Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 597: Neal Allen and Anne Lamott

Episode Date: January 7, 2024

Neal Allen (author of the wonderful Better Days: Tame Your Inner Critic, available now) and Anne Lamott (novelist, non-fiction writer, and swiftie survivor) re-join the DTFH! You can find Neal's new book, Better Days: Tame Your Inner Critic, everywhere you buy your books! You can also learn more about Neal and find his other books on his site, ShapesOfTruth.com. Anne Lamott's new book, Somehow - Thoughts on Love, is coming out this April! You can pre-order it now right here. You can also follow Anne on Facebook. Original music by Aaron Michael Goldberg. This episode is brought to you by: This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/duncan and get on your way to being your best self.

Greens to you, my sweet darling children of the earth. It's 2024 and you are living in the year of the Wood Dragon. Wow, I've never even heard of Wood Dragons. I used to play D&D when I was a kid. And there's all kinds of cool dragons, green dragons, red dragons, blue dragons, chromatic dragons. But I don't remember a wood dragon. That is the best and worst kind of dragon to be because theoretically you can breathe fire, but you're made of wood.

What a better descriptor for the times we're in. Here we are, completely interconnected, are completely interconnected, completely merged with one another digitally, soon to be neurologically and obviously all the other ways, the inhalation and exhalation of all the farts of the world or micro, you know what I mean, the flat, you're breathing flatulence. Wherever you go. I know one wants to think about it. Probably shouldn't be spoken out loud, but that's just one of the ways that we're, and then you obviously are breathing another stuff too. You're breathing in pollution.

You're breathing in those chemtrails that they're spraying in our cities. You're breathing in your own BO. I'm certainly doing that at this very moment. And you're exhaling. And the plants are breathing it. And other people are breathing your excellent. You know what I'm getting at. You don't need to go on and on with my really bad understanding of ecology and respiration. But that's always freak me out. You know, like, how many exhalations does anyone breathe in during a lifetime? Like, you added up all the

different things you're breathing in and could use some... What are those things called mass spectrometers? The stuff they use at forensic files. Then your life just analyze everything you've breathed then Well percentage of that is human breath and if those human breasts how many of them were the final Exhalations of dying people like three death Exhalations from strangers. I mean if you had to bet in Vegas if this was a Bet what where would you put your money? over 10. But then

we're also interconnected to the quantum level and all that stuff and then we're on the same planet and technology is just sort of demonstrating to us that terrible, beautiful reality, but the wood dragon. See, that's the fire part, the technology is the fire part. The wood part is our society capable of being able to breathe fire at this point. This is the crazy things you read these days. You read actual news stories on the potential of some AI-induced stories on the potential of some AI-induced extinction. I mean, it's the same story with a new monster before AI, we were worried about nuclear bombs,

just still a threat. Before that, remember why 2K? And of course, the sun is not behaving lately, zoning out big blasts all over the earth. But it's that quality and humanity that blows my mind. that blows my mind, man. The fact that we are able to make things that can destroy us, all of us, year of the wood dragon. And also, it doesn't have to be all bad. I mean, my God, if you're a wood dragon,

all you have to do is like figure out a way to, I don't know, jump in a lake before you breathe fire. I mean, there's ways to mitigate the problems that wood dragons must run into all the time, where some kind of fire resistant dragon firefighter outfit, maybe I'm sure they have their own solutions of the problem. some kind of fire resistant dragon firefighter outfit maybe. I'm sure they have their own solutions to the problem. Another term for the situation is dangerous opportunity.

This is all the profits of the singularity talked about what we're all experiencing or at least reading about the faster a computer's get. The more accessible the technology becomes. The more promise there is for innovation. Google just discovered using AI, I think two new antibiotics to fight against antibiotic resistant bacteria. And this stuff is going to start coming down the pipes more and more and more.

Just out of the blue, we're going to start seeing cures for things we thought incurable. We're going to start seeing medicines that do things that we thought were impossible, potentially anti-aging I am, prayin' for some working hair cream that doesn't mess with your sex drive. Not just for me, but for the world. Because I wanna see that. I wanna see a world where all of a sudden all these ancient bald billionaires have long,

flourishing, like vampire level hair just flowing over their shoulders, rupert Murdoch, but with just beautiful hair. I'll join them in that. I won't be ashamed of it either. But then also, if you're going to get that kind of technology, that's the problem. What goes along with it is the other stuff that I'll discover. While scientists are eagerly studying protein folding

and some laboratory to cure breast cancer, guaranteed. There's people trying to figure out ways to just turn humans into $20 bills. Just cut to the chase, some beam or some way. You just blast somebody and they turn into a pile of fresh $20 bills. So this is the world we're in. It's the year of the wood dragon. What can you do other than masturbate late at night

after eating pizza? How are you setting yourself on fire, my friends? That is a terrible intro, but I'm going to leave it out, I'm trying to be so poignant. You know what it is? I feel great. Sometimes when I record interviews with my guests, I wait to do the interest, but because I'm glowing from the conversation, I just got to have with Neil Allen and Annie Lamont. I guess I feel poignant now or something. So I'm not gonna edit it.

I'm just gonna leave that that whatever that was there. And then all you have to do is upgrade it in your own mind. Like, take what I that and then imagine if Carl Sagan said it or something. And then that's what I meant. Do that with everything I say from now on. Neil just wrote a wonderful book and I really hope that you will order it because my God, what a fantastic

problem to address a global problem, a world problem. You know, when people are talking about the environment being all fucked up, they generally leave like this human psyche out of the mix. Ice caps melting, sea levels rising, pollution, lack of water, too much water. But nobody talks about, you were as much a part of the environment as anything else. And this human thing that we're all doing right now

is riddled, at least for many of us, with varying degrees of self-loathing, dark critiques of things we just did or will do or haven't done. horrible entanglement with some kind of hissing monstrosity that loves to shit in our food whenever it can. So this is me, this is not from his book obviously, so it's a good book, but Neil he kind of blew my mind today like you know, I have guests on they Have methods that maybe I don't necessarily like Align with Practices that I'm never gonna try but in this one he took a practice from his book which when you hear it done live you go ahead roll your eyes at it It was embarrassing and I didn't want to do it, but

It worked. It's so weird. I'm not gonna spoil it for you. You'll be able to do it with me if you want to and Truly did not expect it to work. And it wasn't like, I mean, we're not talking about like breaking into like DMT hyperspace or something like that level of like astonishment, but definitely a wild exercise that helps illuminate your projections. It is very interesting. I hope you'll stick around for that. I had no idea that Neal's wife Annie would be on the podcast, which was an extra surprise. She is truly one of my favorite authors on the planet. And unfortunately she just had a dark run in with the swifties which

got picked up by all the newspapers and got printed everywhere and it was really interesting to hear someone who I consider to be one of the great writers living today talk about what that's like to be in the heart of a swarm of swifties to experience what it's like to just get suddenly attacked for a completely innocent tweet. So stay tuned for that really interesting, a wonderful podcast. But before you listen, go to Amazon.com and order Neil's new book, Better Days, tame your inner critic. Stop setting yourself on fire and enjoy being a dragon.

