Rich Roll – Inspired New Horizons

Corks Rising

When I first started blogging about personal growth 8 years ago, I had a glass jar on my kitchen windowsill with a cork bobbing in water. It was my touchstone to remind myself that each of us plays an important role in lifting each other’s cork. We need help to stay afloat.

This morning, I read something in Hidden Potential by Adam Grant, that transported me back to that moment in time. It felt surreal and spine-tingling to be in two places at once. I was at the very beginning of my self discovery journey placing that cork in the jar –AND — I was also fully present in my apartment taking stock of just how far I have truly come on that personal growth journey. A smile stretched across my face as I took stock of how my own cork has risen over 8 years — and most importantly, how so many others’ corks have also risen.

At the onset of my personal growth journey, I felt alone in the work – one cork in a small glass jar. Today the massive ocean is full of corks and I am merely one of many. I could not be happier with the company I am keeping.

For over 20 years, Brene Brown has been planting seeds of the very work we are deeply steeped in today. She braved the wilderness back then, schlepping her first book from the trunk of her car and mustering courage to give a Ted Talk on shame and vulnerability. She did not have a crystal ball to guide her — she just followed her heart and her calling, blazing a path and planting seeds.

There is a Greek proverb that reminds us that wise men plant seeds of trees, the shade of which they will never sit under, bubbled up into my consciousness.

Brene Brown planted the seeds of human connection with an emphasis on vulnerability, the importance of our emotions, and the necessary healing work of addressing old generational patterns — and those seeds took root.

It has taken nearly two decades for the seeds to grow into the full awareness that we got a lot of things wrong about humanity, how the brain and body really work, and what is truly possible for our evolution on so many fronts.

I sat under the shade of the tree that Brene planted just yesterday. I listened to Scott Galloway and Rich Roll openly discuss vulnerability on Rich’s podcast. It was visceral to experience this refreshingly deep and honest conversation with two men in their fifties get real about their emotions and what they want for their sons and daughters.

Even more importantly, is the education and messaging that Rich Roll and Scott Galloway are collaborating on — the need for us all to take very seriously the crisis of loneliness, depression, social isolation and lack of human connection that is paralyzing our younger generations.

When I began my personal growth journey, I read Dr. Bruce Perry’s compelling book, Born for Love. In that book, he was sounding the alarm for our growing empathy poverty, but his voice was drowned out as our collective attention turned to the novelty of social media. We blatantly ignored the warning and gleefully plugged into social media and our devices, so certain that we’d find the connection we craved through technology.

Today, Jonathan Haidt draws a through line from the early 2010’s to today and holds up the reality of our human condition for us to see clearly. Our younger generations need to be unplugged and reconnected to reality. In his book, the Anxious Generation, he is carrying forward the message that Dr. Bruce Perry warned us of in Born for Love. Our growing lack of empathy, our self-imposed social isolation and addiction to devices, has created an epidemic of AI – artificial intimacy. It is Esther Perel who coined that term – Artificial Intimacy. She is the dynamic psychotherapist who fearlessly weeds out conflict between couples to help them discover that plot of ground begging for seeds of love, intimacy and connection to be planted.

We can no longer blatantly ignore what is hidden in plain sight. We must focus our attention, resources and real life support on our children.

Ask anyone who has ever hit rock bottom, and they will tell you that it was in their lowest place that they faced the truth that in order for meaningful change to happen, they had to dig deeper – and do the hard work of rebuilding.

This is where we all are today – collectively at rock bottom with an opportunity to nurture the seeds that have been planted over the past twenty years in psychology, behavioral science, neuroscience and modern medicine.

It is my strong belief that we have reached this breaking point because humans are hard-wired for connection and we do not thrive in continual chaos and uncertainty. If this dilemma were happening in the animal kingdom, our hearts would be breaking open as we watched adult animals leave their young unattended without teaching them any life skills. Their basic instincts would atrophy over time.

If you are familiar with epigenetics, then you may realize that for generations we have passed down unprocessed trauma and overloads of stress and anxiety. Dysfunctional generational patterns are the emotional inheritance that has never been unpacked. Old parenting models failed to install one of the key components of the human operating system — emotional intelligence. This combination is the one-two punch that delivers a compelling warning to us. Unpack the old emotional baggage, heal old traumas. The time has come. Our kids are on overload and they are drowning in cognitive dissonance.

The reality is that we have made this work of unpacking emotional baggage, healing old traumas and installing emotional intelligence so much harder than it needs to be. Psychology has shifted dramatically in the past decade with a focus on somatic healing and understanding how our brains actually work. Neuroscience fires up this better approach by highlighting the neuroplasticity of our brains and how we can re-wire healthier neural pathways in a relatively short amount of time.

