Speaker 1: The word spirituality and soul is going to mean lots
Speaker 1: of different things to lots of different people, and I
Speaker 1: think that's okay. But I think we all know the direction.
Speaker 1: At points those words point to something greater than our
Speaker 1: ordinary worries and concerns. At least, you know. I often
Speaker 1: think spirituality is just about connection.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast. Today we welcome
Speaker 2: Eric Zimmer to the show. Eric works as a behavior
Speaker 2: coach and has done so for the past twenty years.
Speaker 2: He has coached hundreds of people from around the world
Speaker 2: on how to make significant life changes that serve them
Speaker 2: well in achieving the goals they've set for themselves. He
Speaker 2: also hosts the award winning podcast The One You Feed
Speaker 2: with over thirty million downloads. The show features conversations with
Speaker 2: experts across many fields of study about how to create
Speaker 2: a life that is less suffering and more fulfillment and meaning.
Speaker 2: His story and his work has been featured in the
Speaker 2: media including TEDx, Mind, Body, Green, Elfin Journal, the BBC
Speaker 2: and Brain Pickings. In this episode, I talk to Eric
Speaker 2: Zimmer about how to have a meaningful engagement with life.
Speaker 2: When we feel connected to what matters, it becomes easier
Speaker 2: to create an action plan that gets us moving in
Speaker 2: the right direction. At times, our emotions can get in
Speaker 2: the way, but Eric believes that focusing on behavior changes
Speaker 2: can help us retrain our thoughts while leading us to
Speaker 2: our desired outcomes. Eric combines principles from religion, philosophy, and
Speaker 2: psychology to give us tips on how we can live
Speaker 2: out our values more mindfully day by day. We also
Speaker 2: touch on the topics of spirituality, agency, self love, addiction,
Speaker 2: and emotions. I really enjoy chatting with Eric. He's such
Speaker 2: a thoughtful, deep, spiritual, emotional, authentic human being. Those are
Speaker 2: the words that immediately come to my mind when I
Speaker 2: think about my chat with Eric. It was a real
Speaker 2: pleasure to chat with him. I really recommend listening to
Speaker 2: this episode and also having a listen to his own podcast,
Speaker 2: which is really great. So that further do I bring
Speaker 2: you Eric Zimmer. Eric Zimmer, thanks for appearing on the
Speaker 2: Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 1: Thanks Scott, I am really excited to be here. I
Speaker 1: don't listen to many podcasts. I don't know if a
Speaker 1: podcaster is allowed to admit that I don't listen to
Speaker 1: a lot of them, but yours is one of the
Speaker 1: few that I do listen to. So it's a it's
Speaker 1: a real honor to be here.
Speaker 3: Well, you're certainly allowed to admit that to me. I'll
Speaker 3: take it. Thanks there, really appreciate that. You know how
Speaker 3: they go Sometimes they're like doctor doctor. We could be
Speaker 3: like podcast host, podcast host.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Anyway, really great to finally get you on the show.
Speaker 3: We have lots lots of talk about you. Will you
Speaker 3: wear a number of hats, really, let's be honest. One
Speaker 3: hat that I thought was really interesting is that you're
Speaker 3: a behavior coach. I'm really interested in the coaching profession
Speaker 3: and it just fascinates me. I'd actually like to just
Speaker 3: start off by hearing when you when you first got
Speaker 3: interested in the profession of coaching, and and why and
Speaker 3: what is.
Speaker 1: A behavior code? Yeah, so a couple of years into
Speaker 1: doing the podcast, this'd be about probably six years ago,
Speaker 1: I was asked by listeners of the show do you
Speaker 1: ever do any coaching? And I my first couple of
Speaker 1: responses were no, I don't. And then, you know, after
Speaker 1: I got asked a few times, I thought, well, you know,
Speaker 1: I like talking to people, I like working with people.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll try it. So I did it a couple times,
Speaker 1: and I almost immediately realized that I had done this
Speaker 1: so many times before sponsoring people in twelve step programs.
Speaker 1: I realized, like, oh, I've done this hundreds of times
Speaker 1: for free, and I always loved it. It was one
Speaker 1: of my favorite parts of recovery was sponsoring other people.
Speaker 1: Helping other people find their way and make changes in
Speaker 1: their lives just has always brought me a great deal
Speaker 1: of joy. So that's kind of how I got interested
Speaker 1: in Once I started doing it. Like I said, I
Speaker 1: realized like, oh, I've done this before. I really like it,
Speaker 1: and I think I'm pretty good at it, and so
Speaker 1: that's that's kind of how I got started a behavior coach.
Speaker 1: Is the reason I use that term is that I
Speaker 1: feel like by focusing on behavior is a really it's
Speaker 1: the easiest lever I think to pull to make changes
Speaker 1: in our quality of life. And interestingly, behavior leads us
Speaker 1: into emotions pretty consistently. So the main reason that people
Speaker 1: aren't doing something that they say they want to do,
Speaker 1: it's either they don't have a good plan, so they
Speaker 1: haven't thought about when they're going to do it, they're
Speaker 1: not specific about it, the challenge they're taking on isn't
Speaker 1: right size. They haven't thought about the other commitments in
Speaker 1: their life, very tactical things, and so it's really satisfying
Speaker 1: just to work with people and be like, all right,
Speaker 1: let's eliminate, let's fix those things, and for some people, boom,
Speaker 1: they're right off and going. The other reason we don't
Speaker 1: do the things that we say we want to do,
Speaker 1: at least my opinion is once we've taken care of
Speaker 1: the tactical is emotional regulation. Our emotions get in the way.
Speaker 1: When it comes time to do whatever the thing is,
Speaker 1: we have some emotion around it, whether it's I'm afraid,
Speaker 1: I'm too tired, I don't see the point, you know, hopelessness,
Speaker 1: or and so. Behavior then brings us right up to
Speaker 1: those and it gives us a chance to say, what
Speaker 1: were you feeling right in that moment, let's zoom in.
Speaker 1: And so by starting with behavior a we know that
Speaker 1: there's a lot of things that just changing behavior helps.
Speaker 1: Right Like if you if you have fear of something
Speaker 1: and you stop avoiding it and you do it, you've
Speaker 1: taken care of the fear to a certain degree. So
Speaker 1: that's why you know, I call myself a behavior coach.
Speaker 3: I love that, and I love also, you know, just
Speaker 3: the whole idea of experiential avoidance. The opposite of experiential
Speaker 3: avoidance being what life is all out And some people
Speaker 3: call psychological flexibility. No one's come up with a term
Speaker 3: for the opposite of experiential avoidance that I really really that,
Speaker 3: I really love. I don't know. Psychological flexibility is the
Speaker 3: ultimate term in.
Speaker 1: Terms of probably meaningful engagement maybe I don't.
