Are you curious about what REALLY drives your choices, desires, and even your sense of purpose? The answer lies within your own brain! This video takes you on a fascinating journey into the world of dopamine, the powerful neurotransmitter that shapes so much of who you are.
We'll delve into the science to answer: What is dopamine? How does dopamine function? We'll also explore how dopamine interacts with the mysterious depths of your unconscious mind.
Inspired by the groundbreaking work of Dr. Daniel Lieberman ("The Molecule of More"), we'll uncover:
If you're a seeker who enjoys a blend of science and self-discovery, this video is for you! Get ready to unlock the hidden forces that shape your life and create the future you truly desire.
Today's Guest: Dr. Daniel Z. Lieberman
Daniel Z. Lieberman, MD is the senior vice president of mental health at Hims & Hers Health. He is also a clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at George Washington University, where he has received awards for teaching and research. He studied the Great Books at St. John’s College and attended medical school at New York University. He is the coauthor of the international bestseller The Molecule of More, which has been translated into more than 20 languages, and the author of Spellbound: Modern Science, Ancient Magic, and the Hidden Potential of the Unconscious Mind. Dr. Lieberman has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and leading psychiatric textbooks, and has provided insight on psychiatric topics for the US Department of Health and Human Services, the US Department of Commerce, and the Office of Drug and Alcohol Policy.
Get Dr. Lieberman's Book's Here!
Your Host: Kimberly Beam Holmes, Expert in Self-Improvement and Relationships
Kimberly Beam Holmes has applied her master's degree in psychology for over ten years, acting as the CEO of Marriage Helper & CEO and Creator of PIES University, being a wife and mother herself, and researching how attraction affects relationships. Her videos, podcasts, and following reach over 200,000 people a month who are making changes and becoming the best they can be.
Website: www.kimberlybeamholmes.com
Thanks for listening!
Connect on Instagram: @kimberlybeamholmes
Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to the podcast and leave a review!
WE HAVE A NEW WEBSITE!!
Visit www.itstartswithattraction.com to check it out!
Are you curious about what REALLY drives your choices, desires, and even your sense of purpose? The answer lies within your own brain! This video takes you on a fascinating journey into the world of dopamine, the powerful neurotransmitter that shapes so much of who you are.
We'll delve into the science to answer: What is dopamine? How does dopamine function? We'll also explore how dopamine interacts with the mysterious depths of your unconscious mind.
Inspired by the groundbreaking work of Dr. Daniel Lieberman ("The Molecule of More"), we'll uncover:
If you're a seeker who enjoys a blend of science and self-discovery, this video is for you! Get ready to unlock the hidden forces that shape your life and create the future you truly desire.
Today's Guest: Dr. Daniel Z. Lieberman
Daniel Z. Lieberman, MD is the senior vice president of mental health at Hims & Hers Health. He is also a clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at George Washington University, where he has received awards for teaching and research. He studied the Great Books at St. John’s College and attended medical school at New York University. He is the coauthor of the international bestseller The Molecule of More, which has been translated into more than 20 languages, and the author of Spellbound: Modern Science, Ancient Magic, and the Hidden Potential of the Unconscious Mind. Dr. Lieberman has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and leading psychiatric textbooks, and has provided insight on psychiatric topics for the US Department of Health and Human Services, the US Department of Commerce, and the Office of Drug and Alcohol Policy.
Get Dr. Lieberman's Book's Here!
Your Host: Kimberly Beam Holmes, Expert in Self-Improvement and Relationships
Kimberly Beam Holmes has applied her master's degree in psychology for over ten years, acting as the CEO of Marriage Helper & CEO and Creator of PIES University, being a wife and mother herself, and researching how attraction affects relationships. Her videos, podcasts, and following reach over 200,000 people a month who are making changes and becoming the best they can be.
Website: www.kimberlybeamholmes.com
Thanks for listening!
Connect on Instagram: @kimberlybeamholmes
Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to the podcast and leave a review!
WE HAVE A NEW WEBSITE!!
Visit www.itstartswithattraction.com to check it out!
Today I'm interviewing Dr Daniel Z Lieberman. Dr Lieberman is actually the Vice President of Mental Health at Hymns and Hers Health. Maybe you've seen some of their commercials. It's a breakthrough company in the industry, providing direct access to prescriptions for men and for women in for men and for women in different areas of health, which is really cool. He is also a clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at George Washington University and he's received several awards over the years for his teaching and his research.
Speaker 1:He is the author of the International Best Seller, the Molecule of More, which talks a lot about dopamine, which we'll be discussing in today's episode, and has also been translated into more than 20 languages, which is fascinating. He's recently written another book called Spellbound, which is about modern science and the unconscious mind, and we also dive into that topic today as well. He's published extensive psychiatric topics in different books, in different journals, and is a part of helping the US Department of Health and Human Services, the US Department of Commerce and the Office of Drug and Alcohol Policy. All that to say he's very smart, he knows what he's talking about and you will have a ton of key takeaways, I am sure, from our conversation. Be sure that you hit the follow button if you're watching on YouTube or if you're listening on podcasts, as it will help the show grow and it will help you be notified when new content like this comes out.
