Speaker 1: When we're really taking care of ourselves. In looking after ourselves,
Speaker 1: we tend to be much more caring in the way
Speaker 1: that we treat others. Welcome to the one you feed
Speaker 1: Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the
Speaker 1: thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or
Speaker 1: you are what you think ring true, and yet for
Speaker 1: many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
Speaker 1: We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We
Speaker 1: see what we don't have instead of what we do.
Speaker 1: We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
Speaker 1: But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It
Speaker 1: takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life
Speaker 1: worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep
Speaker 1: themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their
Speaker 1: good wolf m Thanks for joining us. Our guest on
Speaker 1: this episode is Scott's Tabille. Scott's inspirational posts and videos
Speaker 1: have attracted a huge and devoted social media following. His
Speaker 1: previous works include Just Love, Iris and The Little Pet
Speaker 1: Hospital Series. A passionate speaker and love advocate, Scott runs
Speaker 1: daylong empowerment workshops nationally and internationally. His new book is
Speaker 1: Big Love, The Power of Living with a Wide Open Heart.
Speaker 1: If you value the content we put out each week,
Speaker 1: then we need your help. As the show has grown,
Speaker 1: so have our expenses and time commitment. Go to one
Speaker 1: you feed dot net slash Support and make a monthly donation.
Speaker 1: Our goal is to get to five percent of our
Speaker 1: listeners supporting the show. Please be part of the five
Speaker 1: percent that make a contribut You should and allow us
Speaker 1: to keep putting out these interviews and ideas. We really
Speaker 1: need your help to make the show sustainable and long lasting. Again,
Speaker 1: that's one you Feed dot net slash Support. Thank you
Speaker 1: in advance for your help. And here's the interview with
Speaker 1: Scott's to Bill. Hi, Scott, welcome to the show. Hey Eric,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm excited to talk with you.
Speaker 1: You've got a book coming out soon called Big Love,
Speaker 1: The Power of Living with a Wide Open Heart. And
Speaker 1: we'll get into that book and talk about it in
Speaker 1: a moment. But let's start like we normally do with
Speaker 1: the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking to his grandson.
Speaker 1: He says, there are two wolves always inside of us
Speaker 1: that are at battle. One is a good wolf, which
Speaker 1: represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the
Speaker 1: other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed
Speaker 1: and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he
Speaker 1: thinks about it for a second and looks up at
Speaker 1: his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one win?
Speaker 1: And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd
Speaker 1: like to start off by asking you what that parable
Speaker 1: means to you in your life and in the work
Speaker 1: that you do. Sure. I love that parable. I've shared
Speaker 1: it at least a couple of times in the past
Speaker 1: few years on my Facebook page. And what I love
Speaker 1: about it is that it speaks to the power in
Speaker 1: choice and in energy, and the understanding that the energy
Speaker 1: we bring to our thoughts and our actions and really
Speaker 1: to everything makes a profound difference in the life that
Speaker 1: we stand to create for ourselves. I do think it's
Speaker 1: really important to remember, though, that we're all human and
Speaker 1: as such, we all have all the wolves going on
Speaker 1: inside of us, from the most loving to the most hateful,
Speaker 1: the most beautiful to the ugliest, and everything in between.
Speaker 1: And that's just a part of being human, and and
Speaker 1: that if we're open and if we're we're able to
Speaker 1: rest in awareness and in honesty and certainly in compassion,
Speaker 1: we stand to learn a lot from the wolves that
Speaker 1: populate the darker parts of our mind as well. You know,
Speaker 1: the growth and learning doesn't just come from those moments
Speaker 1: that we're residing in our love and in our compassion
Speaker 1: and kindness. They come from being present in those times
Speaker 1: when we're being raging assholes, you know, and we're we're
Speaker 1: like complete prisoners to our fear, And how can we
Speaker 1: be aware in those moments and look at what those
Speaker 1: moments have to teach us as well as far as
Speaker 1: the work I'm doing applying this to the work that
Speaker 1: I'm doing in my life right now, I think one
Speaker 1: of the main things I'm trying to express, in one
Speaker 1: of the main messages I'm I'm working at conveying to people,
Speaker 1: is that, hey, we are all human. It's okay. You
Speaker 1: are not alone in your struggle, you are not alone
Speaker 1: in your misery, You're not alone in those darker wolves.
Speaker 1: Many of us are working at being the most loving,
Speaker 1: the most kind, the most compassion that we can be
Speaker 1: um but it takes work, and it takes effort, and
Speaker 1: that that if you can show up to this path
Speaker 1: and this journey with as much awareness as possible and
Speaker 1: as much compassion as possible. That that's the best way
Speaker 1: to show up. And listeners have heard me say this
Speaker 1: a bunch, But one of the things I really like
Speaker 1: about the Parable is exactly what you said. I think
Speaker 1: it normalizes like this is going on inside of all
Speaker 1: of us. Absolutely, we all have this, And and the
Speaker 1: way the Parable reads it sort of sounds like it's
Speaker 1: a pretty close battle between those two things. And and
Speaker 1: that to me really normalizes like, oh, Okay, that's that's
Speaker 1: what's going on with me, that's to be expected. Absolute.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about something that you mentioned in
Speaker 1: the book, and you talk about shame, and I'm just
Speaker 1: going to read a small line from the book and
Speaker 1: then you know, we can kind of discuss it. You say, Shame, however,
Speaker 1: lives in lies. It sees beauty and standards set by
Speaker 1: magazines and movie stars and tells us we're disgusting and
Speaker 1: need to hide ourselves and we don't meet those standards,
Speaker 1: which is always you are ugly at taunts. Shame sees
Speaker 1: success as money and power and toys, and makes us
Speaker 1: feel little and worthless when we don't have enough of
Speaker 1: those things. Talk to me about your experience with that, well,
Speaker 1: my experience with shame is that it thrives on secrecy.
