Welcome to Joy Lab!: Welcome to the Joy Lab podcast, where we help you uncover and foster your most joyful self. Your hosts, Dr. Henry Emmons and Dr. Aimee Prasek, bring you the ideal mix of soulful and scientifically sound tools to spark your joy, even when it feels dark. When you're ready to experiment with more joy, combine this podcast with the full Joy Lab program over at JoyLab.coach
Henry: Hello, I am Henry Emmons, and welcome to Joy Lab.
Aimee: And I'm Aimee Prasek. So here at Joy Lab, we infuse science with soul to help you uncover joy. To do that, we focus on building elements of joy. Those are the positive emotions and inner states that become the building blocks for a joyful life. The element for this episode is curiosity. And we're working on presence,
p. r. e. s. e. n. c. e., I feel like I have to spell it. Uh, the first aspect of deep listening and also a great tool to cultivate curiosity. So Henry laid out these aspects in one of his books, The Chemistry of Calm. So being present is the practice and state of holding our attention to what's around us. And to sum up some of the relevant research here on presence, being more present is associated with better mood, reduced stress, and experiencing less anger and fear.
So it's helpful. And it seems like a simple concept to grasp. We've heard it all before. Be here now. Be present. But in practice it's not easy. So Henry, can you define presence a bit more and explain why it's so flipping hard?
Please.
Henry: Well, as a starting point, I think it's hard to stay present because our minds drift all the time. And most of us, I include myself in this, we, we haven't trained ourselves to be able to stay very focused for very long. And there is so much to distract us. I think today, more than ever, we live in a world of distractions. But at a deeper level, I'm actually not sure this really is such a simple concept. It certainly doesn't seem easy to achieve presence, but I'm not even sure it's that easy to understand it.
I think we vaguely associate presence with being in the moment, but really what does that actually, me? So let me refer to this quote that, it's pretty famous, it's from James Joyce, and it's actually the opening line to his novel called Dubliners. And here, here's how it reads.
"Mr. Duffy lived a short distance from his body."
So the book goes on to describe Mr. Duffy as kind of a dull bureaucrat. He was emotionally flat. He was kind of disconnected, both from his body and from his feelings. You might say he's kind of living a half life. Now in the book, of course, Mr. Duffy, uh, he gets a very vivid portrayal and he is at one end of the spectrum, but he's a pretty good example of not being present to your life, at least not in a really complete way. I see his central problem as being cut off from life.
It's like he has shut himself down. And I seriously doubt that Mr. Duffy set off with the intention of keeping life away. Because none of us really do that on purpose. Most of the time we're just not even aware that we're doing it, and yet we do it. And I do think there's a pretty simple reason for that. And it's another reason, frankly, why being present is so hard. I think it's because we don't want to hurt. We don't want to feel emotional pain. We don't want sadness. Some of us might want to feel angry from time to time, but I think that's only because we don't really want whatever the painful feeling is that's beneath the anger. So of course, we all want to be present for the good stuff, for whatever makes us happy. But presence, genuine presence, means that we're here for all of it, the joys and the sorrows. We don't shut anything out, and that can be really hard.
Aimee: It is really hard. Just this weekend, actually, I had such a punch in the gut experience with this. I'll tell a story. I was at a fundraising event and they had a bingo thing, but there were all these complicated ways to win.
So it wasn't just a straight line or like, was like geometry bingo, geometry. And so I got really into it and super competitive, as I like to do, no matter what's happening. And we were in this far corner, so it was really hard to hear. So I had to be really present to hear the numbers and like figure out what was a bingo or not, with all these shapes you had to make to win.
So that was hard. But then someone came over to me and wanted to chat. And I mean like have a deep conversation. This person knew I worked in mental health and I could tell that they wanted to have a conversation about mental health, like right there in the middle of that bingo competition. And so there's this bingo caller calling out these numbers that I have to strain to hear, and then there's this other person wanting to talk and I was trying to do both at the same time, and it was making me feel super uneasy.
This story's gonna make me sound like a real jerk, but I'm gonna tell anyway, and it's embarrassing. That's okay. So, I was feeling extremely guilty that I wasn't giving this person my full attention. And at the same time, I know it sounds ridiculous, but I did not want to miss the bingo numbers that were being called.