As I wrote about in my last blog post, the creative coalescing of so many fields and modalities is helping us fast-track the triage that we need — and can no longer ignore. This creative coalescing is the little forest that has grown from the many seeds that have been planted over the past twenty years.

As many of you know, I am impassioned about teaching our kids all about their innate and integral emotional intelligence. I have a “Marie Kondo” approach to cleaning out generational baggage – let’s stop dragging it around, unpacked and continually weighing us down. Let’s travel more lightly through life and make new discoveries.

By the way, have you noticed how mainstreamed words like vulnerability, mindfulness, self-awareness and emotional intelligence have become? Little seeds have been planted over and over again by people like Brene Brown, Dr. Marc Brackett, Andrew Huberman, Kristin Neff, Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett, Arthur C. Brooks, Dr. Becky Kennedy, Dr. Peter Attia — and a host of others. They are the corks that jumped into the sea of change and lifted us all up.

So many resources have cross-pollinated that little forest that began with a few seeds several decades ago. We are at the tipping point of a huge, positive human evolution. Just the other day, author Arthur C. Brooks told Ryan Holiday that we now have the neuroscience to prove all the wisdom of the ancient philosophers. His excitement and enthusiasm was contagious.

Here’s what I know — Brene Brown did not have a crystal ball twenty-five years ago, but she felt a nudge so strong she could not resist it. She poured herself into shame and vulnerability and stayed the course because it mattered. She networked the hell out of her platforms during Covid, lifting others up when we were most receptive to learning and discovering all kinds of new things – the missing parts we didn’t know we needed. Brene was planting seeds of awareness all throughout our dormant period.

I used to think that the law of attraction was mostly like wishful thinking — but through Brene I have learned that the law of attraction is sharing, networking and lifting each other up. That is the momentum that brings the changes and opportunities we want.

Michael O’Brien (@the.mindful.cyclist) was also a recent guest on the Rich Roll podcast. His recovery from a near-death cycling experience was the catalyst for his seminal shift that changed his perspective, mindset and actions. He expressed this profound wisdom:

“Things don’t happen for a reason. Things happen….and we give it meaning.” — Michael O’Brien

I am taking this profound wisdom to heart today. Things have been happening FOR us for nearly two decades and we can give it a transformational new meaning and pivotal new direction.

There has been a big clearing of the weeds that prevented us from seeing what was possible for us. Seeds were planted and cross pollinating was happening. mostly in the background.

The self help space got a little traction with mindfulness about a decade ago. It was a wake up call but we kept hitting the snooze button. We turned to devices and poor coping skills; social media was a siren call we falsely believed would bring us the connection we craved. Our attention became a commodity traded in futures markets.

Unfortunately our devices and social media stole our attention and mindfulness; it amplified our disconnection from real life. Highlight reels and filters gave us a very distorted picture of the beautiful complexity and realities of life.

What it also took from us was the fuel that runs our human engines – the neural energy and connectivity we get from being with each other. There is so much that neuroscience has to teach us about how the human brain and body works – how we jumpstart, co-regulate and scaffold each other. We know more about our incredible brains and how to care for them than we ever did before.

So, taking Michael O’Brien’s wisdom to heart, the meaning we can give to this moment is the discovery that we are better together, that human connectivity is integral to our physical, emotional and mental health, and our longevity.

We have the rare opportunity to lift up our kids out of their malaise with greater knowledge, tools and awareness than we have ever had before. We can have a dramatic, positive impact in short order if we meet this moment quite differently than we ever have before.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

Michael O’Brien Shift: https://www.michaelobrienshift.com/about/

Do yourself a favor and click that link to read about Michael’s transformational life experience. Then listen to his deeper conversation with Rich on the Rich Roll Podcast.

Check out this episode of the Rich Roll Podcast with Prof G – Scott Galloway. At about 54 minutes in you will hear the 5 minute deep conversation about vulnerability and emotions. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-rich-roll-podcast/id582272991

Connective Tissue

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Bigger Picture:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The benefits of “connective tissue”:

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

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

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

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

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

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

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

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

Architects of Our Experiences – Part 3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Upgrading and Updating Our Brain’s Predictions:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See the difference?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Wrap Up:

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

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

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

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

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

When the Student Becomes The Teacher

Many months ago, my young granddaughter was scared. As she described her experience to me, I could fully understand why she was frightened. She felt as though she was having some kind of out of body experience – something that was not at all like her – and yes, it was scary to think she might be changing and had very little control over it. My granddaughter was angry; not plain vanilla angry – she was infuriated. Along with that infuriating anger was a fear that she would forever become an angry person – and that was scary – because she didn’t want to change who she was.

