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free in -home consultation. And
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I'm really excited that Alipop added
1:53
a crisp apple flavor to their
1:55
lineup. Hey, I'm Gabe Dunn. I'm
1:57
a writer, bi -con, bisexual icon, wink.
2:00
And that's so funny. I just
2:03
tried the apple Celsius, and it's
2:05
disgusting to me. Well, Celsius
2:07
seems disgusting in general. Sure.
2:09
But the apple flavor of it was like,
2:11
I was like, this is apple juice. This
2:13
is like sparkly. You like an apple flavor?
2:16
Oh, I love an apple flavor. I
2:18
love an apple juice. I love
2:20
a sparkling apple juice. I mean, it
2:22
doesn't get much classier than having
2:24
some martinellis. No,
2:27
I don't like it. Oh, so then of
2:30
course you weren't going to like, if you don't
2:32
like apple flavored things, why would you like
2:34
an apple flavored Celsius? It was like,
2:36
I guess I got sold by like Fuji
2:38
Apple. Also, sometimes I have this completist mindset
2:40
where I'm like, well, I have to try
2:42
every flavor of the thing that I like.
2:44
So I'm like, well, I should try every
2:46
single flavor. So far, I've
2:49
only disliked one flavor of Olive Pop,
2:51
which is the Dr. Goodwin's flavor. And
2:53
I think that's their attempt at,
2:55
like, Dr. Pepper. And
2:57
it's disgusting. I couldn't even drink
2:59
it. I love that all soda must
3:01
be a doctor. Well, the
3:03
Dr. Pepper flavor must be a doctor. Must
3:05
be a doctor. I love Dr. Pepper. Yeah,
3:08
of course. Dr. Goodwin's got this a
3:10
little, it's gone awry, something went awry. Maybe
3:12
if they hadn't primed you to think
3:14
of it as Doc, you know what I
3:16
mean? it tastes like cough medicine. It's
3:18
not good. But do
3:20
you think mentally you were primed for
3:22
a Dr. Pepper -esque flavor? And if they
3:24
hadn't promised no priming or lack of priming
3:26
that would have made me like that
3:28
taste. It's a bad taste. Okay, but I'm
3:30
just saying they shot themselves in the
3:33
foot for people who are expecting Dr. Pepper.
3:35
They should have just let it be
3:37
what it is so that is gross. It
3:39
should have just been flavored gross. Sure,
3:41
but like for example, you know, like when
3:43
there's a, I know what you're saying,
3:45
but in this situation, it was not about
3:47
the priming. No, I know. But do
3:49
you, what do you think about the idea
3:51
where I think about this where it's
3:53
like with Anna Kendrick's movie, Woman of the
3:55
Hour? I was like, this would have
3:57
been a really cool movie, but it's held
3:59
back by being connected to a real
4:01
life crime. Then people say, oh, this is
4:03
like interesting because it's a real life
4:05
crime. That's probably why it got greenlit. But
4:07
I'm like, No, it should have just
4:09
because the anticipation of it being related to
4:11
this other crime made it too high
4:13
of standards. It shouldn't it shouldn't have been
4:15
there shouldn't even be a conversation of
4:17
oh how close was it to the real
4:19
crime and how did she portray the
4:21
real crime should have just been a horror
4:23
movie on its own. Why?
4:25
Because it didn't it didn't live up to that
4:27
if it was just a movie on its
4:29
own about a woman like being scared whatever like
4:31
then that would have been interesting to me
4:33
because they could have had free reign. But because
4:36
they were like, oh, how close can we
4:38
get to the real story? And then if you're
4:40
you know a lot about the real story,
4:42
you're like waiting for certain things from the real
4:44
story. But it was just about, you
4:46
know, like I think sometimes they make it
4:48
part of a franchise and it could have just
4:51
or connected to something. It should have just
4:53
been its own thing. I mean,
4:55
I do think that the the main part
4:57
about Woman of the Hour was the
4:59
dating game aspect of it. And that was
5:01
based on a real thing. But it
5:03
could have been based on, but it shouldn't
5:05
have been the story of. That's
5:08
what I think. It was an OK movie.
5:10
It boxes you in. This
5:12
is just between us, a
5:14
variety show filled with heartfelt advice.
