Speaker 1: As we feel differently based on the new habits or
Speaker 1: choices that we're creating. Nothing is, in my opinion, as
Speaker 1: motivating is that I don't care who's telling me how
Speaker 1: great they feel doing what they're doing. The most motivating
Speaker 1: thing to me has ever been when I feel.
Speaker 2: Differently welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great
Speaker 2: thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have,
Speaker 2: quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 2: you think, ring true, and yet for many of us,
Speaker 2: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 2: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 2: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 2: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 2: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 2: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 2: podcast is about how other people keep themselves from moving
Speaker 2: in the right direction, how they feed their good wealth.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is
Speaker 2: doctor Nicole Lepera, a holistic psychologist trained at Cornell University,
Speaker 2: the New School for Social Research, and the Philadelphia School
Speaker 2: of psychoanalysis. She's the founder of the global Community Healing
Speaker 2: Membership Self Healer Circle and the author of the number
Speaker 2: one New York Times bestseller How to Do the Work. Today,
Speaker 2: Eric and Nicole discuss her newest book, How to Be
Speaker 2: the Love You Seek, Break Cycles, and Fine Peace and
Speaker 2: Heal your Relationships.
Speaker 3: Hi, Nicole, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: Eric, it's great to have you on again. We're going
Speaker 3: to be discussing your latest book, which is called How
Speaker 3: to Be the Love You Seek, Break Cycles, Find Peace
Speaker 3: and Heal your Relationships. Before we get into that, we'll
Speaker 3: start like we always do, with the Parable. And in
Speaker 3: the Parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild
Speaker 3: and they say, in life, there are two wolves inside
Speaker 3: of us that are always at battle. One is a
Speaker 3: good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love,
Speaker 3: and the others a bad wolf, which represents things like
Speaker 3: greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops and
Speaker 3: they think about it for a second. They look up
Speaker 3: at their grandparent and they say, well, which one wins?
Speaker 3: And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd
Speaker 3: like to start off by asking you what that parable
Speaker 3: means to you in your life and in the work
Speaker 3: that you do.
Speaker 1: I think that the powerable really is in alignment to
Speaker 1: with much of what I talk about in my newest book,
Speaker 1: which is my belief in what I hear when I
Speaker 1: hear that beautiful powerable is that we contain, as humans right,
Speaker 1: a multitude of feelings, experiences, way of expressing ourself, and
Speaker 1: that which we give our attention, our effort. As you
Speaker 1: hear me speak quite often, that which are earliest environments
Speaker 1: and relationships imprint upon us becomes. Then that is the
Speaker 1: translation I think I would then offer in terms of
Speaker 1: what we feed, what we give our attention to, what
Speaker 1: choices we make then creates ultimately the experience our embodiment
Speaker 1: of those different parts of ourself, whether we're talking about
Speaker 1: the peace of love and the light and the compassion
Speaker 1: is again I talk a lot about in my new book,
Speaker 1: or the kind of darker side of the darker wolf.
Speaker 3: You say early in the new book, in order to
Speaker 3: emotionally connect with another person, you have to be emotionally
Speaker 3: connected with yourself. And to be emotionally connected with yourself,
Speaker 3: you have to be able to authentically feel and express
Speaker 3: your emotions say a little bit more about that core idea.
Speaker 1: I mean that core idea was so foundational for me
Speaker 1: and my own journey coming to the realization somewhere in
Speaker 1: my early thirties of how disconnected I had been yet
Speaker 1: at the same time having found myself in relationship after
Speaker 1: a relationship romantic partnership included to having friendships, I felt
Speaker 1: and the number one complaint you would have heard from
Speaker 1: my lips in the context of a relational argument or
Speaker 1: disagreement is how I didn't feel what I was looking for,
Speaker 1: you know, in terms of the emotional connection. I didn't
Speaker 1: feel emotionally close to the people I was with friendships included,
Speaker 1: I didn't feel safe, I didn't feel supported by them.
Speaker 1: And it took me again three plus decades to really
Speaker 1: acknowledge the role that I was playing in that disconnection
Speaker 1: because I had, I think, as many of us do,
Speaker 1: assumed I was picking the wrong person. It was some
Speaker 1: way they were showing up or not showing up that
Speaker 1: was contributing to the way I was feeling. Only to
Speaker 1: realize that in reality, I was so disconnected from my
Speaker 1: own emotional world that I was the one creating that
Speaker 1: felt distance and so just really generally speaking, the way
Speaker 1: we learn how to navigate our emotional worlds. What we
Speaker 1: learn emotions are, how we learn how to be present
Speaker 1: to them in our bodies, How to gain support or
Speaker 1: coregulation from another individual when the moments where we need
Speaker 1: it to be is a learning that happens in those
Speaker 1: earliest environments. So when we then translate that into relationship ships,
Speaker 1: what that simply means is how we learn to navigate
Speaker 1: our emotions in relation to another person becomes then the
Speaker 1: roadmap for how we continue to try to relate. So,
Speaker 1: just inserting me in that story, I learned a state
Speaker 1: of disconnection from a mother who was emotionally unavailable of
Speaker 1: no fault of her own, based on her own limitations
Speaker 1: and her own traumatic childhood herself. So what I learned
Speaker 1: was a state of disconnection that I then continue to
Speaker 1: repeat into my relationships. Then of course complaining about the
Speaker 1: experience I was co creating.
Speaker 3: So something I'm going to be doing a little more
Speaker 3: often is ask you, the listener, to reflect on what
Speaker 3: you're hearing. We strongly believe that knowledge is power, but
Speaker 3: only if combined with action and integration. So before we
Speaker 3: move on, I'd like to ask you what's coming up
Speaker 3: for you as you listen to this. Are there any
Speaker 3: things you're currently doing or feeding your bad wolf that
Speaker 3: might make sense to remove? Or any things you could
Speaker 3: do to feed your good wolf that you're not currently doing,
Speaker 3: so if you have the headspace for it, I'd love
Speaker 3: if you could just pause for a second and ask yourself,
Speaker 3: what's one thing I could do today or tonight to
Speaker 3: feed my good wolf? Whatever your thing is. A really
Speaker 3: useful strategy can be having something external, a prompt or
Speaker 3: a friend, or a tool that regularly nudges you back
Speaker 3: towards awareness and intentionality. For the past year, I've been
Speaker 3: sending little good Wolf reminders to some of my friends
Speaker 3: and community members, just quick, little SMS messages two times
Speaker 3: per week that give them a little bit of wisdom
Speaker 3: and remind them to pause for a second and come
Speaker 3: off autopilot. If you want, I can send them to
Speaker 3: you too. I do it totally for free, and people
Speaker 3: seem to really love them. Just drop your information at
Speaker 3: oneufeed dot net slash SMS and I can send them
Speaker 3: to you. It's totally free, and if you end up
Speaker 3: not liking the little reminders, you can easily opt out.
Speaker 3: That's one youfeed dot net slash sms. And now back
Speaker 3: to the episode. It's so interesting, at least in my experience,
Speaker 3: how much of an ongoing process that is, right, Like,
Speaker 3: I mean, I got sober at twenty four and was
Speaker 3: forced to take a pretty hard look at myself. And
Speaker 3: I had a divorce at twenty eight, which also caused
Speaker 3: me to do so, and so at that age I
Speaker 3: very quickly saw like that a lot of the problems
Speaker 3: in relationships were mine, and I did a lot of
Speaker 3: the type of work you're describing. I did a lot
Speaker 3: of dealing with childhood issues and looking at all that stuff,
Speaker 3: and you know, things got better, and then I would
Speaker 3: have another problem in a relationship and I would go
Speaker 3: back and look at those issues again.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: Even up till very recently, I kind of thought like,
Speaker 3: all right, you know, like I've done that work. I've
Speaker 3: kind of got that stuff safely packed away. And then
Speaker 3: I had some relationship things happen and I was like, oh, nope,
Speaker 3: there's still an awful lot of that there, right, And
Speaker 3: what I found for me is that what happens is
Speaker 3: that And my therapist described this and I thought was
Speaker 3: a useful way which was there is some level of
Speaker 3: distress at which those you know, if we want to
Speaker 3: call them traumatic experiences in mine are more like yours,
Speaker 3: the sort of neglect type thing, right, that there's some
Speaker 3: level of distress in which those things will always come up,
Speaker 3: but that the work that you've done over your time
Speaker 3: is that you've just increased that level. You're able to
Speaker 3: handle more and more distress and remain sort of you know,
Speaker 3: for lack of a better word, in your adult self.
Speaker 3: But if you get pushed too far, that's still going
Speaker 3: to come up. And that was a surprise for me
Speaker 3: to see it flare up, you know, so strongly in
Speaker 3: certain cases again relatively recently.
Speaker 1: I'm shaking my head very vigorously and a lot of
Speaker 1: alignment with what this therapist was sharing, and language I
Speaker 1: would then use to describe the context and when they
Speaker 1: come up is as our stress, right, what you're talking
Speaker 1: about this kind of window we want to expand our
Speaker 1: ability to tolerate more and more stress, allowing ourselves to
Speaker 1: at the same time while stress is happening. I do
Speaker 1: want to emphasize that because I think some of us
Speaker 1: are of the belief that we get to this place
Speaker 1: where there isn't stress or upset.
