How To Unsubscribe From The Negative Stories You Tell About Yourself And Others | Anu Gupta
Anu Gupta, educator, lawyer, scientist, and CEO of BE MORE with Anu, discusses how to break learned biases, both internalized and externalized, through mindfulness and compassion. He introduces the PRISM toolkit to unlearn negative self-stories and prejudices, emphasizing a shame-free, playful approach for personal well-being and improved relationships.
Deep Dive Analysis
16 Topic Outline
Introduction to Bias and Anu Gupta's Approach
Anu Gupta's Personal Story and Internalized Bias
How Bias Harms Individuals from Dominant Identities
Defining Bias and Identity: Interpersonal vs. Cognitive
The Five Causes of Bias: How Biases are Learned
Critique of the Diversity Industry and the Role of Shame
Introducing the PRISM Toolkit for Breaking Bias
PRISM Step 1: Mindfulness for Noticing Stereotypes
PRISM Step 2: Stereotype Replacement with Counter-Examples
PRISM Step 3: Individuation for Seeing Unique Humans
PRISM Step 4: Pro-Social Behaviors and Heart Qualities
PRISM Step 5: Perspective Taking and Radical Empathy
Scientific Basis and Habit Formation for Breaking Bias
Practical Exercises: Applying Mindfulness to Bias Causes
Imagining a World Without Bias for Motivation
The Evolution of Human Consciousness and Moral Progress
6 Key Concepts
Bias (Anu Gupta's definition)
Bias, in this context, refers to learned mental habits—either conscious false beliefs or unconscious associations—that distort how we perceive, reason, remember, and make decisions about other humans. It is not an innate trait but a learned behavior that creates hierarchies and assumptions about people based on their being.
Internalized Bias
This occurs when individuals consume and believe negative stories about themselves that originate from others' biases, leading to self-loathing, self-criticism, and a desire to be other than who they are. It significantly impacts mental and physical health and affects how one relates to others.
Neuroplasticity
The brain's ability to adapt and change by forming new neural connections, allowing individuals to unlearn old mental habits like biases and relearn new, more skillful ways of thinking and behaving. This concept provides the scientific basis for the possibility of breaking bias.
Mara (in Buddha Dharma)
Mara represents all unwholesome or unskillful ways of being in the mind that cause harm, often seen as a composite of the three poisons: greed, aversion, and delusion (ignorance). Shame, for instance, is identified as a manifestation of Mara, hindering progress by creating stories of being a 'horrible person'.
Relative Reality vs. Ultimate Reality
Buddhism posits two levels of reality: relative reality, where individuals exist as separate selves for practical purposes (e.g., using a driver's license), and ultimate reality, where there is no inherent, separate self, and everything is inextricably interwoven into the universe.
Hebb's Rule
The principle that 'neurons that fire together, wire together,' explaining how repeated associations (like stereotypes and prejudices) strengthen neural pathways. The PRISM toolkit aims to leverage this by creating new wiring to unlearn old patterns and learn new ones.
7 Questions Answered
Breaking bias is in everyone's self-interest because it alleviates personal suffering caused by internalized negative self-stories, improves mental and physical health, and leads to better relationships and decision-making by reducing unexamined blind spots.
Individuals from dominant groups may suffer from a sense of superiority that leads to brittleness when things don't go their way, or an underlying inferiority complex that drives a constant need to be the best, causing internal dis-ease and affecting relationships.
No, humans are not born with biases, particularly biases towards other people. These are learned mental habits, either conscious false beliefs or unconscious associations, acquired from culture, family, education, and media.
Many DEI trainings are rooted in shame, blame, and guilt, which are afflictive emotions that trigger defensiveness, backlash, and polarization, making them somatically uncomfortable and counterproductive to genuine learning and behavioral change.
The five causes of bias are: a false story (e.g., about hierarchy), policies based on that false story, social contact (from trusted spheres and the built environment), education (misinformation or information gaps), and media (feeding ideas consciously and unconsciously).
Yes, each tool within the PRISM toolkit has been shown to be effective in measurably reducing both implicit and explicit bias, drawing on research from neuroscience, contemplative science, and ancient wisdom traditions.
Research suggests it can take as little as 18 days to build a new habit, implying that consistent practice of the PRISM toolkit can transform breaking bias into an ingrained, everyday way of being.
38 Actionable Insights
1. Heal Self-Disconnection
Understand that wanting yourself to be other than who you are leads to wanting others to be a certain way, causing disconnection; healing your self-disconnection is the first step to seeing others for who they truly are.
2. Start with Self-Healing
Begin the work of breaking bias by focusing on personal self-healing, as this positive change will naturally extend to improve relationships and decisions in all areas of life.
3. Recognize Self-Limiting Ideas
Become aware of the negative, self-limiting ideas you believe about yourself (e.g., ‘fatty,’ ‘idiot’) and recognize that these are just ideas, not your true self, to begin the process of unlearning them.
