January 5, 2026 • 46 mins
A lot of us spend our energy on things that aren’t worth it: projects, relationships, or goals that may feel important in the moment but ultimately leave us frustrated and drained.
Dr. Diana Hill, clinical psychologist and author of Wise Effort: How to Focus Your Genius Energy on What Matters Most, gives us a roadmap for applying our energy more effectively in the new year — so that our lives feel lighter, more purposeful, and energizing instead of exhausting.
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Welcome back to a new season of the Happiness
Lab and happy twenty twenty six Happiness Lab listeners. There's
something so hopeful about the start of a new year.
For many of us, January feels like a clean slate,
a chance to start fresh as the healthier, happier person
(00:37):
we want to be. But if there's one thing we
know about human nature, it's that behavior change is hard.
We set goals, make resolutions, feel motivated to do things differently,
and then we slip back into exactly the same habits
we had the year before, the ones we know just
don't work. So the goal of this new season of
the Happiness Lab is to give us the psychological traction
(00:58):
we need to break out of all the ruts that
we've been stuck in for a while. Rather than give
you the usual New Year platitudes, we'll be exploring strategies
that research shows can actually help us get on stuck
and back in motion. Over the course of the next
few episodes, we'll hear science back tips for embracing the
kinds of changes that feel scary, for finding a sense
(01:18):
of purpose in the midst of exhaustion, and for feeling
less overwhelmed with the current state of the world. And
in this first episode in our Getting Unstuck in the
New Year's season, we'll tackle the challenge of unsticking our effort.
We'll explore how to use our time and energy a
bit more effectively, which is so important if we want
to feel less stuck in twenty twenty six, because, let's
(01:39):
face it, a lot of us are putting a lot
of energy into the wrong kinds of things. To better
understand just how much unwise effort can keep us trapped.
Today's guest, the psychologist doctor Diana Hill, invites you to
think of a bit of an animal analogy. Imagine, if
you will, an unfortunate little bird who has accidentally made
its way indoors.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
And it does what birds do best, which is, I
think what humans do too, Like we want to get
out when we feel stuck, and we go out in
the predictable ways that maybe worked at some point to
get us unstuck.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
For a panicked bird, that means flying as hard as
possible into the nearest bright window.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
It's smart. He wants to go for that tree, right,
But what happens when that bird flies at a window.
We all know it's that painful experience of hitting its head.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
And sadly that poor little bird might not hit its
head just once. It will probably continue smashing itself into
the glass over and over. Rather than pausing and rethinking
its path to the outside world, it just starts pushing
into the glass even harder, using more and more of
its energy to slam into the window until it winds
up exhausted or hurt or worse. Diana has worked with
(02:51):
lots of humans who are feeling stuck, and she says
they don't behave all that differently from a frantic bird, Like.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
If I just fly harder at this relationship or work
harder in a work setting that's actually toxic for me,
maybe that will get me out. And that can lead
us to just feeling exhausted, right, It can lead us
to blaming ourselves. And it also can lead to another
pattern which some of us can get stuck in, which
(03:19):
is the very classic psychological problem of learned helplessness, where
we just say there's no way out, there's nothing I
can do here, there's no other possibility. I've tried everything,
you know as hard as I can sound familiar.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Well, not to worry, because Diana is here, to help
us get our energy back on track. In fact, she's
the author of a new book on just this topic.
It's called Wise Effort, How to Focus your genius energy
on what matters most.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
So as a psychologist, I've been training in and involved
in this concept of psychological flexibility for a really long time.
And what that bird actually needs is not to fly
harder at the same thing. Maybe it could use a
little rest, little rest on that kitchen floor, but not
to you know, give up, but to use its energy
(04:08):
differently than that. Maybe look around, look in places that
you haven't looked before, try new things, and there may
be an open door. And that requires you to be
flexible in your attention, but then also flexible in your behavior.
And it doesn't mean you shouldn't fly, So you can
still be the bird that you are, but shift that
(04:28):
energy and attention to get out and to free yourself
from whatever place you're stuck in.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Diana is a clinical psychologist and an expert on getting
your energy unstuck, but she admits that she too has
been in situations where she was putting too much energy
into the wrong things.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Well, in twenty twenty one, I was on a podcast
that I had been working on for a number of years.
I put a lot of energy into it. On the outside,
it had close to two million downloads. And there's a
term in psychology that sunk cost fallacy. You know, we've
put so much time and energy and effort into it,
(05:06):
so therefore we keep doing it if it's not working
for us. And what I started noticing is that I
would have a panic attacks before i'd go on team meetings.
I started to just feel like my heart wasn't in
it anymore. I wanted more freedom, I wanted more flexibility,
I wanted more creativity. But I kept at it, and
I just kept on going harder at it and became
(05:29):
quite inflexible, to the point where I became unpleasant to
be around. I became more controlling. It was finally in
the letting go. It was turning around looking around, are
there other options here? That freed up my energy? And
it took a bit of as many people experience when
they're starting something new, of having to go back to
(05:49):
the beginning. My ego take a bit of a beating, like, yeah,
I got to start from zero here and I got
to give some of this up. But why am I
doing it? I had lost my purpose, my values, and
the deeper things that maybe were driving me starting a
podcast in the first place, and so I had to
remember those again.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
And so this was really a story of trying to
make sure that your energy was going in the right direction.
And this is really the subject of your book, how
we can put wiser energy into things. You've argued that
we need to pay attention to where our energy is going,
that this matters a lot. Why does it matter so much?
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Well, energy is kind of everything. Right. One hour of
something that brings you vitality, of something that opens you up,
of even something that's a little bit hard for you,
but the end of it you feel regenerated by is
a power that could shift your whole day. Right. When
(06:44):
our behavior is out of alignment with our values, it
actually can really de energize us. And that's why a
lot of people come to work with me as a therapist,
is because there's a misalignment of who they want to be,
how they want to show up, and then it's showing
up in dissatisfaction with life.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
And so sometimes we're throwing way too much energy into
the wrong things. In your book, you mented this idea
that are striving can sometimes get us stuck. This is
something that I resonated with a lot, talk about how
our energy can be both a gift and a challenge.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Pretty much anyone in your life you can think about
their genius qualities, the things that make them them, the
special characteristics and strengths and aptitudes that show up that
make them right. Those can also become a problem for
them if it's not channeled with wisdom. So, for example,
(07:37):
with me that podcast, if there was a point of
diminishing returns where I needed to shift, I need to
be like the bird in the kitchen and look around
and do something different. And that takes some discernment. It
takes where do you want to put your energy, what
your values are, and curiosity and mindfulness.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
And so we're going to be exploring really deeply your
strategies for kind of figuring out how to deploy our
energy in as wise a way as possible. I think
all my listeners should check out your book to see
all the strategies that they are in there. But today
on the podcast, we're going to focus on my favorite
seven my favorite seven strategies for getting your effort back
on track, and a big one is one that you
just mentioned, this idea of getting curious. Why is curiosity
(08:15):
so essential for getting our energy back on track.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Well, one thing about curiosity is it's hard to be
curious and judgmental at the same time. You know, if
you watch a two year old I used to have
two year olds many years ago, and you try and
take them for a walk, or a puppy. You try
and take a puppy for a walk, and they stop
at every snail, they stop at every caterpillar. And when
they pick up that snail or that caterpillar, they get
down real close to it and lean in. They don't
(08:40):
really come at it with the O gross and they
don't really come at it with it. I already know
how this works. Mind So as we become more inflexible
in our thinking, we tend to take on these cognitive
inflexibilities of I already know, so I no longer see
what's there or I'm judgmental critical, Right, So curiosity is
(09:06):
the practice of open mindedness. And and I would say,
you know, I kind of think curiosity and openness is
the new mindfulness. You know, psychology goes through all these trends.
I've been in the field long enough to see the
trends change. So I'll tell you the next thing that's
coming down the road, down the pipe is openness, so
much so that Jonathan Schooler, who's at UCSB out here,
(09:29):
is changing the name of his center from the Center
of Mindfulness to the Center of Openness because it's a
little bit different than mindfulness. It's staying open to the
field of possibility. And when you are stuck an unwise effort,
often it's because you're that bird flying at the window
and you are not open. Either your mind is not open,
(09:50):
you've already decided, or you're being judgmental, or you're stuck
in a story. But the nature of curiosity is also
interesting in that the more curious you are, the more
things people experiences can become rewarding to you. Every single
(10:12):
client that comes into my office, I am deeply curious
about and I am not judgmental about the behaviors or
ways that they're stuck. I'm curious about their patterns. What's
keeping them stuck? What are the different complex networks of
processes that are contributing to their stuckness. Could we almost
like map it out like we'd map out a route
(10:33):
on a page of how we get from A to B.
And when you take that stance towards your own self
rather than the judgmental or I already know stance, you're
more likely to see possibilities to get you unstuck.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
But it can also be hard to do that. Now,
one of the practices you've recommended to get a little
bit more curious is the act of journaling. Why is
journaling so powerful forgetting us to become a little bit
more curious if done the right way.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
I'm so glad you said if done the right way,
because journaling. Journaling can also be a practice in rumination,
and we know that from some of the research. If
you're sitting there ruminating about how life sucks, then you
may feel a little bit more are stuck in your
mental patterning about life sucking. So with journaling, there can
be a practice of a little bit of what we
(11:17):
call cognitive defusion, or a little bit of stepping back
and looking at yourself rather than being in it. And
if you journal with some prompts or there's a really
classic journaling exercise that I have clients to which is
just right, now, what are five things that I'm thinking?
