In Conversation With - Sunny Singh Brar: UK Parliamentary Candidate (Labour, 2024)

Join MindHug CEO Chitraj (Raj) Singh on the MindHug podcast series on change, as he engages in a thought-provoking conversation with Sunny Singh Brar: a former Labour candidate from the 2024 elections, who's campaign was all about change.

In this episode, they explore the fascinating science of epigenetics and its influence on societal biases, delve into the role of safety in implementing change (Mike Tyson also gets a mention!) and discuss the powerful impact of short-form content in today’s fast-paced world.

Transcript

Raj: [00:00:00] I'm here with Sunny Singh Brar, one of the parliamentary candidates for Labour. 

Sunny: I thought, you know what, let's give politics a go and that's where we can actually make change. Right. 

Raj: And the motto was change as well.

Sunny: I think in a time now, mental health is more important than ever before. 

Raj: You know about the MindHug SURE model, which is: Safety, Understanding, Reframing, and Experience.

Sunny: Everything is changing around us. The food we eat, the information that's present to us, the new threats that are present to us.

Raj: It's the human condition and we need to find proper ways of dealing with this.

Raj: Welcome everyone. This is MindHug’s podcast series on change, the podcast: ‘We Got You’. I'm here with Sunny, Sunny Singh Brar. It's a series on change. His life has always been about change. Sunny started off as a [00:01:00] robotics engineer, went into healthcare.

Then into politics, and it's the right person to bring for this because this country has seen the biggest change, and you were one of the

Sunny: Massive change

Raj: parliamentary candidates, for Labour. And Labour has come into power sweeping victory, and the motto was change as well. So it couldn't be more topical why don't you just quickly give an introduction to yourself and then we'll get into the Q&A

Sunny: Brilliant. 

 Firstly, thank you, Raj, for the great work that you're doing with MindHug. I think in a time now, mental health is more important than ever before.

and just the way our mind processes things, which, some conversations we've had before, which were great. To go into now, like you mentioned, started out, as a robotics engineer, then I went into healthcare and the technological side of healthcare then moved into the healthcare strategy, forum.

And then I thought, you know what, let's give politics a go. And that's where we can actually make change, [00:02:00] right? if you don't see the change in the world, step up and try and be the one to make that change. So that was part of the reason why I put my name forward and stood as a candidate in this, general election.

Raj: Yeah. perfect time to ask you this question then. given your life, what does change mean to you?

Sunny: I think change is such an important thing, right? And we're always going through change in life, right? Just as we get older, we go through a number of different changes, changes moving from one status quo to another status quo is for moving from one position to another position 

finding a new technique in life to do the same thing, which might be even better, right? Or we're not having the desired effect in life. you know what? It's time to make a change. It's time to learn something new or it's time to approach, a scenario with a different mindset. Or we can look at political change, right? if the NHS is broken, okay, wow, that wasn't working there. Let's find a new technique to deal with NHS. Let's find a new solution to deal with the [00:03:00] NHS. and it's, so change is everywhere. And, as you mentioned, Labour's, manifesto and there was change.

It was change.

Raj: we saw it.

Sunny: we saw it.

Raj: change is, vital. change is a huge part of what MindHug does. I'd say we're an innovation company of change, right? our whole model Is doing exactly that. 

 So you understand the change you need, but sometimes you can't even understand it because you're not, you haven't even got the headspace and the safety to understand the change you want.

And, you know about the MindHug SURE model, which is, safety, understanding, reframing, and experience, and that boils down to that because we still are very much stuck in. Monkey brain very often. And until we feel safe, as far as we're concerned, we're running from that Sabre-Tooth tiger, right?

We're running from that Sabre-Tooth tiger. And when we're running from the Sabre-Tooth tiger, our mind's going to shut down.

 Yeah.

 Yeah. We're not going to be able to [00:04:00] understand the change we need because all we care about is, are we going to survive? 

 Yeah. 

 So you've got to give people that safety first. And that safety has to be looking at it from a far more holistic lens than we've ever looked at it now. 

Sunny: The way we live now is different to how the last 100, 000 years of human beings have lived. It's completely different, right? The way we live now is different to even 500 years ago. You know what I mean? it's, our lives are so different now to how our ancestors have lived. So the challenges they faced and the way their mind had developed to cope in those situations, our mind is different now.

Raj: I actually researched this at a master's level, and I, went, I was, my life's been about change as well, living in three different countries, then economists who always wanted to be a doctor, by the way, growing up.

Okay. Just a few years as a primary school kid, I wanted to be a garbage man. Okay. Because that's what every kid growing up in the States wanted to be at that point. It was just a cool thing to do those big trucks. [00:05:00] but, it's always been about change.

And, I had,

 I, 

Sunny: just to jump in there, is, interesting, right? as a councillor, one of the things that falls under local authorities is waste, right? And, not so long ago, I, asked for a tour of the, got invited to a tour of all the waste facilities.

I

 loved it. I loved it. And I was thinking, you know what? I really want to join them one day when they go out and they're collecting the rubbish, cause it's interesting. just, everything is interesting. If you put that goggle on, put those glasses on and everything has an interesting side to it. 

Raj: if they're hiring me, I need a job. I'll be there. I'll be there. but that's the thing. So when I was an economist and I was living a life that I felt I needed to live because that's what has always been told, you have to live that life and then something happened what I call the greatest privilege of my life, which is I had a breakdown [00:06:00] and in that breakdown all your assumptions you have no other option your mind is like "eh. sorry buddy, I'm out.".

Okay. And you have to change all your assumptions. Okay. and in changing that assumptions, I changed a lot. the medical practitioners telling me.

You've had a break from reality. You're living in reality. In a 

different reality that needs to be, and in my head, I'm like, how can I be living in a different reality? there's only one reality, right? Despite all the studies and all the interest I had in consciousness and, everything, I just couldn't understand that fathom that, because it's one reality.

And when I did my research, the one thing that became very, obvious is there's only two things that drive the human experience, the individual, as well as the collective human experience. 

 And it's information and how we process information. Simple as that, right? And both the information and how we process information vary significantly from person to person, it's not only your psychological and emotional reality that's different.

