Experience-Dependent Neuroplasticity: The Key to Resilient Brains with Dr. Danny Recio and Dr. Heather Tracy

Convenience can make life easier, but it can also prevent the kinds of experiences people need in order to grow. In this episode of The Reframe, Doug Bodin is joined by co-host Dr. Heather Tracy, co-founder and executive director of New Summit Academy and The Bridge Young Adult Gap Program in Costa Rica. They sit down with Dr. Danny Recio, who co-founded both initiatives with Dr. Tracy, to explore how experience shapes the brain and why many young people are struggling despite having more comfort and convenience than previous generations. The conversation unpacks the science of experience-dependent neuroplasticity and explains why challenge, repetition, embodiment, and relevance are essential for learning and long-term growth. Together, they examine how technology and convenience may be contributing to “experiential deprivation” and why shielding young people from discomfort can unintentionally weaken resilience, agency, and self-trust. They also reflect on the work being done at The Bridge, where students are encouraged to engage with real-world challenges in supportive environments that allow room for experimentation and growth. Tune in for an insightful breakdown of neuroplasticity, resilience, and the power of meaningful learning.

Key Points From This Episode:

• Introducing co-host Dr. Heather Tracy and guest Dr. Danny Recio.
• What experience-dependent neuroplasticity means in practice.
• How experience reshapes the brain throughout life.
• Why screen-based living can limit meaningful learning experiences.
• Key factors for brain development: time, repetition, relevance, embodiment, and challenge.
• The difference between behavioral approaches and experiential learning.
• What AI research and neuroscience reveal about learning through trial and error.
• Why protecting kids from failure may undermine resilience.
• The rise of “experiential deprivation” among young people.
• How convenience and technology can reduce opportunities for growth and resilience.
• Reflections on findings from The Mental State of the World Survey.
• Creating “life laboratories” where young adults can safely explore and fail.
• How experiential learning helps build resilience, agency, and self-trust.
• Research insights from alumni of The Bridge program.
• Using supportive immersion to balance challenge and guidance.
• The six mechanisms of change behind experiential growth at The Bridge.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Dr. Heather Tracy

Dr. Heather Tracy on LinkedIn

Dr. Danny Recio

Dr. Danny Recio on LinkedIn

New Summit Academy 

The Bridge

The Mental State of the World Report

Douglas Bodin

The Bodin Group

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

You need to put yourself on the path of experience-dependent neuroplasticity because otherwise the environment in and of itself is not going to do it for you.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Welcome to the Reframe, where we have real, unfiltered conversations about mental health, parenting, and addiction treatment in a changing world. Hosted by Douglas Bowden, a therapeutic consultant with 35 years of experience, we explore the shifts shaping mental health care, featuring experts pioneering new approaches and offering practical advice. Join us as we challenge old narratives and reframe the way we think about the challenges in mental health treatment. This is The Reframe. Let's dive in.

SPEAKER_02 1:12

Today, our guest is Dr. Danuriccio, who's the other co-founder of New Summit Academy and the Bridge. The main topic today is one that we were kicking around a few weeks ago and really wanted to jump into because we're all devotees of the notion of experiential work, therapy, growth for young people, and we wanted to really dive into what is that all about? What does that mean in practice, not just as a current buzzword? So we're gonna talk about the neuroplasticity of the brain. But Danny, I'm gonna start off with you just to explain what is experience-dependent neuroplasticity.

SPEAKER_03 1:50

Sure, yeah. So I guess maybe just shortly uh historical explanations. So up until I mean basically the 21st century, people believed, and I don't know, I mean, we're old enough to have heard this when we're young, like, you know, once childhood is over, then that's it. Your brain is just kind of the way it's gonna be, and so whatever structures you have, that's what you got. And then the brain just kind of uses that to make it work during your lifetime. And so the experiments that were done in the 20th century, most of them reinforce that idea, but then little by little, but especially in the 21st century, that idea changed because neuroimaging got much better, and so people were able to recognize that that's not actually the case, and that the brain is constantly reorganizing itself, and that it is actually growing new neurons as well. So that is what's neuroplasticity is the fact that the brain is changing and adapting constantly. Now, experience dependent neuroplasticity is the fact that the main way in which the brain changes its own structure is through experience. And so one way of looking at it is like, well, you know, how do you change the look on your muscles or your belly fat? Well, because you're constantly working on it, and so the shape actually changes of the muscle, and the brain works the same way. The particular way in which you use it, the more you you put it to work through experience, the more it changes its wiring and the more it grows neurons and so on.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Yeah, and I think this is especially relevant today because of technology, how much time we spend on a screen, how much time we are using social media or just observing other people's lives on a screen. So it certainly is a big contrast to the idea that embodied experience is what actually changes your brain.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

So the time of the people are spending online deprives them of having actual experiences of developing their brain, their growth.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

Yes. Yeah. So it's a it's important, A, that the neuroplasticity continues to evolve throughout our lifetime. And so it is not a doomsday prediction that our brains are just rotted now because of technology and social media, but also we need to balance out the amount of time that we're spending on screens alongside the actual experiences we're having. Danny, I'm curious if you can talk a little bit about what kinds of experiences or what are the elements of an experience that is actually valuable to the development of our brain.