(11:38):
What are five things that I'm feeling, what are five
behaviors that I'm engaging in, and then can I draw
my experience. I also like journaling without language an n
wise effort. The book I draw it, I'm like, this
is what it feels like when I'm stuck. Scribble on
the page. It's like the flight pattern of that bird
that's all tangled up? What does it feel like inside
(11:59):
of you? Draw it? And just that stepping back from
something sort of like if you are really up close
to a screen and you see that, you know all
the pixels of the screen. Take three steps back, or
you take three steps back from a painting, you'll have
a different perspective on it. And flexible perspective taking is
incredibly helpful when we are stuck, So journaling can be
(12:21):
a way to do that. Then we can also use
our journal with that flexible perspective taking and that curiosity
to potentially look at many different views, you know, like
what would be a compassionate view, what would be a
view from the end of the week if you were
to look back on those thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Sometimes
(12:43):
with clients that are stuck in negative body image, I'll
have them write a letter from their body part to them.
What would your stomach tell you? You have a lot of
things to tell your stomach. I hear it all the time,
you know, but what would your stomach say about what
it's like to be your stomach? You know, what does
your stomach say it needs? What is this your stomach
say it wants? What does your stomach wish for you?
(13:06):
And it shifts your perspective on pretty much anything that
you are critical of.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
So that's one way to get our energy back on
the wiser track, right, get curious, get some perspective, maybe
even do that through journaling. But another tip that you
talk about a lot in the book is this idea
that if we want our energy to go in the
right place, we need to better align our energy to
our values. You have this quote that I love that
when your energy becomes a problem, it's often because your
gifts and talents aren't aligned with your values. What are
(13:33):
our values and why are they so important to pay
attention to?
Speaker 2 (13:37):
You know, there's a lot of talk about values, and
folks will have lists of values. You could go on
chat and say, give me a list of one hundred values,
and we come up with all these words. But I
think of values as qualities of action. What brings you
a sense of a liveness, what deep in your heart
really matters to you. How do you want to show
(13:58):
up in the world. What do you want to stand for?
Speaker 1 (14:00):
In your book, you note that our values are often
the clue to what makes life its most LIFEY. I
love that quote because for me it was like, oh
my gosh, what makes my life the most life is
like humor, or social connection, or kind of doing fun things,
being a little bit adventurous. I don't tend to think
of those exactly as my values, but when I think
about my life at its most LIFEY, those are the
things that come.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Up before bed. Oftentimes is when we worry about stuff.
We think about the day, we ruminate on the day,
or we worry about what's going to happen tomorrow. I
really encourage my clients before bed to do a little
scan of their day and when did they feel life
at its most LIFEY, You'll be surprised. It's often not
(14:41):
what we're putting most of our energy. It's in the
in betweens, Like for me, life at it's most life.
You have this little strawberry plant outside my kitchen door.
And so I planted this little strawberry plant. I've been
watching these strawberries change color, and it's life that it's
most likely growing something right, life that it's most likely.
(15:01):
Two weeks ago was taking my sixteen year old son
and his best friends in a car trip down the
coast of calif Ffornia surfing and being completely on their
schedule and standing outside and watching them surf. It's life
that it's most likely. Growing strawberries and surfing with teenagers
is not how I spend most of my time or energy,
(15:22):
but it tells me a little bit about maybe how
I want to be spending more time and energy, what
I want to be amplifying.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
And it's also a great way to figure out how
to make whatever you're doing a little bit more enjoyable.
One of the things I know you talked about is
all these studies where if you can just reflect on
your values and how that connects with what you're already doing,
it actually makes you do the thing you're trying to
already do better and perform better. Tell me about some
of these studies.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Well, there's a classic study that Steve has did with
college students who set smart goals at the beginning of
a semester. And you know, we think about these smart
goals as being specific and meaningful and timely, and many
of us have tried smart goals. But what he found
was when he added values writing to the smart goals,
(16:08):
like why do you care about getting better grades? Why
does it really matter to you? What's important to you
personally about that? And you know, values are like favorite colors.
Yours may be green and mine may be blue. Two
kids may have totally different reasons why they care about
their grades. And he found that folks that set the
smarkles plus the values writing did much better at the
(16:31):
end of the semester. They had a significant increase in
improvement in their grades. Those that set smarkles alone didn't
see that improvement. If you mentioned makes things more enjoyable,
but I would tweak that a little bit because living
your values doesn't always make things more enjoyable. We know
that from parenting and the research on happiness and parenting
(16:51):
where parents aren't necessarily happier, but they do report more meaning.
So living your values may help you have more intrinsic motivation.
I have written quite a bit on exercise and psychological
barriers to exercise. If you connect you or exercise to
your values, like why does it matter to you to
(17:14):
have more physical fitness in your life? What will open
up for you? People will say things like I want
to get on the floor with my grandkids. I hate
sitting in the chair. I want to actually get down
and like build the blocks with them. Or other people
may say I want to travel and be able to
walk through the airport and feel stronger as I walk
because I love travel so much. When you connect to
(17:35):
those intrinsic reasons, those things that are deep down inside
meaningful to you, you're more likely to stick with it.
But it doesn't necessarily make it more enjoyable.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Fair enough, It also means that we need to disconnect
not just maybe from the enjoyment, but also from the outcome.
This is something I loved hearing you talk about your strawberries, right.
You were just kind of enjoying the process. And this
seems to be something that's critical about values. Values aren't
about the outcome. They seem to be more about the process.
How do we get closer to focusing on the process
so we can get closer to our values.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Well, one of the challenge is about outcomes. Is our
finish lines seem to keep on moving forward. You know.
You think about people that are they go on and
they get their degree and then their postgraduate degree, and
then they it's sort of like the Game of Life.
I don't know if you ever played that game.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Oh my gosh, yes.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Well I actually bought the game for my kids when
they were little, and I was horrified about what we're
teaching our children through the Game of Life, because it's
this path that you're on and you get a little
car and then you put little pink and blue people
in it, which is a problem to begin with, right,
And then you take the car along and you try
and get money, and you try and get degrees, and
you try and get to the end where either you
(18:44):
have a mansion or a ranch or a shack. And
once you get to retirement, you're done, right, You won?
What about the whole path along the way and enjoyment? Yes,
but meaning and just the process the process of growing
the strawberries very different. I could go to the store
and buy some strawberries pretty easily, and actually the outcome
(19:06):
of those strawberries, I'm sad to say, is they got
a little it got a.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Little sounds like you're gardening similar to mine.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yes, much of my garden gets eaten, and it's not
about that. So we know that our finish lines keep
on moving forward, and so trying to go for the
finish line is problematic. We know that focusing on the
outcome can interfere with our ability to be in the
here and now. And it's not that we don't have goals.
(19:31):
You make values based goals, but you're also flexible if
you don't reach those goals, and focusing on the process
can make our effort feel different because we're in it.
If you focus on the process of writing a book
versus the outcome of the book, your experience of writing
(19:52):
is so different. While I was writing this creative process
of thoughts coming to me and following this trail and
having conversations with people about this idea, it's incredibly exciting
and invigorating and brings a lot of vitality when you're
in the process, whatever that process is.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
It's time for a quick break. But when we return,
Diana will share more of my favorite tips for getting
your energy you back on track. This year, the Happiness
Lab will be back in a moment. Clinical psychologist, doctor
Diana Hill is on a mission to help us a
(20:29):
lot our energy and healthier ways, so we can stop
putting effort into the things that don't serve us and
start investing in stuff that benefits our well being. So far,
we've heard two great tips from her new book, Wise Effort.
But strategy number three is what I like to call
when in doubt seek variation, a principle that Diana borrowed
from an unlikely set of teachers. Autonomous robots in war zones.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
So Dave is my brother in law, and he designs
what he calls the brains of robots. He designs self
driving planes. He's worked on segues and robots that go
into war zones and look for minds. And one of
the things that he designed that he's that was his
favorite thing was something called the get Unstuck button. And
(21:13):
what this button does, when deployed is if the robot
is stuck. Can you imagine a robot stuck in a cave, right.
It's designed to do everything in its repertoire other than
what it's doing. So this robot may jump up and
down and may hit its head against the wall, may
crawl down real low, and may go backwards, it may
go sideways, and eventually the chances of that robot getting
(21:36):
unstuck are much higher than the robot doing what it
was doing. But this maps onto behavioral evolution, where we
have a lot of interest in evolutionary psychology and how
evolution can inform or understanding of human behavior. But there's
also something about how evolution can help us understand how
to evolve our behavior in this lifetime. And one principle
(21:58):
of evolution is that you need variation to evolve. You
think about Darwin's finches. You need all those varieties of
finches to figure out which beak fit to crack, which
nuts on which island. So we need variation in our behavior.
One of the things that we tend to do when
we get scared, or when we're frustrated, or when we're angry,
(22:20):
is that we tend to have a narrowing of attention
and a narrowing of our behavioral repertoire. That narrowing actually
leads us to stay more stuck. So we first need variation.
But there's actually three steps to behavioral evolution. One is variation,
the second one is selection. Notice when something works. We
(22:41):
have to notice when something is shifting and it may
be working. And then the third step is we have
to reinforce and retain what works. And we go through
that cycle over and over again. Mix things up when
you're stuck, find things that are working, and then retain
and reinforce what does work. But don't get so stuck
in your habit. You know, just because it worked five
(23:04):
years ago doesn't mean it's going to work now. So
we also need to stay open and flexible.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
And I think that actor trying to stay open and
flexible can be really tricky because it sometimes means trying
out behaviors that we think are wrong or that we've rejected,
or that we worry won't be a good part of
our identity and so on. And so this act of
engaging in variation sometimes comes with a little discomfort, and
that gets to our next strategy, strategy number four. One
of the things we need to do to apply our
(23:30):
energy a little bit more wisely is to stop running
away from discomfort. Discomfort doesn't feel good. Why is running
away from it so counterproductive?
