Today I sit down with Alejandro Pedraza, a psychologist from Mexico who I met through freediving in Bali 3.5 years ago. Alejandro is now a professional vagabond working for a company that essentially has him a part of a human social experiment as he lives and travels with a group of people for months on end. We talk about A LOT of things in this episode: facades we put on, being a recovering people pleaser, understanding the brain and our personalities, attachment styles, the notion of self, relationship dynamics, polyamory and more.

What we discuss:

01:30 Introducing Alejandro

05:30 Emotional boundaries

06:10 People can only keep a facade for 4 months

11:20 The main 3 components that determine emotional reactions

13:30 Setting boundaries

15:15 Being a recovering people pleaser

18:00 Robbing people of opportunities to help themselves

24:45 Challenge your brain by verbalising

26:20 The brain as a predictive organ

31:20 Cognitive biases and why we believe in horoscopes

35:00 Personality tests and their validity

40:45 Attachment styles

45:45 The anxious-avoidant attraction

48:20 The notion of SELF

54:45 The brain just wants to save energy

56:15 How does being a psychologist affect his relationships?

58:04 What Alejandro learned about being polyamorous

1:10:00 Is he still poly?

1:10:56 What’s next?

Episode resources:

Alejandro's IG: https://www.instagram.com/jano_insta/

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