Being Well with Forrest Hanson and Dr. Rick Hanson

It's easy to run our lives through a filter of, "What does this look like as I'm doing it?" This constant self-monitoring inevitably leads to self-consciousness and anxiety. In this episode, Forrest explores how we can break out of this “internalized panopticon." He talks about where the feeling of being watched comes from, why modern life has turned the volume up on it, how we internalize that as self-monitoring, and how we can get some freedom from it. He covers the research on meta-perception, and introduces a simple model for figuring out who actually gets a say about how you live your life.

Key Topics:

0:00 The panopticon

1:32 What it feels like to be watched

4:55 Meta-perception: the call is coming from inside the house

8:23 Where the watcher comes from

14:24 Why it’s louder for some people

19:05 Context collapse

24:29 The four rings

29:05 How to escape

34:56 Building a backstage

38:20 Who will you give power to?

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Most relationships, romantic or otherwise, tend to get stuck in predictable patterns of conflict. This episode is about how to resolve that conflict, and get things moving again. Dr. Rick and Forrest draw on Rick's decades of work with couples and families to talk about getting on the same team, healthy boundaries, making clear requests, differentiation, and the pursuer-distancer dynamic. The episode closes with Forrest and his fiancée, associate therapist Elizabeth Ferreira, on fixing versus feeling, and how they worked through it in their own relationship.

Key Topics:

00:00: Intro

01:30: What Rick wishes couples did differently

09:22: How to ask for what you want

16:36: Differentiation and family systems

28:33: When both people are right: content vs. tone

37:58: Why fighting can feel good

42:09: The pursuer-distancer dynamic

47:15: Resentment and requests about the future

55:33: Fixing vs. feeling with Elizabeth

1:06:59: Recap

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Forrest is joined by Dr. Ashley Mason, a clinical psychologist and sleep researcher at UCSF, to discuss Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for insomnia (CBT-I). They talk about what separates insomnia from a few rough nights, why people with insomnia sleep (on average) only a little less than everyone else but experience the night completely differently, how insomnia develops and what keeps it going, and the five pillars of CBT-I. Dr. Mason walks through what treatment looks like in practice: fixing your wake time, restricting time in bed, working with 2am thoughts, a surprisingly early caffeine cutoff, and why meditation apps in bed are a hard no.

About our guest: Dr. Ashley Mason is a clinical psychologist and associate professor of psychiatry at UC San Francisco, where she directs the Sleep, Eating, and Affect Lab and leads the insomnia treatment program at the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Health.

Key Topics:

00:00: Introduction

03:43: What insomnia is, and why it’s not just about hours of sleep

14:06: How insomnia develops

20:40: Sleep hygiene, the five pillars of CBT-I, and caffeine

27:02: What treatment looks like: wake time and time in bed restriction

35:20: Sleep anxiety, tracking, and working with 2am thoughts

39:31: Sleep as a performance category, fear-mongering, and alcohol

46:00: Meditation apps, relaxation, and brain dumping

50:34: How well CBT-I works, and using heat for sleep and depression

1:03:26: Recap

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In this second episode on self-acceptance, Forrest and Dr. Rick focus on how to accept the parts of ourselves we don’t like. They explain why "just love yourself more" rarely works, walk through a four-step process, and talk about why acceptance gets easier when you can set boundaries with yourself. They also cover accepting the “bad” parts of who we are, how to work with the persona you've built to get through life, and self-authorship: taking a hand in who you're becoming.

The Healing Link: In this new six-week live online course course, Rick will teach you how to use concepts from neuroscience to repair old wounds and change some of our most ingrained patterns. Learn more at RickHanson.com/Linking, and use promo code BeingWell25 to receive a 25% discount.

Key Topics:

0:00: Intro

3:31: If I accept myself, won't I get complacent?

10:01: Why "just love yourself more" doesn't work

14:36: Group 1: Authentic parts we don’t like

23:51: Boundaries with your own parts, and sticking up for them

32:07: Accepting the difficult stuff

41:01: Own it to regulate it: mean streaks and near enemies

45:49: Group 2: Working with the act

54:46: Self-authorship

1:01:02: Recap

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Self-acceptance gets recommended constantly, but are we really supposed to accept the parts of ourselves we don't like? Won’t that stop us from changing? Dr. Rick and Forrest discuss what self-acceptance is, what it isn't, and why it’s the starting point for real change. They share the four stages of competence (and why conscious incompetence is where learning stalls), the two escape hatches people take from it, why harsh self-criticism is a form of avoidance, and Rick's three circles model of the act, the scared self, and the being.

