Tag: Esther Perel

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

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 2

Are you fascinated by this new concept where we can actually become “architects of our emotions and experiences”? This new approach is much more “hands on” when it comes to navigating life and sets us up for greater success to meet its ever-changing challenges and opportunities. 

This is the 2nd in a three part series on becoming skillful architects of our experiences. Today we are going to learn about a multi-purpose diagnostic tool we can put into our architectural briefcase.  But before we dive into learning what this dynamic tool is and how to use it, let’s do a quick review of the basic foundational tool from part 1 — our body budget.

In my last post, I shared how our body budget significantly impacts how we experience life. When we are well resourced, things go more smoothly for us. When we are running on empty, we create a lot of emotional turbulence. Surely, this was both eye-opening and pretty obvious.

When we are getting consistent deep sleep, eating nutritious food, staying hydrated and getting regular exercise, our brains determine that we are “fuel efficient”. We have the necessary internal resources to meet the moments in our lives with clear heads and the ability to be emotionally balanced. All we really need to do is pay attention to our brains and bodies just like we do the battery charges and wifi connections on our phones.

Author Ryan Holiday recently shared the HALT acronym to help us remember that our first line of defense when it comes to dealing with emotional turbulence is to assess our human “check engine” lights. 

HALT stands for Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired. HALT is a simple and very effective tool to remind us that these four common conditions can derail our best efforts to stay in alignment with our values. When we are feeling emotional turbulence, a quick check in on our body budget can prevent us from getting in our own way.

For the record, this is also a great tool to share with children. When kids are acting out, we can pause to think about when they last ate, if they had a disrupted night of sleep or skipped a nap, or if they have been buzzing from one activity to the next without some quiet time or a brain break. Before we overreact to an unacceptable behavior, we can think about their “body budget” first and foremost. When we teach our kids to check in with themselves, we are equipping them with a foundational tool they can use for a lifetime. 

 

Now let’s add a versatile new tool to our architectural briefcase.  The multi-purpose tool that is a “must have” for skillful architects of experience is emotional granularity.  This term may seem a little foreign but it’s easier to grasp if we think of emotional granularity the same way we think about the fine-grained distinctions in wood, textiles and even sandpaper.

Emotional Granularity:

The reason that emotional granularity has such a strong impact on our emotional experiences is because the true essence of our experience is in the details. That’s right, details matter. 

We mistakenly believe that there is uniformity in common basic emotion such as happy, sad or mad. Nothing could be further from the truth — variation is the norm; not uniformity. 

Bear with me here for a minute — and think about your own varied experiences of mad. You can be mad at yourself, mad at a circumstance, mad at another. You might be really mad about running late one day and not care at all the next. Sometimes your body budget is in deficit and you get mad a lot during the course of a day; other days, you are well resourced and unflappable. Do I see your heading nodding in agreement that “variation is the norm?”

If we limit ourselves to the three most commonly identified emotions – happy, sad or mad, we also limit our deeper understanding of what we are really feeling in the moment. When we can tease apart the details that accompany happy, sad or mad — that is when we get to the heart of the matter. This is the gift of emotional granularity – the finely tailored emotions that best reveal the heart of our experience.

Emotional granularity is an exploratory multi-purpose tool. It’s actually easier to use than we might think. We just need more practice and a bigger emotional vocabulary.  

Start with why. Why are you mad? 

Is it because you are frustrated, anxious and annoyed? Now, dig a little deeper to get to the fine grains of greater detail. Are you frustrated that something you are attempting to accomplish is taking longer than expected? Are you anxious because it is the third time this week you tried to finish a project? Are you annoyed that others aren’t respecting your need for uninterrupted time to focus? 

Emotional granularity brings out the relevant details — in the accompanying emotions and the backstory of each.

The more finely-grained distinctions we can make, the more accurately we can parse what matters most, or recognize that there are multiple layers to one core issue. We may even be surprised to discover that we have competing emotions – and both are true. We can be happy for someone else and feel sad for ourselves; that’s paradox.

Emotional granularity moves us in the right direction for self awareness and effective problem solving with more clarity than we could ever access if we stop at “mad”. 

The reason emotional granularity is a dynamic multi-purpose tool is that it helps us accurately express our feelings and experiences — AND it makes it easier for others to support us in constructive, beneficial ways.

We often hear that emotional intelligence is a key component for building a good life and meaningful relationships. Emotional intelligence is defined as our capacity to be aware of and control our emotions; and to handle interpersonal relationships with empathy and non-judgment.  

Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett emphasizes that the most invaluable asset for cultivating emotional intelligence is emotional granularity. The more finely tuned we can get about our emotions and experiences, the easier it is to regulate them and reframe our experiences. 

Not only does this support our efforts in achieving better emotional clarity and regulation in real time, it actually updates our internal database for the future. Remember that our brains are prediction machines. When we are able to reframe and reorganize our internal database by being more skillful with our emotional responses, we will vastly improve the accuracy of our future predictions. 

Yet another reason why emotional granularity is a dynamic, multi-purpose tool. It is a fast-tracked process of freeing us from old emotional triggers and outdated information from decades old past experiences. The better we get at using emotional granularity and becoming skillful architects of our experiences, the more traction we will have in building better habits and mature response patterns.

Emotional granularity helps us to level up. We get to know ourselves better through greater self-awareness. We become more skillful at unpacking multiple emotions that are interlaced with our current experiences. With this improved awareness and clarity, we don’t drain our body budget so quickly. We have greater access to self-compassion which turns on our parasympathetic nervous system which also positively supports our body budget. We get better at emotional regulation and it becomes easier to clearly express to others what we are experiencing and what we actually need in the moment. Not to mention the added bonus of automatically updating our brain’s complex interactive systems with invaluable, current and relevant data for future reference.

Have some fun with this new tool – explore the many emotions that you feel whenever you get that initial hit of a core emotion like mad, sad or happy. Become curious when you are with others when they are sad, mad or happy and ask questions to better understand all that they are feeling in the moment. Compare your findings with your friends and family. This is how we help ourselves and others super boost their emotional intelligence and become more skillful architects of their own experiences.

Quote from Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett, author of How Emotions Are Made

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

To help you expand your emotional vocabulary, read Brene Brown’s most recent book, Atlas of the Heart. Brene offers relatable stories and detailed definitions for 87 of our common emotions and experiences. Better yet, she has organized this invaluable resource by highlighting how we typically feel under certain circumstances. The chapters invite us step into “the places we go when….” When we compare, feel uncertain, when we are hurting or fall short.

Check out Dr. Marc Brackett’s newest app How We Feel. Dr. Brackett is the Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and author of Permission to Feel. There are over 200 emotions to explore in the How We Feel app!

Click this link to go to the website https://howwefeel.org and learn more about the app and how you can use it to help you build your emotional awareness and vocabulary in real time.

This quick, relatable read will stimulate your appetite to learn more about becoming an Architect of Your Experiences. Awesome insights into how our brains and bodies actually work.
If you are fascinated by neuroscience and love a deep dive into science and psychology, then treat yourself to How Emotions are Made. This book and Brene Brown’s Atlas of the Heart are reference books for our home libraries – the kind we will return to again and again!

Our Collective Emotional Health Journey

This is the third part of my latest series of blog posts focused on all that we are learning about the integral importance of our emotional health — and how to proactively engage in a healthy emotional lifestyle.

The first two parts of this series focused on the breakthroughs in psychology, neuroscience and psychiatry that have created better parenting models, vastly improved therapy protocols and perhaps most importantly – destigmatized a lot of what we believed about “mental health.”

If you’ve followed along in this series, you’ll recognize the overarching theme of “mapping how we got where we are, and how we can better prepare for our future journeys through life with the firsthand knowledge we’ve gained from our past experiences, and the newer advancements and tools available to us now pertaining to emotional health.

In each of these posts, I am highlighting two influential change-makers who are instrumental in helping us navigate emotions more skillfully, both individually and within our relationships. You may already be familiar with the change-makers I share today — they are becoming household names- and for good reason. Both Dr. Andrew Huberman and Dr. Paul Conti are having meaningful impacts in our knowledge about preventative mental health care.

“Compassion, community and humanity are intertwined in that they exemplify the full expression of who we are as humans. Compassion enables us to care about other people, to relate to them with kindness, and to consider the world from their perspective. Community is the embodied acknowledgement of our interdependence with other people — our behaviors affect one another.” – Dr. Paul Conti.

