PsycHacks

According to the fundamental axiom of the balance of attraction, no two people can like each other exactly the same amount. In this episode, I'll discuss the pros and cons of being in the position of the adored, the one who likes the other less. The adored get to be loved by the ones they're with. This position is a better fit for those who prefer not to live as much in their emotions, or who (for whatever reason) would prefer not to place romantic relationships in the center of their lives. #relationships #attraction #love

Values can be expensive. So are they worth it? In this episode, I discuss one of the most valuable things about values: their utility as decision making tools. When we find ourselves at the Crossroads of Life, values can help to clarify the path forward by filtering out incongruent pathways. In a very practical way, they help us answer the question: "what should I do?" #values #decisive #growth

According to the fundamental axiom of the balance of attraction, no two people can like each other exactly the same amount. In this episode, I'll discuss the pros and cons of being in the position of the adorer, the one who like the other more. Adorers get to be with the they love, and they get to experience all the emotional consequences of that opportunity. Adorers enter into relationships to feel. As a result, it's a better position for folks who are more romantically-inclined or who prefer to live more in their emotions. #relationships #attraction #love

Self-improvement is less about creating ten new, good habits as it is about stopping the one or two behaviors that are significantly obstructing your progress. In many cases, blocking these behaviors is sufficient to create real growth: no other action is required. This will also help to rule out potential confounds, saving you time and money if you decide to enlist the help of a professional. You need to put out the fire before doing construction on your house. Otherwise all your hard work will go up in flames. #healing #growth #selfimprovement

Human beings seem to have a need for recognition and acknowledgement. I have it. You have it. We all have it. However, the fact of the matter is that we can can't reasonably expect recognition. And this is because recognition requires some degree of mastery. Without it, brilliance could be staring you in the face and you would lack the ability to see it. Pearls before swine. I'll discuss further in this episode. #recognition #mastery #truth

If you have a habit that seems to cause you a lot of harm or difficulty, but that you still have trouble getting rid of, ask yourself this question: how is it good? How does it help you? It has to serve a function, or else it still wouldn't be there. Most likely, on some level, you believe that the habit is still a net positive, despite the suffering it causes you. To really change a behavior, you need to find other, more adaptive ways to provide the same benefit as your bad habit. #habit #selfdevelopment #selfimprovement

By the time clients contact me, the issue they would like to discuss has generally become fairly well-established. The image I like to use is that of walking the same path through a field for 20 years. It will take some time to carve a new path through the meadow, and to allow the old path to return to nature. And if it's going to take a while, you might as well get started. It will never be easier than it is today.

In an auction house, the lot goes to the highest bidder. In a very real sense, the highest bidder wins because no one else in the room believed the lot was worth that much. This means that the highest bidder almost certainly overpaid, and could have secured the same lot with fewer resources. The auction house is a useful analogy for work. In what ways might you be overpaying in your own life? In this episode, I'll discuss how to increase your return on investment through the strategic allocation of resources. #work #investment #money

"Have to" is a phrase that I have tried to eliminate from my vocabulary. Irrespective of what I'm doing, whenever I think that I "have" to do something, that something becomes onerous, aversive, and unpleasant. Instead, I try to replace the phrase "have to" with the phrase "choose to," and to connect the duty, responsibility, or assignment with one of my personally-relevant goals. It's a small change that makes a big difference.

If my episode "Bet on yourself," I spoke on the game-changing importance of unshakable self-confidence. But what if you feel -- justified or not -- that you have no legitimate basis for authentic confidence? What are you supposed to do then? The answer to this question is to think of yourself as a high school football coach whose team is down at halftime. Learn about the three tasks of the coach in this episode.

This is the third in a series of short discussions on some of the lesser-known truths about romantic love. Do you think it was only a strange coincidence that the families of Romeo and Juliet hated each other? In this episode, I'll explain why romance thrives on obstruction. It goes all the way back to the original romantic myth, the tragedy of Tristan and Isolde, and it goes a long way toward explaining why it feels so good to be bad. After all, nothing tastes better than forbidden fruit...

This is the second in a series of short discussions on some of the lesser-known truths about romantic love. In this episode, I'll explain why romance so often ends in tragedy and heartbreak. Spoiler alert: it's orchestrated that way by design. By prioritizing the purity of spiritual union over the banality of everyday relationships, romantics doom themselves to unhappiness and loss. But that suffering -- that sweet suffering -- attests to the purity of their love, right?

