PF# 33: Alan Bodnar - Pain Science and the Self-Driving Brain

In this episode, neurophilosopher Alan Bodnar breaks down the mechanism of automatic responses. Discover practical strategies for understanding chronic pain, and learn how to train your self-driving system to process deep emotional and mental pain using the tools of secular pain science.

Follow Alan:

• on Instagram: #theselfdrivingyou
• on TikTok: theselfdrivingyou
• on X: selfdrivingyou

Learn more about Alan's work at theselfdrivingyou.com

The Pain Factor is a Project Fourtress podcast.

Project Fourtress is a secular, humanist project, dedicated to find answers to the physical, mental and emotional pain people experience, as well as offer help to deal with these issues. To learn more about Project Fourtress, please visit fourtress.org.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Welcome to the fight. Welcome to the pain factor. On this episode of The Pain Factor.

SPEAKER_03 0:31

Pain to me are self-driving responses typically tied to acceleration that are wired through experience that we generally attach to as pain. Like our self-driving system, as we move through the world, it's going to tie specific experience to different emotional responses. These could be painful or these could be pleasurable. But what can happen is specific experiences can get tied to a painful response. And then if we repeat it, or if we're in an environment that's constantly triggering that response, then that will become our reality, especially if we associate with that as true. Where attention goes, neural patterns grow. And with repetition, these patterns they end up reaching a point where they become our automatic habits, behaviors, emotions, beliefs, opinions. So the brain doesn't care about good or bad. It cares about what we place her attention on the most. Mindfulness is deliberately using attention to focus on something neutral or positive.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Perfect.

SPEAKER_03 1:54

Perfect. What we're thinking is attaching to a self-driving response and putting my attention on that overthinking.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Modern life compounds the problem of constant notifications, endless choices, and chronic stress. If anxiety or habitual behaviors arise, self-blame is common. The reality is that these originate from our self-driving system while we, as a driver, personalize the result. Our guest today is a neurophilosopher, researcher, and the founder of the self-driving you. He's also the author of the self-driving you book, where he explains how automatic we really are and how to take control with our conscious driver to drive toward the life that we want. For the past decade, he has worked to translate complex science into a self-guided framework that allows people to get back in the driver's seat of their mind and to take control of automatic responses. Alan Bodner, welcome to the Pain Factor. Glad to have you here.

SPEAKER_03 3:32

Thank you for the introduction. I'm really happy to be on the pain factor. Thanks, Gustavo.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Tell us a little bit about yourself, Alan, before we dig into our conversation.

SPEAKER_03 3:43

Yeah, so I think like most people, I struggled with my own internal pain and success up until I was 30, not really getting where I wanted to go in life. And then I started listening to audiobooks to try to figure out what is it to be human and how can I make the most of it. So what is my potential? And that was the main focus at the beginning, it was more around success. But as I continued to read, I realized that success and well-being were also tied to it. And my own pain kept showing up, which is why I'm excited to be in the on the pain factor. Because around at the five-year mark was when I was starting to experience success, but that pain kept coming back. And it was, it was always there in the background. So then my focus kind of shifted towards that as well. And then that was that's embedded in the self-driving framework around just emotions and emotional regulation. And with a lot of my ideas with whatever we're discussing today, I'm also passionate about applying everything to my own life and being my own test subject as I try to rewire my own brain, but then provide my book as a type of guide that will also help people understand themselves better so that they can do the same.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

And you have read literally hundreds of books in mindfulness, neuroscience, behavior, AI, etc. But we will get to that later. I want to start as I always do with the first question to my guest, which is what is pain?

SPEAKER_03 5:30

Yeah, pain, I think to answer that, it's good to discuss that from a, it could be an emotional lens or feeling lens, but with feelings and emotions, and we'll continue to build on this, but these initially originate from our self-driving system outside of awareness. And we are the conscious driver at the wheel who experiences and makes sense of the result. And for the human vehicle, our self-driving system generally has two ways to support all of our emotional responses. And these come from our autonomic nervous system, and it is essentially our gas and brake. So we have the sympathetic system, and that's going to accelerate our vehicle, but it increases our heart rate and our breathing. And at the same time, it triggers adrenaline and then cortisol to keep us going. So that's what speeds us up as we encounter specific things in our environment. And then it also has the parasympathetic break, and that's our rest and digest. So that is how we relax. It's a relaxation response, but it brings us back to balance. And most of the responses that we associate with as pain are tied to that sympathetic accelerator. So outside of our awareness, our self-driving system is going to trigger fear, anxiety, helplessness, and worry, any type, enter the emotion there that we associate with pain. And then we're the conscious driver who is experiencing the result, and then we label that as an emotion and pain. So to summarize that, pain to me are self-driving responses typically tied to acceleration that are wired through experience that we generally attach to as pain.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

We explain them as pain or recognize them as pain. When you say attach as pain, do you mean that we explain those emotions, those uh experiences, or blame pain for that in an effort to make sense of things?