Back in 2010, Dr. Bruce Perry sounded the alarm on our escalating empathy poverty in his book Born for Love. It was almost as though he had a crystal ball and could see what our future would hold if we continued to operate without empathy for each other and especially for our most vulnerable – our children. He educated us about the need for relational webbing especially for children since their complex brains develop more slowly than any other species on the planet. He was dipping our toes in the realization that emotional integration was the missing piece in our internal GPS; and that we need to provide scaffolding for each other, especially during emotional duress. Empathy helps others feel seen, heard and believed. It can change lives; even save lives. Empathy is integral for healthy brains, to process and heal emotional trauma, and to be in stable relationships with others.

You’ll recall from my last blog post that this is exactly what Uncle Marvin did for Dr. Marc Brackett when he was just a young adolescent. Uncle Marvin listened to Marc’s stories with empathy and gave him “permission to feel.” It was the empathic support that Marc so desperately needed and it changed his life; it fuels his passion to teach us to become emotion scientists and to help children do the same.

It’s becoming more clear every day that when we know our own inner emotional landscape with greater clarity and understanding, we become more attuned to others’ emotions. We are less judgmental and more curious. Their stories matter to us because they give us valuable information to best support them. Simply put, we become more empathetic and compassionate with others. It has taken a very long time for us to heed Dr. Bruce Perry’s warning about empathy, but at long last we are now paying attention.

Empathy is becoming such a guiding principle that now it is even embedded in Artificial Intelligence and Large Language Models. Reid Hoffman, co-founder of Linked In and Inflection AI, has been instrumental in launching a pilot version of generative AI that is powered by a neural network model built on extensive data about human emotions and interactions. This new AI is Pi, the personal intelligence chat bot designed to respond to your inquiries in an emotionally intelligent manner. Imagine that, even artificial intelligence is being trained to be friendly, compassionate and empathetic.

We have the rare dynamic opportunity to show up more compassionately and empathetically in our personal relationships — and to be positive contributors to the growing data base for artificial intelligence that is also emotionally intelligent. That’s right, we can be part of the change we would like to see in the world — especially for our children — and believe me, our children will be using AI. Just check out Pi for yourself and you will see how young people are actively engaging with it right now — and how thoughtful and emotionally skillful the responses can be.

Today I’ll introduce you to two of my long time favorite change makers. They feel like friends to me because I soak up all that they teach through podcasts, books and interviews. They both have learned so much from each other’s fields of research, and they have supported each other through life’s challenges and healing personal growth work in large part due to their deep, connected friendship. It is not at all surprising that they recently teamed up to present a 4-part podcast series on “understanding and assessing our mental health”.

Dr. Andrew Huberman, Huberman Lab:

Andrew Huberman is a neuroscientist and the host of the #1 Health and Fitness Podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. He is an associate professor of neurobiology at Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Huberman launched his highly popular podcast, Huberman Lab, in the midst of the pandemic because he wanted all of us to have access to the information we needed to take care of our health in a proactive way. Compelled by a strong desire to make a difference in a time of major crisis, he educated us about how our brains and bodies operate and how to optimally care for them especially during long periods of uncertainty and anxiety. Very few of us really knew just how important quality, consistent sleep is for our brains, bodies and immune systems – but over 4.2 million people do now thanks to the Huberman Lab podcast.

Andrew Huberman heeded his intuition’s call to action to help us learn more about our brains, the breakthroughs in neuroscience and how we can proactively improve our mental and physical health. His podcasts make this learning so accessible to all of us.

In the spring of 2023, Dr. Huberman invited Peter Attia onto his podcast to discuss his book Outlive. Dr. Attia, a Stanford/JohnHopkins/NIH trained physician, has devoted his medical career to enhancing our longevity; most notably our ability to live longer, with a vastly longer health span and much shorter disease span. It was during this podcast discussion that Dr. Peter Attia shared that our emotional health is the most integral part of longevity, health span, and a deeply satisfying life.

Dr. Peter Attia also shared personal stories about his own emotional health and his road to healing with the help of Dr. Paul Conti, Terry Real and Esther Perel. In my first blog post of this series, I highlighted Terry Real, founder of Relational Life Therapy and his ability to help his clients understand how the impacts of their childhood are causing great difficulties in their current lives.

Dr. Peter Attia knew this firsthand – because in spite of building the life he wanted that included a successful career, marriage and children – it was his unchecked emotions that put all of that in jeopardy. He opens up about these painful truths in his book – and he did the same in his podcast conversation with Andrew Huberman.

It is these honest stories about the struggles we all are quite familiar with, that open up the much needed conversations about how we address mental and emotional health, both individually and collectively. Once Dr. Attia shared his emotional outbursts and the collateral damage they were causing to his family and relationships, it made it easier for others to do the same. This is the power of empathy.

Dr. Peter Attia subsequently invited Andrew Huberman to be his guest on his own podcast, The Drive; and it was during that conversation that Andrew opened up about his own struggles in childhood due to family dysfunction and all the trouble he got into as a result of either running from or numbing to the situation. Another relatable story that mirrors so much of what Dr. Marc Brackett experienced in his youth. In Andrew Huberman’s case, it was Tony Hawk’s parents that gave him some much needed relationship scaffolding. They made a lasting impression on a young Andrew stranded in Northern California when they took him in for the night after a skateboarding competition, taking him out to dinner, being empathic and non-judgmental and providing empathy when it was needed most. They were the mentors and role models that Dr. Marc Brackett encourages us all to be.

Can you begin to see how empathy opens us up by reflecting on our own life stories and offering to others what we ourselves also need. We need to be the Uncle Marvin’s who listen to learn what is really going on and to give others permission to truly feel all their emotions.

As Dr. Bruce Perry wrote in his most recent book about empathy, aptly entitled What Happened to You, we need to understand how our childhood shaped us and our emotional mapping. When we hear these vulnerable childhood stories of struggle and disconnection, we see our own more clearly. In turn, we become more aware that everyone has stories about feeling like they didn’t belong, about trauma or abuse of some kind, bullying, body image issues, feelings of unworthiness or not being smart enough, of being too needy or too distant.

Dr. Andrew Huberman launched his podcast in the midst of a pandemic to provide a public service. He believed that if we only knew the simple, no-cost steps we could be doing to help our physical and mental health, we could build stronger immune systems and each be a part of the solution. Using his highly successful podcast platform, he is now turning our attention to emotional and mental health – for this very same reason.

The proof was in the pudding – three friends, former colleagues, all had adverse childhood experiences that lingered long into their adult lives. Andrew Huberman, Peter Attia and Paul Conti all entered the health field but pursued very diverse branches of expertise. Yet now, their fields are converging and they all point to our emotional and mental health. Both Andrew and Peter turned to Paul Conti, a psychiatrist, to help them with counseling and therapy. In the process, they learned his own story, deepened their friendship and began to see how their respective fields fit together to solve another big human problem.

If you look at the trajectory of their work and their platforms, you can plot very clearly that the pandemic was a pivot point for this deeper dive into the prevention and proactivity approach to our emotional and mental health. The proverbial silver lining in that dark cloud.

In recent months, Andrew Huberman has had a number of noteworthy guests on his podcast to discuss how emotions and social factors impact children’s learning; how to foster growth mindsets in ourselves and our children; how to work on behavioral changes; the impacts of social isolation; and how risk taking, innovation and artificial intelligence transform the human experience.

Just a few weeks ago, his guest was the surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, about the challenges we face with public health. Included in this extensive conversation were the impacts of social media and the growing epidemic of loneliness and isolation (especially in teens and seniors).

Dr. Andrew Huberman is most definitely a change-maker — and he has fast become a household name. He has successfully created a huge interest in learning about how our brains work. It is unlikely that any of us would sign up for an adult neuroscience class at the local college, and yet there are millions popping those earbuds in and tuning in to listen to Andrew and his guests teach us what we need to know about our personal data processor.

The best part is that his followers are implementing best practices to improve their mental, emotional and physical health. More sleep, less alcohol, more exercise, less doom scrolling, more empathy, less isolation.

Dr. Paul Conti, Psychiatrist, Consultant, Author:

Dr. Paul Conti’s bio will tell you that he is adept at helping people untangle complex problems. He takes a holistic view of each client, to help them recognize the interconnedness of our past to our present, as well as our work lives and personal lives, of our individuality and our relationships. There is a very complex, integrated, inter-connected system at play in all of us. (Just as Dr. Richard Schwartz espouses with internal family systems and his book, No Bad Parts.)

