November 30, 2025 • 40 mins
In this episode of Self Help Journal, “A Non-Negotiable You: Self-Help Routines and Self-Compassion,” we dive into what it really means to make yourself a priority—without turning your life into a rigid self-improvement project. We explore why genuine change rarely comes from a single breakthrough moment. Instead, it grows out of sustained effort, daily habits, and a quiet but powerful shift in how you see yourself. You’ll hear how small routines can become anchors in your day, helping you move from scattered and reactive to grounded and intentional. We talk about mindfulness in simple, practical terms: noticing your thoughts and emotions without instantly judging or fixing them. You’ll learn concrete journaling techniques, including the idea of writing “unsent letters” to make hidden feelings visible and to process what’s been left unsaid in your life. These practices aren’t about perfection; they’re about clarity and honesty with yourself. A big theme in this episode is discipline as an act of self-respect, not self-punishment. We walk through how to set non-negotiable personal priorities and use daily planning to fight distraction and procrastination. Instead of relying on motivation, you’ll learn how to design your day so that your values show up on your calendar. We also look closely at self-perception and the inner stories that quietly shape everything you do. How do you talk to yourself when you fail, hesitate, or feel behind? We explore how to gently reprogram your mental filters, challenge self-doubt, and build a relationship with yourself that’s based on encouragement rather than criticism. This is where self-compassion replaces the endless chase for external validation. Because you’re not just a brain with a to-do list, we go beyond mindset and talk about whole-person self-care: eating in a way that supports your energy, incorporating simple movement into your day, setting clear personal boundaries, and tending to your closest relationships. We discuss why meaningful connection can be one of the most powerful ways to lower stress and feel emotionally held. Finally, we introduce the idea of willingness as a form of self-control: letting uncomfortable feelings exist without immediately numbing out, lashing out, or abandoning yourself. Instead of seeing difficult emotions as a sign that something is wrong with you, we reframe them as signals you can learn to sit with and understand. If you’ve ever wondered how to balance structure and softness—showing up for your routines while still being kind to yourself—this episode is for you. Grab your journal, your favorite drink, and join us as we explore what it means to live like you are non-negotiable.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the self help Journal. We're going to take
this time, this moment and dedicate it entirely to you,
just setting aside all the noise for a little while,
you know, the constant demands on our attention so needed,
it really is. Today we're going on a gendle exploration.
We want to look at the strategies that can genuinely
help cultivate some inner piece and.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Lighten that mental load it can feel so heavy, sometimes
so heavy.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
And ultimately help us build a more supportive and more
compassionate relationship with ourselves.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
And I think it's so important to frame this right
from the start. This isn't about a quick fix, you know.
It's not a scramble for some magic bullet.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Right, No instant revelations exactly.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
This is a journey, a quiet, consistent one, real transformation
is well, it's built slowly, brick.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
By brick on what though, What's the foundation?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
It's built on a foundation of I'd say, clarity, consistent action,
and most importantly self compassion. So today our whole mission
is to move past the surface level.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Stuff and find what really works.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Find the actionable sustainable insights that you can actually start
using in your daily life like today.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
I love that, And to really do that deep work,
I think we have to start with the operating system, right,
The mind.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Itself absolutely the foundation.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
So we're gonna start with the mindset foundation, really understanding
that internal filter that shapes our reality. It's a concept
we hear a lot, but I think it's often misunderstood.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
It is. When we talk about mindset, we're really just
talking about the collection of beliefs, you know, the assumptions
and opinions that act as the main interface between you
and the world.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
The interface.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah, and they're not just abstract ideas. They are active.
They're actively determining how you interpret everything that happens to you.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
The visual of a filter is so helpful for it.
I mean, if you put on a pair of, say,
bright yellow sunglasses, the whole world is suddenly yellow, and
your mindset it's the same thing. If your core belief
is I don't know, pessimism, are scarce.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Then that's the color of your world exactly.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
That filter just tints every single opportunity, every conversation, every
challenge with this shade of doubt.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
But the reverse is also true. A mindset that's rooted
in say curiosity, or hope. It's like putting on these clean,
clear lenses. It just opens up what's possible, which.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Brings us to the brand science behind it. Because this
isn't just a metaphor, is.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
It not at all? There's a real neurological mechanism that
enforces that filter. It's called a reticular activating system THERES,
and it's more than just a psychological idea. It's an
actual bundle of nerves in your brain stem. It manages
your consciousness, your awareness. It even regulates waking up and
falling asleep.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Okay, so if you imagine your life is just this chaotic,
crowded high way of information, which it is, right, what's
the RIS doing in that analogy?
Speaker 2 (02:53):
The RIS is the security checkpoint. It's the bouncer of
the door. I mean, think about it. Millions of pieces
of data, sides, sounds, smells, plans, they're all bombarding you
every single second.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
It would be complete overload.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
You'd be paralyzed, you couldn't function. So the RAS has
this critical job. It's the master filter. It decides what
tiny fraction of that data is important enough to actually
cross the threshold into your conscious mind.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
So it's the bouncer. And the fascinating part to me
is that it decides what's important based on what.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Well, here's the key. It doesn't decide based on objective importance.
It decides based on perceived importance.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
What I think is important, what you tell.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
It is important, whatever you focus your attention on, that
is what your RAS will prioritize and let through the gate.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
We've all had this experience, right. You decide you want
a new car, a specific make and model, and suddenly
you see that car everywhere, or a new style of jacket,
or you hear about a new book and it's suddenly all.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Over the place exactly. And the thing is that jacket,
that car. It was never hidden from the universe.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
It was just hidden from me.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
It was hidden from you. The same entry data was
always coming in, but your RAS had it filed under
background noise. The second you tagged it with intention, the
second you said this is important.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
To me, the bouncer got new instructions.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Bouncer got new infractions, It registered that change, and it
started letting all that related information through the filter. It's
literally neuroplasticity in real time.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
So what does that mean for us? Practically? What's the
takeaway It.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Means you have control. It gives you agency. If your
current mindset is deeply negative, if you've got those dark
sunglasses on, then your ras is trained to find evidence
that proves you right.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
So it's actively looking for every mistake, every little rejection,
every reason why change is impossible.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
And because that's all you see, the action you need
to take for growth gets blocked. The filter literally tells
you it's pointless to even try.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
So choosing a more hopeful, action oriented mindset, it's not
just wishful thinking.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
It is the literal act of putting on new lenses.
You are consciously actively training that security check in your
brain to start looking for evidence of possibility, small winds,
small wins, resources you didn't see before, opportunities that were
always there. You are, in a very real sense, reprogramming
your own default settings.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Okay, so we understand the filter the bouncer. Now we
have to deal with the noise that's always trying.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
To get through the internal chatter, the.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Internal chatter which brings us to rewiring self talk through
something called cognitive diffusion.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
This is maybe the biggest obstacle to enter piece for
most people. That constant critical internal voice, we get stuck
in what's called cognitive fusion.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Fusion like welded together exactly.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah, it's the psychological state where you become completely entangled
with your thoughts. You accept them as the literal, absolute
truth about who you are.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
So a thought like I made a mistake, which is
just an observation.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
It instantly spirals into a fixed identity, I'm a failure.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
And that fusion is so toxic. It's paralyzing because it
forces you to react to what is really just a
temporary mental event, a passing thought, and that.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Reaction is almost always anxiety or avoidance or just emotional distress.
Like you said, if I am a failure, then what's
the point in trying again? It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
So cognitive diffusion, what is it.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
It's a cornerstone technique from acceptance and commitment therapy or
act and it's designed to do one thing, dismantle that.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Fusion, to break that well.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
To break the weld. And the technique itself is actually
quite simple. It's about creating a little bit of space
tas between between you the observer, the one who is aware,
and the thought itself, which is just an event being observed.
Instead of letting the thought run the show, you just
you preface it.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
So the classic technique is that phrase, I'm having the
thought that.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Exactly so, that devastating, all consuming statement I am not
good enough.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Transforms into an observation, into a much.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
More manageable observation, I am having the thought that I
am not good enough.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
That seems like such a small change in world.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
It's a small change with a monumental impact. It shifts
the thought from being an unchallengeable fact about your identity
to being what it actually is, just a transient piece
of mental.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Data, like a cloud passing in the sky.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
A perfect analogy. You can observe the clouds without becoming
the clouds. I mean, we don't act on every single
thought that pops into our heads.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
If we did, we'd be in serious trouble.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
We'd be in very serious trouble. Diffusion just applies that
same logic to our painful thoughts. There are just words
and pictures floating through the stream of consciousness. You can
watch the stream without having to jump in and be
swept away by it.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Okay, I want to pause here on a really practical point,
because this is where people can get tripped up. Wise,
what if the negative thought is based on a fact.
Let's say I am having the thought that I completely
messed up that presentation, and maybe I did, maybe the
presentation was objectively poor. How does diffusion help.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Then that's a fantastic, very real question. Diffusion is not
about reality. It's not about pretending the presentation went well
when it didn't.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
So it doesn't challenge the fact.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
It doesn't challenge the fact. It challenges the meaning you
are fusing to the fact. The problematic fusion isn't the
thought I messed up the presentation.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
It's what comes next.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
It's what comes next, It's the immediate self judgment that
follows because I messed up, I am now terrible at
my job and everyone thinks I'm incompetent and my career
is over.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Ah okay. So it's about isolating the objective event, the
quality of the presentation, from the subjective catastrophic story I've
attached to it.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Precisely, it allows you to respond with wisdom to the fact.