Speaker 4: No, that's present, yea.
Speaker 1: And what is also present at that time is around
Speaker 1: it state of what we could call responsiveness, right ability
Speaker 1: to decide to choose to be intentional about how we act.
Speaker 1: So what we do want to expand, like your why
Speaker 1: therapist acknowledge, is our window of tolerance or the amount
Speaker 1: of stress that we can tolerate without falling back into
Speaker 1: those habitual reactions. Because in childhood we were very adaptive,
Speaker 1: attuned creatures with the same nervous system that we have
Speaker 1: now that is attuned to the environment, needing to coregulate
Speaker 1: with the environment, that has then learned how to adapt
Speaker 1: to that environment.
Speaker 4: So we all have.
Speaker 1: An habitual or initiated by our nervous system I should say,
Speaker 1: has an habitual reaction to stress. And I'm emphasizing in
Speaker 1: the early state of childhood where this occurs, because I'll
Speaker 1: be the first to admit I can act a little
Speaker 1: bit immature in the sense of developmentally regressive in those
Speaker 1: reactive moments. Right, I'm screaming, I'm yelling, I'm saying things
Speaker 1: I don't mean, I'm storming off, I'm slamming doors quite
Speaker 1: like a little kid. Yeah, and I'm not saying anything
Speaker 1: derogatory about myself or listeners, because again, when stress is
Speaker 1: too much, we will rely on the earliest habitual ways
Speaker 1: that we once dealt with stress, which for a lot
Speaker 1: of us look like those moments of explosive reactivity or
Speaker 1: that shut down even if we want to connect instead
Speaker 1: of that more responsive state. So ultimately, yes, and I
Speaker 1: love that this conversation is coming up again because I
Speaker 1: think some of us either have the anticipation that healing
Speaker 1: means to be free of upsetting emotions, or have the
Speaker 1: expectation that having this awareness and maybe a little bit
Speaker 1: of practice in terms of regulating in ourself a new way,
Speaker 1: that that will erase all of these habitual patterns. Which
Speaker 1: is why I intentionally I love the science of things,
Speaker 1: and I very much map it onto neurophysiological or biological
Speaker 1: habits and patterns that are quite literally wired into us.
Speaker 1: So if you are listening and you have those expectations,
Speaker 1: those might be creating a whole lot of more complicated
Speaker 1: suffering in an already difficult journey. Though it is absolute
Speaker 1: posts because we can change, we can wire new habits
Speaker 1: and patterns, as neurophysiological pathways can be created at any time,
Speaker 1: regardless of our age, our biological age. So I want
Speaker 1: to emphasize that reality too. While it's hard to change,
Speaker 1: change can absolutely happen in any age.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. I mean I think I always say that's the
Speaker 3: good news and the bad news that change. The good
Speaker 3: news is you absolutely can change, and the bad news
Speaker 3: is it tends to take a lot of repetitions, right,
Speaker 3: it tends to take time. As you were talking, I
Speaker 3: was also thinking a little bit about the idea of
Speaker 3: sometimes viewing healing in a binary like either I'm healed
Speaker 3: or I'm not right, which is not a very helpful framework,
Speaker 3: at least it hasn't been for me. I can look
Speaker 3: back and be like, well, the person I was twenty
Speaker 3: five years ago, I am radically different than that person.
Speaker 3: But I'm still healing right, and there are days that
Speaker 3: are better than others. And I love what you say
Speaker 3: about the neurobiology of it, because I mentioned to get
Speaker 3: in divorce at twenty eight. When I started doing this
Speaker 3: childhood work, it was known as inner child work, and
Speaker 3: a lot of the language around it was extraordinarily cringey.
Speaker 3: To me. It just was I just had a hard
Speaker 3: time with it. But when I got like, oh, you
Speaker 3: just said it really really well, which was that when
Speaker 3: I am under a great deal of stress, I will
Speaker 3: relate to habitual patterns that I learned very very young,
Speaker 3: you know, Or, to be said slightly differently, when I'm
Speaker 3: under great emotional distress, my limbic system will be way
Speaker 3: more in control than my prefrontal cortex, which is actually
Speaker 3: able to choose from my values how I want to respond.
Speaker 3: And those ways of looking at it allowed me to
Speaker 3: then kind of go, all right, that's good, got it
Speaker 3: intellectually makes sense. Now I can start to express warmth
Speaker 3: to quote unquote that part of me, that child within.
Speaker 1: I appreciate our you sharing that, And I will admit
Speaker 1: I was shaking my head in affirmation because I too
Speaker 1: when beginning to read about the earliest inner child kind
Speaker 1: of conceptualizations, even the exercises that you know are often
Speaker 1: journaling prompts writing to my inner child, and you know,
Speaker 1: these visualizations I very much struggle to recall or cultimid
Speaker 1: my childhood. So that didn't feel like it was kind
Speaker 1: of a fruitful path. And I too felt like it
Speaker 1: was a little cringy. I've heard from a lot of
Speaker 1: members in the community who have mentioned almost an intentional commitment.
Speaker 1: I think this is another group of us where we
Speaker 1: do not want to. We kind of affirm ourselves that
Speaker 1: we are not going to look back to that childhood.
Speaker 1: It was too painful. And then, of course I think
Speaker 1: there's the group of us that are like, well, why
Speaker 1: do I need to right, I'm now decades beyond that.
Speaker 1: So I think understanding as you were able to do
Speaker 1: and and you know, share with us here, and as
Speaker 1: I kind of talk about, understanding the impact that our
Speaker 1: childhood has. Even if we don't want to look back,
Speaker 1: we are still creating and recreating our past experiences more
Speaker 1: often than not, specifically within our relationships, our patterns, the
Speaker 1: ways we show up well into our adulthood. And another
Speaker 1: thing I just want to touch into because it's so
Speaker 1: important and so wise. There is a difference between knowing
Speaker 1: this information, hearing this information that you and I are
Speaker 1: talking about, that you share weekly on your podcast, that
Speaker 1: is now in the pages of this book, if you
Speaker 1: choose to purchase it or what have you.
Speaker 4: That is different.
Speaker 1: Right Knowing is a separate step. I actually break those
Speaker 1: down into two steps of change. Having new information maybe
Speaker 1: ee a new awareness about ourselves. Maybe even seeing the
Speaker 1: old habit or pattern that I'm recreating, is that first
Speaker 1: step foundationally important allows me to get to that second
Speaker 1: step equally important, which is embodying. So now we're talking about,
Speaker 1: especially when we're talking about emotions and emotional regulation and
Speaker 1: the immature ways that many of us have habitually learned
Speaker 1: to navigate our emotions, we are now talking about embodying
Speaker 1: new choices, integrating our nervous system and our physical body
Speaker 1: that houses the emotions, and that window that we were
Speaker 1: sharing about earlier of stress tolerance is an embodied practice
Speaker 1: of stressing our body out little by little, and of
Speaker 1: intentionally then teaching ourselves or helping our body come back
Speaker 1: in to come regulation. I emphasize that point because I
Speaker 1: think a lot of us get stuck in that abyss. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I worked with a lot of clients, so it's
Speaker 1: so much of that awareness. Oh, I know, I'm almost
Speaker 1: torturing myself daily as I'm watching myself not be able
Speaker 1: to break those habits and patterns, that it won't be
Speaker 1: able to break them unless we create a new habit
Speaker 1: and pattern, which is an embodied action.
Speaker 3: I think there's a really key thing in there because
Speaker 3: you know, I talk a lot about knowledge is power,
Speaker 3: but only if it's followed by like integration and action.
Speaker 3: But you have a step in there that I think
Speaker 3: is important, right, that I'm often not hitting on directly.
Speaker 3: And it was after I sort of read your book
Speaker 3: and went back through it again that I really sort
Speaker 3: of was like, I think that what you're saying here,
Speaker 3: and it makes a lot of sense, because I would
Speaker 3: say that, you know, the theme of the book is
Speaker 3: that you know, you've got to connect with yourself and
Speaker 3: that our earliest relationships influence that. But I would say
Speaker 3: that the next biggest thing I took away from the
Speaker 3: book was that learning to regulate our nervous system is
Speaker 3: a really important piece to actually be able to apply
Speaker 3: the things right. Even if I know the idea, if
Speaker 3: I am severely disregulated, I can't apply it no matter
Speaker 3: how much I want right. And so you know, your
Speaker 3: book really focuses on that aspect a lot. So say
Speaker 3: more about that.
Speaker 1: You are beautifully using even the language yourself when you
Speaker 1: brought up our limbic system, the very emotional part of
Speaker 1: our brain. Of course I'm very simplified this neurology. And
Speaker 1: then of course the prefrontal cortex, frontal lobe, the place
Speaker 1: of ground it mature forward thinking, right, the space that's
Speaker 1: able to imagine a future that is different than the
Speaker 1: past that many of us have been repeating and make
Speaker 1: choices into that direction. So that, I think is a
Speaker 1: very important kind of understanding those two parts of our mind.
