Recall Recall

#354: The crew talks about learning new habits and skills, but sliding back into repeating old ones. What’s the deal with that??

Transcript

Josué Cardona 0:11
Welcome to GT radio on the Geek Therapy network. Here at Geek Therapy we believe that the best way to understand each other and ourselves is through the media we care about. My name is Josué Cardona. And I’m joined today by Lara Taylor.

Lara Taylor 0:22
Hey,

Josué Cardona 0:23
Link Keller.

Link Keller 0:25
Yo,

Josué Cardona 0:26
And Marc Cuiriz

Marc Cuiriz 0:28
Hello.

Josué Cardona 0:29
Hello, Team. It’s my turn again, is it? is it my turn again?.

Lara Taylor 0:34
It is, because you decided to give us a topic.

Josué Cardona 0:38
Because nobody else came up with a topic. So my, my, my topic came to me when we when I was playing, small little, little indie game called Legend of Zelda tears at the kingdom. never and never heard of it. Yeah, no, it’s good. It’s good. So there will be no spoilers here. But I had to kind of what I call this not a, I had a realization. So I’m playing this game. So for context, this is the sequel to breath of the wild and I played, I played about 150 hours a Breath of the Wild through two playthroughs. I liked the game a lot. And one thing that I liked about the game was how you kind of had this very open world and you weren’t sure if you could climb that mountain, or if you could get this far and get to a particular thing. And so I’m playing tears of the kingdom. And I’m doing exactly that, again. It’s like, oh, my god, can I climb the mountain? Can I do this? Can I make it this way, I’m gonna try this. And I’m enjoying it. And after a play session, I stopped. And I thought, wait a minute. This is a sequel. There’s like 100 different ways that I could have done this. Because there there are all these new tools that weren’t available in the first game. And even though the game is teaching me to use them, and sometimes even requiring me to use them, to get from point A to point B, I’m so used to the way I used to do it, that I just did not actually use any of those things. So of course, it got me thinking how, how we do that in real life. That’s like, oh, I go to therapy, or I go to the gym, or I want to go to school, do trainings at work, and you don’t remember the things that you just learned. And you keep doing things. Like you were doing them before. Like you go back to old habits and you start like, why does that happen? What has happened to him? Why am I not using all the new features and Zelda? Why am I not using all of the amazing things that I’ve learned in therapy over the years?

Lara Taylor 2:57
Because new habits are hard to build.

Josué Cardona 3:00
get out of here

Lara Taylor 3:00
And we’d like to be in our comfort zone and do things the way we know.

Josué Cardona 3:05
Oh, explain that to me. I don’t like it. I don’t get it.

Lara Taylor 3:12
I don’t like it either. I can explain it, but I don’t like it. I also I do like some new things in games. I like new games and things like that. And I will get to the real life piece of it. But like I’m playing Jedi survivor and I keep getting new stances and new outfits and things like that. Nope, I want Cal to look the way he was on. Like the first cutscene I changed the color of his outfit to be more colors I like but like I don’t I don’t mess around with all the hair and stuff. I like the the two lightsabers and the double bladed lightsaber. I don’t use the new stances. Yeah, I like to use the things I’m used to. Partially because I know I’m more efficient at it and I know what I’m doing.

Josué Cardona 4:03
But these new tools are we’re more powerful and we can do more.

Lara Taylor 4:07
They are sometimes they are sometimes they’re not right. Like if I were to try and teach myself to type on a keyboard the way you’re supposed to at school. I would be way slower than I am right now with my master typing skills.

Josué Cardona 4:21
but wait, how do you type?

Link Keller 4:25
elaborate,

Lara Taylor 4:26
elaborate, my hands go that place where you’re the starting position you’re supposed to with your pointer finger on the little dots right on the F and the J But my fingers don’t go to the ones that exactly the way that they say whatever. Like I don’t know. I can’t tell you exactly which ones go where but I just type and it’s not the way that they teach you in school. Exactly.

Josué Cardona 4:51
Well this was backwards that this one is like if you learn the right if you the way that you do

Lara Taylor 4:57
the new way is faster.

Josué Cardona 4:58
Yeah, and then you stopped.

Lara Taylor 5:00
they stopped teaching it.

Josué Cardona 5:01
No, but then you stopped. It just started doing the old way. That’s my life.

Lara Taylor 5:07
Okay, I guess that makes sense. But yeah, we like to do the things that we are used to, because we are creatures of habit. And it is really hard to build routines and do new things. Because it’s not what we know, and not what we’re used to. And our brains fall back on those old patterns, because that’s the neural pathways that have been firing, right, and it takes a long time to switch to new pathways. I think I have to say that at least once a day, at my work sometimes five times a day

Josué Cardona 5:39
to yourself?

Lara Taylor 5:40
to clients

Link Keller 5:41
three to clients, two to yourself.

Lara Taylor 5:43
And to remind myself both that I also need, I take time to change that my habits, but also that my clients take time to change their habits, and that it is a process.

Josué Cardona 5:56
So even, like that makes sense to me. From a behavioral standpoint, right, for certain things, but what about, Does the same apply to your thoughts? Like to to thinking? Does it does the same? revolve around traumatic responses to, you know, all these things? Does the same apply?

Lara Taylor 6:23
I mean, I feel like it does. I mean, we’re talking behaviorally, but thoughts and thoughts and traumatic responses and all those like anxiety pathways, that’s all going through your brain too. So.

Josué Cardona 6:38
So but so. But what why do we so we develop the new habit?

Lara Taylor 6:47
And it takes time

Josué Cardona 6:49
why doesn’t it stick around? Why does it go away?

Lara Taylor 6:50
it doesn’t stick around because you have to keep doing it to get it to stick around. But then that means you have to keep doing it, even though you want to do the old ones

Josué Cardona 6:58
What if you don’t want to do the old one? That’s the problem. You don’t want to do the old one, you want to do the new one? Why don’t we Why don’t we go back to the old?

Lara Taylor 7:03
See, I want to do the old one.

Link Keller 7:09
It comes down to it’s like neurological resources, right? It costs more energy to do the new thing. Not necessarily because it is more difficult, but because it is new, your brain needs to pay more attention to it.