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Well, there's two things that are problematic about running away
from discomfort. The first is often the ways in which
we run away from discomfort cause secondary problems. So we
can think about this. You know, I'm sitting at my computer,
I'm going through my emails. There's the emails that I
don't want to respond to, so I just kind of
(24:02):
pass over them, and then I repeatedly avoid those emails
and avoid those emails, and avoid those emails until oh, no,
one of those emails was really important for me to
pay attention to. Or the way in which you're avoiding it,
maybe you're getting up and you're going to the fridge,
or you're going outside to have a smoke. These avoidance
strategies usually fall into the category of distracting yourself, numbing
(24:24):
yourself out with substances food technology. We avoid through bracing
with our body, holding our breath. I don't want to
feel it. We avoid through procrastination, We avoid through giving up.
So all of those strategies, you can think about what
your favorite ones are, and we all do them. Have
(24:44):
these secondary problems because now not only are you dealing
with the pain that you were avoiding, but now you're
dealing with the pain of the thing that you do
to avoid. The other problem with avoidance is that oftentimes
the things that we avoid are connected to our values
in some way or form. The things that matter to
us are often the things that cause us the most discomfort.
(25:08):
You will void or procrastinate on the projects that you really, really,
really care about doing a good job for, and then
you'll choose the things that don't really matter. You'll answer
the emails that don't really matter right because you're putting
off the email that really is the one that's the
important one that you care about. And if we start
(25:28):
to look at it that way, like, oh no, the
thing that I care about is also in the same
direction as the thing that brings me pain, then we
actually need to practice and get better at being with
discomfort so we can pursue what we care about. And
that's a good use of our energy. Pursuing what we
care about is going to be uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
And so let's talk about some strategies we can use
to deal with that discomfort. One of the ones you
talk about a lot, I know, especially in kind of
ACT therapy, is this idea of radical acceptance. What's radical
acceptance and how can it help us through discomfort?
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Radical acceptance is willingness, openness, making space for allowing. I'm
using other words because some people do not like the
word acceptance. As a therapist, I'm like, this is going
to be.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
My next question, because whenever I talk to my students
about radical acceptance, they'll be like, well, this is some
terrible thing about the organization I work for, or a
thing that I'm really frustrated with in the world. I
don't want to just radically accept this thing that's bugging me.
Those other words feel a little bit softer, but the
idea seems to be the same. It's that like, this
is just a fact about the world. So we can
either keep denying that fact and sticking your head in
(26:35):
the ground and avoiding it, or we can just dig
aity breath and realize that this is the way it is.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Yeah, So there's a difference between acceptance and approval. There
is a difference between acceptance and allowing harm to be done.
There's a difference between acceptance and saying something is okay.
Radical acceptance is exactly we described, this is what is.
And once you can acknowledge this is what is, even
(27:02):
if I don't like what is, You're welcomed to not
not like it and still accept it. You're welcome to
I don't like it and I'm going to accept it.
When my son was little, he hated getting his head
wet ever since he was born. He was learning how
to swim, and all his friends were in the deep end.
It took a while to learn how to swim because
he didn't want to get his head wet. And I
remember at some point telling him, you know, honey, in
(27:25):
order to go play with your friends in the deep end,
you're going to have to get your head wet. I
know you don't like it. And we can think about
whatever that deep end move is for us. You're going
to need to accept some things that are happening. And
radical acceptance actually allows for change, allows for a shift,
because often the non accepting is what narrows us, what
(27:48):
keeps us in the shallow end of life, because we
don't accept that we're going to have to get our
head wet, and life is a series of headwts, you know,
over and over again, like oh, you know, radical acceptance
can be like I'm radically accepting the discomfort of this
relationship with this person and how uncomfortable it is to
(28:12):
be honest with them about something, or to set a
boundary around something, or to stay in the conversation long
enough that we get through the hard part to the
other side of it to understand each other and then
to radically accept what's happening inside of me. And there's
a big distinction and acceptance and commitment therapy or act
around acceptances really about what Kirk Strassel calls your teams
(28:36):
acceptance of your thoughts T, acceptance of your emotions E,
acceptance of your action urges acceptionance of your memories, acceptance
of your sensations. And when you can accept what's going
on inside of you, then you can be more flexible
on the outside and maybe make some changes on the outside.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
I love that you brought up the team's acronym because
the next tip that we're going to be jumping into
is tip number five, which is that to channel our
energy wisely, we need to learn to work with those thoughts.
We need to learned to work with what you've called
our rooster minds. I've heard of our monkey minds before.
Rooster Minds was a first one for me, and reading
your book Why a Rooster Mind?
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Oh gosh. During COVID, a lot of people got pets
and they got cats and dogs. Well, my neighbors got
a rooster. We live up in this foothill area of
Santa Barbara. Lots of people have chickens, but this was
a first. And what this rooster did was crow all
day long. We have we think that rooster's just crow
in the morning, you know, like on the Kellogg's cereal box.
(29:40):
But no, they crow all day long. And our mind
is a lot like that. So our mind is constantly
producing thoughts. Some of those thoughts may be helpful, some
of those thoughts may be unhelpful. And when you follow
or fight your mind, what happens is you get pulled
(30:01):
off track from what you're doing. So if thatt rooster
was crowing and I was working on, you know, this,
a session with a client, or I was in a
podcast interview, and if I was just like, I hate
that rooster. Oh there's a rooster again, then all of
a sudden, I'm not engaging in my values, which was
being present with a client or maybe sharing some information
(30:21):
on the podcast. Oftentimes that's what we do with the mind.
We either follow its rules or we fight it. And really,
to work with that rooster, the best thing you can
do is just to notice that it cock. A doodle
dos all the time, and where do you want to
focus your energy? We can become better at creating space
for our mind. Noticing our mind, we can choose which
(30:43):
thoughts we want to pay attention to, which thoughts are
aligned with our values, which thoughts are helpful in the moment.
As you and I have this interview, and as listeners
are listening in, they're having all sorts of thoughts that
are going on. Some may be related to what we're
talking about, some may be completely unrelated. But they get
to be the chooser of which thoughts they pay attention to.
And that's a revolutionary way of living in the world.
(31:07):
I know that you have written about and speak a
lot about the problems of the mind, and this concept
of cognitive deffusion and ACT is the capacity to just
take like three steps back and let the mind do
what it does, rather than being all entangled in it.
Steve Hayes, the founder of ACT, talks about our minds
(31:27):
being like spider webs, and trying to go in and
rearrange our mind is like trying to rearrange his spider web?
Do you really want to do that?
Speaker 1 (31:35):
You've also talked about how we can question our thoughts
and specific questions we can bring to our thoughts when
we need to. What are some questions that we can bring.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Oh, I love whise speech from the practice of Buddhism.
And actually this whole concept of wise effort comes from Buddhism,
and it's one of the steps on the eight ful
path of awakening. Buddhism has all these numbers, like the
four Noble truths, and the fourth noble truth is that
there's a path to awakening, and then there's eight things
in this path to awakening. I grew up my dad
(32:04):
was Buddhist, and so there was always these like lists
of things, right. But one of the steps on that
eight full path is something called why speech. And I
really like it because we can think about whyse speech
in how we talk to others, but we can also
think about why speech in terms of our own internal
speech and why speech has These questions you can ask
(32:25):
if you're in the middle of the night waking up
and you have a worry, or maybe you're about to
do something that's really difficult and you're going to step
into something new, or maybe you're learning something and your
mind is growing away, you can ask yourself these four
questions one is it kind? Two? Is it true? Three?
(32:48):
Is it timely? Like is this a good time to
be focusing on this? It's two am? Should I really
be dealing with my worry right now? Do I have
any capacity to deal with this right now? And then
four is it helpful? Because sometimes it may be true.
You may be stumbling over your words if you have
social anxiety. Maybe you did make a little you know, sound,
(33:10):
or said a word in the wrong way. But if
you stick to it, you know, like get into that
spider web all of a sudden, it's not helpful for you.
It's gonna mess you up even more so. Is it kind?
Is it true? Is it timely? Is it helpful? Just
asking those questions you don't even have to fully flesh
out the answers can give you that step back enough
(33:31):
to engage in wiser speech with yourself. What is kind?
What is true? What is helpful? What is timely? Right
now for you, it's time.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
For another break, But when we return, Diana will share
her final two tips for getting unstuck. The Happiness Lab
will be back in a moment. Welcome back, Clinical psychologist,
Doctor Diana Hill and I are ready to dive into
strategy number six for getting your energy unstuck, and that
(34:03):
tip involves learning to form a more compassionate relationship with
your body. That might sound a little abstract, so I
asked Diana to break down what this idea of embodiment
really looks like in practice.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
First, we can think about people who we think of
as being embodied. You know, like they walk into the
room and you feel like they're in their body. They're
not in their heads. They maybe speak from their body,
from their heart. Most of the time, we many of us,
are like walking heads. We're not in our bodies. We
don't feel our bodies. We're cut off from our bodies.
(34:35):
We're afraid of our bodies, the sensations in our bodies.
Being embody means living inside this bodily form, and part
of that has to do with something called interceptible awareness,
which is something that I researched really early on in
my studies. My master thesis was around interceptive awareness. My
(34:56):
dissertation was in part around intercept awareness, and interceptive awareness
is just your awareness of what's going on. Do you
know your own heartbeat, your own breath, your own hunger,
your own fullness, Can you feel emotions in your body.
