dr Dan Siegel – Inspired New Horizons

Wherever You Go, There You Are

Take some time to think about the many times in your life when you set out in search of something new, something better, something you’d wanted or worked for your whole life.

Chances are you felt highly energized and incredibly enthusiastic. You tapped into the power of visualization to picture yourself living your dream — and it felt amazing! Maybe it was the dream job you landed, or a new relationship; perhaps you relocated to a bustling city or a different climate.

How did things pan out over time? Was it all that you had hoped for and dreamed that it could be?

If you didn’t intentionally take a new and improved version of yourself into this golden opportunity, did you find yourself backtracking?

Wherever you go, there you are.

This sage insight was offered to us by Jon Kabat-Zinn in 1994 in his book bearing that title. His poignant message is one that stands the test of time. If we don’t spend some time reflecting on what we have learned from our past experiences, we will simply go into our new opportunities with the same old reactive behavior patterns, blind spots and memorized coping mechanisms. Everywhere we go, there we are.

We take the same version of ourselves into a new chapter of life, a reinvention of ourselves, a dream job or relationship, and soon discover that we are right back where we started. We get in our own way. Same obstacles, same disappointments, same setbacks, same relationship issues.

Are we the common denominator as we move through life, bringing the same version of our ourselves into each new situation, opportunity and adversity? Wherever we go, there we are.

In my last blog post, I offered the image of a “greenhouse library” to reframe our personal reference material and internal data base. We can gain so much insight from spending time to learn from our past experiences. This becomes an intentional shift to pivot from old behavioral patterns, lack of self awareness and outgrown emotional reactions BEFORE we enter our new opportunities.

Isn’t it ironic that we often are pushed to our limits, know that we want something better for ourselves, and purposefully make big life changes (like moving, finding a new partner or more rewarding job), but we never stop to think about how we ourselves must change in order to make the most out of these pivotal moments in our lives?

We should conduct an “exit interview” with our inner coach (our inner voice) when we are moving on from something that we’ve outgrown or that is no longer working for us. We should be asking ourselves “what have I learned from my past experiences”?

It is not just what we learned from life’s challenges and golden opportunities but most importantly what we learned about ourselves as we met these moments.

In that exit interview, there should be a page with the heading “Wherever you go, there you are”. A review of your habitual patterns of behavior, emotional triggers and blind spots becomes the launchpad for taking a new and improved version of yourself into the change you are purposefully seeking.

You may want to elicit a little help with your “exit interview”.

Consider just how much your parents, grandparents and teachers helped you gain a deeper understanding of yourself as you were growing up. Their perspective on how you typically showed up in life educated your intuition and inner voice. They are often the ones we hear whispering in our ears when we are making both big and small decisions.

Do you remember that major milestone of getting your driver’s license?

You couldn’t wait to get in that car all by yourself and take off. Your first taste of freedom to drive yourself wherever you wanted to go, taking any route that pleased you, listening to your favorite music at whatever volume you chose.

It does not take a big stretch of the imagination to recognize that your parents trusted that wherever you decided to go, you would show up as the teenager they knew well. You were going to be you.

As mom or dad tossed you the car keys, it is quite likely they also tossed you some cautionary reminders about making good decisions. “Don’t drive too fast or tailgate. Don’t text or fiddle with the touchscreen. Keep your eyes on the road and stay vigilant about other drivers. A yellow light means be cautious, not hit the gas and gun it.”

Your parents knew that “wherever you go, there you are.”

Your parents had 16 years of observing, experiencing and predicting who you were, what mattered most to you, how you made decisions. They had to trust that all those years they invested in teaching and guiding you would prepare you for this independence. It was their past history with you that became the very reason they offered you personalized reminders of potential hazards. Not only road hazards, but the very ones that you yourself might create.

Those words of wisdom that your parents offered in exchange for those car keys was a form of an “exit interview’. Venturing out on your own, they offered some pointers to keep you aware of your natural tendencies. Subtle reminders to pay attention to your habits, behaviors and impulses that could be potential roadblocks.

Sticking with this driving metaphor, think about how many times you actually updated your driving skills over your lifetime. As you “practiced” driving solo, you became more confident, were able to judge traffic more intuitively, merging with ease and avoiding potholes. You learned how to drive in bad weather, take unexpected detours and fix a flat tire. You probably accommodated your fellow passengers when you were the designated driver, stepping up and accepting more responsibility. When you became a parent, it is quite likely you became a much more cautious driver all while honing your time management skills and planning for unexpected small human emergencies. You may have learned to drive stick shift, a van or truck; learned how to tow a trailer. When you bought a newer model car, chances are great that you had to learn how to use computer functions that didn’t even exist when you first learned to drive.

Take a few minutes to remember your sixteen year old self and that first solo drive. Compare that to the driver you are today. Give yourself a few gold stars for just how far you’ve come.

There is remarkable value in doing this same type of comparison whenever we are making changes in other areas of our life. We may not always be attuned to just how much we have changed and the many invaluable life lessons we bring with us into new chapters of our life or reinventions of ourselves.

An “exit interview” is a fresh reframing for self-reflection and pulling threads from our life lessons. If we comb through our old files of life experiences, we are likely to find important clues about why some of our big dreams or golden opportunities didn’t pan out like we’d hoped.

Wherever you go, there you are.

We can move to a new job, new location, into a new house or apartment, but that alone is not going to be the magic that brings about the real change we seek. If we bring our same old self to something new, nothing really changes.

Dan Pink, author of The Power of Regret, tells us that a little self reflection on things we regret is a powerful way to help us remember what we value most. If we ask ourselves “why” we are pursuing a change, we will bubble to the surface the very things that matter most.

While there is an implied promise to ourselves that what we really want the most can be found in this new place, job or relationship — we have to bring what we have learned from past experiences into these new opportunities in order to set ourselves up for success. If we bring our same old self, we will surely find the same old problems cropping up. Wherever you go, there you are.

Old behavioral patterns have a way of repeating themselves. We can change our environment or relationships, but if we rely on the same old behavioral responses like people pleasing, conflict avoiding and passive aggressive tactics, the end result will be the same — just in a different place or with different people.

James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, points out that we don’t naturally “rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems.” This advice is a springboard for meaningful life changes. Build better systems to make the most of new opportunities.

A huge component of a meaningful “systems” change is changing the way we show up in life. Awareness of our non-productive, habitual behavioral patterns becomes the gateway for real changes in our brains — and subsequently how we “show up”.

Take your personal growth into those new opportunities. Let the self-discovery process inform you about the places where you can now stretch and flex. Use the “fresh start” effect of a new job, new location or new relationship to strengthen your commitment to showing up as a new and improved version of yourself.

There is a huge benefit in taking stock of where we have been and where we are going whenever we undertake a major change in our lives. If we aren’t intentional about this, we wander rather aimlessly into the new chapter or reinvention of ourselves. We might fail to see that our core values evolve over time and are even subject to revision.

Consider this timeless question: What would you tell your younger self?

When we take time to reflect on what we have learned from our past experiences, we gain real clarity about our current values — the “what matters most” part that is driving our strong desire for change. We are able to put some more meat on the bones of our values. Maybe it is a job that not only pays well but is also in alignment with our real interests, one that feels personally rewarding. Perhaps it is a relationship that feels less like a tug of war and more like a highly functioning partnership. Maybe it is not just a change of scenery; it might be better access to community, nature, arts and activities we enjoy.

In other words, we don’t just check a box, we look at the contents and see if that box is really meeting our needs and values.

Another timeless question: What is the one life lesson you have to keep learning over and over?

In his book, Shift, author Ethan Kross reminds us that most learning typically requires many experiences. When we acknowledge this reality, we can look more closely at the earlier chapters of our lives to find that one life lesson that we do in fact have to keep learning over and over.

In many cases, the lesson we need to learn repeatedly is to stop getting in our own way. We do make things harder for ourselves than they need to be. Being stuck in our old ways while we are trying to move forward in life is that one lesson that life keeps offering to us. The same lesson can be repurposed and repackaged in a lot of creative ways. What is that one life lesson that you have to keep re-learning?

If we want to truly evolve as we move through chapters and stages of our lives, then it is wise to take stock of where we have been and be clear about where we are headed.

James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, uses the image of our “future” self as a way to visualize how we will look, feel and act when we grow forward into changes we proactively pursue. He reminds us that it is our consistent, small efforts toward these bigger changes that are rock solid “votes” for our future self.

Remembering that our past experiences are not old baggage, better left forgotten – but a vast, rich reference library for our personal growth is a great reframe for self-discovery. All too often we forget just how far we’ve come, how many adversities we have faced and the inner strength, confidence and resilient we’ve stockpiled.

The purpose of an exit interview is to understand why we are leaving something behind and pursuing change. It is also to get honest feedback and fresh perspectives. Self-reflection is a key part of doing our own “exit interview.” Being candid with ourselves about any regrets we might have helps us get crystal clear about what matters most. It gets to the heart of why we are seeking change.

Most importantly, heed the advice Jon Kabat-Zinn offers in his book. We are wise to take a long hard look at the places where we get stuck, where old patterns of behavior are no longer serving us well, where emotional triggers and dis-regulation pull us backwards.

When we are very clear about who we are, how we are showing up in our life and who we are working on becoming, we take the guesswork out of changing for the better.

We can grow forward by looking at what we have learned from our past. We already have more footholds and skill sets than we realize.

This is the 5th blog post in a series about the stories we tell ourselves, creating better scripts for our stories, and working on our character development. The next post will be all about creating a “coaching tree” to support your personal growth. Ryan Holiday is the inspiration for planting a “coaching tree” in your greenhouse library.

NOTEWORTHY RESOURCES:

The most recent book from Ethan Kross is a guidebook for emotional regulation. We can learn to turn the volume up or down on our emotions to help us navigate our lives in the best way possible. This book is a game changer for self awareness and emotional agility.

January 27, 2025 episode –
James Clear on the Science of Building Habits That Last – this conversation with Dr Michael Gervais, elite sports psychologist and James Clear will supercharge your efforts to make sustainable changes for personal growth. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/finding-mastery-with-dr-michael-gervais/id1025326955?i=1000685599922

This is one podcast so worthy of your time. Dr. Ellen Langer sees the world through kaleidoscope lenses. Once you listen to her, you will never see the world the same — and that is the best thing that can happen FOR you. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-rich-roll-podcast/id582272991?i=1000695494416

The Stories We Tell Ourselves – Part 2

Grab some paper and a pen. Make a list of the many roles you have in your life. Start with an ordinary day — and then expand it out to a week, then a month. Be thorough and thoughtful about the many places you show up and play a part. Start with your immediate family then expand the lens to work and your community.

You may be a spouse and a parent, an employee or entrepreneur, a sibling, a grandparent, aunt or uncle, a best friend, a youth soccer coach, a golfer or triathlete, a musician in the local orchestra, a training buddy, a book club member, a podcaster, a creator, a caregiver, a community volunteer. Chances are the list is much longer than you think.

No wonder we are so complex, fascinating and mind-boggling all at once! We wear a lot of hats and juggle many responsibilities and have a host of hobbies and interests. But wait — there’s more!

Did you know that embedded in all the different roles we have, we also have a specific identity associated with each one. These multiple identities are like the unique blueprints we bring to the roles we play. There is a lot of nuance in these multiple identities because we draw on different characteristics of who we are to highlight the ones that best fit the role we are in.

Ryan Holiday tells us that a great tool for helping us show up as the best version of ourselves in any given situation is to ask: What is my role right now?

This simple question quickly crystallizes our responsibility and our strengths that we bring to the table in the role we now play. Our identity for that specific role becomes the template and the filter for how we show up. It is our unique blueprint.

Ryan’s poignant question grounds by reminding us of the identity we assume as a parent, a spouse, a work colleague, sibling or friend. When we connect with our role, we also connect with our goal. That identity we bring to each role becomes the framework and guardrails for how we show up.

