Rick Hanson

[gentle music] Welcome to Practical Wisdom with Dr. Rick Hanson.

These talks are a part of the weekly meditations and talks which you can join for free at rickhanson.com.

If you've been feeling anxious, afraid, or worried lately, Rick's mini course on dealing with anxiety offers five of Rick's favorite practices for feeling calmer, safer, and more capable.

I'm working my own." 'Cause I have the right to do that.

Innately, you have the right to make this life your own.

Thank you for listening to Practical Wisdom with Dr. Rick Hanson.

If you'd like to join the live gathering with Rick each Wednesday, please visit rickhanson.com to sign up for free.

We're gonna be talking about what people-pleasing and fawning are, how they're different, where these ideas come from and why that matters, and how to work on these tendencies and hopefully bring an even more authentic version of yourself into your relationships.

So to help us do that, I'm joined today, as usual, by clinical psychologist Dr. Rick Hanson.

Dad, how are you doing today?

I'm good, and I'd say that this topic is like a bright through line that runs through a really large fraction of the issues that bring people to a therapist, and that people are grappling with in their, grappling with in their relationships, including at work, not just in their kinda intimate family romantic relationships.

I think you're right on.

How is people-pleasing or fawning different from just being a kind, agreeable person? How do I tell if I'm a people-pleaser versus just being nice? And are people-pleasing and fawning the same thing?" So this is a bit of a multi-parter.

I'm gonna kinda save that last little one for a, a monologue later in the episode.

But Dad, I'd like you to start wherever you want here.

And if you have or if you do experience, I want to resource the children, especially if mean words come their way.

How do they handle that so it doesn't stick to them? We don't want it to be, you know, because I'm just trying to think, was it Rick Hansen talks about, you know, this critical voice is like Velcro and it will just.

Oh, and they've got time.

If you look closely at Velcro, they're like little thorns and they get stuck and it sticks to you.

You keep showing up.

And are you too familiar with Dr. Rick Hansen?

Oh, my

gosh.

Yeah.

I remember we just had that interview with what's his name? Rick Hansen.

And he always tells a joke of like your brain is a magnet for negativity.

And so he found out that it like you have to give five compliments for every negative thing that you say in the relationship or else it's going to die.

Beautifully put, beautifully put.

And we have, I don't know if you studied Rick Hansen, who works with really the neuroscience and neuropsychology and really the neuroplasticity of really having more positive experiences in our lives.

But he talked about the law of little things.

It's the little, little, little step, little step, little step, little step.

Yes, absolutely.

I think as we sit here in this room, just taking in the sound, the sight, the sensory information, and how it is a practice every day to practice noticing the good noticing the sensory input that is part of a good narrative part of the narrative outside of survival because as we know right the brain prioritizes threat it prioritizes negativity it prioritizes those narratives because those are connected to survival And so as we are going through this process, it makes me think about the book Hardwiring Happiness by Rick Hansen.

If you haven't read it, it's a great read to check out.

So I encourage you to check it out.

Right.

I learned this practice from another one of my teachers, Rick Hansen, and he would, he would really emphasize this word basically.

Okay.

Not perfect.

Welcome to Mindful Meditations with Dr. Rick Hansen.

These meditations are part of the weekly meditations and talks, which you can join for free at rickhansen.com.

what I'm going to do for the next 30 some odd minutes is lead us through two meditation practices.

It is the key to mindfulness as a complete path.

And indeed, there are a number of traditional insight practices, often that are found in Buddhism, that are primarily aimed at understanding the true nature of ourselves, our minds, and the world around us.

For instance, Rick has contributed a very important piece to my book about how to contemplate the true nature of our thoughts, feelings, and perceptions to realize that they are transient, empty ultimately, and joyful because of that.

However, there is a more... mysterious and magical insight practice that is really the key to mindfulness as a life-transforming practice.

And the real and ultimate secret of mindfulness, I believe, is awareness of our awareness.