Episode 565: Dr. Elisha Goldstein: Emotional Health Strategies to Break Resistance and Build Discipline

to Habits in Hustle, crash it.

“- Welcome to the Habits in Hustle podcast”

with me, Jennifer Cohen, where we dig into the mindset, strategies, and real life stories behind people who build extraordinary lives. Today I'm sitting down with Dr. Alicia Goldstein, a clinical psychologist, author, and leading voice

in the world of mindfulness and emotional health. He has spent decades helping people understand why we can know exactly what we should do, yet we still struggle to follow through, stay consistent, calm our nervous system,

and get out of our own way. And this conversation gets into the part of mindfulness, most people completely misunderstand. It's not about saying perfectly still, clearing your mind or magically becoming calm.

It's about awareness, emotional capacity, and learning how to interrupt the loops that keep us stuck in overwhelmed comparison, resistance, and self sabotage. What he shares in this episode will make you rethink,

discipline, motivation, emotional health,

“and why these tiny shifts can create massive change”

over time. So let's dive in. (upbeat music) - Before we dive into today's episode, I first want to thank our sponsor, Sarah Saj.

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Again, head over to theirSaj, T-H-E-R-A-S-A-G-E.com and use code be bold for 15% off any of their products. All right, you guys, today on Habits and Hustle, we have, well, I love these types of podcasts.

We have Dr. Alisha, I said it correctly. - Yeah, that's good. - Really? - Gold steam, and he is a clinical psychologist who is a leading voice in how mindfulness

can actually help common nervous system. Would you say that's accurate? - Yeah, mindfulness and because of psychologists, there's kind of like a blend of emotional health and mindfulness both of them, yeah.

- So, by the way, thank you for being on the show. - Yeah. - We were just saying before we started actually taping that I, in spite of all the inability for me to meditate and be mindful,

I don't know how I've had any success because my brain and my nervous system was shot on a regular basis. I can't imagine I'm the only one. Like, I, would you say, how do I say this in a,

what would you say the percentage of people who are actually able to apply this idea of mindfulness can actually do so in a successful manner? - Well, let's just start there. Like, what we've been told by our media,

like, what's a successful mindfulness?

I mean, mindfulness enjoyed this incredible bones

like from 2000 to 2000, I don't know, 12, and at the time, there was people on the head of magazines, like, I'm not sure. - They still are. - Well, sitting there and like a serene environment,

you know, everyone's comp. So the idea is that mindfulness equals comp. - Yeah. - That's the idea. So how can I say that, I couldn't articulate that sentence at the beginning of this podcast.

That's exactly, whenever I think of mindfulness, I'm not to interject already, but is that exact thing? Like, I think of mindfulness as being comp. I fill on the antithesis of comp. Therefore, how can I, how can I do something

that's good for me if I'm not able to get myself there? So thank you for saying that. - Right, but that message of mindfulness equals comp is the wrong message. - Okay. - And it's why it's why so many people

feel like they fail or they're deficient in some way in fact, actually, it created a huge disservice. I mean, look, the appcom, that's a great name for an app too, right?

“There's, but it creates that idea that that's what it is,”

creates a huge disservice, because what happens is, yeah, in our culture, it's hard to become.

First of all, we're fed stuff at a very fast pace.

that we've been trained in for, I don't know since 2007

when the iPhone came out maybe, yeah. Or maybe some of us was transgenerational trauma from being persecuted or people's lives or whatever over time. It's really hard to become. So if I try and do some kind of breathing technique

and I can't feel calm, what happens is I fall into a deficiency gap. So all of a sudden, I feel deficient, like something's wrong with me, I just can't do this. And that in itself is recorded in the brain as the same area's stress.

So all of a sudden, we have increased stress. Well, it's hard to become when we get increased stress. So mindfulness just means awareness. That's all that it means. There's a great poem by this 13th century

“Sufi poet named Rumi who might have heard of, right?”

Of course. This being human as a guest house every morning, a new arrival, a joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness that comes as an unexpected visitor. He says, welcome and entertain them all.

That's what mindfulness is. Mindfulness is just like, can I be aware of what's happening in the moment as it's happening? If it was taught like that, more or that was when the cover of magazine is not as sexy as like, you know,

hey, we're going to create this in common in your life 'cause that's what we all really want. We don't really want awareness. What's the outcome of awareness? We want calm.

But it really just means the doorway to calm. The doorway to feeling more regulated emotionally. The doorway to having that hard conversation with the people that we care about starts with awareness.

So you probably have more mindfulness than you. Thank you, have. Because there's moments where you just kind of know what you're feeling as you're feeling. Well, that's really interesting that you said that way

because awareness I have in spades, right? Like, I'm hyper aware of my surroundings. I'm hyper aware of people's, how people's responses, I'm highly observant. That doesn't make me calm at all.

Like you're saying it's not even accurate. It's not the literature. Because you know what's funny? It's like, I feel there's so much emphasis and it's extremely trendy to talk about mindfulness.

Like as like as like an overarching thing, mindfulness, mindfulness, and what are you doing

“to like, you know, to save your, not save your space?”

Like all this like, what's that? Protect your pee. Protect your pee. That was a lot of the tech, exactly. Protect your pee.

That's a very, and like all these like lingo around it. But yet I feel in like the ether. The more we focus on that, it's actually where we're becoming at the society, less peaceful, less calm, less aware.

I mean, there's a lot of chaos, I feel. And it's like, this rhetoric doesn't make it any better. I don't know, I thought it's not like, because I think it's nice to say on Instagram. Well, let me tell you why it doesn't work.

Okay, please. It doesn't work because we, we want the, we want the fast way out in our culture, right? We're brain, McDonald's, Twitter, whatever, you know, expert, whatever it is.

And we want that because it helps conserve energy. I mean, we're wired from an evolutionary perspective for a few different things. When we're making decisions on something or taking actions and something, and by the way,

this is why we fail oftentimes at the habits. We want to do in our lives. We know what we want to do, but we have a hard time following through is because we're wired for, when we're making decisions for safety.

Is there a risk here? We're wired for certainty. I want to make sure that I'm, that I'm safe in this moment, that I know what's going to be on the other end of this thing. And we're also wired to conserve energy.

So if we have something we want to do, that is like, let's say, has an example. Let's say I want to, eat better. Let's say I want exercise. Let's say I want to have the hard conversation

with my partner because I feel like we're disconnected. Right now, our brain initially underneath it all

is going to ask first, like, is this safe?

Is there a risk here of me failing in this? Or is there a threat on the other side of this? Am I not going to be met with that connection that I'm looking for so that I feel like more vulnerable? There's more shame that comes on.

Am I going to fail at this nutrition thing as exercise thing again, which reinforces this idea that I'm just not good enough? And that's intolerable. So that all happens unconsciously.

And so what we feel is resistance. So we try, maybe once or twice, and then it doesn't last.

“And I think that's what happens with mindfulness,”

or that's what happens with any of the things that are the habits in our lives, every single person that's listening to this or watching this right now has listened to podcasts, red books, has gone to therapy, maybe, but got coaching, whatever it is,

they know what is good for them.

They know what the answer is maybe to live a happy,

the healthier, happier life, whatever. It's just that we don't have access to the follow-through. Well, listen, that's what the anything, that's what everything. We all have over information, right?

have all the information. You can listen to it and you can package it

in a different way, a million gazillion times.

But it's all in the execution, right? Everything is an execution. Nobody wants to execute, no one wants to take the action. I think considered easier if you just keep on going to school. There's full-time students forever, right?

Get continue, maybe you're one of them. No, no, no, I mean, as I was just saying, I was thinking about the younger kids right now, they're going to college and they're safe for right now kind of in college. We don't know what's on the other end of that,

because we don't know what's going to be happening in four years. Well, there's only so much theory and academics that it can, like, the knowledge piece can get you, right?

“Then it comes a piece where then you have to practice, execute,”

and take action repetitively, right? So you have to, like, get over the, like, everyone you have as a freighter failure, but if you become immune to failure by doing it enough time, right? It doesn't feel like you don't have the fear as much. You won't have the fear anymore.