Speaker 1: I sh'd say, if we can really simply understand what
Speaker 1: happens when we meet something that's stressful or upsetting, and
Speaker 1: our nervous system becomes activated and our attention right goes
Speaker 1: to survival, meaning physiologically, all of our systems now are
Speaker 1: running full focus on survival. My heart is pumping, my
Speaker 1: blood is pumping, my breath is quickening, my energy is mobilizing.
Speaker 1: So I could overcome the thread if it's possibly at
Speaker 1: hand and my attention is narrowing to the thread at hand,
Speaker 1: and within kind of the thread at hand is also
Speaker 1: in my subconscious mind. The learned behavior, the thing that
Speaker 1: I habitually repeated over time, right, those habitual reactions that
Speaker 1: we're talking about. So what happens when you and I
Speaker 1: are having a conversation. When I was working with clients,
Speaker 1: when I did one on one individual therapy work that
Speaker 1: I was doing. We were having a conversation going back
Speaker 1: to those parts of the brain right seemingly from the
Speaker 1: very powerful forward thinking prefrontal cortex. And then as stress
Speaker 1: happens outside the office door, right as activation, and my
Speaker 1: body gets stimulated, and then my focus goes right back
Speaker 1: to whatever is immediately at hand, meaning I lost focus
Speaker 1: of the conversation, I lost the intention of the new
Speaker 1: future action that I want to repeat. And for a
Speaker 1: lot of us, we lose the ability because we are
Speaker 1: too overwhelmed in that moment. And now our body is
Speaker 1: operating solely based on our survival, because what it thinks
Speaker 1: is happening. Even if what we're navigating is, say an
Speaker 1: interpersonal conflict and argument between me and someone else, what
Speaker 1: our body thinks is happening is a moment of life
Speaker 1: or death survival. So right, thinking about a future and
Speaker 1: trying something new in this moment is going to be
Speaker 1: the farthest thing that our body is going to instruct
Speaker 1: us to do, which is why we continue, maybe some
Speaker 1: of us, even shamefully, I can admit I can almost
Speaker 1: be hovering above myself in some moments, and I watch
Speaker 1: myself say something I don't mean. I watch myself do
Speaker 1: something I don't mean to do, and it's almost like
Speaker 1: I'm hovering like, no, don't do that, right, And then
Speaker 1: I feel guilty. We feel shameful, we feel broken, We
Speaker 1: wonder why we can't create change, and because literally we
Speaker 1: do lose access to the idea to create change, and
Speaker 1: then many of us to the resources or the ability
Speaker 1: to create change because we've become overwhelmed. And of course
Speaker 1: we're not going to be on making choice because newness
Speaker 1: is only more stress to my already overwhelmed nervous system
Speaker 1: in that moment.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 3: And so would you say that a key piece of
Speaker 3: this then is learning to regulate our nervous system in
Speaker 3: moments of more minor stress, right because obviously I think
Speaker 3: we all know the experience of like, you know, we're
Speaker 3: all told like, well, when you're really upset, take a
Speaker 3: few deep breaths. And I'm not saying that's not good,
Speaker 3: of course it is, right, But if I haven't practiced
Speaker 3: that as a skill, right when I'm at a ten,
Speaker 3: it's like bringing, as they used to say, like a
Speaker 3: you know, a knife to a gunfight, right, Like it
Speaker 3: just isn't going to work, right, So trying it maybe
Speaker 3: when I'm at a four, I.
Speaker 1: Think the first indirect step right to get to that
Speaker 1: place of even answering the question when right when do
Speaker 1: I practice? I would make a case that there's two
Speaker 1: steps in terms of our nervous system and the work
Speaker 1: that will translate then too, these responsive moments that many
Speaker 1: of us are looking to create, And the first step
Speaker 1: I would say is a daily commitment to just reconnecting
Speaker 1: with our body and our nervous system cues, in particular
Speaker 1: noticing even as you're listening right now to me talk
Speaker 1: right if I were to just ask you right to
Speaker 1: just tune into your body while you're listening to me
Speaker 1: talk right now, and just do a quick scan from
Speaker 1: top to bottom, maybe noticing the tension in your muscles.
Speaker 1: Are you holding, is there clenching? Is there areas of
Speaker 1: constriction and tightness, or do your muscles feel more or
Speaker 1: less at ease, ready to mobilize you into action should
Speaker 1: you need it, Or do you feel so depleted of
Speaker 1: energy and your muscles feel so weak and they couldn't
Speaker 1: carry you into action if you needed it. Maybe noticing
Speaker 1: your breath. Our breath is another marker of the amount
Speaker 1: of stress our body is under Are you able to
Speaker 1: breathe deep and evenly and calmly from your belly?
Speaker 4: Are you holding your breath? Is your breath really quick?
Speaker 4: And is it shallow? Your heart rate?
Speaker 1: Again, that kind of shifts in tandem with our breath
Speaker 1: and our energy system right or with our heart rate
Speaker 1: elevating sometimes as we become more or stressed or more upset.
Speaker 1: So these are markers the more consistently I'm connected to
Speaker 1: my body, which for a lot of us, for me,
Speaker 1: the focal point. My number one commitment for probably about
Speaker 1: the first six to maybe even twelve months of my
Speaker 1: healing journey. Every day I wrote in my journal and
Speaker 1: commit it throughout the day to not doing all of
Speaker 1: these tools that you know I talk about daily. My
Speaker 1: only intention was be present in my body, take the
Speaker 1: focus away from my worrying about other people, take the
Speaker 1: focus away from endlessly thinking about myself and analyzing myself,
Speaker 1: and just learn how to refocus my attention on my body.
Speaker 1: And again I emphasize that foundational piece of paying attention
Speaker 1: to our body, those nervous system markers in particular, because
Speaker 1: eric that then translates to us knowing as we're inching
Speaker 1: up that stress scale, because some of us aren't even
Speaker 1: realizing how much tension and stress we're carrying when we're already.
Speaker 4: At a six or seven.
Speaker 1: So then it does take that one you know, stressful
Speaker 1: event or something outside of our expectation or you know,
Speaker 1: and now we are in that reactive state. So I
Speaker 1: spend time on that foundational step, because that I think
Speaker 1: gets overstepped a lot, right with this idea that oh,
Speaker 1: I will just remember and do this thing in the moment,
Speaker 1: I'll know when I'm stressed out. I need to even
Speaker 1: use these intentional tools. That awareness and possibility only comes
Speaker 1: when we're spending at least some part of our day
Speaker 1: paying attention to our body. And then of course we
Speaker 1: can begin to make those intentional choices to regulate our
Speaker 1: nervous system to amplify our energy if we're feeling so
Speaker 1: depleted of energy, to decrease our energy if we're feeling
Speaker 1: too overstimulate. Of course, I'm really simplifying. I go much
Speaker 1: more in depth in my book and all of the
Speaker 1: content that I talk about really generally, but just giving
Speaker 1: us idea of what we mean when we're talking about
Speaker 1: the nervous system foundationally be connected to the body. Allows
Speaker 1: me to determine where my stress level is and then yes,
Speaker 1: more specifically answer your question. It is so important to
Speaker 1: practice consistently, especially outside of those moments where I'm at
Speaker 1: that seven or that eight, so that when I increase
Speaker 1: my stress and I get to those moments, I a
Speaker 1: have access to this new choice and I can apply
Speaker 1: in a way that will feel like you were saying, two, three, five,
Speaker 1: belly breasts when I'm already kind of at a ten
Speaker 1: or eleven of overwhelm are probably not going to do much.
Speaker 1: Then when we practice all of this together, then we
Speaker 1: can start to see and experience the shift. Yep.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I do think that there's a lot of
Speaker 3: really important points in what you just said. And I
Speaker 3: think it's also important to recognize that because what I
Speaker 3: do see happen sometimes is we wait until these really
Speaker 3: difficult moments to practice it doesn't work, and then we
Speaker 3: assume that none of these practices work. We give up
Speaker 3: on the method right because we're like, well, I did
Speaker 3: what they said and it didn't work right. And so
Speaker 3: I think that's the bigger danger obviously than the fact
Speaker 3: that the breast didn't calm you down in that situation.
Speaker 3: The bigger one is that you abandon believing there is
Speaker 3: a way to get there.
Speaker 1: Emphasize that danger because I think for many of us
Speaker 1: that just either creates or contributes to end strengthens a
Speaker 1: feeling and a belief that many of us have within
Speaker 1: us around powerlessness, you know. And I think that when
Speaker 1: we do, you know, have those moments and the things
Speaker 1: that people are telling us don't work, and they don't
Speaker 1: work for us for a lot of us, this is
Speaker 1: just further confirmation of how nothing may right. We go
Speaker 1: right to that place of well, nothing is going to
Speaker 1: work right, there's something inherently broken or different about me
Speaker 1: that it's not working for me, yet it's working for
Speaker 1: all these people, And now before I know it, I
Speaker 1: feel more helpless, I feel more powerless.