SPEAKER_03 7:59

Yeah, I think that initially we make sense, like we're our role is to make sense of them. But when I say attach, I mean we get so accustomed to them that we see them as our identity. So that's the thing is they're they're initially arising outside of awareness. And then my role is to appraise it, to say what it is. Like I experience it and decide or say, hey, I'm experiencing fear right now. But when I say attach, I mean when that fear arises, I attach to it as this is me. I am this, and there is no other option outside of that pain. So, like, I guess what I'm saying is pain is coming from this self-driving system, but for the most part, we attach to it. We don't have to attach to it, and that's where the conversation will go. But we generally align with these responses as accurate.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

I I understand. I understand that. Thank you for the clarification. I guess that, and correct me if I am wrong, this is the reason, or at least one of the reasons, or one explanation that we can provide when we see someone that has been in pain for many years, regardless of the kind of pain, but let's say emotional pain, because they have been involved in a destructive relationship, and they cannot break free. I am not talking about physical abuse or violence, I'm just saying that a relationship where you can really see that the individual is not happy, it's doesn't feel fulfilled. But they just cannot break free from that. I see a lot of people that are in constant stress. It's like they look miserable. You can see them with their shoulders down, their heads down, the uh tone of their voices, how they don't speak up, and they almost look like robots or uh you know, m machines that are involved in a routine, and we will get to routines uh later. But uh I interpret that behavior and that image that they uh put out, like as per attachment to pain, like saying, Well, this this is me. I have to go through this suffering, this is my life. I will keep uh struggling financially, I will keep struggling uh emotionally, my marriage will always be like this, my poor relationship with my children will continue to be like this. This is all stress and this is it.

SPEAKER_03 10:56

Well, yeah, that's like our self-driving system as we move through the world, it's going to tie specific experiences to different emotional responses. These could be painful or these could be pleasurable. But yeah, what can happen is specific experiences can get tied to a painful response. And then if we repeat it, or if we're in an environment that's constantly triggering that response, then that will become our reality, especially if we associate with that as true. So if, yeah, if you grow up and it's you're told, like for me, I did have a lot of feelings of low self-worth throughout my early life until I was 20. And then I had to work through that in my 30s. But those thoughts then were through my experience, and then they became my way of thinking. So my self-driving system would trigger these responses of low self-worth, not being good enough. And then I'd attach to them as true. So they have that acceleration response to them, and then I attach to it. So I'm basically when you attach to that response as true, you're adding fuel to the fire. It just keeps going. So it's going unchecked, and that's the challenge, and that's where we'll move by the end of the conversation is how do we then engage our driver to impartially question these responses and start to rewire them so that they are not always triggering that acceleration. And that way we can start to retune our brain and regulate it and wire it so that it dries with greater balance and it's not always accelerating.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

You have mentioned automatic responses a couple of times. Could you uh go a little deeper on them? Tell us where they come from, how they are formed, and the uh kind of are there good and bad automatic responses? Can you abound a little bit on them?

SPEAKER_03 13:05

Yeah, I like that again, because I think with automatic responses, when it comes to good and bad, that is us as the driver appraising them as good or bad. So when we're talking about an automatic response to the brain, the brain is this impartial learning network. So it has when we're born, well, throughout our life, the network develops. But it has about 40 quadrillion potential connections that it can make, which is we can't comprehend that number, which is fine. Basically, some of the brain comes hardwired at birth, and that kind of points us in the right direction for how it wires towards survival and procreation. But the rest of the brain wires through experience. And what's happening is whatever we place our attention on from the moment we're born, even before that, but from the moment we're born, whatever attention goes on, so it's where attention goes, neural patterns grow. And with repetition, these patterns they end up reaching a point where they become our automatic habits, behaviors, emotions, beliefs, opinions. So the brain doesn't care about good or bad, it cares about what we place our attention on the most. And then that tunes patterns that become the automatic responses that our self-driving uses to drive us. And then those responses are going to be tied to that accelerator and break. We're just the driver who experiences the result. But as the driver, since we grow up with it, we grow so accustomed to these responses that we don't challenge them. And that's really what we're kind of moving into is understanding how the to the brain there is no good or bad. It wires where what we place our attention on, and these become the automatic responses the self-driving uses system uses to drive us. But then we, our role as the driver is to either we have the ability to go with them or not. But we go with them and we attach to them because we see them as true. And we almost that becomes our identity. So that's the challenge, is the self-driving system automates everything because that's how the brain works. And then it's our identity. But it doesn't have to be.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

That is the challenge, the change. When you mentioned system one and system two, are are those the gas on the break that you were talking about before?