Speaker 3: Know, act that yeah, active meaningful engagement, yeah, something something,
Speaker 3: But yes, but that's what you're talking about, and that
Speaker 3: seems to be cory your program. I really like the
Speaker 3: behavioral activation approach, and I was wondering at the way
Speaker 3: extent you bring that into your coaching work, and that
Speaker 3: it requires an understanding that sometimes if you act the
Speaker 3: way you want to be, your brain will follow. Even
Speaker 3: if you don't physically want to or mentally want to
Speaker 3: do the thing you're too you're terrified of it. You
Speaker 3: can actually act first and then let everything else catch
Speaker 3: up after that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The phrase that I may have uttered on my
Speaker 1: podcast more than any other is sometimes you can't think
Speaker 1: your way into right action. You have to act your
Speaker 1: way into right thinking. And I heard that roally in
Speaker 1: my in my recovery, you know, when I was twenty
Speaker 1: four and recovering from heroin addiction, it became very clear
Speaker 1: that if I let my brain tell me, if I
Speaker 1: let my brain do it it said it wanted to do.
Speaker 1: We knew what the results were, right, homeless about to
Speaker 1: go to jail for a long time, weighed one hundred
Speaker 1: pounds with hepatitis. I mean I was very you know,
Speaker 1: I was not well. And that's what just following what
Speaker 1: my brain said I should do, recovery was the opposite.
Speaker 1: It said, it doesn't matter whether you want to go
Speaker 1: to a meeting today or not go it. You know,
Speaker 1: you take the action and the as you said, the
Speaker 1: feelings will follow. Now that doesn't happen in every case.
Speaker 1: You can't constantly act your way into everything. But it's
Speaker 1: a pretty good place to start on a lot of things.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a pretty good indicator for a whole
Speaker 1: lot of things. Is to just, you know, decide what's
Speaker 1: important to you and you know, make that decision from
Speaker 1: and we could use you and I talked the other
Speaker 1: day about this. We could use one hundred words for this,
Speaker 1: but from your higher self, what's important to you decide
Speaker 1: that and then do your best just to follow that plan.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sometimes the plans don't go as you as you
Speaker 3: want them to go, though, and sure you know, as
Speaker 3: you know, and sometimes even if you engage meaningfully in something,
Speaker 3: it can still fail on you. You know, there's no guarantee
Speaker 3: that that your fear will that your worst fears won't
Speaker 3: come about.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know that I'm not sounding super positive all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, but I'm saying like, yeah, you're.
Speaker 1: Realized about an upcoming move.
Speaker 4: Maybe, But it's like, you know, you can have the
Speaker 4: fear and you can be like, Okay, I'm going to
Speaker 4: go for it, and then you go for it, and
Speaker 4: then it all the worst case scenario does happen.
Speaker 2: You know, what do you do then?
Speaker 3: You know, do you say like, oh, I should have
Speaker 3: stayed in the fear forever?
Speaker 2: What do you do with that? Well?
Speaker 1: I have always felt better about trying and not succeeding
Speaker 1: than being afraid to try. I've used this example before,
Speaker 1: and I think you've referenced something like it, right, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, Okay, so you're a single male and you
Speaker 1: want to you want to date someone, right, I just
Speaker 1: used to be terrified of that when I was younger. Luckily,
Speaker 1: now I'm in a long term partnership, I don't have
Speaker 1: to think about it anymore. But when I was younger,
Speaker 1: I would be terrified of it, but the point would
Speaker 1: finally come where it felt worse to be I don't
Speaker 1: love this word. I'll just use it because it's the
Speaker 1: first one that comes to mind, to be ashamed of
Speaker 1: myself for my fear that felt worse than what the
Speaker 1: fear of rejection was. And I maybe this is just
Speaker 1: thinking through it, but I am a whole lot more
Speaker 1: comfortable with going You know what, the things out in
Speaker 1: the world didn't do what I wanted them to do,
Speaker 1: and you know what, that's just the way it is.
Speaker 1: That happens to everybody versus I didn't do what I
Speaker 1: wanted to do. And so, you know, I had a
Speaker 1: solar energy company before this podcast. I poured my heart
Speaker 1: and my soul into it, and it failed. You know
Speaker 1: a lot of the things were completely beyond my control.
Speaker 1: They were government government decisions about alternative energy plans and
Speaker 1: subsidies and all this stuff, and so it failed. But
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, I if I could
Speaker 1: get I certainly would not erase that five years because
Speaker 1: I went for it and I tried and that felt good,
Speaker 1: and at the end of it, I went, Okay, I
Speaker 1: feel good about myself. I feel good about the effort.
Speaker 1: I feel good about what I tried to do. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm disappointed. Yeah it sucks to have this not succeed. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have to work with my brain when it starts
Speaker 1: to say, you're such a failure going to a hold on,
Speaker 1: let's let's not let's not let's not take a failure
Speaker 1: and generalize it out to your entire or being. But
Speaker 1: so that's kind of what I do, is is I
Speaker 1: just reflect on like, well, it makes me think of
Speaker 1: the serenity prayer. Right, we talk about this and I
Speaker 1: keep bringing up early recovery lessons, but the serenity prayer, Right,
Speaker 1: What can I control? What can't I I can't control
Speaker 1: what happens after I take an action. I can control
Speaker 1: whether I take the action, and I can control to
Speaker 1: some degree how well I do it. And and if
Speaker 1: I'm if I'm living that way, going all right, things
Speaker 1: that I can't control, I'm gonna let go of things
Speaker 1: that I can. I'm going to try and you know,
Speaker 1: act on. That's how I deal with you know, your
Speaker 1: fear comes true. It's like, well, yep, okay, it didn't work.
Speaker 3: Nice not noise, you know, I see noise. I like it.
Speaker 3: I like a boy. I like it. But like, it
Speaker 3: seems like so much of what you're talking about is
Speaker 3: you have the events that happens to you, and then
Speaker 3: you have how you react the events. Now, there's so
Speaker 3: many extras that a lot of us put on of
Speaker 3: like labeling, oh, well, this means I'm a loser. This
Speaker 3: means and then and then the idea and then the
Speaker 3: shame is like such a big one for people who
Speaker 3: have addiction issues, right, Like they add so many layers
Speaker 3: of extra shame on themselves. I know this is really
Speaker 3: helping themselves, So I'm trying to I'm trying. I think
Speaker 3: that's like a really common theme among a lot of
Speaker 3: the work you do is kind of re retraining the
Speaker 3: way your thought patterns are when you when you react
Speaker 3: to setbacks. And I listened to a podcast you did recently.
