S6E11 KSD 2.0: Master Class on Mental Health from my personal coach...

Krista "KSD" Scott-Dixon is the former Precision Nutrition Curriculum Director responsible for the curriculum behind the PN Women’s and Men’s Coaching programs, the PN Level 1 Certification, and the PN Level 2 Certification Master Class. 

She is currently the Global Content Manager for Simple app (app focused on intermittent fasting). 

She has a Ph.D. from York University and is a trained counselor. She is the author of several books and numerous publications and is my personal coach. 

In this episode we cover...
1. Her struggles with disordered eating
2. Deep health: physical, mental, emotional, relational, financial, and spiritual. 
3. Roster of restorative mental health habits
4. Somatic vs. Cognitive Processing
5. Independence vs. Interdependence
6. Self-Regulation vs. Co-regulation
7. Isolation and Connection

And so much more!

This is a MUST-LISTEN episode as it is jammed-packed full of practical ideas and actions to improve your mental health immediately!



Download my International Amazon Best-seller Book Peak Performance: mindset Tools for Entrepreneurs chapter on "How to Feel Enough" 

www.successengineering.org

Follow me at:

Linkedin:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelbaumanse/

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/michaelbaumanse/

Episode Transcript

Krista Scott Dixon (00:00):
One of the metaphors that is often used is

(00:02):
you're driving a bus and youhave passengers on the bus,
right?
Maybe your anxiety is apassenger.
And your depression is apassenger.
But the goal is to make surethat the you-ness of you, the
wise self, the wise mind isdriving the bus, right?
The wise mind is something thatintegrates all that information
that our emotions give us, andthen reason and logic and

(00:23):
strategy and thinking, and itbrings them together into wisdom
and discernment.
So you want the wise minddriving the bus, but all of
these other parts of yourselfcan be passengers and you can
hear them.
You can be like,"Oh, heyanxiety.
What's up?
What do we need to worry abouttoday?" Okay, cool.
Let me write that down.
And then you can go back to yourseat, your job is done.
We're good.

(00:43):
We got it from here.

Michael Bauman (01:25):
Hello, everybody, whether you've been
listening for a while or whetherthis is your first time here, we
are happy to have you.
Before we jump into the episode,it would be awesome.
If you could write a review forthis show, especially on apple
podcasts.
So it takes less than a minuteor two.
It's pretty straightforward.
So you click on the show, youscroll all the way down to the

(01:45):
bottom.
And there's a little button thatsays, write a review.
And as always, if there's anepisode, you really like send it
over to your friends They'llprobably like it too.
Thank you so much.
And let's get back to the show.
So welcome back to SuccessEngineering.
I'm your host, Michael Bauman.
So we have Krista or KSD.
So Krista Scott Dixon on again,the first repeat guest on our

(02:06):
show.
So that's, you have that in yourname and my personal coach.
So I actually go to Krista tocoach me as well because I
deeply value the importance ofcoaches being coached and
everybody being coached.
And how can we essentially bebetter.
So brief introduction again onher she's precision nutrition's
curriculum designer.
So this is one of the biggestonline nutrition coaching

(02:29):
software companies in the world.
And there she built responsiblefor building out PM's women's
their men's coaching program,their level one certification
level, two certifications, lotsof other certifications that
they have now at this point aswell.
She has a PhD from Yorkuniversity is a trained
counselor and then is an authorof several books very
knowledgeable, very wise, and soexcited to have you here on the

(02:52):
show again, cause.

Krista Scott Dixon (02:53):
Well, yes.
First, second timer.
Woohoo.

Michael Bauman (02:56):
Yes.
Look at that.
You'll put that up on a plaqueon the wall.
absolutely.
So again, we're gonna start withyour background the last time
and I'll put, this up the otherepisode up as well.
Cause we talked a lot about deephealth and the ideas around
that.
But for you, a part of yourjourney was actually working
through binge eating and whatthat actually looks like.
And I do wanna start with thatbecause that's obviously where

(03:19):
you started, but gives us somebackground for how you worked
through that as well.
So can you explain some of thatchallenge for you where that
came from and how you started todo the work necessarily to
overcome that and work throughit?

Krista Scott Dixon (03:34):
Yeah, sure.
So, I mean, just to kind of getfolks on the same page.
So when I'm talking aboutdisordered eating, what I'm
talking about is a chronicpattern of eating that is
somehow out of sync with ourphysiological needs, whether
that's restricting, whetherthat's overeating especially
compulsively.

(03:54):
Whether that's restrictingparticular groups of food in
some way.
You are eating in a fashionthat's out of sync with your
physiological requirements.
And I don't mean to make thissound overly clinical, but I
think this is important tounderstand because when we think
eating disorders.
A lot of times we have thisimage of either a binge eater or
kind of the classic anorexic.

(04:15):
Who's always like a young whitegirl kind of thing.
Like there's just verystereotypical ideas about what
disordered eating looks like.
And so, I think it's importantfor all of the folks who've had
these experiences to talk aboutthem, to show like, actually
this is a very layeredphenomenon and experience.
And so like my own journey was,I didn't fit these profiles.

(04:37):
I wouldn't say I had, I mean, Igrew up in a family that just
ate their feelings.
Right.
And not necessarily in apathological way, but we were
just a family that loved to eat.
One side of my family wasUkrainian, like food is love.
Right.
so family gatherings were justlike, it's not all you want to
eat.
It's all you can eat.
Right.
And so food is a reallyeffective way to manage feelings
and connect and socialize.
And, but for me it was neverreally particularly troublesome.

(05:00):
And until many years later whenI was in my thirties and I took
up Brazil jujitsu and grapplingand boxing and I started
competing and I started cuttingweight for competitions, which
meant that I was restrictingquite significantly.
I was doing intermittent fastingat the time I was training a
ton, two, three times a day.
And so what starts to happen inthese situations is your brain

(05:21):
goes, okay, wait a minute.
Like you were imposing a lot ofstress on this organism and
you're not putting a lot ofenergy into the tank.
So, we might need to take thewheel here and change some of
your brain chemistry andprocessing so that all of a
sudden, you really want to eatfood and particular kinds of
food.
So I started going into thecycle of I would cut weight for
competition or restrict or trainreally hard.

(05:44):
And then I would binge and I hadweird food cravings and just all
these kind of strange thingsstarted happening.
And I didn't really know how tomake sense of it because I was
like, well, but I'm not.
I'm not anorexic.
I don't wanna be thin, I wannabe lean.
I wanna be jacked.
So I had a particular lens on itthat at the time I didn't
realize was disordered eating.
I thought I wanted to be fit.

(06:05):
I wanted to be jacked.
I wanted to be powerful.
I wanted to perform athleticallyLike it was just kind of
confusing to me to have thisexperience.
And it was something that I hitfor quite a long time.
Because working with a lot offolks at Precision Nutrition,
for example, a lot of them areformer athletes.
And so I was like, well, theydon't seem to struggle.
Like they seem to have gottenwith the program in a very

(06:27):
effortless way.
I must be the only one who'sactually struggling with food
related issues.
Of course it turns out that'snot the case.
And probably almost everynutrition coach in the business
has had this experience at somepoint or another in some form.
So that is the not so secret ofthe industry is that, people who
are in nutrition and fitnesshave their own struggles with
nutrition and fitness.

