Speaker 1: Other people's feelings are not bank robbers holding guns at you,
Speaker 1: and that's the biggest insight to really set us free.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 2: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes
Speaker 2: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 2: think ring true. And yet for many of us, our
Speaker 2: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 2: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 2: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 2: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 2: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 2: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 2: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 2: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 2: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is doctor
Speaker 2: Aziz Gazipura, the world's leading confidence expert. He teaches people
Speaker 2: how to learn confidence so they can eliminate self doubt,
Speaker 2: master conversations, accelerate in their careers, and create deeply fulfilling relationships.
Speaker 2: Azzi's completed his doctoral training at Stanford and Palo Alto
Speaker 2: Universities and is the founder of the Center for Social Confidence. Today,
Speaker 2: Eric and Aziz discuss his new book, Less Nice More You,
Speaker 2: Stop Hiding and Become the most bold, authentic version of you.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: Hi, Aziz, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Hey Eric, it's good to see you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm happy to have you on again. You are
Speaker 3: on our show in the past. I've been a guest
Speaker 3: on your show, and every time I talk to you,
Speaker 3: I learned something and I just really enjoy the conversation.
Speaker 3: So it's a real pleasure to have you back discussing
Speaker 3: your book called Less Nice More You. But before we
Speaker 3: do that, we will start with the parable, like we
Speaker 3: always do. And in the parable, there's a grandparent who's
Speaker 3: talking with their grandchild and they say, in life, there
Speaker 3: are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle.
Speaker 3: One it's a good wolf, which represents things like kindness
Speaker 3: and bravery and love, and the other's a bad wolf,
Speaker 3: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. The
Speaker 3: grandchild stops. They think about it for a second and
Speaker 3: they look up at their grandparent and they say, well,
Speaker 3: which one wins, And the grandparent says, the one you feed.
Speaker 3: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 3: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 3: the work that you do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting because each time you ask me that,
Speaker 1: it would be a different answer depending upon what's happening
Speaker 1: in my life. And right now I see that the
Speaker 1: one wolf that many people are feeding, that I can feed,
Speaker 1: that nice people can feed. They have a story go
Speaker 1: through their mind, that person's upset with me? Did I
Speaker 1: do that?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Am? I? Okay? And then there's this flurry of follow
Speaker 1: up thinking, damage control replays, what should I do, maybe
Speaker 1: even running out and doing things, maybe running that whole day,
Speaker 1: maybe calling someone apologizing, taking all these actions from that seed.
Speaker 1: And what I've found is that in my life and
Speaker 1: the clients that I'm helping is how much can we
Speaker 1: go right back to that moment where someone's upset with me?
Speaker 1: And instead of running out and doing the thing to
Speaker 1: do is to actually calm yourself and breathe and come
Speaker 1: right back to here and just let that story go.
Speaker 1: And you might go talk to that person, you might
Speaker 1: go do something, but much of the time not It's
Speaker 1: a real tricky wolf, that one, because it's like you're
Speaker 1: not gonna pay attention to me, Oh, look out, I'll
Speaker 1: enjoy your life. It's gonna be horrible. And so then
Speaker 1: it hooks you. And so the thing to do is nothing,
Speaker 1: And that's the wolf really have more silence of breathing,
Speaker 1: just being right here is the one that I'm experimenting
Speaker 1: and practicing and helping other people feed a lot more
Speaker 1: right now in my life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean even within that parable, I say, you
Speaker 3: know the good wolf, which represents things like kindness, right,
Speaker 3: And I think this is the core challenge for me.
Speaker 3: And you address it a lot in the book, right,
Speaker 3: which is the difference between niceness and kindness, And you
Speaker 3: talk about niceness sort of being a survival strategy. And
Speaker 3: so for me, this is a very good topic because
Speaker 3: I definitely have that built in rule of don't upset anyone.
Speaker 3: And if you do, there's a problem, you've done something wrong,
Speaker 3: you've got to fix it deep anxiety or shame around it.
Speaker 3: And I also have a value of My top value
Speaker 3: is kindness, and so for me, discerning between those two
Speaker 3: is often really really difficult, And so I thought we
Speaker 3: could start there, like, how do we tell the difference
Speaker 3: between when we are being kind expressing a value and
Speaker 3: when we are being nice, and by nice, I want
Speaker 3: to really sort of emphasize the part of the book
Speaker 3: that you talk about where it's not so much we
Speaker 3: think of nice as a value, but in this case
Speaker 3: we're really talking about it almost in the sense of
Speaker 3: a compulsion, or we're talking about it in a conditioned
Speaker 3: way of relating to the world, not a choice.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think one thing that's important to start at
Speaker 1: the beginning is defining the terms, because people can get
Speaker 1: hung up on the semantics of wait, nice is good,
Speaker 1: that's what you're saying. That's why the first chapter of
Speaker 1: the new book, Less Nice, More You is nice versus kind.
Speaker 1: So ultimately, when people are being nice, they might be
Speaker 1: doing something for somebody else to take care of them,
Speaker 1: to include them. But often what's underneath it is the motive.
Speaker 1: What's underneath that is I should do this so that
Speaker 1: I'm a good person. And you might say, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good enough motive. Well you can hear underneath that.
Speaker 1: It's a thin layer away from fear and what happens
Speaker 1: if you don't, what happens if you can't, what happens
Speaker 1: if you maybe want to choose something else. All of
Speaker 1: that starts to create this rigidity, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of anxiety right underneath that, not to mention complex situations
Speaker 1: like what about when someone wants something, but is it
Speaker 1: the best to give it to them? Sometimes kindness might
Speaker 1: be saying no, right, So that's where it gets more complex.
Speaker 1: And kindness as a virtue, as a value that you
Speaker 1: want to live has a lot more wisdom and it
Speaker 1: looks different in different situations, whereas niceness is about following
Speaker 1: the rules so that I'm good and so that I
Speaker 1: am a good person. And why do I want to
Speaker 1: be a good person? Is it because I'm so virtuous now?
Speaker 1: And underneath with niceness, it's I want to be a
Speaker 1: good person so I am seen in the right way
Speaker 1: and I can feel good about myself and I can
Speaker 1: fit in and I can have that sense if I'm okay.
Speaker 1: And so that's where it comes back to survival. So
Speaker 1: it might look like a very similar behavior on the outside,
Speaker 1: but it's an entirely different inner world.
Speaker 3: So something I'm going to be doing a little more
Speaker 3: often is ask you, the listener, to reflect on what
Speaker 3: you're hearing. We strongly believe that knowledge is power, but
Speaker 3: only if combined with action and integration. So before we
Speaker 3: move on, I'd like to ask you what's coming up
Speaker 3: for you as you listen to this. Are there any
Speaker 3: things you're currently doing or feeding your bad wolf that
Speaker 3: might make sense to remove, or any things you could
Speaker 3: do to feed your good wolf that you're not currently doing.
Speaker 3: So if you have the headspace for it, I'd love
Speaker 3: if you could just pause for a second and ask yourself,
Speaker 3: what's one thing I could do today or tonight to
Speaker 3: feed my good wolf. Whatever your thing is. A really
Speaker 3: useful strategy can be having something external, a prompt or
Speaker 3: a friend, or a tool that regularly nudges you back
Speaker 3: towards awareness and intentionality. For the past year, I've been
Speaker 3: sending little good Wolf reminders to some of my friends
Speaker 3: and community members, just quick, little SMS messages two times
Speaker 3: per week that give them a little bit of wisdom
Speaker 3: and remind them to pause for a second and come
Speaker 3: off autopilot. If you want, I can send them to
Speaker 3: you too. I do it totally for free, and people
Speaker 3: seem to really love them. Just drop your information at
Speaker 3: oneufeed dot net slash SMS and I can send them
Speaker 3: to you. It's totally free, and if you end up
Speaker 3: not liking the little reminders you can easily opt out.
Speaker 3: That's one you feed dot net slash sms. And now
Speaker 3: back to the episode, there's a lot in there I'd
Speaker 3: like to spend a little bit of time with. The
Speaker 3: first is the word should, right, because the words should
Speaker 3: has become a sort of negative word in the self
Speaker 3: help space, and I don't always think it necessarily is
Speaker 3: because sometimes my virtues tell me I should do something
Speaker 3: right that's coming from a value. Right, there's a value
Speaker 3: that says you should do this, So sometimes I think
Speaker 3: it's a useful shortcut. What I think you pointed to,
Speaker 3: more importantly is underneath, what's the motivation. And I've told
Speaker 3: this story on the show a few times where when
Speaker 3: I got sober, I would notice this voice that just
Speaker 3: came and it would be like, I need a drink,
Speaker 3: I need a drink, I need a drink. And as
Speaker 3: I was sober a little bit longer, that voice changed,
Speaker 3: and it changed in a way that on the surface
Speaker 3: won't sound better, because it was like I want to die.