Lara Taylor 7:25
Right

Link Keller 7:26
I think a great example would be like when you are driving a route to work or school or whatever. And you’re driving the same route all the time, like there comes a point where your brain is not engaging in the drive above the very baseline bottom level, and you just appear in the parking lot where you’re going, you’re like, wow, I don’t remember actually driving here, but here I am. And so if you change your path, you have to be way more focused and your brain is way more engaged in that is more resource intensive. And so if you’re not being like, really on top of reinforcing the change, your brain is like, my whole bag is doing as many shortcuts as I can. And I know that this one is shorter than whatever the heck you’re trying to do right now. So I’m just gonna swing, swing over into the old habit. I’m gonna save you a couple of batteries, so you can play more video games or something.

Lara Taylor 8:28
Which is precisely why we ended up going on autopilot. If we’re going the same direction to go to a friend’s houses we are to work and it’s like, oh, we drive the path to work all the time. So that’s where we must be going not to the friend’s house. Yeah,

Link Keller 8:43
I’ve done that a couple of times. You take take a freeway exit that goes to one place you go to regularly it’s like this time I’m going to the DMV. That’s like the next block down is like, No, you’re in the parking lot is a place you always because what? Dammit.

Lara Taylor 9:00
that’s not where I’m meant to go.

Link Keller 9:02
Now you have that shame moment of like, Gosh, I really hope nobody’s paying attention to the weirdo who just drove into the parking lot and then looked really annoyed and then turned around and drove away. Is everybody judging me right now? Oh, God.

Josué Cardona 9:14
Yes. So

Lara Taylor 9:18
It might not have been then, but Josué is definitely judging you now.

Josué Cardona 9:22
Yes, for sure. I’m gonna Judge Marc now.

Marc Cuiriz 9:27
Please.

Josué Cardona 9:28
Now, Marc, I’ve have a question for you. And Lara, I guess because, you know, when when y’all have seen clients lately, how often Like yeah Lara you said every day. You have to mention this, but you You’ve both done, like inpatient settings. Right. And so how often do you see like, how often do you see a client suffering from something doing way better for a while and then falling back right? To the old behaviors, which, which again, are not. They’re not helpful. Maybe they are comfortable, you know, just just

Link Keller 10:13
Or it’s like they were useful in a certain context. But that context no longer exists. Right? A lot of trauma responses are like that, where it’s like, we don’t want to shame people for doing a behavior that allowed them to survive. But when you’re not in that survival state anymore, that’s harming you. So how do we change it?

Marc Cuiriz 10:36
Yeah, I think for, for me, since I really do worry, listen. So right now I’m working with that inpatient level, I do get, I do get some repeaters, every now and again, and there’s a couple times and I kind of joke around with them about it. But a lot of times to what I’m kind of seeing is, it’s not that they don’t need to act in that certain way anymore, or react that certain way or behave a certain way anymore, it’s that, unfortunately, for us, nine times out of 10, when they’re discharging, because we’re just for stabilization, they’re still going back to those same things, and they don’t have the resources necessarily available to them to create a change in their environment. And so their brain kind of goes back into that instinctual mode. And then they start doing the, they start re engaging in their trauma responses, because to them, they’re still in that survival mode. And so for them, that’s what’s working, but it’s also not working, and then they end up coming back because either a family member gets fed up with it, because they’re not realizing that they might be the problem. Or, you know, it’s again, like they it, they take that response, and they go a little too far. And, you know, then it becomes a danger or a concern, and they know that they need to come back. And, you know, I try my best to try to set them up for that path of success or fight to find a way to make it work. And the unfortunate thing is that sometimes I just can’t. And then that kind of falls into my own thought patterns and things like that. So everything that I learned in therapy about saying it’s not my fault, because it’s not, you know, it’s not like I’m purposely doing it that goes right out the window, and I go right back into people pleasing behavior. And I just want to make everybody happy, please stop being mad, stop being sad, just be happy, please. And then I often have to catch myself. Sometimes when I’m in that self degrading talk, or that or I’m getting too hard on myself and be like, Hold on, wait a minute, we learned how to not do this. So let’s stop doing it.

Josué Cardona 12:55
Why did you stop doing it before? Why do you keep doing it?

Marc Cuiriz 13:00
you know, it’s what I like to call my ultra instinct mode, where I’m just not thinking at all

Josué Cardona 13:07
got it got it

Marc Cuiriz 13:08
about my thoughts about my actual thinking process, I’m not thinking about my thinking, I’m not meta thinking here. It just, it just happens. And it just kind of falls back into, it’s almost like a, like a subroutine where it’s a process that’s constantly running in the background. But I’m not paying any sort of active attention to it. So I’m not recognizing that it’s still there at times. And it’s only when I start trying to figure something out that I start finding it just randomly somewhere in the crevices of my brain. And now it’s at the front and then once it’s called once I have brought it to my attention, then I can start dealing with it. But I think ultimately, it’s kind of always like a background process. It’s just constantly running. I can’t find it’s like a like I lose a tab. You can’t find it. You’re trying to close everything and you just can’t find it anywhere.

Link Keller 14:02
I like I like that metaphor. My My mind went immediately to like, why is my computer chugging so hard? Let me just go to the Task Manager. It’s like why am I running 80 versions of Spotify right now? Why is that happening? I’m not even listening to music. Just force force quit everything.

Josué Cardona 14:22
why don’t you just restart the computer, defrag, rewrite the code

Link Keller 14:26
that’s the unfortunate thing it’s very hard to do a force restart on your own brain.

Marc Cuiriz 14:34
I can’t just like

Link Keller 14:34
fresh drivers, like what is going on here?

Marc Cuiriz 14:37
I unfortunately cannot just go to sleep and the middle of the workday and just collapse on the floor and just do a hard reboot.

Lara Taylor 14:46
But Why not Marc?

Link Keller 14:48
I wish TV was real where when anybody bonks you on the head with any item it immediately knocks you unconscious for 30 seconds to two hours but you’re always perfectly fine afterwards I would love that

Lara Taylor 15:03
no concussion

Link Keller 15:04
to be real. I would love to get just bonked on the head. Just knock me out for a little bit

Josué Cardona 15:07
would you like to see stars or birds?