Speaker 3: It's always interviewing you on their podcast, and you talked
Speaker 3: about how you thought self love could be a really
Speaker 3: important uh for the prevention of depression. And even a treatments,
Speaker 3: and I was I was wondering if you could talk
Speaker 3: more about how we can get you from a mindset
Speaker 3: of oh, I'm a loser. You know, I have so
Speaker 3: much shame for what I did to giving yourself more
Speaker 3: self love. That seems like a really important transformation to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And and it can be It can be a
Speaker 1: long one, right. I don't want to make it sound
Speaker 1: like this is a simple thing to do, and it's
Speaker 1: it's a big question. Yeah. And there were two there
Speaker 1: were two pieces in there. The first was like, you know,
Speaker 1: how do we how do we interpret the events that
Speaker 1: occur in our lives? Right? And then the second is
Speaker 1: how am I? How am I kinder to myself? But
Speaker 1: there's a you know, the phrase that's used a lot
Speaker 1: is self compassion, which is a good phrase. I love
Speaker 1: the work of Kristin Neff, you know, we've interviewed her
Speaker 1: a few times. I think she's she's brilliant. We also
Speaker 1: interviewed somebody by the name of doctor Aziz Gazapura, and
Speaker 1: he had a book called on your Own Side, and
Speaker 1: I love that phrasing of it, you know, be on
Speaker 1: your own side. And so if you think about how
Speaker 1: you might if if something if something happens to someone
Speaker 1: you love, ideally you're on their side, and so you're
Speaker 1: going to if the interpretation of what happened to them,
Speaker 1: let's just say it's it's you could you could have
Speaker 1: a positive interpretation, you could have a negative interpretation with
Speaker 1: your friend, You're gonna want to lead them towards the
Speaker 1: positive because you care about them. Right. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: make stuff up, that's not true. I'm just saying that
Speaker 1: there's what we you know, our interpretation is open to interpretation,
Speaker 1: and so we would lead them towards the positive. And
Speaker 1: so I think doing the same thing for ourselves. You know,
Speaker 1: why not if I'm making the story up anyway about
Speaker 1: what this means, because that's what we do. We're meaning
Speaker 1: making machines. If I'm making it up, why not make
Speaker 1: it up in a way that is kind and positive
Speaker 1: towards myself? You know? And then the other one is
Speaker 1: my other favorite way of phrasing this is be a
Speaker 1: friend to yourself. And I you know, I got that
Speaker 1: from Kristin Neff. But the reason I like that one
Speaker 1: so much is because we intuitively understand it. How do
Speaker 1: you treat a friend, right, yes, And none of us
Speaker 1: would talk to our friends the way we talk to ourselves. No, right,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have any friends.
Speaker 3: Unless you're a narcissist. And then the way you talk
Speaker 3: to yourself is I'm superior to others.
Speaker 1: That okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, and so in which case
Speaker 1: you don't need you probably may not. Yes, this section
Speaker 1: may not be helpful for you, but yeah. And the
Speaker 1: other reason that talk to yourself like you would a
Speaker 1: friend I think is really helpful is I actually think
Speaker 1: that imaginative exercise is helpful. Let me imagine that my
Speaker 1: friend was going through what I'm going through. What would
Speaker 1: I say to them? How would I react to them?
Speaker 1: Because there's something I don't remember who who identified it,
Speaker 1: but they call it Solomon's paradox. And Solomon's paradox says,
Speaker 1: you know, King Solomon, wise, King Solomon, people traveled from
Speaker 1: around the world to get his advice. He was so
Speaker 1: wise right, but apparently in his own life he was
Speaker 1: kind of a disaster area. And so Solomon's paradox is
Speaker 1: we can be incredibly wise to people around us, but
Speaker 1: it's hard to do for ourselves. So taking that idea
Speaker 1: of let me be a friend to myself. Let me
Speaker 1: think about what I would do for a friend and
Speaker 1: then do it for myself is a way around that
Speaker 1: a little bit. And then I think the final thing
Speaker 1: is just, you know, can I work on changing the
Speaker 1: tone in which I speak to myself? Right? A lot
Speaker 1: of people think self compassion or self love is about,
Speaker 1: you know, letting yourself off the hook for everything you're
Speaker 1: not taking accountability. That's not it. But there is a
Speaker 1: way when you're not living up to your own standards, values, expectations,
Speaker 1: there's a way of talking to yourself and trying to
Speaker 1: hold yourself accountable in a kind way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the research on self talk is so awesome and
Speaker 3: important and valuable. And I'm sure you make contact with
Speaker 3: the psychological literature. You seem a really curious person who's
Speaker 3: always open learning new things. I'm sure you you see
Speaker 3: some of this research and it's just so exciting, so
Speaker 3: exciting and important. Yeah. I noticed that the way that
Speaker 3: we treat ourselves, it really does influence the perception of
Speaker 3: other people on who we are, especially at first meeting.
Speaker 3: Like at first meeting, you know, the people have basically
Speaker 3: no information.
Speaker 2: To go on about who you are and what they're
Speaker 2: dealing with.
Speaker 3: And if you exude a sense of like confidence, you know,
Speaker 3: and like you walk into the room with a sense
Speaker 3: of people tend to treat you like you're the kind
Speaker 3: of person who deserves respective confidence. Right if you walk
Speaker 3: in the room and you're like, oh, I'm such a loser,
Speaker 3: people are gonna reject me. Everywhere people got to look
Speaker 3: at you and reject you. I'm talking about this is
Speaker 3: the way humans are, whether we like it or not.
Speaker 3: We like it or not, this is the way humans are.
Speaker 3: And so again, apply like combining like be hero activation
Speaker 3: approaches with self talk approaches. You know, you can really
Speaker 3: transform a human as you are doing and as you're
Speaker 3: seeing you know, it's it's really uh, this stuff, really,
Speaker 3: this stuff is really transformative.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there is no doubt. I mean I'm
Speaker 1: always interested in how much can people change? And you know,
Speaker 1: to what degree are the circumstances of their lives? And
Speaker 1: by circumstance, I mean the thing that their environments they're in,
Speaker 1: the people who parented them, how they were parented, their genetics,
Speaker 1: all those things. Like you know, when you apply all
Speaker 1: that to somebody's life, how much actual choice do they have?
Speaker 1: You know, and it's an interesting and debatable question, but
Speaker 1: ultimately it's not a question that is incredibly useful because
Speaker 1: we don't know how much we can change. I can
Speaker 1: look at myself, and I've shared this a couple of times,
Speaker 1: but I had an experience. It was probably last last summer,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe the summer before, I don't remember, but my
Speaker 1: mother had fallen and had had a bad injury and
Speaker 1: she needed she was prescribed narcotics, and I was going
Speaker 1: to the pharmacy and picking up her narcotics and delivering
Speaker 1: them to her, and all of a sudden, it hit
Speaker 1: me one day that like, not only had I not
Speaker 1: wanted to take them, I hadn't even thought about it.
Speaker 1: It us didn't occur to me. And there was a
Speaker 1: time where I probably would have robbed you at gunpoint
Speaker 1: for what I was carrying in that bag. And that's
Speaker 1: that's twenty five years later. So I'm not saying this
Speaker 1: happened immediately, it happened quickly, But if that level of
Speaker 1: change is possible, then it does say, like we these
Speaker 1: things do work if we keep applying them, if we
Speaker 1: keep trying. You know, there was just a moment for
Speaker 1: me of really seeing like how far I'd come and
Speaker 1: being like, wow, that's kind of incredible, Like I never
Speaker 1: would have thought I would get that far from my action.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying my addiction is gone. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: it couldn't come back. I'm just saying, whatever I've been
Speaker 1: doing it, it has kept it pretty well.