And after like three or so minutes of this, the person left, which just like hit me in the stomach. Of course they left. I was not paying attention. So, actually in some ways, right, it seems like an attention problem I was having. But the issue for me, I realized was not attention per se, but I was hanging onto this one thought, which was, I'm not gonna hear some numbers and then I'm gonna miss my chance at winning.
Wild, but it pulled me along. This future focused thought just pulled me along and it kept me worried about that future of missing like my sweet bingo victory. And I know it's wild. I can't, I mean, I should have figured this out, but if I would've just paused, like come back to the present moment, I could have decided to like take a break from the game cuz it really wasn't that big a deal.
I mean, the prizes were not great, let's be honest, , but I didn't care. It was just this, this was pulling me this future of missing out. You know, I could have, if I would've paused, I could have passed my card to someone else to pay, you know, play for me. I would've said like, you know, we're splitting the prize.
Or tell the person. I could have paused and told the person, Hey, I really wanna be present with you. Can we chat after the game? Right? I mean, is not the kindest choice for someone who is seeking out an ear, but at least I would've been more respectful and clear, less agitated about the whole situation.
So, weird experience, but back to what you said earlier, Henry, this can be really hard and in strange ways that throw us off our game, like literally threw me off my bingo game. You know, I couldn't, I I, I was caught in the future. I couldn't come back to the present moment to assess, which was a pretty obvious decision to just like, pause the bingo game for, for myself.
Um, you know, there's more to explore here. So, Let's get into that complexity a bit more and talk about the neuroscience of present moment awareness. Do you want to try to explain all that, Henry?
Henry: I do, but I just have to ask first, did you go home with any prizes?
Aimee: I didn't win a thing! Which made me even more mad at myself for not listening to that person and then not winning. I mean, I had to really go through our aspects of deep listening and just practice some self-compassion, and then I realized, oh, here's what happened. So no, it was an epic fail on all ends.
Henry: Makes for a very good story.
Aimee: Oh yeah.
Henry: Well, if it's hard to define what presence is, I think it's even harder to understand the neuroscience of presence. So, you know, what is it about the brains of really present people that allows them to be that way?
I don't think anybody knows for sure. I think the jury's still out, but there are a few things that I think are bringing us closer to understanding this. First, there are what I think of as these attentional circuits within the brain. So the things that really do help us to just to pay mental attention. And you know, there's this massive amount of sensory information that we take in and we have to filter that and decide what's important and what isn't.
So there's a lot going on that's actually going on below the surface of our awareness.
We're actually gonna talk a little more about that in our next episode on attention, so I'm not gonna get into that more right now. There are three other aspects of neuroscience that I think are worth talking about right now, and the first is the ever present stress response, which was happening for you, Aimee, at in your, your story.
And, and in this case, stress kind of cuts both ways. So when you feel threatened by something, you might actually become even more alert, hyper alert, hyper-focused. But the problem is it's in a very narrow range. Like for you, Aimee, all you could, all you could see was your bingo card and the numbers and you know what I mean?
You weren't able to kind of get the bigger picture.
Aimee: Yep.
Henry: So it can literally even happen with your vision, you know, like a horse when they put blinders on it Now, that sort of narrowed focus might help you get away from an attacker, but it does not help you to be more present. Some of us, when we go into fight or flight mode, we don't even get narrowly focused.
It's like our brain just shuts down. It's more like we freeze rather than we, we get focused. But even if you are able to get more focused at first, if stress goes on for very long, almost always it makes it very, very hard, increasingly hard to stay in the present moment with our awareness.
One way to understand that I think is refers to the second part of neuroscience that I want to mention, and that is the sheer speed of brain activity. The different parts of our brain are constantly talking with one another, and they need to do that in order for us to stay functional and, and even to stay present. So energy is always flowing through these different brain circuits and they're sharing information like from one node or one center to another, and they're connected by this very complicated, elegant web of activity. It literally produces electrical energy. And that can be measured by something like an EEG, you know, which people with seizure disorders for example, are, are, it's a test that people get.