SPEAKER_03 4:36

Yeah. Yeah. So there's, I mean, let's be honest, I mean, we knew so little about the brain up until recently, and now we know a little bit. And so there's interesting research coming out all the time. But you can point out to specific research that says, you know, that this tends to enhance or activate neuroplasticity. So the more that this element of experience is there, the more neuroplasticity you tend to have. So I'm going to name a few of what we know up until this point. So time is important, and I think we've known this in some ways. So if you practice cello for five minutes once a year, there's going to be less learning and therefore less neuroplasticity. So the more you do something, the more that experience has the power of rewiring your brain. The second one is repetition, and we've also known that. So the more that you do something, not just in terms of time, but the more repetitions also enhance the rewiring of the brain. One that I really that really excites me is uh salience. So in terms of salience, there's two that I think are really important. So well, I don't think are really important, they're they're really important, but I like them. So one is that whatever the activity is has goals and that they're your goals, and so the brain tends to pay more attention to something that's relevant to the person, and therefore, I guess all the machinery gets directed toward learning from that, and so that kind of experience is more neuroplasticity-inducing. And then another piece with salience is dissonance, which I really like because dissonance involves novelty, it involves in some way something that doesn't quite fit, and the brain's really wired for that. It's really important for the brain to focus on something that isn't quite right and try to assimilate it or understand it. And so, salience, when it comes to dissonance or novelty, is really important. The next one is embodiment. So when the senses are engaged, when you're actually interacting with the environment, with your body, then that also helps neuroplasticity. Challenge, especially challenge that the system, the person, the organism feels like it can be achieved because it calculates like this is this is something I can learn from, this is something that I can do. So that tends to be really neuroplasticity inducing. When the system kind of calculates that it's not going to be able to accomplish it, then it almost disregards it and says, okay, I need to choose something else to put my energy into. Feedback is really important, not just from people, but from the activity itself. The better kind of activity is the one where you kind of get some kind of response as to whether your attempt at a goal was, you know, it worked or it didn't work. And then specificity, so if you just do a random movement without any kind of purpose versus doing a movement when it's geared toward a specific activity that requires a particular skill, then that's also more helpful. So if you I do like a circle movement like this for no reason, it's different than if I'm grabbing some kind of spoon or something like that to stir because I'm I'm cooking and I'm learning how to cook, then that also is more neuroplasticity inducing. And then the last one is choice. So because brain, our brains, of all living organisms, have evolved in environments that are quite uncertain, that are full of different variables, then the more variables there are, the more enriching that environment is, where the brain needs to select what to grab onto and kind of sink into a particular path or choice that's also more new plasticity inducing.

SPEAKER_02 8:55

I'd like to focus a little bit on that, the importance of the relevance. You were talking about building a particular skill set. How much when you're stirring the spoon, you're cooking, you want to make a cake or whatever, you've got a skill set and a particular goal, so there's relevance. Where does that play into this?

SPEAKER_03 9:11

Yeah, no, 100%. And I think that because you know, if we look at time and repetition, they're really important. They're really play big factor into the neuroplasticity. But if you just have the time and you just have the repetitions and there isn't any kind of salience, so you know, we may look at this from the perspective of, I don't know, the good old like punishing someone and just saying, like, I don't know, like the the canonical, like, go dig some ditches or something. Like that's like, okay, but what's the purpose of this? You know, it doesn't really have any particular relevance to any kind of goal. You're not really learning anything particular. You might learn something, and that's a another thing about experience the pendeneuroplasticity, is that there isn't an experience that is just like, okay, this is an experience, this isn't an experience. Like you can have those extremes, but for the most part, it's just gradients. And so I'm sure you can get some resemblance of an experience through just kind of moving your hand like this, but you get much more if you're actually, you know, stirring the pot and you have a goal. And I I don't I don't know if that answers your question.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

I think it does, and I think you're also starting to draw that distinction between behavioral versus experiential. And I know you like to talk about that distinction and where that comes in, especially in the treatment world and the therapeutic world.