That's not the title. It's just better days, Tamer and her critic. I said the dragon stuff. Why am I going back to that? Okay. Before we jump into this very quickly, I've got some shows coming up. Denver Comedy works. I am headed your way next weekend. I cannot wait. That's going to be the 11th 12th, and 13th of January, this show is almost sold out. So if you are thinking about coming, please just get the tickets in advance. After that, you can find me at Helium and Indianapolis.

I'm gonna be there January 25th, January 26th and January 27th. I cannot wait to see you there. I've also got lots of other dates coming up. You can find them all at dougatressel.com. Finally, I have a Patreon. It's patreon.com.com. For the last DTFH, you'll get commercial free episodes

of this podcast, and we gather and talk, though I have been completely disappointing and scheduling regular family gatherings. My dear family don't worry. Now that we're in the new year, they will start again next week. And I'm sorry. I love you guys. I can't wait to see you again. Okay everybody, please extend your psychic tendrils, open your hearts, prepare your minds, have the courage to get past the part of you that cringes at spiritual exercises

and do the spiritual exercise that I did with Neil. Otherwise, we're both gonna seem insane. Please welcome back to the DTFH, Neil Allen and Annie Lamont. Welcome back to the DTFH any hot a Krishna so wonderful to see you to Sorry, I missed you in Hawaii. I heard it was wonderful Well, we missed you it was. I heard it was wonderful. Well, we missed you. It was a nightmare without you. Yeah. How could we steal your babies unless you're there?

Is that why you do that? Why would I? Yeah, it is why. We were going to come, but you know, we had to hire our security that we hired after you with threatened kidnapping. Our children said it's probably not a good idea to bring the babies in a close proximity of the people who want to kidnap the babies. Yeah, I'm sorry.

We're pretty sure we'd be better parents. So it's good for the babies. Yeah, you know, a lot of people on my team kind of disagree with that, including the kids. Well, then obviously you're a permissive parent and you wouldn't be able to discipline them the way that we could having grown up in a different century. I don't like the learning shed thing you guys do. I think that's bad. It's hot. There's no ventilation. I don't see what you learn other than fear and subordination with authority. Self-loathing.

Oh yeah, self-loathing. Yeah, I don't think that's... Do we really need to learn that? Isn't that doesn't need to be taught that something you just sort of pick up a lot? Yeah, and you know this book, what a great time for this book. You know, I have a rule that I'm becoming increasingly stringent about, which is, I don't read comments. Like, I'm off. I'm off. That awful sick technological and hailant that so many people are breathing in all day long.

Just because I realize, like, what am I looking for here? Like either it's going to puff up my ego or it's going to maybe want to kill myself. Like there's nothing in it that, and your book is addressing the internalization of this. This, you know, I mean, this aspect of the mind that even if you avoid reading the comments, has decided to take on the job of reminding you intermittently, generally at random times, what an abject piece of shit you are, just out of the blue, way more effective than the trolls because it's you. So what inspired you to write the book Neil? I lucked into an experience where I accidentally, I suppose, objectified my inner critic, you know, the voice that says, your piece of shit, you're unlovable, or simply says, oh, I can't believe you did that again, right? The bully. It's a bully, and it treats me like a child who can be bullied, right?

And I just lucked into an experience where it objectified itself as a little gremlin on my shoulder. And that ended up being my tool that essentially it was the first tool to bring me into a spiritual practice. Now, along the way, oddly enough, it reduced my anxiety, a great deal. And along the way, it proved to be the centerpiece for everything that I have done that is involved in clearing away the obfuscations or the filters of the ego, right? Which is what all the ancient traditions talk about, but they often don't give you a very good guide. They often, they give you great guides to meditation and they give you great guides to what the

spiritual world looks like and they encourage you great guides to what the spiritual world looks like and they they encourage you to join groups and they have all sorts of tools but then they usually tell you do yourself inquiry on your own right oh you'll figure out what's wrong with what's being said inside you right yeah and so by objecting playing itself, it did two things. One is it made it something that it was easy to examine. So I could actually see how it functioned. I'd never really seen how it functioned. And the second thing that it did was Over time it persuaded me that it was not actually part of me. time it persuaded me that it was not actually part of me. That I had thought, and I think everybody thinks this, that I've run into at least, I thought it was a necessary part of me that kept me moral, right? And that's kind of why your psychology looks at it, generally

speaking. It's a necessary part that's annoying, but it keeps you more. It keeps you from being homicidal and predatory and all sorts of things that apparently people seem to think, Freud and the Judeo-Christian Bible are correct in saying that you're a bad seed and that you left your own devices, you'll go around so selfish that you'll kill and rape for pleasure. Well, it turns out that's just not true. I think we should be allowed to kill people. I agree with you 100%. This is my hobby. Some middle-aged dudes get into woodworking. You need something. I'm glad you said it. I agree completely. So you know Unfortunately, you're a very bad You're very bad Dunkin' it killing and raping because unfortunately, it's not actually true to you

You know you may want to be that but that's just like wanting to be you know Elon Musk or Donald Trump or a great basketball player, right? I don't mean to take this dude, I'm certain point. I think it's the point you're trying to make. Yeah, guys, you just have never thought, like the Jeffrey Dahmer upon like setting up one of his skull alters, think you could have done better. You never get it.