But it's how to get from that, it's that line, right? From going from knowledge to not just, you know, attempting, but to attempt over and over and over again, until you feel that lack of that lack of self-doubt or that feeling of being a failure. Yeah, that's my argument and tiny shifts is that it's not that something's wrong with us.

It's not that we're failing at things. It's that we're not aware that this is like we have this underlying biology, biological imperative, that that gets in our way. And so the answer to that is building up and training our emotional health. And so emotional health just to kind of give a sense of that for everyone here,

what the way the reason I don't there in the field. So this way this where this came up for me is as I was like in my late Ford, for I've been a psychologist for like 20 years, but as I was- Do you see, I'm sorry, do you still see patients? Yeah, I still have a handful, I have a small private practice.

Okay, yeah, why is it? I mean, not to interject again here, but I don't understand why so many people, you know, they're not practicing anymore. They're talking a lot the right books a lot, but then they just stop seeing patients, like very, very often.

“Well, you know, what are you doing that you're not?”

Are you researching? Are you doing a lot of like speaking like what's the reason? I started getting to a point where there wasn't enough of me to go around for the clients that wanted to come see me. And so I started running group programs.

Oh.

And so I started, and I've always been really fascinated with like,

how do you reach people in a way that's high quality that actually creates the shifts and changes they want to see in their life? And I looked at like alcoholics and anonymous. I looked at like all the organized religions out there, and they-- The weight watchers, by the way, no, you can see.

Weight watchers, right? A great example, right? Accountability at in group settings. Yeah, that's right. And so with like, what are the most successful organizations in the world?

They're the the spiritual organizations. They're the alcoholics and anonymous. The weight watchers, right? And they have three different components to them. They have a pre mentor rabbi teacher trainer, whatever you want to call them.

They have a curriculum that's there. And the Bible, or the you know, or they have or weight watchers kind of curriculum. Like a set by step program? They have three elements. They just set and they have a community.

And the reason for community is that like, okay, I'm not alone in this. So it creates what? It creates that safety, creates that certainty a little bit more. And you hear from other people's stories or there's a sense of belonging, which again reduces the stress, increases the sense of safety,

so that I can do this. Oh, this person's doing this, I can take a leaf from that.

“You know, so we, I think we learn faster when we're in community than we're just doing things on our own.”

So you're doing a lot of group stuff? Yeah, I do different coaching programs that are like group-based coaching programs. The next one I have coming up is called the emotional longevity lab. And it's a 90-day program where I'm going to bring people through creating the foundations of emotional health, with their kind of like, oh, personalized.

What they want to specifically work on? Then we're going to go down the avenues of like, how does this work to increase your sense of self-worth? Your health, your relationships, and also your sense of purpose and the work that you do. And then the last month of it is really to help ingrain it more in your identity. So you realize like, I am this person now.

And so we do that through those three layers, and I'm kind of like weaving in some smart uses of technology. There's the live community. We do have integration labs that happen in there. So this is like part of, this is like a big thing of what I do as these kind of group programs. Right, you said earlier also that you met one of our mutual friends doing something in Costa Rica.

Well, my wife and I used to run family retreats. And she's also psychologist, yeah. She's also psychologist. Yep. We started the Center for Mindful Living in Los Angeles. It's in Brentwood, West Alaria, and like 12, 13 years ago, something like that.

What, I've never been heard of that, really?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, there it is. And what is it? You just walk in and get mindful? No, no, that's just like where we practice. We used to run groups there, pre-COVID. We had like, they week mindfulness based,

stress reduction, cognitive therapy, relaxed prevention type programs. That are there. We did like some talks there. And then we all other people that are associates of ours that work there as well.

So it's kind of like where you practice basically.

Yeah, it's a place we practice. Right. And so everyone has like the road office.

“So okay, that's, so you're like, do private practice there too?”

Yeah, gotcha. Okay, so it was not like a, it's not like a synagogue that you walk in. - No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, - No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

Mindfulness, but also seeing how do we bring this into adventure? Because it's like Costa Rica, it's like, how do you bring this into the fear of ziplining? How do you bring this into paddle boarding down mangroves and like, you know, what when you're bringing your awareness like what you're seeing like around it?

Or how do you bring this into your surf training? I love that. Yeah, it was super cool. Yeah, if I knew you back then. You would have been interested in it.

Oh yeah, that's amazing. I love that.

Okay, sorry, I keep on interrupting because I don't like to stick to the questions I have. I like to kind of go on these tangents so we're, you know, but sorry, I know you were saying something. So okay, well I'll go back to what I was saying. So it's my belief that the cornerstone to actually fall in through on the habits that we want to create in our lives is really our emotional health and emotional health.

So versus like, I guess what I was when you say emotional health, what do you mean? Okay, so emotional health versus just stress management as an example, which is what's talked about a lot on the podcasts that are around like the health related podcast, exercise sleep and nutrition stress. Like how do we work with those stress? Which is kind of like a blunt instrument to say that type of thing.

Emotional health is more about like, can I be aware of how I'm feeling in a particular moment? Can I increase my emotional capacity in that moment? So I can be with or feel a little steadier with this feeling that's here. That I may not even been aware of before and can I have enough flexibility in the moment to see more choices make different decisions be aware of like what I'm needing or what's

going to support me or what's going to enhance the moment and make the decision to take a thought or an action in that direction. Okay, let's say with this because I think this is a very good

“area and I think I never really people say it again like, oh, are you emotionally healthy?”

So how what's the first step into becoming more aware if you're not aware of this? Like I think

that it's all it's easier said than done. But if people are listening and they don't even know what you're talking about, what's the first step to becoming more emotionally healthy? So the first step is being aware of what are what I call our emotional loops are. So emotional loops are just like, what am I thinking? What am I feeling emotionally in this moment? Which is really hard because we didn't grow up with an emotional vocabulary most of us, right?

What am I feeling? How is my body feeling physically in this moment and what am I doing? And so those four different areas are what I call an emotional loop. And any given moment we're feeling overwhelmed, which you're familiar with that feeling or we're feeling, we're feeling anxious, we're feeling shame, we're feeling joyful, we're feeling excited, you know, whatever, all any of these four elements are happening. And typically we're not aware

that they're happening while they're happening, especially in the current environment that we're in, we're so flooded with so much stuff, there's a great story, are parable by this guy David Foster Wallace who was talking with his two fish, these two fish that were like swimming in the ocean and they were like teenage fish, they were swimming in the ocean and they were just kind of

“having a fun time. His older fish comes by them and says like, hey boys, how's the water?”

And they look at each other, low confused and they continue on, they say, what the hell is water? And so we're swimming oftentimes in this kind of water of overwhelmed that we're typically not even aware of, we've normalized it and it's just kind of automatic. So an emotional loop, I say the umbrella, emotional loop that a lot of us are swimming in is what I call the overwhelmed loop. And then we have other things that are driven as of that. So in any given moment,

you can just ask yourself of those four different things like what's happening. So if you catch yourself scrolling a little too long while your partner's trying to talk with you, that could be a moment of awareness, of noticing what you're doing, what you're doing, that can kind of wake you up. That's sort of the first step. I call it recognized. Recognize, this is a part of a four-step method called the four-arm method that I have

in tiny shifts that helps us build our own train or emotional health. I want to talk about that right when you finish. So just like you're really

you're really kind of training. Right. And so, you want my fitness stuff. Yeah. Oh, okay. I let the show

“what reals you're talking about because, yeah. Those reals. Yeah. The podcast”

reals, the reals where you're kind of training. Everyone watch those reals. Yeah, yeah. Lots of the reals. Right. And I get inspired by that because I train a little bit physically too. And so the, which is also part, part and parcel of feeling well in life as you know. Yep. And so, but we can notice in any given moment like I'm scrolling or maybe I'm feeling

uncomfortable right now or my shoulders are tensing or I'm really being really critical of

myself right now. Right. Those are four different parts that we can have awareness of. That moment interrupts the automatic patterning. That's happening in that. And so, that's the first step. We have to interrupt it. So when you say like, how do I become more mindful or how do I kind of become more aware in the moment? That's the very first step in our everyday lives. It's just interrupting

“the second thing we have to understand how to do to create, to expand our emotional capacity a”

little bit is we have to realize that this body, as you know, and people here, I'm just kind of maybe reminding you of this. There's no separation between our thoughts and our body. And so, when you're feeling overwhelmed, you're feeling angry, you're feeling anxious or you're feeling scared or you're feeling joyful or excited, whatever it is, your body's reacting. Your nervous system is your heart rates going up, your muscles are tensing to get in that fight flight freeze

response and your job in that moment is to just soften that slightly. So what we're doing by softening that slightly is we're widening our emotional capacity. So now we're starting to kind of train and we're starting to get the, we're starting to grease the wheels, the rest of the tracks of our emotional health. And also, by the way, that feels really good. If we can interrupt an emotional loop by just kind of naming it and expanding our capacity by softening our body, something about

that feels good. And so that lays the groundwork for being able to then do the next thing, which is creating more redirecting our mind or expanding our choices.