Raj: Your actual 

physical [00:07:00] reality, the way you see the world, the way you hear things can be completely different to each other 

Sunny: Yeah

Raj: Okay. we can talk about the ancient Greeks. We can about the Himba tribe. Okay. They can't see, they can't see blue. Okay, they never had a word for blue, so they can't see shades of blue.

So you ask them to point out a different circle if you show blue and green. They won't be able to point out the blue, which we'll point out like that. so we see reality fundamentally different.

Sunny: And I think that's the key thing, right? in politics, we try and explain our view. 

 Point to someone seven out of 10 people will understand the way you're phrasing or even less than that sometimes But why did those three out of ten people not see it the way you see it?

even though if you sat down and you spoke about this for hours and hours if somebody had a time nobody has the time for That these days, right? It's about reframing it to how you see things, how this person sees things, how I see things that reframing is, [00:08:00] oh, that's that beauty side of it. Isn't it?

Why don't, why doesn't everyone's mind process the information the same way? It's, that's the bit I find fascinating, but I'm hoping you can explain a

bit 

Raj: yeah, no. that's the MindHug SURE model. attended a few MindHug workshops.

Sunny: Yeah. Amazing workshops.

Raj: you've attended a few. the MindHug SURE model, which is the fundamental premise of MindHug. All right. It is safety. So we know a lot of these assumptions boil down to us seeking safety.

All right. And here's the funny thing. When the body Doesn't feel safe. It shuts down. The mind shuts down. The prefrontal cortex shuts down. The amygdala, which is the threat centre, the gatekeeper of all the information. It's making judgment calls on shortcuts. It's not even making judgment calls on the full information because it's trained on at a time when you're trying to run away from a Sabre-Tooth Tiger.

Okay, and when you're running away from a Sabre-Tooth Tiger, if you don't make information based on shortcuts, you run the risk of being eaten by that Sabre-Tooth Tiger.

Sunny: It's the same, right? For example, they do like mind tricks when they get a sentence, they [00:09:00] put it in and they miss a few words or miss a few letters, or even put a few random letters that look similar and your mind's read it. And it's reread this. And it's Whoa, wow. Okay. A few words

Raj: Yeah. Absolutely.

Sunny: it's those shortcuts,

Raj: mind is filling in gaps. And that's what the S stands for in the SURE model.

Sunny: But tell me this. Does the mind sometimes get it wrong where it creates a shortcut and has given you a piece of information. That's completely something different to what it

Raj: my answer to that is In order for us to answer that, we first need to be dead sure about what is right,

Sunny: Yeah.

Raj: okay? And the problem is, we are creating a model of reality based on assumptions and based on learned behaviour. unless we define a particular learned behaviour as factual truth, and by the way, we can prove that very few things are factually true, if anything,

Sunny: Yeah.

Raj: okay?

You can't really answer that question. Now, that doesn't mean you put yourself in harm's way. In any shape or form. Okay, you still have to be safe

Sunny: Yeah.

Raj: Okay, but you have to realise that behaviours [00:10:00] and outcomes are often a result of people seeking safety a particular way, right? And in the absence of safety People will behave in ways that would not be perceived as being rational, whatever rational means because when you are not safe, your body shuts down because it is just trying to escape.

So that's where you give safety first in the SURE model, you give safety first, then you understand. 

 MindHug's Approach to Change

 And the way you understand, like you said, we're in a completely different context right now. We are an Instagram generation, right? Okay. We can't be sitting in a traditional clinician's room.

Like we have for 50, 60 years all the time. It works. Don't get me wrong. It works for some people, but we also need to recognise how the information has changed. Remember we said everything is about information, how we process information. So we need to recognise how we can help people understand. Some of the reason for their behaviours, which spells, which stems down to them not having that safety.

Sunny: So [00:11:00] is it that urge for shortcuts? It is. that also makes us want to consume short form, content that we do nowadays.

Raj: political theory as an economist, we used to study heuristics, right? you would know this as a politician as well. People make judgments on shortcuts. Now, the probability, of you being that one voter who's going to change and swing the vote is so small, okay, that the value of you getting information to make that right decision is probabilistically so small that you, rely on shortcuts.

So you say, my neighbour said that, or my friend said that. And everyone is relying on shortcuts, so no one is actually getting the full picture and no one is gonna get the full picture until they find safety. Because until they find safety, the body is trained to deal with shortcuts.

Sunny: It's almost a case of, you were speaking before and you said it's the greatest privilege of your life that almost got you out of, your role as an economist was that sometimes the [00:12:00] model could be broken.

 But we keep, we stay on that boat and we keep sailing because there's no need for us to get off because this broken boat, this broken model is working for us till it almost shocks us that we need to change. And, I remember, this one vaulter I spoke to on the doorstep, An amazing guy.

I spoke to him, And he voted, he voted the other way and we had a long discussion cause he was having some problems, which I'm not going to go into. And he was asking for my advice. and he said, I've never seen my MP. I've never, I'm not, doesn't respond to their emails, and said, this is broken, I've reached out to them for this. How can I fix it? And we had a long discussion and I told him how to fix it. And. before I left, And I wasn't even going to approach him. He approached me, I was done with my round for the day. And I said, are you thinking of voting for me? And he said, he goes, my whole family, my mom, my grandfather, I've always voted the other way.

He [00:13:00] goes, So I'm probably going to stick and I was like, we just had literally about a 30, 40 minute discussion about how I can, help him. I was asking for my advice and how the current system has been broken, how the current MP has not been working for him, but he still felt like he needed to stick to that.

Raj: Because we believe in an assumption and that assumption has kept us safe. And by the way, that assumption keeps on getting reinforced and the neurons in the mind are like a muscle, right?

And the, and you talked about it, you talked about the abundance of information. So here's a funny fact. We've had more data created in the last two years than all of 5, 000 years of human existence prior to that. Okay. So the amount of information the mind is having to deal with and the amount of triggers that the mind is getting, that it is not safe.

Is not multiples higher. It is beyond recognition exponentially higher.

Sunny: Yeah.

Raj: Okay. So you're never going to get that safety. So your mind is already always in a state of [00:14:00] fear. So for your ability to actually come out and understand the context, understand the environment, understand it's not your fault.