SPEAKER_03 15:49

Yeah, yeah, I like that. The conversation can get a little confusing with the systems. So Okay. Let's have time. Yeah, let me explain the system. So there is a book by a psychologist Daniel Kahneman called Thinking Fast and Slow. And he in that he popularized the idea that the brain is the brain uses two systems to process information to provide the reality that we know. And we have system one, and this is what my framework basically just adopts. So system one is fast, automatic, and it's always on, and it's providing our first response to all that we encounter. And these are our beliefs, behaviors, habits, emotions, and opinions. And they're all this system one is managing this all outside of our awareness, and it controls up to 90% of our behavior. And that is our self-driving system. That's, I just call that our self-driving system, but it's system one. And then we have system two, and that is who we identify with as I. That is our conscious self. It's actually made up of the executive control network, so it's a circuit in the brain. But this is deliberate and slow. And it's not always on, it's intermittent. But when it's active, when system two is on or engaged, it allows us to monitor the self-driving system. So monitor system one, plan, deliberate, and exercise self-control. So this is our ability with system two. It allows us to watch, so it processes system one decisions, and then we decide whether to go with them or not. But that's the challenge, is we automatically like we're through our life, we grow so accustomed to system one that we don't challenge system one. We see system one as true. So our system two conscious driver's ability to use self-control and to override system one is not really fully engaged because we it's like we're almost asleep at the wheel because we agree with everything system one does. So we don't really see that some of its responses may not be accurate because we see them all as accurate. So we're not course correcting when we should. And then just to quickly, both of those, but mainly system one, use this gas and break based on what they process. Okay. So that's how they drive us with the gas and break.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

It would seem to me like we apply more gas to the system one than to the system two. We just uh in an aware way, we are not aware of what we are doing. But you said that the self-drive system one is like 90%. Is that what you said? Yeah. So it's a yeah. It's to be a difference. I just wonder how, unless we listen to someone like you, how we can become aware of something like that. It's it's almost like being wearing a blindfold because we are automated. You just said that we are asleep at the wheel. I I call it being just trapped in in routine, falling prey to routine. Yeah. Where are the dangers of that? Long-term dangers of that.

SPEAKER_03 19:40

I think the danger around routine, routine can be good as well.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

It could be, depending on what, yes, how you look at it.

SPEAKER_03 19:50

Yeah. But the challenge is if we most of us unknowingly wire routines. Like again, the brain doesn't ask questions, it makes connections. So it will wire all routines. Some of them are good, some of them are bad.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

Can I can I interrupt there? Yeah. I have been under the impression that the brain does ask questions. But you're saying that that is not the case. And again, I I don't want to deviate too much from what we were talking, but is it just connections that that our brain makes? I don't want to confuse to uh confuse brain with consciousness. Right. Okay. Or anything like that. But I I when we ask something, when we are faced with a challenge, with a problem, we when we are overwhelmed by something, and we wonder what do I do now? How do I work this out? Is it right? Is it wrong? Isn't that my brain?

SPEAKER_03 20:48

Yeah. Like I think that's the thing. There's just I look at it as that would be your driver questioning it. It would probably be best to provide an example. So, like, if while I'm growing up, I have an experience with a dog and the dog bites me. Well, now the driver could be a part of that. But basically, the conclusion of that situation is that dogs are bad. So now that becomes this new rule that dogs are bad. And if I never question that, then dogs will be bad for my whole life. And I guess an even better example, just for how the brain doesn't ask questions, is just around I had this fear of public speaking. So I don't know where that would have came from, where I had early experiences where it was I can't public speak. So up until I was 30, and I avoided it. I used to fail in class. I was so nervous, couldn't handle it. So I was controlled by fear. And every time that happened, my brain was just saying, You can't do this, you can't do this. And then when I was 30, I got a job as a facilitator and started reading books about success. It was saying that it's a process. So this is where I mean like the brain doesn't ask questions, it makes connections. So I had an experience that said I couldn't public speak. And then I started to public speak and I built that skill. So I it could be more for like skill, but it's also behaviors because we have good and bad behaviors. And when I started to practice public speaking, I got better at it. And not only did I get better at it, because I was now going against what my self-driving system was saying. It was saying I was not good at it. And up to that point, that was the truth. I could not do it and I believed it. But then I started to challenge it and I started to take that action. And now I can do it. And now when I'm in front of you, I'm not nervous. Because that's what I mean by the brain doesn't ask questions, it makes connections. So I can consciously direct how I want to wire my brain. If you're saying like to use consciousness to ask questions, if we're saying that the brain asks questions in that way, then yeah, like we would want to use consciousness to ask questions. But I'm saying the more the self-driving system in the brain, when we're learning something, when we automate a behavior, that part of the brain is not asking questions.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 23:27

Because it just unbiasedly makes connections based on what we put attention on.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

And because what our brain is trying to do is keep us alive, avoid pain, uh, seek comfort, and make things as chill as possible. So it is important to know then that when we think that we are the ones making some assumptions, we should just stop maybe for a couple of minutes and uh and really analyze what we are doing and why we are doing something.