A wise response is Okay, I need to review my
notes and practice more for next.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Time, instead of reacting emotionally to the fusion, which.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Would be I have to quit my job before they
fire me because I'm a fraud. See the difference. That
little bit of space allows for wise constructive action to
replace an anxious, destructive reaction.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
So, to make this idea of training the filter morete agible,
let's talk about a really simple, almost playful practice.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
The heart hunt.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
The heart hunt exercise. It sounds a little trivial on
the surface.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
It sounds trivial, but it is a profoundly powerful metaphor
for training your RAS.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
So what is it.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
The assignment, if you choose to take it on, is
to actively search the world around you each day for
naturally occurring heart shapes.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Not Valentine hearts.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
No, not manufactured hearts, a configuration of foam in your coffee,
maybe a shadow on the sidewalk, a knot in a
piece of wood, the way two leaves overlap on the ground.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
And as you said, it sounds like a children's game,
But what is the psychological payoff here?
Speaker 2 (09:35):
It's huge because you have intentionally given your brain, specifically
your RAS, a new directive. You've told the bouncer, let
the heart shapes through, and what happens You start seeing
them everywhere you realize you were walking past hundreds of
these shapes yesterday and you never saw a single one.
But today, because you're looking, they just they leap out
(09:57):
at you.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
And every time you find one, every.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Time you find when you get to pause and internalize
a piece of evidence, you are proving to yourself in
real time that your mind is flexible. You're proving you
can instruct your filter to find what you ask it
to find.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
So if my mind can find hearts just because I
told it to, it.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Can absolutely find small wins. It can find reasons for gratitude,
It can find evidence of your own progress. You just
have to set the intention.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
This practice also seems like a great bridge to another challenge.
Are hidden rules.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Yes, the unwritten rules we live by. A lot of
our anxiety comes from these internal, subconscious mandates that we
impose on ourselves.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Rules about how we should be.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
The shoulds and the musts. I must always be cammon
in control. I should never take up too much space
in a conversation.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
A really common one, especially for people with social anxiety,
is that hidden rule that says I can never make
anyone feel bad or uncomfortable.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
That rule is a trap. It's impossible to follow because
you fundamentally cannot control another person's internal emotional state.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
The pressure of trying to live by that rule is
just it's crippling.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
It is, and diffusion helps us surface that rule. You
can say to yourself, I'm having the thought that my
rule is I can never make anyone feel displeased.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
And once you see it written down like that.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Once it's surfaced, you can look at it objectively and
judge it is this rule actually useful? Is it helping
me live a life that feels authentic and aligned with
my values?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
And the answer is usually no.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Usual not So. Then you can consciously replace it with
a statement that is both compassionate and you attainable, something
like I value being kind and respectful, and while I
can't control how other people feel, I can commit to
acting with integrity from my side.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
That feels so much lighter.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
It frees up an enormous amount of mental energy that
was previously being spent trying to control the uncontrollable.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
That really does set the foundation. We've looked at the
minds filter, how to adjust the lens. Now we have
to talk about the structure that supports all these mental shifts.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Yes, because as we said trans information is a matter
of consistent structure, not just a momentary insight exactly.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
So our next section is building structure, habits, clarity, and consistency.
When we talk about this, we're really talking about tackling
the chaos of modern life.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Absolutely, an unstructured day, an unstructured mind that's a breeding
ground for anxiety. Structure, paradoxically, is what actually creates freedom.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
And it reduces that awful feeling of decision fatigue.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Right if your mind is trying to hold on to
forty little to do items, a couple of major worries,
and seven or eight unresolved issues, that mental load creates
a constant, low level hum of anxiety.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
So what's the antidote Clarity.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Clarity is the antidote to that internal chaos. And clarity
comes from intentional planning.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Which brings us to our first strategy, planning and prioritization
for peace, and the core of this is taking ownership
of the very start of your day.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yes, we have to emphasize this. You must wake up
with purpose and plan your day before the world has
a chance to distract you.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Can you explain why that's so critical?
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Think of your first moments awake as your most valuable
mental real estate of the entire day. It's quiet, it's clear.
If the very first thing you do is reach for your.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Phone, which is what most of us do.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
It's what most of us do, But in that moment,
you are immediately handing over control of your attention and
your energy to other people's.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Agendas, emails, news headlines, social media notification.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Other people's emergencies. You start the day reacting passively instead
of creating intentionally.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
So what's the alternative?
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Just five or ten minutes in silence, physically writing down
on paper your top three priorities for the day, your non.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Negotiables, and what does that simple act do?
Speaker 2 (13:44):
It creates instant mental clarity. It's an incredible anxiety reducing
exercise because you've outsourced the decision making. You've already decided
what's most important before the chaos begins.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
And that clarity then helps you to set the standard.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
For the day exactly. This isn't about just a random goals.
It's about looking at your schedule through a lens of
your own values. The question you have to ask yourself
every morning is.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
What must get done today to move me one step
closer to the life I actually want to live.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
That question is your standard. If a task, a meaning,
a request doesn't serve that ultimate goal, then it gets deferred, delegated,
or ideally just dropped.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Clarity becomes a tool for saying.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
No, a tool for saying no without guilt, because you're
not saying no to be difficult. You're saying yes to
your own priorities.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
I find the garden analogy really helpful for sorting out
these priorities.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Yes, let's walk through that. Imagine your life is a garden,
and it's divided into three essential plots. At health, which
is both physical and mental relationships, your partner, family, friends,
and fulfillment, your work, your passions, your personal growth. All
three need constant tending.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Okay, So within those three garden plots.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
There are certain tasks disks that are the non negotiables.
This is the sun and the water. Without them, the
garden literally withers and dies.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
So these are the absolute essential, They are the.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Essentials for thriving. These are the things that must be
scheduled and protected fiercely, like a doctor's appointment. So in
the health garden, that might be a non negotiable thirty
minutes of movement, and in relationships, it might be twenty
minutes of dedicated device free quality time with your partner
scheduled on the calendar protected.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Okay, so you have the sun and water, what else?
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Then? You have the wants, the wants of the fertilizer.
They're great, they accelerate growth, they add value, but the
garden can survive a week without them.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
So you structure your day to make sure the sun
and water get delivered first always, And.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
That simple hierarchy immediately limits the scope of your day.
It prevents that overwhelming, anxious feeling that you have to
do everything. You don't. You just have to water the garden.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
And this leads to another crucial point, the power of completion.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yes, unfinished business, those small tasks that you keep putting off,
they are energy vampires.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
They just hang over you.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
They hang over your subconscious, draining your cognitive bandwidth. The
version of yourself that you want to be is a
person who lives in a state of action and completion,
not delay.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
So even if it's just responding to that one email
you've been avoiding.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
We're finally putting away that pile of laundry. Yeah, finishing
what you start today, no matter how small, sense a
powerful signal to your whole system, to your ras.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
What's the signal?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
The signal is I am competent. I follow through on
my intentions. That act of completion builds self respect and
it frees up mental space that was clogged with all
those open loops.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
This focus on small, intentional actions brings us right up
against a huge psychological hurdle for so many people, motivation motivation.
Our whole culture teaches us to wait for it, to
wait for that lightning bolt of inspiration before we start
something hard.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
And that is precisely one hundred percent backwards. We have
to internalize this truth. Action precedes motivation. Say that again,
action precedes motivation. Motivation isn't the fuel you need to
start the car, It is the reward you get for
having pushed the car a few feet down the road.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
How does that work? Neurologically?
Speaker 2 (17:11):
When you take an action, any action, your brain releases
a little bit of dopamine. It's a reward signal, and
that reward, that good feeling is what we experience as
motivation or momentum.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
So that feeling fuels the next action exactly, it's a
feedback loop, but you have to initiate it.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
If you wait to feel motivated to go for a run,
you will spend your entire life on the couch.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
So the key is just starting.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
The key is finding a way to start the cycle.
Get that first little dope, meine hit, no matter how
you're feeling emotionally.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
This is where the idea of micro starts.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Comes in, your absolute best friend. A micro start is
an action that is so small, so laughably easy, that
it requires almost zero activation energy to do it. It's
the minimum possible action, the minimum viable action required to
start that reward cycle.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Can you give some specific examples?
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Sure. If the big, overwhelming task is clean the entire house,
the microstart is put away one dish. If the task
is write a ten page report, the microstart is open
a new document and write the title. If you're dreading exercise,
the microstart isn't a five k run. It's put on
your running.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Shoes or just walk outside for five minutes, just.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
A five minute phone free walk. That's it, And what
happens neurochemically is critical. By doing that tiny thing, you
engage the habit forming parts of your brain and you
trigger that crucial pulse of dopamine.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
And that tiny little hit of success.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
It gives you the momentum for the next step, which
might be putting away another dish, or writing one sentence,
or walking for another five minutes.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
There's a second part to this that's often overlooked.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Though, yes, positive reinforcement.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
We're so good at criticizing ourselves when we fail, but
we often just blow past the small wins.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
We have to consciously acknowledge them. After you put that
one dish away, you have to look at it and say, internally,
good job I did it.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Started just sounds a bit silly.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
It might feel silly at first, but this internal praise
is essential for building intrinsic motivation. You are literally teaching
your brain that this action leads to a positive internal
state over time. The reward isn't just the clean kitchen.