It's not, their fault. It's not anyone's fault. We're just in an environment where we have this abundance of information that's constantly triggering our, threat mode.

Sunny: So, you're almost saying that caveman 5, 000 years ago, do you know what I mean? On the cusp of advanced civilisation or civilisation.

Their life was easier than ours now, because 5, 000 years ago, you didn't have to think about your heart having a problem or your lungs having a problem. All it was, oh, problem here, type of feeling, right? Because you didn't know the different organs in your body, or you didn't have to think, oh, the economics of this country.

It was almost a case of where you're in the wild, either farming or looking for food. So you don't have that level of information to worry about. It's simply food. Safety, food safety,

Raj: I've often thought about this. And I, [00:15:00] think the fundamental premise of human experience is to experience life.

The only truth we can be 100% sure of is that we are experiencing something, right? We don't know anything else. We don't know whether the universe, whether the time is fundamental or not fundamental. We don't know, whether this is, a model the mind is creating, or this is actual, we don't know a lot.

Okay, we can get into spirituality. We don't know a lot. We believe in a lot. We don't know a lot and sometimes belief gives people strength and that's great. I'm all for that and that's fine But one thing we cannot deny is that we're experiencing something right and there's that curiosity to keep experiencing Okay, the one impediment to experience has been safety, because if you're not safe, you, cease to experience, or at least you cease to experience in the way you think you're experiencing.

Sunny: Yeah.

Raj: so I think there's always been this balance between experience and safety. [00:16:00] And I think cavemen might have actually had an ability to, once they came out of safety, to experience what they wanted to experience. maybe the level of experience or they or the breadth of experience was less than us But they were actually experiencing it because they weren't in threat mode.

So they were able to appreciate that Okay, they were able to appreciate that because they weren't in threat mode because when you're in threat mode in autopilot You aren't actually appreciating it. You're just trying to wonder. How do I get away? Okay, so I do think we've made enormous advancements I do think we've made enormous advancements, but with enormous advancement have also come enormous triggers You And enormous amounts of information, which the mind is processing.

the example I give is if I get a ball right now and I say, Sunny, catch, you'll catch it. I got a bucket of balls and I say, Sunny, catch,

Sunny: Yeah,

Raj: you're going to wonder what ball do you catch? And that's what's happening with the mind. [00:17:00] Okay. And that's why it's getting confused. And the nervous system is getting confused.

We're having huge amounts of mental health issues. We're relying on assumptions that don't work anymore. We're getting bombarded by information. Okay. We're not willing to innovate because innovation is change. And, change is scary sometimes.

Sunny: How long do you think it'll take our nervous system and our mind to adapt to that?

Raj: I don't know. 

 It's uncharted territory, but that's something we're doing at MindHug. the fundamental premise of everything we do is calming the nervous system first. Okay. the whole concept of epigenetics has huge links to the nervous system. Okay, we know genetics can change at least within one generation, maybe even in the same generation.

if you look at,

Sunny: To what degree though?

Raj: if you, look at, some of the latest research that's come out on diabetes, for instance. Okay, type 2 diabetes. the, latest research, says [00:18:00] that, one of the primary reasons Asians and Africans, Are predisposed to diabetes, is the outcome of colonialism Okay,

Sunny: Oh, interesting.

Raj: because the belief is one, one famine can increase.

the likelihood of you getting diabetes type 2 diabetes four to five times the next generation because the body gets More used to storing fat and that's genetically coded. This is within one generation Okay, so and the number of famines that happened during colonialism in both parts of this world is, considerably more than that one time.

there could be huge changes. Alright, the whole study of epigenetics is just looking at this. Okay, there's an experiment and we use this experiment about fleas in a jar. Okay, fleas in a jar and, you close the lid on the fleas. I think you've seen this in one of our workshops as well,

Sunny: yeah.

Raj: You

Sunny: it, I'm familiar with it. You

Raj: close the lid on the fleas, and you leave it there for a day or two, and you come back, and the fleas will never jump above [00:19:00] that lid, even though they were jumping above that lid before, okay? and, here's where it gets even, more funny and messed up, is, even the next generation

Sunny: Oh, wow.

Raj: will not jump above that lid,

Sunny: See, that's fascinating.

Raj: okay?

Sunny: We don't think about these changes day to day, right?

Like everything is changing around us. The food we eat, the information that's present to us, the new threats that are present to us.

So is, that almost making us predisposed to sticking to what we know

Raj: Yeah.

Sunny: or what we understand? I think

Raj: I think what's making us sticking to what we know is the

Sunny: abundance of information,

Raj: which is reinforcing the assumptions we used. You can only change if you are safe to change. Otherwise, the assumptions, which are shortcuts, the assumptions and genes, which are shortcuts, get triggered.

Because when we don't feel safe, we realise we have to deal from shortcuts because we don't have time to deal with everything, looking at everything. I don't know whether I should go pet that Sabre-Tooth tiger and play with that pussy [00:20:00] cat or whether I should run away. So you make quick judgments. All right.

And you make quick judgments based on shortcuts, which are psychological shortcuts or genetic shortcuts. Okay. And we probably can change some of those assumptions. It will take work because assumptions and neural networks and the neurons we use are like muscles. The more we use them, the more the mind gets efficient at using them.

Okay, and the more value the mind puts on them because they're like, Oh, it's keeping us safe. It's keeping us safe. It's keeping us safe. It's constantly reinforced. It gets stronger. So, those are the assumptions we use. Now, what's stopping us in my view and from changing it is those assumptions are constantly being triggered by the abundance of information.

Okay, by the abundance of information, because every time we get a new piece of information, we see it as a trigger. Okay, so the muscle the old assumption muscle, the old genetic muscle is being constantly trained. Now, in order for us to get out of that cycle, we have to find safety [00:21:00] so we don't rely on those shortcuts, assumptions, and unhelpful genes.

And that doesn't only come from, The old traditional therapeutic methods, there's, a lot of studies done on this. Why, how we can feel safe, why the sound of fire makes us feel safe, for instance, because fire meant that no predators would come near us because they were scared of fire.

Lavender was what snakes don't like. So why would the smell of lavenders calms the nervous system? Because genetically it reminds us that we're safe. Why does a warm cup of coffee

Sunny: calm you?

