Impermanence Anxiety: How to Live While Letting Go

Being Well with Forrest Hanson and Dr. Rick Hanson

Being Well

Education, Self-improvement, Health & Fitness, Mental Health

4.8 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 28 August 2023

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The only constant in life is change. Moments come and go, people enter and leave our lives, and we ourselves grow, change, and eventually pass away. While this is an obvious fact of life, we usually let it blend into the background, and coming face-to-face with it can fill us with understandable feelings of anxiety, uncertainty, and even dread. In this episode Forrest and Dr. Rick explore impermanence anxiety: the fears we have related to change. They discuss “macro” and “micro” impermanence, terror management theory, the courage to care, fully embracing life, what tends to help people come to peace with impermanence, and how we can become more resilient in the face of change. Rick closes the episode by explaining how we can come more fully into the present moment, and see reality for what it truly is. You can watch this episode on YouTube. Key Topics: 0:00: Introduction 1:20: Macro-impermanence and micro-impermanence 9:25: Terror management theory, and grasping the finality of bigger changes 14:50: Fully embracing your reality 26:25: Purpose, meaning, agency and acceptance 32:40: Why change is scary, and recognizing our own fragility 38:10: Repression, avoidance, and sublimation 47:05: A walkthrough of the stages of insight 54:30: Framing yourself in the broader reality, and letting go of painful things 57:40: Recap Support the Podcast: We're now on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link. Sponsors: Factor delivers fresh, never-frozen, fully prepared meals right to your door. Head to factormeals.com/beingwell50 and use code beingwell50 to get 50% off. Zocdoc helps you find expert doctors and medical professionals that specialize in the care you need, and deliver the type of experience you want. Head to zocdoc.com/being and download the Zocdoc app for FREE. Join over a million people using BetterHelp, the world’s largest online counseling platform. Visit betterhelp.com/beingwell for 10% off your first month! Want to sleep better? Try the Calm app! Visit calm.com/beingwell for 40% off a premium subscription. Finally get that project off the ground with Squarespace! Head to squarespace.com/beingwell for a free trial, and when you’re ready to launch use coupon code BEINGWELL to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Connect with the show: Subscribe on iTunes Follow Forrest on YouTube Follow us on Instagram Follow Forrest on Instagram Follow Rick on Facebook Follow Forrest on Facebook Visit Forrest's website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey everyone, welcome to Being Well, I'm Forest Hanson.
0:10.8	If you're new to the podcast, thanks for listening today and if you've listened before, welcome
0:14.4	back.
0:15.8	One of the most difficult aspects of life to wrestle with is the reality of constant
0:20.5	change.
0:21.7	Moments come and go, people enter and leave our lives and we ourselves grow and change
0:26.6	and eventually pass away.
0:29.0	One is impermanent.
0:30.8	This is a fundamental and even kind of obvious part of life, but it's also a reality
0:36.1	that tends to blend into the background for most of us, most of the time.
0:40.0	It's almost like a kind of haze that touches everything while being largely invisible
0:46.1	and coming face to face with that often leads to feelings of anxiety, uncertainty and
0:51.1	even dread.
0:52.7	So today we're going to be exploring impermanence, anxiety and learn how to become more resilient
0:58.1	in the face of change, living while also letting go.
1:01.8	I'm joined as usual by Dr. Rick Hanson, because a clinical psychologist, a best son and
1:06.1	author and he's also my dad.
1:08.0	So dad, I'd love to start by asking you how you think about this subject broadly.
1:13.0	I know it's a very meaningful one to you and has been a part of your practice in your life
1:17.6	for a long time now.
1:19.0	I'm hyper psyched about this topic.
1:21.3	Yeah.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Being Well, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Being Well and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.