Well, Dr. Pete and Dr. Rubin took this journey in 2020 starting When East Meets West. It feels like they have been doing this for ages, and their relationship is palpable. They discuss the time together this first season, and reflect on the past 34 episodes! If you have topics to share with us and you wish to contact the docs to discuss, send us a note: info@wheneastmeetswest.us. We can’t wait for you to hear more in 2021!

Transcript:

Pete: So it's been quite the season Nikki Rubin. Can you imagine that our first season, whatever the heck that even means, is coming to a wrap?

Nikki: I can't, especially as I was reflecting about this being our last episode of the season and...

Pete: Of 2020,

Nikki: This glorious year called 2020, I was thinking, "wow, and to think, six months ago, I was telling Pete no freakin way will I ever do a podcast". Sounds horrifying to me. Now look at us.

Pete: 31 episodes in, 32 episodes in. We'll have 34 for season 1.

Nikki: Yeah, 34 in total.

Pete: So I guess, this episode, we're just going to reflect on what this ride has been like. And I'll start with just saying that I'm very thankful for you.

Nikki: Vice versa.

Pete: Well, it's just wonderful. And, I have shared this, I think it's funny, because a lot of my family, my friends that are listening, of the 40 people listening, my friends.

Nikki: We might be up to 70, now. I don't know.

Pete: We're even beyond that. But, hey.

Nikki: We're beyond that, yeah.

Pete: But my friends are like, "I really like Nikki". It's funny, and many of us now these days are all over the world. And with the pandemic it's interesting, because we're all over the world, we potentially have more time. And yet, we have less time to actually connect. And so it's an interesting, I guess, I don't know,

Nikki: Well sounds like you're saying that this has maybe been an experience for you. Well, obviously, you and I have gotten to connect, but maybe we've been able to create connections with people that are listening that we...

Pete: That's exactly what I'm saying. Thank you.

Nikki: That's why we're a good team, we really are.

Pete: Wasn't I clear?

Nikki: Well, I was like, "let me translate for everybody listening",

Pete: Please.

Nikki: "Let me translate". Yeah, I mean, obviously vice versa. I'm very grateful for you as well. And I'm grateful that you pushed me to do this. Because I mean, I know I keep saying it. You guys have to know I really didn't want to do this. Like I really didn't.

Pete: Well when you think about it so far. I mean, just as we reflect on the year, let's not reflect on the year. Let's just reflect on these last...

Nikki: Yeah, I think we have plenty of time reflect on 2020. Yeah, I think I've been surprised by how much I've enjoyed doing the podcast. I mean, not surprised by how much I enjoy getting to talk to you every week.

Pete: Yeah.

Nikki: Not that part, that part I knew would be fun. Though, I think, and we talked about some other ways. I think I was so worried I would just be caught up in my own head.

Pete: Yeah,

Nikki: And just over evaluating myself, and like I said, just very vulnerable experience for me to share this kind of stuff, because I'm as gregarious as I can be. I'm also a very private person. And so this, like I said, felt very exposing. So in some ways, I'm surprised that I'm like, 'I can't believe I ever felt like that'. Because,

Pete: Yeah,

Nikki: I'm sort of like,

Pete: Yeah.

Nikki: So I'm glad that we're doing this. I'm hoping it's helpful to people, I certainly have gotten some great feedback from people that I know they've listened, and said, they just really enjoyed the advice. They know both of us that it's like, one of my friends says, "Oh, it's just like, having you in the car with me, you guys..."

Pete: That's what I get from slot of my friends. And that was the point I was saying. So one of my friends in Portland or, it's in San Diego, different parts of the that's just the country at least.

Nikki: Well, we have all over the world. I mean, we've got someone from Malaysia, I think we've had Israel, we've got, I think it was Norway, we got all over the place.

Pete: So same thing, like going to the grocery store, I can get like a little bit of you, even though I can't talk to you. And I think that that's nice. I mean, obviously, I think our goal is to educate people on behaviors and how suffering is normal. Maybe to gives some tools for how to manage some of that. I wonder maybe, we'll like reflect on like, our episodes that stand out. I'll start maybe if,

Nikki: Please, go ahead. Go for it

Pete: I think I'm just throwing the question out as if we've never prepared.