Speaker 1:Without any further ado, let's dive in to today's episode. Dr Lieberman, you have written, I believe, one of the best books and probably the most best-selling book on dopamine that's out there. It's called the Molecule of Moore. I know you've recently written another book called Spellbound, but you are kind of the person people look to to really understand dopamine. With what you've written in your book translated into dozens of languages, it's pretty awesome. Did you ever expect that the book was going to be that much of a bestseller?
Speaker 2:You know it was a little bit of a surprise, but when I started researching the market, thinking about writing a book about dopamine, and I realized that there was nothing out there for the non-specialists, I thought, wow, this is an opportunity, this might be a popular book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it absolutely is, and has been and will continue to be. I'm sure. When I think about dopamine, it's really had its moment in the spotlight over the past couple of years, in part with your book and just society, I think, catching on to this thing. And what is it? What would you want people to know are the key takeaways of dopamine and why we should care about how it works inside of our body?
Speaker 2:I think what I would want people to know is that dopamine is so much more than the pleasure molecule, which is what it's typically conceptualized as that.
Speaker 2:It's really about orienting our attention to the future and trying to make the future better than the present.
Speaker 2:That is a wonderful thing to carry around in your brain from an evolutionary point of view, because it's constantly making you think about having the future be safer, more resource rich than the present. The problem with it, though, is that, by orienting us to the future, it takes the attention off of the present, and that's not healthy if it's unbalanced, and you pointed out that there's a lot going on in our society, in our culture, that is focusing us on dopamine, and I think that the reason for that is that, when you start thinking about making the future better, it makes you dissatisfied with the present. The present's not as good as it might be, and companies take advantage of this, because they want you to be dissatisfied, they want you to be unhappy because they want to sell you on their message that they have the solution to it, and, just like drugs of abuse, which are intimately connected with the dopamine system, lead to compulsive use, lead to addiction a lot of what companies are doing, especially social media companies are designed to get us addicted to their products.
Speaker 1:So how does dopamine work in our bodies? Is it that we become unpleasant or we see something we want in that spikes dopamine, or is it that dopamine spikes and leads us? I don't even know if I'm saying it right. Can you explain how it actually works in our bodies?
Speaker 2:Dopamine is usually set off by some kind of a cue and we call this a reward prediction error. We go through life and within our environment there are things that are the same old, same old, but sometimes there are things that are new, and when there's something new it indicates that the environment is not what we expected it to be. It might be more reward rich. For example, you discover a brand new bakery just opened up in your neighborhood and that's a reward prediction error. You weren't expecting that. Or it could be, or it could be something negative. You might be standing in line at the new bakery for your latte and all of a sudden your cell phone goes off and your boss is saying come into the office right away, drop whatever you're doing. You expected the reward of the latte. It was a prediction error. You don't get it. That's actually going to make dopamine crater and we all know the deprivation and feelings of resentment that that can lead to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I remember being fascinated when I heard that if you were anticipating something and then it didn't happen, that leads to a worse feeling than if you just hadn't been expecting it at all.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's right, that's right. Dopamine chugs along it. We measure how quickly the neurons fire, and it's about five to 10 times per second. Under normal circumstances, when we see something that's potentially rewarding, a new opportunity, somebody we're attracted to, across the room, it can zoom up to 10 times that rate. But, as you point out, when we're expecting something and we don't get it, it shuts down completely and goes to zero.
Speaker 1:So is dopamine unique to humans, or do animals have it as well?
Speaker 2:Animals do have it as well, and one of the things that my co-author and I, mike Long, point out in the book is that there are different areas of the brain where dopamine is active. Some are more primitive and found in many, many other animals. Some are more advanced, and these are found most particularly in humans, but other animals share them as well. The advanced dopamine is always orienting us towards a better future, and that can come with impulsivity. It can come with energy, motivation and excitement. But a more advanced circuit of dopamine in the brain leads to a longer-term view, and that's involved with planning. It's involved with manipulating abstract concepts, and there are some animals that have a surprisingly high level of this. Now, you wouldn't be surprised to hear that animals like dolphins and chimpanzees are pretty high, but corvids, blackbirds and crows may have the most after humans, and if you go on YouTube, you can see these amazing videos of these birds solving multi-step, complex problems, building a tool and then using that tool to solve a problem. So for some reason, these birds are amazing.
Speaker 1:That is. I mean, that's fascinating. In your book you also talk about dopamine in in how it presents in individuals in different areas politics, relationships, different things like that. So is it that some people are more wired to be more sensitive to dopamine versus maybe being more resistant? Or maybe, in the way you put it, are some people more wired to be more future-focused versus more here and now and then? How does that play out in different areas of our lives that make us different?
Speaker 2:Definitely, some people are more sensitive to the effects of dopamine than others, and, as with all things associated with the brain, there's probably three factors. Big one's going to be genetics. We see that with drug use disorders. If a young man has a father or an uncle who's suffers from an alcohol use disorder, his risk is going to be much higher than the general population. It's also influenced by early life experiences. The brain is constantly changing and growing, but that happens most rapidly when we are very, very young, and so the kinds of experiences we have, particularly in terms of our relationships with our caregivers, will have a long-term effect on the development of our brain. And then the third is our current environment, and, as I mentioned, we live in an environment that encourages us to be very dopaminergic, focused on dopamine. So there can be different ways of being dopaminergic.