Marc Cuiriz 15:10
Ooh, I think I see stars

Josué Cardona 15:12
I think I’d be a bird person.

Link Keller 15:16
Can I? Can I pick the bird? Or is it just like basic?

Josué Cardona 15:19
I don’t know how this works.

Link Keller 15:21
it there a bird upgrade?

Lara Taylor 15:22
Is it like, Roger. Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Birds?

Link Keller 15:27
I want Who Framed Roger Rabbit? I want Roger rabbits running around my head.

Lara Taylor 15:31
Okay. okay

Marc Cuiriz 15:32
I like that. I like that.

Josué Cardona 15:34
It’s your Bonk. So, of course, I’m asking all these questions, right? Because because it is, it is so frickin hard to to give these things up. Especially right. I mean, it all goes back to trauma. I was back to your parents. Right, that early programming is so so hard. It’s so frustrating. I mean, we wouldn’t have we wouldn’t have. Some of us here wouldn’t have jobs if it weren’t because of because of this?

Link Keller 16:08
Yeah,

Josué Cardona 16:10
who knows what ya’ll’d be doing? It is it is it is incredible. And I I was just so surprised to have that feeling in the game as well. Right? Because it’s not even. It’s like you forget that you have these tools. Right? And and I think, Lara you I mean, you know, you, you made it to the punch line, like within the first 30 seconds. You’re not repeating, right that you need to repeat this stuff, you need to do it over and over again. You need to I want to stay away from the word habit. In a sense, just but right, but you’re not wrong.

Lara Taylor 16:49
Like, yeah, teachers talk about, like, kids need to hear something at least three times to remember it. More than that. Adults need to hear it. And I get so many clients who are like, I know, we’re talking about the same thing that we talked about last week, or we’ve talked about this a month ago, I know we got to talk like why are we talking about it again. Because we got to talk about it as many times as you need to talk about it to get it in like to soak it in, right and be able to hear it in a way and I try to say things differently each time. But have the same meaning. So that it goes in and oh, now I’m going to do it a little differently. And so we got to practice and there are people that come to me and we need to check in every week about like, Well, how did it go trying that? Okay, I didn’t do it. Well, why didn’t you do it? Let’s take a look at that and see what’s getting in the way. How do we help you not have those things in the way? What can we change about the environment to do it differently?

Josué Cardona 17:50
Yeah, I mean, there’s

Lara Taylor 17:52
so what’s getting in your way Josué?

Josué Cardona 17:56
So right, like, there’s the the research that shows like, oh, it takes like 19 days to build a new habit. Right. But like, that? I don’t think that applies to everything.

Lara Taylor 18:11
No,

Marc Cuiriz 18:12
no.

Link Keller 18:12
More recent, the, when I was in school, they said it was 21 days to make or break a habit. But the research is like it can be like nine days to like 250 days, it depends on what it is. Right? There are there are certain behaviors that are easier to change than others.

Lara Taylor 18:36
And habits are supposedly easier. And it’s going to depend on what it is. But when you do things incrementally, and not like I’m just going in and doing a 10 mile run today, every day, like it’s not going to happen. It’s not going to happen, you got to do like, I’m going to run around the block. And then I’m going to run two blocks. And then I’m gonna run three blocks.

Josué Cardona 18:59
There’s that’s interesting, right? Because that requires like, your body just couldn’t do it just because you want it to do it. Your body can do it.

Lara Taylor 19:06
And it’s running as a simple example. But like, it’s the same kind of thing like support like I’ve had someone told me they needed for flossing, they had to remember to like floss like, once in the morning, right? And then it’ll only half of their mouth or whatever, before they could get to the full mouth, that kind of thing. And then they got to the habit where they floss twice a day.

Josué Cardona 19:29
Yeah.

Lara Taylor 19:30
I don’t know if that stuck still. So

Link Keller 19:32
yeah, I mean, I think the running still works because it’s like, we spend so much time trying to separate out our brains from our bodies, but our brain is our body. And there are things that it can’t do the first time it needs to train to get good at it. So I think that the running is a good example. But to tie back to your original starting thing with tears of the kingdom My 65 plus hours I have put into this game so far. And I do think part of it was that I played Breath of the Wild again, fairly recently, last year. And so like that is closer in the forefront of my mind versus, you know, playing it in 2017 when it came out. But I was the same way Josué, I kept reverting to the, the things that I would do in Breath of the Wild to solve problems, I was doing it again. And it really was just like the first I want to say like, 20 hours of playing that game, I had to be legitimately reminded that the recall skill, and the Ascend skill existed, like, every time I was like, Well, what does the stupid dungeon even want from me and it’s like, use your power you dingus! oh right, a duh. But once I got, you know, 20 ish hours in, it has become easier for me to start to recognize, like, oh, can this this is asking me to use the ASCEND power, I get it. But what really like pushed me over the edge was I started playing with it with like, I went into a situation with the intention of like, I am going to whatever is behind this door, I am going to figure out how to solve it with recall, and doing something really silly and fun. And having that like, you know, things that are enjoyable are more strongly positively reinforced. And so having that experience of just farting around and doing something really silly and successful. My brain was like, Okay, you remember recall now I’m still ascend, I’m still every so often I’m like, How do I get out of this cave? It’s like ascend! Just ascend! Like, alright, right right right right still working on that one a little bit. But yes, it was definitely, like repetition is straight up is like I put in so many hours in this game at this point is like now I’m like, Okay, now I get what this game is asking of me. And encouraging me to experiment with

Josué Cardona 22:16
there’s, I love that you said I remember recall.

Link Keller 22:20
Remember recall? Oh my God, how could I forget? What was the name of that power? Again? I just I can’t recall.

Josué Cardona 22:28
Yeah, yeah.

Link Keller 22:31
That one was for Nina, love ya.

