Stanford Psychologist Reveals One Change That Will Dramatically Improve Your Life | Kelly McGonigal

So why is movement specifically so important for mental well-being? I almost don't even know where to start. I mean, you can start with the data if you just look at the data from around the world, from every country you can imagine. It has been studied in every age group, every health state, every gender, every socioeconomic level, people who are more physically active are happier, have better relationships, have more meaning in

life

, have less risk of suffering from things like depression and loneliness, if you go further. that just that type of epidemiology and you observe how movement affects the brain and how movement affects mental health, it is as if humans were born to move and when we are physically active it puts us in a state not only bodily but also mentally.

To be the best version of ourselves, you know everything from the neurochemistry of runner's high, which makes us enjoy cooperating with other people more and gives us hope and optimism, to how, if you are active regularly, you have a brain and a different nervous system. Than people who don't exercise, you have a brain and nervous system that are more sensitive to pleasure and more resistant to stress. I could literally talk for the next hour listing the many ways, but I think the most important thing is that human beings as individuals and as a species thrive when we are active and our brains are not simply housed in bodies like a suitcase carrying our brains around our brains actually work better when we are in active bodies Hello everyone, welcome to Today's Impact Theory guest is a research

psychologist

, professor at Stanford, and an award-winning science writer.

She is also the author of several best-selling books, including The Willpower Instinct and the Perks of Stress, and her Ted Talk titled How to Make Stress Your Friend is one of the 20 most viewed Ted Talks of all time. Her powerful expertise in the field of science, which focuses on translating insights from psychology and neuroscience into practical strategies that support health and well-being, has made her a sought-after speaker. and consultant, she has worked with countless organizations, including the New York Times Education Initiative, and has appeared on such prestigious television shows as The Today Show, Good Morning America, The Anderson Cooper Show, and CNN's Vital Signs.

So please help me welcome the woman whose incredible work she has been. published in 28 languages ​​around the world jazzercise fan and author of the joy of movement

kelly

mcgonagall phd thank you absolutely welcome to the show thank you for having me, so I didn't know anything about this, the movement side of

your

life

, obviously I had been introduced to through the ted talk and all the interesting things you've done about stress, which was really interesting. I'm a total psychopath by force of

will

, so I thought, "Okay, what's the next book going to be," and it was a curve ball for me. but then I like the way you tie it in with all the connections and stuff that made you want to write about the power of movement.

This is the book I was born to read, it's funny because most people who know me as a public figure don't know that this is actually the most important part of my life. I discovered exercise as a way to take care of my mental health when I was very young, like seven or eight years old, and I have been teaching group exercise classes for 20 years and I am convinced that it is the most important thing I do to take care of myself and I also believe which is the most important contribution that I make to my community, the classes that I lead, so I know that every book that I have written so far is because someone else asked me: "oh, you teach this class on the science of

will

power , it should be a book," or you gave this ted talk, it should be a book, and this was the book where I said, "this is the book I want." I write because I think the most important thing other people can do is take care of their minds and also build community.

So why is movement specifically so important for mental well-being? I almost don't even know where to start. What I mean is that you can start with the data if you just look at the data from around the world, every country you can imagine, every age group, every health state, every gender, every socioeconomic level, the people who are The more physically active they are the happier. They have better relationships, they have more meaning in life, they have less risk of things like depression and loneliness, if you go beyond that kind of epidemiology and look at how movement affects the brain and how movement affects mental health, it's like If humans were born to move and when we are physically active it puts us in a state not only physically but also mentally to be the best version of ourselves, you know everything from the neurochemistry of the runner that makes us enjoy cooperating with other people. more and gives us hope and optimism to the point that if you are active regularly, you have a different brain and nervous system than people who don't exercise, you have a brain and nervous system that are more sensitive to pleasure and more resistant to stress, I could literally talk for the next hour listing the many ways, but I think the most important takeaway is that humans as individuals and as a species thrive when we are active, that our brains are not simply housed in bodies as they are. a suitcase that carries our brains around our brains actually works best when we are in active bodies.