Speaker 3: At Bay, just going to ask you that, you know,
Speaker 3: there was probably a time in your life when you
Speaker 3: couldn't even imagine a world where this stuff wouldn't control you, yep, internally.
Speaker 3: And I think that's so important to tell people. Give
Speaker 3: them hope. You know you're saying to me is giving
Speaker 3: me chills. You know, It's so important for people to
Speaker 3: realize that, no matter how controlled they are by their demons,
Speaker 3: that it can reduce over time that intensity where they
Speaker 3: feel like they're being controlled.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think that's a really important point, particularly
Speaker 1: when it comes to addiction, because a lot of people,
Speaker 1: when they start stepping into even tentatively, the waters of
Speaker 1: sobriety or recovery, feel worse. And so what I often
Speaker 1: say to people, don't confuse what getting sober. Don't confuse
Speaker 1: getting sober with being sober. Getting sober is a pretty
Speaker 1: miserable process. I often have stayed sober simply on the
Speaker 1: fact of like, I don't ever want to go through
Speaker 1: that again, simply don't ever want to have to be
Speaker 1: in my first thirty sixty days of sobriety ever again
Speaker 1: because it was miserable for me. Yeah. Yeah, that is
Speaker 1: not my experience now, and so it is. I think
Speaker 1: one of the promises of recovery is not only can
Speaker 1: you stop using this thing, this thing that has its
Speaker 1: gripping your soul all the time? Will let go?
Speaker 3: Oh? Wow? That is so Oh can we double click
Speaker 3: on this idea of gripping your soul that has a
Speaker 3: lot of meaning to me? That phrase that phraises a
Speaker 3: lot of meaning to me, And I think it really
Speaker 3: relates to all this amazing work you're doing on spirituality.
Speaker 3: You know, you have a program that's even called spiritual habits.
Speaker 3: And can we connect this idea of gripping the soul
Speaker 3: with spirituality because it seems to me like a big
Speaker 3: part of spirituality is being able to get into this
Speaker 3: transcendent state of consciousness that is more expansive, that is
Speaker 3: more open to new possibilities and isn't and even soulful soulful.
Speaker 3: Dare I say, you know, so, this idea of gripping
Speaker 3: the soul, it's such a powerful just a few words,
Speaker 3: can you just double click on it with me and
Speaker 3: link it to spirituality?
Speaker 1: Sure? I mean the words spirituality and soul is going
Speaker 1: to mean lots of different things to lots of different people,
Speaker 1: and I think that's okay. But I think we all
Speaker 1: know the direction at points, and those words point to
Speaker 1: something greater than our ordinary worries and concerns at least,
Speaker 1: you know. I often think spirituality is just about connection,
Speaker 1: connecting to what matters. What matters to you is going
Speaker 1: to be different than what matters to me. But for
Speaker 1: me that spirituality is about that connection. And for some
Speaker 1: people that might be connecting to God as they understand them.
Speaker 1: For other people, it might be connecting to nature, to
Speaker 1: their family, might be a lot of different things. So
Speaker 1: and soul, you know, again, we could debate do we
Speaker 1: have a soul? Do we not have a soul? Is
Speaker 1: it everlasting? Is it eternal? I don't know. It's not
Speaker 1: that important at least to me. Right. It's interesting to
Speaker 1: think about and talk about, but it doesn't necessarily change
Speaker 1: my behavior. It doesn't change what I want because I
Speaker 1: know the direction that idea is pointing towards. It's pointing
Speaker 1: towards more connection. You know. Early on in AA, there
Speaker 1: was a line that AA said selfishness, self centeredness that
Speaker 1: we think is the root of our problem. And that's
Speaker 1: worded slightly harshly, and a lot of people react to
Speaker 1: that negatively. But there was there was an idea that
Speaker 1: came after that that talked about being relieved of the
Speaker 1: bondage of self. That line lit something up inside me
Speaker 1: that I have has been at the heart of my
Speaker 1: spiritual journey ever since. How do I be relieved of
Speaker 1: the bondage of self? And the bondage of self is
Speaker 1: just that I just think about myself and what I
Speaker 1: want and what I don't want all the time. It
Speaker 1: occupies center stage constantly in my life. And so spirituality
Speaker 1: for me to a large degree, is just how do
Speaker 1: I decenter that a little bit? And what I decenter
Speaker 1: it too could be be very different. So spiritual habits, then,
Speaker 1: is a program I developed to bring together sort of
Speaker 1: two of my core interests, which is how do we
Speaker 1: create lasting behavioral change habits? And you know, spirituality and
Speaker 1: because what I observed, and you know, you talk about
Speaker 1: this a lot. Is It's one thing to know this stuff,
Speaker 1: but to live it is it is what we're after,
Speaker 1: and living it is difficult to do. So I thought,
Speaker 1: what if we could take What if I could just
Speaker 1: take some course, you know, spiritual principles, but you could
Speaker 1: honestly probably call them philosophical or psychological principles if you
Speaker 1: wanted to some core principles that underlie all traditions that
Speaker 1: I've seen out there, you know, that are in most
Speaker 1: philosophical schools, that are in most religions, these core principles.
Speaker 1: And then what if I could marry that with what
Speaker 1: we know about behavior change and habit creation, and we
Speaker 1: could then try and find ways to live our spiritual
Speaker 1: life in more of the moments of our lives. Some
Speaker 1: of us get to the point where we meditate every morning,
Speaker 1: and that's a really good thing. Lots of people find
Speaker 1: that even difficult to get to. But let's say we
Speaker 1: do that, or we have fifteen minutes of contemplation or
Speaker 1: writing or so we've carved out this little space that's
Speaker 1: really great and it's important. But then when that's over,
Speaker 1: we don't think about any of those concepts or ideas
Speaker 1: again till the next morning because we're just so busy.
Speaker 1: So how can we without having to carve more time
Speaker 1: out because none of us have more time, how can
Speaker 1: we live these things a little bit more in the moments.
Speaker 1: And so that's the problem I'm trying to solve in
Speaker 1: spiritual habits.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that. And you also use some language
Speaker 3: just to say you want to help people be more grounded, loving,
Speaker 3: strengthening and free to at least increase those experiences. Those
Speaker 3: sound like things that belong in a under the umbrella spirituality. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they seem like they have a lot. I like it.
Speaker 3: I like it a lot. There's something I wanted to
Speaker 3: just riff with you on because this idea of the
Speaker 3: victimhood mentality is prominent. Actually just recorded an episode of
Speaker 3: Doctor Philly yesterday on this topic of the victimhood mentality.
Speaker 3: And and you you talk about your your struggles that
Speaker 3: you had. You know, you were homeless at twenty four,
Speaker 3: you know you were addicted to heroin, right, So you
Speaker 3: you've talked to You've talked about your struggles. Do you
Speaker 3: do you view yourself as a victim? Like is that
Speaker 3: part of your identity? Like where what does that mean
Speaker 3: to you, that that idea of the victimhood mentality? And
Speaker 3: where are you at with that?