Speaker 3: I want to die, I want to die. And so
Speaker 3: I got really curious about what is causing that. When
Speaker 3: is that showing up? And what I realized that shows
Speaker 3: up when I have to make someone unhappy. It showed
Speaker 3: up most often when I was stuck between two people,
Speaker 3: like say, my wife and my mother. They both wanted
Speaker 3: something from me, and I couldn't give it to both
Speaker 3: of them.
Speaker 1: How do you please them both?
Speaker 3: I can't please them both, And so that voice would
Speaker 3: show up. And so that was a real clue to
Speaker 3: me that there is this deep rule inside me that
Speaker 3: says I have to make you happy, and if I don't,
Speaker 3: there's a real problem. And you say, somewhere in the book,
Speaker 3: you might experience a disportionate amount of shame and fear
Speaker 3: when you don' don't live up to the rules of
Speaker 3: one of your roles. And so a voice that says
Speaker 3: I wish I was dead is a disportionate yes, yeah, right,
Speaker 3: is a disportionate amount of shame and fear. And so
Speaker 3: I know that again underlying this for me are some
Speaker 3: very deep rules about I have to keep you happy,
Speaker 3: I have to do the things you want, and that
Speaker 3: has plagued me, you know, for a lot of years.
Speaker 3: And so what has also plagued me, as I mentioned
Speaker 3: a little bit earlier, is this ability to discern right.
Speaker 3: And I find it like, let's take my mother as
Speaker 3: an example. Right, there are times that I have a
Speaker 3: value of what I think I should do for my mother,
Speaker 3: and it may not be what I want to do
Speaker 3: in the moment, but it feels like a value. But
Speaker 3: then there are other times where I'm probably doing it
Speaker 3: because I'm afraid, and it does take a certain amount
Speaker 3: of and what you said in the beginning sort of
Speaker 3: slowing down and really going what is driving my decision?
Speaker 3: And I love that you also sort of reference choice
Speaker 3: because of value, and making a choice almost a compulsion
Speaker 3: or a survival strategy, doesn't feel like a choice. I
Speaker 3: feel like I have to or I'm going to feel
Speaker 3: that awful feeling that I described that manifests itself in
Speaker 3: those voices.
Speaker 1: And the choice allows you to have more creative, flexible,
Speaker 1: intelligent solutions. I have to please you. The metaphor that
Speaker 1: I like to use, I don't have it on my
Speaker 1: desk with me, But I was teaching in a workshop
Speaker 1: and I had a bandana for some reason, and I
Speaker 1: put it around my face. Like the old Westerns where
Speaker 1: someone would rob a bank, they tie the bandana around
Speaker 1: somehow that would obscure their identity enough. I guess they
Speaker 1: would run in there and say, all right, there's a
Speaker 1: stick up, and they put the guns out and everyone
Speaker 1: puts their hands up, and then they take the money
Speaker 1: from the safe, right. And that's how it feels inside.
Speaker 1: When we're operating with the nice pattern, which is your
Speaker 1: wife saying this is what I need or this is
Speaker 1: what I want, or I'm not even saying it is
Speaker 1: what I need. Someone indicating that they're upset or you
Speaker 1: even imagining they might be upset is like the equivalent
Speaker 1: of two guns on you stick them up, give me
Speaker 1: what I want. We're like, okay, whatever you want, whatever
Speaker 1: you want now. In that case, when we're hostage, when
Speaker 1: our hands are up, we're not thinking creatively and intelligent.
Speaker 1: We're thinking how do I freaking make this pain go away?
Speaker 3: How do I survive?
Speaker 1: Or think I want to die? I want to die.
Speaker 1: I want to die. And so when we're actually coming
Speaker 1: from a value of kindness, you might say, hmm, what's
Speaker 1: behind that value? Right? It's it's something like you want
Speaker 1: to care for people. There's love there, So yeah, what
Speaker 1: feels right, and what feels right might not be comfortable.
Speaker 1: I feel like it feels right to go help my
Speaker 1: mom with this like, oh, I don't want to this
Speaker 1: is hard, but we do that for loved ones, for
Speaker 1: maybe for strangers, depending on the situation. But there's a
Speaker 1: creative flexibility where it's like, Okay, I'm going to be
Speaker 1: here for this and this and that, but you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm also going to take some time for myself over here,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do this other thing. And it doesn't have
Speaker 1: this rigid fear. And so you're not being hostage other
Speaker 1: people feelings are not bank robbers holding guns at you,
Speaker 1: And that's the biggest insight to really set us free.
Speaker 3: Yep, that's a great analogy. So yeah, I love all
Speaker 3: the things you said there. And then I think there's
Speaker 3: another element that factors into this for me, Right, so
Speaker 3: I'm trying to determine between kind and nice. And then
Speaker 3: I'm also very much a practical person, so I'm trying
Speaker 3: to figure out utility, like is there a point in
Speaker 3: saying this? Is it going to change anything? Is it
Speaker 3: going to do any good? And that's another place where
Speaker 3: I often think it's another place where rationalization can sneak
Speaker 3: in and again get me to not violate the rule.
Speaker 3: And so how do you think about that because I
Speaker 3: do think there are times where I could say something,
Speaker 3: but why, you know, what's the point in me saying something?
Speaker 3: How does that factor into this framework?
Speaker 1: Yes, I think it's such a great question. And there's
Speaker 1: a spectrum there is having so little self awareness and
Speaker 1: filter and pause. This is what happens when we're triggered.
Speaker 1: We're in a fight, you know, they say something, We're like, right,
Speaker 1: and we know, but I should probably listen to it. No,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna see my thing. So that's one side of
Speaker 1: the spectrum. And the other side of the spectrum is
Speaker 1: like our most kind of awakened self. That's like someone
Speaker 1: does something and someone's being a little annoying or unconscious,
Speaker 1: and you just watch them and you're like, I don't
Speaker 1: need to do anything with that. That's not mine, right,
Speaker 1: And so we have that capacity in all of us.
Speaker 1: And I think the opposite of nice is not to
Speaker 1: just tell people whatever you think all the time, shut up.
Speaker 1: The opposite is truth is authenticity, what is real And
Speaker 1: so if it's real that in this moment, I'm in
Speaker 1: a spacious state of awareness and they're annoying habit or
Speaker 1: whatever's you know, I'm not triggered I let it go.
Speaker 1: Then I don't say anything because why But what often
Speaker 1: happens When I was in my twenties and I was
Speaker 1: at peak niceness, I gravitated towards spiritual teachings, and that
Speaker 1: cart totally like nobody's business, like a moth to the flame, right,
Speaker 1: because I was like, oh, you mean I never have
Speaker 1: to have conflict ever again, because I'm so awakened. And
Speaker 1: it's funny because now I listen back to his stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, twenty years later, and I'm like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is really useful, Like there's a lot of brilliant liberation
Speaker 1: in this. But when I was younger, it was a
Speaker 1: lot of like I'm going to use this stuff to
Speaker 1: carry on my avoidance. Really ultimately, yeah, and so it
Speaker 1: didn't really do much for me. It just made me
Speaker 1: kind of deeper in the hole. So the point is
Speaker 1: really observing what's happening between you and the other person.
Speaker 1: Let's say I'm with my wife and there's something that's
Speaker 1: happening and it's bothering me, and it's bothering me, I
Speaker 1: tell myself, Hey, this shouldn't bother me, you know, just
Speaker 1: let it go. Okay, did that work? Honestly? No, okay,
Speaker 1: let me focus on my breathing. Okay. Did that work? No? Okay?