You actually talk in the book about how it's very possible that the reason we developed big brains was to move. Give us some of the science behind it. The one thing I found in my own life was that once I was able to understand the biological mechanisms, once I knew why things were the way they were, it became easier to not be a slave to it, then I understood my sense of agency within myself. . the meat suit, so to speak, so where does the hypothesis that our brains were created to move come from? Yeah, this is, I mean, this is an idea that I feel like you can't even explain, this is an idea that if you look at the structure and function of the brain everything that humans do besides thinking is a form of movement, because You know, communicating language, emotional expressions, work, finding food, celebrating, procreation, everything is a physical action and the idea is basically other than thinking, reflecting and planning.

You know there is no other reason to have a brain except to interact with the world and even thinking is subordinate to our ability to relate to the world and therefore we basically have a brain that underpins every type of interaction we have with the world . which is movement and I don't think it's even a fancy idea, it's what's true, so talk to me, I don't experience the runner's high, so I exercise every day because I recognize its importance, but I think I recognize it in a big way. extent. Intellectually, especially because I've been doing it for many years, so I don't take a lot of time off, so I don't have much to compare myself to with my wife, although she does get a pretty powerful runner's effect.

If she's stressed, she needs to exercise, whereas if I'm stressed, I prefer to take time off and I find that gives me time to calm my mind, calm my nervous system, so what's going on physiologically? makes the connections between anxiety, depression and cognitive optimization, the book that john ratey wrote, light the spark, if you have the most difficult class, you should do physical education right before and increase

your

heart rate, what is happening physiologically , which makes that true, oh my gosh, okay, but first I want to ask you, you said you don't get the high of a runner, what do you actually do, what's your favorite format?

Well, I've run, so I did cross country for four years, so when I say, I tried, yeah, like I don't run, so no, I'm not here to make anyone run. I also don't feel like a runner unless there's a killer soundtrack, but still, why not just dance? That's great. interesting and I'm very surprised that we'll definitely want to get an answer for that so the exercise that I do is mostly weight based so I do some body weight stuff but mainly I'm trying to lift heavy weights. I'm not the strongest cat ever, but that's my zone so it's interesting, so if you want to go for the classic runner's high, the type of movement that's most likely to trigger it is when you persist at something. which is like respiratory cardio. activities like fast walking walking running swimming cycling dancing and, I guess, so we know that there are individual differences in whether people experience that as euphoria versus that might be like you know the classic runner's high versus more just a sense of empowerment, something It feels more like a relief, so many times it's an individual difference.

I think they promise us the euphoria that is like an incredible drug rush. A lot of people don't get that version of the runner's high, but most people like it. We don't actually know if there's any evidence that people don't experience any version of runner's high. We know that humans and also other social species like dogs, when they perform cardiovascular activity for approximately 20 minutes of moderate intensity, one of the

change

s you see in the brain is an increase in endocannabinoids, which is the neurotransmitter that mimics the cannabis and if you work really hard you can also get an endorphin rush or if you have a great playlist you can get an endorphin rush or if When you move in with people you love you can get an extra endorphin rush but the central high They're not actually endorphins, but endocannabinoids, so some people experience it as a kind of euphoria, but many people experience it as just feeling better, just like worries. a little less, everything seems possible, things feel like there is reason to hope that endocannabinoids also increase the pleasure we get from social contact, so sometimes you don't even notice what the runner's or exercise high is until after and then you meet up with your partner or you meet up with your team and suddenly it's an easier interaction, somehow their stories are funnier and it feels better to hug someone, so the runner is high, it's not always such a rush as people think we are at peak time.

Intensity is like loving life because you are working hard. The runner's high is more of this, this neurochemical

change

that seems to make us more optimistic and also more open to connecting with others and I suppose you could have a version of that. but also the movement, the exercise that you're doing will probably affect your brain and your mental health in slightly different ways, so we know, for example, that when you lift heavy weights you're doing things that really engage the core muscles of the body. Your core actually talks to your brain in a way that tends to produce this type of happiness or euphoria that actually calms anxiety.