SPEAKER_03 24:00

I think though, to hit that point home though, I had another thought where it could go with that with many of the behaviors because you mentioned like we do things to relieve pain as well. So in the morning, or to avoid pain, just yeah, to avoid pain. So in my mind, something like being tired would be a form of pain. We're tired, and maybe that is something where we don't want to be tired anymore. So that response of being tired is a self-driving response. And then we would attach that as being tired. But then throughout our life, let's say for me, I started drinking coffee when I was 35. And then when I feel tired, through attention, I started drinking coffee, and then that became an automatic pattern. So that's what I mean. Brain doesn't ask questions, it makes connections. So by putting my attention on coffee, then I automate that pattern. The challenge, though, becomes when I automate this pattern to relieve me from being tired. So then that becomes available to the self-driving system. So this is the loop that we can fall into because our self-driving system triggers being tired. And then to help us, it triggers coffee. And then I agree with all of it because I'm the driver and I think, yeah, I'm tired, and yeah, I should have a coffee. And then that's that's where we fall into these patterns.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

Patterns that make sense to us because they do.

SPEAKER_03 25:30

Yeah. And then we're not using, then we're not thinking with our driver because we agree with it and we let it go.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

You uh establish a difference between our identity and our biological output. That sounds super complicated, but I'm I'm going to try to ask questions that help us make it easy to understand and and to learn what that means.

SPEAKER_03 25:53

Yeah, and I'll try to explain it as simple as we can. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

I I I know you will. What happens when we stop being something or someone? I will illustrate this with a very common example. You are an athlete, you hurt yourself, your athletic career is over. Or maybe you have been a teacher for 35 years, you retire, you are at home, you are not the teacher anymore, you're not the athlete anymore. How does that conclusion of being something interfere in our life? How does that change the way we recognize ourselves, the way we accept our identity? Does that question make sense?

SPEAKER_03 26:42

Yeah, yeah. And that's I'll do my best with that one. I have changed identities a few times, but usually it was by choice. I've left my job to pursue my book. And then you have this identity shift where it's okay, I'm not the trainer anymore or the manager, and now I am the author.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

And I'd say it can be a positive shift in your identity, something you that you are adding to something that you didn't use to do before, like in your case, and now you are an author, that's not bad. That doesn't mean that you are changing for the worse. It's just a new identity within a whole person.

SPEAKER_03 27:30

I think that's really challenging when we go through major change like that and your identity is changing. And I'd say this is where it helps to have like this strategy around how to engage our conscious driver to then look at all the feelings that come up impartially because our self-driving system is going to come up with all kinds of responses. And some of them may be like, What did you do? You made a big mistake, or this is all you ever knew. Now what are you going to do? So it does help to have strategies like in my own life, and we can move there with mindfulness. But that for me is a strategy that I use. So when I do go through these major identity shifts, I try to not attach to these feelings and try to recognize them as okay, these are the responses that are coming up. And then what can I do with this? And a lot of that, when I first left my job to finish my book, I didn't finish for three years. And then I had to go back to another career after a year. So that was a big identity shift. And then a lot of the thoughts that were coming up then were what did you do? You left this job.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 28:48

Why did you do that? And now you're not done your book. You're not even an author because you haven't written another book. You don't have a PhD or anything. Why did you do this? Why are you doing this? You blew your whole life up. But then this is where I look at success as a process, and I'm able to then recognize, okay, these thoughts are coming up. But at the end of the day, what I'm passionate about was this. So I had this goal, this is what I wanted to do, and focus on, okay, just write, right. All I can do is, I'm not blocking it out or resisting it, but it's like this is a thought that's coming up. And now I'm going to just write because writing was all I could do to feel better about that situation. So I think it's for each of us, it's going to change for individually for each person. I think what would help if we're going through a major identity shift would be to have strategies. Because if we don't have strategies, if I wasn't listening to books at that time, then it would have been very difficult. It was hard as it was, but having strategies to use made it where I was able to see outside of the situation and keep focused on that larger goal of finishing the book. Or whatever the identity shift was. I've been through a lot of different identity shifts.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

How much of a role uh does our nervous system play in our self-perception? Or is it our nervous system? Is our biology how much of a role they play? And I think that I am asking this because maybe it would be it would be easy to blame them for our shortcomings or for our lack of opportunities or our failures to improve in a specific aspect in our lives. I I think it's a that would be an easy way out to blame our failures on biology, like saying, Well, that's the way I am. That's how I was born.