(06:48):
So, hopefully if you'relistening and you're feeling
like, oh my God, I'm the onlyone I assure you that you're
not.
So it took a number of years tosort my way out of this.
And there were lots of layers.
It wasn't just about the food.
It's never just about the food.
It was about managing stress andphysiological regulation and
emotions and deeper beliefsabout myself and what I was here

(07:09):
to do.
And so like, it was all a richtapestry but you know, I'm out
of it now, quite thankfully.
And but there was lots of layersto it.
So yeah, it was a veryinteresting ride.
Let's just say that.

Michael Bauman (07:19):
Yeah.
And we'll kind of unpack, unpackthis to a certain extent, but I
wanna highlight what you talkabout.
So a lot of times, just in ourlife, the things that we have
potentially the biggestchallenges, the biggest
struggles with, as we workthrough them, they become our
biggest strengths, but it's notnecessarily like, I had a guest
on the podcast and she talkedabout, we oftentimes we bookmark

(07:40):
mental health.
Like I struggled in the pasttense with, an eating disorder
or with, depression, whatever itis.
And it's like, that's not reallyhow life works.
And I love that.
Just it's an ongoing thing,right?

It's an ongoing process and one: you're not alone, but I do wanna (07:52):
undefined
talk about that aspect.
Right?
And this applies in any area ofyour life.
We all have these areas that arethe darker side of ourselves and
we don't want people to know,and that we feel so isolated in
that.
What are your advice?
What are your recommendationsfor people around that?
How do you go about navigatingthrough that isolation and that

(08:14):
feeling of isolation?

Krista Scott Dixon (08:16):
Yeah.
It's such a good question.
I mean, the biggest mantra hereis you are not alone.
Like there is no aspect of humanexperience that literally
millions of people don't share.
I don't care.
Go on the internet.
The internet has taught us ifthe internet has, is hot.
Yeah.
It's that, whatever weird.
If you have a pine cone fetish,I guarantee you, there is a

(08:36):
community of people who alsohave a pine cone fetish, right?
like a, this is a random kind ofanecdote.
I just saw a TikTok video.
That was like, what's a weird,but innocuous habit you picked
up during the pandemic.
And one, one person was.
This is my stick collection.
I have big sticks and littlesticks and medium sized sticks
and they're my collection.

(08:57):
But then people started duetingthis video, like I too have a
stick collection.
I have also picked up sticks onthe I have a stick sitting on
top of a picture in my houseright now, and so whether it's
stick, picking up or disordereating or anxiety, or, any other
kind of mental health issue, youare not alone.
It is impossible to be alone insomething that kind of strikes

(09:20):
deeply at the human condition.
And that's really what this isright.
Is the human condition, thecondition of being human.
And so, we're talking aboutmental health.
Yes, we have intrinsictendencies, there are genetic
and epigenetic tendencies.
There are things that happen toyou.
We call them adverse childhoodexperiences that may shape your

(09:42):
propensity to go a certaindirection.
There may be things that happento you later in life.
And then there's maybe, probablyjust everyday pressures that,
that add up like a bunch ofpaper cuts.
But, in terms of mental healthbeing a set of processes, It's
not a thing that you eitherhave, or you don't.
If we think about how healthworks health is largely an
emergent property that comesfrom doing a set of behaviors,

(10:05):
right?
Like dental health.
If I don't brush my teeth andFlos my teeth and, you avoid
eating too much candy, like mydental health breaks down.
And similarly, if I don't havestrong social connections, if I
don't have a sense of belongingor a sense of purpose, if I
don't have movement, if I don'thave good nutrition, if know, my
daily life is just full ofstressors.

(10:25):
Well, of course I'm gonna havemental health issues, right.
It's not a fricking mystery.
So, in terms of, where peoplecan get support, obviously I'm a
big fan.
Like you are, counseling,coaching therapy, those are sort
of, doing something one on one.
But I think that's a big jumpfor a lot of people to get
there.
And sometimes the cost is quiteprohibitive.

(10:47):
So, starting with something likean online community can be
really helpful or just talkingto that one person in your
friend or family group that youthink is gonna get it.
There's always statistically,that one person that's gonna get
it.
So finding that one person andhaving that conversation with
them is often the start for alot of people and then finding a

(11:07):
supportive community of somekind where.
People, you can share yourexperiences and no one says, oh,
that's dumb.
That's crazy.
Just cheer up, just relax orwhatever the crap people say.
But instead they say, yes, I seethat I get that.
That happened to me too.
Or I can relate or I'll validateyou in some way.
I think that's really critical.

(11:28):
And I mean, the internet hasgiven the pine cone fetish, but
it's also given us, these kindsof communities that I think can
be really super helpful forpeople to kind of just come and
not feel like a weirdo.
And then hopefully potentially,be empowered to take the next
steps, to really support theirown mental health.

Michael Bauman (11:47):
Yeah.
And I mean, that's reallyimportant.
We all have those fundamentalneeds to feel like we belong and
through the belonging, both withourselves and with other people
is really where we It soundslike a little cliche statement,
like through the belonging webecome basically like through
the belonging, we actually havebecoming into who we are as a

(12:07):
person.
And it's, so it can be sohelpful for that.
And like you said, finding thosespaces where you can feel like,
the ability to be safe enough tobe vulnerable enough to share.
How you're really feeling.
And like you said, there aretons of people out there that
are doing the same thing.
And that's what I love aboutwhat you do and what you do so
well is the accepting of humanexperience.

(12:31):
And actually how can we acceptthese parts of ourselves that we
typically disown?
And I wanna ask you about that.
How do you go about like,there's, a lot of these
behaviors reflect theseunderlying things.
So the behavior like you, youtalk about is not the problem.
It's a reflection of somethingelse that's going on.
So how do you go about oneexploring that?

(12:52):
How do you go about actuallybeginning to accept these
different parts of yourselfalong the journey?

Krista Scott Dixon (12:58):
Yeah.
It's such a huge question.
And I think sometimes peoplefeel like, oh, I have to get to
the point where I love myself.
Right?
Like you should love yourself.
Well, I mean, that is a hugespectrum.
If you're starting out hatingand disowning these parts of
yourself, right?
Like you are not going to flipthe switch and suddenly be like,
oh, now I'm completely cut.
Like, there's going to be partsof yourself that you're probably

(13:21):
never going to like very much,there's part of all of us,
that's a total douche bag andwe're like, Ugh, like I just
wish you weren't in my life likewho, who brought that guy?
Right.
But you know, one of the framesI have found quite useful for
clients is to understand thatall of these parts have a
function.
They have a job, and a lot ofthem were developed at times in

(13:45):
our life.
Usually earlier times in ourlife, when we did not have the
full spectrum of adult mature,grown up coping tools, right?
Like our prefrontal cortex, likea lot of these kind of thinky
reasoning, parts of our brainare not even fully online until
our mid twentie.

(14:06):
Well, a lot of bad stuff canhappen between zero and 25.
Right?
And so we develop these parts tocope with whatever we experience
and in the moment that copingwas the best that we could do
given the limited toolbox.
So if something hard happens toyou when you're three or your
five or your 10, like you'regonna be solving that problem

(14:27):
with a three, five or 10 yearold mind.
And of course it's not gonna bea really great solution to your
30 year old self.
Right.
But when I explain this toclients and then what we do is
sometimes even find a picture ofthem as a child.
And with this picture in mind,talk about this child, almost
like a separate person, like,what do you think this little

(14:48):
person would've liked?
And that's very helpful becausemost of us have some kind of
like intrinsic compassion forsmall children and small
children suffering.
And the idea like, oh my God.
Yeah.
Like that stuff happened to thislittle kid and they did the best
that they could with what theyhad.
Like it starts to soften theedge of that.
And so first people start to seethe reason why this exists.