It's a really interesting neurofeedback loop that when you strengthen your core and when you engage in that type of strong muscle exercise. The contraction that stabilizes your brain reads those signals from your body, because essentially I have this, I'm in control, so it's not really like a runner's high, but it can be a really empowering state of mind, so it's your literal moment to... Your sense of self in each moment is always informed by what your body is doing and we know that when people are active they often experience themselves as a different version of themselves, so with something like weightlifting you are literally receiving sensory feedback from your body that says I am strong, I move heavy things, I do difficult things, I am powerful and your brain is not receiving that information, so you are lifting something heavy, so your Brain will receive feedback of muscle contraction and tendon tension. your joints your brain doesn't get that information and it thinks my biceps are strong or you know my lats are strong the brain thinks I'm strong I have strength I'm pushing myself this way and each form of movement has its own characteristic proprioceptive feedback So my favorite form of exercise, my favorite forms are dance and yoga, and when you think about gestures and dance or gestures in yoga, whole body gestures, my favorite proprioceptive feedback is actually these physical signatures of joy , like your arms outstretched and Your gaze lifts and your heart opens and I may begin a movement experience feeling depressed, anxious and demoralized, but after knowing, 10 minutes of throwing my arms in the air, looking up and smiling, my body is like you are joy, my brain is like you.

They are a joy and very often peoplethey're drawn to forms of movement that give them a sense of self that's really personally meaningful or empowering and you know, running sometimes is I'm free, I'm fast, I'm going somewhere. I'm onto something incredibly powerful that I've never been able to put into words and I was saying this to someone not long ago and I was like okay so I grew up in a morbidly obese family, I used to be 60 pounds heavier and when I got thin for the first time was really the first time in my life that I was skinny, but I had already been working out for a while, so when I became skinny I literally had a hard body and there is something very psychologically rewarding.

This is going to sound weird, but this is so true. I stand by this. There's something so psychologically rewarding about stretching your body and hitting your pecs or something that you're like Jesus, which is hard or you hit your abs. I was doing just that. This this morning and my abs are hard and I thought: It sounds silly to tell someone, but it's amazing. Like there's this weird feedback loop in your brain where I'm like, I don't even know why this is so amazing, but there's a subconscious part of it. of me, while I didn't think I was a bad person when I was heavier or anything like that. like that but I wasn't getting a positive reinforcement loop from encountering my own body that way and I'm talking like you're not even thinking about I'm not talking about looking in the mirror I'm talking about when I feel like when you feel a tight t-shirt on your arm when you flex your arm, that there's a signal that's sent when you hit yourself, whoa, it's like that's unexpectedly difficult, there's something really powerful about that and what you do.

What I'm describing is exactly what I get in the gym. I'm strong, I remember, so again, I'm not setting any strength records, but my highest deadlift was I think 385 pounds and I thought I bent over and lifted almost 400 pounds like that was crazy. and when you start thinking about things like that and you're putting that energy in and you see that reward and your body is changing the amount your mind changes it's yeah, crazy, well, you know, in my book I write about that, a woman who in He actually had a plan to kill himself and he went to the gym and he deadlifted to achieve his personal best and he was literally in the moment of feeling his own strength that he decided he wanted to live and I think very often movement can give us these these moments of feeling what is possible in you and for you through this very concrete way.

You know, one of the ways I've experienced that I've been afraid of flying my whole life. I hate flying and for years I refused. fly and when I decided I finally wanted to face that fear I knew I had to learn to deal with how I feel on a plane like my heart is pounding and I feel like I can't breathe and I feel like I'm trapped and I thought like when why not? I could practice getting on a plane that's too much, when else have I felt like this and I realized that one time I had been in an indoor cycling class I hated it, I felt like I was trapped, I couldn't breathe, my heart was beating I really wanted to escape, but I felt like the instructor locked the doors and there was no way to get out of the room, so I started going to indoor cycling classes as a way to practice. getting used to what it feels like to be on a plane, feeling trapped and scared, and what was so crazy for me is, first of all, it worked well, I learned to tolerate that discomfort, I learned that I can have a voice in my head. that says you can't handle this you need to escape and at the same time that voice was in my head I was able to have the experience of choosing to stay like no, you decided to do this and then there is room for this voice in your head and I also stayed and I learned to tolerate the uncomfortable sensations, but something strange happened because because of the playlist, like listening to empowering music, I started to feel the sensations differently and started having an experience where my heart was pounding, without feeling afraid. of feeling brave and tough and somehow my brain reorganized the way I experienced the physical sensations of fear, so that in moments when I was really scared, I suddenly thought: I guess I'm brave, I guess I'm a badass and It's so Movement is so amazing and how it gives us access to physical feedback that allows us to have this different sense of ourselves and again, I always encourage people to figure out what that movement is for you because it's not about you know. believe that everyone should exercise in a certain way to achieve some kind of ideal health and certainly not ideal appearance, but that each form of movement has its own empowering effects on the mind and it is often a coincidental process to discover which is.

