Speaker 1: Habits begin the moment we wake up. What are the
Speaker 1: first things that we typically do. You'll see a consistency
Speaker 1: of how you approach your day. Welcome to the one
Speaker 1: you feed throughout time. Great thinkers have recognized the importance
Speaker 1: of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out,
Speaker 1: or you are what you think ring true. And yet
Speaker 1: for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
Speaker 1: We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We
Speaker 1: see what we don't have instead of what we do.
Speaker 1: We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
Speaker 1: But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It
Speaker 1: takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life
Speaker 1: worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep
Speaker 1: themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their
Speaker 1: good Wolfe thanks for joining us our guest on this episode.
Speaker 1: You may have heard on our Gratitude episode that came
Speaker 1: out around Thanksgiving. It's Dr Nicole Appara and author and
Speaker 1: clinical psychologist in private practice. Nicole was trained in clinical
Speaker 1: psychology at Cornell University and the School for Social Research,
Speaker 1: and also studied at the Philadelphia School of psychoanalysis. She's
Speaker 1: the author of two books, How to Do the Work,
Speaker 1: and her most recent, discussed here with Eric, how to
Speaker 1: Meet Yourself, the Workbook for self discovery. Hey everyone, this
Speaker 1: is Jenny. One of my absolute favorite things is when
Speaker 1: we hear from listeners of the show, and something we
Speaker 1: hear quite often is that one of the biggest obstacles
Speaker 1: to feeding the Good Wolf is remembering. Because life is
Speaker 1: busy and we get caught up in routines and we're
Speaker 1: all on autopilot so much at time. So to help
Speaker 1: with that, we've started sending a couple of text messages
Speaker 1: after each episode is released to listeners who sign up
Speaker 1: for them, and it's something we're offering for free. A
Speaker 1: listener wrote us and said the message has caused me
Speaker 1: to pause, even if just for a moment, and help
Speaker 1: me to remember important bits of wisdom, bringing them to
Speaker 1: the forefront of my mind. Remembering is the hardest part,
Speaker 1: and the text messages are super helpful. So if you'd
Speaker 1: like to hear from us a few times a week
Speaker 1: via text, go to one you feed dot net slash
Speaker 1: text and sign up for free high Nicole, Welcome to
Speaker 1: the show. Thank you so much for having me, Eric,
Speaker 1: I am really excited to have you on. We're going
Speaker 1: to be discussing your book, which is called How to
Speaker 1: Meet Yourself, the Workbook for self discovery. But before we
Speaker 1: get into that, we'll start, like we always do, with
Speaker 1: a parable. There's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild
Speaker 1: and they say, in life, there are two wolves inside
Speaker 1: of us that are always at battle. One is a
Speaker 1: good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love,
Speaker 1: and there's a bad wolf, which represents things like greed
Speaker 1: and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops and thinks
Speaker 1: about it for a second, looks up at their grandparents, says, well,
Speaker 1: which one wins, and the grandparents says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do. Absolutely. I think for me,
Speaker 1: Um that powable really illustrates what I believe is our
Speaker 1: core state of being, which is in kindness and compassion,
Speaker 1: and those two wolves. I think when we're not you know, living,
Speaker 1: reacting being from that space like you're saying, greed and
Speaker 1: all of those others, you know, I think more traditionally
Speaker 1: negative things that we associate with. In my opinion, that
Speaker 1: really is emblematic of the effects of our experiences and
Speaker 1: namely trauma. So what that parable really represents to me
Speaker 1: is the empowerment and the choice that we can make
Speaker 1: that regardless of how much we're carrying from our past experience,
Speaker 1: is how much we're living feeding, if you will, that
Speaker 1: negative wolf, that ultimately we can make a different choice
Speaker 1: at any time. And I talked about all of those
Speaker 1: different choices, all of the ways that were stuck in
Speaker 1: our past, and of course all of the ways we
Speaker 1: can empower ourselves to change the future direction of our
Speaker 1: lives in my work. Yeah, I love that. I think
Speaker 1: that's a great place to jump off from. Maybe we
Speaker 1: could start for just a couple of minutes talking about
Speaker 1: what sort of led you to really diving deeply into
Speaker 1: this work to create in the community that you had
Speaker 1: to teaching other people about this stuff. What was it
Speaker 1: that brought you to this work. Yeah, I think that's
Speaker 1: a really really great place to start. And what brought
Speaker 1: me to this work was, you know, several years into
Speaker 1: obtaining my clinical my PhD in clinical psychology, opening the
Speaker 1: private practice that as long as I can Remember I
Speaker 1: was always driven, wanting, curious about the mind and humans.
Speaker 1: So I was very early on on that trajectory to
Speaker 1: become the psychologist sitting in a room with a practice,
Speaker 1: and I achieved that somewhere in my mid twenties late
Speaker 1: twenties and going about my life living in Philadelphia, the
Speaker 1: city of my hometown that I was choosing to live
Speaker 1: in with a partner, and came to realize how stuck
Speaker 1: I was feeling, and came to hear that word in
Speaker 1: particular reflected in at this point clients that I had
Speaker 1: been seeing since I opened my practice, some for many
Speaker 1: years of increasing insight awareness, even sometimes action plans. I
Speaker 1: really try to work in a very action oriented way,
Speaker 1: giving clients tools, choices, new actions to leave each session
Speaker 1: to really create the change or leave the symptoms, change
Speaker 1: the way that they're functioning in their relationships around their
Speaker 1: day to day life. And I kept coming up against
Speaker 1: that word of stuck. No matter how much insight and awareness,
Speaker 1: client after client would come in and begin to feel
Speaker 1: alongside of me increasingly disempowered. So my journey eric really
Speaker 1: began when I first got curious seeing that same pattern
Speaker 1: in myself, checking all of the boxes that I thought
Speaker 1: were going to lead to this life of fulfillment, and
Speaker 1: yet I didn't feel connected to my life at all.
Speaker 1: I didn't feel connected to my partner. And ultimately, in
Speaker 1: that journey of curiosity, I was met with a whole
Speaker 1: new world of science of our brain, our mind, and
Speaker 1: the connection between our mind and our body that I
Speaker 1: couldn't look away from and really embarking on my own
Speaker 1: journey of changing, you know, my life really in a
Speaker 1: transformational way and really inspired me to begin to speak
Speaker 1: the more whole, comprehensive story um to the clients that
Speaker 1: I was working with and then ultimately into my first book,
Speaker 1: How to Do the Work. And so let's go back
Speaker 1: to you practicing clinical psychology. Then clearly you were doing
Speaker 1: a lot of good things. You were giving clients a
Speaker 1: lot of useful stuff. What shifted in your approach or
Speaker 1: what did you have to add to the approach in
Speaker 1: order for it too? I think you just used the
Speaker 1: word to become more whole. Yes, it was more of
Speaker 1: an add to the approach, and one of the first
Speaker 1: things was adding a layer of understanding, and the understanding
Speaker 1: was really around the power of our subconscious mind or
Speaker 1: really the space in our brain that houses all of
Speaker 1: the habits, and so some listeners may be very aware
Speaker 1: of the habits go to bed that you know, take
Speaker 1: them through their day, and others and that might not
Speaker 1: really be sure of what I mean when I say habit,
Speaker 1: But really habits begin the moment we wake up. What
Speaker 1: are the first things that we typically do. You'll see
Speaker 1: a consistency of how you approach your day, and we
Speaker 1: can even drop in a little more to begin to
Speaker 1: explore what our mental habits are. Our mental world, our
Speaker 1: thoughts specifically are very habitat. We don't tend to narrate
Speaker 1: our story in a different way. We tend to rehash
Speaker 1: the same stories, meanings assigned to all of our events
Speaker 1: day in and day out, and ultimately then our reactions,
Speaker 1: how we cope, how we navigate life in our relationships
Speaker 1: are all very habitual. And understanding again that our subconscious
Speaker 1: actually prefers those habits because it feels a sense of
Speaker 1: familiarity or of certainty. It now, over time, has learned
Speaker 1: exactly what to anticipate happens next, because it always happens next.
Speaker 1: So now, just mapping this conversation onto my client work
Speaker 1: in session with other humans when we're having these very beautiful,
Speaker 1: insight oriented conversations were typically in a different part of
Speaker 1: our brain entirely, we're in the gifted part of our
Speaker 1: brain called the prefrontal cortex, where we can think logically.
Speaker 1: We're calmer, we can have a grounded approach and imagine
Speaker 1: future outcomes that are different than the outcomes we've been living. However,
Speaker 1: in time, what happens Once that client left my room,
Speaker 1: left the treatment room, those habits took over, and ultimately,
Speaker 1: when we are not conscious to how we're showing up,
Speaker 1: we're going to continue to recycle the same ways that
Speaker 1: we once showed up because no amount of logic will
Speaker 1: override the comfort in that familiarity. To simplify it, we
Speaker 1: can have a litany of reasons why these new choices
Speaker 1: are going to serve us, but in that moment in time,
Speaker 1: it will just register as that possible threat because we
Speaker 1: don't know yet what comes next. And ultimately, that I
Speaker 1: think was the first major shift is explaining to the
Speaker 1: many shame at this point humans I was working with
Speaker 1: who couldn't understand why they were so stuck, who began,
Speaker 1: just like myself, to assign all of these meetings. Well,
Speaker 1: it must be my personality something I can't change. It
Speaker 1: must be my genetics. Right, these things are just inborn
Speaker 1: and I can't be any other way. And ultimately, one
Speaker 1: of the main things that I hope my new workbook
Speaker 1: highlights is how all of these habits that make up
Speaker 1: who we are and how we're acting aren't necessarily who
Speaker 1: we are at our core. Yeah. I love that that
Speaker 1: ties so closely into some of the work I do
Speaker 1: in a program I call spiritual habits. The word spiritual
Speaker 1: you could almost use as psychological. It just depends how
Speaker 1: you define this stuff, right, But it really is recognizing,
Speaker 1: as you're saying, that there are habits of mind that
Speaker 1: are healthier than other habits and we just are on
Speaker 1: autopilots so much of the time, and so how do
Speaker 1: we change that? And one of the things you talk
Speaker 1: about in the book is this idea that this change
Speaker 1: happens little bit by little bit by a little bit,
Speaker 1: moment by moment by moment by moment, Like we have
Speaker 1: to keep repeating these things. And I think what you
Speaker 1: were just saying about coming into the psychologist office and
Speaker 1: you have an insight is valuable. But if it doesn't
Speaker 1: translate into lots of little repeat changes. Then you're right.