SPEAKER_03 10:41

Yeah, so there's a real strong tradition of behavioral psychotherapies, and there's certainly a place for them. And the tradition, I mean, the the way that that all started was that in the 20th century, when they were doing research, when it came to psychology, some people, real geniuses, said, well, the only measurable thing is behavior because it's observable. You can actually see someone performing an action, and therefore we should focus on that. And all well and good because you want to make the field of psychology as scientific as possible. If we jump to the 21st century, we now have tools, technologies that allow us to see what actually is occurring in the nervous system, and we know that it's not just behavior that lights up the brain. We were just talking about it, right? If something's meaningful to the person, it's gonna light up more. So going back to the Sterling example, if I just move my hand in circles and there is no relevance, no salience, then the brain's not gonna light up in the same way that it's gonna light up if all of these other factors are occurring. So if there is challenge, if there are goals, if you know, maybe I'm getting a little feedback like, oh, this is getting too thick, or you know, or it smells good, you know, and you have all of a sudden all these other pieces, then we can see now that the brain lights up much more. And so I think that you know, if we're just gonna dissect it, we would say that behavior can be a part of experience, but you can have behavior without experience. And experience in and of itself entails learning because an experience is an event or an interaction with our environment that makes enough difference to create a difference in the nervous system. And when it makes enough of a difference in the nervous system, what happens is that it's restructuring itself, you know, neurons can grow from it. And so, interestingly enough, I don't know if you agree, you can tell me your opinions, but historically, you hear experiential and it's like the sort of lesser kind, and it's kind of connected to oh, you know, the kind of thing that everybody can do, all kinds of brains can do hands-on, but the big brains, you know, they can memorize you know all these big concepts, and so more of the abstract thinking, I don't know, has had a little bit of higher value. When in truth, I would say that based on the evidence coming out of neuroimaging and and what we're the very topic we're talking about, I would say that experience has a lot more value when it comes to learning than behavior. Although it's possible that when some people are talking about behavioral, they're including experience. But I would say that the word experience, the term, and everything that we're talking about, has just fuller when it comes to the more recent science.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

It sounds like you're saying that behavior is more observable, whereas experience is more dynamic, right? Behavior is kind of this observable phenomenon, a performance, something that we can classify, right? But experience actually has the dynamic ability to shape behavior, which you say that's the point you're trying to make, is that experience, because it's more internally relevant and behavior is more externally valued, that we can actually create experiences that shape behavior in ways that allow us to grow or improve our behaviors or improve our habits.

SPEAKER_02 14:36

We talk about behavior modification, which implies an external force doing so. Whereas I think what you're talking about is that the experiential comes from an internal process that I would argue, therefore, it sticks.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Yeah, and that connects back to the salience factor too. What makes us human and not AI is that we have our accumulation of experiences that have shaped our beliefs and made things relevant to us. What's relevant to me may not be relevant to you or or to Danny, or we may be in the exact same situation or context, but interpret it differently based on the experiences that we've had. So by being able to shift experiences or shape experiences, you can actually change someone's reality, change their behavior, change their beliefs. And I think what Danny mentioned is also important is that the cognitive aspect of therapy or the intellectual aspect of therapy is what has been valued for so long. And again, I don't mean to keep bringing AI into this, but now that we're seeing that intelligence or cognition can be fast-tracked, it's really brought up, it's made it salient. This question of, well, then what is human and how are we educating kids today? How are we teaching them to change behaviors and learn and grow?

SPEAKER_02 15:58

And do they need to?

SPEAKER_01 15:59

And yeah, or do they need to?

SPEAKER_03 16:01

Yeah. Yeah, and there's two things there. One is, yes, so obviously we're not hooking up people to MRI machines when we're doing our work these days. So it's not like we have firsthand neuroimaging evidence of what the kind of work that we're doing with our students, but we can correlate the fact that there's neuroimaging that says that intention is really important, that emotional relevance is really important, that goal-directedness is really important. There's all these kinds of things that we know are of relevance, and we can inform our work that way, not just through the observable behaviors, because we know that there's much more going on. And then one little piece, the other piece related to AI, and I don't know that we're gonna go too deep into that rabbit hole, but there's tons of opinions out there when it comes to AI, but some interesting voices in that regard is that you know when they try to teach these machines, these algorithms, how to perform particular tasks, and they acknowledge that they fall short because the algorithm doesn't have a body. And so what they try to do is provide an environment of learning for the algorithm so that it can actually sort of bump into some kind of feedback system to come to understand. That is, and my knowledge is not a whole lot in that regard, but my understanding is that that's the way that companies like DeepMind have gotten the machines to beat the best human at like chess and all these kinds of things. It's not necessarily by feeding it a ton of information, which it can't, they can, but by providing the algorithm with a task and giving some conditions and providing it with a space for it to engage in a trial and error period. What's interesting about that is that these algorithms fail a lot for a while until they get it right, and then their learning surges way beyond what we're capable of. But yeah, it's just interesting that they've come to understand that that's the way that these dynamic systems, machines, and biological organisms learn best. And so what we're trying to say here in this conversation, what we're trying to do with our work is take that and say, okay, this is the best way that people learn. Let's try to create spaces of learning or learning ecologies, as they call it, that provide that kind of experience.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

For failure, which is something I think that's kind of revolutionary today, right? Is we have tried so hard to not let kids fail because of the impact it will have on their self-esteem or their identity. And the truth is, is we're seeing that that has not worked, protecting them from those failures. And so now it's almost like the pendulum has swung back to okay, how do we create experiences where they're bumping up against discomfort, they're bumping up against something that didn't work out, and they're willing to go back to the table and try again and get creative about other solutions that might be possible. That's really it's kind of it gets me excited. It's kind of inspiring to think that that's where we're headed.