Speaker 4: So I appreciate you speaking to that.
Speaker 1: And I'm always the first to admit I'm never going
Speaker 1: to you know, sell someone a magic elixir, because I've
Speaker 1: yet to find it myself, you know. And I'm always
Speaker 1: going to be the first to acknowledge the reality of
Speaker 1: the repetition that is needed, of what you know it
Speaker 1: really does take. And I will be the first to
Speaker 1: acknowledge right here, right now that you know one, two
Speaker 1: small practices, five deep belly breasts here, and they are
Speaker 1: really are going to be limited unless we kind of
Speaker 1: look at the whole picture. And when we do, I mean,
Speaker 1: then the amount of change, in my opinion, is incredible,
Speaker 1: is life changing.
Speaker 3: I have a program called Habits that Matter, and the
Speaker 3: core ideas that we can use the science and behavior
Speaker 3: change to optimize for wisdom rather than just productivity or efficiency.
Speaker 3: But the heart of the program is really this idea
Speaker 3: of little by a little becomes a lot, like that's
Speaker 3: the whole thing, but little by infrequent it doesn't do
Speaker 3: it right. I'm not saying like every single time you
Speaker 3: practice without ever missing. I just mean that these things
Speaker 3: add up over time. They really do. And so it's
Speaker 3: not the way most of us orient towards change. We
Speaker 3: orient towards the epiphany, or we orient towards the scene
Speaker 3: in the movie where the person has an insight and
Speaker 3: then a minute later in the movie they have a
Speaker 3: brand new life. Right, Whereas those of us that I
Speaker 3: think have spent a lot of time around this world
Speaker 3: know that like, well, that's pretty rare.
Speaker 1: I want to also speak to you acknowledging right that
Speaker 1: there will be times when we don't maybe keep our
Speaker 1: commitment stay in creation or maintaining maintenance of the new habit.
Speaker 1: And I would make a case that not only is
Speaker 1: that inevitable. Yeah, And again we're somewhat indirectly and if
Speaker 1: not directly, talking about our nervous system, I'll offer right here,
Speaker 1: because our nervous system, why it is wired to.
Speaker 4: Create and allow us to create an.
Speaker 1: Incredible amount of opportunity, difference evolution, it does perceive and
Speaker 1: experience newness as stressful. Inherently, Yeah, So inherently, even if
Speaker 1: we could kind of say like, oh, well, these habits
Speaker 1: are objectively, you know, beneficial to me, does it matter
Speaker 1: to my nervous system because they're still simply new and
Speaker 1: therefore stressful. Again, this is kind of what we were
Speaker 1: talking about when we began our conversation. Those habits, the
Speaker 1: habitual way we've been living. Habits exist outside of these
Speaker 1: emotionally reactive moments. I mean, habits carry us through our day,
Speaker 1: from the way we care for our physical body to
Speaker 1: the emotional habits as we were talking about.
Speaker 4: Then we have.
Speaker 1: Habits in all of these areas. So when we go
Speaker 1: to change a habit, right, it is going to probably
Speaker 1: result in us not just keeping that commitment or that.
Speaker 4: New choice consistently.
Speaker 1: Over time, we will probably fall back, typically when stress
Speaker 1: is high, into those old habits. And what I see
Speaker 1: those kind of backslides or whatever we want to call those,
Speaker 1: those moments where I'm not continuing forward in creation.
Speaker 4: Of new habits.
Speaker 1: I see those moments as a beautiful opportunity to create
Speaker 1: or over time that contribute, I should say to the
Speaker 1: rebuilding of self trust, because I can't tell you how many,
Speaker 1: whether it was days I stopped habits that I knew
Speaker 1: were beneficial to me. And I think this is another
Speaker 1: piece as I'm saying, and I want to voice here
Speaker 1: as well, as we feel differently based on the new
Speaker 1: habits or choices that we're creating. Thing is, in my
Speaker 1: opinion as motivating is that I don't care who's telling
Speaker 1: me how great they feel doing what they're doing. The
Speaker 1: most motivating thing to me has ever been when I
Speaker 1: feel differently, when I have started to care for my
Speaker 1: body in a new way that has allowed me to
Speaker 1: get my sleep in a order.
Speaker 4: I'm eating nutrient.
Speaker 1: Dense foods, and so now I have a contrast, Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, I have more energy.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, I can think clearer.
Speaker 1: Right now, I feel what those old habits and I
Speaker 1: can feel the contrast in those new habits. So now
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter who I read that tells me that
Speaker 1: these new habits are beneficial to me, because now I
Speaker 1: have that contrast to compare. So I'm saying that to say,
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how many times I've fallen off
Speaker 1: of habits, even ones that I've known.
Speaker 4: I have the data in my own lived experience of
Speaker 4: these work.
Speaker 1: I've fallen off for days, I've fallen off for weeks,
Speaker 1: for kind can acknowledge. I've probably complain to him when
Speaker 1: I'm in busy seasons. Sometimes I can fall off for
Speaker 1: a long period of time, one habit, two habits, I
Speaker 1: only do kind of one thing and I forget everything
Speaker 1: else in the morning, and what that is done. The
Speaker 1: opportunity tunity, what I'm sharing, then, is to re engage habits.
Speaker 1: Once we've fallen off the wagon, however long that wagon
Speaker 1: might have been, is an opportunity, in my opinion, to
Speaker 1: rebuild that trust right, Because I do think some of
Speaker 1: us put this expectation, and I see this all the
Speaker 1: time in my online community and the relief when I
Speaker 1: acknowledge myself even hey, I don't do it all the
Speaker 1: time myself.
Speaker 4: The relief is palpable.
Speaker 1: Because I think a lot of us put this expectation
Speaker 1: that we do it perfectly. The second we know we
Speaker 1: need to create a new habit, we consistently engage this habit,
Speaker 1: even if it's logically appropriate for us, because now why
Speaker 1: wouldn't we, right, And we create all of these shameful
Speaker 1: experiences around the natural difficulty of creating a new habit,
Speaker 1: which is why I'm always the first to say, throw
Speaker 1: out that expectation of perfection.
Speaker 4: You will fall back into old habits.
Speaker 1: And the gift again that it has given me is
Speaker 1: now I have a level of confidence. Right, I could
Speaker 1: be sitting here in a moment away from my habits
Speaker 1: forever long it's been. I now know what I need
Speaker 1: to do, how I feel when I do it, and
Speaker 1: that gives me them the option possibility of making a
Speaker 1: choice to return to those.
Speaker 4: Habits that create that experience for me at any time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are so many things you said in there
Speaker 3: that are important. I love that idea of it gives
Speaker 3: you a sense of self trust, right, because like you,
Speaker 3: I've worked with a lot of people. I did a
Speaker 3: lot of coaching with people around behavior change, and that
Speaker 3: was one of the most you know, what I often
Speaker 3: thought was the worst part of their inability to make
Speaker 3: the changes they wanted to make. Worse than the fact
Speaker 3: that they weren't exercising or whatever it was, was their
Speaker 3: ability to not trust themselves. The damage that it did
Speaker 3: to their psyche of why do I keep failing at this? Right,
Speaker 3: and so go to great pains to stress like we're
Speaker 3: going to make some progress and inevitably it's all going
Speaker 3: to fall apart, right, it is absolutely going to happen.
Speaker 3: So what we want to do is think about what
Speaker 3: are we going to do? Then how are we going
Speaker 3: to respond, you know, and what way can we respond
Speaker 3: that has the least amount of drama and self flagellation
Speaker 3: because that perpetuates the cycle, right, that feeds the belief
Speaker 3: while I can't really do this, I'm not the kind
Speaker 3: of person that sticks with anything, you know. And then
Speaker 3: also getting clear on what to success is like to me,
Speaker 3: if it's a behavior I'm trying to do daily, like
Speaker 3: I consider myself successful at like eighty five percent, Like
Speaker 3: if I'm upwards of that I'm like, perfect, that's great,
Speaker 3: and I'm not always even there, But intentionally I'm like,
Speaker 3: I'm not going to do it every day. It's just
Speaker 3: not going to happen given the nature of my life.
Speaker 3: So let me not even you know, think that that's
Speaker 3: the bar.
Speaker 4: Two thoughts I'm having.
Speaker 1: This one is kind of starting with the Lassis idea
Speaker 1: of flexibility, because I do think, you know, anytime we're
Speaker 1: operating or making choices from something separate from our deeper intuition,
Speaker 1: meaning how I feel in this given moment.
Speaker 4: Anytime we say, oh, well this is.
Speaker 1: My nutrition and routine, I do it every day, doesn't
Speaker 1: matter what That to me is always a little bit
Speaker 1: of a call that into a little bit of question,
Speaker 1: well what about the days where your body needs more
Speaker 1: of something or less of something else?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: So, then is there one program that applies to every
Speaker 1: day with all the different hormonal, seasonal, energetic shifts that
Speaker 1: we as individual humans experience. And so I can make
Speaker 1: a case that for most things, if not all things,
Speaker 1: this idea of a universal, one size fits all everyday model.