It's the feeling of honoring your commitment to yourself.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
And we also have to be really mindful of the
flip side of this, what not to do.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Avoiding counterproductive rewards. This is huge. Let's say you're avoiding
a difficult task like doing your taxes m HM, and
you reward that avoidance by scrolling social media or watching
Netflix or playing a video game.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
What are you teaching your brain in that moment.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
You're teaching your brain to associate the avoidance of hard
things with a big dopamine reward. You are actively strengthening
the neural pathway for procrastination.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
So how do you break that?
Speaker 2 (19:49):
You have to cut off the escape route if you're procrastinating,
turn off the entertainment. You don't have to force yourself
to start the.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Taxes right away, but you can't distract yourself.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
You have to allow allow yourself to feel the discomfort
of boredom. That uncomfortable state is often the exact friction
you need to finally push you toward that tiny micro start.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
All of this, the planning, the micro starts, the reinforcement,
It all points to one big idea.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
That consistency is the un sexy path to mastery.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Right. Our culture loves to glamorize these huge, explosive efforts,
the overnight success, but.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Real transformation, deep change almost never comes from a single
burst of energy. It comes from small, daily, often boring repetition.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
The power of the compound effect.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Exactly. Great achievements are usually just the result of someone
mastering the boring routine. A world class pianist doesn't practice
for twelve hours once a month.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
They practice for ninety minutes every single day, year after
year after year. And there's a point with any new
habit where it gets really hard. The initial excitement is gone.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
That's the moment of truth. It starts to feel difficult
or inconvenient or monotonous, and this is where you have
to stick with the friction. The friction, the brain craves
what's easy and what's new. When a habit gets hard,
the temptation is to jump to the next shiny new thing.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
But the real growth happens when you don't.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
The habit only sticks when you keep showing up through
that difficult phase. You endure the resistance and the boredom
until the behavior becomes automatic.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
It's no longer something you do.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
It's part of who you are. That's the identity shift.
You don't just do yoga, you become a person who
does yoga. You don't rise to the level of your goals.
You fall to the level of your systems. And those
systems are built on quiet, daily discipline and.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
That moment when you finally wake up and just do
the thing without that huge internal battle.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
That moment of peace is the reward. That's the proof
that your consistency has physically rewired your brain.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
So we've covered the mindset and the structure. Now we
need to talk about the vehicle that carries.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
It all, the body, your physical energy reserves. You can't
have mental clarity or consistent and see if you are
constantly running on empty.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
We have to start with our attention, which is maybe
our most precious resource.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
And we have to establish digital boundaries and energy conservation.
Our devices are literally designed to hijack our attention and
keep us in a state of reaction.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
This is why protecting mornings is so non negotiable.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
It is Reaching for that phone first thing in the
morning exposes your brain to a flood of external demands,
anxiety from the news, work emergencies, social pressures. Before you've
even had a chance to center yourself.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
You're immediately putting your nervous system into an energy draining,
reactive state.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
So the hack here is simple but powerful. User, do
not disturb feature aggressively set a rule for yourself the
first thirty or ideally sixty minutes of your day. The
phone is in airplane mode.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Or in another room, entirely.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Even better, this act conserves your best energy for your
own routine, for reflection, for movement. You're consciously choosing to
enter the day rather than being dragged into it.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Rategy applies to the end of the day.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
The nighttime wind down. We have to understand what short
form content scrolling quick videos does to our brains.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
It's a series of intense, fragmented dopamine hits.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Exactly, and that rapid stimulation keeps your physiological rousal level high.
It makes it incredibly difficult for your brain to shift
down into the slow neutral state it needs for deep,
RESTful sleep.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
So the rule is to switch off all that stimulating
content at least an hour before bed.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
It allows your nervous system to shift from that high
alert fight or flight mode to the rest in digest mode.
And protecting your sleep is maybe the most foundational piece
of energy management. There is a sleep deprived brain can't
be resilient or focused.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
And energy management isn't just about screens. It's also about
our commitments.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Saying no as self care. This is crucial every single
time you say yes to something that doesn't align with
your values, or your priorities, or.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Just your energy level.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
That day, you are implicitly saying no to yourself, draining
your own battery to serve someone else's agenda.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
We have this tendency to confuse being kind with being compliant.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
That's a great way to put it. True kindness includes
being honest and kind about your own limits. Saying no
is a powerful way to protect your peace and focus
so you have the energy to show up fully for
the things that actually matter to you.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Okay, So from external boundaries, let's move to internal fuel.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Nourishment, food, and specifically the eighty twenty rule.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
The quality of the food we eat is so directly
linked to our energy and our mood.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
The wellness mood link is very well documented. We now
have research showing that the additives, the high levels of sugar,
the unhealthy fats in a lot of ultraprocessed foods can
directly interfere with our brain chemistry.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
They impact neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
They do, and that can lead to mood swings, brain fog,
and just lower energy overall. Whereas a diet that's rich
in whole unprocessed foods.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Fruits, vegetables, lean proteins.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
It provides the sustained energy and the micronutrients your brain
need to function optimally. Food isn't just calories, it's information.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
So what's the eighty twenty rule? How does that work
in practice?
Speaker 2 (25:07):
It's a framework for consistency that doesn't demand impossible perfection.
Eighty percent of the time you focus on eating those whole, healthy,
nutrient and dense foods. That's what gives you your baseline.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Energy and the other twenty percent.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
The other twenty percent allows for what we can call
joy foods, the indulgent things. This structure prevents that feeling
of deprivation that so often leads people to just give
up entirely.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
So planning and maybe prepping some of those eighty percent
meals can make it easier to stick with.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
It's a game changer. It ensures you have the good
fuel on hand when you need it.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
So if energy is the fuel, then movement is the regulator.
The mind body connection is just it's undeniable.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
It is when we feel emotional distress, stress, anxiety, frustration,
our body physically tenses up, our breathing gets shallow, stress
hormones are released.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
And if you just sit still in that state.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
The tension just compounds. Movement is a necessary tool for
emotional control because it's a physical way to shift your
emotional state. It literally forces the release of that stored tension, and.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
It pumps and endorphins, which helps regulate the nervous system.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
It shifts you out of that fight or flight mode.
And we're not talking about having to run a marathon.
We're talking about accessible actions, right Yoga. Yoga is fantastic.
It's often called meditation in motion because it intentionally connects
your breath to your movement, so you get the calming
benefits of meditation while also physically releasing tension. Or even
just a walk, a brisk twenty minute walk, especially without
(26:36):
a phone or other distractions, has been shown to immediately
boost your mood and regulate your nervous system. We have
to reframe exercise.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
It's not a punishment for what you ate.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
It is a tool for happiness. It's a tool for
mental health and energy generation. We move to feel better now,
not just to look a certain way later.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Beyond movement, we also need to consider our immediate environment,
our sensor needs.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Yes, this is so personal, and it becomes so much
more important when we're under stress. Meeting these needs is
essential for preventing overwhelmed.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
So you have to figure out your personal sensory good
versus sensory bad.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Right. For one person, a sensory good might be a
soft weighted blanket and the smell of lavender. For someone else,
it might be the opposite. It might be minimizing input.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Noise, canceling headphones, dim lighting, a completely clutter free space exactly.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
And when you're stressed or sleep deprived, your sensitivity to
this stuff goes through the roof. A small annoyance can
trigger a huge reaction. So curating your environment to meet
your needs is a powerful form of.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Self care, and that leads to this idea of creating
supportive environments and pacing. It can feel overwhelming to think
about overhauling your whole life.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
So don't start small. Create micro environments.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
What's a micro environment.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
If organizing your whole house is too much, just perfect
one single corner, a reading chair, your desktup that one
small area to perfectly support one specific self care need,
like journaling or relaxation.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
You're lowering the activation energy for the habit.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Ocisely, if your journaling space is beautiful and inviting, you're
more likely to use it, and finally you have to
honor your own pace, learn to move slower.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Anxiety loves a sense of false urgency.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
It thrives on it, so intentionally incorporates slow routines, a
slow morning, a slow walk. Consistency at a sustainable pace,
say eighty percent effort every day, is so much better
than an unsustainable push for perfection that ends and burnout,
Which brings.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Us into the deepest layer of this work.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Emotional processing and the cultivation of self worth. This is
the deep work. It requires courage.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
And we begin with probably the single most effective tool
for this, journaling, to gain clarity.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
The core power of journaling is that it makes the
implicit explicit Our feelings and thoughts. When they're just swirling
in our heads feel like this overwhelming, confusing cloud.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
But when you force yourself to put them into written words.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
You externalize them. You take them out of your head
to put them on the page. You move them from
being a chaotic internal experience to an observable external object.