Raj: It triggers that part of the mind that says, reminds you of that day when you're sitting

Sunny: on the balcony on

Raj: a cold winter day, okay, with a nice warm fire next to you, sipping a cup of coffee.

It's that comfort.

Sunny: So a lot of these are deep coded into us, aren't

Raj: They're deep coded into psychologically and or genetically,

Sunny: Yeah.

Raj: Right? that's the, interesting thing. And that's how we can impact change. Giving [00:22:00] people safety and the biggest thing you can do to get people safety is empowerment.

Sunny: but let me ask you a question.

In nowadays, life is so busy. It's so busy, right? People don't have time. especially when we speak about politics, right? If you get up at 6am, to get ready for work, get your kids ready for school, right? You come back from work at six, seven o'clock, sometimes they need to prepare food, then you need to get ready for bed, right?

In that space of time, you don't really have capacity to learn anything new, right? So it's how do we break

Raj: That cycle

Sunny: Yeah. That cycle.

Raj: it's, it's the million dollar question. a billion dollar question, trillion dollar question, even. All right. 

 I think it is about integration and moments.

Sunny: Yeah.

Raj: I'll give you an example between January and April last year, not January, April, last year, January, April, this year, I refused to take the elevator.

Sunny: [00:23:00] Oh, nice.

Raj: Okay. I just took the stairs. Okay. It was integration. Okay. I will very often have a meeting. Which is in London Bridge, which would take me probably 15 minutes on the tube or half an hour to walk. Okay, I will walk back because the margin, looking at it at the margin, it's only 15 minutes. But that 15 minutes is getting me half an hour worth of exercise.

Because the alternative to that would have been taking the tube, which would have taken me 15 minutes. so I'm integrating that. Then there are moments, if I'm on the tube, I can listen to a particular frequency of sound therapy. Which is going to mimic the sounds of birds, which is going to remind my genetic system that there is no Predator out there because if there was a predator out there the birds wouldn't be chirping There are certain things that I can do which can be which can calm me down Right now this isn't going to bring you down from ten times of emotional [00:24:00] outburst in a day to zero Okay, we aren't you know, we aren't the Buddha.

Sunny: the Buddha, but it might

Raj: bring us down from ten to nine point five

Sunny: See, the thing is, what happens is, and a lot of people do this to try a new diet, to try a new therapy, to try something new, right?

And they're like, they want to see instant change because we're in the Instagram generation. We want to see instant change, right? But that increment of change could be so small when you try something new that you might not recognise it and then you give it up. Yeah. But if you'd kept that same process over a year, you can see tangible effects of it.

But nobody wants to keep you up that long. Everything now is literally, like I said, it's bite sized. You want to see instant. 

Raj: but

that's also, that also boils down to the reward mechanism that each of us holds, right? We value something a particular way, and we assign a value to it, so we, do that. And I'll give you a couple of examples here. All right. There are [00:25:00] people who will go to the gym and they will use that as reinforcement to eat healthy.

So the value that they put on feeling good has, was the reward enough for them to eat healthy. Okay. There will be other people who will go to the gym and say, amazing. I just did a great workout. So now I can go eat an ice cream sundae.

Sunny: Yeah.

Raj: Okay. So it

Sunny: I'm probably that guy

Raj: It was, I've been both at different times, right?

Okay. so it just boils down to, it just boils down to the values you hold. it goes back to addiction, right? Addiction is never about the substance, really addiction is about the underlying challenges you're facing and the underlying issues from an emotional and psychological perspective.

And the substance just happens to be the path of least resistance for Some people go down drugs. Some people go down alcohol. Some people go down video games, even It's just the path of least resistance. And it's the reward mechanism that's kicking in because [00:26:00] then you're attaching a reward to the video game.

You're attaching a reward to the alcohol. You're attaching a reward to, to, to the drug, right? and, it's not, it's, actually the underlying disquiet. And, I'll give you an example here. So my whole life I was told, by society, by everyone, and you know this, being Indians, cardio, right?

Cardio is the exercise everyone has to do, right? And you do cardio. And I hated cardio, right? I could do it. I ran as a teenager, but I hated it. And then one day I just said, I'm gonna just weight lift.

Sunny: Yeah.

Raj: that's changed my whole life because I saw incremental changes, right? But those incremental changes were more than the changes I would have felt with cardio, right?

going from two and a half to three kilos and, just, going that, so that was reward for me. so you also got to find what you value and, that goes back

Sunny: you broke the model there, right? Because, yeah, you broke the model. You decided to lift a weight when your whole background was telling you [00:27:00] not to.

Raj: yeah. And here, and this is the rule of one. We call this the MindHug rule of one. You got to do it once because remember we said the mind uses shortcuts. So it doesn't differentiate the idea from the actual thing. So between January and April last year, my story is always January and April. Yeah, Between January and April last year, I spent every single day saying I'm going to

do this workout

I'm going to do that workout, I'm going to do that

workout.

And then finally April came and I'm like, I've just been planning for four months. I'm like, what is going on? planning isn't going to get me anywhere, right? And it was 2am, it was about 2. 30am, I remember, and I just went down to the gym. And I just lifted

Sunny: it. Yeah. That's the thing in life.

I've realised you, sometimes you need to stop planning and you just need to do. Yeah. obviously there's things that will require intense planning, but often in life we just make plans and plans and we waste time making the plans.

Raj: Yeah, 100%. and, and then we act from the idea of the thing, and, the idea of the thing often stems from fear very often, right? We don't want to [00:28:00] do something because we think it's, we're fearful. But when we do it, we're like, that wasn't that bad.

Sunny: Yeah, it happens.

Raj: But the mind doesn't differentiate because it's using shortcuts. It's just using information. Alright, and it doesn't have time to know if it's an idea or if it's an actual thing. But here's the funny thing, when you do the actual thing, a different part of the mind is, actually exercising, a different neuron is connected.

So that actually helps you deal with other stuff later down the line.

Sunny: It's, yeah, it's about breaking that habit and creating a new sort of those neural pathways. I've, tried it a number of times, when you wake up in the morning and like for about 10 minutes, you feel lethargic and sleepy and all of that. And it's just about, no, I'm up now. Let me get up, go to the shower, cold shower, stand underneath it for about 10 seconds and your body adjusts.