(15:11):
They start to soften towards itrather than being really harsh
about it.
And then sometimes with thatsoftening, it's almost like they
invite that part to kind ofintegrate.
Right.
And so one of the metaphors thatis often used is like, you're
driving a bus and you havepassengers on the bus, right?
So maybe your anxiety is apassenger and your depression is
a passenger and, whatever is apassenger.

(15:33):
But the goal is to make surethat the you-ness of you, the
wise self, they call it wisemind in some places the wise
mind is driving the bus, right?
The wise mind is something thatintegrates both feelings,
emotions, like all thatinformation that our emotions
give us.
And then like reason and logicand strategy and kind of

(15:53):
thinking, and it brings themtogether into wisdom and
discernment.
So you want the wise minddriving the bus, but all of
these other parts of yourselfcan be passengers and you can
hear them.
You can be like, oh, Heyanxiety.
Like what's up?
What do we need to worry abouttoday?
Okay, cool.
Let me write that down.
And then you can go back to yourseat, your job is done.
We're good.

(16:13):
We got it from here.
And so I think to a lot ofpeople that feels like kind of a
nice integration, because youare never going to get parts rid
of these parts of yourself.
Like they're here to stay.
I'm I have 48 years of anxietypractice.
That's not going away.
And I definitely found that,when I was able to accept the
anxiety.
I even have a little characterfor it in my mind.
It looks like the creature fromthe black lagoon, which makes it

(16:35):
kind of funny.
So I actually imagine myselflike hanging out with it, like
on airplane flights, like it'sthere, like beside me in the
seat, like eating the peanuts orwhatever.
Right.
So there's this multi-stageprocess of first demonstrating
whatever this thing that youdon't like it had a job to do.
You can see how it got the ideathat this was useful.
It helped you at the time.
It's probably no longer helpful.

(16:56):
Let's see if we can softentowards it, bring some
compassion and then maybeintegrate it into our current
self and also use itsuperpowers.
Right?
Sometimes these parts ofourselves are actually really
excellent at something.
Like my anxiety makes damn sureI don't forget my passport.
I don't forget my keys.
I'm an extremely conscientiousperson and so I'm never that

(17:20):
person that's forgetting alltheir stuff or like going to the
wrong appointment.
That doesn't happen.
Thanks to my anxiety.
So you can kind of also give ita job if it has superpowers,
whatever it is.
So that's kind of long-winded Ihope I kind of, answered your
question.

Michael Bauman (17:36):
No, absolutely.
And I love it.
There's so much that we can,unpack there.
I have found it reallyinteresting, like you talked
about that kind of inner childwork, and even what you
mentioned, it's such a simpletool, to pull up a picture of
yourself before all this stuffhappened and look at, and this
has been one of the mostimportant things for me on my
journey is actually looking atthese really fundamental values.

(17:59):
We talk about doing valueexercises and stuff like that.
Going back to that kid andseeing myself how I was way
before all of that, I'm like,oh, these are my values.
Like, this is the person that Iwant to show up as in the world.
And then like you talked about,you have that wise, or like the
elder Sage type of yourself andactually going to the, using the

(18:21):
other visualization, going tothe end of your life, and
basically picturing, sittingdown with yourself at the wise
elder stage part of yourself,which you have inside of
yourself already, but justgoing, like, what are they
saying is important about life?
It's all that deathbed test,does it pass that kind of idea,
but you can get a really goodidea of the legacy that you want

(18:41):
to have and your, the depth ofthe values that you carry or a
life lived really well incongruence with those values.
When you look at that, ElderSage part of yourself and you
sit down with them and go, like,what advice do you have for me?
And you can do the same thingwith your little kid and your
little kid for yourself.
But I find, I just find itreally fascinating, how we can

(19:01):
almost manipulate time ormanipulate our past, like
rewrite our past, look at ourfuture, bring our future into
the present, being the feelingsthat we'd have at that moment,
from both sides into thepresent.
The other thing that youmentioned is really fascinating.
So one, you have this idea ofaccepting yourself, right?
So you're accepting the inner,your inner Childs.

(19:22):
You have this understanding thatbegins to develop where you see
you're doing the best that youcan, these behaviors, whatever
there, or however it comes outis a reflection of you doing the
best that you can.
And so there's the accepting ofthis, but the other aspect of
this is almost the ability to beable to give yourself distance
from these parts.

(19:43):
And that's what I saw.
It's so interesting.
It's like integrating'em alltogether.
And then at the same time,seeing them as the parts on the
bus, right?
You see as like, oh, this is my,my angry person.
This is my anxious, creature forthe blue lagoon or whatever that
part of myself.
And so giving yourself thatdistance is also really
fascinating because you can seeit clearly.

(20:04):
It's not so much of like, Oh,gosh, this is me.
I am X, Y, and Z, awfulmiserable, terrible, failure,
whatever.
You can give yourself distance.
And from that perspective, youcan see what is good and what is
detrimental about those things.
And I just find both of thosethings, really interesting, the
combination of it, an acceptanceand integration, and then also

(20:25):
the ability that distance givesyou from that.

Krista Scott Dixon (20:28):
I think it's also worth calling out.
I think Charlie Chaplin was theone who said that life is a
tragedy in close up, but acomedy in long shot.
Right.
And the idea is that there's apart of our brain that is the
highly analytical detailoriented meticulous part.
Like it just loves drilling downinto details.
Which is helpful, but also wherea lot of the misery lies because

(20:52):
we can get so consumed in ourown quicksand of details and
kind of naval gazing that weactually become quite miserable.
It's like, when you stare atyourself in the mirror, like
really close and you're like, ohmy God, like my nose is such a
weird shape in my eyebrow.
Like, every single hair isbizarre.
Like, like when you really zoomin on something it actually

(21:12):
doesn't create happiness.
It creates the opposite.
Right.
Whereas when we have brainstates that are more expansive
when we're looking at bigpicture, when we're looking at
figuratively or literally alandscape when we're able to sit
back and consider the humancondition.
That is when we can actually bemuch happier.
So it's almost like again and Ithink it's Ian McGilchrist that

(21:37):
talks with this in his book, theDivided Brain, not the divided
brain the Master in his Emissarywhich is that, this thinky
analytical detail part of ourbrain.
That's like, that's the partthat ruminates and focuses on
like the shirt that we wore thatwas a bad choice.
That part is a great servant.
It's really good for playingchess, planning, menus, like

(21:57):
doing that thinky work, but it'sa terrible boss and it should
not be in charge.
It's like having, like think ofyour job.
And as like, if there's like ahorrible bean counter kind of
person at that job, like Susanin accounting and you're like,
oh God, like she's such a pill.
Right.
great.
But Susan really great ataccounting.
That's, her job is to be like abean counter, but she's just

(22:19):
humorous and not super fun.
We don't wanna put that part ofour brain in charge of our
lives.
We want the big picture kind ofexpansive piece.
And so, like you say, pullingthe camera back.
Allows us to get this largerperspective.
And it also allows us to connectto other people.
Cause when we're down the rabbithole, we're like in our own
rabbit hole, right.
We're not with other people.
So pulling the camera back alsoallows us to make better social

(22:41):
connections and to really thinkabout stuff like meaning
purpose, it's that whole, whatdo I imagine the end of my life
to be?
Right.
It allows us to kind of get a alarger sense of time.
And you mentioned memories.
And I think that's reallyinteresting because memories are
not stored like photographs.
It's not like a snapshot that'sjust filed, right?