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and try rose liposomal glutathione. Use code Gen20 for 20% off site-wide. That's rownutrition. R-H-O-N-U-T-R-I-T-I-O-N.com and use code Gen20. It's overwhelmed and anxiety. They're very closely tied. When you feel overwhelmed, I know it becomes anxious because you feel that feeling. I feel overwhelmed and it's good for everyone to check in around this. What are my physical,

what are my body signals of feeling overwhelmed? Overwhelmed? Overwhelmed can be like brain fog. Sure. What are some of the science and anxiety? Anxiety is a combination of fear and uncertainty. I'm afraid and I don't know what's on the other end. There could be a threat on the other end of this right now. I don't know how this is going to go out. I don't know how this is going to turn out. I'm going to give a talk somewhere

and I'm feeling really anxious so my heart rate is going up so there might be some similar physical symptoms that are there. My heart rate is going up. My mind is racing. I'm starting to kind of feel like I can't catch my breath. I just struggle like massively when it's so many. I used to have panic attacks. I can kind of mention like how I got over those. New year? Yeah. When I was younger.

Yeah. When you got into psychology in the first place? I got into psychology. I used to

“be in the corporate world in San Francisco. I remember seeing that. But the reason why I'm”

asking is because normally when people go into something like this like fitness also,

Like I think a lot of therapists go into therapy because they had their own suffering. Trauma. Yeah. They're on trauma. They've gone through and certainly in my 20s now. Tell everyone who's in their 20s. The same thing. They're feeling like kind of like they don't really know they can't really get the grasp on things. Like the 20s is a tough time. Yeah. So it's 30s and 40s. Okay. But I mean it's really it's even more confusing. I feel like there's even

like this is a lot of confusion. You come out of the structure of if you went to school. Let's say and you're just trying to kind of find your way. And everyone thinks that high school once I get out of there, I'm going to like know everything. But you're kind of starting a little over again. But anyway. Yeah. I was successful in my corporate job at the time. And I was playing a whole lot harder like experimenting like heavily with drugs and alcohol. And so I was I was

pretty lost. So I said that. We're doing a school. You see San Diego was my undergraduate. Yeah.

“And where did you like what would you say? Because I think the clinical psychologists can be a very”

vague term sometimes. Some people don't have this. They only went to school. They are not only but I'm saying like I wanted to know like what is the education background? Did you go to the PhD? Do you have a master? Did you do the training at like I said for myself? Are you a social worker? I mean it's like my doc. So I had been in like in an out of therapy. And I've been kind of a self-help

junkie for like a long time. I remember when I first read Don'ts What The Small Stuff. And it's also

stuff by Richard Carlson. I like loved that book. I was like oh my god. This guy's saying everything. I like resonate. I kind of know this stuff. But the way he writes it, it really kind of lands on me. And so I loved that stuff. But I was also just my emotional awareness was like sort of in the toilet this time. Right, right, right. And so yeah, I was sort of a kind of sort of saved me to go to graduate school and gave me a sense of purpose and direction. And what happened was at some

point in my 20s, I was like walking down the embarcadero in San Francisco. And I was saying like this

“just can't be how my life is going to roll. And I thought when I'm 50, which I've passed that point.”

But when I'm 50, what do I want to look back and wish I would have done? And then I realized like hey, I want to like work with people and support people, support myself. I want to speak at places. I want to write. And so then I reverse engineered that. And took a big risk. It was a huge risk because there was golden handcuffs and the world I was in. And when were you doing exactly? I was I was managing sales. I was managing sales teams. We were selling like long distance lines and

like data lines connecting up corporate offices, you know, for because back then. Right, that's kind of what you need to do. And so wait a minute. So then what is your what is your school in behind it? What's your academic background for this? You want to get your do have a PhD? Yeah. Okay. And then did you do like a bunch of hours in practical? Yeah. That's up. Okay. So you have to do 3,000 hours a day. It's a crazy amount of time. I know it's crazy. Do you feel

that did it help you? Did you get in your clinical psychology background and doing that work?

“Has it actually healed you? Because that's what normally happens like we said. I don't I don't”

think that healed me. I will tell you what it did. It would have gave me. And this is directly in line we're talking about right now. So if you're giving it with your noticing, you're kind of lost or you're anxious, you're overwhelmed or you're you're having a difficult moment or you're continually stressed or you're falling into patterns that you don't like.

The first step is to interrupt it is just kind of name it. It's very simple. These are

side DB behind tiny chefs. It's just kind of naming it. Right? It's something we can do in the ordinary moments of our lives just naming it. And I stress this here over wellness here. My my shoulders are bracing. I'm scrolling too long while my partner's talking to me like we talked about before. But then and then we release and then this question that was like for me what I asked in that moment. I didn't have the board, tiny chefs or emotional pivots or anything like

that what I asked was, what do I want to do? That's going to be more meaningful for me in my life. Hmm. Like how do I want to look back like the question? I don't want to look back when I'm 50 and look back and say like yeah I'm really happy with what I've done. And I think supporting myself and other people felt like a good direction. I felt meaningful. So what it gave me was purpose. It gave me a sense of purpose. It gave me a sense of meaning and you know because

I know you've interviewed a number of people who have like talked about that kind of thing.

We know that purpose is first of all, if you make the way I always make sense of it is like

wise purpose. So having like a direction. By the way, when I say purpose just so everyone knows, I don't mean you it's like the whatever that book was the bullet I camera was called anyway.

I think purpose is the most fundamental thing you need to be happy over time, right? 100%

“because you feel a sense of integrity. And a sense of purpose. I mean I feel like what I always”

a wonder like you know there's a lot of people who have a lot of money, but they have zero purpose. Like they're just buying like a lot of women I know. They have a lot of money. They're buying a lot of clothes. They're going a lot of vacations. But they themselves are not contributing really anything. And I find those people to be actually the most miserable people deep down, right? There's like a lot of the external stuff really can't really match or help someone with self-esteem or self-confidence.

But there's like a mixed message, right? Like because everything is about outer, right? Like if you can get this and that, that will make someone happy. And that supports the deficiency gap.

The deficiency gap? Because what happens is you never quite get it's never you're never going to be

good enough. There's always going to be someone who has more or is better at or whatever. 100% and so once you get there you see someone who's higher and it only highlights the gap. And so it highlights the sense that something's wrong with me. So it creates a self-worth issue.

“100% and also for men as well when they're like when they reach a certain level of wealth and success.”

But yet like they don't really have a real purpose or they don't really don't have a real why they're never really happy. And they're just constantly chasing. But I was going to say something interesting today. I heard something that I thought was really, really interesting. And I really loved it. And it was the grass is green where I am. I don't really care how green someone else is grass because I'm not looking there anyway. Because I'm focusing on the

grass in front of me at my house. And so I thought that was like really profound.