In 2021, Dr. Conti published his revelational book, Trauma, the Invisible Epidemic. How remarkable that the COVID-19 pandemic would present an analogy that we could all viscerally wrap our heads around:

“A wise response to a viral pandemic is to become more closed until a vaccine becomes widely available. A wise response to a trauma pandemic is to become more open so that we ourselves become the vaccine.” — Dr. Paul Conti

Dr. Paul Conti was a recent guest on the Huberman Lab podcast and over a series of four episodes, he and Andrew Huberman provided an extraordinary public service about mental health. While this deep dive may seem unappealing and overwhelming, what you will discover is that Dr. Conti’s soft spoken demeanor, his humility and humanity, and his simple metaphors make a complex subject very accessible.

Here are highlights from each of the four segments. All of this content comes from Dr. Andrew Huberman’s show notes for each episode which aired throughout September, 2023.

Episode 1 – How to Understand and Assess Your Mental Health:

Dr. Conti defines mental health in actionable terms and describes the foundational elements of the self, including the structure and function of the unconscious and conscious mind, which give rise to all our thoughts, behaviors and emotions. He also explains how to explore and address the root causes of anxiety, low confidence, negative internal narratives, over-thinking and how our unconscious defense mechanisms operate. This episode provides a foundational roadmap to assess your sense of self and mental health. It offers tools to reshape negative emotions, thought patterns and behaviors — either through self-exploration or with a licensed professional.

Episode 2 – How to Improve Your Mental Health:

Dr. Conti explains specific tools for how to overcome life’s challenges using a framework of self-inquiry that explores all the key elements of self, including defense mechanisms, behaviors, self-awareness and attention. We also discuss our internal driving forces, how to align them and ultimately, how to cultivate a powerful “generative drive” of positive, aspirational pursuits. Dr. Conti also explains how to adjust your internal narratives, reduce self-limiting concepts, overcome intrusive thoughts, and how certain defense mechanisms, such as “acting out” or narcissism, show up in ourselves and others.

Episode 3 – How to Build and Maintain Healthy Relationships:

Dr. Conti explains how to find, develop and strengthen healthy relationships — including romantic relationships, work and colleague relationships, and friendships. He explains a roadmap of the conscious and unconscious mind that can allow anyone to navigate conflicts better and set healthy boundaries in relationships. We also discuss common features of unhealthy relationships and clinically supported tools for dealing with relationship insecurity, excessive anxiety, past traumas, manipulation and abuse. Dr. Conti explains how, in healthy relationships, there emerges a dynamic of the mutually generative “us” and how to continually improve that dynamic.

Episode 4 – Tools and Protocols for Mental Health:

Dr. Conti explains what true self-care is and how our mental health benefits from specific self-care and introspection practices — much in the same way that our physical health benefits from certain exercise and nutrition habits. He describes how the foundation of mental health is an understanding of one’s own mind and the specific questions to ask in order to explore the conscious and unconscious parts of ourselves. He describes how this process can be done either on our own, through journaling, meditation and structured thought, or in therapy with the help of a licensed professional. He also explains how unprocessed trauma can short-circuit the process and how to prevent that, and the role of friendships and other relational support systems in the journey of self-exploration for mental health. People of all ages and those with and without self-introspection and therapy experience ought to benefit from the information in this episode.

It is not necessary to listen to all four podcasts in the order in which they were presented to glean valuable insights that we can put into practice right away. However, each one does build on the foundational metaphor of an iceberg — our consciousness being the tip that juts out above the water; and the much larger unconscious part of us that drifts and drags underneath the surface. It is the unconsciousness that gets us into turbulent emotional waters. We’ve all heard this iceberg metaphor used often in personal growth and mindfulness arenas — but Dr. Conti’s explanation will crystalize what once seemed pretty murky.

Throughout the four part series, Dr. Conti anchors us to this important mental health work with two verbs — Agency and Gratitude. Again, we have often heard these two words bantered about a lot as though they are the fast track to personal growth and mindfulness. But they are not adjectives and they are not static.

In his book, No Bad Parts, Dr. Richard Schwartz describes “agency” as being “self-led”. We are adults now who have worked very hard to build the life we want. We are investing time and energy in our careers, we have chosen spouses and are raising our precious children. The catch is that we often self-sabotage our best intentions and hard work because it is the unconscious part of our iceberg that pulls us out of our agency and back into old habits and patterns. As Dr. Conti unpacks this for us, we come to have a greater appreciation for the value of pausing long enough when big emotions are hitting us to course correct. We can make conscious choices to respond more appropriately – and to be consistent with our emotional regulation in order to be good role models for our children; and to be better partners in our relationships.

As for gratitude, Dr. Conti reminds us that it is not just making a list at the end of each day. He stresses the importance of focusing on gratitude as a verb. Showing up in life with gratitude – for what we are able to do, for our diverse resources and tools, and for the people who support us.

We can be enthusiastically grateful for the breakthroughs in neuroscience and psychology that help us actively participate in shifting from old faulty models of parenting and relationships into healthier, integrated ones that break generational cycles.

Dr. Conti invites us to take a serious inventory of the places and times that our life gets out of balance. Are we able to stay more emotionally regulated at work or in public than we are at home and in our closest relationships? Do certain people trigger us and amplify strong emotions, while others seem to have a calming and uplifting influence on us?

Dr. Conti uses a cupboard metaphor as a compelling visual for this inventory. Take a peek inside your various cupboards and discover the different coping skills and self-regulation that you use ion different roles in your life. Investigate how you handle things when you are sleep-deprived, on overload, or feel resentful. What helps you get back to an emotional baseline when you are triggered? Sometimes our cupboards are bare; sometimes they have some expired items that are no longer working.

You will find the PDF’s that Dr. Conti provides in the Huberman podcast series to be very helpful guides for these metaphors and for the proactive, preventative mental health practices he espouses. The 4 part series is a worthwhile investment of your time if you want to gain real insight into a proactive, preventative approach to mental and emotional health.

SUMMARY:

Today, I pulled together a few critical pieces of our collective journey. We now know that Dr. Bruce Perry’s wisdom about our empathy poverty was spot on. Empathy plays a vital role in building the connections we all long for — and that science has proven — supports our most valuable relationships — those with our children and our partners. We live longer and healthier when we are deeply connected with each and supported by each other.

Friendship is often the engine of change and healing. We are not meant to do our inner work and emotional healing alone. It is far better done with others that we trust and who are good role models. We need emotion scientists and emotions mentors. We can become the relational web and scaffolding for our families and friends. It is especially good to have a buddy with whom to do some of this inner investigative work. Why? Because we are not alone — and we do see ourselves in each other’s stories. When we feel heard in a very meaningful way; we feel like we belong.

People who have done their inner work often pursue fields that take what they have learned to a whole new level. All three parts of this current blog post series on proactive and preventative emotional health have showcased such people. What these change-makers need are followers; they need others who take the courses, who soak up the knowledge, who put the practices into action. Then they need us to tell others our experiences with our own changes. When we give each other our personal examples of how this inner work and new tools, have dramatically improved our lives, we offer encouragement for others to try it out as well.

Do you know who the most excited little sponges are? Our children! When we begin to teach our children that they do have permission to feel their emotions and we start having calm, supportive, inquiring conversations about their feelings, we get tangible evidence of the power of empathy.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

Click this link to listen to Part 1 of the Mental Health Series with Dr. Andrew Huberman and Dr. Paul Conti https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/huberman-lab/id1545953110?i=1000626920013

You can use this link to discover all the episodes of the Huberman Lab podcast. This link will take you to Andrew Huberman’s webpage: https://www.hubermanlab.com/all-episodes

Use this link to go to Dr Paul Cont’s webpage to learn more about him and his book, Trauma, The Invisible Epidemic. Read endorsements from the Greater Good Science Center, Lady Gaga and more. https://drpaulconti.com

The Natural Next Steps

When I began my personal growth journey, the buzzword that was catching on was “mindfulness”. Time Magazine touted mindfulness as the new science of health and happiness in 2016. The message was clear — we are time travelers, often letting our minds wander to the past or future. We were being urged to find our balance and be more fully present in the moment.