Could you point to it, like where you feel it.
Could you describe it with words like if you're having
anxiety rather than the heady anxiety. Things that you might
(35:19):
say like I'm worried about this, I'm worried about that.
You may say something like it feels heavy, it's got
a texture to it, it's got a color to it.
So to be embodied is really helpful in the sense
that it gets us out of our heads. For one,
our bodies hold a lot of information that may be
useful to us. There is some research on folks that
(35:39):
have higher levels of interceptible awareness make better decisions. Even
financial traders make more money. There's an association around that,
like if you're a financial trader and you have more
intercept awareness of your heartbeat, you make better decisions. And
in my work with eating disorders, there's a good amount
of research on intercept awareness and choices around food and
(35:59):
eating that if you know if you're hungry or full,
it's kind of a useful tool right in terms of
when to start eating and when to eating.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Our body is also really useful for the decisions that
we make. You know, sometimes we're making a decision that
might feel like a hard decision. But if we check
in with our bodies, even though our mind is like
I don't know, should I accept this thing or not,
our bodies are screaming at us say, like, don't accept
that calendar invite or don't say yes to that thing.
One of my favorite parts of your book is you've
talked about the importance of noticing a whole body yes
(36:32):
or a whole body no. I now get the sense
of what that is. But explain to our listeners what
you mean by that.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Yeah, Well, we as you describe, we've all had the
experience where maybe we've been invited to do something, or
I'll be asked to be on a panel, and everything
on paper looks really good about it, like this is
a great opportunity. There's all these you know, esteemed researchers
on this panel. This would be a great thing to
have on your CV. And my body is like ah ah,
(37:00):
you know, and I'm like comparing, like should I go
on the panel or should I take the surf trip
with the kids? Right? And my body's like yes. And
part of that embodied intuition or the whole body yes,
comes from your body's learning. Your body has been on
panels before and remembers your body has put off the
(37:21):
surf trip before and remember, So it's not necessarily like
it's just like magical thing coming out of nowhere. Some
of our intuition comes from past experiences of learning that
we may not have the cognitive memory, but we have
more of the embodied memory, and the embodied memory comes quicker. Right,
So a whole body yes is just that like you
check in with your body. I think it's an important
(37:41):
part of wise effort, and you ask your body, is
this a yes? Like? What does it feel like? Does
my body feel more open or does it feel more contracted?
Does it lean in or does it kind of shy away?
And we want to combine the whole body yes with
other things. Right, so is this a whole body yes?
And does it align with my values? So we can
(38:04):
listen to our bodies, but it's one piece of information.
I'm always a fan of multiple forms information to help
inform our wisest efforts and our decision making, but the
body is often one that we leave out.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Given that we need some help paying attention to our bodies,
you've suggested an acronym that we can all use to
get a little bit more in tune. It's the acronym
of heart agart. What does this acronym stand for.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
It's just a little check in around some of the
things that we often don't pay attention to. That maybe
we could increase our attention to. H stands for hunger
and fullness. Before you start eating? Are you hungry as
you're eating? When is the point of diminishing returns? Where
if you keep eating, you're eating past fullness? Right? Just
checking in with that helpful thing to relearn and get
(38:48):
more used to. There's a lot of things that are
pulling us away from our hunger and fullness. E stands
for emotions. What am I feeling in my body? Not
thinking in my head? And that increases our just capacity
to be with emotions. The more we can be with
urges without acting on them, strong emotions without reacting to them,
the more emotionally flexible we become. A is an interesting one,
(39:12):
which is activity. Does your body want to move? Is
it creating movement? And you see this in kids, they
naturally want to move their bodies. When I took those
sixteen year olds on a surf trip, as soon as
we would hit the gas station, they jump out of
the car and start throwing the football. Right, they needed
to move, but many of us have disregarded, overrided our
(39:36):
need for movement, and it can turn into things like
I'm feeling irritable, but really what I need is a walk,
you know. And then our stands for rest. Do I
need to rest again? This is another one that we
need to rest, but what we do is we turn
to junk food sources of rest. We try and rest
by scrolling on our phone, we rest by watching YouTube.
(39:58):
But what our body may really need is a deep rest.
Alyssa Epple talks a lot about the benefits of deeper rests,
you know, getting a really deep relaxation state. And then finally,
TEA stands for tension. What's the tension in your body
right now? Are you holding it in your shoulders? Are
you holding it in your gut? Are you not breathing?
(40:21):
And that can be an indicator of stress, but also
maybe just a need to let go a little bit,
exhale a little bit longer, to give your body a
little bit of release.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Yeah, I love the tension one. I was just driving
with a friend and there's some traffic and it was
looking like we're going to get late. And I did
this moment of noticing that my neck was tight, and
I was like gripping the steering wheel, and I was like, wait,
I can soften. I don't need to feel this, right.
But it was only just through that little short act
of noticing what my body was doing in that moment
that I realized, oh my gosh, I'm like holding way
(40:54):
more anxiety about kind of getting to this place on
time that I really needed to. But had had that
moment of noticing, I wouldn't have known how to fix it.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Yeah, information flows both ways, right, so our bodies can
send information to our mind. We don't think about working
from the body app We always think from the top down.
So it can be really beneficial to work from the
bottom up. Like if I were to exhale longer, release
some of the tension in my shoulders, drop my shoulders,
let go of my face a little bit, let go
(41:22):
of my belly a little bit. We don't always have
to hold it in right that that actually may send
some information to my brain that I'm okay, Because your
brain is thinking you're not okay if your shoulders are
up to your ears and you're holding your breath and
you're sucking it and something is obviously wrong because you're
bracing for something bad. And so it's good to think
about our body as sending information to our mind as well,
(41:44):
and we can have a little bit of wiser efforts
in that.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
And so now we get to the seventh strategy we
can use to have wiser effort, and this is to
watch out for the energy frenemies. What are the energy frenemies.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Well, earlier on I talked about our strengths, our talents,
our aptitudes are what I call our genius energy, the
things that come easily to us, and sometimes that kind
of spin off and become a frenemy. So an example
of that is maybe you have a great talent at humor.
(42:19):
You are always the one that comes into the room
and can lighten up the space, but when misused, when overused,
you may start becoming a little bit too lighthearted in
situations where you actually need to feel a little bit more.
Or maybe folks that are like super good at helping others,
(42:40):
the frenemy of being a super helper is maybe you
never turn that towards yourself and help yourself out. We
can see frenemies all over the place, and Buddhism they
call it near enemies, Like the near enemy of compassion
is pity. And when you start to spot that a
little bit, you can adjust your energy a little bit
so that you are using it in the right amount,
(43:02):
in the right way, at the right time. If you're
super persistent, there's a time to dial back your persistence.
If you're super patient, there's a time to be a
little bit less patient.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
And so how do we know, like what are some
signals that we might have switched from kind of wise
energy into the kind of frenemy use of our energy.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
I think it all goes back to values. So one
way I look at values is there like the banks
of a river, and your energy is a river that's,
you know, kind of flowing through, and the values help
direct that. So you can tell when you're off track
with your values by a few things I had mentioned
before that values bring you a lot of vitality. But
(43:41):
another indicator that you're off track with your values and
maybe it's turned into a frenemy is regret. The other day,
I was dropping my son off at school, and I
really am trying to like keep my schedule figured out
because I have a tendency to overbook myself and double
book myself, and I was worried that I had double
booked a client. And I drop them off at school.
(44:04):
We're driving. As soon as the car comes into the
parking lot, I pick up my phone. I start looking
at my schedule for the day as my son is
grabbing his backpack and getting out of the car, and
I look up and he's gone, and I had a
pain of regret because he was leading and I was
looking at my phone. Now, this is the acceptance thing,
(44:25):
you know. Okay, so my friend of me here showed
up where I was trying to, like be a good therapist,
but actually was getting on the way of me being
a good mom. And I need to accept that feeling,
that discomfort as an indicator that I was out of
alignment with my values. And when you feel that pain,
it's just an arrow pointing to a little self correction.
(44:47):
So next time when I pull into the parking lot,
keep the phone in the bag until he leaves, and
I can look him in the eye and say goodbye,
and I will feel in better alignment. My front of
me of scheduling won't have gotten in the way. So
we can use regret is a powerful indicator to help
us course correct. We can use vitality and values as
an indicator to course correct. The big question is is basically,
(45:11):
how do you want to show up in this moment?
And how can you use your strengths, your gifts, your talents,
you to help support you in doing that? And I
think that's wise effort.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
Let's recap the seven strategies Diana covered for finding wiser
effort in the new year. Number one, get curious about
your situation, step back, look at yourself with compassion and
if it helps, journal your thoughts. Tip number two clarify
your values, what makes life most lifely for you and
how can you channel more of your energy towards those things.
(45:44):
Strategy number three is one in doubt, seek variation. We
don't have a built in get unstuck button, but we
can stay open to new approaches. Tip four is to
embrace discomfort. Sometimes moving forward means accepting what's imperfect in
the present moment. Strategy five involves working with your rooster mind.
Your brain will keep growing, you just need to choose
(46:06):
when to listen. Tip number six is to tune into
your body. Where are you holding tension. Can you soften
even just a little right now? And our last strategy
number seven is to notice your energy frenemies, even your strengths,
can drain you if they're running the show unchecked. I
hope these strategies will help you deploy your energy a
bit more effectively in twenty twenty six. Next week, The
(46:30):
Happiness Lab will continue this season on how to get
unstuck by taking a deep look at change, why it
can feel so intimidating, and how to lean into it.