Speaker 1: And now she's with me, and she's going to feel
Speaker 1: a little disturbance in the field, whether I say anything
Speaker 1: or not. She's going to feel my energy is tightening,
Speaker 1: I'm irritated or something. And so the point is to
Speaker 1: first and foremost know and be known to actually have
Speaker 1: true intimacy. Now, this might not be true in every
Speaker 1: single relationship. You got a boss at work who's going
Speaker 1: off the handle, and it's like, I need to be
Speaker 1: known by my boss. Well, let's start with our close
Speaker 1: relationships first, right, because what happens otherwise If not, then
Speaker 1: we're playing the role. I'm going to play the role
Speaker 1: of the good husband or the good son, or the
Speaker 1: good wife or the good daughter, and the good daughter
Speaker 1: has no upsets and it's not real. And when we're
Speaker 1: trying to play that role and it's not real, there's
Speaker 1: going to be a consequence. And the consequence is going
Speaker 1: to be both internal. Our physiology is going to start
Speaker 1: to experience dysfunction. That's why there's so much short term
Speaker 1: problems IBS, intestinal problems, physical pain, muscular tension, migraine, headaches,
Speaker 1: all kinds of short term problems with too much of
Speaker 1: this niceness, this separation from truth in our or it
Speaker 1: can even long term lead in and there's interesting longitudinal
Speaker 1: studies over twelve or twenty years where it can lead
Speaker 1: into actually much more severe health conditions because we've done
Speaker 1: that for so long. And so the point is for
Speaker 1: the health in your body, but it's also this health
Speaker 1: and relationship. I was just speaking with a man the
Speaker 1: other day who he does that. He's, Wow, why what's
Speaker 1: the point if I let it go? Or it won't
Speaker 1: bother me by tomorrow. But what happens is there is
Speaker 1: a there's a distance that's created because what are you
Speaker 1: doing during that time when you're trying to get over it?
Speaker 1: You're blocking David schnarch I believe his name is. He's
Speaker 1: a couple's therapist. He calls it blocking of mind mapping.
Speaker 1: So what happens is when you're with it, you're a
Speaker 1: partner or someone close to you, and you don't want
Speaker 1: to reveal truth. They say how are you and you're like,
Speaker 1: oh good, that's why they feel something and they feel
Speaker 1: that you're hiding something. And then but then you're trying
Speaker 1: to show you I'm not hiding anything, are you Okay, No,
Speaker 1: I'm fine. I sign And that could be about between
Speaker 1: you and them, like there's a conflict or even just
Speaker 1: like you looked in the mirror earlier that morning and
Speaker 1: you're like, I'm a ugly old loser, right, and then
Speaker 1: you go out to the kitchen and your energy is
Speaker 1: kind of and you don't want to tell them that
Speaker 1: because that makes you seem insecure and superficial or whatever.
Speaker 1: So they're like, how you doing. You're like, I'm tell
Speaker 1: God good and they're like you sure, okay, yeah, yeah, fine, fine,
Speaker 1: And you're blocking the mind mapping. So there's a vulnerability
Speaker 1: in letting yourself be seen, whether it's your insecurity or
Speaker 1: the nice person will be like, okay, maybe I'll reveal
Speaker 1: my insecurity, but reveal like I don't know my pettiness.
Speaker 1: I want control in a situation that I know I
Speaker 1: don't need it, but I want it. So I'm I'm
Speaker 1: upset about this thing, like any of that. We're like,
Speaker 1: oh no, I don't want to be seen that way
Speaker 1: because I'm gonna play this role of husband or son
Speaker 1: or daughter in the right way because then I'll be
Speaker 1: safe and loved.
Speaker 3: I want to go back to the spiritual aspect of that,
Speaker 3: because I think that's an important point. And I suffer
Speaker 3: from the same thing, right, which is that I do
Speaker 3: believe these liberation ideas and teachings that say there's a
Speaker 3: way in which the things out there in the world
Speaker 3: don't have to affect you, that there's a greater freedom available, right,
Speaker 3: And so I believe that and I've experienced that, And
Speaker 3: to your point, it also puts me into a little
Speaker 3: bit of a role to play to be the right
Speaker 3: spiritual person. And particularly I'm sure you deal with this too,
Speaker 3: but when you get into a world where you're helping
Speaker 3: or guiding other people, that's like another layer of stray
Speaker 3: jacket that put on because you want to look to
Speaker 3: be a certain way. It's one that I fight against
Speaker 3: all the time, and it's why on the show I'm
Speaker 3: always trying to sort of be like, well, let me unveil,
Speaker 3: let me unveil the parts of me that aren't working great. Right,
Speaker 3: So that spiritual thing is a real element, right, because
Speaker 3: in Buddhism, right, we're taught you know, right speech, you know,
Speaker 3: is it kind, is it useful? Is it all these
Speaker 3: different things? And so there's just all these layers that
Speaker 3: get sort of tacked on of trying to determine why
Speaker 3: am I saying something or not saying something, But what
Speaker 3: you've said there at the end about the hiding yourself.
Speaker 3: That's the realization I've had over the last maybe six months,
Speaker 3: which is that in an attempt to have there be
Speaker 3: no conflict or even no disagreement in a relationship, it
Speaker 3: makes it very sterile. It does block connection, It blocks conflict,
Speaker 3: but it also blocks connection, and I've seen that far
Speaker 3: more clearly. The other insight that I had a number
Speaker 3: of years ago that helped me in this area was
Speaker 3: I thought about, like, well, I'm trying to maintain the piece.
Speaker 3: I'm a number nine India Graham, the peacemaker, right, and
Speaker 3: so that's a role I like to play, and I
Speaker 3: think I do it well, but I sometimes am doing
Speaker 3: it in ways that aren't useful. And I had a
Speaker 3: realization a few years ago that I may be keeping
Speaker 3: the peace externally, but I'm taking all of that churn
Speaker 3: and all that potential problem out there and shoving it
Speaker 3: inside of me, and so I'm not keeping the peace
Speaker 3: inside me, I'm keeping it outside. And that for me
Speaker 3: was another level of sort of starting to wake up
Speaker 3: to like there's a real cost to this. And I
Speaker 3: can just say in my case, like it's so many
Speaker 3: years of this sort of habitual response that I have
Speaker 3: to be very conscious when I'm in these situations to
Speaker 3: make the choice to be more open, direct and honest.
Speaker 1: Yes, I love that you're highlighting that it is is
Speaker 1: a retraining. The metaphor I've used a lot recently which
Speaker 1: I really like, is it's software that we're running because
Speaker 1: it helps us distinguish what's me, you know, and there's
Speaker 1: layers of me, you know, as you're talking about in
Speaker 1: the spiritual traditions point too, there is a layer that's
Speaker 1: like the all and the know me. But then there's
Speaker 1: also another layer, a personal layer that's your most free,
Speaker 1: authentic in live you're doing stuff in the world, you
Speaker 1: do have a personality. You do like these shows and
Speaker 1: not that, and you hate broccoli or whatever, and you know,
Speaker 1: and that's beautiful. And then though on top of that,
Speaker 1: will run these think of them like apps on your phone,
Speaker 1: and one app is the make sure no One's Upset
Speaker 1: at Me app, and that thing can be running and
Speaker 1: we're running and that things you know, when you download
Speaker 1: an app on your phone and then you close it out.
Speaker 1: I'll say, would you like to keep this app running
Speaker 1: in the background, And we're like, yeah, yeah, I would
Speaker 1: like to put that running in the background. Let's let's
Speaker 1: have that one. And for me, one of the ones
Speaker 1: that I noticed is the one that runs in the
Speaker 1: background A lot is a form of worry, and it's
Speaker 1: this generic, free floating something to worry about here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so I've been really also recently, it's in the
Speaker 1: last couple of months, getting a sense of Okay, there's
Speaker 1: another level here of freedom with what am I doing.
Speaker 1: And so I've been studying it a lot more and
Speaker 1: I've been fascinated a It's like it seems like I
Speaker 1: need to worry about the thing, Like now, this thing
Speaker 1: really is a problem to solve, And so I'll kind
Speaker 1: of run it through a little algorithm. I'll say, is
Speaker 1: this a problem to solve? In which case we can
Speaker 1: have some time to think about it with a pen
Speaker 1: and paper and really put some focus. Is that what
Speaker 1: we're doing right now? It's like no, we're just kind
Speaker 1: of like picking out a scab, like okay, so let's
Speaker 1: put it down. And then I'll pause and I'll feel
Speaker 1: like oh, and then three seconds later, ten seconds later,
Speaker 1: it's like what about this other thing over here? Yes,
Speaker 1: and I'm like wow, yeah, And it's been really amazing
Speaker 1: because with that awareness, though, you can have a lot
Speaker 1: more peace. But it does that, and sometimes people say, well,
Speaker 1: I thought you says there's a software. Can't I just
Speaker 1: put a new software in? It's like yeah, but you
Speaker 1: actually you can download a new app, but in order,
Speaker 1: it's not like your phone where you just press a
Speaker 1: button and it's installed for you. I think you actually
Speaker 1: have to install it yourself. And the way that you
Speaker 1: do that is real time, present moment with the one
Speaker 1: you feed right like, and the more awareness you have
Speaker 1: of the old pattern, you can recode it's right. And
Speaker 1: this is where I'll have a people that I work
Speaker 1: with create what's called a bill of rights where it's
Speaker 1: I have a right to say no. And so they
Speaker 1: notice themselves worried about oh man, someone's gonna ask that
Speaker 1: of me, and then they're anxious and they say, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, like, it's okay for me to say no.