It became very evident that in addition to time travel, our monkey minds were filled with an inordinate amount of chatter. So, meditation was introduced as the tool to help us stay more present in the moment. The internet was abuzz with “how to” practices and new meditation apps were hitting the market with a fury.

We were being reacquainted with something we take for granted — the power of our breath to regulate us. We were told to pay attention to our breathing and to use it as a grounding tool when we felt distracted or emotionally overwhelmed.

At the time, I recalled how I was taught the Lamaze method of breathing in my early twenties to help me through the labor and delivery process of my first baby. The seed had been planted that a few deep breaths could help keep me stay calm under pressure. Over the course of many decades and a lot of high stress parenting moments, I often told myself – and my kids – to take three calming breaths. I remember my dentist laughing when I shared with him that I used the Lamaze method more often in his office than when I was delivering my babies.

So, I had a lot of “buy-in” and actual experience when it came to the “breathing” component of meditation; but like most, I struggled with the traffic jam of racing, competing thoughts whenever I attempted to “meditate”. I could use my breath to slow my heart rate and calm my body. The next big step was learning how to manage the 60,000 thoughts create so much distraction every day.

That’s where mindfulness played a key role in what was touted in 2016 as the new science of health and happiness. Mindfulness was the buzzword and the trend that shifted our awareness. We began to cultivate greater “self” awareness.

Self-awareness helped us recognize when our minds had wandered off on a trip to the past or the future while we were playing a game with our kids, or enjoying a delicious meal with our family. Meditation practices helped us hone our focus and attention muscles. The goal was never to eradicate our 60,000 thoughts a day; it was to become more discerning about the ones we actively engaged with and to help us stay in the present moment with greater frequency.

The new science behind mindfulness was helping us to understand that time travel to the past often put us in negative ruminative loops and time travel to the future could make us worry and become anxious. We were missing out on gathering up and storing all the positives that were occurring in the present moment. The benefits of being present in the moment was being able to steep ourselves in moments of pure joy, delight and strong feelings of happiness. It was being more keenly attuned to gratitude – both giving and receiving it. It was also the recognition that this present moment may be the very one we had worked so hard to make come true. The science was telling us that our happiness is most salient when we live in the “now.”

Meditation was the term and the tool introduced to us to help us better understand all that our amazing brains are capable of doing when we choose to be consciously engaged in all its features. It became the gateway for learning about neuroplasticity and how neurons that fire together wire together; in other words, how we can create new neural networks throughout most of our lives. Our interest in meditation greased the wheels for us to take a deeper dive into learning how to care for our complex and incredible brains.

It was the Mindfulness trend in 2016 that put us on the path of greater access to the knowledge, tools and resources we have to do a much better job of caring for our brains and improving the quality of our lives as a direct result. Change-makers are coming onto the scene with relatable content, using layman’s terms and helpful metaphors to teach, getting us engaged and excited about all sorts of new approaches to parenting, relationships, education, counseling and therapy.

It is now the fall of 2023 – and the natural next giant step in the science of health and happiness has crystallized into mental health and emotional health. We now know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that if we want to live longer, happier and healthier lives, we need to integrate emotions into our operating system and we need to take brain health and hygiene seriously.

Where we once believed that only those with very disregulated, dysfunctional families were predisposed to mental health issues, we now know better. We also know that being well resourced both physically and emotionally is how we build resilience, courage and flexibility for the inevitable challenges of life. Furthermore, we are just beginning to fully grasp the negative effects of disconnection and loneliness, especially in our teens and elders.

Let’s take a look at some of these change-makers:

PARENTING:

Scroll through your favorite social media platform today for parenting tips and you will most likely discover Dr. Becky Kennedy, a children’s clinical psychologist who made a big pivot from old school parenting and psychology to a vastly improved integrated approach to help children struggling with their big emotions and problematic behaviors. She transformed her practice when she and her colleague launched “Good Inside” in 2020. If you are a parent, grandparent or child caregiver, you will find Dr. Becky’s teachings invaluable; and you will be leveling up your parenting skills in a whole new way.

On her website, Good Inside, Dr. Becky offers insights about herself and her professional practice. It is proof positive that all that we have been learning about childhood development, our brains and bodies, and our emotional health are shifting how we approach age-old problems.

Dr. Becky introduces herself as a clinical psychologist, mom of three and founder of Good Inside. When she first started her career, she practiced a popular “behavior-first” “reward-and-punishment model” of parent coaching. She shares that “after a while, something struck her — “those methods feel awful for kids and parents.” She got to work, taking everything she knew about attachment, mindfulness, emotional regulation and internal family systems theory– and translated those ideas into a new method for working with parents.

“By focusing on the parent behind the parenting, and the child behind the behavior, we help families heal — bringing out the good inside everyone. ” (Excerpted from her Good Inside website)

What Dr. Becky came to realize as she transformed her methods and her professional practice is that we cannot teach what we do not know or skillfully use ourselves. Since none of us were taught about how the brain works or emotional integration and regulation, we were simply using the same parenting practices that keep perpetuating behavioral problems.

This is precisely why we reached a tipping point in our need to change our understanding and approach to mental and emotional health. Generation after generation had just continued down the same path, passing the baton of problems, dysfunction and disregulation to our children, until it reached a collective crisis level that could no longer be ignored. The children of each generation were surrounded by adults who did not know better. Parents, teachers, coaches, mentors, grandparents, siblings and friends — and even well intentioned counselors — were all coming at behavioral problems and addictions with the same outdated, unhealthy approach and model.

As the mental health industry began to recognize that many of the root causes of behavioral issues and addictions could be traced back to childhood, it became evident that the old parenting model and lack of emotional integration into developing brains and bodies were the core sources of our collective human problem.

We should be breathing a collective sigh of relief.

We can move forward from here with greater understanding and deeper empathy for ourselves, our parents and each other. No one is alone in doing the work that will help us live better, healthier and with greater inner resources.

Now you know why Dr. Becky’s following is growing exponentially. She has over 3.1 million followers and that number will surely swell with the recent release of her Ted Talk “The Single Most Important Parenting Strategy”. Today’s enlightened parents are clamoring for the improved skills and tools to raise their kids in emotionally healthy ways.

Dr. Becky is a change-maker for a growing parenting movement.

RE-PARENTING OURSELVES:

A few short years ago, I participated in a Relationship Summit with Terry Real, the highly regarded family therapist and author of I Don’t Want to Talk About It and his newest book, Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build A More Loving Relationship. During the Relationship Summit, Terry would often share real life examples from his couples counseling sessions. He made the keen observation that few spouses were willing to make any changes for their partners even when their marriages were on the brink of failure. However, when he asked a troubled partner about their relationship with own their children, everything shifted. As he helped his clients see their offsprings’s experiences through the lens of their own childhood, most parents were broken open. Spouses might not change for each other, but they can be deeply motivated to change for the sake of their children.

As Terry so wisely counsels — we need to care for our inner child and we need to reparent ourselves. This is part of that “healing process” that Dr. Becky promotes as well. It shifts us into raising our kids with the safety, security, acceptance, trust, guidance and respect we wished we had received. This is how we break disregulated generational cycles and shake off societal conditioning that negatively impacts our most cherished relationships. Many of us grew up believing that emotions were either good or bad; that anger was only ok for boys to show; that behavioral problems in a child should be punished. None of this is true.

Marriages are saved and strengthened when we no longer show up with all that childhood baggage and child-sized emotional behavioral patterns. Spouses who go for couples counseling often discover that the root cause of their marital issues came from their childhood experiences of marriage and family.

Here is where Dr. Becky’s work with children, and Terry Real’s work with couples really synch. Both are addressing childhood attachment styles, parental behavioral patterns, emotional triggers, poor coping skills and the long lasting impacts of internal family systems.

Couples who take this work to heart often find a lot of common ground in how they want to be parenting their children in a healthy and unified way. They can also find more common ground in their marriages and help each other in their own “reparenting process”. The places where we are most sensitive, needy and emotionally disregulated become opportunities for deeper connection and not the barriers to a healthy, happy and fulfilling marriage.

The truth is that we can do our inner work at the same time we are teaching it. It is a win-win situation since children give us such rich opportunities for real time, real life practice in dealing with a wide range of ever-changing emotions. Now that we know that our spoken and implied messages to our kids become their inner voice, we can be pre-load their inner voice to be an encouraging best friend, not a harsh judgmental critic. We can “re-parent” ourselves while we are teaching our children using this better parenting model. We can actually “feel” this loving, trusting reparenting occurring in our own bodies, when we are caring for our children as we had wished to be cared for when we were little.