Josué Cardona 22:32
So there are different versions of this, right? Like the the running thing, the muscle thing, right? It’s like you can, there’s a cognitive piece of it, where it’s like, the actual learning. And that goes into the memory stuff. And to recall, there’s a theory of learning called spaced repetition, where it kind of looks at like, Oh, this is how long your brain can go like to to make something stick in your brain, it starts it starts fading away after you learn it the first time. So within a certain amount of time, you have to recall that to be able to, for it to stay in your memory for a little longer. And then, and then the time between, then the second time, and when it starts fading again, is a little longer. So within there towards the end of that you want to recall again, and that gap keeps growing. But it’s you’ll never reach a point where it’s like, it’s it’s stamped forever, right? It’s always there’s

Link Keller 23:33
that thing that like, oh, you never forget how to ride a bike. And I’m like, if you go several years without riding a bike, that first time you get back on is harrowing. It’s really it’s not as rough as the original time you learned. But it’s not as easy as the last time you rode a bike.

Josué Cardona 23:50
And people people forget languages, right? And I don’t mean like, Oh, you took it language in high school, you know, for three years.

Lara Taylor 23:56
no, They forget their own language.

Josué Cardona 23:57
Yeah, you were born in a country. You spoke that language for years as a child. And then after you go, there are adults who move and stop speaking their own language, and then they just don’t remember it. They lose it.

Lara Taylor 24:10
We had a camp counselor come from I can’t remember which country this counselor was from that. There was a bunch of us interns that were hanging out with the international staff in San Francisco. And we went to a restaurant from their country. And the waitress was like, your parents are gonna be very mad at you when you get home. You have an American accent. Yeah, we forget things. Yeah, I don’t do them over and over and over again. So

Marc Cuiriz 24:39
with with the language piece, I actually minored in German. And I can barely remember the language. I dedicated a substantial amount of time to studying this culture and this language. And I can probably hold a very basic conversation and now I’m going to be expected to speak it cuz you want

Josué Cardona 25:01
say one word say one word

Marc Cuiriz 25:04
what word is specifically trying to what?

Lara Taylor 25:10
Marc, I only took two years in high school of German and I can remember counting a random word here and there, maybe there’s no conversation, and I can recite a poem. That’s about it. So

Link Keller 25:24
I’m gonna Google how to say ‘a word’ in German.

Marc Cuiriz 25:26
Oh, that’s [says a word in German]. It’s how you say it.

Link Keller 25:31
I think that’s so funny that the poem, like I think, but there’s there’s definitely something in there. Where if if

Lara Taylor 25:38
it was repetition of a children’s poem

Link Keller 25:40
the repetition, If there’s a rhyming aspect to it, like those things will stick? Like, I took French in middle and high school, even though stupid, I should have taken Spanish I was living in California, real Yeah, bozos hours. But I took French. But in one year in middle school, they did. Like for the, I guess it was sixth grade. They did like a rotation elective class, where you would do like two or three weeks in different electives, so you could try them out. And so I took I took, you know, three weeks of Spanish in that and we learned Head, shoulders, knees and toes in Spanish. And I still remember, I know that I’m not in any way good at Spanish. Or even bad in Spanish. I’m zero at Spanish. But I know how to sing Head, shoulders, knees and toes in Spanish because the like singing and the rhyming and it connected to a song I already knew. So there was like a shortcut for my brain to save that. Because it’s like, Oh, I know what that means. I know the pattern. So I can save that. And we can just file it right next to English version. And we’ll just save it forever. It’s like, great. I don’t know if I need that. But thank you. Thank you brain.

Marc Cuiriz 27:01
Yeah, I can probably hold basic conversations. And there’s like two or three songs in German that I could probably say, like actual songs and like, children’s songs. But yeah, like, like, for me, it was also the same thing, like I grew up around Spanish. didn’t retain a single word of it. And then to stick it to my parents who were begging me to take Spanish I was like, German. And yeah, so again, it’s one of those things where, because I didn’t really have anybody to practice it with. I’ve, I’ve lost it. And I spent two weeks in Germany too. So I like had a really good chance to like solidify the language and the culture for me. And it’s all for naught basically. Because I remember like, none of it. And again, that’s just one of those things where it’s a repetition thing. And I, unfortunately, did not. So here I am.

Josué Cardona 27:59
I wonder too, I saw a video this week, it was a tiktok from an interview done in the 70s with a scientist who was talking about computers and artificial intelligence. And he was explaining why computers are not smart. And the the explanation that he gave was that he said, I could learn every single phrase, like I could learn every character in Chinese. And I could learn how to say multiple phrases. And I could learn the questions that could be asked and the appropriate responses. And I could learn all of those things and not know how to speak Chinese. Right, I can respond. And, and I think I obviously like that conversation comes up, because now we’ve got these language learning models and in different forms of AI that people are interacting with. And, you know, some people think they’re sentient now. That guy at Google, I saw the CEO of open AI the other day in an interview, someone said, like, is AI smart? And his response was, I don’t know. And I’ve thought about that, like, and the look on his face. And I think it’s because even though he knows that it’s not it seems like it is because of the way that it’s acting. It’s acting like they programmed it to act. So to the to the observer, like how, I don’t know it seems smart to me, How do I know if anybody’s wondering if they are appear to be to be smart? So I think about that and again, I’m we’re answering questions here that I’m sure more other people have. have actual answers to, or better answers. But I wonder if it’s not just like learning, right? Like, first of all, there’s a learning piece. And sure, there’s that habit piece. But you can link, you can you can take on a habit and not know, what the, what’s it called? You can you can know, you can have the habit built in, but like, does it have meaning? You know, is it actually something that you’ve like integrated into your life? I think I think it’s, you know, that argument that all of us made at school at one point, that was like, Hey, are we like, When am I ever going to use this? And then, but use it not in the sense of like, oh, yeah, like, brush your teeth? Right? It’s like, okay, yeah, no, I can brush my teeth every day. But like, you know, why is it really integrated into the system? Are you just doing it to do it? But what are ya’ll thoughts on that?

Lara Taylor 31:07
I’m trying to think of like, they’re all as you’re talking about this, there’s a whole bunch of things, I think. If we don’t use the thing, right, our our brains, as we talked about, different pathways go in different ways, a lot of the times it can be use it or lose it. And there are some things that stick around for a while, like riding a bike, but it is harder to do. But like, there are pieces of algebra, completely forgotten. However, I do remember, percent over 100 equals is over of, because I do that a lot. And it’s something easy and mnemonic to remember. Right? Like Link was bringing up the idea of songs, poems, things that make it easier to remember, currently, I’m trying to learn Hebrew.

Josué Cardona 31:58
how’s it going?