Speaker 1: I have a right to say no. And the moment
Speaker 1: you do that, you're writing a new line of code.
Speaker 1: Now you might need to keep doing that repeatedly again,
Speaker 1: But eventually, all of a sudden you start to run
Speaker 1: that new one. And then you're in situations where someone
Speaker 1: you feel relaxed because you're not hostage. You can say
Speaker 1: yes or you can say no. But the installing takes
Speaker 1: practice over time. That's what I've seen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it absolutely does. It's an idea that I teach
Speaker 3: in my Spiritual Habits program. Little by little, little becomes
Speaker 3: a lot, right Like, it's just moment after moment of recognizing, oh,
Speaker 3: there's that old pattern again. Okay, what do I want
Speaker 3: to do instead? But that happens, you know my experience,
Speaker 3: countless times. But the change does occur. The good news
Speaker 3: is that you can really change these things. The bad
Speaker 3: news is it tends to take a while. It tends
Speaker 3: to take a while to unravel deep seated mental patterns.
Speaker 3: The other thing you said in there that I love,
Speaker 3: it's about that sort of picking up a worry. A
Speaker 3: very early guest on the show, and this is nine
Speaker 3: years ago, probably six hundred episodes ago or so, and
Speaker 3: I still remember it clearly, and she described our minds
Speaker 3: as a problem factory. And I thought, what a great analogy,
Speaker 3: because what happens in a factory. The minute one comes
Speaker 3: off the assembly line, there's another one coming right through.
Speaker 3: And that's the way my brain works with problems. I
Speaker 3: will either solve or set one aside, and it is
Speaker 3: immediately replaced with another.
Speaker 1: You got some bandwidth, you want another one? Exactly?
Speaker 3: They just keep coming if you don't like again, if
Speaker 3: I'm not sort of trying to really look at what
Speaker 3: is my brain doing? Yeah, you know, and my brain,
Speaker 3: left to its own device, is always puzzling something out.
Speaker 3: Scheming has a negative implication to it, but it's kind
Speaker 3: of what it's doing, you know. It's always just left
Speaker 3: to its own devices. It's just trying to always adjust
Speaker 3: the future or the present moment in some way. Always. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: and that's not the most peaceful way to live.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. I see it as focused on safety, right,
Speaker 1: how do I protect myself? And that's not just the
Speaker 1: safety of my physical body, but safety of all my things,
Speaker 1: my possessions, my whatever I have a created and accomplished.
Speaker 1: And then if that is okay, then it's I see
Speaker 1: it sort of. It's very much like the drive for
Speaker 1: empire in nations and civilizations, where it's like okay, do
Speaker 1: we have safety on our borders? Yeah? Okay, what are
Speaker 1: we gonna do? Let's expand right. And then so if
Speaker 1: it's not scheming about my safety, then it's gonna scheme
Speaker 1: about Okay, great, but that's all going well, So how
Speaker 1: do we make this thing? And how do we get
Speaker 1: that thing?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And I don't think that's bad. I don't think thinking
Speaker 1: is bad. I think because there can also be a
Speaker 1: flow of creativity that is like whoa, this is a
Speaker 1: fire hose, whether it's for a book or a video,
Speaker 1: or a teaching or a course or what you want
Speaker 1: to share with a friend or a poem. Right, it's
Speaker 1: like whoa. And so I think the key and this
Speaker 1: is the metaphor I like to use a lot is
Speaker 1: a little remote control, and it's knowing what channel am
Speaker 1: I on? And do I want to be on that
Speaker 1: channel right now? And you know this thing's only got
Speaker 1: five little buttons on it, but you know channel five
Speaker 1: might be right now. I can hear the sound of
Speaker 1: the rain, it might be that my senses, my hearing
Speaker 1: smelling something the air. That's one channel. Then you know,
Speaker 1: channel four might be something I'm engaged in doing. I'm
Speaker 1: opening this thing up just before this call, I was
Speaker 1: getting firewood for our wood stoves and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And then you know, one of those channels might be
Speaker 1: your thinking and sometimes we could just be like, oh,
Speaker 1: is this the time to be on that channel? Yep,
Speaker 1: And then you know you can get more granular. But
Speaker 1: what type of thinking am I doing? Yep? And there's
Speaker 1: sort of channels within the you know, channel one is
Speaker 1: like worry, problems, safety, and then channel two is like
Speaker 1: inspirational ideas. And I think that the thing that we
Speaker 1: don't realize is that we actually have the remote, but
Speaker 1: it takes practice. I think one of the big things
Speaker 1: is the channel one. The dominance but so practiced, and
Speaker 1: it will use just like media does now. It will
Speaker 1: use fear to make you have to watch it. You
Speaker 1: have to watch. You know, you're like, oh, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna look at the news today or whatever, and it's
Speaker 1: like there is a danger a common and you're like, well,
Speaker 1: what kind of danger is it going to get me?
Speaker 1: And that's what your mind will do. The problem factory
Speaker 1: is like, hey, if you don't solve the next problem,
Speaker 1: something bad is going to happen to you. And this
Speaker 1: is nowhere more common than in and I know this
Speaker 1: the kind of very nice person because there are a
Speaker 1: thousand and one threats. There are as many threats as
Speaker 1: people that you know. Heck, there's threats about people you
Speaker 1: don't know. Because if anyone ever being upset with you
Speaker 1: is a problem, is a big danger, then your mind's
Speaker 1: going on overdrive. You got to be guarding the border
Speaker 1: a thousand percent of the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I love the remote control analogy. A question I
Speaker 3: often pose to clients, and that to really live into
Speaker 3: is just as often as you can ask it, like
Speaker 3: what am I doing right now? And is it what
Speaker 3: I want to be doing? And by that I don't
Speaker 3: just mean physically doing, like oh, I'm typing on my computer,
Speaker 3: although sometimes it means that, you know, oh, I'm playing solitaire,
Speaker 3: and what I want to be doing is working on
Speaker 3: the book. Right. There's that, but there's also just the
Speaker 3: mental side. And I love the remote control and TV
Speaker 3: analogy because the first step is almost to wake up
Speaker 3: out of the fact that you're watching that channel, right,
Speaker 3: And what happens when we watch TV, particularly in a
Speaker 3: passive way, is we are just completely in it. There's
Speaker 3: no awareness that like I am watching TV and I
Speaker 3: am choosing this. So step one is always like, what's
Speaker 3: going on? Yes, yeah, you know what's going on in
Speaker 3: my mind, in my heart? What is happening? And then
Speaker 3: is it what I want to be happening?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: Is this the pattern I want to strengthen. I talked
Speaker 3: yesterday with used to be my zen teacher for a
Speaker 3: number of years, and when I read him in the
Speaker 3: Wolf Parable, he brought up karma. Right, And the definition
Speaker 3: of karma, I like the most is just the idea
Speaker 3: that whatever I'm doing right now makes it more likely
Speaker 3: I'm going to do that thing in the future. Right,
Speaker 3: It's that simple, Like if I am thinking, like if
Speaker 3: you know, you use the example of brain before we started, Right,
Speaker 3: if I am thinking, God, it's raining again. That sucks.
Speaker 3: That sucks. That sucks, It's more likely that next time
Speaker 3: it rains, I'm gonna say, that's rain again. It sucks.