Speaker 1: The habits just reinforce themselves because the brain loves to
Speaker 1: take shortcuts. And that's what habits are to a certain degree, right,
Speaker 1: It's just a shortcut that the brain is like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't have to think about that anymore. I can
Speaker 1: devote my energy to thinking about something else. And that's
Speaker 1: the essence of autopilot that you talk about, And to
Speaker 1: speak to your point, it really is the consistency that
Speaker 1: the habit is created when we repeat a daily action
Speaker 1: over and over again more often than not, until that
Speaker 1: becomes more or less right. What we do, what we think,
Speaker 1: how we are in that moment, and I think very understandably,
Speaker 1: and to get there, of course, we have to repeat
Speaker 1: that consistently enough, and I think really understandably for a
Speaker 1: lot of us, when we're in the depths of our
Speaker 1: suffering or when we're feeling inspired a change, we can't tolerate, right,
Speaker 1: life as it is as we know it. It's really
Speaker 1: natural to want to white knuckle it and change our
Speaker 1: life from top to bottom starting tomorrow. Start to eat difference,
Speaker 1: start to sleep, different management, stress, differently, relate to others
Speaker 1: in a completely whole new way, really understandably, because our
Speaker 1: idea is if we change really quickly and transform ourselves overnight,
Speaker 1: then we could get to the place of limiting our
Speaker 1: suffering or relieving our suffering quicker. However, we have to understand,
Speaker 1: like I was sharing our subconscious mind, and because it's
Speaker 1: the repetition of these habits, the more new we do,
Speaker 1: the more overwhelmed we're going to become. It's going to
Speaker 1: be really frightening to imagine the outcomes of my life
Speaker 1: looking completely different from top to bottom starting tomorrow, and
Speaker 1: that resistance that will happen, whether it's the thoughts in
Speaker 1: my mind convincing me out of the endless to do
Speaker 1: list all of the reasons why this isn't working and
Speaker 1: not to be bothered doing this yet again today because
Speaker 1: nothing's changing, or for some of us, that drops into
Speaker 1: our body we begin to have a new experience. Maybe
Speaker 1: for some of us it's even being connected to a
Speaker 1: body and all the sensations that are living in that body.
Speaker 1: We feel different than we usually feel, or we feel uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: we feel distressed, we feel the feelings right that have
Speaker 1: been present all along. All of the reason why if
Speaker 1: we're listening to our minds if we're listening to our body,
Speaker 1: and that discomfort. So many of us revert right back
Speaker 1: to that familiar pattern. So I'll speak often when I
Speaker 1: talk about consistency about a practice that I call setting
Speaker 1: an intention for a small daily promise. Whatever that outcome is,
Speaker 1: break it down into the most manageable bite size, even
Speaker 1: to the point where you almost want to roll your
Speaker 1: eyes because what change will happen? And practice making that
Speaker 1: choice as consistently as possible. That will do two things.
Speaker 1: The first thing it'll do it it'll limit the overwhelm.
Speaker 1: You're already going to feel overwhelmed doing something new. So
Speaker 1: that resistance I suggest to expect it to be there
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily mean you're going in the wrong direction. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of us miss assigned that to be
Speaker 1: our intuition, guiding us back into these right old habits
Speaker 1: that are just us. So once we have language, oh
Speaker 1: this is I resistance. It's keeping me safe. It wants
Speaker 1: me to go back into that familiar I can stay
Speaker 1: calm and continue to make this choice even when it's uncomfortable. First,
Speaker 1: that's the first thing it does. Second thing it does
Speaker 1: it allows us to begin to show alignment between the
Speaker 1: intention I'm setting for how I want to show up
Speaker 1: differently and the actual action of showing up differently. Because
Speaker 1: the large majority of us, especially if we've been unconscious
Speaker 1: to our autopilot for a lifetime, have lived what I
Speaker 1: call in habits of self betrayal, where we have many
Speaker 1: different intentions or our actions don't align with our best
Speaker 1: interests are once our needs, or sometimes even the very
Speaker 1: direct intention we set for ourselves. So the more we
Speaker 1: show that alignment, I'm making a small promise, I'm keeping it.
Speaker 1: I'm not criticizing myself for how small it is. I'm
Speaker 1: rebuilding that. In my opinion, what that translates to is
Speaker 1: self trust, is self confidence, and is empowerment. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: are so many things you said in there that I
Speaker 1: could piggyback off of. In the coaching work I do
Speaker 1: with people, we take a very similar approach. I talk
Speaker 1: about it, and you know listeners won't be able to
Speaker 1: see this, but I got my hands sort of straight
Speaker 1: up and down, and I talked about when we do
Speaker 1: what we say we're going to do for ourselves, there's
Speaker 1: an interior alignment that feels good. And when we don't
Speaker 1: when we make promises to ourselves, I'm gonna do this,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do that, and we don't. We feel out
Speaker 1: of alignment, and over time we increasingly I loved what
Speaker 1: you said about self trust. We don't trust ourselves. You know,
Speaker 1: people will say to me, I'm just the kind of
Speaker 1: person can't finish anything, I start lots of things or
Speaker 1: And it really is that realization that like, well, okay,
Speaker 1: we have a tendency in that direction, but we can
Speaker 1: unwind that, but we may have to unwind it little
Speaker 1: bit by little bit. And the other thing that you
Speaker 1: talked about that brought to mind for me was, you know,
Speaker 1: when I was twenty four, I was a homeless heroin addict,
Speaker 1: and I did change my life kind of overnight everything,
Speaker 1: but I did it by going into like a treatment
Speaker 1: center where everything was different and all that change was supported.
Speaker 1: So there are ways in which we can make big
Speaker 1: change in our life, particularly in a crisis. But my
Speaker 1: experiences it almost always has to happen in a different
Speaker 1: environment because our current environment, the people, the routines, the
Speaker 1: physical location, it has such a sense of dragging things
Speaker 1: back to what's expected in that environment. And again I
Speaker 1: mean more than just place. But you know, our total
Speaker 1: environment is so important. Yes, I couldn't agree more. And
Speaker 1: a lot of times, you know, whether we see this
Speaker 1: in those context of leaving for a kind of structured
Speaker 1: treatment experience or going on vacation, having a weekend retreat,
Speaker 1: so many of us, I think, fine, that we can
Speaker 1: restructure life almost completely and be this new person in
Speaker 1: this new context, and then before long, at least once
Speaker 1: we get home, we're right back in those familiar patterns
Speaker 1: because we have to realize that we aren't interconnected being
Speaker 1: really simply, what that means is we are always in
Speaker 1: connection with other humans around us and the natural environment
Speaker 1: around us. So when we're going back into a system
Speaker 1: that has set expectations repetitive behavior, yours right that if
Speaker 1: some of us been repeated for a lifetime depending on
Speaker 1: how often or how consistently we've been in one particular
Speaker 1: environment's location, relationships, etcetera. Right now we're fitting into almost
Speaker 1: like a puzzle. We can think of it, and my
Speaker 1: piece right fits in right there, and it becomes really
Speaker 1: hard to step out of that framework or those set
Speaker 1: of expectations. And I just want to piggyback on something
Speaker 1: you were saying earlier. I think sometimes another byproduct of
Speaker 1: living in our habit self repeating things, engaging in these
Speaker 1: habits of self betrayal, becoming right the self professed person
Speaker 1: who just can't change or finish anything. A second thing
Speaker 1: we do, and I've lived this experience myself, is we
Speaker 1: don't look at or we don't assign any responsibility to
Speaker 1: us who's unable to finish something. We point the finger
Speaker 1: at the person who, if only they didn't show up
Speaker 1: this way, I wouldn't, or the environment or something outside
Speaker 1: of me right that's making me, leaving me no choice
Speaker 1: spot And this is again language I think that really
Speaker 1: illustrates the lived experience. And when we're not conscious, when
Speaker 1: we're in autopilot, when all of those habits and patterns
Speaker 1: are firing at the already, we actually very understandably don't
Speaker 1: have those choices, and we can feel very out of control,
Speaker 1: very reactive, very disempowered, and it becomes very easy right
Speaker 1: to point the finger outside of us, as opposed to
Speaker 1: saying yes, circumstances are happening, relationships, other individuals are around me,
Speaker 1: and they're choosing to show up in the way that
Speaker 1: they are choosing to show up, and I am still
Speaker 1: responsible for how I'm responding to that environment or my
Speaker 1: participation in it at all. Yeah, And I don't know
Speaker 1: who said this, but what you're pointing to is that
Speaker 1: in those moments we tend to either go into blame
Speaker 1: or shame. Right, we are blaming others or we're feeling
Speaker 1: shameful about our inability to change, neither of which is
Speaker 1: a very helpful place to be. Right. We don't change
Speaker 1: out of shame, right, It's not an empowering place to
Speaker 1: change from, so I think to your point, it's more
Speaker 1: sort of recognizing these habits and patterns, and it is
Speaker 1: so hard when so much of it is subconscious. I
Speaker 1: recently had a conversation with gab or Mate, and he
Speaker 1: talks very eloquently about how all of us are faced
Speaker 1: with a balance between attachment and authenticity in early days
Speaker 1: in our lives, attachment always wins. We sacrifice our authenticity.