If we fail to ask this question about the role we play in any given situation, we may unconsciously default to another of our roles and bring the wrong attributes to the table. We’ve all done this and in hindsight, we readily recognize we played a part in the clumsy, confusing way things unfolded.

Mel Robbins tells us that we all have an inner 8 year old that can show up unchecked, disregulated and unruly — and if we let that character step in to a role well beyond his or her job description and matching skills, that’s a recipe for disaster.

Most of us never stop to reflect on the many roles we have in our lives and the blueprint we have curated to help us do our best in each one. And here’s a surprising revelation – if we don’t consciously develop a strong job description for each role we play, we are going to default to the inner child quite often. This is often referred to as our “unconscious” self – and that’s where so many of the old stories we tell ourselves become the script for knee jerk reactions.

Knee jerk emotional reactions come from the past. Old stories we’ve told ourselves trap us in our amygdala; it links our current emotions to old memories. Which is precisely why we can act like an 8 year instead of a rational, mature adult. We viscerally feel our emotions and our amygdala supplies all the data we need to remind us of past times when we felt just like that — and underscores a feeling of helplessness (a lack of personal agency). When we were 8, we didn’t have skills and tools to help us understand and regulate our emotions. We only had the warning signs and basic reactions. We hadn’t yet developed our strong sense of self and built reliance on our own agency.

Ryan’s question prompts us to remember that we are no longer a helpless, overwhelmed kid. We have adult roles now and the ability to shift into the executive function of our brains. That one simple question flips the switch in our brain — and gets us running on the right track — our executive function. We can catch ourselves before we shrink ourselves to age 8 and pivot to our better equipped grown up self.

How does this dovetail with our roles and our identities? Well, we develop blueprints for how we want to show up in the various roles we have. We even start this process as kids — when we tell ourselves that when we grow up, we will parent differently or we will handle life’s challenges more responsibly. Those blueprints help us craft the identities we rely on for each role.

As we move through our lives, we update those identities much like we update our resumes. As we become more skilled in any of our roles, we add and subtract from the identity we’ve created for each role. We are always a “work in progress” and we thrive when we have a very strong sense of self and tap into our personal agency frequently. We get to choose how we conduct ourselves in each role — and we feel good when our emotions match our actions.

This is where we can pair Ryan’s question – “what is my role right now” with Arthur Brook’s question: “How do I want to be feeling right now?” This is how we sync up our roles with our identity blueprints and our emotional and behavioral responses. We play the “match” game.

We can cross-pollinate our identity blueprints that we use in the outside world to build stronger and more reliable identities for our family relationships. If you stop to think about it, you readily recognize how reliant you are on your identity at work or out in your community. That identity provides the guardrails that keep you from losing your cool, having a meltdown or curling into a ball. Your actions and responses match the identity you crafted.

Most of us are less clear about our identities in the roles we play within our families. We drop our guard at home with the people we love the most – and in that process, we drop the very guardrails that would help us bring our better selves to the most important roles we have.

Home and family is the one place where we should feel the safest, where we should feel seen, heard and valued. Yet our family relationships are the one place where we have most of our day to day conflicts. Could it be a simple mismatch between the role we play and the actions and behaviors we bring to that role?

Dr. Becky Kennedy has coined the phrase “sturdy leader” for the role of a parent. She uses the analogy of an airline pilot to give us a strong mental image of what a sturdy leader looks and acts like. A competent pilot does not come frantically racing out of the cockpit freaking out about turbulence. We expect a competent pilot to tell us the truth about what is happening, assure us that all efforts are being taken to keep us safe and offering the actions we can take to help the collective effort.

Is this how we show up in our family relationships — as sturdy leaders – those calm, competent pilots?

Are you laughing to yourself right now now? I think most of us can agree that is not our “go to” when we experience emotional turbulence in the kitchen cockpit.

What usually happens at home is a bad case of emotional contagion. We match the emotions of our kids, our spouses, our siblings or parents. We are playing the wrong match game.

The better match game is the adult version. The one where we can readily identify our role, how we “want” to be feeling and we match our responses, behaviors and actions to that blueprint. We become sturdy leaders at home just like we do at work or in public spaces.

The basic blueprint of sturdy leader is a great template for our roles at home. Who wouldn’t want to have a sturdy leader as a parent or a partner? Think of all the skills and personal attributes you bring to the workplace and repurpose them for your roles at home. Add them to your identity blueprint. Are you good in a crisis at work? Do you work well under pressure? Are you a wizard at time management and effective delegation? Can you rally the troops? Do you build a strong team by tapping into the key strengths of each person? Do you provide breaks to reset and recharge when others are on overload?

There is yet another emotional and psychological tool that can be utilized in meaningful ways when we are nailing down our identity blueprints for our family relationships. It is “distancing”. When we are able to zoom out and get a broader perspective, we see the bigger picture. Distancing is a great tool for helping us to pivot to sturdy leader. When we can step out of the fray and turn on our executive function, we often realize we already possess the very skills we need to bring our better selves home.

Distancing helps us see the calm and competent pilot we are at work or out in our community. We show up like this with ease – consistently. As James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, would tell us we have deployed the compounding effect of consistency and frequent practice in the workplace. We practice keeping our emotions in check and our responses mature – day in and day out, several times each day.

Now just think about the difference that would make in your roles at home. All this time, you have been missing the golden opportunity to put in countless reps every day to become a sturdy leader! Practice doesn’t make us perfect, but it surely makes us more skillful, resilient, reliable and easier to live with.

Give yourself a honest evaluation about how you show up at work – and how you show up at home. Are you matching other’s emotions or are you matching your role with your identity blueprint, your skills sets and the goal you have for that role?

Remember that your old emotional database can pull you back into outdated reference material. You want to be operating on better, current data with greater agency and a strong sense of self.

Want some extra motivation for crafting sturdy leader identities for the roles that you play in your life? Just imagine helping those you love amass an incredible library of reference material for the stories they tell themselves. Who wouldn’t want the people they love to immersed in possibility and potential instead of limiting stories about who they are and will become?

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

Check out Dr. Becky Kennedy’s book, website and app to discover science-backed parenting tools for raising emotionally intelligent, resilient and empowered kids

Check out Ryan Holiday’s collection of books . Right Thing, Right Now is his latest. The Obstacle is the Way is great for seeing opportunities where we blindly believe we forever stuck. If you are a parent — check out Daily Dad.

Mel Robbins’ latest book is quickly becoming a fast-track resource for letting go – and stepping into your own agency. Let others be thernselves, especially family, and Let You be your best self. This book is so relatable, you won’t be able to put it down.

If you want to fast track what is packed into Mel’s new book, take a listen to this We Can Do Hard Things podcast episode. Mel and host Glennon Doyle crack open the book, the theory and relatable real life stories. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-can-do-hard-things/id1564530722?i=1000682368717

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Some of the most fabricated stories we will ever hear are the ones we tell ourselves. They keep us spellbound — holding our attention so completely that we can barely focus on anything else.

If you have ever doubted that you possess a wild imagination and a flair for creative writing, look no further than the many stories that you tell yourself during the course of one normal day.

We are so skilled at crafting these stories that often we don’t even realize we’ve actually taken the time to pen them with invisible ink in our minds. Sometimes it even feels as though we’ve used permanent markers to write them. The stories we tell ourselves impact our lives in ways we can’t even imagine.

During the course of one ordinary day, we can tell ourselves more stories than a two year old demands at bedtime.

The alarm goes off and you hit the snooze button, telling yourself that 15 more minutes in bed won’t make a big difference. Later when you are frantically searching for your car keys, chugging coffee and yelling at everyone to hurry up and get in the car, you create another story. Now you tell yourself are undisciplined for hitting that snooze button yet again; when will you learn and why can’t you ever catch a break? Next thing you know, your car’s GPS announces there are traffic delays on your route and presto, your inner critic becomes a personal ghost writer. You can almost hear the melodramatic music accompanying the litany of ways you will be forever doomed to failure as your inner critics pounds those typewriter keys.

Those early morning story lines can become a snowball rolling down a hill. Let’s face it, once the inner critic takes over, the plot doesn’t change much and there is very little room for character development. The stories we tell ourselves can block us from the very change we so desperately want.

We are natural born storytellers, each and every one of us. Our brains and bodies are these phenomenal meaning making machines. It is a core function of our brains to make sense of the world by constructing narratives and understanding based on our past history and our unique perspectives. We tell ourselves the story we need to hear in order to process and integrate our lived experience.

When we are crafting those stories we tell ourselves, we can find ourselves rummaging through the old card catalog files in our brain’s database looking for the genre that matches how we feel. Picture a dimly lit basement in an old library with sections labeled “Scaredy Cat” “Underachiever” “Timid Wallflower” “Too Much” or “Born Loser”. (I hope that imagery makes you laugh – It’s intended to help you get the bigger picture.)

If we keep going back to the same old resources as the basis for the stories we tell ourselves, then our series is not going to evolve. And there will be little room for our own character development. This is how we get stuck in the stories of our own making.

How often have you read a book or heard a podcast where someone shares just how stuck they were in an old narrative? They let a strong identity from a past chapter of their life take the lead role in all their unfolding newer stories. Once an addict, always an addict. Once a lost soul, always a lost soul.

Take a few minutes right now to think about all those things you believed were true about who you were as a child – and how you have shattered those limiting beliefs by all that you have actually done and accomplished over the years. Were you told you weren’t athletic but now you run races, play competitive tennis or belong to a local hiking club? Were you told you weren’t very smart, yet you have earned a degree or certification in a field that fascinates you?

Those limiting narratives stored in our dimly lit library are so outdated. It is mindlessly going back to that old reference material that limits our ability to shift our narratives. Of course we have changed — and so should the script for the stories we tell ourselves.

The proof is in the pudding.

The very same set of circumstances on any given day will end up with strikingly different stories. Many of the stories we tell ourselves depend greatly on how we are feeling in the moment and our ability to effectively regulate our emotions. The stories we tell ourselves are rather like a “choose your own adventure” book. There are endless possibilities.

We go in search of data from our past. We simply copy, cut and paste all the old familiar plots into the present story we are creating.

We do our best to make sense of what is happening right now pulling from past experiences – and frequently without any editing or updated research.

We even let our inner critic tell the story without a single challenge. This is precisely how we let something from our past foreshadow what might happen in the future – by staying in an old narrative that was never revised.

You landed that dream job but you tell yourself you will likely be unsuccessful, just like the last dream job you had. You make a new friend but you predict that over time, this friendship will also fade away like so many others. You pursue a new hobby but you tell yourself you will never master it like the others.

Not only are our brains meaning making machines, they are also prediction machines — and these two go hand in hand. If we don’t update old narratives, then we also limit our ability to accurately make better predictions.

Even if we don’t intentionally go in and update our old databases, we are ever-changing. Each experience we have shapes us in some way. We are constantly taking in new information, expanding our inner libraries and making genuine progress in many areas of our lives. The reality is that we don’t often flip the switch and explore the newest additions to our database.

Just imagine what incredible material you might find there! Dr. Ellen Langer, author of the Mindful Body, tells us that when we stay current with all the changes and experiences we have, we vastly expand our inner library. We can make any decision the right decision, because we have viewfinders that are more like kaleidoscopes than microscopes.

Dr. Langer reminds us that we have no way of knowing which was the optimum decision – staying in the old job or pursuing the new dream job. The pivot is in making the decision the right one. Was there something we could have done differently in the old job that would have restimulated our passion for it? How we will go into this new job — with a better prediction for its outcome, supported with new approaches to the opportunity? Either choice then becomes right choice.

The best way to help yourself become better at telling yourself stories that support you in positive ways is update your inner library resources. It is two fold — you need to update those old narratives and limiting beliefs and you need to get more creative with your predictions.

