Re-Air: We Aren’t Our Thoughts! Simple Steps to Achieving Inner Peace, Letting Go of Negative Thoughts & Becoming Happier, Healthier & Calmer

In honor of Mental Health Month, we’re revisiting an episode that resonated with so many of you from last year with Joseph Nguyen, the New York Times bestselling author of Don’t Believe Everything You Think: Why Your Thinking is the Beginning and End of Suffering. He gives tips on how to stop overthinking, achieve better mental clarity and elaborates on his teachings on how to surrender and start letting go. He will show you how to have more effective meditation practices, why your current meditation practice might not be working, and how he adapted his practice from the meditation teachings of other experts. Plus! He reveals how he hit his rock bottom, the life transformation he made to stop suffering, and how he paid off his family’s debt. This episode will provide you with tools to cope with anxiety, recover from burnout, and manage workplace stress. From our Breakdown to the one we hope you never have, we wish you a well and healthy Mental Health Awareness Month! Follow us on Substack for Exclusive Bonus Content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bialikbreakdown.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0https://bialikbreakdown.substack.com/%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BialikBreakdown.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.bialikbreakdown.com/ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube.com/mayimbialik⁠⁠⁠ https://www.youtube.com/mayimbialik%E2%81%A0 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices https://megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Mayim Bialik?

  Hi, I'm Mayim Bialik.

• 0:05Jonathan Cohen?

  And I'm Jonathan Cohen.

• 0:06Mayim Bialik?

  And welcome to our Breakdown. Today, in honor of Mental Health Month, we've got a really special revisiting of an episode that resonated with so many in our audience last year with Joseph Wen. Joseph is the New York Times bestselling author of an incredible, very simple, and very elegant book called, "Don't Believe Everything You Think: Why Your Thinking Is the Beginning and End of Suffering."

• 0:32Jonathan Cohen?

  It's like he wrote everything that was in my mind. I say, "Mayim, don't think like that, and you won't suffer."

• 0:37Mayim Bialik?

  Well, Joseph blew up on social media, in particular with younger folks. And actually, this is a book I gave to both of my sons. He helped a lot of people realize that we truly can go beyond our own thinking and our own conditioning and live an abundant life that is free from suffering.

• 0:55Jonathan Cohen?

  He helps us break down how to find inner peace with practical tips that put a stop to overthinking, rumination, and how to actually start letting go of the thought patterns, behaviors, and relationships that no longer serve us.

• 1:10Mayim Bialik?

  We also talked about meditation, why your current practice might not be working, and what you can do to shift that. He also talked about his own rock bottom that he hit and the transformation that he made so that he could stop suffering. We got so much positive feedback on this episode when it originally aired. So if you have not heard this episode or if you need the reminders of tools to cope with anxiety, recover from burnout, and manage workplace stress, this is the perfect conversation to tune into. And we're re-airing it now in honor of Mental Health Month.

• 1:44Jonathan Cohen?

  Just before we get to that, here's a crazy thought. Check to see if you're subscribed. Don't miss a single episode of Mayim Bialik's Breakdown. And if you want more content that is not available anywhere else, all ad-free, check out Mayim Bialik's Breakdown on Substack.

• 1:59Mayim Bialik?

  And now, we hope you enjoy this episode with Joseph Wen. Break it down. Joseph Wen, welcome to the Breakdown.

• 2:07Speaker 02

  Thank you so much for having me. It's such an honor.

• 2:10Mayim Bialik?

  I love this book. I also love that it's a small book. Like, it feels almost like it could fit in your pocket. The wisdom in it is very, very much like the kind of wisdom you'd like in your pocket.

• 2:21Jonathan Cohen?

  If I write a book, that's the size of book I want to write.

• 2:24Mayim Bialik?

  I want to start with one of the little... Sayings. Most of us only change when the pain of holding on to what we're attached to is greater than the fear of the unknown. This sort of taps into what I think a lot of people are coming to this book with, meaning, I want to change. I don't like how things are going. I keep doing therapy. I keep working out. I keep dieting. I keep taking drugs. I keep drinking. I keep going to find the right partner. I'm trying to find the right job. I keep moving. I keep cutting people out of my life. I keep adding people to my life.

• 3:07Mayim Bialik?

  And fundamentally, for a lot of people, nothing's changing. Can you talk a little bit about what is plaguing us? What is this kind of gnawing need to change and be okay? And how do you frame that in terms of how scary that is?

• 3:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's one of my favorite poems from the book. And we always want to be growing. We always want, but at the same time, paradoxically, we don't want to change. And so we can't have one without the other. And so with this book specifically, what I was trying to kind of unveil was, I mean, specifically in my life, I tried changing everything as well. I tried meditation. I tried all sorts of therapy, CBT. I tried acupuncture, acupressure. I even went vegan for quite some time to see if the foods that I was intaking was affecting my psychological and emotional well-being. So everything that I did, it worked to a certain extent. But then it wasn't long-term. It wasn't lasting.

• 4:10Speaker 02

  It didn't give me the actual changes that I was looking for. And the reason was because in life, we're always going to be exposed to a lot of different challenges, traumas, and difficulties. That is never-ending. And so if we try to change our external circumstances without changing our own internal being, or more specifically, our own psychological frameworks with how we view the world, our own thinking is what I use in the book, then nothing will change. Change. Everything outside will change, but we'll still feel like we're not doing enough. We aren't enough, that we're not lovable, that we still have to do more in order to earn enough approval, love, respect. And that was the reason why I decided to write the book was because I tried

• 4:52Speaker 02

  changing everything outside of me. And that still didn't work and achieved a decent amount of success, enough money, having a house, having a partner, and all of these things that seemingly went well. But I was still ridden with an insane amount of anxiety and psychological suffering every single day. And it wasn't until I changed my own thinking that everything around me started to change. And it wasn't even the external things, it was just me that changed.

• 5:22Mayim Bialik?

  A lot of the wisdom that you that you share and that you encapsulate and, you know, sort of explain in this book, you know, much of it comes from eastern philosophy, you know, eastern religious practice in some cases. But the problems that we are plagued by, you know, they're timeless. And also, there is a different set of pressures that I think a lot of people are feeling today. Can you speak a little bit to what some of the modern day, you know, pressures are and why, you know, this kind of ancient wisdom can still be helpful?

• 6:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. So back then, I mean, a lot of this stuff, you correctly kind of insinuated that it does come from eastern philosophy, some of it western as well. A lot of Christianity influence as well, since I was born and raised Catholic. All of this stuff, I mean, it's endured thousands and thousands of years. And people still follow certain religions and certain eastern practices. And so it still works. For me, some of the issues with trying a lot of those different modalities was that it kind of isolated me from the real world. It was very, very difficult to find out how to actually integrate these eastern practices into daily life. How do I seemingly meditate while I'm in a meeting with my boss or having some sort

• 6:43Speaker 02

  of conflict with interpersonal relationships? That becomes very difficult. And I always like to say, It's relatively easier to become a monk in the middle of the mountains where you're isolated and there's no one around and find peace there. But if you try to find peace in the middle of New York City, in Times Square, in rush hour traffic, then tell me if you're able to meditate and let that go. Like, that's the true test, right? In like, in real life, that, that was really what I was trying to tackle. How do we make it more applicable? How do we make it simpler? And so, back then, I mean, a lot of the issues and challenges were more physical. So, meaning, we didn't have enough food, we didn't have enough water, we didn't have shelter. Those things are very difficult to go through.

• 7:26Speaker 02

  But even still, back then, hundreds or even thousands of years, people were still suffering psychologically. People were still quite anxious, quite depressed, and things like that. Probably less so, back then than nowadays. But now, the, the war has gone from the physical realm into the psychological or spiritual realm. And that's mainly because we have more time. So, we're, we're not working as long hours or as hard hours as, as back then. But now, the fears have evolved from, maybe, let's say, our, our physical lives and being afraid of potentially dying. But now, the fears, the fears have shifted from that to, if I'm not loved by my friends,

• 8:08Speaker 02

  people at work, or anyone else, like, what's the point of living? If I don't have the approval of others and things like that, if I don't make it, quote unquote, and become successful, then I'm a nobody and I'm insignificant and I'm worthless. So, why would I keep continuing to live my life? So, those are the shifts that have happened, but still, at the root of it all, is, is one thing, and it's, it's been the same for, for millennia, which is fear. Fear is actually what we're tackling here. And that was, you know, it alludes back to the quote that you were saying in the beginning, which is, you know, until the, the pain of, you know, where we are is, you know, greater than the fear of the unknown, that's when we actually make that shift. The pain is usually a, a great catalyst and motivator to, to jump into the, into the unknown, straight into fear.

