Most of us are pretty bad at conflict, usually because we weren’t taught how to handle it well. But healthy conflict can be one of the best ways to deepen intimacy and trust. In this episode Dr. Rick and Forrest discuss why conflict is so difficult, the models of conflict we inherit from childhood, healthy repair, what emotional flooding does to the brain and body during a fight, and the research on what actually predicts relationship success. They close with a handful of things that get mistaken for repair but aren't, including submission, thin apologies, and just solving the surface problem. 

Key Topics:

0:00: Intro

3:19: Repair as the biggest predictor of relationship success

5:29: Models of conflict and where they originate from

16:08: What is healthy repair, and why is it so hard?

24:54: What to do about emotional flooding

30:25: When to let things go, and when to address them

38:36: What repair is and what it's not

46:47: The power of authentic apologies

57:04: Recap

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Forrest is joined by neurogastroenterologist Dr. Trisha Pasricha for a conversation about the gut-brain connection, including how gut health impacts our mood and mental health. Dr. Pasricha explains how the gut and the brain communicate, how early gut experiences can shape adult anxiety and depression, why GI symptoms are often misunderstood or dismissed, and what the research actually says about probiotics, leaky gut, and detoxification. They also discuss simple, evidence-based ways to improve gut health, dispelling social-media fueled myths along the way. 

About our guest: Dr. Tricia Pasricha is a physician-scientist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and columnist for the Washington Post. Her new book, You've Been Pooping All Wrong, explains the connection between your gut, your brain, and your mental health.

Key Topics:

0:00 Intro: what's neurogastroenterology?

5:48: Believing your patient

9:31: The lifelong impact of childhood gut issues

18:27: The relationship between the gut and the brain

23:20: The tiktokification of gut health information

30:56: Probiotics – do they help?

34:15: The microbiome

43:34: Advice to people with gut issues

46:21: What about cleanses?

55:52: Recap

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Forrest is joined by author, meditator, and friend Diego Perez, also known as Yung Pueblo, for a conversation about right effort, the balance between pushing through and letting go, and the death of nuance in the age of social media. 

They start with Diego’s experience on his recent 60-day silent meditation retreat, and what that kind of practice teaches about craving, attachment, and getting unstuck from old roles. Diego frames right effort as the middle path between forcing your life and going with the flow, and that tension leads into a conversation about social media, including the appeal of reductive advice and being told what to do. Diego closes with what he'd recommend for someone who wants some of the rewards of practice without committing to a long retreat.

Key Topics: 

0:00: Intro

2:02: Diego's 60-day silent retreat

8:17: Right Effort: balancing pursuit with letting go

15:49: Attachment, craving, and suffering

19:25: Diego's journey to the sensitive boy’s club

25:19: Resistance: a sign that something is wrong or that we should push harder?

31:07: How to stop outsourcing your decisions & find guidance within 

42:41: The limitations of labels and therapy-speak

52:26: Practices for those who aren't serious meditators

55:39: Recap

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Dr. Lindsay Gibson joins Forrest to explore how we can reparent ourselves, recover from emotionally immature parenting, and develop greater emotional maturity. They discuss what emotional maturity actually is, the "good enough" parent, the voices we internalize, and how adults can begin to give themselves the internal security and emotional attunement they missed in childhood. Other topics include why feeling misunderstood is so painful, the lifelong dance between connection and autonomy, and the hidden costs of authoritarian parenting. 

About our guest: Dr. Lindsay Gibson is a clinical psychologist and bestselling author of a number of books, including Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents and her new book, How to Raise an Emotionally Mature Child.

Key Topics:

0:00: Intro & what emotional maturity looks like

7:45: Why our culture undervalues emotional maturity 

12:56: The “good enough” parent

20:05: What happens to children with emotionally immature parents

27:15: Repair in adulthood

36:22: The importance of feeling understood

43:40: Mirroring: why it’s important and how to get better at it

49:07: Balancing connection and autonomy

53:39: The appropriate level of parental authority

1:04:34: Parenting mistakes to avoid

1:15:29: Recap

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Dr. Rick and Forrest explore how we can become securely attached to ourselves: building an internal foundation that lets us connect with others, regulate our emotions, and explore the world from that secure base. They talk about how this is supposed to develop in childhood, why it doesn't for many people, and what we can actually do about it as adults. Topics include the research on early attachment, why so many of us arrive at adulthood with a strong inner critic and weak inner support, and four practical paths forward: creating a coherent narrative about your past, reparenting yourself, rescaling your sense of self in relation to others, and building self-trust through healthy exploration. 