Speaker 1: I could give you categories of things that I think
Speaker 1: could be helpful through in a given day, and then
Speaker 1: I give a range of flexibility to honor the individual
Speaker 1: that is living inside the body that might have different
Speaker 1: needs in that area in any given moment.
Speaker 4: That piece I think.
Speaker 1: Around flexibility is so important and just wrapping back into
Speaker 1: as well when we talk about shaming and criticizing, because
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree, I think the most suffering that we
Speaker 1: cause ourselves, I should say, is that lack of trust,
Speaker 1: the resilience and the lack of trust, and then all
Speaker 1: of the habits that have been created around our inability
Speaker 1: to be attuned and centered in ourself and childhood because
Speaker 1: no one taught us or we're able to show up
Speaker 1: in that presence for ourself right, it has created I think,
Speaker 1: you know, for so many of us, all of these
Speaker 1: different habitual ways that are neglectful, that are self harming,
Speaker 1: that lack trust in ourselves. So when now we're trying
Speaker 1: to do something productive and helpful and change ourself right
Speaker 1: in the direction of a future that we want to
Speaker 1: see if it's possible, nothing is so devastating when then
Speaker 1: that critical voice. So what I want to say here
Speaker 1: is most of us have a critical voice in our minds.
Speaker 1: So again this is another area where if we're going
Speaker 1: to expect in those moments where I decide not to
Speaker 1: do the things that I know are good for me.
Speaker 1: If we're going to expect immediately that that voice is
Speaker 1: going to vanish, we are possibly setting ourselves up for
Speaker 1: disappointment because that voice, right, those beliefs that are represented
Speaker 1: and the thoughts running through my mind have been verified
Speaker 1: by our lived experience at one time when I didn't
Speaker 1: show up in service of myself because no one taught
Speaker 1: me how, and then I continue not to learn how,
Speaker 1: so that voice will likely be there. The most empowering
Speaker 1: choice we can make in that moment when we notice
Speaker 1: that voice and how much attention we're paying to that
Speaker 1: voice is how much attention we choose to continue to
Speaker 1: give to that voice. So what I want to say
Speaker 1: here in practicality is if in those moments where we're
Speaker 1: beating ourselves up, whether it's because we missed habits that
Speaker 1: we want to create, or whatever the reason may be,
Speaker 1: the voice may come probably will come. Doesn't mean anything
Speaker 1: shameful about you in that moment, just means it's the
Speaker 1: practice voice that's usually there to narrate this particular type
Speaker 1: of event. You can empower yourself in that moment by
Speaker 1: noticing the voice and by removing your focus and paying
Speaker 1: attention to anything else, to your breath, to what's happening
Speaker 1: in the moment. But the less we give attention to
Speaker 1: that voice, the less now moving forward, we're going to
Speaker 1: continue to strengthen it. Because again I think this is
Speaker 1: another area where we expect immediate results. Oh, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: change my belief overnight, so those thoughts are going to
Speaker 1: go away. I'm going to immediately feel different.
Speaker 4: And when that doesn't happen, this must not work.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: When in reality, right, these are the practical behind and
Speaker 1: seed steps. It works, but not immediately overnight. It works
Speaker 1: in those moments when I remove my focus of attention
Speaker 1: from that thought so that over time that neural network weakens.
Speaker 1: It happens then when I consistently now fire up a
Speaker 1: new thought that can begin to plant itself as a
Speaker 1: new belief in addition to not just awareness and thought
Speaker 1: like we were talking about earlier, when I embody new
Speaker 1: choices that now are in alignment with the feelings that
Speaker 1: go in attachment right with that belief. So now I'm
Speaker 1: creating the story of when change happens absolutely somewhere down
Speaker 1: the line, but it's not going to happen immediately.
Speaker 4: That voice isn't going to vanish.
Speaker 1: So I'd just like to give the practical application of
Speaker 1: how we then get there.
Speaker 3: Yep, yep, that's great. I'd like to turn a little
Speaker 3: bit and talk about We talked a little bit about it,
Speaker 3: this embodied self idea. But you make a point in
Speaker 3: the book, and it's a good one that sometimes our
Speaker 3: thoughts are than by our nervous system. Right. The popular
Speaker 3: psychology idea of cognitive behavioral therapy says, right that my
Speaker 3: thoughts cause emotions, and I think we all can see
Speaker 3: examples of where that is true.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: There are times I have a thought and it is
Speaker 3: a thought that is distressing, and after I have it,
Speaker 3: I suddenly feel bad. Right, So that seems obvious, but
Speaker 3: I think what is less obvious but equally true, is
Speaker 3: that our emotions or our nervous system drive thoughts. To
Speaker 3: say this practically, right, Like, I didn't sleep well last night,
Speaker 3: so for whatever reason, you know a couple of different things,
Speaker 3: I just didn't sleep really well. And I know that
Speaker 3: when that happens, my thoughts just have a slightly darker
Speaker 3: hue to them, right, And there doesn't seem to be
Speaker 3: much I can do about it except go, oh yeah,
Speaker 3: all right, well there's those thoughts. You know, I know
Speaker 3: what's causing them, right, But I mean, I think that
Speaker 3: took me a long time to figure that out. It
Speaker 3: took me a long time to recognize that this is
Speaker 3: a bi directional thing here.
Speaker 4: It took and it's still taking. In my opinion, this
Speaker 4: obviously is in the statement on my field.
Speaker 1: It is taking quite some time even I think for
Speaker 1: the field of clinical psychology itself to evolve that framework,
Speaker 1: because that is not what I had been taught when
Speaker 1: I was actively in my program. It very much was.
Speaker 1: While my program wasn't just focused solely on CBT or
Speaker 1: cognitive behavior as the gold standard. I went to a
Speaker 1: program in New York, so I learned interpersonal therapy and
Speaker 1: other types of modality, so thankfully it wasn't as limited.
Speaker 1: Though even at that time, there was little, if any
Speaker 1: talk of the body outside of the fact that, yes,
Speaker 1: we have a nervous system.
Speaker 4: It connects our brain in our spinal cord, and really
Speaker 4: that's all you have to know about that.
Speaker 1: And so I too lacked, not only personally in my
Speaker 1: own awareness, in my own experiences, in my own relationships,
Speaker 1: in my professional work with the clients I was seeing
Speaker 1: I didn't have, in my opinion, which is the most
Speaker 1: foundationally important part, if not half right, of our human experience,
Speaker 1: which is our body. Because I could even make a
Speaker 1: case I really appreciate you using yourself and that lived
Speaker 1: example of waking up in the morning's feeling tired, because
Speaker 1: I could call to question then at least it's like
Speaker 1: the ticket or the thing which came first, because what
Speaker 1: was happening right in your body as the hours of
Speaker 1: the night, we're progressing when you weren't in that restive, restorative,
Speaker 1: replenishing state of sleep.
Speaker 4: Right you're up and your body's energetic resources are being drained.
Speaker 1: So you woke up in a state, in a physiological
Speaker 1: state that we could then say, now that we acknowledge
Speaker 1: that it's not just the mind, the brain sending instructions
Speaker 1: down and we don't just march along, our body is
Speaker 1: equally sending. Actually, our nervous system has more nerves that
Speaker 1: send information from our periphery to our brain, from our
Speaker 1: body to our brain, to s imply it than from
Speaker 1: our brain to our body. So to me, that indicates
Speaker 1: the importance and the sheer mass amount of this information
Speaker 1: that my brain is considering. Say now back to you
Speaker 1: in the morning, your brain and your mind was getting
Speaker 1: physiological information. So it could be then said that your
Speaker 1: thoughts were dark in reflection of the state of your body,
Speaker 1: absolutely overstressed under resource right, and so similar, and that
Speaker 1: I think is the case that very few of us
Speaker 1: are aware is happening all the time.
Speaker 3: So listener, consider this. You're halfway through the episode integration reminder.
Speaker 3: Remember knowledge is power, but only if combined with action
Speaker 3: and integration. It can be transformative to take a minute
Speaker 3: to synthesize information rather than just ingesting it in a
Speaker 3: detached way. So let's collectively take a moment to pause
Speaker 3: and reflect. What's your one big insight so far and
Speaker 3: how can you put it into practice in your life? Seriously,
Speaker 3: just take a second, pause the audio and reflect. It
Speaker 3: can be so powerful to have these reminders to stop
Speaker 3: and be present. Cant it. If you want to keep
Speaker 3: this momentum going that you built with this little exercise,
Speaker 3: I'd encourage you to get on our Good Wolf Reminders
Speaker 3: SMS list. I'll shoot you two texts a week with
Speaker 3: insightful little prompts and wisdom from podcast guests. They are
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Speaker 3: your life, and they're a helpful way to not get
Speaker 3: lost in the busyness and forget what is important. You
Speaker 3: can join at oneufeed dot net slash sms and if
Speaker 3: you don't like them, you can get off a list
Speaker 3: really easily. So far, there are over one than one
Speaker 3: hundred and seventy two others from the one you feed
Speaker 3: community on the list, and we'd love to welcome you
Speaker 3: as well, so head on over to oneufeed dot net
Speaker 3: slash sms and let's feed our good wolves together. I
Speaker 3: mean the mystery to me when I started to try
Speaker 3: and like unravel this personally. Now I've been talking about
Speaker 3: these things for a decade with people, so I've got
Speaker 3: a lot of hearing it right. But what used to
Speaker 3: puzzle me was the idea that depression was always a
Speaker 3: thought based thing. Because I would be like, I wake
Speaker 3: up and before a single thought has hit my there
Speaker 3: is a weather system that is here. That's how I
Speaker 3: would refer to it. There is a weather system that
Speaker 3: is here, and if it is the depressive weather system,
Speaker 3: it's almost as if my thoughts they're passing through that filter, right,
Speaker 3: they're taking on the color of that weather system. I
Speaker 3: think that there's a cyclical relationship between all these things.