Speaker 2:If you have issues with this primitive part of the brain that we discussed we call it the desire dopamine you can become impulsive. Maybe you'll be at high risk for abusing drugs. Maybe you'll be a hedonist, always wanting to go out to clubs and eat good food, drink alcohol and chase people you're sexually attracted to. It can present in other ways as well, though, if you have a very active, controlled dopamine circuit. That's the more advanced one that involves the prefrontal cortex, which is the most advanced part of the brain in human beings. You're going to be focused on the future in a different way. You may be a type A personality workaholic. While everybody else is enjoying time with friends and family, you're in the office slaving away for a future that will never arise.
Speaker 2:One thing we talk about in the book is that the people who are best able to afford beach houses are the least able to enjoy them. They're out there on their porch looking at the well, they're not looking at the beautiful view, they're inside of the beautiful view, but they got their laptop open. We've all gone on vacation and seen people sitting poolside with their cell phones communicating with people back at work. One other way it can manifest itself is with an excessive, overweening passion. We see this with inventors and artists and musicians, where they are just so focused on creating this thing that's new, this thing that's never existed before, that they will not eat. That won't shower.
Speaker 2:They'll stay up all hours of the night just working, working, working. I'm a bit of a computer geek. I remember when I was in junior high school my school bought this digital mini computer and I programmed a skateboarding game on it. I was so obsessed with it I'd wake up in the middle of the night and start scribbling down lines of code. It can be very, very rewarding, very, very pleasurable, but like other dopamine manifestations, like drug abuse, it can absolutely take over your life.
Speaker 1:What's the opposite of dopamine?
Speaker 2:So the opposite of dopamine is being very focused on the here and now, and that can be also be a very wonderful thing. I think that the the best manifestation of that is mindfulness, when we try to be immersed in the present moment. Here and now involves things like sensory perceptions, emotions In the brain, oxytocin, the experience of just being with another person, not to accomplish anything. It's not a work meeting, but just enjoying the presence of another human being. So these are the good ways the opposite of dopamine can manifest itself just being in the present moment, being happy, enjoying what we have, experiencing gratitude. More negative ways would be the lack of motivation, the kid who's living in his mother's basement, who's just um living for the moment, watching video games and really not thinking about the future at all.
Speaker 1:Is dopamine, then, something that we should? I don't really love the word hack, but something that we should learn how to use in our favor, based on certain situations, and if so, then what would you say are the actual best ways to shift the dopamine in our brains to, for certain seasons of our lives?
Speaker 2:What we need is a balance. We need a balance between focusing on the future and enjoying the here and now, all of the good things that we worked for, and we tend to be unbalanced on the dopamine side. Um, thinking about possibilities, hypotheticals, kind of living in a world of, um, almost ghosts, phantoms, things that don't exist. So we need the balance, and what I find is useful Is to pay attention to what mode I'm in. Am I speculating about things that are possible or am I focused on the present and asking myself is just where I want to be? Am I in a dopamine moment or am I in a here and now moment?
Speaker 2:So when I'm at work, when I'm writing a book, those are dopamine moments. I'm speculating, I'm creating things that never existed before. But when I'm at home, when I'm with my family, when I'm with my friends, when I'm just relaxing, when I'm taking a walk, that's a here and now moment and I I try to shift into it. I try to shift into sensory experiences, thinking about what are my emotions right now and trying to suppress daydreaming, thinking about what's next, thinking about work, thinking about shopping and that takes work and it's hard and, um, I'm not particularly good at it. I try to make myself better at it through things like meditation, uh, and just being aware of my shortcomings in that area. So we we've got. We simply have to pay attention and decide where we want to be and then work to get to what we want.
Speaker 1:I, I believe you have children, or a child, is that correct? Two sons, two sons. So how are you raising them to find a balance, as they are like, as as their brains are developing, with here and now versus anticipation?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great question, um, if you had ended your question after, how are you raising them, that would have given me a wonderful opportunity to pull out all my hair and say oh my god, I have no idea. Right, uh, raising children is hard. Raising children is hard, uh, and I think that, um, you know people like me psychiatrists, people who study the human brain, who study development. I don't think we're any better at raising kids than anyone else. Um, you know, I think that the best I can do is try to give a good example. Um, it's important to talk to your kids. They hear some of what you say, um, but you don't know what they're hearing or what they're not. I suspect they're hearing the stuff I don't want them to hear and the stuff I do want them to hear passing right over. So I just struggle to set a good example and, um, I have to believe that that's going to be the most helpful.
Speaker 2:But, uh, you know, you know, as a psychiatrist, I've learned trying to mold the behavior of another person is incredibly difficult and usually fails. So, and also, when we try to raise our children, what we're trying to do is raise an ideal version of ourselves, and, and that's not what they are. There's somebody completely different and in many cases they're going to grow up to express a lot of the things that their parents couldn't express or didn't express. So it's a long answer. You really tapped into a uh, a sensitive part. Uh, yeah, I just don't know how you raise healthy, happy, strong children.
Speaker 1:Well, I believe you'll see the fruits of your labor in years to come. I.
Speaker 2:I hope so. I.
Speaker 1:I believe that you will. What do you love about being a psychiatrist?