Nikki: Yeah,

Pete: I mean, with Robin Walser was great. We'll definitely have her back. But that would be the easy answer. But I think I want to talk about like, what's some of the difficult ones, like race and social inequities. I think they really stood out for me because, I even had an athlete recently say that they were choosing someone because of their skin color. But the way that they reflected on it was like, "I've never had a black coach". And I was like, "that is just really powerful".

Nikki: Yeah,

Pete: This is a black young lady talking about not having had a black coach. And I just thought, 'wow', so here I am. And so my response is, "well, great, like, I'm another white person in your world". But I think that the work that I've done in that regard, I see it live.

Nikki: Yes,

Pete: And even with a conversation my mom recently, which was interesting, because my mom is not the most, she's certainly not the second most, she's not even closely psychologically minded. She's adorable and sweet. And as cute as can be. And she was even talking to me about some of that stuff. Because she was like, I forgot how it came up, but she was like, "Oh, so the black athletes like have it differently?" She was asking questions and like getting interested. And that's what we talked a lot about in this podcast, is about curiosity.

Nikki: And bringing in the uncomfortable. I mean, those episodes also stand out to me. And yeah, I mean, both the social inequities, race and power and also individualism and politics, which was another one. And yeah, I think it's been a helpful process for me. And I think Pete, I can put words in your mouth, maybe here.

Pete: Please,

Nikki: And guests that we really want to practice what we preach. I mean, that's outside the podcast, too. But we wanted to talk about these really difficult things that are not just topical, so to speak. It's not just like, we're not talking about these things, just because we're like, "oh, this is in the news or something". It's because these are things that are always happening. I mean,

Pete: Yeah,

Nikki: Psychologist, and not psychologist as well, we could certainly stand to talk about race and power with much more frequency and curiosity and openness and just, like, we committed to stepping into the uncomfortable, arenas for ourselves, and hopefully to model for other people.

Pete: Yeah. And so, there were fun ones too, with the dogs. And that was another one that stood out, although now, we should re record that. Because as much I love puppies, I really do. But they are exhausting, holy cow.

Nikki: They're little, they're babies.

Pete: They're little babies.

Nikki: I mean, I guess I've also just enjoyed having a place to share information that I think never, not never, that's an absolute, let me rephrase. That often doesn't get communicated out in the world beyond the four therapy walls these days, the two dimensional screen therapy walls. So you can like things about acceptance, like our last episode, we visited acceptance, that was our second episode, talking about dialectics, my personal favorite, no one's going to be surprised to hear me say that. I just want people to have this information, whether they are seeking psychological treatment or not.

Pete: Yeah. And that's the key, is that we want... We're expensive, and we want to be able to educate the world, because that sounds like kind of cheesy and whatnot. But it's true, we really want to be able to go outside the four walls or the computer screen. So I want us to reflect maybe on goals for next year, because, one of the things that we'll all share is that, we don't know what we're doing. We've heard me say that before, we have no idea what a season looks like, how many episodes, we have no idea about anything.

Nikki: No, we're just trial and error.

Pete: Trial and error. But what we do know is how we feel, and so we feel like we need a little bit of a break. We do feel like we want to kind of get a little bit more organized, especially because 2020 has been so taxing on all of us. And so I think for 2021, that's one of my goals, is I hope that we get a little bit more organized and maybe kind of thinking about topics. Because, so also for listeners, we have a list of topics ish, and then often we just log on and then we'll be like, "So what are we talking about today?" Sometimes we pick and choose two topics, so I think it could benefit us if we actually were a little bit more...

Nikki: A little bit more structured? I hear you on that, and it's funny because I should share, before we started do this, I was like really structured about it. Like I thought...

Pete: Oh my god, yes.

Nikki: You remember? You forgot? Because I'd never done anything like this. And so I was sort of approaching it, I do these online continuing education courses and obviously...

Pete: Well you're on the covers of the websites, it's a big deal.

Nikki: Yes, a very big deal, my private practice fame. I say this, that's a joke.

Pete: I get it.

Nikki: Yeah. So I was really structured. And then when I realized like, 'no, this is a conversation', I've almost like gone the other way where I think Pete's been like, "we got to like rein it in".

Pete: How funny is that.

Nikki: And I'm like, " no, I kind of like it, let's just wing it".

Pete: That was a total role reversal. Oh my God, I forgot about some of your first outlines.

Nikki: Because I was so anxious.

Pete: They were intense as he'll too.

Nikki: And I wanted to control it.

Pete: By the way, I modeled flexibility in that shit.