So that because you think that's profound and you resonate with that, this is how this would work for you. Okay. So the moment you notice yourself like on social media and you're comparing yourself to another person and saying like how come this person has more followers and more than whatever. You know like we can be all get caught in those loops right? Yeah. And so and so it's a cook it's a comparison loop. So it's really natural for every human to have that kind of thing

because we're constantly our brains constantly looking to see if we're safe. Is there a sense of belonging here or not? So it's scanning for that constantly. You would you would recognize that and say okay. All right. This is the comparison loop. You'd recognize you take a moment to see how your nervous system got pulled. Take a breath. Maybe a little longer exhale. You're literally shoulders drop slightly. And then you then you've

remind yourself of that sang because if you just try this is this is where it won't work as well. It won't work as well is if you're just like feeling overwhelmed you try and pull that sang. Your your brains and sort of a not a receptive state. And so then we wonder why it's not working. Like that was such a great quote or saying like how come it's not making me calm or making me focus or like bringing. Give it me the alleviation the relief I'm looking for is because we didn't

do the first few steps. And so this is why and this is this took me like 20 years to figure out.

Like why is it that we know so much and we have these sang's but they don't always connect

with us or they don't create the impact we're looking for is because we haven't learned how to really just like very basically like release our nervous system for a second to create more receptivity. We need more blood flow to this part of the brain, the prefrontal region and the way to make that land and take root more and like the ordinary moment when you are stressed and overwhelmed. So we recognize that we say okay there's overwhelm here take a moment we release and then we pull

one of the ways that we refocus so before our method is recognized release refocus reinforced. Right. So the refocus stage one of the things we can do in the refocus stage is now pull from all the wisdom and experience that we have. Now we're in a more receptive state so you can bring that in it's going to land more for you. And that's that's really important again. Something tiny something small doesn't take a lot of energy. Remember our brains looking for safety,

certainty in trying to and energy conservation none of this takes a lot of energy to do. So it flies under the brains throughout the detection system. And if we do this with repetition you probably

“know that that phrase repetition is the mother mastery. Right. I think you went to a Tony Robbins event”

like a while back or something didn't you go to that on purpose? Did I? Maybe I did. I maybe did. Oh yes I did. We're invited or something. Yes. You know you come my feet sometimes. Oh look I was invited to yes the one here in like a couple a year ago. No not even. Yeah he uses that phrase light. It's not from him. It comes from history. Repetition is the mother of mastery. So repetition and rapid what you practice and repeat it. I'm a big believer in like a big believer

in practice, practice, practice, practice, practice. Well because you train. Yeah you clearly train. You know the value of training. Yeah I do. And everything like there's a difference between exercise and training. Training is you're trying to build something and make it stronger. Exercise is you're just trying to like you know do something regularly. It's healthy for you. Exactly. Right.

doing something over and over again when you don't want to is how you get really really good at anything and everything. So like doing a squat over and over again. Yes you're doing a squat and you'll get better but if you can take that same methodology and apply it to anything you want to be good at you're going to be better than 99% of the world because nobody does it as much as that. But what's the methodology for somebody who has had a really hard time with having a consistent

“fitness practice? Yeah well I think baby steps, tiny shifts, tiny things like don't”

bite off more than that's humanly possible to chew. I think when people really get disillusioned is when they have a goal that's very lofty. So like make it really small like these like tiny little things. Right. So like there's the atomic habits and the tiny habits. It's all the same, atomic habits, tiny habits. But there isn't tiny shifts. So what tiny shifts is? Yep.

Is it saying let's go a layer deeper? Yep. For a second and saying like even with the

atomic habits and tiny habits why a lot of people still don't, why a lot of people still have a hard time following through with that is because they still fit. Now that we're the value of that is is it lowers the energy output. Right. I don't have to do a lot of energy to do one push-up. Right. Right. And so. Yes. Can I tell you something? Yeah. I agree. So I think you're going to say something that I many years ago I did a a created a fitness app called hot five five minute workouts.

Right. Now it's very popular. That that's still out called it. We sold it to winchers. That's why you use a weight watchers. That's the example backwing. So very familiar with the whole weight

“watchers ecosystem. But and that's why I think by the way, another not not to go into another”

tangent. But that's why I know of all the biggest programs, all these programs evolve. Now it's like everybody in their dog has a course of program. The one that works the best is weight watchers because of the accountability. They go into these like little stupid little rooms everywhere around the world. You walk in, you get me. I'm running up even saying my right. Yeah. But you count your points. People laugh at it all the time. But by the way, guess what? It is the most effective program

still to date in my opinion because it's keeps people accountable. It's not fancy. It's the basics. There's no magic potion. You're counting what you eat. People don't want what actually works. They want the newest flashy light bulb or the flashy influencer who's talking about some very fancy thing. Or just the one app that's going to help them. They'll pay whatever for it. Because everyone's so distracted. If they can just focus on the one thing in general in life,

like not jump around. Like we're talking about these tiny ships are talking about being aware.

“I think if people are aware of the fact that like if you're not constantly looking for the”

silver bullet, the magic potion, and you just stick to the thing, whatever that one thing is, that one workout you like, that one food that you like, that one whatever you like, and just keep on doing it, you're going to get to your result. And that's behavioral too and everything, right? Like, I don't think that I think what's really confused the ecosystem and the ether and the world right now is choice. Too much choice. Too much choice. My mom used to say to me,

when I was little, she'd be like, you know, basically you have too much choice, Jennifer,

you're going to end up with nothing. So like, there was like a, you know, an in general, right? Like if you go to the big Walmart, you know, you're overwhelmed with all the different options. But if you go to the little mom, pot shop and they have only one type of tape and the only one, one kind of bread and one type of milk, you get those in your happy, you know? But you have too much in your end up with like, you literally walk out like completely empty handed with nothing.

So even in that type of moment, where there's too much. Too much. There's a lot of choice. Uh-huh. How do I, how do I kind of go for it? And then how do I, how do I, I can only be in charge of me? And so in that moment when I'm feeling overwhelmed with too much choice, the very simple path forward to to to move in the direction of doing the tiny, the atomic habit or the tiny habit, you know, that that BJ fog and James Clear's kind of work to be able to do the hot five.

Well, that's just the reason, by the way, why I said that was giving someone five minute workouts is what is much more psychologically attainable for someone to do, like, oh, I can do five minutes, much easier than saying go and do a 30 minute hit training, go and do that tape for 40 minutes. If you say to someone, do five minutes, people are like, all right, I don't know. Okay, I can do five minutes. And the, and the biggest resistance for people is actually the beginning, right? Like putting

on their shoes and getting their sports bra on or whatever. And then like going to the, get the

mat. If you can like eliminate or like minimize that resistance or once you kind of over, basically

get past that, five minutes psychologically and also I see you on the, on my, on the analytics,

there's so many different things in this right? Habits and hustle, right? So the, what I think the, the layer that I'm hoping when people listen to this, they're kind of taking away is that that strategy is one strategy that's been successful of being able to kind of dial it back. I used to ask people like, how much do you think you can do? I think I could do five minutes. Okay, I want it to go do four. Then, you know, so that there's, there's a kind of no excuse for that. So, but but that's

one strategy. Now, if you recognized the overwhelm of too many choices, let's say, and you just notice, like, okay, this is like I'm feeling flooded right now by too much. And you notice you pause for

second and you just kind of named it flooded overwhelmed, you know, whatever you want to say. And

you notice that your body is now tensing, like somewhere, chest, shoulders, face, and you just took a moment, just softened for a second, all of like five seconds that takes to do. And then you ask yourself the question, okay, what's going to be most supportive right now? What's what's one thing I can do that's going to enhance the next three or five minutes from this in this moment. Now, it might be, well, I'm just going to take five minutes and do this. Or it might be, you know what,

“I need a person. I need another human. Like, maybe that's what someone actually needs. Like,”

I'm a huge fan of other humans, like, where you wait watchers, even one other person, that could be a buddy, that could be a coach, that could be some, maybe someone needs that. Maybe that's really what they need. So, we want to get in touch with personally, what that person needs versus just a one-size-fits-all type of thing. It might be the shorter practice. It might be a person. It might be that, you know, what, today's just not the day. Actually,

what I need is, I need rest. And then, because rest is important in your fitness, and you're trying to re-create my own recoveries or recovery day for me. I'm just so, I might need to talk with somebody.

