Life-changing Power of Curiosity, Open-Mindedness, Love of Learning & Wisdom | Positive Psychology

In this episode of The Holistic Psychiatrist Podcast, Dr. Alice Lee and Emily continue their journey through Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification by Christopher Peterson and Martin E. P. Seligman.

They explore four character strengths: curiosity, open-mindedness, love of learning, and wisdom. The conversation looks at how curiosity encourages exploration, how open-mindedness helps us consider different viewpoints, how a love of learning supports growth and understanding, and how wisdom involves integrating different perspectives in life experiences.

Dr. Lee and Emily also share personal experiences involving medicine, family, education, creativity, difficult life experiences, and the process of becoming more open-minded over time.

Together, they reflect on how these strengths connect with one another and how becoming more aware of them may help us cultivate a richer and more meaningful life.

They also explore some fascinating questions:

• Can open-mindedness be learned as we grow older?
• How does curiosity show up in everyday life?
• What is the difference between intelligence, perspective, and wisdom?
• How can difficult experiences change the way we see ourselves and others?
• Why does lifelong learning matter for our well-being?
• How can recognizing our character strengths help us create a “good life”?

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Holistic Psychiatrist Podcast. And I'm your host, Dr. Alice Lee. I'm a holistic psychiatrist practicing in Stanford, Connecticut. And I want to welcome you to our show where we are always building well-being from the thought up. And today I want to welcome Emily, who's my co-collaborator. And she is a former patient of mine who has a lot of experience from the perspective of someone who had gone through a lot and has really come through to a place of health and well-being. So welcome Emily to our show.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Hello, glad to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

We have some interesting stuff to cover today. I must say for the audience, Emily and I have worked really hard for this podcast. We didn't know what we were getting into when we decided to cover this wonderful book called Character Strengths and Virtues, a Handbook and Classification by Peterson, Christopher Seligman, and Martin. They are very famous in the field of positive psychology. And so I, before I even looked at the book, I said to Emily, let's go ahead and just read it and cover parts of it through our podcast. And so we did. We bought the book. Let's have an expensive book, too. So we're on we covered creativity in our last podcast. And today Emily and I are covering four different areas curiosity, open-mindedness, love of learning, and perspective. So it's a lot, it's 20 pages for each. And the reason why I say it's a lot of work for Emily and I is because it's written in a way that I think is not meant to be entertaining. It's written like a dry encyclopedia.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Purely I told you the copy I had, I said, oh, well, it's American Psychology Association, Oxford Press. And I was like, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Yeah. So Emily and I talked about it. How are we going to cover these four chapters, four sections in this book? Having read it, it's a lot. So we decided we're just going to cover it from our perspective.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

How we've noticed these things in our lives, the kind of questions we have, and how we can cultivate these things in our lives, Stephanie.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Exactly. And so I'm really hoping that we'll just make it work as we talk about different things. All these traits, the curiosity from our last podcast, and curiosity, open-mindedness, love of learning, and perspective are covered in this book because they're meant to give us the good life. The more you have of these qualities, the more positive psychology believes we can use these strengths to create a good life. So that's what we're going to talk about. All right. So let's cover the very first section after creativity, which is curiosity. And they think of curiosity as a separate section from open-mindedness, or they think of curiosity as being different from interest, novelty seeking, and openness to experience. So curiosity is a very big umbrella. So let's dig in and let's talk about curiosity and why it is part of our building blocks for a good life. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Absolutely. The definition they give in the book is that it's an interest in actively seeking new experiences and engaging with uncertainty. Curiosity involves actively recognizing and pursuing opportunities for learning. Thank you for quoting that. Yeah, no problem. I found it interesting when we were discussing this before recording earlier in the week. I kept, as we were talking about curiosity, I found how it would go back and relate to creativity too. Yeah, I think that we both kind of have been able to recognize how curiosity has affected our lives in pretty big ways.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Here's my question for both of us to maybe talk about. And that is in what ways did we notice curiosity in the past week in our lives? Just the day-to-day happenings. Because now that we've read these chapters, I think we pay more attention to these things, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:24

That's very true.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Do you want to go first or do you want me to go?