Speaker 2:There are so many things I love about being a psychiatrist. Um, it's a very intellectual field. It's about problem solving, and I love, I love solving complex problems. There's nothing more complex in the entire universe, literally, than the human brain. There are more connections in the human brain than stars in the Milky Way, and there's so much about it that we don't know. So it's so exciting, um, the the advances that happen Almost every month in our understanding of the brain. So you combine this wonderful intellectual challenge with the ability to help people to change their lives.
Speaker 2:Mental illnesses have such a profound impact on the quality of people's lives that when people get into treatment and the symptoms start to be alleviated, their lives can just blossom in so many ways, and and it's wonderful to be a part of that. So these are some things that I absolutely love about being a psychiatrist. But I think that the thing I love the most Is having somebody meet with me and tell me their story. I've always loved stories. You know, I was the kid who.
Speaker 2:You know I wasn't passionate about the baseball team or the football team, I just wanted to read. I wanted to read stories. So I feel like it's such a privilege To be able to hear these stories and it's an amazing thing. The things that people will tell a psychiatrist Are things that often they've never told anyone else in their life, not even their closest family members, and it's such a privilege to have people open up their psyches to us and let us see and Get an understanding of them as individuals and human nature in general. So there's many, many wonderful things about it. Do you feel like, as a psychiatrist?
Speaker 1:that you have to have hope, or need or need to have hope For people even when they don't have it for themselves, in situations that that seem hopeless, maybe even where you feel like it's hopeless, but you have to maintain this sense that things can get better. Yeah, that that's one of the hard things.
Speaker 2:About being a psychiatrist we can't change people. You know, there's an old joke how many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? Just one. But the light bulb has to want to change Love it. So we can't change people. And yet, at the same time, we have a significant level of responsibility for them, a legal level of responsibility for them. And mental illnesses can be devastating, and people often come in hopeless and that's the hardest thing about being a psychiatrist is having to somehow find a way to get them out of that, keep them safe while the medications are working, while the psychotherapy is working, when they don't have any hope for themselves. And I've lost many, many nights of sleep over that.
Speaker 1:How do you maintain hope, how do you keep a positive mindset and outlook when you are carrying the weight of a lot of other people's burdens?
Speaker 2:You know, we spoke about the balance between dopamine in here and now, and I think that this concept of balance is something that is a recurring theme throughout many aspects of human life, and so in this case, I try to keep a balance between a humanistic level of empathy for the patient, of caring for this other person in my life, but it's got to be balanced with a certain amount of dispassionate stepping back and trying to view them as a scientific problem that needs to be solved, taking a more dispassionate approach to the patient. So, on the one hand, the dispassionate approach can be very cold, but the more emotional connection can lead to biases and it can lead to distortions because you get an unhelpful desire to save this person which you can't do.
Speaker 2:So sometimes when I feel myself slipping into that despair, I say, ok, I need to take a step back, I need to be less emotional about this and I need to approach this as a scientific problem. And patients can feel it and often they don't like that. But I explained to them listen, if we're both lounging around in the swimming pool, we're both going to drown. One of us needs to have their feet on dry ground to pull the other one out. So sometimes I need to disconnect a little bit emotionally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes total sense. What are the things behaviors, practices, habits, beliefs that you have seen patients embody that really can help them lead to a positive change in their life?
Speaker 2:You know, for people who are suffering from mental illness, the most important thing is to accept that illness, which can be very, very difficult. I think we have a much easier time accepting physical illnesses than we do mental illnesses, because the mental illnesses really strike to the heart of who we are, and so a lot of people will spend years and years and years just pretending they don't have it, pretending like it's something that will go away on its own, and it's only when they really embrace the role of somebody who needs to work to get healthy that their life gets better. So that's people who are sick. In terms of people who are healthy, I think that the most important factor that leads to a successful psychological life, one that's characterized by growth, is understanding that we grow through adversity. Just like weight lifters, bodybuilders, need resistance to build their muscles, human beings need misfortune in order to grow.
Speaker 2:I had a patient whose father grew up in a very wealthy family and he had a trust fund, never had to work a day in his life and his son loved him dearly. But he said this man is a child. He never faced challenges that he had to overcome. On the other hand, people who face big challenges and are not crushed by these challenges. They grow, they deepen their personality, they broaden their outlook on life, they learn to take pleasure in small things that before just passed them by. So we do everything we can to make our lives happy and comfortable and successful and we should. But failure at that is super, super important for growth, and when the adversity comes along, when misfortune comes along, we need to embrace it and say, ok, this is an opportunity. This is a hard task that's going to lead me to grow.
Speaker 1:So you take the stance that adversity and misfortune at some point will come to everyone. So just kind of wait till it comes, or I don't know if this might sound silly do you encourage people to go find it somehow in order for them to grow?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that misfortune is going to come to everybody. But yes, we should seek out misfortune. We shouldn't seek out terrible things, we should seek out challenges. We should regularly push ourselves outside of our comfort zone. One example is just getting in front of people and doing a presentation. The fear of public speaking is the number one fear in America. Jerry Seinfeld's got a great bit. He said number two is death. So if you're at a funeral, you'd rather be the guy in the casket than the one giving the eulogy.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness yeah.
Speaker 2:Johnny Carson I don't know if you remember him One of the most beloved talk show hosts ever suffered from terrible stage fright every night. It was awful going out, but he said that when you get that feeling of just terror, of nervousness, of anxiety, that's a signal that you are about to do something that you're going to remember for the rest of your life. So I think that we should play to our strengths. We shouldn't always be trying to make ourselves better, but on a regular basis we should stretch a little bit and seek out things that are going to be difficult.
