Chapter 166: Ethan Kross invites insight by interrupting internal interference
Shownotes
Happy Hunter's Moon, everyone!
The nights are getting longer here in Toronto.
Suddenly there seems to be a lot more time alone with that voice inside our heads …
The one that wakes you up at 2am and decides now is the perfect time to question everything you said yesterday while trying to pre-process the things that may go wrong tomorrow.
How do we know when useful thinking turns into overthinking
Our guest today is a psychologist, neuroscientist, Professor of Psychology and Management & Organizations at the University of Michigan, and one of the world's leading researchers on the voice inside our heads ... Professor Ethan Kross.
He's also the director of Michigan University's Emotion and Self-Control Laboratory, where he studies how we can manage our thoughts and emotions. For nearly two decades his research has investigated a deceptively simple question: How can we control our thoughts, emotions, and behaviours when they stop being helpful?
You might know Ethan Kross from his bestselling book 'Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It,' which has been translated into more than 40 languages.
His follow-up bestseller, 'Shift: Managing Your Emotions—So They Don't Manage You,' explores how we can better understand and manage our emotions.
And his newest release, 'Chatter: The Workbook,' published earlier this year, offers practical exercises to help us stop overthinking and put our inner voice to work.
So ... what exactly is chatter? And how is it different from simply thinking about a problem? Ethan gives us a wonderfully simple answer: Are you making forward progress?
Our inner voice helps us plan, remember, imagine, solve problems, make decisions, and understand ourselves.
The trouble begins when we keep circling the same problem without getting anywhere.
When introspection turns into rumination ... when thinking turns into overthinking. Ethan has spent his career figuring out what we can actually do about it.
We discuss how to create psychological distance from our problems, what Ethan does when chatter wakes him up at 2am, why constantly checking the news can make us more anxious, how nature changes the way our minds work, why experiencing awe can help shrink our problems back down to size, the surprising power of simply helping other people, and, of course ... Professor Ethan Kross's 3 most formative books.
Let's flip the page to Chapter 166 now ...