Speaker 3: They feed on each other. Right, So a thought causes
Speaker 3: a feeling, then a feeling causes a thought, and I
Speaker 3: mean untangling it almost seems impossible and not necessarily even
Speaker 3: important to do. So talk to me about how you
Speaker 3: think about this idea, specifically when it comes to working
Speaker 3: with those difficult emotional states that then color everything else,
Speaker 3: or those difficult physical states that then color everything else.
Speaker 1: We have the information, even our personal awareness, that this
Speaker 1: is what's happening, that our body is having sensory, sensational experiences,
Speaker 1: physiological experiences, and all of that information is traveling to
Speaker 1: our mind. In my opinion, that's that big significant piece
Speaker 1: of the journey for a lot of us, because in
Speaker 1: there for so many of us might hold the explanation
Speaker 1: with why I'm experiencing what I'm experiencing. So now I
Speaker 1: can relieve myself of the shame. Right, Oh, my nervous
Speaker 1: system is disregulated.
Speaker 4: I'm overwhelmed.
Speaker 1: I'm returning to these old you know, just tying all
Speaker 1: these concepts together immature ways of being or I'm just
Speaker 1: showing up in these roles. I don't know who I
Speaker 1: am my relationships, so it makes sense it's hard to change.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm not broken, right, That, I think for a
Speaker 1: lot of us is incredibly I think relieving healing an
Speaker 1: important and necessary part of the experience. Understanding again too,
Speaker 1: that our body is foundationally playing a role specifically around
Speaker 1: our emotions. Then outside of just having this information gives
Speaker 1: us then the space for these inbodied choices because to
Speaker 1: think and just tying it again to the concepts of
Speaker 1: my book, to be able to thinking collaboration with someone else,
Speaker 1: meaning to hold space for their perspectives they're once their needs.
Speaker 1: That all takes a actual state of nervous system activation
Speaker 1: to be able to be open and receptive to whether
Speaker 1: it's someone else or the world around us. Because when
Speaker 1: we are in that state of activation, when we're feeling
Speaker 1: stressed by whatever the threat is. Right again, that narrowing
Speaker 1: of focus that I mentioned at the beginning impacts our
Speaker 1: ability to think or care about anyone's perspective outside of
Speaker 1: our own, which is why a lot of us act
Speaker 1: in very shameful, hurtful ways because we are only focused
Speaker 1: on our survival. So when we're talking about again how
Speaker 1: important and foundational nervous system in the body work is,
Speaker 1: especially on emotions and our ability to connect with our
Speaker 1: emotions and therefore to connect with other people in relationships.
Speaker 4: On emotions, we.
Speaker 1: Are talking about our body needing to be in an
Speaker 1: open and receptive state to do that, one where I
Speaker 1: can be open and present to my emotions where they're
Speaker 1: not overwhelming me and causing me to go into those
Speaker 1: reactive states where I'm round it and present, one that
Speaker 1: I can be aware of again how my body is doing,
Speaker 1: so I can intentionally help it navigate through stress or
Speaker 1: through upset, and then one where I can then be
Speaker 1: open to sharing or to a tuning and connecting with
Speaker 1: another individual, and without our nervous system playing a role
Speaker 1: to either facilitate all of that or to prevent all
Speaker 1: of that. It is playing that foundational of a role
Speaker 1: because we can't think a new thought, we can't have
Speaker 1: a grounded thought, we can't shift perspective or care about
Speaker 1: anyone's thoughts, let alone their emotions if our nervous system
Speaker 1: isn't allowing us.
Speaker 3: You talk about different types of consciousness in the book,
Speaker 3: you sort of talk about body, mind, and heart consciousness,
Speaker 3: and this is more a theoretical question than I'd like
Speaker 3: to get into the practical aspects of it. But I
Speaker 3: more and more start to wonder if when we talk
Speaker 3: about mind and body, or we talk about different types
Speaker 3: of consciousness, or we talk about thought and emotions, we're
Speaker 3: separating apart something that isn't inherently in essence one thing,
Speaker 3: Like we know scientific reductionism can say it can be
Speaker 3: helpful to take things apart so that we can look
Speaker 3: at them. But there's something happening in totality of the
Speaker 3: wholeness of it. And I'm more and more I'm like, well,
Speaker 3: I never see a thought without an emotion, and vice versa. Right, Like,
Speaker 3: they don't travel apart, they're always together. So you know,
Speaker 3: either they're really good friends, or are they kind of
Speaker 3: the same thing.
Speaker 1: I'm smiling ear to ear Eric, because when we think
Speaker 1: about our human experience, I'm sorry at the mist global
Speaker 1: right our human experience, And for a very long time
Speaker 1: I would have right to find I mean, even I
Speaker 1: think we struggled with this. What Degkhart however many years ago,
Speaker 1: right said I think therefore I am we've all kind
Speaker 1: of conceptually been trying to figure out, right, what is
Speaker 1: it that makes us human? And for a very long
Speaker 1: time we emphasize right thought, thought and all of the mind,
Speaker 1: the mental faculties. Our brain and action of right mental
Speaker 1: faculties is a mind. So we thought, oh, okay, that's
Speaker 1: what makes us human. Right, And now we're starting to
Speaker 1: enter in or re enter, I should say, because again
Speaker 1: the body and work and awareness of the body and
Speaker 1: many of the tools aren't new, they are around it
Speaker 1: and really ancient wisdom. We're kind of returning back, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, to the body.
Speaker 4: And so what makes us human?
Speaker 1: Then, continuing the conversation is our mind is also, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, right, our body. So that's kind of thinking
Speaker 1: about these kind of awarenesses then kind of plucked out
Speaker 1: in the three and then what makes us human? I
Speaker 1: could and this goes into how I would even define holistic.
Speaker 1: You would hear me using similar language that I'm using
Speaker 1: right now. I would make a case that there is
Speaker 1: a another less definable maybe I should say, less measurable visible.
Speaker 1: You know, some of us have definitions for what some
Speaker 1: of us might call an essence, a spirit, a soul, right,
Speaker 1: whatever the languages that we use for it that there
Speaker 1: is a uniqueness, right that kind of differentiates me from
Speaker 1: you and obviously me from all of you listeners. So
Speaker 1: even just thinking about the human experience is all three
Speaker 1: of these parts. Our very powerful mind or very powerful body,
Speaker 1: our uniqueness or essence. I could even locate that for
Speaker 1: me learning again about the body, but diving into the
Speaker 1: different aspects of the body, the nervous system. Of course,
Speaker 1: we spend a lot of time talking about that already though,
Speaker 1: learning for me about the heart and all of the
Speaker 1: beautiful and I think groundbreaking research that heart math puts
Speaker 1: out in terms of the energetic power of the heart.
Speaker 1: For me, if I were to locate as the scientist,
Speaker 1: I like to see where this essence or this soul
Speaker 1: or spirit would reside. Right understanding, at least my understanding,
Speaker 1: is that we are an energetic creature, right, I would
Speaker 1: kind of locate that in the heart. So thinking about
Speaker 1: these layers or aspects of consciousness, then as I map
Speaker 1: them onto the book, couldn't agree with you more. It
Speaker 1: is conscious awareness right in the most expansive sense, then
Speaker 1: allows us to be mind conscious or conscious of the
Speaker 1: stories or narratives interpretations running through our mind allows us
Speaker 1: to be body conscious or aware of the sensations and
Speaker 1: physiological shifts of our body, and then within that state
Speaker 1: of consciousness, we can also then be heart conscious or
Speaker 1: aware specifically of the feelings and sensations and for a
Speaker 1: lot of us messages that we can receive from our hearts.
Speaker 1: So for me, those kind of three parts are really
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more. Eric, we aren't integrate it. So
Speaker 1: when we rely or over rely or leave out any
Speaker 1: of those aspects of our being or any of those
Speaker 1: practices when we're healing, I do think that's why a
Speaker 1: lot of us aren't able to feel the impact of
Speaker 1: the work that we're doing, and why many of us
Speaker 1: continue to walk around not feeling fully ground it fully,
Speaker 1: whole fully ourself, because one aspect of our being, I
Speaker 1: think for more most of us at least, is left
Speaker 1: out of our daily equation.