And we'll get to learn with a brilliant psychologist who
also happens to be my former student.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
I'm a fan of exploring change, and I'm recovering when
it comes to my relationship with change.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
You're recovering change, heterange hater, exactly exactly all that next
week on the Happiness Lab with me Doctor laiy Santo's
Pushkin. Welcome back to a new season of the Happiness
Lab and happy twenty twenty six Happiness Lab listeners. There's
something so hopeful about the start of a new year.
For many of us, January feels like a clean slate,
a chance to start fresh as the healthier, happier person
(00:37):
we want to be. But if there's one thing we
know about human nature, it's that behavior change is hard.
We set goals, make resolutions, feel motivated to do things differently,
and then we slip back into exactly the same habits
we had the year before, the ones we know just
don't work. So the goal of this new season of
the Happiness Lab is to give us the psychological traction
(00:58):
we need to break out of all the ruts that
we've been stuck in for a while. Rather than give
you the usual New Year platitudes, we'll be exploring strategies
that research shows can actually help us get on stuck
and back in motion. Over the course of the next
few episodes, we'll hear science back tips for embracing the
kinds of changes that feel scary, for finding a sense
(01:18):
of purpose in the midst of exhaustion, and for feeling
less overwhelmed with the current state of the world. And
in this first episode in our Getting Unstuck in the
New Year's season, we'll tackle the challenge of unsticking our effort.
We'll explore how to use our time and energy a
bit more effectively, which is so important if we want
to feel less stuck in twenty twenty six, because, let's
(01:39):
face it, a lot of us are putting a lot
of energy into the wrong kinds of things. To better
understand just how much unwise effort can keep us trapped.
Today's guest, the psychologist doctor Diana Hill, invites you to
think of a bit of an animal analogy. Imagine, if
you will, an unfortunate little bird who has accidentally made
its way indoors.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
And it does what birds do best, which is, I
think what humans do too, Like we want to get
out when we feel stuck, and we go out in
the predictable ways that maybe worked at some point to
get us unstuck.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
For a panicked bird, that means flying as hard as
possible into the nearest bright window.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
It's smart. He wants to go for that tree, right,
But what happens when that bird flies at a window.
We all know it's that painful experience of hitting its head.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
And sadly that poor little bird might not hit its
head just once. It will probably continue smashing itself into
the glass over and over. Rather than pausing and rethinking
its path to the outside world, it just starts pushing
into the glass even harder, using more and more of
its energy to slam into the window until it winds
up exhausted or hurt or worse. Diana has worked with
(02:51):
lots of humans who are feeling stuck, and she says
they don't behave all that differently from a frantic bird, Like.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
If I just fly harder at this relationship or work
harder in a work setting that's actually toxic for me,
maybe that will get me out. And that can lead
us to just feeling exhausted, right, It can lead us
to blaming ourselves. And it also can lead to another
pattern which some of us can get stuck in, which
(03:19):
is the very classic psychological problem of learned helplessness, where
we just say there's no way out, there's nothing I
can do here, there's no other possibility. I've tried everything,
you know as hard as I can sound familiar.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Well, not to worry, because Diana is here, to help
us get our energy back on track. In fact, she's
the author of a new book on just this topic.
It's called Wise Effort, How to Focus your genius energy
on what matters most.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
So as a psychologist, I've been training in and involved
in this concept of psychological flexibility for a really long time.
And what that bird actually needs is not to fly
harder at the same thing. Maybe it could use a
little rest, little rest on that kitchen floor, but not
to you know, give up, but to use its energy
(04:08):
differently than that. Maybe look around, look in places that
you haven't looked before, try new things, and there may
be an open door. And that requires you to be
flexible in your attention, but then also flexible in your behavior.
And it doesn't mean you shouldn't fly, So you can
still be the bird that you are, but shift that
(04:28):
energy and attention to get out and to free yourself
from whatever place you're stuck in.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Diana is a clinical psychologist and an expert on getting
your energy unstuck, but she admits that she too has
been in situations where she was putting too much energy
into the wrong things.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Well, in twenty twenty one, I was on a podcast
that I had been working on for a number of years.
I put a lot of energy into it. On the outside,
it had close to two million downloads. And there's a
term in psychology that sunk cost fallacy. You know, we've
put so much time and energy and effort into it,
(05:06):
so therefore we keep doing it if it's not working
for us. And what I started noticing is that I
would have a panic attacks before i'd go on team meetings.
I started to just feel like my heart wasn't in
it anymore. I wanted more freedom, I wanted more flexibility,
I wanted more creativity. But I kept at it, and
I just kept on going harder at it and became
(05:29):
quite inflexible, to the point where I became unpleasant to
be around. I became more controlling. It was finally in
the letting go. It was turning around looking around, are
there other options here? That freed up my energy? And
it took a bit of as many people experience when
they're starting something new, of having to go back to
(05:49):
the beginning. My ego take a bit of a beating, like, yeah,
I got to start from zero here and I got
to give some of this up. But why am I
doing it? I had lost my purpose, my values, and
the deeper things that maybe were driving me starting a
podcast in the first place, and so I had to
remember those again.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
And so this was really a story of trying to
make sure that your energy was going in the right direction.
And this is really the subject of your book, how
we can put wiser energy into things. You've argued that
we need to pay attention to where our energy is going,
that this matters a lot. Why does it matter so much?
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Well, energy is kind of everything. Right. One hour of
something that brings you vitality, of something that opens you up,
of even something that's a little bit hard for you,
but the end of it you feel regenerated by is
a power that could shift your whole day. Right. When
(06:44):
our behavior is out of alignment with our values, it
actually can really de energize us. And that's why a
lot of people come to work with me as a therapist,
is because there's a misalignment of who they want to be,
how they want to show up, and then it's showing
up in dissatisfaction with life.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
And so sometimes we're throwing way too much energy into
the wrong things. In your book, you mented this idea
that are striving can sometimes get us stuck. This is
something that I resonated with a lot, talk about how
our energy can be both a gift and a challenge.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Pretty much anyone in your life you can think about
their genius qualities, the things that make them them, the
special characteristics and strengths and aptitudes that show up that
make them right. Those can also become a problem for
them if it's not channeled with wisdom. So, for example,
(07:37):
with me that podcast, if there was a point of
diminishing returns where I needed to shift, I need to
be like the bird in the kitchen and look around
and do something different. And that takes some discernment. It
takes where do you want to put your energy, what
your values are, and curiosity and mindfulness.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
And so we're going to be exploring really deeply your
strategies for kind of figuring out how to deploy our
energy in as wise a way as possible. I think
all my listeners should check out your book to see
all the strategies that they are in there. But today
on the podcast, we're going to focus on my favorite
seven my favorite seven strategies for getting your effort back
on track, and a big one is one that you
just mentioned, this idea of getting curious. Why is curiosity
(08:15):
so essential for getting our energy back on track.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Well, one thing about curiosity is it's hard to be
curious and judgmental at the same time. You know, if
you watch a two year old I used to have
two year olds many years ago, and you try and
take them for a walk, or a puppy. You try
and take a puppy for a walk, and they stop
at every snail, they stop at every caterpillar. And when
they pick up that snail or that caterpillar, they get
down real close to it and lean in. They don't
(08:40):
really come at it with the O gross and they
don't really come at it with it. I already know
how this works. Mind So as we become more inflexible
in our thinking, we tend to take on these cognitive
inflexibilities of I already know, so I no longer see
what's there or I'm judgmental critical, Right, So curiosity is
(09:06):
the practice of open mindedness. And and I would say,
you know, I kind of think curiosity and openness is
the new mindfulness. You know, psychology goes through all these trends.
I've been in the field long enough to see the
trends change. So I'll tell you the next thing that's
coming down the road, down the pipe is openness, so
much so that Jonathan Schooler, who's at UCSB out here,
(09:29):
is changing the name of his center from the Center
of Mindfulness to the Center of Openness because it's a
little bit different than mindfulness. It's staying open to the
field of possibility. And when you are stuck an unwise effort,
often it's because you're that bird flying at the window
and you are not open. Either your mind is not open,
(09:50):
you've already decided, or you're being judgmental, or you're stuck
in a story. But the nature of curiosity is also
interesting in that the more curious you are, the more
things people experiences can become rewarding to you. Every single
(10:12):
client that comes into my office, I am deeply curious
about and I am not judgmental about the behaviors or
ways that they're stuck. I'm curious about their patterns. What's
keeping them stuck? What are the different complex networks of
processes that are contributing to their stuckness. Could we almost
like map it out like we'd map out a route
(10:33):
on a page of how we get from A to B.
And when you take that stance towards your own self
rather than the judgmental or I already know stance, you're
more likely to see possibilities to get you unstuck.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
But it can also be hard to do that. Now,
one of the practices you've recommended to get a little
bit more curious is the act of journaling. Why is
journaling so powerful forgetting us to become a little bit
more curious if done the right way.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
I'm so glad you said if done the right way,
because journaling. Journaling can also be a practice in rumination,
and we know that from some of the research. If
you're sitting there ruminating about how life sucks, then you
may feel a little bit more are stuck in your
mental patterning about life sucking. So with journaling, there can
be a practice of a little bit of what we
(11:17):
call cognitive defusion, or a little bit of stepping back
and looking at yourself rather than being in it. And
if you journal with some prompts or there's a really
classic journaling exercise that I have clients to which is
just right, now, what are five things that I'm thinking?