Yeah, what you were saying about bravery, I think it's very important, so Jordan Peterson has a whole thing going on, so I guess he's still a clinical

psychologist

and he has a lot of patience and he deals with people with severe phobias and he said that when you do immersion therapy, he said, you are not making them less afraid, what you are teaching them is that courage and bravery are powerful and that they are more powerful than fear, so the physiological symptoms may not even don't even change for them. but your framing around that does, and I know you've talked a lot about the importance of framing and the way you see something, how you see that play out in people's lives, what the importance of framing is, Are there other ways you can encourage? for people to do that, yeah, I mean absolutely, so you know that the idea that you just expressed is, actually, I think one of the basic principles of everything that I've tried to teach people is that you can have an experience interior that tells you You must do one thing or you cannot do the other and at the same time you can choose something that is consistent with your values.

I mean, certainly, exposure therapy is like a very advanced version of that where part of you wants to be able to do it. go out in public or talk to someone and overwhelming anxiety tells them they can't do it and most people choose to try to control their internal experience instead of choosing the action that is most consistent with their values ​​and their goals, so you he knows. It's true whether we are trying to overcome addiction whether we choose to stay alive when its voices in our head that are severely depressed and mocking us whether we choose to overcome anxiety that often the only skill you need is to say I I can't always control my internal experiences, but I can make a decision right now and I know that my future self will be grateful because it reflects my core values ​​and I will learn to tolerate this internal experience and that is true for stress.

It may also be true for pain. You know, I'm someone who feels pain most of the time because I have chronic pain and that was the first thing pain taught me: you can choose to do things in a physical or psychological circumstance that is not at all ideal, but you can leave room for everything. what's going on inside of you and continue to engage with life so you know this is literally the theme of everything I try to share with people and you can learn it through therapy. learn it through meditation, which is often just a big giant where you're sitting with things in your mind and in your body that you don't want to deal with and you definitely learn it through exercise because a lot of exercise actually It's learning a new way to not just deal with physical discomfort because I mean exercise is hard.

I'm not one of those people that says you know you don't really need to exercise, you can just do the easy thing, like no, you don't have to sweat, you can just, you know, get up and stretch and that's it, the more intense the better probably for every aspect of you, you will feel uncomfortable, you will get tired, there will be a voice in your head telling you that you have to stop, you know there will literally be feedback from your muscles telling you that you should stop and you will learn to negotiate and figure out what is the most important for you and move forward.

Okay, there are a couple. There are things I want to talk about. You have spoken very eloquently about pain yoga for pain management. First, what is causing the chronic pain you have had to deal with, and two, how do you manage it mentally and physically? Yes. Wouldn't it be good to know? So, I had no answer for you in terms of what the pain is. You know, I started experiencing really debilitating headaches for as long as I can remember being alive, so I don't know when. it started, you know, in my family history it was always oh Kelly has a headache now she's lying under a blanket and she's your identical twin sister she doesn't have the kind of pain that I have, she developed migraines um after a traumatic brain injury. but For some reason growing up, you know she didn't share that particular aspect of my nervous system and you know it's a little hard to explain, but the way I usually try to explain it to people is that I understand that most people when they wake up.

In the morning, if they keep going, they get hungry and tired. It hurts in the same way that that's what my nervous system produces, so it often starts with a mild headache and then there's pain in my face and then there's like things stabbing me in the eye and it's just... it's often up here sometimes systemic um and none of that, so some people who have chronic pain dedicate their lives to figuring it out and fixing it and no one talked to any specialist had an explanation. for that or a treatment that made sense to me so I chose to just live with it and take care of myself in a way that I know is sustainable and it's funny that my biggest pain trigger is actually talking there's something about yeah I.