(23:01):
When we encode memories, wealmost turn them into little
mosaics and pull them apart andstore the pieces and then put
the pieces back together andbring them into recall.
And what that means is that wecan Recode memories.
And so part of the work that Ilike to do is to go back find a
memory bring it into the presentand kind of give it a different
emotional or somatic body basedtone so that when you restore

(23:26):
that memory it's fundamentallyshifted for you.
So for example, like, let's saywe call it a memory of like, oh
my God, I was really embarrassedthis one time in fourth grade
and it was terrible and it'sbeen so traumatic and whatever,
right.
We pull that up and you kind ofinteract with it in some way,
and then maybe you restore itand like, well, yeah, that was
embarrassing.
But also it was kind of cute.
And I guess that stuff happensin fourth grade and I wasn't the

(23:47):
only kid that peed their pantsor I dunno, like whatever or you
imagine, I don't know, whateveryou imagine but somehow that
emotion feels different.
And there's a really profoundshift in how your brain
perceives that memory.
So it no longer has the sting toit anymore.
It's been, kind of softened,like I said, it's given a new
tone and ideally the best caseoutcome is to use it as a way to

(24:13):
show here's how you showedresilience.
Here's how you showed strength.
Here's how you showed some kindof resources.
So that when you, again, sortthat memory, you're like, oh
yeah, you know what?
I'm right.
I'm all right.

Michael Bauman (24:25):
yeah.
That's I had another guess onthis show John Coyle and he's a
expert in our ability toperceived time and how that
affects our psychology and howwe can actually manipulate like
slow down and how our brainspeeds up time and things like
that.
And he talks about that exactthing, right?
He talks about how you canbasically make your life
incredibly rich by tying inessentially strong emotions and

(24:50):
stuff to these positiveexperiences.
Taking these risks, talks aboutcomfort being just like the
death of our lives, right?
The whole decade, 10, 10 years.
I can't even remember a singlething from it because how we
store the memories is associatedwith these strong emotions.
But on the negative emotionsites, he said a very similar
thing, how you handle some ofthose is you when you pull it

(25:10):
up, you have to do the work tomake sure that when you put that
back, it's in a lighter statethan when than before.
And it can be a very delicatework.
Especially when we have deepertraumas, but that's something
that you do really well that Thething that I wanna talk about in
relationship to this, so wehave, and you even mentioned it,
we have these situations andstuff and anxiety and stress

(25:33):
basically just tunnels us downinto the microcosm of like the
pimple on our face, so to speak.
Right.
And we also know from geneticstoo, that like, we may have this
disposition to something, butit's the stimulus and it's the
environment that actually canturn that on or off.
Can you talk about what peoplecan do?

(25:53):
The ways that we can start torecognize the stress and the
anxiety, what that does to usphysiology and again, tools that
we can have to do things thatmay potentially a little bit
different than what we've beendoing right now.

Krista Scott Dixon (26:04):
Yeah.
Okay.
So let's, I'll try to tacklethis big question and let me
know if I've missed any piecesof it.
I mean, the first piece for meis even becoming aware of what
we're experiencing.
Right.
And I think, a lot of people areinvested in not recognizing it.
And I don't mean that to blamethem.
Our brain is really good athiding things from us that it
doesn't think are salient orthat we should pay attention to.

(26:26):
And unfortunately, one of theconsequences of particular kinds
of stress or trauma is that youbecome so dissociated or
disconnected from yourphysiological and emotional
experience that you think you'refine.
Right?
It's your body's way ofprotecting you.
Let's just dial down theawareness of how much pain we're
actually in so that this personcan function.

(26:47):
So when you talk to these peopleas adults, they're like, oh no
it's not so bad.
And I remember a time in my lifewhen it was like, I call it the
worst year of my life where abunch of these kind of major
stressors happen, deaths in thefamily and job stuff,
relationship stuff.
But if you'd asked me.
I would've told you like, oh,like two or three outta 10, it's
really not so bad.
Meanwhile, I'm not sleeping.

(27:08):
I'm getting blasted out of bedwith a heart rate of 110 in the
middle of the night.
I'm losing weight.
I can't eat food.
Tastes like Ash, the go to thehe's, like I go the doctor, he's
like, you look fine.
I'm like, well, yeah, cuz I, Ithink a lot of this developed
these coping mechanisms where webecome ultra functional, we just
get stuff done.
We just handle our business andthen like, we're just corroding

(27:30):
inside.
So, and I meet a lot of,especially professional people
like that kind of highperforming professional people,
the oldest children of theworld.
like, I joke that I'm like anoldest child of two oldest
children.
So it was like inevitable that Iwould be just like completely,
functional and disconnected froma lot of the stuff.
But so there are some simpletools that we use to sort of

(27:51):
bring you back into awareness.
Now that can be things mind bodyscans, that can be more
objective indicators, right?
Like maybe you're someone wholikes your fitness gadgets, and
you can look at your heart ratevariability, for example, or,
like kind of indicators likethat.
Or we can do something like astress events, assessment on you
where we're like, okay, what'shappened to you in the last few

(28:14):
years, or, did any of thesethings happen to you when you
were younger?
So there's kind of differentways we can come at the issue of
increasing people's awareness,but I would argue there
definitely should always be somekind of development of the felt
sense.
Like on some level we have toget people feeling back into
their bodies, which again can bereally hard if someone has kind

(28:39):
of spent a long timedissociating, but if it's like,
okay, we only get sensation inyour finger.
Great.
Like we'll work with the finger,right.
until you can feel other partsof your body.
And that really is the work.
And Peter Levine has beenamazing.
The somatic experiencing guy, hereally has demonstrated very
compellingly that this kind ofwork definitely has to begin and

(29:02):
end with the body.
And it's not that cognitivestuff is not helpful.
It's just that so much of thisis happening in the body as the
base of the iceberg.
It's not in our consciousawareness.
Right.
So if I go to CognitiveBehavioral Therapy and I'm like,
if I don't even know if I'mstressed consciously, like I
can't, you can't use this toolnecessarily to change what's

(29:23):
going on.
So.
That's that part of the questionnow, what are the other people?
Hang on one second.

Michael Bauman (29:27):
So CBT for the listeners who don't know is
cognitive behavioral therapy.
Yeah.
Cognitive.
So if I'm trying to like addressit from a cognitive angle where
it's really underneath thesurface from that and you need
to essentially use a differenttool.
So keep,

Krista Scott Dixon (29:39):
yeah.
Although, I mean, I will saythat cognitive behavioral
therapy really helpful inhelping you address some of the
logistical factors in your lifethat could be contributing, so
for example maybe you're notvery good at problem solving.
And so you're kind of constantlycoming up against anxiety and
frustration.
Maybe you're not very good atkind of planning and proactive
thinking or interrogating yourown beliefs.

(30:01):
Everybody hates me well, is thatreally true?
Like there's definitely uses forCBT.
It's just that for many of us,it doesn't go deep enough and it
doesn't get at the source of alot of these things at their
root and the research isincreasingly showing that we
need to work at the level ofemotions of attachment and

(30:24):
connection relationships and thebody.