It is an immediate form of self therapy, and.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
When you're feeling really overwhelmed, there's a specific technique for that,
the brain dump.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Don't worry about grammar or making sense. Just open a
notebook or a document and write or type every single
thought that comes into your head as fast as you can.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
The speed is important.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
The speed is essential. It helps you bypass your internal
editor and just get the raw data out. The relief
comes from simply offloading that mental burden and seeing it
all laid out in front of you.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Journaling is also a great tool for understanding where we're
spending our mental energy.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Yes, through clarifying your locus of control. You can do
this by just drawing a simple three column chart.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
What are the columns?
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Column one is for things that are fully in your control,
your actions, your effort, your response is your boundaries. Column
two is for things you can influence but not.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Control, other people's opinions, maybe.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Other people's responses, the outcome of a complex project. And
column three is for things completely out of your control,
the past, what other people think, global events, and.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
What's the benefit of sorting things this way?
Speaker 2 (30:15):
The anxiety reduction is immediate. You realize how much energy
you've been wasting on columns two and three. When you
focus your attention exclusively on column one, you stop fighting
battles you can't.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Win, and for really intense emotions like anger or grief.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
The unsent letter technique is invaluable. You write a complete, raw,
unfiltered letter to the person or situation. You say everything
you need.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
To say, but you don't send it.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
You commit to not sending it. The therapeutic power is
in the writing, in the processing. It gives you a
safe catharsis, and when you're done you can symbolically destroy it,
burn it, delete it to mark the end of that
processing phase.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
And finally, a small daily journaling habit.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Just five minutes reviewing progress. Ask yourself, what did I
improve today? What small win did I achieve? It trains
your brain to stop focusing only on your mistakes and
to see that you are, in fact making progress.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
So once we can see our emotions clearly, we have
to learn how to handle them when they show up,
which means tackling our instinct to avoid discomfort.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
This is why willingness and acceptance are so central to
emotional maturity.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
What do you mean by willingness?
Speaker 2 (31:23):
When a really intense feeling shows up, anxiety, a strong
craving shame, our immediate instinct is to fight it, to
push it away, distract ourselves, make it go away. Willingness
is the secret ingredient. It's the active choice to lean
in and allow the feeling to just be there.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
But that's terrifying. We think if we let the anxiety in,
it will just take over completely.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
That's the fear. But willingness is about choosing to recognize
the emotion, saying I see you're here, and letting it
exist without starting a war with it.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
There's a great analogy for this, so.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
A tug of war analogy from DVT. Imagine you're in
a tug of war with a big, scary, emotional monster
like panic. You're pulling with all your might, desperate to win,
to make the feeling go away.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
You're stuck in the struggle.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
You're completely stuck. Yeah, and notice that the monster gets
all of its power from your resistance. As long as
you keep pulling on that rope, you're locked in battle.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
So what's the secret.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
It's totally counterinto it. If you drop the rope, you
just stop fight. You stop fighting, you're no longer engaged
in the struggle. You just allow the monster, the intense feeling,
to be there. And what you quickly discover is that
when you stop resisting it, the intensity often fades all
on its own. The fuel your resistance is gone.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
And this idea expands into radical acceptance.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Right acceptance is just acknowledging the reality of a situation.
You cannot change in this present moment, so past events,
past traumas, chronic pain, the choices other people make. Radical
acceptance is not the same as approval. It's not saying
this is good.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
It's just saying this is real.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
This is what is happening right now, whether I like
it or not. Resisting unchangeable reality is what creates suffering.
Acceptance is what allows you to move forward.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
And once we learn to manage our emotions in this way,
we can access something.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Deeper, our wise mind. This concept helps us integrate our
intuition with our intelligence.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
So the wise mind sits between two.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Other states exactly. First, you have the reasonable mind. It's cool, logical, analytical.
It focuses only on the facts and often ignores the
emotional side of things. And on the other end, the
emotional mind. It's hot, impulsive, mood driven. It focuses only
on feelings and can override all rational thought. Making decisions
from this place is often messy.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
So the wise mind is the synthesis of the two.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
It's that state of inner knowing where you could acknowledge
the facts of the reasonable mind and honor the feelings
of the emotional mind and find the pass forward that
feels grounded and authentic. It's your intuition, your gut.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Feeling, and how do we access that It can feel
so elusive.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
You have to intentionally create quiet space. One flake exercise
is a beautiful visualization for this.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
How does it work?
Speaker 2 (34:03):
You just close your eyes and imagine yourself as a small, smooth,
flat stone flake, and you visualize yourself gently, slowly sinking
through the clear, still water of a deep blue lake.
There's no rush, no urgency, just a quiet, rhythmic descent.
You drift past all the noise and activity the surface.
You settle softly on the sandy bottom, deep within yourself.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
And once you're in that still, quiet place.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
You can ask your wise mind a question. You just
breathe the question in and you listen, not for a
loud answer, but for that quiet sense of rightness. You
allow the truth to emerge from that peaceful place.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
All of this deep work ultimately leads us to the
core issue for so many.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Of us, cultivating self worth. So much of our anxiety
and effort is spent chasing external validation, believing our value
is tied to our achievements or what other people think
of us.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
So the first step is to actively work on detaching
from those external metrics.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Your job title, your salary, how many likes you get
on social media, what you look like. These are all temporary,
fluid things. Your true worth is intrinsic. It's inherent. It's
not dependent on what you do or what you have.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
And a big part of that detachment is learning to
challenge the inner critic, that.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Harsh voice in your head. It often pretends to be
a protector or a truth teller, but it's usually just
outdated programming.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
It's an echo of old fears or maybe the critical
voices of parents or teachers exactly.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
So, when the critic starts talking, you have to question
its origin. Ask is this voice genuinely mine or is
it just an old tape playing. You have the power
to consciously substitute that thought with a more compassionate one.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
The inner critic also loves to focus on a single flaw.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
And this is where we bring it back to the ras. Yeah,
you have to intentionally redirect your focus to find evidence
of your competence, your kindness, your worth. You starve the
critic of your attention.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
There's another powerful way to reframe insecurity, especially in social situations.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Yes, if you are often find yourself feeling small or
you know, boring around certain people, try flipping the script.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
What do you mean?
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Maybe the issue isn't you. Maybe they are the ones
who are boring. Maybe they lack the depth or complexity
to appreciate your unique qualities.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
So if my authentic self doesn't resonate with someone.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
That is a reflection of their preference, not a judgment
on your worth. Your mission isn't to change yourself to
fit in. It's to own your authentic self. Forcing yourself
into a mold to police others is the fastest way
to lose yourself.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
And the final piece of this, the ultimate act of self.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Worth, is what self compassion and forgiveness. It's simple, but
not easy. When you make a mistake, when you fall short,
you must treat yourself with the same non judgmental kindness
you would offer to a dear friend who is struggling.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
You have to acknowledge the pain, except the imperfection.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
And practice self forgiveness, unworthiness, and self love cannot exist
in the same space. The moment you begin to treat
yourself as if you were inherently worthy, feelings of inadequacy
start to lose their power. It's the absolute foundation of resilience.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
As we start to bring this exploration to a close,
we want to leave you with five gentle, but really
powerful strategies kind of pulling together everything we've talked about.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Yes, from mindset to structure to that deep emotional work.
So Tip one, look for evidence of change daily.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Like the heart hurt.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Exactly like the heart hunt, you have to intentionally look
for the small, microscopic wins you would normally overlook. Did
you choose a microstart instead of procrastinating. Did you take
three deep breaths when you felt stressed.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
Did you say no to something that would have drained you.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Yes, you have to actively search for the evidence that
proves to your brain that change is happening, that you
are making progress.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Okay. Tip two, define your purpose your why.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Life's challenges can feel unbearable when they seem meaningless, but
having a compelling why gives meaning to almost anyhow.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
As Nische said, he who has a why to live
for can bear.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Almost how precisely. Aim for something that feels worth doing.
Embrace a sense of voluntary responsibility. Struggle when it's in
service of a higher purpose. Your family, your community, your
creative work is what gives life meaning and value.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Your why becomes a source of motivation that never runs out.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
It does, okay. Tip three the power of verbal competence.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
We think only as clearly as we can write.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
That's the core of it. Writing is just formalized discipline thinking.
So dedicate even just a few minutes every day to
writing about things that matter to you.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
What does that do for you?
Speaker 2 (38:31):
It sharpens your ability to articulate your thoughts, to define
your vision. It turns vague anxieties into concrete problems you
can actually solve. It makes you a more focused and
formidable advocate for yourself.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
Tip four Mindful breathing to regulate the vagus nerve. This
is the most immediate practical hack we have here.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Really is, when you're anxious, your nervous system is in
that fight or flight mode.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
So to calm everything down, use your breath.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
Specifically, you make your exhale si significantly longer than your inhale,
so breathe in for a slowcout of four, hold it
for a moment, and then breathe out for a slowcout.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Of six or seven, And that simple act sends a
signal to your brain.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
It stimulates the vagus nerve, which signals safety to your brain.
It allows your body to consciously shift out of alarm mode.