Speaker 1: You know, if I speak to the greatest shame I
Speaker 1: felt in my life, it's it was around my sexuality
Speaker 1: and growing up gay and feeling like that was certainly
Speaker 1: the biggest secret I had to keep because of all
Speaker 1: the shame I felt around it. And of course the
Speaker 1: shame we're feeling around things is because of all the
Speaker 1: conditioning that we're seeing, and we're growing up in a
Speaker 1: world that tells us we're supposed to be one way,
Speaker 1: and if we, in any way fluctuate outside of that way,
Speaker 1: that's something to feel shame about. But what I've learned
Speaker 1: in my life, and learn over and over and over,
Speaker 1: is that the moment we announced those things that we
Speaker 1: feel shame about, we take the power away from shame.
Speaker 1: So for me, and I mean in terms of sexuality,
Speaker 1: coming out is gay, the weight that that lifted from
Speaker 1: my shoulders, truly, it's it's indisc rivable. We certainly all
Speaker 1: know what it's like to carry great shame about whatever
Speaker 1: in our lives, and I think many of us know
Speaker 1: what it's like to share that shame with someone we
Speaker 1: can confide in or trust, or a therapist or a
Speaker 1: complete stranger that will never see again, and we all
Speaker 1: know the relief by sharing it, because it doesn't it
Speaker 1: doesn't take ownership over us once we've announced it. Once
Speaker 1: it's out there, it's like, okay, it's out there, and
Speaker 1: we see that we can survive announcing it and we
Speaker 1: see that we're okay. Um, does that make sense? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: How old were you when you came out? I mean,
Speaker 1: in varying degrees, I'd say in my early twenties. I
Speaker 1: moved to San Francisco after college in Michigan at twenty
Speaker 1: two and started to come out to close friends around
Speaker 1: that time, to my family, to my three sisters specifically,
Speaker 1: which was essentially coming out to the whole family. That
Speaker 1: was when I was seven, you know, so um, not
Speaker 1: not especially young, especially nowadays it seems like, thankfully, you know,
Speaker 1: LGBT kids are coming out sooner and at a younger age. Um.
Speaker 1: But but even then, just knowing that that and in shame,
Speaker 1: it's not just around my sexuality. Mean, I write about
Speaker 1: in the book how I spent my entire college years
Speaker 1: under a baseball cap because I felt so ashamed of
Speaker 1: losing my hair at such a young age, and I
Speaker 1: felt like that was going to be something people were
Speaker 1: going to make fun of me for or see as
Speaker 1: a weakness, and so I spent so much energy on
Speaker 1: concealing the fact that I was balding. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was exhausting instead of just lifting that cap off. And
Speaker 1: even then in my senior year in college, when I
Speaker 1: started to take the cap off a little more and
Speaker 1: certainly moving to San Francisco, and in part because the
Speaker 1: shaved head look was becoming cool. I can't pretend that
Speaker 1: I had suddenly become enlightened and that's why I was
Speaker 1: showing off my bald head. Um, but it was such
Speaker 1: a relief not to have to hide beneath the cap.
Speaker 1: It was such a relief just to be out there
Speaker 1: with the truth of who I am. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: And that's really a message I also I write about
Speaker 1: in the book and share a lot with my Facebook
Speaker 1: community is um, it's okay to be who you are.
Speaker 1: It's not just okay. What you do for others by
Speaker 1: being who you are is is profoundly beneficial because you
Speaker 1: create an opening in a doorway for others to see, like, hey,
Speaker 1: maybe if he can be who he is, I can
Speaker 1: be who I am too, And that's okay. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that is one of the big benefits of being
Speaker 1: yourself is how it can help other people. You talk
Speaker 1: about how you think as you've gotten older you have
Speaker 1: a lot more nonchalance about these sort of things about
Speaker 1: you know, going bald or or how we look and
Speaker 1: all that, and that that age has a lot to
Speaker 1: do with it. And I think about that too. I'm like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's you know, could could I teach a
Speaker 1: twenty five year old to have that same level of
Speaker 1: nonchalance that I do? But you also make a point
Speaker 1: that it's not just age, but that it was time
Speaker 1: of working through these issues. So it wasn't just that
Speaker 1: you got older, it was that you got older and
Speaker 1: you worked on these things at the same time. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean I think that really, in my experience, the
Speaker 1: only way we really grow is when we start to
Speaker 1: bring more awareness to our lives. The whole point of
Speaker 1: Big Love really is to encourage people to consider making
Speaker 1: more and more choices in their lives from the place
Speaker 1: of love, because I feel like love is the base
Speaker 1: note for everything that's that's most powerfully good in this world,
Speaker 1: like kindness, like compassion, like forgiveness, like authenticity, with which
Speaker 1: ultimately just represents self love. And so the more aware
Speaker 1: we become in our lives and awareness is hard work.
Speaker 1: It means instead of just being a hateful person, checking
Speaker 1: in with yourself in those moments of hatred and looking
Speaker 1: at what's really going on for you? You know why
Speaker 1: am I provoked in this moment? Because it's never really
Speaker 1: about the other person, It's never really rooted in the
Speaker 1: situation at hand as much as what's going on inside
Speaker 1: of me. But just being present in in that awareness
Speaker 1: of like, hey, this is what's going on for me
Speaker 1: right now, I'm feeling really envious, I'm feeling really blameful.
Speaker 1: How can I take ownership of those emotions? How can
Speaker 1: I take ownership of those thoughts? And And when we
Speaker 1: do take ownership, we don't necessarily shift in this in
Speaker 1: that moment and suddenly become this enlightened, wise, loving human being.
Speaker 1: But every moment we take ownership and ask ourselves the question, like,
Speaker 1: what does love invite me to do in this moment?
