Dan Siegel is known as a mindfulness expert and for his work developing the field of Interpersonal Neurobiology. Dr. Siegel is Founding Co-Director of the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center. He has written five parenting books, including the three New York Times bestsellers Brainstorm; The Whole-Brain Child and No-Drama Discipline, and Parenting from the Inside Out with Mary Hartzell. Dr. Siegel’s unique ability to make complicated scientific concepts exciting and accessible has led him to be invited to everyone from Pope John Paul II to His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Dan Siegel
How does mindfulness work to help us feel physically healthier and happier? How can we take advantage of all that mindfulness has to offer? Researcher and best-selling author, Dr. Dan Siegel comes back on the Mindful Mama Podcast. He talks about how “parental presence” has been shown to be the key to optimizing the chance of your child have a life of wellbeing and resilience.
Relisten: The Science of Presence (139)[498]- Dan Siegel
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[00:00:00] Hunter: Hey there, it's Hunter, and welcome to Throwback Thursday. Most Thursdays, we are going to re-release one of my favorite episodes from the archives. So unless you're a longtime listener of the show, there's a good chance you haven't heard this one yet. And even if you had, chances are that you are going to get something new listening to it this time around.
[00:00:17] Dan Siegel: I'm realizing that we are the light together. When a candle gives off light, first of all, if it's sharing its flame with another candle, it takes nothing away from the flame on your own wick, right? It's the light that you give off together. Nobody owns the light that's bouncing around the room from a set of candles. So that's the kind of world we need to create as parents, as educators, as people in society.
[00:00:44] Hunter: You're listening to the Mindful Mama podcast, episode 139. Today, we're talking to Dr. Dan Siegel about the science of wellbeing.
Welcome to the Mindful Parenting podcast. Here, it's about becoming a less irritable, more joyful parent. I'm Mindful Parenting. We know that you cannot give what you do not have, and when you have calm and peace within, then you can give it to your children. I'm your host, Hunter Clark Fields. I help smart, thoughtful parents stay calm so they can have strong, connected relationships with their children.
I've been practicing mindfulness for over 25 years. I'm the creator of the Mindful Parenting course, and I'm the author of the international bestseller, Raising Good Humans, and now Raising Good Humans Every Day. 50 simple ways to rest, pause, stay present, and connect with your kids. Yay! Welcome back to the podcast.
I'm so glad that you are here today. In just a moment, I'm going to be sitting down again with Dr. Dan Siegel. The researcher, bestselling author, and therapist talking about how mindfulness helps us work to feel physically healthier and happier and how we can take advantage of everything it has to offer. He’s going to talk about how parental presence has been shown to be the key to optimizing the chance for your child to have a life of well being and resilience.
So who is Dr. Dan Siegel? If you don't know, he's a mindfulness expert and he's the founding co director of the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center. He's written five parenting books including three New York Times bestsellers, Brainstorm, The Whole Brain Child, and No Drama. Discipline, and one of my favorites, Parenting from the Inside Out with Mary Hartzell. And he really has a unique ability to make complicated scientific concepts exciting and accessible.
And he's talked to everyone from Pope John Paul II to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. So I hope that you will enjoy this interview that we are going to have in just a second. And yes, I just love talking to Dr. Dan. You can hear in his voice his, he's going deep. He'll talk towards the end of our conversation about this concept of mwi, me and we together, this concept of interbeing, which is so spiritual and amazing. So I can't wait for you to, join me in this conversation
And now, let's get on to this episode. Join me at the tables I talked to Dr. Dan Siegel.
Are you passionate about parenting and maybe want to become a parenting coach? Perhaps you're a teacher, a therapist, doula, or simply a parenting junkie. then let me tell you about the Mindful Parenting Teacher and Coach Training Program. It's a five month intensive program that can be done from anywhere around the world and gives you everything you need to bring mindful parenting to the people in your life. Here's what people have to say:
[00:03:47] Mindful Mama Member: Hunter's program that really drew me in was that it wasn't just on how do we practice mindfulness. It incorporated the communication and the problem solving and, went a lot deeper. It was really, amazing to be going through this process and have that, weekly support. That extended beyond just our teacher training really, the whole process was really well laid out and organized and having the materials from a teacher perspective was really nice as well. The course is so thorough, like you're given every single bit of material that you could possibly need.
[00:04:20] Mindful Mama Member: This is really a community, reaching far and wide. And I think that this program, because it works on decreasing your inner stress response and taking care of yourself, so then you can give that back to your children and model that behavior for your children as they're growing up into adulthood. Just seeing the positive changes in my own family and knowing that, as I continue to spread that into the community, that will be, like, just even more far reaching.
[00:04:48] Hunter: Enrollment is open now and there are limited spots available. Step into your dream of becoming a Mindful Parenting coach. Find out more at mindfulparentingcourse.com/teach. That's mindfulparentingcourse.com/teach.
Dan Siegel, thanks so much for coming back on the Mindful Mama podcast. I'm so glad you're here.
[00:05:23] Dan Siegel: It's great to be with you. Great to see you again and great to hear you again.
[00:05:28] Hunter: yes. So you are a book writing machine, Dan Siegel. It's amazing. This is a monster of a book, this book, your new book, Aware, the Science and Practice of Presence. And you have, how does one say that? Dove? You have dived even deeper into the science. of meditation in this book in a really big way.