We’ve all been there haven’t we? We reach a breaking point and suddenly we too have an out of body experience and act way out of character. We have a jolting knee jerk reaction that surprises even us — or our simmering kettle of stuffed emotions boils over at the most inconvenient moment and we regret it the moment it happens (even though it is too late). In hindsight, we have said or done things that we’d never dream of in a much more rational moment.

The distinction between us adults and my young granddaughter is that we know we will not stay stuck forever in this “out of character” form; we will return to our emotional baseline and be back to feeling like our normal, “true to character” selves again. Sometimes we can even do that BEFORE we overreact – and other times, we have the wisdom to make those necessary repairs; we apologize and put in real effort to do better in the future.

Little did I know that my granddaughter was giving me a golden opportunity to understand the benefits of emotional granularity. Simply put, emotional granularity is when we are able to identify all the emotions that we are experiencing in any given moment. There are always more ingredients in our emotional experiences than simply happy, sad or mad. But we often hit the brakes as soon as we identify those 3 core emotions and we stop a profoundly important process. Angry, sad or happy are just the headlines; we need to understand “the rest of the story,”

In my granddaughter’s case, the anger was ginormous in this moment. She’d been patient with her younger brother all day long, but now she was tired and hungry, which served to amplify the slow build of her frustration. We could all understand and empathize with her feeling angry. That was normal and justifiable, especially at the end of a busy day.

The anger problem could be remediated by both validating her feelings and giving her a break from her energetic, fun loving, free flowing brother. But my granddaughter had more to share – she was also feeling afraid that she’d stay stuck in anger — and she did not like the way that felt to her.

Even without a textbook or podcast, she knew instinctively that there was more going on than just the anger. Thank goodness I did have some working knowledge of emotional granularity. I silently expressed my gratitude to Brene Brown and Dr. Dan Siegel for this education and proceeded to help my granddaughter. I asked her to describe to me what anger was making her feel like. For the record, kids are much better at articulating this than most of us adults. No wonder she was fearful of staying stuck in that feeling — it’s downright icky. I assured her that strong emotions don’t have a long shelf life, that they do fade and we return to feeling like our normal selves in short order. I wish you could have seen the relief that washed over that precious face. A big warm hug and a reassuring smile soon had us both laughing. Astonishingly she could even reframe her brother’s prior annoyance as just his silly antics – the very same antics and playfulness that she loves so much about him.

What a rebound! This is the magic of emotional granularity; we can hold both sides of an experience and keep them in balance.

My young granddaughter recognized that her brother can bring her great joy and he can also annoy her. Both are true.

Emotional granularity keeps us from getting stuck in a single core emotion. It helps us discover many pieces of our experiences puzzle. Nuance and context are key ingredients for how we “feel” in any given moment. For example, earlier in the day when my granddaughter was fresh from a good night’s sleep, had a full tummy of her favorite breakfast and a full tank of patience and energy, her brother’s antics were light-hearted, fun and tolerated. It was only later in the day, when her tank was running low that she felt quite differently.

Take a moment to think about that for your own daily interactions. When you are well resourced with sleep, nourishment and bandwidth, you most likely flow pretty easily with other’s moods as well as the diversity of tasks and demands you are juggling. When you are running low on fuel, it gets harder and your mood and emotional state shifts. Emotional granularity helps us parse out the underpinnings of happy, sad and mad.

More recently, this same granddaughter was having an off day. She wasn’t her usually bubbly self and she wasn’t keen on all the suggestions we were offering to snap her out of it. Not sparkling water, her favorite breakfast or a fun craft was moving the needle. She announced that she wasn’t in a hurry to get out of this mood and she was going to go be alone with it for a while. When she rejoined the family activities later, she was in good spirits and all in on the fun stuff we were doing.

It wasn’t until later that day that my granddaughter told me that the reason she likes to stay in her moods is that she knows what I told her is very true. Emotions and feelings fade faster than we realize – and she doesn’t want to miss a chance to explore hers before they drift off. In that moment, the student became the teacher.

I am a firm believer in the advice that ogre Shrek offered years ago — “Better out than in.” It is better to get our emotions out where we can examine them than stuff them away in cold storage. My granddaughter is living proof that doing this sooner rather than later is precisely how we extract the most wisdom from what our emotions are trying to tell us.

Doing this emotional awareness processing in real time is when we have the sharpest clarity to fully appreciate and understand what our emotions have to tell us. If we postpone sitting with our emotions, they will change and shift – just like clouds in the sky. We will end up blurring or diluting them. We may even stuff them so far down that we completely ignore them and their valid warning signs.

Processing our emotions in real time is the best preventative measure we can take for cultivating our self-awareness and vastly improving our ability to skillfully regulate our emotions. We now have science to support this.