The Healing Link: In this new six-week live online course course, Rick will teach you how to use concepts from neuroscience to repair old wounds and change some of our most ingrained patterns. Learn more at RickHanson.com/Linking, and use promo code BeingWell25 to receive a 25% discount.

Key Topics

0:00: Intro

3:04: What self-acceptance is (and isn't)

6:43: The four stages of competence

10:59: Two bad exits: "idiot" self-acceptance and excessive self-criticism

13:24: Critical self-acceptance: judge the behavior, not the self

22:13: The three circles: the act, the scared self, and the ‘being’

26:44: The two things people struggle to accept

32:27: Should you accept the act?

43:20: Being with, working with, and the two levels of acceptance

51:35: Recap

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Shame is one of the hardest emotions to work with, in part because it blocks what we need most when we’re feeling shame: self-compassion. Dr. Chris Germer, co-developer of the Mindful Self-Compassion program, joins Forrest to discuss how we can get around that trap. They talk about where shame comes from, how to recognize it when it’s hiding behind other emotions, and practical tools that help us experience less shame.

About our Guest: Chris Germer is a clinical psychologist, lecturer at Harvard Medical School, co-developer of theMindful Self-Compassion program with Dr. Kristin Neff, and author of the new book Self-Compassion for Shame.

Key Topics: 0:00: Intro: shame, hiding, and why it blocks self-compassion 2:52: What shame is and why it hides 9:45: How self-compassion changes the inner voice 13:44: The arc of working with shame 18:05: Shame as an innocent emotion 22:57: Backdraft and the wish to be loved 29:50: Self-compassion as exposure 39:43: When people really do judge you 45:33: The "shrug" 47:56: Healthy shame, toxic shame, and the parts of you 58:48: Recap

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Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is the world's most researched, recommended, and criticized form of therapy. Clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Hendriksen joins Forrest to talk about what CBT is, its history, its strengths and weaknesses, and why it's gotten such a bad rap. They walk through the common criticisms: that it's spreadsheet therapy, that it's a form of self-gaslighting, and that it has an, er, "complex" relationship with insurance companies. They then apply the best of the CBT toolkit to Ellen's areas of expertise: self-criticism, perfectionism, procrastination, and social anxiety.

About our Guest: Ellen is a clinical psychologist at Boston University's Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders and the author of How to Be Yourself and her newest book, ⁠How to Be Enough: Self-Acceptance for Self-Critics and Perfectionists⁠.

Key Topics:

00:00: Dr. Ellen Hendricksen and what differentiates CBT

7:54: Is CBT warm?

10:25: The first wave: behaviorism

19:57: The second wave: cognitive therapy and Aaron Beck

26:18: The third wave: mindfulness driven approaches

31:44: How the same problem would be handled by the three waves

34:53: Issues of fit

38:00: Critique 1: CBT is reductive

42:30: When CBT is a poor fit: trauma, intellectualizers

53:27: CBT for social anxiety and perfectionism

1:01:14: The two ingredients of perfectionism

1:07:46: Perfectionism and procrastination

1:25:07: Recap

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Pain psychologist Dr. Rachel Zoffness joins Forrest and Dr. Rick to explore what pain is, why it can persist long after an injury has healed, and what actually helps. Rachel explains why the brain, rather than the body part that hurts, is what constructs pain, the difference between acute and chronic pain, and the distinction between hurt (what you feel) and harm (what's damaged). They get into the biopsychosocial model, the "pain dial" that stress, sleep, mood, and social connection can turn up or down, the disappointing response rates for most pain treatments, why pain is absolutely not “just in your head,” what sham surgery and open-label placebo studies reveal about how pain works, and why the research is so hard to interpret.

This is not medical advice. Please do not start, change, or discontinue any medication based on this episode. All decisions should be made with your doctor.

About our Guest: Dr. Rachel Zoffness is a pain psychologist, assistant clinical professor at the UCSF School of Medicine, and the author of Tell Me Where It Hurts.

Key Topics:

0:00 Introduction

1:42 Acute vs. chronic pain

3:41 What is pain?

