differentiated parts. And when a system is integrated, it flows in harmony. It's flexible and adaptive when it is not integrated. It's like a river of integration. It goes to one of two banks. It goes to either chaos on one bank outside of the flow of harmony, or it goes the other bank, which is rigidity.
[00:42:53] And interestingly, that excludes a lot of parenting challenges. Oh, yeah. Mindworks, all these things. Anyway, that's the basic proposal. So you can strengthen your mind. By taking these two components, monitoring, modifying, and learning how to stabilize a tripod that holds up a kind of mind sight lens, the lens to see energy and information flow, and as you stabilize that with openness, objectivity, and observation, these three O's of the tripod, what you're doing is you're allowing yourself to see with more focus, depth, detail, and clarity.
[00:43:32] And now, it'd be like, Casey, if you and I were going to a park and we had a, you know, a camera and a phone with us or whatever, and it was all bumpy, right, we weren't holding it still, and then we came back and uploaded the video, it would be just what? It'd be a blurry mess, right? That's how a lot of people see life.
[00:43:52] Just blurry. So the first thing you want to do is stabilize that camera. Stabilize that lens. That's the monitoring part. And then the second part of a strong mind, in addition to stabilizing the lens, which you learned how to do in the AWARE book, the second part is modify toward integration. And this is where, you know, going to the science has been so helpful because once you say what the science is, then there are natural practical applications, like how do I stabilize monitoring?
[00:44:21] How do I learn to modify toward an integrated state? And that's what the whole Aware book is about, and it's what you can learn how to do. And it really empowers you to bring well being, not only into your inner mental life, but your mental life is also in your relationship with your kids, with your partner, with your family, with your friends, with everyone, you know, so you can bring integration into all those relational aspects of your mind.
[00:44:48] Casey O'Roarty: I love that. And I, I'm just going to like make, I'm going to. Try to simplify it using one of my favorite tools of yours from another book that you wrote, Whole Brain Child, which is name it to tame it. So if we were going to use monitoring and modifying in the context of a child who's dysregulated, having an emotional dysregulated experience.
[00:45:10] And just correct me if I'm wrong. So I see monitoring as the parent being in a state of mind to recognize my child is having emotional distress right now. And then the modifying piece being, okay, so I'm going to, you know, validate how they're feeling, put a name to it and to help them get to a more integrated brain.
[00:45:32] So, it's that aware, that paying attention, being present to the bigger, larger hub of things going on versus just, oh my god, we're in the grocery store and you're freaking out and I'm freaking out, to like, okay, my child is having a problem, and what are the tools that I can use to help myself and my child?
[00:45:52] Dr. Dan Siegle: Exactly. That's exactly right. And you know, you are then empowered by strengthening the way you your mind works by stabilizing monitoring and always realizing modifying toward integration brings you to health every time. It's quite amazing, actually. Yeah, that's what you can do, you know,
[00:46:10] Casey O'Roarty: and tell me the three O's openness observation.
[00:46:14] And what was the objectivity
[00:46:15] Dr. Dan Siegle: like a thought like, Oh, my daughter should rather be an art. You know, rather than soccer, that's an object of your attention. It's not an absolute aspect of reality.
[00:46:26] Casey O'Roarty: Right.
[00:46:27] Dr. Dan Siegle: Got it.
[00:46:28] Casey O'Roarty: Oh, my gosh. I could talk to you all day, but I know that you're a busy guy. And there's so many other pieces to this book.
[00:46:35] Do you have any other words of wisdom that you would like to leave the listeners with?
[00:46:40] Dr. Dan Siegle: Well, you know, I think the basic message that Casey and I are sharing with you is you have the ability. To actually cultivate the presence of mind through these very simple and accessible practices that are going to bring health to your body, slow the aging process, reduce stress, all these positive things, and the same exact process.
[00:47:07] Developing the hub of your wheel of awareness, the presence, can actually deeply enrich the way your child is soaking in his or her relationship with you and developing this experience of being seen, of being soothed, of being safe, of being secure, that research shows is exactly what your child needs to optimize how they go out into life.
[00:47:34] And that's something you're empowered to create.
[00:47:37] Casey O'Roarty: Yes. And I love that you started with every single one of us, every single one of you that are listening to this conversation. There's no one that's left out of this, that we all are invited in and are capable of growing in this way. And I really appreciate that message.
[00:47:53] So as you know, the name of my podcast is Joyful Courage. And I love to ask each of my guests in the context of what we've been talking about. And for you and I, it's this context of presence and growing our awareness. What does joyful courage mean to you, Dan?
[00:48:11] Dr. Dan Siegle: Well, joyful courage to me means having the presence of mind to dive into this receptive state of awareness, this hub of the wheel, to tap into the power of being connected with whatever arises inside of you, this kind of bring it on attitude, that's the courage.
[00:48:33] And the joy that arises as you liberate. Yourself from what a lot of us get imprisoned by which is I have to control everything instead with presence You let things emerge within you and then you let integration connecting with your child for example in ways that are filled with love and Connection that is honoring who your child is honoring yourself, too But then linking together with compassionate close relationships.
[00:49:04] That's what I think Joyful courage and courageous joy is all about
[00:49:08] Casey O'Roarty: beautiful, beautiful. Can you tell the listeners a little bit about where and when they can get their copy of aware and about the pre order and all that good stuff?
[00:49:18] Dr. Dan Siegle: Yeah, absolutely. Well, you can, if you, uh, just go to any site and you can pre order aware, uh, you know, that's, that's selling books, but you, you can also do that.
[00:49:28] Uh, then come to our website because we have a bunch of other things if you preorder that are fun guide videos and PDFs and stuff that enhance, uh, your experience as you're getting ready for the book to arrive. It gets you kind of primed to to dive into the aware book.
[00:49:46] Casey O'Roarty: Awesome. And listeners, I will be sure to have the link to Dan's website and that where you can pre order in the show notes.
[00:49:53] So check it out. Thank you so much for spending time with me.
[00:49:58] Dr. Dan Siegle: It's been a pleasure, Casey. Thanks for having me.
[00:50:06] Casey O'Roarty: Thank you so much for listening in today. Thank you so much to my Sproutable partners, Julietta and Alana, as well as Danielle. And Chris Mann and the team at Podshaper for all the support with getting this show out there and helping it to sound so good. Check out our offers for parents with kids of all ages and sign up for our newsletter to stay better connected at besproutable.
[00:50:31] com. Tune back in on Monday for a brand new interview and I will be back solo with you next Thursday. Have a great day.
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