Speaker 1:Is dopamine related to that feeling of nervousness or anxiety? Before you do something in any way, you know, dopamine actually is the opposite.
Speaker 2:If you've got a lot of dopamine going, you're going to feel confident. Dopamine is when you're doing something new and you're like I can't wait to get at it. You know, get out of my way, I'm strong, I'm powerful, I'm going to be successful One of the reasons we all love dopamine so much.
Speaker 1:So then how? I'm sure you've heard the cold bath, cold shower and the relation to dopamine. There's nothing in me that wants to do a cold bath or a cold shower.
Speaker 2:Me neither.
Speaker 1:But isn't what they say? That it increases your dopamine when you're done. How does that work? And is it true? Is it even true?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know I've heard that. I have not looked into it deeply. It makes sense to me. I'm not a big cold bath, cold shower, but you know we've all had to suffer through freezing, jumps into lakes or something. And yeah, it wakes you up, it fills you with energy, it makes you feel strong, ready to take on the world. I'm more of a heat guy. I like to sit in a sauna or a hot tub and I think that that probably is more likely to stimulate the here and now and it's more likely to make us feel calm and content and just bask in that present moment and everything is OK.
Speaker 2:And I don't need another new pair of sneakers. I don't need a new refrigerator. I'm just happy as I am.
Speaker 1:That's it. That makes sense, because when you're sitting in that cold bath, the only thing you can think of is the future. You are very much anticipating getting out. That's fantastic. So then, what led you to want to write a book about the unconscious mind after writing a book about dopamine? Was there a connection between these two?
Speaker 2:A little bit, A little bit. You know I love the unconscious mind. It plays such a role in our lives.
Speaker 2:It enriches our lives to incredible degrees and it can absolutely destroy our lives and wreck everything we have spent a lifetime working for, and I think that people don't think about it very much. They have no idea of its power and the huge role that it plays in their life. So I did want to write a book about that for many, many years. I wrote about dopamine first. Just because it was more commercial, yeah, I figured I can sell that book. The unconscious mind is going to be much more challenging for people to read, for people to understand, and so I held off on that one.
Speaker 1:So I haven't read this book yet, if we're going to be completely honest. But now that you've given the teaser, it's very mysterious and I feel like I have to know, Because you said it can. People don't think about it, which makes sense because it's unconscious, but it can make a huge difference in their life or it could ruin their life. Why, what is going on? Do you take a Freudian view of it? What is this unconscious mind? How do you define it? So many questions here.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think that the best way to understand the unconscious mind is to just rename it the uncontrollable mind. The unconscious is all the aspects of our psychic experiences that we don't have control over. So, for example, emotions you can choose to do things that will ultimately end up in happier emotions, we hope, but you don't have direct control over it. And you think about the role that emotions play in your life Moods. You have no control over that. You could spend $10,000 to go on a luxury vacation and be in a bad mood the whole time. We've all experienced that. Drag your kids to Disney World, spend all this money and it's just miserable. Everybody's unhappy and fighting and crying. So you have no control over that.
Speaker 2:Here's a big one. We spend our lives pursuing the things that we desire. Maybe it's a relationship, maybe it's stuff, maybe it's a career, and you ask yourselves who decides what it is that you desire. It's not your conscious mind, it's your unconscious, and so often we desire things we wish we didn't desire, from unhealthy food to toxic romantic partners, and so that just gives you a sense. The unconscious decides if we're going to be happy or sad, if we're going to enjoy something or if we're not. It also sets the path of our lives by deciding what it is that we want. So just to give it an immediate sense of the power of the unconscious, I think that the best example that many, many people have experienced is falling in love. When you fall in love, it completely changes your world. It completely changes how you feel about yourself and how you feel about your environment.
Speaker 2:In the old days it was attributed to the goddess of love because it was so intense. It felt like we were being taken over by a force that was units of magnitude more powerful than ourselves, something divine. And I think that Carl Jung had the best sense of the unconscious, in my opinion, and he believed that all of the stories from antiquity about supernatural creatures were actually their best attempt to describe the power of the unconscious mind. So we've got the goddess of love, aphrodite, venus. We've also got a god of war, aries or Mars, and veterans who have been to war know that.
Speaker 2:Again, it is like being possessed by a supernatural creature the levels of courage that are able to be expressed on the battlefield, that could never be called up voluntarily. And look at athletes. Athletes can practice all they want and that's going to improve their skills, of course, but some days they're going to go out there and they're going to have an absolutely inspired performance. Other days they're going to be fumbling with the ball and it's like they're cursed. And again, in ancient times, this was attributed to supernatural gods and goddesses. Today, we take a more scientific approach and attribute it to circuits in the brain that we don't have control over, but the subjective experience is still one of possession by what feels like supernatural creatures, and so I think it's so important to understand these forces that direct our lives and determine how we're feeling it at a given moment.