So what I'm getting from it, there's a lot of different things here. There's so much here, but what I'm getting a lot in this is that, that sense of lack of separation, right? That the mind and body, we tend to think of them as these separate things, but the mind changes the body so much, right? Like the way we work with our minds is actually changing our body a lot. That's, tell me a little bit more about that. Is that what you were thinking? There's so much there, so just tell me a little bit about the mind changing the body.
[00:06:21] Dan Siegel: Yeah, so I'd love to know the feeling inside of you when you use the word monster. So monster of a book, what's the internal state that gives rise to that word, monster?
[00:06:34] Hunter: Did I say monster? Oh my gosh. Monster-
[00:06:36] Dan Siegel: -of a book.
[00:06:36] Hunter: I think it was because I got the book like three days ago and I was like, I'm going to talk to Dan Siegel today. Oh my gosh, there's like all these pages.
[00:06:46] Dan Siegel: Oh, so it's a big thorough book.
[00:06:49] Hunter: It is. It's a big, thorough book.
[00:06:53] Dan Siegel: Yeah, Because I've seen monsters of books that are really like aggressive and, not very, inviting. So I hope this book was inviting for you to experience. There's-
[00:07:04] Hunter: -certainly not the Harry Potter monster book, like the, monster book of monsters. Have you seen that in the movies? You're like actually-
[00:07:11] Dan Siegel: No, I would, I just, but there you go. That's great. So in terms of your question about mind and body and stuff, And the interconnection of everything, part of the journey of the book Aware is to let the reader do exactly what you're saying is to experience directly, how there are things that we sometimes think of as separate, but that actually have a fluid connection to each other that we sometimes miss.
And it's you know how you can go, let's say swimming and you swim, let's say doing the breaststroke and you're above air, getting a gulp of air, and then you go underwater and now you're in the water realm. And as you see the fish around you, or you see the plants, or even notice your arms doing the stroking in front of you, feel yourself in the water, somehow water allows us to sense the deep interconnection between you and your environment, you and the water, and then you realize, since I can feel the water, wow, that fish is in the same water. in a certain way, the practice I introduce in the book Aware, called The Wheel of Awareness, lets you experience that interconnection that you have in the analogy of swimming when you're underwater. But then when you come up to take a breath and your eyes look around and let's say some trees on the shore of the lake, you see some dogs running around, you get the impression that everything is separate. So in the air world, the air realm of reality, it's one reality, but in the air realm, We get the feeling, that's why I was asking about the feeling you were having before, that we get the feeling, wow, things are separate. But then in another realm, the water realm, you say, whoa, I'm floating in the same stuff that the fish and plants are floating in. Isn't this amazing how interconnected we all are in the water realm? So that's a part of what the wheel does. At the first step, it, lets you experience directly a feeling, a perceptual shift, which for many people is incredibly liberating.
For others, it's really surprising. And for a parent taking care of a kid, I think it's really healing. Because we think of our kid as, out there, separate and stuff, but we realize they're part of a larger world. and even part of ourselves, we can both differentiate and link. We can realize, yes, we're different, but yes, we're all connected. And that linkage of differentiated parts is something that the book also then explores is the nature of what's called integration. And for parents, it's just incredibly powerful to be able to explore the wheel because yes, as you're saying, the mind and our relationships that include the mind deeply shape the functions of the body So we get healthier. When we create certain states of integration within us. and in our relationships with others, including with our children.
[00:10:23] Hunter: Yeah. So for the listener who's listening saying, Oh my gosh, integration, the wheel, what's going on here? I don't, know where to start. So you talk about in the book, how you were thinking about the nature of our awareness of ourselves and our awareness that happens in meditation and you saw your coffee table that was the shape of a wheel and you realize that, so take the listener through this metaphor of the wheel and how this helps us. What's happening to parents in meditation?
[00:10:54] Dan Siegel: The hunch are the thing that's so exciting is there's a really simple idea that when a child learns it, it really empowers them. When a parent learns it, it shifts the fundamental way you parent. And, in, in many ways as we've known, we've seen it more in neo innovation. In the Aware book, I use an example of Mona, who's a mother of three kids who was really having an overwhelming time trying to care for these young ones, and she was really at her wits end. And the Wheel of Awareness really shifted that, so you can say, what is the Wheel of Awareness? How did it shift Mona's experience? And here's a way to think about it. The simple idea comes from a long line of scientific reasoning and building on scientific studies. And from my own experience, trained as an attachment researcher, which is basically someone who studies parent child relationships. So one of the areas that I work in is the field of basically, attachment functions, like how does the relationship you have with your child shape the development of your child's mind, their brain, their body, their relationships, That's what I study, that's what I'm trained to do.
And for me, I needed to go to all the different fields of science to make sure that my understanding of the developing mind was as comprehensive as possible. So every parenting book I've written has been based on a field I work in called Interpersonal Neurobiology. And I'm giving you all this background because for anyone who just might hear the word integration for the first time, they may think I'm making it up out of thin air. And I just want you to know that there are thousands and thousands of scientific studies that have been compiled together, synthesized, the common ground among them, brought into what's called a conciliant perspective. And so the field I work in, interpersonal neurobiology, draws on all the fields of science to say things like what is the mind and how does the mind develop and what is a healthy mind. And from all of that comes this simple word integration. That whether you're looking at a relationship between a child and a parent where both individuals are differentiated and then they become linked with compassionate respectful communication that would be called an integrated relationship.
