PNTV: Building a Life Worth Living by Marsha M. Linehan

That she would figure out how to escape the hell that she was in, and then she'd figure out how to help other people escape the hells they may find themselves in. I got goosebumps saying that. And it often is the hero's weakest point where they struggle the most, where they're able to help people the most. I find her story to be the most powerful representation of that. I can't think of a more powerful story. Maybe there's someone tied for first, but— Unbelievably inspiring. What a wonderful human being. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Philosopher's Notes TV episode. Today we've got another great book, Building a Life Worth Living: A Memoir by Marsha Linehan. Marsha Linehan, as you may know, is the founder of dialectical behavior therapy, and she is the definition of what it means to be heroic. We're going to talk about her heroic vow and what dialectical behavior therapy, or DBT, is all about in a moment. But I'll, before I jump in, let you know you can get a copy of this Philosopher's Note in which I pull out my favorite big ideas in the show notes. Get a free— there's a link to get the PDF and MP3 for free. We've got 770-something notes at this stage, on my way to 1,000. I hope you enjoy. Now, Marsha Linehan, Is truly extraordinary. So we'll start here with her heroic vow. So in 1961— 1961— Marsha is 18 years old and she experiences a crisis in her life. For reasons she doesn't even understand today, she fell into despair, into suicidal depression, and she spent 2 years— 2 years— in a mental health institution. And while she was there, She made a sacred, what I would call a heroic vow to herself, that she would figure out how to escape the hell that she was in, and then she'd figure out how to help other people escape the hells they may find themselves in. I got goosebumps saying that. 1961. Then she winds up escaping her personal hell. She recreates a life. Of deep meaning and purpose. And she creates dialectical behavior therapy, which becomes the most effective therapeutic intervention to help individuals with suicidal ideation like she used to experience. But she didn't tell anybody about her experiences as she spent the years and decades crafting this revolutionary approach to helping people in such depths of despair. Dialectical Behavior Therapy, etc. Fast forward from 1961, 50 years. It's 2011. She's invited to give a talk at the same institution where she spent 2 years of her life. Now remember, nobody knows that she was there for 2 years. So 50 years later, '61 to 2011, she gives the talk and she lets people know that she spent 2 years of her life here, and then she spent the rest of her life figuring out how to help people escape their personal hells. And she says, and I quote on the first page of the note, if I can do it, you can do it, is her— the ultimate essence of her message. I find this story to be unbelievably inspiring. It's a definition for me of what it means to be heroic. The hero answers a call to adventure. It's rarely what you want it to be, right? In Marcia's case, it was the most horrific possible experience she could imagine. The hero answers the call. They battle dragons. They battle dragons. They battle dragons. They battle dragons. Did I mention they battle dragons? There's no hero's journey without a huge, huge challenge. Yet in the process of facing those challenges, the hero transforms, in this case, her consciousness. Then the most important part of the hero's journey is the return. The transformed hero becomes the guide, becomes the guide who can help other people transform their lives. And it often is the hero's weakest point where they struggle the most, where they're able to help people the most. I find her story to be the most powerful representation of that. I can't think of a more powerful story. Maybe there's someone tied for first, but unbelievably inspiring. What a wonderful human being. That was her heroic vow, and she has honored that through the creation of DBT, Dialectical Behavior Therapy. In our last episode, we talked about Steven Hayes' Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Well, Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy are both third-wave cognitive behavioral therapy modalities, and they're very, very similar. They were created for different purposes— Marsha for suicidal ideation, etc., and for Steven Hayes, he had panic attacks. Same thing: the hero struggles, the hero transforms himself in the process, the hero becomes a guide and helps others do the same. And by the way, that with Heroic Public Benefit Corporation, the company to which I've dedicated my life to help create a world in which 51% of humanity is flourishing by 2051. How do we do that? You, the hero, step up, become your best self, and become a guide who then trains the next generation of heroes. The hero becomes the guide who trains more heroes to become the guide. That's how we are able to affect change at scale. But