Speaker 1: How does love invite me to respond to this very
Speaker 1: provocative situation. I believe that we encourage greater growth. So
Speaker 1: let's talk about that love. It almost sounds like you're
Speaker 1: talking about love as an action or an ideal and
Speaker 1: less about love as a feeling. I'm talking about love
Speaker 1: as an energy, and in my understanding of love as
Speaker 1: this underlying energy that is beneath all the noise of
Speaker 1: of all the negative wolves, all the darker wolves, you know,
Speaker 1: all the fear, all the rage, all the blame um.
Speaker 1: Underneath all of that is love, and that when we
Speaker 1: are present in that space, I see love as a
Speaker 1: very very clear energy as well, so that when we're
Speaker 1: coming from a place of love, we're being guided in
Speaker 1: a way that is much more clear and is much
Speaker 1: more aligned with truth than when we're being guided from
Speaker 1: our fears. When we're being guided from that ego place.
Speaker 1: You know, because if if you and I are fighting
Speaker 1: right now, my ego is going to tell me to
Speaker 1: go to battle with you. My ego is going to
Speaker 1: tell me to make you wrong and make me right.
Speaker 1: But that's surface. The love that resides beneath that ego
Speaker 1: is going to invite me to find connection between us.
Speaker 1: It's going to invite me to listen with openness to
Speaker 1: your point of view instead of just needing to be
Speaker 1: right about my point view, and that that's just one
Speaker 1: example of love and action in our communications. But when
Speaker 1: we bring the energy of love to everything that we're doing, um,
Speaker 1: it transforms. You know. That's been my experience. All the
Speaker 1: stories in Big Love, we're all moments in my life,
Speaker 1: some really casual moments about being on an airplane and
Speaker 1: watching a flight attendant act from a place of deep
Speaker 1: empathy with a grieving passenger, too much heavier moments in
Speaker 1: my life of losing my parents and being them being
Speaker 1: murdered when I was fourteen years old. But in reflecting
Speaker 1: on all of it, recognizing that it's when I can
Speaker 1: approach my life with as much love as possible, I
Speaker 1: feel the best. I feel the most whole, I feel
Speaker 1: the most grounded, the most centered, and I also recognize
Speaker 1: that the energy I have to offer offer others is
Speaker 1: the most pure. If that makes sense. It intrigues me
Speaker 1: because I'm not a person who I don't know that
Speaker 1: I would say I feel love in this like very
Speaker 1: effusive sense. And yet if I look at the actions
Speaker 1: that I take in the way that I behave looking
Speaker 1: at from the perspective you're describing, I see it. They're
Speaker 1: underlying so many things, and that's kind of why I
Speaker 1: was asking about. You know, I've certainly heard the phrase,
Speaker 1: you know, love as an action more than it's just
Speaker 1: a feeling. Absolutely, and I think that love in action
Speaker 1: is more often than not very hard work. You know,
Speaker 1: when we when we look at the world around us
Speaker 1: and all the rage and anger and war and violence, Um,
Speaker 1: those are the easier choices. I mean again, if you
Speaker 1: I don't know why I keep coming to this example
Speaker 1: of you and I fighting. You're a very nice person.
Speaker 1: I don't expect we're going to go to battle. But
Speaker 1: if it's like it's very easy to get piste off
Speaker 1: at someone who makes you angry, that's a very easy choice.
Speaker 1: It's very easy to go to a place of unforgiveness
Speaker 1: with somebody who betrays you. These are all easy choices,
Speaker 1: and these these tend to be the choices that many
Speaker 1: of us are making more often than not, because our
Speaker 1: minds go there so naturally. It's when we choose to
Speaker 1: act from love, no matter what is going on, no
Speaker 1: matter what is presented to us, that is the most
Speaker 1: difficult choice, and that's the choice. I believe that we're
Speaker 1: all being called to make more than ever in this
Speaker 1: world where we are inundated with separation and war and
Speaker 1: violence and bigotry and all the list goes on and
Speaker 1: on and on and on. You know, we are called
Speaker 1: to love more than ever. I agree, And that makes
Speaker 1: a lot of sense to me, that idea that it's
Speaker 1: that it can be very hard, that it doesn't feel
Speaker 1: like this, you know, la la la feeling right. It
Speaker 1: can be very difficult. And I think about, you know,
Speaker 1: my son is going to college next week, and so
Speaker 1: it's kind of that's kind of a big deal, right, um.
Speaker 1: But I look back on being a father to him,
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of the times that I
Speaker 1: acted maybe with the most love, they weren't really that
Speaker 1: pleasant or enjoyable. It was it was challenged. Absolutely. If
Speaker 1: your kid is running into the middle of traffic and
Speaker 1: you're yanking him out of traffic and maybe screaming in
Speaker 1: that moment, that is a reflection of love for your
Speaker 1: child too. I mean, that's the thing I think we're
Speaker 1: there is this misguided notion we have that love is
Speaker 1: all hearts and rainbows in this gentle almost I think
Speaker 1: some people see it as a weak choice, but I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't see it is that at all. I I
Speaker 1: see it almost always is the most difficult choice we
Speaker 1: can make in the moment and the most powerful choice
Speaker 1: we can make in the moment. We are not going
Speaker 1: to heal our country and our relationships and our planet
Speaker 1: through hatred. You know, it's just not going to happen.
Speaker 1: It's just not how anything happens. We're only we only
Speaker 1: stand to heal it through love. Yep. And that is
Speaker 1: really a strong saying at this point, because I remain
Speaker 1: pretty flummixed by the dialogue in this country. And here
Speaker 1: I go again on the podcast. I shouldn't do it,
Speaker 1: but here we go. Um, because every time I go
Speaker 1: in this direction, I end up getting myself in trouble somebody.
