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This week we talk to Chris Niebauer
Chris Niebauer received his Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuropsychology from the University of Toledo where he specialized in left-right brain differences. He has conducted research on consciousness, handedness, beliefs and the sense of self and is currently an associate professor of cognitive psychology at Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania. When he is not teaching, Chris likes to play guitar, spend time with his family, and work on new books. His new book is called The Neurotic’s Guide to Avoiding Enlightenment: How the Left Brain Plays Unending Games of Self-improvement
In This Interview, Chris Niebauer and I Discuss…
- His book, The Neurotic’s Guide to Avoiding Enlightenment: How the Left Brain Plays Unending Games of Self-improvement
- That your thoughts and behaviors should match and when they don’t you look to make it happen – Cognitive Dissonance
- Confirmation Bias
- The power of gratitude
- The mechanics of thoughts themselves
- The law of opposition
- Why if you accept a bad mood, it begins to dissipate
- That the universe is always becoming something that it isn’t
- The good and bad news about the ego
- The impermanence of “things”
- The eternal nature of “verbs”
- The often incorrect storytelling, or pattern finding nature of the left brain
- The left brain interpreter
- The ego as a story that we tell ourselves
- The challenge of finding consciousness in the brain
- “Doing” rather than “having” consciousness
- The analogy of jogging to consciousness or ego: if you stop jogging and pat yourself down trying to find the “jogging” in you. It’s a verb, not a noun
- The connection between pattern finding and depression vs anxiety
- A state of enlightenment and the left, pattern-finding brain
- How we want the universe to be a mystery
Chris Niebauer Links
A grandfather is talking with his grandson and he says there are two wolves inside of us which are always at war with each other.
One of them is a good wolf which represents things like kindness, bravery and love. The other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed, hatred and fear.
The grandson stops and thinks about it for a second then he looks up at his grandfather and says, “Grandfather, which one wins?”
The grandfather quietly replies, the one you feedThe Tale of Two Wolves is often attributed to the Cherokee indians but there seems to be no real proof of this. It has also been attributed to evangelical preacher Billy Graham and Irish Playwright George Bernard Shaw. It appears no one knows for sure but this does not diminish the power of the parable.
This parable goes by many names including:
The Tale of Two Wolves
The Parable of the Two Wolves
Two Wolves
Which Wolf Do You Feed
Which Wolf are You Feeding
Which Wolf Will You Feed
It also often features different animals, mainly two dogs.
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