anyway, DBT, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, there are 2 aspects. Dialectic. It's when you take 2 opposites and you synthesize them into a more integrated whole. So the 2 aspects of Dialectical Behavior Therapy are this. Number 1, you start with radical acceptance, right? So you accept life as it is, and you combine that with a willingness to change. Again, you start with complete radical acceptance of reality as it is and of yourself As it is. Life is what it is. What you're experiencing is what it is. Who you are— and we're going to talk about the willingness to play the hand you've been dealt is the metaphor that Marsha uses. You have been dealt a set of hands, right? I'm sorry, a set of hands. You've been dealt a hand of cards, right? You've got this set of cards that you need to play with. You can't just— you can choose to just throw the cards on the ground and refuse to play, but she says you need to be willing To play the hand you've been dealt. It is what it is. Accept reality and then choose. Be willing to play the hand that you have been dealt. And that doesn't in any way diminish the challenges you may be facing, but we need to be willing to accept and at the same time be willing to change. That's the essence of dialectical behavior therapy. Again, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, exactly the same thing. You accept life radically and you accept yourself fully, and then you are committed. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. You're committed to what? To living a life in integrity with your deepest values, with your virtues. You know who you are at your best, and you're committed to being that best version of yourself in the midst of your current challenges. DBT. Unbelievably powerful therapeutic approach. Marsha talks about 4 different skills that we want to develop and that she teaches us how to develop within her dialectical behavior therapy. Of course, she talks about it in the book, and of course, we talk about it in the note. I'm actually going to bust open the note for this one and talk briefly about each of the 4 skills. Do I have room? I do have room. Number 1, mindfulness. Her approach— she is a Zen master. I forgot to mention in the intro, she is a Zen master. It starts with bringing mindfulness to our lives. In order to accept, we have to be able to look at our lives neutrally— warm, neutral, accepting perspective. And we need to notice when we get carried away by our thoughts. You got to be able to observe how you're seeing the life— your life and the world— and be mindful of when you tend to let yourself Get caught up in your stress, reject reality as it is currently presenting itself, and then try to avoid all the things that you need to, um, to move forward through. The second skill we need to develop is what she calls stress distolerance. As we've talked about in the last couple of PNTVs, we had Scott Barry Kaufman's Rise Above, then we had Stephen Hayes's great book on his Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. We need to know that life is going to be challenging. When life hits us, when we feel distress, we must be able to tolerate it rather than trying to avoid it. Experiential avoidance, Steven Hayes says, is the— what science has said is the most pernicious thing for our mental health and well-being. If we're avoiding all the things that may give us distress, we have very low distress tolerance, we're going to suffer. The third thing is emotional Regulation skills. We must learn how to regulate our emotions. Again, in our notes on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, we talk about it a lot. In this one, we talk about it a lot as well. As the name implies, you gotta notice when your emotions are bubbling up and know how to step out, see the storm, and continue to act in integrity with what your deepest values are. The 4th skill We need to develop, Marcia tells us, our interpersonal skills. We know we need to know how to function well with other human beings. These are all skills that we can develop. And again, we start by accepting ourselves and being willing to change. And as Jung says, paradoxically, the moment you completely accept yourself, it's a lot easier to change. Accept, change— apparent opposites. Let's go. The 4th idea here is opposite Action. I actually got this book after reading Peter Attia's book. He talked about how his life was transformed from Marsha's work and talked about dialectical behavior therapy, and this particular idea is what changed his life. Marsha talks about opposite action, and she tells us that sometimes you need to force yourself to do something that you know is the right thing, even if you don't feel like doing it. You need to do the opposite of what you tend to do When you aren't thriving and performing at your best. It's kind of like the experiential avoidance— not good. You want to approach, you want to do the opposite of what you tend to do in your less than healthy moments. And Marcia makes this point in the context of telling us that you