So integration is simply defined as stuff being different. And then that different stuff, which is called differentiation, the differentiation stuff that specialize or unique stuff is then brought together in a linkage. That linkage for a relationship is how we communicate with each other. You can do it in a hostile way, or you can do it in a supportive, loving, caring, connecting, compassionate way. An integrative relationship, amazingly, seems to lead to the growth of integration in the brain. What does that mean? It means this incredible organ in your head has different parts, and they become linked. And if you look at every study of well being, integration is what leads to being. If you look at every study of lack of well being, Impaired integration leads to troubles with well being, which comes out as chaos or rigidity, basically, that leads to the following simple statement, integration is the basis of health.
[00:14:31] Hunter: Stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcasts right after this break.
Okay, so for someone who's suffering, who has challenges, has difficulties, anxieties, it doesn't feel a lot of well being. What I'm hearing you say is that, that in their brain, in their mind, there's either a lot of rigidity or chaos. There's not a lot of interconnecting parts, talking to each other, that kind of thing. That would be the mark of a healthy, integrated brain. Is that kind of what the brain. That's right. Okay. And-
[00:17:30] Dan Siegel: the mind is more than the brain. It's the whole body. And it's more than the body. It's our relationships with each other, too. So you could do that beautiful statement you just made about the brain. You could do that with a relationship. if you see Parent child relationship where, they're too fused, their parent gets really agitated when a child is, falls down and hurts themselves. that lack of differentiation can lead to a lot of chaos or rigidity in that parent child pair, called the dyad. Or, if the parent doesn't even care that the child fell down and hurt herself, there'd be too much differentiation, not enough linkage. you It's a balance of this differentiation and linkage. And interestingly, when that balance is not there, you get chaos or rigidity. So this is where the simplest, yeah. What's that?
[00:18:23] Hunter: The middle path. We're wanting to find the middle path here, right? That's the healthiest way is the middle path between chaos, between rigidity or, between too much caring, not enough caring is what you said.
[00:18:35] Dan Siegel: Yeah. And I don't know if I'd say, yeah, I know too much caring. I think the gist of that feeling is. Over identification with a child, or too much controlling, yeah. I don't think we can care too much. But in a sense, the gist of that is we want to care in a way that honors our own needs. I'll meet some parents, for example, who never go to the gym. They don't take time away from their kids. They don't take a break. They don't pursue their own loves and passions and interests. It's all about the kids, all of the kids. I wouldn't call that too much caring. I would call that lack of differentiation. And that parent is really prone to burning out. And that child, with that kind of parenting, is prone to not developing fully a resilient mind.
So I wouldn't want to call, and I think you might agree with this, you wouldn't say, oh that parent is caring too much. It's just that she's Maybe too invested and her identity is too much tied to the achievements of a child. And you see this all the time, a kid on a soccer team, the kid doesn't do well and the parent goes absolute bonkers. Because they're over identifying with the kid. There's no differentiation, they can't say, okay, my kid is not that great at soccer and maybe I'll give them more lessons or maybe they'll play something else or, and you see this and it, erupts as a parent, getting all grumpy and getting rigid or they explode in these chaotic ways. So you can, feel this on the soccer field, you can feel this in the classroom, you can feel it in the bedroom, you can feel it, in any nature of relationality. You can feel it. And here's the second thing that happened with me is, if integration was health, I said, and you look at every process of change, like parenting helps kids grow and change, therapy helps people grow and change, hopefully, and, education is trying to help kids grow and change. And all of those ways we help people grow and change use consciousness. Being aware and things we're aware of. And so I said to myself, integration is health and consciousness is change. What if we integrated consciousness?
[00:20:53] Hunter: And now we're going back to the wheel. Yeah.
[00:20:56] Dan Siegel: this was all like your question, people don't understand integration and that's cool. It doesn't take long to learn integration. I, teach it with Mary Hartzell on Parenting from the Inside Out and all the books I write with Tina Bryson. Are all about integration and brainstorms about integration. my kids sometimes ask me why, or you said, I'm a book machine or whatever. The basic thing is there's so many applications of this fundamental idea that people grasp pretty quickly. like I'll tell you a story in a moment of a kid named Billy was five years old. really grasp the idea of integration that comes from the wheel of awareness and it changes life.
And what does it mean? as you mentioned, there's a table here that I'm looking at right now that has a glass center and a wooden rim. And I would bring my patients up off the couch or chair. And I said, Hey, come on up here. let's integrate consciousness. And they would of course, look at me like I was out of my mind. And since in our work together, we define the mind, they could say that. And so I said, no, I, I may be out of my mind, but not for this reason, give it a try. Let's differentiate the knowing of consciousness. if I say, hello, Hunter, do you know, I said, hello, Hunter?
[00:22:15] Hunter: Sure. Yes.
[00:22:16] Dan Siegel: That's called awareness. But then you have this funny thing called the sound of Hello Hunter.
[00:22:23] Hunter: Yeah.
[00:22:24] Dan Siegel: So right away we differentiate the knowing from the known. See that? It's really, important.
[00:22:34] Hunter: So it's like the knowing is the this knowing is like my conscious, that happened, that kind of thought, like this happened, he said hello. And the known is like the experience of it through my senses, like this hearing, sight, sound, whatever. Is that what you're saying?
[00:22:54] Dan Siegel: Yes, so one level it's just like that. On one level it's, oh, he just said, hello, Hunter. But on another level, that's just another known, that thought, he just said.