In her book, How Emotions Are Made, neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett teaches us that emotional granularity is the integral key to keeping our internal “emotions and experiences” data base updated. Our brain and body are our uniquely personal information processors. They are prediction machines that rely on the data we store. The greater our ability to identify and process the multiple emotions we experience in any given situation, the better our “prediction machines” will operate in the future.

It should be pretty self evident by now that the lack of full emotional integration when we were children is the major cause of so many “prediction errors” in the way we are able to regulate and understand our emotional triggers in adulthood. When we are getting in our own way and making life more difficult than it needs to be, chances are that our “prediction machines” are feeding us old, outdated data. Emotional baggage is like the fruits and veggies growing moldy in the fridge. We never took the nutrients out of our emotions and experiences when they were fresh. Yet we still have to deal with all that mushy mess when we clean out the fridge.

There is another compelling reason that we need to get much better at processing our emotions in real time — it is because our current mood greatly impacts how we experiencing life. If we are overly tired or famished, there is a greater likelihood that we will feel more negative about what is happening. In other words, we can skew our emotions, file them away without any self reflection, and end up with an internal database full of misinformation. Talk about an algorithm that feeds us more of what we really don’t need, but that feels oh so affirming.

Let’s go back to the story of my granddaughter’s emotion of big anger. She was experiencing this giant-sized anger more intensely because it was the end of the day; she was both hungry for dinner and ready for bed. She just didn’t have a lot of bandwidth to cope with her brother’s antics. Earlier in the day, his silliness made her laugh and her delighted responses encouraged him all the more. As the day wore on, her tank was ever so slowing draining. On the other hand, her brother may have had a nap and ate more snacks, so he was still going strong. My granddaughter’s context had changed and my grandson’s had stayed the same.

Two opposing things were true here — my granddaughter loves her brother’s zest for life AND she also needed a break. My grandson believes his antics are adorable and valued no matter how tired others are.

This very scenario plays out in our adult lives all the time but we are mostly unaware of it. We do ebb and flow in our moods all throughout the day. When we feel rested, nourished and energized, we have greater coping skills and better judgement. When we hit the wall, all bets are off.

When we hit the brakes when one of the 3 core emotions jumps out – and then step on the gas and barrel through, we actually stay stuck in happy, sad or mad. Imagine if we were in our cars, hit the brakes to avoid hitting a small child, and then while our heart was racing and our nervous system was on high alert, we hit the gas pedal and were doing 80 mph in 10 seconds. We would not be at our best to reflexively respond to another potential accident – in fact, we might cause an accident.

We know that it is encouraged for us to take that meaningful pause between stimulus and response when we are feeling strong emotions washing over us. Far better to take a few deep breaths and calm ourselves before we “react without reflection”. When we are working on developing better emotional regulation, we want to ground ourselves and consciously “respond” in a calmer way.

Yet there is one more beneficial skill that we would be wise to cultivate: Stop, look and listen.

Pretend you hit the brakes at a railroad crossing. The flashing lights and the gate that lowers are big emotions trying to get your attention. Stop, look around at the current circumstances and how well resourced you are to make good decisions. Listen to all that those accompanying emotions have to tell you. They are the messengers of the context and nuance needed to proceed with caution.

If an 8 year old can do this, so can we.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

Chapter 2 of Arthur Brooks newest book is entitled the Power of Metacognition. If you only read this chapter in his book, you will have a much better understanding of how we can proactively choose better emotions to enrich our experiences. A worthy read.

Listen to this short YouTube video with Lisa Feldman Barrett about how past experiences and emotions impact how we respond to current experiences. You’ll be inspired to get more skillful at processing your emotions and experiences in real time, so that you are operating from a fresh and updated data base rather than old, outdated and clunky information
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYAEh3T5a80&t=31s

Lisa Feldman Barrett was a recent guest on the HUBERMANLAB PODCAST. This episode will give you a foundational understanding of how we could be vastly improving how we teach our children — at home and in school — with a more updated understanding of how emotions impact us. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeRgqJVALMQ&t=318s

New Year, New Skills

Can you feel that little updraft in inner drive and determination that comes from a brand new year? There’s nothing like a brand new calendar, clean and pristine, to let our imaginations run wild with big dreams of how well organized and productive we will be. This psychological phenomenon is called the “fresh start effect”. It marks a clear delineation for our “out the old and in with the new” mindset. A brand new year is when we get to double dip in this fresh start effect — it’s not just a new month – it is a brand new year.