Nikki: You sure did. That's why I told Pete, I was like, "Thank you so much for tolerating my anxiety and my stuck points". He really stuck with me on that.

Pete: I was like, "alright sure, outline sure,I'll do one. Sure I'll do it for the next episode". And that's, like [inaudible 10:55] the Google Doc with a bunch of words potential. Which, sometimes we talk about it, sometimes we don't.

Nikki: Sometimes we don't, yeah. So I appreciate that, yes. We could do...

Pete: What about like social goals or like targeted goals? Or we have...

Nikki: I mean, I don't know. Now I'm thinking people are listening are probably like, "shut the hell up".

Pete: Yeah, " shut up and just..."

Nikki: We don't care to do this on your own time.

Pete: Okay, maybe what we'll say is, "hey, drop us a line, what you'd like to hear from us?"

Nikki: Yeah, I like that, please drop us a line on what you'd like to hear. Because I would say my overarching aim would be an intention, which we've already stated, today, I'll say it again. Is, again, to disseminate information. To disseminate information in a clear and fun way. Because, and Pete and I said this in the first episode, just very unfortunately, there's a lot of inaccurate information out there, when it comes to psychology. And when it comes to psychology,

Pete: Well because everyone thinks we're like, the sopranos shrink, or the one in the billions. Like it's on one hand we've been portrayed in series and movies, which is nice, because I think historically wouldn't have been,

Nikki: Sure, yeah.

Pete: Where we were like, murdering somebody. And then now it's like, "oh, you're going to like, cross your legs, and then like, show me a little bit of your", like, do something inappropriate. Because that's how it's portrayed. So there is a mystery. And I think many clients come and they have no idea what to expect. Do you notice that?

Nikki: Yeah. Well, and as we've said many times in the cognitive behavioral therapy world, transparency is a high value to us. And I always tell people, "I want you to know how your brain works."

Pete: Yeah.

Nikki: I want you to know how your brain works, because when you know how your brain works, things that work well about it, things that don't work well, then you have more opportunities to decide how you want to respond to that and work with this. Because, also what I say a lot of like, brains are just organs, we give them way too much credit, frankly. It's just a bunch of tissue in there that does some cool stuff, but like the lungs do cool stuff.

Pete: The heart does cool stuff.

Nikki: Stomach does cool stuff. I mean, everything does cool stuff on our body. And yet because our personalities share real estate up in our skull with our brains, we seem to think that brains get a pass and it's like, no brains are organs. And I want people to understand how they work. And like both Western behavioral science and Eastern spiritual traditions have a lot of info about how to work with these really imperfect human organs.

Pete: Yeah, like we eat well, because we want our stomach to digest and our body to be healthy, we want clean air for our lungs, we want exercise for heart. What are we doing for our brain?

Nikki: Yeah, exactly. And so that's what I would say. I mean, that's sort of my aim as a psychologist in general. And that would extend obviously, in this context, as well, because like I said, this is information that everybody deserves to have it.

Pete: Do you have another question about our reflection on our first season for our season finale?

Nikki: Another question?

Pete: Yeah.

Nikki: You mean like a question for you? Or a question, just like, going forward?

Pete: Yeah, for us. Yeah.

Nikki: I mean, you know what I'm wondering, like if for you Pete, because like I was sharing, I really didn't want to do this, and I felt so vulnerable. And now I'm like, "why was I feeling that way? I'm actually stoked that we did this." I don't know, did you experience any of that throughout the season? Or would you say you felt pretty confident throughout?

Pete: Yeah, I think I believe that we have a gift. I believe that we have something to share. So I'm confident in that. I think what I like is that we can also model our imperfections.

Nikki: Yeah,

Pete: So I know sometimes you and I have reflected on maybe something we maybe misspoke or we weren't fully accurate or something along those lines and I'm okay with that. Like I don't want to be perfectly like produced.

Nikki: Yeah,

Pete: I mean, it'd be nice. But hey, Chris, thanks for editing our,

Nikki: Yes,

Pete: Our...

Nikki: Shout outs to Chris.

Pete: Yeah. But other than that, and that's just because it's pretty simple edit. Just again, for our listeners, we don't edit ever. I think, actually, once we just edited because I cursed and I just asked him to take the curse out because I don't know what the heck that means. Here I go again.

Nikki: They say it on tv, I think it's fine.