Lara Taylor 31:58
And I’m using Duolingo. I know some words, it threw me into the deep end, learning the alphabet in Hebrew is one thing, and it gives you all kinds of pronunciation help. But then you go into the regular lessons, and there’s none of that pronunciation help. So I have no idea how some things are pronounced, but I can recognize it when we go to temple on Fridays. And I can do some I can. I don’t understand what I’m saying necessarily, but I do know, the words that the Rabbi is saying and singing. And the songs I’m starting to get those down. Some of them are harder, the longer ones, but I can just like when when I’m learning music in English, I can get the like the chorus of something down, or certain parts of the song. And I’ve noticed as things go on, I’m starting to learn, oh, this is when we do this thing. This is when we do that other thing. This is a prayer that means something like this. And so it is it is going okay, but asked me to have a conversation in Hebrew or it say anything to the rabbi in Hebrew? Absolutely not, not happening. But I know, I know, I know. And I know more than Nina knew in religious school. So there’s that.

Josué Cardona 33:28
Well, there’s a lot of talk of immersion in language learning, right? Which is basically like, you have no other choice, right? All of a sudden, it’s all there. And the truth is that when we’re talking about, like these trauma responses, or, or anything like that, the truth is that ideally, we’re not in that state all the time. Right, so we so we don’t get to practice a lot of that. and that’s good. It’s just frustrating that when you when you need it, can’t find it, like when you put it,

Link Keller 34:01
it means you have to spend time, like mentally practicing it, which is tough. one, to do it, but also like, get yourself to be like, this is a useful thing I should be doing and then repeating is like, oh, yeah,

Marc Cuiriz 34:19
I kind of I’m sorry, I just, I was just thinking it’s kind of like, like people when it comes to like medications and stuff where they like they take it and then they feel good. And I’m like, Alright, I’m good. And then they decided to just stop taking it and then they realize, oh, it’s it’s not and then you know, then they have to go back on it and then the cycle just kind of repeats itself. But then then I was also thinking that like that kind of goes back to like what I was saying with my like with the patients that kind of deal with earlier where sometimes when they leave, they go back and the work that they have that that they that they’ve done while inpatient While it’s such a good, like foundation, I don’t think they had enough practice with it outside of the immersion factor and then suddenly just getting thrown right into it. So it’s like, like Lara, let’s say you just learn the Hebrew alphabet. And then now you have to go up and recite, recite the whole Torah.

Lara Taylor 35:19
Not gonna happen

Marc Cuiriz 35:20
exactly like, it’s, it’s one of those instances where it’s like, Alright, cool, you learned the basics now off, you go to, for some of them at least, and they get thrown back into their environment that is unhealthy or it’s toxic, or it’s just downright terrifying for them. And they’re going to be expected to utilize everything is just not going to happen.

Josué Cardona 35:43
You can you can, you can, you can do as many drills for a sport as you want. But it’s very different than playing the game. And and when the unfortunate thing is that in therapy, most of the time, we cannot recreate the situation in sessions,

Lara Taylor 36:04
or we shouldn’t.

Link Keller 36:08
Yeah,

Josué Cardona 36:08
yeah, yeah,

Lara Taylor 36:09
you do not want to re traumatize people without proper support, and all of that, as a behavior specialists, like people would want me to be there and help the kids, they were always expecting me to show up when the kids were like in crisis and wanting to help them in that moment. Now that is helpful for me to be there and help them in that moment and learn the skills then because they’re practicing it, then. At the same time, it is more easy, it is easier and more helpful at times to learn it when you’re calm, and practice and practice and practice and practice. And also get the help in reminding to use those skills. When you’re when you’re escalated. And in crisis. I was thinking about I’ve talked about one of the more traumatic incidents I had when I was at work. And seeing a kid who was doing well went out into the world was doing really well and ended up still in a lower level group home, but went back to the school associated with my work and had a meltdown. Because other people were responding to him in the same ways that they used to respond to him. And so he let go of all the things he had learned because he was back in that environment. I honestly believe in I can’t, I can’t know for sure. But I honestly believe if he had not ended up in that situation, things would have ended up very differently for him. That had because other people, other people suck.

Link Keller 37:40
I find that I mean, not me. But I find for some people, that experience is very obvious when you see somebody like hanging out with their parents, and they sort of revert to teen version of themselves. Because that’s the dynamic that was established. It can be it can be really rough to be like, Hey, you’re you’re acting like a 16 year olds right now. And I know you’re not having a good time. Nobody’s having a good time. Why is this happening a having to be like, oh, is because I’m with my parents, and they they’ll treat me like a 16 year old. So I’ll act like a 16 year old is like oof, do you want to do that? Or do you want to change the dynamic? It’s like, oh, well, you have to put effort in? Oh, no.

Marc Cuiriz 38:36
Who wants to do that?

Lara Taylor 38:37
This is what I have. I actually really enjoyed during the pandemic and starting this my switch to telehealth, like being able to when people are on vacation, or like Christmas break or whatever, and staying with their parents, hearing them closer to the moment like it’s not like, oh, last week or a month ago, I visited my parents in this this and this happened. They’re like, I’m in my parents bathroom. And I’m gonna go out there and talk to them five minutes from now helped me figure out how to react differently. And we can kind of practice and roleplay and try and figure things out. But yeah, we revert to those old patterns. Often,

Josué Cardona 39:15
I forget what it’s called. I don’t think it’s a point of behavior point of something, right? Like you’re you’re talking about, like being, you know, like five minutes away from the situation, right? So it’s like you’re almost right there. You’re not in the actual moment, but you’re close enough. Right. And that’s something you can do. In an inpatient setting, you’re better when you when you do it at a when you’re doing in home. I don’t know why I forget that. Telehealth is like in home counseling.

Lara Taylor 39:50
It’s like It’s like in home but also not right. There’s some semblance of like, like you want them to have privacy but Yeah, you are in their home. You’re just not seeing everything. You’re just seeing what’s behind them.