In the recent Huberman Lab podcast series dedicated to mental health, Dr. Paul Conti, explained why we succumb so easily to auto-pilot for habitual, problematic behavioral patterns. When we were kids, we learned what patterns kept us safe and connected. We memorized these patterns for years. Anytime we feel those old familiar feelings, we replay the memorized pattern. It’s our “go to” move when we feel vulnerable. We unconsciously repeat our habitual patterns even though we now have agency to change them. This is the very reason that our emotional triggers from childhood can still have such strong impact even decades later.

With the new parenting model, and the science that helps us understand the “mechanics” of changing our brain’s memorized patterns, we will stop resisting the need to change our outgrown childhood behavioral patterns.

Terry Real is a dynamic change-maker, especially for older adults, who not only are saddled with outgrown childhood behavioral patterns, but are also constrained by old gender stereotypes and societal conditioning.

In this blog post today, I highlighted two “change-makers” who are making waves and making a meaningful difference because they have done their own inner work — and then found a way to take what they learned out into the world to share with others. The ripple effects are transformational for parenting and marriages.

There are multiple “movements” that are gaining traction as a direct result of the newest science of health and happiness because of breakthroughs in mental health and emotional health. In upcoming posts, I will be shining a light on these movements and the dynamic change-makers who are making these movements dynamic, relatable and impactful.

In the meantime, click the links below and get to know Dr. Becky and Terry Real.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

Dr. Becky Kennedy was featured in Time Magazine in 2021 at the Millennial Parenting Whisperer
https://time.com/6075434/dr-becky-millennial-parenting/

Check out Dr. Becky’s GOOD INSIDE website — and be sure to sign up for her newletter. https://www.goodinside.com

Follow Dr. Becky on your favorite social media platform, including Instagram and Threads. Her short reels offer a daily dose of parenting reality with humor, relatability and a nugget of helpful advice.

Click this link to watch Dr. Becky’s TED Talk on the single most important parenting strategy https://www.ted.com/talks/becky_kennedy_the_single_most_important_parenting_strategy

Terry Real is a family therapist and founder of Relational Life Therapy- a revolutionary new approach to couples and individual counseling. Old counseling models kept us stuck in looking only at surface problems and not the root cause of our disharmonies. Click this link to go to Terry’s website and discover the plethora of resources he offers to help you build deeper, more rewarding relationships. https://terryreal.com/relationship-online-courses/

“Nothing is more important in our lives than our relationships. A great relationship boosts your immune system, opens your heart and keeps you vital and creative.” –– Terry Real

A Tipping Point for Our Lifestyle

There was a time when physical fitness wasn’t such a compelling component of our daily lives. Many of us were “weekend workout warriors”. That’s when we would carve out the time to go for a run, take a long bike ride or hike through the local woods. It was in the early 1980’s that a growing awareness of the importance of regular physical exercise intersected with the invention of the Nordic Track and commercial gym memberships expanding to a broader audience. The Nordic Track became a highly popular Christmas gift that held a prominent space in the living room or bedroom for a few glorious weeks. It wasn’t long til there was a lot of humor being shared about the Nordic Track becoming an ingenuous clothing rack by the end of January. While that Nordic Track might not have “fast-tracked” us to include physical fitness into our daily routines, there was in fact an upward trend in the growing awareness of the long term benefits of regular exercise.

Here we are decades later, and most of us have fully integrated some form of physical exercise into our daily routines. We wear fitness trackers to count our steps and measure our heart rate. We speak the lingo with ease – resistance training, VO2 max, zone 2 cardio, grip strength and core balance.

How did we get from weekend workout warriors and Nordic Tracks that morphed into clothes racks to this whole new lifestyle that includes consistent physical fitness? It was that upward trend catching big momentum – for all the right reasons.

And here we are now – at the tipping point of yet another upward trend — proactively attending to our mental and emotional health. It’s going to transform how we integrate tools and practices to support our mental and emotional health into our daily lifestyle. It’s going to dovetail with our commitment to our physical health because they go together like hand in glove.

Just a few short years ago, this would have seemed highly unlikely.

When it came to our mental health, the focus had always been on the pathology. No wonder we had so much stigma associated with mental health. We waited until there was a serious issue and then asked “what’s wrong?” or “who has some diagnosis of a mental health problem?” Treatments were often bandaid solutions to ease anxiety, but not uncover the root cause of the anxiety and fear. Health professionals were treating the symptoms and not the core problems. Because of the stigma associated with mental health, many people tried to power through their emotional and mental health struggles on their own.

We wouldn’t ignore a concerning physical health problem indefinitely. The same is now true for our emotional and mental health. Early intervention, paying attention to the warning signs and getting the support we need is now viewed as normal, healthy and empowering.

We are normalizing what we once kept hidden and that is shifting us to investigate why we react to life as we do. We are beginning to understand how our brains work and what they need to function optimally. We took our brains for granted – and yet they are running our daily lives. With all this groundbreaking knowledge, we now have an invested interest in being proactive about brain health.

We are learning why sleep is key for optimal brain function and health. We are also learning the importance of hydration throughout the day for our brains; and the effects of caffeine, sugar and alcohol on our brains and sleep cycles. We are getting morning sunlight to set our circadian rhythm and dimming our lights an hour before bed.

This upward trend of weaving mental health into our lifestyle is already showing up in our daily lives. Our fitness devices track our sleep cycles and we are now sleeping in darker, cooler bedrooms. Mattresses and comforters are featuring temperature controls to cool our bodies down to proper sleeping temperature and then warm us up just before waking. We take “sleep stack” supplements before bed just as we take probiotics and vitamin supplements in the morning.

There’s nothing like a few new products to really nudge us along on that upward trend; that’s how the momentum builds for our new integrated approach to mental health. Our children will be learning about their brains in this brand new way, all while also implementing healthy brain hygiene. This is how our human evolution advances us – one generation at a time, adapting and adopting what we are learning.

Knowledge is empowerment.

Where we once believed we had no agency over how we were “wired”, we are now learning that the neuroplasticity of our brains allows us to proactively create new neural pathways to help us build — and maintain — positive, meaningful changes in our mental and emotional health.

Just like the previous upward trend that spurred us on to take our physical health seriously and to be proactive in maintaining healthy physical bodies throughout our lifetime, we are now at a tipping point for positive brain health integration.

In a recent Huberman Lab podcast, Dr. Paul Conti (Stanford University graduate, psychiatrist and author), pointed out that most of us know an incredible amount of information about our physical body and anatomy. It is also very complex, with many moving parts that integrate rather seamlessly. We can readily self-diagnose when something about our physical body hurts, is not working well, has a bug or virus. Dr. Conti believes that we can also learn about our brains and mental health in the same way.

We can start by taking better care of our brains through sleep, hydration, self-awareness, healthy coping skills and improved emotional regulation. as the foundational building blocks for proactive positive brain health.

Once we have laid this foundation, we will be more receptive to taking the next transformation steps. It is analogous to taking better care of our physical bodies with rest and proper nutrition — and then easing into a diverse, and sometimes challenging fitness regimen. Just like we build muscle strength and endurance in our bodies, we can be building better neural networks and muscle memory for our emotional and mental health.

Mental and emotional health has taken a giant step forward.

Although our brains and emotions drive much of how we show up in life, they were often relegated to the back seat. Think about that — our premier operating system was a back seat driver that we usually ignored.

Now we know more and we know better how to care for children’s developing brains and how to take care of our own adult brains and install valuable upgrades. We are realizing that emotions are a feature not a bug and we need them to help us make decisions about what is most important to us. In fact, emotions are are core ingredient to our overall happiness and fulfillment in life. All those emotions that we stuffed and suppressed were roadmaps for life. Is it any wonder we got so lost and misdirected?

We have been operating on a very outdated autopilot for far too long. We have ignored the lessons and guidance from our back seat drivers. Our unconscious mind is a like a five year old in the driver’s seat, stretching up to see out the windshield while straining to reach the gas pedal.

Over the next few weeks, Andrew Huberman and his guest, Dr. Paul Conti, will be offering a four part podcast series entitled “How to Understand and Assess Your Mental Health.” I have found Dr. Cont’s insights to be revelational and eye-opening.