Speaker 1:So what influences the unconscious mind, whether from the scientific view of the circuits in the brain, what can influence that? But then are there other things like faith or other people or other different things that can have this influence on the unconscious mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's the same thing we talked about before. Genetics is going to play a big role. Your early experiences in life, especially with your primary caretaker that important relationship is going to play a huge role. And then your current environment, the people around you, the experiences, the food that you eat, the drugs that you take these will all have an influence. If we think about working with the unconscious mind, trying to have a deliberate influence over it, I think that the pathway we want to take is to acknowledge that there are independent agents inside there that have their own goals, and we've got to respect their independence and not try to control them, but to try to partner with them so that we are both working towards the same goals.
Speaker 2:When you're working against each other, your unconscious mind is going to make you self-stabotage, but when you're working together, your unconscious mind is going to give you energy, motivation, inspiration, intuition. If you think about if you've ever had to write something, write a report that you're enthusiastic about, it's fun, you just want to get at it and while you're doing it, you're feeling great, that's because you and your unconscious are aligned. On the other hand, if you're unconscious is out to lunch and it has no interest in this report whatsoever. Oh my God, it's just torture, just getting every word out. We'd rather do anything. We'd rather frickin' clean the kitchen than write.
Speaker 1:So true, yes.
Speaker 2:So I think an important part of life is working to forge a good relationship with these unconscious agents, and I think that the way we do that is the way that we would forge a good relationship, a friendship, with another human being, and that is that the first step is simply getting to know them, and the best way to get to know somebody is to simply listen to them. Listening is incredibly powerful. Listening is a tool that psychiatrists and other therapists use, and people understand how powerful it is giving someone your full attention. It's so powerful that when a therapist gives someone their full attention for 50 minutes a week, week after week, people who have vulnerable psyches can actually get psychotic from that experience.
Speaker 1:It's so intense People who are very From being listened to.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm yeah.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what happens is they start to project onto them and they start to have feelings towards them the therapist who's listening to them that they initially had towards their primary caretaker, and so feelings of love, feelings of anger, feelings of resentment and the person doesn't. They think they're feeling this way about their therapist, but it's a project, so therapists are trained to know to titrate this, and sometimes we don't do that. We don't listen in that intense, prolonged way. Charismatic people know this. You will sometimes hear charismatic people described as making you feel like you're the only person in the room, and that's because when they're talking to you, they're not looking around to see who is else around. They're not thinking about what they're going to say next, they're not thinking about the next party they're going to go to. They're 100% focused on you, and it can be a very intense experience. So that's how we forge good relationships with other people.
Speaker 2:It's the same thing with the unconscious mind. It's about paying attention, and that's going to happen in the here and now. When we're in dopamine mode, we're very much in conscious mode. We're planning, we're thinking, we're using the conscious tools of rationalism, which is an incredibly valuable tool. I don't want in any way to devalue the incredible power of consciousness, but with the unconscious, we're going to be in the here and now, paying attention to how we're feeling, what our moods are spontaneous thoughts that pop into our mind. The vast majority of thoughts that we become aware of are not things we plan about thinking, like what goes in this cell in the spreadsheet. It's just spontaneous stuff and if we pay attention to those things we'll get to know our unconscious better and that's going to lead to a more productive relationship.
Speaker 1:Are you familiar with Jud Brewer?
Speaker 2:I'm not no.
Speaker 1:So he's written a couple of books. One was called Unwinding Anxiety, but I'm reading his current one called the Hunger Habit, and what you're saying is reminding me, and this book is specifically focused on how to get in touch with your body and your mind, to stop fighting your hunger cravings, but instead to have a different relationship with food and, kind of. His main premise in a sentence is what you were saying.
Speaker 1:There's this uncontrollable part of the cravings. We start craving food when we're bored, tired, stressed, hungry. There's so many reasons, but we've conditioned ourselves Our brain will drive us to go eat in those moments. But when we try and fight it by going on strict diets or intermittent fasting, it just drives the craving even more, which leads people to end up overeating, yo-yo dieting, a ton of things, and so his kind of. I'm still in the middle of it, but his answer, so to say, is mindfulness and really thinking through what is it my body actually needs right now before taking action. So is that kind of what you would say is how you listen to your unconscious mind, because you journal, you meditate, you're mindful, you take some time to think before acting.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, you know. I think that the unconscious can be conceptualized as human instinct. So hunger is an obvious instinct, but there can be very complex instincts as well, such as intuition. We have an instinctual understanding of something With animals. They have basically one way of expressing instinct and that's through behavior. And human beings express instinct through behavior as well. When we're hungry, we eat. But human beings have a second option.
Speaker 2:Because we have developed this wonderful tool of consciousness, we don't have to act on all our instincts. The unconscious gives us wonderful, wonderful things. It also gives us the ugliest aspects of humanity hatred, jealousy, rage. If we allow these things to occupy our mind, if we don't push them away, we don't have to act on them, because human beings have these two ways of dealing with instinct behavior and awareness.
Speaker 2:And so a lot of times when we have something negative, like hunger, or something that we are ashamed of, like envy or hatred, we try and push it away. We say, oh, my God, I'm not like that, I am not that kind of a person. I mean, be gone, ugly thought. That's a mistake, because what happens is that if you don't allow it to occupy your awareness, it's got to go to option number two behavior, and these are things like Freudian slips, when just something comes out of our mouth, or we smash something and it seemed like an accident, but maybe it wasn't, or we self-sabotage. And so I think that one way of dealing with hunger, with dealing with anything negative that comes from the unconscious, is just accept it. When you're really, really hungry, we say, oh my God, I got to eat something. But if we come into the present moment and say, OK, what is this feeling really like? It's not that bad, it's not terrible, it's not like being in a cold tub or anything like that, I can live with this.