Speaker 1: But the other thing that he said often in that
Speaker 1: book that's really been on my mind a lot, is
Speaker 1: about how much of that process becomes completely below the
Speaker 1: level of consciousness. It's not like I know, I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh boy, that doesn't feel uncomfortable. I'm going to push
Speaker 1: it down. It's not even there to notice, at least
Speaker 1: without much greater powers of discernment than we may start
Speaker 1: the journey with. I want to speak to this and
Speaker 1: this is so powerful, Eric, and this concept of shame.
Speaker 1: I love how you kind of distinguished shame or internal
Speaker 1: blame out external just focusing on shame. I think something
Speaker 1: quite universal unites us all as humanity, regardless of where
Speaker 1: you are on your experience or where you are in
Speaker 1: the globe living your experiences, because the reality of it is,
Speaker 1: we're all humans raised by other humans, and the generations
Speaker 1: that came before us, and my opinion, were ill equipped,
Speaker 1: didn't have the actual objective resources and or the awareness
Speaker 1: that even emotions and kind of a lot of the
Speaker 1: conversations that are now coming to light are a need
Speaker 1: in childhood. So what I see that quite universally unifies
Speaker 1: us all is actually a core experience of that shame.
Speaker 1: And it really kind of is incorporating Gabor's beautiful idea
Speaker 1: around authenticity and attachment, because when we didn't have the
Speaker 1: safe space to just truly be who we are, however,
Speaker 1: that was in childhood, as very few of us did,
Speaker 1: when we didn't have the attuned caregiver, like I did
Speaker 1: not have a human who can help me tend to
Speaker 1: my emotions, understand them, bring myself find the tools that
Speaker 1: allow me to bring myself back into safety. My mom
Speaker 1: was too distracted and consumed and disregulated in her own trauma.
Speaker 1: So when we lack that safety, we will all adapt.
Speaker 1: And the first thing that will happen is because of
Speaker 1: the emotional immaturity, the developmental immaturity of our brain. We
Speaker 1: can't have the vantage point of an adult. We don't
Speaker 1: understand all of the mature factors that contribute. Like I
Speaker 1: was able to even just now acknowledge my mom was
Speaker 1: traumatized based on her pain. We don't have that capacity
Speaker 1: in childhood. In our very egocentric view, as we call
Speaker 1: it in the field right, all roads lead back to
Speaker 1: it must have been something wrong with me, So at
Speaker 1: our core, I find it so many of us have
Speaker 1: that core routed belief and shame of not being worthy,
Speaker 1: of not being lovable exactly as we are. And to
Speaker 1: speak to your point about it being so underneath the awareness,
Speaker 1: probably for three decades of my life, I fought tooth
Speaker 1: and nail. I don't shame, I don't feel shameful. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm fine, this is who I am, how I am,
Speaker 1: I'm celebrated in these aspects of my life. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: very comfortable with myself. Little did I know that until
Speaker 1: I began to unpack and pull back those layers of
Speaker 1: the onion. What I came to realize my shame was
Speaker 1: so pushed down, this feeling of unworthiness, that my entire
Speaker 1: way of being as the overachiever, blazing the path to
Speaker 1: get the PhD, to do all of these things was
Speaker 1: actually my protection that was very validated by the outside world,
Speaker 1: protecting me from even feeling that shame. So it really
Speaker 1: took until recently to be able to say, you know what,
Speaker 1: I don't feel good enough as I am. It's very
Speaker 1: difficult for me to feel comfortable not performing a role
Speaker 1: or a service, or teaching or doing or performing right
Speaker 1: in any way for something external, because again, at my core,
Speaker 1: we can become so unconscious ourselves, and for some of
Speaker 1: us were living in a way that feels very valid right,
Speaker 1: or that we're validating or we're attempting to valid this
Speaker 1: internal sense of worthiness. Yet that feeling of disconnection I
Speaker 1: was describing that began my journey of lack of fulfillment.
Speaker 1: All of that was really related to how unworthy I felt,
Speaker 1: how I was literally exhausting my mind and body trying
Speaker 1: to perform to the point where before I began my journey,
Speaker 1: I was fainting. I was so depleted in my resources,
Speaker 1: my nervous system was so shut down from action ng right,
Speaker 1: because at my core, that was my only way of
Speaker 1: proving this worthiness. So again, I think it's a really beautiful,
Speaker 1: powerful point you're making, which is for some of us,
Speaker 1: it's so below the surface we can't even let ourselves
Speaker 1: emotionally touch how it felt right to be that little
Speaker 1: child that didn't feel worthy of that love and connection
Speaker 1: from the most important person in our life. So let
Speaker 1: me ask you a question about what you just said there,
Speaker 1: because I think it's really interesting. I have to tie
Speaker 1: a couple of things together real quick in order to
Speaker 1: do it. But you talk about an authentic self, right,
Speaker 1: there is a part of us that is less conditioned
Speaker 1: by all of our experience, and it has certain traits
Speaker 1: to it. And then you also talked about this pushing
Speaker 1: yourself to get success through the outside world. I look
Speaker 1: at you, and I know you're very successful in what
Speaker 1: you're doing, so that doesn't happen by not putting effort in.
Speaker 1: So how do you determine for yourself when the pushing
Speaker 1: of yourself is coming from maybe your authentic self that
Speaker 1: likes to share and wants to help and actually likes
Speaker 1: the feeling of creating and making versus I'm being driven
Speaker 1: by a sense of unworthiness under the surface, because this
Speaker 1: is really subtle territory. Yes, and I love this and
Speaker 1: I think about this often. So I'm going to answer
Speaker 1: the more process um foundational, you know, approach, and then
Speaker 1: that more acute kind of in the moments of actually
Speaker 1: making the decision will kind of map it on there.
Speaker 1: Because the foundational approach to figuring out our way to
Speaker 1: this distinction, to reconnecting to our authentic self is part
Speaker 1: of the journey of getting that clarity. So for me,
Speaker 1: that meant becoming really conscious of these different habits and patterns.
Speaker 1: Mainly for me, I was able to see all of
Speaker 1: the different ways right I showed up in performance. I
Speaker 1: was able to understand that coming from a lack of safety,
Speaker 1: I didn't feel safe enough just being who I was,
Speaker 1: So the safety I was able to attain was showing
Speaker 1: up in this particular way that indicated to me that
Speaker 1: I needed to do some of the somatic or body work.
Speaker 1: My nervous system was completely dis regulate it. So spending
Speaker 1: I'm really fast forwarding the journey right, spending the amount
Speaker 1: of time to drop into my body to create safety,
Speaker 1: and even being in my body where my emotions live,
Speaker 1: to be able to distinct and calm my stress reaction
Speaker 1: down so I can start to make space for things
Speaker 1: outside of stress, like sadness, like anger, like happiness, all
Speaker 1: of the other feelings that had no space when I
Speaker 1: was so disregulated. And then, over time but more connected
Speaker 1: I am to my body, the more I can in
Speaker 1: those moments ask myself, right, what is my intention? Whatever
Speaker 1: choice I'm going to make, So it might be the
Speaker 1: choice of presenting something or you know, putting out a
Speaker 1: piece of content, what is my intention? Now that I
Speaker 1: have clarity, I can differentiate. I can hear when my
Speaker 1: body is responding the part of my body that I'm
Speaker 1: most interested in connecting to where I believe our authentic self,
Speaker 1: our essence, our soul or spirit, whatever name it is
Speaker 1: for you, I believe it speaks through our heart. Our
Speaker 1: heart is the most powerful organ, even more powerful than
Speaker 1: our brain in terms of its electromagnetic reach, which simply
Speaker 1: means it's receiving signals from our environment at a greater
Speaker 1: distance than even our brain can, and it's sending signals out,
Speaker 1: So how I'm feeling is reflected. Of course, all of
Speaker 1: this is outside of our visual awareness in our environment,
Speaker 1: and in my opinion, when we're talking about finding our intuition,
Speaker 1: many of us are looking up to our minds to
Speaker 1: narrate the right thing to do when in reality, and
Speaker 1: this is again why I always emphasize the body. Our
Speaker 1: intuition is going to speak in a different language. A
Speaker 1: lot of times it's nonverbal. It's in sensations, feelings of
Speaker 1: lightness right or freedom, ease in my heart, when I'm
Speaker 1: walking in a direction that feels good to me, feelings
Speaker 1: of constriction, doom, right, clenching in my heart, maybe when
Speaker 1: I'm going in a direction that's not. Thoughts are light bulbs,
Speaker 1: ideas like musings, images, And again I'm giving different examples
Speaker 1: of how it could speak because it speaks different to
Speaker 1: all of us. So for me, the journey of gaining
Speaker 1: the clarity meant building in those moments on only of
Speaker 1: safety in my body, but of quiet, of learning how
Speaker 1: to understand my internal signals, my wants, my needs, and
Speaker 1: again my intentions. So now mapping that onto those acute moments,
Speaker 1: whenever I'm faced with a choice, I have the opportunity
Speaker 1: to check in and say, Okay, Nicole, why is it?
Speaker 1: What is your hope for doing? This? Is my hope
Speaker 1: on Oh, so people can celebrate me and tell me
Speaker 1: how smart I am and tell me that you know
Speaker 1: they changed their life because of what I said? Or
Speaker 1: is my intention that this isn't a really important message
Speaker 1: for me. I don't actually know what people will say
Speaker 1: or do, and they could outright and misunderstand it even
Speaker 1: and I am confident that I am saying or speaking
Speaker 1: this truth because it's important for me to do. And
Speaker 1: that is the moment of First we need the space,
Speaker 1: the connection with our body, and then we can actually
Speaker 1: drop in in real time and get that clarity. And
Speaker 1: you could still and sometimes you might make the choice
Speaker 1: to do something for an external reason. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: as long as you've done so consciously, you can also
Speaker 1: give yourself the opportunity not to do that thing. I
Speaker 1: love that every part of that, but especially the part
Speaker 1: there at the end, because without tagging that end thing on,
Speaker 1: it becomes let me tap into how I'm feeling. Do
Speaker 1: I want to do or not do this thing? And
Speaker 1: if I feel like I don't want to do it,
Speaker 1: I don't do it right and we don't want that.