SPEAKER_01 4:27

So you said in the past week. Yeah, just let me think as you're talking. Sometimes when you give examples too, it perks me up. I'm like, oh yeah, I have something similar to that as well. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

You go ahead and I'll share first, whatever makes the podcast run more smoothly. But the curiosity example that I have from this past week was something that you and I have had experience with in the past, where I would be with a patient, we'll be talking over Zoom, and then we'll be talking about something, and I will check something up, Google Gemini, on AI, just to get more information. So I got a new patient, and she has Alpha-Gal, which is what happens when a tick bite causes an immune reaction to a particular sugar molecule that is found in a lot of things that we eat or in a lot of things that we consume, and pretty soon people develop a very intense hypersensitivity reaction to meat, and they get a lot of difficulties with their immune response. So, of course, I satisfy my curiosity by doing an analysis, for example. Analysis is when I do energy testing and get data about that patient, but I also wanted to follow up. So when I was talking with this individual, I knew only about Alpha Gal in terms of the news. I'd never had a patient come to me with such a very clear understanding that Alpha Gal is part of her debility, why she feels so debilitated. But during the course of my work with her, and I've worked with her just for a week, we would talk over Zoom as I'm doing, I'm kind of like a in a consultative role with her. So as I'm working with her, she'll bring up certain things and I'll look it up. And finding it to be problematic, because this patient is actually a doctor, she's a surgeon. But I was like, I need to know more about that. So I would look it up and she would be so delighted. She would be just like over the moon that I would listen to her and look things up and have a better understanding. And of course, just like in our sessions together when I would look things up, it went into directly helping that session to be more helpful.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

So curiosity was something that drove me to look up things because personally I don't have a personal interest in Alpha Gal or all of the complexity of the autoimmune kind of immune response that can happen with a tick bite. And the only other thing I would just say is that after looking everything up, many of her symptoms are so complex, I realized that the energy work shouldn't come from one of micromanaging everything that is wrong. We had to come from a different perspective. One of the things that we did was instead of like looking at a mealing different things that are causing physical problems for her, we started working with the underlying consciousness of her body, which is that she felt like she deserved to die.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

Yeah. And she's been carrying that for over 20 years because she felt so guilty about what happened to her baby when her baby was born. Something tragic had happened during the birth, and she really felt guilty about that. Really felt guilty and horrible about what happened to her son at that time because of what happened at the hospital. It was not her fault, but she felt guilty about it. So she carried this feeling of anger and just she turned it towards herself. So we worked on some of these psychological issues first, her belief systems with energy work. She really felt better, which was the proof in the pudding, so to speak.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

That made me think about a lot of things, how curiosity affects our lives in so many ways. And a couple examples this week, really the last couple weeks, I for me the way that I relate to curiosity a lot is often related to medical stuff as well, obviously from the side of the patient. But that's also given me the ability because I feel like I've learned so much through my own to help others sometimes, friends, family. So I had a family member come to me and we were just talking about some of the issues they've been having and previous surgeries, things like that. And she had had her gallbladder removed. And I said that just perked me up. I'm like, I wonder if there's a connection there. And so we sat down together and we started doing some reading. We're just at the very beginning, went off on tangents reading other things. But I think it's really nice when you have, from my perspective, being able to feel good about helping somebody, my curiosity kind of popping up, being able to help somebody with sort of thing. And then also I think, like you said, there is an appreciation there, especially with health issues. I think often the way that our medical system works, it's like you go in, tell them what's going on, you come out with a prescription or you all sorts of various different things. Oh, it's just anxiety, you need to exercise more, you need to drink more water, which all things can be true, but also it's okay, but let's dig a little bit deeper here. So it's nice to be able to have someone support you there. Another thing I thought about was just the smaller side of curiosity. I have four nieces, I think I've mentioned this a couple podcasts, but I think sometimes, and I'm not a parent myself, but I think sometimes I see friends, family who are parents of younger children, and you're just so busy and go go, and it's you have all these different routines. And I see my sister doing this too, and my brother-in-law, just they do take the time to stop and get curious about what's going on in that moment, even if it doesn't really pique your interest, but use that curiosity, ask more questions. I think as children, it really helps. I've seen it with one of my nieces in particular, it really helps to boost her confidence. I think that she is unlike her sister in some ways. Going back to creativity, I think we talked about this a little bit last week. She's creative ways that they are not, but doesn't have the same artistic creativity strengths that her sisters do. So she understands things I don't understand. And when I sit there and ask her questions about them, I think it makes her feel good. So yeah, those are two things that have popped up in the last couple weeks, both with my family. So it's interesting. What I like about what I do really enjoy about reading this book is that I think when we hear the subject's creativity, curiosity, we think about bigger things. When we talked about creativity, there was the big creativity, small creativity. Often we overlook little ways that affects us and those around us. So it's made me more aware of that, I think. Which is nice because you can appreciate it more too.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Yeah. Talk about creativity. Just recently, I read an article on Substack on AI. And just recently, I think it was July 21st of this year, Substack had added what you call it, a gadget or something that measures how much of the article is AI generated and how much is actually human. Oh wow, okay. That's a good thing for them. It double checks that article. And there was a lot of a lot of controversy over it because you could literally you could write an article and then you could not allow them to look at your article and give a number of whether it's human written or AI-driven, right? So I looked at some articles and it actually didn't allow the additional instrument in Substack to measure whether it was AI and human, which already makes you wonder about the article. Like, why would you not want someone to check? And if it's oh, you're right. Yeah, it gets a little suspicious. And then there are those who I checked, I would have a lot of people who love their articles, and it's a really well-written article. And then you check, and it's zero human, it's all AI, it's a hundred percent AI. And I texted them, emailed, whatever you call it, responded to the writer, and I said, you know, your your AI numbers is a hundred percent AI and zero percent human. Can you respond to that? What is that? And of the two writers that I actually questioned it, they wouldn't respond to it. They didn't respond to it.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

So again, very suspicious. Like you, this is a wonderful article. Now it's saying that it's all AI generated. Is it AI generated? Can you tell me about that? And then they don't respond, right? Yeah. So part of it is the whole idea of creativity that we are oftentimes measuring ourselves against AI, like AI generated articles that look so polished, and they just kind of go on and on. All this writing, it could be like a chapter of a book. Literally, these articles are like three pages, four pages long, right? Because they're so extensive. And then you when you check and you see it's all AI, zero percent human, then you realize, oh, okay. Because oftentimes you measure yourself against these articles and you think, why can't I write that well? Or why why is it that seems so well highly polished, right? Yeah. And the only other thing they say is if you wanted the machine to or Substack to notice that it's not AI generated, all you have to do is just create the article in Substack. You just write on Substack your article.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

Oh, I see. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

And the fact that you're taking time and writing it and polishing it up over time, Substack notices it and knows that you wrote it.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:47

So whatever they did, it didn't show like there was a process in which they actually did that. And they're not willing to respond that they wrote it, which makes me wonder.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

Yeah. I think that in terms of creativity, we're seeing, we have been seeing for quite a while now a lot this kind of stuff with AI taking over and what's ethical in terms of using it, what's not ethical. But that's interesting that I feel like in terms of writing, I'm pretty good at spotting AI, but it may be the obvious markers. There may be plenty of stuff out there that I'm like, oh yeah, that's definitely human and it's not.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

A lot of articles cover personal perspectives and things. So you think, well, that's the person's experience and perspective. Sometimes you have articles that are just talking about life in general.

unknown 15:37

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

And they sound AI, but sometimes you have people they talk about a certain personal experience and then they talk about that. So I don't understand why it would be a hundred percent AI.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

But I wonder if there's faulty. If it can be faulty.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

Of course it can. So that's why I wanted to ask the writer what is going on? Because it's a hundred percent AI generated. Did you write this? What's going on there?

SPEAKER_01 16:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

And they could say, you know, I wrote it, and then I use AI to work on the grammar or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

Or maybe they wrote it in their own language and maybe AI translated it for them. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

Yeah, that's definitely a possibility. I didn't think about that either. Yeah. Because running it through the regular Google translator, you're gonna have so many errors, right? I wonder if it's a lot easier with AI.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

Let's go on to the second topic, shall we?

SPEAKER_01 16:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:32

And that's open-mindedness. Judgment, critical thinking, and that is another one of those things that is known to help with creating the good life. Would you like to start with a little bit of intro on that, Emily?

SPEAKER_01 16:49

Yeah, so with judgment and open-mindedness, according to the book, they define it as judgment involves considering evidence fairly before reaching conclusions. They go into it in a lot more depth, but that was one note I took away. And I think you and I have discussed this quite a bit, but every single one of these they talk about whether it's trait-like. And for I guess that sort of means whether it's just innate in an individual, just you're born with it. And I think my big thought there was open-mindedness. When I first started reading this chapter, open-mindedness definitely feels like something that can be learned. It's something that as I've gotten older, I think that I've become a lot more open-minded. I see that in individuals frequently. So I find that interesting how we can go, how we can grow with that there. You're looking at me.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

Am I being No, I'm I was just thinking about some parts of I believe this chapter where they did research about open-minded people. And they found that a lot of people in these research experiments, I guess, psychological or social researcher research experiments, oftentimes are more like one-sided or biased. And it's hard for them to see both sides of everything. Nowadays, where polarity is and dualism so prominent in our society, but socially and politically, it's almost like you do see only your side of things, and it's really hard to see both sides. But they talk about how being open-minded and being able to see both sides is really a gift, and it can help with a good life. There is again, I'm being influenced quite a bit now because I'm bringing up Substack again, but there is a particular writer called Letter, and he has a Substack platform called Open Letters by Mersalt, M-E-R-S-A-U-L-T, or something like that. I may be spelling it wrong. But he does a very interesting thing where he goes, we won't name the political group, but political perspective that he isn't a part of, but he's joining them, let's say, in a kind of a group session or meeting with them over breakfast at a diner or something, and being able to listen to them and talk to them about things. And then he writes about his experiences, standing the other side politically. And it's a very special, I think, skill because even though he has very strong opinions about his political perspective and why it's moral and rational, he's able to like also bring to bear like more understanding about how the other perspective politically came about, like the mentality and perspectives from that, without creating more of a disdain or division between people. I really think that that's something to be cultivated.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