You literally calm your body to calm your mind.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
And finally, Tip five, practice wise selfishness.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
This one feels a little paradoxical, but while self compassion
is crucial, true lasting happiness is often found by shifting
our focus outward. Our brains are literally wired to experience
a neurochemical reward, a pleasure response when we are generous
or kind to others.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
So when you're stuck in a spiral of anxiety or
self doubt, you're intensely focused inward.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Intensely so wise selfishness means intentionally shifting your focus to
benefit someone else, even in the smallest way. Give a
genuine compliment, hold a door open, really listen to someone
without interrupting.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
That gentle pull of focus out of your own head.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
It immediately breaks the cycle of self absorption, and it
gives you direct evidence that your actions matter and have
a positive impact in the world.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
This whole journey into self care and structure, Yeah, it's
an ongoing commitment, isn't it a continuous relationship that you're
building with yourself. So please remember to focus on the progress,
not on that impossible, self sabotaging idea of perfection.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
The strength, the clarity, and the wisdom that you need
to navigate your life, it's already inside you. You are
fundamentally enough right now, just because you were here, and
you are worthy of kindness and compassion.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
And if all of this feels like a lot today.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
That's okay. Just choose one thing, one tiny micro start,
one intentional boundary, or one single moment of self compassion,
and simply begin.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
You have the power to guide your
Speaker 2 (40:48):
Mind, and your mind is ready and waiting to work
for you.
Welcome to the self help Journal. We're going to take
this time, this moment and dedicate it entirely to you,
just setting aside all the noise for a little while,
you know, the constant demands on our attention so needed,
it really is. Today we're going on a gendle exploration.
We want to look at the strategies that can genuinely
help cultivate some inner piece and.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Lighten that mental load it can feel so heavy, sometimes
so heavy.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
And ultimately help us build a more supportive and more
compassionate relationship with ourselves.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
And I think it's so important to frame this right
from the start. This isn't about a quick fix, you know.
It's not a scramble for some magic bullet.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Right, No instant revelations exactly.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
This is a journey, a quiet, consistent one, real transformation
is well, it's built slowly, brick.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
By brick on what though, What's the foundation?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
It's built on a foundation of I'd say, clarity, consistent action,
and most importantly self compassion. So today our whole mission
is to move past the surface level.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Stuff and find what really works.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Find the actionable sustainable insights that you can actually start
using in your daily life like today.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
I love that, And to really do that deep work,
I think we have to start with the operating system, right,
The mind.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Itself absolutely the foundation.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
So we're gonna start with the mindset foundation, really understanding
that internal filter that shapes our reality. It's a concept
we hear a lot, but I think it's often misunderstood.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
It is. When we talk about mindset, we're really just
talking about the collection of beliefs, you know, the assumptions
and opinions that act as the main interface between you
and the world.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
The interface.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah, and they're not just abstract ideas. They are active.
They're actively determining how you interpret everything that happens to you.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
The visual of a filter is so helpful for it.
I mean, if you put on a pair of, say,
bright yellow sunglasses, the whole world is suddenly yellow, and
your mindset it's the same thing. If your core belief
is I don't know, pessimism, are scarce.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Then that's the color of your world exactly.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
That filter just tints every single opportunity, every conversation, every
challenge with this shade of doubt.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
But the reverse is also true. A mindset that's rooted
in say curiosity, or hope. It's like putting on these clean,
clear lenses. It just opens up what's possible, which.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Brings us to the brand science behind it. Because this
isn't just a metaphor, is.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
It not at all? There's a real neurological mechanism that
enforces that filter. It's called a reticular activating system THERES,
and it's more than just a psychological idea. It's an
actual bundle of nerves in your brain stem. It manages
your consciousness, your awareness. It even regulates waking up and
falling asleep.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Okay, so if you imagine your life is just this chaotic,
crowded high way of information, which it is, right, what's
the RIS doing in that analogy?
Speaker 2 (02:53):
The RIS is the security checkpoint. It's the bouncer of
the door. I mean, think about it. Millions of pieces
of data, sides, sounds, smells, plans, they're all bombarding you
every single second.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
It would be complete overload.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
You'd be paralyzed, you couldn't function. So the RAS has
this critical job. It's the master filter. It decides what
tiny fraction of that data is important enough to actually
cross the threshold into your conscious mind.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
So it's the bouncer. And the fascinating part to me
is that it decides what's important based on what.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Well, here's the key. It doesn't decide based on objective importance.
It decides based on perceived importance.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
What I think is important, what you tell.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
It is important, whatever you focus your attention on, that
is what your RAS will prioritize and let through the gate.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
We've all had this experience, right. You decide you want
a new car, a specific make and model, and suddenly
you see that car everywhere, or a new style of jacket,
or you hear about a new book and it's suddenly all.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Over the place exactly. And the thing is that jacket,
that car. It was never hidden from the universe.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
It was just hidden from me.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
It was hidden from you. The same entry data was
always coming in, but your RAS had it filed under
background noise. The second you tagged it with intention, the
second you said this is important.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
To me, the bouncer got new instructions.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Bouncer got new infractions, It registered that change, and it
started letting all that related information through the filter. It's
literally neuroplasticity in real time.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
So what does that mean for us? Practically? What's the
takeaway It.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Means you have control. It gives you agency. If your
current mindset is deeply negative, if you've got those dark
sunglasses on, then your ras is trained to find evidence
that proves you right.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
So it's actively looking for every mistake, every little rejection,
every reason why change is impossible.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
And because that's all you see, the action you need
to take for growth gets blocked. The filter literally tells
you it's pointless to even try.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
So choosing a more hopeful, action oriented mindset, it's not
just wishful thinking.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
It is the literal act of putting on new lenses.
You are consciously actively training that security check in your
brain to start looking for evidence of possibility, small winds,
small wins, resources you didn't see before, opportunities that were
always there. You are, in a very real sense, reprogramming
your own default settings.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Okay, so we understand the filter the bouncer. Now we
have to deal with the noise that's always trying.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
To get through the internal chatter, the.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Internal chatter which brings us to rewiring self talk through
something called cognitive diffusion.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
This is maybe the biggest obstacle to enter piece for
most people. That constant critical internal voice, we get stuck
in what's called cognitive fusion.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Fusion like welded together exactly.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah, it's the psychological state where you become completely entangled
with your thoughts. You accept them as the literal, absolute
truth about who you are.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
So a thought like I made a mistake, which is
just an observation.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
It instantly spirals into a fixed identity, I'm a failure.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
And that fusion is so toxic. It's paralyzing because it
forces you to react to what is really just a
temporary mental event, a passing thought, and that.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Reaction is almost always anxiety or avoidance or just emotional distress.
Like you said, if I am a failure, then what's
the point in trying again? It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
So cognitive diffusion, what is it.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
It's a cornerstone technique from acceptance and commitment therapy or
act and it's designed to do one thing, dismantle that.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Fusion, to break that well.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
To break the weld. And the technique itself is actually
quite simple. It's about creating a little bit of space
tas between between you the observer, the one who is aware,
and the thought itself, which is just an event being observed.
Instead of letting the thought run the show, you just
you preface it.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
So the classic technique is that phrase, I'm having the
thought that.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Exactly so, that devastating, all consuming statement I am not
good enough.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Transforms into an observation, into a much.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
More manageable observation, I am having the thought that I
am not good enough.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
That seems like such a small change in world.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
It's a small change with a monumental impact. It shifts
the thought from being an unchallengeable fact about your identity
to being what it actually is, just a transient piece
of mental.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Data, like a cloud passing in the sky.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
A perfect analogy. You can observe the clouds without becoming
the clouds. I mean, we don't act on every single
thought that pops into our heads.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
If we did, we'd be in serious trouble.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
We'd be in very serious trouble. Diffusion just applies that
same logic to our painful thoughts. There are just words
and pictures floating through the stream of consciousness. You can
watch the stream without having to jump in and be
swept away by it.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Okay, I want to pause here on a really practical point,
because this is where people can get tripped up. Wise,
what if the negative thought is based on a fact.
Let's say I am having the thought that I completely
messed up that presentation, and maybe I did, maybe the
presentation was objectively poor. How does diffusion help.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Then that's a fantastic, very real question. Diffusion is not
about reality. It's not about pretending the presentation went well
when it didn't.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
So it doesn't challenge the fact.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
It doesn't challenge the fact. It challenges the meaning you
are fusing to the fact. The problematic fusion isn't the
thought I messed up the presentation.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
It's what comes next.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
It's what comes next, It's the immediate self judgment that
follows because I messed up, I am now terrible at
my job and everyone thinks I'm incompetent and my career
is over.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Ah okay. So it's about isolating the objective event, the
quality of the presentation, from the subjective catastrophic story I've
attached to it.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Precisely, it allows you to respond with wisdom to the fact.
A wise response is Okay, I need to review my
notes and practice more for next.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Time, instead of reacting emotionally to the fusion, which.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Would be I have to quit my job before they
fire me because I'm a fraud. See the difference. That
little bit of space allows for wise constructive action to
replace an anxious, destructive reaction.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
So, to make this idea of training the filter morete agible,
let's talk about a really simple, almost playful practice.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
The heart hunt.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
The heart hunt exercise. It sounds a little trivial on
the surface.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
It sounds trivial, but it is a profoundly powerful metaphor
for training your RAS.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
So what is it.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
The assignment, if you choose to take it on, is
to actively search the world around you each day for
naturally occurring heart shapes.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Not Valentine hearts.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
No, not manufactured hearts, a configuration of foam in your coffee,
maybe a shadow on the sidewalk, a knot in a
piece of wood, the way two leaves overlap on the ground.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
And as you said, it sounds like a children's game,
But what is the psychological payoff here?