[00:23:06] Hunter: Yeah.
[00:23:06] Dan Siegel: So it isn't really, he just said, it's more the direct awareness that I said, hello, Hunter has no narrative with it. That's true. There's no words. There's no thought. It's just, let's just call it knowing. these words fail us because they're not really great words, but they're the best we've got. But let's call it awarenessing. It's not even knowing like a fact so much. It's just, you, had the awareness thing. Hello Hunter, and then there's the Hello Hunter sound in this case. Or if I wrote it to you in a little note, Hello Hunter, it would be light, because you'd see it with your eyes, the note I would write. So what, you do there, and it sounds maybe too intellectual or too philosophical or too abstract.
But actually, if you just take a little teeny bit of time and a teeny bit of effort to recognize this distinction between awarenessing, this knowing this, which is not a thought, Oh, he just said that. It's just, You're aware. That's it, right? It's we have to use the word aware because we're talking to each other, but awareness has no words, right? It's just that amazing thing of knowing, awarenessing, and then you have the weird thing called, not that Hello Hunter is weird, but it's just, it's a known, right? But it could be a whole bunch of things. around the table, I said to my patients, Let's put the awareness in the hub as a visual image that we will distinguish, make different, show that it's special, unique, and discern that knowing in the hub, let's now put on the rim of this table, but no one wanted to call it a table of awareness, we'll call it a wheel of awareness, let's put all the knowns. So we're going to divide the segment up into four segments. And for you, and for me, let's name what these four are so that anyone listening. They don't have to say, oh my God, what did Hunter Dan say? You'll see the logic of it.
[00:25:16] Hunter: Okay.
[00:25:17] Dan Siegel: So let's begin. What kind of energy comes to you, hunter, from outside of the, this body you were born into?
[00:25:27] Hunter: there's relational energy, there's energy of the universe.
[00:25:32] Dan Siegel: What kind of senses do you use? Sound,
[00:25:34] Hunter: touch.
[00:25:35] Dan Siegel: Okay. So sound and touch and smell and taste and touch.
[00:25:38] Hunter: So the five senses.
[00:25:39] Dan Siegel: The five senses, right? So the five senses are ways we pick up energy patterns, literally, not some metaphysical thing, but literally a physical thing. Sound is just movement of air molecules. Sight is just light coming at your eyes. okay, so you have the five senses there. So that's our first of four segments. Those are known energy patterns from outside your body.
[00:26:03] Hunter: Okay.
[00:26:04] Dan Siegel: Now, let me ask you something. Right now, can you feel your facial muscles?
[00:26:11] Hunter: Yes.
[00:26:13] Dan Siegel: So is that outside or inside your body?
[00:26:16] Hunter: Yeah, that's definitely inside the body.
[00:26:18] Dan Siegel: So now we're going to talk about inside the body energy that comes from muscles and bones and your internal organs, your genitals, your intestines, your lungs, your heart. That's just energy patterns. And I don't mean just like, it's meant to bless, but those are energy patterns from inside your body. And in science, we actually call that the sixth sense, your ability to perceive energy patterns from within the body. It's called either the sixth sense or we also call it intero for interior, ception for perception. So our first, yeah, intero.
[00:26:57] Hunter: I've always wondered because like I, when I walk people through mindfulness, we talk about the sense of what you're sensing in your body, right? That felt sense in the body. I talk about the felt sense of the body, but I didn't have the word interoception. So thank you very much.
[00:27:09] Dan Siegel: Interoception, absolutely. Yeah, and it's really an important thing you're teaching when you teach that, Hunter, because lots of studies show that the more capacity you have to distinguish those interoceptive signals and really rest in them and feel them, the more you know your own emotional state, the more you can regulate that state, and the more empathy you have. So it's the basis for social and emotional intelligence.
[00:27:38] Hunter: Wow.
[00:27:39] Dan Siegel: So it's really, interception is like awesome. Okay. But, to keep it at the energy level, right? Those are energy flows from inside your body, right? Now let's move to the third segment of the rim. And the way you move around the rim, by the way, is you have a singular spoke of this wheel, that's the spoke of attention going to these different knowns. So in the wheel practice, or even just in a wheel drawing, you can draw where is this spoke of attention going to? Is it on sound right now? Or is it the feeling in your gut right now?
Or let's go to the third segment. And the third segment is what else can you be aware of? What do you think? Thoughts. Thoughts, exactly. And these are a part of what are generally called mental activities. So that might be emotions, Images, Memories, Thoughts, of course, Beliefs, Attitudes, Intentions, Longings, Desires, all that stuff. Let's just use the phrase, Mental Activity. Now you may say, Hey, that's all coming from inside your head. It's your brain in your head. That's okay. It's probably has a dominant influence on that, but it may be more than that. But for now, you, if you want to say, where's it coming from? Let's just say it's coming from your head. And I don't mean like activity likely gives rise to a lot of our mental activity. It's not a, the brain and the head does not work without the whole body or even the relational world. So we'll just leave it at that for now, but that's a place to begin anyway.
[00:29:12] Hunter: Okay.
[00:29:12] Dan Siegel: Now, if you move the spoke over again to a fourth segment, this one is something you already mentioned, Hunter. It's the relational energy you feel. Like your sense of action to your partner or your child. Or the interconnection you have with nature and the living world around you or the whole planet. So the way I like to remember it, and my daughter did the drawings for the Aware book, and she has a beautiful phrase she uses, it's your interconnection with people and the planet. Nice kind of p alliteration.