• 8:51Speaker 02

  And it's only on the other side of fear that we find everything that, that we want and are looking for.

• 8:55Mayim Bialik?

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• 9:40Mayim Bialik?

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• 10:26Jonathan Cohen?

  What did your suffering look like? You talked about all the things you tried, and I think it's interesting to explore some of those and the shortcomings. But what did suffering look like for you?

• 10:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, great question. So my story goes back to my parents, and that was the main reason why I kind of went down this path. My parents immigrated from Vietnam in the 80s and kind of plopped over here in Florida, and mostly because it fell to the communists back then. And so my dad had a decision to make, which was to either fight for the communists or to escape. And so he chose to just leave, and he became a refugee in Thailand. And after about a year or two, he was able to come over to the US. My parents met over here. And their primary goal was to give their kids a chance that they never had back then in their, in their country.

• 11:19Speaker 02

  Knowing that, they also started businesses over here. So my mom started a vital business. My dad started multiple gas station chain, uh, stores. Um, after the oh eight crash, he lost essentially everything. Uh, and my parents went into oh, just over a million dollars worth of debt. So growing up, I felt a lot of that financial pressure from them. They would hide it really well, but I could, you know, as kids, you can always feel what they're, what they're thinking. Um, and going through, but even if they're not saying it. So that to me, I kind of felt that a lot, especially because they came over here with, with literally nothing, but the shirts on their back and no English.

• 11:58Speaker 02

  So they had to learn all of that from scratch. And to see that they are still going through such a difficult time over here. I just felt like that wasn't quite fair. So then I kind of made it my own personal, um, mission, if you will, to help them get out of that debt. So that's, so I, I went to college for about a year and a half, but then actually left because I kind of did the math and if I went for four years, graduated, made forty, forty-five thousand a year. I was like, there's no way that I can help them pay off that debt. Um, and so I, I kind of left and started my own, um, my own business and advertising agency. And that's where a lot of the stress kind of stems from for, for my own personal suffering. Starting any sort of endeavor on your own is quite difficult.

• 12:44Speaker 02

  And so, I mean, I helped my parents scale, uh, their own stores and was able to, to help them significantly, uh, alleviate a lot of that financial pressure. Um, and I also achieved a, a decent amount of, you know, success there with tons of clients and making the amount of, amount of money that I wanted to. Uh, the only issue is after all of that, uh, I didn't realize that I achieved all of that at the cost of my own mental health. And so I kind of asked myself, like, was that worth it? Day in, day out, I didn't know where clients were coming from. I didn't know if I was gonna have enough food on the table to take care of my partner. I didn't know. I mean, mostly anything and what was gonna happen. And there were so many different platform shifts and things like that. So it's always uncertain every single day.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  My partner, my now wife at the time, she suffered a lot of mental or physical illnesses, so she had gastroparesis paralysis of the stomach. And so she couldn't eat. She got a feeding tube, was hospitalized multiple times. And so she was only eating two and 300 calories a day. So we had no idea if she was gonna be okay, how she was, if she can get cured. There was seemingly, and they confirmed that there was no cure. So that was going out the time. Plus, my business partner and I had a falling out and split. So I went into 50,000 worth of debt around like 21 years old. So all of that happened within a very short amount of time. And my parents and I weren't on like good speaking terms because I left the very thing that they said. They literally left their country to come over here to give their children, right? The opportunity to go and have an education.

• 14:12Speaker 02

  So all of that was happening within a span of about one or two years. And so, you know, you could say that I hit rock bottom at that point.

• 14:19Jonathan Cohen?

  How old were you when you hit that rock bottom?

• 14:22Speaker 02

  That was probably 22.

• 14:24Jonathan Cohen?

  You were 22?

• 14:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:26Jonathan Cohen?

  Which is a fantastic age to hit a bottom if you're gonna hit it.

• 14:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know if that's gonna be the last bottom, but.

• 14:34Jonathan Cohen?

  What you're describing is the entrepreneurial American experience. Plus many other stressors. I can relate. I went to graduate school. I wanted to be in the film world. My father, that was like the craziest thing you could possibly do. There was no certainty in it. He worked his whole life so that I could continue having stability. He wanted me to go into business or economics or something that had a stable path. And what I hear in your story is. A collision point between parental values, working really hard, the entrepreneurial experience, which is anyone who's ever started,

• 15:17Jonathan Cohen?

  especially a service business, you never know where the clients are coming from, you never know how it's gonna go, expectations are constantly changing, managing clients and delivery and then additional client acquisition is impossible. If you ever have had someone in your life who is sick, especially with something that is mysterious or uncurable, the pain and pressure of navigating the healthcare industry and alternatives to the healthcare industry are totally overwhelming. So you're dealing with an enormous amount of uncertainty there. It's a collision course of stress, anxiety, terror, and more.

• 15:58Speaker 02

  You know, I think everyone goes through something quite difficult, right? Like, I don't particularly, you know, find the need to compare, but I think everyone has their own battles, their own wars that are immensely difficult. And so that's kind of how I view anyone nowadays is like just imagining what kind of, what internal battle that they must be going through. And having that, that lens gives a little bit more compassion, a little bit more love, a little bit more understanding to why they're doing what they're doing, right? So coming from that lens, it gives, it just helps me find a little bit more peace for myself, knowing that it's probably not personal. Kind of looking back on my story and seeing like, yeah, that's what I was going through as well. You know, everyone still goes through it.

• 16:43Jonathan Cohen?

  What did your coping strategies look like at the time when you were struggling like that? Were you spiraling? Did you turn to distraction like many people do? How were you keeping your self together in whatever way that together meant?

• 16:59Speaker 02

  Mostly it was just overworking. I would, I would probably categorize myself back then as a workaholic and just delve deeper and deeper into it. I was probably working 10, 12 hours a day, six. Seven days mostly, um, just to distract myself from whatever this, this, this pain was. And the more that I did, the more stressed I became. So that didn't, that was kind of like a vicious cycle that didn't help at all. A- as I realized that it wasn't really helping, that's when I started to seek different solutions. So like I was saying before, it was delving into

• 17:35Speaker 02

  all sorts of therapies, hypnotherapy, CBT, um, like Reiki and uh, doing the all sorts of different types of meditations, Vipassana, Transcendental. Tons of different things like that. I was studying Dr. Jyotis Benz at the time, um, went to his retreat for like seven days and, and I think they were doing meditations for six, seven hours a day, which was more, well, it's like probably 10 times more than I ever have done in a, you know, single day. So all of those things, going vegan, plus trying, um, you know, studying Stoicism and Hinduism, um, delving deeper into some of the Christian background that I had, uh, just trying desperately to find a solution because surely it's, it's gotta be out there somewhere.

• 18:20Speaker 02

  But it was, it was years of searching, um, reading tons of books and things like that. Um, and all of that, I, I think, like I was alluding to was it worked temporarily. So like if, when I was meditating, the meditation worked while I was meditating. But then as soon as I opened my eyes and went back to work or whatever it was, all the anxiety would come back and just plague me. And so that puzzled me more than anything else. Uh, and so that's when I kind of asked myself like, why is that the case? That I only feel okay while I'm doing the modality, but not outside. What is the mechanism that wa- was working there? And so I kind of realized that during those types of things or meditations or therapy.

• 19:02Speaker 02

  There was something that was happening in my mind that shifted. And what was happening was that I just wasn't thinking anymore. I wasn't actively judging myself. I wasn't actively judging my thoughts. I wasn't actively judging other people. And that negative judgment was the root of all of the psychological emotional suffering. And of course, there's events in our lives that are very difficult and can cause emotional suffering. But after an event has passed and it's gone, then any sort of emotional suffering that we have about that event is no longer from the event. It's actually from our own thinking about the event. And one scenario that I love to paint the picture for this for is, you know, there's so many people that have, that go through immense trauma in their lives. And a lot of them are similar traumas.

• 19:46Speaker 02

  But how is it possible that these two people who have gone through similar traumas can have radically different outcomes in their lives? One can spiral down into a deep depression, into drugs and all sorts of things and never get out of it. But the other person is able to turn the corner and to make peace with themselves in the past and to dedicate their whole entire lives to helping other people do the same thing and to dig themselves out of that hole. So how is that possible if they've gone through something similar? And so that's when I kind of realized that it's not the, you know, our emotions don't come from external events, but from our own thinking about the events. The difference between those two people now is how they view their past versus trying to prevent that from ever happening or trying to change the past.

• 20:31Speaker 02

  Because no one can go back in time and do that. So those people didn't go back and somehow revert things. And so that's, that's the epiphany that kind of sparked this book. And, and yeah, that was like years, if not like almost like a decade in the making to, to find that epiphany. You know, but seemingly overnight, then a lot of that just surfaced into my awareness. And then I sought for what it was and I was able to let go of it a little bit easier.

• 20:56Mayim Bialik?

  I think a lot of people confuse their feelings with their thoughts about their feelings. And that was a really interesting distinction that, that you make, that there's a difference between feelings and your thoughts about your feelings. And then there's a difference between thoughts and thinking. So can you sort of tease those apart for us?

• 21:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course. It's so. Complex that I was like, how is, how can we possibly try to understand this? This, one of the most like powerful tools, you know, created in nature.

• 21:36Speaker 02

  And so I had to create some sort of paradigm or framework to kind of simplify things so I can find peace a little bit easier. And so in my mind, I kind of found out that there was difference between thoughts and difference between thinking. Thoughts are neutral observations about the world, or it can be intuitive promptings. And then thinking on the other hand, is our own negative judgment or story about the thoughts or events that are happening. Let's take, for example, it's raining outside. The thought is, let's say that's a neutral observation is, oh, it's raining outside. The thinking, an example of that would be, this rain ruined my day. Why does this always happen to me? I'm so unlucky.

• 22:18Speaker 02

  All of these things that we say about whatever is happening, that is thinking, the criticism, the judgment, all of that, and that is actually unnecessary. And what causes this emotional suffering?

• 22:31Mayim Bialik?

  But let's say it's raining and let's say I, and I'm just like devil's advocate here. Let's say I was planning a birthday party for, you know, a child, let's say. And, you know, 50 people are supposed to be arriving. How could I not have some complicated feelings about the rain?

• 22:55Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. I mean, that's a great example right there. And so it's, it's less about trying to prevent negative emotions from ever surfacing. That's, that's obviously going to happen, especially during an event like that. But it's, it's more about how long do we want it to let it affect us? Is it going to ruin the entire, the entire day? Is it?

• 23:15Mayim Bialik?

  Oh, it could ruin the year. It could be all we talk about for a year.

• 23:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, oh, it could definitely can. And that's how I think, you know, most of us kind of navigate life, right? We keep going back and replaying that scenario in our heads is kind of ruminating on it, judging it, and just saying this is the worst thing ever and just freezing in that, that fear and that resentment towards whatever is happening. Is that better or is the alternative better, which is can we say that that really sucks? Like I had this whole thing planned. I was planning for weeks and weeks and weeks. Like it's supposed to be a huge birthday party. This is really unfortunate, but what can I do now? Right? So like, what thoughts can I use, which are neutral observations or intuitive promptings? Like what creative thought can I use here to maybe change whatever the outcome is? Uh, maybe we change it to like a pool party where, you know, they're what anyway, and they can just play there.

• 24:02Speaker 02

  Um, like that's when we can start shifting into more productive thoughts rather than um, kind of detrimental thinking that doesn't get us anywhere anymore. Um, it's not, you know, always simple to do that, but that that subtle shift will certainly alleviate a lot of that emotional suffering.

• 24:20Mayim Bialik?

  Let's take truth. If you're thinking about something that's true, where does thinking become a problem?

• 24:27Speaker 02

  Yeah. So a scenario of let's say some sort of fact that happened, let's say like we lost our job. Like that is factual. Um, an unfortunate event, right? So that is a, the thought there would be that's a neutral observation is I lost my job. Thinking on the other hand is I'll never get another job again. This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me. Um, I'm never going to be able to feed my family, like my family is just going to judge me. Like everything everyone thinks about me is absolutely true. I'm worthless, all that. So that, all of what I just said there is a form of negative thinking that that cripples us, that prevents us from taking action, that prevents us from uh, experiencing any sort of peace. All of that doesn't actually change the event that happened.

• 25:12Speaker 02

  Now, a lot of times extend the time horizon until maybe a year, five years. Uh, there are many times where people say like, losing my job was the best thing that's ever happened to me. So how can that be true? You know, if that event was seemingly the worst thing that's ever happened during that time. Um, and the big difference there was their thinking about it changed. So they shifted from this is the worst thing, um, I can never find another job to well, maybe I can find something else, maybe I can do something else, like what, what would I do now? For example, for me, um, hitting that rock bottom and losing, I mean, I, I lost probably eighty, ninety percent of my clients within. Six to six months to a year timeframe. That was probably the worst thing that could have happened in my business. But at that time, when I was in that rock bottom, I asked myself, well, if I'm here and I'm already at the bottom

• 25:57Speaker 02

  and it can't get much worse, what would I want to do with my life? If I don't like doing this advertising anymore, if I don't like the clients that I was working with, what do I want to do? And the question that I asked prompted the answer, which was, I wanted to write. And that was the inception of the book. And so that that was an example of me shifting from judgmental thinking about the situation to a generative and creative thought, which is, oh, like, what are the other possibilities here?

• 26:30Mayim Bialik?

  You make a distinction in the book between this kind of transformation that we need to have and positive thinking. Meaning, this is not a book about, you just need to look on the bright side of life.

• 26:42Speaker 02

  Right.

• 26:42Mayim Bialik?

  Because I think a lot of us are often told, like, you're cynical, you're too negative, like, just think more positive thoughts, like, everything's gonna be okay. Like, everybody's always like, it's happening for the best, you know? How is what you're talking about a different framework than just think more positive?

• 27:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was one of the things that that really bothered me when going on my own journey of of trying to heal from a lot of these things that happened. And I tried a lot of the positive thinking, and this is not to say that doesn't work.

• 27:21Speaker 02

  All I'm saying is there's alternative options to finding peace and positive thinking is not the only way to do that. So an example that I paint in the book is, you know, if you kind of recall a time that you were the happiest in your life, like totally in flow, how much positive thinking was happening during that time?

• 27:47Speaker 02

  Probably not much. Same thing with thinking in general, like how much mental activity was going on. Let's say like during wedding day or during the time that we accomplished something or with our loved ones at Amusement Parker, with our kids, whatever it is, the majority of the time is there's really not that much mental activity. There's, there's very little judgment going on, if any at all. And so that was a big insightful moment for me, which is just realizing that joy doesn't exclusively come from thinking about something and being happy about it. I'm not constantly like walking in nature and just saying, oh, I'm so happy. Like this is amazing. Like I'm so grateful for this, this leaf, this tree, this branch.

• 28:26Speaker 02

  And like, is that really the only time that I'm going to be happy is if I'm mentally repeating to myself and narrating my entire life? Like I would just, like, we already talked to ourselves so much. So that would just make me go senile. So that's when I realized that, oh, we don't have to quote unquote, think positive positively in order to find joy in our lives and, or even peace. And actually more often than not, not thinking or not judging at all is going to lead us to more happiness and peace rather than the other way around. Cause a lot of times if we're starting to think, let's say too positively, if that's a thing and saying, this is the best thing ever. Like this is the best day. This is, this is the best job or this is the best person ever. And what happens when the partner that you said is the best thing ever does something that you don't agree with

• 29:11Speaker 02

  or wronged you in some way? That positive thinking that you just created now is being challenged and that might not be true in this specific moment anymore. And so that's when positive thinking can have a negative turn where it might not reflect reality as it is. And that's why I like going back to the idea of thought versus thinking and, and thought being, there's a neutral objective observation of what's going on, like that is true, like that is reality. And from there, building a base so that you can, you can build it from truth rather than some sort of illusion that we want to experience all the time. So that, that was what happened to me.