SPEAKER_02 19:26

Well by protecting kids from failure and those unpleasant experiences, we're in fact depriving them of their ability to grow. I think there's a lot of opportunity costs in everything we've done to shield kids from that blow to their self-esteem. And I think in the mental health circles, and I'd like to bring it back to that a little bit, since I don't think any of us are going to sound very credible when it comes to how to program AI, but certainly myself. But what are we missing out on? What are some of the findings of kids not having those opportunities to fail, those opportunities to learn and grow? How is it affecting mental health for the young people that we're all seeing as an industry and for you guys in particular?

SPEAKER_03 20:08

Well, nobody really can tell with certainty. You know, people say correlation's not causation, so nobody really knows the cause of the decline in mental health in young people, young adults in particular, but there is enough evidence to say that that is for sure what's happening, is that the mental health state of things and and the well-being as a whole of young people is declining. It used to be one of the highest in the whole population, and now it's one of the lowest. So young adults in particular have uh the lowest levels of well-being of all the adult population. And so there's good efforts out there, of course, to find an explanation because that if you have a good explanation, then you can address the issue. We do believe that this piece on experience is really important. And so we use uh a term we call experiential deprivation, which is a is a term that has been mostly used for small children that have been neglected and to demonstrate that their brain's wiring is quite stunted because they didn't have enough uh exposure to the kinds of things that we've been talking about here. And I think this term might be relevant to use for adolescents and young adults now because well, two things. One is we now know that you need to keep on wiring and rewiring and reorganizing and growing neurons throughout the lifespan. So you need those kinds of enriching experiences all the time. And the other piece is that as a society, as sort of a human race, we want to solve problems that afflict us. And we've solved some. Problems really well, and those problems come with certain consequences. Trade-offs. Yes, trade-offs. So when I speak about experiential deprivation, which is basically the lack or poor exposure to experiences of learning. So one of the analogies I use is our great capacity to put enough calories in our body. So clearly, I mean, if there's one need that humans have, is putting calories in our body. And for the longest time in human history, we struggled to put enough calories in our body. And now we have surpassed that capacity to the point that more people in more countries in the world are dying of putting too many calories in their bodies, and the consequences of that than they are of malnutrition. So this capacity to produce so many calories is now a problem. And one of the issues with technology, and AI is a part of this, but it's all kinds of technologies, is that a technology is a mechanism to solve a problem for humans in a simpler way, that's more efficient. And so we have technologies like you know, fire and cars and I don't know, flowers, you know, all kinds of devices. And all of those are meant to make things a little bit easier for us. Our proposal is that convenience is becoming an issue. And so the more convenience you have, the more you're I guess the less you're exposed to, or potentially less exposed to experiences of learning, because technologies are meant to reduce friction, and as we're seeing here, time, repetition, challenge, salience, all those kinds of things are basically can be summarized as friction. And so we're feeling like just like you need to go on a diet now, because otherwise you'll just eat everything that is available to you, and that's a bad idea, you need to put yourself in the path of experienced penaneuroplasticity, because otherwise the environment in and of itself is not going to do it for you. And so kind of a diet of experiences or or something like that, and do it on purpose, because otherwise life is just not gonna do it for you. You can very easily just, I don't know, walk to the fridge, get some food, and be online, and and then when you're confronted with a challenge in life or something that requires that you should have learned some kind of skill, you just don't want to have it. I mean, that's the way I see a lot of the young men and women that we're working with, is that there's not I mean there are diagnoses, psychological diagnoses, but a lot of them can be removed from the list of diagnoses because mostly what they're needing is true experiences of learning so that they catch up to the skills that they require to navigate the world successfully. And once they do that, then anxiety is not as present and depression's not as present.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

Makes sense, and I think it's related to one of your other topics of passion, uh, the mental state of the world survey, and how does that play in? I think you're sort of leading into that, how our our affluence, our comfort levels as a society and a culture affects mental health because the trade-off is it's depriving them of the experiences that can help them develop.