There is one more thing that requires our attention — we can work toward getting more comfortable with uncertainty. None of us knows what the future holds. We can stay gridlocked in our fears about the unknown or we can reflect on just how much uncertainty we have already experienced. Not only did we survive uncertainty, we grew through it!

When we were kids we had no way of knowing what our adult lives would look like. When we became parents, we had no idea what our babies would teach us and how remarkably unique each child would be. We learned to drive cars without power steering and we used paper maps for road trips. Today we drive cars with more technology built in than we could have ever imagined. We once took paper checks to a brick and mortar bank to deposit and get cash. Today, our phones have replaced every aspect of cash transactions.

We are not afraid of change in so many aspects of our daily lives. The last frontier to be explored when it comes to change and uncertainty are in the stories we tell ourselves.

When we tell ourselves better stories — chock full of diverse, colorful and rich real life experiences in our well lit, expansive inner database, we will live with more self awareness and creativity. The possibilities will be endless.

NOTEWORTHY RESOURCES:

Dr. Ellen Langer is an engaging and dynamic person who views life through a kaleidoscope lens. She opens us up to how remarkable it is to live life in a constant state of curiosity.

Get out of your head and into your life by harnessing that inner voice/inner critic that blindsides us time and again. You can also listen to Ethan Kross discuss his book on the Huberman Lab podcast.

Check out this Podcast episode with Dr. Marc Brackett and Dr. Becky Kennedy. Even if you aren’t a parent, what they discuss will expand your knowledge of emotional integration and regulation for the stories you tell yourself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6KYwizMW94

Self-Discovery & Sturdy Leadership

It was a handwritten note in an unexpected thank you card that opened my eyes. As I read what was written just for me, I had a realization that how my family member saw me and how I saw myself were one and the same. I was completely caught off guard by this moment. It was a graduation day for me too. Eight years of investing in self discovery and personal growth culminated in this moment where someone on the outside saw who I am on the inside.

How often do we reach a major milestone in our lives — get that diploma or promotion — and fail to synthesize how all that hard work, discovery and new information truly shapes us? To “synthesize” something means to “combine a number of things into a coherent whole.”

Perhaps that is the ultimate goal of self discovery and personal growth work – to take apart and rebuild a better framework and foundation for ourselves. The kind of framework that enables us to be consistent in who we are and how we show up regardless of the role we play or the company we are keeping.

Modern lingo calls this “being our authentic self” which sounds just a little too woo-woo and gauzy; a bit like having a fairy godmother wave a magic wand and we are instantly transformed. No wonder people get the big idea that it just means showing up unfiltered and fearless about being our raw selves. Children are authentically themselves and we all know the challenges that both kids and parents face.

We use the word “work” in association with personal growth, self-development and emotional regulation because it is work. We do have to learn how to use tools and skills instead of defenses and coping mechanisms. We have to practice these new tools in all kinds of situations in order to become skillful in all our human interactions.

It’s time we reframe self-discovery and personal growth as a fundamental stage in our adult development. It is a pivotal time to step back from the memorized patterns of behavior we learned in childhood and swap them out for fluid, flexible and healthier responses to life. A key aspect that is often overlooked and under-discussed is that we can “synthesize” what we learn about ourselves while we fold in better skills and tools.

Have you ever wondered why friends or colleagues see you so differently than your family members? Get your pick axe out and chip away at the obvious: Are you more “you” with them than you are at home? At home, do you feel like you have to make others happy, keep the peace and not speak up when you really want to? Are you more at ease with friends or at work in having hard conversations and speaking your truth?

In the self discovery process, we often find that we are more our “authentic” selves with some meaningful and mature filters when we are at work or with friends. Clearly we can do this — show up as our better selves and work harmoniously together.

The graduate level of self discovery and personal growth work comes when we start to practice our self-awareness and better skills in our most sacred relationships. This is not for the faint of heart.

We’ve all heard the profound wisdom that the only person we can truly change is ourselves. Yet bringing a changed version of ourselves into our family units is scary business. Each member of our family is quite familiar and even comfortable with how we are, how we show up. They are comfortable with our “unfiltered” self even if it makes them very uncomfortable. Our brains are prediction machines and our bodies are well trained to respond to familiar behavioral patterns. We memorize the patterns of anger, frustration, fear and dis-regulation of our family members and we rely on fight, flight, freeze or fawn to help us cope. It’s a comfort zone when we are in discomfort.

Think of this whole delicate dance like a game of Parcheesi — we just want to get to “safety” as quick as possible — and to allow our nervous systems to calm down. It is in this supposedly safe space that we make up a story to make sense of what just happened. It is also where we confirm (and memorize for future use) what worked.

When a child experiences a dis-regulated parent, they quickly learn what works to calm that parent. Feeling safe with the one person who is supposed to take care of them becomes paramount. The root cause of our unhealthy coping skills and dysfunctional behavioral patterns is from daily exposure and experiences of adult emotional dis-regulation. We humans co-regulate each other. But we should not be expecting our children to do the heavy lift of managing our adult unchecked emotions.

Take note of the reactions and behavioral patterns that you unconsciously fall into with your family members; and contrast that with how you respond in a similar situation with a stranger. Where are you most in control of your emotions and skillful in your responses? Most of us will agree that we act with more calmness and clarity when we are NOT emotionally triggered or intimately invested.

Our family members give us the greatest challenges and the biggest rewards when we are working on self-discovery and personal growth. It is the truest test of our ability to shift into a “sturdy leader” role for the people we love unconditionally. Like parenting, it is the hardest job we will ever do — and the most rewarding when we meet with success.

Remember though that our family members are very familiar with our old ways of reacting and behaving, so when we change and try new skills and tools — we have to be prepared for some pushback. It is not just our own pattern of reactive behavior that we are changing. It is also how that change messes up the memorized prediction process of our family members.

We don’t have a fairy godmother for this dichotomy either. We have to remain steadfast in our self control and courage. We are in this for the long game – and it will take tenacity and practice to stay the course.

This is why I like the term “sturdy leader” so much better than “authentic self”.

Ryan Holiday, author of the Daily Stoic, grounds us in this concept by reminding us to ask one big question before we react: “Given my current role, how can I contribute in a positive way?”

When we are at work or with our best friend, this happens so automatically that we don’t even need to think about it. We intuitively know that our role in these moments is to help others be successful. We offer support, scaffolding, empathy and calmness with remarkably fluid ease. We are not just authentically ourselves — we are sturdy leaders.

Dr. Becky Kennedy uses the term “sturdy leader” as a substitute for “parent”. Again, she uses a term that grounds us immediately in our current role. As a parent, we are incredibly careful to make sure our child receives the best environment to be successful when we choose a babysitter, a coach, a teacher or a camp experience. Dr. Becky reminds us that we have young children with developing brains that simply aren’t capable of emotional regulation yet. We are the training wheels for those little developing brains. Yet so often, we are not scaffolding our kids with some training wheels — we are simply showing them that we lack discernment and control too.

Imagine a set of cookie cutters handed down from one generation to the next. Patterns, if you will, that have worked for centuries to handle emotional outbursts and dysfunction. They are now rusty and misshapen, but we still use them. Doesn’t anyone want to get more creative with a dynamic new cookie shooter? We have better tools and resources available today for parenting (i.e. sturdy leadership) based in psychology and neuroscience. They are safer, healthier and more productive (just like car seats and bike helmets).

The goal of self-discovery and personal growth work is to become a consistent, sturdy leader. To synthesize who we truly are in all aspects of our life – and most importantly, in our relationships.

To synthesize means to combine and make a coherent whole. When we are invested in doing our personal growth “work” we are combining the best attributes of ourselves with healthy relationship skills and tools. Yes, we are our authentic self – but with diplomacy, integrity and values as guardrails. We are more grounded in who we are becoming – a consistent and sturdy leader.

When we can be more fluid stepping into our various roles — without shape shifting, people pleasing, and negotiating for our value — we strengthen the parts of us that we love the most. We bring the best parts of ourselves to the foreground. We are anchored in emotional integrity. This is how we become practiced in showing up consistently no matter our role and who we are with at the time.

Like anything worth pursuing, self discovery and personal growth require discipline, courage and daily practice. Too often we shy away from the opportunities to test our progress that is presented to us every day with the people we love the most.

Imagine what might happen if we had a family meeting and mapped out a fresh approach to helping each other with self discovery and personal growth? Even the kids would welcome this change. We can all be sturdy leaders for each other — and especially in families, because we get to practice taking turns doing just that. Some days we are better equipped to be the sturdy leader than others. Every family member gets opportunities to participate and practice new skills and tools. Rather than memorizing and mimicking old cookie cutter behavioral patterns, we get front line practice in meaningful life skills in the safety of our own home with the people who love us. This is the better framework and foundation we want to be giving each other. Sturdy leadership for every role we have in our ever-changing lives no matter the stage of life we are in. A nugget of wisdom here: teachers and students learn from each other; it is miracle grow for better responses to life.

Most of the trusted resources that I turn to for self discovery and personal growth work, will openly confess that this a lifelong process and one that only atrophies if we aren’t putting in the daily practice. Ryan Holiday says that parenting is one of the richest environments to test our mettle. In fact, he has Dr. Becky Kennedy’s book, Good Inside, at the top of his recommended reading list in his own bookstore, The Painted Porch.

It turns out that this “work” is as beneficial and rewarding as the workouts we do to stay physically fit. We know that we are up to the challenge when we are physically fit — whether that challenge is competing in a 10K or running across a busy street to grab our child chasing a ball.

Ryan Holiday urges us to be proactive and be at the ready when it comes to how we handle life and our relationships. Do the work — every day, he advises. Make self discovery and personal growth a priority so that you can be the sturdy leader your family, friends and colleagues every single day, in a variety of situations.

This brings me back to that handwritten card. The reason that it opened my eyes to the dividends that come from doing the “work” and putting in the daily reps, is that it felt like validation. The work is having positive impacts and is bringing me closer to being my true self no matter who I am with and the experiences we share.

I want this incredible feeling for everyone – a consistent and steady ease of being ourselves and being a sturdy leader for others.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

The Huberman Lab Podcast with Dr. Becky Kennedy https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/huberman-lab/id1545953110?i=100064685181

The Daily Stoic – Ryan Holiday https://dailystoic.com/podcast/

Dr. Becky Kennedy hosts her own podcast, has authored this book, Good Insider and has recently launched the Good Inside App. Her work and all her resources are changing how we parent and become sturdy leaders in all our relationshipshttps://www.goodinside.com

Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett gives us this quick read that explains all about our brain’s prediction processand how to vastly improve it.

Daily Supplements Make a Difference

Do you take daily supplements to support your physical health? Most of us do and we know that they make a meaningful contribution to overall wellbeing. It’s nearly impossible to get all of our vitamins and minerals from our food alone; thank goodness for supplements and the ease with which we can give our bodies and brains the boost they need.

The same is true for supplements that support our psychological, emotional, cognitive and relationship health — which is why I launched my Daily Gummy of Wisdom over a year ago. My commitment to publishing a Daily Gummy everyday was recently refueled by Ryan Holiday, author of the Daily Stoic. Ryan shared that reading a “page-a-day” book is an invaluable source of encouragement and support for our ongoing personal growth and self discovery.

Having that daily practice of reading a “page a day” of words of wisdom, insight and inspiration helps us to get our day off on the right foot – and can serve as a reminder of our intention to do a little better than we did the day before.

As James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, reminds us – it is the small, consistent practices we commit to each day that compound over time and yield remarkable transformational benefits. I can attest to the fact that reading several “page a day” books over the past few years has had a big impact on me in the most positive ways.

Over the past year, I have been delightfully surprised by the number of times that a reader would reach out to me and share how a Daily Gummy of Wisdom landed at just the right time for them. I have marveled at how many of the Daily Gummies were forwarded with personal commentary revealing just how relatable they are.