I confess that I love a Happy New Year fresh start and I prepare for it as eagerly as I do for Christmas. My desk has stacks of colorful, inspiring blank journals and brand new chunky, spiral-bound idea notebooks; along with an assortment of gel pens and varied sizes of neon post-it notes. And the real gem is that pristine 2024 planner. Thanks to my grandkids who gave me a generous gift card to Quail Ridge, I also have an inviting stack of new books I cannot wait to read. There is a rush of pure joy and an eager excitement every time I look at the endless possibilities that will manifest when I actually use all these tools.

It was in that moment, that it dawned on me that this was the direction I wanted to take my blog in 2024. This year, my blog posts and Daily Gummies of Wisdom, are going to become more relatable and digestible. This is the year where the “rubber hits the road”. I want to share more real life stories, examples and experiences that reveal how beneficial it is to be using better tools and becoming more skillful with them.

This is the year that I want my blog to help others stock their desks, toolboxes and backpacks with diversified resources for building the life they want and showing up more often as their best selves. It is an exciting time to be alive because thanks to science, we have taken a lot of the mystery out of old paradigms about emotional and mental health, parenting and relationships – and yes, even personal growth.

I love diving into groundbreaking and ever-evolving data. I also love distilling it in a way that is easy to understand and implement in real time. I’ve become a bit of a “reverse engineer” with 7 decades of life experiences to draw on. By sharing familiar and relatable real life stories, I can teach and role model how and why these much-improved relationship and life tools are meaningful game-changers.

There is another confession that I have to make: I am over the moon thrilled that it no longer feels necessary to keep self discovery and personal growth under wraps. The proof of this is in our current overuse of the word “normalize”. We toss that word out like a disclaimer reminding us that no one is immune to “feeling” their way through life.

No more cloak of secrecy when it comes to mental and emotional health — it is now fully mainstreamed! And, it is not only mainstreamed, we are making genuine progress in connecting the dots between our physical health and our emotional health. Our eyes are being opened to the many no-cost and low-cost steps we can take to proactively improve both.

The pivot I will be making with my ever-evolving blog will mirror the pivot that is being made in modern medicine, psychology and neuroscience. There is a shift from problem solving to prevention. Many fields, modalities and people are taking proactive steps to improve their physical, mental and emotional health to safeguard against future health and relationship issues. An ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure.

Food for Thought: This is a new element that I will be adding to my blog posts this year. I will wrap each one up with a little food for thought, something to reflect on and then consider putting into practice. The “food for thought” I offer today is to take time to look through – and reflect on – your planners and journals, camera rolls and playlists, on the biggest challenges and fondest memories of 2023. Before you toss them in the trash, or pack them in a box with birthday cards, archived bills and tax receipts — spend some time distilling what mattered most to you in 2023. Use that as a map for where you are headed in 2024.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

Arthur C. Brooks is a well known happiness expert. His last book was entitled “From Strength to Strength” and it had a big impact on me. That book was really meant for those of us who are transitioning from one stage of life to another. It was such a helpful guide for reflecting on past experiences and using it as a solid foundation for reinventing ourselves for the next chapter.

In this powerful new book, Arthur works his magic once again — and makes it easy to understand the latest breakthroughs in science and how to take that knowledge and weave it into your daily life. One message comes through loud and clear as you read this book – we need to put in the reps – we need daily practice with all kinds of situations and people for these new tools to stick.

THE RICH ROLL PODCAST: Treat yourself to a new podcast in 2024 – and check out the diversity and dynamics of Rich Roll and his inspiring guests.

There is a vast ocean of podcasts these days. It can be both time-consuming and overwhelming to sort through the catalog and find the ones that call to you.

There are times in our lives when we need a little extra knowledge about core physical health tools like quality sleep, nutrition and exercise. Other times, we need some encouragement to get through tough times. We also need to be inspired through other’s stories of how they used all these new tools we are learning about; stories from others help us digest and metabolize new information.

My recommendation is to listen to Rich Roll’s podcasts in chunks. Few of us really have the time to sit and listen (let alone pay full attention) to a lengthy podcast. But if we listen for 15 – 30 minutes at a time on our drive to work or while running errands, we can gain a lot. Instead of scrolling on your phone when you need a break, listen for 10-15 minutes to part of the podcast. This is how we put some really nourishing and healthy content into our brains.

There are so many subjects, modalities and tools to support our self-discovery and personal growth. What captures your attention? What do you want to learn more about? Rich Roll offered two podcast episodes at the end of 2023 that offer a diverse menu of choices. I am sharing the links for these two episodes, rich with guests that we all know and love – and full of inspiration to get you super-charged for the new year.

Rich Roll Podcast, The Best of 2023: Part One https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-rich-roll-podcast/id582272991?i=1000639648780

Rich Roll Podcast, the Best of 2023: Part Two https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-rich-roll-podcast/id582272991?i=1000639901420

Not a Workshop – It’s A Daily Practice

I’ve been blogging about my own personal growth and self-discovery journey for almost 8 years. Like most people, I probably believed in the early stages of this process, I would be able to identify the habits I needed to change and the skills I needed to acquire in order to check the self help box. Then I could move on into the next chapter of my life – happily ever after.