• 29:50Speaker 02

  And one other question I love asking too is, you know, when we're really anxious and stressed, you know, how much thinking is going on? It's quite a bit.

• 30:02Mayim Bialik?

  Right.

• 30:03Speaker 02

  And so that to me, like the juxtaposition of those two things helped me realize that, oh, like overthinking doesn't solve problems, it creates them. And so that helps me begin to unravel a lot of the thinking going on and begin letting it go rather than to constantly entertain it.

• 30:18Mayim Bialik?

  So you talk about non-thinking. What does it mean to be in a non-thinking state?

• 30:25Speaker 02

  Remaining in a peaceful state is kind of difficult to do. I guess to kind of grasp conceptually and even more difficult to implement. So I needed some other way to describe what this this action was. Being at peace is very vague.

• 30:42Speaker 02

  Going into a state of non-thinking is a little bit more actionable once I explain it. So non-thinking, how I define it in the book, is not necessarily having a state of no thought. It's just a state of not actively judging, negatively judging whatever thoughts or events are happening right now. So you can be in a state of non-thinking while still having thoughts of, oh, like, I'm sitting here right now, or there's a tree out there, I'm on a walk, like, those are, you know, neutral observational thoughts. And that doesn't really cause any suffering. And and that's the state that we kind of want to be in of like just observing things as they are versus creating an illusion in our mind of what we wish it would be. This is very, very true, especially for for people.

• 31:26Speaker 02

  Wishing our partners would be different, better, whatever it is, right? Acting a certain way, our parents, interpersonal relationships, we always wish that events or people were different. And that that kind of creates a schism in our mind of, oh, like, now we're going to constantly judge them and say, why can't you just be or uphold this certain standard that I have of you? Why are you being different than what I thought you were? All of that creates so much suffering for us rather than allowing people to be as they are and kind of accepting that, even if it's not, quote unquote, ideal.

• 32:01Speaker 02

  It gives them permission to be themselves. And also, you can give yourself permission to do the same thing. And from that place, we can understand others better. And that's what, you know, more generally, more generally leads to a more happy and fulfilling life when we come from a place of of love versus judgment.

• 32:19Mayim Bialik?

  And so that's also a way of kind of distinguishing between thoughts and thinking, meaning you can state a concern that you have without it consuming you to the point of needing to change the other person or change your expectations.

• 32:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that's exactly how you set boundaries. You're saying, this is what happened. This is how I'm reacting to whatever's happening. Is it possible that we can have a different outcome? And if not, we can't change other people. But maybe there's something that we can, we can air out here. Or maybe just by communicating that alone, the other person didn't even know what they were doing. But by simply bringing that to the surface, more options are now available than before. And that's where something creative can happen.

• 33:03Mayim Bialik?

  You have this five-step process to stop thinking, and I wonder if you could talk us through it?

• 33:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, so the, the framework is, is, you know, aptly named PAUSE. So the goal, again, isn't necessarily to stop all mental activity because it's kind of, kind of difficult. I think only monks might be able to do that after maybe like a decade of meditating for several hours a day. It's probably not achievable for most of us, but by using this framework, you can find more peace quite quickly and in a matter of minutes. By, and it's a lot more actionable than just saying, oh yeah, just observe all your thoughts and let go. It's, it's like a step-by-step process. So the first, so PAUSE is an acronym and the first letter is P, which is to pause and to take deep breaths.

• 33:52Speaker 02

  And, you know, a lot of science has shown how helpful deep breathing is in order to help regulate our emotions and our nervous systems. And so that's really the first step is, is to calm the body down. Because if we're in a fight or flight state, it's, it's very, very difficult to stop the thinking. Because if we think that we're going to die or something is actually dangerous, then there's no way to really stop that runaway train. But by intercepting, you know, with our own consciousness, then we can actually create space. That's, that's what deep breathing does, is, is regulating us and creating space. So taking deep breaths, it only takes maybe about five deep breaths. You don't have to overcomplicate it. There's a box breathing technique, there's four, seven, eight, but just take deep breaths. You'll be a lot better than not doing it.

• 34:38Speaker 02

  And so once we're slightly calmer, right? Like you don't have to be totally calm, but calmer, the next step is A, which is ask yourself, is this thinking useful?

• 34:48Speaker 02

  Whatever negative judgment I'm having right now, is this helpful? And is it making me feel the way that I want? If not, the next step is you, which is understand that you have the ability to let that particular judgment go. We might not be able to change the event, we might not be able to change the neutral observation of that event, but we can let go of the negative judgment about the event and about ourselves, because a lot of times we just blame ourselves, we constantly criticize ourselves, saying this is all our fault, we're always like this, nothing's ever gonna change. All those things that we say and think about ourselves, that is something that we can let go of, rather than the event. So that's you, which is understand that you have the choice to let that go.

• 35:29Speaker 02

  Then the next step is S, which is say and repeat the mantra, thinking, you know, specifically like negative judgment, thinking is the root cause of suffering. Now, you can use any mantra that's rooted in truth at this step. And the reason why mantras are so effective is because it's quite difficult to think of two things simultaneously. So by having and repeating a mantra, which is the basis of transcendental meditation, your mind is singularly focused on this one thing. So it's quite difficult to negatively judge something, or think about the past, or do something else when you're saying this mantra and focusing on it repeatedly. So that helps to quiet and calm the mind as you're doing that. It only takes maybe thirty seconds to a minute to do that. And other mantras, for example, is "I let go and choose peace."

• 36:12Speaker 02

  That is another mantra that you can use, that really grounds you into yourself and reality. So that's S, and then E, which is, a lot of times people will kind of assume that, oh, like, if you just stop thinking, aren't you just bypassing the emotions or whatever is going on? And that's not what we're trying to do. What we're doing is actually letting go of the judgment about the situation, so that you can actually process the emotion that's going on. What happens is, the more that we judge an emotion, that's the exact energy that perpetuates it. So by doing that, we're kind of digging ourselves deeper into the hole. But as soon as we let go of that, that particular judgment, then we're able to allow that judgment to pass through us.

• 36:56Speaker 02

  And emotions pass quite quickly when we're not resisting it anymore. I think I think some neuroscience and studies have been saying like it's like ninety seconds or something like that if we're not constantly ruminating on that particular that particular thought anymore, which is quite fast. I don't think most people can probably do it that quickly, but you can definitely do it in a few minutes. Maybe not the entirety of the emotion, but it can the intensity of it can be significantly reduced. And over time, the more that you kind of see it for what it is and are able to let go of the judgment, then we're able to regulate a lot more easily. And so that's the whole entire process is just P is pause and take deep breaths. A, which is ask yourself, is this thinking helpful?

• 37:40Speaker 02

  Is it useful? You, which is understand that you have the ability to let that go, the judgment of it. S is say and repeat the mantra, thinking is the root cause of suffering, or I choose peace, or I let go and choose peace. And E, which is experience your emotions fully without resistance to it. Allow yourself to to go into it without judging it, without saying, without resisting it, without saying, I shouldn't feel this way, right? If that happened, all of that only perpetuates it. So the more that you're just able to sit there with the emotion and say, oh, this is, this is what it is. I'm creating space for it. I'm honoring it. The more quickly it will pass. You know, that process you can use over and over again. And it's it's best used in real time. So a lot of times we meditate only in the morning

• 38:22Speaker 02

  or only at night. This is something that radically changed my own life, which was to use it while I'm working or while I'm out and about, maybe in traffic or talking to other people in your life, in your life, you know, like it only takes a few minutes. Doing it while you are experiencing some sort of heightened emotion is where you're going to get the biggest benefits of it.