And it's, always think to myself, how long? Till the point I'm not even gonna think of that shower as cold. It's just oh, this is all part of life It's about slowly building that building that and that change is making your mind more durable Isn't it over that time? It's making you tougher as a person [00:29:00] because you've just changed From this to that you've created those neural pathways

Raj: As we said, the mind is seeking two things.

Sunny: Yeah

Raj: it's actually seeking one thing, it's seeking experience. Okay, but it realises safety is the impediment to experience.

Sunny: Yeah,

Raj: So then it starts battling safety more. But the point is when you get safety, you have to get experience after that,

 Right? Let's talk about politically socially What do you think is the thing we need most change in right now? 

Sunny: A key thing for me was right, And that I, see often coming up in life is that we segregate people without even knowing it. Sometimes we see someone as black, white, brown. And for me, people are people, right? Till we as civilisation, as a society can say, you know what, Raj, you're just a human being.

black, brown, white, it's

Raj: the first time someone's called me human

Sunny: No, [00:30:00] for me, it starts there. It's, it's, if we keep segregating ourselves, we're stopping ourselves as a civilisation from moving forward. We're creating these barriers. Of communication. a lot of great things come from people of all different ethnic backgrounds, right?

Some, amazing things have come from Asia. Some amazing things have come from Europe. Some amazing things have come from Africa, right? It's only together when we piece all these things together, that we've got the civilisation that we live in now, right? We've got these smartphones, we've got computers, we've been able to travel to space.

It's not just happened from one ethnic background, right? It's been from Intelligence. And that intelligence didn't discriminate to say, Oh, this person is this colour. So I can only go to them. It's come everywhere. So for me, a key thing about change is we need to change our perspective, the way we look at people, and we just need to stop looking at [00:31:00] colour altogether.

till we can do that. I feel like humanity is always going to be, stagnating or slowly moving on. when, if we can just get rid of that, what society can be propelled, we'll probably be living on Mars in the next 10 years with a population of a few million, it's little things like that.

I feel are holding us back or not little things. There's a massive thing.

Raj: Yeah, and it's all these biases, right?

we're all biased, right? Let's, be, downright. So we're not pointing fingers here because I think we all hold biases in a particular way because those biases are taught behaviours and learned and genetics passed down because they served a purpose at a particular point. And as we said, The way to change

that

is to, give

people safety.

that gives them a level of safety that can either

replace

or increase the safety they're getting now that is preventing them from changing that.

Sunny: Yeah.

Raj: in any community, people feel safe in a community, [00:32:00] right? And they feel if they're giving up the biases, they're going to lose that safety of the tribe,

Sunny: Yeah.

Raj: and, the problem is. In order for any change to happen, as we've said, because the mind shuts down, unless it gets a higher level of safety, that change becomes difficult.

 But if you look at, if you look at things from a scientific perspective, like we said, even how we see colour

Sunny: Yeah.

Raj: okay, is programmed based on so many things. There will be communities out there that will see. Black is white is black, brown is some other color because their language has conditioned them that way, right?

Like we talked to the Himba tribe,

Sunny: Yeah.

Raj: they see blue as green. They can't even differentiate it. Okay. The Japanese, for instance, don't actually have a concept of past, present, future. They have present and not present. Okay. And the context determines whether it's the future they're talking about or the past [00:33:00] they're talking about.

So their whole idea of time and how they see the world, they don't It's so different to anyone else. So it's not only about people being culturally different. Culturally different is, what we see at the surface. But at a deeper level, we're actually seeing differences in reality and we need to have those differences in reality.

Sunny: Yeah.

Raj: We need to have those differences in reality to really understand,

Sunny: Yeah. But not only that difference in reality will allow that person to see something that nobody else is. and that might be the key block

Raj: But the block is, two things. Firstly, we're feeling safe in, in, sticking to those assumptions and those biases, the second is not actually recognising that we live different realities.

Sunny: That's the key thing. We don't recognise it because often you're trying to explain something to someone and you almost get frustrated.

Like, why is this person not understanding my point of view? But they might be viewing what you're saying is something [00:34:00] completely different. It goes back to that, green and blue, right? That you might be speaking in blue, they're speaking in green. And, but how do you rephrase it? Reframe it. So they can see it from your point of view.

And I think that's the hard part of life, but most people don't even recognise that. Most people will just sit there and they'll be frustrated that this person can't see my point of view when they haven't thought, okay, let me try and figure a different way to explain it.

Raj: 100%.

Sunny: Yeah. Their reality is different to your reality.

And it's almost experiences we've had in life shape that, don't they? some people will come there and say, money is bad. Some people come and say money is good, but why? What has led them up to that point? It's that's the interesting part that we don't understand. Or we don't have, we don't have time to understand it.

We're stuck in, a society right now where we don't have time anymore. You don't, you just wake up in the morning, you're working, you come back, you're cleaning the house, making dinner, and then you go to sleep. 

 The Impact of Short Form [00:35:00] Content

 And that's the, it goes to almost why short form content has become so popular. Like when you go on your phone, you want to look at 10 different 15 second clips.

And to you, you're like, wow, we've gone through 10 different things today, but no, you've just gone through 10 different 15 second clips. And I think that almost even further distorts people's reality. If you just saw a 15 second clip. saying that so and so from this background has done this. That's it.

You just stop there . You're not gonna see any other context after that. You're not gonna see any other stats after that. 

Raj: But that's not their fault, because they feel unsafe. They 

Sunny: fault. No. 

Raj: feel unsafe and their mind shuts down to any understanding this is a trauma informed approach. Unless someone feels safe, they're not able to process information further. But two things are happening. So they're not recognising realities are different. We're not recognising that their safety is threatened as a result of processing inform they're not being able to process information.

[00:36:00] And we're getting into this vicious cycle where each one is attacking everyone's safety and it's just getting into a spiral.

So the point is first people need to appreciate at a very small scale, it doesn't have to be at a very large scale. How can we show in a safe

Sunny: way,

Raj: That people's realities are

Sunny: different?