I will be distilling this four-part series into blog posts over the coming weeks with great enthusiasm. If you are also fascinated by this upward trend that is rapidly gaining a lot of momentum, take some time to listen to the podcast series and check back for future posts about the healthier trajectory of our mental and emotional lifestyle.

Just imagine how incredible it will be to know as much about your amazing brain and mind as you do about your physical body!

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

September 6, 2023 Episode: How to Understand & Assess Your Mental Health with guest, Dr. Paul Conti https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/huberman-lab/id1545953110?i=100062692001

Here are the show notes for the first episode in this series

https://podcastnotes.org/huberman-lab/guest-series-dr-paul-conti-how-to-understand-assess-your-mental-health-huberman-lab/

Daily Gummy of Wisdom RoundUp

One of the most rewarding experiences I have is recognizing when there are a lot of synchronicities in play amongst a diverse community of people from whom I am learning all kinds of things. And this has been happening often in recent weeks. I hope you will enjoy this Daily Gummy Roundup that highlights what is top of mind for many right now:

This Daily Gummy of Wisdom was shared just yesterday, on September 3rd, 2023. Here is what I offered:

We all experience those moments when difficult emotions make us just want to cry. We should have a good cry –it’s good for us.

Crying helps us to reduce stress, helps to alleviate physical pain by releasing oxytocin, which is our body’s natural pain reliever for both physical and emotional pain. Children cry automatically when they fall and get hurt – and now you know why this is such a normal, natural reaction.

Tara Brach, renowned psychologist and meditation teacher, offers us this acronym – R A I N – to help us appreciate the beneficial impact of being with our emotions. It seems such a fitting metaphor to tap into the health benefits of crying. Let it R A I N.

R – Recognize what is happening

A – Allow the experience to be there, just as it is

I – Investigate with care and interest

N – Nurture with self-compassion; treat yourself as you would a good friend.

A good cry and this tender self compassion practice is as beneficial as a much needed rain shower for a parched plant. Rather than ignore or dismiss difficult emotions, take a few moments to feel the RAIN. Let the tears fall, take time to be with your emotions and experience. Nurture and care for yourself just as would for your child.

Just this morning, one of my favorite business and tech resources, Professor Scott Galloway, shared a Harvard Health review on the psychological benefits of crying — along with his personal insights that young men are even more afraid than older men to be seen crying. For the record, Scott is busy writing his next book on contemporary masculinity. This is a subject very near and dear to Scott’s heart as the father of two teenaged sons. Scott has long been a proponent of helping our young men integrate the full scope of their emotions into their developing bodies and brains, dropping old stereotypes and societal conditioning about men and their emotions, and the importance of having quality male role models especially for elementary and middle school aged boys. It is not at all unusual for Scott Galloway to push the envelope in the right direction, so it was no surprise (and every encouraging) that he would be promoting normalizing crying for men — especially younger men.

We can start this game-changing pivot by responding to our little boys and girls without any gender bias. They are simply small human beings with very few emotional resources and skills, yet — and their brains are not fully developed enough to support what we often expect of them. Let’s normalize crying for our boys with the understanding that their bodies and brains are supporting them in a very natural, normal and psychological healthy way. Let’s encourage men to cry too – and let’s not judge them for expressing deep emotions; let’s have a deep appreciation for their capacity to be that in touch with what matters most to them.

This Daily Gummy of Wisdom was shared on August 31st, 2023:

You can read a lot of books and listen to many inspiring podcasts, but if you don’t put into practice what you are learning, you aren’t really going to be seeing real progress.

Brene Brown once had a great conversation on this very subject with James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, where she talked about buying a Peloton, making space in her basement, shopping for cute workout clothes and new sneakers. Great big intentions — and the hardest part was actually putting on the clothes, walking to the basement and not only getting on the bike, but actually doing a workout. This is a fitting analogy for doing our self-discovery and personal growth work. We can cultivate greater self-awareness and make a list of the habits and behaviors we want to change, but if we aren’t putting in the “reps”, we won’t be building new muscle memory with the better skills. Here’s the thing — we usually know exactly “when” we should be responding differently, but if we just fall back into our normal default patterns, it is the equivalent of staring at the Peloton and wishing we were raising our heart rate and strengthening our quads. Wishful thinking will not make it so.

Self-awareness helps us recognize where we need or want change.

Catching ourselves right before we default to old habits is the next step.

Putting into practice a better response or choice is where the rubber meets the road. The goal is not to be perfect — it is to get better, more often.

The small consistent practices are what bring about sustainable, reliable change. Put in those reps. Just two or three a day are much more beneficial than wishful thinking.

I wrote this Daily Gummy a few weeks ago and cued it up to post on August 31st. Imagine my surprise when listening to the Rich Roll podcast which dropped on August 28th, I heard Rich’s guest, Brad Stulberg talk about how we can spend far too much time peeling off the layers of our onion and never really get around to doing the actual work of healing and growing from what we are learning.

Wow – did that insight really resonate with me. The older we are, the more layers we have in our onion. Do this work earlier in life and there are hopefully fewer layers to peel back. Do it at 40 and live the next fifty years without fossilizing the layers.

But the real take away from this Rich Roll podcast entitled “Rugged Flexibility and the Neuroscience of Expectations” with author and coach, Brad Stulberg, is that at some point, you just need to do the work.

This Daily Gummy was posted on August 30th and was inspired by a book I had just finished reading, Tomorrowmind by Dr. Martin Seligman and Gabrielle Kellerman. Here’s the full Daily Gummy insight:

What if we had the ability to look more closely at each other and see all the individual characteristics we possess — the hopes, the dreams, the habits and personality traits, and the various roles we have in life?

Too often, we view others only by their jobs, their ethnicity or color of their skin, their gender or even the sports team they like. The reality is that we all have multiple identities that we move in and out of each day.

We are children, siblings, aunts, uncles, parents and grandparents. We are spouses, partners in business, co-workers, colleagues, peers, mentors and bosses. We might be caregivers for an aging parent or a declining spouse, volunteers at a charity, members of a book club, fans of the same author or podcaster, members of a pickle ball team or crafting group.

Have you taken the time to write down all the identities that you have? Have you thought about the many hats you wear each day? Taking the time to do this is a skill called “recategorization” and it is the perfect portal to finding common ground with others.

If you need some new ice-breakers fore getting to know people and building friendships, consider asking questions that will help you discover more about the multiple identities we all have. Intentional focus on our individual characteristics diffuses big generalities we often have – and expands the opportunities to get to know each other so much better.

Over the past week or so, I have found myself completely captivated by a number of episodes in Esther Perel’s two podcast series. She hosts “Where Do We Begin” which is focused on personal relationships and “How’s Work?” where she tackles the complex issue of human behaviors and teamwork dynamics in the workplace. In both of these podcast series, it is very common for her to skillfully use “recategorization” to help people find more common ground than they realize they have.

Very often, once partners and colleagues begin to see each other through a shared identity, they soften in their strongly held positions and discover empathy and awareness they simply could not see previously. Esther Perel is a Belgian-American psychotherapist, with a global reputation for her transformational relationship counseling successes. She has a rare surgical precision to get to the root cause of the most delicate and complex relationships issues – and she does so with great empathy, compassion and kind candor.

It has been noteworthy that she often incorporates the reality that we all possess multiple identities and may have great difficulty shifting from one role to another with skillful ease. Esther suggests creating cues to help us refocus our attention to each relationship. Even if you work at home, changing from your pjs to work attire before you sit down at the kitchen table for a Zoom call, will help you and your brain make the distinction that you are a co-worker and teammate now. Changing at the end of the day into casual clothes and taking a walk outdoors can help you make a clear shift from work to home and family.

Esther most definitely leaves a lasting impression as you listen in on her counseling sessions through her two dynamic podcasts. It is very easy to see ourselves in the conversations and relationship issues that she unpacks with her clients. The big take-away from Esther Perel’s work is that there is so much more to all of us than meets the eye — AND – we have more in common that we realize.

I hope you enjoyed this Daily Gummy of Wisdom Roundup — and that you too will start to pay attention to the synchronicities that are showing up across all aspects of our lives. There is most definitely a growing awareness of the importance of our emotional health, the psychological benefits that we derive when we know more about the role of our emotions, and our basic human need for real connection.