• 38:42Mayim Bialik?

  I think that's something that a lot of people miss, and I include myself in this category. You know, many of us think that we're we're supposed to sort of like fill up the meditation cup. Right? Like you fill it up and then it's supposed to just magically sustain you. Or, "Well, I did my meditation. I checked it off the list. Like, I did it. We're fine," right? But what the idea of something like a meditative practice is ideally supposed to do is to infuse your physiological and spiritual consciousness throughout the day. So that you're sort of training your nervous system, you're training your body to operate in an optimal way.

• 39:25Mayim Bialik?

  But as you indicated, the stresses of life, those are happening throughout the day in ways that sometimes, you know, filling that cup in the morning or at night is not going to sustain you. So this notion is that these things are happening all day. Big emotions are going to come all day. If you're working, if you're in a relationship, things are going to happen throughout the day. This is a method to sort of take with you that is constant.

• 39:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's exactly it. And if we're not doing it... I mean, you know, don't get me wrong, meditating in the morning and at night is immensely helpful than not doing it at all. And what that is doing is just literally training our bodies. It's kind of like athletes when they go into training and literally go into the gym and train all that stuff, but they still have to perform when it's time. And so our life is that performance. And so we need to actively do that in life. And that's where we're going to find a lot more peace and regulate it in real time.

• 40:20Mayim Bialik?

  Right. And for some people, they may find that meditating once a day or twice a day lowers their nervous system and therefore things come easier. But for someone like me, I'm just still having spikes all day, you know? Like, I get real calm in the morning and then I'm like kind of spiking all day. And then I have, "Oh, I feel really calm." And I, you know, was able to do that before I went to bed.

• 40:41Jonathan Cohen?

  If we go back to the losing your job example, I'm wondering if this entire approach, which I believe in, and I have had success trying to eliminate thinking, but if I'm presenting it to a general public...

• 40:57Mayim Bialik?

  Sometimes it seems like he's not thinking at all.

• 41:00Jonathan Cohen?

  I have no need for it. Lots of thoughts, no thinking.

• 41:04Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 41:06Jonathan Cohen?

  But if I'm considering an audience member who is like, "My intellect is my greatest power and by, you know, using my thinking, I solve all these problems." What you're suggesting to me is being super passive. But I would posit that it requires a level of accepting uncertainty and saying that we do not have the perspective on our life and situation to make the judgments in the moment. That there is a larger perspective, there is a God's eye view to our life, there is a path that is unfolding that we may not see, even in the difficult times, that if we can trust in that path,

• 41:47Jonathan Cohen?

  the next step will be revealed, or a larger perspective, and that it is not good or bad in the moment. Can you speak about the necessity to have a spiritual perspective or connection in order to achieve this level of calm and peace?

• 42:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I love the nuance that you're bringing into this. So, well, I think there's a quote by Rumi or someone similar that says, you know, "The path is only revealed when you, you know, take the next step." And so that's very true for life. There's no way that we can possibly think of every single possible outcome that will happen from this decision. What I will say is it's less about not using your mind in order to create things. It's more about like releasing a judgment behind those things. So the criticism of like, maybe I'm not good enough to do this, or, you know, everyone else is better than me, or people are gonna judge me when I'm doing this. You know, all of that is the thinking that's unhelpful.

• 42:41Speaker 02

  But when we're solving problems, we're actually using what I would call creative thought, which is thought that is, again, that's like more intuitive, that's more creative, it's more expansive, that's non-judgmental. So all of that can most certainly be used. And so an example of that would be, you know, if we're creating some sort of new business, most of those thoughts that you're generating, or, you know, problem that you're solving in your business, is going to be creative thought. Where it goes into the dangerous thinking territory is...

• 43:13Speaker 02

  This business is, you know, going to fail because whatever. Um, or I shouldn't do this because a lot of people are going to judge me or it's never going to work because X, Y, Z. All of those things are more so unhelpful than actually helpful. Um, but the more that we kind of use that, that creative thought, the more successful that we're going to be. That's where, you know, that's where the source of where songs are written from, where, where art comes from. That's something that's, that's far greater than our own, our own minds. Uh, most of us, you know, our, our minds work by trying to take the past to try to predict the future. Right? Um, but how can we create something new if we're constantly just referring back to what already happened? So that's why a lot of us kind of relive the same life over and over again, the same days over and over again.

• 43:56Speaker 02

  Um, we're not intercepting, you know, this, this pattern of thinking to say, what can we do differently? Um, what's something new that I haven't tried? And that's again, going into unknown territory. That's the uncertainty part of it. Starting anything new is going to be very, very, uh, very daunting. But that's exactly the thing that we need to face a lot of the time in order to create the change that we want. Um, and so the more that we can kind of sink into that feeling of fear and saying, okay, this is a feeling of fear and it can't actually kill me. Um, but it will take the life of all of my dreams and desires if I listen to it. Right? Um, and so that's why I love this practice of feeling the emotion fully without resistance.

• 44:40Speaker 02

  And allowing ourselves to, to, to see it from that perspective and say like, okay, I'm still going to do this because this is what I truly want. I, I value my freedom, my sovereignty, uh, my growth, what I really love, like let's say this, this dream. Um, I value that more than whatever other people might say, or whatever judgment I might be making of myself.

• 45:00Mayim Bialik?

  I wonder if you can talk a little bit about intuition. Um, you talk about it a bit in the book and. I'm sort of on a quest to try and understand what intuition feels like. And I guess, you know, you know it if you've got it. So maybe I don't. But I wonder if you can talk a little bit about about how, you know, kind of non-thinking and in particular, kind of understanding your thoughts in this way can can help you have an opening to understand intuition.

• 45:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, intuition is probably one of my favorite subjects to talk about. It's so elusive, though, and very difficult to to kind of make the abstract concrete. But some of the best ways are examples. So in life, a lot of times we make, let's say, quote unquote, mistakes, if we want to call them that. And many times it comes from listening to fear or this judgmental thinking. It's playing it safe mostly, trying to fit in to to be liked, to be approved, to be loved, to feel like we're enough. But by doing that, we're actually denying our true selves. And I would argue that, you know, our intuition is our higher self, if you want to call it

• 46:18Speaker 02

  that. Some people can call it God, some people call it higher self, whatever it is, right? It's something beyond the the hypercritical judgmental mind of ours. And we access this all the time. It's whenever we are trying to problem solve. It's whenever we are doing music, art, anything creative, we are we are tapping into intuition. Athletes actually view or utilize this significantly more than than people who don't play as many sports. But let's say, for example, they're already training, right? It's very intensive and things like that. But when they're actually in the game, they're in a state of flow and they're not really thinking about things as much anymore. And actually, the people that are like missing the shots at, you know, the free throw line or whatever, those are people that are thinking way more than, right, than the people that aren't.

• 47:03Speaker 02

  Most of the people that just make it, they're just not thinking about it, just going, going, going, going. All that practice, all that time that they put into it, you know, they just trust it in it, their instinct, their intuition. That's where, you know, like I was talking about, like flow really comes from. As soon as we start judging our own thoughts, whatever we're doing, we get cut off from that source. And so intuition also can be felt when we're making major life decisions, but we really don't know why. So if you kind of, I like to run this thought experiment and I ask like, You know, think about, think about like some of the best decisions you've ever made in your life.

• 47:41Speaker 02

  The ones that radically changed for you and your life for the better. Like, how much of that was made from a fearful judgmental thinking? And how much of that was made from intuition? For example, choosing the partner that you're with now. Like, how, like, how do you know, like, when to marry the person or when to leave a person? How do you know when to take up this job or leave a job? And it ends up being like the best thing you've ever done. Meeting your best friends, like, a lot of this stuff, it, it, it might, it was just so random. It was serendipitous. It was, you decided to go to this coffee shop one day that you usually never go to, or you took this route randomly because you're like, oh, it looks nice over there.

• 48:20Speaker 02

  There's a dog and you just went there and somehow you stumbled upon your, your, but your best friend, your partner, or some person that led you to finding whatever it is in life that you, that you really admire now. So that just all came from following your own intuition and it's unexplainable. Like, we have no idea why we did that. We just knew that we probably should.

• 48:42Speaker 02

  Should marry that person or should leave that person, should start this job or leave this job, start this business, leave this business. You know, most of those decisions, the most important ones that really changed our lives for the better came from intuition more than anything else. And so that's why I try to lean more so on that side than, you know, judgmental thinking. And a lot of times you can, it, it can warn you of, of things like that, but view it from a more objective stance. You can go back to intuition and say, okay, now that all that, now that all this data is available to me. What do I feel is right? And a lot of times it's going to be opposite of what most people say. It's going to be opposite of what your parents say, what your friends say. Most of those things that turned out for the better, like, a lot of people in your life probably told you, it's probably not going to work out.

• 49:24Speaker 02

  Like, you probably shouldn't leave college or you probably shouldn't start that business or you probably shouldn't do music or whatever it is. And then if you did it, and when I, when you did it, now everyone's like, oh, we, we believe in you all along. Like, we knew that you, we knew you were going to be so successful in, like, doing all this stuff. Uh, that's, that's, that's actually what happened with, like, my book and things like that. And it's like, thanks for your support now. Like, that's great. Um, I still love a lot and things like that. But you know, you're the only one that that kind of knows what you want in life, that knows yourself best. Um, that knows your dreams like no one else knows that more intimately than you. Um, and so you kind of have to pave your own path. Like, there's no way that I've never seen two people who quote unquote made it or became successful. Uh, follow the exact same path. And that's because they followed their own intuition.

• 50:07Speaker 02

  They knew that this was something that they they truly believed in and wanted to do. Um, all the major inventions in the world came from that place of intuition. Like, it didn't exist before. Like, so they can't just use the past to try to predict the future. It's just they had to create it. Um, from scratch. And that's, those are just a few examples of of intuition. Um, that I can best explain it in.

• 50:28Mayim Bialik?

  I was talking to my 16 year old, um, about new ideas, specifically, uh, trying to introduce him to some of the ideas about consciousness and spirituality and sort of the quantum mechanics of, you know, understanding probability states of, you know, the placement of electrons and things like that, like you do. And, uh,

• 50:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, easily.

• 50:47Mayim Bialik?

  Well, he, he started kind of like, he started kind of vibing on it, you know, he was like, I was talking about,

• 50:51Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, I love quantum entanglement. Yeah.

• 50:53Mayim Bialik?

  I was like talking about consciousness and he was kind of like, I could see that. And I was talking about some of the scientists. Uh, we've had Thomas Campbell on and we were talking about some of the scientists that are exploring, you know, aspects of consciousness that that previously, you know, were owned by the realms of of spirituality and and mysticism. And, uh, he was kind of really connecting to it. And then the next day, out of the blue, he's like, you know, I was thinking about what we were talking about. He's like, you know, and how like people used to think like Copernicus was crazy. He's like, Copernicus was kind of weird. He was kind, he kind of had weird stuff. So maybe we shouldn't, shouldn't have believed Copernicus. And what this was, was his way of trying to resist these new ideas about consciousness by going back in time to say like, well, maybe,

• 51:36Mayim Bialik?

  maybe that was, Copernicus was wrong, you know, like we're, we shouldn't be here. It just reminded me of that, though, in terms of the way we want to twist, you know, we want to kind of like twist reality to make it sort of fit. Um, you know, what we're comfortable with. You also, you have a really beautiful explanation of love in this sort of context. That I wonder if you can talk about you, you talk about with your partner, you had a set of thoughts about why you love this person. And you had a very specific kind of formula that you had designed for what equals love. And I wonder if you can describe how you experienced love versus how your partner did,

• 52:17Mayim Bialik?

  and how you can understand the differences in terms of this framework.

• 52:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's so interesting how a lot of this kind of leads to the same destination, like how trying to find peace also allows you to find more joy and at the same time, more love in life. And it's so, it's all interconnected. And so it's quite difficult to kind of extrapolate and dissect it when it all leaves the same place. In terms of love, I experienced it more intellectually in the beginning, which was, oh, I love this person for these sets of reasons. She is intelligent, she's funny, she loves helping people and all these different things. And there's a checklist. And I was like, oh, yeah, that's why I love her. That makes sense to me. And then one day I kind of just questioned that.

• 53:07Speaker 02

  And I was like, like, what happens if she doesn't exude some of those qualities one day? What if she somehow does something that's not as intelligent one day? Or, you know, it makes fun of me in a way that I don't like, or whatever it is. And it's like, do I still love her? Like, if she doesn't make me laugh one day, do I still love her? And so I was like, that's weird. I do. So then it's like, why, why is that the case? And so that means that this set of criteria doesn't work anymore for love. And that puzzled me more than anything else. So I was like, so why do I love her? And every time I would ask my, she's now my wife, I would always ask her every, I think every year, bless her soul. I was like, why do you love me?

• 53:51Speaker 02

  She's like, you know, I listed off like the 20, 30, 40 different reasons of why I loved her. And I was like, okay, like your turn, like, what do you, like, like, what do you, why do you love me? And she's like, I don't know, like, I just do. And I was like, what? Like, what do you mean you don't know why you love me? That doesn't make any sense. Like, that means you don't actually love me. And she's like, no, I obviously still love you. Um, so how can you say that? And so for her, she had a different model for love, which was it wasn't tied to particular reasons. That means because for my model, I kind of connected reasons to loving her, which means that if she didn't have those reasons anymore, that means I wouldn't love her.

• 54:34Speaker 02

  But now that I saw this new model, I was like, oh, that doesn't work anymore. And so she had almost no criteria for love, and she just knew that she did. And so what that means is that she loved me unconditionally, regardless of I exceeded certain traits one day or another, and then another. Um, whether I did something wrong or bad or whatever it is, like, she knew that she would always love me. And so I was like, oh, my gosh, like, that's how true love is. It it doesn't judge. It doesn't say that I only love you when this happens. Um, and that's another view of God that, you know, some religions uh have, which is like, you know, if God is is all-knowing, all-loving and unconditionally loving, then he's gonna love us no matter what we do. And then I I I thought before too, like, oh, God wouldn't love me if I like sinner, did did certain things, right? And it's like, oh, that's not true.

• 55:18Speaker 02

  So then this view of unconditional love is more of like a quote-unquote godlike view, which is no matter what happens, no matter what you do, no matter what you say, like, I will still love you. And I was like, oh, my God, like, that's what the true marital vows are, you know, through uh through sickness and then health and all that stuff. That's what it, that's what it means. Um, and so I started to let go of a lot of these reasons that I thought I needed to love her. And now I I'm able to love more deeply, more unconditionally,

• 55:49Speaker 02

  from a place of a a lot less judgment, right? And and so I became just so much more uh Like fluid about it. And that love can now extend to like many different other people, right? And so that's how I can view like my family, that's how I can view friends and anyone that I come across, it goes beyond the barriers of reason.

• 56:11Mayim Bialik?

  I wonder if you could talk a little bit about your parents' reaction to your success? Because you know, it's like a little bit like, it's a little counterintuitive. You know, you went on this path to try and help your parents, which you know, I think a lot of people would be like, why is that your responsibility? But in the family that you come from, that was not unusual for it to be a burden that you all shared, you know, and shouldered together.

• 56:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's the culture.

• 56:39Mayim Bialik?

  Right, so you know, I wonder if you went down this path of trying to do something with the express purpose of, let's say, helping them or, you know, earning financially so that you could help them? And it ended up, you know, I don't want to say falling apart, but it sort of, it crumbled because it wasn't, let's say, the right fit for you and your psychological development. And what came from that, you know, this kind of like Lotus, you know, rising from, you know, a challenging muddy situation, you know, actually turned out to be something that in your own healing has become a very successful, you know, business.

• 57:24Mayim Bialik?

  And I'm not just talking financially, I'm saying you became more of the person that you always wanted to be. How do your parents kind of view the journey that you went on?

• 57:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, that is a journey, to say the least. So I'll take you back to the beginning, which was when I decided to leave college, which was definitely. A difficult decision, um, one of the more just difficult decisions. I knew I wanted to leave, but they of course did not. And it was crazy because I had a full ride. Everything was paid for. Like, there was no reason not. Like, I was actually getting paid more than what the tuition was. So I was literally getting paid to go. And they were like, why are you doing this? This makes absolutely no sense. Like, you have everything paid for, the cushion, like, you, you, everything's gonna be secure for you. Like, why would you leave this?

• 58:19Speaker 02

  This thing that we, we all have built. Um, it just didn't make any sense. And it got so bad. We have these family dinners for Christmas and, and things like that. It's like all of our families here. So it's like forty, fifty people at, at this, uh, maybe like two thousand square foot house. And we all just cram in here. And this is the best time. And so one, I think is Thanksgiving, I think it was Thanksgiving. And I was just eating there, minding my own business, like eating turkey is great. And my parents are like, hey, like, uh, oh, can you come out here? We want to show you something for a sec. And I was like, okay, yeah, sure. Like, that they're gonna show me like my grandma's new plants or something. And I walk out and there's like a semicircle of all my aunts and uncles. And they're all standing there. And my parents were like,

• 59:03Speaker 02

  hey, Joseph, like, do you mind telling us like your plan? That you have, so that all of the aunts and uncles can, can listen. It was like ten, twelve different aunts and uncles. And I was like, what is going on? Like, what kind of intervention is this? So I had to explain to them my whole vision, which was to leave college that I'm fully getting paid for, uh, and making a profit on somehow. And I was going to leave and go into this extremely, uh, like unproven, uncertain business that I had no idea how I was gonna make it successful, uh, to hopefully pay off your debt of like a million dollars. And all of the aunts and uncles, like, that was the plan. And I was like, I'm not gonna stop until I

• 59:46Speaker 02

  make something happen. And that was my whole goal, right? I kind of did the math and I showed them like gonna make forty, fifty grand from this thing after four years. And if I do the math, it's gonna take a decade to get to maybe a hundred thousand, maybe. And by that time, you guys are like sixty, seventy and I got, who knows, like, we're still gonna have this massive debt and it's probably gonna compound because of interest. And so they all looked at me and they're like, and they looked at my parents and they said, Like, why are you stopping him from doing this? Like, he's trying to help you guys. And you're just like getting in the way. And so like it, it just, I was like, I was so baffled and stunned that like a lot of the Anton Uncle's was just like,

• 1:00:26Speaker 02

  just let him do it, just let him try. Cause I had a fallback plan of like, yeah, if this isn't happening like a year or two, right? And I'll just go back. Um, so they're like, I mean, yeah, it's still risky, but you still have a fallback plan. You can still do whatever you need to, and you'll probably still be safe. Like you're decent, like half intelligent kid, like you could probably, um, figure it out. And so my parents are like, oh, that's weird. So it just completely backfired, which was funny. Uh, but they still did not agree with it like at all. And so they were, they were very mad. They actually didn't talk to me for about a year.

• 1:01:00Speaker 02

  After that happened. And, you know, we were just kind of distant and eventually I was able to kind of grow the business and I actually just helped them and, and marketed their own businesses and it grew. So my mom expanded to multiple stores. She was able to pay off like the majority of the debt now. Because a lot of these things. And so, you know, throughout that time, after about a year or so, we started to make amends and to become closer. And now they're like so elated that, that I went down this path. They're like, we're so grateful that like you went, that you left and like kind of followed your own gut and intuition on doing this. Like you definitely helped our business and then now we're able to like pay off this debt and all this stuff.

• 1:01:43Speaker 02

  And they're like super proud of, of the book and everything. My mom was like, why do you want to write? Like you're gonna, you're not gonna make any money. Like, there's no point. Uh, who's gonna listen? Like, you don't have a degree. Like, why?

• 1:01:56Speaker 02

  And I was like, I know, mom, I, I already thought about all this. Like, I know, I'm telling myself this as I'm like trying to go to sleep. And so she's like super realistic. It's, it's hilarious. But now she's like, so she's like now goes and whenever she has a new conversation with anyone, she's like, have you heard of this book? Like, she's like literally handing out free copies, like telling everyone to buy it. It's, it's just hilarious. And so. It completely flips, right? And I think that's the case for most people that kind of follow their intuition on this stuff, which is like, once you kind of make some traction and see some external success, then everyone comes flocking back in. They're like, yeah, we believed in you like the whole time. But before that, everyone, most people are gonna resist it. And it's not out of ill intent, right?

• 1:02:40Speaker 02

  It's just because they want what's, what they think is best for you. They want to protect you. They want you to be, you know, successful in the safest way possible. But we all know that's, you know, that doesn't really happen. You kind of have to take the, the, the uncharted path. You know, maybe not like in the initially, but through all the circumstances that they've been through, through sacrificing so much to come over here, you know, working way more than I did, right? If I, if you thought I worked a lot, like they worked twice as much. Plus, still donated, donated like all their weekend to the church and were just amazing people. They gave so much so, like all that was just fuel for me to like really make something happen.

• 1:03:22Speaker 02

  Just because I didn't like, I couldn't like bear just standing or and looking at them and seeing like, why is all this bad stuff happening to really good people? And now I kind of understand how those, those challenges really shaped them and me to be able to do this. So like, I wouldn't trade that for the world, right? So it's like hindsight, 2020, it's like, oh yeah, like now looking back, that's like the worst thing that ever happened, but the best thing that ever happened.

• 1:03:47Mayim Bialik?

  First of all, it's a great read and it's also very beautiful. And in addition, it's super practical. And, you know, the back of the book, you dedicate to practical exercises and in some cases, thought experiments, writing experiments. Why do you think this is resonating so well? You know, in particular with, with Gen Z'ers. Kendall Jenner mentioned you in Vogue magazine that-

• 1:04:11Speaker 02

  Is she really?

• 1:04:12Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah. Did you not-

• 1:04:14Speaker 02

  Oh, I have no idea.

• 1:04:16Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, in in in vogue in May 2024, she said that she learned about you on TikTok and

• 1:04:25Mayim Bialik?

  why do you think the the message that you're delivering is resonating, especially with young people right now?

• 1:04:31Speaker 02

  I I think a huge part of it is just like luck and timing that I don't really have a a hand in, so I definitely want to acknowledge that.

• 1:04:40Speaker 02

  On the other hand, I had some part to do with it because I obviously had to write something down to share it. And I think what I did was I I didn't write it with the intention of

• 1:04:53Speaker 02

  trying to prove anything, trying to sound smarter than I was, or trying to convince anyone of anything. Actually, I wrote it for myself and I wanted to document some of the paradigm shifts that had that I had personally that really helped me find more peace and joy in my life. And if no one read it, that would be okay. And that's because now I have it for myself and I'm able to to experience that. But I kind of went with the idea of if I can help one person, that would have made the whole writing process worth it. And so it was just raw, unfiltered. I let go of all

• 1:05:32Speaker 02

  potential negative judgments about it. So like not having a degree, not having any background with, you know, neuroscience or anything like that, not being a monk in the middle of the mountains for for years or decades. That's why in the back of the book, like I'm not even there, like there's no picture of me, there's no bio. Because I wanted people to focus on the message, not the messenger. Because I'm I'm pretty much irrelevant in the equation, because if something is useful, it's actually useful, right? Like objectively. No matter like who brought it to you. So to me, I I acted as much as I possibly could as a as a conduit and a channel for for the message. And I removed any sort of personal.

• 1:06:13Speaker 02

  Like tint that I could have had on it. Um, of course, a lot of it came from my own life experience, right? But I tried to just be really authentic and truthful with whatever it was and um, didn't try to spin anything. Uh, and I wrote the book that I wish I had was mainly it, right? So I'd, so the, why the book is so short is because um, I don't, I actually don't read that many books. Um, I read very, very slow. Um, it's, it's, it's, it's quite embarrassing. Um, and so I was like, if I'm gonna write a book, it better not be in an encyclopedia because I'm not gonna read it. Uh, and I had to read it, you know, on social media to, to share it. So I tried to write it as uh, simply and uh, as short as possible because I knew people were short on time. I personally didn't want to read, you know, a Bible.

• 1:06:58Speaker 02

  And that's actually how my mind works, right? It's, it's like, it doesn't uh, understand very, very complex things very quickly or easily. So I tried to distill down everything that I learned uh, as much as I could. And I think because of that, people really value simplicity. Um, and a practical thought process uh, rather than like over explanation or over uh, explaining something. So um, I'm, I'm so grateful that people resonate with it because I, I really had no idea if, if anyone would pick it up or not, and certainly not Kendall Jenner, so.

• 1:07:29Mayim Bialik?

  Well, I mean, if you have an endorsement from Deepak Chopra, which you do on the back of your book, you don't really need to put your face like that's a really big endorsement. So between that and Kendall Jenner, um, who says that, yeah, your book um, helped her start shifting her thinking and dealing with her anxiety. Um, that's a, that's a pretty good uh, pretty good audience. So before we let you go, um, May is Mental Health Awareness Month. So um, I wonder if you want to sort of, you know, give a thumbnail explanation of, of how, you know, this kind of thinking can be helpful to people who might be struggling.

• 1:08:01Jonathan Cohen?

  If someone is listening to this that is suffering right now, what would your message be to them?

• 1:08:07Speaker 02

  One of the most important messages that I can share with you is that you're not alone. This is a battle that I think almost every single human on earth is fighting, and that we're all fighting with each other. And so I hope through this episode and through some of my work and writings, that you're able to find a little bit more solace in life. It might not solve everything in your life, but hopefully it gives you a little bit more relief so that you can begin trusting yourself again and to let go of a lot of the negative beliefs and judgments that might be, that might be plaguing you right now. And so knowing that, that you are not your thoughts is one of the most empowering beliefs that you can begin to adopt. And once you understand that, you can then

• 1:08:52Speaker 02

  discover who you truly are, which is beyond your thoughts. And one example I love giving is if the last thought just left your mind, how are you still here? So this means that we are something beyond our thoughts, beyond our mind, beyond our past experiences, beyond all the negative judgments that you have about yourself, other people, or other people have of you. And so that is where true joy and peace can come from, is this space that is beyond all these things. And so I hope this helps you.

• 1:09:21Mayim Bialik?

  The book is Don't Believe Everything You Think: Why You're Thinking is the Beginning and End of Suffering. And you have so many other books. They've been translated into dozens of languages. Such a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you, Joseph Wen.

• 1:09:32Speaker 02

  Thank you so much. It's such an honor to be here. Break it down.

• 1:09:37Mayim Bialik?

  The end of Don't Believe Everything You Think has a bunch of very helpful exercises. And some of them are writing exercises and some of them are thinking exercises. But one, one thing I wanted to talk about was how you create a non-thinking environment. Jonathan, how would you create a non-thinking environment?

• 1:09:54Jonathan Cohen?

  I would just stop thinking.

• 1:09:57Mayim Bialik?

  Sounds very easy. Okay, so he actually encourages us to list, like make a list, of the things that make us more likely to overthink, to ruminate, and to become anxious. So for example, physical health. You would, you would list the things in your physical health that are likely to make you overthink. Your physical environment, like noise, temperature, location, things like that. Digital environment, checking your phone, like what are the things in each of these categories? Also, digital consumption. He's big on what you put in affects what comes out, right? So the input, if you're inputting with checking your phone, notifications, email, social media, all these things. So he wants you to, to list those things.

• 1:10:40Mayim Bialik?

  And then identify the top three triggers that affect you most in each of the categories. And then you can start to implement ideas to minimize the overthinking regarding those categories. He encourages journaling. He's big on journaling and writing. I think for many people, it's kind of like, yeah, I just need to stop thinking. I need to stop thinking. Or if I can meditate, then I'll stop thinking for five minutes at a time.

• 1:11:06Jonathan Cohen?

  I want to, I want to clarify what I meant. The first thing that I've actually done and felt like it started to make a difference was identifying thinking. To say, oh, wait a second. What I'm doing right now is actually thinking and there's a level of subjectivity to that process that I'm on the roller coaster of. And by identifying it as thinking, then it stops being the reality, stops being an ultimate truth, and it can be malleable.

• 1:11:34Mayim Bialik?

  What I heard a lot of was a lot of emphasis on acceptance. Meaning there are all sorts of things that are going to happen. It's our struggle with them that takes us from the thought to the thinking, to the ruminating. That if we are in acceptance, for example, of the rain, right? If we're in acceptance, it's not that you can't feel disappointed that you're, the birthday party is canceled because it's raining. But the notion of how much do we tell a story then about these things always happened to me? I should have checked the Calendar, I should have, you know, checked the weather, or I shouldn't have planned an outside

• 1:12:14Mayim Bialik?

  party. All of that stuff is the stuff that trains your nervous system to keep being anxious. I mean, that's really what it is, too. So the notion that you use these tools throughout the day is a way to try and keep lowering your tendency to continue to be anxious.

• 1:12:31Jonathan Cohen?

  My background as a writer has been about narrative, and the intersection with mental health has always been for me the idea that in every single thought, there are endless stories. One thought is a building block to a story. So in the birthday example, the fact that it rains, and someone can go to, "I shouldn't have planned this party," begins a narrative. That's the jumping off point of a story. When we start those stories with, "Oh, I shouldn't do this. I can never do that. I'm a failure," because it puts us in such an intense psychological state, and we know that that creates a cascade of chemicals in

• 1:13:11Jonathan Cohen?

  our body that make it really, really hard to find solution spaces, versus, "That's really difficult. I acknowledge that, but where is the opportunity in this?" Well, instead of this big outdoor party, maybe there's a smaller group that gets to play indoors and celebrate what that brings, which could be a really intimate connection that we may not have foreseen. For me, what it goes to the most is not believing that we have the ultimate idea of how things should unfold. And if a wrench gets put in the plan, or there is uncertainty, that it could be that something great comes out of that that we couldn't have imagined in the first place, and that's not a failure, and it's not weak

• 1:13:56Jonathan Cohen?

  to say, "Oh, I wasn't able to implement the exact thing that I wanted."

• 1:14:00Mayim Bialik?

  You can only come to that when you are coming from a place of expansiveness, and an opening, and seeing things as some sort of opening, while also experiencing the feelings that come with it. So, this chart is really, really, you know, helpful. You know, the difference between thought and thinking. So, if a thought is seen as something light, the thinking would be heavy, right? How do you find the, you know, how do you find the way to still persist and and acknowledge lightness for what it is without emphasizing heaviness? You know, if the thought is love, the thinking is fear. If your thought is about love,

• 1:14:42Mayim Bialik?

  the fear that it will go away, the fear that it's not right, the fear that you did it wrong, the fear that someone will betray you, that's the thinking surrounding love that turns it into fear.

• 1:14:54Jonathan Cohen?

  I want to touch on this idea of heaviness versus lightness, because it's a very tangible, somatic sign of the difference between the two. When we think this horrible thing is gonna happen, that's not really intuition as much as it is thinking. When we have a premonition of something bad, we usually have a direct insight into doing something differently, or making an action. When we think, "Oh, this horrible thing is happening," or "I shouldn't have done this," or "I'm bad for this," we literally, like, our shoulders around our heart gets heavy. We feel like a weight on us. And when we think in a different way, where there's more uplift, more positivity,

• 1:15:39Jonathan Cohen?

  our shoulders relax, we pick our heads up a little higher, and our limbs can literally feel lighter. So, when people get into practicing the difference between those two, it can show them a barometer for how they're thinking.

• 1:15:54Mayim Bialik?

  I found a lot of comfort in discovering that my thinking is the beginning and also the end of my suffering. Meaning, just like my thinking can create suffering, my thinking can also end that suffering. So, we hope that you will find that to be true as well. Don't believe everything you think. From our breakdown to the one we hope you never have, we'll see you next time.

• 1:16:15Speaker 03

  It's Mindy Mule's Breakdown. She's gonna break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two. One fiction, one... And now she's gonna break down. So break down. She's gonna break it down.