Feeling insecure? Try this memory-update exercise
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This week on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, we talk with Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Hernan Diaz about how he's used the same fountain pen for the last 30 years. What would happen if you lost it? Do you guys know those big pens with four colors?
Oh,
yeah. I grew up with that. Don't miss our full conversation and the rest of our games. Listen to the Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me podcast on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
I picture my current self showing up before my mom gets there. Adult me looks so excited to see younger me. Adult me gives younger me a hug and says, oh my gosh, I'm so happy that I get to pick you up. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy to get to spend time with you. You know, I want you to know that. even though your mom is late, that she loves you and she wishes that she could be here. And she thinks that doing this extra job is a way that she could love you better. I want you to know that you will always belong, first and foremost to me, that you'll always belong here and that you are so beloved to
me. Hey, it's Mariel Segarra. You're listening to Life Kit from NPR. And that was Marissa Franco, psychologist and author of the book Worth, The New Science of Self-Esteem and Secure Attachment. You just heard us doing an exercise in memory reconsolidation. The underlying theory is that when we recall a memory in a new context, we have the opportunity to update it. And Marissa says that can help us become more secure and improve our self-esteem. Researchers say
memories are the database of self-esteem. And so you've had negative experiences of rejection, harm, abuse, perhaps. And the thing about memories is they don't just record the past. They predict the future. So a part of you thinks that this is going to happen again. You know, someone is going to abandon me just like my parent might have. In a way, your body's recreating those past experiences in the present based off your memories and is literally triggering the same body state for you now.
but we can update those memories so they're not undermining us and hurting our relationships. When you return
to a memory and you envision yourself intervening as an adult and saying you're safe and I care about you and I'm never going to leave you, right? When you do that, it can be quite transformative and that leads to higher self-esteem, less symptoms of trauma, and also changes in the hippocampus, which is the part of our brain where our memories are stored.
On this episode of Life Kit, we'll walk through this memory reconsolidation exercise, teach you how to do it at home. And Marissa says these exercises are worth doing because our self-esteem affects everything in our lives.
All the beauties of life slip off of you when you have lower self-esteem. You can experience great success and still feel like a failure. You can find great love and still feel unlovable. And so your ability to actually internalize the good is disrupted by your own sense of self. And so I think if we're able to feel good about ourselves, ultimately we are able to receive all the good happening in our lives more deeply.
This is Tanya Mosley, co-host of Fresh Air. Ten years ago, Colin Kaepernick took the knee during the national anthem, and it cost him his NFL career. He's rarely talked about it since. Now he tells the story of that decision and why he still trains every day to play.
But I am not at the point of accepting I will never step on a field again.
Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get Fresh Air.
How do products end up on big box shelves? Well, we at Planet Money pitch the Planet Money board game. I'm trying not to think how much of a big deal it is and how much work has gone into it.
It's really big. Is it helpful if I remind you how big it is? It's sort of the whole thing.
We go inside the minds of the people who decide what goes on store shelves. Listen to Planet Money on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, it's Ray from Car Talk. Are you tired of all the depth and thoughtful care that goes into NPR shows?
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