Speaker 1: No, I don't. I don't see myself as a victim,
Speaker 1: you know, are there were there things that occurred in
Speaker 1: my life and and things that happened, you know, things
Speaker 1: that I was given, maybe via genetics and all that
Speaker 1: that made it much more likely I was to become
Speaker 1: an alcoholic radict of course, like yeah, they did, and
Speaker 1: I still did it, you know. And I think this
Speaker 1: is an interesting point, because boy, this is such a
Speaker 1: big topic. Right. You get into victimhood, you start getting
Speaker 1: into questions of privilege, you start getting into questions of
Speaker 1: social equality. I'll give you an example. When I got
Speaker 1: arrested at twenty four for five different felonies, I, as
Speaker 1: an upper middle class white kid, was given what's known
Speaker 1: as diversion, which meant that I had to plead guilty
Speaker 1: to all those felonies. I had to do community service,
Speaker 1: I had to be drug tested for something like five years.
Speaker 1: I had to go to treatment. I had to do
Speaker 1: all these things. But if I did those things, those
Speaker 1: felonies would be thrown away. When I went through a
Speaker 1: six month's treatment program, I can tell you most of
Speaker 1: the people did not have anywhere near the advantages I
Speaker 1: did as far as the education I was given, getting
Speaker 1: deals like that from the government like so, I was
Speaker 1: treated differently and it allowed me to perhaps recover in
Speaker 1: ways that others didn't have the same opportunity. So I
Speaker 1: do think there are different We are treated differently and
Speaker 1: oftentimes in ways that aren't fair. The problem with the
Speaker 1: victim mentality, though, is that we're the only ones that
Speaker 1: can change our lives. And if why I am the
Speaker 1: way I am is is solely a function of what's
Speaker 1: out there, I'm screwed because I can't. I mean, I
Speaker 1: can participate in changing the systems that are out there,
Speaker 1: but I'm not going to single handedly change them. And
Speaker 1: so but I can single handed although I believe within
Speaker 1: community and with lots of help, but with the effort
Speaker 1: from myself, I can't change myself. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: I see people get stuck oftentimes on this question. In
Speaker 1: one of two places when I was in early recovery,
Speaker 1: the AA groups that I was with were very anti
Speaker 1: psychology to a certain extent. So what they said was,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter what your parents were like, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter how they parented you, it doesn't you are an alcoholic,
Speaker 1: you are responsible for that. That is in my mind,
Speaker 1: that was a little bit too far to one extreme,
Speaker 1: because although I'm not going to blame my parents, there
Speaker 1: are ways and things that they did that we know
Speaker 1: impact the person I am today, and if I want
Speaker 1: those impacts to stop, I have to work with that material.
Speaker 1: So it's this idea of we are not The way
Speaker 1: I like to think of it is we are not
Speaker 1: at fault often for where we find ourselves, but we
Speaker 1: are one hundred percent responsible for a change that we
Speaker 1: want to come. And so there are plenty of people
Speaker 1: who have been victimized by the world. Let's just think
Speaker 1: of a woman who's been raped, Like I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a terrible, terrible thing to have happened. You are a
Speaker 1: victim of an awful crime. You know, if you've been
Speaker 1: sexually abused, you're a victim and awful crime. But the
Speaker 1: bad news is that no one's going to come clean
Speaker 1: that up for you. And until we start, at least
Speaker 1: for me, until we start to take a really sort
Speaker 1: of radical responsibility for our own healing, we can get
Speaker 1: really stuck in the victim piece. But there are. I
Speaker 1: do believe there's a place to be really angry at
Speaker 1: what happened to us, to be really sad and grieve
Speaker 1: what happened to us. I'm not saying like that, those
Speaker 1: are real feelings that need dealt with. But when it
Speaker 1: comes to agency, the victim mentality, I think can really
Speaker 1: stay keep us out of our own agency. At the
Speaker 1: same time, I fully recognize this world victimizes lots of people.
Speaker 1: You know, as you and I are having this conversation,
Speaker 1: there are things that would make our you know, our
Speaker 1: our soul clinch up. Happening to people right this very second,
Speaker 1: you know that we can only describe as like they're
Speaker 1: being victimized. But yeah, so that's my thinking. It's really nuanced,
Speaker 1: and I think, like a lot of topics, if you
Speaker 1: get on too far in one extreme of that or
Speaker 1: the other, then you're it's it doesn't it doesn't work,
Speaker 1: and it tends you get into arguments between you. Is
Speaker 1: there a victim, is there not a victim? You get
Speaker 1: into arguments that don't help anyone.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree that the extremes are not helpful. I
Speaker 3: think there is such a thing toxic agency, which say more, Yeah,
Speaker 3: the idea that you see on Instagram, you know, videos
Speaker 3: of people being like, no matter what happens to me,
Speaker 3: like I can do it, I can handle it. I
Speaker 3: got this, you know, like you can do anything you
Speaker 3: put your mind to. You know that kind of attitude.
Speaker 3: You can put anything you put your mind to. So
Speaker 3: I think toxic agency is ignoring that. Well, the environment
Speaker 3: and support structures do matter. Yeah, yeah, so you can
Speaker 3: have that extreme Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: And I think the way I would I would think
Speaker 1: about that, or the way I would say that. And
Speaker 1: when I say agency is not talking about how far
Speaker 1: you can go, what you can change, what you simply
Speaker 1: that no one can do it for you. But you
Speaker 1: you know, no one can make the healing happen in
Speaker 1: your life except you. You've got to be the engine
Speaker 1: of that, and if you're not the engine of it,
Speaker 1: then it's not going to happen. And that isn't really fair.
Speaker 1: What would be fair is if you were victimized, someone
Speaker 1: came up, whoever victimized you came along and helped you heal.
Speaker 1: I obviously couldn't be the same person, but there would
Speaker 1: be some karmic balance. Oh I was victimized, but now
Speaker 1: I get an equal amount of free support back from
Speaker 1: the universe. But it doesn't work that way, you know,
Speaker 1: And so I agree there the toxic agency, toxic positivity,
Speaker 1: you know, to ignore the very real things that are
Speaker 1: that our environments, our socioeconomic status, our genetics, the way
Speaker 1: we are parented. Those things are all very real and
Speaker 1: we have to take them into account in our in
Speaker 1: our in our healing it, and in what we expect
Speaker 1: from other people.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, absolutely of what you're saying, and it seems related
Speaker 3: to what you talk about. Is the middle way as
Speaker 3: being such such an important thread running through lots of
Speaker 3: ways of dealing with life and it's atrocity and challenges.