This the first in a series of short discussions on some of the lesser-known truths about romantic love. In this episode, I'll explain why the unobtainability of the adored is actually a core component of the experience of romantic love. It goes all the way back to the code of the chivalric knights of old, and it goes a long way toward explaining one of the more bewildering facets of romance, namely: why we seem to want what we can't have.

"Catastrophic thought cascade" is a term I coined to described the cognitive phenomena that generally precede any immediate and intense emotional reaction. It's a series of imagined events linked by an apparent causality that only holds true when viewed through the lens of the emotion that created it. The trick to overcoming these events is to practice mindful awareness to slow down the subjective experience of time and to disrupt the causal chain by offering reasonable counter-factuals. I provide an example of how to do this in this episode.

As its name suggests, a covert contract is a quid pro quo agreement that is not disclosed to the other party. At first blush, it seems absurd that anyone would engage in this practice. After all, if you don't explicitly negotiate terms, how can you reasonably expect to get what you hope to receive from the transaction? However, people engage in covert contracts in their personal and professional relationships, every day of their lives. In this episode, I'll discuss what that might look like, and what you can do about it.

Everything has an origin, and that includes romantic love. While people have apparently been falling in love since the beginning of recorded history, the notion that this is a desirable state is actually fairly recent. In this episode, I'll discuss the origin of romantic love as it emerged in the South of France in the 11th or 12th Century AD. This origin story might be surprising, but it helps to account for a lot of otherwise inexplicable facets of romantic love.

The balance of attraction is a concept I developed to help explain certain emotional dynamics in romantic relationships. It's based on a fundamental axiom, which is: no two people can like each other exactly the same amount. One of the most important corollaries of this axiom is that, in any relationship, one person will like the other more and one person will like the other less. Who occupies which position can change from day-to-day, or even moment-to-moment, but most relationships are characterized by a fairly stable attraction imbalance. I'll talk more about this in this episode.

Can you imagine a basketball team could remain competitive in the NBA if it made an organizational commitment never to commit a foul? They would be decimated by teams of comparable talent and ability that didn't restrict themselves so unnecessarily. The truth is that the top players both know the rules of their game intimately and know when to break those rules strategically. Too much obedience can be just as detrimental as too much disobedience.

The fundamental law of attraction is very straightforward. In fact, it's so obvious that many people just gloss over it. Are you ready? The fundamental law is: people want what they want, not what wants them. And this comes with a few important corollaries. Most notable among them is the fact that you can't make someone want you more by wanting them more. However, you might be able to make someone want you more by wanting them less. I'll discuss further in this episode.

The Zen master Charlotte Joko Beck talks about the empty canoe in her book, "Everyday Zen." It's a simple metaphor that reveals a profound truth about the human experience of anger: it requires the imputation of agency in order to flourish. If you remove the imputation of agency -- picture an empty canoe drifting mysteriously through the fog -- then the experience of anger will vanish shortly thereafter. If the universe is empty, why populate it with the ingredients of our own frustration?

Imagine an elementary school bully: a big, dopey boy that picks on other kids using the threat of violence. Do you think that one day that bully will wake up and say to himself: "you know, I've made some good money from this gig, but I don't think I need to do this anymore. I have enough lunch money"? That will never, ever, ever happen. You cannot comply your way out of bullying. And it's always easier to stand up for yourself in a relationship sooner as opposed to later.

When I was younger, I used to believe that my mind was a laboratory sealed off from the rest of the world. As long as I didn't speak or act on my thoughts, I believed that I was at liberty to think whatever I wanted within the privacy of my own mind. However, I've come to understand that thoughts aren't nearly as private as I believed. In this episode, I'll discuss two ways our thoughts tend to betray ourselves to others inadvertently. To improve your communication and relationships, it's important to learn to control your mind.

Many of you are probably aware that in several Romance languages the verb "esperar" means both "to hope" and "to wait" -- which always seemed a bit odd to me. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the two concepts have more in common than first appears. In this episode, I'll discuss how all real hoping involves waiting, but not all waiting involves real hoping. If you're not waiting in the right place, then any hope you may feel is unjustified -- irrespective of what you might be telling yourself. Make sure you're standing in the right line.

Right now, I'm playing through the surprising excellent "Guardians of the Galaxy" video game for the PlayStation 5. Among all of the first rate performances, I've been particularly charmed by Jason Cavalier's portrayal of Drax the Destroyer. In this pop psychology episode of PsycHacks, I'm going to offer a brief character analysis of Drax, focusing on two of his more admirable traits: his relationship to challenge and his attitude toward death. Check the game out for yourself and let me know what you think.