So this connection with people on the planet is a relation. Let's just, we want to make these numbered. Let's call that the third segment of mental activities. Let's just name that the seventh sense, just for putting a number on it. And then this would be the eighth sense, our relational sense. And you could say, where's the energy coming from in relationships? And we haven't studied that yet. I'm in a study group where we're trying to really study that, but it could be in the betweenness, right? That you feel it. Like I was just doing a three day solo retreat in the forest and you could feel your connection with the creek, with the stones, with the animals around you, with the trees. And it was so beautiful to feel deeply interconnected. it's not the best word interconnected, but it's the idea that. I'm connected to the trees are connected to me, and in a sense, that relationality is something larger than just the individual parts.
[00:30:48] Hunter: And I love that, you're pointing to the fact that we can sense that in our bodies, too, because if we, isn't it, when we look at our skin, there's no place, if we zoom up real close where our skin ends and the world begins, we're always giving and receiving from the environment around us, as far as air and molecules and things like that. And that's something that we can really feel that you're talking about. And, that gives the sense of that, sense of interconnection and, being part of that gives this huge sense of wellbeing, at least for me.
[00:31:22] Dan Siegel: that is so beautiful the way you said it, because you're just like in the swimming analogy, we can be above the water. And look around with their eyes and we go, everything's separate. Everything's separate. Then we go underwater. You realize, whoa, everything's connected. Everything's connected. And the research is just like you're describing, when people get a chance to connect to each other and get a chance to connect with nature, they get healthier, right? Yeah, go ahead.
[00:31:57] Hunter: No, I was just gonna, so for the listeners, so we're talking about, Kind of what I'm getting here is where we're talking about that sense of awareness in general right there in the middle of that wheel. And then on that, outer edge of that, the rim of that wheel, there's our five senses, the way we pick up energy, the way we sense our body, our mental activities, and then our relational energy, And all of these things like really help us to get this sense of wellbeing. and you're, what I'm getting from this idea of the wheel and what you talk about this is that, it's like the awareness of our awareness, That, sense that, We have this awareness of this knowing that we were feeling these things, that we having that interception or we're having that relationship, that also adds to the sense of wellbeing.
[00:32:48] Dan Siegel: Absolutely. And like even now in our connection, I've turned off my video because your sound was not coming through so well. So I think the energy that the fiber optics could contain. Once I turned the video off, now I'm hearing you more directly. I'll bet if you turn your video off, and I don't want to stop looking at you. I think I might sound might even be better. So let's see if it improves it. But this is where we're aware of awareness in the sense that we're aware of what's in the contents of awareness. And your audio was for me, broken up, press stop video, and then. You're as clear as the bell. So do you notice an improvement in the sound coming to you now that you've shut off the video?
[00:33:33] Hunter: Let's, I'm crossing my fingers. We'll see how it goes.
[00:33:38] Dan Siegel: We'll see. Okay. Anyway, the point here is though, this relates to what you're saying. You can be aware of the quality with which energy is coming at you. And in the Wheel of Awareness practice, what's so fascinating is, It's a practice that simply goes like this. And let me start with a five year old and how he used it because Tina Bryson, my coauthor and I, we introduced the wheel of awareness in the whole brain child, and you can learn how to teach to your kids. So there was a teacher, Ms. Smith, who was a kindergarten teacher. And one day a new child arrived, having been kicked out of his other school for beating up a child on the yard. So he came to her kindergarten class. He, like everybody else learned the wheel of awareness. And then on the next day, Billy, let's call him, he came in to see Ms. Smith during recess and said, Ms. Smith, you gotta give me a break. I am on the yard and Joey took my blocks, I'm about to hit him, I'm lost on my rim, I've gotta get back to my hub.
[00:34:41] Hunter: Beautiful.
[00:34:42] Dan Siegel: So what he was able to do with just the wheel of awareness as an image where she had taught him like we do from the whole brain child book, we teach you basically to say to children, look, did you know your mind is like a wheel where you can have this experience of being aware. We're going to put that in the middle of the wheel, which is the hub.
And then all the things you can be aware of, you can send a spoke out to what you hear, what what you feel in your body. all that kind of stuff. And let's explore what's on your rim. So in this case, Billy amazingly was able to say, on my rim, I feel an impulse to hit. But because now I know I have a hub, I can pause and put a space between impulse, like to hit Joey, and action, the actual hit. And he chooses then from this pause, which also for whatever reason allows him to know the experience of being aware, he chooses a pro social option, which is to seek help from the teacher. And not to hit the other boy. And months later, Ms. Smith wrote me that Billy was beautifully adapted to this new pro social classroom environment.
[00:36:03] Hunter: It's amazing. it's such a testament to like. When we teach children, we teach anyone at any age how to take care of our emotional world, how to take care of the energies that come up in our body, how to take care of these, reactions that we have, then we can, and do things with this knowledge. It's just that we have to start to pay attention to that emotional world, the way we are reactive and start to practice and learn and deal with it. It's a beautiful testament to that.
[00:36:36] Dan Siegel: Exactly, and so here you see we're integrating consciousness, basically allowing this young boy to just have a visual idea, it's a map or a metaphor, a visual image of, hey, awareness is in your hub, what you're aware of is on your rim, take that idea, and as Oliver Wendell Holmes says, and I say this in the beginning of The Aware Book, a mind stretched to a new idea does not return to its original dimension.