Josué Cardona 40:05
Yeah, yeah. But they are in the setting. Right. Like, like it happened in this room where they were we have that argument or that fight or so that is, yeah, that’s just like a side thought. So, I, I like how we’ve looked at this from different angles. And I, I started with kind of having the tears of the kingdom example as like a conversation starter, or a way to, like an analogy to this type of thing. And you mentioned Jedi survivor, which is very similar in the sense that it’s a sequel, and it’s not just a continuation of the first game, like there’s new powers, there’s new abilities. There’s new clothes, and you’re like, eughghghh I like the old ones.

Lara Taylor 40:54
Yeah, no, but some of that is personal preference, right? Like, I like the double bladed lightsaber. I thought it was the coolest thing. When Darth Maul had that. I wanted that. And then like having dual lightsabers, I like Ahsoka Tano. Like, I want to be like them. The other stances, not the newer ones, not as interested in a Kylo Ren sword. It also is less my playstyle, it moves a lot slower. And I don’t like that. But there are several things that like, they give you skills, and I just like start jumping up. Like it’s meant to be that way. But I cheez it a little bit and just like keep jumping off the wall multiple times until it glitches and puts me on top. Because

Josué Cardona 41:41
You’ve talked me out of this being a good example, then we’ll keep it on the list. But it’s not it’s not as good

Josué Cardona 41:41
it is a good is a good example

Link Keller 41:49
it works. But the distinction in like, the weapon playstyle is a little different from the mechanical power system. Right? And,

Lara Taylor 42:01
and the clothing options, right? Like i i Like this Cal better than the one in the last game. But I want him to be the one that I see in the trailers and all of that I want him to look like that. I don’t need all these other clothes. I changed the way BD looks only a little bit because I wanted to change the colors because I want

Link Keller 42:24
gotta match my outfit

Lara Taylor 42:25
Exactly. But like, I don’t need Cal to have all the crazy hair. It’s funny to look at but like, that’s not how I’m gonna play.

Josué Cardona 42:37
Link, help me with this one.

Link Keller 42:38
Yes,

Josué Cardona 42:39
in Pokémon you can you get to a point where you can evolve, you can choose not to evolve. Now, if you evolve that opens, like a new skill tree in a way, right? Like you can have access to. But you don’t have to you can keep being like it doesn’t necessarily it isn’t detrimental, to go to level 100 in your in your regular form. Is that right?

Link Keller 43:03
It depends on the Pokémon there are some Pokémon that with an evolution, they gain more skill points is not the right word. But they they gain more power for their moves sets. And they unlock specific moves that are only for that evolution. The other side of that is there are Pokemon that if you don’t let them evolve, they also get special moves that you can’t get if they do evolve. So there is like a balancing act to it. But most of the time you are correct. There isn’t particularly a huge distinction that you can’t overcome with the other power up systems or type matching kind of stuff.

Josué Cardona 43:53
Yeah, yeah. Because I was thinking like, oh, no, I don’t I don’t want to evolve this pokemon because like I’m so attached to this one, you know, like, maybe maybe, maybe not. No, I don’t want it

Link Keller 44:03
when I was playing. Pokemon Violet. I started with Sprigatito, who’s so cute and precious. And I evolved it up to its final evolution, which is fine. I don’t dislike the middle or last evolutions, but they’re not as cute as the baby. So as soon as I hit that final evolution, I made it hanging out with a ditto to get an egg and I bred a baby and I gave the baby and ever stone so it would not evolve and I ended up with a level 100 Sprigatito but it because I didn’t evolve it it didn’t unlock the dark power sets right it starts out as just grass type and then as it evolves, it becomes grass/dark. So because I didn’t evolve it it was just grass type. So there was there was a little bit of an exchange there but I thought it was worth it to send out my cute cute Little baby, especially going to gyms and fighting like giant, terrifying rock monsters and lightning beasts. And I’m like, Go kitten! and the kitten’s like level 100 blade slash [SHIIING]

Josué Cardona 45:11
Here’s one from Marc, when Destiny two came out, I used, what’s the gun that I liked? Maybe you can remember the it was a rifle. It was it was a legendary one, which is the one that I liked, I can’t remember the name. But there was a weapon that was like grandfathered in from the first one. And I kept using that one for the longest time after it was like it wouldn’t get upgraded anymore. It couldn’t be any stronger. And I still insisted on using it. And even though I knew like, oh, at some point, I had to stop because I wasn’t even competitive at that point. Like I wasn’t even making a dent in anything. But but for the longest time I kept holding on to it, even though I knew. Like there, I was just very conscious of like, oh, there’s other. There’s other stuff that I could use. Why am I using this one, I can’t remember the name of it, though,

Link Keller 46:08
there’s probably a better tool for this, but it’s already in my hands and there’s a guy I need to shoot in the face. So I guess I’m just gonna keep using it

Lara Taylor 46:18
very different from my Borderlands three experience with the overpowered gun very early on and just using that the entire game.

Josué Cardona 46:30
No, it’s the one that doesn’t have the radar disappear.

Marc Cuiriz 46:36
I don’t know, when you’re talking. Just because I didn’t, I didn’t really play a whole lot of the first destiny. So that’s, that’s where my knowledge is very, very fuzzy. But I do I do kind of have that, that same kind of style, when it comes to destiny. There’s a lot of, there’s a couple of just like, random guns that you will like you’ll get on drops, that the I just have a particular one that has a particular role that I just I can’t let go of it. So I just I’ll find like, and they’ll they keep, like letting it get boosted up in power. Like it’s not sunsetted or anything. So I just keep upgrading it, even though I know like, there’s so many better options out there, or there’s a better role of that particular gun, but I just, I can’t let go of it. It’s just, it’s just my it just feels me, it just feels more like me. So I’m like, Alright, I’m just gonna I’m gonna keep using it. Or, or like an Assassin’s Creed I, I have a particular style. And I do very, my very best to play in that particular style. And I’ve done that consistently through every single game,

Josué Cardona 47:50
that they’re not the same game anymore. Exactly.

Marc Cuiriz 47:53
The point is that once it once origins came and it became more RPG, like with the free roam everything, I still insisted on trying to play it like in original assassin like the older games.

Josué Cardona 48:12
but why?

Marc Cuiriz 48:14
It’s just it just didn’t

Lara Taylor 48:15
It’s a very different game

Marc Cuiriz 48:17
Exactly. There’s, they’re completely different games

Link Keller 48:20
But, Marc is the same.