Speaker 3: It sucks, it sucks.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: Karma just is our behaviors and our thoughts are seeding
Speaker 3: the future, you know, And so I think this idea
Speaker 3: of just being aware of it is so important. And
Speaker 3: you said something else in there that I wanted to
Speaker 3: reference that we've sort of talked a little bit about
Speaker 3: and when you're talking about kindness versus niceness, you say
Speaker 3: that kindness leaves a glow of joy in the giver,
Speaker 3: niceness leaves a residue of resentment. And I think that's
Speaker 3: another really useful framework. Yeah, so listener, consider this. You're
Speaker 3: halfway through the episode Integration reminder. Remember knowledge is power,
Speaker 3: but only if combined with action and integration. It can
Speaker 3: be transformative to take a minute to synthesize information rather
Speaker 3: than just ingesting it in a detached way. So let's
Speaker 3: collectively take a moment to pause and reflect. What's your
Speaker 3: one big insight so far and how can you put
Speaker 3: it into practice in your life? Seriously, just take a second,
Speaker 3: pause the audio and reflect. It can be so powerful
Speaker 3: to have these reminders to stop and be present, can't it.
Speaker 3: If you want to keep this momentum going that you
Speaker 3: built with this little exercise, i'd encourage you to get
Speaker 3: on our Good Wolf Reminders SMS list. I'll shoot you
Speaker 3: two texts a week with insightful little prompts and wisdom
Speaker 3: from podcast guests. They're a nice little nudge to stop
Speaker 3: and be present in your life, and they're a helpful
Speaker 3: way to not get lost in the busyness and forget
Speaker 3: what is important. You can join at oneufeed dot net
Speaker 3: slash sms and if you don't like them, you can
Speaker 3: get off a list really easily. So far, there are
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Speaker 1: It's a have to yeah, in niceness, we have to
Speaker 1: do it, and anything in life that we are of
Speaker 1: the perception that we have to do it, we're gonna
Speaker 1: probably have some some reaction to that, and it might
Speaker 1: be that we truly do want to do it also,
Speaker 1: and so there's some alignment where like, I have to
Speaker 1: do it, and then it feels okay, but we.
Speaker 3: Realize that we don't have to. We're choosing to write yeah.
Speaker 1: That's where the freedom is, is the choice. And you
Speaker 1: might say no, no, no, I have to. I have to. Well,
Speaker 1: there are things in life that you feel maybe are
Speaker 1: non negotiable or very important, but just remember that that
Speaker 1: is truly based upon the choices that you're making. So
Speaker 1: I say I have to. We're talking about family and parents,
Speaker 1: like I have to go help my dad right now,
Speaker 1: and he's sick. I have to. I could tell you
Speaker 1: I've talked to people talk to clients their parents gets
Speaker 1: sick and they ghost. Yeah, I've talked to people that
Speaker 1: have done that, who their parents now dead, and they
Speaker 1: have all kinds of feelings about that particular aspect of it. Right.
Speaker 1: So it might feel like you have to, but that's
Speaker 1: because there's something binding you to that. And the key
Speaker 1: is you might still ultimately feel like that's the value
Speaker 1: you have, that's the right thing to do. But then
Speaker 1: the invitation is to take total ownership of your life
Speaker 1: and say, yeah, I am going to choose that. It's
Speaker 1: the hard path, it's the road less travel, it's the
Speaker 1: uphill path for me, and I'm choosing that because I
Speaker 1: love my parent or because you know, honestly, some people
Speaker 1: it's like I don't love them, I don't even like them.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, but you know what I acknowledge the
Speaker 1: bond and what they've contributed to me in my life,
Speaker 1: and honestly, I wouldn't feel good about myself if I
Speaker 1: just left. I feel like it feels right, and you
Speaker 1: see that language is very different than I have to
Speaker 1: and many of us will take not even these big
Speaker 1: dilemmas in life. We're just talking about, I have to
Speaker 1: get this thing done, I have to get to this
Speaker 1: thing on time, I have to get my workout in.
Speaker 1: And now our day is a stress resisting fest and
Speaker 1: it's really a painful way to live. And nowhere is
Speaker 1: this more common again than in the roles and all
Speaker 1: the rules we have as a nice person. So this
Speaker 1: is one of the things I do with clients, is Okay,
Speaker 1: let's pick a role in your life. You know, you're
Speaker 1: a boyfriend or you're an employee. Pick one of those
Speaker 1: that you're feeling all a lot of mixed feelings about,
Speaker 1: or frustration or suffering or anxiety. I want you to
Speaker 1: write out the top ten rules of that. How are
Speaker 1: you supposed to show up? How do you need to
Speaker 1: be as an employee or as a boyfriend. And every
Speaker 1: time I've done this with a person, if there's disturbance
Speaker 1: in them, there's frustration in them. At least half of
Speaker 1: those rules are so extreme, confining, restrictive. You know, never always,
Speaker 1: I should never be upset, you know, I know this
Speaker 1: one with relationships for me had so much social anxiety
Speaker 1: when I was younger that I couldn't even date, And
Speaker 1: then I started to overcome that. I started to approach friends,
Speaker 1: dating relationships women, and I actually learned how to be
Speaker 1: pretty confident, pretty charming, i'd say, in those very initial interactions.
Speaker 1: But then the second after date two, where we're starting
Speaker 1: to become even if it's not officially titled boyfriend, but
Speaker 1: there's some something starting to form there. Maybe all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, boom, I'm in a role. They didn't put
Speaker 1: me in there. We didn't have a discussion about it. Are
Speaker 1: we gonna be monogamous? It was just like, I'm in
Speaker 1: the role because now she likes me, so now I
Speaker 1: have to go into that role. And now I'm basically
Speaker 1: her boyfriend. But whether I agree to it or not,
Speaker 1: and now the boyfriend, ugh, even just thinking of that role,
Speaker 1: my energy system is like and I'm getting ahead of
Speaker 1: myself here, But we could talk about how you know
Speaker 1: this stuff and discern there is a very direct signal
Speaker 1: to your energy and if you get more attuned to it,
Speaker 1: when you start to try to push yourself into these
Speaker 1: roles that are not you, it really will be a
Speaker 1: visceral sense for me. I'll often say likeugh, makes want
Speaker 1: a barf, Like I'll feel this and that's now, and
Speaker 1: I think about that old role a boyfriend. It makes
Speaker 1: me eh on a barf because it's so not me.
Speaker 1: But some of those rules were I have to do
Speaker 1: everything to make sure she never feels upset, she can
Speaker 1: never feel sad or disappointed. And then this one, this
Speaker 1: is a doozy to feel not just not upset, but
Speaker 1: like the most revered, loved, special being in the universe. Now,
Speaker 1: this is like a twenty two year old dude trying
Speaker 1: to live by these rules. And sure enough, you know,
Speaker 1: I'd start to get close to someone and within a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks with these rules, I wanted to get
Speaker 1: the f out of there. I wanted to explode. It's
Speaker 1: like why. And it tripped me out because I was like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, I really like this woman. She's beautiful,
Speaker 1: she's funny, she's interesting, she's smart. I we all this connection,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, two weeks later, I
Speaker 1: can't get far enough from her. And it wasn't her,
Speaker 1: It wasn't me. It was this pattern and the role
Speaker 1: that I had to be as a boyfriend, and all
Speaker 1: those rules, and so I think that's a key thing
Speaker 1: that we want to uncover in any place we're having
Speaker 1: that disturbance.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think you described your reaction to playing
Speaker 3: into those roles, and then there's the other person's reaction
Speaker 3: of playing into those roles, right, Like someone might feel
Speaker 3: entirely smothered by you. If that's your role. Your role
Speaker 3: is like I have to make sure you are always
Speaker 3: happy and that you think you're the most beautiful person.
Speaker 3: Then all I'm going to do is just lavish you
Speaker 3: with things.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Well, basically I have to control you. I have to
Speaker 1: control your emotional state.
Speaker 3: And that is a really big point, right because I
Speaker 3: do think in the niceness paradigm, that's what's happening. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And what I have realized is that when I am
Speaker 3: in that I have to control your emotional state. What
Speaker 3: I am saying, in effect is you are not capable
Speaker 3: of handling your own emotions. So I am this much better, wiser, evolved,
Speaker 3: stronger than you, and so I had better protect you
Speaker 3: from feeling bad because you won't know how to handle it.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: I know where I got some of that, because there
Speaker 3: have been people in my life who don't generally know
Speaker 3: how to handle their emotions, and anything that you do
Speaker 3: that sort of upsets them. It just gets blown way,
Speaker 3: way out of proportion. I understand where I get that from,
Speaker 3: but it's not a good way to react to the
Speaker 3: vast majority of humans. It's manipulative.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, there's kind of the big reveal at the
Speaker 1: end of the TV show or the movie where someone
Speaker 1: with something else all along. Here's the big reveal around that.