9:20 The biopsychosocial model

11:11 Hurt vs. harm: the tale of two nails

19:10 The pain dial

23:10 Nociception vs. pain

26:46 Your pain recipe

29:46 The "all in your head" stigma

31:23 Central sensitization

35:53 Pushback from pain patients

40:42 Loneliness and pain

46:51 Pacing

50:48 Reducing distress vs. reducing pain

54:26 Does anything work?

1:00:07 What placebo actually is

1:03:19 Acupuncture, sham surgery, and open-label placebo

1:09:42 Why the research is such a mess

1:14:10 Hopelessness, and trying one more thing

1:17:46 Mindfulness and attention

1:23:02 Advice for friends and family

1:30:22 Recap

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Dr. Rick and Forrest talk about what separates people-pleasing from the fawn response, and why those differences affect what actually helps. They trace the surprising history behind both ideas, explain each’s relationship with trauma, and answer common questions along the way. They discuss why old friendships pull you back into old patterns, when appeasement is actually the right call, how to assert your needs when people expect you to concede, and how to figure out what you want after a lifetime of tuning into everyone else.

Sign up for Dr. Rick's new Boundaries workshop, and use promo code BeingWell25 to receive a 25% discount. http://rickhanson.com/Boundaries

Key Topics:

0:00: Introduction

2:05: What’s the difference between people-pleasing and “just being nice?”

8:50: Common signs of people-pleasing

21:00: Where "people-pleasing" and “fawning” come from

27:00: Pete Walker, trauma, and how the two terms got merged

30:45: "Is the conflict causing my anxiety, or is my attachment style causing the conflict?"

39:10: Becoming more assertive

47:30: How to change relationships built on the pleasing version of you

55:15: Emotional neglect, shame, and learning what you want

1:04:30: Recap

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Forrest is joined by his parents, psychologist Dr. Rick Hanson and nutritionist Jan Hanson, to discuss "Depleted Mother Syndrome:” the exhaustion, brain fog, and low mood so many mothers experience. They talk about how Jan hit bottom in the years after Forrest and his sister were born, why the hardest stretch often comes two or more years after birth, the problem with dismissing these experiences as "just motherhood,” and how people can recover.

Key Topics:

00:00: Intro & welcome Jan!

2:39: What inspired the book

10:02: Dr. Rick’s perspective

13:30: Depleted Mother Syndrome

18:33: The accumulated impacts of motherhood

25:44: Taking care of your health as a mom

36:40: Rick & Jan’s personal experience

50:08: Small actions that maintain and repair a relationship

1:04:19: What Jan would tell her younger self

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We’ve all been told to “feel our feelings,” but what does that actually mean, and how do you do it? Forrest talks with trauma therapist Simone Saunders about how to go from knowing your patterns to being able to do something about them when things get intense.

They discuss what your nervous system does when it decides you're not safe, why the tools you've collected go offline in exactly the moments you need them, and how a sense of agency changes that equation. Simone walks through her three-step process for noticing a sensation, working out what it's asking for, and doing something different with it. They also talk about the functional freeze, what to do when you “don’t feel anything,” and how to relate to shame and grief.

Key Topics:

00:00: Intro: overthinking, cognitive bypassing, and intellectualizing

4:42: What it means to “be in the body”

9:46: Bottom-up approaches and trauma

18:33: How to recognize disconnection and functional freeze

28:38: Moving out of a dictatorship and into a partnership with your body

34:51: How to actually feel your feelings

46:29: The difference between emotions and feelings

52:14: Meeting your needs

57:40: The limit of self-understanding, frameworks, and tools

1:00:07: Moving into experiments, titration, and when you feel too much or not enough

1:17:28: Recap

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Dr. Rick and Forrest explore how to become more resistant to manipulation, discussing terms like gaslighting, DARVO, and love bombing. They talk about why cynicism doesn’t make you immune to manipulation, and how excessive skepticism and trust can go together. They share the “handles” manipulators exploit, break down common forms of reality distortion, emotional manipulation, and situational engineering, and discuss what actually helps.

Key Topics:

0:00: What is manipulation?

6:25: Are cynical people less manipulatable?

14:52: How can we become manipulation resistant?

25:51: How manipulation works

26:30: Tactic 1: Reality distortion

33:49: Tactic 2: Emotional manipulation

38:02: Tactic 3: Situational engineering

40:00: Key qualities to develop

45:17: Establishing protective systems and managing "the fuzz"

1:02:36: Recap

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Terms like boundaries, gaslighting, triggers, trauma, and attachment are everywhere now. Dr. Rick and Forrest answer a listener question about the consequences - good and bad - of clinical language escaping the therapy room. They then answer three more questions: an introverted listener wonders about the pressure to be social, a couple wants to know how to loosen their strict scorekeeping around household tasks, and a 27-year-old wonders whether becoming a therapist means wasting the degree they already have.

Key Topics:

00:00: Introduction

1:24: Question 1: The rise, and problems, of therapy speak.

8:15: Boundaries as a tool for control

11:04: Epistemic injustice: who gets believed

14:48: The ups and downs of labels.

19:20: Question 2: Do I really need to expand my social circle if I'm happy being mostly alone?

28:23: Question 3: How do we balance household responsibilities without scorekeeping?

41:15: Question 4: I want to become a therapist, but I’m scared to change careers. What should I do?

51:30: Recap

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Dr. Rick and Forrest explore burnout: what it is, why it’s so common, and what people can do about it. They begin by framing burnout as largely a structural problem that individuals are forced to manage. They unpack the six major drivers of burnout, why some people are especially vulnerable, and how chronic stress affects the mind and body. They then turn to practical ways to recover more effectively, including psychologically detaching from work, finding more effective forms of relaxation, protecting your own self-concept, and reducing underlying vulnerabilities. Finally, they talk about how we can preserve meaning and agency when we truly can’t change our circumstances.

Key Topics:

00:00: Intro and burnout as a structural issue

7:20: Six major factors of stress and what to do about them

21:57: Mindfulness, relaxation, and recovery

34:11: Protecting your own self-concept and job crafting

41:46: Reduce vulnerabilities and taking care of yourself

1:04:45: Recap

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We all understand the emotional impact of grief, but its effects on the body are often overlooked. Forrest is joined by clinical psychologist and researcher Dr. Mary-Frances O’Connor to explore the physiology of grief. Dr. O’Connor explains how our brains and bodies organize themselves around the people we love, creating “maps” of their presence and relying on them for physical and emotional regulation. They discuss the health risks associated with bereavement, how to care for the healing body, ambiguous loss, the difference between grief and prolonged grief, and how we can gradually build a meaningful life around loss.

About our Guest: Dr. Mary-Frances O'Connor is a Professor of Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Arizona and Director of the Grief, Loss, and Social Stress Laboratory. She is the author of two books on grief: The Grieving Brain and The Grieving Body.

Key Topics:

00:00: Intro

4:42: The map that no longer exists

12:00: Co-regulation: the attachment figure as an external pacemaker

16:35: Physiological effects of grief

24:53: Taking care of yourself after a loss

36:46: Protest, despair, and meditative practices

45:45: Prolonged grief and getting stuck in restoration

57:31: Progressive Muscle Relaxation vs mindfulness

1:03:00: Re-engaging with the world

1:15:42: Recap

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Some kids learn early on that the way to be loved is to be useful. They take on the emotional or practical care of their parents in a process known as parentification, and today Dr. Rick and Forrest explore the costs of being a “gifted child.”

They discuss the “bargain” these kids make: suppressing their authentic self in order to fulfill a role and earn love. Over time, this bargain can harden into a false self that makes it difficult for the person to connect with their true wants and needs. They then walk through four tracks that allow us to reclaim authenticity: becoming visible to yourself, building a coherent narrative, reconnecting with what you gave up, and renegotiating relationships. Topics include the paired extremes of grandiosity and depression, why so many capable adults go blank when asked what they actually want, and why understanding a pattern isn't the same as changing it.

This episode is heavily influenced by psychologist Alice Miller’s classic book The Drama of the Gifted Child.

Key Topics:

0:00: Intro: what is parentification?

9:18: Examining your own childhood

13:18: Grandiosity and Depression

18:37: Peer-entification, self-narratives, and adult relationships

23:29: Emotional insight and grief

27:09: Tracks to healing

35:10: Track 1: Becoming more visible to yourself

39:26: Track 2: Building a coherent narrative

45:21: Track 3: Reparenting

50:49: Track 4: Building a new bargain

1:05:26: Recap

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Most of what people know about Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) comes from movies and short videos, and those media portrayals often have little to do with what DID is actually like. To get the real picture, today Forrest is joined by Dr. Milissa Kaufman and Dr. Lauren Lebois, experts in dissociative disorders and trauma research. Dr. Kaufman had DID herself, went through treatment, and made a full recovery.