Speaker 1: But my point is really I've been told before like
Speaker 1: I'm excusing people who are are you know, biggots or racists,
Speaker 1: and that's not at all the intention. But to your point,
Speaker 1: I've just found like until we can have some way
Speaker 1: of communicating with each other in some sense of love,
Speaker 1: this doesn't get better. And it's not like I came
Speaker 1: up with that idea, right Martin Luther King, and now
Speaker 1: all the great teachers, you know, Jesus, they've all taught
Speaker 1: this idea. You know, hate can't conquer hate, and how
Speaker 1: do we fight what in a lot of cases looks
Speaker 1: like it's monstrous in our world right now without being
Speaker 1: monstrous are Absolutely it's not easy, and I think for
Speaker 1: me and I have not mastered this. I will say
Speaker 1: that first and foremost when politics becomes a discussion, I
Speaker 1: have gotten better a lot of the time, but I'm
Speaker 1: still not this all peaceful, all loving person when it
Speaker 1: comes to talking about the state of this country. But
Speaker 1: I will say the truest path to that place is
Speaker 1: a path of empathy, which again I think is one
Speaker 1: of love's mandate. It's really looking at whomever you are
Speaker 1: speaking with, whoever sitting in front of you, whatever they're saying,
Speaker 1: and doing my best to connect with their humanity, doing
Speaker 1: my best to look at what may have transpired in
Speaker 1: there in his or her life to this point, to
Speaker 1: get that person to the place of thought where they
Speaker 1: are right now. You know, my parents were murdered when
Speaker 1: I was fourteen years old, and I didn't at the
Speaker 1: time even consider the idea of forgiveness for their killer.
Speaker 1: I was just like trying to survive that moment in
Speaker 1: those years, and like makes sense of my life in
Speaker 1: that moment. But at some point in my twenties I
Speaker 1: recognized whenever I did think of their killer, it was
Speaker 1: with rage, It was with hatred. It was with this
Speaker 1: unforgiving attitude and this belief that what he did was unforgivable,
Speaker 1: and recognizing the toll that that took on me as
Speaker 1: a human being, because we all know what it feels
Speaker 1: like to feel hatred, that toxic, toxic feeling of believing
Speaker 1: it something is unforgivable. It wears on us, it feels awful.
Speaker 1: And I knew on some level that too feel more
Speaker 1: whole and to feel better in my life, I was
Speaker 1: going to have to open to the possibility of forgiving
Speaker 1: this man. And I didn't know how, but I knew
Speaker 1: that by becoming committed to that possibility, there was a
Speaker 1: chance I would find my way there. In reflecting on
Speaker 1: how I found my way there, it was only when
Speaker 1: I started to become empathetic to his experience. It was
Speaker 1: only when I allowed myself to consider the very true
Speaker 1: reality that nobody operating from any place of self worth
Speaker 1: or self love, or of being seen in this world
Speaker 1: could walk into a market and kill other people. It's
Speaker 1: just not possible. So what could that man have been
Speaker 1: going through in his life? How horrible must have his
Speaker 1: life have been? And I understood that. I hope I
Speaker 1: can never relate to the place of acting in violence
Speaker 1: towards someone. That's not something I connect with it myself,
Speaker 1: is the place of actually murdering someone. But I certainly
Speaker 1: can connect to such rage that I've wished people would
Speaker 1: die horrible deaths. You know. I can connect to not
Speaker 1: being seen. I can connect feeling like a complete outsider.
Speaker 1: I can connect to all of those things that I
Speaker 1: suspect he was also experiencing on on some level in
Speaker 1: his life. And from that place of empathy and connection,
Speaker 1: I didn't just some days say okay, I forgive him.
Speaker 1: But what I found was that when I would think
Speaker 1: about my parents murderer, it started to shift and suddenly
Speaker 1: it wasn't with rage. Suddenly it was with compassion, you know,
Speaker 1: which walks hand in hand with empathy, and ultimately it
Speaker 1: was with forgiveness. And when I think of him, now,
Speaker 1: that's what comes up for me. It's the recognition, like
Speaker 1: he is a human being who made some horrible choices
Speaker 1: in his life, but he's human being like all of us,
Speaker 1: struggling to make sense of this extremely messed up in
Speaker 1: unpredictable reality and doing whatever we can to do. So whoa, whoa, whoa,
Speaker 1: whoa whoa. Hold on on the fast forward button for
Speaker 1: just a minute. I want to talk to you about
Speaker 1: a new reward that we're offering on Patreon for our
Speaker 1: listeners who pledge at the ten dollar or more per
Speaker 1: month level. This level already gives a free exclusive mini
Speaker 1: episode every month, as well as and ask Me Anything
Speaker 1: conversation with me each month, and now we are giving
Speaker 1: bonus content. So after interviews, I'm talking with the guests
Speaker 1: for a few more minutes and we are releasing this.
Speaker 1: At this point, we've put out bonus content for Matthew Quick,
Speaker 1: Greg Creach, Eric Barker, Spring Washam, and there will be
Speaker 1: bonus content from this interview with Scott out there also.
Speaker 1: So if you pledge at the ten dollar level, you
Speaker 1: get all of those things. And while rewards are great,
Speaker 1: so is supporting something that you care about in the world.
Speaker 1: There's so many opportunities where it doesn't seem like there's
Speaker 1: anything that we can do about the things that are happening.
Speaker 1: But one thing that we can do is we can
Speaker 1: support things that matter to us, things that we want
Speaker 1: to see in the world. You know, I've talked before
Speaker 1: about how every time I go to certain bookstores, I
Speaker 1: buy a book, even if I don't need one. Actually
Speaker 1: God knows I don't need one, but I do it
Speaker 1: because I want those bookstores to still be there. I
Speaker 1: don't want to turn around someday and go, oh boy,
Speaker 1: I wish I had supported that bookstore. The same thing
Speaker 1: goes supporting podcasts that I care about. And this is
Speaker 1: your opportunity to do the same thing, to support this
Speaker 1: podcast something that matters to you, something that you care about,
Speaker 1: something that you want to continue to see in the world.
Speaker 1: Supporting the show really at any level, helps do that.