Speaker 1: And this is where I think the work you talk
Speaker 1: about on values comes in about knowing what's important to us,
Speaker 1: because at times, you know, in order to accomplish something
Speaker 1: that's important to us, there are going to be moments
Speaker 1: in there where internally there's just a you know, sense
Speaker 1: of dread, Like I had to do taxes last week, right,
Speaker 1: and that's part of what I got to do for
Speaker 1: this business. And you know, if I checked in with
Speaker 1: my internal self, it would have said, no, don't do
Speaker 1: it right. It's actually it was saying that very clearly, um,
Speaker 1: and I had to go, well, okay, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean this needs to get done for these these different reasons.
Speaker 1: But I love that idea of it becomes conscious, right,
Speaker 1: it becomes a conscious choice. We can make all kinds
Speaker 1: of choices for all kinds of reasons, but the ones
Speaker 1: that are you know, the best place to be operating
Speaker 1: out of is the choice that is a conscious choice.
Speaker 1: I am choosing to do this because X, because it
Speaker 1: feels right, because it supports something I value, and just
Speaker 1: to add into maybe because I want to show up
Speaker 1: in my relationship in this way. I think relationships is
Speaker 1: another area where we can find a point of negotiation. Right.
Speaker 1: We don't have to be fully in service of another
Speaker 1: person like I had lived the majority of my life,
Speaker 1: and we also don't have to be fully selfishly in service, right.
Speaker 1: I think the best relationships are where there's an equal
Speaker 1: energetic exchange in some moments where maybe you aren't choosing
Speaker 1: right to watch the movie that your partner or your
Speaker 1: loved one or your friend wants to watch. Knowing right,
Speaker 1: you know that maybe somewhere down the line that switches
Speaker 1: and you partners, loved one's friends supports make choices right.
Speaker 1: So again, I do want to make space for that
Speaker 1: gray area of negotiation. But again, to speak to your point,
Speaker 1: that only becomes possible when we're conscious to what our
Speaker 1: intentions are, what our wants are, what our needs are,
Speaker 1: and even more someone we feel comfortable sharing that with
Speaker 1: another people bringing those right into that relational space. We've
Speaker 1: been talking about a bunch of subjects that are in
Speaker 1: the book. I mean, everything we've talked about is covered,
Speaker 1: and you have lots of exercises, but I did want
Speaker 1: to turn for a second to something you were just
Speaker 1: saying there, which is about sort of creating this safety.
Speaker 1: And you talk about before we start this journey, and
Speaker 1: you've got different sections about meeting different parts of ourselves.
Speaker 1: You say, we've got to sort of build our own
Speaker 1: internal support system. So talk to me about some of
Speaker 1: the ways that we can build that internal support system
Speaker 1: or that safety that you were just referring to that
Speaker 1: allows us to connect with what's actually real. So safety
Speaker 1: and the reason why this the section that you're referring to,
Speaker 1: Eric comes right at the beginning of the book, is
Speaker 1: integral to our healing, to our even expression and meeting
Speaker 1: of our needs. All of that is really foundational. Again,
Speaker 1: this goes back to the reality that very few of
Speaker 1: us felt safe in our bodies and our relationships and
Speaker 1: our environments, in our life experience itself. You'll see I
Speaker 1: also present what I'm calling an authentic needs pyramid, where
Speaker 1: kind of I honor our basic physical needs being movement, rest,
Speaker 1: nutrients for our body, oxygen of course for our lungs,
Speaker 1: our emotional needs being, you know, emotionally safe, supported, connected,
Speaker 1: interconnected with other people, and then that allows us Once
Speaker 1: those base needs are met, then we can begin to
Speaker 1: feel safe enough to tap into my passion, my creativity,
Speaker 1: my playfulness, right that higher kind of the things that
Speaker 1: most of us are seeking when we think authentic self.
Speaker 1: None of that is possible without that foundation of safety,
Speaker 1: and very few of us feel safe in our physical
Speaker 1: bodies given our past experiences. So building that foundation at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the journey our resources toolkits that we
Speaker 1: will want to go back to as we begin to
Speaker 1: peel back those onions. And with oxygen being one of
Speaker 1: our daily needs that is happening for us. Our body
Speaker 1: is always breathing. I often like to suggest breath work,
Speaker 1: and I give a many different types of simple, easy
Speaker 1: back pocket breathwork practices because again consistency is key here
Speaker 1: of different ways we can use our breath or our
Speaker 1: intentional breathing to help our nervous system regulate, and really
Speaker 1: simply I'll simplify breathwork. If we're feeling anxious, if we're
Speaker 1: always waiting for the next you to drop, our hearts
Speaker 1: racing out of our chests, our breath might even feel
Speaker 1: quickened right um might even feel tenseness in my muscles.
Speaker 1: I'm in other words, I'm fight or flight. I'm waiting
Speaker 1: to fight or flee the thread at hand. My body
Speaker 1: is mobilized, ready to go. It's too much activity. I'm
Speaker 1: simplifying all this. We can learn how to do calming,
Speaker 1: deep belly breaths to bring our body back into safety.
Speaker 1: If I'm on the other end of that spectrum and
Speaker 1: I'm feeling listless, my muscles almost seemingly aren't present, I
Speaker 1: have no energy to even get out of better start
Speaker 1: my day. I might even be right calling myself depressed.
Speaker 1: Then I can do a more activating chest based I
Speaker 1: actually utilized the whim Hoff methot when I was so
Speaker 1: shut down. My nervous system was in that state. Remember
Speaker 1: how I described myself. I have no fulfillment nothing, I
Speaker 1: feel nothing about this whole life around me. I don't
Speaker 1: feel connected to my partner. That was because I was
Speaker 1: so shut down. So for me foundationally, I made a
Speaker 1: daily commitment to it was whim Hoff. I would pop
Speaker 1: him in YouTube and I would do a vigorous type
Speaker 1: of breathing again to simplify when my energy is low,
Speaker 1: I can actually mobilize it, activate it to again bring
Speaker 1: me back into that safety so our breath can be foundationally.
Speaker 1: And in the workbook I overview back pocket breathwork exercises
Speaker 1: that we can pop in, and we ought to begin
Speaker 1: to pop in. I suggest we do so throughout our
Speaker 1: day consistently because this is one of those areas, especially breathwork. Oh,
Speaker 1: breath work, I can calm myself down. Great. Next time
Speaker 1: I argue with my partner and I'm getting ready to
Speaker 1: scream or yell or slam it or I'll do that.
Speaker 1: Back to this full circle conversation. When I'm in that moment,
Speaker 1: I'm in my habitself, my emotional brain is all lit up.
Speaker 1: That logical part of my brain that even remembers this
Speaker 1: conversation has completely shut down, and I'm so just regulated.
Speaker 1: I've lost complete control. And I catch myself after the
Speaker 1: reaction right feeling shameful. So, unfortunately, the bearer of the
Speaker 1: band news is it's about practicing this breathwork consistently enough
Speaker 1: so that in that moment I can be regulated enough
Speaker 1: to be conscious to remember that I need to calm
Speaker 1: myself down. Yeah, there's a few things in there. I
Speaker 1: think are worth noting, the last one being very important.
Speaker 1: I have found that for years with breathwork, I would
Speaker 1: hear about it and i would try it. I'd be okay,
Speaker 1: I'm really angry. Take five deep breath, and I'm like, wow,
Speaker 1: I didn't really do very much right. But what I
Speaker 1: found was that, like you said, I had to kind
Speaker 1: of practice it and get some degree of familiarity with
Speaker 1: it and know how to do it. Then I was
Speaker 1: able to use it. I love the fact that you
Speaker 1: brought up there are different types of breath work. It's
Speaker 1: not just deep breath to calm down. We had whim
Speaker 1: Hoff on the show, and it's funny because if you've
Speaker 1: seen his videos, you know he is a very enthusiastic man.
Speaker 1: So the interview is basically whim Hoff yelling the whole time,
Speaker 1: and then, as you can tell, I'm a whole lot
Speaker 1: more sedate. It's it's very funny conversation of everybody loves
Speaker 1: the good Wolf, you know, like he's great, he has
Speaker 1: something else. I mean, I would love to have that
Speaker 1: kind of enthusiasm. He is a great guy. But but
Speaker 1: that idea that there are different types of breath work
Speaker 1: and knowing which one we need it what times, and
Speaker 1: practicing it I found to be really useful. I just
Speaker 1: want to piggyback on that in a little giggle. So
Speaker 1: very early on, when I first met wim Hoff and
Speaker 1: saw this very outward personality display as I been felt
Speaker 1: when I met a similar type of person, I was
Speaker 1: turned off that kind of person. Again, that mismatched for
Speaker 1: me from being so shut down from not And this
Speaker 1: is often when we react negatively critically of someone else,
Speaker 1: sometimes there's a little information there for us. And what
Speaker 1: I've came to realize that person rubbed me the wrong
Speaker 1: way for so many years because they were embodying a
Speaker 1: space at icon it right that enthusiasm. I was so
Speaker 1: shut down. I was so flat. I didn't even have
Speaker 1: the awareness that I had enthusiasm in me passion to
Speaker 1: then relate to another person. So very early on, when
Speaker 1: I first saw him in his work, I avoided it. Um.
Speaker 1: I had to tolerate him when I began to engage
Speaker 1: in it, because again that mismatch for me turned critical
Speaker 1: as it it doesn't for a lot of us, and
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be near that because from my
Speaker 1: flat state of shut down, that was too much for me. Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I do think what you're saying is that looking
Speaker 1: at what is causing such a strong reaction is is
Speaker 1: very helpful. Why am I reacting so strongly to this?