I experience anger as a voice in my head that tells me things. And those things that it tells me are lies. Anger is a deceiver. It offers the feeling of power in exchange for my self-control -- which actually renders me powerless in the face of my provoker. Anger is a useful servant, but a terrible master. The trick is to learn to yoke the power of anger to constructive, intentional action. Do this and even great achievements are possible.

The title of this episode is the last line in a poem by Percy Shelley, called "Ode to the West Wind." The question is obviously rhetorical, as Spring has followed Winter as an inevitability since the dawn of time. I like to keep this line in mind when I'm moving through challenging times. The darker it gets, the closer I approach the return of the light. There is no need for fear or panic: when Winter comes, Spring is never far behind.

What is love? I've developed my own unique answer to this question. I call it my parts of speech model of love, and I'd like share it with you today. Basically, with greater awareness and understanding, the nature of love evolves: from noun to verb to adverb. In this episode, I'll briefly discuss each stage, emphasizing the characteristics of its highest form: adverbial love. Happy Valentine's Day!

One of my all-time favorite writers is Haruki Murakami, and my personal favorite among his many excellent works is the imaginative and underrated "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World." In this book is a fantastic line, which just so happens to be the title of this episode: a good craftsman has one scar. Why might this be the case? In this episode, I'll break down the surprising wisdom contained within such a simple phrase.

It's hard to keep your cool when things don't go your way. As someone who used to get angry a lot, I've had to work hard to overcome my tendency to lose my temper. In this episode, I'll discuss one strategy that has helped me to stay frosty in provocative situations. I call it the price of peace. By quantifying the amount of money you would need to receive in order to abide in anger against your will, you can set an anger threshold for the various losses, frustrations, and disappointments that are subject to happening in life.

There's a Jewish parable that I love. A family goes to temple to make offerings to God by placing objects of value on the altar. However, the youngest child is distraught because he has nothing -- and so has nothing to give. So he decides to recite the alphabet, as it's all that he knows. According to the parable, this was the offering that was prized most highly by God. In this episode, I'll discuss why.

I like this phrase: "wanting is free." And I'm going to explain why in this episode. When others want things from you, it's important to remember that "wanting is free." That is, it cost them absolutely nothing to want those things. So there's no harm or loss that results from turning them down. And when you yourself want something, it's important to remember the same thing. That is, wanting is free...but getting is expensive. If you want to start getting what you want, then you have to be willing to spend resources, broadly defined.

Speech is magic. By uttering the appropriate sequence of sounds you can literally conjure things into existence within others' consciousness. In light of this, you can refine your capacity to speak what you want into being. In this episode, I'll discuss two tricks to doing this effectively. The first is to use your words to trap yourself successfully, and the second is to refrain from speaking what you don't want to occur. These are simple spells, but quite unbreakable.

Over the course of my clinical experience, I've helped many people -- including those who were actively in the process of dying -- with their death anxiety. Among other things, I've discovered that death anxiety tends to be more prevalent among younger people than older people. In this episode, I'll discuss why that might be the case and propose a method for coping with this type of anxiety by drawing on the wisdom of Greek mythology.

The beginning of a new year is a time for people to set goals for the next twelve months. Unfortunately, many good-intentioned resolutions fail, often due to a lack of discipline. In this episode, I will discuss an easy and surefire way to ensure your own compliance with any new habit you're attempting to cultivate. The catch? No one likes doing it. However, it's precisely this aversion that functionally guarantees success. I'm almost certain it will work for you.

The baseball great Pete Rose has been permanently banned from the sport for betting on the outcome of his team's games while he was a manager. However, his defense is -- and has always been -- that he only bet on his team to win. Therefore, his incentives as an individual gambler and team manager were aligned. Controversy aside, I love the idea of betting on yourself. Not only does it exhibit the confidence that -- all things being equal -- you believe that you can win, but it also increases focus and motivation by getting "skin in the game."

Over the past two years, there have been wide-spread, systematic attempts to restrict, suppress, and censor misinformation and lies. Unfortunately, this approach is problematic, because the suppression of dialogue that reveals truth is actually much more dangerous than the dissemination of lies. While circulating lies can certainly cause harm, it's not really possible for them to gain a foothold in the collective consciousness if the truth is also circulating. And the best way to facilitate the emergence of truth is by preserving the free exchange of information and ideas.

In a scarcity mentality, we lose what we cling to in fear because we believe it to be preferable to the nothingness we assume would take its place. Developing an abundance mentality necessitates that we cultivate greater trust in the universe to provide opportunities to fulfill our needs and desires. In this episode, I discuss an example of scarcity mentality in my own history and how I learned to have faith in abundance.