SPEAKER_03 25:34

Yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, I keep up with the statistics and the mental state of the world is a very nice survey because it surveys a lot of different countries, millions of people, and they come out with results every couple of years, and they came out with results last year. And there's a statement there, hopefully, I'll say it close to what it says on there, but it says something like one of the findings is that the greater wealth of a nation does not equate to greater well-being, and they go on to say, in fact, less developed regions of the world have significantly greater well-being than more developed regions. And so, you know, I may have my bias, but immediately what I think is well, the people in more developed regions have more access to technology, they have more access to convenience, and therefore there's less friction in their lives, and the access to whatever goals they have does not necessarily have to go through these experiences of challenge and repetition and time and so on. Whereas, if you lived in a less developed region, maybe there's less access to that technology, and therefore there's just more experience. And this is allowing you to learn the skills so that you feel more equipped to deal with the world. And there's a statistic that something that's occurring to people as a whole is that the stress tolerance is decreasing, and this correlates a little bit with that, right? As well, you know, the more used you are to having easy access to the satisfaction of your needs, then the less practice you have in undergoing the distress tolerance that it typically takes, or would take, or should take, to accomplish a goal. There may be other factors that were not taken into account, like there might be other reasons why, I don't know, let's say that in more developed countries there's less connectedness or interconnectedness or sense of community than there may be in less developed regions. I don't know, but that's one. I mean, when I read that statement, I'm like, wow, okay, that's totally counterintuitive because if you're in a more developed region, you have more access to education and security and all these kinds of things, and all of a sudden you have less well-being. How does that add up?

SPEAKER_01 28:01

I do think that's an important point though, Danny, because it's not just about access, it's about prioritization too. Like what does your culture, your country, your community prioritize for you? And that brings us back to the idea of behavior versus experience or performance versus contribution, you know, things like that. Like just those slight adjustments in values or what kids grow up hearing or seeing or feeling is really important because that's what they're absorbing as what is being expected of them. So I think bringing it back to mental health, we see a lot of kids who are, you know, again, whether it's because of very successful siblings or parents, or because of something they see on social media, or even because of lack of success around them wanting to achieve that because they feel like that's what's valued in our culture. What they're absorbing is this expectation for something that's not achievable, that's not realistic, and perhaps not salient or not meaningful to them as a unique individual. And so it feels like, why try? You know, I can't, I won't be able to, comparing yourselves to others, or that's not meaningful to me. And I think, you know, the education system has started to realize with neurodivergence and whatnot that we need to start being more flexible with how kids learn and what they have to offer. But I think we still have a long way to go. And I think once we get through that shift of devaluing the performance aspect or the external behavior aspect or the accumulation of wealth aspect, and we start valuing some of these more internally driven, experientially based ways of knowing and learning, then we'll start to see mental health issues decline because there will be more salience, relevance, emotional connection, meaning and mattering within their individual lives and within their communities. But technology is very seductive. And so, as you said earlier, it's gonna take a lot of intention. The diet, we have to intentionally go on this diet and know what is good for us and what is not good for us, what nourishes our body, what nourishes our mind, what nourishes our relationships versus what detracts or distracts from that. And that's a I think that's gonna be the big challenge of raising kids today and of educating young people today is to help them choose that diet, help them take the time and the repetition to practice that diet to get that feedback loop of how much better that feels. And I'm curious if that's what you're saying at the bridge with the young adults you're working with, and if you have any anecdotes or pieces of that that you want to share.

SPEAKER_03 30:50

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, first I'll say that I I do think it's a bold move. It's a bold move to go on a diet, right? You need to have sort of a sense of trust that you'll have enough food and nutrients and and kind of go against this instinct that's you know, as ancient as we are as a species. And I think the convenience piece as well, like the the central task of the brain is to be efficient and to make decisions so that the body stays alive and it's not meant to spend more energy than it needs to, only if it feels like, okay, this is going to actually pay off. And so to forego the possibility of convenience and low friction in lieu of going out and learning something is quite a bold thing to do. And as parents, we have that instinct for our kids as well, and we want them to be alive and to you want to provide them with as much resources as we can. And so it's also a bold move in our part to say, you know what, no, we're going to forgo this convenience right now in favor of learning. And to what you were saying, I think that yeah, many of our students feel like there's a linear path to success, and so it has a lot to do with performance for sure. And so it almost feels like an arid environment, even though there might be possibilities out there, they can't see them because there's a linear path and you're supposed to fit into that path. So that's one piece. And then the other piece is that a lot of the people that we work with are absolutely brilliant and just incredibly gifted people in different ways. Some of them are gifted in the exact ways that you typically think, so, like they're you know, really talented at math or they know every vocabulary word you can think of. Others are extremely talented in other ways. But their nervous system is slightly wired in a way that doesn't quite fit the normal path. And so they've come to believe that their whole person, generally speaking, is somewhat faulty or something like that, when in fact what they need is just an opportunity to practice the system that actually works for them based on their wiring. And if they don't feel like they're gonna get those kinds of chances, then yeah, they give up. Uh and they say, you know, this like path to I don't know, law school just doesn't quite fit me. Or these kinds of strategies of studying that doesn't fit me, so therefore I'm dumb or I am whatever self-deprecation they can think of. And so what we're trying to provide for them is what we call it like a life laboratory. You know, give yourself the chance to explore and use that as a way to understand yourself and how you operate in the world. And well, I I say this with a huge sense of pride, but the the people that I mean, there's so many great success stories out there of people that have figured out their way of navigating the world and are very happy for it. And I think that in this somewhat very kind of cutting-edge way of experience dependent on your plasticity, but in some very old ways of just going out in the world and seeing what happens and having interactions with people and and really having that kind of embodied experience in an environment that trusts you and lets you fail and supports you through the process and gives you the feedback, it seems to do real well for young adults.