5:16
Ridiculous games. And brutal honesty. This
5:19
week, we are going to be talking
5:21
all about bias. Yes, with
5:23
Breaking Bias author Anu
5:25
Gupta. And later, we're
5:27
going to be discussing physical pain. How
5:30
do we think about it? What's our tolerance
5:33
for it? Why is it bad? This is because
5:35
you went with me to my nerve test.
5:37
Yeah, and I'm just like, my knees hurt a
5:39
lot. I don't know. It's also five years
5:41
in. I need topics. Stick around. We've
5:43
got an exciting interview with our highly
5:45
esteemed guest, Anu Gupta. Stay tuned. Welcome
5:51
back to Just Between Us.
5:53
It's time for the juiciest, most
5:55
scandalous, most controversial segment known
5:57
to all of podcasting. This
6:01
week on the show, we have Anu
6:03
Gupta, an American teacher and author of Breaking
6:05
Bias, trained as a lawyer, scientist, and
6:07
educator. Anu has trained
6:09
100 ,000 plus professionals in his
6:11
unique trauma -informed, shame -free approach
6:13
to building bridges and breaking
6:16
bias, impacting over 30 million
6:18
lives. Hello. Hello. It's
6:20
so good to be here with you
6:22
all. We're really excited to dive into
6:24
this because I have a psychology background
6:26
and I just all day long kind
6:28
of think about bias. So I'm just
6:30
like very curious, you know, how do
6:32
you define such like an important term?
6:34
Yeah, it's such a great question. So
6:36
the way I think about bias is,
6:38
you know, as someone who's on top
6:40
of all those professional things you listed
6:42
gay, I'm also a gay immigrant of
6:44
color. So for me, bias is something
6:47
that's super personal and something I've experienced.
6:49
People often see me through the lens
6:51
of those identities versus all the professional
6:53
things I've done. And what
6:55
I realized in my own journey is that all
6:57
types of biases are learned. So the way I
6:59
define bias is that these are learned habits. What
7:01
they do is that they distort how we
7:04
perceive, reason, remember, and make decisions. And
7:06
there are two dominant forms of biases.
7:08
There are conscious biases, which are learned
7:10
false beliefs. So thinking that
7:12
men are stronger than women or make
7:14
better. leaders and women, that's a false
7:16
belief, yet people hold those beliefs and
7:19
then that distorts how they perceive, reason,
7:21
remember, and make decisions. Or
7:23
they're unconscious biases, which are more
7:25
nefarious. These are learned habits
7:27
of thoughts. So these are associations
7:29
that we have. So when we think of a
7:31
leader or a surgeon or a yoga teacher, who
7:34
are the first humans that come to mind? And
7:36
then those habits of thoughts, you
7:38
know, there's a famous rule in neuroscience
7:40
known as neurons that fire together,
7:42
wire together. So it's basically like that
7:44
wiring of our brain that ends
7:46
up impacting how we see ourselves, but
7:48
also how we see others and
7:50
how we make decisions. And for me,
7:52
that is a root cause of
7:54
every single challenge we face in the
7:56
century. So would you say that
7:58
they are different in each culture and
8:00
that it is really based on
8:02
the culture that you're in where you
8:04
start to create connections between certain
8:06
groups being a certain way? Yeah. So
8:08
that's really why I wrote this
8:10
book, Breaking Bias, because you're absolutely right.
8:12
There are so many different human
8:14
identities that we have, what I call
8:16
our secondary identities. Our primary
8:18
identity is that we're part of
8:21
the same species. We are 99
8:23
.9 % identical, whether we're in China
8:25
or Brazil or the US. We're
8:27
the same human organism. Yet the
8:29
way we label that organism based
8:31
on our various identities, our ethnicity,
8:33
our religion, our gender identity, our
8:35
sexuality, those vary. Now,
8:38
for any kind of bias, there are the
8:40
same five causes. There are five causes that
8:42
make up any form of bias, any isomorphobia
8:44
we experience in our world. And for me,
8:46
that was really what got me started on
8:48
this work. I was like, wow, there's so
8:50
much promise. You know,
8:52
this is not just about addressing racism
8:54
or sexism or transphobia or something
8:56
else. It's addressing all forms of biases,
8:59
the biases that really sever our
9:01
connection with ourselves and one another. Can
9:03
you explain what those five reasons
9:05
are for biases? Yeah, yeah. So one
9:07
of the things I use in
9:09
my book is kind of bridging ancient
9:11
wisdom traditions, you know, the mind
9:13
sciences, particularly from the Buddhist tradition and
9:16
modern neuroscience. And when
9:18
we think about any kind of
9:20
phenomenon that takes place in the world,
9:22
it's really a consequence of various
9:24
causes and conditions. So bias
9:26
will be the consequence of, you know,
9:28
five causes. And the first is
9:30
really a false story. So once
9:32
there's a false story, that
9:34
story gets adopted into the
9:36
cultural norms and policies of a
9:38
nation or society. So
9:41
the second cause is policies
9:43
that are basically created based
9:45
on that false story. And
9:47
then basically all of us who
9:49
are living in the social container get
9:51
conditioned and to bias through the
9:53
remaining three causes. Social
9:55
contact, education and media.