Speaker 1:What do you think about the phrase trust your gut or trust your instinct?
Speaker 2:I so I want to say that maybe in this situation, when I go to bedечke called my patients, it's half right. You know, I think a lot of times we don't trust our instinct enough, but our instinct is not going to be right all the time. So, you know, I spoke about a partnership between the conscious and the unconscious, and both have something to offer. So I think that we need to be more aware of our gut feelings, but then we need to test them with our rationality, Using the strengths of both sides of human nature the human rational and the animal instinct. Let them work together. Pay attention to your gut feelings, but test them with rationality.
Speaker 1:What about how the unconscious mind is impacted by a person's beliefs and values? How? What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:How about how the conscious mind is impacted by our unconscious beliefs and values? I don't think we choose our beliefs, values. Perhaps we have a little bit more choice, but probably not. You know. I think that we yeah, I don't think we have direct control over our beliefs and values. We can, you know, work in partnership. You know we can choose to read things that are enlightening, that exposes to new ideas, that promote values we admire but don't yet hold ourselves.
Speaker 2:For example, altruism, selflessness, helping other people. I try to cultivate that in myself, but I wish there were more of it and I can't just choose. Okay, I'm going to be a more selfless person, you know, I can act in more selfless ways, but it's going to be an uphill battle. I would much rather be a more selfless person so that I could take pleasure in being kind to other people. I can't just choose that, but I can cultivate it. There are certain kinds of meditations that cultivate it. There are books I can read that will make me more like that. So I think that beliefs and values are unconscious and that if we want to have good beliefs and values, we've got to nurture this partnership.
Speaker 1:Is there anything that has changed in your belief about dopamine or about the unconscious mind since you wrote either of those books?
Speaker 2:So writing the book about the unconscious mind had a profound effect upon me and my wife commented even if this book doesn't change anyone else, writing it changed you in a good way. And I think that the greatest insight I had was that I sort of realized I was going through life sort of assuming that people were kind of like me, that my beliefs and values were self-evident. They were obvious. Of course these are true, of course this is the way you live your life and that's just not true for other people. And it really woke me up to how different other people are and that it can be very difficult to make other people understand your internal world and vice versa.
Speaker 1:Has anything changed about your beliefs of dopamine?
Speaker 2:Well, when I started writing the dopamine book, I thought it was the pleasure molecule. I thought I was going to write a book about sex and drugs and rock and roll and that's what I thought I was going to sell so well. And it was when I started digging in to do we don't know what we don't know. I started digging in on the research and I was like, oh my God, there is so much more here than I thought. This is about the future versus the present.
Speaker 1:So the main focus of my podcast, and what my listeners love to take away from it, is we focus on the four areas of becoming our best selves, so to say, and we use an acronym called PYS, which stands for Physical, intellectual, emotional and Spiritual. So, with that kind of framework in mind, what would you say are some of the best ways, in one or all of those categories, that people can cultivate, being a healthier version or a better version, or the version of themselves they want to be more like, through the studies that you've done and the work that you've had in your practice as a psychiatrist?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that the work with the unconscious is most directly related to spiritual, and it's complicated. When you talk about spirituality, you're talking about things that are supernatural. For the most part, the natural world is made up of the periodic table of the elements, the standard model, fermions and bosons, those kinds of things. He goes beyond that and it thinks about things that don't have a physical existence. Now, these things cannot be studied by science, and so it's a little bit presumptuous to approach it from a scientific standpoint. But I'm going to do that anyway, let's do it. Most scientists don't believe in God. Most scientists are atheists, but most Americans do. So let's just take a hypothetical that God exists. What role would the unconscious mind and when I say the unconscious mind I'm talking about brain circuits, I'm talking about atoms and molecules that make up neurons in the brain what role would that have in our relationship with God? And here's what I'd say God uses our conscious mind to reveal his existence to us. We see a sunrise, we go oh my God, that's so beautiful. And if we're spiritual, we think about God, we're in trouble, we're lonely, we're desperate, and somebody comes up to us and they look us in the eyes and they smile and they say let me help you. And we're like, oh, if you're religious, you're like, oh, my God, I'm looking into the face of God with his kindness. So that's how we see that through the conscious mind.
Speaker 2:The unconscious mind is God's back door and that's when we experience his presence directly, not through our senses, we don't see here, we just feel it. And that's God not stimulating the photons in our eyes or the touch receptors. He's activating these circuits in the brain that are unconscious and that's what gives us that feeling. So I would say that if we can open up those doors, we can get a better sense of God's presence in the world by just paying attention to the natural world around us, paying attention to other human beings and their expression of love. We can get the other side by trying to open up the channels of communication between the conscious and the unconscious, and we've talked about ways to do it. There are ways of ripping that door off its hinges and that's the use of psychedelic drugs like suicide, magic mushrooms, lst. That just opens up the door and people have these intense spiritual experiences. Whether or not that leads to spiritual growth, I think, is an open question, but I think that's the way. My book relates to the S in pies.
Speaker 1:I love that. Do you believe in God?
Speaker 2:I do yes.