Speaker 1: We appreciate it so much. It helps us to pay
Speaker 1: the bills that we have, It helps us to do
Speaker 1: some special things like occasionally interviewing guests in person, and
Speaker 1: it's laying the foundation for what we ultimately hope to
Speaker 1: get to, which is where I can put more effort
Speaker 1: into the podcast and spend more time on it, and
Speaker 1: Chris can also, And so we're building towards that overtime.
Speaker 1: But your support is so critical and being able to
Speaker 1: do that, so thank you so much, those of you
Speaker 1: who are already supporting us, and for those of you
Speaker 1: that have been thinking about it or this is the
Speaker 1: first time you thought about it. Now is a great
Speaker 1: time to do it. One you feed dot net slash support,
Speaker 1: you can make a contribution, and again, if you do
Speaker 1: it at the ten dollar month level, you'll start to
Speaker 1: get additional bonus content. But doing it at any level
Speaker 1: will make you feel good and it will be an
Speaker 1: opportunity to put your money where your mouth is. Well
Speaker 1: maybe that doesn't make any sense anyway. It's a chance
Speaker 1: for you to do something good in the world, support
Speaker 1: the show and make me smile. So with that, back
Speaker 1: to the interview with Scott, I think there's a couple
Speaker 1: of key things that you just said there. One is
Speaker 1: it's not about forgiving and action or saying that a
Speaker 1: certain behavior or action is okay. That's not what it's about.
Speaker 1: It's about that empathy, particularly if we're talking about politics
Speaker 1: again and trying to change people's mind. It seems like
Speaker 1: that's the only possible approach that will work. Just on
Speaker 1: a strictly pragmatic sense. Nobody suddenly gets screamed at about
Speaker 1: what a terrible person they are and suddenly goes, oh,
Speaker 1: I guess you're right. Let me change my view. It
Speaker 1: doesn't work. And then the other thing you said they're
Speaker 1: about forgiveness is really that sense of you realize what
Speaker 1: it was doing to you. And I think for me,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm a recovering alcoholic and addict, and one
Speaker 1: of the maxims in a twelve step program is that
Speaker 1: resentment is the surest way back to a drinker drug
Speaker 1: and so that you having them is extraordinarily dangerous. And
Speaker 1: so I think I was led to the path of
Speaker 1: learning to forgive people. I think it comes to me
Speaker 1: maybe a little bit more naturally than other people. But
Speaker 1: I think when I really understood the harm it was
Speaker 1: doing me, I got to the point that you did,
Speaker 1: which was I'm not there. I'm not able to do it,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna set that as a goal or an intention.
Speaker 1: That's where I'd like to get, you know, if for
Speaker 1: no other reason than I don't want to suffer absolutely,
Speaker 1: And and look, I think if that's the reason that
Speaker 1: someone goes to forgiveness, that's beautiful. I think. However we
Speaker 1: get there, the end result is the same. That's forgiveness,
Speaker 1: and that can only serve us and all involved, you know,
Speaker 1: And I think what you said right then was important
Speaker 1: and also one thing I I've seen in my life
Speaker 1: over and over because people ask me all the time,
Speaker 1: well how did you become so loving? And how do
Speaker 1: you forgive? And these are difficult questions to answer because
Speaker 1: there's no for me, really specific one note answer. If
Speaker 1: you do this and this and this, you will forgive
Speaker 1: everyone in your life. But the only thing I know
Speaker 1: for sure is that it takes a commitment, and it
Speaker 1: takes a dedication because I am deeply committed to being
Speaker 1: as loving as possible, as often as possible. So I
Speaker 1: know that when I fall off the love train and
Speaker 1: act like an asshole and do whatever else I'm doing,
Speaker 1: that I'm going to bring myself back on the love
Speaker 1: train because that's my greatest commitment in this life. And
Speaker 1: it's the same with forgiveness. You can read ten books
Speaker 1: on forgiveness, but if you are not deeply committed to
Speaker 1: being a forgiving person and forgiving that person or action,
Speaker 1: you'll never find it. It doesn't happen you know, we
Speaker 1: need that intention. I want to touch on something you
Speaker 1: alluded to there when we were talking about, Hey, if
Speaker 1: you give forgiveness out of your own motive to feel better,
Speaker 1: that's okay. And you talk about this idea that you
Speaker 1: say it's talking about self care, and you say most
Speaker 1: selflessness comes with some selfishness wrapped into it. We almost
Speaker 1: always consider ourselves and the choices we make, even when
Speaker 1: we think we're only considering others. And I love that
Speaker 1: idea because it it allows us to have less than
Speaker 1: pure motives all the time. And I actually think that's
Speaker 1: almost the only way we can be. Yeah, well, I
Speaker 1: I definitely think it feels good to give to others.
Speaker 1: This is the other thing. I don't try to present
Speaker 1: myself as this selfless like all good, do good, or
Speaker 1: you know what I mean at all, because if being
Speaker 1: loving didn't feel so good, I would not make it
Speaker 1: a priority in my life. Like for me, being a kind,
Speaker 1: compassion and a loving person as often as possible, it
Speaker 1: feels really great, you know. And so that's where the
Speaker 1: selfishness comes into selfish behavior because when we're being selfless
Speaker 1: quote unquote it we feel good. When we're helping out
Speaker 1: others in our lives, it feels good to us as well.
Speaker 1: And that's what I was trying to say there, because
Speaker 1: selfishness gets a bad rap, and self care, I think,
Speaker 1: sometimes gets a bad rap as being just totally selfless.
Speaker 1: But what I've what I've learned my life is that
Speaker 1: when we're taking care of ourselves, when we're really taking
Speaker 1: care of ourselves and looking after ourselves, we tend to
Speaker 1: be much more caring in the way that we treat
Speaker 1: others as well. Yep, exactly. I wanted to have a
Speaker 1: brief discussion about addiction because you said some things that
Speaker 1: were very interesting. So, your brother died from addiction, and
Speaker 1: you kind of went on and said that I used
Speaker 1: to believe that the drugs were more powerful than your brother,
Speaker 1: and you don't believe that to be the case anymore
Speaker 1: because you see other people recover, and I'm just interested.