9:58
So if you think about our
10:00
senses, our sense of sight,
10:02
smell, taste, feeling, imagination, all
10:04
of these senses get captured by
10:06
that way of dividing our humanity. So
10:09
how old is this concept of
10:11
race? Race as an identity that we
10:13
are often dealing with day to
10:15
day. And I'll give you four options,
10:17
10 ,000 years, which
10:20
is the age of agriculture.
10:22
We became settled humans, the
10:24
agricultural revolution, 5 ,000
10:26
years, biblical era,
10:28
500 years, colonialism, or
10:31
250 years, like around the time
10:33
of the French and the American
10:35
revolutions. So we'd love to
10:37
hear from both of you. And again,
10:39
no shame in the game. We're
10:41
going to take a quick break, but stick
10:43
around. I'm someone
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that has always been so blown away
10:48
by other people's ability to speak multiple
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10:52
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we're back. Well, it's interesting
15:03
because I think that there was
15:05
a concept of at least
15:07
class of class of person back
15:09
in the all the way
15:11
back in the agricultural times. I
15:13
think there was the idea.
15:16
It's interesting because they do talk
15:18
about slavery in the Bible,
15:20
but it's based on it's not
15:22
based on race. It's based
15:24
on like social class or needing
15:26
to provide for your family
15:29
or, you know, whatever it is.
15:31
I would say maybe the,
15:33
the, the, what was the fourth
15:35
one? The colonial times? That
15:37
was the third one. Yeah. 500
15:39
years. Well, it seems like it
15:42
would be in between the Bible and 500
15:44
years. So. Create
15:46
your own answer. I love it. I
15:48
know. Because it's not, well,
15:50
it's, is it? Okay,
15:52
is racism like aligned with
15:54
exoticism or, you know,
15:56
the use of the black
15:58
body in the freak
16:00
show or, you know, like
16:02
the idea of the
16:04
mystical oriental, you know, orientalism,
16:06
like it's tough for
16:08
what we are, what falls
16:10
under racism. But I'm
16:12
going to say biblical times.
16:14
Okay, 5 ,000 years. Perfect.
16:16
Yeah. Great. I'm just
16:18
going to guess because of
16:20
the fact that you're
16:22
asking the question that it's
16:24
500 years. 500 years,
16:26
perfect. So this is, again, you
16:29
are two very, very educated, very well
16:31
-informed humans that exist in our world.
16:33
You've shared your knowledge and your humor
16:35
with so many people. And yet the
16:37
two of you have a disagreement on
16:39
this. particular answer, right? But my disagreement
16:41
is also because I'm trying to win
16:44
the game. That's right. I'm thinking about
16:46
how you propose the question. Of course.
16:48
But that's one of the challenges, because
16:50
I have asked this question of doctors,
16:52
of therapists, of lawyers, and all
16:54
of us are working around this really
16:56
important topic of, you know, whether disparities and
16:58
suffering that people experience yet, a lot
17:00
of us aren't taught that, oh, how old
17:02
is this concept of race, you know? I
17:05
mean, the answer is actually 250 years. like
17:07
race as a human construct of
17:09
human division is a very, very
17:11
recent phenomenon that was created by
17:13
a bunch of humans, bunch of
17:15
guys, mostly, who were so divorced
17:17
from their humanity that they collected
17:19
body parts and skulls of human
17:21
beings from around the world. And
17:24
these dudes, you know, in the
17:27
mid -1700s, one of these dudes really
17:29
found one skull to be the pinnacle
17:31
of human beauty. You
17:33
know, he basically called it the perfect
17:35
skull ever to have existed. We're talking
17:37
about a skull. And the
17:39
skull happened to be of an enslaved woman who
17:41
was in the Russian court. And
17:44
what was then, you know, the
17:46
Caucasian mountains or the modern day country
17:48
of Georgia. And he
17:50
anointed it the term, Caucasoid. And
17:53
through that, a very simplistic
17:55
hierarchy of, you know, five or
17:57
six racial categories came about.