Speaker 2 (09:35):
It's huge because you have intentionally given your brain, specifically
your RAS, a new directive. You've told the bouncer, let
the heart shapes through, and what happens You start seeing
them everywhere you realize you were walking past hundreds of
these shapes yesterday and you never saw a single one.
But today, because you're looking, they just they leap out
(09:57):
at you.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
And every time you find one, every.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Time you find when you get to pause and internalize
a piece of evidence, you are proving to yourself in
real time that your mind is flexible. You're proving you
can instruct your filter to find what you ask it
to find.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
So if my mind can find hearts just because I
told it to, it.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Can absolutely find small wins. It can find reasons for gratitude,
It can find evidence of your own progress. You just
have to set the intention.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
This practice also seems like a great bridge to another challenge.
Are hidden rules.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Yes, the unwritten rules we live by. A lot of
our anxiety comes from these internal, subconscious mandates that we
impose on ourselves.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Rules about how we should be.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
The shoulds and the musts. I must always be cammon
in control. I should never take up too much space
in a conversation.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
A really common one, especially for people with social anxiety,
is that hidden rule that says I can never make
anyone feel bad or uncomfortable.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
That rule is a trap. It's impossible to follow because
you fundamentally cannot control another person's internal emotional state.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
The pressure of trying to live by that rule is
just it's crippling.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
It is, and diffusion helps us surface that rule. You
can say to yourself, I'm having the thought that my
rule is I can never make anyone feel displeased.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
And once you see it written down like that.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Once it's surfaced, you can look at it objectively and
judge it is this rule actually useful? Is it helping
me live a life that feels authentic and aligned with
my values?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
And the answer is usually no.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Usual not So. Then you can consciously replace it with
a statement that is both compassionate and you attainable, something
like I value being kind and respectful, and while I
can't control how other people feel, I can commit to
acting with integrity from my side.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
That feels so much lighter.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
It frees up an enormous amount of mental energy that
was previously being spent trying to control the uncontrollable.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
That really does set the foundation. We've looked at the
minds filter, how to adjust the lens. Now we have
to talk about the structure that supports all these mental shifts.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Yes, because as we said trans information is a matter
of consistent structure, not just a momentary insight exactly.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
So our next section is building structure, habits, clarity, and consistency.
When we talk about this, we're really talking about tackling
the chaos of modern life.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Absolutely, an unstructured day, an unstructured mind that's a breeding
ground for anxiety. Structure, paradoxically, is what actually creates freedom.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
And it reduces that awful feeling of decision fatigue.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Right if your mind is trying to hold on to
forty little to do items, a couple of major worries,
and seven or eight unresolved issues, that mental load creates
a constant, low level hum of anxiety.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
So what's the antidote Clarity.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Clarity is the antidote to that internal chaos. And clarity
comes from intentional planning.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Which brings us to our first strategy, planning and prioritization
for peace, and the core of this is taking ownership
of the very start of your day.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yes, we have to emphasize this. You must wake up
with purpose and plan your day before the world has
a chance to distract you.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Can you explain why that's so critical?
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Think of your first moments awake as your most valuable
mental real estate of the entire day. It's quiet, it's clear.
If the very first thing you do is reach for your.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Phone, which is what most of us do.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
It's what most of us do, But in that moment,
you are immediately handing over control of your attention and
your energy to other people's.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Agendas, emails, news headlines, social media notification.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Other people's emergencies. You start the day reacting passively instead
of creating intentionally.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
So what's the alternative?
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Just five or ten minutes in silence, physically writing down
on paper your top three priorities for the day, your non.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Negotiables, and what does that simple act do?
Speaker 2 (13:44):
It creates instant mental clarity. It's an incredible anxiety reducing
exercise because you've outsourced the decision making. You've already decided
what's most important before the chaos begins.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
And that clarity then helps you to set the standard.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
For the day exactly. This isn't about just a random goals.
It's about looking at your schedule through a lens of
your own values. The question you have to ask yourself
every morning is.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
What must get done today to move me one step
closer to the life I actually want to live.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
That question is your standard. If a task, a meaning,
a request doesn't serve that ultimate goal, then it gets deferred, delegated,
or ideally just dropped.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Clarity becomes a tool for saying.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
No, a tool for saying no without guilt, because you're
not saying no to be difficult. You're saying yes to
your own priorities.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
I find the garden analogy really helpful for sorting out
these priorities.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Yes, let's walk through that. Imagine your life is a garden,
and it's divided into three essential plots. At health, which
is both physical and mental relationships, your partner, family, friends,
and fulfillment, your work, your passions, your personal growth. All
three need constant tending.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Okay, So within those three garden plots.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
There are certain tasks disks that are the non negotiables.
This is the sun and the water. Without them, the
garden literally withers and dies.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
So these are the absolute essential, They are the.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Essentials for thriving. These are the things that must be
scheduled and protected fiercely, like a doctor's appointment. So in
the health garden, that might be a non negotiable thirty
minutes of movement, and in relationships, it might be twenty
minutes of dedicated device free quality time with your partner
scheduled on the calendar protected.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Okay, so you have the sun and water, what else?
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Then? You have the wants, the wants of the fertilizer.
They're great, they accelerate growth, they add value, but the
garden can survive a week without them.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
So you structure your day to make sure the sun
and water get delivered first always, And.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
That simple hierarchy immediately limits the scope of your day.
It prevents that overwhelming, anxious feeling that you have to
do everything. You don't. You just have to water the garden.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
And this leads to another crucial point, the power of completion.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yes, unfinished business, those small tasks that you keep putting off,
they are energy vampires.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
They just hang over you.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
They hang over your subconscious, draining your cognitive bandwidth. The
version of yourself that you want to be is a
person who lives in a state of action and completion,
not delay.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
So even if it's just responding to that one email
you've been avoiding.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
We're finally putting away that pile of laundry. Yeah, finishing
what you start today, no matter how small, sense a
powerful signal to your whole system, to your ras.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
What's the signal?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
The signal is I am competent. I follow through on
my intentions. That act of completion builds self respect and
it frees up mental space that was clogged with all
those open loops.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
This focus on small, intentional actions brings us right up
against a huge psychological hurdle for so many people, motivation motivation.
Our whole culture teaches us to wait for it, to
wait for that lightning bolt of inspiration before we start
something hard.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
And that is precisely one hundred percent backwards. We have
to internalize this truth. Action precedes motivation. Say that again,
action precedes motivation. Motivation isn't the fuel you need to
start the car, It is the reward you get for
having pushed the car a few feet down the road.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
How does that work? Neurologically?
Speaker 2 (17:11):
When you take an action, any action, your brain releases
a little bit of dopamine. It's a reward signal, and
that reward, that good feeling is what we experience as
motivation or momentum.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
So that feeling fuels the next action exactly, it's a
feedback loop, but you have to initiate it.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
If you wait to feel motivated to go for a run,
you will spend your entire life on the couch.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
So the key is just starting.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
The key is finding a way to start the cycle.
Get that first little dope, meine hit, no matter how
you're feeling emotionally.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
This is where the idea of micro starts.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Comes in, your absolute best friend. A micro start is
an action that is so small, so laughably easy, that
it requires almost zero activation energy to do it. It's
the minimum possible action, the minimum viable action required to
start that reward cycle.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Can you give some specific examples?
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Sure. If the big, overwhelming task is clean the entire house,
the microstart is put away one dish. If the task
is write a ten page report, the microstart is open
a new document and write the title. If you're dreading exercise,
the microstart isn't a five k run. It's put on
your running.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Shoes or just walk outside for five minutes, just.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
A five minute phone free walk. That's it, And what
happens neurochemically is critical. By doing that tiny thing, you
engage the habit forming parts of your brain and you
trigger that crucial pulse of dopamine.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
And that tiny little hit of success.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
It gives you the momentum for the next step, which
might be putting away another dish, or writing one sentence,
or walking for another five minutes.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
There's a second part to this that's often overlooked.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Though, yes, positive reinforcement.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
We're so good at criticizing ourselves when we fail, but
we often just blow past the small wins.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
We have to consciously acknowledge them. After you put that
one dish away, you have to look at it and say, internally,
good job I did it.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Started just sounds a bit silly.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
It might feel silly at first, but this internal praise
is essential for building intrinsic motivation. You are literally teaching
your brain that this action leads to a positive internal
state over time. The reward isn't just the clean kitchen.
It's the feeling of honoring your commitment to yourself.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
And we also have to be really mindful of the
flip side of this, what not to do.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Avoiding counterproductive rewards. This is huge. Let's say you're avoiding
a difficult task like doing your taxes m HM, and
you reward that avoidance by scrolling social media or watching
Netflix or playing a video game.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
What are you teaching your brain in that moment.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
You're teaching your brain to associate the avoidance of hard
things with a big dopamine reward. You are actively strengthening
the neural pathway for procrastination.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
So how do you break that?