What I have come to more fully understand and appreciate is that personal growth, self-discovery and human evolution are in a constant state of change. As a direct result, we have to change our mindset about personal growth and self discovery.

The answers to our lifelong, puzzling questions about who we are and why we behave as we do are not to be found in a single book, podcast or workshop. We can’t earn a certification, degree or even a merit badge — and then move on as if our work is forever done.

Personal growth, self discovery, emotional health, relationship skills and mindful self-awareness are our life’s work. It is dynamic, integrated and evolving – because we are.

I’d understand if you were less excited, and more intimidated by this revelation, but take heart – it turns out that this work doesn’t have to be as hard and painful as we once made it. Thanks to neuroscience and the social sciences, we now possess evidence-based knowledge of how our brains work. The incredible discoveries that have been made in very recent years are helping us understand why all the old ways of addressing our behavioral, mental and emotional health were not working very well.

As we gain a greater understanding of how our brains actually work — and how our lifetime of emotions and experiences get created, stored and pulled out for reference — we can begin to see the evolving benefits of incorporating consistent emotional practices into our daily lives.

We don’t workout til we get the strength and flexibility we desire – and then stop. We maintain our physical health with daily commitments and practices. And now, we are learning that we must do the same with our emotional health.

Take a moment to think about the last time you lost your patience or your cool; or when you hit a trip wire and became so emotionally triggered by something pretty insignificant in hindsight. How might it feel to have greater muscle memory when it comes to emotional self control?

It’s the time of year when holidays are really amplifying the hard truth that we get tripped up a lot by unprocessed emotions and old family dynamics. Rather than cringing about having to deal with all this messy stuff, we can use it as an opportunity to become an emotions scientist – and to make some discoveries about how better emotional regulation would dramatically improve our quality of life and our relationships.

Let’s take a closer look at an emotion with which we are all familiar — good old fashioned envy. There’s no doubt that the holidays present us with more than our fair share of opportunities to compare ourselves to others in a whole host of ways. It’s human nature to find ourselves envious of others when we look around at the office party or family gathering, or scroll through the festive photos our friends post on social media.

We may feel that tinge of envy in our bodies as we compare and contemplate what others have that we don’t, or if we let FOMO (the fear of missing out) or FOPO (fear of other people’s opinions) take hold in our minds.

A few years ago, Brené Brown shared that comparison is the thief of joy. She was addressing how this exhausting hustle to keep up the with Joneses can lead us to a dead end (and quite often deep in debt – physically, emotionally and financially). In his latest book Hidden Potential, organizational psychologist, Adam Grant, digs a little deeper. He professes that comparison is not the thief of joy – envy is: “Resenting others’ success breeds misery and rivalry. Admiring their success brings motivation and learning. We all compare ourselves to others. A key to growth and happiness is focusing our comparisons on people who inspire us.”

Envy is an emotion; we feel envy. Comparison is a noun and it is simply a consideration or estimate.

It’s not the comparing that gets us in trouble; it’s the unchecked, disregulated emotion of envy. When our emotions are super-charging us, we tend to lose our perspective and our quite often our self control. Whether it becomes a cycle of rumination or an emotional outburst, we get derailed from our own present moment and we rob ourselves of joy. Sometimes our behavioral actions even rob others of their joy. It’s the collateral damage of us getting caught up in emotions we would rather not be feeling.

Until very recently, we did not fully understand that we actually are capable of much more emotional intelligence and self regulation than we realize. For far too long, we believed that the only way to tame emotions was to use sheer will power or “fake it til you make it.” These old strategies did not pan out so well.

Have you ever witnessed your young child having an absolute meltdown about a toy or a treat that their sibling has — knowing full well that your wailing child doesn’t even like that toy or treat? That is a classic example of unregulated, impassioned envy. A young child’s developing brain does not have the capacity yet ….. to engage differently with their big emotions. As adults, we do have this capacity, but many just don’t know it.

As Adam Grant makes so obvious, it’s human nature to compare ourselves to others. The act of comparison is not likely to go away no matter how much we humans evolve. It’s when that comparison stirs up our envy that things actually do come apart at the seams. Now we “devolve” into the little kid who is melting down over something we may not even really want. We may have about as much success controlling our envy as a parent trying to reason with the toddler if we rely solely on sheer will power. We can’t arm wrestle our way out of big emotions any more than a child can.

What’s in that envy cocktail that we shake or stir? Resentment, disappointment, frustration, sadness, insecurity, anxiety – just to name a few.