The town liar lies. That what the town liar does. If you go to the town liar to hear the truth, it's your own fault if your feelings get hurt over being lied to. Much of the frustration and disappointment we're subject to experiencing with respect to the behavior of others boils down to our refusal to accept certain aspects of reality. In this episode, I'll discuss tactics for dismantling the cognitive distortions that can sometimes prevent us from seeing clearly.

One of my personal pet peeves is indirect communication. This is because, as a communication strategy, it often seeks to protect the indirect communicator at the expense of the other party. After all, if you never actually ask for something, you can never be rejected, can you? In this episode, I'll discuss a simple, practical tactic you can use to retrain your indirectly communicating partner: the honest clarifying question.

The general conceptualization of heaven is that it is a place of unremitting pleasure and comfort. However, it doesn't take much effort to understand that such an arrangement would likely prove unsatisfactory in the long run. In this episode, I discuss a personal conceptualization of heaven: as a series of challenges which we are pre-destined to overcome, but which present the plausible possibility of failure. We can't not win, but we must be made to believe we can lose for our own good.

Occasionally, I'm confronted with the reality of needing to have a conversation with someone that I don't particularly want to have. And this can contribute to feelings of anxiety and dread. A tactic that I've developed to get through these situations is to simply "say my line." I pretend that I'm an actor who simply needs to say his line on cue in order for the plot to progress forward. I don't need to be charming or witty or attractive. I just need to move my mouth in order to do my part.

All other things being equal, the older you get, the harder it becomes to make new friends. So how do you go about forming new friendships as an adult? I'll examine this question through the lens of "Persona 5," and excellent JRPG. In turns out this game has a fairly accurate blueprint on how to progress from casual acquaintance to intimate confidant. The keys are time, shared interests, and reciprocal self-disclosure.

Control isn't the basis of a loving, long-term relationship, because control is ultimately disrespectful and unsustainable. The key to a respectful and enduring relationship is to hold the other like sand: not too loose, but definitely not too tight. Like sand, the tighter you attempt to hold others, the more they will slip through your fingers. Gentle support keeps more sand in your hands for longer periods of time.

It's often the case that the solution to some of our most long-standing and intractable problems is incredibly simple. However, we are subject to creating unnecessary complexity as a defense mechanism in order to embed the problem in our lives. Much of my work as a therapist is the gradual and systematic dismantling of such unnecessary complexity to arrive at greater simplicity. This reveals two truths about simplicity: it isn't easy and it's a sign of mastery.

One of the paradoxes of the human experience is that we are all both very, very big and very, very small at the same time. Humility is knowing one's proper size. This means that it is not simply an attitude to be cultivated in those who are more self-important than they really are. Humility must also be nurtured in those who -- in believing they are smaller than they really are -- withdraw from life and self-realization. Humility means understanding that you are not incapable of realizing your potential.

In a previous episode, "Be a ruthless gardener," I spoke on the importance of pulling up the negative thoughts that can proliferate in your consciousness like weeds without pity or remorse. However, if you do not attend to the soil -- the conditions from which the thoughts emerge -- you will likely be doing a lot of gardening in your life. By attending to your well-being and surrounding yourself with supportive relationships, you might not have to do as much work in the long run.

The most popular belief concerning the origin of mental illness is that it is caused by imbalances in individual brain chemistry. However, there is actually little empirical evidence to support this hypothesis. A theory with more robust support is the stress-diathesis model, which basically states that psychological issues emerge when sufficient stressors converge on an individual to diminish their natural resilience. I will discuss further in this episode.

If someone in your life has become unjustifiably critical, disrespectful, or unappreciative, it might be time -- at least for a little while -- to give them the gift of your absence. The key to doing this is to leave the relationship before you feel no longer capable of giving your best. When you do this, people might actually miss you and remember why they were in a relationship with you to begin with. However, if you complain and attack before leaving, then others will only feel relief when you're gone.

The key to doing something you fear is cultivating a larger fear of not doing it. In this episode, I'll discuss this principle using an anecdote from my personal life about overcoming my approach anxiety. By remembering how badly I would feel after avoiding my goal, I was finally able to move forward in spite of my fear. This is a tactic that is widely generalizable.

In the course of my clinical practice, I often talk with folks who struggle with discipline. They know what they "should" do, but -- when the time comes to act -- they find it difficult to resist the pull of learned behavior. In this episode, I briefly discuss the key to discipline, which I call "channeling your inner postman." See your commitment as a duty imposed upon you with the full force of a contractual obligation and surrender to that structure. Feelings have nothing to do with it.