Speaker 3: Can you talk a little more about how you apply
Speaker 3: the middle or what is the middle way and how
Speaker 3: do you apply it in your own life?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the middle way is an idea that
Speaker 1: has shown up through lots of you know, philosophical and
Speaker 1: spiritual traditions for a long time. You know, I won't,
Speaker 1: I won't attribute the right people to the right things, right,
Speaker 1: but you know there was was it Aristotle or Plato's
Speaker 1: gold idea of the Golden mean, you know, the temple
Speaker 1: at Delphi said you know nothing in excess on it.
Speaker 1: The term middleway came to me through Buddhism, and it
Speaker 1: meant it spoke to the fact that the Buddho, you know,
Speaker 1: the story goes, was this really rich prince and he
Speaker 1: lived that way of life. I'm I'm I'm condensing greatly.
Speaker 1: He lived that way of life didn't satisfy him. So
Speaker 1: then he thought, I'm going to go to the other
Speaker 1: extreme and I'm going to live in the forest, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to eat one grain of rice a day,
Speaker 1: and you know, I'm going to put myself through all
Speaker 1: these really tortuous practices. And that didn't do it either.
Speaker 1: And it was when he accepts did a meal from
Speaker 1: a kind woman, signifying sort of the middle way between
Speaker 1: those two extremes, that then he found enlightenment. So that's
Speaker 1: where that particular term the middle way, at least my
Speaker 1: understanding has come. But I just think there are so
Speaker 1: many places in life that the middleway can be really valuable. Right,
Speaker 1: you know, we in behavioral coaching. You know, one thing
Speaker 1: I see all the time with people is either they
Speaker 1: do it one hundred percent or they do it zero percent.
Speaker 1: That's not realistic, right, none of us is going to
Speaker 1: do anything one hundred percent of the time. So if
Speaker 1: that's our mindset, we're stuck. You know, I think you
Speaker 1: could talk about the middle way between optimism and pessimism,
Speaker 1: right about finding you know, a realistic view. If you're
Speaker 1: if you're hopelessly pessimistic, that's that's no good. If you're
Speaker 1: hopefully optimistic, that's no good. You know, we just talked
Speaker 1: about the middle way between you know, thinking that our
Speaker 1: circumstances have no effect on us or they have all
Speaker 1: effect on us. Right, it's the middle way. So there
Speaker 1: are so many places where I think this shows up.
Speaker 1: It's a real it's a it's a thing that I love,
Speaker 1: you know, It's something I really love and have found
Speaker 1: to be very helpful in my life. You know, there's,
Speaker 1: you know, between being too easy on ourselves and too
Speaker 1: hard on ourselves. You know, some some people just let
Speaker 1: themselves off the hook for any behavior. Other people beat
Speaker 1: themselves up for, you know, breathing. You know, there's there's
Speaker 1: a middle ground there.
Speaker 3: That just might be the tit Over episode the middle way, yeah,
Speaker 3: with Eric Zimmer because it just seems like that's the guy.
Speaker 3: Everything we're talking about today. We're like, oh, well, if
Speaker 3: toxic positivity can go in wonder too much in one
Speaker 3: direction or you know. Yeah, so it seems like the cuts.
Speaker 3: There's so much of what you do.
Speaker 1: Yeah. One of my favorite stories it concerns this spiritual teacher,
Speaker 1: the forest monk Ajunshah, and he was asked by someone.
Speaker 1: They said, what I don't understand. You tell one student this,
Speaker 1: and you tell another student this other thing. And he says, look,
Speaker 1: my job is to keep people on the path. If
Speaker 1: I see somebody on the edge of the road on
Speaker 1: the right and they're about to fall into the ditch
Speaker 1: to the right, I say go left, go left. If
Speaker 1: they're on the left and they're about to fall into
Speaker 1: the ditch to the left, I say go right, go right.
Speaker 1: You know, so I think so much of you know,
Speaker 1: for people who are listening to this and people like
Speaker 1: you and I who are really interested in these ideas
Speaker 1: and read studies and read books, we do have to
Speaker 1: apply a lens of well does that make sense for me?
Speaker 1: And what is my tendency? Do I have a tendency
Speaker 1: to go too much this way or that way? That'll
Speaker 1: just give me a general sense of where I want
Speaker 1: to think about, you know, over correct or or not
Speaker 1: where I want to think about correcting, you know what,
Speaker 1: what direction generally might I want to go?
Speaker 3: It's a great uh north star goal. Me personally, I'm like,
Speaker 3: I'm a man of extremes, and so I find that I,
Speaker 3: on average I live the middle way. But that's only
Speaker 3: because extreme opposites average out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that is that?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 3: Is that okay?
Speaker 1: I think it can be. Yeah, I mean I think
Speaker 1: you know, I'm a Zen student, and in Zen, you know,
Speaker 1: we talk about emptiness and form. Those are kind of
Speaker 1: the and we say they're the same thing, emptiness being
Speaker 1: just everything all at once or the great void of potentiality,
Speaker 1: and form being everything and so those are two pretty
Speaker 1: opposite things, and yet we say emptiness is form, form
Speaker 1: is emptiness. We're marrying the opposite. So, yes, I do
Speaker 1: think sometimes the middle way is holding to holding a paradox.
Speaker 1: It seems like it's it should either it should either
Speaker 1: be this or that, but it looks like it's both.
Speaker 1: That's a paradox. A paradox to me is middleway. And
Speaker 1: so it's similar to what you're saying. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not that I don't think it's that you always
Speaker 1: are are mediocre and boring. Right, But yeah, if you
Speaker 1: if you're able to hold the middleway by one extreme
Speaker 1: over here, one extreme over there, and it generally balances out. Great.
Speaker 1: You know, my my extremism never had a counterbalance. It
Speaker 1: wasn't like I was three days a week shooting heroin
Speaker 1: and three days a week going to the gym and
Speaker 1: drinking green shakes. Right, Like, maybe if I'd done that,
Speaker 1: I would have been able to keep the whole game
Speaker 1: up longer, right, Mine was, you know, burn the house down.
Speaker 1: So so yeah, I think that there's lots of ways
Speaker 1: to find the middle way, and it's not always just
Speaker 1: you know, find the middle between two points. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I like that, but some, yeah, some extremes and can
Speaker 3: really overtake the whole system and really aren't productive. You
Speaker 3: talk about the emotional storm model of feeling, sensations, thoughts, behavior,
Speaker 3: and situations. Can you talk what is a little bit
Speaker 3: more about that model?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I don't think it's the idea that what we
Speaker 1: tend to say when we get hit by strong emotions,
Speaker 1: we might just say I'm angry, but really there's a
Speaker 1: lot going on in there, right, There is a there
Speaker 1: isn't a there are bodily sensations that go along with that.
Speaker 1: There is what feels like anger. There's all my thought patterns.
