Overview:
This episode will provide commentary on a few illuminating excerpts from chapters 5 & 6 of Brad Stulberg's book, "The Practice of Groundedness."

Excerpts Discussed From Book:

📖 Chapter 5
“In his 1959 book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, the sociologist Erving Goffman delineated what he called our “front stage” and our “backstage” selves. Our front stage selves are the ones we bring to social situations or when we’re trying to delude ourselves. They tend to be performative, as if we are playing a specific role for an audience. Our backstage selves represent who we are when we stop acting, when we don’t consider how we’ll be perceived by others or measure ourselves against some kind of arbitrary bar of perfection, against the illusory standard of heroic individualism. Our front stage and backstage selves are not binary. Most human behavior lies on a spectrum between these two extremes. But when someone spends too much time playing their front stage self, particularly when there is a wide gap between their front stage and backstage selves, distress usually follows.” - page 117

“By knowing that you don’t know everything, that you don’t always have it together, you come more–not less–robust and grounded. You become stronger and more confident. Social scientists refer to this paradox as intellectual humility, which can be understood as confidence gained by owning one’s limitations and not being overly concerned with being the best or having power over others.” - page 127

📖 Chapter 6
“When you start to experience chronic loneliness, your baseline perception of threat increases. Think back to evolution: if you didn’t have a group surrounding you, the pressure to stay safe and secure would fall solely on your shoulders. You’d constantly be scanning for danger, perhaps even forgoing sleep. Unfortunately, someone who feels constantly under threat and is worried about themselves has a harder time being empathetic toward and connecting with others. This initiates a vicious cycle, causing even more loneliness.” - page 145

“Many digital technologies offer us the illusion of connection while eroding the real thing.” - page 149

“It is a rare blessing to connect with someone on this deeper level, to forge a bond with a kindred spirit.” – page 165

Links and Resources:
📘 Purchase book
🌏 Author’s website