Like, so that third step of refocus is either we're going to have the now the capacity

to reach for something that I know is helpful for me like that mantra that's saying that you had said, "My grass is already green and I don't need to look at the other person's grass." Or, you know, what? Why don't I just dial this down to five minutes? Like, I know that works for me. Or, we can ask ourselves a question. When we ask ourselves

“questions, our brain looks for answers. And so, we do this all the time. Our minds asking us,”

like, what if this doesn't work out? What's wrong with me? Like, you know, what's wrong with this person, whatever? And so, we could cotton these kind of loops. And so, we can ask ourselves, like, I say this kind of in the book, we have this artificial intelligence that we're all like, either enamored or scared by right now, right? Either way. And then, but we have this natural

intelligence too, this NI, both are kind of of the value. And when we ask our brain question,

just like when we ask the artificial quite artificial intelligence questions, it also gives us answers. We just need better prompts, better prompts, lead to better answers. We're hearing this all the time in the AI world. Same with ourselves. If we ask ourselves the question, what's going to be most supportive for me right now? So, after we recognize release, we don't just, we don't just recognize and jump to that question. We have to do the release place.

That's the part that most people miss, because that helps expand our emotional capacity to be able to ask a different question or reach for a piece of wisdom so that it takes root. So, we say, what do I need right now? That's when we can kind of tattoo on our brains. What's going to be most supportive in the next few minutes? I'll tell you this. This is an everyday type of thing. I was on the, I was going to my friend's house for dinner,

and I was exhausted, but it was my friend. So, it was like cool. I didn't have to like, wasn't going to take a lot of energy. So, I was happy to go. He calls me midway. He's like, "Oh, change your plans. We've totally forgot we got invited to our friend's house. I didn't know this person." And they're like, "But they said you can come too." And I'm like, "Oh, no, this is not like, I don't know these people. I'm going to have to like be on. I'm going to have to

like, you know, whatever. It's going to take more energy." My brain's like, "You don't have the energy to give." You know, but so I just paused and noticed kind of the resistance that was there. And the overwhelming I was already on the 405. I was already, it was in the valley, so I was already on my way there. And I recognized the resistance. I took a moment and kind of took a

“breath that longer exhale, as you know, is a really important one because it activates the”

person with that nervous system. But really, it's really enjoyable, by the way, if no one, I'm sure people in your audience have done that before. I hope so. Yeah, yeah. So that's a form of release. That's just an example, that lowering your shoulders, a little longer exhale, just an example. And then I asked myself the question, because I was in a different state. I changed my state, my mind stayed in that moment, by the recognize and release. I was below more receptive. And I

said, "What's going to be something I can do to enhance this evening?" Because I was already going. So I can either go gritting my teeth and like, you know, what's going to, what's something I can do to enhance this evening? And what came to me is like, okay, I wasn't, this wasn't coming to me before in the state that I was in was when I meet these people that I don't know at the door, I'm going to start off with a little gratitude. I'm going to say thank you so much

for inviting me here. And then I remind of myself that I can be quiet while I'm there. I can be like tired. It's okay. I don't have to be entertaining. You know, and what happened was that completely

sky that was just podcast dude that was there. And who do I know? No, I don't remember. I don't

“actually remember his name. Okay. Happy that memorable, though. No, no, but it was in enjoyable”

conversation. Okay, okay. I'm like, by the way, it just historically bad when they're in some general. Really, do you know why I need John? Yeah. Just kidding. Let me take a quick break to tell you about something that has genuinely changed how I performed throughout the day. For years, I just assumed that my mental sharpness had a ceiling. That by mid afternoon, I was running on fumes, slower to think harder to focus, and even a little

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through their store-lake locator on magic mind. And I was a little skeptical too, but now, I notice when I don't take it. And that's the only proof I need. So don't forget to check out magicmind.com to find out the stores near you and get 50% off your first order at of course magicmind.com. You know what's interesting? You just reminded me of something. I had this podcast I've been talking about it since I've done it. It just went up maybe a couple weeks ago with a guy named

Kevin Trudeau. Do you know who he is? It sounds familiar about it. Okay. He's not. You're thinking of pure pure Trudeau who is a former Prime Minister of Canada. But Kevin Trudeau, he wrote a book

25 years ago or more natural cure's book. He's like 100 million copies. We're like something

insane. Okay. That is very successful. No, no, he sold like maybe 50 billion. It was a lot of copies of this book. And he was like the infomercial king. And he was very, very popular. And then he got into trouble with the law and he went to jail for 10 years. Everyone assumed he went to jail because he did something really bad and shady. Turns out he was put in jail for contempt of court because he was arguing with the judge. Because 10 years, that was like that's not the max. That sounds crazy. Crazy. The podcast was amazing. I'm

just saying it was still one of my favorites of all time. Anyway, he sat here and I was just blown away by what he said to me. He said he was in jail for 10 years. Maybe I think he got out a year early for good behavior. And I said, oh my god, like how was your time in jail? Like holy crap. Like you're like you had all these millions of dollars. You were like writing high and then you had all these legal problems blah blah blah. And he's like, it was fantastic. I'm like, what do you mean it was fantastic?

He's like, it was amazing. I had a great time. I was a cook in the kitchen. I got to choose

“the kind of food we got to eat. Yeah, that's what he said. He was like, I got to choose the kind of food”

we ate. I read a lot of books. I would never, if I never went to jail, I would never have been able

to read all those books. I would never, I would never be able to meditate as much as I did. All these like I would never. Like he's like, it was, I'm like, I'm like you're making it sound like it was like the four seasons. And he's like, you know what? I get into it. He's like, listen to these like, this is the deal. This is the truth. You go into it. You get sentenced to 10 years in jail, Jennifer. You can eat them. You have two choices. You can complain and bitch and moan the whole time

and be miserable. And those 10 years go by really, really, really, really slow. Or you can like reframe and be really, and have a different attitude and be like, you know what? I'm here anyway. I'm not going anywhere. I minus will make the best of this situation. And so everything was like he turned everything into a positive and he had a great, like, legitimately he looked like he had a great time in jail. So it's so amazing to me how like just a different like reset and a reframe

of how you like experience or take on that experience can change everything. Yeah. And then what I

Right. Not everyone has the same. Some people like, like, I always, I always think of athletes,

like some athletes are just naturally talented and in they train, right? Some have to really train a lot harder because they're not quite as naturally talented. Yeah. You know, some grow up with harder conditions. So with that example, I don't know him. But with that example, the way someone could get there, who that's a little harder for, they try and kind of do reef arms, but it kind of bounces back on them. And then they, it's not working as well, is because when stress is low, scale of 1 to 10.

I mean, that's stress would have been like really high for just about everybody, but for in general for people when stress is low, you can jump to like noticing like, I'm kind of like out of whack right now and just kind of try and reframe the situation. It's helpful. That's one of the, that's one of the paths of refocusing. Ask a question, grab from your own wisdom because you already know it, reframe the situation. Or as soon as I say, just take a joy de-tory to change

a channel. That's a going outside and putting your hands in the dirt and jumping in the pool or whatever.

“Right. That's why the release piece is so important for most people because when they try and”

jump from just recognizing they're out of whack to reframing the situation, it doesn't land like they're, they're, they're, the feeling anxious are overwhelmed and so they're trying to kind of like force their brain into a different view, but it's just not kind of like, it's like they're trying to wedge something into a thing, but it's not going in there. So you're saying for somebody who is not naturally inclined to do a reframe, that's a really good point. They're stress is high,

yeah. But they're stress is high and it's not as easy for them. What they can do is do that third

hour, which is the release? Well, no, the seconder. So they recognize it. They notice they're like, um, I'm overwhelmed. I'm angry. I'm sad. I'm just too much, too much. They could just say too much. Sometimes they say, like, I want to pull my hair to my head loop. You know, like whatever, you don't have to have, yeah. It's good to have an emotional vocabulary. We can all learn an emotional vocabulary. Um, I, we, I have a whole thing on my website that kind of goes. We'll go to that

emotional vocabulary when you finish what you said. So just finish what you said about the world. Okay. The second, it's really the second, are that release piece that allows our nervous system to soften a little bit when I say our nervous system is literally just like, that's my muscle, right? Yeah, just allow your, allow your shoulders to drop. By the way, when you do that, because I know you've done that on here you said that idea of that inhalation a little bit longer, exhalation.