SPEAKER_03 30:55

Yeah, I think you could go in a few places with this, because if we're talking about potential, I think that the brain, like I said, makes connections based on what we place attention on. And by directing that for thousands of hours, we can tune patterns to reach a level of mastery, regardless of who you are and regardless of your genes. Like these, both your brain and your genes respond to where we place our attention and what we do most. So that is this impartial process that we can direct. And I don't think we'll know our true potential until we spend thousands of hours on something. We, if we say right away, like before I started writing, I didn't know anything before I was 30 about what we're talking about today. None of it. And I only know because I've spent easily over 10,000 hours on this topic and applying it to my life. So now I can talk about it. But if at that moment when I was 30, if I just said, hey, no, I can't do this, then okay, sure, I can't do it, I wouldn't have done it, and I would have never been able to do it. I can't stress that I was the most normal, unnormal. Like I felt like I had I had very low self-worth. So I didn't think that I could do anything. And then it was just learning about success as a process and then pushing that. And then when we go with how does our self-perception influence our biology, well, I think that what's happening is we have this self-driving system that's generating these thoughts. So before I started writing, it was I had all these thoughts that I'm I'm no good and I shouldn't do anything, and I can't, I can't do anything. But if my self-perception was attached to those responses as true or to agree with them as they come up, then those responses are tied to that gas, the accelerator, the stress. So it's automatically creating the stress. And then my self-perception is that it's true. I agree with it. So that's how I'm influencing my biology, because our system one or self-driving system generates these thoughts about us that we've wired through experience, and then we agree with that. But then what we can do is from when I was 30 on, I started to challenge that. Maybe I'm not afraid of this thing. Maybe I don't have this anxiety. And you start to challenge these things. And when you challenge it and you come out on the other side, you're also influencing your biology because, like I said, I had that fear of public speaking. And because of experience, because I went against my fear and came out on the other side, now when I speak, I don't have that same acceleration response as I used to. So I'm not attaching to that. So by changing my self-perception through experience, by challenging my self-driving responses, I can influence my biology. And that's the main point is if we attach to these responses, so if we don't challenge our automatic responses, then that will influence our biology. If we start challenging them, especially through mindfulness, then we can start to direct how our vehicle wires and influence our biology that way. Because all our thoughts are generally tied to that gas and brake. So I can interrupt gas responses and say, hey, I don't think that's right, and then apply the brake and rebalance myself.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

Our self-perception, uh, what we think or who we think that we are, sometimes gets conflicted with setbacks or changes, any kind of changes in our life. What adjustment would you recommend, or do you believe are necessary to maintain a balance between respecting what we think is our true self and at the same time accept those setbacks? Because sometimes I believe you you need to accept that some things are not going to happen, or at least they are not going to happen now, or sometimes things have just changed, like with your health, for instance, if you suffer a traumatic accident and you need to stop going to the gym or lifting weights, or you were in love with that, but now you cannot do that, or or again going to the athletic example, you cannot play the sport anymore. How do we I don't say reconcile, but how do we survive as ourselves but accepting the changes and the setbacks? What adjustments are needed?

SPEAKER_03 35:47

Yeah, that would be very difficult. Fortunately, like I haven't had if you were an athlete and you spent your life doing something or whatever it may be, and then you have this catastrophic injury and then you can't continue down that path, that would be very difficult to come to terms with. I think that again, the only way would be to have strategies and then to try to deploy those strategies the best you can. But there's going to be days where it's just, I think with the whole message, it's really like we are a part of this. We we're this driver in a self-driving system that's doing 90% of the driving. So there will be days where it's going to generate thoughts and responses, but these aren't personal, but we personalize it. So I'd say the first step would be to, as we go into like mindfulness, that these responses aren't personal, but we personalize them. And I think that would be the best thing is to try to not personalize these responses, to not try to get some separation from the thoughts that are saying, well, your life's over now, and now you won't be able to do anything. Because you may not be able to do that, but we don't know what other opportunities are on the other side. And we don't know what else, like it really depends on the sport. Like if you're in a sport, maybe you know a coach, maybe you can go into coaching, maybe you can. So there's always like other opportunities, or maybe you go back to school and you can do something else. So I think it would be trying to not personalize the situation and get some separation from the weight of that scenario and to try to see outside of it and slowly come up with other possibilities.

SPEAKER_00 37:44

Let's go into mindfulness. I know that we can reshape our brain when we learn something new. I mean, the reshaping of our brain doesn't need to happen when something bad happens. We uh reshape your brain by learning a new language, for instance. And I know that mindfulness helps it helps rewiring the brain. But before going into that, explain to us as simply as you can how is it that the brain takes shape? When we say the brain rewires the brain, you change your brain by doing something new, how does that happen?

SPEAKER_03 38:23

So, yeah, this is what we're saying. So, where attention goes, neural patterns grow. So, what this is saying in the brain is if I put my attention on something, then with repetition, I can wire that into automatic pattern, and then the self-driving system can use it. So that would be even like thoughts of low self-worth, fear, anxiety, these are wired through experience. So I had social anxiety, so that's wired through a lifetime of experience, and then I encounter that anytime I go to a party, but I attached to that as the anxiety. So the self-driving system is generating that sympathetic accelerator, and then I attach to that as this is real, this is the identity. But that was wired through experience. And then now, whenever I encounter that cue, because the brain, a lot of the brain works through cues. So when I encounter a social event, now it's going to trigger, oh, you don't like social events. It will trigger that anxiety response. And then I attach to it. It's like, yeah, I can't do this. I can't do social events.

SPEAKER_00 39:41

This is not going back to the connections that the the brain does.

SPEAKER_03 39:46

Yeah. So the brain wired that pattern through attention, through experience. But then as the driver, we're saying, I can go with it or not. So I'm going with it. I agree with that response and I'm putting all my attention on it. So this would go into overthinking too. So I'm I'm putting my attention on this. So I'm basically letting I'm agreeing with it and letting that acceleration continue. And I'm only going to strengthen that because the other thing is when you fire a pattern, you wire it. So when we are the driver and we identify with automatic responses as truth, we let them go unchallenged. And that means that pattern gets to fire. So that pattern just wires. So that's just becoming more automatic. So next time I encounter a social, social situation like a party, that's I'm reinforcing that pattern to be the response for next time. And what mindfulness does is mindfulness allows me to get separation from that. Because one way that I use mindfulness is I have used it for to help with my social anxiety, is instead of attaching to that narrative, then notice, hey, before the social event, my mind's wandering and I'm attaching to these anxious thoughts. And then what I can do is say, wait, that's what I'm doing. Go to my breath instead. So now instead of putting my attention on the anxiety and all the issues that might arise at this party, now I'm taking my attention away from that and I'm putting my attention on my breath. And when I slow my breath, I'm activating my our body's break, the parasympathetic system. So the self-driving system accelerated. And instead of attaching it and letting the acceleration continue and reinforcing that response, now I'm basically shutting that response off and I'm going to my breath instead. And I'm slowing my breath to apply the break. So when you start to do that, you're basically interrupting. Like mindfulness allows you to interrupt these automatic thought patterns and then make them less prone to acceleration. But a lot of this only really works through experience. Like we have to experience this and do this through experience.

SPEAKER_00 42:12

I was going to ask you the difference between mindfulness and overthinking, and you just explained that. But if I ask you to give me two sentences as definitions, so I could explain to someone what mindfulness is and what overthinking is, what would those two sentences be? I I don't know anything about mindfulness, and I need to explain that to you in one sentence. How could I explain that to someone?

SPEAKER_03 42:41

Yeah, mindfulness is deliberately using attention to focus on to focus on something neutral or positive.

SPEAKER_00 42:53

Perfect. Perfect.

SPEAKER_03 42:55

Overthinking is attaching to a self-driving response and putting my attention on that overthinking. Like I overthinking to me is coming from the self-driving system. So when I attach to that, then I'm just letting that acceleration continue.

SPEAKER_00 43:18

Why is it that people struggle to change even when they know they have to? They know they have to change, they know what's wrong, they know things are not going to end well, but still they struggle to change. Why do you think that happens? You know what is happening in our brain?

SPEAKER_03 43:39

It's because we're self driving. Like that's why in my book I talk about like if you're in this car, there's a car out there that is it does 90% of the driving. So it's the one step before a fully autonomous car. So if you're in that car as the driver, this is in real life right now. Now, if you go in that car, it's going to do all the driving. So it's going to turn left and turn right, speed up, slow down. You're just there to stop it when it gets stuck. That's we take the wheel when it's stuck and we want it to do something else. And we have that extra processing power to provide a new or another response. We can see it and say, oh no, don't do that. Do this instead. But what happens, like we're saying, is see them as separate. We identify with these responses. And we haven't been able to train, at least for myself, up until I was even 35. That's when I started with like training my executive control network, is what I'm really saying, is strengthening my ability to be able to take the wheel. So we don't know, like the challenge is we are unaware of how to take the wheel to override our self-driving system. So most of our responses carry out even though we consciously don't want them to. And even for me, I'm talking about strategies that I have. I don't want to drink coffee, but right now I'm drinking coffee. I don't consciously want to, but I do. And then it almost turns into this thing where it's like, is it a conscious decision? Because I'm I'm there and I'm deciding I will do it. But really, I consciously don't want to drink coffee, but I keep doing it. And that's because we're self-driving first. And it's best to try not to personalize this because who doesn't have a habit that they struggle to change? And that's because we we identify with them and we're we've never really been told how to take the wheel to override them.

SPEAKER_00 45:51

And that's the Is it then is it then that we need what is called deliberate attention? What is deliberate attention?

SPEAKER_03 45:59

Yeah, well, that's one of the strategies. So I have stopped drinking coffee many times. I've stopped with uh with other habits as well. I used to smoke weed and uh I haven't smoked weed for over a year now. And the way I did that was through mindfulness and deliberate attention. Because basically what's happening is you get this urge to do this thing. Cravings for me were the hardest to change. Fear, anxiety was a little bit easier, but I found cravings are really hard. Habits are habit energy is self-driving and it's it's difficult to change. And basically, if we go with coffee, what would happen is that thought to go have a coffee, and then I'm up and I'm making a coffee, in my mind, that's all self-driving. And then what I can do though is with the conscious driver, become aware that I just had this thought to go have coffee. Now I can stay here, keep sitting, and go to my breath instead and breathe in and breathe out, breathe in and breathe out, like slowly breathing. That's mindfulness. There's more strategies with that. But basically, what you're doing is you are taking the wheel and you're turning off that self-driving response to go have a coffee, and you're applying the brake with your driver. That's deliberate attention is taking attention away from the thought to go have coffee and the action to have coffee, and then placing it on your breath instead and trying to stay unmoved. I think that's the challenge of life, is we're so used to taking action. Our self-driving system is like a thought and response type machine, and we're not so great at not moving.