17:59
And those racial categories entered policies.
18:01
That's the second cause of
18:03
bias, right? And those policies,
18:06
of course, entered in the United States
18:08
and Canada and South Africa and Australia
18:10
and Brazil, wherever you go, and
18:12
basically began to create a
18:14
demarcation of how we as human
18:16
beings view ourselves better or
18:18
worse than one another. And
18:20
we're still in that paradigm. So,
18:22
you know, questions I went out to,
18:24
I was at South by Southwest a couple
18:26
of weeks ago, and in my book
18:29
talk, you know, one of the students asked
18:31
that, hey, like, what is the one
18:33
takeaway that you'd want folks to... from
18:35
your book and I'm like yeah the
18:37
big thing is we need a paradigm
18:39
shift around how we see ourselves in
18:42
one another and we need to like
18:44
create an objective goal that we have
18:46
to overcome how we've been racialized as
18:48
humans and really overcome this false story
18:50
of race that is ever so pervasive
18:52
in our society. And I do wonder
18:54
you know there was othering before this
18:57
right and that was very much it
18:59
was often based on religion. and what
19:01
your religious practices were. So it's not
19:03
like before 250 years ago, we were
19:05
all seeing each other as equal. It
19:07
was more just like, I'm going to
19:09
judge you based on your religion. And
19:11
then it became, I'm going to judge
19:14
you based on your religion and your
19:16
race kind of, right? Yeah, oh my
19:18
gosh. That's why there's so many identities.
19:20
There's ethnicity. There's tribes. There's religious practices.
19:22
There are gender. We haven't even talked
19:24
about that. There's sexuality. There's gender identity.
19:27
So all of these human identities coexist
19:29
within each other. So for me,
19:31
as I think about all the identities
19:33
that I have and I sit
19:36
at the intersection of, all of us
19:38
have these identities. And what
19:40
these identities are, they create these
19:42
false human hierarchies. Make us feel
19:44
better or worse about ourselves. And
19:46
for me personally, I came to this
19:48
work because I had internalized a lot
19:50
of the stories associated with my identities,
19:53
you know, with my color, with my
19:55
ethnicity, with my sexuality. And
19:57
I started being like, oh my gosh, like, maybe
19:59
there is something wrong with me. And,
20:01
you know, 16 years ago, when I was
20:03
in law school, I found myself on the
20:05
ledge of my 18th floor window about to
20:07
jump off because I was like, I just
20:10
don't want to live anymore. But after I
20:12
jumped, I found myself back in my apartment.
20:14
So was like a moment of grace where
20:16
instead of falling forward onto the midtown Manhattan
20:18
traffic, I was back in my apartment and
20:20
I called a friend who lived quite far
20:22
away from me, but happened to be walking
20:24
in my neighborhood. And she
20:26
showed up and the next day I
20:28
began my own breaking bias journey, which
20:31
was a lot of internalized biases, internalized
20:33
oppression, and the tools and,
20:35
you know, the therapeutic services I
20:37
saw were just from my
20:40
personal healing, but. the science began
20:42
to show that they actually
20:44
help break bias, measureably reduce bias.
20:47
So that's how I got started on this work. I
20:50
feel like a lot of what's
20:52
going on right now, and perhaps
20:54
even back, back, back, back in
20:56
the, in when this all started,
20:58
a lot of it is based
21:00
in fear, which is why I
21:02
even try to have empathy. in
21:05
some ways for people that
21:07
even hate me as a trans
21:09
person, because I feel like
21:11
there is so much fear. The
21:14
fear of, as Allison said, the
21:16
other, the fear of, oh, you
21:18
come from this other place, are
21:20
you going to overtake me? And
21:22
as you said, one of the
21:24
five pillars is policy and media.