Marc Cuiriz 48:22
Exactly. And

Josué Cardona 48:24
also he’s not the same

Link Keller 48:27
you know what I mean

Marc Cuiriz 48:28
I insisted on doing this just because it just it felt it felt like the this is the this is the title of the game that I’ve been playing for years. I understand

Link Keller 48:41
I thought this was the creed! I thought this is the Assassin’s Creed I’m following it, why are you changing it?

Marc Cuiriz 48:47
It’s like I’ve known it to be a certain style a certain way for so long. And then they go and change the formula. And I like the new formula. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy it very much. But I’m so ingrained in playing it in a particular way that like now when I’m playing like Odyssey or Valhalla I had to learn to adopt my to adapt my my play style. So it would fit the game more so I wouldn’t get as frustrated because of it. There’s one thing about me is that if I don’t do something or execute something away that I’m satisfied with or the way I wanted it to, I will go back and I will restart the checkpoint. I’ve had to do that so many times in The Last of Us Part Two where I had to go actually had to quit to the main menu and replay the chapter

Josué Cardona 49:37
you didn’t have to

Lara Taylor 49:38
You didn’t have to also

Link Keller 49:41
you had to

Lara Taylor 49:42
it’s interesting that you have that experience marc because I don’t notice a difference in my play from any of the Assassin’s Creed games even though they’re very different games. I just I don’t know what people’s like differences like

Link Keller 49:54
Well, Lara,

Lara Taylor 49:54
yes, they are more open world

Link Keller 49:56
you gotta play 80 or 90 more times before you can really

Josué Cardona 50:01
you gotta live and breathe the creed.

Lara Taylor 50:03
But you know what, I don’t have time to play it 80 or 90 more times when I’m like doing all the stuff for Odyssey and Valhalla.

Josué Cardona 50:14
But I like this one marc, because because like you said, you realized, I’m just struggling by trying to, by not by not coming into like by not adapting, basically, right. It’s like it is hurting me to stay with these old, old ways. And, and you still stuck with it for a while, right? You tried so hard, which is, which is what I think, right? I mean,

Link Keller 50:43
it’s a great of the other side metaphor of like, Tears of the kingdom, not using the new powers is not necessarily holding you back, but it is making it like not as fun because you’re not playing in the new space. And then with Assassin’s Creed is like, I’m actively making this worse for myself. So it’s like both directions is like your pattern of behavior. Like, the context can change, and therefore it’s less efficient, but not like it’s not bad, it’s just less efficient. Or it can be like, this is actively harming me now. go both directions. I like that.

Josué Cardona 51:20
And I think that is like, is it? Is it like, is it automatic for you that you just start playing it? Because you’re so used to it? Or are you consciously trying to not adopt the new way?

Marc Cuiriz 51:32
I think when origins came out

Link Keller 51:34
I think it’s both. like the first time and then I was like, I’m going to do it my way.

Marc Cuiriz 51:42
When origins came out that it was more of a conscious effort. And I think that’s why origins. While I really enjoy the game, and I ended up enjoying it, it really put a sour taste in my mouth. Because I kept struggling by trying to play it the way I was used to playing the games. And I kept trying to put forth that active effort to continue to play it in that way. And sometimes it would work, sometimes it would be fine. And other times, it just wouldn’t. And then I would get frustrated. And then I would let myself die and I restarted and I would restart the whole area again. Just because I was insistent on wanting to do it this particular way. And there are times when I would just sit there in like a hiding area for like five minutes, watching the guards trying my best to play in the way that I want to. And when I beat origins, I was like, okay, good. I’m done with it. And then Odyssey came around. And that’s where it started shifting for me, where I remembered my old frustrations. And then the game also didn’t really give me a whole lot of opportunities to play it the way I wanted to, or the way I was used to

Link Keller 52:55
game design!

Marc Cuiriz 52:57
So I started shift so that’s when the shift started happening. And while subconsciously I’ll still try to play it the old way. I’m not

Josué Cardona 53:06
are you trying? or is it just

Marc Cuiriz 53:08
that’s that’s where like nowadays, like with Valhalla. I wasn’t trying to do it that way, just for I would subconsciously do it. But I would fall back into those old routines. But when things didn’t go the way I wanted to, I was like okay, well, you know what, I got a couple of axes, I’m just gonna swish swish and you know, then it’s done we’re good, we’re fine. And it becomes a little bit more of like, okay, I’m more comfortable with the idea of, I can try to play it like more sneaky. But if I screw up the sneakiness unless it’s like messing up like an assassination opportunity or something like that. I don’t really care. They’re gonna die. Regardless, I’m going to swings my axes or my swing my hammers, you know, whichever I prefer.

Lara Taylor 53:50
Josué, it was the MIDA multi tool.

Josué Cardona 53:56
Yep. Yep, I looked it up it wa sthe MIDA multi-tool. As well, it was too much time had passed, but I appreciate it. No, yeah. Yep.

Link Keller 54:07
a multi tool, That you were not using as a multi tool.

Josué Cardona 54:12
Because there was a submachine gun as your sidearm that you can also use and then it would have an additional perk when you use them both will make you faster, which I think it was worth it. But still, at some point it wasn’t worth it anymore. There’s, there’s I think there’s a lot of gaming examples of this that are that are.

Link Keller 54:30
I think gaming is perfect for this conversation because so much of it is around like learning behaviors and then applying them in certain situations. And I do think it’s also a really great opportunity to think about your favorite games, especially if they are a series game like Legend of Zelda or Assassin’s Creed. And looking at how game designers are making choices in order to combat that very thing that people do which is they will revert to the thing that they learned before. And so it’s like, how do I teach them this new thing and get them to use it? It is like that’s a whole. That’s a whole field of game design.

Josué Cardona 55:11
Okay, so for tears of the kingdom,

Link Keller 55:13
yes.

Josué Cardona 55:14
I bought a new controller.

Link Keller 55:16
Yeah,

Josué Cardona 55:16
a third party controller,

Link Keller 55:17
oh, yeah,

Josué Cardona 55:19
with Back button so I can program things. And I also bought new face buttons for it. So that because every time I switch from another console to the switch, the A B X Y thing just messes me up.