Speaker 1: It's like, I got to make sure that you feel okay,
Speaker 1: I'm this noble person. You can't handle People will say this,
Speaker 1: I'm afraid to break up with somebody. Why, Well, it's
Speaker 1: just going to crush them. Yeah, they can't handle the
Speaker 1: grief or whatever. And the big reveal at the end
Speaker 1: of the movie is you can't handle their feelings. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's actually not even true either. You can. It
Speaker 1: feels like you can't handle it because when they start
Speaker 1: to experience their emotions, starts to go up, go up,
Speaker 1: go up. I want to die. I want to die. Yeah,
Speaker 1: starts to happen. And that's the core everyone that I'm
Speaker 1: working with to help them is to get to that
Speaker 1: place where they can be with someone else having feelings
Speaker 1: and retrain their whole nervous system that this is not
Speaker 1: a level five explosion threat. This is someone's having feelings.
Speaker 1: And this has been so good for me. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've been teaching this stuff but also just training and
Speaker 1: learning myself. And when I had young kids, we were
Speaker 1: talking about this before. My kids are eight and ten now,
Speaker 1: and when they were young, and even still at times
Speaker 1: now they're upset about something, they want something from dad,
Speaker 1: and they're having feelings, and I'll remind myself, this is
Speaker 1: just a little boy having feelings. Yeah, especially when they
Speaker 1: were younger, it would be like a full scale alarm
Speaker 1: in me. And so either it would be this I
Speaker 1: have to fix it. I have to fix it, or
Speaker 1: I realize that I do need to say no here,
Speaker 1: or I have to go to this thing, or I'm
Speaker 1: choosing to go to this thing, And so they're going
Speaker 1: to be disappointed. But then I would leave and I
Speaker 1: would just the guilt. Oh, it's like a seven hundred
Speaker 1: pounds backpack. Oh, the guilt. Well, that's another pattern that
Speaker 1: we do, is we use all this self attacking guilt,
Speaker 1: and that has nothing to do with being a good person.
Speaker 1: What that is is you'd rather feel that awful feeling
Speaker 1: because it's familiar and sort of under control than go
Speaker 1: to that being with someone else having feelings. And it
Speaker 1: seems crazy, but people will choose self attack all day
Speaker 1: long over more raw feelings. Which is loved ones in
Speaker 1: my life are going to feel painful feelings, sometimes related
Speaker 1: to me about me, sometimes related to something else in
Speaker 1: their life. And I might be able to love them,
Speaker 1: I might be able to say something to them, I
Speaker 1: might be able to listen to them, and even still
Speaker 1: I don't control their feelings. And here's a thing. I
Speaker 1: don't know if there's a one to one correlation, but
Speaker 1: it's really high in my observation of people that very
Speaker 1: nice people are also very highly empathic people. They're highly
Speaker 1: sensitive people, and so when someone is feeling something, they're
Speaker 1: not just like, oh they're feeling that, it's like a
Speaker 1: you know, their nervous system. I used to hate this
Speaker 1: in myself, like how sensitive I was and how much
Speaker 1: I'd feel so much of other people's stuff. And it's
Speaker 1: only in maybe the last five years or so that
Speaker 1: I realize, actually, that's my superpower. Yeah, And that's what
Speaker 1: allows me to connect and help people and have such
Speaker 1: great relationships too. So we don't want to turn that off,
Speaker 1: but we need to learn how to be more at
Speaker 1: peace with you having feelings, even if those feelings are
Speaker 1: about me.
Speaker 3: You just described a lot of things there. I think
Speaker 3: I am a very empathetic person. It may be one
Speaker 3: of my defining characteristics. And like many things that are
Speaker 3: greatest strength, they can also be one of our greatest weaknesses. Yeah,
Speaker 3: even when you were sort of talking about that, the
Speaker 3: great reveal is that I can't handle your bad feelings.
Speaker 3: There's a part of me that goes, well, well, that's
Speaker 3: part of it, but it's also because I genuinely care
Speaker 3: about you and feel your feelings and don't want you
Speaker 3: to hurt. And again, it's this blended soup that I
Speaker 3: get into right where I'm realizing, like it is unavoidably
Speaker 3: true that I cannot handle your bad feelings, or let
Speaker 3: me say that again, I absolutely can handle your bad feelings.
Speaker 3: I don't like it. It is a state I will avoid,
Speaker 3: you know, if I'm not conscious of it. That is
Speaker 3: unavoidably true. And there is also a genuine I believe,
Speaker 3: and I've done a lot of self searching, a genuine
Speaker 3: desire that since I care about you, that you not hurt.
Speaker 3: And so again it's back to what we've talked about before.
Speaker 3: It's the discernment of tweezing these different things apart to say,
Speaker 3: when am I acting out of a value and caring
Speaker 3: and the best side of me? And when am I
Speaker 3: acting out of this compulsion or this deep fear or
Speaker 3: anxiety around there being any negative emotion? Right, Because if
Speaker 3: there's a negative emotion in the room, I will know it.
Speaker 3: I mean you can put ten people in a room. Yeah, right,
Speaker 3: there's a negative emotion in the room, I will pretty
Speaker 3: much figure it out and know it's there. Yeah, And
Speaker 3: then if I'm not careful, I will immediately go into
Speaker 3: how do I get that bad feeling out of the room.
Speaker 1: I love this topic. That's another channel. M hm. It's
Speaker 1: just like there's a stream of auditory information coming to
Speaker 1: you right now, there's a stream of visual if you know,
Speaker 1: if you're watching this, there is also a stream of
Speaker 1: information coming to you about emotion and energy. Just like
Speaker 1: people can hear better, some people have really sensitive I
Speaker 1: actually have pretty sensitive hearing where loud noises, Like I
Speaker 1: wear ear musk when we run our blender y because
Speaker 1: otherwise I'm like h so you too, you will perceive.
Speaker 1: So you go into that room and you will feel it,
Speaker 1: and you might know who it is, you might not.
Speaker 1: You might get all kinds of information from that. And
Speaker 1: that's a superpower if the freedom comes in being able
Speaker 1: to allow that information to come and not have to
Speaker 1: do something to fix it. And that's like a form.
Speaker 1: I think this is fascinating. I think it's like a
Speaker 1: form of discomfort tolerance. I'm a big fan of cold
Speaker 1: immersion and cold plunges, and I see it as a
Speaker 1: similar thing. So when I do a cold plunge, my
Speaker 1: goal is not just an amount of time or an
Speaker 1: amount of degrees. I could stay on there long or short,
Speaker 1: cold or what doesn't matter. My goal when I get
Speaker 1: in there is how much can I actually relax my body?
Speaker 1: Because otherwise it's like gold shivering. It's like and it's
Speaker 1: the same thing you get that data stream of information
Speaker 1: someone's upset, because how do you know if it's kind
Speaker 1: versus that kind of compulsion. I'd say that there's one
Speaker 1: simple question to ask yourself, which is truly in my
Speaker 1: nervous system, in my mind and my heart, How okay
Speaker 1: is it that someone is hurting or having feelings, yep.
Speaker 1: And if it's okay, that doesn't mean that we're like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's okay, I'm gonna grab a sandwich, see you later. Right.
Speaker 1: You know, if it's okay, you're probably even more skillful
Speaker 1: at being with them. And when it's not okay, okay,
Speaker 1: then our attempts to console and help have a hidden
Speaker 1: hook in them, and our patience is short because it's
Speaker 1: kind of like, hey, look, I'm burning up here, I'm dying.
Speaker 1: This is burning my skin, my acid's my face. Are
Speaker 1: you feeling better yet? And I'll see this with my kids,
Speaker 1: and I know which state I'm in, So what about
Speaker 1: my younger son. You know, you react to things and
Speaker 1: make loud sounds and sometimes I'm like inside, I'm so dramatic,
Speaker 1: like and so, and I know what's needed when he's
Speaker 1: in that state, and it's moving towards him with this
Speaker 1: kind of over the top sweetness, and just he likes
Speaker 1: to be called a puppy, thinks himself as a puppy,
Speaker 1: so it's like, oh, puppy, you know, and he's like nah,
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh, puppy. And you gotta be a
Speaker 1: little skillful because sometimes if you come in too much.