Speaker 3: If you will, I know for me that I'm not
Speaker 3: sure which is left out more regularly, but they vie
Speaker 3: for it, which is heart and body? Right one? Mine?
Speaker 3: Pretty tuned in, pretty clear, you know, I think I've
Speaker 3: made a lot of progress. I have a question for
Speaker 3: you about heart math. I know who they are. We
Speaker 3: interviewed one of their people quite some time ago. Is
Speaker 3: it Howard Martin?
Speaker 4: Is that his name?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's been a long time. We had somebody on.
Speaker 3: I'm curious. I think you've looked at their stuff in
Speaker 3: more detail. Does the science look pretty rigorous? Does it
Speaker 3: look like it's well done and peer reviewed and all
Speaker 3: of that?
Speaker 1: To me, yeah, I mean from what access I have.
Speaker 1: Of course, I don't have any intimate or professional connection,
Speaker 1: but that's mean to say that, you know, So I'm
Speaker 1: an outsider to some extent consuming the information. So from
Speaker 1: what they offer, I mean, I do think that they're
Speaker 1: putting solid research and work. You know. Again, I could
Speaker 1: go down the whole rabbit hole in terms of pure
Speaker 1: funding and all of the factors that are at play
Speaker 1: in peer funding. So I can't answer whether or not
Speaker 1: there or peer review and peer funding and everything that
Speaker 1: really goes in that same camp.
Speaker 4: So I don't know to that extent. I can't, and
Speaker 4: I don't. I'm not going to be on a record.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: But to me, it looks rigorous and I'm in belief.
Speaker 1: And again, I don't even just defer to other people.
Speaker 1: Most of when I'm like, oh, the heart is powerful.
Speaker 1: It's because I am seeing in my own life and
Speaker 1: in the clients and the people in my community right
Speaker 1: how powerful it is. I'm not just taking it because
Speaker 1: someone said it right, without that kind of translatable.
Speaker 4: Evidence, even like I was talking about earlier.
Speaker 1: We want to see for ourselves, right, And I have
Speaker 1: that in me too, like I want to see for myself.
Speaker 1: I want this to be personally meaningful, not just because
Speaker 1: someone else said. And I think we have an epidemic
Speaker 1: too of a lot of us for a lot of reasons,
Speaker 1: perhaps because we feel so powerful, powerless and helpless, where
Speaker 1: we've created a system within ourselves even of deferring to people.
Speaker 1: And I think this all ties into again this conversation
Speaker 1: in so many ways, of our internal guidance right, not outsourcing,
Speaker 1: developing our own connection. Back to that intuition that for
Speaker 1: a lot of us we disconnect it from. Not that
Speaker 1: we didn't have it, we weren't able to trust it
Speaker 1: because we didn't have the environment and the relationships that
Speaker 1: allow us to develop that trust though now we can.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think one of the things that drew me
Speaker 3: most forcefully towards Buddhism was the basic idea where the
Speaker 3: Buddha in essence was asked like, why should I believe
Speaker 3: you versus every other spiritual teacher who comes wandering through
Speaker 3: here every three days, And he said, well, don't try
Speaker 3: it out right, and if it works for you, then
Speaker 3: you can trust that it's useful. And I was like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: isn't that refreshing. Don't just take my word for it.
Speaker 3: Don't just take my word for it, you know, try
Speaker 3: it out yourself. So let's talk about the heart consciousness
Speaker 3: and heart coherence. So for you, what have been the
Speaker 3: practices that have allowed you to develop that consciousness and
Speaker 3: that pres since we've.
Speaker 1: Already I think talked about a large majority of them
Speaker 1: because probably of no surprise to listeners at this point
Speaker 1: in the conversation, they are grounded in reconnecting and rebuilding.
Speaker 1: I should say that consistent connection with my body with
Speaker 1: allowing myself to widen my own window of stress or
Speaker 1: emotional resilience or tolerance, because I had a very limited window,
Speaker 1: falling into reactions quite often, quite regularly, so that I
Speaker 1: could right be grounded and present and receptive, right that
Speaker 1: state of awareness that allows me to be even interested
Speaker 1: or curious in connection with the world around me so
Speaker 1: foundationally that needless say, everything that I've kind of been
Speaker 1: talking about in terms of sleeping, eating nutrition in dense foods,
Speaker 1: making sure I'm moving my body, make sure I'm resting
Speaker 1: my body, making sure I'm aware of my changing stress levels,
Speaker 1: and that in those moments I'm bringing or helping my
Speaker 1: body or coregulating with someone else so I can come
Speaker 1: back into that safe and secure and grounded place. And
Speaker 1: so outside of that, just being consistently what I would
Speaker 1: call it my lifestyle, and in any given day, of course,
Speaker 1: there's days where I vary in terms of how I execute.
Speaker 1: Then the most practical in terms of reconnecting with my heart,
Speaker 1: this journey began with me having an awareness first, which
Speaker 1: was the awareness I had with myself was wow, nucle
Speaker 1: you always overstep yourself, whether it's your boundaries, knowing that
Speaker 1: you don't have the energy or attention or desire to
Speaker 1: do something, but you say you're gonna do it because
Speaker 1: you're afraid of disappointing or hurting someone else, whether it's emotionally,
Speaker 1: you don't say or do something because you're afraid of
Speaker 1: upsetting someone else. And so seeing that habit right, we
Speaker 1: have to begin with where we're at. Seeing all of
Speaker 1: the ways I suppressed myself, I began to break that habit,
Speaker 1: which meant as I instinctually saw myself overriding my emotions,
Speaker 1: determining that the person isn't interested in what I have
Speaker 1: to say or not just freely being myself. I would
Speaker 1: pause in that moment and give myself the opportunity to
Speaker 1: reconnect inward, because what I was really doing in that moment,
Speaker 1: I was not only factoring whatever my body might be
Speaker 1: needing in that moment, I was giving myself the opportunity
Speaker 1: to turn in and to explore and maybe discover or
Speaker 1: notice what was happening on a deeper level for me,
Speaker 1: What was on my heart? What was it that I
Speaker 1: really did want to say in this moment, or what
Speaker 1: is it that I really do want to do in
Speaker 1: this moment before all of the censoring right convinced me,
Speaker 1: before my environment, my relationships of older years convinced me
Speaker 1: not to. Because then in those moments right now, I
Speaker 1: can shift my focus because I believe that our heart
Speaker 1: has information available so us at any time. It's just
Speaker 1: a matter of whether or not we're tuned into it,
Speaker 1: whether or not we even feel safe enough in this
Speaker 1: body to pay attention to it. And for a lot
Speaker 1: of us, the answer is no, was in my body's
Speaker 1: overwhelming trauma that I am under support or under resourced
Speaker 1: in dealing with, which is why you and I've just
Speaker 1: spent an entire hour having a conversation how to resource
Speaker 1: ourself so that I can then be safe in my
Speaker 1: body to even begin to listen and decode that which
Speaker 1: it is is on my heart or in my opinion,
Speaker 1: what it's speaking through right the unique vessel that is me.
Speaker 1: So that's why there's concepts of awareness, I think give
Speaker 1: us the bridge of the intentional action, And for me,
Speaker 1: it's those two daily commitments, the consistent practice that allows
Speaker 1: me to be regulated and present and safe enough in
Speaker 1: this body. And then seeing myself in action in moments
Speaker 1: where I'm not giving myself even a moment to notice
Speaker 1: what's on my heart, let alone choose or decide or
Speaker 1: act from it. And then of course giving myself that
Speaker 1: opportunity allow myself to connect with and speak or act
Speaker 1: from my heart, and then tolerating perhaps the outcome how
Speaker 1: people actually do then react to me in my more
Speaker 1: authentic right essence.
Speaker 2: That's great.
Speaker 3: So we're near the end of our time here, so
Speaker 3: I thought I would ask one last question, which is
Speaker 3: admittedly perhaps a big question, so feel free to answer
Speaker 3: it in whatever succinct way you would like. But it's this.
Speaker 3: We've talked about trusting yourself. We talk about intuition, we
Speaker 3: talk about knowing what your heart wants, right, and you've
Speaker 3: also talked about how for many of us, given are
Speaker 3: traumatic pasts, those signals are really kind of messed up, right,
Speaker 3: And so I often have thought about this because there
Speaker 3: was a period in time right as a heroin addict
Speaker 3: at twenty four, like you probably shouldn't trust my intuitions,
Speaker 3: probably shouldn't trust my perception of the world. So how
Speaker 3: do people start to think about when I can trust
Speaker 3: this as an authentic part of me that's coming out,
Speaker 3: And when is this a habituated response to previous pain?