You know, it's actually a serious question in there and I get hit with this a lot, which is, well, if you didn't have an inner critic bullying you and watching over you this way, wouldn't there be more Jeffrey Dahmer's? And I point out to them, the inner critic doesn't really work for Jeffrey Dahmer, does it? So that's not much of a, that's not much of an argument. You're either Jeffrey Dahmer or you're not. And we're critical or not. And, and in fact, they're very, very huge. Jeffrey Dahmer's thank goodness. Well, let's, I mean, we don't know yet, but we will.

But another thing if I can ask the arm candy, if I can interrupt. Yes. The other thing that the voice is so diabolical in doing is just keeping you small and scared. So Duncan, you and I talk about our writing and how we have neither of us has ever once sat down and thought this is so exciting. A new day here I am with the keyboard. You sit down and you think I am so fucked. The well has run dry and people talk about me behind my back because they think that they say, oh, she thinks she's so funny, not, and whatnot. And it's that voice that keeps you so scared and small about who you actually are, which

is creative and a mixed bag. You know, very deeply human, very generous and touching and also kind of were all the different things that we are and it makes you feel the shame of thinking that you can do something successfully that you can try something new. Well, I want to say this, this will not be popular. I realized a long time ago, the usefulness. I like Gremlin. My inner critic, when I think of Gremlin,

I think of something cute. This some time ago, I realized, wow, Satan, what a wonderful tool for taking all of that and just putting it into a nice compartment, Satan, not in the like, romantic Luciferian way, I mean, like, if there were an embodiment of all the bitterness, hate, delusion, warped perception, an intentional aggression in the world,

it would be pathetic, it would be angry, jealous, unhappy, and it was a function of its personality, it would only want to spread that into you. I'm saying if we and I found that to be so you I love get behind me Satan or at least the knowledge of this thing is being yeah it sucks, it's gonna Annie, mean, my God should see what I wrote today. You probably, you probably would not talk to me anymore. The, the, the, it strikes me as like so. And now I'm critiquing the critic. You know, if that's other problem is now suddenly you get this

telescoping critic. Now you are accusing some aspect of yourself or non-self as being Satan. And then you're critiquing that thing and that thing critiques the next. You would get an infinite, never-ending echo of critique. So what is the method of cutting the head off the serpent here? Yeah, it turns out, fortunately, the serpent, the inner critic, isn't very smart. So we think it's diabolical or we think it has the wisdom of the ages in it. Actually, that's what it

pretends to do is to have authority over you in your decision making and to be more moral than you are. And so when you objectify it and bring it out into the open you discover, it actually only has enough morality to talk to a six year old, right? And by the time you're 17, everybody, everybody, by the time they're 17, they're more sophisticated and better at making moral choices than their bullying voice inside. But I'm going to my purpose in this book and in the world right now, I think, is to show people a very simple thing. It isn't you. And I'm going to show, if you don't mind, running the risk of either great radio or bad radio, I'll do it with you.

I'll do this kind of central and people who are listening along to this can try to do it themselves. It's a simple exercise. So I'm going to ask you a couple of questions first. Don't you mind if I do this? No. I don't mind. You know, I'm being a guinea pig and being like, well, you know, know, you're used to being tortured by something right I'm in a torture you right? I just on the last podcast spent seven hours on a song about flating dogs, you know, so

I was the first porn movie I saw. Let's not bog down on this Swedish Swedish blue movie. We possibly want to miss. Look at that bit to me. Okay, I mean, I'm a Sunday school teacher. Alright, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I said, full-ade, I tried to clean up the way. I'm sorry. I'm dog. Yeah. I draw the line. I'll send you the, let me send you the song. Okay. And I'll send you the link to the movie. Okay. All right. So here I have a couple of questions. The first thing is tell me some of the you know, unadorned actual words that your inner critic tells you from time. Fraud.

Time Waster. Give it up. You're wasting your time. Youud. Yeah. Time Waster. Yeah. Give it up. You're wasting your time. You're a fraud. What are you doing? You can't just write. Like, you, you, how long do I take you to learn to do stand?

Well, you're gonna sit down and write. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Go ahead. Open, Micah. Maybe in two decades, something. That's good.

Mid-level. Yeah. I could go on. Yeah. No, we can all go on forever, but I think that your listeners all have heard in their own lives in what they do in their lives the exact same kind of messaging, right? It's always kind of the same. When you hear it, Duncan, when you hear that voice, who's inflections from your childhood does it have? inflections from your childhood does it have? I hold on now I gotta think about it because I have to summon it up. Yeah. Hold on.

You know man I want to be able to answer that in some clear way like it sounds like my dad which it doesn't know Southern twang to it no doesn't sound like my mom. It doesn't, I wish it's more vaporist than that. At least, it's like a vaporist sort of musty, fantasy sort of translucent, brownish muck. If you're, it has a mouth. If you're super ego, if you're inner critic, you're inner critic and you're super ego, the same thing. Super ego is just the name that Freud gave it inner critic is the popular name for it Same thing, okay, so if you're super ego or inner critic Is vague it probably means that it couldn't use it couldn't find

Really good bullying Sounds from its mother or father, But 80% of people there, inner critic sounds like their mom nagging them. Most of the rest of the 20% is their dad barking at them. And some are, it's a grandmother, another caretaker, and some people absolutely and distinguish it from themselves. And it doesn't matter because it's all made up anyway. It's going to be a snarky

inflection, which is more important than who's inflection. Now you've heard it. It's kind of this vague sound. Where in your physical, the physical geography of your body do you hear it? You know, when you don't drink coffee and you get that shitty coffee headache, it's kind of like, it's not a migraine, it's like, but it's like, but it's that, but it sort of creeps into the chest too. It's so, it's up in the head and then it goes down into the chest where it shows up as a kind of like exhausted despair.

Okay, so in the top of your head, pull it out. Pull it out of your head with your arm, hold your arm out with your palm facing you, right? Either arm, right? Okay, now look at the palm. You've pulled your inner critic out of your head or out of your chest, or most people hear it in their head,

coming from their head, some in their chest, some in their solar plexus. Wherever you've heard it, pull it out. Hold it in your palm of your hand at arm's length from you and stare at the palm of your hand. And the palm of your hand will show you will see a person, a thing, or a creature usually. That's really weird.