So stress is one thing that can speed up these circuits of activity. There are some other things as well. So, taming the stress response and slowing down brain activity are both important foundations for being more present. Now. I'm gonna just put in another plug for the full Joy Lab program here because I think it can be so helpful at practicing this. The third thing I'll mention is even more complex, and I think it goes beyond our current understanding of the brain. For this, we have to talk about the mind. As I understand this, the mind includes the brain, but it is more than the brain. It includes consciousness as well. There are some fascinating theories about this, and one of them that really appeals to me involves kind of a layer of energetic activity. It's like a, might think of it like an elegant net or a web that is overlaying and surrounding the brain. I imagine it as being sort of like an aura. And I know that might sound a little bit wacky. However we concept
You like it. Of course you do. I do too.
Aimee: good.
Henry: However, we conceptualize this. The conscious mind is different from the thinking mind.
Aimee: Hmm.
Henry: It's really crucial to understand this, to create more presence. It also helps us to deal with the problem that we talked about earlier, the thing that makes presence so hard because this gives us the ability to see what is really going on and not be so affected by it. This, this conscious awareness. It's it. It's like it's able to keep us above the fray. We can be more present because we don't feel such a need to avoid emotional pain.
Aimee: I like that. Getting above the fray. That's a helpful cue.
So we want to offer a little practice to help you take action and practice presence. You may be familiar with the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 practice where usually when you're feeling anxiety rise, you can bring your attention to five things you see, four things you feel, three things you hear, two things you smell, and then one grounding or affirmative thought that you have about yourself.
So I like that practice, but sometimes I get cut up in the numbers and the order of it all, especially when I'm feeling a little stressed. And if I'm trying to come back to the present moment, it sometimes is a little, uh, cumbersome for me, can take too long. So for maybe the more mild moments of discomfort where you wanna come back to the present moment or maybe when you're caught in a quicker game time decision.
Like, is this bingo game really that important? ? No, it's not Aimee. I think simplifying it can be helpful. I like to call it. I sense. Uh, so this is a little nod back to our last episode on the flavors of curiosity. That flavor of interest. And all you need to do is go through all or, or most of your senses and identify just one thing you notice, for each of those in the present moment.
So you know, I feel, I see, I hear, I smell. Maybe I taste go in any order. You can go back around as many times as you need. So using my story from before, I should have done it. I know it . I'll do it next time. I'm practicing as we all are. Here's what it might have sounded like.
I feel tight in my stomach. I see someone speaking to me. I hear that bingo number. I smell old carpet. I'm still feeling distracted, so I'm gonna go around again. I kind of feel flush. I see the person talking. I hear B 16 and some of that person talking to me. I smell that spaghetti they're serving. I feel more open.
less frustrated. I see their hands on their lap. The person speaking to me, I hear them talking to me, and they seem to be having a hard time. Now I'm back in the moment and I can make a decision because I'm out of my future thought loop of worrying about missing out on winning, and now I'm back. I have a better sense of what's going on and I can make a choice.
Henry: I love it, Aimee. And I love how you simplified it. It just cuts right through the complexity we've been talking about when it comes to presence.
Aimee: Yeah.
Henry: I, I think your, I sense practice works because it loosens the grip of thought. It helps us bypass the thinking mind, at least for a few moments. And it just brings us right back to the here and now. What am I experiencing right now? I think that's a pretty good definition of presence.
What is happening right now in this particular moment? And can I stay with it? Can I just stay with it? You know, maybe presence is pretty simple after all.
Aimee: Yeah, it, you know, it just takes a lot of practice to undo what we've built up over the years. I think there's something there. We are built to be in the present moment. So to close, I want to look to a thinker, author, teacher, who I like to quote, uh, quite a bit, Alan Watts. He's got two quotes I love and that can help us tie up our conversation and maybe inspire some more practice for our present moment awareness. Here's his first:
" Instant coffee, for example, is a well deserved punishment for being in a hurry to reach the future." I like that
Henry: I love it.
Aimee: Right. It's true. Here's another one:
" The art of living is neither careless drifting on the one hand, nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive."
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