Raj: and, not just emotional, psychological realities, but actually physical realities. Okay. And we show this through experiments, right? How can you show the realities are different? So first you have to give them safety and we use a lot of tools to give them safety.

Then we show it in an experiential lens because people only understand through experience, right?

It's

It's not about sitting in a clinician's room and that might work for some people, like I said, experience is what changes it. And then only can they reframe the assumptions that is giving them that, that reality that they're in.

Sunny: That's the thing I like about the MindHug workshops, right? You're not out there just to give a certain type of therapy, sound therapy or art therapy or the different numerous different type of therapies that you have, you're there [00:37:00] to give us the psychological understanding behind it, because, it's, it goes back to that, right?

You teach a, person to make a well, they'll drink forever. If you just give them water, they'll just drink for that day. Isn't it? it's, about understanding how to do it for yourself and why and how change occurs.

Raj: We're talking about the human experience.

Sunny: Yeah.

Raj: The human experience is everything. How can you ignore philosophy, physics, chemistry, psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience and not put them together? That's the full human experience

Sunny: Yeah.

Raj: and people understand things differently. So you've got to bring it together.

We can't be living in a siloed, siloed world.

Okay, and that's the fundamental truth of it.

let's, look at how that's actually manifested, recently. We've had the worst social unrest, I know people say in about 15 years, but I think it's been a lot worse than it was even 15 years ago, because 15 years ago was, [00:38:00] fairly, fairly isolated in the riots we've had.

and I, ask everyone, why are the riots happening? 

No one even knows.

Everyone's got a different story about why the riots are happening. It's very sad. It's very, sad what's happening.

Sunny: Very sad

Raj: All right. Especially people who are getting hurt in the process. Okay. And the minorities are getting hurt in the process.

Very, sad.

Sunny: Yeah.

Raj: But what do you think is driving that?

Sunny: it's, firstly, it's disheartening to see we're in 2024, right? The world is ever more connected than it's ever been. And once again, we have information at our fingertips. And to see these riots and almost see racism is, it's, disheartening.

but once again, I take it back to a number of things, but one is that short form content that people are putting out there and people don't have time to look into issues anymore. They'll just see a quick 15 second clip blaming a certain [00:39:00] community. They'll see a 15 second clip. That'll be essentially fake news at times.

With the bits of truth in there, right? And that's the key thing, bits of truth, right?

Raj: And truth from a particular context as well.

Sunny: from a particular context, right? They'll put those pieces of truth and they'll say something. And then people only have time to look at that. Nobody has, not many people have time to reset something properly.

Not everybody has time to look at it from different angles. And the thing is when everything is going wrong, It's just, it's that neural pathway, isn't it? When everything is going wrong, it's easy to just say, you know what, I'm going to blame.

Raj: It's confirmation bias.

Sunny: Yeah, it's confirmation bias, isn't it

Raj: It's a confirmation biases. The more you tell yourself something, the more the mind sees it as what it needs to seek. So if you keep seeing threat, remember that gorilla, the gorilla running in that basketball court where everyone's playing basketball and, people ask people, no one sees that gorilla.

That's life because everyone's looking at the basketball, right? You [00:40:00] don't see that gorilla, right? But when you tell yourself, look at the gorilla, then you won't see the basketballs. So it's about how do we convert?

Sunny: And you know what, just to bring you on there, because I think that's a perfect and that perfect analysis of what sometimes also happens, right?

People are told concentrate on that basketball, right? And once again, people become very tribalistic. They'll say, you're in this court, only concentrate on the set of facts that I'm giving you on the right. On the left, concentrate on these set of facts. That's it. And people become tribalistic, but nobody's saying, okay, you know what?

Some people are making a sensible argument from that side. Maybe they're not all wrong. And once again, vice versa. Oh, you know what? I understand their perspective as well. and breaking down, that is the hard part to say, you know what? I can sometimes say that person's right. And I can sometimes say that person's right as well, rather than being labeled. Cause I hate labels. I don't. 

Raj: We all use them

and I think it boils down to eventually, I know [00:41:00] we used the word ego very loosely, but it all boils down to ego.

And the ego is effectively. Again, going back to the core concept, it's what keeps us safe.

Sunny: Yeah

Raj: Okay. and, it's not anyone's fault when they're not safe for the body to shut down because we've been biologically programmed to do that. So the question is how do we give people safety that replicates Or rather increases the level of safety

Sunny: Yeah 

Raj: That enables them

to challenge some of those assumptions because until that happens That's not going to

happen.

it's awful and here's and you mentioned blame and that's that's a core component of whatever we do Look, everyone has the right to feel really hurt about everything that's going on, right? Okay? There's no doubt about it. People, getting attacked, everyone has full right and it's, their life.

They've lived their life. It's hurtful.

Sunny: Yeah.

Raj: Anyone who's lived their life [00:42:00] would feel as hurt. Anyone who's lived my life would feel as hurt. Okay. The, point is it's ultimately environments that shape people.

Sunny: Yeah.

Raj: You can look at some of, the most, heinous criminals of the past, and some of them have become some of the most wonderful people today.

Okay? and What changed? and I remember there was this, talk with Mike Tyson, right? And,

uh, 

Sunny: you need to get him on this 

podcast

Raj: I really need to get Mike Tyson. Mike Tyson. If you're listening, we need you here. All right? Because. He's really, he's an inspiration, Of how he's changed his life.

And I remember there was this talk, that he was fighting and he was afraid of something, but he didn't even know what he was afraid of. that's was driving a lot of his behaviour in the nineties, but he worked on that. There's this old, quote that every, every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. Change is possible, but there has to be a model for change, okay? And the model for change [00:43:00] has to start at not taking away safety from someone. If people do not feel safe, they're not going to change.

The rioters, okay, the rioters right now, they're taking away safety from all the minorities. And the minorities are going to hit back, or they're going to feel really hurt, and rightfully so They So I'll go into two things here, right? 

Sunny: One of the parts is, people will riot.

And then sometimes they'll be directing it at minority communities. Now those minority communities, they have to react back, don't they? Because if they're being attacked, the natural instinct for you is to attack back. Now, obviously that's, it's a cycle, isn't see it everywhere. That cycle happens, 

Raj: seen in our workshop 

cycle 

Sunny: cycle, it happens everywhere. It happens in all the different wars and conflicts that are always happening. And it's just this is a never ending. And it only takes one person to say, you know what? No, let's talk this through that's, an important part.