Rick’s Attachment Course: Join Rick for a 5-week online course on using the research-backed HEAL method to heal insecure attachment and create new neural pathways for interacting and connecting securely. You can learn more at RickHanson.com/attachment and get 25% off with coupon code BeingWell25.

Key Topics 

0:00: Introduction

2:00: The research on becoming a “secure base”

8:17: How we internalize early sources of regulation and recognition

15:43: What happens when love is contingent

18:44: Forming a coherent narrative

29:14: Reparenting yourself

42:07: Rebuilding your sense of self

57:40: Using your secure base to explore, try, and fail

1:09:18: Recap

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If you’ve ever felt paralyzed by the options in your life, you’re not alone. Today, Forrest is joined by best-selling author David Epstein to discuss how constraints can lead to greater creativity, generativity, and, paradoxically, freedom. They trace how intentional constraints have led to some of the most influential contributions to the world, including Mendeleev’s periodic table, Viriginia Woolf’s groundbreaking novels, and Kyrie Irving’s (potential) hall of fame career. Throughout, they focus on how we can go from seeing constraints as an obstacle to appreciating them as an asset, and then apply this principle to building more meaningful and satisfying lives. 

About our guest: David Epstein is a renowned science journalist and the best selling author of The Sports Gene and Range. His new book, Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better, comes out May 5th.

Key Topics: 

0:00: Why focus on constraints?

5:21: Why constraints are good for us

13:50: Time and attention as (productive) bottlenecks

17:10: Why ‘flashes of genius’ are often exaggerated

25:02: What Virginia Woolf teaches us about constraints and creativity

29:35: How unlimited freedom undermines the scientific process

38:29 Constraints make for better sports training

40:23: Applying constraints to our work and relationships

46:02: Satisficers vs maximizers, and how to become a satisficer

48:50: Expanding our notion of constraints

55:14: Death and impermanence; the ultimate constraints

57:45: Will constraints help the Celtics win the NBA Championship?

1:05:49: Recap

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Have you ever had a friend not text you back, and you’re certain that they’re mad at you? This is often a disruption in the process of mentalization: the ability to recognize that our thoughts and feelings might not be facts. Mentalization is a process we can all struggle with, but it’s particularly important for people who have Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).

In this episode, Forrest is joined by psychotherapist and author Robert Drozek to discuss mentalization-based treatment (MBT) and the tools that can help us develop more flexibility and curiosity around our assumptions. Bob outlines the three common modes of mentalizing, explains how childhood experiences shape mentalization, and offers a map for building healthier ways of relating to our thoughts and feelings. 

About our Guest: Robert Drozak is a clinical social worker, the clinical director of the Mentalization-Based Treatment Clinic at McLean Hospital, and a teaching associate in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. His new book, Mentalization: Utilizing Reflection to Heal from Borderline Personality Disorder, is the first book about Mentalization-Based Treatment aimed at a general audience. 

Key Topics: 

0:00: Intro: what is mentalization?

5:12: Ways mentalization can go wrong

13:25: Borderline Personality Disorder as a deficit in mentalization

22:13: How mentalization is shaped in childhood

28:54: The alien self

32:23: Developing an MBT formulation

42:03: MBT in the therapy room

54:40: Challenging your beliefs and assumptions

1:11:21: How to get out of pretend mode

1:21:37: Addressing problems with interoception

1:30:00: Recap

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Why does knowing we overthink not help us stop? Dr. Rick and Forrest discuss why rumination becomes a self-reinforcing habit,  and why insight alone rarely helps. They distinguish between rumination and reflection, and talk about how balancing acceptance and agency can help us go from one to the other. Forrest talks about the relationship between overthinking and feelings of disappointment and failure, and Rick shares practical ways to interrupt the cycle, shift into more concrete forms of problem-solving, and finally stop ruminating.

Rick's Rumination Course: If rumination is a persistent issue for you, check out Rick’s five-week online course focused on practical tools for letting go of these negative thought loops. Learn more at RickHanson.com/ruminating, and use coupon code BeingWell25 to receive a 25% discount.

Previous episodes on rumination and overthinking:

• Breaking the Self-Awareness Trap: How to Stop Overthinking | Being Well
  
• 
  Rumination: How to Disrupt Obsessive Thoughts

Key Topics: 

0:00: Intro: what is rumination

5:35: Why we ruminate

21:06: Why rumination doesn't help us

25:24: Moving from rumination to reflection

31:35: Rumination as a habit

38:40: Interrupting the rumination habit

46:44: Radical helplessness and radical resourcefulness

53:43: More ways to move from abstract to concrete thinking 

1:07:23: The role of mindfulness

1:13:32: Recap

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In this very special episode, Dr. Jacob Ham and associate therapist Elizabeth Ferreira join me to discuss their work as trauma therapists. They talk openly about the messy, unglamorous reality of struggle, mistakes, and repair that characterizes trauma work, its nature as both art and science, how their work has changed over time, and what they’ve learned along the way. Topics include self-disclosure, working with shame and grief, dealing with situations where the client wants an apology, the difference between trauma work and more manualized approaches, therapist training and supervision, and “polishing the mirror.” 

I loved listening to Dr. Ham and Elizabeth talk during this episode. It’s a truly unique one, and I hope you enjoy it. 

About our Guest: Dr. Jacob Ham is a clinical psychologist, Associate Clinical Professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and the Director of the Center for Complex Trauma there. He's the clinician featured in Stephanie Foo’s wonderful book What My Bones Know.

Key Topics : 

0:00: Introduction and nervousness

6:21: The role of disclosure

11:34: Mistakes, rupture, and repair

23:20: Sharing grief

33:04: Supervision and parallel process 

36:29: Therapy as an art form

47:52: Structure, flexibility, and 'opening the hand'

52:50: A listener question: how to let it all go

1:02:40: How trauma work changes you

1:07:46: Recap

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Dr. Rick and Forrest explore the lessons we can learn from two of Humanistic psychology’s more challenging branches: existential psychology and transpersonal psychology. Existential psychology asks what it means to build a meaningful life in the face of death, while Transpersonal psychology wonders if the individual self is what we should be so focused on. Forrest and Rick focus on the work of Rollo May, Irvin Yalom, Abraham Maslow, and Stanislav Grof, and major themes include freedom, agency, anxiety, the limits of the “self,” and how confronting these can lead to a fuller and more meaningful life. 

Rick’s Self-Worth Course: Starts this week! In this 6-week online course, Rick will guide you in practical, research-backed ways to release old patterns and grow a lasting sense of confidence, kindness toward yourself, and genuine self-worth. Learn more at RickHanson.com/worthy and use coupon code BeingWell25 to receive a 25% discount.

Key Topics: 

0:00: Intro and recap of humanistic psychology

6:12: History and context of existential psychology

12:04: Three important lessons from existentialism

26:03: Agency and meaning making within existential psychology

38:38: Overview of transpersonal psychology

1:00:43: Three important lessons from transpersonal psychology

1:11:14: Closing reflections, and a one word summary

1:14:07: Recap

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Why don’t we choose the things we know are good for us? It’s usually because we’re struggling with self-regulation, one of the most important (and most misunderstood) skills out there. In today’s episode, Forrest talks with Eric Zimmer about what healthy self-regulation actually looks like,  the gap between insight and action, how shame can derail us, and why most change comes down to small steps taken consistently. They discuss how to figure out what actually matters to you vs. what you want right now, the tension between acceptance and change, and how to get back on track after a slip without making it worse.

About our Guest: Eric Zimmer is the creator of The One You Feed, an award-winning podcast with over 50 million downloads. He’s also the author of the new book, How a Little Becomes a Lot: The Art of Small Changes for a More Meaningful Life.

Key Topics: 

0:00: Intro: Why is self-regulation so important?

4:32: Moving from insight to action

8:14: Values versus desires

14:25: Eric’s sobriety journey

20:57: Changing our relationship to shame

32:05: When to accept things as they are, and when to move from acceptance to change 

38:17: Choosing the more useful meaning

42:51: How to get over self-doubt

46:41: Having a backup plan for when things go sideways

53:54: Balancing striving with non-craving

1:06:16: Recap

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