Linking: The Secret to Rewiring Painful Memories

Being Well with Forrest Hanson and Dr. Rick Hanson

Being Well

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

4.8 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 7 April 2025

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Forrest and Dr. Rick explore one of his most powerful psychological tools: linking. Over time, linking can help us rewire the brain, softening the impact of painful memories. They discuss the neuroscience behind this process, the role of memory reconsolidation, and the importance of matching positive experiences to our original pains. Rick shares personal examples, practical tips, and a few important cautions so you can apply this technique safely. This is a grounded, hands-on episode focused on one of his most high-impact ideas. Warning: There is a brief mention of SA toward the end of the episode. You can watch this episode on YouTube. Key Topics: 0:00: Introduction 1:45: What is linking? 5:30: The relationship between linking and memory, and coherence therapy 12:20: The challenges with linking, and making the positive stronger than the negative 20:40: How to practice linking 31:00: How to disentangle our adult selves from our ‘parts’ 39:30: The “erasure protocol” 53:15: How long it takes for linking to help, and key questions to ask yourself 1:02:05: Recap Support the Podcast: We're now on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link. Sponsors Get Headspace FREE for 60 days. Go to Headspace.com/BEINGWELL60 to unlock all of Headspace FREE for 60 days. Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/beingwell. Get 15% off OneSkin with the code BEINGWELL at https://www.oneskin.co/ Go to ZOE.com and find out what ZOE Membership could do for you. Use code WELL10 to get 10% off membership. 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	Hello and welcome to being well. I'm Forrest Hansen. If you're new to the show,
0:10.8	thanks for listening today. And if you've listened before, welcome back. I'm joined today, as
0:15.1	usual, by Dr. Rick Hansen. Rick is a clinical psychologist. He's a best-selling author, and he's also my
0:20.3	dad. So, dad, how are you doing
0:21.6	today? I'm doing really well, Forrest. I've been looking forward to doing this episode with you today,
0:26.9	because this episode is going to touch on a major part of Rick Hansen material. This is the
0:32.5	L-Step in the Heel process for linking. And linking is a powerful method for reshaping emotional memory
0:39.0	based on the idea that we can use positive experiences that are happening right now to reduce
0:44.2	the whole old negative experiences have on us. We've mentioned linking on the podcast frequently,
0:49.9	but we tend to dance around it a bit when we do because it is both a very powerful intervention
0:54.1	and one that comes with some disclaimers.
0:56.5	But we normally just say, hey, this has some disclaimers and that we never really go
1:00.0	into them in detail.
1:01.2	So that's what we're doing today.
1:03.0	I've been really looking forward to this one.
1:04.5	I think it's great material.
1:05.8	Before we get into it, I do want to give you a couple of quick reminders. First, if you haven't subscribed to the podcast yet and you've been listening for a while,
1:12.6	hey, subscribe.
1:13.6	It would really help us out.
1:14.6	Second, you can find us on Patreon at patreon.com slash being well podcast.
1:18.6	And for just a few dollars a month, you can support the show and get a bunch of bonuses in return,
1:23.6	including transcripts of the episodes.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 5 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

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.