I know this well because I'm a teacher and a speaker and, um, the most fulfilling activities in my life are often through interaction and communication, so I had to make a decision early on that I was going to choose professionally what I found. The most valuable value and the most immediate value, like maybe I helped someone today, like I taught a class and someone said something afterwards like that, it was valuable. I know it was valuable and I know I'll go home and feel like I got run over. truck every time and just choose that and be like that, that's the cycle that I can live with um and uh, you know, it goes back to that idea that you can choose your values ​​instead of trying to control your internal experiences, so I basically gave up trying to find out or I think the last time I went to a doctor was in 2014 or 2015.

You gave me chills. I knew you were going to say values ​​there and that was the other thing I wanted to talk to you about. How do you talk about values? I think he's very interesting, maybe more so than most people I've met in my life, and I think values ​​are so important. So why are values ​​important to you? How do you come up with them? Tell people that they should have core values, like why are values, I mean, I think this is true for everyone, but I don't know, they're what gives you direction, gives you courage, um, I'll say you know.

Everyone has individual personality strengths. I think one of my biggest personality strengths is a very strong instinctive response when things are consistent or inconsistent with values, like I don't realize, you know, a week later, a year later, like maybe that's not true. was really consistent. my values ​​I get hit with the feeling that you know this is, this is, or it excites me, I feel like literally when the value of something is consistent, there's like a hook in my heart and I get hooked and they push me forward and so on. is. it gives me the energy or it gives me the courage it's not what other people value you for so it's not what's valuable about you it's not whether you're smart you know whatever? um when you're involved in that activity or role or you're offering something to the world or you're contributing something to a relationship or you're demonstrating a particular strength or virtue you feel like there's a natural reward for it it's like you're aligned and I think when people reflect on moments they feel more alive and more proud of themselves or more connected to something bigger than themselves they can begin to identify this is the role this is the relationship this is the priority this is the way of being and you know, one of my values ​​is enthusiasm, which is a value that not even many other people value and you want to say being enthusiastic yes to living with enthusiasm don't be afraid to be enthusiastic if I'm being like a fan at a concert like oh my God, there it is Todrick Hall, it was just like last week, I wish I was so sincerely excited about sharing other people's joy, wanting to be able to capture other people's joy, loving what I love and that's something that I know sustains me and lights me up. and It gives other people permission to also like to freely fan or freely share, enjoy or freely celebrate things that maybe aren't important but that just make you happy, so that's a core value for me and I feel like there's things like that too. like values ​​don't have to be things that are virtues, you know, honesty is my value, I tryto be honest, but I don't wake up in the morning and think that today I bring honesty to the world, you know, I think that today Today I will bring enthusiasm.

I'm going to bring compassion as another core value today. A value I've been working with a lot lately is local community and I realized that was a value when I didn't have much and I was traveling so much that I was losing contact with real people. I live near that kind of neighborhood, kind of community connection, so sometimes you know what your values ​​are because that's what you crave, you feel like something is missing and that can be value too and you can choose it without feeling like you're already good at it. . I mean, you know courage doesn't have to be what comes easy.

Courage is another of my values ​​because my default temperament is fear. and fear, so work hard on the courage aspect, that's amazing, compassion, self-compassion, you teach people how to do that, yeah, how did that become a thing? How do you teach someone to be more compassionate and then what is easier to teach someone to be compassionate or self-compassionate? compassionate oh okay what good questions so let's define compassion so this is my area of ​​research for the last decade and the scientific definition of compassion is that it is a response to suffering so that you become aware of some pain or suffering and there is a part of you that is moved by that sometimes you are upset by that you are distressed by that it is touched and there is another part of you that thinks that I can do something to alleviate the suffering I want to do something to alleviate the suffering and then If you respond in some way, whether it's listening, taking action, or standing up for someone, then it's the cycle of responding to suffering and often ideally it includes a sense of hope and empowerment, a sense of maybe love, there's also kind of a warm glow, so it's not a response to suffering driven primarily by anger, it's not a response to suffering driven primarily by empathic distress like, oh my God, you're sad, I can't stand it. like sadness, let me encourage you so you don't have to have this infection of sadness, that's not compassion, right?