SPEAKER_01 34:33

I think what keeps coming to mind for me, sorry, Doug, is is agency. Because when kids say I can't, or it's too hard, or that doesn't fit me, it's like, where's your sense of power? Where's your sense of agency as a human? And so allowing them to explore and experience and fail and then tweak something and try again without damage, without feeling defective, without feeling broken, allows them to actually experience a sense of power and a sense of agency. And I think that's the biggest difference between like traditional therapies, that you can, you know, let's say you're working through a trauma and you go through traditional therapies and you understand it and you like cognitively, you understand that it wasn't your fault, or these were the circumstances, or this is how it's affected you. But until you actually connect that understanding with experiences of safety or healing or shifting something inside you, you don't necessarily believe it. So you understand it, but you don't believe it. And I think that's the value of experience-dependent learning is you actually start to believe it because it's coming from your knowledge, from your knowing, not from a rational equation that makes sense to you, but that you don't necessarily feel within your core and within your being in the world. And so I just love that we're really gearing kids and young adults towards re-experiencing themselves in a different way and getting to know themselves in a different way so that they have this power to get out there and not just observe and not just behave and not just get by, but actually create their own path.

SPEAKER_02 36:18

So, Heather, I think that leads us into this question of generalizability. How do these experiences that we can help young people have, sometimes they're curated. Talk about the generalizability of that.

SPEAKER_03 36:32

Yeah. Yeah, this takes us back to a few things that we've talked about along the way. It certainly takes us back to experience the pentaneuroplasticity, but it takes us also to this piece that we're just talking about about the brain being mostly about efficiency. And so the brain is trying to find the most efficient frugal model to sort out all kinds of problems. And so if the brain can have a model of problem solving as opposed to 10 models of problem solving for each and every single thing that you go through in life, it's going to stick with that. And so the advantage that you have by having a multiplicity of experiences is that if you're targeting that, this sort of, let's call it personal operating system that kind of targets these different ways of going about it, that is really, really important. But that only happens if you have the opportunity to test models of problem solving out as opposed to being taught this is the way you solve this problem, let's walk you through it, and now you have this particular way of going about it. And so I think for us it's really important to try out all these different kinds of things and experiment and so on, but always be trying to have that sort of metacognitive process of okay, and how how does that relate to a system of problem solving that you can find? That's a model that the brain is going to like, because then you don't have to have a ton of different ones. And there is evidence that that's what the brain is trying to do, that it is trying to find the most efficient way. And the most efficient way is to have one system for many.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

I do want to put an exclamation point on the end of that because the bridge research that you did with the bridge alumni and the current bridge students was basically came down to this quote of I trust myself to solve problems that come to me in a way that works for me. And I think that's the end goal, right? For any young person who is trying to find their way. It's like, A, do you trust yourself to figure it out? So you're going to engage, you're going to keep living life, you're going to keep taking on these challenges because you trust that you can figure it out. You have self-efficacy and you know you have agency to solve problems that come at me. So I'm not scared because it could come from different directions or in different models in a way that works for me, meaning I didn't take that linear path. I don't solve problems like everybody else, but I understand myself well enough to know what I need in order to solve problems and move forward in my life. And that's really the gold at the end of the rainbow.

SPEAKER_03 39:24

I think so. I mean, there's some amazing quotes that we gathered from this research. We took 28 exit interviews for over eight years or so. Students at the time of their graduation, the end of their time at the bridge, and then we interviewed 16 students five to eleven years after having been at the bridge. So people that are out in the world, you know, with kids and with, you know, at law school or, you know, already professionals. And yeah, it was very interesting, especially to hear from the people who've been out in the world for a while and saying life does not get easier. But you feel prepared. You you know that you got what it takes, and it feels really good to know that a problem can arise and you know what to do about it. And that's really where the trust comes in. And that is, like I've said sometimes, that's the the feeling of well-being is the body's manifestation of saying, You got what it takes, you you're good. You have the skill set to deal with whatever situation comes your way. So the body, the system, doesn't need to be anticipating, like, well, what am I gonna do about this? What am I gonna do about that? Right? I'm not a good guitar player, maybe some of you are, but you know, if you ask me to play now, I would get really anxious because I'm like, oh, I need to plan all the steps so that I get this somewhat right. But someone that's been playing for a while doesn't need that, oh, pleasure, yeah, I can play for you. And I think it's that sense of trust that comes from knowing that you have the skill set to deal with the kinds of situations that you get in life. And so, yeah, I think it's really beautiful findings and with some amazing quotes from people talking about this very thing.