Yeah, I do see it. It's like a little sinister, little smiley face with creepy eyes. And I'm like, it's a, I don't like it. It's like definitely like Elven-ish. Okay. I see the Gremlin thing you're talking about. I mean, it's just like a soccer ball.

It can look like a puddle. It can look like your father and you can look like anybody or anything. Neil, my hand, what does it mean? My hand is starting to bleed. Like out of the bike, like, is there a nail? It's been there. You're sticking a lot of hair. What does that mean? My hand is starting to bleed. Like out of the bike, like as though a nail had been there. There we go, you're sticking a lot of hair. What does that mean?

It means you're Jesus, you know. Well, just put that. Once you're under critic is removed, you'll find you're true Jesus. So there you are. And the learnings shut. And what's the expression on its face? It's a, it's like, you know, like a,

it's like a sneering grin. Yeah, they're always either kind of a frozen sn- it's like a sneering grin. Yeah. They're always either kind of a frozen neutral or snarky or sneering. And think about it, your inner critic only has that emotion, right? It doesn't have a full breath of a luster. Let me just say this to the radio audience. I know this sounds ridiculous, everyone listening. This is my sound ridiculous.

I know you're thinking, there's no fucking way you see a sneering sinister Elven Grimland thing in your hand, but I'm telling you, like I see it. I mean, not like on DMT, but like I see it in the creases. When I do this exercise with clients or in workshops, and I've done it with hundreds and hundreds of people, 90% of people actually see right away very quickly a face. And I didn't want to see it.

Yeah, I know. I had a whole joke set up with my hair is falling out. So I see hair is dumb. My hair lost joke. But yeah, I see the thing. And I mean, even if you don't see it, if you're out in the audience and you don't see it, this will still work oddly enough. I'm going to keep

you're keep looking at it at arm's length and Duncan I'm going to feed you some questions and I want you to say the question aloud to we'll call it elf okay. Let's go. Okay. Say aloud to elf the question. Elf will answer and tell me allowed so that everybody can hear what else says in response, right? In, in Elf's words. So the first question is, did you do this to you? I'm sorry, Neil, did you do this to you? In a second date. In a second date.

But that's why I went back for a third because it literally blew my mind Turns out trippy experiences on dates are kind of sexy. Yeah, so this is a trippy experience So they say you the first question to ask it aloud is when did you take charge? When did you take charge always been in charge always been in charge? Okay, who put you in charge? Who put you in charge. Always been in charge. Okay, who put you in charge? Who put you in charge? Elf. Obviously what you did. Okay. Why are you still in charge? Well, because you left, why are you still in charge? Because you let me be in charge. I'd like to take charge for a while. Is that okay? I'd like to take charge for a while. Is that okay? Poison my wife. Okay. I'm asking a yes or no question. I'd like to take charge for a while. Is that okay?

I'd like to take charge for a while. Is that okay? No. Okay. What do you worried will happen if I take charge? Oh, it's saying everything falls apart. What a feeling. What makes you think everything will fall apart if I take charge? What makes you think everything will fall apart if I take charge? Elf? Oh, now it's been now it's sort of like being like dodgy. It's like you

already know you know the answer to that. Okay, ask it again. What do you think I need an answer? What do you think? Why do you think things will fall apart if I take charge? Why do you think things will fall apart if I take charge? Oh, because you can't do anything, you know. What makes you think I can't do it by myself? What makes you think, what makes you think I can't do it by myself?

I mean, this is an annoying answer. I wish it was some mystical cool thing. It just says, I don't know. Okay. I think I can. And I'm not worried. I think I can't. And I'm not worried about that. I can take that risk. And if it doesn't work, you can come back. Hold on. Let me cover it's years. What if I am worried? All right. Don't worry about that. I'm feeding you questions. So the next question is, are you worried something bad will happen to you if I take charge? I'll become a relevant it says.

Yeah. I promise I won't annihilate you. I promise I won't annihilate you. And by the way, you mean that. And the next thing to say to it is, ask it is, isn't it tiring running the show all the time? Absolutely. Sick of it. Yeah. So how would you like to go into semi-retirement as my occasional ethical advisor? It's so funny. This is so weird everyone. I'm telling you this works so weird. This is weird, Neil. No, you have to say that to it, Duncan.

Yeah. Tell me to say, how would you like to go into semi-retirement as my occasional ethical advisor? It's saying it wants to be a bird. Okay, you can be a bird. Okay, you can be a bird. Okay, and you can hang around. But you can hang around. And you can handle in my life unless I ask you to. But you can't meddle my life unless I ask you to. Is that okay? It's totally, it seems like, it doesn't seem as sinister either now. You've relieved it of a lot of its worry.

Tell it, I know this is gonna be hard for you because you have the habit of running this show. I know this is gonna be hard for you because you have the habit of running this show. I know this is going to be hard for you because you have the habit of running this show. It says, no, I don't. Okay, I'm, I'm, uh, this is really important to me and I'm, I'm really glad you're, you're going to stay, uh, at quit meddling. Oh, see now it just kind of sarcastic. He's that good luck. Yeah. Okay. What are you worried? Why are you worried? I can't do this. Yeah. Why are you worried? I can't do this. See now, it's just being like, we'll see. It's doing like that. It's doing like my drops. Okay. Now, okay. So I need a dramatic, I need a positive affirmation that you will step outside to the best of your ability in this experiment.

I need a positive affirmation. Say it again. What do I say to it? That you will step aside as best as you can for this experiment. I need a positive affirmation that you will step aside as best as you can for this experiment. It just says I love you. Okay. I want to thank you for saving my life when I was a kid. Oh, that's sweet. Hey, thank you for saving my life when I was a kid. What's its expression?

It's like, it's like, I said, this is where you make me do this on my back. It's sweet. Yeah. And just put it back into your head right now. Basically back into my head. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Weird. That is, okay, that is very weird. Everyone, that is weird. Okay. I was putting on a skewer. You want to get weirder? Yeah. They all answer the questions about the exact same way. That's real weird. They're all the same.

Who put your charge here? Your inner critic is the same as everybody else's inner critic. If they give you a slightly different flavor, it doesn't matter. They're roughly the same. This episode of the DTFH is sponsored by Better Out. Give online therapy a try at BetterHelp.com, forward slash, dunkin' and get on your way to being your best self. It is the year of the Wood Dragon and we are all setting ourselves on fire.

You don't have to do this. There are ways to mitigate the self-immolation related to your incredible magical power. I know I've said this in many better health commercials, but I've been to therapy. I'm so lucky that I finally went to therapy, didn't want to go to therapy, didn't like the idea, didn't... my mom was a therapist, I didn't want to go to therapy, maybe that's why. Didn't my mom was a therapist. I didn't want to go to therapy. Maybe that's why the whole thing just seemed like a mess and

the way that looked for me was You know a lot of denial about where I was at in those days emotionally A lot you know, I'm sorry better help. I really hope you'll forgive me for this example And I'm gonna try to make it really as clean as... I... I had a fleshlight that I used and I left on the windowsill of my shower. be a windowsill of my shower. And it sat in the sun for days and days and days, months, to be honest. And I just didn't wanna deal with the fact

that like I had humped a fleshlight. I mean, the thing was there. I knew what it was. It just kinda looked like some old thermos up there. But at some point, man, you gotta take the fleshlight down. And you know what I mean? You gotta open it up.

You gotta pour out all that shower water and whatever else might be in there. And I never forget, when I did it, I'll never forget how disgust is black. It was like calligraphy ink poured out of there and and then after that the fleshlight it wasn't blocking the sunlight anymore. That was coming through the window. Now I'm sorry for that example but I mean it with all my heart. A lot of us we've got some kind of fleshlight on our windowsill.

Some thing we're ignoring, some thing that's blocking the sun. And maybe you just have hints of it. Maybe you don't see the fading blue color of the exterior plastic. Maybe you just have a general anxiety, a sense of malaise, a feeling that maybe you don't need to wake up in

the morning with random mild suicidal ideations. Who knows what it is? But there's a kind of intuition like, you know what? It might be nice to talk to somebody. And for some reason, if you're like me, you don't listen to that. I'm going to meditate my way out of this. I'm gonna use psychedelics to get my way out of this. I'm gonna read this book or that book and none of it in my own experience, my own subjective experience. Nothing was more effective. Nothing was as quick and precise as finding great therapist and opening up to them and like it was one of the most incredible crazy experiences I've had in that like you know if you were like me and you're sort of you know walking around with an old stinky, moldy, and fleshlight in your heart, you start thinking there's no it's always going to be there. It's not going anywhere.

And then when it's gone, when there's some relief, I'm not saying like there's not still like, you know, when you leave a glass on your counter, there's that ring. I'm not saying there's, it's all gone, necessarily, but my God, it works. There's a reason that so many people talk about it. This is too long a commercial, but I'm going to keep going because I mean it. It's a wonderful gift,

not just to yourself, but to everyone around you and it does improve your life. So if you're thinking of starting therapy, give better help but try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and you can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. This is a very important thing because sometimes whether you're doing online therapy or in person therapy, you just don't vibe with a therapist. And you need to be in a situation where if you need to you can keep looking and better help makes that easy for you to do. Celebrate the progress you've already made. You first month. That's better help H-E-L-P.com slash Duncan. Thank you, better help.

I'm so sorry if my flashlight example, that was all from me. That was definitely nothing was written on the better help sheet saying use a flashlight example. Obviously. But definitely use better help. You want to hear me? Yeah. They all answer the questions about the exact same way. That's real weird.

They're all the same. Who put you in charge? Your inner critic is the same as everybody else's inner critic. If they give you a slightly different flavor, it doesn't matter. They're roughly the same. Wow. That is so fascinating. Yeah. They're not you, right?

You were talking to somebody that was clearly not a real person, right? Yeah. And it's a made up person that's got a very narrow emotional being. And by the way, they're all more worried about their own survival than your success as a mature human being.

Right. And now I think that's weird. I think that having a fact, similarly of a person that clearly isn't a biological person, that is hanging around and bullying me for that to actually have a survival instinct. That's just weird, right? But they all do. There are what I mean about their survival. Immures the most irritating people you run into in the world. They're all like that. They it's like I it's like they've embodied the thing completely. Yeah. It's the most annoying way a person can be. Well, the world is there in her critic too. The world's like an alcoholic father and it does a lot of shaming and it just scares us to

death but when we were small children that voice kept us from running out into the street. Well that's the thing. Are you swimming out too far for us to keep afloat? You actually weren't under the influence of a super ego until you were about five or six years old and until you're five or six years old, there are adults kind of hovering over you, preventing you from making dangerous, fateful decisions like running out into the street. But then you're taking off your leash a little at six.

And Freud had a great term for it. He said, you're interjected with your super ego. And it's like, oh my God, they took a hypodermic and stuck a nagging mom. He said, you're interjected with your super ego. And it's like, oh my God, they took a hypodermic and stuck a nagging mom, my nagging mom, into my carotid artery, and I carried around with me from now on. It's not my mom.

It's only my nagging mom. It's not my dad. It's only my bullying dad. Stop filating the dog. Over and over and over. It's who my bullying dad. Stop belating the dog. Over and over and over. It's who I am. I'm sorry. The dog, I won't do anymore of that style joke.

I can tell you one thing, Duncan, Annie will not be promoting this video for her audience. Oh, I think you underestimate your audience. Many of your audience, you will be super, you, I don't know what that meant. The, to me, this thing, it projects itself, this is not my original idea, God, I wish it was. You know how Jung said, the shadow shows up in leaders that the collective shadow appears as it will manifest as a thing in society, it will manifest as a thing in society.

It will manifest as a thing. And, you know, and I don't mean to keep going back to because I know it's a little hacky, but I'm telling you the amount of vitriol you encounter on message boards, subreddits, the amount of, the, what was the word the introduction? It's like that introduction, that's such a Freudian word, that introduction is now being

interjected into the internet. It's like that process, it's like we're we're shoving it in, it's coming out. And it's in the like this is one of the big problems. I had some on my podcast, he was job at Google was to, essentially, this is really reducing it, but you gotta keep the AI's from turning racist because the AI is just going through message boards

and absorbing all that anger and hate. And if you don't prune it, it starts manifesting that. It becomes that this digital child that we're all burving simultaneously, we're doing it the same thing that happened to us to it. Well, what's even worse to me is to recognize that all these, let's say we call them trolls that are attacking, right?