If you like what you’re learning and want a daily supplement for your emotional health and self-discovery, sign up to get my Daily Gummy of Wisdom popped into your inbox. Here’s the sign up link: https://inspired-new-horizons.ck.page/3381cf137f

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

Check out Scott Galloway on his own podcast, the Prof G Podcast – and on the Pivot podcast with Kara Swisher. His most recent book is Adrift – America in 100 charts – a real eye opener. And check out his newsletter No Mercy/No Malice. https://www.profgalloway.com/

Discover the many resources that Rich Roll has to offer by checking out his website https://www.richroll.com and definitely check out his amazing Podcast:

Here’s the episode with Brad Stulberg https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-rich-roll-podcast/id582272991?i=1000625912789

If you aren’t familiar with Esther Perel, treat yourself and get to know her and her incredible work. Here’s the link to her website which is chock full of helpful resources: https://www.estherperel.com

Check out her two podcasts (and keep your eyes peeled for her to appear as a guest in other’s — she is really gaining traction and her work is relevant for this moment in time.

The More We Share, the More We Discover

I have been keenly observing how interactions and conversations have been shifting in profound ways over recent months. It is with great enthusiasm that I am sharing with friends, family and my book club about my experiences while traveling. From Uber drivers to seat mates on planes, hospitality staff, new neighbors and a helpful UPS business owner, more people are sincerely plugged in to self-awareness and personal development. It’s astounding how we’ve shifted from shallow “how’s the weather” conversations to more in-depth and meaningful ones where people are sharing their remarkable personal stories.

I can almost feel the needle and thread stitching together a new tapestry, weaving our own stories and experiences into the bigger picture of others. It feels good to have these rich conversations and to be learning so much.

Some of my most fascinating conversations have been occurring in the self help section of book stores. I’m drawn to book stores — whether it is my local independent one, Quail Ridge in Raleigh NC, or the one my family visited in Scottsdale on vacation, the Poisoned Pen. On a recently layover in Chicago, I hopped off the plane and went straight to Barbara’s Bookstore in the bustling terminal where I ended up having a 45 minute conversation about Outlive and Dr. Peter Attia.

If I had a nickel for every time someone mentioned Andrew Huberman and his podcast, I could fly across the country multiple times.

I confess that I make a beeline to the self help or parenting sections of book stores — eager to see if there is something new to learn and perhaps more enthused to see who is browsing those sections. It’s so uplifting to see young parents, grandparents, mid-lifers, couples and singles all choosing books to help them navigate wherever they are in life. A smile stretches across my face as I take in the transformation that has occurred in the self-help section of bookstores.

Inviting tables of colorful books with intriguing titles pull us in like magnets. To me, these books fit together like pieces of a complex, compelling puzzle. It is not at all surprising that subjects like parenting, mindset, awe, emotions, grief and longing, relationships, atomic habits, boundaries, longevity, purpose and neuroscience are all landing on the same table.

All of these varied subjects are intrinsically connected. We want better relationships — with our kids, our partners, our friends and extended family. We want to know ourselves better. Now we know that the work starts with us, that our emotional health is integral to our overall quality of life and that it needs the same attention as our physical health.

Just a few decades ago, many of these amazing books and resources were segregated; psychology, mental health, diets and exercise, how to guides, hard to understand neuroscience, Buddhist meditation. Then all these various modalities and fields began to intersect — and suddenly authors, researchers and podcasters were quoting each other’s work and having each other as guests. They began to “connect the dots” about our human need for connection. They began to see how all their independent work and findings were actually linked together.

It seems that “overnite” there has been a great convergence of all the individual pieces coming together to form one incredible, dynamic “big picture”.

The best part of our “overnite” awareness is that it is out in the open with all the personal growth and self discovery work that needs to be done. That is so evident in these amazing conversations I have been so fortunate to have with all kinds of people — in the bookstore, on the plane, at the coffee shop, in my writing classes and especially with my friends who are also on the journey.

I recall when I was struggling in my mid-40’s with what Brene Brown called the mid-life unraveling period, I would discreetly make my way to the self help section of Borders, scanning the book titles and the shoppers around me, tucking my book of choice under my arm. I would stand at the counter like a nervous adolescent girl buying tampons with an older teen boy as the checkout clerk. Judgment and shame washing over me. It felt like a public confessional that I did not have my life together.

Hooray for this major shift in acceptance that we all need help!

Today, the inviting and bulging self help section of bookstores often takes center stage. I listen to shoppers enthusiastically sharing with others what they’ve read, what they are working on with spouses, teens or toddlers and even themselves. We have normalized these conversations. Wow.

No one is slinking to the check out counter with their books, workbooks and journals discreetly tucked under their sweaters or shoulders. It’s almost a badge of honor to waltz up to the checkout line proudly displaying copies of Outlive by Dr. Peter Attia, Fierce Self Compassion by Kristin Neff, Lighter by yung pueblo or Set Boundaries, Find Peace by Nedra Tawwab. I’ve witnessed some of the most astounding conversations happening in the checkout line between customers as they swap stories, insights and book recommendations.

The seeds of our current emotion revolution and our emotional health have landed everywhere now. The subject comes up in business, leadership and innovation podcasts. It certainly comes up regularly for influencers like Adam Grant, Malcolm Gladwell, James Clear, Ryan Holiday, Dr. Peter Attia and Dr. Andrew Huberman. Yes, emotional health and doing our self-discovery work is now a mainstreamed topic of conversation. It is being folded in as the missing piece of our bigger puzzle.

The more we know, the more we grow.

When I first committed to a deep dive into my own personal growth, I was intrigued by Dr. Rick Hanson’s book Hardwiring Happiness, but I did have a hard time wrapping my head around understanding what he meant by “neurons that fire together, wire together.” While I loved the concept of neuroplasticity, I really didn’t have a solid foundation of understanding about the whole brain/body connection.

Today, we have ready access to understandable knowledge of how our brains and bodies operate, the role our nervous system plays and the importance of integrating our inner world of emotions and feelings with our executive functions of our brains. This core knowledge helps us parent better and teach our kids the emotional awareness and regulatory skills that we ourselves were never taught.

What we have before us is a collective effort to help us all live healthier, more satisfied, balanced lives. We are all playing an important role in this integral work when we are invested in our own emotional health and parenting with this upgraded, whole brain model. In her book, Mindset, Dr. Carol Dweck, shares with us that many of us grew up with a societal model of fixed mindset both at home and in school. Is it any wonder that we often then developed limiting beliefs about ourselves and became both the judged and the judgers. Dr. Dweck underscores that we can all work towards developing “growth” mindsets for ourselves and our children, but to recognize that we move toward a growth mindset by taking a journey.

As I travel and interact with others, it is very apparent that quite a few folks have decided to take that journey. We can help each other and in turn help ourselves by continuing to have these more connecting, meaningful conversations. By sharing our stories and experiences, we help others find common ground and encouragement. When we share our favorite resources with others, we help the researchers, authors, mentors and educators reach more people with their incredible work.

There is no denying that our emotional health is the cornerstone of our overall quality of life and meaningful connection with those we love. Unpacking our emotional baggage frees up a lot of space in our hearts and brains to move more fluidly through life, building resilience and enabling us to show up more authentically, more skillfully and much happier.

Let’s do this!

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

PODCASTS and BOOKS

Fantastic Podcast with renowned couples therapist Esther Perel, who supported Dr. Peter Attia through his own personal growth journey https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/where-should-we-begin-with-esther-perel/id1237931798?i=1000618302924
Everyone is abuzz about Dr. Andrew Huberman – his neuroscience podcasts on relevant topics are chockfull of the knowledge we need about our brains. Check out the most recent episode about growth mindsets and beliefs
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/huberman-lab/id1545953110

Dr. Peter Arria, author of Outlive, is a dynamic resource for understanding why our Emotional Health matters. Listen to this short clip with Esther Perel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6xc-WuROXY

The Being Well Podcast with Dr. Rick Hanson and his son Forrest Hanson is a perennial favorite of mine for years. Check out this recent mailbag episode on criticism, anxiety and dysfunctional family systems https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/being-well-with-forrest-hanson-and-dr-rick-hanson/id1120885936?i=1000621375400

Pop a Daily Gummy of Wisdom Supplement

I am so excited to announce the launch of a brand new initiative to support our emotional health and overall wellbeing. My Daily Gummy of Wisdom is intended to be an awareness supplement to help us all maintain our emotional fitness.