(11:38):
What are five things that I'm feeling, what are five
behaviors that I'm engaging in, and then can I draw
my experience. I also like journaling without language an n
wise effort. The book I draw it, I'm like, this
is what it feels like when I'm stuck. Scribble on
the page. It's like the flight pattern of that bird
that's all tangled up? What does it feel like inside
(11:59):
of you? Draw it? And just that stepping back from
something sort of like if you are really up close
to a screen and you see that, you know all
the pixels of the screen. Take three steps back, or
you take three steps back from a painting, you'll have
a different perspective on it. And flexible perspective taking is
incredibly helpful when we are stuck, So journaling can be
(12:21):
a way to do that. Then we can also use
our journal with that flexible perspective taking and that curiosity
to potentially look at many different views, you know, like
what would be a compassionate view, what would be a
view from the end of the week if you were
to look back on those thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Sometimes
(12:43):
with clients that are stuck in negative body image, I'll
have them write a letter from their body part to them.
What would your stomach tell you? You have a lot of
things to tell your stomach. I hear it all the time,
you know, but what would your stomach say about what
it's like to be your stomach? You know, what does
your stomach say it needs? What is this your stomach
say it wants? What does your stomach wish for you?
(13:06):
And it shifts your perspective on pretty much anything that
you are critical of.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
So that's one way to get our energy back on
the wiser track, right, get curious, get some perspective, maybe
even do that through journaling. But another tip that you
talk about a lot in the book is this idea
that if we want our energy to go in the
right place, we need to better align our energy to
our values. You have this quote that I love that
when your energy becomes a problem, it's often because your
gifts and talents aren't aligned with your values. What are
(13:33):
our values and why are they so important to pay
attention to?
Speaker 2 (13:37):
You know, there's a lot of talk about values, and
folks will have lists of values. You could go on
chat and say, give me a list of one hundred values,
and we come up with all these words. But I
think of values as qualities of action. What brings you
a sense of a liveness, what deep in your heart
really matters to you. How do you want to show
(13:58):
up in the world. What do you want to stand for?
Speaker 1 (14:00):
In your book, you note that our values are often
the clue to what makes life its most LIFEY. I
love that quote because for me it was like, oh
my gosh, what makes my life the most life is
like humor, or social connection, or kind of doing fun things,
being a little bit adventurous. I don't tend to think
of those exactly as my values, but when I think
about my life at its most LIFEY, those are the
things that come.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Up before bed. Oftentimes is when we worry about stuff.
We think about the day, we ruminate on the day,
or we worry about what's going to happen tomorrow. I
really encourage my clients before bed to do a little
scan of their day and when did they feel life
at its most LIFEY, You'll be surprised. It's often not
(14:41):
what we're putting most of our energy. It's in the
in betweens, Like for me, life at it's most life.
You have this little strawberry plant outside my kitchen door.
And so I planted this little strawberry plant. I've been
watching these strawberries change color, and it's life that it's
most likely growing something right, life that it's most likely.
(15:01):
Two weeks ago was taking my sixteen year old son
and his best friends in a car trip down the
coast of calif Ffornia surfing and being completely on their
schedule and standing outside and watching them surf. It's life
that it's most likely. Growing strawberries and surfing with teenagers
is not how I spend most of my time or energy,
(15:22):
but it tells me a little bit about maybe how
I want to be spending more time and energy, what
I want to be amplifying.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
And it's also a great way to figure out how
to make whatever you're doing a little bit more enjoyable.
One of the things I know you talked about is
all these studies where if you can just reflect on
your values and how that connects with what you're already doing,
it actually makes you do the thing you're trying to
already do better and perform better. Tell me about some
of these studies.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Well, there's a classic study that Steve has did with
college students who set smart goals at the beginning of
a semester. And you know, we think about these smart
goals as being specific and meaningful and timely, and many
of us have tried smart goals. But what he found
was when he added values writing to the smart goals,
(16:08):
like why do you care about getting better grades? Why
does it really matter to you? What's important to you
personally about that? And you know, values are like favorite colors.
Yours may be green and mine may be blue. Two
kids may have totally different reasons why they care about
their grades. And he found that folks that set the
smarkles plus the values writing did much better at the
(16:31):
end of the semester. They had a significant increase in
improvement in their grades. Those that set smarkles alone didn't
see that improvement. If you mentioned makes things more enjoyable,
but I would tweak that a little bit because living
your values doesn't always make things more enjoyable. We know
that from parenting and the research on happiness and parenting
(16:51):
where parents aren't necessarily happier, but they do report more meaning.
So living your values may help you have more intrinsic motivation.
I have written quite a bit on exercise and psychological
barriers to exercise. If you connect you or exercise to
your values, like why does it matter to you to
(17:14):
have more physical fitness in your life? What will open
up for you? People will say things like I want
to get on the floor with my grandkids. I hate
sitting in the chair. I want to actually get down
and like build the blocks with them. Or other people
may say I want to travel and be able to
walk through the airport and feel stronger as I walk
because I love travel so much. When you connect to
(17:35):
those intrinsic reasons, those things that are deep down inside
meaningful to you, you're more likely to stick with it.
But it doesn't necessarily make it more enjoyable.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Fair enough, It also means that we need to disconnect
not just maybe from the enjoyment, but also from the outcome.
This is something I loved hearing you talk about your strawberries, right.
You were just kind of enjoying the process. And this
seems to be something that's critical about values. Values aren't
about the outcome. They seem to be more about the process.
How do we get closer to focusing on the process
so we can get closer to our values.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Well, one of the challenge is about outcomes. Is our
finish lines seem to keep on moving forward. You know.
You think about people that are they go on and
they get their degree and then their postgraduate degree, and
then they it's sort of like the Game of Life.
I don't know if you ever played that game.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Oh my gosh, yes.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Well I actually bought the game for my kids when
they were little, and I was horrified about what we're
teaching our children through the Game of Life, because it's
this path that you're on and you get a little
car and then you put little pink and blue people
in it, which is a problem to begin with, right,
And then you take the car along and you try
and get money, and you try and get degrees, and
you try and get to the end where either you
(18:44):
have a mansion or a ranch or a shack. And
once you get to retirement, you're done, right, You won?
What about the whole path along the way and enjoyment? Yes,
but meaning and just the process the process of growing
the strawberries very different. I could go to the store
and buy some strawberries pretty easily, and actually the outcome
(19:06):
of those strawberries, I'm sad to say, is they got
a little it got a.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Little sounds like you're gardening similar to mine.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yes, much of my garden gets eaten, and it's not
about that. So we know that our finish lines keep
on moving forward, and so trying to go for the
finish line is problematic. We know that focusing on the
outcome can interfere with our ability to be in the
here and now. And it's not that we don't have goals.
(19:31):
You make values based goals, but you're also flexible if
you don't reach those goals, and focusing on the process
can make our effort feel different because we're in it.
If you focus on the process of writing a book
versus the outcome of the book, your experience of writing
(19:52):
is so different. While I was writing this creative process
of thoughts coming to me and following this trail and
having conversations with people about this idea, it's incredibly exciting
and invigorating and brings a lot of vitality when you're
in the process, whatever that process is.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
It's time for a quick break. But when we return,
Diana will share more of my favorite tips for getting
your energy you back on track. This year, the Happiness
Lab will be back in a moment. Clinical psychologist, doctor
Diana Hill is on a mission to help us a
(20:29):
lot our energy and healthier ways, so we can stop
putting effort into the things that don't serve us and
start investing in stuff that benefits our well being. So far,
we've heard two great tips from her new book, Wise Effort.
But strategy number three is what I like to call
when in doubt seek variation, a principle that Diana borrowed
from an unlikely set of teachers. Autonomous robots in war zones.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
So Dave is my brother in law, and he designs
what he calls the brains of robots. He designs self
driving planes. He's worked on segues and robots that go
into war zones and look for minds. And one of
the things that he designed that he's that was his
favorite thing was something called the get Unstuck button. And
(21:13):
what this button does, when deployed is if the robot
is stuck. Can you imagine a robot stuck in a cave, right.
It's designed to do everything in its repertoire other than
what it's doing. So this robot may jump up and
down and may hit its head against the wall, may
crawl down real low, and may go backwards, it may
go sideways, and eventually the chances of that robot getting
(21:36):
unstuck are much higher than the robot doing what it
was doing. But this maps onto behavioral evolution, where we
have a lot of interest in evolutionary psychology and how
evolution can inform or understanding of human behavior. But there's
also something about how evolution can help us understand how
to evolve our behavior in this lifetime. And one principle
(21:58):
of evolution is that you need variation to evolve. You
think about Darwin's finches. You need all those varieties of
finches to figure out which beak fit to crack, which
nuts on which island. So we need variation in our behavior.
One of the things that we tend to do when
we get scared, or when we're frustrated, or when we're angry,
(22:20):
is that we tend to have a narrowing of attention
and a narrowing of our behavioral repertoire. That narrowing actually
leads us to stay more stuck. So we first need variation.
But there's actually three steps to behavioral evolution. One is variation,
the second one is selection. Notice when something works. We
(22:41):
have to notice when something is shifting and it may
be working. And then the third step is we have
to reinforce and retain what works. And we go through
that cycle over and over again. Mix things up when
you're stuck, find things that are working, and then retain
and reinforce what does work. But don't get so stuck
in your habit. You know, just because it worked five
(23:04):
years ago doesn't mean it's going to work now. So
we also need to stay open and flexible.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
And I think that actor trying to stay open and
flexible can be really tricky because it sometimes means trying
out behaviors that we think are wrong or that we've rejected,
or that we worry won't be a good part of
our identity and so on. And so this act of
engaging in variation sometimes comes with a little discomfort, and
that gets to our next strategy, strategy number four. One
of the things we need to do to apply our
(23:30):
energy a little bit more wisely is to stop running
away from discomfort. Discomfort doesn't feel good. Why is running
away from it so counterproductive?