Today I am going to unpack what I am discovering as I put in to “daily practice” what I am deriving from my daily gummies of wisdom and insight.

A Daily Gummy About Boundaries:

I surely wish that I had learned about the many benefits of boundaries decades ago. What an indispensable tool for navigating relationships and experiences in a safe and practical way. Boundaries are just like the guardrails on a highway — they help us all navigate safely.

My “go to” approach in the past was to sugarcoat or disguise the fact that someone had crossed a line in our relationship. If I had been disrespected or a behavior was unacceptable, instead of addressing it directly, I would tell a story about a friend who was struggling with a similar issue. My blind hope was that the person who had overstepped a personal boundary with me would see themselves in that story and self-correct. Not only was this approach totally ineffective, it merely created a detour around an important issue. No one saw themselves in those stories. It was the equivalent of building an off ramp to nowhere.

The big pivot in setting and holding boundaries came to me when I learned that boundaries do not require the other person to do anything. I had been going about it all wrong. A boundary is the easiest way to let another person know what is acceptable to us and how we wish to be treated.

When others are having trouble being respectful or controlling their behavior, a boundary is how we say “I see you are having difficulty navigating this, let me help you with that.”

Brene Brown reminds us that “clear is kind”. Reframing a boundary as a clear and kind guardrail for relationships is a game changer. Being clear about unacceptable behavior and the action we will take if it occurs, puts us in the driver’s seat. We can navigate to a safer place and safeguard what matters most to us. It does not require the other person to do anything — but it does provide an on-ramp if they choose to take it.

Very few of us grew up learning about this invaluable tool. We were given ultimatums, threatened with a punishment, or told to go sit in isolation and figure things out by ourselves. Even today, many people believe that these outdated approaches are boundaries, but they are merely off ramps to nowhere. No one makes forward progress.

Boundaries are how we help ourselves and others build healthy relationships with mutual respect and clarity in how we communicate with each other. Clear is kind and consistency is strong reinforcement. That’s the materials that build healthy boundaries.

This Daily Gummy reinforces the ease with which we can help others navigate our relationships safely. Using clear and consistent boundaries is a much more productive way than skirting the real issue. Look for this Daily Gummy in your inbox on July 31, 2024.

A Daily Gummy about Perceived Weaknesses:

Anyone who is familiar with the Enneagram or a skills assessment personality test, will attest to the fact that we often view our weaknesses as fatal flaws. Imagine my relief when Adam Grant, author of Think Again, recently shared that we should “rethink” our attitude towards weaknesses. Adam’s research reveals that our weaknesses are often just overused strengths.

As a reformed people pleaser, I confess that my weakness was in fact a much over-used strength; one I learned very well in childhood. I was always told to “be the helper”. I was an over-achiever in the helper category, and by all means “over-used” the strength. The problem with helping too much is we make others feel incapable, can contribute to a chronic condition of learned helpless, or become enablers. It was through Ian Cron and his Typology podcast series that I discovered we can turn our weaknesses into strengths with healthy reframing. Reformed helpers can become coaches, mentors, cheerleaders and field guides for others.

Take some time to reflect on what you perceive as a “weakness” and see if you too can recognize that it might be an overused strength. If you are hyper-vigilant, you may take all the fun of spontaneity by doing a deep dive into risk assessment. If you are prone to perfection, you might wear yourself and others out with your attention to detail – when “good enough” might actually be perfect. If you perceive yourself as a fierce protector, you might actually be going to battle for someone who prefers to handle things on their own.

Some additional food for thought: It is not uncommon for us to assume that what appears to be a strength in others must be a weakness in us. We look around at others and compare ourselves — often wishing we could be a little more like a friend who seems forever fearless and takes big risks; or the one who is highly educated and speaks with authority in their field. Yet the reality is that our own perceived “weaknesses” might be hidden strengths in a variety of circumstances.

For most of my life, I was envious of friends who held very strong opinions and spoke with authority about those opinions. I believed that my inability to put a stake in a strong opinion was a weakness of mine. It was only in recent years that I came to appreciate the gift of being open-minded and innately curious. I thought my lack of ability to form and hold a strong opinion was a weakness; Malcolm Gladwell and Dr. Ellen Langer showed me a different perspective.

Malcolm Gladwell has long been a proponent of holding our opinions loosely. While he is comfortable with having an opinion he always adds the disclaimer — “for now” or “subject to change”. Malcolm has reflected on his own lived experiences as well as our collective ones and stands at the ready to pivot and re-assess — because change is the only constant. He often shares colorful stories of the many reasons he has changed his opinions or theories on things. He’s actually made a career out of it.

Dr. Ellen Langer, Harvard professor of psychology, and lifelong researcher of mindfulness, fully embraces her natural curiosity and ability to curate a plethora of opinions on any subject. In fact, she encourages us to greatly expand our own capacity to do the same. She considers this an update to our incredible brains and wants us to tap into its full creative capabilities. She invites us to practice becoming more open-minded by steeping ourselves in a variety of new experiences, having deep conversations with people who are different from us, read a new genre, discover new music or artists and challenge our own long-held opinions. I often envision Dr. Langer using a kaleidoscope as her lens on life.

So my takeaway from both Malcolm Gladwell and Dr. Ellen Langer was that my nature is not to form strong opinions – and that is more than okay. Viewing my “weakness” as a strength now enables me to engage in richer conversations with others who do hold strong opinions – for I have much to learn from listening to understand. Instead of being envious, I am now embracing curiosity and leaning in so as to cultivate the raw data my brain craves.

Watch for this Daily Gummy on weaknesses as overused strengths to drop on August 14, 2024.

We all unravel — sometimes it is a mid-life unraveling and other times it is a small, everyday of unraveling where we can’t seem to catch a break.

The unraveling that naturally occurs in life is yet another example of “I wish I knew then what I know now.” How different we might approach an unraveling if we were taught to pay attention to wear and tear in our lives, just as we are with our cars, our appliances, our clothes.

What if we were to reframe “unraveling” as a “revealing”? When we hit a breaking point or rock bottom, we take stock of what isn’t working in a much more realistic and accepting way. We can no longer ignore the places where we are coming apart at the seams. It becomes the time to mend our ways.

Perhaps one of the most transformational pivots about the psychological tool of reframing is how quickly it changes our perspective and allows us to see what had been long hidden in plain sight. What does the unraveling reveal to us? Now unraveling becomes a reset opportunity,

When we view an unraveling as a revealing exercise, we are able to meet these moments in our lives with greater courage; with more curiosity and less fear or shame. We can see the “wear and tear” we are putting on ourselves and our relationships with more honesty and clarity through the lens of self-reflection.

When we unravel, we do open up. Like it or not, it is the opening up to both reality AND possibility; it is as natural as this milkweed breaking open to reveal its seeds. Our own seeds of awareness move us toward acceptance of the places where we have room to grow or need improvement. We may need to ask some hard questions, but it is far better to do that than blindly wait for hard times.

We can become better at reevaluating our “unraveling” moments as a chance to discover what is being revealed to us when we recognize signs of wear and tear. We can also become more skillful at supporting others in their moments of unraveling. We can use the tool of reframing “coming apart at the seams or hitting rock bottom” to help others explore what is being revealed to them. We can become good listeners and strong support systems — for ourselves and each other.

This unraveling Daily Gummy was published on June 28, 2024. I heard from several friends how helpful this reframing concept was at that very moment. This is how the seeds of change not only get spread around – they get planted and watered as they are passed along.

The Daily Gummy of Wisdom is my daily newsletter that pops into your inbox each day bright and early. No scrolling necessary. It’s a page-a-day supplement for your personal growth, self discovery, emotional and relationship health. Click this link to sign up for the no-cost supplement to support your well being: https://inspired-new-horizons.ck.page/3381cf137f

Click this link to get the Daily Gummy delivered to your inbox:https://inspired-new-horizons.ck.page/3381cf137f

Creative Coalescing

A couple of years ago, I blogged about how excited I was to be discovering that so many diverse fields and modalities were beginning to intersect. Many of my favorite resources for personal growth and self development were referencing each other in their books and research papers. It was becoming evident that a lot of dots were being connected as neuroscience, psychology, parenting and emotional health began to swap knowledge and findings.

So many of the profound breakthroughs would have been worthy enough on their own, and yet it was putting all the pieces together that revealed a much bigger, more dynamic picture about our human evolution. What is currently underfoot is a creative coalescing of an all-encompassing understanding of how our brains and bodies actually work – and how this changes everything we once believed about the human experience.

We not only have more pieces of the puzzle — we actually have a much bigger picture.

Since the dawn of time, we human beings have been so busy “doing” the same things over and over, getting the life lessons repeatedly, but not really making genuine progress in a meaningful way. In fact, we have been making things much harder than they have to be for thousands of years. This is precisely why the philosophy and life lessons from the Stoics still resonate so deeply with us. Little has changed about the human experience, regardless of the time period we live in.

What is changing is our knowledge and understanding of the human body, brain and mind. We are now in the midst of a human evolutionary transition. Futurist Amy Webb recently shared with Brene Brown that fifty years from now, people will look back on this time period with great wonderment – we are Generation Transition.

I imagine my grandchildren who range in ages from 6 to 11, being in their mid-life fifty years from now – having had the benefit of better skills, tools, knowledge about their brains and bodies than all the generations before them — and how their lives will have been shaped in healthier, positive and meaningful ways.

It is impossible not to get excited and enthusiastic about ushering them into this new era of our evolution, armed with emotional integration, healthy psychological tools, and an understandable owner’s manual for their own body and brain.

Talk about being generational cycle breakers – no wonder we are Generation Transition. Maya Angelou has always told us that when we know better, we do better — and now we most definitely know better about how our brains work – and how to care for them.

This moment in our human evolution is one for the record books. How we meet the moments of our human experience is what is shifting — we are going to become proactive rather than reactive. We are going to be better equipped to deal with change and uncertainty with resiliency, acceptance, flexibility and curiosity. We will not be armoring up to protect ourselves, we will be gearing up for meeting the moment in profoundly healthier ways.

We are shifting in tandem across many disciplines to become proactive users of better skills and tools for ourselves, our relationships, for parenting, for our physical and mental health and overall quality of life. All of these pieces of our human puzzle were meant to work in harmony, yet we kept them compartmentalized. Now we know better.

We know that emotional integration is the missing link we got so wrong. As we are plugging this key component into our human operating system, so many other fascinating parts of our brain/body unity are lighting up and coming online.

The creative coalescing that I am seeing today is showing up in podcasts. In fact, podcasts may be the very alchemy that we need to keep up with the rapid pace of our collective growth period.

What makes podcasts so impactful is that they are real life conversations that engage us more viscerally — we almost feel that we are part of the discussion as we listen, nod, agree, push back and take in new information. The interplay of the podcaster and guest invites us to learn and integrate almost spontaneously. These rich conversations remind us that we are not alone. There is an instantaneous recognition that the vast majority of us are all grappling with many of the same life issues. We are collectively normalizing and demystifying the recurring problems and opportunities that humans have faced since the dawn of time.

Ryan Holiday recently shared in one of his Daily Stoic podcasts that we don’t have to learn all of life’s lessons the hard way. We can learn from other’s stories and experiences — and most importantly from their hindsight, insight and wisdom. This underscores the dynamic learning environment unique to podcasting. The creative coalescing is happening in real time on a continual basis as podcasters dive into deep conversations with very diverse guests and find common ground in what was once perceived as unrelated subject matter.

Let me share a few delightful examples of this creative coalescing. These are some of my favorite podcasts that support my own insatiable desire to learn and stay current.

The Rich Roll Podcast with guest Dr. Ellen Langer:

Rich Roll is an ultra endurance athlete and full-time wellness advocate. In a very relatable story, Rich hit rock bottom in his 40’s with his longtime struggle with drugs, alcohol and unhealthy living. He turned his life around and then turned to extend a helping hand to others who found themselves with similar struggles. Rich started his podcast in 2013 and often interviewed high profile athletes who shared similar life experiences.