SPEAKER_02 41:16

You know, I've learned so much from you over the years, both of you, and my experience working in programs that emphasize the experiential. And we've tried to adapt a lot of that for our mentoring program. For a lot of our clients, it's not even those skills, playing a guitar, learning to do a test. A lot of it's it's basic life, how to manage their time, how to get out and just take a walk with the dog. Very basic stuff. And we try to then build into well, how do we climb a rock wall? How do we generalize that experience to your self-confidence, your self-esteem, your ability to take that confidence, that safety that you can try and sometimes fail and struggle and then get better and apply it to those other domains of one's life? And so we've taken a lot of that for our mentoring program, but I'd like to ask also as we start to close out, what advice, what guidance can you offer to other people, either clinicians in the community, to parents, to people running other programs out there that they can take from what you've been learning about, teaching about? What are some key pieces that we can encourage others to take on?

SPEAKER_03 42:24

I find that those elements that lead to neuroplasticity, the experience-dependent neuroplasticity, I think are are really important to look at and say, is my kid engaged in life in a way that that's happening? You know, are my students or my clients in my program? I think there's enough evidence to say that that's something worth looking at and making tweaks based on it. The mechanisms of change from our program based on this recent research that we did point in that direction.

SPEAKER_01 42:58

I feel like my advice would be to really be intentional about are we educating? Are we teaching? Are we creating experiences that kids are learning from? And what are they learning? Are they learning that adults want to appease them? Are they learning that they don't have to be uncomfortable? Are they learning that there will always be supports and structures externally in place for them? And if that's the case, then how are we increasing agency? How are we helping people find their own power and their own ability to problem solve for themselves?

SPEAKER_02 43:38

Or are we just creating kids who are dependent on external or they're learning to manipulate adults or those around them or their environment to make them feel better about their lack of agency?

SPEAKER_01 43:50

Yeah. And it it was funny, at some point in this conversation I was like, wait, we don't deserve to be happy all the time and you know, tongue in cheek, but it's you know, I challenge that. A lot with parents, like, oh, I just I don't care what he does, I just want him to be happy. And I'm like, no, you don't. Like, stop lying to yourself. You of course we want everybody to be happy, but let's dig into that for a little bit because just trying to make our kids happy isn't serving them at all.

SPEAKER_02 44:17

There's that expression, you know, a parent is only as happy as their least happy child. I used to really like that expression, and now I really don't, because it I think it really speaks to enmeshment and it speaks to how we're only happy if we're making our kid happy. And that can lead to some really poor boundaries, limits, and indulging a child's want for things or to make them feel better about their lack of agency, but it's really not serving them if that's our objective is to be happy to be able to do it. It's serving us to be happy.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

Right. It's serving us, it's serving our desire to be comfortable.

SPEAKER_02 44:49

Right. That's the enmeasment or codependency, even.

SPEAKER_01 44:53

Yeah. And I get it. I have a toddler. Like when he cries, you know, I want to give in. But how better can we model for our kids than to push that edge of discomfort and to create learning experiences for ourselves as parents or clinicians or directors of therapeutic programs to push ourselves in a way that models that for students too?

SPEAKER_02 45:17

We have to be able to endure their discomfort or endure, have tolerance for their unhappiness in order to allow them to grow and figure out how to create their own happiness and their own agency.

SPEAKER_01 45:30

Exactly. And sit with it. And you know, there's this balance between tough love, control, boundaries, they'll figure it out, resilience, and this enabling hole of, you know, if I just keep loving them and giving them what they want, they'll eventually figure it out. And there's somewhere in the middle that we have to be comfortable living where it is uncomfortable. And but we're here. We're here for your discomfort. We're here sitting in our discomfort with your discomfort. And through that, we're building resilience. Through that, we're figuring it out together. Through that, you know I'm not abandoning you, but I'm not rescuing you either. So we have to model it as adults. And I think that would be my biggest advice is using our agency to promote their agency versus sabotage them and undermine their agency by either over-controlling them with external things or enabling them so they don't have to.

SPEAKER_02 46:28

But when we do these things and we soften the blow, we're actually giving them the converse message that we don't believe in them, that we don't trust that they can figure it out, that we don't trust that they can endure their own discomfort, or that that discomfort will lead to some motivation for their own change. So we're we're really giving them the converse message by enabling them what we really would hope that they would internalize otherwise.

SPEAKER_01 46:53

Yeah, and it goes back to the idea of failure. Like discomfort, we've equated discomfort with failure. And that's such a shame because discomfort is the edge of where we're growing, where we're learning. When you're sore after the gym, you know you went to your max. You know you pushed yourself. And it hurts and it's uncomfortable, but it also feels you're kind of proud of yourself. Because I just got stronger, even though it's a little bit painful. And I think that's where we need to really live is on that edge.