21:27
And it is very... on
21:29
what is getting reported
21:32
or what is getting shown,
21:34
which creates this fear. And
21:37
I feel like people absolve themselves
21:39
because they say, well, you know,
21:41
I'm reading the news or even
21:43
the people working in media, well,
21:45
I'm reporting the news. But you're
21:47
choosing what to cover, you're choosing
21:49
what to show, you're choosing to
21:52
write five days in a row
21:54
above the fold A1 articles about
21:56
trans people, 2 % of the
21:58
population in the New York Times. So
22:01
what have you found around
22:03
like fear being a motivator
22:05
for bias? Yeah,
22:07
so the fear is a consequence,
22:09
right? So basically a false story
22:11
is created about our humanity. So
22:13
the false story of a permanent
22:15
binary gender. based on our body
22:17
parts or biology. And
22:20
some people prescribe that false story to
22:22
be the only and the right story. And
22:24
then they project it through those five
22:26
causes. And the way
22:28
that story is created is whenever
22:30
someone digresses in that story, those
22:33
people are to be feared. And
22:35
that triggers part of our brain known
22:37
as the amygdala. And it creates
22:39
this false dichotomy of us and them,
22:42
the right and the wrong. And the
22:44
challenge there is that The story
22:46
is false. The foundation is faulty
22:48
because we know that people of
22:50
different gender identities have existed since,
22:52
you know, as long as
22:54
what's interesting, right? Even with homophobia,
22:57
you know, we talk about the
22:59
Romans seemed, I mean, it
23:01
was a mess, but they seemed
23:03
fine with that. And then all of
23:05
a sudden, how does it become
23:07
like everything's fine suddenly? Oh, no,
23:09
we have to we have to hate
23:11
these people. Yeah, and for me, because
23:13
of my own identities, I go to
23:15
the research from the non -Western world. You
23:18
know, I look at the Indigenous communities across
23:20
the Americas. I look at the Asian and African
23:22
and Southeast Asian and Aboriginal communities from Australia. You
23:25
know, the vast majority of
23:27
humanity, right? Everywhere. And they've had
23:29
ways of, you know, celebrating
23:31
gender and sexuality. You know,
23:33
one of the people I spoke
23:35
with is Native Alaskan, and they
23:37
were the last to be colonized
23:40
in the 1920s. But she said,
23:42
we have memory of two -spirit
23:44
individuals in our communities. For
23:46
them, it's like, yeah, we had gender that was
23:48
so pervasive. was like five or six different types
23:50
based on, of course, our sex,
23:52
what we call sex today, but
23:54
also our gender identity and how
23:56
we saw our temperament and we
23:58
had certain social functions. you
24:00
know, in the South Asian communities, we have the
24:02
Kinner and the Hydra communities that have, you know,
24:05
many, you know, of course, a lot of them
24:07
have been oppressed and marginalized in so many ways,
24:09
but they've existed for thousands of years. There's
24:12
actually a, which I found was
24:14
really beautiful. There is
24:16
a representation of one of
24:18
the Hindu gods as a transgender
24:20
person, Ardhinder Aishwarya, right? Half
24:22
man, half woman. So, These stories
24:24
have existed, right? But we have to
24:26
then, for me, as a researcher, I
24:28
was like, well, how did it become
24:30
this? How did this idea of binary
24:32
gender become so globalized? Because this is
24:34
a problem now, not only in our
24:36
country in the US, but it's a
24:38
problem across the global South as well.
24:41
Well, this is where colonialism really comes
24:43
into place, and they created a policy
24:45
known as the Code of Religious Offenses. So
24:48
as the European powers were spreading
24:50
around the world, forced across the
24:52
US, but also Latin America, Africa,
24:54
and other places, gender
24:57
identities that were transgressive of
24:59
the binary gender were persecuted.
25:02
Folks were literally killed and shamed
25:04
for who they are. And
25:06
then that false story gets
25:08
to be internalized. And
25:11
that's how we, of course, created that oppression
25:13
within ourselves, but also in the societies we
25:15
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we're back. So this is all
26:53
white supremacy's fault, and this is
26:55
the fault of some guy holding
26:57
a skull. Is this
26:59
all that skull's fault? Well, you
27:01
know, for me, it's interesting because
27:03
I don't blame the people that
27:05
hold such abhorrent views as the
27:07
root cause of the problem. I
27:10
once again go back to the
27:12
ancient wisdom traditions, and I use
27:14
a lot of animist wisdom in
27:16
my writing and my thinking. And
27:18
the fault is really our minds.
27:20
This is where bias really begins.