Pete: I think they say it on tv. Yeah, I have always felt confident in it, I feel confident in us. That's why I've always been pushing you to do that. And I think I would just like to have a little bit more structure. So again, how our roles have reversed just because I think that will make us a little bit more confident and flow in a different kind of way. But yeah, I love your dissemination of information and obviously training the brain. I mean, that's always something I say, because we spend so much time with other parts of our body, but we don't focus on training our brain and exercise for that.

Nikki: Yeah, and I'm hoping to learn more, continue to learn more about Buddhism, frankly. I mean, I've always said like, I consider myself a Buddhist informed is the best way to describe it, like I ascribe to a lot of the overarching principles and worldviews, which I came to, through my training to become a psychologist. Though, as I've also said, I'm not a practicing Buddhist, as Pete is. And I just have to say, I've really enjoyed that, like, there's definitely things, I've learned a lot of things about that this season.

Pete: Well, so thank you for that, because I feel like I find myself sort of repetitive, at least that's how I perceive it. Because I think that the teachings are simple, is that we all suffer, sufferings caused by attachment, there's a way to release attachment, and then you arrive at enlightenment.

Nikki: But it's like we can't hear it enough. I mean, like that's the thing.

Pete: Maybe, yeah. But I also I just want to clarify, a lot of what I bring in, and we bring in is really Eastern,

Nikki: Yes, totally.

Pete: It's not necessarily fully Buddhist. I am trained, or studying within the Zen Buddhist traditions. But honestly, I train a lot different than my teacher. And that's something that he and I talk a lot about, because he is very into like scholarship and writing and reading, and from, like Zen Japanese authors, whereas I'm more in like, 'how do I do this today, in the West in 2020'. And I have noticed a lot of his successors, their Dharma talks are similar to his. It's often, like a poem, like a newspaper article, and then like, something from like a Japanese, Zen person. And when I recently gave a talk, I talked about the no Buddha, no Dharma, like, one of the diamond sutures, but then it was just like, 'and what does that mean then for right now, and my suffering, especially with the holiday seasons coming up on us again, and 2020, and a pandemic', and like, I just did it in a way that was like, very sort of tangible, because I think that that's also, that is my Zen. My Zen is teaching and sharing in a very secular way. So that we can work towards releasing suffering. And all that comes from the east, like, I was just writing a section of this new book on the body, because I'm breaking it up into like, mind, body and spirit. Which that's not new, it's just how I treat. But within the body piece, like I was looking at the chakras and reading up on the chakras, which we know from yoga.

Nikki: Yep.

Pete: And so as you talked about, like, 2500 years, it's even older because like India, it's like BC,

Nikki: Right, yes.

Pete: 2000 BC. And like, how amazing to think about our body and its energy, and that kind of way. So it's just all connected. And that's what led me to the practice, studying Buddhism. Is like, I started reading some more Tibetan literature, and it's like, trees, the universe, like everything is connected. And that always just resonated with me. So my suffering is connected to your suffering, and so on.

Nikki: Well, and then we would say, and my joy is connected to your joy.

Pete: That's right. Exactly. Thank you for bringing that in. That's right, yeah.

Nikki: Yeah. Well, got to be dialectical.

Pete: Yes. Well, and I always appreciate that about you that you always bring it to Western behavioral science, which you're so good at. And so I'm so thankful for that piece from you.

Nikki: Well, you're welcome. And like I was saying vice versa. I mean, we can just do a whole episode where Pete and I just...

Pete: [inaudible 19:42]each other,

Nikki: Talk about each other, and just show how much love we have for one another. Well, I just got to say, it's been fun and I hope everybody listening that this first season has started, maybe some conversations with yourself and other people, and maybe planted the seed to become more curious and willing to see things as they are through these two lenses that we've presented both again, the western behavioral science and Eastern spiritual traditions. And yeah, I'm just cannot wait for it to be 2021. So I'm just really going to be in such a great mood in early 2021, when we start Season Two.

Pete: Yeah. And I've enjoyed every moment, every episode, and I think we will put the email in the description. So if there's any goals or topics that you'd like, I think we'll open that up for our season 2. And remain curious, be mindful, and be present. Be brave.

Pete: This has been When East Meets West. I'm Dr. Peter Economou.

Nikki: And I'm Dr. Nikki Rubin. Be present, be brave.

Pete: This has been When East Meets West, all material is based on opinion and educational training of doctors Pete Economou and Nikki Rubin.

Nikki: Content is for informational and educational purposes.

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