Speaker 1: Why am I thinking that is so bad or wrong? Now, again,
Speaker 1: this isn't to say that we don't have values and
Speaker 1: morals and there aren't things that happen ethically that we
Speaker 1: go that's wrong. But when we're reacting to somebody's personality, right,
Speaker 1: and that's often a sign there's something going on inside us.
Speaker 1: Like you said, so we covered breath, What are some
Speaker 1: other ways of getting to safety in the body? I
Speaker 1: talk about grounding in the moment so away we can
Speaker 1: ground a lot of times. And even speaking to this
Speaker 1: beautiful direction our conversation is going. When we're having a
Speaker 1: big reaction, I do want to stress or suggest us
Speaker 1: not to invalidate that reaction. A lot of us, I
Speaker 1: think when we hear this, oh, it's you know, it's
Speaker 1: overreactions disproportion. We might even hear that from other people
Speaker 1: in our life. They're so dramatic. Calm down. We have
Speaker 1: to make space for the realness of that reaction, right,
Speaker 1: because it is coming from some time in someplace and
Speaker 1: the bigness of it really is the bigness of those feelings. Now, again,
Speaker 1: we might be misinterpreting, misperceiving, imagining something that's present and
Speaker 1: there which is very similar to that very early past
Speaker 1: her full experience, but not to minimize the feelings that
Speaker 1: are present, because I do think a lot of us
Speaker 1: and even we might tell ourselves, well, I'm an adult now,
Speaker 1: that was decades ago, right, get over it, and honoring
Speaker 1: the reality of the bigness of those emotions really is
Speaker 1: an important part of our journey, however, and this kind
Speaker 1: of maps onto them grounding in the present moment. It's
Speaker 1: a remnant of our past. Right, there was a similarity
Speaker 1: of something that we're experiencing now to this past moment. However,
Speaker 1: we have to remind ourselves that we're not what was
Speaker 1: probably that child that once was that teenager that was
Speaker 1: under supported and overwhelmed. We have to bring our consciousness
Speaker 1: back into the adult, the circumstances, the body, the choices
Speaker 1: that we now have available to us now. And one
Speaker 1: of the ways we can do that is by making
Speaker 1: the most powerful choice we can make, which is where
Speaker 1: we put our attention. Right. So, while we might be
Speaker 1: in our minds, rehashing, narrating the scene at hand. Right,
Speaker 1: we might be overwhelmed by the emotions in our body.
Speaker 1: If we can put our attention into the physical body
Speaker 1: objectively present in this moment in time, by maybe if
Speaker 1: we're sitting, if we're standing, if we're laying, turning our
Speaker 1: full attention to the points of contact right, feeling maybe
Speaker 1: my heels upon the earth, feeling my body weight if
Speaker 1: I'm laying, feel my entire body being supported by the bed,
Speaker 1: the floor of the structure beneath me. Right, turning that
Speaker 1: spotlight of attention, as I call it, from our thoughts
Speaker 1: or from the body that's overwhelming us to the objective body,
Speaker 1: ground it in a safe, present moment. That's what's called grounding.
Speaker 1: We can do this even amplify the benefits of this
Speaker 1: by doing it in nature. When we do it on
Speaker 1: the actual natural earth, should we have access to that
Speaker 1: depending on where we live now. Not only are we
Speaker 1: present in the current moment, we're able to connect our
Speaker 1: nervous system, which likely is disregulated in that moment, with
Speaker 1: the rhythmic pattern of the Earth, with the Earth's elector
Speaker 1: a magnetic frequency that actually is really calming for our
Speaker 1: human nervous system. And I noticed this very early on,
Speaker 1: having a racing mind my entire life, always being anxious
Speaker 1: and on the verge of an anxiety attack. Where I
Speaker 1: found some semblance of peace and that was the thing
Speaker 1: I've always been searching for my whole life, peace and
Speaker 1: freedom was in nature. I found that when I was
Speaker 1: in nature, my thoughts were a little less loud, or
Speaker 1: they were there, but it was easier for me to
Speaker 1: look at the beauty around me and turn my attention
Speaker 1: to where I was instead of what I was thinking about. So,
Speaker 1: if we're able to do earthing, grounding, whatever we want
Speaker 1: to call it, what that just means is paying attention
Speaker 1: to this my physical structure planet firmly in this time
Speaker 1: and space. And if I can do so in nature,
Speaker 1: and that's another really powerful way to send those calming
Speaker 1: signals of safety to my mind and my body. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that I have people do in the Spiritual
Speaker 1: Habits program grounding in your senses and the idea. I mean,
Speaker 1: I did not invent this exercise, right, but like, what
Speaker 1: are five things I can see right now? What are
Speaker 1: five things I can hear? What are five things that
Speaker 1: I can feel. What I find helpful about that structure
Speaker 1: for me is that it gives my brain just enough
Speaker 1: to do that it has a chance of sticking around
Speaker 1: because a lot of times for me, if it's like,
Speaker 1: all right, feel the feelings in your feet as you
Speaker 1: stand on the ground, I do that for about a second,
Speaker 1: I'm like, not a whole lot there, and bam, I'm
Speaker 1: right back in my brain. But looking for five things
Speaker 1: makes enough of a game of it that it's sort
Speaker 1: of my brain, you know, engages and it can be
Speaker 1: really helpful. And I agree nature. I don't think I
Speaker 1: realized it until I was I don't know, thirty five
Speaker 1: years old, maybe that it was that important to me.
Speaker 1: But I have these moments like sometimes in nature where
Speaker 1: even if I'm having the thoughts like you said, I
Speaker 1: love that idea, they're not as loud. The other thing
Speaker 1: I sometimes think is like I'll always be able to
Speaker 1: come to places like this that whatever else is happening,
Speaker 1: you know my thoughts. I look around and I'm like,
Speaker 1: but nature is here. It's free, Like if I'm worried
Speaker 1: about money, like, but nature is free, and look, I
Speaker 1: love of being here. It's soothing to me in so
Speaker 1: many different ways. I appreciate you bringing up your experience
Speaker 1: because I lived a very similar one in terms of
Speaker 1: any moment of stopping to turn my attention to my
Speaker 1: heels to sit in traditional meditation right in silence, felt
Speaker 1: so uncomfortable. There came my resistance, all the thoughts. For me,
Speaker 1: it was all the to do list things I should
Speaker 1: be doing, self criticisms and or discomfort in my body
Speaker 1: that I was actively avoiding by not paying attention. So
Speaker 1: very similar to you, and I think probably a lot
Speaker 1: of listeners giving our attention something somewhat to do while
Speaker 1: we're paying attention to our very conscious experience. So for
Speaker 1: me it was I also one of the by products
Speaker 1: of living in that very stressed out body. A lot
Speaker 1: of us come to find his attension. Our muscles are tight,
Speaker 1: maybe in particular spaces. For me, it's my mid to
Speaker 1: upper back, my neck, My posture even began to hunch
Speaker 1: and constrict forward from years of that constriction of my
Speaker 1: fight or flight nervous system response. So for me understand
Speaker 1: and the importance of the body and of moving and
Speaker 1: stretching and releasing and resting my body. I began a
Speaker 1: conscious practice while I was doing gentle movement, gentle stretching,
Speaker 1: taking a gentle walk around the block, because when my
Speaker 1: body was in some version of action, even if it
Speaker 1: was just stretching to touch my toes, that gave me
Speaker 1: again that focal point because oh, my muscles are shifting, changing.
Speaker 1: It gave me something else to more fully pay attention
Speaker 1: to that felt more approachable. So I'm really happy that
Speaker 1: we've offered that suggestion because I imagine a lot of
Speaker 1: listeners will fall into a camp like you and I
Speaker 1: and I definitely suggest even not maybe even something something physical,
Speaker 1: washing the dishes, taking a shower. We can turn any
Speaker 1: moment into a moment to be conscious, and some of
Speaker 1: us might find value in having a something else, whether
Speaker 1: it's nature, the water, right, my muscle stretching, like you're saying,
Speaker 1: naming things in our environment, a little something to do
Speaker 1: with our attention. Yeah. I'm a big meditation practitioner, and
Speaker 1: I mean, I get so much out of it, but
Speaker 1: I feel like I spent twenty years I won't say tasted,
Speaker 1: but a lot of years of being kind of on again,
Speaker 1: off again with it, and I think a big part
Speaker 1: of the problem there were a variety of things I
Speaker 1: was trying to do too much. But one of them
Speaker 1: was that the only thing in those days that you
Speaker 1: really read in books was about breath meditation, and I
Speaker 1: was too amped up. And so all of a sudden
Speaker 1: one day somebody said, just go outside and listen to
Speaker 1: the sounds. Meditate on the sounds. And so quickly I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, this works. There was just enough going on,
Speaker 1: you know, because the breath, let's be honest, it's kind
Speaker 1: of boring, particularly when your discernment, your internal sensitivity is
Speaker 1: not very tuned. And so for me, sounds were it
Speaker 1: was enough going on, and that helped me learn to
Speaker 1: settle enough that now breath practices, all different kinds of
Speaker 1: things work. And I think that's what you're getting to
Speaker 1: with movement too. You know, there are lots of ways
Speaker 1: to try and ground ourselves, to bring our attention, to
Speaker 1: focus our attention beyond simply sitting there and watching your breath,
Speaker 1: and if that is choosing to be something that isn't
Speaker 1: working for you despite repeated attempts, there are alternatives, There
Speaker 1: are other ways to get a lot of that benefit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And to speak to your point, just kind of scientifically physiologically,
Speaker 1: what's happening in that moment is our body is still
Speaker 1: active in fight or flight, so asking it to stop, right,
Speaker 1: our mind races our body is agitated. Right. Our body
Speaker 1: isn't like you're saying that alignment. It isn't mapped onto
Speaker 1: a com peaceful moment like we're supposed to be having
Speaker 1: in meditation. Our body is actually sending signals to our mind,
Speaker 1: and our mind is going to try to interpret those
Speaker 1: signals in terms of alignment. That there's something very stressful,
Speaker 1: you know, happening at hand that I can't and shouldn't
Speaker 1: be you know, ultimately just just sitting here. And something
Speaker 1: else I just want to add to because I think
Speaker 1: this applies all of us that have health based anxiety,
Speaker 1: where we're already monitoring our bodies, our breath, our heart rate. Right,
Speaker 1: turning that focus and being told to listen to your heart,
Speaker 1: listen to your breathing, right, is just turning up the
Speaker 1: amplitude on Well, oh my gosh, it was my heart
Speaker 1: out of rhythm right now, I having a heart attack. Right.