SPEAKER_03 47:22

I would say just a little piece to that. That's I think, I mean, we've talked about goals and salience and all of that. And so discomfort for the sake of discomfort, especially if kids don't understand it, it's not as helpful. But the majority of the time, you can have a conversation, even with a three-year-old, and help them understand where you're coming from with this. And you know, here's a goal, and here's how this has some kind of relevance. So it's not just that we're doing it to do it, it's that if you create that kind of collaborative situation with whoever it is, your child or someone you're working with, I think that makes a difference. And then you can design experiences and you can together say, well, this is the edge of the challenge, and let's try it out and see what happens and make it fun and experimental. And so there's a lot of creativity that can go into a process like that, that isn't just like, you know, like you were saying before, like, well, you know, put up with it. Uh there's much more nuance in the design of learning experiences. That I mean, you don't want to have to be a PhD in education to put it together. I think instinctively we can do that, like you were saying, like at the edge of their ability and combine their strengths and work on their weaknesses and make it interesting and tie it to their own goals. I mean, there's there's a lot of different ways there that that experience of discomfort can have some of the elements that we've been talking about.

SPEAKER_02 48:54

Well, this is the zone of proximal development that Heather likes to talk about.

SPEAKER_01 48:58

I love to talk about it. And it's the heart of supportive immersion because supportive immersion is relational, right? We're immersing you in this experience. It's gonna be a little bit challenging and uncomfortable, but we're supporting you. We are here walking with you. And that's what I was trying to kind of give a vision to is that middle ground where, yeah, it's uncomfortable, it's messy, we might fail, we might have to tweak something, we don't really know what's gonna happen. And I'm here. I'm here, you're not alone. I'm not abandoning you, I'm not enabling you, we're gonna go through this together. And I think that's what I would encourage people to focus on is how do we go through this together? And again, go back to AI and technology. What do we have as humans that AI and technology don't? We have this relational ability to go through this together. At least my AI constantly enables me and uh tries to make me happy. So it definitely hasn't been trained in support of immersion yet.

SPEAKER_02 49:54

Danny, did we get enough to the mechanisms for how you curate those experiences for people?

SPEAKER_03 49:59

Well, I can I can go through it quickly. So this study that we did had two main questions. One was about process, the other one about outcome. And so we talked earlier about the outcome. So that's when Heather was talking about trust in your problem-solving abilities and a way that works for you. And so that sort of that phrase encapsulates or captures the essence of the results that our students seem to be getting from the experience of coming to the bridge. And then, yeah, as far as the mechanisms of change, very interesting because it's related to this. So there's there's six of them. The first one is exploration and engagement with novelty. So having a space where they can explore. The second one is low stakes. It's one of the most relevant ones, and and low stakes have a lot to do with this idea that you can just try and fail, and that you're gonna be supported, that you're not gonna be judged, and that we're gonna center on the learning. And so even if you're failing, you're still in a process of learning. So that's really good input for you. The third one is real challenges and problem solving, so that what you're doing isn't divorced of real-life situations where there's real people and that have a lot to do that are very similar to situations that you're gonna have to deal with in the world that we all navigate. The fourth is resource-rich environment, so having a lot of different perspectives, different opportunities, uh, so that it feels like a fertile place where there's just a lot that you can use as stimulus for your learning experience. And then freedom within a goal is the fact that everybody needs a container to learn. Otherwise, it's too fuzzy. But even just a container where we say, well, the container is learning. So we're gonna do a lot of things, but we're gonna focus on learning, we're gonna focus on learning healthy living, and so we're going to use that as a framework. And within that, we can just try all kinds of things. So our students have reported that they feel like a huge sense of freedom because they're not being direct, they're not being told, they're not being supervised, but they're guided toward learning in a way that feels like they're still the captain of their own ship. And then the final one is feedback and iteration. So the opportunity to hear or get reports on what wasn't working, and that they could try it again and again and again. So a little bit of that repetition piece, I guess, that we were talking about before. So those are the six pieces that came out of our research in terms of what all these students are reporting made the biggest difference for them.

SPEAKER_02 52:47

Thank you, Danny. And Heather, thank you for being a co-host once again on the reframe. Danny, it's great to have you again. You guys were inspirational in getting this podcast started based on conversations we were having at conferences over the years. So, once again, thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_01 53:03

Thank you for having us.

SPEAKER_03 53:05

Always a pleasure to talk online and offline, and then I hope this won't be the last.

SPEAKER_00 53:12

Thank you for tuning in to this episode of The Reframe. Follow the show wherever you listen to podcasts so you'll never miss an episode. Please share this episode with your friends, colleagues, innovators in the industry, and anyone you feel would benefit from listening. To learn more about the Vowden Group and Votin Mentoring, and find additional resources, connect with us at www.thevoding group.com.