It is a response to suffering driven by a real desire to see that suffering relieved and to take some kind of joy or meaning in it. In that act of trying to respond, the way people are taught compassion is to firstly recognize that this is a basic human instinct and even people who are diagnosed as sociopaths often have compassion; It's just a tight circle, so almost everyone. Human beings have the capacity, that's what caring is rooted in, you know, a caregiver and their child or their pet, or there's this instinctive response, you see them suffering and you want to lift them up, protect them and take care of them, so this is an instinct. basic human and teaching compassion is often about finding out where in the process you are shutting down or being less effective, so for some people teaching compassion is about the awareness aspect, like maybe you are aware when your partner or your child is suffering, but there is a kind of compassion blindness, as if you don't really see the suffering in the people you work with because you are too focused on yourself or it is difficult to understand the life experiences of the people you work with.

They are different. of yourself so that you don't really see their suffering, for many people the teaching of compassion is this type of cognitive empathy, like you, you actually have to learn to pay attention and imagine what it's like to be another person and ask. people about their experiences, so that may be one aspect of what it means to teach compassion, it's like literally waking up and learning to see more clearly for other people, they're overwhelmed by suffering, they see everything, they feel everything and where they are. . to fall is to be overwhelmed so I see all the suffering in the world and then I just feel helpless or overwhelmed or I feel like that suffering is so contagious that now I just need to escape from it and so the strength that needs to be developed is that actually the strength that we were talking about before to tolerate that initial distress so that you can choose the action instead of being overwhelmed by it for other people it is about training the resources like you want to be compassionate but no one really showed it to you. what it's like to listen to someone and then you actually train yourself to listen or maybe you need real skills to train people to listen, yeah, because their first instinct will be to just stay quiet, yeah, and point their eyes at the person, well. , that's not a bad thing, that's it, let me see, okay, having done it, it's actually not most people's first instinct, most people listen with their mouth, immediately jump up and try to do it, like that who intend to listen and want to share, solve problems and talk. because that's one of the ways we connect, but actually the first listening exercise that I teach in my compassion trainings I call listening with the heart and it would be like we were doing an exercise as a couple, so let's say that the exercise is share what brought you to this training so you can do your little reflection, you know what you are ready to share, partner and then first of all I always ask who usually speaks first and make it the listener first to really understand your way of thinking. actually, most because they are people who know each other no, usually, not at all, so how would they know who talks the most?

It's not like that, it's not a comparison, are you the kind of person who would normally volunteer to talk? I've been in this room for 10 minutes and you still haven't said it and you're really thinking the ratio is wrong. There are people who know this and then I guide the listener in this contemplation. You close your eyes and draw attention. physical heart I'm not particularly interested in this, but there is literally a heart in your body that is beating, you pay attention to it, you feel your lungs on either side of your heart and you imagine that you are breathing in and out from your heart, you start to bring in some consciousness there and then usually people can feel that and then I ask them to imagine that they are lowering their ears to where their lungs are, it's just a visualization, just imagine that their ears are where their lungs are on either side of your heart.

Can you imagine lowering your eyes down there then you have your nose, your ears and your eyes here and you don't move your mouth we are listening from the heart and you listen with your whole body and then you direct your attention to the person who is sharing and when you listen with your whole body , often your body language is open, your eye contact is not particularly aggressive, and you literally imagine that you are breathing in what the other person is sharing and just let it land without having to. respond and you set the intention to understand the other person's experience assuming that you never have to do or say anything, as if that is the first training we do and in fact, we don't allow people to respond in the first exercise that you literally do .

It's not allowed, when we do it more advanced we do things like reflective listening where you share what you heard very close to the language they used and then the next level of appreciative listening where you say what really resonated with you and put yourself a little bit more into the conversation. , that's an advanced skill, um, but that idea that you know how you train listening is that you have to change your way of thinking, which is about understanding, it's not the point where you're waiting to jump and, of all Ways, but we could Speak so now I'm going to stay quiet because I would like to go through the whole compassion training program.