I agree. And I don't know if I misunderstood that section of the book because my understanding was I misunderstanding my understanding was using politics for an example, is that typically people are one way, like you said, black or white, one way or the other, and that it is something from the way they viewed it that is a trait you're just born with. That did I misunderstand that? Or is that what you're saying? I think that what I remember it's difficult because I think there are times as I've been reading that I'm thinking, oh, they're saying this thing, and then I'm like, oh wait, maybe they weren't saying that thing. So it gets confusing. But I think that I think I under I'm following you and I'm understanding what you're saying. But do with my own personal life, I think that I used to be, if I'm being honest, quite like narrow-minded when it came to certain things, closed off to certain things, really dug my heels in. If I believed something, I was digging my heels in hard. And I think it would take a long time to go through and figure out exactly what it was helped me, in my viewpoint, become more open-minded. But I do think that at least for some people, it could be a learned kind of trait.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

I think it's not encouraged in our society because be narrow-minded to take one side very at is encouraged because then it's always kind of this us against them kind of mentality in any group. But there's a little quote here I highlighted it says low levels of integrative complexity are characterized by a rigid and simplistic view of events where a single point of view is considered correct, and all other perspectives are seen as illegitimate, flawed, or ridiculous. And I must say that's what I encountered when I went to medical school the very first day. One of the attending stood up in front of the hundred students in our medical school and basically said all the like all chiropractors are quacks. Basically, and that only medicine has the answers, basically, that it are legitimate. And the word integrative complexity kind of jumped out at me because my practice is named holistic and integrative, right? In terms of its approach. So this particular chapter is saying that it's actually good to be able to integrate lots of different perspectives and be able to sit with them all and be able to see how one is helpful and different perspectives. Low levels of integrative complexity are characterized by the rigid and simplistic view of events. And so one time I was sitting with a young patient, he's like in his 20s, and he was taking pride in his cynicism or skepticism against some of the stuff that I was trying to help him learn with energy medicine. Both because he came to my office and I demonstrated to him the mind-body connection with the muscle testing, and I showed him all of the different things, and it literally proved it to him that energy and biology are integrated and how he can manipulate it and everything like that. But he still continued to hold on to his resistance to using it in a really helpful way for him to overcome his uh condition, which uh goes beyond what supplements can do for him. He had to use energy work if he was going to get better. And I remembered it was one of those sessions that taught me I really should start with energy breasts first before I go into the session, because I had gotten irritated with him and impatient with him at that point because it took him two weeks to order one supplement. And I was used to having patients who would order supplements when I asked them like right away, and there's no delay. But so it took him two weeks to take this to even order it, and then he hasn't even gotten it yet. So he's wasted like two weeks of time, and just everything was delayed. And I said something very sharp and brusque, and I said something like, I think cynicism is overrated. And I didn't know exactly what I meant by that. I could have said the integrative complexity is helpful for the good life or something, but I just said cynicism is overrated. I take pride in being closed-minded, but I didn't even think of it as being closed-minded. I was just frustrated with the fact that he had all this proof and I was there to help him and everything, but he's still dragging his feet. Why? And after that, he was still dragging his feet, or did he I had already worked with him for three months. Oh wow. It was just like I couldn't get through to him. And after that, he stopped seeing me.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

Yeah. I was thinking as you were telling the story, I was thinking, why is he still, if he's this cynical about it, why is he still continuing to see you? That was making me think I have experienced people in my life, and I still have people in my life that are so close-minded to things. And I have often so for a long time, I think thinking about one individual, and again, this is a family member, have tried to pressure them into seeing things a different way, and that just doesn't work. It doesn't work, and I've never been able to figure out how you can help someone to be more open-minded. And I don't know if at least with somebody who's close to you, if you can. I think you have to sit back, just allow them to do what they're going to do, let go of it for your own sanity. But yeah, as you were talking about that, I was I have gotten very frustrated with people in my own life who just won't be even just a little bit open-minded. It's like you can still believe the things that you believe, but let's throw in a what if here and there. So yeah, I understand that frustration definitely.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

I highlighted one section on the open-minded open-mindedness chapter, and it says, good thinking, specifically active open-mindedness, does seem to correlate with good outcomes. And that was by Stanovich and West, 1997, 1998. All right, so what else do they say? They say that in this chapter, those low in my side bias, meaning the bias on just seeing your side of things, things, also have better scores on tests of general cognitive ability, such as a scholastic achievement test and the Ravens Progressive Matrix. These suggest that open-mindedness or open-minded thinking leads to better results in many tasks. So I think with open-mindedness, it's probably of influences that allow some people to be open-minded. I will tell you that I was very closed-minded to holistic approaches until I had life experiences that helped me to be more open-minded.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

So I had people come to me and tell me, oh, supplements are great and it can be helpful for treating mood disorders. And I had the typical conventional psychiatry response to that, which was like, this is really nonsense, and it's really dangerous for them to be telling other people something that's not true. But when I experienced my own healing journey with being put on Zoloft, experiencing withdrawals five years later when I try to get off of it, and understanding the withdrawal process and trying to get myself better with holistic approaches, then I became open-minded to a holistic approach. So sometimes we have to be forced to be open-minded.