On February 12, 2024, Rich Roll’s guest was renowned psychology professor at Harvard, Dr. Ellen Langer. They took a deep dive into her newest book, The Mindful Body: Thinking Our Way to Chronic Health. Dr. Langer is the most delightful and engaging guest for an inquisitive podcaster. She has the unfiltered curiosity of a three year old and a sense of humor to match.

Dr. Langer’s approach to mindfulness is not about sitting on a cushion meditating – it is about proactively living each and every moment steeped in mindful curiosity. She offered the most insightful nugget early on: “Everybody’s behaviors make sense to them; otherwise they wouldn’t do them.”

Rather than judging, hand-wringing or rushing to rescue when someone’s behaviors seem out of alignment, she challenges us to be open-minded and inquire — “what was your intention?“

This simple pivot moves us from being stuck in age-old patterns that feel like a tug of war and shifts us into becoming curious explorers. We not only change our “go-to” judgmental and knee jerk responses to others, we build a bridge to helping others become more “mindful” and self aware of how they get in their own way and may be negatively impacting their relationships.

When we change how we meet others and the events in our life, we facilitate collective change.

I loved this episode so much that I ran right out and bought her book, gifted a few copies and have been having the best conversations about it ever since. This is how the word is spread. How many other listeners have done the same and are bringing positive changes to their friends and families?

Since Rich Roll had Dr. Ellen Langer on his program, he has also had the following guests join him for more diverse yet inter-connected conversations:

February 22 – Charles Duhigg, Author of SuperCommunicators, discussing how to unlock the secret language of connection.
March 4 – Cal Newport, Author of Deep Work and Slow Productivity, talking about how to escape burnout, do your best work and achieve more by doing less.
April 1 – Dr. Daniel Amen, world renowned psychiatrist and author of Change Your Brain Everyday where they discussed all things brain health, dementia, Alzheimers and ADHD.
April 15 -Scott Galloway, co-host of the popular tech and business podcast PIVOT and author of the Algebra of Money, to talk about why vulnerability is power, healthy masculinity and financial security.
April 22 – Jonathan Haidt, author of the Anxious Generation and The Coddling of the American Mind, to unpack how social media is rewiring childhood.

Just look at that guest and topic list — this is the creative coalescing that I have been observing. Rich Roll is facilitating the coalescing by having so many diverse guests discuss their areas of expertise. It’s easy to connect the dots and see how insights from one conversation dovetail into another.

Re:thinking with Adam Grant Podcast:

Wharton organizational psychologist, Adam Grant, kicked off 2024 with a podcast episode on parenting. Imagine that – parenting!

On January 2nd, Dr. Becky Kennedy, one of today’s foremost authorities on a brand new model for parenting, had an awesome conversation with Adam Grant about bringing out the good in kids and parents. Dr. Becky’s parenting model focuses on integrating emotional intelligence so that our children get a complete operating system and the training wheels they need to understand it. This parenting model is a total 180 from the old one that did not integrate emotions and subsequently is the root cause of so much emotional misunderstanding and disregulation.

I have been a huge fan of Dr. Becky for quite a long time and I learned that Adam Grant and his wife are too. They have been following and implementing Dr. Becky’s parenting advice with their own kids. The positive impacts are evident for both parents and kids as Adam pointed out with some of his personal stories.

Dr. Becky shares short videos with her social media followers that are relatable, common and “spot on”– many of them created as she takes a break in her closet, or walking the busy streets of New York. She draws from her own parenting experiences, from her private practice and workshops. Every parent and grandparent will get something of real value from her clips – and often the practical advice she offers are good emotional tools for kids and grown ups alike. The reality is that since most of us did not learn about the meaningful role emotions actually play in our lives, we have to “unlearn” before we can teach this new and improved way of using our emotional intelligence.

It became very evident that the subject of parenting and Dr. Becky were becoming mainstreamed when Dr. Andrew Huberman also had her on his podcast on February 26th with the title “Protocols for Excellent Parenting & Improving Relationships of All Kinds. Just as I had observed in my own life, when we parent with better practices and tools, we also gain positive benefits for all other relationships. Yes, I did get goosebumps.

I found myself laughing out loud recently when during a recap of the Daily Show with Jordan Klepper, even he mentioned Dr. Becky’s rule of thumb for emotional distress. Once again, we see how the seeds of positive change are popping up everywhere.

Here’s another intriguing list of the diversity of subjects and experts in Adam Grant’s podcast lineup:

January 16 – Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett, psychologist and neuroscientist at Northwestern and Harvard – You have more control over your emotions than you think
January 23 – Susan David, psychologist at Harvard Medical School – overcoming toxic positivity
March 5 – Cal Newport (who was also on with Rich Roll) – How to be productive without burning out
March 26 – Charan Ranganath, psychologist and neuroscientist – the science of memory
April 16 – Anne Lamott, renowned author of 20 books and Adam’s favorite writer – her thoughts on love, writing and being judgy
April 23 – Kara Swisher, journalist, author and co-host of the Pivot Podcast with Scott Galloway (who was also Rich Roll’s guest) – on speaking truth to power.

I couldn’t resist sharing these compelling lists of topics and guests for two of my favorite podcast series. There is a lot of crossover and intersecting occurring – rather like a blurring of once solid lines between diverse fields. It is proof positive of futurist Amy Webb’s observation — we are all a part of Generation Transition.

Historian Ken Burns has noted that change happens at the edges. It made me think of Brene Brown who began her research on shame and vulnerability 25 years ago, just before 9-11. Her first Ted Talk on that very subject became an overnight sensation and rates as one of the most highly viewed Ted Talks ever. Brene wasn’t so sure that we were ready for discussions about emotions, vulnerability and human connection. Perhaps we were ready – or sensed that we needed to get ready.

Ready or not, we are at a tipping point in our human evolution with so much incredible new knowledge and insights to support the process. It is the first time that we have so much creative coalescing bubbling it all up to the surface. It is readily accessible, highly relatable, makes for engaging conversations and has positive benefits across all aspects of our health and well being.

What will you share about this moment in time – 50 years from now?

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

HUBERMAN LAB PODCAST
(science and science-based tools)
with Dr. Andrew Huberman

FINDING MASTERY PODCAST
(high performance psychology)
with Dr. Michael Gervais

RE:THINKING
(great minds don’t think alike)
with Adam Grant

UNLOCKING US
(conversations to unlock the deeply human part of who we are)
with Brene Brown

TETRAGRAMMATON (inspiration engine)
with Music Producer Rick Rubin

THE DRIVE (health and longevity)
with Peter Attia

WHERE SHOULD WE BEGIN
(step into the office of psychotherapist and learn from client sessions)
with Esther Perel

BEING WELL
(practical science of well being)
with Forrest and Dr. Rick Hanson

PIVOT
(all things tech and business)
with Kara Swisher & Scott Galloway

Good Bones

In my last blog post, I shared how integral it is to really know ourselves well — so that we stop the shape shifting we do unconsciously as we move in and out of the many roles we play daily. What we are striving for is a strong, consistent foundation for moving through life – no matter our role and responsibility, no matter the opportunity or the problem.

We have a whole new way of viewing self discovery and personal growth now. We are normalizing the obvious — we are always “works in progress”. We are going to be re-shaped and impacted in remarkable ways by life. The transformational pivot is how we re-frame this ever evolving, organic process. We start with a solid foundation of who we are, grounded in our values. Any renovation starts with the bare bones; the good bones are the core of who we are and who we are becoming.

If we use this metaphor of renovating an old house into our dream home, we can get clarity very quickly about self-discovery and meaningful change. When we see the potential in the “good bones” of a neglected house, we get super-charged about what is possible — and we get to work. We can apply this same approach to personal growth. It shifts our attitude in a whole new direction — it is fascinating, motivating and empowering.

Bear in mind that we are also bringing new tools and skills to our personal renovation process. We now know that the old parenting models hijacked emotional integration which is the most impactful key to really knowing ourselves and what matters most to us. We also know with great clarity that social norms compounded the problem and kept us stuck in limiting beliefs about our full potential.

There is a compelling reason that so many leaders in parenting, psychology, behavioral science and neuroscience point us to childhood to look for the root causes of our insecurities, poor coping skills and problematic behavioral patterns: Childhood beliefs can have a very strong grip on our sense of self, our beliefs about our potential and even our understanding of the world at large.

Here is the story of Florence Nightingale, one of the most heroic figures of the 19th century who saved countless lives on battlefields and in hospitals. Florence knew as a young girl that she wanted to be a nurse – it was her calling, her destiny. She wanted to revolutionize medicine and sanitary conditions. But it took her 18 long years to fulfill her childhood dream. What held her back? Not financial means – she came from a wealthy family. Not acumen – she learned, studied and had practical experience. What held her back was limiting beliefs – her own and others. She was afraid of “what a woman’s role was supposed to be.” It was also the fear of other people’s opinions – her parents held her back, her sister held her back and other people’s opinions hold her back. It was only when she freed herself from these limiting beliefs that she embraced and pursued her true destiny. As Florence journaled about her frustrations, she realized that she’d been “tied down with straw all along” — and she cut through the bonds that held her back. (special thanks to Ryan Holiday for sharing this story recently)

The story of Florence Nightingale shines a powerful light on the reality that old parenting paradigms, gender stereotyping and social conditioning keep most of us from tapping into the best versions of ourselves and discovering our incredible hidden potential. I often ponder how many inventions, advancements and breakthroughs were missed all throughout history due to the grip of limiting beliefs.

In his book, Hidden Potential, Adam Grant does a deep dive into the many ways we got things wrong about our ever evolving potential. He unpacks the distinctions between (a) character and personality and (b) values and beliefs. This sets the stage for building a strong sense of our own identity.

Have you had an overreaction to someone or something and later admonished yourself for “acting out of character?” What were you using as a benchmark for your character?

Most likely, you were acting from your personality and out of alignment with your values.

“Character is often confused with personality, but they’re not the same. Personality is your predisposition — your basic instincts for how to think, feel and act. Character is your capacity to prioritize your values over your instincts. Character doesn’t set like plaster – it retains its plasticity. — excerpted from Hidden Potential by Adam Grant

Kids operate instinctively on “personality” with young developing brains. Children need adult guidance to role model and teach character skills — and be the training wheels for emotional regulation.

If you grew up in a family environment where the adults operated mostly on personality themselves, or had a double standard for family values, it’s no wonder there is real confusion around your personality and your character. Many of us were labeled by adults for our personality traits — our basic instincts for how to think, feel and act. Those labels stuck. And the accompanying limiting beliefs gripped tight.

“The true test of character is whether you manage to stand by your values when the deck is stacked against you. If personality is how you respond on a typical day, character is how you show up on hard day. Personality is not your destiny – it’s your tendency. Character skills enable you to transcend that tendency to be true to your principles. It’s not about the traits you have — it’s what you decide to do with them.” — Excerpted from Hidden Potential by Adam Grant.

Dr. Becky Kennedy, the child psychologist who is championing the game-changing parenting paradigm shift, stresses the importance of emotional integration and teaching character skills throughout the 18 year apprenticeship that our kids have inside their family units.

Just imagine growing up and growing through life free of personality labels and limiting beliefs – scaffolded by parents and family members, as you build your own strong sense of self and foundational core values. There is no better springboard for entering adulthood.

Adam Grant next offers the critical distinction between our values and our beliefs. When we understand the integral difference between the two, we can see clearly that values become the foundation of our real identify (our strong sense of self) that we can build upon for the rest of our lives. This is why values become the springboard for building our lives. Beliefs can hold us back.

Values are what you think is important.

Beliefs are what we think is true.

Our personal foundation is built on our values — what we think is important. Our values create the focal point for where we spend our time, our energy and our resources. Our core values stand the test of time, are both durable and flexible. They become the scaffolding and building blocks for lifelong learning and evolving.