So Billy's original dimension was being on automatic pilot. When you distinguish the knowing of being aware in the hub from the knowns on the rim, you stop being on autopilot and instead of just automatically hitting Joey because he was frustrating him because he broke his blocks, he could create. That's space between impulse and action. And in that space could pause, choose a different route, enact a different action, and the whole outcome is different. So for a parent then, what is fascinating is that the Wheel of Awareness as a meditative practice on top of just the idea has proven to be really useful for people in their first And it builds on the science based idea of integrationist health, consciousness needed for change. And it also, fortunately, just by happenstance, happens to have the three research proven pillars of mind training that have been shown to create more integration in the brain, which means a more resilient life. And it also creates five cheeges in the body. You mentioned this when we started. That these molecules of well being are improved. And when you do this three pillar training, the research shows when you develop focused attention, so strengthening the ability to focus attention. and redirect when you get distracted. Number two, open awareness, which essentially is how you learn to rest in the hub and not get swept up on the rim, just like Billy beautifully did.
That's the third. The second pillar is opening awareness. The third is developing what you can call kind intention or compassion and kindness. Kind intention training has also been shown to contribute to open awareness and focused attention in doing the following five things. It reduces stress. It optimizes immune function, improves cardiovascular functioning, reduces inflammation, and even maintains the ends of your chromosomes, your telomeres, by optimizing an enzyme called telomerase so that ultimately the result of all this is it slows the aging process.
[00:39:41] Hunter: Stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcasts right after this break.
[00:42:08] Dan Siegel: So this is what was so neat about the Aware book is, I wanted to call it the Wheel of Awareness. And my publishers called me and said, you can't do that. No one knows where that is. It's too weird a term, so I was walking with my daughter, who's the illustrator for the book, and I said, Oh my god, I don't know what to do. She goes, what do you want to call it? I said, I have no idea. I always wanted to call it the Wheel of Awareness book. She said, how about just call it Aware. So I called up the publishers right away. I said, what about this? They passed it by all their team and they said thumbs up so and that's how the book got the name for my daughter But it's really about being aware. So it's a great title. Actually. It's more than just the wheel as a practice It's really more about the practice as a way to integrate consciousness and create these five improvements in medical health. This integrated brain allows you to have a more resilient life, so you're more flexible and adaptive and feel a sense of equanimity. And what's fascinating about it is it opens a window, let's say for a parent, where when you start doing the Wheel of Awareness as a regular reflective practice, just like you might brush your teeth every day, you can Brush your mind, if you will, every day with an integrated practice like the wheel, you get all three of the research proven mind training pillars.
You get all three of them in one practice, so that's cool. And you get this exploration of the mind that's absolutely fascinating. And in the survey that I did with over 10,000 people, it's been really beautiful to hear people take the microphone and share their experience, to hear what the Wheel of Awareness offers for them in terms of deepening how they not only know their mind but how they stabilize their mind and that's why in many ways it's so helpful for parents because when you have the wheel of awareness as a regular practice, what before was annoying to you, as my mom says, it becomes amusing and you develop this kind of Openness to what is, that you can call parental presence, that my field, attachment research, has shown is the key to optimizing the chance of your child having a positive life of well being and resilience.
[00:44:28] Hunter: I love that parental presence is the key to, to helping your, child have peace and resilience. That's so beautiful. But you mentioned, and it seems like, of course, like the one thing is we're unspeaking here is that, that left to our own devices, right? The brain and not the, just the brain, the mind, the human being has a sort of a tendency to be on autopilot, to be reactive, to be, you talk about the, the filters, right? We tend to build these sort of shortcuts for how we perceive things. And so as we, build this practice of this muscle of awareness, we're, getting all these incredible benefits. But you, mentioned the idea of kind attention and you intention, and so that, that can be developed in lots of different practices like in your practice and also like a loving kindness practice.
Can you tell us what's happening when we are doing a practice like a, loving kindness practice, we're using phrases to, shift from that reactive autopilot mind into a mind that's focused on kindness towards oneself or others. What's happening there? Okay.
[00:45:39] Dan Siegel: Yeah, Hunter, that's really such an important question for all of us to really consider, because, let's just start with some basic notions, that because we're born into a body, the body has a certain evolutionary history. And that history means that certain traits that our ancestors had were really useful to survive. And those traits that weren't useful got our non ancestors to be eaten. They didn't make babies and they didn't make us. So we come from a long line of survivors, that's basically what evolution is all about. So the first thing to say is that because of that history of these bodies we're born into, it means that there can be a tendency to look for the negative things in life, the things that can harm you, the things that will threaten your existence. And, of course, when you're out on the, in the field and the forest and there are animals that want to eat you for lunch, it's really a good thing to be on guard and to be hearing, a little crackling in the woods is a potential predator who's going to eat you.
So that, what's called negativity bias or, threat sensitivity. is very natural for us to have in the world. And the first thing to say then is we have inborn, through our genes, ways that the brain develops with tendencies called propensities to, be overly focused on the negative. So part of, what developing kind intention is to say, I don't always have to be on automatic pilot from genetically what I've inherited.