Speaker 2 (19:49):
You have to cut off the escape route if you're procrastinating,
turn off the entertainment. You don't have to force yourself
to start the.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Taxes right away, but you can't distract yourself.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
You have to allow allow yourself to feel the discomfort
of boredom. That uncomfortable state is often the exact friction
you need to finally push you toward that tiny micro start.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
All of this, the planning, the micro starts, the reinforcement,
It all points to one big idea.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
That consistency is the un sexy path to mastery.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Right. Our culture loves to glamorize these huge, explosive efforts,
the overnight success, but.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Real transformation, deep change almost never comes from a single
burst of energy. It comes from small, daily, often boring repetition.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
The power of the compound effect.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Exactly. Great achievements are usually just the result of someone
mastering the boring routine. A world class pianist doesn't practice
for twelve hours once a month.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
They practice for ninety minutes every single day, year after
year after year. And there's a point with any new
habit where it gets really hard. The initial excitement is gone.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
That's the moment of truth. It starts to feel difficult
or inconvenient or monotonous, and this is where you have
to stick with the friction. The friction, the brain craves
what's easy and what's new. When a habit gets hard,
the temptation is to jump to the next shiny new thing.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
But the real growth happens when you don't.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
The habit only sticks when you keep showing up through
that difficult phase. You endure the resistance and the boredom
until the behavior becomes automatic.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
It's no longer something you do.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
It's part of who you are. That's the identity shift.
You don't just do yoga, you become a person who
does yoga. You don't rise to the level of your goals.
You fall to the level of your systems. And those
systems are built on quiet, daily discipline and.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
That moment when you finally wake up and just do
the thing without that huge internal battle.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
That moment of peace is the reward. That's the proof
that your consistency has physically rewired your brain.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
So we've covered the mindset and the structure. Now we
need to talk about the vehicle that carries.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
It all, the body, your physical energy reserves. You can't
have mental clarity or consistent and see if you are
constantly running on empty.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
We have to start with our attention, which is maybe
our most precious resource.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
And we have to establish digital boundaries and energy conservation.
Our devices are literally designed to hijack our attention and
keep us in a state of reaction.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
This is why protecting mornings is so non negotiable.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
It is Reaching for that phone first thing in the
morning exposes your brain to a flood of external demands,
anxiety from the news, work emergencies, social pressures. Before you've
even had a chance to center yourself.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
You're immediately putting your nervous system into an energy draining,
reactive state.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
So the hack here is simple but powerful. User, do
not disturb feature aggressively set a rule for yourself the
first thirty or ideally sixty minutes of your day. The
phone is in airplane mode.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Or in another room, entirely.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Even better, this act conserves your best energy for your
own routine, for reflection, for movement. You're consciously choosing to
enter the day rather than being dragged into it.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Rategy applies to the end of the day.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
The nighttime wind down. We have to understand what short
form content scrolling quick videos does to our brains.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
It's a series of intense, fragmented dopamine hits.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Exactly, and that rapid stimulation keeps your physiological rousal level high.
It makes it incredibly difficult for your brain to shift
down into the slow neutral state it needs for deep,
RESTful sleep.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
So the rule is to switch off all that stimulating
content at least an hour before bed.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
It allows your nervous system to shift from that high
alert fight or flight mode to the rest in digest mode.
And protecting your sleep is maybe the most foundational piece
of energy management. There is a sleep deprived brain can't
be resilient or focused.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
And energy management isn't just about screens. It's also about
our commitments.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Saying no as self care. This is crucial every single
time you say yes to something that doesn't align with
your values, or your priorities, or.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Just your energy level.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
That day, you are implicitly saying no to yourself, draining
your own battery to serve someone else's agenda.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
We have this tendency to confuse being kind with being compliant.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
That's a great way to put it. True kindness includes
being honest and kind about your own limits. Saying no
is a powerful way to protect your peace and focus
so you have the energy to show up fully for
the things that actually matter to you.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Okay, So from external boundaries, let's move to internal fuel.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Nourishment, food, and specifically the eighty twenty rule.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
The quality of the food we eat is so directly
linked to our energy and our mood.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
The wellness mood link is very well documented. We now
have research showing that the additives, the high levels of sugar,
the unhealthy fats in a lot of ultraprocessed foods can
directly interfere with our brain chemistry.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
They impact neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
They do, and that can lead to mood swings, brain fog,
and just lower energy overall. Whereas a diet that's rich
in whole unprocessed foods.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Fruits, vegetables, lean proteins.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
It provides the sustained energy and the micronutrients your brain
need to function optimally. Food isn't just calories, it's information.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
So what's the eighty twenty rule? How does that work
in practice?
Speaker 2 (25:07):
It's a framework for consistency that doesn't demand impossible perfection.
Eighty percent of the time you focus on eating those whole, healthy,
nutrient and dense foods. That's what gives you your baseline.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Energy and the other twenty percent.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
The other twenty percent allows for what we can call
joy foods, the indulgent things. This structure prevents that feeling
of deprivation that so often leads people to just give
up entirely.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
So planning and maybe prepping some of those eighty percent
meals can make it easier to stick with.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
It's a game changer. It ensures you have the good
fuel on hand when you need it.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
So if energy is the fuel, then movement is the regulator.
The mind body connection is just it's undeniable.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
It is when we feel emotional distress, stress, anxiety, frustration,
our body physically tenses up, our breathing gets shallow, stress
hormones are released.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
And if you just sit still in that state.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
The tension just compounds. Movement is a necessary tool for
emotional control because it's a physical way to shift your
emotional state. It literally forces the release of that stored tension, and.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
It pumps and endorphins, which helps regulate the nervous system.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
It shifts you out of that fight or flight mode.
And we're not talking about having to run a marathon.
We're talking about accessible actions, right Yoga. Yoga is fantastic.
It's often called meditation in motion because it intentionally connects
your breath to your movement, so you get the calming
benefits of meditation while also physically releasing tension. Or even
just a walk, a brisk twenty minute walk, especially without
(26:36):
a phone or other distractions, has been shown to immediately
boost your mood and regulate your nervous system. We have
to reframe exercise.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
It's not a punishment for what you ate.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
It is a tool for happiness. It's a tool for
mental health and energy generation. We move to feel better now,
not just to look a certain way later.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Beyond movement, we also need to consider our immediate environment,
our sensor needs.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Yes, this is so personal, and it becomes so much
more important when we're under stress. Meeting these needs is
essential for preventing overwhelmed.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
So you have to figure out your personal sensory good
versus sensory bad.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Right. For one person, a sensory good might be a
soft weighted blanket and the smell of lavender. For someone else,
it might be the opposite. It might be minimizing input.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Noise, canceling headphones, dim lighting, a completely clutter free space exactly.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
And when you're stressed or sleep deprived, your sensitivity to
this stuff goes through the roof. A small annoyance can
trigger a huge reaction. So curating your environment to meet
your needs is a powerful form of.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Self care, and that leads to this idea of creating
supportive environments and pacing. It can feel overwhelming to think
about overhauling your whole life.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
So don't start small. Create micro environments.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
What's a micro environment.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
If organizing your whole house is too much, just perfect
one single corner, a reading chair, your desktup that one
small area to perfectly support one specific self care need,
like journaling or relaxation.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
You're lowering the activation energy for the habit.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Ocisely, if your journaling space is beautiful and inviting, you're
more likely to use it, and finally you have to
honor your own pace, learn to move slower.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Anxiety loves a sense of false urgency.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
It thrives on it, so intentionally incorporates slow routines, a
slow morning, a slow walk. Consistency at a sustainable pace,
say eighty percent effort every day, is so much better
than an unsustainable push for perfection that ends and burnout,
Which brings.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Us into the deepest layer of this work.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Emotional processing and the cultivation of self worth. This is
the deep work. It requires courage.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
And we begin with probably the single most effective tool
for this, journaling, to gain clarity.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
The core power of journaling is that it makes the
implicit explicit Our feelings and thoughts. When they're just swirling
in our heads feel like this overwhelming, confusing cloud.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
But when you force yourself to put them into written words.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
You externalize them. You take them out of your head
to put them on the page. You move them from
being a chaotic internal experience to an observable external object.
It is an immediate form of self therapy, and.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
When you're feeling really overwhelmed, there's a specific technique for that,
the brain dump.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Don't worry about grammar or making sense. Just open a
notebook or a document and write or type every single
thought that comes into your head as fast as you can.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
The speed is important.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
The speed is essential. It helps you bypass your internal
editor and just get the raw data out. The relief
comes from simply offloading that mental burden and seeing it
all laid out in front of you.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Journaling is also a great tool for understanding where we're
spending our mental energy.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Yes, through clarifying your locus of control. You can do
this by just drawing a simple three column chart.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
What are the columns?
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Column one is for things that are fully in your control,
your actions, your effort, your response is your boundaries. Column
two is for things you can influence but not.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Control, other people's opinions, maybe.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Other people's responses, the outcome of a complex project. And
column three is for things completely out of your control,
the past, what other people think, global events, and.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
What's the benefit of sorting things this way?