Speaker 1: This is a discussion that fascinates me as a recovering
Speaker 1: addict and alcoholic. I think it is so confusing to
Speaker 1: me how some people get sober and how some don't,
Speaker 1: or why some do and why some don't. You reference
Speaker 1: that as a as a topic, so I thought it
Speaker 1: might be interesting to talk about for a minute. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I certainly don't have the answer as to
Speaker 1: why some people get sober and why some don't if
Speaker 1: the intention in both those people is to get sober.
Speaker 1: Um My trajectory around how I approached addiction growing up
Speaker 1: with a brother who was addicted to heroin, was as
Speaker 1: a child not understanding in any way why he was
Speaker 1: addicted to heroin and just thinking he was this terrible
Speaker 1: person bringing a lot of grief to our family, and
Speaker 1: why didn't he just stop. When I went to college
Speaker 1: and learn more about addiction and the notion that addiction
Speaker 1: is as a disease, my thought process shifted to this
Speaker 1: idea that my brother had no control over his act.
Speaker 1: I went from one extreme to the other that he
Speaker 1: had complete control, to he had no control and that
Speaker 1: he wasn't in any way to blame or responsible for
Speaker 1: anything that he was doing. And then I shifted again,
Speaker 1: and and what I view addiction now where I view
Speaker 1: it is that there is choice in sobriety and that
Speaker 1: is a really important component. And if addiction were only
Speaker 1: an incurable disease, which is how it is sometimes outlined,
Speaker 1: then how are people getting sober? It doesn't make sense
Speaker 1: to me to view addiction as only an incurable disease.
Speaker 1: I absolutely believe that, um, drugs and alcohol can be addictive. Um,
Speaker 1: but my my experience knowing a lot of of people
Speaker 1: who are addicted and who are in their addiction, who
Speaker 1: who are in their recovery, is that, um, there's more
Speaker 1: a play. Yeah. No, I think there definitely is. I
Speaker 1: think it's almost that disease term has always bothered me,
Speaker 1: even when I was early in recovery. And the idea
Speaker 1: of it makes sense, right because on some level back
Speaker 1: to that shame idea, right, like, if I just think
Speaker 1: that I'm this hopelessly awful person, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: get better. I need something to to help me recognize that,
Speaker 1: Like this just isn't all like me just making bad decisions.
Speaker 1: There's more going on there than that. And at the
Speaker 1: same time, you're right, there is some element of choice
Speaker 1: to it. And you know, we had a we had
Speaker 1: a guy on gabber Matte who's an addiction doctor, and he,
Speaker 1: you know, talks about and you mentioned in the book
Speaker 1: how strongly childhood trauma is linked to addiction, and I
Speaker 1: think that, you know, I think of addiction more kind
Speaker 1: of like I think of depression, it's sort of like
Speaker 1: a in drome. There's so much going on that it's
Speaker 1: so hard for there to be easy answers to that.
Speaker 1: It's like, why are you depressed? Well, there could be
Speaker 1: fifty different things happening there. Same thing with addiction, it
Speaker 1: could be so many different causes, childhood trauma, or you
Speaker 1: don't have enough dopamine in your brain naturally. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's all these different things. And and so I think
Speaker 1: that that to think that what helps one person will
Speaker 1: always help the other person, or that one person has
Speaker 1: choice and can get out of it and another person
Speaker 1: who doesn't they just made a bad decision, it's just
Speaker 1: to me, it's so much more confusing and confounding and Abe,
Speaker 1: and I think that's partially why it's so hard to
Speaker 1: solve either of those things, because I don't think you
Speaker 1: can go like, here's the cause, you know, like the
Speaker 1: common cold, you are, there's that virus that did Absolutely
Speaker 1: this stuff is so complex, Absolutely, and I don't think
Speaker 1: you can also say here's the solution. Matter of factory.
Speaker 1: And I think the other thing I really believe, Eric,
Speaker 1: is we live in a holy addictive society. I think
Speaker 1: that whether you consider yourself someone who is addicted to
Speaker 1: a substance or to gambling or two shopping, and you're
Speaker 1: aware of it or not. Like, we are all writing
Speaker 1: the fine line of addiction all the time. And what
Speaker 1: I write about in the book when I talk about
Speaker 1: addiction is really in terms of love and kindness and
Speaker 1: growth and how we're serving ourselves is how can we
Speaker 1: go about creating lives that are more fulfilling so that
Speaker 1: we don't feel the need to escape them, Because ultimately,
Speaker 1: all we're doing in addiction is numbing ourselves from feeling
Speaker 1: the reality of our lives. And we all do that,
Speaker 1: whether you count yourself as an addict or not, we're
Speaker 1: all doing that constantly. So how can we make choices
Speaker 1: in our lives and how can we create the kind
Speaker 1: of lives that we don't want to escape from? And
Speaker 1: I really believe that that is a necessary component of
Speaker 1: living a sober life. Yeah, I agree. I used to
Speaker 1: think there was a line you stepped over that made
Speaker 1: you an addict, and I think it's much more of
Speaker 1: a continue absolutely than I ever thought before. And and
Speaker 1: I agree with you, although I would modify what you
Speaker 1: say a little bit. I don't think it's always to
Speaker 1: numb something that's happening for me, and I think some
Speaker 1: people it's to actually awaken something that you have self
Speaker 1: numbed for so long. Interesting, you know, it's to feel alive.
Speaker 1: It's not like I'm feeling pain. I'm feeling dead inside
Speaker 1: and this brings me alive. It's it's a variation on
Speaker 1: the same thing. But I like that distinction. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's an escape, it's a it's an escape feeling or
Speaker 1: from not feeling or you know. But I like how
Speaker 1: you put it as well. While we're talking about things
Speaker 1: that you have choice over and don't have choice over,
Speaker 1: let's talk about happiness. You used to say, I believe
Speaker 1: happiness is a choice. We can choose to be happy,
Speaker 1: and you don't believe that anymore. Talk to me about
Speaker 1: that change, you know. I think I did a happiness
Speaker 1: challenge on my Facebook page. I've got a Facebook page
Speaker 1: with a big community there and a lass. February, I
Speaker 1: announced a happiness challenge and the intention was for every
Speaker 1: day of February we were whoever wanted to be involved
Speaker 1: in the challenge would choose one thing each day that
Speaker 1: they would do that that stood the chance of serving
Speaker 1: their happiness. Um, So I chose to do yoga for
Speaker 1: at least an hour every day. And I didn't launch
Speaker 1: the challenge believing that we could choose happiness anymore, because
Speaker 1: I'd already come to the understanding that happiness is not
Speaker 1: a choice. But what I've come to realize is that
Speaker 1: you know, we can't choose our feelings. That's the bottom line.
Speaker 1: We can't choose to be happy simply I saying I
Speaker 1: want to be happy right now. If you're if your
Speaker 1: partner just left you, your wife just left you, you
Speaker 1: can't scream I'm going to be happy right now, You're
Speaker 1: gonna still be miserable. And what I've seen in this
Speaker 1: this self help world, in the world of personal development
Speaker 1: and spirituality, is this mantra is said over and over
Speaker 1: and over, and it is happiness is a choice. Happiness
Speaker 1: is a choice. Choose happiness. What I came to discover
Speaker 1: was like, wait a minute, if happiness is a choice,
Speaker 1: wouldn't we all be happy all the time? And if
Speaker 1: happiness is a choice, why am I so unhappy so
Speaker 1: so often? And it got me feeling worse about myself
Speaker 1: because I believed I fell into that belief that I
Speaker 1: could choose my happiness, and yet I'm living in a
Speaker 1: reality where I'm not happy so much of the time.
Speaker 1: So that I was, so, what's wrong? What's wrong with me?
Speaker 1: And it adds to this weight of shame, honestly. And
Speaker 1: what we can choose, though, and I think this is
Speaker 1: really important and it's it's aligned with the wolf parable
Speaker 1: is we can absolutely choose actions that stand to create
Speaker 1: happiness in our lives. And the example I use in
Speaker 1: the book is I love playing tennis, so I know
Speaker 1: that by choosing to play tennis, I stand to create
Speaker 1: happiness in my life. I'm not choosing happiness. I'm choosing
Speaker 1: to play tennis. And there's a difference. So we can
Speaker 1: absolutely choose actions. If we're we become more aware what
Speaker 1: makes me happy? Okay, it makes me happy to be outside.
Speaker 1: Why don't I get outside more often? And then if
Speaker 1: I'm finding, hey, I'm feeling a little happier more often,
Speaker 1: that's no coincidence. It's because of the choices we're making.
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree with you more. I mean that very
Speaker 1: much mirrors my opinion and my experience, and it also
Speaker 1: mirrors what a lot of the positive psychology people will say,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, a lot of us have sort
Speaker 1: of a happiness set point. Some of that is just
Speaker 1: built into you, and yet you have the ability to
Speaker 1: move that to a certain degree, and and you have
Speaker 1: the ability to do that by the actions you taken.
Speaker 1: And I think that's totally true. I think to flip
Speaker 1: happiness on its side, I talk about depression a lot.
Speaker 1: I think about with depression like, once I'm in depression,
Speaker 1: there's not a whole lot I can lead. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to think my way out of it, sure, but
Speaker 1: I do believe that there are things I can be
Speaker 1: doing in my life that make it much more likely
Speaker 1: I'm not going to slide into that depression and that
Speaker 1: I have some control over. And I think happiness is
Speaker 1: the same way. I can't choose to be happy, but
Speaker 1: I can choose to take actions that lead in that direction.
Speaker 1: I can choose to try and work with thoughts that
Speaker 1: I know get in the way of that. Absolutely. I've
Speaker 1: always thought about like emotions is like like you said,
Speaker 1: you can't change them. But I've always thought by working
Speaker 1: with action and thoughts that those can act as levers
Speaker 1: that can help move the emotion. Even though I can't
Speaker 1: control it directly. I love the way you put that.
Speaker 1: I agree absolutely, and I think it's so important to
Speaker 1: do it. It's so important to consider our self care.
Speaker 1: It's so important to be making choices in our lives
Speaker 1: that stand to create more fulfillment, more happiness in our lives,
Speaker 1: you know, to to make that a habit. Yep. So
Speaker 1: while we're on the topic of taking action, let's talk
Speaker 1: about You've got a line and I love this line.
Speaker 1: You say, action helps a suage fear. Yeah, talk about
Speaker 1: writing the book for you, because this is that's your
Speaker 1: example that you use. Well, writing the book was it
Speaker 1: was a scary, scary thing for me. I mean when
Speaker 1: the when I got the book deal, I mean there's
Speaker 1: this immediate elation of course you've got a book deal.