SPEAKER_01 28:09

Yeah, I agree. I think that a lot of times it's your environment. If you're in an echo chamber, say you've grown up learning a certain thing, right? Go back politics. I live in the South. I've also lived in Los Angeles and New York, and I can see how that echo chamber for both sides of the aisle can play a part. And it's interesting because you travel, I think travel can open your eyes, but when you're when you live in that one little bubble, you're not getting other perspectives. Your perspective is constantly being reinforced. You have one little outside perspective kind of trickling in, like you've got this army of thoughts to battle it with, and these people who support what you think. I've seen that a lot where I live now. So yeah, I agree that I think that takes experiences to kind of force you, crack you open, right? Just so that's definitely how I feel with things that have happened in my life. I think I have been forced to be more open-minded. I'm grateful for it, but and they're not always sometimes they can be painful experiences, too, like the one you had with having to go through that yourself.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

Along with what you just said, there's a part in the chapter under development. It says from diverse studies, we can conclude that open-mindedness increases with age. Parentheses, throughout childhood and early adulthood and edit and education, as long as we understand that this is not an inevitable development or pedagogical journey. So I guess with life we become more open-minded. And I wonder if it's because we become more humbled by our experiences and realize we don't know everything, and it's good to be open-minded to things. Yeah. Should we move on to love of learning? Definitely. So love of learning is chapter seven in this book, and and it starts off the chapter with Lania, a tenth grader. They describe in a blue-collar, primarily white public school on the outskirts of a large US city. And she's learning Latin and she loves it. And it talks about her love of learning and how wonderful that is in terms of adding and enriching her life. So, what they say, the reason why it creates a good life, they say when people have love of learning as a strength, they are cognitively engaged. They typically experience positive feelings in the process of acquiring skills, satisfying curiosity, building on existing knowledge, andor learning something completely new. And that's by CRAAP, K-R-A-P-P, and Think 1992. So it talks a little bit about some of those advantages. So I was wondering, in terms of love of learning, anything you wanted to bring up with that topic or anything that may have happened this past week that would be like part of that topic in your life.

SPEAKER_01 31:08

Yeah, I think that love of learning was an interesting one for me reading because I think my love for learning, again, I actually have some notes here that I where I talk about how it almost sort of develops because I didn't have a choice. I spent this goes back to my medical journey, not necessarily anything that's happened this last week, but uh it continues to affect me day to day now, is that I was in the traditional medical system trying to figure out what was going on with them these psychiatric medications I was on. I had seen a lot of different psychiatrists having terrible side effects, finally found an integrative one that said, wait, you don't need to be on these medications, but also didn't know how to properly taper. So I was thrown into horrific withdrawal, which is of course when I eventually reached out to you and we were able to get through that. But it was learning was my safe space for a long time because I couldn't find anyone to help me. So I would dive into research head first because it was out of desperation. I have told people this many times is that I think I survived survived purely out of desperation and the research that I did. And as I began to get better and heal, I realized that I really loved this research, this kind of stuff. That there, wait a second, we have everything, knowledge at our fingertips, as people say, the internet, YouTube, all this different stuff. Anything I want to learn, I can learn. And I think that there's always been a kernel of that, at the very least in me, probably since I was a child. But it was learning how to learn, too. It was this idea of not being forced to learn what they were teaching in school and finding things I wanted to learn about that I loved learning about. And that's really just flourished over the years, and it's benefited me a lot in the years since, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

That's wonderful. I think love of learning for me was built on a love of certain functional purpose of learning or meaning behind the learning. It's hard for me as a creative kind of artistic person to take medicine and absorb it easily because a lot of the the things in medicine can come across to me as being dry and those four-syllable words can be a little daunting for me. But I love my patients and I feel that if I need to learn something because I see it as purposeful and helpful for a patient, then when I'm reading about something, it really sinks in very easily. But if I'm forced to memorize something like I was forced to memorize things in medical school and don't have anything to meaningfully know or in in terms of its function and usefulness, then it's very hard for me to let that information kind of sink in. It'll just be great for a test. I will memorize it for that test, and then it's forgotten.