SPEAKER_00 47:52

Do you believe that there is a difference between pain and suffering, considering all the strategies that we can apply and the connections that our brain does? Do you believe there is a difference between those two? And if you do, why?

SPEAKER_03 48:08

Yeah, I think if there was a difference that suffering would be my relationship to pain. That would be my perspective, is because we could have pain. There could be pain that's always being triggered, and I may not, I may not think that that's suffering. I might not be suffering from that pain. I have headaches and I've had headaches for 12 years. And then I think a lot of it is just our relationship with it. So I could say I've been suffering from headaches, or I'm not. But either way, the pain's there. There are days where I've tried to change my relationship with that pain by again using attention and using deliberate attention. So when I have a headache, there have been times where instead of going to like attaching to the pain and suffering from it, oh, I have a headache and my whole day is ruined, and like I just need to go to bed. And it really changes my way of thinking. And a lot of times I attach to it and I'd say that's suffering. But then there's times where I'm able to say, hey, why don't you just go and meditate and go to your breath? And sometimes I, with that, there's a practice of like embracing, like, so you place your attention on the sensation. So go to that area, put all your attention on it, and just breathe in and breathe out. And you're not fighting with it anymore. You're accepting it. And and then that's where I think we can change our relationship with suffering because in those moments, it's not suffering. The pain's still there, but the suffering changes. So I think that's just my perspective. Like, I I'm not everything I say is not truth. It and I don't I think that is personal.

SPEAKER_00 49:56

That is personal, yes. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. I had never received that answer uh from that perspective, that suffering is our relationship with pain. I like it. It's the first perspective. That I kind of that kind of perspective that I receive. It's very interesting. And yes, in a way it is. Our suffering is how we react to pain and how we deal with it. So it is our relationship. What is your pain factor, Alan? And I mean that like what is your Achilles heel? What is your your kryptonite when you face something in your daily life that just overpowers you, overwhelms you?

SPEAKER_03 50:38

So I like that question because as we're saying, self-driving, we've covered habits, those are automatic, that can be pain. Uh-huh. We have fear and anxiety. That could, that's another self-driving response that we attach to that could be pain. Um, the one that we haven't talked about for me is conflict. So that's another self-driving response that I've done a lot of work with. For me growing up, I hated conflict. And I always was an avoider, like I shut down. And then that's something that I've had to work on again with mindfulness. But how we work on these things, I'm not just saying it has to be mindfulness. So deliberate attention is the way to me. So basically, conflict still arises. Conflict is something, though, that I have really worked on and I've improved a lot at conflict. I was a manager before, so I noticed I'd avoid a conversation, but then I would go and have the conversation. So conflict is something that still comes up, but it's like the nerves that come up before, during, and before a conflict, and when you're resolving a conflict that now I explore with mindfulness. So whenever my mind is ruminating on this conflict, I go to my breath and I go to the energy which shows up as butterflies in my stomach, and I'm working on that. And then it makes it better in the future. So every time I'm able to deal with conflict even better, and it has less of a stranglehold on me. But I'd say that that would be my pain factor because I, through a lifetime of experience, I was definitely a conflict avoider, but I don't think that conflict is a way of life. And to me, it's just a self-driving emotion. So it's about me working on that and changing that narrative instead of attaching to the conflict and the response to flee. It's well, let's explore this, let's question this. And this is what I mean with trying to engage our conscious drivers. So instead of just attaching to that conflict run away, like let's just sit in this and just what is this? What is that thought? But yeah, conflict is the one, well, not the one thing. They all continue to come up, but conflict is a powerful response that continually shows up, and I'm challenged by it.

SPEAKER_00 53:05

Are we leaving out any other responses that you would like to comment? Any other automatic responses that we haven't mentioned? We you just said that conflict was something we had not discussed. Is there any that you'd like to mention? No, I think that's a good question. Maybe something that we didn't discuss.

SPEAKER_03 53:23

I think I think that would cover them. I think. But there's always a response. So there's the whole spectrum of responses that that's why pain's interesting because these are all different responses that we could associate with as pain.

SPEAKER_00 53:37

Any other comment that you'd like to add? Any other uh example, piece of advice that you would like to leave us with?

SPEAKER_03 53:47

Well, I think that it would just be we've covered a lot of information. I think that it's the main message is to try to understand that most of our initial thoughts and responses come from this self-driving system. So they're not personal because again, the brain just wires it all through experience. And that's what's helped me to kind of not attach to it to depersonalize, because there are other alternatives. So it's just it's not personal, and there is another reality if we're able to work with it and to continue. But self-development is, I would say, a lifelong journey, and it's not something that is absolutely going to change overnight. Like I've been this is 10 years now, and I feel like for me, the real growth wasn't until the last five years. And then there's times where you feel like you're taking steps backwards, and then you have to remind yourself, oh no, I have changed, I have changed a lot of behaviors, but it's just trying to give yourself grace and like it's a long journey to rewire the brain. It's taken over tough one. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:07

Giving yourself grace, that's a tough one.