Speaker 1: I hate him, he did this? Why did he do that? Again? Right,
Speaker 1: there's the situation what actually caused it? That's not irrelevant, right,
Speaker 1: it is relevant. And then almost always there's some you
Speaker 1: know a lot of people say emotions evolve to urge
Speaker 1: us to behavior, to get us to do things. So
Speaker 1: almost always in one of those moments, there is a
Speaker 1: urge to do something. I'm gonna yell at him, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna scream at him, I'm not gonna I'm done working
Speaker 1: for today, I'm going to play solitaire the rest of
Speaker 1: the afternoon, whatever it is. And So, if we can
Speaker 1: take that one thing that feels overwhelming anger and we
Speaker 1: can deconstruct it a little bit into those pieces, then
Speaker 1: I think that can help us, can help us have
Speaker 1: an opportunity of dealing with it more skillfully. It gives
Speaker 1: us multiple places to intervene. Do I want to intervene behaviorally, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do that thing, or I'm going
Speaker 1: to do this other thing that's good. Do I want
Speaker 1: to intervene cognitively? Do I need to think about, am
Speaker 1: I engaging in a cognitive bias that's causing me to
Speaker 1: see it? Do I want to engage sematically? Do I
Speaker 1: need to call them? So it gives me options and
Speaker 1: it allows me to see it. And so the reason
Speaker 1: I call it a storm is because a storm is
Speaker 1: a storm is made up of like thunder light, wind, rain,
Speaker 1: you know, it's all of it comes together, and we're like, well,
Speaker 1: that's a bad storm. But if you can tweeze it apart.
Speaker 1: And then I think also just the very act of
Speaker 1: tweezing it apart, trying to figure all that out helps
Speaker 1: unless work. If we're too emotionally overwhelmed, we can't do that,
Speaker 1: but it is a way of beginning to try and
Speaker 1: bring some more words and granularity to what's happening.
Speaker 3: Is that your phrase, the emotional storm model? Is that
Speaker 3: your model?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Well nice, nice, Okay.
Speaker 1: We got non psychologists doing psychology out here style a
Speaker 1: watch out.
Speaker 3: You created a model, You created a psychological model.
Speaker 1: I'd be curious what you think though.
Speaker 3: I like it. I like it. It obviously relates to
Speaker 3: things that exist in psychology other concepts, but it's very
Speaker 3: intuitive me and I can immediately grasp what you're saying,
Speaker 3: and and and correlate to that feeling of being overwhelmed
Speaker 3: by my emotions having it control me as opposed to
Speaker 3: me feeling in control. I can really relate to it
Speaker 3: very readable, and I think sometimes that's what matters the
Speaker 3: most when it comes to helping people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's certainly not like the basic ideas is not original, right,
Speaker 1: it's just as a way of trying to put it
Speaker 1: together is real. Yeah, I can I ask you a question? No, No, okay,
Speaker 1: of course, my friend, I've been thinking about. But the
Speaker 1: thought that's been rumbling around my mind in a while
Speaker 1: is our thoughts and emotions truly separate things. You know,
Speaker 1: we never see We tend to never see one without
Speaker 1: the other, right, they they tend to co arise. And
Speaker 1: I do think there's some some ways that we can
Speaker 1: talk about them as being separate and that and obviously
Speaker 1: I'm talking about trying to think of them separately for
Speaker 1: this model, But I just really have been you know,
Speaker 1: it's been rumbling around my mind, like are we really
Speaker 1: talking about two different things or are we talking about
Speaker 1: a one thing that always arises that has different dimensions?
Speaker 1: And maybe that's just semantic, but it's been on my mind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a a an alleyway that if we go
Speaker 3: down that alley way, we'll we'll be talking for hours,
Speaker 3: all right, Lisa, Lisa Feldman I consult I I recommend
Speaker 3: people listening to my episode. Lisa Feldman Barrett on emotions.
Speaker 3: I think in a lot of ways, she would probably
Speaker 3: say that they're they're more intertwined than people realize. Yeah,
Speaker 3: feelings as something else, but emotions. Feelings and emotions aren't
Speaker 3: the same thing. That's why these level of nuances, but
Speaker 3: that when you get to the level of emotions, it
Speaker 3: is deeply intertwined with our labels that we put on
Speaker 3: the feelings.
Speaker 1: Yep. Yeah, we've had Lisan a couple of times. Her
Speaker 1: work is fascinating, isn't it?
Speaker 3: Isn't it awesome? Yeah? That relates, It relates to totally
Speaker 3: to this and uh yeah, okay. So creativity and spirituality
Speaker 3: that linkage super interesting linkage. Where do you get your
Speaker 3: your creative where's the wellspring of creativity for you in
Speaker 3: your life? Does it come from spirituality?
Speaker 1: No, not necessarily. I would more say that when something
Speaker 1: creative occurs in my life, it feels spiritual to me,
Speaker 1: mm hmm. You know, I'm a I'm a I play guitar.
Speaker 1: I used to write songs. I still I still write music.
Speaker 1: All the music in our episodes is all written by
Speaker 1: either Chris or I and performed by us. And so
Speaker 1: the if let's say I sit down and pick up
Speaker 1: my guitar and five minutes later, I have a little
Speaker 1: piece of music, something occurred in there. Now my ego
Speaker 1: wants to say, Eric's such a good musician, look what
Speaker 1: he came up with. But if I'm really honest, I
Speaker 1: have no idea how that occurs. I don't understand where
Speaker 1: that came from. I certainly I can't replicate it consistently,
Speaker 1: you know. Now that's not to say that practice and
Speaker 1: showing up and trying doesn't help. But I'm saying the
Speaker 1: actual process where something new emerges is deeply mysterious to me,
Speaker 1: and it feels to me like it feels spiritual. And
Speaker 1: when I look at the universe, it seems to me
Speaker 1: one of the fundamental characteristics of the universe is just
Speaker 1: this wild desire to create, you know, I mean, there
Speaker 1: are there are there are estimates that there have been
Speaker 1: up to you know, in the history of the world,
Speaker 1: you know, somewhere on the order of six billion different species.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of different things. That's a lot of
Speaker 1: you know, looks to me creative, right, you know, something
Speaker 1: emerging from something else, the new emerging, which is you know.
Speaker 1: And so when I'm being creative, it feels to me spiritual.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm connected to something mysterious and bigger
Speaker 1: than me that I don't understand. So I would say more,
Speaker 1: that's more the link. The other interesting link is if
Speaker 1: you start to look at mystical experiences as they're described,
Speaker 1: and you were to I did this recently for a
Speaker 1: talk I gave. You were to pull out some of
Speaker 1: the characteristics of a mystical experience, and you pull out
Speaker 1: the characteristics of a flow experience. You can map them
Speaker 1: almost exactly to each other. Right, Wow, they're not completely
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of overlap there. It's a lot
Speaker 1: of overlap between what people consider being connected to the
Speaker 1: deepest source of things, what their experience is, and what
Speaker 1: psychologists would describe as flow. There's a lot of overlap there.
Speaker 1: And so that also, you know, gives me this sense
Speaker 1: that that there is that creativity is spiritual and I'm reading.
Speaker 1: I'm going to do an interview shortly after you and
Speaker 1: I talked with a gentleman by the name of Matthew Fox.