Have you ever felt envious about a friend or family member but in reality you wouldn’t want to trade places with them in a heartbeat? We cannot make this distinction in the moment that envy has taken over – our brain’s negativity bias and the strong unchecked emotions make it nearly impossible.

If we stay stuck in envy, we become resentful, miserable, and angry; we may fall prey to bouts of superiority just to make ourselves feel better. We run the risk of projecting all we are feeling out onto others. This is the adult version of the toddler temper tantrum.

Adam Grant offers a tool to avoid envy robbing us of our joy: “A key to growth and happiness is focusing our comparisons on people who inspire us.” In other words, he is guiding us to become “discerning” about our comparisons. This makes so much sense because it keeps us grounded and helps us maintain perspective. Think of your inner GPS being your “inner adult”; the voice of reason.

Becoming “discerning” about who and what we are comparing ourselves to is similar to an effective distraction technique often used with young children to help them get out of an emotional spiral. We disrupt the brain’s runaway emotional train with a pause between stimulus and response, and then we use discernment to switch tracks. Simply put, we refocus where our attention is going.

There is another tool we can implement to super-charge self-regulation skills. We can “substitute” a better emotion, on purpose, and in real time.

In his latest book, Build the Life You Want, happiness expert, Arthur Brooks, introduces this dynamic new emotional practice with a very relatable metaphor:

“Most people use caffeine because they aren’t content with the way they feel naturally, and want better outcomes in mood and work. It does so through substitution of one molecule for another. Caffeine is a good metaphor for this principle of emotional self management: You don’t have to accept the emotion you feel first. Rather, you can substitute a better one that you want. ” — excerpted from Chapter 3, Build the Life You Want.

Think about what we are trying to accomplish as parents when our child is over-reacting. We want them to “substitute” a different emotion for the one they are currently feeling. In fact, we mindlessly offer this common refrain to our distressed child: “Oh honey, don’t feel that way” and then we offer them other choices. These choices are often rooted in gratitude — all the things they already have.

Are you surprised that you already possess this skill of “substituting” a different emotion — helping others to see that they can choose an emotion that is more constructive to “act” on? It’s so easy to employ this tactic with our child or friend — and one of the most challenging to rely on for ourselves.

Our Own Social Science Experiment:

Our labs will be well stocked with opportunities for us to practice the pause, discernment and substitution over the holidays. Our labs are our ourselves, our families and our interactions with others as we make celebratory preparations.

What might your hypothesis be about the tiny Petri dish that has no emotional regulation — yet.

What are your predictions about the middle sized Petri dish that ignites quickly and has only sheer will power to overcome the emotional wildfire?

What outcome might be revealed when the larger, more advanced Petri dish, uses a pause between stimulus and response, discernment to shift focus and attention, and emotional substitution — choosing the emotion they wish to act from rather than the emotion they initially feel.

Why Daily Emotional Skills Practices are Needed:

Emotional intelligence and skillful emotional regulation are the natural next steps in our human evolution. Neuroscience and social sciences are giving us the proof positive that our brains have the capacity and neuroplasticy to create new, healthier neural networks, especially when it comes to the complexity of our emotions. With the advent of all these new discoveries, better skills and practices are replacing old paradigms for mental health, parenting, education, modern medicine and psychology.

An Emotional Skills Workshop may provide us with a diverse array of emotional tools like being mindful about where we place our attention and substituting a better emotion — but without consistent, regular practice, we will either forget about them or atrophy our ability to use them skillfully.

As Arthur Brooks underscores: “emotional substitution is a skill that takes practice, not just an insight. With practice and dedication, it can become quite automatic, and you will love the results.”

What really resonates with me about Arthur Brook’s wisdom, is that we are trying so hard to parent our kids to be in control of their emotions but for generations we have gone about it all wrong. Intuitively we sort of know what to do when we are trying to help them, but we were never taught how our brains and bodies work, the mechanics of emotional intelligence and regulation. It’s hard for us to teach what we ourselves don’t fully understand; what we ourselves are not consistently role modeling because we are not yet skillfully practiced.

That old adage “practice what you preach” is more relevant today than ever.

Modern day parents have so many ways to protect their children than we older generations had. Baby monitors, car seats, safety gear for sports, sunscreen, well baby checkups and preventative dental care are some powerful examples. Now they have at their fingertips, scientific breakthroughs about happiness and fulfillment — it is emotional integration.

We can install emotional integration in our young children and we can teach them how to use their innate emotional intelligence in ways that actually support and protect them. We are entering the age of “meta cognition” and it is a game-changer.

Food for Thought:

The reason that a single workshop will never be the answer for personal growth and self discovery is that we are literally changing every single day. Emotional intelligence and skillful emotional regulation is not a quick fix or a workshop — it is a life practice.