Our beliefs are subject to change and in reality should be updated and refreshed as we acquire new knowledge, more experiences, set new goals and broaden our perspectives.

Did you go into adulthood, marriage or parenthood with a strong sense of what mattered most to you? Were you determined not to do some of the things that your own parents did? Did you make a mad dash for the door when you reached adulthood so that you could go out and live your life just the way you wanted to? What a great place to start looking for the “good bones” of your foundation.

One of the biggest problems we have with separating out our “values” from our “beliefs” is that those childhood beliefs became very intertwined in our life stories growing up. It is hard to even see or think differently with all that overgrown prickly brush covering up the “good bones.” Florence Nightingale’s story is proof positive.

Whatever you long to be “free of” is entangled in limiting beliefs. Do you think you aren’t smart enough or courageous enough to pursue your “dream” career or start your own business? Are you overly concerned with what others might think if you colored outside the lines, took a big risk or moved far away? Do you make yourself small so that others feel better about themselves – and then find yourself resentful for not investing in your own big dreams, ideas and goals? Letting go of those limiting beliefs gives you the wiggle room you need to reimagine and reclaim who you are — and who you want to become.

Malcolm Gladwell invites us to hold our beliefs lightly. He will often offer his perspective on something and add the disclaimer — “for now” or “at this time”. He is clearly acknowledging that what he believes about a subject or idea is subject to change. For any of us who have lived multiple decades, we get this on a very visceral level. So many things in our daily lives have changed in the most astounding ways over the least 20, 40 and 60 years. What we once resisted is now a normal part of our everyday lives.

Take some time to reflect on your own childhood beliefs that got in your way growing up. Identify one or two things that you proved wrong to yourself and others. Reflect on some beliefs you once had that make you laugh today.

Adam Grant pointed out something that is integrally important to understand about an identity that gets built around beliefs. When our identity, our sense of self, is too closely linked to our beliefs (rather than our values), we will feel threatened when we change our mind about something. We will feel like we are “wishy washy”. We might even tell ourselves that we aren’t being true to ourselves if we change our minds about a strongly held belief.

If we are grounded in our values rather than our beliefs, changing our minds is as natural as changing our clothes. Of course we are going to change our minds — and our beliefs — about all kinds of things in our lives. If not, we would stunt our growth.

Adam Grant cleverly named his popular podcast “Rethinking”. Breakthroughs in neuroscience, technology and psychology are coming at us fast and furiously these days. Why not stay current and “rethink” old beliefs?

In his book, The First Rule of Mastery; Stop Worrying About What Other People Think of You, Dr. Michael Gervais adds even more context to limiting beliefs. Just like the vine that has a stranglehold on this tall tree, a narrow identity can never capture the full essence of who we are. The fear of other’s opinions can keep us playing a “narrow” game. Florence Nightingale didn’t want to rock the boat or risk being outcast from her family, so she limited herself to stay connected to them.

“When we have fused ourselves to an identity that is not true to who we are, or to an identity that’s too narrow to contain the whole of who we are, or to an identity incapable of incorporating new information and growing, the opinion of another can feel like an assault where our survival is at stake.” — excerpted from The First Rule of Mastery by Dr. Michael Gervais.

Returning to the metaphor of recovering the good bones of a solid old house, take some time to think about what you may have misunderstood about personality and character, values and beliefs. Take stock of the messaging you received in childhood and take into consideration what the social norms were when you were a kid. Begin your own personal growth renovations by building a foundation of core values that are just right for who you are today and who you are becoming.

Start to challenge your limiting beliefs — do they still hold true?

Once you really know yourself well, and you are anchored in your core values, you will find yourself using those values as a filter more consciously. You will discover that there are far fewer times when you feel like you acted “out of character.” This is living mindfully — noticing what is going through your mind before you act — and being more discerning in your response.

You’ll worry less about what other’s might think (and for the record, they are rarely thinking about you as much as you believe) and you’ll make decisions based on what is truly right for you.

Let Florence Nightingale be your reminder not to let your biggest dreams be sidelined.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

Adam Grant gives us a whole new framework for raising our aspirations and exceeding expectations. He shows us that progress depends less on how hard we work and more on how well we learn! Growth is about the genius we possess — it’s about the character we develop.

If FOPO – Fear of Other Peoples Opinions is a concern for you — you will love this book. Dr. Michael Gervais is a sports psychologist who has works with elite athletes, professional sports teams and entrepreneurs. The stories he shares will surprise you.

Arthur Brooks and Oprah Winfrey combine art and science to encourage us to Build the Life We Truly Want. The goal is not to arrive at a final destination of happy — but rather to be happier each and every day.

Connective Tissue

A few years ago, I started to notice that the more I was really getting to know myself, the greater my curiosity about others. Even when I watched a Netflix series or read a compelling fiction book, I found that I was more empathetic with the characters and their backstories. Truth to be told, I discovered that I could see parts of my own life reflected back to me in their experiences and reactions. It was also easy to see the patterns of cause and effect that we messy human beings bring to our relationships.

It dawned on me that I was now engaging with books and shows on a deeper level and I loved it. I was able to feel and relate to so many characters almost as if I knew them personally. The story lines and plot twists of shows like This is Us or Parenthood were intimately familiar. Some felt like they had been pulled right out of my own family history. It was easy to readily identify with characters and events because I too “have been there”.

Conversations with some of my closest friends revealed that the same thing was happening for them. As they deepened their own self awareness, they too were more intrigued by the complexity of their favorite characters in a book or tv series. They could recognize blind spots and insecurities that contributed to missteps and bad decisions.

Discussing episodes of these shows with friends was much like being in book club with a fascinating twist — our focus was on the whole of the family dynamics and how one issue could cause a cascade of varying problems amongst the family members. We could clearly see the through line that ran from childhood experiences right into the adult lives of each family member.

These mini series became a classroom for recognizing familiar behavior patterns and coping mechanisms. We got a zoomed-out view of how complicated families are. We gained a deeper understanding of what drives people to make some of the choices they do; again, because in many cases, we too “had been there”.

While my friends and I laughed that it is easy to recognize the many fault lines in family dynamics when we simply watching a show, we did agree that we gained from observing the bigger picture. These programs give the viewer a different vantage point; we get an abundance of nuance and context from so many different perspectives and experiences. That is rarely the same lens we use in our own complex family dynamics.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway is that we rarely know our family members as well as we think we do.

Another is that we rarely know the “whole” of each other.

The Bigger Picture:

I titled this blog post “connective tissue” because that is what we are growing and strengthening when we become cycle breakers and agents of change.

I am a firm believer that replacing that tightly woven yet constantly unraveling fabric of complicated family dynamics with healthy “connective tissue” is the ultimate safety net for our families and relationships.

Dr. Michael Gervais (one of the world’s top high-performance psychologists) shares this wisdom with us: “To lay the foundation for a strong sense of self, the prime dictum is to not focus on the self. The way to do this is not to think less of yourself, but to think of yourself less often.”

The real value of personal growth and self discovery happens in relationship with others. When we truly get to know ourselves well and change how we show up, that’s where meaningful change occurs. When we take Dr. Gervais’ advice to heart, we build a strong foundation of who we are and who we wish to become. We pay attention to how we get unmoored from ourselves in our relationships with others.

This is a giant step in building healthy connective tissue. It’s sticking to our core values and getting more consistent in behaviors and skills that match who we want to be. We can cultivate greater self awareness about how we show up at work vs. how we behave at home, how we act with parents and siblings vs. our own kids and friends. It’s exhausting to shape shift and adapt to all these different relationships if we are constantly matching the environment instead of who we really are at the core.

So often in the self help space, we are told to shed outgrown behavioral patterns that we learned in childhood. Yet they are second nature to us and fit like our favorite pair of comfy jeans. Eventually a good friend or our spouse is going to tell us that it is time to ditch the well worn jeans — they look terrible, no longer fit the body we now have and surely don’t match who we are today.

The same is true with childhood coping skills and poor emotional regulation. They are just old jeans that need to be tossed and replaced with something that makes us feel like a million bucks when we put them on. And while the jeans become a staple in our wardrobe, we can dress them up or down depending on what we are stepping into. Our strong sense of self is that great pair of new jeans. The jacket, the hat, shoes or other accessories are all the skills and tools we use when stepping into relationships with others.

A strong sense of self is our core foundation for everything we do and all the relationships we are in. We become more consistent in how we show up whether we are at home, work or community. When people describe us to others, they capture the essence of who we really are — across all our relationships.

A core reason why family dynamics are the most challenging is that we have a long history of shape shifting, people pleasing, shrinking or puffing up to get our needs met and to also feel a sense of belonging. One false move and we become an outcast. Misunderstandings, rifts and estrangements are so commonplace for this very reason.

Remember that takeaway from the mini series I mentioned above — We have no idea of all the nuance and context of our family members unique emotions and experiences. If we don’t even know ourselves well, how could we possibly know others? And if we are all donning different behavioral patterns to “make things work”, it’s unlikely anything actually stands a chance of working.

A little perspective here: Even if your sibling is only two years older or younger than you, their childhood experiences can be remarkably different. First of all your parents were not the same that they were when you came into the world. They learned a lot from raising you and they adapted in a lot of new ways. What might have changed in your parent’s lives in that time span? Job change, relocation, loss of a parent, health issues, financial struggles? Life events have an impact on parents and kids. If there is a five year or greater age difference in siblings, then essentially it can be like being raised in two remarkably different families.

Healthy connective tissue for family dynamics has to replace the old tangled web we weave by losing ourselves in multiple identities. No wonder our relationships are so complicated.

Our sense of self, our identity, gets shaped and molded like Playdoh when we are growing up. By the time we reach adulthood, we’ve been cut, pounded, stretched and kneaded so many times that we have a hard time figuring out who we really are. It’s unfortunate that most of our self worth and self identity is under constant scrutiny and subject to change at any given moment throughout childhood.

“The world will ask you who you are, and if you don’t know, the world will tell you.” — Carl Jung

Being a change agent and breaking generational family cycles, starts with us. Once we free ourselves of behavioral patterns that keep us stuck, we have more wiggle room for self discovery — and to forge the identity we truly want. We can spend our energy on getting consistent with who we are, rather than exhausting ourselves to fit in.

We need to get very clear on our own identity and self worth. Again, this is a familiar refrain in psychology and the self help space, but it is not cheap talk. It is only when we know our worth and what is critically important to us that we can use a relationship tool like boundaries. Boundaries help others recognize how we want to be treated. Every time you set a boundary, you are getting clearer with yourself about your value and worth.

For the record, when we use boundaries in parenting instead of punishment or dismissive attitudes, we are leading by example. We teach our children not only how to treat us and be respectful, but also how to use this invaluable tool in their own lives (both when they are young and when they are adults).

The fear of other people’s opinions is yet another detriment to really getting to know ourselves intimately.

Most of us lived in this thick fog of other’s opinions all throughout childhood; especially with those old parenting models that did not integrate emotions into our experiences. Kids were told they were too much, too sensitive, too bossy, too timid. First and foremost, we were labeled by behaviors and those identifies stuck with us. — you’re a jerk, you’re a good girl, you’re perfect, you’ll never amount to anything. Secondly, we had to wrestle with these assessments of who we were while trying to figure that out for ourselves. Most of our childhood behavioral patterns and coping skills are rooted in the “fear of other’s opinions” – at home, in school and beyond.

“Identity is our subjective sense of self built on our experiences, beliefs, values, memories and culture. It’s a set of physical and psychological characteristics that is not shared with anyone else. Often derived in relationship or comparison to others, our identity provides a framework to better understand our place in a complicated social world. “ — excerpted from the book The First Rule of Mastery by Dr. Michael Gervais.