Speaker 1: He's like, get away from me. And so when I've
Speaker 1: had times where I'm not okay with the feelings and
Speaker 1: he's like get away from me, then I'm like, all right, fine,
Speaker 1: just let him have his feelings, give him space. That's
Speaker 1: what he says he wants. Do you hear the little
Speaker 1: edge in my voice, right, it's a little bit yeah,
Speaker 1: And I'm not yelling at him, but I'm all so
Speaker 1: like fine, you know, but just last night he was
Speaker 1: doing it. He was upset. He thought he was going
Speaker 1: to get some computer time and he wasn't and then
Speaker 1: it was too late, and so he's screaming and crying
Speaker 1: in the in the on the couch, and I just
Speaker 1: moved towards him, and he's like, get away from me,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, you want me to get away?
Speaker 1: Last time you were like this, when you calm down,
Speaker 1: you said you wanted a hug. Can I just sit
Speaker 1: next to you? Because in that moment, I didn't him
Speaker 1: to not cry. I didn't need to not be upset.
Speaker 1: And then I just kind of pour this like he's like,
Speaker 1: mom said I was going to be able to use
Speaker 1: the computer. I was like, you thought you were going
Speaker 1: to be able to use the computer. Yeah, she said,
Speaker 1: she said you were, and then you weren't, and it
Speaker 1: was just this, really, I'm okay now. Honestly, in that situation,
Speaker 1: I guess if sometimes if I'm stressed, I have a
Speaker 1: hard time doing it, that one's not so hard. But
Speaker 1: what if it's your client or you're a colleague or
Speaker 1: a friend or your partner who's saying I'm upset because
Speaker 1: you said you're going to do this thing and you
Speaker 1: didn't do the thing and I'm disappointed. How often then
Speaker 1: inside we're like, oh, well, I have to fix your
Speaker 1: fail legs. But true freedom and not niceness, which is authenticity,
Speaker 1: is really letting there be spaciousness that's not in here,
Speaker 1: that's out there. They're there, they're having this experience, and
Speaker 1: you know, how do we really get to that freedom?
Speaker 1: It's exactly what I just did there. Ah, it's the
Speaker 1: training in the cold plunge, and the way that we
Speaker 1: do the training is not in the moment when someone's
Speaker 1: yelling at you. I mean that's like game time, Super Bowl, right.
Speaker 1: The freedom is when you're alone and you notice that
Speaker 1: pattern where you think of someone being upset with you,
Speaker 1: and you're like, that's the time to practice. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the time to let go, because then you get more
Speaker 1: and more training for when it's really happening in real time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, as usual, There's about fifteen different things I could
Speaker 3: take from what you said. I've been having some conversations
Speaker 3: with people who are in the caring fields, you know,
Speaker 3: caretakers of all different types, and I'm going to include
Speaker 3: nurses and doctors and social workers and all those people
Speaker 3: in there, right, And I've been having conversations with people
Speaker 3: who work with those people, train those people, right, And
Speaker 3: what everybody's looking at is what's burnout look like in
Speaker 3: those roles? You know why? Well, I mean, I think
Speaker 3: it's fairly obvious. Right, It's very difficult, But there is
Speaker 3: a training that is happening amongst a number of people,
Speaker 3: and it's sort of learning to switch from empathy to compassion.
Speaker 3: And they sound like they're the same thing, but they're not.
Speaker 3: Is I'm feeling your feelings, which again, I think is
Speaker 3: a useful stary. I mean, I think it's a useful
Speaker 3: starting place because most people who go into a caring
Speaker 3: profession are doing it because they care about other people's feelings,
Speaker 3: and so that's a useful skill, but if it's the
Speaker 3: only one you have, then those roles become overwhelming. Yes. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but you can remain compassionate, right, which is where I'm
Speaker 3: not taking on your feelings. I care about how you feel,
Speaker 3: I care about you. I want to do the best
Speaker 3: I can by you, but I'm not feeling everything you're feeling,
Speaker 3: because that's untenable in those roles.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think there's a couple misconceptions in our culture
Speaker 1: that people do because they think it's right. One example
Speaker 1: is worrying about somebody as a sign of love, and
Speaker 1: another one is feeling your pain means I care about you.
Speaker 1: And I think both of those are problematic because they're
Speaker 1: not right. It's not the same thing, and they lead
Speaker 1: to burnout. So I have two aging parents and my
Speaker 1: brother is the one who lives in the same city
Speaker 1: as them, so he's involved in more of the day
Speaker 1: to day support and I'm more involved in kind of
Speaker 1: helping managing from AFAR and working with the finances and stuff.
Speaker 1: But he'll often tell me like, I'm really worried about
Speaker 1: you know, mom, and will tell me what's you know.
Speaker 1: When I hear that, I'm like, Oh, does something happen
Speaker 1: you know as you fall and it's like, well, no,
Speaker 1: it's something in the future that might happen, you know.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying, you know, yes, there's we want
Speaker 1: to look at what could happen in the future and
Speaker 1: have plans for different levels of care and all that.
Speaker 1: I think that's great, but it's not that it's like, a,
Speaker 1: this could happen, I'm worried about I'm worried about it.
Speaker 1: And it's over time I realize he loves her and
Speaker 1: worrying is like a way of it's not just for others,
Speaker 1: for himself to feel like he's really loving her. And
Speaker 1: if he's not worrying, he's not loving her. And I'm like, whoa,
Speaker 1: you know. And it's the same thing with people burning
Speaker 1: out and health professions. He's like, well, if I'm not
Speaker 1: feeling everything, and they might want you to. That person
Speaker 1: might even say, if you really loved me, you'd worry
Speaker 1: about me. If you really cared about me, you'd be
Speaker 1: dying right now. Yeah, And that's where we need to
Speaker 1: I call this in the books I teach about niceness
Speaker 1: is living in your reality. I understand in your reality
Speaker 1: that love is worry, but not in my reality. Now
Speaker 1: that you might not literally say that to somebody, but
Speaker 1: it's this is for you to know inside your head,
Speaker 1: in my reality, it looks very different. And then, and
Speaker 1: this is something that I think is so important around
Speaker 1: compassion to prevent burnout. My wife's father is having a
Speaker 1: health issue, probably will pull through, maybe not, but also
Speaker 1: has a lot of suffering right now. Is a stint
Speaker 1: in his throat is esophagus so he can breathe better,
Speaker 1: and hurts to do all this, so he's in a
Speaker 1: tough way. And then she's feeling so much. He's feeling
Speaker 1: all that pain, and then another part of it gets upset,
Speaker 1: which is kind of like, hey, he lived his life
Speaker 1: like you know, smoking and doing all these behaviors. That's
Speaker 1: you know, and now I'm feeling all this. And here's
Speaker 1: a phrase that I use to help myself have compassion
Speaker 1: and not burn out with working with people is I'm
Speaker 1: here and I love you, and your pain is yours
Speaker 1: to learn from and work with and shape you. I'm
Speaker 1: going to have my own pains. No one gets out
Speaker 1: of this life without pains. Mine might be different than yours,
Speaker 1: but ultimately they're all probably fundamentally the same. And so
Speaker 1: the fear that you feel when you're having the pain.
Speaker 1: I can hold your hand and I can talk to
Speaker 1: you sometimes if I'm there, But that's your darkness to face.
Speaker 1: To find courage in that physical pain. That's like, oh,
Speaker 1: every time I do this, it freaking hurts. That's your teacher.
Speaker 1: You might not think it is, but it is your
Speaker 1: teacher to grow you. I lived with a lot of
Speaker 1: chronic pain when I was younger. That actually really shaped me.
Speaker 1: So being alone in the darkness of night with pain
Speaker 1: that I cannot turn off that feels overwhelming is something
Speaker 1: that I have a lot of hours and training in
Speaker 1: and so I know, you know, when I have health
Speaker 1: issues or something comes up for me that's going to
Speaker 1: be mine to work with. Doesn't mean I'm alone. I
Speaker 1: might have someone to hold my hand. But I learned
Speaker 1: when I was young that someone could be with you
Speaker 1: and hold your hand, but then they got to go
Speaker 1: to sleep. Yeah, But I did know when I was
Speaker 1: younger with a lot of chronic pain. That I do
Speaker 1: know now is that it isn't just me working with
Speaker 1: the pain. It's like I am always held and there's
Speaker 1: there's a bigger force that I can be with always.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that when I was younger. But that's
Speaker 1: for someone else to discover too, because you might try
Speaker 1: to tell on that and they may what are you
Speaker 1: talking about? Telling me about religion and God? Get out
Speaker 1: of here, right, you know? And so just really, I
Speaker 1: think this is helpful for youone listening who has that
Speaker 1: burnout you know I'm gonna take everything on is just
Speaker 1: remembering that's theirs to deal with and I have my
Speaker 1: own to deal with. And I can be with you now,
Speaker 1: but I can't carry you.