Speaker 1: So for health anxiety in particular, that internal focus is
Speaker 1: actually we're too internally focus. So again, something else that
Speaker 1: came to mind while you're talking that I know is
Speaker 1: personally really helpful and continues to be a part of
Speaker 1: my journey is music. Putting in a headphone and for
Speaker 1: me just having and listening, not thinking thoughts and missing
Speaker 1: the song right tuning into the music, the melodies and
Speaker 1: how I'm feeling while I'm listening to that song was
Speaker 1: able to again give me that ground at presence. But
Speaker 1: I think it's important to understand why a lot of
Speaker 1: us can't sit still, can't stop silence feels you know, overwhelming.
Speaker 1: It's not because something's wrong with us, especially if you've
Speaker 1: heard me just talk about needing to have those moments
Speaker 1: of silence to reconnect with our heart and you know,
Speaker 1: using that distinction for a lot of us stopping silence,
Speaker 1: what no, thank you, And again, all of that is
Speaker 1: because our body doesn't feel safe. It's actually a nervous
Speaker 1: system state of regulation that allows us to be safely
Speaker 1: still and still connected to the world around us. So
Speaker 1: again really emphasizing everyone who's listening, was like, I can't
Speaker 1: sit still. I'm you know, I'm so relating to this
Speaker 1: idea of my thoughts are racing, I'm so uncomfortable in
Speaker 1: my body. That might be an indicator of really the
Speaker 1: importance of building in the consistency of that body practice,
Speaker 1: that regulation, so that you can stop sit find that safety. Right.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think I had an intuitive sense. The
Speaker 1: fact that it was so hard for me to sit
Speaker 1: still and do that pointed to it was important, right,
Speaker 1: Like something's not right here. I love what you said
Speaker 1: about music. Sometimes all start people on a meditation practice
Speaker 1: who were just struggling and just it does not working,
Speaker 1: or they don't like it, or I just say, pick
Speaker 1: a piece of instrumental music, pick one instrument and just
Speaker 1: follow it through the song. Follow one, and when your
Speaker 1: mind starts to wander, which of course it will do
Speaker 1: a hundred times, just go, well, what's that violin doing?
Speaker 1: And it's just another way of training the exact same muscles,
Speaker 1: but you're training them in a way that may feel
Speaker 1: a whole lot easier, safer, better. And I love what
Speaker 1: you're saying about changing our nervous system state takes a while.
Speaker 1: It's not as simple as being like, well back to
Speaker 1: what we've talked about. A lot is like you have
Speaker 1: to do these things again and again. You're not gonna
Speaker 1: sit down and go like all right, well, now I'm
Speaker 1: gonna follow my breath and my nervous system, which has
Speaker 1: been disregulated for forty years, is suddenly going to just
Speaker 1: get in line. Absolutely. And then what I think most
Speaker 1: of us come to the awareness of, and my hope
Speaker 1: for those who choose to purchase the workbook especially um
Speaker 1: that first section in terms of our physical habits, I
Speaker 1: was very intentional. Everything that I talked about, movement, rest,
Speaker 1: oxygen or or breath nutrients, all of that is actually
Speaker 1: necessary for our health of our nervous system. So back
Speaker 1: to these moments in time right where my lose access
Speaker 1: to my logical brain. I don't remember this breath work
Speaker 1: or whatever it is, this new thing I want to do.
Speaker 1: For a lot of us, it's because we don't have
Speaker 1: We're not feeding our nervous system the nutrients it needs.
Speaker 1: We're not resting and getting the amount of sleep. I
Speaker 1: know most you know humans really struggle, you know, in
Speaker 1: terms of sleeping. It's those daily habits that help us
Speaker 1: have the regulation more consistently so that in those moments
Speaker 1: we can do something different. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: us will come to find that the daily habits of
Speaker 1: how we're caring for our body, we're not in attunement
Speaker 1: with what our body actually needs, or for a million
Speaker 1: different reasons, we're not acting in attunement with what our
Speaker 1: body actually needs. You're describing some of these core things
Speaker 1: that our body needs, which very often end up being
Speaker 1: good habits that we want to develop, but they can
Speaker 1: be very difficult to develop for people. I know I
Speaker 1: need better sleep, but I'm not sleeping. Well, I know
Speaker 1: I need more movement, but I'm not moving, and and
Speaker 1: so we start to feel guilty again or or shameful.
Speaker 1: Is your advice really then, just sort of like, Okay,
Speaker 1: don't give up, Just shrink what you're trying to do
Speaker 1: down to what is manageable for where you are, and
Speaker 1: sort of in essence, start where you are. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think you know, starting in acceptance of that which we are,
Speaker 1: where things are right now is a suggestion that I
Speaker 1: offer for any aspect of our journey, especially if where
Speaker 1: especially as where we are right shifts and changes over time,
Speaker 1: and especially just something like sleep. There's so many complicated
Speaker 1: different factors that impact how we're sleeping that include our
Speaker 1: sleep routines, are sleep hours, a sunlight that we're getting
Speaker 1: or not getting first thing in the morning, whether or
Speaker 1: not our body is even in that rest and digest
Speaker 1: or that parasympathetic state as a name implies or offers.
Speaker 1: When our body is peaceful, calm, save then all of
Speaker 1: those systems of digestion. This is oftentimes why we have
Speaker 1: digestive issues. I lived probably almost three decades of my
Speaker 1: life with such severe constipation. Again a function of that
Speaker 1: constriction my digestion. Just like my body shut down, my
Speaker 1: digestion stopped. We could see the other end of the
Speaker 1: spectrum where we have IBS like symptoms. Same thing with rest.
Speaker 1: If my body is not in that parasympathetic state, if
Speaker 1: I'm in fight or flight laying in bed, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to be My body is not signaled that it's
Speaker 1: time to rest. So that means all of the work
Speaker 1: that we're talking about in terms of regulating our nervous
Speaker 1: system before that moment of getting into bed, hopefully after
Speaker 1: we've gotten morning sunlight and we're going to bed at
Speaker 1: an early enough hour that will give us enough time
Speaker 1: to fall asleep. Right, So complicated, So to speak to
Speaker 1: your point of small incremental changes, even something like changing
Speaker 1: our sleep habits, and my opinion, oftentimes doesn't happen overnight.
Speaker 1: We don't decide we need more sleep getting to bed,
Speaker 1: fall into a deep sleep, well, wake up, well rested
Speaker 1: tomorrow miraculously right. I just gave a litany of things
Speaker 1: that probably ought to need to happen to even prime
Speaker 1: something like sleep again. Movement also can become very complicated.
Speaker 1: Movement is one of those areas that, having been an
Speaker 1: athlete up until college, when I stopped and walked off
Speaker 1: that hung my cleats from that softball field. I outside
Speaker 1: of living in a city which I did have to
Speaker 1: commute to and from work because I didn't have a
Speaker 1: car walking, I wasn't in the gym. I avoid it
Speaker 1: physical discomfort just like I avoid it emotional discomfort. When
Speaker 1: I went to stretch when I want to pick up
Speaker 1: something heavy, if my muscle screened out, as they will
Speaker 1: do if you don't use them over time, I stopped
Speaker 1: doing that. So again, I think sometimes it sounds like
Speaker 1: such easy things, you know, sleep better, move but it's
Speaker 1: really understanding all of the different moving parts that have
Speaker 1: kept the stuck unable to do those things for so long,
Speaker 1: and then yes, making those small or incremental changes that
Speaker 1: probably aren't going to immediately allow us to sleep. One
Speaker 1: movement is probably not going to immediately write, release all
Speaker 1: the tension we've been carrying for years of our life
Speaker 1: and our body. Though it will be the beginning of
Speaker 1: a habit which over time will right. Right, It's that
Speaker 1: phrase I love. It's a Tanzanian proverb is little by little,
Speaker 1: a little becomes a lot. And whether that's for the
Speaker 1: positive or negative, right we're speaking to it. That's how
Speaker 1: things accumulate so little and often is really, you know,
Speaker 1: very good advice. Let's turn to a core practice that
Speaker 1: you have. You talk about consciousness being the foundation of transformation.
Speaker 1: You say that consciousness is awareness of our internal and
Speaker 1: external experience. But you've got a foundational practice called the
Speaker 1: daily consciousness check in, and you really suggest that this
Speaker 1: is something people do for a while to really get
Speaker 1: the hang of it and to really get what they
Speaker 1: can of it. So describe what that is. Absolutely. Consciousness
Speaker 1: in is setting the intention for beginning with at least
Speaker 1: one time during our waking day to spend that moment
Speaker 1: first checking in. And I often like to shout out
Speaker 1: the technology that most of us walk around with them
Speaker 1: holding up a phone for those can't, say, setting an
Speaker 1: alarm for some time during our waking day when typically
Speaker 1: We're going to be hard at our habits, right working
Speaker 1: doing whatever it is that we do at that particular time,
Speaker 1: And chances are, by the time our phone dings and
Speaker 1: I hear this often foundational course for anyone who in
Speaker 1: rolls in my membership the self Healer circle is awakened consciousness.