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Well, there's two things that are problematic about running away
from discomfort. The first is often the ways in which
we run away from discomfort cause secondary problems. So we
can think about this. You know, I'm sitting at my computer,
I'm going through my emails. There's the emails that I
don't want to respond to, so I just kind of
(24:02):
pass over them, and then I repeatedly avoid those emails
and avoid those emails, and avoid those emails until oh, no,
one of those emails was really important for me to
pay attention to. Or the way in which you're avoiding it,
maybe you're getting up and you're going to the fridge,
or you're going outside to have a smoke. These avoidance
strategies usually fall into the category of distracting yourself, numbing
(24:24):
yourself out with substances food technology. We avoid through bracing
with our body, holding our breath. I don't want to
feel it. We avoid through procrastination, We avoid through giving up.
So all of those strategies, you can think about what
your favorite ones are, and we all do them. Have
(24:44):
these secondary problems because now not only are you dealing
with the pain that you were avoiding, but now you're
dealing with the pain of the thing that you do
to avoid. The other problem with avoidance is that oftentimes
the things that we avoid are connected to our values
in some way or form. The things that matter to
us are often the things that cause us the most discomfort.
(25:08):
You will void or procrastinate on the projects that you really, really,
really care about doing a good job for, and then
you'll choose the things that don't really matter. You'll answer
the emails that don't really matter right because you're putting
off the email that really is the one that's the
important one that you care about. And if we start
(25:28):
to look at it that way, like, oh no, the
thing that I care about is also in the same
direction as the thing that brings me pain, then we
actually need to practice and get better at being with
discomfort so we can pursue what we care about. And
that's a good use of our energy. Pursuing what we
care about is going to be uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
And so let's talk about some strategies we can use
to deal with that discomfort. One of the ones you
talk about a lot, I know, especially in kind of
ACT therapy, is this idea of radical acceptance. What's radical
acceptance and how can it help us through discomfort?
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Radical acceptance is willingness, openness, making space for allowing. I'm
using other words because some people do not like the
word acceptance. As a therapist, I'm like, this is going
to be.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
My next question, because whenever I talk to my students
about radical acceptance, they'll be like, well, this is some
terrible thing about the organization I work for, or a
thing that I'm really frustrated with in the world. I
don't want to just radically accept this thing that's bugging me.
Those other words feel a little bit softer, but the
idea seems to be the same. It's that like, this
is just a fact about the world. So we can
either keep denying that fact and sticking your head in
(26:35):
the ground and avoiding it, or we can just dig
aity breath and realize that this is the way it is.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Yeah, So there's a difference between acceptance and approval. There
is a difference between acceptance and allowing harm to be done.
There's a difference between acceptance and saying something is okay.
Radical acceptance is exactly we described, this is what is.
And once you can acknowledge this is what is, even
(27:02):
if I don't like what is, You're welcomed to not
not like it and still accept it. You're welcome to
I don't like it and I'm going to accept it.
When my son was little, he hated getting his head
wet ever since he was born. He was learning how
to swim, and all his friends were in the deep end.
It took a while to learn how to swim because
he didn't want to get his head wet. And I
remember at some point telling him, you know, honey, in
(27:25):
order to go play with your friends in the deep end,
you're going to have to get your head wet. I
know you don't like it. And we can think about
whatever that deep end move is for us. You're going
to need to accept some things that are happening. And
radical acceptance actually allows for change, allows for a shift,
because often the non accepting is what narrows us, what
(27:48):
keeps us in the shallow end of life, because we
don't accept that we're going to have to get our
head wet, and life is a series of headwts, you know,
over and over again, like oh, you know, radical acceptance
can be like I'm radically accepting the discomfort of this
relationship with this person and how uncomfortable it is to
(28:12):
be honest with them about something, or to set a
boundary around something, or to stay in the conversation long
enough that we get through the hard part to the
other side of it to understand each other and then
to radically accept what's happening inside of me. And there's
a big distinction and acceptance and commitment therapy or act
around acceptances really about what Kirk Strassel calls your teams
(28:36):
acceptance of your thoughts T, acceptance of your emotions E,
acceptance of your action urges acceptionance of your memories, acceptance
of your sensations. And when you can accept what's going
on inside of you, then you can be more flexible
on the outside and maybe make some changes on the outside.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
I love that you brought up the team's acronym because
the next tip that we're going to be jumping into
is tip number five, which is that to channel our
energy wisely, we need to learn to work with those thoughts.
We need to learned to work with what you've called
our rooster minds. I've heard of our monkey minds before.
Rooster Minds was a first one for me, and reading
your book Why a Rooster Mind?
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Oh gosh. During COVID, a lot of people got pets
and they got cats and dogs. Well, my neighbors got
a rooster. We live up in this foothill area of
Santa Barbara. Lots of people have chickens, but this was
a first. And what this rooster did was crow all
day long. We have we think that rooster's just crow
in the morning, you know, like on the Kellogg's cereal box.
(29:40):
But no, they crow all day long. And our mind
is a lot like that. So our mind is constantly
producing thoughts. Some of those thoughts may be helpful, some
of those thoughts may be unhelpful. And when you follow
or fight your mind, what happens is you get pulled
(30:01):
off track from what you're doing. So if thatt rooster
was crowing and I was working on, you know, this,
a session with a client, or I was in a
podcast interview, and if I was just like, I hate
that rooster. Oh there's a rooster again, then all of
a sudden, I'm not engaging in my values, which was
being present with a client or maybe sharing some information
(30:21):
on the podcast. Oftentimes that's what we do with the mind.
We either follow its rules or we fight it. And really,
to work with that rooster, the best thing you can
do is just to notice that it cock. A doodle
dos all the time, and where do you want to
focus your energy? We can become better at creating space
for our mind. Noticing our mind, we can choose which
(30:43):
thoughts we want to pay attention to, which thoughts are
aligned with our values, which thoughts are helpful in the moment.
As you and I have this interview, and as listeners
are listening in, they're having all sorts of thoughts that
are going on. Some may be related to what we're
talking about, some may be completely unrelated. But they get
to be the chooser of which thoughts they pay attention to.
And that's a revolutionary way of living in the world.
(31:07):
I know that you have written about and speak a
lot about the problems of the mind, and this concept
of cognitive deffusion and ACT is the capacity to just
take like three steps back and let the mind do
what it does, rather than being all entangled in it.
Steve Hayes, the founder of ACT, talks about our minds
(31:27):
being like spider webs, and trying to go in and
rearrange our mind is like trying to rearrange his spider web?
Do you really want to do that?
Speaker 1 (31:35):
You've also talked about how we can question our thoughts
and specific questions we can bring to our thoughts when
we need to. What are some questions that we can bring.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Oh, I love whise speech from the practice of Buddhism.
And actually this whole concept of wise effort comes from Buddhism,
and it's one of the steps on the eight ful
path of awakening. Buddhism has all these numbers, like the
four Noble truths, and the fourth noble truth is that
there's a path to awakening, and then there's eight things
in this path to awakening. I grew up my dad
(32:04):
was Buddhist, and so there was always these like lists
of things, right. But one of the steps on that
eight full path is something called why speech. And I
really like it because we can think about whyse speech
in how we talk to others, but we can also
think about why speech in terms of our own internal
speech and why speech has These questions you can ask
(32:25):
if you're in the middle of the night waking up
and you have a worry, or maybe you're about to
do something that's really difficult and you're going to step
into something new, or maybe you're learning something and your
mind is growing away, you can ask yourself these four
questions one is it kind? Two? Is it true? Three?
(32:48):
Is it timely? Like is this a good time to
be focusing on this? It's two am? Should I really
be dealing with my worry right now? Do I have
any capacity to deal with this right now? And then
four is it helpful? Because sometimes it may be true.
You may be stumbling over your words if you have
social anxiety. Maybe you did make a little you know, sound,
(33:10):
or said a word in the wrong way. But if
you stick to it, you know, like get into that
spider web all of a sudden, it's not helpful for you.
It's gonna mess you up even more so. Is it kind?
Is it true? Is it timely? Is it helpful? Just
asking those questions you don't even have to fully flesh
out the answers can give you that step back enough
(33:31):
to engage in wiser speech with yourself. What is kind?
What is true? What is helpful? What is timely? Right
now for you, it's time.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
For another break, But when we return, Diana will share
her final two tips for getting unstuck. The Happiness Lab
will be back in a moment. Welcome back, Clinical psychologist,
Doctor Diana Hill and I are ready to dive into
strategy number six for getting your energy unstuck, and that
(34:03):
tip involves learning to form a more compassionate relationship with
your body. That might sound a little abstract, so I
asked Diana to break down what this idea of embodiment
really looks like in practice.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
First, we can think about people who we think of
as being embodied. You know, like they walk into the
room and you feel like they're in their body. They're
not in their heads. They maybe speak from their body,
from their heart. Most of the time, we many of us,
are like walking heads. We're not in our bodies. We
don't feel our bodies. We're cut off from our bodies.
(34:35):
We're afraid of our bodies, the sensations in our bodies.
Being embody means living inside this bodily form, and part
of that has to do with something called interceptible awareness,
which is something that I researched really early on in
my studies. My master thesis was around interceptive awareness. My
(34:56):
dissertation was in part around intercept awareness, and interceptive awareness
is just your awareness of what's going on. Do you
know your own heartbeat, your own breath, your own hunger,
your own fullness, Can you feel emotions in your body.
Could you point to it, like where you feel it.
Could you describe it with words like if you're having
anxiety rather than the heady anxiety. Things that you might
(35:19):
say like I'm worried about this, I'm worried about that.