SPEAKER_01 34:25

Yeah, I can absolutely relate to that.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Yeah, yeah, the same thing. I made a note here from this chapter, and I'm trying to maybe you can help jog my memory. But what I wrote, I put in quotes, being able to integrate knowledge into good judgment about life. That was something I think I understand why that hit me, jumped out at me, why I wanted to jot it down in my notes as a quote. But I should have put a page number there so I could go back and refer to it. I do find just reading it though, I find it interesting because it's beyond just the idea of a love for learning, but also taking our experiences, taking what we have gained from those experiences and making good choices in life, being able to apply it to our lives moving forward. I think that's why I wrote this down now that I'm thinking about it. I think that was another moment where it's like we think about love of knowledge and what it means to us, but then how it the different layers of it as well. It goes back to the creativity, the big C and the small C. So this is like the smaller version or the smaller ways, I guess, love of learning, it's important to integrate it into our lives.

SPEAKER_00 35:42

Are you saying it's the difference between like winning a trivia and actually learning something that's useful?

SPEAKER_01 35:47

No, I think it's I guess when I if somebody were to say to me love of learning, mine and reading some of this, that my initial kind of here's how I relate to that would be the story about how I learned to love learning. But beyond that, I think it's interesting to view it from the point this this definition, being able to integrate knowledge into good judgment about life. So taking those experiences, we have a love of learning about something, we take those experiences, something else happens in our life because of what we learned here. We can apply it further on down the road. And that's something that I've I actually have seen myself do and not even realized I did it until I kind of saw this. Is that I don't know, does that make sense? I think I'm having a hard time explaining it.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

It does make sense. And I was thinking a little bit about just the way in which I listen to patients. Like when patients are talking about their experience, I'm really trying to learn from them. It's not about my empirical knowledge imposed upon them and telling them what to do. I'm really trying to learn what it is they're trying to tell me because they teach me so much. And so when they're telling me something that is new for me, I'm not defensive against it. I'm like, okay, this is something I don't know. This is something that is having an impact on this individual, then what do we do about it? And so we take that information and we start to try to work with it. And we've done that a number of times in our sessions where you'll say, okay, this is what I've learned about, let's say, endometriosis, or this is what I learned about this or that. And we go from there to okay, if you know this much, let's learn about this or that, let's put it in context. What should we do then about the energy work? And we've done some amazing energy work because of the research behind it.

SPEAKER_01 37:46

Yeah. So gonna point this out. The reason I was having trouble remembering where this fit into judgment and open-mindedness is because I had jumped ahead to the next chapter, which was perspective. And that is the definition of perspective. But it's interesting that we, as I'm sitting here, like, how where did this come into play for love of learning? I was actually able to tie it back, and then we were able to tie it back to love of learning. So I jumped, I scrolled too far in my notes and jumped ahead to for the next chapter. But I still think that definitely rings true that the way that you've been able to use it in your practice, and I've I've seen the love of learning help me further down in my life, further along.

SPEAKER_00 38:33

And they also talk about in this chapter pursuit of mastery goals is most likely to be associated with a love of learning because this orientation allows one to maintain a sense of efficacy while learning. What else did they say? People with approach mastery goals might be more likely to have love of learning as a strength than would people with avoidance goals. So they're talking about avoidance or approach goals in terms of their love of learning. Here's something just to finish up on the love of learning that might be useful. In this book, it says certainly people who experience a love of learning appear more likely than others to appreciate what they learn compared with others who do not have love of learning as a strength, they're more likely to do the following. Okay, so I highlighted this. Have positive feelings about learning new things, have the ability to self-regulate, efforts to persevere despite challenge and frustration, find connections to the content to be learned, generate strategies for approaching this content, and then take the time to rethink their understanding and strategy selection. Feel autonomous, feel challenged, have a sense of possibility, be resourceful, that is, find models for themselves, be self-efficacious, and feel supported by others in their efforts to learn. So the book says, taken together, these correlates may predict positive mental and physical health patterns. So that's how they are trying to think of it in terms of positive psychology. And let's then go on to perspective, which is what you were talking about in terms of. Yeah, which is great. So let's you've helped us understand a little bit about all of these different things and how perspective ties them somewhat together.

SPEAKER_01 40:26

Sure. I wrote my reflection at the end of each chapter. And with perspective, I had that definition, which again is being able to integrate knowledge into good judgment about life. And my reflection, I said that resonated with me the most. Perspective feels less about intelligence and more about integration. Older adults often have more perspective because of experience, but age alone doesn't automatically create wisdom.

SPEAKER_00 40:53

That is a question I have for you, actually. Sure. Because under the chapter eight, it says perspective, and right underneath it has in parentheses wisdom. And I know this is out of the blue. I'm throwing this question at you, but to you, what would you say would be different or the same about those two words? Is perspective wisdom or is perspective different from wisdom?

SPEAKER_01 41:18

I'm trying to remember. I think they touched on it a little bit somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

I don't have it in my notes here, but but this is not about them in the chapter. I want to know about your opinion. Yeah, what do you think?