“When we have fused ourselves to an identity that is not true to who we are, or to an identity that’s too narrow to contain the whole of who we are, or to an identity incapable of incorporating new information and growing, the opinion of another can feel like an assault where our survival is at stake.” – excerpted from The First Rule of Mastery by Dr. Michael Gervais.

When you let these two excerpts soak in, you can see why we get so confused about who we are. The first excerpt addresses how we make sense of the world when we are kids. It is a private internal narrative we create about who we are. We create it when we are young and powerless and that identify feels vulnerable and in need of protection even when we are older.

The second excerpt reveals why we develop coping skills and behavioral patterns. Our identity does leave us vulnerable to the slings and arrows of other’s opinions so we develop armor to protect who we believe we are.

It’s that armor that gets in the way of us really knowing who we are; and it gets very complicated by the fact that we keep returning to home base to figure it out. Yet, that identity we created at home when we were young no longer feels like it fits who we’ve become.

Without honest self-awareness, it is incredibly hard to see how we stay stuck in an identity we’ve long outgrown and how we stay trapped (especially in our families) in old limiting beliefs about who we are.

We are not the same person we were when we were 5, 10 or 15. We are works in progress throughout our entire lives. A pivotal shift in our mindset around our personal identity is to recognize and embrace this.

We change over time and that is a marvelous thing. We are not forever stuck in an old story, or shackled to a troubled childhood, or doomed to relive an old trauma like a recurring nightmare. We would never want this for our children. When we get clear about who we are, we can parent from our most authentic sense of self. It frees us from protecting our kids unnecessarily from the things that once had a big impact on us.

The benefits of “connective tissue”:

Just imagine the positive difference we are making for younger generations, when we steer them clear of the pitfalls that derailed us from building the life we wanted. Today we have better life skills and relationship tools to teach them. We have a much-improved parenting model and are integrating their emotions into their developing complex brains. We are validating each other’s emotions and experiences which is the preventative medicine for suppressed emotions and unprocessed trauma. We recognize that rupture and repair strengthens our relationships and builds enduring trust. In fact, we normalize the fact that ruptures happen in life and we have a responsibility to repair our most valued relationships. We are learning the integral role body budget plays in our daily lives and the importance of sleep for our brain health.

Most importantly, we can help our young people develop a strong sense of self and be the scaffolding they need through all the growth spurts and life changes they will surely have.

This is an extensive list of key components of “connective tissue” for our families. It’s so much more beneficial than what most of us experienced — because we don’t put each other in boxes, but rather we give each other room to grow – with a big safety net underneath. We encourage each other to explore, discover, stretch, try new things, experiment — with the confidence that they can express themselves honestly and will have the support and guidance they need and deserve.

Dr. Michael Gervais has a nugget of wisdom that he shares on his Finding Mastery podcast that serves as a core reminder for the changes we want to make: No one does it alone.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

If you struggle with FOPO –the Fear of Other People’s Opinions, you will love this book. Check out Michael Gervais podcast too — Finding Mastery

LISTEN TO DR. ANDREW HUBERMAN’S CONVERSATION WITH PARENTING GURU, DR. BECKY KENNEDY, author of Good Inside This Episode is entitled Protocols for Excellent Parenting and Improving Relationships of All Kinds https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/huberman-lab/id1545953110?i=1000646851810

If you are unfamiliar with Internal Family Systems, you might be surprised to learn that it is all about YOU not your whole family! Discover all the parts of you that have something to offer about what is most important to you and how to best take care of YOU!

Architects of Our Experiences – Part 3

Are you starting to realize just how much control you really do have to shape your life and experiences in remarkably beneficial ways? If you have read my last two blog posts about becoming Architects of our Experiences, you may already be discovering some changes in how you “meet the moments” in your life and in your relationships.

The more we know about how our brains and bodies really work – especially how they impact our wide range of emotions – the easier it is to get a little traction implementing better skills and tools for emotional regulation.

My guess is that now that you have learned a little about “body budget”, you are consciously and even unconsciously doing a little check in from time to time to look at your own “battery life”. You may even be catching yourself when you are “hangry” and choosing to be a little more emotionally in control than you would normally do. Congratulations…you are becoming an architect of your experiences!

It shouldn’t come as a big surprise that a balanced body budget is the foundational key to any self improvement initiative we might have. It’s just that we didn’t know about this connection until recently.

Think about how much harder we make things for ourselves in large part because we simply don’t have the energy or power; how often do we push through or burn the midnight oil? No wonder we get in our own way so often. Our best intentions are not enough to integrate real changes in our emotional regulation, relationship skills or healthy habit initiatives. We need a balanced body budget…..full stop.

This reality is bubbling up everywhere now, most notably in modern medicine, psychology and mental health. Although it is basic common sense, we overlooked this foundational principle for far too long. The intake process at the doctor’s, trainer’s or therapist’s office now includes an assessment of how well we are sleeping, eating, exercising and hydrating. In many cases, we are also asked how we are coping with life and navigating our relationships. It’s become evident that our emotional health can have a major impact on our physical and mental health.

Better intake, expanded assessment of our health and well being = more accurate and effective diagnosis and treatments. As Dr. Andrew Huberman has been promoting since the onset of COVID, there are so many no-cost steps we can proactively take to improve our physical and mental health as well as the overall quality of our lives.

The fundamental foundation for becoming skillful architects of our emotions and experiences is a balanced body budget. Sleep is the bedrock of this foundation.

In my most recent blog post about becoming architects of our experiences, I shared the versatile, multi-purpose tool of emotional granularity. Having this tool at our disposable means that we will become much more agile when it comes to emotional regulation. With a balanced body budget and emotional granularity, we are setting ourselves up for much greater success in all areas of our lives. We will be meeting the moments in our life better resourced than ever before.

Just imagine feeling grounded and clear-minded throughout most of your day. What would it feel like to know that you were not at the mercy of an emotional sandstorm that could blow in at any moment? This is what it means to be an architect of your experiences and emotions. You feel in control, you can more accurately assess a situation and more skillfully deal with it and others.

Emotional granularity is analogous to that intake process in the doctor’s office. If all that we can tell the doctor is that we have a pain in our mid-section, the doctor will probe for more clues. A physician always starts with foundational clues like heart rate, lung capacity and blood pressure. She gets more granular by asking about the level of pain, its frequency, any pattern when it flares. We might also go through a battery of tests for deeper investigation.

We can begin a similar “intake process” when we feel a core emotion like anger. If we are angry, it is just a warning light to get our attention. We need the details to clarify what we are angry about. We need emotional granularity to help us find context clues. Just like that investigation in the doctor’s office, we want to explore so we are treating the right problem.

Can you see the distinction? An unskillful “do-it-yourselfer” might run into a heated situation with a hammer and an accelerated heart rate. A skillful architect does a quick assessment of body budget, then reaches for that versatile multi-purpose tool and calmly assesses what the real problem is. A skillful architect develops a viable plan to solve the right problem with the right tools.

Happiness expert, author Arthur C. Brooks taps into this architectural approach by suggesting that we try “substituting” a better emotion for the one that doesn’t feel so good. Just like we choose the healthier option of an apple for dessert versus the cake, we can choose an emotion that will get us a better outcome. In the book, Build the Life You Want, Arthur even uses architectural language:

“Sometimes you want to replace some of your negative emotions with something that fits and is more constructive, leading you to act the way you want to, not the way you feel.” (excerpted from Chapter 3: Choose a Better Emotion in the book Build the Life You Want)

Ok, so let’s just pause here for a moment and really take in just how empowering it would feel to be able to pull this off a few times each day. Simply by paying attention to body budget and choosing emotions that better align with who we want to be, we would proactively practicing becoming an “architect of our experiences and emotions.”

And now, let’s add just one more component that will dramatically enhance your architectural prowess. Drum roll, please…..

Upgrading and Updating Our Brain’s Predictions:

Our brains are prediction machines, not reaction makers. Yet another thing that we got wrong, especially about emotions but also about how we engage with our experiences. Scientists have long believed that brain neurons were dormant until stimulated by something from our outside world. But thanks to major breakthroughs in neuroscience, we now know that this is not the case.

The neurons in our brains are firing constantly, stimulating one another as well as different regions in our complex brain systems. It is this very brain activity that represents the millions of predictions that our brains will make about what we will encounter next — all based on our lifetime of past experience.

This all happens so fast and so automatically that we usually aren’t even aware of it. We might even refer to it as our “unconscious”. The irony is that we can be very conscious of our past experiences –especially when we get emotionally triggered.

Anyone who has ever attempted to free themselves from an old emotional trigger or an overreactive behavioral pattern knows firsthand that it feels like a labyrinth. We even use metaphors in the self help space to talk about how hard this process can be: it’s a journey searching for clues on a jagged, rocky path through the thick entangled forest of our past. The definition of a labyrinth is a complicated, irregular network of passages or paths in which it is difficult to find one’s way. Sounds exactly how we describe self-discovery and behavioral pattern change.

Again, we have made this work so much harder than it has to be – because we misunderstood how our prediction machines work. If we want to vastly improve our predictions, we have to update and upgrade our internal data base. We do this by loading new content; adding richer, nuanced context; and curating a diversity of new experiences.

When we proactively update our inner database — our brains can make predictions that more closely match what we really want our lives to be and feel like and not reruns of unhelpful, old experiences. If we are trapped in the past with old emotional triggers and dizzying rumination loops, it is our brain retrieving old files to make predictions.

Your brain predicts and prepares your actions based on past experiences. Mental distress, anxiety and even old trauma arise from flawed predictions. Of course, these inaccurate predictions don’t feel good or correct in our present moment – they do not accurately fit our current situation. We get caught in a trap of outdated information that produces outdated, ill-fitting, unchecked reactions.

Think about all the ways that we have rather seamlessly updated how we do daily life. We are no longer tethered to land line phones or hanging laundry outdoors on a rope to dry. We aren’t using multi-folded, printed paper maps to navigate from one city to the next. We shop, transfer money, take photos and send emails on our phones all while waiting in a check out line.

We’ve got this — We already know how to update and upgrade our lives – and we have done it rather effortlessly — on the outside.

Now we need to do the same — on the inside.

We simply have to get intentional and proactive about upgrading and updating our internal database for much improved predictions. The bonus is that once we begin to integrate newer, more relevant information and experiences into our brain’s predictive database, we set ourselves up for greater success with each and every subsequent experience and interaction we have.

We begin to operate more fluidly and efficiently from a fresh, current database – not a relic from the past.

We know that our limiting beliefs, outgrown behavioral patterns and childhood social conditioning can be fossilized in our internal database. Because we misunderstood how our brains truly function, we just reinforced that old science too. We simply reinforced the old science by repeating our personal history – over and over again.

We are learning that neurons that fire together, wire together. By getting stuck in the past, we literally were dropping our needle on the same spot and creating a well worn groove for repetitive, familiar predictions. This is what we did with our old vinyl music records back in the day. No wonder those records would skip, slide past the next song or get stuck.

Now we have this groundbreaking neuroscience about how our complex brain circuitry really works. We now know that our brains are prediction machines not reactivity makers – and we are beginning to understand how neuroplasticity helps us to rewire our brains in healthy, optimal new ways. We can actually build new neural networks that operate more seamlessly like streaming music.

Here is an easy example to help us grasp the concept of neuroplasticity — of neurons that fire together wiring together. If we want to break an old habit, we are given all kinds of tips that actually disrupt the related neural pattern: don’t buy the potato chips, take a walk when you get a craving, replace the potato chips with almonds, etc. This is the equivalent of pulling that needle up and off the old groove; that habitual pattern of reaching for the bag of salty chips without much thought. Each time we disrupt the pattern, we tap into our brain’s neuroplasticity and create a fresh, new neural network. As it becomes easier to resist the chips, it is a clear indicator that different neurons are firing and wiring together – making us much more successful at resisting the urge to binge on chips.