Michael Bauman (30:27):
Yeah, absolutely.
And this is, again, you being mycoach, this is the work similar
kind of thing.
Right.
I had incredibly stressful year.
Everything was just going crazy.
And I just numbed, like I justnumbed pretty much everything,
and I couldn't feel from heredown and going into that work,
but it can be really scary.
A lot of times for me, if I wasgoing into that somatic feeling,

(30:48):
it would feel like there's darkmurky water, and I'm just
submerging myself under that.
So can you talk about, I mean,you mentioned some of these
things, these mind body scansand things like that what are
some of the.
And that would be a simple one.
Right.
If we're just starting withlike, like you said, feeling the
one little point on your fingertalk about the mind, body scans,
talk about some of these thingsthat people can do to just at

(31:09):
least get a foundation astarting point for this.
Yeah.

Krista Scott Dixon (31:13):
So, so the mind body scan is basically you
start at one end of your body.
And you kind of scan along yourbody, like going through like an
MRI or something like that.
Right.
And you just kind of observe,what am I sensing?
And there's different ways to dothis.
So for example, sometimes it canjust be a body scan, right?
You're just looking for physicalsensations, hot, cold pressure

(31:36):
temperature.
Do you feel the breeze, are yourclothes comfortable?
Is your stomach rumbling?
Is your hair tickling you likewhatever it is.
Usually when I do it withclients, I try to attach
emotions to it.
Like, do you notice that thesensations are connected to any
kind of emotion that you couldname and sometimes people like
to connect it with thoughts too.
So as scan the body whatthoughts are emerging?

(31:57):
So it could be something like,oh, my stomach is really, it
feels really weird and bubblyand nervous.
And oh, now I'm thinking thatI'm really anxious about,
whatever, blah, blah, blah, thisthing I'm doing tomorrow So I
like to keep it a little bitsomatic, cuz I find that people
really wanna get to thethoughts.
People love living in the zoneof cognition.
It's so much more comfortablefor most people to just be in

(32:17):
thinky brain.
So often I really try to keeppeople coming back to their
bodies over and over again.
Cuz that's the place they don'twanna be.
right.
So my job as a coach is to kindof create that productive
discomfort.
So yeah, so a body scan is justbasically going down your body
and noticing whatever sensationsyou can distinguish and then you
can also try amplifying thecues.

(32:38):
Right?
So like, you can, I'm makingthis gesture of like patting my
hands together.
Right.
You can put your palms togetherand kind of press and feel how
that is or, touch some part ofyour body and go, oh, what is
that like?
Or, how does my bum feel on theseat?
Or how do my feet feel on thefloor?
Like, you start to kind of tryto increase the information
that's coming into your sensesso that you can start to discern

(33:00):
things.
And then I also really usingsensory stuff too, because most
sensory things happen in realtime, unlike thinking, which can
predict into the future andwhatever the past.
Right.
So sensory stuff is like, whatare you smelling?
Right.
What are you hearing?
Sounds are great because mostpeople can kind of fixate on
sounds pretty well and soundscan only occur in real time.

(33:21):
It can be things like, again,touch if you're eating
mindfully, it can be what you'retasting, but things like sound
and smell, I think are reallyperfect for getting us back into
our body and touch as well.
Like I said so that's the kindof the mind, body scan,
anything.
Sensory is really a tool thatyou can use.
And so I really encourage peopleto get super creative with it.

(33:41):
Do you just like, I know thatsounds weird, but do you just
like smelling things, like howlittle kids always have those
smelly erasers or smelly markersif they love those.
I dunno.
If you ever had like the Mr.
The scratch of stiff stickers.
No, the Mr.
Sniffy markers, that was like,oh yeah.
Yeah.
Like kids love those things andGod knows what was in them, but
for sure.
Yeah.

(34:02):
A whole host of other problemsthat can come from that.
That's right.
We got brain damaged from thetoxicants in, but anyway, the
green apple was topnotch, butyou know, like you can create
opportunities to amplify sensoryinformation for yourself, of
whatever ilk works for you.
And I'm also a big fan of thingslike pets go in.
If you have a pet go and findyour pet and interact with it in

(34:22):
a very tactile way, just animalsniff, just sniff your pet

Michael Bauman (34:26):
Dogs got it down.
Right.

Krista Scott Dixon (34:28):
That's not weird.
Just sniff.
But like, and that's veryregulating for people too.
And people will often say likeinteracting with my pet puts me
in a state where I feel calm andwhere I feel regulated and where
I feel aware.
So, Hey yeah, go pet your dog,go pet your cat, pet your
turtle, whatever.

Michael Bauman (34:44):
Yeah.
And I mean, there's, there'sdifferent research around, like,
how do you change your state?
And a lot of times it does,you're changing, your physiology
can go a long way to changingyour state, like these different
parts of yourself or differentstates that you're in, have a
different physiology andbecoming aware, like you talked
about that and then changingthat state.
But then also, as you mentionedand this is, this has been huge

(35:07):
for me, that ability to comeback into your body and the more
you can train that as like a,oh, I'm feeling this, like I'm
really angry, maybe I'm likeabout to lose it on my kid.
That ability to go, oh wow.
Let me actually come back intomy body.
And like you talked about, youcan train to go, like, what are
my senses and stuff doing?

(35:28):
And other guests that I've hadon, even for kids, they have
like a, they call the five,four, three, two, one method.
So you can go like, what arefive things that I'm seeing
right now?
what are four things that I'mfeeling?
What are three things that I'mhearing, two things that I'm
smelling, or, one thing I'mtasting and, or, whatever you
do, you can just use thatformula and just that aspect of
going, oh, wow.

(35:48):
Let's get out of here, come backto here.
And reset around.
That can be really huge.
Like it's difficult to overstatehow important that is in terms
of, regulating and being acontinue to notice what's going
on in your body.

Krista Scott Dixon (36:01):
And I think really one of the biggest skills
that anyone can learn is to beable to relax themselves on
purpose and I don't mean likeyelling, relax at people, right?
but learning to sort of relaxyourself, physiologically, relax
your muscles consciously, kindof go floppy and limp.
As long as this doesn't send youinto like total parasympathetic
collapse.
But if you're someone who kindof tends more towards tension,

(36:23):
if you can physically practiceconsciously relaxing yourself,
it is much more difficult toexperience distress and anxiety
when you are physiologically ina relaxed state.
So that's kind of a usefullittle hack.
And so even stuff like contractrelease, right?
Like tense up your whole bodyfor five seconds, and then just
let it go.
A lot of people can kind of getthe hang of that one pretty

(36:44):
easily.
And so that's a tool that youcan use, even stuff that.
Snaps you into the present.
Like one of, one of the tricks Iwill do with my partner's
daughter, sometimes if she'sgetting kind of, activated is
I'll grab an ice cube from thefreezer, we call it the ice cube
game and I'll be like, okay, Ibet you can't hold this in your
hand until it melts.
And she'll be like, I bet I can.
Right.
She thinks it's a game of likepain tolerance.

(37:07):
What I'm doing is resetting hernervous system so that it yanks
her brain out of the fightflight overactivation over her
math homework.
It brings her into the presenceso that she can kind of regulate
herself.