Link Keller 55:31
yup

Josué Cardona 55:31
And right now I remapped the buttons on my pro controllers. And, but the game doesn’t reflect you can’t do that in the game. And I am. I can’t tell

Lara Taylor 55:42
that’s so mean

Josué Cardona 55:43
honestly at this point. But I can’t tell at this point. If I’m if it’s easier or harder, because it’s still in some moments, I’m like, oh, press X. Oh, but x I’m after to the right to the left. thumbstick Oh, but the game doesn’t tell me right. So I think the game is easier. But there’s still moments where I’m like, wait, what? What happened? And control schemes? That’s something that happens all the time. There was there are some games that have legacy controls, right? You’ll see it’s a hit you want to play like the old games? Or do you want to play the new modern? way? And then sometimes you just start playing? And you’re like, why doesn’t like what is it No Man’s Sky? Like, it has the, the the crouch and sprint backwards on the on the on the right and left thumbstick like for most games, right? Like you crouch with the right, like, oh, no, wait, what, why, and every single time I go back to it and messes me up.

Lara Taylor 56:35
And sometimes it’s important to have those legacy controls because I think there are certain I don’t know which game I’m thinking of, but there’s ones where like, I will completely screw up whether I’m running or shooting, like, and those are two very different things that are mapped to the opposite things. And so that’s like my, my idea with the keyboard, right when I’m learning to type with the keyboard, I learned to do it one way and to switch it and and try it this new way is going to make me way less efficient and slower and screw up the game. So I do need to go back to that legendary mode, you know,

Josué Cardona 57:10
the legacy legacy mode

Lara Taylor 57:11
legacy not legendary whatever

Link Keller 57:16
legendary legacy.

Josué Cardona 57:18
So the few other examples I was talking about tonight, just like, bring them up quickly, what is fortnite. fortnite is not just a third person shooter. Like the building mechanic is so important. It is important you realize it’s important when you come up against somebody that all of a sudden built a whole barrier, built the house around them and built these this whole tower in the time that it took me to reload. And you’re like, ohh right, like we’re not even, we’re not even playing the same game. Like this person just protected themselves and their team and like, did all this bunch of stuff. They came around, they built a castle. Just, it’s it’s one of those things, and I every time like I don’t spend enough time building. And so usually when I play, I’m just going around and you know, there isn’t anybody for the first, you know, few minutes when you’re playing and by the time you get to the mayhem piece where it’s full of people. Like, that’s not the moment for me to learn how to build. So I remember

Lara Taylor 58:19
no the beginning of it is when you’re supposed to build Yeah.

Josué Cardona 58:22
Or go into another thing, but I just like I’m so used to at this point, you know, so all of us have decades of playing these types of games. And so it’s like, oh, what I can build what I like, I think I should because otherwise I’m never going to get ahead in fortnite if I don’t if I don’t want to use those. And the final one I’m thinking of is like fighting games. Every fighting game,

Lara Taylor 58:50
I just uppercut, uppercut, uppercut

Josué Cardona 58:53
for me, it’s I do Hadouken I try to do hadouken move every time a quarter circle to the front and punch button? thankfully in almost every game, some character that is a special move for them

Link Keller 59:06
you, if you ask me to play Smash Bros, I will gladly say yes. And I will pick Kirby and I will down B forever, I’m a brick a brick landing on your head.

Josué Cardona 59:19
like Street Fighter six is about to come out. And it’s a very different game than Street Fighter two. There’s so many different versions of the Street Fighter. And some of the things are very subtle, but some things are like huge differences. But still like I will always default to a quarter or quarter circle to the front and then a B there’s actually like four basic moves that any fighting game I, I play I do those four moves. And if I pick the character that like a lot of characters that’s not that’s not at all how to play those. But I just think it’s funny that that’s like so so programmed in. Any other examples anyone want to share the kind of might serve to help people have some of these conversations or look at it from different perspectives

Link Keller 1:00:12
I just want to say I think that this is an opportunity for our listeners to one reflect on the habits, behaviors in their lives and, and the way that they have changed them, or they haven’t changed them. And to be kind to yourself, when you are trying to change something, and it’s not gone as fast as you want it to, or it’s much tougher than you thought it would be like, yeah, it’s fucking hard, like, be nice to yourself. But also, as to what you were just saying about fortnite, recognizing that many people that you are encountering in your life, are forming these behavior habits right now in this moment, and some people are working off of 30 years of building and maintaining a behavior set. And so recognizing, like, and being compassionate towards people recognizing that, you know, it’s like, is this something that you’re learning right now and trying out? Or is this something that you’ve been doing it this way for 100,000 years, and now somebody’s like, hey, maybe you should change it. Like, that’s tough.

Josué Cardona 1:01:19
Yeah, all sudden, you’re 40 years old. And then now you know,

Link Keller 1:01:23
everybody’s 40 years old, and now we gotta we gotta learn new behavior. aw man.

Lara Taylor 1:01:29
And it’s the argument that old dogs can’t learn new tricks is wrong, we can always be learning always be growing, it just takes time. And there are plenty of places where we should learn and grow as people. So

Josué Cardona 1:01:42
I learned to whistle like, like, Finally, I’ve been able to whistle within the last month. After spending, my sister makes fun of me, because I taught her to whistle. Like, I knew the mechanics. I knew I knew. No, no, I knew I just couldn’t, I was just never able to do it. And so it was something that I’ve always just been like, I can never I can never whistle. And then

Link Keller 1:02:08
do it. do it now

Josué Cardona 1:02:10
[whistles excellently] I have a couple of different whistles are kind of a bird calls. But that’s That’s exactly what I told my son. I was like, yeah, he can’t teach an old dog new tricks. If I don’t do it repeated often? Will I forget? At least I know, I know. I know. I know. My, my face is capable of putting everything in the right position to make the whistle happen. Yeah, but thanks. Thanks for that point. Yeah, it’s hard. That’s kind of the point. It’s hard. And we don’t even notice that it’s happening sometimes. But it’s happening to us all the time, even in the games that we’re playing. So yeah, just like in games, the more you practice, it took me it took me like 80 hours of playing Monster Hunter to start integrating all the power ups and healing potions and all that stuff that are integral to the to the game. Obviously, not necessary. But once I started doing that, things got a lot easier, but it’s took