27:23
So this is a challenge of our consciousness. And
27:25
there's a very beautiful story. It's
27:27
a prescribed to like the Cherokee
27:29
tradition where, you know, a Cherokee
27:32
grandfather is speaking to his granddaughter
27:34
and he's talking to her about,
27:36
well, you know, there are two
27:38
wolves that are constantly fighting. you
27:40
know, one is really rooted in
27:42
like competition and domination is very
27:44
selfish and cruel. And the other
27:47
is rooted in compassion and love
27:49
and interdependence. And the granddaughter
27:51
asks the grandfather, hey, like, which
27:53
of these two wolves is going
27:55
to win? And he says, well,
27:57
the one you feed, right? So
27:59
that's where in the indigenous traditions
28:01
of the Americas, they actually termed
28:03
they have a term for what's
28:05
known as a mind disease that
28:07
they saw in the early colonists
28:09
which is called wetiko and this
28:11
mind disease is basically when they
28:13
first met the european colonists as
28:15
they were coming in they were
28:17
like whoa like these dudes have
28:19
these people have like a disease
28:21
because they're so selfish and they're
28:23
so like in trance with just
28:25
like domination and taking and extracting
28:27
and they're not about the community
28:29
which was very foreign to them
28:31
and then i started seeing that
28:33
these similar ideas have existed across
28:35
traditions in Europe, in Africa, in
28:38
in Buddhism, in Asia and other places.
28:40
And that's what we're talking about.
28:43
It's really not the fault of
28:45
those white supremacists who collected skulls.
28:47
They were infected by this disease. And
28:50
now that same disease of wetiko
28:52
has become globalized through those same
28:54
vectors, through education, through media, through
28:56
social contact. Of course, modern day
28:58
algorithms are not helping that cause.
29:01
But I think for me the
29:03
invitation and opportunity is that we
29:05
can now use those vectors to
29:07
spread kindness, to spread understanding, to
29:09
really bridge the information gap and
29:11
correct a lot of this misinformation
29:13
so we can overcome the ways
29:15
we treat ourselves but also treat
29:17
one another. Yeah, can we get
29:19
into the strategies that you've developed for
29:21
breaking biases? Yeah, so
29:24
a lot of them are rooted in
29:26
the neuroscience and how our brain works.
29:28
The promise of unlearning bias is
29:31
really in this idea known
29:33
as neuroplasticity. The ability of our
29:35
brains to rewire itself to
29:37
unlearn old ways of being and
29:39
learning new ways of being. Like
29:42
if you were to ask my younger
29:44
self like 20 years ago if I
29:46
would be ever out and partnered and
29:49
you know living out loud as they
29:51
say, like I'd be like
29:53
there's no way. Like there is no
29:55
way because I had so much internalized
29:57
tomophobia and queerphobia that I couldn't even
29:59
imagine this was possible for me. But,
30:01
you know, that's how, but that's how
30:03
pliable and flexible our minds are that we
30:06
could create new ways of being. And
30:08
that really begins with what I, you
30:10
know, mindfulness is kind of the core
30:12
of how we break biases. So
30:14
there are five tools, what I
30:16
call prism, and prism is
30:18
an acronym for each one of these tools.
30:21
And it's really an integration of you
30:23
know, our head with our hearts and our
30:25
bodies as well as our souls. So
30:27
it's a very somatic -based practice and it
30:29
requires us to really build new habits. So
30:31
we start with M actually and move
30:33
our way up to P. So
30:35
starting with mindfulness, we become
30:38
aware of thoughts, emotions, experiences,
30:40
particularly as we contemplate around bias
30:42
that we've experienced or also we
30:45
witness in our own thoughts and,
30:47
you know, in our own minds. Then
30:49
we move to stereotype replacement. which
30:51
is really once we become
30:54
aware of stereotypes in our minds
30:56
we notice them and we
30:58
label them as stereotypes and simultaneously
31:00
bring up counter examples of
31:02
counter examples that are positive. So
31:05
you mentioned Gabe like really having
31:07
a mental model of you know
31:09
trans people that aren't just you
31:11
know drag queens or you know
31:13
performers but who are doctors or
31:15
surgeons or lawyers or writers and
31:17
knowing that And that way we're
31:19
building those new neural transmitters. I'm
31:21
okay with drag queens. I just
31:23
don't want to be seen as
31:25
molesting people in bathrooms. And that,
31:27
right? That's kind of like exactly.