SPEAKER_01 41:30

So to me, perspective is part of wisdom. My viewpoint would be that they're not necessarily interchangeable words. I think being able to have perspective, different perspectives, it like I said, it feels less about intelligence, more about integration. Again, intelligence, I wouldn't even be an interchangeable word. I think for wisdom, I think it's part of wisdom, a part of it. But yeah, I do think that it's, I don't necessarily think they're interchangeable now.

SPEAKER_00 41:59

I agree. Yeah. I think perspective is part of wisdom, just like intelligence is part of wisdom. But it seems like the word wisdom has a connotation that is an umbrella over a lot of really strong cognitive strengths. Because wisdom is beyond intelligence, as you say, it's an application of that intelligence. Because if we could really apply everything we know, all of us would be literally perfect, right? Because most of us know how to behave in a much higher state of being than we actually behave.

SPEAKER_01 42:37

Sure.

unknown 42:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:38

But I think we've all met people that I think the way that I have always phrased it is something along the lines of for such a smart person, how can you be so dumb? That's where the wisdom you meet these people who are highly intelligent, but not necessarily always applying that intelligence to their life, had the opportunity to gain different perspectives and not always applying it to their lives, applying it to situations or allowing themselves to be open-minded. We're going back to all the things we've talked about now, or I'm going back to it. But yeah, I would definitely agree.

SPEAKER_00 43:13

Wow. Yeah, that just triggered some thoughts on my part. Perspective-wise, I come from generations. My ancestry from China, my grandmother, my parents, they went through four different wars, big wars. And so there was a lot of uprooting and being refugees and going from China to Taiwan and then from Taiwan to America. So I would say that they would have a wealth and a richness of perspective. Yeah. Wisdom, I would say, is beyond that because how you you have all of these rich experiences, some of them may cause, let's say, people to shut down rather than integrate. So maybe one of the Important things about perspective is that in your life you can encounter a lot of different things, but you have to transform it, process it, do something with that information to be able to integrate it in a way that's harmonious and helpful and wise, right? But if you just have those experiences and perspectives, but then you shut down parts of yourself because you're not able to or capable of processing them properly, then they just end up being wasted, I think.

SPEAKER_01 44:35

Yeah. Yeah, and I think that goes back to the open-mindedness. You need to be open-minded in order to be able to apply, to be able to integrate knowledge, the different types of perspectives to make good judgments about life, going along with that definition, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 44:53

In your life, and I'm happy to share different experiences from my life. Let's look at perspective and how maybe we could see the way perspective maybe helped us to be a wiser person in time. Do you want to go first or do you want me to go first?

SPEAKER_01 45:13

How perspective has helped me be a wiser person is what you're asking. It's interesting. I think that when I think of perspective by this definition, I think that it has affected the way I interact with the world because of the people say that when you go through trauma, when you go through really difficult points in your life, you have more empathy for others, essentially. And I think that it has been integrating the things that I've gone through, both good and bad, not just the trauma and the bad things, but the really good things too, has allowed me, I think, more peace in life too, because I look at people and it's easier to remember that oftentimes we are just a mirror to other people. So I used to get offended very easily. I used to get my feelings hurt very easily, and while that has not vanished, it is still definitely there. I think it's become easier for me. And I think this goes back to the good life they talk about too. It's created more peace for me. If that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 47:24

But then one day I was at the University of Maryland College Park, and one of the patients from the eating disorder unit when I was a resident happened to be, I guess, not admitted, but she was going through the intake process because they had also an eating disorder specialist at the University of Maryland, and she saw me and she was like appalled that I was there. And she was like telling the eating disorder therapist, I do not want her. And I was like, I could see why she would feel that way. Because as a resident, you're just taught how to do certain things a certain way, and you have no idea how your insights can be hurtful to people because it's too much. So by then, of course, I was probably four years, yeah, four years beyond the University of Maryland training. I was still a very young doctor, but I had grown enough to understand that what I was doing had to be modified. You can't just be insightful. It would be like striking someone with lightning instead of sunshine. You have to be gentle with the energy. You can't just be bammed and cause them to get fried every time you have your insights and stuff. Yeah, so that's what I think of when I think about perspective and wisdom, that over time you learn to be a better person, not just because you're intelligent, but because you have different perspectives.

SPEAKER_01 49:00

Yeah, and you had those experiences and yeah, can with you moving forward.