4. Avoid Shame in Bias Work
Approach bias work and diversity education by avoiding shame, blame, and guilt, as these ‘afflictive emotions’ are dangerous and counterproductive, leading to backlash and polarization.
5. Utilize Mindfulness for Bias Reduction
Employ mindfulness-based tools such as loving kindness, compassion, curiosity, and mindfulness, as scientific studies show they measurably reduce both implicit and explicit bias.
6. Mindfully Label Stereotypes
Cultivate mindfulness by noticing and labeling stereotypes, ideas, or biases as they arise in your mind (e.g., ‘oh, stereotype’), creating a gap that prevents you from automatically following that thought train.
7. Mindfully Observe & Release Shame
When biases arise, also make any accompanying emotions like embarrassment or shame an object of mindfulness, noticing them to eventually let go, understanding that these feelings are not personal.
8. Notice Somatic Bias Experience
Become intimately aware of bias not just as a thought or emotion, but also as a somatic experience, noticing the physical sensations (e.g., discomfort, fear) in your body.
9. Replace Stereotypes with Examples
Once you’ve mindfully noticed a stereotype, actively replace it by bringing to mind a real-life example (e.g., a known person, a public figure, or someone found via search) who defies that stereotype to weaken mental associations.
10. Cultivate Curiosity for Individuation
Practice individuation by cultivating curiosity, interest, and investigation to decouple group-based associations from individuals, allowing you to see each person as unique rather than through the lens of their group identity.
11. Cultivate Pro-Social States
Actively cultivate pro-social mental and emotional states such as loving kindness, compassion, joy, and altruism, as these practices help diminish fear and negative affect associated with stereotypes.
12. Practice Perspective Taking
Practice perspective taking by imagining yourself in another person’s shoes, focusing on the fullness of their experience rather than your preconceived ideas, which builds empathy and transcends bias.
13. Address Self-Loathing
Recognize that self-loathing and negative self-talk (‘kicking your own ass’) negatively impact your relationships with others, creating a ’toilet vortex’ of suffering, and address it for overall well-being.
14. Engage Body & Heart
Approach bias-breaking not just intellectually, but by engaging your full self, including your physical and emotional experiences (’neck down’), for a more holistic transformation.
15. Unlearn & Relearn Habits
Actively work to unlearn the learned mental habits of bias and false beliefs, and consciously learn and restore new, healthier ways of interacting with yourself and others.
16. Commit to Consistent Practice
Commit to consistent practice of bias-breaking tools, understanding that it takes as little as 18 days to build a new habit, making the process less overwhelming over time.
17. Practice Loving Kindness
Practice loving kindness meditation, even for short periods (e.g., 5-20 minutes), directing well wishes towards stereotyped groups and also towards aspects of yourself that you dislike or hate, to diminish self-criticism.
18. Practice Self-Perspective Taking
Apply perspective taking to yourself by imagining being different past versions of yourself (e.g., your six-year-old self) through journaling or meditation, to foster self-empathy and compassion.
19. Integrate Practice & Action
Engage in pro-social practices both ‘on the cushion’ (meditation) and ‘off the cushion’ (real-world actions), understanding that internal rewiring supports more compassionate and unbiased interactions in daily life.
20. Reflect on Societal Bias Feelings
Reflect on how you feel about bias in society by noticing the first word or phrase that arises, observing any attached emotions (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral), and sensing its somatic experience in your body, then letting it go without analysis.
21. Imagine World Without Bias
Imagine a world without bias, where belonging replaces it, and notice the word or phrase, emotional affect, and somatic experience that arises, cradling these feelings with loving kindness and self-compassion.
22. Replace Bias Feelings with Vision
When you witness bias in society and experience negative emotions, consciously replace those feelings with the positive emotions and sensations you cultivated by imagining a world without bias.
23. Envision Personal Freedom
If systemic issues feel overwhelming, focus on envisioning what it would be like for yourself to be free of self-loathing and other afflictive challenges, using this personal vision as motivation for your practice.
24. Re-invoke Positive Vision
When encountering ignorance or bigotry, re-invoke the positive emotions and felt sense of a world without bias to stay inspired and motivated in your bias-breaking work.
25. Document Identity Belief Origins
Document your personal definitions of identities like ‘race’ and trace where you learned these ideas (who told you, who taught you) to bring mindfulness to their origins and challenge their validity.
26. Process Bias Origin Emotions
After tracing the origins of your identity beliefs, become mindful of the body sensations and emotions (e.g., anger) that arise, and document them, as managing these emotions is crucial before taking further action.
27. Cease Harmful Learned Stories
Bring to the surface the origins of harmful learned stories (e.g., gender roles) and consciously choose to stop practicing them in your daily life.
28. View Actions Through Causes
When encountering negative actions, view them through the lens of ‘causes and conditions’ (karma), understanding that this perspective can help avoid unhelpful hatred and foster a more effective response.