31:29
So that's basically when you become
31:31
aware of the stereotypes, these false
31:33
stories, these false narratives that are
31:35
dehumanizing. So it's about
31:37
creating also a repertoire
31:39
around our human identities. And
31:42
then we move to I, which is
31:44
individuation. So being with people
31:46
as who they are versus our ideas
31:48
of them. So if I'm with
31:50
Gabe, I'm really with Gabe versus my ideas
31:52
of Gabe, because Gabe is a unique individual
31:54
with a whole lot of talents and gifts
31:56
that are unique from all the identities he
31:58
holds. So that again takes the
32:00
practices to the of curiosity. And
32:03
lastly, we move to heart practices.
32:05
So pro -social behaviors, which are,
32:07
you know, mental and emotional states of
32:09
mind that are positive. So
32:11
active cultivation of compassion. empathy,
32:14
joy, altruism, forgiveness,
32:17
even. So these
32:19
are behaviors that are prosocial, but that
32:21
require practice. And lastly,
32:23
perspective taking, which is imagine what it's
32:25
like to be in the shoes
32:27
of another person, including ourselves, so we
32:29
can practice that for ourselves. So
32:31
one of the meditations I often lead is,
32:33
you know, imagine yourself as a five -year -old
32:35
child, right, who you were back
32:37
then, and then can you hold empathy and
32:40
compassion for that being, you know,
32:42
for all the things that may they may
32:44
have already experienced and they are yet to experience.
32:47
I think this is where the neuroscience
32:49
is really clear. But these
32:51
practices are helping us do it's
32:53
they're fighting or combating all the
32:55
negative things we are fed through
32:57
the five causes of bias. So
32:59
we're beginning to shift the inclination
33:01
of our heart, mind towards what's
33:03
possible. I think that's so beautiful,
33:05
but it requires a desire to
33:08
change the people that most needed
33:10
are not going to do it,
33:12
but. Yeah. I think in my
33:14
mind, I think they can be
33:16
led there slowly. That's right. By
33:18
someone else. And like, also, you
33:20
know, it's interesting when you talked
33:22
about individual individuation, it's the idea
33:24
that, you know, there's this narrative
33:26
now where every time there's a
33:29
murder they have to report, it
33:31
was an undocumented immigrant, but
33:33
not that an individual it's a
33:35
creation of patterns where they don't exist
33:37
or because it's like oh well
33:39
you're not reporting on all the domestic
33:41
violence within like white couple or
33:43
whatever it is you know i think
33:45
that's one of the hardest ones
33:47
is the individuation not saying oh trans
33:49
people all do this or well
33:51
i know this person and this person
33:53
and this person you know i
33:55
had someone on my bad with money
33:57
podcast who Had moved her a
33:59
black woman She moved her entire family
34:01
to Ghana because that's where her
34:03
husband is from but in the United
34:05
States She was saying that her
34:07
little daughter was only seeing certain types
34:09
of black people and now in
34:11
Ghana Everyone is black so she's like
34:13
her doctor is black her bus
34:15
driver is black her teachers You know
34:17
like and she was like she
34:19
could see that that had really impacted
34:21
the daughter and I think in
34:23
like that kind of society, right? Because
34:25
I don't want to be like
34:27
everyone should be the same race. But
34:29
it's like, you're able to see
34:31
these individuals doing these things and not
34:33
like, this is a female pilot,
34:35
or this is a black lawyer, you
34:37
know I mean? Yeah, absolutely. And
34:39
I think this is why for me,
34:41
this is long term work, you
34:43
know, breaking bias, and it's the most
34:45
important work that we do. And
34:47
what it requires of us at this
34:50
time is to really reimagine what it
34:52
means to be human. And
34:54
to begin to really decolonize, you know,
34:56
what I call neuro decolonize, all of
34:58
these false stories we've been fed about
35:00
ourselves and one another, you
35:02
know, because. Exposure. Yeah. Exposure to
35:04
different types of people. If
35:07
you want to hear the rest
35:09
of this episode and let me
35:11
tell you, you do, head over
35:13
to patreon .com slash just between
35:15
us. And for $3 a month,
35:17
you can get access to all
35:19
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35:21
ad free. You can also get
35:23
merch for this podcast at JustBetweenUsPod .com
35:25
or AlisonRaskinExpose .com. Okay, that's it.
35:27
Tatlity too! Tatlity too! Hi,
35:35
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