SPEAKER_03 55:10

That's hard too. That's like a new thing. That is a pattern in itself that needs to be wired.

SPEAKER_00 55:16

Yes. And the uh self-driving metaphor is is perfect. It makes it sound so simple. But then many times I think that the answers are simple, but getting it done is is is a thing that really challenges us. That's I don't know. How yes, please.

SPEAKER_03 55:36

Just saying, like I like how you said that because that's the challenge with it, is it's simple in theory. And that's the point of this framework is to try to make it accessible to everyone. So in that part, understanding it is simple, but it's in the practice that makes it very, very difficult. And my book, the information I write in there that it's 1% of what we need to start to rewire our brains in the direction we want. The rest is applying it to our lives daily, all the time as we rewire every behavior, basically. Not every behavior, but it's looking at, like we were saying before, that we're going to have some behaviors that are okay, some routines that are good, and some routines that may not serve us, that may be self-destructive. So it's building the awareness around our routines, and then that's like the conscious awareness, and then interacting with them to see which ones to change, but it's like an onion, and we're peeling the layers because we're not used to doing that. And then that's where it can be very difficult because it's just oh I just changed this behavior, now I have 10 more, and you like you can kind of have fun by the two, though. We're just the practice is difficult, is the point.

SPEAKER_00 57:07

But having a great metaphor that can make you understand what is going on is a great start. If you don't understand what is going on, there's no way at all that you can start looking for the answers because you don't even you wouldn't even know what to look for.

SPEAKER_03 57:24

That's so true. Like that's the first 30 years of my life. I didn't change. 40 years of mine. And we don't change. We're just, but in our minds, everything makes sense. But yeah, it's it's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 57:39

I I think we we we do change, but it begins with understanding, we with understanding what is going on, why we are the way we are, what what is happening to us, what things happened, and this is where therapy comes to the rescue. What happened in our lives in the past that made us see some things from a different perspective or from a specific perspective?

SPEAKER_03 58:06

So uh pain though, like that's why pain is so great, because I read a book that said pain is a gift. And through my journey, if I didn't have pain, I wouldn't try to improve. That has always been the leading factor for me. So that's why pain, like we're saying, the suffering. We can look at it as suffering, we can also look at it as a gift, and that can help shift our perspective. Because for me, the pain of not enjoying my career pushed me to write every single day after work. The pain of my headaches pushes me to try to find alternatives and to try to get better. So I almost like pain because if I didn't have pain, if I didn't have the pain that came with the work I did, I would have never wrote my book. And I would have never, I wouldn't be trying to live a life where there's less pain. Like if I had no pain and I didn't have fear and I didn't have anxiety, then I wouldn't be on this path to try to improve it. So pain is is great. Pain is good, it just hurts sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 59:26

Yes, it does. But I I do agree with you. Uh Alan, where do we buy your book? How do we follow you in your, if you have them social media channels, YouTube, tell the people where to follow you?

SPEAKER_03 59:44

I'm on, I have a website which is the self-driving you.com, all one word. And then from there, there is a link to buy the book in all formats. It's available in audio as well. But you can also just go to Amazon or Audible and search the self-driving you. And right now, if you're in the States, uh, you can message me on any social platform. So I'm on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok. If you message me on TikTok, I'll respond. So that would be a good way to get in touch with me. And also what I was saying is if you do listen to Audible, if you message me on Instagram and you want a free link, I do have some free links for anyone if you want the free audiobook. But otherwise, yeah, Instagram would be the best way to reach me. And yeah, that's I'd say that covers it. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:37

Great. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your knowledge and for uh giving us a chance to talk to you and share your experience and being open about how you have uh dealt with all this stuff, with this pain, with the doubts, how you have managed all those connections in your brain. And thank you for explaining all of this to us in a very simple way. I am sure that people are going to benefit from this. And I also uh hope that we can see each other again and talk more. Maybe for your second book.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:19

Yeah. Well, then yeah, there's the pressure to write another book. But and then that creates more pain. But yeah, I really appreciate the platform, and I really like the concept behind the pain factor. Like we can all relate to pain and suffering. It's the a universal human thing that we're all experiencing.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:39

A great equalizer.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:41

Yeah. So any way I can help with that, I'm happy to have this platform. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:48

Thank you. And to everybody listening and watching in, we will see you next time when we continue to explore the Pain Factor. Ciao ciao. The Pain Factory is a Project Fortress podcast. Project Fortress is a secular human rights project dedicated to find answers to the physical, mental, and emotional pain people experience, as well as offer help to deal with these issues. To learn more about Project Fortress, please visit Fortress.org. That is F-O-U-R-T-R-E-S-S.org. I am Gustavo Varella. I'm not a licensed medical professional, nor am I a nutritionist or a degree in exercise on sports medicine. All of the advice given on this podcast is what I have learned from my own experiences and mistakes. Navigating through depression, anxiety, and chronic fit of pain. Use all of the information that we give at your own risk.