But once again, for that other side, I think there's a few bad characters that [00:44:00] sometimes ignite the flame, right? And some people can obviously, some of these bad characters have big followings and they can jump in and say, you know what, let's rationally talk this through. They are problems. The riots aren't the way to address them.

We do need to address these things. These are the problems. But no, you meet people and, They're racist to your face. Sometimes they're very nice and racist to your face, which is like, Oh, wow. And I think sometimes you just have to break down and say, Oh, wow, this is a lot going on here. You're very nice. But you're literally telling me I don't like people of your skin colour.

And it's okay, wow. what's the sense in this? We're having a very civilised conversation. do you not like certain people of this colour or is it, just a blanket statement? I just don't like,

Raj: I think it's based on an assumption that everyone is rational all the time. And like we said, it's not anyone's fault. This is why the cycle propagates. It's because parts of the rational mind, if not the full mind, shut down, if someone finds [00:45:00] safety in a particular way. Now, that safety might not be the right level of safety they need, and you have to always evolve your level of safety.

I say it's a staircase, right? You find safety, then you get experience. Then at the higher level of experience, you get a new level of safety, then you get another experience. But the problem is we're stuck at that safety,

Sunny: Yeah.

Raj: right? And it's the human condition and we need to find proper ways of dealing with this. I say it very often. We wanna change the mental health crisis with MindHug 100%.

We wanna solve the mental health crisis, but we're an innovation company of the mind. We wanna understand the mind because through the mind we will be able to impact and influence change. But we need to understand the mind because everything starts and ends with the mind.

Sunny: Yeah everything.

Raj: we've seen this, our whole reality is a model created by the mind. So we need to understand the mind and we need to understand what are the things. That actually lead to behaviours and how do we change those [00:46:00] behaviours? . So we spoke about the riots. We spoke about the role of safety, we spoke about reality.

I think we spoke a lot about safety, which I think is one of the most missing components, and one of the biggest ways in which we feel safety can be provided to people is obviously through some of the stuff we do with mindfulness and sound therapy and CBT and neuroscience work that we do.

but it could be a lot simpler than that. It could be something as simple as acknowledgement and empowerment.

Sunny: I think safety is a massively key component, right? Everywhere. If somebody feels safe, they will not go along with something where they'll be like, you know what? It's okay. I don't need to think this is right when everything's telling me it's wrong.

Raj: you alienate people that way

You alienate people, but you don't realise you're alienating people because you yourself are in survival mode,

Sunny: Exactly. 

Raj: So you need something external. To get you off that survival mode. And that's where it gets to. So let's look at [00:47:00] this. We've talked about the social, we've talked about a lot of the psychology of it.

We talked about the neuroscience of it. Let's talk about it from an economic perspective. Now let's look at it from the organisational change. We are also living in. At least in the West not the best economic times, We've been through a lot of change economically, a lot of that driven by COVID,

we, see glimmers that we're coming out of it. there's a lot of positivity. And at the end of the day, any economic growth is, the economy is not a separate institution or anything. It's, people coming together to enhance the human experience, which is measured through money, right?

and Given some of the economic challenges we're facing, what do you think is stopping a lot of the organisations, private and social organisations, from mobilising those collective resources of people to actually implement that change?

Sunny: it's a number of things. You've got the bureaucracy there. You think the safety comes in as well. we've been carrying on this way, the way externally people will recognise that change and how they [00:48:00] will interact with that change and how they'll perceive that change. so you, know what, I'm going to bring, I'm going to bring it back to safety.

It's safe for an organisation to think, you know what, we're going this way. Let's continue. And the person at the top, sometimes it might be like, you know what, I don't want to be the person to. make that change and for it to go completely downhill and then it'll be always attributed to them. You know what I mean?

So almost that we need to stop criticising people that sometimes want to try change, or at least, logically look at that. You know what? We do need change.

Raj: fail. Freedom to fail.

Sunny: Freedom to fail. Obviously there's certain things we need to be very averse, risk averse. we, we can't just say, you know what, bring change every year.

I'm just going to allow things to fail because sometimes you just can't have that to happen, but in certain places you have to have that freedom to say, you know what, let's try something new. If it does fail, we'll just pick it back up.

Raj: [00:49:00] you mentioned bureaucracy, right? Let's talk about bureaucracy for a minute. Okay. So bureaucracy is just processes, right? It's processes and policies. Now, why does bureaucracy not lead to the best outcomes very often? Okay. If let me hypothesise here. If people felt this was a collective movement and, the bureaucracy was there.

So we were collectively. Empowered to do something,

Sunny: Yeah.

Raj: then we wouldn't have the negative connotations of bureaucracy, right? Because we feel we're doing it for ourselves. We're part of this movement, right? It's not something that's being imposed on me. why, are people not being able to move together in a collective way where bureaucracy is not the negative connotation processes and not the negative connotation, but it's a collective movement of us enhancing the human experience. 

Sunny: This goes back to a fear of change We've got so used to working [00:50:00] in a certain way. for us to break. We're habitual, right? We're habitual.

We're working

Raj: we're working from the top of the onion,

Sunny: Yeah.

Raj: which is what in the workshops as well. The MindHug Workshops. We're working the top of the onion. We aren't actually seeing why we are doing the work we are doing, which is not an institution in itself. It's just a more complex method of us waking up on a deserted Island and someone saying, I'm better at chopping wood.

You're better at baking bread. Let's get on with life. It got so complex. We built, We built central banking systems. We built mortgages. We built all of this to simplify life ironically, but it's got so complex. That we're losing sense of safety through this bureaucracy.

Sunny: Yeah. Well,

I don't know. It's exactly that. It's exactly that.

Raj: and the only way we can actually change that understanding is by finding safety in the first place 

Sunny: Yeah, 

it goes back down to safety. 

Raj: All right. [00:51:00] Let's bring this to a nice close now. All right. You have been to several MindHug workshops now. Okay. You know the MindHug SURE model inside out by now you've experienced many, therapies that we do. What keeps driving you back to the MindHug workshops?