Speaker 2 (30:15):
The anxiety reduction is immediate. You realize how much energy
you've been wasting on columns two and three. When you
focus your attention exclusively on column one, you stop fighting
battles you can't.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Win, and for really intense emotions like anger or grief.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
The unsent letter technique is invaluable. You write a complete, raw,
unfiltered letter to the person or situation. You say everything
you need.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
To say, but you don't send it.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
You commit to not sending it. The therapeutic power is
in the writing, in the processing. It gives you a
safe catharsis, and when you're done you can symbolically destroy it,
burn it, delete it to mark the end of that
processing phase.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
And finally, a small daily journaling habit.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Just five minutes reviewing progress. Ask yourself, what did I
improve today? What small win did I achieve? It trains
your brain to stop focusing only on your mistakes and
to see that you are, in fact making progress.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
So once we can see our emotions clearly, we have
to learn how to handle them when they show up,
which means tackling our instinct to avoid discomfort.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
This is why willingness and acceptance are so central to
emotional maturity.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
What do you mean by willingness?
Speaker 2 (31:23):
When a really intense feeling shows up, anxiety, a strong
craving shame, our immediate instinct is to fight it, to
push it away, distract ourselves, make it go away. Willingness
is the secret ingredient. It's the active choice to lean
in and allow the feeling to just be there.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
But that's terrifying. We think if we let the anxiety in,
it will just take over completely.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
That's the fear. But willingness is about choosing to recognize
the emotion, saying I see you're here, and letting it
exist without starting a war with it.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
There's a great analogy for this, so.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
A tug of war analogy from DVT. Imagine you're in
a tug of war with a big, scary, emotional monster
like panic. You're pulling with all your might, desperate to win,
to make the feeling go away.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
You're stuck in the struggle.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
You're completely stuck. Yeah, and notice that the monster gets
all of its power from your resistance. As long as
you keep pulling on that rope, you're locked in battle.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
So what's the secret.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
It's totally counterinto it. If you drop the rope, you
just stop fight. You stop fighting, you're no longer engaged
in the struggle. You just allow the monster, the intense feeling,
to be there. And what you quickly discover is that
when you stop resisting it, the intensity often fades all
on its own. The fuel your resistance is gone.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
And this idea expands into radical acceptance.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Right acceptance is just acknowledging the reality of a situation.
You cannot change in this present moment, so past events,
past traumas, chronic pain, the choices other people make. Radical
acceptance is not the same as approval. It's not saying
this is good.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
It's just saying this is real.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
This is what is happening right now, whether I like
it or not. Resisting unchangeable reality is what creates suffering.
Acceptance is what allows you to move forward.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
And once we learn to manage our emotions in this way,
we can access something.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Deeper, our wise mind. This concept helps us integrate our
intuition with our intelligence.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
So the wise mind sits between two.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Other states exactly. First, you have the reasonable mind. It's cool, logical, analytical.
It focuses only on the facts and often ignores the
emotional side of things. And on the other end, the
emotional mind. It's hot, impulsive, mood driven. It focuses only
on feelings and can override all rational thought. Making decisions
from this place is often messy.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
So the wise mind is the synthesis of the two.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
It's that state of inner knowing where you could acknowledge
the facts of the reasonable mind and honor the feelings
of the emotional mind and find the pass forward that
feels grounded and authentic. It's your intuition, your gut.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Feeling, and how do we access that It can feel
so elusive.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
You have to intentionally create quiet space. One flake exercise
is a beautiful visualization for this.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
How does it work?
Speaker 2 (34:03):
You just close your eyes and imagine yourself as a small, smooth,
flat stone flake, and you visualize yourself gently, slowly sinking
through the clear, still water of a deep blue lake.
There's no rush, no urgency, just a quiet, rhythmic descent.
You drift past all the noise and activity the surface.
You settle softly on the sandy bottom, deep within yourself.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
And once you're in that still, quiet place.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
You can ask your wise mind a question. You just
breathe the question in and you listen, not for a
loud answer, but for that quiet sense of rightness. You
allow the truth to emerge from that peaceful place.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
All of this deep work ultimately leads us to the
core issue for so many.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Of us, cultivating self worth. So much of our anxiety
and effort is spent chasing external validation, believing our value
is tied to our achievements or what other people think
of us.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
So the first step is to actively work on detaching
from those external metrics.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Your job title, your salary, how many likes you get
on social media, what you look like. These are all temporary,
fluid things. Your true worth is intrinsic. It's inherent. It's
not dependent on what you do or what you have.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
And a big part of that detachment is learning to
challenge the inner critic, that.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Harsh voice in your head. It often pretends to be
a protector or a truth teller, but it's usually just
outdated programming.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
It's an echo of old fears or maybe the critical
voices of parents or teachers exactly.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
So, when the critic starts talking, you have to question
its origin. Ask is this voice genuinely mine or is
it just an old tape playing. You have the power
to consciously substitute that thought with a more compassionate one.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
The inner critic also loves to focus on a single flaw.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
And this is where we bring it back to the ras. Yeah,
you have to intentionally redirect your focus to find evidence
of your competence, your kindness, your worth. You starve the
critic of your attention.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
There's another powerful way to reframe insecurity, especially in social situations.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Yes, if you are often find yourself feeling small or
you know, boring around certain people, try flipping the script.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
What do you mean?
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Maybe the issue isn't you. Maybe they are the ones
who are boring. Maybe they lack the depth or complexity
to appreciate your unique qualities.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
So if my authentic self doesn't resonate with someone.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
That is a reflection of their preference, not a judgment
on your worth. Your mission isn't to change yourself to
fit in. It's to own your authentic self. Forcing yourself
into a mold to police others is the fastest way
to lose yourself.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
And the final piece of this, the ultimate act of self.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Worth, is what self compassion and forgiveness. It's simple, but
not easy. When you make a mistake, when you fall short,
you must treat yourself with the same non judgmental kindness
you would offer to a dear friend who is struggling.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
You have to acknowledge the pain, except the imperfection.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
And practice self forgiveness, unworthiness, and self love cannot exist
in the same space. The moment you begin to treat
yourself as if you were inherently worthy, feelings of inadequacy
start to lose their power. It's the absolute foundation of resilience.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
As we start to bring this exploration to a close,
we want to leave you with five gentle, but really
powerful strategies kind of pulling together everything we've talked about.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Yes, from mindset to structure to that deep emotional work.
So Tip one, look for evidence of change daily.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Like the heart hurt.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Exactly like the heart hunt, you have to intentionally look
for the small, microscopic wins you would normally overlook. Did
you choose a microstart instead of procrastinating. Did you take
three deep breaths when you felt stressed.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
Did you say no to something that would have drained you.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Yes, you have to actively search for the evidence that
proves to your brain that change is happening, that you
are making progress.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Okay. Tip two, define your purpose your why.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Life's challenges can feel unbearable when they seem meaningless, but
having a compelling why gives meaning to almost anyhow.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
As Nische said, he who has a why to live
for can bear.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Almost how precisely. Aim for something that feels worth doing.
Embrace a sense of voluntary responsibility. Struggle when it's in
service of a higher purpose. Your family, your community, your
creative work is what gives life meaning and value.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Your why becomes a source of motivation that never runs out.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
It does, okay. Tip three the power of verbal competence.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
We think only as clearly as we can write.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
That's the core of it. Writing is just formalized discipline thinking.
So dedicate even just a few minutes every day to
writing about things that matter to you.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
What does that do for you?
Speaker 2 (38:31):
It sharpens your ability to articulate your thoughts, to define
your vision. It turns vague anxieties into concrete problems you
can actually solve. It makes you a more focused and
formidable advocate for yourself.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
Tip four Mindful breathing to regulate the vagus nerve. This
is the most immediate practical hack we have here.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Really is, when you're anxious, your nervous system is in
that fight or flight mode.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
So to calm everything down, use your breath.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
Specifically, you make your exhale si significantly longer than your inhale,
so breathe in for a slowcout of four, hold it
for a moment, and then breathe out for a slowcout.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Of six or seven, And that simple act sends a
signal to your brain.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
It stimulates the vagus nerve, which signals safety to your brain.
It allows your body to consciously shift out of alarm mode.
You literally calm your body to calm your mind.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
And finally, Tip five, practice wise selfishness.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
This one feels a little paradoxical, but while self compassion
is crucial, true lasting happiness is often found by shifting
our focus outward. Our brains are literally wired to experience
a neurochemical reward, a pleasure response when we are generous
or kind to others.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
So when you're stuck in a spiral of anxiety or
self doubt, you're intensely focused inward.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Intensely so wise selfishness means intentionally shifting your focus to
benefit someone else, even in the smallest way. Give a
genuine compliment, hold a door open, really listen to someone
without interrupting.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
That gentle pull of focus out of your own head.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
It immediately breaks the cycle of self absorption, and it
gives you direct evidence that your actions matter and have
a positive impact in the world.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
This whole journey into self care and structure, Yeah, it's
an ongoing commitment, isn't it a continuous relationship that you're
building with yourself. So please remember to focus on the progress,
not on that impossible, self sabotaging idea of perfection.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
The strength, the clarity, and the wisdom that you need
to navigate your life, it's already inside you. You are
fundamentally enough right now, just because you were here, and
you are worthy of kindness and compassion.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
And if all of this feels like a lot today.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
That's okay. Just choose one thing, one tiny micro start,
one intentional boundary, or one single moment of self compassion,
and simply begin.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
You have the power to guide your
Speaker 2 (40:48):
Mind, and your mind is ready and waiting to work
for you.
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