Well, I really want to reach self-compassion. I think that's something that a lot of people in my audience struggle with. Yes, how to do it. You know, feeling unforgiven, I'm not sure, in fact, that's part of what I'm really curious to know. When you say being compassionate, what do you mean what do you get people to focus on? eyes and ears on your own heart or is it something completely different then you asked which was harder first of all self-compassion is definitely harder for most people and it's harder to teach because it's harder for most people and I think about this from an evolutionary point of view.

Compassion as an instinct is connected to the system of care that exists to help us respond to suffering that is outside of ourselves. Compassion does not work in an ideal and natural way when we have to be the object of it. and the source of it. That's not why compassion exists, that doesn't mean you shouldn't have compassion for yourself, but you know, I think about all the emotions and these capacities that we have, they're there for a purpose and compassion is to respond to the suffering of others. others. and we have other very powerful instincts that compete with compassion when the suffering is our own shame it is a sadness it is a depression anger worry and anxiety and these are strong evolutionarily adaptive emotions that motivate us to perhaps seek help from others or sometimes to withdraw and try to figure things out, but they themselves often cause a lot of suffering and can prevent us from being truly effective, so the first step is to decide that you are worthy of compassion, that you deserve compassion, how to get people to do it.

Get it right, I often leave it out, so there is a step in our compassion training called common humanity, which is recognizing what all human beings have in common, which is the desire to be happy, the desire to be loved ones, the desire to contribute and constant experience. That falls short of the fact that we all know physical pain, we all know disappointment, we all know rejection, we all know anger, we all know fear and, generally, if people have it through their own experiences, they know that perhaps a difficult childhood, a traumatic relationship they have come to. to the conclusion that they can't trust others or that they are not worthy of compassion, often the first intuition is that you have to go in and fix that at the u level, let me tell you why you are worthy, let me create a story about you , but actually what opens it up to most people is that you already know that you are human and when you come to recognize that all humans suffer and all humans are trying to be happy and everything people do is an expression of that. even if it's not skilled, that often opens the heart in a way that is more powerful than some kind of therapy conversation about why specifically you deserve it, that's really interesting, so I do this thing called impact theory, college talk about mentality, people let me fly. everywhere to talk about building businesses and stuff, and one thing I always come back to is self-esteem, that's where people are really going wrong and so I went through this and my big problem was that I could and this.

It's like I'm not being humble, this is all a bell curve and I know where I fall on the intellectual bell curve and I always saw myself as smart enough to realize how smart some people are and people who really moved on. To do extraordinary things, it was like I was smart enough to be aware of my inadequacies and that always seemed like a really twisted trap to me and it actually seems like a pretty good place to be, but I mean it's not necessary when I was when. I was young, I wasn't, but you're absolutely right, it ends up paying dividends once I improvised the following kind of idea, which is exactly what you were saying, once I realized that the average human being is the machine of definitive adaptation and the same thing that we are evolutionarily designed to do is grow and change, so culture accumulates, it is like if a horse is born, a dolphin is born, it can do its thing in about 20 minutes, a human being is not that way and that's why we are designed. to drink in this whole culture and so we're left, you know, we have to be on your point about caring, we have to be cared for and all that, so they're two different evolutionary strategies, pre-wiring everything or not allowing them to absorb, but they're going to needing to be taken care of now by choosing that path of needing to be taken care of, then their design is to adapt to their environment, to their culture to know all those things, so I thought, well, wait a second.

If that's what humans are designed to do, and look, I admit we're not blank slates, so some of it is programmed, let's put it at 50. 50 of who we are is written in stone, there's nothing you can do to fix it. . change it, but the 50s are changeable and the life-altering effects of changing those 50s, even if not skillfully, as you said, are still radically transformative, so I thought, "Okay, I'm willing to accept that I'm a human being." average, maybe even a little below average." I don't actually believe that about myself, but what I'm saying is that even if you were a little below average, you'd still fall somewhere on that bell curve, the amount you can change is extraordinary, much better to focus on that, So I always tell people that there is only one belief that matters and that belief is that you are more or less a human being.average and that the average human being is designed to grow and change, so now invest everything in that.