Speaker 1:How is it being in the scientific field and community where many others don't and you do? How do you navigate that?
Speaker 2:It's not a problem when I'm with other scientists. We talk about science.
Speaker 1:You have other ways you can express what you're saying that makes sense to them. I love science.
Speaker 2:I absolutely adore science and I see absolutely no conflict between God and science. Science will never, ever prove the existence of God. If science could prove the existence of God, there would be no more need for faith, and faith plays such a central role in all religious traditions. If there is a God and obviously I may believe, but I don't know if there is a God that God would never destroy faith by making his existence scientifically provable. So I kind of believe to use the scientific terms, they're orthogonal to one another and so I'm perfectly comfortable with both, as were many great scientists. Einstein believed in God, I think the greatest scientists believed in God, and it's just your run-of-the-mill bread and butter ones who don't.
Speaker 1:Wow, I love that. Dr Lieberman, it has been a joy and a pleasure talking to you and I guess it's interesting now when you think of people saying like it was a pleasure, are they talking about dopamine? No, it was a dopamine talking to you. No, you fantastic. I've learned so much and I know that there's so much more we could even talk about. But people can also go and get the molecule of more, which is the book about dopamine, your book Spellbound, which is your book about the unconscious mind, which now I am going to read. I'm getting it on audible this afternoon. It's going to be my next read or listen to over the next couple of days. I really appreciate and value your time. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1:This was an amazing episode. I absolutely loved my conversation with Dr Daniel Z Lieberman. Here are some of my key takeaways from that fascinating conversation that we just had. First of all, dopamine is not a bad thing and it's not a good thing Like it's good and bad in different situations. The real key takeaway here in regards to dopamine is that dopamine gets us to focus on the future and to think about how we want the future to be better, but it can become bad or doesn't serve us well maybe be a better way to put it when we are so focused on how we want the future to be better that we are unsatisfied. Now, the real focus here is that when dopamine is working at its best in our lives, it's when we're focused on planning to make a better future, not just for ourselves, but for other people as well. The here and now is the opposite of dopamine, and it is where we can be really focused and really content on the here and now, on being present with the people in our lives, on having mindful moments, on enjoying just spending a lazy day around with family or reading a book, without constantly focusing on what we need to do better or what we need to do next and, as Dr Lieberman said, the goal here is the balance between the two. There's a time to be focused on anticipation and building a better future, and there is a time to be focused on the here and now. So what is that for you? Where is your balance and is it currently off balance one way or another? Because, again, that negative of the here and now may be for those of us that struggle at times with focusing only on the current pleasures in our life. We just wanna feel how good it feels now. Actually, I believe that's what he said about dopamine when it's more in its primitive way, when we're focused on more of those hedonistic pleasures, or hedonistic pleasures of just going and doing what feels good in the moment, as opposed to purposefully thinking about what should be done for a better future, what are the right actions to take, as well as having that balance of being content with the here and now and having time to enjoy the things that we've worked towards building.
Speaker 1:My second key takeaway from today's episode was that we have an unconscious mind Actually, I loved the phrase uncontrollable mind and for me it brought up having feelings of anxiety that can come about, having racing thoughts, having intrusive thoughts that just kind of come out of nowhere. And again, there's a similar message here in terms of how we handle and understand our uncontrollable or unconscious mind, and that's through awareness. When in your day do you take time to be mindful, to journal, to get in touch with how you're feeling and maybe why you feel that way? That can be a great first step into getting in touch, as Dr Lieberman said, with our unconscious or uncontrollable mind. And then my third key takeaway from today's episode was the power of when Dr Lieberman talked about how science is never going to prove the existence of God, because if it did, then there wouldn't be a reason for faith. I love how he explained how our unconscious mind is a back door to how God can work in our lives and through our lives and, in fact, when he was talking in the interview about how our unconscious mind is where some of our desires come from that we can't explain in a good way or in a negative way.
Speaker 1:One of the things I thought of in that moment was proverbs, proverbs four, I believe it is where it tells us that God will give us the desires of our hearts, and thinking about times in my life where I've had a desire for something good, such as a desire to adopt and a desire to adopt children from India.
Speaker 1:I don't know where that came from, but that was something that God placed. I believe that God placed on my heart strongly decades ago, long before I ever was even old enough or able to adopt children, long before my husband and I even got married. I believe that God can place desires on our heart for things that he hopes that we will do to further his kingdom and things that he knows will encourage our life and bring us into his purpose for our lives. And then I believe that there are desires that can be put in our bodies that are from the opposite side. When we look at spiritual warfare and how the enemy, satan, can definitely put desires in our hearts that are not the way that God wants it to be, but they are the temptations that can lead us into doing things that ultimately are not good for us, for our lives here and now, but ultimately they separate us from God because they lead us to want to depend more on that and less on him.
Speaker 1:There's so much more we could go into there, but I think, at the end of the day, it's beautiful to realize that God works in the natural and in the supernatural because, as I believe, he is God over all of it. I hope you loved today's episode. I know I did as soon as we finished recording. I was just beaming with how amazing this interview with Dr Lieberman was. We would love for you to share it with a friend. Please go and share. Follow this podcast wherever you listen to podcast. If you're watching on YouTube, please hit the Subscribe button and leave a comment. What did you think of today's episode? We would love to hear from you. Until next week, stay strong.