They actually, honestly and correctly, to themselves think they are defending. They do not know. Nobody is on attack, actually. And this is true in geopolitics, too. Everybody says, I only fired that first shot as a preemptory defensive behavior, right? And if they don't get caught firing the first shot, then they're just like, yay, I'm being defensive, right? But at any rate, everybody's the undefense and everybody thinks the other half is on offense. And that's right. It's peculiar.

And bizarre. Yeah. See, this is, you know, this is what you're saying there. This is where I really run into, like, you smash into this wall because when I am right, I need the other person to be wrong. You know what I mean? Like I've been, you've done something to me. And then so the moment you do realize what you're saying,

the moment you're forced to like remember, oh no, they're acting like this, because they feel like they're defending something. And you're defending something. It ruins the whole game. It messes up all arguments like what now I'm supposed to be compassionate for you and now what are we going to do? Well, the weirder even, even we're than that, you start to realize yes, it was wrong for me to look at it as when lose or show. It's actually yes, no, or maybe.

But beyond that, it actually didn't actually matter to lose, right? That these dangers, these social dangers that we argue about and get angry about and get soling about and get self-righteous about have nothing to do with our survival in the world. Have nothing to do with our survival in the world. Have nothing to do with things we actually need and can be all of them. A hundred percent of them can be put in their place. But we're not taught that.

We're taught, oh, you don't just need food, shelter, clothing and safety. You need a TV and love and a better standard of living. And if you're not helping the world and a better standard of living. And if you're not helping the world get a better standard of living and get this, this kind of momentary fulfillment, then you're a bad person. Bible trivia time, relating to what you just said.

In the Bible, in the Bible. And I don't know which one, probably three, not Bible's written. Three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, in the Bac And I don't know which one probably. It's not Bible. There we are. In the ancient dunk. One of the first words that angels always say when they decide to communicate with you. They say, don't be afraid.

That's it. Don't be afraid. Now, I think there's two reasons they said that. One, the biblical angel is terrifying. If you, like, have seen the drawings people have done on it. But I think literalism in the Bible you're going to run into trouble there. But I think the real reason is because to your point, this thing you're talking about, the agrigor. If you heard that term, agrigor, it's one of my favorite words. Oh my god, it's so great. It's essentially the same thing. I think what young was getting at in the manifestation of the projection, showing up in some event or theoretically a person.

But it's like, the Egregor does not live in a body. It lives in the connection in the shared fear. The shared fear of the world is, you can call whatever you want, Satan, whatever you want to call it. It's there, but it's not there. You can't see it, because it, but you can see the way people react to it inside of them. And that reaction quite often leads to violence, aggression, lying, all the survival level decisions people make and think they're not evil, because I got to survive, man. So yeah, yeah, it's a it's a it's fear right? I mean that's it's fear over nothing. It's fear of the dark,

it's fear of under the bed, it's fear of nothing and even if it is go ahead, sorry. Well, I think the root of that fear is probably related to civilization and the fact that once we're out of small isolated tribes and into civilization, we shift from defaulting to trust, which is what small tribes do to defaulting to distrust. to distrust. Because right. In civilization, we live next door to strangers. And that means we don't know what their intent is. And so we project our fear onto them as being bad people, right? Because we realize that since they're not part of our tribe, they might be and they probably are barbarians to us.

And remember, when we for three and a thousand years, we were tribal people and we spent 99% of our time around people who were loving and who we trusted and there was no private property and there was very little hoarding and you know an occasional bit of adultery and that was about the only thing bad that happened within the tribe. right? Right. And then one percent of the time, we were with strangers. And those strangers were dangerous to us, right? We had every right by nature, apparently, because we're just like monkeys or dogs this

way. We had every right to kill those strangers if they stepped onto our territory. We didn't do it immediately. We waited until they committed some petty infraction, then we killed them, or started to work over resources. But now for only 10,000 years, we've been civilized. We have not yet learned how to live with the fact that we default to distrust. And once you're defaulting to distrust, you're entering into the kind of the modern psychological way of looking at it is object relations, where the other person, because you default

to distrust, becomes a projection. And instead of there just being you and me in the room, there's a field, a filter in between us. And that filter can be made up of defensive personality structures, or it can be made up of fear directly, or it can just be made up of an uneasy feeling, or it can be made up of a happy feeling. But even if it of a happy feeling.

But even if it's a happy feeling, we're only honoring the portion of that person who is on the surface and in the personality. Once we're personalities talking to personalities, we're projections talking to projections. And that's going to be a success. Here's a bullshit question, maybe, definitely putting both of you on the spot. Are you unafraid right now? And if you're not unafraid, what's the longest period of time that you have managed to go

without feeling afraid of something, without having, and I don't mean like horror movie terror, I mean the sort of creeping underlying fungal fear, social, just a general anxiety like horror movie terror. I mean the sort of creeping underlying fungal fear. Social, just a general anxiety that has you're out you're scared. You don't know what you're afraid of. So, what'd you consider yourself either if you consider yourself fearless? I don't think that's the game. I think the game is reducing I think the game is reducing the exaggeration of fear in life, right? It isn't eliminating it because if you eliminate it, then you're at war, right? You're going to set a goal and once you've set a goal, you're going to aim for that goal

and you're going to narrow your world, right? So goal's always getting the way of things. And I know that it's a time of life when people set intentions, and that's all fine and good. But generally speaking, once it becomes, oh, I'm going to get rid of my fear of death and I won't be satisfied until I am. You're you're just screwed, right? Because it's just not gonna happen once you've attached to it as something that

you believe you need. So the name of the game is all I ask people to do, all I ever ask people to do is to start to notice when the bully is talking to them and stop for a second when they catch it and say, oh, that's you, not me. And by doing that, its characteristics start to appear. It's repetitive, right? And you do it over and over and over again and you start to see, wow, I'm listening to the dumbest bully in the back of the class, right?