Well, it's a pair of sympathetic, I talk about that. But what I, what I, what I layer in there is and what, when you do that, you notice your shoulders lift a little bit on the inhalation. When you exhale, your shoulders slightly drop. And when your shoulders slightly drop, what's happening, your muscles

“between your neck and your shoulders are lengthening a little bit. And that's what we're after.”

We're after, we're after moving from construction to lengthening of the body in the release stage. You can also kind of brain dump and just kind of like bright stuff and a journal as a way of kind of getting your thoughts out. But that's sort of what you're after, like loosening your body, because your nervous system just got, just got coiled. And we want to just release it a little bit, you know, after I fully fully released, that is what expands the emotional capacity to be able

to do any of those things, like do that reframe more successfully. Do the reach for that piece of wisdom one day at a time, one moment at a time, this two shell past, grant me this friendly to accept the things that cannot change or change the things that I can grab from your moms or your grandma or your spiritual teachers wisdom, whatever it is, it's going to land more. When your nervous system feels a little bit more, just a little bit looser, a little bit more grounded,

just not everything, but takes all five to ten seconds. That's the part most people miss. They just want to go from one to the shifting their their mind state and they wonder why it doesn't stick. So when you say release, you just being breathed. What I really need to be breathed, let your body kind of breathing. If that's the part where somebody, for most people, if they take that breath in that longer breath out, that does kind of create a little bit of a release. That's really what it is.

“Sometimes I think of like the thought that's just self critical thought happening,”

like what's wrong with me, what I do that, you know, this type of thing, as I'm breathing in, as I'm breathing out, I'm seeing that thought like flow out of my mouth and like flow out of my body. Not that that's actually happening. There's like paranormal situation happening, but there, but it's, it's just, it's another way of your, you'll notice, you'll notice your body starting to feel a little bit differently. That's the release so that now you can refocus.

Ask a different question, grab from some wisdom. Do a reframe. Go out, go take a change the channels and you just need a different environment. That's the refocus. About, yeah, the, like, I hope that it's that little area between like, you're right. I think

because people always say to me, like, well, how do you, like, it's one thing to,

like, you know, people, like, how do you get motivated? And then I answer with, you don't rely on motivation. You rely on discipline. And they're like, well, how do you get discipline? It's like, well,

So then do the thing over and over again. It's like, it's basically the chicken or the egg, right?

And they always get stuck in that, right? I'm like, I don't know how to tell somebody.

This is how you tell. How to do something over and over and over again when they just are not someone who wants to do it. Okay. So that's it, right? So now you've touched on something very important. Right. Well, it's not that they're not someone who wants to do it. Because that's

“now, now that's now we're saying this is part of their identity. That's what we, that's what we want to”

move away from. And now that the PC wait, how do we get them to do it? Well, no, no, because it makes a difference. Because when someone says, look, when someone says, I'm an anxious person, yeah, then they feel, I know, then that that becomes your identity and you think you're anxious. Okay. No, they think from that way. They think from the anxiety plan. So what we, what we say is, and that I'm, I discipline is something that is a value of someone going back to that, right?

This is a value of your discipline. Just have a hard time with it. Okay. So, so now we say, okay, it's a value. So what we're going to do is we're going to train it. What training means is you're going to fall off. You're not going to be perfect with it. But what we're going to do is realize that you have some resistance to discipline. There's something there internally. It's an inside job. So you have this idea discipline is working out, discipline of working out, just a

plan of writing, discipline of whatever the heck they want, someone wants to do in their life, the habit they want to create. And you, you, you have a schedule you've created for yourself. These a five minute thing, a ten minute thing or whatever, of making planning your meals, wait, watchers, and you say, I'm not endorsed, or this is not an ad, sorry, sorry, sorry. By the way, I don't have to focus how to wait, watchers human for probably eight years. So they're just

getting free marketing. They're just getting free, you know, basically exactly shout outs constantly.

Shout out other people. Shout out magic minds. Shout out someone else. Okay. Go ahead. You're magic, my main street, right? I love that. I love that. I'm happy. Have you ever tried? I haven't haven't tried it. Yeah. Okay. But every, they reach out to me. That's, they, they, they, they did. Like a year or so. Because that, that is probably the best mental performance shot on the planet. I'm not just saying that I am actually, I take one every single

“day before I work out. This one has zero caffeine. You should try one. And everyone, I've been doing”

this for five years. I've been, I love them. This is one of my favorite companies. I have a talk to you about it more offline. Well, you can tell me more about it. Okay. You should drink one though. Okay. Right now. Oh, okay. All right. No. I'm serious. Like right now. Okay. This is going to,

this is going to change this podcast entirely. Hold on a second. That one is zero caffeine.

Yeah. It's tasty. Yes. Okay. We're going to see if I say things a little bit clearer and differently. I can say exactly. And we're focused. Okay. Yeah. So they have this value, the value is just a plan. We're going to train it. We're going to, we have that, you have a task that's part of whatever, writing every day for half an hour or, you know, exercise, whatever, sleep routine, you know, and you notice this resistance because when it comes up because, again, underneath that your,

your brain's asking the question, is this safe? Is it certain, um, and is it going to take more energy than I have? Right. And, and you notice this resistance. So you notice it, the resistance loop call it. Great book, the, uh, the war of art, which is great. Love, love, love, love, love, love, who's supposed to be on the show a couple of times? I don't know what happened. Right. So it's a great example. Right. He does a great example in that book of, of naming an emotional loop. It's just

resistance. And with the repetition of, of the word he uses in there just helps with people like recognizing it more and getting better at sense of what that feeling is for them. So you recognize the resistance to the discipline, right? But when you, the, the resistance is creating a physiological reaction in you. You're not aware of it because it's, it's underneath everything. I want people to become more aware of their bodies and the, the emotional experience of resistance is actually a

physical experience too. Emotions are biology. I want to be very clear about that. And so, and so then we take a moment and we just kind of like soften our bodies. You can even kind of stretch it out or shake it out. But you keep on saying the same thing, which is the softening of your body, releasing, breathing. Yeah. But what that doesn't make somebody go back and do the thing on and over again. Get what it does is it sends safety signals to the brain when you do kind of release because it says,

okay, I'm not under threat. My body, if my body is able to relax, we're, we're changing the way of, of our subconscious thinking through physiology and that release stage. So if your body can relax, if you can like soften your muscles, you send safety signals to your brain. So like I'm safe enough for my muscles to relax. I don't, I'm not under threat anymore. If you can take a deep breath, you send a message you're bringing. I'm safe enough to take, to exhale, to breathe,

“to like exhale for a second. That's what you want. You want your mind body to be going to say,”

in a sense of feeling more safe so that you can get to the next stage. Which is what? Which is the refocus stage. Okay, so now the question is, the question is, ask yourself, what is, how am I going to feel after I do this thing? All right, that's a common question, right? But now you've, since you've recognized and released, you can ask yourself that question,

brain by just taking a few seconds to kind of soften. Then you ask yourself a question because you