can't think your way to change. You must practice these ideas, you must develop the skills, you must do the things. Thinking Versus doing. It's important to know the theory and the framework, but it's way more important to actually do the things that you need to do. In this context, think about one behavior that you know you need to engage in that would most benefit your life and how often you don't do that thing and you choose to do something else. Well, next time you feel the inclination to do this thing that you know isn't optimal, See if you can take the opposite action. Force yourself, Marcia says, to do the thing that's the opposite of what you tend to do, that you know is the right action for this moment. Opposite action. Force yourself. It's a big idea. And then we come back to the willingness. Again, we accept life, we accept ourselves, and then we're willing to change. I already mentioned the hand that you've been dealt, not the— The cards. Hands. Hands or whatever I said. But you've been dealt some cards in your life, right? And I've been dealt cards. So, you know, if I had to re— reshuffle the deck and give myself some new cards, I'd probably pick some new cards from my upbringing, et cetera, et cetera. But it is what it is. I was blessed to be raised in the family I was raised in with the genetic and the environmental factors that led to my own. I didn't share it in the beginning here, but I know what it feels like to want to end my own life. I know what it feels like to live with deep despair, anxiety, depression, et cetera. And I didn't make the same exact explicit vow that Marsha did, but that's why I do what I do. I know what it feels like to feel this. I know what it feels like to feel something significantly better. And I have a decent idea of what I did to go from here to there. And same thing, if I can do it, you can do it. And everything I do is to try to help share the things that I've learned over the last 25-plus years with you. But whatever hand you have been dealt, Play the hand. Don't throw it on the ground and walk away from life and give up. Throw your hands up and say, screw it, I don't even want to play anymore. Play the hand you've been dealt as well as you can. The other thing that Marcia says beautifully that I talked about in our last episode with Stephen Hayes is you got to be willing to walk through the fire. And she says many of us who are suffering greatly feel like we're in a house that's on fire. And all we want to do is go find a place in the house that isn't currently burning where we can kind of just retreat and be safe in the immediate moment. But she says, you must be willing to walk through the fire, out the front door where the fire might be the hottest, in order to get out of that burning house to create a life that is— to build a life worth living. We must accept, we must be willing to change, And then we must— let's go. Um, but that's a quick look at this great book. Check out the notes again. Remember Marsha Linehan's heroic sacred vow, and if she can do it, you can do it. If you or a loved one is currently struggling with anxiety or depression, I think you'll love the note, the book, and again, um, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy as well. Again, apparent opposites. You gotta accept completely while being willing to change. We talked about 4 skills very briefly: mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotional regulation, and interpersonal skills, each of which we talk about in different contexts throughout these PNTV episodes and notes. And then opposite action. That might be the most practical idea you can take out of our time together today. The next time that you, uh, you kind of have your daimon, right? I talk a lot about eudaimonia, living with virtue, expressing the best version of yourself. You have a guiding spirit. The ancient Greeks called it your daimon. The ancient Romans would call it your genius, a guiding spirit. Christians would call it your conscience. You got that guiding spirit, then you got the other voice, right? Daimon— demon is the diminutive of daimon, right? You got the courage wolf, the fear wolf, whatever metaphor you want to use, but you got those 2 voices in your head. Next time the demon voice, the little less-than-awesome voice, is barking at you, do the opposite. Take opposite action. Force yourself to do the thing you know is right for you. That's how you build the intense trust and confidence in yourself as you're willing to navigate the challenges that you have, that we all have right now. Play the hand you've been dealt. As always, the most important part of our time together is this plus one. Let's go! What idea jumped out and most resonated for you today? Think about how you can apply that to your life today. Move from theory To practice to mastery together today. Make today a great day. It's always a privilege to spend time with you. I hope you enjoyed. Look forward to sharing more with you soon. In the meantime, make today a great one. See ya.