Michael Bauman (37:21):
That's genius.
But both of my kids, both of mykids love ice.
They're always asking for ice.
So I'm totally

Krista Scott Dixon (37:27):
gonna

Michael Bauman (37:27):
use that when they start like going crazy,
just be like ice

Krista Scott Dixon (37:31):
ice cube game.
Yep.
Some people will put it on theirchest to like go put the ice
cube on their sternum orsomething like that.
Or I had her once run outsidewhen it was cold, like up and
down the street, like in barefeet for like 30 seconds.
And that also rebooted her.
So oh, like the factory resetswitch

Michael Bauman (37:45):
yes.
You have all the, cold baths andthings like that as, as well.
Talk to us about, so that's likein the moment, right?
Like as a very, in the moment,can you bring yourself back?
What could people do on just ahabit basis, a daily basis to
make sure that they are puttingin as much recovery and rest and
those kind of activities as theyneed to support all the

(38:07):
sympathetic, activated, stressstuff that we typically do.

Krista Scott Dixon (38:12):
Well, okay.
That's a pretty big ask and Ithink it would be unrealistic to
assume that everyone listeningwould be ready, willing, and
able to get all of the recoverythat they actually needed.
I think all of us need like amonth at the spa, but but the
question is really how can wemove it towards a little bit
better?
Right.
What are some of the behaviorsthat you could do?
Right.
And like to work, my concept isalways like, how can we get this

(38:34):
1% better?
Or how can we do a five minuteaction?
So how can we work in the realmof like 5% actions?
And if you start to build aroster of them.
So one of the things we do withclients sometimes is come up
with like a roster or a menu ofsmall actions that you can
fairly easily do.
And it's good to have this kindof list in advance because when

(38:54):
you're stressed out, when you'reactivated, you're not gonna
remember this.
Right.
So you gotta like whip out thelist and go, okay, like what do
I do?
What do we do when we feel thisway?
Right.
And that helps them talk, youtalk yourself off the ledge.
So, we can kind of customize,like, what are the five minute
actions that for you areregulating?
Are you someone who's reallysocial?
So you call your sister andcomplain for five minutes and

(39:16):
you guys laugh and hang up andyou feel so much better.
Right.
Is that something that works foryou again?
Do you have a pet?
Does snuggling your dog work foryou to calm you down for five
minutes?
I've had clients who are superstressed out about the evening,
scramble with the kids,homework, baths, making lunches,
getting them in bed.
Everyone's completely, rangy.

(39:37):
And what we do is often kind ofsee what extraneous activities
we can cut in favor of snuggletime and snuggle time is so
regulating for both the parentsand the children, the kids calm
down, the parents calm down.
So that over time bedtimebecomes less of a horror show.
So that's something any kind ofsnuggling being outside, any

(39:59):
kind of nature, garden, greenspace, whatever you have.
Sometimes just I used to tellpeople working in offices back
when that was a thing, find thelong way to the bathroom, right.
Just find the long way to thebathroom and during your trip to
and from the bathroom, use thattime to collect yourself.
And then there's the obviousstuff five minutes of
meditation.
Can you get to bed five minutesearlier?

(40:21):
Can you drink a glass of water?
Can you eat one more vegetable?
So really it's kind of thinkingabout, what activities are to me
truly restorative.
And what are the tiniestincrements of that, that I could
start adding through my day.
Could you hug your partner for30 seconds longer?
Cause know, sometimes like,especially if we've been married

(40:41):
or together for a long time,like you do the perfunctory hug
as they're on their way at thedoor, maybe you don't even do
that.
Right.
And you're like, okay, bye.
The next thing.
Right.
And so like, what I do with mypartner is I'm like, no, like no
escaping, we're gonna hug for 30seconds.
And like, you can feel bothpeople just kind of go, ah, and
that's very regulating.

(41:02):
So like hug the people in yourlife extra long.
That, that.
Costs you almost no time at all,but the benefits are quite
significant and something else.
I mean, comedy for me, likelaughing, we know is very
restorative.
I'm a huge fan of, standupcomedy.
I will Google standup comedyvideos, watch them for five
minutes, laugh and be like,okay, I'm good.

(41:22):
Right.
Or off whatever So, there's allkinds of things and really it's
sort of what, what speaks toyou.
So I guess what I would say isthe overarching principle is.
So we go back to the deep healthparadigm.
Think about what would restoreor rejuvenate you in these
different dimensions, right?
Physical, mental, or cognitive,emotional, social, relational

(41:44):
existential or spiritual.
And then what would create likea restorative environment for
you?
Would five minutes ofdecluttering make you feel
better in your environment?
Probably for most of us, likeI'm looking around my living
room.
I'm like, oof, I gotta get onthis.
Right.
So there's lots and lots ofdifferent options.
But if you think about, okay,where can I get a win in one of

(42:04):
these domains, it starts to openup a lot more possibilities
because maybe you can't like,let's say you were you're a
frontline healthcare workerworking long shifts and your
physical health is like in thetoilet.
And you're like, listen, I don'tsee a change in the foresee
future here.
Okay, cool.
What else can you do in anotherdomain?

(42:28):
To kind of, try to get somerecovery, even if it's.
You know what?
I'm spend a little extra money,get meal delivery, get a salad
or something.
I don't know.
I'm just making this up or like,I'm gonna again, hug my partner
extra long.
I'm gonna go outside for somefresh air, whatever it is, but
so be creative and kind of workin the dimensions that are
available to you right now,rather than trying to fit your
recovery into some kind ofarbitrary plan that someone else

(42:50):
has, like, oh, you shouldmeditate for 15.
Like for me, I'm just like, hellno, ain't nobody got time for
that.
but I am a big fan of watchingNetflix in the bathtub.
So that is my dream.

Michael Bauman (43:01):
I love that.
I like absolutely love thatbecause we just compartmentalize
everything.
We're like, I have this littlecompartment for my physical
health and my nutrition and myexercise.
And I have this littlecompartment for my relationships
and my relationships with myboss and my, whatever.
And it's not like that.
Like when you're looking at itas a holistic picture, you go,
if I'm winning in some area ofrecovery in one of these six or

(43:24):
eight, or however we wannaclassify, compartmentalize our
different areas of life, thenyou're doing something to build
that recovery.
And it's overlooked so much, orwe try to fit that circle into
that square hole, the squareinto the circle hole.
That kind of idea where it justlike some guru or some
motivational person said dothis.
And it's like, that just doesn'twork.

(43:45):
And you're just bashing our headagainst it where maybe going for
a walkout in nature is you're ajam.
So I really appreciate.
And you talked about, you talkedabout that hug and doing it for
a little bit longer.
Can you talk cuz that has a lotto do with attachment theory and
things like that in terms ofrelationships, can you get into
that a little bit more and whatpeople can do to with the
knowledge of some of that stuff?

(44:07):
How they can, again, help alittle bit in terms of some
other things that they could doon the relationship side.

Krista Scott Dixon (44:11):
Yeah.
Great question.
And I think this is somethingthat's really important for
folks to hear, especially I'mguessing the listeners of your
podcast, who I would speculatemay trend a little bit more
towards kind of a bit moreindividualist.
There are people who like to dothings on their own and they're
highly independent and theymight be entrepreneurs and and
that's awesome.
There's nothing wrong with that.
But I think sometimes what weforget, especially in North

(44:35):
America, I think other parts ofthe world are a little bit
different in the way that theythink about things.
And especially in the US I thinkCanadians are somewhat more
collectivists than the US, butyou know, there is no way to
succeed as a lone individual.
Like we as mamals are evolved associal animals.