Speaker 1: And the first thing I'll hear is, oh, my gosh,
Speaker 1: my alarm went off, and I was shocked. I forgot
Speaker 1: I even said it, and I was too busy to
Speaker 1: do it, and I'll do it later. Right, That's that
Speaker 1: resistance in action though setting an alarm, setting a post it,
Speaker 1: what that is just doing is bringing to our conscious
Speaker 1: awareness this intention of doing something new, because otherwise, chances
Speaker 1: are we're just going to be marrying along unconsciously doing
Speaker 1: a thing we always do at that moment, in that context,
Speaker 1: at that time. So when that alarm goes off, we
Speaker 1: can do two things. The first thing is, first, just
Speaker 1: notice my alarm went off. Where was my attention? Was
Speaker 1: I really fully immersed in what I'm doing, whether it's
Speaker 1: a conversation with someone else, the work I'm doing alone,
Speaker 1: interacting with my children on my walk, or was my
Speaker 1: attention somewhere else rehashing the argument I had this morning
Speaker 1: worrying about the project right due tomorrow, or maybe you're
Speaker 1: like me, I don't know where I was. I'm just
Speaker 1: somewhere else on my spaceship. I'm not here, right, I'm
Speaker 1: just so disconnected. I'm not aware. When we come to
Speaker 1: the awareness that you're probably, like the large majority of us,
Speaker 1: are not fully immersed, present, conscious of what's happening. Now
Speaker 1: you can you said something very beautiful a couple of
Speaker 1: minutes ago, Eric, which is now? I can practice right,
Speaker 1: firing up an actual mental new space in my mind. Right,
Speaker 1: I can activate my conscious awareness. And the more consistently
Speaker 1: I do that, and once I realized my attention is
Speaker 1: not in my thinking mind, I'm not consciously present. Right,
Speaker 1: I can use the hook of the sensations happening around
Speaker 1: me like you suggest, Right, what can I see do?
Speaker 1: I can use the hook of my breath, turn that
Speaker 1: spotlight to oh, how's my body? My breath? Let me
Speaker 1: just pay attention to the next five breaths. Right, I
Speaker 1: can turn attention like we're talking about grounding. I can
Speaker 1: bring myself into awareness, and the more consistently I practice that,
Speaker 1: like the gym and I'm picking up those weights. I'm
Speaker 1: actually firing the hardware in my brain differently, And the
Speaker 1: more I strengthen now that connection, that neural network, the
Speaker 1: more likely it becomes that I have access to that
Speaker 1: in the future. So to speak to your point, I
Speaker 1: suggest that we do this until the consciousness check in,
Speaker 1: expanding the check in from one time a day to
Speaker 1: two times a day. The hope is that we can
Speaker 1: access that state of conscious any time we choose, that
Speaker 1: we can drop in and determine where our attention is
Speaker 1: and pull it back fully immersed in the present moment,
Speaker 1: at any time. So for many of us, that means
Speaker 1: weeks months of practicing this consistently so that you have
Speaker 1: access to it. To be clear, do not set an
Speaker 1: expectation right. Definitely suggest you don't set an expectation that
Speaker 1: you're all always conscious all the time. Right. Consciousness is
Speaker 1: a state where we can shift in and shift out
Speaker 1: of it. It's the ability to know how conscious we
Speaker 1: are and to bring ourselves back to conscious that we're
Speaker 1: building towards, because I do think some of us set
Speaker 1: up this unreal expectation that I'm fully conscious to every
Speaker 1: single thing that's happening. For me every second of every day,
Speaker 1: and that's just not going to be fully possible, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think any of us are getting all the
Speaker 1: way there. And I love that idea in the Spiritual
Speaker 1: Habits program. That's one of the core challenges we're trying
Speaker 1: to solve is we have these things that we know
Speaker 1: and believe to be important, but we just don't ever
Speaker 1: remember them because we're so busy and we're so on autopilot.
Speaker 1: So how do we actually interrupt that? You know, there's alarms?
Speaker 1: You know, we found a program we use I think
Speaker 1: it's called randomly Remind Me, and it will go off randomly, right,
Speaker 1: so you don't know when it's coming, it's just going
Speaker 1: to go off and and it's a great way of
Speaker 1: doing that. And you know, there are times that those
Speaker 1: things will go off where you legit to really probably
Speaker 1: can't pause, right, Like I'm in the middle of a
Speaker 1: power point presentation to twenty people in my company. I
Speaker 1: probably just need to ignore the alarm and carry on.
Speaker 1: But there are a lot more times than we think
Speaker 1: where we have a minute thirty seconds to reflect. And
Speaker 1: I love that basic idea of just what what is
Speaker 1: in my consciousness? Right? Now where is my attention because
Speaker 1: we start to learn some really foundational patterns. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know, for me, if it's not immersed in what
Speaker 1: I'm doing, it is eight percent of the time planning
Speaker 1: something or figuring something in the future out that's just
Speaker 1: where it goes. I don't tend to reflect backwards very much,
Speaker 1: but there are other people who will find I'm backwards
Speaker 1: all the time. So for me, that then gave me
Speaker 1: the sense of like what to kind of look for
Speaker 1: and what I wanted to correct for, which is like
Speaker 1: every once in a while, Eric, I mean, sure planning
Speaker 1: is important. You've got to do some of that, but
Speaker 1: not percent of the time. Yes, And to to speak
Speaker 1: to the point of the pause too. I think sometimes
Speaker 1: we're not aware of how much we can utilize time
Speaker 1: space distance right from something. We're so habitual picking up
Speaker 1: the phone right immediately upon a call or a text,
Speaker 1: or we have the idea that we need to respond
Speaker 1: or react to something immediately. And to speak to your point,
Speaker 1: you know, especially as we're beginning this work, as we're
Speaker 1: creating safety, to even tune into what it is and
Speaker 1: what I want pausing in real time and almost immediately
Speaker 1: choosing a new response, we might not have the clarity,
Speaker 1: the access, the knowing of what it is even that
Speaker 1: we need to do in those moments. So really utilizing
Speaker 1: space and time right communicating to the person who needs
Speaker 1: you or you know, seemingly needs something from you in
Speaker 1: that moment that you're not available until you have a
Speaker 1: moment and for some of us it might be a minute,
Speaker 1: two minutes, maybe it's a day or two to really
Speaker 1: figure out and a tune to where you are on
Speaker 1: and now. Of course this doesn't apply to immediate right,
Speaker 1: but more often than not, we're just so habitual that
Speaker 1: we're mid phone call and if we would have just
Speaker 1: hit pause, told person that we know, we're taking our
Speaker 1: own time and we'll get back to them before even
Speaker 1: negotiat or navigator here, what is the issue at hand
Speaker 1: to decide how available we are? And again I'm speaking
Speaker 1: from someone very externally oriented, always scanning, worrying about those
Speaker 1: around me. I never had that space, so boundaries limits.
Speaker 1: Creating space beyond just a pause in a given moment
Speaker 1: with the expectation that I know exactly what it is
Speaker 1: next that I want our need was unrealistic for me.
Speaker 1: I actually had to create some real space between myself
Speaker 1: my relationships, limiting certain interactions directly asking for time and
Speaker 1: space to figure myself out before I had that clarity
Speaker 1: to know what it is I needed to change next. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's really good. It makes me think about
Speaker 1: and I just did this earlier this morning with my partner.
Speaker 1: She was like, I want to share something with you,
Speaker 1: and I was like, right now is not the best moment. No,
Speaker 1: you can't do that all the time. But what I
Speaker 1: tend to do when I'm not being conscious is I
Speaker 1: half listen and have to do what I was actually
Speaker 1: doing at the moment, and then become irritated because my
Speaker 1: attention is split. So I found it way better to
Speaker 1: either say, yes, hang on, stop what I'm doing, turn
Speaker 1: my attention, or say right now is not a good
Speaker 1: time and we've done it enough between us where we
Speaker 1: actually mostly ask each other, is now an okay time?
Speaker 1: Because we both know that. You know our tendency is
Speaker 1: outward focused, so you know if you if you ask
Speaker 1: me something, I will give you all my attention, doesn't
Speaker 1: matter whether I really should or not in that moment.
Speaker 1: I love that example. Yeah, I'm totally relating. I was
Speaker 1: giggling a little bit eric, because I find myself faced
Speaker 1: with that. You know, those choices often and for me
Speaker 1: it's not even sometimes a serious I need to talk
Speaker 1: to you, or do you have space? Or I need
Speaker 1: to share something emotional from my partner. Sometimes it's excitement,
Speaker 1: um someone you know, partner to learn something new and
Speaker 1: they want to share this new, exciting thing with me.
Speaker 1: And I do feel again because of my conditioning, that
Speaker 1: deep rooted guilt, this idea or expectation that I should
Speaker 1: be always present, whether it's something joyful, exciting, curious, or
Speaker 1: something serious, And the reality of it is, like you're speaking,
Speaker 1: We're in different spaces, we have different wants and needs,
Speaker 1: and my inability or my choice not to be fully
Speaker 1: present in that moment might seem selfish, though ultimately that's
Speaker 1: best for the entire relationship because I may now choose
Speaker 1: to show up at a time where I can give
Speaker 1: my partner full presence. That's how we develop connection. That's
Speaker 1: all we really want is to be seeing the attempt
Speaker 1: of someone to understand what we're sharing in that moment.
