Dr. Ethan Kross
speaker
968 appearances
6 recordings
6 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard May 2025
Dr. Ethan Kross’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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So space shifters, this is a tool that I was totally blind to, and it works at a few different levels. Let me ask you, are there any places, like physical places in your life that you find when you're in that presence of that place, it's just filled with a sense of comfort? It's just, it feels almost restorative. Yes. So might you care giving a few examples?
So... you've probably heard that we attach to other people and that certain people in our life can be these, if we're securely attached to them, they're almost like this extension of like a resource that we could lean on to help us deal with adversity. You go to those people, just being in their presence can be soothing. And this goes back to early childhood when we
Not always, but when we develop secure, positive attachments to other people, when we find ourselves going to those caretakers if they're a securely attached figure, everything feels better, like it's going to be okay. We also develop these attachments to places. And I don't think they're always top of mind for us.
But when we visit those places that we have these positive attachments to, they can fill us with a sense of positivity that can often be useful for managing things. these distressing experiences. So I think about my kids often with this work because when they were young, they would often do this thing. Whenever they'd get upset, usually if I or their mom disciplined them, they'd be like,
I just want to go home. I just want to go to my room, just like you, their bedroom. Their bedroom was this place that filled them with a sense of safety and security. And so the invitation here to folks is to think about, do a kind of environmental audit, if you will. What are the spaces around you in your immediate vicinity? that provides you with a sense of safety and security.
I often, like I love watching these spy films where there are safe houses that are all over the city. You know what I'm talking about? Like when a spy is being chased, if there was a safe house, do you know what a safe house is?
Okay, so it's like, that's this one, it's usually like an apartment or a place in the country. The bad guys never find them. There are supplies there. If you're in the house, as the name implies, you're safe.
I would argue that we have the equivalent in our neighborhoods, in our general vicinities, spaces that when we go to those spaces, when we're dealing with difficult things, they provide us with a sense of security and restoration. So for me, it's the Arboretum near my home. It's the tea house that I wrote my first book. And it's one of my offices on campus. I'm in those places and I just...
Things feel a lot more manageable. That's one way that you can interact with your spaces strategically. The other thing you could do is more locally. You could design your immediate spaces, your office, your home in two ways. You can add things. that push your emotions in the desirable direction. So what am I talking about? Well, pictures of loved ones and friends.
We've done this research where we ask people to think about a really painful event and we'll then expose them to an image of a loved one or a friend. On some trials, on other trials, we expose them to the image of another subject's loved one or friend. So in one case, you have an emotional attachment, a positive one. In the other case, you don't.
And what we find is that a micro glance at a picture of a loved one speeds up the rate at which people recover from distressing experiences. No way. I populated my offices with pictures. My wife is like, why are you putting up pictures everywhere? You've never had pictures in your offices before. I have them all over the place. If I could turn my computer, I'd show you.
So I've got them right there. I've got them on that direction. And so- I now just glance over, and I've got these little jolts of resilience when I need it. Plants. We know that nature has restorative effects. We have a sense of why that happens. It can capture our attention, often giving us a little break from the tumult of life.
That's true not just of going for a walk in a safe natural setting, although the more immersive the experience is, the better. So you should try to interact with nature more if you find that helpful. It's an easy thing to do. But if you can't get outside, put some plants in your surrounds. I have one. Mm-hmm. right over there. I bought a bunch of plants, never had plants in the house either.
We dropped more money than I'd like to admit on plants all over the house. I live, I live this stuff. So that's imposing things around you. You can also take things away from your environment that may be pushing you in the wrong direction. And I'll give you two examples. They are very concrete. Oftentimes when we're overcome with emotion, You don't feel like you're in control.
It goes back to what we were talking about before. We don't like that feeling because human beings, we like to be in control. One way you can regain a sense of control is by creating order around you. That leads to what we call compensatory control. You're putting things away. You're organizing, cleaning up.
That gives you a sense of order and control outside in the world that you're lacking inside here. Simple thing you could do. This is why people often clean and organize when they're stressed out. They don't know why they do it, but they have this reflexive urge to do so. Has that ever been true for you? Yes. Okay, so compensatory control. The other thing you could do, and this may be controversial,
But I stand by it. If there are triggers that are challenging you and undermining your ability to meet your emotion management goals, get rid of those triggers. And so for me, this is where pizza doggy bags come into play. So I have a love affair with pizza. It's my childhood food. I grew up in New York. I love New York City classic slice of pizza. If I see pizza, I will eat it.
And it doesn't matter what time of day it is. And I will eat it in the wee hours of the morning or late night when I shouldn't be eating that food. So why am I talking about pizza? If we have people over for a football watching party, I'll order the pizza. I will indulge in it. I will over-order because I always like to know there's enough food for everyone there.
When the party is over, I will insist that people take the pizza with them. If there is leftover pizza, I will throw it out because I know that if it is in the refrigerator and I see it, I will go for it.
That is correct. And so I'm proactively here structuring my environment to help me meet my goals.
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