29. Adopt Long-Term Impact Perspective
When working on societal change, adopt a long-term perspective, considering the impact over multiple lifetimes rather than just your own, to avoid attachment to immediate results and sustain effort.
30. Model Bias-Breaking for Kids
Practice bias-breaking for the sake of your children, modeling and teaching these essential skills to them as they encounter biases in their own lives.
31. Eliminate False Ideas
Eliminate false ideas about others based on their appearance or identity, as these biases make you ‘dumber’ and cause you to overlook valuable contributors, hindering team performance and efficiency.
32. Overcome Bias for Talent
Overcome biases to avoid inefficiencies in hiring and nurturing talent, ensuring you can identify and develop the best contributors based on who they are, not preconceived notions.
33. Focus on Unlearning Bias
Advocate for diversity training that focuses on getting to the root cause of bias as a learned habit, emphasizing unlearning these habits rather than just policy changes.
34. Mindfully Engage Coping Mechanisms
When feeling negative emotions, engage mindfully with coping mechanisms (e.g., social media, news, alcohol, gossip) rather than using them to escape, ensuring you use them with purpose instead of worsening your state.
35. Correct Identity Misinformation
Actively correct misinformation about identity, especially in professional contexts like healthcare, to challenge learned associations that reduce empathy and lead to disparities.
36. Examine Unconscious Superiority
For those in dominant identities, examine the unconscious stories of entitlement and superiority you believe about yourself, as these can lead to brittleness and anger when challenged.
37. Acknowledge Shared Is-ness
Acknowledge the fundamental ‘is-ness’ of your being and how it connects you to all other humans and sentient beings, which can lead to feeling better and fostering empathy.
38. Learn from Bias Mistakes
When making mistakes related to bias, acknowledge them impersonally by thinking, ‘Oh, I didn’t know that. Thanks for informing me,’ rather than getting stuck in shame, to build stronger bonds across differences.
6 Key Quotes
We're all suffering in this human soup together.
Anu Gupta
Compassion is really key to breaking bias.
Anu Gupta
All forms of biases are learned mental habits. There are conscious biases, which are learned false beliefs, or unconscious biases that are learned habits of thoughts or associations. And both forms of biases distort how we perceive, reason, remember, and make decisions.
Anu Gupta
Shame itself is a manifestation of Mara. It's one of the poisons.
Anu Gupta
Bias isn't rational. If it was rational, we would have solved it by now.
Anu Gupta
People think of revolutions as changing state leadership, but that's not enough. You know, we have to recognize that we're responsible for the evolution of human consciousness.
Grace Lee Boggs (quoted by Anu Gupta)
2 Protocols
PRISM Toolkit for Breaking Bias
Anu Gupta- **Mindfulness**: Become aware of what's arising in your mind, body, and emotions. Notice and label stereotypes (e.g., 'oh, stereotype') to create a gap between the thought and following it. Also, be mindful of accompanying emotions like embarrassment or shame, and how they manifest somatically.
- **Stereotype Replacement**: Once a stereotype is noticed, replace it by bringing to mind a real-life example of someone who defies that stereotype (e.g., Dr. King for Black men, or a woman surgeon wearing a hijab). Use personal knowledge or search engines if needed to weaken old associations.
- **Individuation**: Cultivate curiosity and interest to decouple group-based associations from the individual. See each person as a unique human being, beyond their various identities, by asking questions and learning more about them.
- **Pro-Social Behaviors**: Cultivate helpful and positive mental/emotional states like loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and altruism. Practice sending well wishes to stereotyped groups or aspects of oneself (e.g., during meditation) to diminish fear and negative affect, both on and off the cushion.
- **Perspective Taking**: Imagine being in the shoes of another person, visualizing and feeling the fullness of their experience, rather than relying on preconceived ideas. This can be practiced for others or for past versions of oneself (e.g., a younger self) through journaling or meditation.
Practice for Understanding and Transforming Bias
Anu Gupta- **Define a concept**: In a word or phrase, notice what arises when asked to define a concept like 'race' or 'gender' in your own words.
- **Identify origin**: Reflect on where you learned these ideas, who told you, and who taught you, bringing mindfulness to the sources of these concepts.
- **Become mindful of physical and emotional reactions**: Notice the body sensations and emotions (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral) that arise when considering this concept and its historical or personal origins.
- **Let go**: Release the initial feelings and ideas without judgment, acknowledging them as experiences.
- **Imagine an alternative**: In a word or phrase, imagine how you would feel in a world without bias, or for yourself, free of self-loathing. Notice the emotional affect and body sensations (e.g., spaciousness, love).
- **Cradle with loving-kindness**: Bring compassion and kindness to these experiences and feelings, both positive and negative, acknowledging that there is no 'right' way to feel.
- **Replace negative with positive**: When witnessing bias in society or experiencing negative self-talk, actively replace those feelings with the positive, free feelings imagined in a world without bias, using this as a form of stereotype replacement.