Speaker 3: So listener, and thinking about all that and the other
Speaker 3: great wisdom from today's episode. If you were going to
Speaker 3: isolate just one top insight that you're taking away, what
Speaker 3: would it be? Not your top ten, not the top five?
Speaker 3: Just one? What is it? Think about it? Got it?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 3: I ask you, what's one tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny little
Speaker 3: thing you can do today to put it in practice,
Speaker 3: or maybe just take a baby step towards it. Remember,
Speaker 3: little by little, a little becomes a lot. Profound change
Speaker 3: happens as a result of aggregated tiny actions, not massive
Speaker 3: heroic effort. If you're not already on our good Wolf
Speaker 3: Reminder SMS list, I'd highly recommend it as a tool
Speaker 3: you can leverage to remind you to take those vital
Speaker 3: baby steps forward. You can get on there at oneufeed
Speaker 3: dot net slash sms. It's totally free, and once you're
Speaker 3: on there, I'll send you a couple text messages a
Speaker 3: week with little reminders and nudges. Here's what I recently
Speaker 3: shared to give you an idea of the type of
Speaker 3: stuff I send. Keep practicing even if it seems hopeless.
Speaker 3: Don't strive for perfection, aim for consistency, and no matter what,
Speaker 3: keep showing up for yourself. That was a great gem
Speaker 3: from recent guests Light Watkins. And if you're on the
Speaker 3: fence about joining, remember it's totally free and easy to unsubscribe.
Speaker 3: If you want to get in, I'd love to have
Speaker 3: you there. Just go to oneufeed dot net slash sms.
Speaker 3: All right back to it. We're near the end here,
Speaker 3: So I thought I would finish with a rule of
Speaker 3: thumb that you give, and I'll read it and then
Speaker 3: you can expound upon it for a moment, and then
Speaker 3: we'll kind of wrap up. You say, here's a little
Speaker 3: rule of thumb to act by if you're unsure, right,
Speaker 3: and the unsure is kind of everything we've been talking about, right,
Speaker 3: Am I being kind? Am I being nice? Am I
Speaker 3: doing this out? Or compulsion? Am I doing this because
Speaker 3: I choose it?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: All these different things. If someone is hurt by something
Speaker 3: you said or did, ask yourself, did I communicate what
Speaker 3: was true for me? Did I do so with respect?
Speaker 3: If so, then it's on the other person to manage
Speaker 3: their own emotions.
Speaker 1: I agree with what I wrote, I approve, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: Because we have this instant mechanism, it's like a pairing.
Speaker 1: It's a false pairing. You know, these correlations. If it's
Speaker 1: a sunny outside, then I'm going to make more money
Speaker 1: today or something like that. It's like, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't think those are related. But we g link these
Speaker 1: things all the time, and we can link someone being
Speaker 1: upset with I'm bad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have that link.
Speaker 1: It's linked, no space, there's no question. It's just it's
Speaker 1: a conditioned response. And that's where we need to decondition
Speaker 1: that and program some something new in new software. And
Speaker 1: then sometimes people are saying someone's hurting and upset because
Speaker 1: you did something. You can't just take no response. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the problem. That's the problem with this world is
Speaker 1: these people are so narcissistic in this and they don't
Speaker 1: care about others, And then they flip to the other extreme,
Speaker 1: which is a whole rabbit hole we're not going to
Speaker 1: go down, which is the straw man argument that a
Speaker 1: nice person who's afraid of changing that pattern because it's
Speaker 1: survival says, Oh, so you're saying the only other option
Speaker 1: is to be some jerk. You know it hurts other people?
Speaker 1: What why do we have to go to the other extreme?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: But in the middle there's those two questions, which is,
Speaker 1: did I say what was what seemed true to me
Speaker 1: in the moment? And there's a whole other chapter actually
Speaker 1: and less nice more you about three levels of skillful communication,
Speaker 1: because there's a way to say it more or less skillfully.
Speaker 1: I said what was true? We know what was true
Speaker 1: for me. I think you're a selfish asshole. That's what
Speaker 1: I think is true, you know. And it's like, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess you did speak what felt true
Speaker 1: to you, But let's just say that was less skillful.
Speaker 1: What might be more skillful is I'm feeling angry right now,
Speaker 1: and I'm feeling angry, and I'm focusing on how you
Speaker 1: chose to do X instead of why. And in my mind,
Speaker 1: I'm imagining that means you don't really value me as much,
Speaker 1: and I'm angry about that. You know, that's a whole
Speaker 1: nother level. But let's say you're working at, you know,
Speaker 1: communicating more skillfully, and you did say to the best
Speaker 1: of your ability what was true without blaming everybody and
Speaker 1: just owning your stuff. And the respectful part is the
Speaker 1: more skillful part. And if I did it that way,
Speaker 1: then it's on them. And I've seen this with people
Speaker 1: in close relationships, like I don't want to say what
Speaker 1: I really think and feel because it's gonna hurt my
Speaker 1: partner's feelings. It's like, but but it's what you really
Speaker 1: want or like or don't like, or what's real? So
Speaker 1: what do you do? Do you stuff that? Do you
Speaker 1: hide it from them? Do you resent them for it?
Speaker 1: Or do you take the risk to be real? But
Speaker 1: what if they get upset? And what if I lose them? Well,
Speaker 1: are you losing anything real? Then if you're just hiding
Speaker 1: and playing a role or it's a fantasy bond. And
Speaker 1: so I encourage people to really ask those questions, and
Speaker 1: that truly is a choice. It's a new line in
Speaker 1: the code that you can choose to say, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: stressing about what I said and I shouldn't have done that.
Speaker 1: It's like, wait a minute, Wait a minute, that's the
Speaker 1: old code. The new code is did I communicate what
Speaker 1: was true in the moment? Yes? Did I do it
Speaker 1: as respectful as I could? Yes? Okay, And then you
Speaker 1: change the channel. You focus on your food, you focus
Speaker 1: on the sound of the air, you focus on the
Speaker 1: next thing you doing, and it'll come back a second later. No,
Speaker 1: that's just like if you had It's like OCD at
Speaker 1: that point. Right then, it's like, yeah, I leave the
Speaker 1: stove on. Look, I've already checked the stove. When that
Speaker 1: thought comes back, we don't need to fight it. We
Speaker 1: don't need to turn it off. We don't need to
Speaker 1: freak out about the thought. We just say, oh, cloud thought.
Speaker 1: And that's what we start to do, because at that
Speaker 1: point these are kind of obsessive thought patterns that we
Speaker 1: want to just let flow by.
Speaker 3: Yep. Well, that is a perfect place to wrap up.
Speaker 3: There are so many more things we can to talk
Speaker 3: about in the book that I thought were excellent. There's
Speaker 3: the three level of communication you talked about there is understanding,
Speaker 3: there's gradations between sort of passive, assertive, and aggressive. I
Speaker 3: found that chapter incredibly helpful. There's expectations versus agreements. There's
Speaker 3: a lot in there. You and I are going to
Speaker 3: continue and talk about a couple of these things in
Speaker 3: the post show conversation. Listeners, if you would like to
Speaker 3: support what we're doing here, and we are a small
Speaker 3: organization that does always need support, and if you'd like
Speaker 3: access to bonus content like the conversation, Aziz and I
Speaker 3: are about to have ad free episodes, a special episode
Speaker 3: I do called the Teaching Song, and a poem, and
Speaker 3: community meetings with other when you feed listeners, we'd love
Speaker 3: to have you join our community, and you can do
Speaker 3: so at oneufeed dot net slash join a these Thanks
Speaker 3: again so much. Like I said, every time I talk
Speaker 3: to you, I find it extremely gratifying. So thank you
Speaker 3: so much for coming back on absolutely.
Speaker 1: I love how much you brought yourself into this interview
Speaker 1: and made it so rich and real, and I love
Speaker 1: how you teach through that authenticity. It's really beautiful. Thank you.
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