That's really interesting. I've never heard anyone else say that. you just need to anchor yourself to being average like all humans do this all humans have the same desires and why not have compassion for yourself no, I remember that was one of the first ideas I had as a psychology student, I remember one day Solo I think wow, if you don't need to be better than other people, it's a lot easier. Aren't you really trying to be better than other people? Secretly I'm not, secretly it's my obsession, yeah, not really, like you said before, oh. God, I don't remember the exact words you used, it's not like it's virtue, so you said it's not when I talk about values, I'm not talking about virtue like I don't think it makes me better like that, I'm just trying to beat the game, so for me the name of the game is how much of your potential you can turn into usable skills, yes, and for me it's a fun game that I play with compassion.

I care deeply about the other players that I am. not a step on someone's neck to take their head off, type of person that is not interesting to me, I would like to see other people win but I also want to win, well, you know, there are these two human impulses, cooperation and competition , and I think people know, they fall on a spectrum of which is more motivating. I think probably the healthiest thing is for both to be motivating forces and for neither to trip you up too much because you can definitely fall too far into things like giving everything away. cooperation scale, but this is, you know, I have an identical twin sister like you mentioned and this is the only big distinction between the two of us, she's super competitive and I'm just not like me.

What motivates me is did you do something today that was valuable to the world, like whether you were useful or not, and I can be very hard on myself about it if I feel like I'm not, so it's not like there's no self-criticism. , I'm not comparing myself. with other people or as a hierarchy, but it is very internal. I want to go back to that initial vision that you had so for you it was a big moment to realize that I don't need to be better than other people because growing up I was always told be the best be number one um it's very important to be better than ever.

I mean, you know, this is from parents who wanted me to make sure I was successful growing up in a city that prided itself on being number one. a lot of things and uh, I don't know, I just thought that was the way to be a good human being and at some point I realized that it was a big barrier to connecting with other people and I think I remember one in in a class is Such a silly little story, but I remember the teacher saying that you did very well on your exams. We want to give you the opportunity not to take the final exam.

We know you're going to keep an eye on it. I'm pretty sure, so you don't have to take the exam, but we want you to tutor someone who might not pass this class, so regardless of the amount of time you spend studying for the exam, we want you to tutor them so she can I passed the class and thought this is the most brilliant thing I've ever heard in my life and at times it was really funny and they were right, I would have gotten an A, but I have to spend that time helping someone else. who was struggling and I feel like that was a turning point where I started to think about how can that be my orientation, rather than is there a way to invest the time, where it's about me performing well in instead of contributing, like how can I redirect the energy so that it's not so much about my performance but about my contribution, which is very interesting to me.

Okay, there are so many things about you that are interesting. Everything you write is really intriguing. Where can people find more information about you? Oh, my website, Kellymcgonigle. .com and all over social media, you know, like me, Kelly McGonagall. Well, okay, so what is ultimately the impact you want to have on the world? What I look forward to every day when I wake up is something I do, whether it's a dance class. what I'm teaching or it's a book I wrote 10 years ago or maybe it's someone listening to this I hope I think about this every day there's someone right now facing something in their lives that they're not sure they can handle and something I did , I said or wrote gives that person the feeling that a they are not alone and b that they are suitable for their own life right now, even if it is nothing they would have chosen for themselves, I love that, that's pretty good.

Guys, your work covers a whole range of things that I think are really intriguing. The movement stuff, I think is incredible in terms of its impact on depression, anxiety, and connection. Nobody talks about it the way she talks. I think you will find it very powerful. His entire library of books is incredibly amazing and if you haven't seen his Ted Talk, do yourself a favor and if you haven't subscribed yet, be sure to do so and until next time, my friends you will be legendary. Take care Kelly, that was wonderful, thank you so much, that was fun, yes, that was fantastic.

Failure is just an event, it is not a characteristic and this is one of the things that has really helped me in that sense: I win or I learn, but I never Lose, I live my life with mantras. I'm a pretty simple girl, like they're right.