SPEAKER_00 49:06

Yeah. Yeah. I also think that as we get older, it's easy to kind of look back on the things that we do. Let's for let's give for example, okay? What we did as teenagers in high school. Okay. So remember back all the things you said or did or thought as a high school student. Let's say if you all you cared about is whether that guy that you had a crush on happened to walk by you when you were going a certain direction or whatever. But the thing is, I would think back on it and just in a way, it's very easy on hindsight to judge yourself. But one of the things that I found very forgiving and compassionate for myself. So the quote that I ran across recently that is very, I think, profound for me, it says something to the effect of forgiving ourselves for not knowing earlier what only time could teach. Yeah. I added, forgive myself and others for not knowing earlier what only time could teach. Yeah. So I think that it's easy for us to look back on our youth and just expect us to know everything already that we know now, and not understand that the reason why we have additional perspective and wisdom is because of those experiences.

SPEAKER_01 50:36

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's a great quote. And I think it's one that we could all take with us, I think, to offer some more compassion to ourselves, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 50:45

Yeah. Let's finish up our podcast today because I think we were good at, we're great at finishing up all four sections. I do want us to see if we can deliver what we initially set out to do with perseverance. Our next one is strengths of courage. So there are things under that that they list called bravery, persistence, integrity, and vitality. Yes. So we're gonna persevere, we're gonna follow through with integrity what we decided to do at the beginning, and hopefully have some vitality at it. Yeah, or learn how to have it along the way. Yes, exactly. That's our next podcast. Is we're gonna cover bravery, persistence, integrity, and vitality, which is under the umbrella that this book called Strengths of Courage. Yeah. So I'm curious what this book will teach us about that, and we'll cover that soon. Emily, any thoughts before we finish?

SPEAKER_01 51:49

It's been really interesting to go through this so far. I think that we've been able to make some good connections to how these all relate to each other. And I'm interested to go forward, keep plugging along, but I do think the further that we will go, we will see how they all continue to connect and how we can apply these to our lives and recognize it. I think that's the biggest thing I'm getting out of reading this is being able to recognize these traits and characteristics in my life. And even if I'm not able to, it's almost like a gratitude journal, right? The more you recognize, the more the positives. So it's been great.

SPEAKER_00 52:26

Yeah, me too. Even though I am highly critical of the way this book was written, and I wish they had written it in a way that was a little easier for me to wade through, I love the fact that I'm being kind of reminded of certain very important qualities, they call it character strengths and virtues that are very important for me personally to cultivate in my life. So I don't feel when I'm cultivating these aspects of my life, like perspective, creativity, curiosity, being open-minded, I will know that this is an important quality that is going to feed into a good life. And we're gonna start, even if I didn't know about it before, I'm gonna start now so that I can start honing and developing and supporting all of these different aspects of myself because you know you only have a short time to live. You might as well make it the best that you can, right? Absolutely. Yeah. All right. For those people who listened to the end, I want to thank you all for listening to our podcast. And I hope that this podcast has been really helpful for you. Please feel free to go to my website and learn more. I have tons of free information on there, lots of free articles. By the way, my website is getting a facelift. It's modernized and it's look awesome. So I hope you come and visit my website. If nothing else, just to see the home page. I'm very proud of it. And what's interesting because my website, when they were transferring everything from my website to the new website, the person who is doing the new website said there were 500 pages.

SPEAKER_01 54:14

500. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 54:16

Yeah. So I was saying, okay, I'm okay. I may have always wanted to write a book, but I'm gonna check off. I've already written a book. You've already written it.

unknown 54:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:27

Just have it bound. You're good to go. I'm gonna go. That that goal has been met. I'm not gonna think that haven't done it.

SPEAKER_01 54:36

Yeah. Yeah, I didn't know that you were doing a revamp of your website. I'm excited to see it. That'll be very cool.

SPEAKER_00 54:41

Yeah, I'll let you know. So my new website is exciting. For those of you who want to support me, there's one way you can support me, and that is if you go onto my website and sign up under Full Script. Full Script is a website where you can get high-quality supplements. And some of the things that you order, a very small percentage, goes towards supporting me because you signed up under my name. And I hope that for these podcasts, when you get them in MailChimp or however you find them, feel free to go on my website and talk to us and share your comments and your thoughts about our podcast.

SPEAKER_01 55:18

Or any questions too. We can talk about that too. We're happy to answer questions, get around to them.

SPEAKER_00 55:24

Yeah. I would love to have questions. So far, my last MailChimp article where I said feel free to submit questions. I haven't gotten any questions that I know of. The best way to submit questions, if you have questions for us, and it doesn't have to do have anything to do with our podcast topic, it'd be something else. We're happy to answer different questions at the beginning of our podcast. But just go ahead and go on my website to the contact section and just write your question out. I think that's the best way because it goes directly to my email and I won't lose it. So yeah. So please do that. And that way it'll make our podcast more interesting. So thank you all for listening to our podcast. And we I hope that you'll come back and listen to our next one, which will be coming out within about two weeks. Bye bye.

SPEAKER_01 56:11

We will definitely get through the rest of the the chapters coming up. I think it'll be a great next podcast with more interesting information. So we'll see you then.

SPEAKER_00 56:21

Bye again.