So that's one beginning of the story. A second thing is that it's not only what you inherit, but it's what you learn. And that's that notion you're raising, which is you have these filters of consciousness that are top down, meaning they've been learned from the past, filters, things that constrain what you're going to become aware of or what gets activated inside of you. And some of those filters are socially constructed. And these days, for example, a lot of children and adolescents. begin to feel inadequate. They feel like they're not as good as the social media pictures they see of other people, even though other people are curating them and only putting the positive things. And you see this increasing anxiety and depression and even suicide in youth. That should be of concern to all of us, especially all of us who are educators or parents. And what I try to let kids and adolescents know is that actually those messages have the potential to really make us feel terrible about ourselves. They're learned messages that you are not good enough. How many friends you have, how many clicks you're getting, all this kind of stuff. for that second reason, there's some intentional effort we have to make it a kinder way of being in the world, a way, a place where you actually feel good about who you are, because you're getting lots and lots of messages that you're not good enough. That's the second thing. The third thing I'll just say is this, is that because the brain is called an anticipation machine, what that means is that, we tend as we get past like probably around five or six years of age, we start learning so much about the world that we start to perceive things, to actually literally see things and hear things through a very constructed. Culture, Brain Repair Process, for actually really hard to see that dog. What's that?
[00:49:46] Hunter: Say, that one more time, Dan. We did have a little glitch in the audio.
[00:49:49] Dan Siegel: Okay. Yeah. So because the brain is an insuspicious machine and we learn so much by five or six or seven years of age, that we start perceiving the world, Through a filter of what we've learned from the past.
So if we've learned what a dog is, for example, so if we know what a dog is, we walk down the street. We actually don't really see with our eyes what's in front of us. We see a built model of A DOG. We even name it dog, and we don't see it. So because of this. This is now a third reason. Anything that can help us be more, what some people call mindful, other people might say more receptive, other people might call it more present, whatever you want to call it, let's just use the word presence, it's actually an art form to have what you could simply call bottom up experience or being present for life or beginner's mind or whatever. Seeing with fresh eyes, these are all meaning the same thing. And so because of this tendency, then as you go through adolescence, you really filter things through this lens of prior experience and anticipation of what's going to happen next. Part of what developing focused attention, open awareness and kind attention involved is combating these three challenges of being a human being.
That can get me really distracted. So I want to develop focused attention and there's a lot in life that can make me not kind to myself or others. So I can intentionally cultivate a feeling of connection. Where this is our eighth sense, a feeling of love and care for my inner life, let's just call that self, even though I don't really like that word, my inner self, let's just use that phrase, and my inter self, would be my relationships with others and their inner selves. And I don't really like the word others, but we tend to use it. And I don't like those words because we're so deeply interconnected that I wish we had another way of using words to indicate that a person in a body that's different from the body you were born into is really a part of who you are. And you notice in that sentence, I never said the word other.
[00:52:17] Hunter: Hard. It's hard to have that language. you're really getting into very deep philosophical things here. there's, I practice in a Sangha, in a Buddhist tradition, and there's a song that I always sang to my daughter from that tradition, that part of the word, the language from the song is, because I am in you and you are in me. And I always thought that must be so deeply. She loved that song so much, I thought, it must be so deeply comforting, just that, that knowledge or that reassurance.
[00:52:47] Dan Siegel: No, it's so important that reassurance, and in some cultures, they'll say things just like that or say things like, you see me, therefore I am. And we don't want to lose our differentiated nature, so it's not like giving up a self. But it's more like expanding what the self is really experienced as being. And it's exactly like you beautifully just said, we are each other. Now I, use the word MWE, M W E, so that you retain the me, because you do have a body, but you're also the we. And the way I like to think about this is an analogy of a candle. That if you're a candle, you are more than just the wax. If the wax is the body, your mind is living in that body. Yes. But it's also the flame. It's also the light that you give off and that's way beyond the wax.
[00:53:46] Hunter: Oh, I love that candle metaphor, Dan. That's awesome. I love that.
[00:53:51] Dan Siegel: Yeah. And I think that's the way we need to start living in modern culture. And this is what kind intention basically cultivates. It says, okay, I've got a body. I did that in my second segment of the rim. Awesome. But now in my fourth segment, the relational sense. I'm realizing that we are the light together. When a candle gives off light, first of all, if it's sharing its flame with another candle, it takes nothing away from the flame on your own wick, right?
And it's the light that you give off together. Nobody owns the light that's bouncing around the room from a set of candles. That's the kind of world we need to create as parents, as educators, as people in society. A shift from what is this separate self, really preoccupation in modern culture that views life as you're just the candle. You're just the wax. You're just the wax. And then if you grow up that way, you feel this sense that something's wrong, I don't know what it is, but something's wrong. And you say, Oh my God, I'm going to die. I better get as many toys as possible or get as much money as possible. And all of the studies show that you start feeling inadequate and miserable. So then you say, I got to get more stuff, more toys, more waxy body. I'm going to get a hundred years in the waxy body. And that's because I think we're living a lie. We're living a lie in contemporary times of a separate self. And as parents, when we begin to realize that we're the first teachers of our children, Let them know that they are the light beyond the wax alone. We're going to create a different life for a child that is more filled with meaning and connection and purpose.