Speaker 1: And when we're showing up with attention different places or
Speaker 1: maybe even secretly resentful that you want to share something
Speaker 1: with me now, can't you see I'm busy that bleeds
Speaker 1: out into the relationships. So sometimes the pause can be
Speaker 1: of best interest. Now we can both show up fully
Speaker 1: present to each other at a time that works for
Speaker 1: both parties. Yeah. I think that's so true, because that's
Speaker 1: what happens with me. I become resentful, and maybe resentfuls
Speaker 1: the wround world. I become irritated. Yes, Just last night
Speaker 1: on a walk, she was like, Hey, I was listening
Speaker 1: to this podcast and they were talking about this thing
Speaker 1: that you and I were talking about. You know, do
Speaker 1: you want to listen to it? And I just said
Speaker 1: not right now? Like now again we said earlier, there
Speaker 1: are times we make a decision to not do exactly
Speaker 1: what we want for the relationship, and there you know. So,
Speaker 1: I don't mean to make it sound like every time
Speaker 1: my partner comes to me, I'm like no, Um, I'm
Speaker 1: saying that anytime I do say no, I counted as
Speaker 1: a significant victory given where I come from, right, given
Speaker 1: my tendency to just be like, oh, you want me
Speaker 1: to listen to it, Okay, I'll listen to it, but
Speaker 1: i'll listen to it and I'll be irritated that you've
Speaker 1: asked me to listen to it instead of simply saying no.
Speaker 1: So it's just that sort of transparency. So let's move
Speaker 1: on to another practice that you talk about, which is
Speaker 1: self witnessing. What is self witnessing? Self witnessing is an
Speaker 1: extension of consciousness. I think oftentimes even the way we
Speaker 1: were describing consciousness was kind of a moment. Right in
Speaker 1: this acute moment, I'm paying attention to what's happening. Self
Speaker 1: witness we can think of, is expanding that practice so
Speaker 1: that in real time, because that's the reality is we
Speaker 1: always have access to that conscious state of awareness to
Speaker 1: be present to our internal and our external world. Our
Speaker 1: mind is always scanning down our body, you know, assessing
Speaker 1: the sensations how it's experiencing. Our mind is always scanning
Speaker 1: our external environment, our nervous system included our heart. Is
Speaker 1: how is this environment doing? All of that is, you know,
Speaker 1: contributing together to affect how I am being right. So
Speaker 1: when we can become a participant in view of all
Speaker 1: of those different things I described, the thoughts that are
Speaker 1: coloring or interpreting my experiences, the emotions that are you know,
Speaker 1: sensations in my body, the reaction that I feel myself
Speaker 1: compelled to say or do in this moment. Now I
Speaker 1: can begin to affect real change, to create transformation, because
Speaker 1: what we're really looking to do is to change again
Speaker 1: those consistent choices we're making, not just in one moment
Speaker 1: of time, throughout our day, where our habits are living
Speaker 1: in particular like we've just been discussing, in our relationships,
Speaker 1: where all of these interpersonal patterns are activated and old
Speaker 1: ways of protecting ourselves. So simply selfnessing is learning how
Speaker 1: to live in that active state of awareness. So I
Speaker 1: can readily at this point in my journey. You know,
Speaker 1: I can acknowledge what my common themes are, all of
Speaker 1: the meanings I like to assign to events in my
Speaker 1: particular world. My relationships are usually some version. And all
Speaker 1: this connects back to me not being worthy as a
Speaker 1: child of how I'm not considered, of how my needs
Speaker 1: aren't being considered, and less i'm considering or performing for
Speaker 1: someone else. I have clarity on that now because I've
Speaker 1: witnessed my internal world. I paid attention to the general
Speaker 1: thoughts narrating my day, and especially to the thoughts that
Speaker 1: we're coloring. Those highly emotional moments that we were talking about,
Speaker 1: and the clarity I got was a how repetitive my
Speaker 1: stories were generally in life, and how there was a
Speaker 1: particular theme in those moments of upset. Now I can
Speaker 1: understand why I want to scream and yell and become
Speaker 1: downright angry when I'm not feeling considered in that moment,
Speaker 1: when I'm feeling my need isn't being met, or I'm
Speaker 1: being violated right in a particular moment based on someone
Speaker 1: else's actions. So when I become a witness, a self witness,
Speaker 1: interestingly enough, this all kind of ties full circle into
Speaker 1: being responsible and an active participant and resentment faced outward
Speaker 1: at someone else. Now we can understand how, yeah, someone
Speaker 1: might have activated, said, done been a certain way, but
Speaker 1: really right the whole of my emotional experience existed within me.
Speaker 1: I interpret it in a certain way, whether or not
Speaker 1: it was reality or not. My hormones and emotions are
Speaker 1: streaming through my body in a certain way, usually based
Speaker 1: on again past interpretations of a similar situation, and my
Speaker 1: body feels compelled to react right in that same way. Now, yes,
Speaker 1: person was involved, However I maintain the responsibility to interpret
Speaker 1: it in a different way to respond in a different way.
Speaker 1: Right now, I can locate the control again back in myself.
Speaker 1: And all of that happens when we really do witness
Speaker 1: how much we are already participating sometimes outside bar awareness.
Speaker 1: What you just said there outside our awareness. I've heard
Speaker 1: some people say that, you know, so much of this
Speaker 1: healing journey is simply just bringing into awareness what is
Speaker 1: just outside of awareness. It's influencing us, it's affecting us,
Speaker 1: it's completely active, but it's below the line of consciousness
Speaker 1: and being able to bring it up. Well, I think
Speaker 1: that's why you say consciousness is so key to transformation. Yes, again,
Speaker 1: it gives us space to incorporate because, like you're saying,
Speaker 1: all of that's happening, all of that's being metabolized into
Speaker 1: the interpretation, the reaction, right, So it's bringing it up
Speaker 1: so that we can now begin to act, be regulate
Speaker 1: ourselves in an aligned state. So we're nearing the end
Speaker 1: of our time. But I want to talk about cycles
Speaker 1: of emotional addiction. What is the cycle of emotional addiction?
Speaker 1: Emotional addiction is typically the repetitive. Most of us can
Speaker 1: identify emotional experience or climate that we tend to embody
Speaker 1: So for me, as I've been dis ribing, it was
Speaker 1: very much anxiety. For some others it might be sadness, right.
Speaker 1: I've come to identify as sad as a depressed human.
Speaker 1: Maybe for others it's angry. Right. The consistent emotions that
Speaker 1: we revisit aren't intrinsically who we are um in my opinion, again,
Speaker 1: back to the wolf, the story that we began with,
Speaker 1: I believe we all at our core are compassionate, care
Speaker 1: and connect it loving humans and individuals. I believe that
Speaker 1: is a core aspect of us as humans ultimately, though
Speaker 1: again a lot of us aren't necessarily showing up in
Speaker 1: connection to that space. We're living all of these different
Speaker 1: habits again that have served us at a time at
Speaker 1: a place that isn't in connection with what we truly,
Speaker 1: truly you know, want need. So when we are recycling,
Speaker 1: when we do find ourselves always visiting a certain emotions
Speaker 1: are completely shut down to other emotions. The human experience
Speaker 1: is complex. We have the ability to experience, to process,
Speaker 1: to be with all different types of emotions, and when
Speaker 1: we typically are stuck in one again, it's usually a
Speaker 1: reflection of our early environment, of the habits and patterns
Speaker 1: of the thoughts that we've repeated causing the same emotional
Speaker 1: reactions in our body. And then what happens over time
Speaker 1: we become as I call it literally, neurophysiologically addicted. We
Speaker 1: only begin to feel or we only feel like ourselves
Speaker 1: when we're in that emotional state. So the way I
Speaker 1: noticed this in myself is again, my body was so
Speaker 1: primed and stress, it was so used to cortisol running
Speaker 1: through my my bloodstream, It was so locked in fight
Speaker 1: or flight that even being the self professed hippie looking
Speaker 1: for peace, not only was my body not able to
Speaker 1: calm down in that moment, it actually was so familiar
Speaker 1: with that experience of being up on edge, agitated, right
Speaker 1: almost alive with cortisol, that it began to interpret any
Speaker 1: experience of being peaceful, calm, not having racing thoughts as
Speaker 1: being not like myself as being that resistance to the
Speaker 1: unfirm filier. And again this will apply if it's sadness,
Speaker 1: if it's anger. What we can begin to do is
Speaker 1: self witness, become aware of what are the emotions we
Speaker 1: typically live in or revisit more often than not, and
Speaker 1: then again dropping in how are reinterpreting our events is
Speaker 1: their information below? Is there some need that's not being
Speaker 1: met in that moment that's continuing to revisit this and
Speaker 1: also again expanding an awareness that no one is a
Speaker 1: sad human intrinsically, No one, in my opinion, isn't angry
Speaker 1: human intrinsically. You might have lived the embodiment of life,
Speaker 1: might feel like that is all you've become, though again
Speaker 1: chances are that's a remnant of that past experience still
Speaker 1: living in your mind, embody, and ultimately this whole conversation,
Speaker 1: all of my work is aimed at creating consciousness and
Speaker 1: change in the moment, actually rewiring ourselves neurophysiologically as our
Speaker 1: brain and body can do at any age in life,
Speaker 1: so that we can give ourselves a new normal. That
Speaker 1: is a beautiful place to wrap up. Thank you so much, Nicole,
Speaker 1: This has been so fun. I have seventy five more
Speaker 1: questions that we're not gonna have time for today, so
Speaker 1: maybe we will do this another time, but thank you
Speaker 1: so much for coming on. And the book is called
Speaker 1: How to Meet Yourself, The Workbook for Self Discovery, and
Speaker 1: it really is a workbook where people can take lots
Speaker 1: of exercises and well have links to where people can
Speaker 1: get it in the show notes. Thank you, Thank you
Speaker 1: so much, Eric for your time, for your presence, for
Speaker 1: having these conversations with myself and other people. I truly,
Speaker 1: truly appreciate it. And yeah, the workbook is called how
Speaker 1: to Meet Yourself. I'm hoping that it is a living
Speaker 1: roadmap for people acknowledging that you know, our journeys are
Speaker 1: going to look different, They're gonna have different timelines. And
Speaker 1: my hope is that people live with this roadmap and
Speaker 1: take it along with their journey as we're all seeking
Speaker 1: to return home to who we truly are. Wonderful. Yea,
Speaker 1: if what you just heard was helpful to you, please
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