Sunny: it's, it's the educational side of it. Learning the, how the mind works, it goes back down to it.

give somebody the knowledge on what's happening and why it's happening. It's so pivotal, I think in society right now, everyone needs that to understand what's going on in their own brain and how they can bring about change in their whole own brain.

Raj: Yeah.

Sunny: need that psychological education. they should, we need that in schools nowadays.

Raj: we're bringing that to school. We're already in universities. We're in some schools. You're right. 

 we, know the numbers, [00:52:00] 75 percent of all mental health issues emerge before the age of 25, 75 percent of them will never seek any form of treatment or help. The 25 percent that do seek treatment or help will wait on an average 10 to 22 years to get that treatment. And we know we've learned the nerves are like a muscle, they get reinforced. So imagine how reinforced they get in 10 to 22 years, and then we, treat everyone through a one size fits all approach, to the traditional therapeutic approaches where we're living in a completely different Instagram environment.

the success rate is. between, 30 and 50%.

Sunny: Yeah.

Raj: So we are helping 30 to 50%, but we're, also need to find better treatments for the other 30

Sunny: Yeah. And, the thing is

Raj: the other 50 rather 50, 50, 70.

Sunny: and, the 50 or 30% or the 70% they're speaking about this is only the percentage of the people that actually come forward.

Raj: 75 percent are still sitting

Sunny: So, the hidden numbers are [00:53:00] massive

Raj: and that's why you have to get in early and through the work we're doing, which is through group work, because we know statistically through, through research and we know through the research we've done, we, have, 95 percent of people say we meet their goals through their workshops.

And this is born with some of the research that's been done in the past, where they've said that group work through early intervention can be as effective, if not more effective than the traditional therapeutic ways of doing things. Later down in life because of the reinforcement because of getting in early. But i'm just going to explain to everyone what the MindHug model is right now. So our whole belief is everything, the whole human experience, be it the individual or the collective, boils down to two things. Information And how we process that information and the information we all have access to.

And also how we process that information varies significantly from individual to [00:54:00] individual. And a lot of that boils down to how we have been conditioned either through, society, through family, through genetics. And that ultimately boils down to some of the safety mechanisms that we've relied on through the generations.

So the SURE model, which is safety. Understanding, reframing, or releasing an experience is our model of change. It's a trauma informed approach. And the whole belief system is we have to be safe before any change can happen. And this is born in neurological, psychological, medical research, the threat centre of the mind, which we called the amygdala, which is the gatekeeper of all information, shuts down all rational thoughts, shuts down parts of the body, If it feels under threat, because it wants to use all the energy to feel safe and find safety.

So the first step we have to do in any [00:55:00] change model has to be safety. And that safety can be through various, methods, sound therapy, mindfulness, acknowledgement, traditional therapy. The point is people find safety through different mechanisms and we have to find that. Then we help people understand.

And the understanding, by the way, we know this in today's generation. It has to come through experience. It's not about sitting in a chair with a therapist on the other side, which can be helpful, and some people can find a lot of comfort and a lot of understanding through that. And that's great, but we need to look at the times we're living in right now.

And we live in an experiential world and understanding has to be shown experientially. What happens when we change assumptions? Why do we see things differently? Why do we hear things differently? We change assumptions. And that use that as a foundation to reframe. Some of those assumptions that are giving us a reality that we're not comfortable with.

And sometimes we [00:56:00] might not even know why we're feeling a particular way. And that's fine because the body and the mind works on shortcuts because the shortcuts are information that allows us to act efficiently in the face of our genetically coded predisposition of dealing with Sabre-Tooth Tigers. We had to act quickly.

We needed shortcuts, bits of information. So sometimes. Our reframing or releasing requires us to just remind the body you're safe. There is no Sabre-Tooth tiger out there. And then the final bit of the puzzle, which is experience, right? So we can understand all we want, but we've been trained since we were amoebas.

And probably even before that it's been conditioned and the nervous system and the neurons are like muscles. They're constantly trained. So the only way we can really take the understanding, we all know we shouldn't get angry, we all know we shouldn't fight, but it, gets us. When we don't feel safe, we go into autopilot [00:57:00] and the only way to change that autopilot really strong safety threat mechanism that is developed over.

All these millennia is to develop new neurons that can offset that and challenge that. And the only way we can develop new neurons is through experience. And that's why we need to bring in an experiential toolkit. And the experiences can be very, trivial. It can be you walking down with your dog. It could be anything, but it's the experience that's going to build those of change.

 And hopefully we can start improving life incrementally. I'm not going to sit here and say, I'm the perfect human being because I'm not. And I'm not going to sit here and say, everyone's going to become the perfect human being. But with small changes, we start getting headspace for change. And hopefully with those small changes, we can start living a better life.

Sunny: powerful

Raj: Yeah, that's the SURE model.

Sunny: Let's not feel too scared to experience [00:58:00] everything. Let's not feel too scared to try and understand every different person's point of view. Let's not think of everyone as a threat. Let's not think of every different point of view to ours as a threat. We might actually learn something from there. And that different point of view might not actually be a different point of view. It might just be a different perspective from their reality to your own reality. And it might actually be the same thing.

So let's learn to reframe that in a way they might understand, or ourselves reframe that sentence to say, you know what, is this the same understanding that I have? Let's not be scared to experience different points of views. They'll bring us closer as, as human beings.

Raj: 100 percent Alright. What are you giving to everyone? 

Sunny: I'll leave you on that thought. You know what, don't feel scared. To understand a different point of view to yours, and let's not feel tribalistic [00:59:00] in life.

Raj: 100%. Well, thanks, Sunny. Thanks for, 

Sunny: No, thank you for having me.

Raj: it's been great. and I love to hear change always from a politician's perspective. And obviously someone who I've known for many, years as well, but especially looking at it from a political, social and economic lens, it's been, phenomenal.

And I loved how we touched upon the crux of, of, the MindHug way, which is finding safety so that we can experience life. Yeah, so thanks. Thanks. Thanks for coming. And and yeah, hopefully we'll get you again at some point.

Sunny: No, amazing. I'm a big fan of the work MindHug do. thank you for having me.

Raj: Perfect. Thanks, Sunny. Thanks.