And that's who's running my decisions. And I'm smarter and I'm just as moral and I'm more appropriate than it is. Take it easy, man. I was the dumbest bully in the back of the class, okay? And sometimes I say, I said some funny things. All right, so then the thing that starts to happen is light starts to come in, right? And so, and so instead of running the tape of the triggered reaction to the emotional attack that you, the hurt feeling, or the emotional attack, the wrong headed politician.

Instead of the tape starting running on and on and on and on, while the tape is running, yeah, it will continue to run. I have a little bit of opening in me because I kind of know about the tape a little more and that little bit of opening is able to kind of sit back and go, look at that. That tape's still running. Huh, what about that? And when the tape runs out,

when the trance of the, you know, hostile conflict ends, which are will, right, they all run out, they end, and something else appears, my only responsibility is to stop right then and go, I wonder what that was, and I ask myself two things. The first thing that I ask is, I actually ask myself one thing, which is, when did I last see that tape run?

If it was six months ago, I go, yeah, big deal. I can live with that tape running twice a year. If it was two days ago, and it's the third time in two weeks that it's run, I have a responsibility to go, well, I better go look at that tape again and see what the lie is in that tape. And the lie is always the same thing, an exaggeration of a danger that isn't actually a danger. It's a pretense that there is an... Have you ever had, I love this, have you ever only noticed a day later that somebody insulted you

and then you have hurt feelings from it? Yes. And yes, 99% of the time when someone so-called hurts your feelings, you think you need to go into action immediately. There is an immediate and urgent threat. Well, that's false. There is never an immediate and urgent social threat that requires you to get on your high horse and win the argument, win the

struggle over time and space. Yeah. Can I say that? Yeah, I agree. Let me say something. Okay. I'm not afraid today, but I was afraid this morning, because I'd written a new piece for the poster, writing a series of stuff on aging, being a little bit less young than I was, and I wrote it. I was up really, really early, and I texted my editor and said, I'm going to send you the new piece and it's very different than what I've written before. And she said, oh great, I can't wait to read it. And I sent it and I didn't hear from her.

And it didn't, it didn't cross my mind literally that she has other writers. She's the editor of the opinion section, right? Didn't cross my mind because she said, oh, I can't wait to read it. And I sat there for an hour and I thought the jig is up. You know, she liked the earlier pieces. It's not working anymore. She's trying to figure she's talking to the legal department to try to figure out a way to break the contract without having to pay me. I did all that. Now, her leadership our leadership, she wrote how much she loved it. But another thing I wanted to say was, as you know, a weekend ago, Neil was gone. And I wrote,

very casually on Twitter, that I was looking forward to the new year because I thought we might read less about Taylor Swift. Now, I've never heard a song by Taylor Swift. I have zero position on Taylor Swift. It's just that that was the only news. I happen to know that her boyfriend's cousin. I knew what he'd gotten, the cousin had gotten Taylor Swift for a Christmas. The boyfriend's cousin. And I felt like I don't think I can go on. So I just wrote that. And as you know, tens of thousands of people attacked me on Twitter. It ends up in every major newspaper. I end up in Vanity Fair. Thank you, Jesus, my first appearance in Vanity Fair.

And it's all bad. It's all bad. It's that I'm a woman hater. And I hate her because she's over and over again. She's such a better writer than I am, right? I'm like a hundred years old She's 35 and she writes pop songs that people love. She's a billionaire. She's done better than I have All I was referring to was the media courage and so the first day it was really really bugging me But but I thought how we this is just absurd. This is just reddit. This is the theater of the absurd

Yes, the second day, Neil called and he said something very sweet like, are you okay? Because it was really a tile wave. And he said, in this voice, he said, are you okay? And I just started to weep. And I said, it's really scary. And it feels awful. And it was like, though, it was like a global inner critic. It was what I secretly think about myself made manifest in most major newspapers, tens of thousands of Twitter. And it was so scary. And then Neil said the magic words. And this is what better days is about. He said, this is great. And I said, what the fuck? Why is it great?

And he said, well, first of all, when that ugly, hateful fear comes to the surface, it can be healed. You can talk to it then. You can deal with it. We can talk about it. You can go to your girlfriend. And now it's not going to run you.

It was running you when it wasn't up in the visible world. And then I said, but he said, this is a portal for you that the intercredit like has a megaphone. And I said, what's the portal? What's on the other side of the portal for me if I do the work? And you know what he said? He said, freedom. And I just wanted in a visceral way that it's the freedom from being run by the internalized

and externalized voice that never thought a person like me, a funny looking girl like me, a too bright girl like me who was better at math than all the boys with this crazy hair and whatnot could be considered a person of value without having everybody in the world lover, without having everybody think I was Woody in charming and not a hater, a woman hater, you know, and it was, Well, that was one other thing that I said to you. And the only part, I don't remember any of that,

except that I said to you, these are not your people. Yeah, yeah. Why do you care? Yeah. They are not your people, right? you care? They are not your people. Yeah, but not your people would never talk like that. I don't know. Let me just say that one of them, one of them is your people.

Yeah. My wife is a self-evout, swifty. No, no, no. When I'm saying, I'm saying that the trolls aren't your people. My troll. Because your mother didn't troll Annie. No. No, but she did.

She did rush in and say, Duncan Annie is getting canceled. I'm like, what? She possibly can't. I'm trying to think of knowing you, hanging out with you. I'm like, they're kidnappers. But I mean, these days, come on, aren't we all? But I kept trying to summon up in my own mind,

like, what could she, and then she said something bad about Taylor Swift, the absurdity. And I'm sorry, because I do not mean to make light of it. I have friends who've been through it. We're talking about a modern trauma that in all of human history, at least as far as I'm aware, you could be hanging out with your friends

in whatever primordial past that Niels talking about and you could be like, man, David, Jesus Christ, why is it, I wish people would just shut up about David for like five seconds. I wanna listen to the birds. And you know, maybe some people be like, he's amazing. What's wrong with you?

What do you hate, man? What do you hate? David, he's great. And that's it. And then everyone forget. But now, it's a watch a video. There's a video on YouTube, many of them, sadly, of people getting attacked by bees.

And, because my kid went through this period of all that being in here. And so you, and I'm not showing my kid lots of bee attack videos. I think we stopped after the first one. But you know, what happens is the initial wave of bees hits. You can't believe you're being attacked by bees. I mean, the first thing is just it's the stages of grief. You're in denial. Like, what what is this? And then you you're swatting them. That's the stages of grief. You're in denial. Like, what is this? And then you're swatting them, that's pissing them off.