And as they get that healthy way of being, we, the candle would be both the me of the wax and the we of the light. So that's a M W E, M W E. The more we help our kids grow as a M W E, the more we're going to bring well being into the world, and we're going to shift how people are running around this planet right now in contemporary culture with this incredible sense of, let's use the word, dis-ease. They don't feel at ease, it's dis-ease, and of course it leads to disease. This lack of awareness that the lie of the separate self is killing us. is just this hidden, it's a hidden idea, but it's embedded in our cultural way we speak to each other. That's why I'm so like, for my next book, I'm like so driven to gather the insight from young people, from older people, from different tradition.
How do we need to move human culture on this planet, away from a lie that is so embedded. And how we talk to each other, the words like self and other, that we often don't even realize we are perpetuating the lie by the words that we choose, even when we're trying to choose them well. So I'm like, I'm a nut about really thinking deeply about this so that as we raise kids in whatever setting, we raise them as parents. We raise them as teachers. We raise them when these kids enter companies and organizations, and we raise them as people who run media companies or social media platforms. all these ways we shape our notion of the self. And I know this may not be what we thought we were going to talk about today, but the Wheel of Awareness, and it really is how you started, the Wheel of Awareness lets you develop a healthier waxy body, which is awesome. It helps you develop a more integrated brain in that waxy body. Great. And it allows your mind to take more than just what Hunter Clarke- Fields is saying or Dan Siegel is saying, but actually in your own direct experience, to feel, to sense, to realize our deeply interconnected nature as in we, that we are in fact the light beyond the wax alone.
And when you start to live like that, it's a win, win, situation because you will be healthier and happier. Your children will be healthier and happier, and the world we all create is going to be a kinder, more compassionate place for all living beings to be in. And that is a shift that you may think, Oh my God, how can I contribute to that? Start with the Wheel of Awareness yourself. Come to my website, do the wheel, read the where book. it may seem Oh my God, this is too much to do. But actually, it's not too much to do. The It's the thing that we all need to do together, because that's the world we can create, that our children are waiting for us to take responsibility, to recognize what the problem is, and to do something about it.
[00:59:24] Hunter: Dan Siegel, thank you so much. I love the way you're thinking about everything in this incredibly deep way and this way that benefits all of us in finding and being part of the science and the research that backs all of this up and the health of all of this. I really want to thank you for not only just coming on the Mindful Mama podcast again, but also for, the work that you're doing. It's really makes a big difference to me and so many people around the world. So thank you so much.
[00:59:54] Dan Siegel: Thank you very much. It's really great to be with you here, Hunter. And I wish you all the best and for everyone listening to us. this is something that we can actually create. It's not just some ideas you've heard on Hunter's podcast, but it's actually something that in an interconnected way, if we all start doing this, From the inside out like this, I think it's going to blow our minds wide open, the kinds of changes we start seeing on this planet. We can do it. And we really can.
[01:00:28] Hunter: It makes me so hopeful.
[01:00:29] Dan Siegel: Thank you for having me on.
[01:00:30] Hunter: Thank you, Dan. Have a great day.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I love Dan Siegel. I love that idea of Moui, this inter culture. interbeing. It's really the scientific truth and it's when we dig down deep we can feel that, right? We can feel that we are all inter are. It is truly at the base of what I believe about this world, that's for sure.
And I'm wishing you a beautiful week, my friend. Wishing you well.
[01:01:15] Mindful Mama Member: I'd say definitely do it. It's really helpful. It will change your relationship with your kids for the better. It will help you communicate better. And just, I'd say communicate better as a person, as a wife, as a spouse. It's been really a positive influence in our lives. definitely do it. I'd say definitely do it.
It's so worth it. The money really is inconsequential when you get so much benefit from being a better parent to your children and feeling like you're connecting more with them and not feeling like you're yelling all the time or you're like why isn't this working. I would say definitely do it. It's so, worth it.
It'll change you. No matter what age someone's child is, it's a great opportunity for personal growth and it's a great investment in someone's family. You can continue in your old habits that aren't working, or you can learn some new tools and gain some perspective to shift everything in your parenting.
[01:02:18] Hunter: Are you frustrated by parenting? Do you listen to the experts and try all the tips and strategies, but you're just not seeing the results that you want? Or are you lost as to where to start? Does it all seem so overwhelming with too much to learn? Are you yearning for community people who get it, who also don't want to threaten and punish to create cooperation?
Hi, I'm Hunter Clarke-Fields and if you answered yes to any of these questions, I want you to seriously consider the Mindful Parenting membership. You will be joining hundreds of members who have discovered the path of mindful parenting and now have confidence and clarity in their parenting. This isn't just another parenting class.
This is an opportunity to really discover your unique lasting relationship, not only with your children, but with yourself. It will translate into lasting, connected relationships, not only with your children, but your partner too. Let me change your life. Go to MindfulParentingCourse.com to add your name to the waitlist so you will be the first to be notified when I open the membership for enrollment. I look forward to seeing you on the inside, MindfulParentingCourse.com.
Before we dive into this episode, I have a very special invitation for you. Come with me to a beachfront paradise for five days for a powerful personal growth retreat. I'm hosting Bloom in Tulum. Where we will start our days with mindfulness and yoga, eat amazing fresh food, dive into transformative personal growth work, dive into the turquoise waters at the beach or the pool, and perhaps even have a glass of wine and a dance party together.
Does this sound good to you? I have a limited number of spots available for this topic. All inclusive retreat this October. Learn more and apply now@bloomintulum.com. B-L-O-O-M-I-N-T-U-L-U-M.com. Don't wait. Spots are filling up. Bloomintulum.com.
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