Speaker 1: That elation probably lested maybe half an hour, and then
Speaker 1: the reality of oh my god, I have to write
Speaker 1: this book now, you know, like now this this is
Speaker 1: very very real and seeing you know. Here's I'd like
Speaker 1: to say. One thing about fear in general is just
Speaker 1: that I don't believe fear is something we conquer. I
Speaker 1: don't believe that we ever become fearless. It's just not
Speaker 1: how life works. I believe that what we can do,
Speaker 1: and what I've started to do in my life that's
Speaker 1: made a profound difference is to have a different conversation
Speaker 1: with my fear, to recognize I've always seen my fear
Speaker 1: as a bully, you know, as this abusive tyrant that
Speaker 1: was keeping me from living my best life possible. And
Speaker 1: I hour to it so often. My fear told me,
Speaker 1: don't ask this person out on a date, or don't
Speaker 1: submit your book to this and and I would listen
Speaker 1: to it for fear of rejection, or fear of the unknown,
Speaker 1: or fear of change, whatever our fears are. And now
Speaker 1: I realized that my fear is just trying to protect me,
Speaker 1: that's its job, but that it's not very smart. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like it's trying to protect me from submitting a
Speaker 1: book proposal with the same fervor that it would protect
Speaker 1: me from running into a building on fire. You know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't It doesn't have emotional intelligence, and it's not
Speaker 1: distinguishing between those things that are scary. It's just saying,
Speaker 1: don't do it, don't do it, this is going to
Speaker 1: be uncomfortable. So the example I use with writing the
Speaker 1: book was that Okay, I got the book deal. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm really afraid. And every day I would show
Speaker 1: up to work on the book, my fear was there
Speaker 1: with me. But I was showing up to write the
Speaker 1: book and I was working on whatever chapter I was
Speaker 1: working on. And what the message that I was giving
Speaker 1: my fear was like, yes, I hear you, Yes I'm afraid,
Speaker 1: and I can still move forward despite these fears that
Speaker 1: I'm feeling. And so after so many days of showing
Speaker 1: up to write the book, your fear is going to
Speaker 1: start to take the hint that when when I said
Speaker 1: action assuages fear, when you begin to act and when
Speaker 1: you show up for your life, your fear is going
Speaker 1: to take the hint and it's going to take the
Speaker 1: passenger seat instead of driving the car. And that's been
Speaker 1: my experience time and time and time again. It's not
Speaker 1: that the fear goes away, but it doesn't command our actions.
Speaker 1: We can still act. YEP. I find that a good
Speaker 1: way to deal with anxiety. Too often, I get this
Speaker 1: generalized anxiety and I've got all these different things going on.
Speaker 1: So I'll just sit down and write down everything that
Speaker 1: I can think of that I'm anxious or nervous about,
Speaker 1: and then write down like one action I could take
Speaker 1: for each of those things that would be any sort
Speaker 1: of moving forward, and then from there I try and
Speaker 1: do one of those things and instantly I feel better.
Speaker 1: That makes a dents with anxiety as well, and just
Speaker 1: the idea, because underlying it all is energy. Whether the
Speaker 1: conscious action you want to take is a five minute
Speaker 1: walk or a half an hour walk, that's the action.
Speaker 1: But along with that action is the energy that you
Speaker 1: are sharing to life, to God, to the trees, whatever
Speaker 1: you believe in. That is saying I matter enough to
Speaker 1: myself in this moment to take care of myself in
Speaker 1: this way, and that energy is powerful. So we're near
Speaker 1: the end of time. I want to talk about one
Speaker 1: other thing that the show talks about often, and I
Speaker 1: love the way you say this, so I'm just going
Speaker 1: to read it. You say, most of us want to
Speaker 1: believe in cure alls, but they don't exist. I spent
Speaker 1: much of my adult life searching for the one book,
Speaker 1: super food or habit to eradicate all my emotion or
Speaker 1: physical problems. If I just do yoga, I'll discover inner peace.
Speaker 1: If I drink more water, I'll be energetic. All the time.
Speaker 1: If I sleep eight hours a night, I'll be less moody. Okay,
Speaker 1: that one works, but I'm still plenty of moody. Healthy
Speaker 1: habits will always service, but they don't guarantee happiness. Ee there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's just the hard truth. What I mean. It's like
Speaker 1: I've become more okay with that. Look, our emotions are fleeting.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be happy, and then the happiness is going
Speaker 1: to go away, and then it's going to come back
Speaker 1: if we're lucky, and it's gonna go away. The same
Speaker 1: with sadness, you know, the same with all the emotions
Speaker 1: they're fleeting. You know, still we can still we always
Speaker 1: serve ourselves by considering the choices that we're making in
Speaker 1: our lives that stand to create the most meaning and
Speaker 1: the most joy. We always serve ourselves if in our minds,
Speaker 1: as you know, our minds go much more naturally to
Speaker 1: the negative. Our minds go much more naturally to self abuse,
Speaker 1: to um to negativity, to looking at the all the
Speaker 1: downsides of a situation. And what I try to remind myself,
Speaker 1: and I don't always succeed, but I'm I'm better at
Speaker 1: it is. Look, if I'm going to at least spend
Speaker 1: fifty of the time considering the upsides of a given situation.
Speaker 1: You know, at least spend fifty of the time putting
Speaker 1: energy toward positivity. Um, not in a phony like Pollyanna,
Speaker 1: everything's all great, spiritual bypassing sort of way, but just
Speaker 1: with this understanding that it's not real to be negative
Speaker 1: all the time either. That's not why we're here. That's
Speaker 1: just as much bullshit as pretending that we're happy and
Speaker 1: positive all the time. I agree with every you said,
Speaker 1: and I love that idea of I think for me,
Speaker 1: when I stopped thinking that the next book or the
Speaker 1: next thing would do it like I'd find this ultimate happiness,
Speaker 1: somehow I became a lot more comfortable with the fact that, well,
Speaker 1: all right, I guess, like you said, day and day out,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna have to make these choices. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have to I'm gonna have to keep doing this work.
Speaker 1: And I think as long as I thought that I
Speaker 1: was going to find it somewhere in the magic bullet,
Speaker 1: I resented or didn't want to do the work, or
Speaker 1: didn't do the work, and and accepting that like, okay,
Speaker 1: unfortunately that's not going to happen. It made it easier
Speaker 1: for me just to keep doing it. Absolutely, it comes
Speaker 1: down to the hard work we're doing on our own growth.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's how we serve our the greatest, you know. Excellent, Well, Scott,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming on. We'll have links
Speaker 1: to where people can get your book in the show notes,
Speaker 1: links to your Facebook group and all that. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for taking the time. I've really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Okay bye. If what you just
Speaker 1: heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation
Speaker 1: to the one you Feed podcast. Head over to one
Speaker 1: you Feed dot net slash support