Speaker 3: Because those feel really real.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you speaking this question and opening its up
Speaker 1: for exploration, because I could not agree more. Many of us,
Speaker 1: the habits that we continue to talk about, whether there
Speaker 1: are daily habits or our reactive habits, have been repeated,
Speaker 1: have been verified by our experience for so long and
Speaker 1: so frequently that whatever age it is into our adulthood,
Speaker 1: they do begin to feel like instinctual, instinctive reactions because
Speaker 1: I mean, if I really want to simplify it, we
Speaker 1: have not yet started to pay attention to everything that's
Speaker 1: happening beneath the iceberg. I think is an analogy many
Speaker 1: of us maybe are familiar with or behind the scenes
Speaker 1: of those reactions. Right, We're not paying attention to the
Speaker 1: habitual nature of our interpretations, or our narratives or the stories.
Speaker 1: We're not paying attention to all those physiological shifts and changes,
Speaker 1: many of which are very consistent the emotional state or
Speaker 1: climate of our body.
Speaker 4: Some of it becomes a resting.
Speaker 1: State of the same emotional salients or feeling, and we're
Speaker 1: not paying attention to everything. Then that contributed to what
Speaker 1: feels instinctual because we didn't see that. Yes, the thing happened,
Speaker 1: but my body started to shift in terms of its
Speaker 1: physiology at that same time. Then my mind, picking up
Speaker 1: on that shift, started to interpret what is happening. And
Speaker 1: then I tune in somewhere along as I was sharing
Speaker 1: hovering mid reaction or somewhere after the fact. So of
Speaker 1: course I'm not able to separate out and it feels
Speaker 1: like this is just what I felt in the moment.
Speaker 1: So I just spoke or did right from my instincts,
Speaker 1: and that is the reality. We've practiced our habits so
Speaker 1: much we can't differentiate that which is a learned instinct,
Speaker 1: if you will, a lart habit. So I don't keep
Speaker 1: confusing with instinct and that which is an actual instinct
Speaker 1: or intuition, intuitive feeling. And so the way we know,
Speaker 1: while I can't give an exact rubric or formula like
Speaker 1: this type of thing would fall into the bucket, it
Speaker 1: we know because what intuitions aren't let's start there. They're
Speaker 1: not repetitive, they're not consistently the same over time, right.
Speaker 1: What they are a lot of times are springs of insight, right,
Speaker 1: something that pops into our head, right, an idea that
Speaker 1: just comes to mind, a different maybe feeling or sensation,
Speaker 1: not one that we're feeling each day every day, right
Speaker 1: where we're feeling always tight and us in constriction. Maybe
Speaker 1: we feel a lightness or an ease in one moment, right,
Speaker 1: that could be a marker of something coming from intuition.
Speaker 1: Because intuition isn't consistent, it's not the same day in
Speaker 1: and day out because it is evolving and responding to
Speaker 1: the changing scenarios internally or our internal landscape and our
Speaker 1: external landscape. So again, while I can't give specifics, I
Speaker 1: like to give kind of general ideas, and more often
Speaker 1: than not, I think what most of us are talking
Speaker 1: about are learned habits that feel instinctual. And so again,
Speaker 1: how do we practically find our way to the differentiation?
Speaker 1: Is everything we've been talking about.
Speaker 4: Yep. I learn how to regulate my body.
Speaker 1: I learned to observe all of these repetitive narratives, and
Speaker 1: I learn how to separate out and create a safer
Speaker 1: space where I can now begin to attune to whether
Speaker 1: it is right, the ideas, the thoughts, the words some
Speaker 1: of us actually here right or these like kind of
Speaker 1: more sensory based markers, and it's gonna be a little
Speaker 1: offerent flavor or style. I know, for me, I'm having
Speaker 1: funny as if on cue one of my markers, when
Speaker 1: I'm resonating with something or I'm feeling in alignment, whether
Speaker 1: it's something I'm saying, something I'm watching, or hearing someone
Speaker 1: else says, I get goosebumps on my skin. And so
Speaker 1: I'm getting that experience right now, which is for me
Speaker 1: again a marker of oh, something deeper is in alignment
Speaker 1: with what is coming out of my mouth or what
Speaker 1: I'm feeling in this conversation that I'm having. So that
Speaker 1: is again one of the many ways for me too.
Speaker 1: It's just I could be on a walk, right, not
Speaker 1: really necessarily thinking about anything or listening to music, and
Speaker 1: then an idea pops into my head.
Speaker 4: It's not an idea I've been perseverating on. I think
Speaker 4: a lot of times. That's the law earned yeah, right.
Speaker 1: Aspect of these instinctual behaviors, Oh, the interpretation I always
Speaker 1: make of events. Oh I always seem to feel this way. Oh,
Speaker 1: this is always an instinctally how I'm being? Well, probably not,
Speaker 1: that might be more of the learned reaction as opposed
Speaker 1: to the true intuitive reaction.
Speaker 3: So listener and thinking about all that and the other
Speaker 3: great wisdom from today's episode. If you were going to
Speaker 3: isolate just one top insight that you're taking away, what
Speaker 3: would it be? Not your top ten, not the top five,
Speaker 3: just one? What is it? Think about it? Got it?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 3: I ask you, what's one tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny little
Speaker 3: thing you can do today to put it in practice,
Speaker 3: or maybe just take a baby step towards it. Remember,
Speaker 3: little by little, a little becomes a lot. Profound change
Speaker 3: happens as a result of aggregated tiny actions, not massive
Speaker 3: heroic effort. If you're not already on our good Wolf
Speaker 3: Reminder SMS list, I'd highly recommend it as a tool
Speaker 3: you can leverage to remind you to take those vital
Speaker 3: baby steps forward. Get on there at oneufeed dot net
Speaker 3: slash sms. It's totally free, and once you're on there,
Speaker 3: I'll send you a couple text messages a week with
Speaker 3: little reminders and nudges. Here's what I recently shared to
Speaker 3: give you an idea of the type of stuff I send.
Speaker 3: Keep practicing even if it seems hopeless. Don't strive for perfection,
Speaker 3: aim for consistency, and no matter what, keep showing up
Speaker 3: for yourself. That was a great gem from recent guests
Speaker 3: Light Watkins. And if you're on the fence about joining,
Speaker 3: remember it's totally free and easy to unsubscribe. If you
Speaker 3: want to get in, I'd love to have you there.
Speaker 3: Just go to oneufeed dot net slash sms. All right
Speaker 3: back to it. I really like that idea of seeking
Speaker 3: out what's different than what you normally do as at
Speaker 3: least a clue, right, you know. Another clue for me
Speaker 3: is the more convinced I am of something and the
Speaker 3: more strongly I feel about it. I very often am like,
Speaker 3: investigate deeper. Yeah, right, yes, because normally you think I
Speaker 3: feel this so strongly it must be true. In my case,
Speaker 3: I'm suspect. I'm like, why am I having this strong
Speaker 3: of a reaction to this thing? I should probably like,
Speaker 3: look a little closer here. It's again, It's just another
Speaker 3: clue to me sometimes that there's more here than you know,
Speaker 3: sort of intuition, right, the good intuition. So thank you
Speaker 3: for that response, because I do think, I know, I
Speaker 3: hear a lot about intuition, and I get it and
Speaker 3: I understand it, and I think for those of us
Speaker 3: who have difficult pasts intuition and trauma response, they're difficult
Speaker 3: to sort out sometimes. So thank you. That's a really
Speaker 3: helpful answer.
Speaker 1: I was smiling, thank you Eric for offering that additional
Speaker 1: because I couldn't agree more with this really big, overwhelming
Speaker 1: feelings seemingly.
Speaker 4: Out of nowhere.
Speaker 1: I do think our possibility to pause and investigate further
Speaker 1: on was coming to mind when you were saying that,
Speaker 1: I have a running joke with my partner Lalli have been.
Speaker 1: We've been together for almost if not a decade now,
Speaker 1: and it's usually in the context of us having a
Speaker 1: conversation about something and me offering a statement, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of confirming a fact or like a factual type statement,
Speaker 1: and she jokes because I have this way sometimes when
Speaker 1: I'm like demanding, you know a piece of information is true,
Speaker 1: I'm like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1: I have this certain way where I'm like emphatic, and
Speaker 1: she's like, oh, I have to investigate this, aright, because
Speaker 1: when I have this particular way of being in fat
Speaker 1: of course, I share information with her, with everyone all
Speaker 1: the time, so it's this kind of mode I shift
Speaker 1: into when I'm like, I know this one for sure
Speaker 1: is usually and she's more often than not, and I
Speaker 1: hate to admit it right where usually.
Speaker 4: I'm wrong in what I'm offering. She's like, oh, you're
Speaker 4: so certain.
Speaker 1: This now means I need to look into this further,
Speaker 1: because typically I'm not as certain when I'm presenting actual
Speaker 1: factual information.
Speaker 3: Wonderful, Well, thank you so much for taking the time
Speaker 3: to come on. I'm happy every time I get to
Speaker 3: talk with you. I feel like these are great conversations.
Speaker 3: Well of links in the show notes to your book,
Speaker 3: to your Instagram and all the other great things you're
Speaker 3: off into the world.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Eric, I could not agree more.
Speaker 1: It was an honor to be back here, and of
Speaker 1: course thank you all.
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