They explore the spectrum of dissociation, from everyday experiences to clinical presentations like DID, before talking about how DID develops as a childhood adaptation to trauma, the problem with the term “multiple personality disorder,” and what the brain science tells us. Milissa describes her own “inside people,” the shame and secrecy associated with DID, and the slow shift from "that wasn't me" to "that was me all along." They then cover what treatment looks like, what to actually look for in a therapist, and what recovery means.

About our Guests: Dr. Milissa Kaufman is a trauma psychiatrist at McLean Hospital and Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Lauren Labois is a cognitive neuroscientist and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. They are co-directors of the Dissociative Disorders and Trauma Research program at McLean Hospital.

Check out the Trauma Continuum at Hill Center: https://traumacontinuum.org/

Key Topics:

0:00: Intro and Dr. Kaufman's personal experience with DID

6:51: The spectrum of dissociation: Depersonalization, Derealization, and Dissociative Identity Disorder

17:12: Dr. Kaufman's experience of DID

22:58: The paradoxes and shame involved with DID

36:46: History of skepticism around DID, and the role of modern neuroscience

43:09: Treatment for DID and trauma-informed treatment

1:00:43: What healing and recovery looks like

1:10:48: Recap

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Dr. Rick and Forrest continue last week’s conversation on avoidance coping, this time focusing on how to move from insight into meaningful action. They explore why self-awareness often isn’t enough to create change, focusing on common impediments like ambivalence, shame, and the difficulty of seeing our patterns in real time. They then unpack the practical science of change: surfacing predictions behind avoidance, testing them through right-sized experiments, and fully internalizing the outcomes. Other topics include scaffolding, state-dependent learning, the HEAL process, and what to do when the dreaded experience actually happens.

Key Topics:

0:00: Intro: why awareness isn't enough

4:54: Ambivalence to change

13:50: Other impediments to change22:00: How to want to change

28:42: Creating predictions

32:26: Setting up an effective experiment

43:26: Linking new outcomes to old memories

1:01:51: Recap

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We all have patterns we can see clearly…and still can't seem to stop. Dr. Rick and Forrest explore how avoidance fuels these patterns, and how we can break the avoidance loop by updating our expectations and predictions about the future. They discuss what avoidance coping is, how the brain works as a prediction machine, why that means insight alone usually isn't enough to break a pattern, and what the current science of exposure and expectancy violation says about how change actually happens.

This is the first of two episodes dedicated to this topic, the second will focus on how to brave our feared experiences and go from insight to action.

Key Topics:

00:00: Intro: avoidance coping and mental predictions

8:07: Five types of avoidance behaviors

17:35: The invisible cage

23:50: Predictive processing

29:49: Identity and high confidence predictions

34:30: How avoidance can perpetuate painful experiences

40:01: Exposure and the Inhibitory Learning Model

52:00: Answering common questions

56:07: Recap

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Forrest is joined by one of the world's leading happiness researchers, Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky, to discuss the real secret to happiness: feeling loved. Dr. Lyubomirsky explains the key difference between being loved and feeling loved, why self-improvement (usually) isn’t the answer, and how giving love leads to getting love. They then walk through five mindsets that help people both get more love and feel more loved. Other topics include the vulnerability paradox, capitalization and the importance of enthusiasm, using the mindsets to evaluate our relationships, polyamory and non-monogamous love, and AI companions.

You can find Sonja's diagnostic quiz at howtofeelloved.com

About our Guest: Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky is a Professor of Psychology at UC Riverside, and the author of a number of bestselling books including How to Feel Loved with Dr. Harry Reis. She is one of the most frequently cited well-being researchers in the world.

Key Topics:

0:00: Intro: connection as the key to happiness

2:31: The difference between being loved and feeling loved

6:58: What love is

9:09: If only beliefs and the vulnerability paradox

19:36: Mindsets to embrace if you're looking for more love and connection

23:26: The relationship “sea”saw

31:44: Five mindsets to embrace if you want to feel more loved

51:51: AI companionship, polyamory, and MDMA

1:08:03: Recap

Support the Podcast: We're on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link.

Sponsors

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