For the record, it doesn’t mean that we won’t ever binge on chips in the future. But we will have greater awareness because of the new neural pathway and we might catch ourselves before we consume a whole bag. If we do fall off the wagon and succumb to the whole bag, when we renew our pledge to do better tomorrow, we are starting from a much improved baseline and not square one.

See the difference?

This is precisely what we also want to begin doing with our emotions and experiences. Disrupt the old outdated brain prediction that makes us feel reactive and out of control. Replace it with an emotion and response that feels better and more in line with how we want to show up in life. Create new and improved neural networks that strengthen over time. Toss out the rusty, dusty old files in our internal experience and emotion database – and update them with something fresh, that more closely matches how we want to feel and act, and is much more beneficial for our present moments.

There are two key ways that we can deliberately become proactive in housecleaning and updating our internal database: reframing and adding new concepts.

Reframing is simply getting a fresh perspective on an old familiar situation. Cognitive reframing is a major tool used in psychology for identifying and shifting how events, emotions, beliefs and old narratives are viewed. Reframing also serves to disrupt those well-grooved old stories and ruminative patterns.

When we reframe a situation, we not only get a fresh perspective, we are reorganizing our internal database. Reorganizing an old story or limiting belief, helps our predictive brain to use valuable take-aways from our experiences in more productive ways. This is how we can extract important lessons from our life experiences and learn from them rather than having the same lesson get repeated over and over without any real progress.

The second way to dramatically improve our predictions is by keeping our brains well stocked with new experiences, new concepts, new words and definitions. It turns out that being open-minded, curious and engaged in learning, is the portal for updating our prediction database.

See how we were making our lives, experiences and relationships so much harder than they have to be?

There are very simple things we can be doing on a daily basis to keep our prediction database fresh, updated, repurposed and creative:

Read – read a real book; reading from left to right stimulates the brain, engages learning and builds empathy. Read fiction and try a variety of authors and genres. Read non-fiction to engage learning something new and challenging.
Learn new words – words seed your concepts, concepts drive your predictions, predictions regulate your body budget and your body budget determines how you feel. The more finely-grained your vocabulary, the more precisely your brain calibrates your body budget (excerpted from How Emotions are Made by Lisa Feldman Barrett).
Watch movies or listen to thought-provoking audio content — this will broaden your perspectives and shake you free from old social conditioning. This is a great way to break out of echo chambers where we simple engrain over and over what we once believed or were taught. Often, we are unaware that we unconsciously do this — stay in our comfort zones and look for confirmation for our opinions and beliefs. Think of this like pouring a little water on a very dry sponge….you are just creating softness and the ability to absorb some new, possibly contradictory, concepts.
Be open to paradox — two opposing things can be true at the same time. Begin to notice how paradox shows up in nature, in our families and friendships. What one person finds thrilling, another finds scary (amusement park rides, movies and crazy drivers). Building a repertoire of paradoxical examples, stimulates our brain’s ability to be more creative, relaxed and receptive to contrasts.

If you can reach back and change how you feel about your past, your brain would predict differently – and you might act differently, and experience the world differently, as a result. Your actions today become your brain’s predictions for tomorrow. and those predictions automatically drive your future actions. (excerpted from 7-1/2 Lessons About the Brain by Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett)

The Wrap Up:

I hope you are amazed by the new path forward for our emotional intelligence and emotional health. No wonder we have struggled in every sense of the word to live more authentically. We’ve been working so hard to grow, to heal, to understand ourselves and each other – and we’ve been doing it with stale, constrictive, outdated information all while we were attempting to blaze more spacious and engaging new trails.

The springboard for building the life we want and living it with greater fulfillment, is taking care of our brain and body. This is the missing puzzle piece that we have been searching for. Go have some fun implementing these new tools and concepts. Discover the difference it makes today — and how it better prepares you to be flexible, resilient and creative tomorrow.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

Check out this resource to get some impactful highlights about your brain’s predictions – and dive into some of the resources suggested to learn more: Predicting Better. org https://predictingbetter.org

Check out this timely episode on the Huberman Lab podcast with Dr. Mark D’Esposito: How to Optimize Cognitive Function & Brain Health https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/huberman-lab/id1545953110?i=1000645842679

Architects of our Experiences

Surely you recall that childhood pleasure of a rainy day when mom or dad would drape blankets over couches and chairs, then stand back prepared to be amazed at what their creative little geniuses would do next. An ordinary living room suddenly transformed into a sensory wonderland that started with a simple blanket fort.

I came upon this sight a few days ago and marveled at the ingenuity of the little architects who began with a pint-sized castle that just kept morphing into something even grander with each “lightbulb” moment and the addition of another toy bin.

As the plans grew in size and complexity, there was a lot of trial and error. Shrieks of joyful delight filled the room as the framework collapsed and a new idea took shape from the rubble.

What a lesson to be learned from two small children actively engaged in an organic, evolving, complex and creative process. They were little architects of their playful experience.

Are you aware that we adults can become skillful architects of our own experiences?

It’s true — and the beauty of it is, we can tap into the creativity and positive outcomes that comes so easily to kids, by using our brains and bodies in a powerful new way.

Just imagine being able to construct experiences and supporting emotions that more consistently align with your goals and big aspirations. Fewer self-made obstacles, more smooth sailing.

Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett is breaking new ground in the science of emotion – overturning long-standing beliefs that our emotions are universal, automatic and hard-wired in different regions of the brain. Instead, we actually “construct” an instance of emotion through a remarkable interplay of our brain, body and our culture.

Anyone who has ever experienced a strong emotional trigger from an event that happened decades ago, has some appreciation for how quickly this remarkable interplay coalesces. It’s no wonder we believe it’s automatic and has become hard-wired into our systems.

And yet, we also know that it is possible to “re-wire” our brains and release old emotional triggers – freeing us from being snagged by that old experience over and over again. The neuroplasticity of our brains enables us to re-organize our old connections in new and improved ways.

This rewiring process is analogous to children reorganizing their fort framework to become something more useful for an even more incredible structural masterpiece.

It turns out that becoming “architects of our emotions and experiences” it is not as big a stretch that we once believed. How remarkable is that?

Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett is gifted at making this new concept readily accessible to all of us. There are three key components that we need to know more about when it comes to curating our architectural tool bag: body budget, emotional granularity and cultivating more current, diverse experiences.

Today’s post is the first in a three part series about becoming skillful architects of our experiences. Prepare to be amazed at the role our body budget plays in our emotional reactions to life.

Body Budget

A major part of becoming skilled architects of our experiences involves mastering our emotions. We erroneously believe that our emotions that are the first system to get activated — and we have to “manage” those strong emotions in order to respond effectively to our circumstances. But this is not the case.

What actually happens first is that our brains are estimating what’s in our tank and predicting how much of our inner resources are going to be required to meet the present moment. It would be analogous to us hopping in our car for a big road trip and looking at the gas gauge to determine how far we can get before refueling.

Our brains are only 2% of our body weight, but they use 20% of the oxygen we consume and 20% of the energy we consume. What our brains and bodies need in order to have a balanced body budget are consistent quality sleep, hydration, good nutrition and movement, i.e. regular exercise.

We are learning so much more than we ever knew about the importance of consistent quality sleep for our optimum brain health. Even while we are sleeping, our brain is storing and categorizing information, cleaning and purging, updating and rejuvenating. We are even cognizant of the disruption that caffeine and alcohol has on our sleep cycles and the integral neural processes that occur only during sleep.

The benefits of good nutrition, hydration and regular exercise are irrefutable. But while we know these components are needed, we often forget that we are also draining our resources throughout the day and should pay attention to when we need a break, should take a walk, or grab a healthy snack. How often are we literally running on fumes?

Let’s just pause here for a minute and think about the amount of time we devote to charging our phones, making sure we have 5g network and cooling it off if we get a heat warning. What if we were to become as knowledgeable about our brains which are operating 24/7 for us – and often without any awareness of the drain on our inner resources?

All this time that we believed we were at the mercy of our emotions, we may simply be attempting to function optimally on an empty fuel tank. Very often what we are “feeling” is not an emotion, but rather an indicator that our body budget is out of balance.

Since our brains are lightening fast at the estimation and prediction process, they get our body ready for a response that might include an increased heart rate, shallow breathing, or release of chemicals and hormones such as adrenaline or cortisol. We “feel” these sensations and “assign” an emotion to it. We might tell ourselves we feel scared, angry, anxious, uncertain, elated or surprised.

We’ve been doing this for most of our lives without a second thought, so it has become second nature to associate an emotion with whatever we are sensing in our bodies. Once we assign an emotion, we are off to the races – and often unconsciously,

Since our brains are prediction machines, it will quickly run through our historical database to find past events that simulate what we are feeling in the present moment. This complex retrieval system is on auto pilot most of the time; we are unconsciously running an algorithm that reviews our personal history looking for matches.

After the match is made, our amazing brain has one more remarkable feature — it runs a prediction error model. This is the brain’s way of giving us the opportunity to discard old data and replace it with newer, more appropriate data that suits the current situation.

For the record, we often bypass or override this integral prediction error process. If it “feels” like a past experience, we pull the “all systems go” switch. This is how we’ve forged our “go to” behavioral patterns and protective armor. Without a moment’s hesitation, we assign an emotion, recall a past similar experience and jump into a memorized and familiar reactive pattern.

When we are pivoting to becoming architects of our experiences, we can start to pay more attention to both predictions and prediction errors. We can take the time to see if we are simply relying on an old database that no longer serves us well. This is how we “re-wire” those old outgrown behavioral patterns and replace them with new responses better suited to our lives today.

If the first brain system to get activated is simply an assessment of internal resources that are needed for the present situation, then we can start paying attention to body budget first and emotional responses second. This is a game-changing pivot in both mindfulness and self awareness. Think of this as a little “self check-in”. Are you resourced internally? Have you assigned an emotion and if so, does it feel appropriate to the current situation?

If we can make the distinction that our body budget is actually causing us to be under-resourced and not some big emotional reactions, we can begin to dis-engage from strong emotional triggers and respond with more cognitive skills.

We think that emotional regulation is really hard and that changing our old behavioral patterns is even harder, but Dr. Barrett’s research is showing us that we just might have been making things much more challenging for ourselves all along by not understanding the role body budget plays.

It is the very reason that we have “variation” in our moods, emotional states and our ability to think clearly. Dr. Barrett offers us a welcome sigh of relief — it turns out that “variation” is the norm.

There are times when we do feel in control, cognitively and emotionally. We meet even the most stressful moments calmly, with a good sense of humor, a healthy acceptance of reality. We can even help others calm down and self-regulate when we feel this way.

Then there are times when we are short-tempered, can overreact to the smallest of events, or work ourselves into a state of frenzy. We set off a chain reaction of emotional reactions in others and things can escalate quickly.

Variation is the norm. And now we know what might be the real cause — a body budget deficit.

We get notifications throughout our busy day from our brains and bodies about what is needed to keep us running optimally. We even have terms we’ve created to diagnose our body budget deficits – such as hangry, brain fog, getting on our last nerve and no bandwidth. But unlike the ding of a notification from our phone, we often ignore the alerts we are getting from our brain about our own energy drain.

We frequently overlook the small investments we can be making all throughout the day to keep our body budget in balance. We may start with a full tank in the morning after a good night’s rest, a tall glass of water and a healthy breakfast; but we are going to begin to drain our body budget resources as the day goes on. Exercising, staying hydrated, making healthy choices for snacks and meals, taking breaks, getting outdoors, and unplugging from our devices are just a few of the multitude of ways we can restock our inner resources.

The biggest paradigm shift in understanding how we “make our emotions” is coming from a deep understanding of the role our body budget plays in our daily lives.

Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett is a pioneer in her fields of neuroscience and psychology – and she is helping us to get very savvy about our incredible, complex brain and body systems. If we take better care of ourselves, and pay attention to our body budget, this whole business of emotional regulation might just get a whole lot easier.

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