Then you run. For a second, the wave stops. And you think those bees have left you alone. They're just trying to find you and more come the next wave. And you watch these people gradually just fall on the ground crawling in bees. It's terrifying. This is, the technological version of a psychic swarm

of bees that are just not gonna stop stinging you. You interact with them, they get more angry. You don't interact with them, they're like, great, now I can sting more. And so it's traumatic. I'm, It is devastating to some people. It makes people I didn't say a bad word about her. I referred to the insane media attention. But anyway, I

wanted to ask you, Duncan, so you don't read the comments anymore, right? Is that what you said earlier? You don't read the comments? I don't read the comments. Yes, he I do. And it's addictive. It's a toxic trance, you know, it's mood altering and it's sort of like that old saying that bad self-esteem is better than no self-esteem, you know, and I can't stop reading the comments and that's my insanity. But when I talk to Neil and we do the inner critic work and he convinces me that it's amazing to have this voice

externalize it is trashing me and it's amazing to have this voice externalize that is trashing me and scaring me to death because I can work with it now and it's a portal to being free from all of those chains that that kept me connected to the cultures. Criticism of me is not being Barbie. criticism of me is not being Barbie. The you started by asking, you know, did am I rid of some fears or whatever or I'm rid of fear. The fact is I'm a hell of a lot less anxious than I was before I did this. And it's the right way I attributed to it.

And and if I'm less anxious, that's a big win. That's kind of the whole yes. The whole ball game is anxiety, right? And every bit of my anxiety is curated 100% by my inner critic. So as the inner critic moves to the side, my anxiety reduces. And it's the only thing that I can promise people is that if you're able ten times a day to say,

that's you, inner critic, not me, your anxiety will decline. And then, when the inner critic is there, if I'm able to stop and say, or a conflict has ended and I'm able to stop and say, what was that? I want to examine that. I have one. I have one. I don't care anymore. Right. Rather, I'm able to stop and say, what was that? I want to examine that. I have one. I have one. I don't care anymore. Rather, I'm triggered.

I'm gonna be triggered until the day I die. All I care about is when the trigger's over, am I continuing the taprio or am I looking at the taprio and going, oh, that's just you, tapiole, see you later. I want to. It's a very different experience. Like one is like you're in a hell, never-ending hellish daydream.

The other, at least, you know, you kind of understand your dreaming here. It's not all the way real. And, you know, I think it's like, the, my stupid hippie, oh, hello, elf, my stupid hippie, oh hello, elf, my stupid hippie naive view on these things is influenced by Ramdas. Like really, you set this very simple, like what I would consider a revolutionary, actionable, incredibly pragmatic method for bringing about a true social change, which is start with

yourself. He understood, like, we're all little pixels in this, whatever this hyper-dimensional Netflix show is, and that if those pixels are anxiety-ridden, self-loving, self-hating, completely in a never-ending vortex of doubt, then how's the world going to look? What kind of TV is that? What are we all going to be watching there? So I think what a great time to get this out. And who knows? Who knows what would happen

if people stopped? Because if you're, someone is leaving you, some vile, angry comment, because you said some flippant tweet about Taylor Swift. What are they saying to themselves? How do they treat themselves? They know themselves, they don't know you. Oh, think of that, think of the level.

So yeah, I think what you've done here is really added to like the positive possibility in a world where everyone's freaking out. And you can blame them. Everyone's lost in the vortex of other peoples. Also, you know, I'm sorry, I'm going on on there. Annie, any comments somebody left for you? Remember, they're probably on the toilet.

And, my die also just say, last thing I have to say about it, I was a little dishonest. I don't read the comments before midnight. After midnight's when I dive in, baby, when I really want to come, I go to Google and look up what the symptoms mean with delayed. What's a twinge in my neck feels like? Is it men and judges? I heard somebody describe webMD should be renamed you've got cancer.

That's the only, that's always what it is. Well, you two, I am so lucky to have used my friends. I mean, my kids are lucky that, I mean, if I had to pick potential kidnappers, I don't think I could pick better, better than you too. It means the world to me that you spent time with me and thank you so much. And don't forget, don't forget, we've picked your children to kidnap. That's something about you.

Come on, you say that to everyone. No, no, no, we don't. We can never gotten over the love that we felt from your first little boy in the water of Mal, we got to swim with him and he couldn't take his eyes off of us. And we knew the club wanted us to have him. I mean, it's very sweet where you was looking at me. He was looking at us too. He wasn't just looking at you.

You guys keep saying that. You can believe it. Where can people find this book? It's everywhere, right? This is everywhere. And great, wonderful. So do you have a website, Neil? Are you still offering? So the title of the book is Better Days,

Tamier, Intercritic. My website is the title of a previous book, but I've kept it, shapesoftruth.com. And you can find Annie at i8aytaylorswift.com. I don't think I have a website. But on shapesoftruth.com, you will love this Duncan. There's Niels 37 tips for writing. And they are, I give them to all of my writing students and all these workshops I do because they're really simple and you just

Smite your own forehead and go duh. Yeah, you write from the verb, you know, you don't use the ad verbs to clarify what the character You know you work on finding the verb. So anyway, that's one of the things I love most at shapes of dreams. Thank you. I will check that out Thank you so much. And I hope you'll have a wonderful day. And congratulations on being liberated. You're a post swarm. Because I'll tell you, people I know have been through it. It's, that's not, it's real liberation. Like they, they, some of them come out the other side of little cynical and a little down on humanity as a whole But if you're on the other side and just feeling free, well Amen. I love you Duncan. See you soon. I love you. I love you Neil. Thank you. Thank you. I'm

Howdy, Krishna. Thank you. Krishna. Thank you That was Neil Allen all the links you need to find is book will be at dunkentrustle.com, along with links to his website and Annie Lamont. Sinder a nice tweet, y'all. We got to counteract whatever this madness was. Sinder something sweet. She deserves it. And for God's sake, read any of her books.

They're incredible. We will be back next week. Until then, Hare Krishna. read any of your books. They're incredible. We will be back next week. Until then, Hare Krishna.