“want to access your natural intelligence in that moment. What's one thing I can do that would support”

me in the direction of this? How am I going to feel after I do this workout, after I do this sleep routine, after I, you know, make this, make this healthier or meal? And if a positive, we know that positive emotions are motivating, that encourages a positive emotion, that's there, and like a vision of a different experience. Was that thing called when you, when you kind of eliminate the resistances so you can actually do the thing? Limbick, resist, limbick, something

have you heard of this? I don't know. Yeah. Like take out all of the possible things, triggers, resistances that you could, so you can actually do the thing. Like so, like for example, put your shoes out in the morning, you know, your gym shoes, your clothes out to work out, like work, put the treadmill in your kitchen, like whatever it is. What are those called when you eliminate any of the distractions or the blockages so you can actually do the thing. I'm not talking about a name of

for it is not coming to. Oh, yeah. I'm just saying, based on what you said, if I were to be honest with you, this is the same stuff. I've heard this many times, and at the end of the day, what I'm, I'm a big believer. And if you want someone wants to do something bad enough, they're going to do it. You can say, if this value means something to you and you can loosen your body and you can do this,

and you can do that, and then maybe they'll do it once or twice. But if you have a very powerful

reason why you're doing something or why you want to change, you'll do it. Like I've been down this road many times with a lot of people in a lot of ways, and like I've noticed that most people are very stuck in their chaotic loop of their own habits. They can be bad habits, they can be unhealthy habits, they can be negative habits. But that's their survival mechanism. So it's very hard to break survival mechanism habits, right? Unless something traumatic or

something really negative, like something really is forcing you to do it. You can train it. You can train your way through that. I've done this for 20 years, aren't people? So that I'm completely in alignment with you. Yes, you're why Simon Sinek talks about this, Tony Robbins talks about

this, people for years have talked about, if I had, I talked to people, I said, listen, you can't

get this, you don't think you can do this thing, cross this threshold, get this done,

“right here. Let me ask you a question. Is someone held a gun to your, your person you love's head?”

And they said, you do this, you do this. Okay, that just means your reasons aren't strong enough. Okay, so we understand that. So the why is it, how about just pure laziness? Is it okay these days to just say it, maybe someone's just lazy and they don't want to do that. Well, what's lazy? That's to, that's like again, a blunt instrument. Like what is, what does that word mean? Like what's underneath that word? Oftentimes, they're laziness is fear. Okay. I mean, yes, sometimes it is.

There's those three elements happening. I don't, I'm not sure if there's a threat on the other end of this. I'm not sure if I'm going to fail once again and remind myself that, I have a friend. Okay, let me tell you this. I have a girlfriend. I'm in front of the store for 20 years, okay? And she's, she refuses to exercise. She's very overweight and she refuses to exercise. Yeah. She will do everything and anything to lose weight, except the one thing that everybody has

told her, do to myself that she needs to do. Yeah. She will go to every retreat. She'll go to every spot. She will take every potion and lotion. And at the end of the day, the one thing she needs to do is exercise. She will not do it. Yeah. There is a blockage. Now, usually that's because of something much more deep rooted, of course, right? I would argue there's an emotional reason. There's an emotional for sure there is. Yeah. So, is this is, this is probably where your

awareness comes in, right? Like if someone has the awareness to know what that thing is, it's much easier to unlock it, right? To then get past the, whatever that blockage is to then do the thing, right? Yeah. Like that, this would come into the refocus stage. It was like, I try a repeat, I fail, I try a repeat, I fail. If I got to, if I was able to recognize that, I was, once again, resisting, exercising with those on my schedule. And I took a moment just to

kind of ground myself, that would be the kind of release stage. And I refocus by saying, like,

“what's really underneath there? What's going to support me in really unpacking what's underneath this?”

Like, how can I, how can I better start moving in the direction of this? Like if it's deeper, what I might need is some kind of other type of support to help me. It might not just be like, it's not all pulling ourselves up, but this kind of method is not pull myself up on my bootstraps,

we don't want to let go of something. Yeah. Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes, there's a, like, a

willfulness there that underneath that is, there's like an anger that's underneath that. Right,

“that's my point. I think that there's like sometimes, sometimes we're trying to, like,”

fit a square into a circle. Okay. I have some rapid fire questions. Can you go rapid fire? Yeah. But I'll just say before we go rapid fire. Yeah. That's the angle behind an underneath the recognize stage is getting a better idea of your feelings and your emotions, because some, those are really things that are pulling the strings for most people. Those are sub-cortical. It's not conscious. And so having a better handle on or intimacy with the actual

feelings and emotions that are there can really be helpful in being able to move forward these others. And by the way, I'm, I'm guilty of this myself, right? Like, I can be considered to be maybe a hyper-former because I work out. I have a lot of my own, you know, not sense. And, you know, cookies and I can't get out of my own way and a lot of things too. Even though I have the awareness, I have the ability to kind of know why I do what I do. And it's still really, really hard.

It's still hard to do it, right? Like, it's very, very, very difficult. None of this is easy, right? Like, self-awareness, you know, they sometimes say ignorant is bliss, right? Because self-awareness can also be very, you know, difficult. Yeah. But there's the, I think that just want to kind of name for, for those, for people of kind of kind of deep, kind of deep into this. Yeah. Self-awareness,

“we want to kind of like, and again, I think what you're touching out is very important because”

you're talking about the reality of imperfection with all this stuff, with teachers and people

who are speaking about it and psychologists and whoever you look up to, I always tell people, I'm like,

whoever you look up to, who you think is like the guru or whatever, I go, I've been with some of those people believe me. Like, oh, I said all the time. I say like, there's anybody that you don't ever meet the person that you admire the most because like, you would be very, very shocked to see just when the, when the curtain is unveiled. Everybody has shit, right? It's got their, nobody's perfect. Yeah. And I've said this all the time. Like, the people that you think about the smartest,

the coolest, the most successful, I've sat with them all, probably 85 to 95% of them. And they're no great shakes to be honest. It's always, like, I'm usually not that impressed with those people. It's actually the people who show that they're flawed, who are not the people that you're putting on a pedestal, who are the most impressive people. People you don't know and they don't need the applause. You know what I mean? I think the takeaway there is that if anyone's listening or watching

this right now and you're feeling like you have your imperfections, that just means you belong. Oh, I'm going to use myself as an example, right? People say, oh, you're so fit. That means blah, blah, blah. It means nothing. It means I have one area that I'm good at. That's good.

But how about all these other areas, right? Like, I feel like just never look at somebody and

“think just because you admire that one thing that their whole life is better than yours,”

because it's actually not true. Everyone has things that make them good and bad and make their lives good and makes other people. Like, never compare yourself, because you never know what someone's really going through or what their situation is or why they're there or how they got there or what back in baggage they have. I think it's a very, I'm really, really adamant about this and I've been talking about this so much more lately because I feel like social media has

done such a number on it. Oh, huge. And now it's making everybody more insecure. Like, everybody I know is getting faceless like they were going to get a couple of coffee at Starbucks. I mean, it's insane. We live in LA by the way. Yeah. Oh, but these are people not even in LA. By the way, I would use, I used to say, oh, it's because LA. I travel a lot. It's not just LA. I guess it's I guess the internet's actually made it probably. Yeah, social media, these people are in like,

in like, in tendency and Kansas in, you know, whichever they are, people are people, right? And if you see something in an image or a person or you hear something enough times, you actually believe to think that's like, that's now become the norm. And we shouldn't make things like that the norm. You know, people should, I just think that like, because of that, I want people to kind of remember, these are just filters that people put on their life. Oh, I just want to say,

well, I'm going to say it a different way. I don't know why that you set it. Yeah. It's just because people are going to naturally compare themselves to others. Yeah, human nature. It's human nature. Instead of instead of not not doing it, because it's going to happen. What we want to do is recognize that, that that's happening. And then to kind of put it into this kind of method, then you want to, you want to kind of take the somatic moment with yourself just to kind of like

ground for two seconds. Then you want to ask yourself a question, or you want to bring, then you can bring this wisdom into it of saying like, could it be that this person also has other imperfections in their life? Could it be that because, yes. And I just wanted to kind of, the way

asking a question. So they're going to refer for answers versus saying, don't do this, right,

“which is because they're going to do it. It's going to have, we're going to do this. I want that. So”

you're saying, I love that. You're saying when you are recognizing, when you're seeing somebody and you're feeling your mind, yeah, goes into like, oh, that person has so much better than me in that way. Feeling shame or feeling bad about yourself or whatever you have. Ask yourself the question of, well, is that maybe they do they, it's just because they have that going, maybe they have some, maybe they have another issue, some more else that you don't know about. Or is my brain

making them overly perfect? Or, or, or, or what am I proud of, what's one thing I'm proud of myself today? Like, you know, I love that asking the question. You're right, because it just also changes the,

it changes the, like, the direction of where your brain is going. And that makes a difference. Again,

it's all connected. So the way you're thinking, the facts how you feel and facts how you stand, in fact, it's called embodied cognition. And then you can kind of shift that through the way your body's. Oh, I love that, actually. That's a great way. A lot of things we can do to shift our state. Okay, here are rapid-fire questions. So, which means you have to be rapidly fast. Okay? So no,

“long on that question. Well, I think that matters. Like, made me, I'm good. I'm glad. Ready?”