Speaker 1: He's a long time was a Roman Catholic priest. Basically
Speaker 1: they kicked him out for his heretical ideas, but he
Speaker 1: studied all the mystics. Over time, he's involved in something
Speaker 1: called creation spirituality, and he talks about sort of four
Speaker 1: spiritual paths, but one of the fundamental ones is creativity,
Speaker 1: you know, art as prayer, you know, so I think
Speaker 1: there is there is a there can be a link
Speaker 1: there if people want to find it, you know, if
Speaker 1: you want to go, if you want to look that way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: those are my initial thoughts.
Speaker 3: And spiritual art is not the same thing as religious no, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: an important distinction there. Yeah. So a lot of this
Speaker 3: really seems to be helping people be more present in
Speaker 3: whatever they're creating or doing. You know, you're this seems
Speaker 3: to be a theme that you're really interested in. And
Speaker 3: the flow experience and the mystical experience I viewed on
Speaker 3: the continuum, like in my book transcend, I have a
Speaker 3: oneness continuum who is not the same thing as a
Speaker 3: mystical experience. But they're both on a transcendent experience continuum
Speaker 3: and a The mystical experience is one that most people
Speaker 3: will go their entire lives without having onetical experience, but
Speaker 3: for those that do experience it, it's it's a level
Speaker 3: of oneness and present moment awareness that that is just
Speaker 3: so expansive. I mean, it's like one of all humans
Speaker 3: that have ever lived. You're not just that currently live,
Speaker 3: but of all time. You just feel like in touch
Speaker 3: with something, some source of something.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I've had a couple of them and via
Speaker 1: non psychedelic means, and the you know they are, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they are. It's pretty It was pretty amazing, you know,
Speaker 1: it was pretty incredible. I think the you know, my
Speaker 1: primary spiritual tradition these days is Zen, and you know,
Speaker 1: Zen is very of all the Buddhist traditions, Zen is
Speaker 1: the most focused on that. They focus so much on
Speaker 1: what they call Ken show awakening. It's a thing, right,
Speaker 1: But what they recognize is the vast, vast majority of
Speaker 1: people are not going to have an experience like that
Speaker 1: and live out of that consciousness the rest of their life.
Speaker 1: So the Zen path then becomes about deepening, clarifying that
Speaker 1: experience and you know, there's a spiritual teacher out there,
Speaker 1: Audi Ashanti, who I was talking to, and it was
Speaker 1: asking him about this because I was like, I had
Speaker 1: this incredible experience and in that moment, like everything that
Speaker 1: normally concerns me seems completely irrelevant, right like, but it's
Speaker 1: I don't feel that way now. And he had a
Speaker 1: line that has meant so much to me. He said,
Speaker 1: devote yourself to whatever remains of it. And I really
Speaker 1: love that because it says, how would I act and
Speaker 1: behave if what I saw then was true? And it
Speaker 1: seemed like it was very true at the time. So
Speaker 1: if I believe that's true, how do I act? And
Speaker 1: so now we're kind of back a little bit where
Speaker 1: we started. You know, I don't feel it. I don't
Speaker 1: feel that oneness, but I saw it, I experienced it.
Speaker 1: So if I believe that that's an aspect of reality,
Speaker 1: then what actions would I take if I believed that?
Speaker 1: And that can act as a real orienting you know concept.
Speaker 1: It's it's a value like any other. Right. We choose
Speaker 1: our values based on what we believe to be most true.
Speaker 3: And well, one other hat you wear is that you're
Speaker 3: a certified interfaith spiritual director, and how do you bring
Speaker 3: all these principles that you're talking about right now into
Speaker 3: that work you do there?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, spiritual direction work is is it's interesting
Speaker 1: work because it is extraordinarily whereas coaching tends to be
Speaker 1: very much direction and goal focused, spiritual direction is kind
Speaker 1: of the opposite, right, It's just but yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's really just holding a place for people, giving them
Speaker 1: time and a place to reflect on what's most important
Speaker 1: to them and and how how they're doing with with
Speaker 1: living that. And you know, we know that in most
Speaker 1: spiritual traditions, the community is a big, big piece. You know,
Speaker 1: in Buddhism we talk about the songa being so important,
Speaker 1: but Christianity has got the congregation, the church, the you know,
Speaker 1: I mean it. And so spiritual direction, I think is
Speaker 1: a is a way of being in community with somebody
Speaker 1: else who's on the path. It evolved out of the
Speaker 1: Catholic Church in that what they were looking for was
Speaker 1: people to have someone to share their spiritual life with
Speaker 1: and talk about who was not in a position of authority,
Speaker 1: so you could go talk to your local priest. But
Speaker 1: there's a there's a power differential there, there's an authority
Speaker 1: differential there that person's been vested with all these powers, right,
Speaker 1: a spiritual director in the Catholic Church. And then the
Speaker 1: person was not vested with any power. They were another
Speaker 1: person on the journey like you, who had some skills
Speaker 1: and tools for helping you reflect a little bit more deeply.
Speaker 1: And so that's that's what, you know, what spiritual direction is.
Speaker 1: And I was just interested in seeing it in I've
Speaker 1: been profoundly inter faith for as long as I can remember,
Speaker 1: So I was like, well, you know, like I I
Speaker 1: think that. So it was really about, you know, how
Speaker 1: would you how would you talk about spirituality with people
Speaker 1: of different traditions, you know, and being able to honor
Speaker 1: their tradition without trying to be like, well that's not
Speaker 1: my tradition. You know. It's like so some of it
Speaker 1: was learning, you know, how you to do spiritual direction,
Speaker 1: but a lot of it was also, you know, understanding
Speaker 1: that some of the core spiritual concepts between all the
Speaker 1: underlying all these different traditions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is harkens back.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: This relates to what I was saying earlier about how
Speaker 3: a lot of these principles were talking about today they
Speaker 3: transcend a specific religion. Yeah, this is different than religion.
Speaker 3: This is we're talking about experience, spiritual experiences which are
Speaker 3: not necessarily the same thing as they're not the same
Speaker 3: thing as religious beliefs. So yeah, yeah, yeah, Eric, I
Speaker 3: really appreciate you coming on my podcast. I'm so glad
Speaker 3: we finally got this interview in there. You struck and
Speaker 3: I'm so glad we got this interview in the Can
Speaker 3: you strike me as someone who is so committed to growth?
Speaker 3: It's it's really really inspiring to me. You know, you're
Speaker 3: you're someone who has had hardships and still has hardships,
Speaker 3: but you you really exemplify what I talk about when
Speaker 3: I talk about the importance of choosing growth again and
Speaker 3: again and again, you know, and avoiding the fear response
Speaker 3: again and again and again. So thanks so much for
Speaker 3: coming to my podcast and inspiring my listeners as well
Speaker 3: as me.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Scott, I really enjoyed it me too.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening to this episode of The Psychology Podcast.
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Speaker 3: you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion
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Speaker 3: time for more on the mind, brain behavior and creativity.