(44:55):
Right.
So there's no getting around thefact that even if you're super
introverted, like don't get mewrong.
I love my alone time.
A lot of times I have thisfantasy about like a uni bomber
cabin in the woods of like someisolated mountain cabin, right.
so I completely value alonetime, but there's a difference
between alone time that you loveand that you're totally into,

(45:16):
and you're, I don't know,reading a book or whatever, and
loneliness and alienation, andthat's the problem that we're
really facing to, to kind ofcircle back around to this
mental health piece.
So as social animals, in someway, we require other people to
help regulate us and to helpsupport us.
And so that can be everythingfrom logistical support, I had

(45:36):
eye surgery, but six months agoI needed someone to get me home.
Right.
I would do it myself.
I actually did try to do itmyself.
And they were like no.
They frown on people stumblingoutta their office, not being
able to see.
But you know, so we need otherpeople just from a logistical
sense, all the way to thespiritual sense.
Even if it's that's things likeexchanging ideas or working on

(45:56):
thoughts together, likeworkshopping ideas, your ideas
are always gonna be better ifyou workshop them with somebody
else.
Even if they disagree with you,but it's that act of doing it.
But we know that we requireother human beings to regulate
us.
And what I mean by that it'scalled co-regulation.
And so we can enter into thisrelationship where you calm me

(46:19):
down, I calm you down or you ampme up and I amp you up, right?
We're feeding off each other'senergy.
And ideally we start to surroundourselves with people that
regulate us in positive ways,right.
That make us feel happy when wewanna feel happy and are able to
hold a space for us when we feeldown, when we feel grief, when
we're struggling those are themost wonderful kinds of

(46:40):
relationships.
But back in the day, I actuallyhad a, I, I did a TikTok video
about this that has gotten atime at this time of podcast,
nearly 54,000 views.
And it was just a throwaway.
And I just talked about beinggen X.
Being raised in the seventiesand how, we were kind of like
latchkey kids.
And so we had, if we were luckymaterial things provided, but we

(47:03):
did not have anyone caring aboutour emotional health.
It was just not a thing becauseparents in the seventies, were
their parents were depression,era people, right?
Like, so there was no emotionalhealth going on there either.
So we were the end point of thislegacy of generational emotional
issues.
And so we, we didn't but theprevailing theory at the time

(47:25):
with babies was like, oh, justlet them cry it out.
So put them alone in the room tosleep and they'll just cry it
out.
and they'll figure it out.
Right.
But like babies and youngchildren do not have the
neurological apparatus toregulate, figure it out.
Why your caregivers it's likeflinging the baby gerbil out and
going, okay.
Handle it.
I know you don't have fur yet,but you know, figure it out.

(47:46):
That's not how human beingswork.
And so right from babyhood, eventhrough to adulthood we need
human beings, other human beingsin some way or another.
And we know, I mean the worldhealth organization has talked
about this loneliness and socialalienation, social isolation,
which can happen if you'resurrounded by people, by the
way, right.

(48:07):
Have you ever gone to a partyand you didn't like anybody and
you just felt alone, evensurrounded by 50 people.
Alienation is different thanactually physically being alone,
but loneliness and socialalienation isolation are
killers.
Like they significantly increaseour mortality and our morbidity
and our risk of chronic disease.
But conversely.

(48:28):
One of the strongest predictorsof healthy aging is social
connection.
My grandmother's in her midnineties, she has people coming
by all the time.
There's the phone is alwaysringing there.
She's always gossiping.
There's, it's almost like highschool with my grandmother.
She's like, well, Roberta saidsuch and such today and I just
nearly died.
Like she has this incrediblyactive social world.

(48:48):
And I am convinced that iswhat's keeping her going now
it's anecdotal.
But again, research confirmsthat social connection is one of
the biggest predictors oflongevity and health span.

Michael Bauman (49:00):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, so much in there, likeyou're absolutely right.
There is a, there's a differencein all the, again, the research
talks about the differencebetween your subjective
loneliness and objectiveloneliness and the detrimental,
effects on your health come fromsubjectively being alone.
And it's interesting to evenlook at, we're talking about
different aspects of health.
Again, we try to,compartmentalize it, but

(49:21):
basically you can look at like,is there a disconnection, even
in terms of myself, like, do Ifeel alone inside of myself?
And that's some of the otherwork that we're talking about,
and then you can look at, do Ifeel alone in maybe my intimate
connections, right?
Is there some sort of connectionor disconnection there, and then
for, people as well that likehigher purpose, whether
spirituality, religion, whateverthat is the impact con

(49:44):
contribution, is there actuallya disconnect there as well,
connection to that, or adisconnection to that as well.
And interestingly enough, Imean, obviously this is, podcast
about success engineering.
I've been fascinated to look atso often in the Western world,
we define success individually.
And basically when you definesuccess individually, you are

(50:04):
baking loneliness into theequation.
Like you literally, like, if yousay like success, it equals like
independence.
That is you all, you have to be100% alone cuz you know, the
ultimate level of independenceis like, ah, it's just me.
So it almost underneath theradar, you're baking loneliness
into the equation.
But when you talk to again, alot of other cultures do this

(50:26):
better.
And I had Jessica JoelAlexander, who wrote the Danish
way of parenting and they dothis totally different.
And she has this concept, whichblew my mind almost when she
talked about it, she talkedabout the Hygge or the
we-fulness she described it aswe-fullness so we talk about
mindfulness and it's a, me beingmindful of my moment, right?

(50:47):
Where she's like, no, it'sactually built into their
culture where they have a daythat is about we-fullness like
us actually being present as aunit.
And so what's fascinating to meis like, how would your
definition of success change ifyou went, what if I was actually
a part of my family unit andwhat would be success for the
overall family unit and howwould that actually just change

(51:10):
my definition of success?
And again, you can expand it outhow far you want.
Right.
And that's an interesting thingabout being in different
cultures, in China, you have avery big collective view of
success as a country, and I'veheard, commenting here with
COVID is, people look at,Shanghai and things like that
being locked down and they'relike, how can we lock down 25
million people?

(51:31):
But the comment I heard waslike, well, they view the, it
the country as a single child.
Like, it's like, you can look atit as like an overprotective
parent for a single child.
Like they're trying to do whatthey think is best for their
single child and there'sdetriments and be, benefits to
that.
But it's interesting to how doyou reframe that success?
And what does it look like on,like you said, the loneliness,

(51:51):
the attachment, ideas and howcan we actually incorporate more
of that in, into our life.

Krista Scott Dixon (51:56):
Yeah, absolutely.
And and I think that, especiallyif you've been raised in north
America, sometimes you hear thisstuff and you're like, but I
love my independence.
I love my independence too.
There are going to be times inour life when we are dependent,
when we're older, when we havedisability, chronic illness,
when we're younger, whatever,right.

(52:17):
We need something from someoneand times when we're
independent, we're kind of onour own steam, but ideally we
spend most of our time ininterdependence.
So it's just kind of like amutual, collaborative benefit
making each other better.
And I've never quite understoodthis fear of collectivism or
public health.
And I think this reallymanifested itself during COVID

(52:39):
where some people were justlike, screw all y'all, I'm gonna
do what I want.
It's like, okay.
This is not like my choice towear an ugly shirt.
What I do directly, like if wethink about it a certain way, I
could actually murder somebody.
Do you know what I mean?
Through particular actions thatI take during this experience,
my actions affect other peoplecompletely directly.

(53:00):
And so, but I think it wasfascinating to see how different
cultures, different countries,different people handled this
kind of question of what is myresponsibility.
Do I even see myself as a memberof society?
Like, that's the first question,right?
Do I even see myself as acitizen?
And I think it's fascinatingthat in recent years, like the
word citizen has become replacedby taxpayer, which is quite

(53:22):
close to consumer, right?
It kind of skates all of thesecivic responsibilities that I
have in, in Canada for those ofyou living in warmer climates,
there is a whole social contractaround shoveling your sidewalk.
And, you recognize that you haveto shovel your sidewalk for
other people to you.
That's not just for you.
And if you're that neighbor thatdoesn't shovel your sidewalk,

(53:43):
Ugh, things are not gonna gowell for you.
But yeah, so this concept ofinter interdependence I think is
really powerful and it's alsoworth mentioning that even if we
think that we don't need otherpeople.
We will behave in ways thatshows that we do, and I think a
lot of the mindless scrollingthat we do on Facebook and
Instagram is kind of a yearningfor a social connection, which

(54:05):
is ultimately never going to besatisfied because we can never
create the kinds ofrelationships, just these kind
of superficial scrolling onsocial media that we can achieve
with a real person or, I mean,you and I have never met in real
life.
Right.
But I feel like we have arelationship.
So, but I think that a lot ofpeople get into the cycle where
they're yearning for socialconnection.
They go to a place that doesn'treally provide it, but says that

(54:30):
it does.
And then they emerge from thisexperience dissatisfied.
And that just starts to cycleall over again.
And to come back to thebeginning of our conversation,
it's like disordered eating, youbinge you're restrict, you binge
your restrict, it's like thewhole cycle, right.
You get stressed out and thestress makes you eat more and
then you eat more and thenyou're stressed or whatever.
Right?
So ideally for optimal health,we wanna break this cycle of

(54:54):
finding ourselves indissatisfying and unfulfilling
social interactions and wherepossible, find deeper
connection.
And Cal Newport talks about thisa lot in his books, which I
really appreciate use thetechnology for deeper connection
rather than as a substitute fordeeper connection.
So, rather than liking someone'spost on social, can you text

(55:16):
them instead of texting them,can you call them instead of
calling them, can you video callthem?
Right?
Can you write them a letter?
but to go back to the whole,like 1% better or five minute
action.
Can you deepen a socialconnection?
By like one degree I startedrandomly calling people, not
just random people, but Istarted calling people that I
know back in the day when they,those, although that is a thing

(55:37):
I've heard fun stories aboutthat but no.
So I, I started calling peoplethat I knew, but just randomly
like unpredictably and in thebeginning, some of them were
like, is everything okay?
Because in 2022, you don't callsomeone unprompted unless it's
an emergency, but it alwaysturned into something really
fun.
Even if they couldn't talk, evenif it was like, oh my God, I'm
so busy.
I can't talk right now.
We laugh joke for two minutesand peace out and it feels good.

(56:01):
So, if you're listening, askyourself, how could I 1% better
my depth of social connectiontoday.

Michael Bauman (56:08):
Yeah.
And I think that's a reallyinteresting concept.
Like you're talking about of theinterdependence as well.
Even when you look at the bodyit's made up, billions of cells
and they all are littlemicrocosms, but they have all
these semipermeable membraneswhere like all of this exchange
is happening and they absolutelyare fundamental functional units
of a whole, and they need thenutrients and they need to give

(56:31):
things, back and forth acrossthese membranes.
And it's again interesting interms of where we divide the
line of, ourself, other people,how we define success, how we
define success, as a whole canreally affect all of that.
But like you talk about theresearch is very clear on how we
absolutely need other people forour happiness, for, I mean,

(56:52):
everything, the trickle effectsaround it is tremendous.
So like you said, just 1%, 1%better.
How can we do that in terms ofour relationships?
As we wrap up here, is thereanything else that you wanna say
before we close?

Krista Scott Dixon (57:06):
Well, I figured we, I feel like we
covered a ton of ground here.
I think that people getfrustrated trying to solve
problems with superficialsolutions.
Right.
And so it's like, maybe you'retrying to solve something with,
let's say nutrition or exerciseor health or whatever.
When the work to be done isdeeper.
Again, it is part of the humancondition.

(57:27):
And I think that's a prettyheavy statement in lots of ways.
Cuz people are listening.
They're like, oh, like I justwanted abs, like I just wanted
abs in six weeks and now you'relaying this like whole, that was

Michael Bauman (57:38):
such a 20, 20 19 problem.

Krista Scott Dixon (57:41):
It's true.
I think the abs in six weeks isprobably down, but you know, but
on the one hand people are justlike, listen, I, I just wanna
know what to make for dinnertonight.
Or I just wanna feel a littlebit better.
I can't believe you're layingall this heavy stuff on me, but
the reality is, and like we weretalking about with mental
health, there, there is a set ofbehaviors.
That we do need to be doing inorder for ourselves to be

(58:03):
flourishing.
And that is inescapable.
Like evolution has given uscertain requirements of being
human.
We need food, we need water, weneed sunlight.
We need to regulate ourcircadian rhythm.
There's just stuff that werequire as human beings and
tending to all of thesedifferent domains of health,
particularly mental andemotional health and social
health is part of it.

(58:24):
And this is inescapable.
And so the sooner we make ourpeace with this and start
working on it the better.
And again, it doesn't have to,you don't have to tackle this
all at once.
And to be honest, once you geteverything sorted.
The game changes you're like,okay, cool.
I just got into my perfectrelationship and perfect job and
perfect, spiritual alignment orwhatever.
And then life being what it isyour brain is like, let's grow,

(58:49):
let's go into the next phase.
And you're like, damn it.
Yeah, just cut this all neatlyorganized and labeled
alphabetically.
And so this is just, it is howit is.
It's cycles of decay and growth.
So you do not have to doeverything at once.
Do the 1% do the five minuteaction, just start picking away

(59:09):
at it.
But over time that willaccumulate and you will
definitely notice a difference.

Michael Bauman (59:15):
Yeah.
And even like you mentionedearlier on, a beneficial thing
is kind of think about thosedifferent areas, cognitive and
emotional and your physical andyour relationships and think
about, like, you mentioned thosefive minute recovery things, the
things that make you feel goodin those areas, maybe make a
list and just see how you canimplement more of that into your

(59:37):
life.
I mean, we don't really needmore than that and those things
can go a long way.
They can go a tremendous way.
So again, thank you.
Thank you for your time.
Like we said, first, firstrepeat guest, but obviously it's
worth it.
And every conversation is reallyfun that we have.
So I really appreciate your timeand yeah.
Appreciate your insight.

Krista Scott Dixon (59:55):
Oh, thanks for having me.
It's always a pleasure to chatwith you.

Michael Bauman (59:58):
Before you go, I would love it.
If you actually just shared thisepisode with a friend, I'm sure.
While you were listening, youknow, someone just popped into
your head and you're like, oh,they would probably like this as
well.
So it's really easy.
You just click the share buttonon either the website or
whatever podcast platform you'reon and send it over to them.
And chances are, they'llprobably like it, too until next
time, keep engineering yoursuccess.