You may say something like it feels heavy, it's got
a texture to it, it's got a color to it.
So to be embodied is really helpful in the sense
that it gets us out of our heads. For one,
our bodies hold a lot of information that may be
useful to us. There is some research on folks that
(35:39):
have higher levels of interceptible awareness make better decisions. Even
financial traders make more money. There's an association around that,
like if you're a financial trader and you have more
intercept awareness of your heartbeat, you make better decisions. And
in my work with eating disorders, there's a good amount
of research on intercept awareness and choices around food and
(35:59):
eating that if you know if you're hungry or full,
it's kind of a useful tool right in terms of
when to start eating and when to eating.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Our body is also really useful for the decisions that
we make. You know, sometimes we're making a decision that
might feel like a hard decision. But if we check
in with our bodies, even though our mind is like
I don't know, should I accept this thing or not,
our bodies are screaming at us say, like, don't accept
that calendar invite or don't say yes to that thing.
One of my favorite parts of your book is you've
talked about the importance of noticing a whole body yes
(36:32):
or a whole body no. I now get the sense
of what that is. But explain to our listeners what
you mean by that.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Yeah, Well, we as you describe, we've all had the
experience where maybe we've been invited to do something, or
I'll be asked to be on a panel, and everything
on paper looks really good about it, like this is
a great opportunity. There's all these you know, esteemed researchers
on this panel. This would be a great thing to
have on your CV. And my body is like ah ah,
(37:00):
you know, and I'm like comparing, like should I go
on the panel or should I take the surf trip
with the kids? Right? And my body's like yes. And
part of that embodied intuition or the whole body yes,
comes from your body's learning. Your body has been on
panels before and remembers your body has put off the
(37:21):
surf trip before and remember, So it's not necessarily like
it's just like magical thing coming out of nowhere. Some
of our intuition comes from past experiences of learning that
we may not have the cognitive memory, but we have
more of the embodied memory, and the embodied memory comes quicker. Right,
So a whole body yes is just that like you
check in with your body. I think it's an important
(37:41):
part of wise effort, and you ask your body, is
this a yes? Like? What does it feel like? Does
my body feel more open or does it feel more contracted?
Does it lean in or does it kind of shy away?
And we want to combine the whole body yes with
other things. Right, so is this a whole body yes?
And does it align with my values? So we can
(38:04):
listen to our bodies, but it's one piece of information.
I'm always a fan of multiple forms information to help
inform our wisest efforts and our decision making, but the
body is often one that we leave out.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Given that we need some help paying attention to our bodies,
you've suggested an acronym that we can all use to
get a little bit more in tune. It's the acronym
of heart agart. What does this acronym stand for.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
It's just a little check in around some of the
things that we often don't pay attention to. That maybe
we could increase our attention to. H stands for hunger
and fullness. Before you start eating? Are you hungry as
you're eating? When is the point of diminishing returns? Where
if you keep eating, you're eating past fullness? Right? Just
checking in with that helpful thing to relearn and get
(38:48):
more used to. There's a lot of things that are
pulling us away from our hunger and fullness. E stands
for emotions. What am I feeling in my body? Not
thinking in my head? And that increases our just capacity
to be with emotions. The more we can be with
urges without acting on them, strong emotions without reacting to them,
the more emotionally flexible we become. A is an interesting one,
(39:12):
which is activity. Does your body want to move? Is
it creating movement? And you see this in kids, they
naturally want to move their bodies. When I took those
sixteen year olds on a surf trip, as soon as
we would hit the gas station, they jump out of
the car and start throwing the football. Right, they needed
to move, but many of us have disregarded, overrided our
(39:36):
need for movement, and it can turn into things like
I'm feeling irritable, but really what I need is a walk,
you know. And then our stands for rest. Do I
need to rest again? This is another one that we
need to rest, but what we do is we turn
to junk food sources of rest. We try and rest
by scrolling on our phone, we rest by watching YouTube.
(39:58):
But what our body may really need is a deep rest.
Alyssa Epple talks a lot about the benefits of deeper rests,
you know, getting a really deep relaxation state. And then finally,
TEA stands for tension. What's the tension in your body
right now? Are you holding it in your shoulders? Are
you holding it in your gut? Are you not breathing?
(40:21):
And that can be an indicator of stress, but also
maybe just a need to let go a little bit,
exhale a little bit longer, to give your body a
little bit of release.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Yeah, I love the tension one. I was just driving
with a friend and there's some traffic and it was
looking like we're going to get late. And I did
this moment of noticing that my neck was tight, and
I was like gripping the steering wheel, and I was like, wait,
I can soften. I don't need to feel this, right.
But it was only just through that little short act
of noticing what my body was doing in that moment
that I realized, oh my gosh, I'm like holding way
(40:54):
more anxiety about kind of getting to this place on
time that I really needed to. But had had that
moment of noticing, I wouldn't have known how to fix it.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Yeah, information flows both ways, right, so our bodies can
send information to our mind. We don't think about working
from the body app We always think from the top down.
So it can be really beneficial to work from the
bottom up. Like if I were to exhale longer, release
some of the tension in my shoulders, drop my shoulders,
let go of my face a little bit, let go
(41:22):
of my belly a little bit. We don't always have
to hold it in right that that actually may send
some information to my brain that I'm okay, Because your
brain is thinking you're not okay if your shoulders are
up to your ears and you're holding your breath and
you're sucking it and something is obviously wrong because you're
bracing for something bad. And so it's good to think
about our body as sending information to our mind as well,
(41:44):
and we can have a little bit of wiser efforts
in that.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
And so now we get to the seventh strategy we
can use to have wiser effort, and this is to
watch out for the energy frenemies. What are the energy frenemies.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Well, earlier on I talked about our strengths, our talents,
our aptitudes are what I call our genius energy, the
things that come easily to us, and sometimes that kind
of spin off and become a frenemy. So an example
of that is maybe you have a great talent at humor.
(42:19):
You are always the one that comes into the room
and can lighten up the space, but when misused, when overused,
you may start becoming a little bit too lighthearted in
situations where you actually need to feel a little bit more.
Or maybe folks that are like super good at helping others,
(42:40):
the frenemy of being a super helper is maybe you
never turn that towards yourself and help yourself out. We
can see frenemies all over the place, and Buddhism they
call it near enemies, Like the near enemy of compassion
is pity. And when you start to spot that a
little bit, you can adjust your energy a little bit
so that you are using it in the right amount,
(43:02):
in the right way, at the right time. If you're
super persistent, there's a time to dial back your persistence.
If you're super patient, there's a time to be a
little bit less patient.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
And so how do we know, like what are some
signals that we might have switched from kind of wise
energy into the kind of frenemy use of our energy.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
I think it all goes back to values. So one
way I look at values is there like the banks
of a river, and your energy is a river that's,
you know, kind of flowing through, and the values help
direct that. So you can tell when you're off track
with your values by a few things I had mentioned
before that values bring you a lot of vitality. But
(43:41):
another indicator that you're off track with your values and
maybe it's turned into a frenemy is regret. The other day,
I was dropping my son off at school, and I
really am trying to like keep my schedule figured out
because I have a tendency to overbook myself and double
book myself, and I was worried that I had double
booked a client. And I drop them off at school.
(44:04):
We're driving. As soon as the car comes into the
parking lot, I pick up my phone. I start looking
at my schedule for the day as my son is
grabbing his backpack and getting out of the car, and
I look up and he's gone, and I had a
pain of regret because he was leading and I was
looking at my phone. Now, this is the acceptance thing,
(44:25):
you know. Okay, so my friend of me here showed
up where I was trying to, like be a good therapist,
but actually was getting on the way of me being
a good mom. And I need to accept that feeling,
that discomfort as an indicator that I was out of
alignment with my values. And when you feel that pain,
it's just an arrow pointing to a little self correction.
(44:47):
So next time when I pull into the parking lot,
keep the phone in the bag until he leaves, and
I can look him in the eye and say goodbye,
and I will feel in better alignment. My front of
me of scheduling won't have gotten in the way. So
we can use regret is a powerful indicator to help
us course correct. We can use vitality and values as
an indicator to course correct. The big question is is basically,
(45:11):
how do you want to show up in this moment?
And how can you use your strengths, your gifts, your talents,
you to help support you in doing that? And I
think that's wise effort.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
Let's recap the seven strategies Diana covered for finding wiser
effort in the new year. Number one, get curious about
your situation, step back, look at yourself with compassion and
if it helps, journal your thoughts. Tip number two clarify
your values, what makes life most lifely for you and
how can you channel more of your energy towards those things.
(45:44):
Strategy number three is one in doubt, seek variation. We
don't have a built in get unstuck button, but we
can stay open to new approaches. Tip four is to
embrace discomfort. Sometimes moving forward means accepting what's imperfect in
the present moment. Strategy five involves working with your rooster mind.
Your brain will keep growing, you just need to choose
(46:06):
when to listen. Tip number six is to tune into
your body. Where are you holding tension. Can you soften
even just a little right now? And our last strategy
number seven is to notice your energy frenemies, even your strengths,
can drain you if they're running the show unchecked. I
hope these strategies will help you deploy your energy a
bit more effectively in twenty twenty six. Next week, The
(46:30):
Happiness Lab will continue this season on how to get
unstuck by taking a deep look at change, why it
can feel so intimidating, and how to lean into it.
And we'll get to learn with a brilliant psychologist who
also happens to be my former student.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
I'm a fan of exploring change, and I'm recovering when
it comes to my relationship with change.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
You're recovering change, heterange hater, exactly exactly all that next
week on the Happiness Lab with me Doctor laiy Santo's
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