Hello and welcome to the Being Well Podcast, I'm Forrest Hansen.

In our last episode we began talking about the strength of confidence, particularly focusing on the big topic of secure and insecure attachment.

Today we're going to talk about the first and second darts, first darts being the largely unavoidable negative experiences in life and

second darts being are much more avoidable reactions to those experiences

so joining me to talk about how we can manage those reactions is as always Dr. Rick Hansen.

So could you describe just to provide some framing for this topic what you mean by the first and second dart and also kind of explain how it relates to the

overall strength of confidence? Well the metaphor comes from the Buddha and sometimes the

word dart is translated as arrow and the word dart is translated as arrow.

And the origin of the metaphor

is in a passage in which he says,

many people live their lives in such a way

as if a man were struck by an arrow.

And let's keep in mind that 2,500 years ago, it was fairly routine for various clients

to fight with each other, including shooting each other with bows and arrows. So he says it's

as if a man struck by an arrow instead of dealing with with the arrow directly were

to just start spinning out about what kind of an arrow is it, where was it shot from,

why are they picking on me, what color are the feathers, etc, etc,

rather than dealing with the arrow, the discomfort, the pain

immediately indirect.

So it's the distinction between the first arts of life that are you could say unavoidable

inescapable physical or social slash emotional pain. The brick drops on your

foot you're going to feel some pain. Or if you lose someone you love, naturally

...