Question one. What is the one thing someone can do in the next 60 seconds to calm their nervous system? I think it's really just simple and notice where your body is, is holding the tension and see if you can loosen that a little bit. Okay. That's it. You, you shift your thoughts through your body. Number two. What is the fastest way to interrupt a negative thought spiral before

it takes over your entire day? The fastest way is first do a little planning for a second and just

notice if you can name like your top three negative thoughts spirals that you fall into, whether it's a comparing loop or whether it's a catastrophizing loop or whether it's some other kind of loop. And then you can spend and you can set an intention to be on the lookout for that. And if you can name it and be on the lookout for it, just that awareness alone in that moment can create a little bit of an interrupt. And then again, again, this is all very simple and I say this with repetition

for a reason. If you can notice how it's pulling on your body, you do want to be able to, you do want to loosen that and then ask yourself, see if there's a reverse question, you can ask yourself. Okay. If someone only has five minutes a day, what mindfulness practice would actually make the biggest difference? For me, in my life, it's the body awareness practice. So you're actually just kind of going through your body and you're curious about the sensations of your body and

you're kind of moving through from your toes to your head. That practice, because, and I know a rapid fire, so I won't say exactly why it works neurologically, but that practice healed my insomnia. Wow. Yeah. I want to know now. Okay. What, how did you do that? Can you do, can you tell me that answer as fast? How did you heal your insomnia in 60 seconds or less go? Okay. There's two different levers of the brain. There's the part that's a bit more of a great steadiness and

of the part that creates a bit more narrative chaos. And so when you, when you hit the lever, which is just being aware, allowing yourself to direct your mind to be curious about sensations of the body versus the story, the mind is telling that's keeping you awake. It's like a seesaw effect. The other one goes up while one goes down. It's a little bit like training a black stallion,

“because you're going to be knocked off a bunch of times, but you have to trust the neurology of it.”

And if you keep coming back, you recognize your release, you refocus back on the sensation that's here, then your, the lever of the kind of more chaotic gear will begin to go down and just kind of continue to bring it back to the repetition. A little bit, 60 seconds is tough to kind of explain that in, but yeah. What is the one thing people misunderstand about meditation that keeps them from not sticking with it? It's meant to be calm that your, well, mindfulness is not what, tell

people what, how about this? Mindfulness is awareness. Meditation is a practice. Okay. So it's a mindfulness and how about this? Mindfulness and meditation are not the same thing. Mindfulness is actually about being, it's not about being calm. It's about being aware. And meditation is a practice. Yeah, but meditation people do meditation for an outcome. And that's the wrong thing. Meditation is meant to be a training. So in other words, if I want to train emotional awareness, my meditation

will be on my emotions. If I'm going to train concentration, I'll focus on my breath for concentration. If I want to train like more equanimity, which means open awareness and being aware of things coming and going, I'll do a different type of meditation practice. Prayers meditation if I want to get closer to God. So the question is, what's your intention with this practice? Treat it like a training and not for the outcome. That's not what you're after. You're after the practice and

repetition of something. You want to, you want to train in playing an instrument. It's not that every now all of a sudden you'll get an outcome of a beautiful song that you'll get, but you're

with meditations. It's just a training. That's all it is. Oh, I get it. All right. So Dr. Alisha, I said it. Yes, Goldstein his book. His new book is called Tiny Shifts and it's out everywhere, right? And

it's one of your third book. My sixth book. Oh, gee. Yeah. Thanks, book. Wow. Okay. Well,

he's been around a while, I guess. You guys go grab a copy and you can also work people find you. If they want to know more about Tiny Shifts or anything that you talk about. I think the you know, I'm on Instagram. I'm on the most universal spot. It's just my website, AlishaGoldstein.com. There's also this, this Tiny Shifts bundle there that you can get that's

“going to give you a bigger emotional vocabulary. Give you a few practices to train with. That's what”

I thought to ask you, will you say emotional vocabulary? What do you mean? I just mean like being able, yeah, it's more words. Being it, well, it's two things. It's words. So being able to know what you're feeling while you're feeling. So for example, and this is part of my story, and I'll say this pretty

quick, is that my parents got divorced when I was six. My mom left the family to, you know,

pursue other things that ended up being really wonderful for her. But for me, I was kind of left with a lot of anger. And then I shut the anger down. I decided, like, I guess unconsciously, that I would just not be angry and you just wouldn't see that. I had no, I had no connection with the feeling of anger. And so one time in my 20s, I was at my mom's house and she's, I was like being irritable with her and frustrated. And she's like, I think you're angry with me.

And, and I said, no, no, no, I'm not angry. And she said, but when you notice that you are angry with me, I want you to know that I'm open to talk to about it. That's when I ran into Marshall Rosenberg's work on nonviolent communication, which, like, really expanded a whole

mass vocabulary of emotions. And I started realizing annoyance, frustration, irritation.

These are all experiences of anger. So all of a sudden, I was noticing more anger and being able to, the value of that is being able to communicate it. And also, you have different needs depending on how you're feeling. You're going to need something different if you're overwhelmed versus sad versus lonely versus, you know, afraid. And so being able to accurately name how you're feeling is key to understanding what your underlying needs are. Damn, why did you let leave it

little? Okay, we, you mentioned it, like, a 10 minute to go. And I was like, I really love that emotional vocabulary. We're going to have to come back to it. But we got to it too late. That's great. I want to know more about that. Clip that out. Yeah. I'm going to clip that. I want to know more

“because I think that is so accurate because I think what we, the way we describe how we feel or what”

a situation is is usually not accurate enough and therefore, so we're not getting the right solution back at us. Yeah. Right. If I'm saying to you, for example, I'm really frustrated, but it really isn't the frustration at the word, the word is an frustration. It's really a different word, like sad or angry or hurt, hurt, or whatever. Then like, I'm not, I'm not explained, when I'm not explaining myself, right, or anybody not explaining themselves correctly, then they're not, they're

not having the correct conversation and the correct kind of back and forth to actually get a resolution. Yeah. And, and you or your partner or your friend or every communicating with doesn't know what you need. And so because you're not because we're not able to name what's happening as well. And so if we can get clear on what our emotions are and what our needs are, it's like a puzzle piece. They fit together. What are the main, what are some of the main emotional

words that people misused by accident? Some people, well, I think most people just say they're feeling fine, right? Exactly. But they don't. So, you know, they just kind of, again, we don't really have a good vocabulary. But I think we, sometimes we say we're feeling sad and we're feeling lonely. Those could go together. Sometimes we're just feeling agitated, really underneath that we're feeling lonely. Sometimes we're feeling angry, angry, but underneath that is really sadness.

Sometimes we're feeling sad, but underneath it is anger. Sometimes we just are feeling like a yearning to feel loved or cared about and understood. And, and instead we get agitated with people.

“And so to just kind of be able to get a little more intimate with, that's why I kind of”

point to the body a lot because emotions, they're physical. And so when we're able to name them, we also want to know like how they feel so we can better identify them when they're arising. And that helps us communicate it with the people that we care about. Listen, when you do this, it makes me feel like that. I wonder if we can compromise and kind of do this in the future. I love that. Okay, go look at, go check them out. Dr. Elijah Goldstein and learn more

because I love that that the emotional vocabulary. Thank you for being here. Yeah, it's been great. Thanks for having me. Of course. Bye! [Music]