We take vitamins and supplements to support our physical and cognitive health, so why not have a little daily boost for our emotional health and overall quality of life?

If you are a regular follower of my blog, Inspired New Horizons, then you might really enjoy getting these small, and potent, daily supplements to help you stay in shape as you develop better life skills and emotional regulation.

My Daily Gummies of Wisdom incorporate my love of photography with my passion for sharing information about personal growth, awareness, parenting, life skills and emotional health.

Here’s a sample of today’s Daily Gummy of Wisdom:

Daily Gummy of Wisdom – Monday, May 8, 2023

Create a little buffer zone between you and your different roles and varied experiences throughout your day. It is a simple little practice that can make a big difference.

Think about all the hats your wear in a day – parent, spouse, child, co-worker, friend, customer, neighbor — the list is endless.

We often just jump from one role to the other without a reset or refresh. When this happens, we drag some residue from each role or experience into the new one. That residue might be sticky — like a strong unsettling emotion that adheres to everyone and everything we touch.

We wouldn’t let our child run around the house, into the car or out into the neighborhood with sticky hands. We’d take a minute or two to wash those little hands that are capable of leaving gooey fingerprints all over the place.

This is what a brief buffer zone can do for you — it’s a little hand washing for your emotional and experiential residue as you transition from one role to another, or from one task to a new one.

It doesn’t take much time to do this — and the benefits are enormous.

Before you leave the house in the morning, as you close the front door, take a deep breath and let go. You’ve done as much as you could and how you are off to work, taking the kids to school, or heading to an appointment. Let go and look forward. Howe do you want to enter the new experience and greet those you meet there?

When you return home, as you close your car door and make your way to the front door, repeat that process. Let go. You’ve done all you could out and about today. You are home now. You may have pressing things you want to share with your family, but pause before barging in. You have no idea how their own day unfolded. Mentally wash your sticky residue so can listen with good intention and focus when you are reunited with your family.

If your emotional or experiential residue hacks some of your attention, you. may miss the smallest yet most rewarding moments of your day. That absolute delight on your child’s face to see you, that “there’s no place like home” feeling that washes over you.

When we give ourselves a little transition “hand washing”, we are more attentive and less reactionary. We treat ourselves to being more fully present and organically take in more of the good we often miss in life.

HERE’S THE CALL TO ACTION: Sign up below to get my Daily Gummy of Wisdom popped right into your inbox each morning. It only takes a minute or two to read….is great food for thought and has a lovely slow release factor all day long. The Daily Gummy will increase your awareness, help you stay in alignment with your core values and foster all those better life skills you are honing.

We read a lot of worthless brain junk food in our social media feeds throughout the day. Why not trade a little of that mindless scrolling for one high quality daily supplement for your emotional fitness and overall wellbeing?

Sign up right here: Click this link: https://inspired-nehorizons.ck.page/3381cf137f

We Are the Change Agents

I’d like to give an enormous hat tip to Dr. Peter Attia for championing the integral role our emotional health plays in the overall quality and length of our life. He is shining a beacon on the many ways that our emotional health impacts our physical and cognitive health, our most treasured personal relationships and maybe most importantly — how well we actually know ourselves.

From the outside looking in, Dr. Peter Attia certainly seems to be a shining example of living the good life. He has a hugely successful career in medicine, is a renowned authority on the subject of longevity and good health, is in great physical and cognitive shape, and is married with three children. He practices what he preaches. In other words, he has checked all the boxes for a successful, happy life.

Yet in recent years, while writing his newest book, Outlive, Dr. Peter Attia became acutely aware that there was a gaping hole in the complete picture of longevity and quality of life — emotional health. What good is checking all the boxes that outwardly give the impression of success and happiness, if in fact inwardly we are miserable?

Yes, we can be physically and cognitively very healthy; we can be proactive with preventive measures and early detection to ensure we live longer — and possibly longer without illness, disease or cognitive decline. But if we are unhappy, discontent and lack emotional regulation, we will continue to be miserable no matter how physically fit or mentally sharp we are; no matter how many measurements of success we seem to have achieved.

This is a true fact for so many of us. We have a very big blind spot about how our emotional health has taken its toll on us and our families, all while we have been actively checking off the boxes.

We can be so unaware of the impacts of our emotional health that we will unconsciously sabotage ourselves over and over again. Dr. Peter Attia uses the metaphor of Formula One racing to help us grasp the magnitude of ignoring our emotional health:

Just a few short decades ago, Formula One racing had a very high rate of death among its drivers because of the risk factors. The cars were engineered for performance not safety. Today that risk factor for death and serious injury has been dramatically reduced. What changed? The cars are now engineered for safety first and performance second. Minimize risk.

As Dr. Attia points out, we use risk factors all the time to help us minimize the risk to our physical and cognitive health. We intervene early to prevent infection, illness and disease. Yet we have been ignoring emotional health all the while.

No one asks the questions — “What is your risk for poor emotional health and what are we doing about it?“

It has become very clear over the past decade or two that it behooves us all to reflect on how the old parenting models impacted us — and especially our emotional health. The risk factors for our emotional health are imbedded in those old parenting paradigms that disconnected us from understanding and effectively utilizing our emotions. Our emotions are an integral part of our brain/body connection and we are long overdue for a major upgrade to our human operating system.

Just look at all the advances that we have made in modern medicine to fight genetically inheritable diseases. We have been blind to the generational inheritances of poor emotional health. And now our eyes have been opened – we have a brand new pathway to addressing the quality of our emotional health.

Not only are we able to intervene early for our own emotional health, we can begin to ensure that our children get a head start on a lifetime of good emotional health.

We are the change agents; the ones that will break the cycles of dysfunction that got passed unconsciously from one generation to the next. We will advance human evolution by proactively integrating our emotions with our complex, developing brains.

Dr. Peter Attia shared with Dr. Andrew Huberman in a recent podcast that for most of his life he got really good at drywall repair – because he was dealing with an unconscious inner rage from trauma in his childhood – and that anger often had him punching a hole in the wall. In fact, it was that same anger and strong urge to punch a guy in a parking lot that made him realize he had to get help for his emotional disregulation. He realized in that moment that he could have lost everything he had spent his whole life building — his reputation, his career, his marriage and family – because of unchecked emotional health.

I just have to say that Dr. Attia still packs a punch — a positive and very healthy one. He punched a big hole in our blindspots when it comes to emotional health and the integral role it plays in the overall quality of our life.

As I was reading Dr. Attia’s book, Outlive, I was delightfully surprised to discover that he had turned to two of my favorite resources to help him in his search and recovery process for emotional health — Esther Perel and Terry Real. I have long followed their work, participated in their seminars and read their books. It was Terry Real’s relationship summit in May, 2022 that prompted my blog post “Whatever He Has, I Want It” featuring Hugh Jackman’s journey with personal growth and emotional awareness.

Little holes have been being poked into our need to focus on emotional health from a diverse array of sources for several decades. Neuroscience has been paving the way as we make tremendous breakthroughs in understanding how our brains, bodies and emotions need integration in order to function optimally.

Changes are happening at a very fast pace now. Old methods once used for parenting, for treating trauma and mental health issues are being tossed out and replaced with protocols that focus on integration of emotions. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk even emphasizes that it is not necessary to go back and revisit all the re-traumatizing details of a childhood event. Instead, the focus and therapy becomes on how a person is feeling today, what they are experiencing in the present moment – and integrating that into more manageable responses to current experiences.

Dr. Attia explains that we can reframe this work as an “invitation to view our own young experiences through the eyes of our own child”. I wouldn’t be surprised if he learned that from Terry Real, who often says that the best motivation in the world for personal change is our children. Terry says that we might not change for our partners or ourselves, but we rarely resist change if we know it will help our kids.

Our emotional health is rooted in our childhoods. There is no doubt about that. It is crystal clear that we will be the change agents for breaking generational patterns of poor coping skills, unhealthy attachment styles, maladaptive patterns of behavior and lifelong poor emotional health.

Dr. Attia would encourage each of us to view our emotional health and its risk factors the same way that we view our physical and cognitive health. Dig into our family history, intervene early, develop healthier approaches and incorporate a daily maintenance program to support an ongoing healthy trajectory.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

Develop a list of podcasts that become your “go to” playlist to support your emotional health. Here are a few of my favorites: