Latest / Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor / Why You Keep Doing Things You Regret (And How to Stop) With Carly Taylor

Transcript

Why You Keep Doing Things You Regret (And How to Stop) With Carly Taylor · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, it's Kuri here for this week's Mojo Monday.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: So here's something that we have all felt. It is
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: that moment when you have this strong urge to do something.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: And an urge can be so strong and often sudden.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: It's this impulse to act, and when it hits hard enough,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: it doesn't feel like there's any question mark over acting
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: on it. It feels like a command to obey, and
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: in fact, it can feel all sort of all consuming
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: that it just is. It's that urge to snap at someone,
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  Speaker 1: or the urge to send that message, or the urge
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: to eat, to drink, to scroll, to quit, to avoid.
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  Speaker 1: And when an urge appears, your mind isn't thinking about
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: the long term consequences. It's not about thinking about your
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: relationships or your values, or your goals or the kind
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: of person that you want to be. Its aim is
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: only one thing and one thing only, and that is
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: relief right now. And that's why urges can either slowly
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: or quickly change the trajectory of our lives if we
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: give in to them. And some of those some of
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: that's in the moment, and some of that is over time.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: But here's the empowering part, and urge is not an instruction.
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  Speaker 1: It's just an internal experience. It can be a really
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: intense experience, but it is just an experience. And in act,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: there's this really powerful skill called urge surfing and it
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: was first developed in addiction research, and later Russ Harris
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: has expanded it. And if you've read The Happiness Trap,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: you would have heard of urge surfing. And the idea
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: is simple, instead of fighting the urge or giving into it,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: which is like obeying it, you learn to ride it.
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  Speaker 1: Simple but hard urges are like waves. They start small,
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  Speaker 1: they rise, they build, they peak, and then they fall. Now,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes it's a smooth wave, it rises, crests and gently
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: tapers off, and sometimes it's a crazy, rough, crashing wave,
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  Speaker 1: completely overwhelming, like it's smashing into you, and sometimes you
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: get dumped by it. So you act on the urge
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  Speaker 1: and then afterwards you think why did I do that?
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  Speaker 1: But please know you are just human and this stuff
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  Speaker 1: takes work, and the skill is learning more and more
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: often to stay on the wave, so you're staying on
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  Speaker 1: the surfboard. Most of us don't realize this because we're
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  Speaker 1: either acting on the urge too quickly or we fight
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: it so hard that we actually can make it stronger
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  Speaker 1: and more and long lasting. So here's how to surf it.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: First of all, you have to notice it, so you
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  Speaker 1: just stop, just pause, name it I'm having the urge
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: to and then that creates that small gap. And then secondly,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: bring your attention into your body. Really notice where you
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: feel it. Is it a tight chest, is it restless hands?
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Is there tension in your jaw? Get really curious about
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: what you're feeling in your body. And then third is
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  Speaker 1: to breathe into it. Not to make it go away,
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  Speaker 1: that is not the aim, but to make space for it,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: because this is your reality right now. We're not actually
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: fighting with reality. We're not trying to control reality. But
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: what we are wanting to control is what we do.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: And this is where attentional control comes in. You don't
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: just sit there white knuckling the urge. You want to
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: anchor yourself. You want to move your body, stretch, even
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: dump your feet into the ground, or step outside and
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: feel the air on your skin. Take a slow, deep breath.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Notice your environment, What can you see, what can you hear?
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  Speaker 1: You're not trying to escape the urge. It's like you're
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: balancing yourself on the wave. You're choosing where to place
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: your attention while the urge is there. What we're doing
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: is we're creating that space between feeling an urge and
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  Speaker 1: you responding. You can have an urge and still direct
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: your attention and still choose your actions even if it's
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: hard and uncomfortable, because that's part of the ride. And
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  Speaker 1: while you're riding that wave, come back to your values.
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  Speaker 1: Ask yourself, what would the person I want to be
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  Speaker 1: do right now? What would my future self want me
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  Speaker 1: to do? Even if that's your future self tomorrow. Because
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: you can feel like shouting and you can speak calmly,
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  Speaker 1: you can feel like quitting and keep going. You can
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: feel like a avoiding and lean into the discomfort, not
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: controlling what shows up inside you, but choosing how you
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: respond to it. And like any skill, this takes practice,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: and you don't start with the biggest waves in your life.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: You start small. So the urge to check your phone.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, I did an experiment on myself. I told
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  Speaker 1: my family I was having two hours of phone free
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  Speaker 1: time and they were all out at the time, and
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  Speaker 1: in that time I noticed many urges to check my phone.
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  Speaker 1: So you run a little experiments on yourself. You know,
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  Speaker 1: the urge to interrupt when someone is talking, or the
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: urge to check your emails when actually what you were
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: supposed to do when you got on your computer was
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: pay a bill, or the urge to swear in the traffic.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Just start with the small stuff to practice, because every
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: time you stay on that board, even for a few
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  Speaker 1: seconds longer, you strengthen your ability to ride that wave
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: and live by your values, and over time that can
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  Speaker 1: change everything. So this week I invite you to notice
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  Speaker 1: your urges, make room for them, create that space that
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: gives you control over what you do next, and ride
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: the urge wave until it subsides. Because it will have
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: a great week. Everyone. I'll catch you next week. Bye.