Emotions are here to stay – and for good reason. They are the guard rails, channel buoys and lighthouses for our quality of life and meaningful connections with others.

We take our emotional past into our present and we build our futures with our emotional responses in the present moment. We bump into each other every single day, with our emotions, ideas, perspectives and experiences. When we change, others change. We need better life navigational tools and skills to do this in a way that matters most to those we love.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

HOW TO UNDERSTAND EMOTIONS https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/huberman-lab/id1545953110?i=1000631446646

If you don’t want to dive into this big read just yet, listen to Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett discuss emotions in the Huberman Lab podcast shown here. You will discover how integral emotional intelligence is for our children especially.

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.

Growing Forward

I found a fascinating article the other day that intrigued me so much I spent an entire day making lists and creating graphs, pie charts and collages. Are you wondering what captivated me? It was about the person we will all be in 5 years.

Consider this: The person we will become in 5 years has a lot to do with the decisions we are making as the person we are today (and tomorrow….and so on). What shapes us? The books we read, the foods we eat, the workouts we do, the friends we meet, the sacrifices we make, the habits we build.

Those prompts really got me to thinking about who I am today for those very reasons. I thought about family and friends, and how the last five years have shaped them as well. Even if we would have had a crystal ball then, I doubt very much that any of us could have guessed how much we’ve changed; much of it intentionally and some of it due to things not in our control.

What if we could plot all this change, so we would have a visual for who we were 5 years ago, who we are today, and to project who we might be 5 years into the future. Wouldn’t it be amazing to have a chart of our self discovery and personal growth trajectory? I’d call it the “Growing Forward” chart.

It makes sense to step back and take a look at who we were in 2018. Nothing like a rear view mirror to help us see just how far we’ve come.

What books have you read over these past five years? What genres or subjects were you drawn to and what knowledge did you gain? How did you apply it to your life? Reading books, both fiction and non-fiction, deepens our empathy for others and helps us see ourselves in other’s stories. What did you discover about yourself and others through the books you read.

Think about new friendships you have formed and what drew you to these new people. How have they shaped who you are today? Did they introduce you to a new hobby or interest? What have you learned as you listened to their life stories? What did you learn about yourself that was reflected back to you in their experiences? How do these friends make you feel?

Are those habits that were so hard to implement in the beginning now a part of your normal daily routine? How have those improved habits changed your life? What is working so much better now?Are you more conscious of the choices you make that might derail your goals?

Have you discovered any new interests, taken up a new hobby or resumed an old one with a renewed passion? Are you spending less time on social media and more time being present with family and friends? Have you shifted your perspective on self care and recognize that you need to take good care of yourself so that you can be your best for others?

Are you amazed to discover just how much you really have changed over the past 5 years? Since so much of our change happens incrementally and definitely not in a linear way, it is quite surprising to take stock of these transformations, especially in 5 year increments. That’s when the real changes we’ve made become so apparent. That is where we see our “growing forward” trajectory.

I decided to look back on my blog posts from 2018 as part of this reflective exercise and while the topics are still relevant, the research and resources that have advanced our understanding about them have exploded into mainstream conversations. Back then, we still thought of meditation and mindfulness as something done on a cushion. Today many of us are more familiar with how our brains actually work than we ever did before thanks to neuroscience — and the podcasters and authors who break it down into layman’s terms for us and weave its value into our daily lives.

In 2018, there was still a major stigma associated with mental health and no one was talking about emotional health. We may have known there was a growing mental health crisis underfoot but all the pieces of the complex puzzle were not yet coming together. Personal growth was gaining a little more traction and life coaches were in high demand.

We could feel a sense that we were searching for something, but there wasn’t a lot of clarity and we were swimming in a sea of so many tempting distractions. Social media and the news cycles were addictive.

No matter what we were all individually doing that was shaping who we would be in five years, none of us could have predicted the major impact of a global pandemic. This would create changes we did not anticipate and yes, it would also shape who we’d become. The pandemic disrupted our “normal”. We’d been operating in our “normal” for so long that we had become unaware of how we were just going along with the pace and societal influences.

Change happens when our normal routines are disrupted. It is a basic principle for helping us stick to new habits or goals. Disruptions are the catalyst for reflection and redirection. Suddenly, we were all sent home to “think about it”. A collective disruption and a serious re-thinking of what matters most.

It is not at all surprising that the pandemic expedited the integration of modern medicine, neuroscience, psychology, cognitive and emotional health. There was no denying just how interconnected they all were. We started to pay attention to compromised immune systems. We could no longer deny the impacts of high levels of anxiety and extended periods of uncertainty. As humans, we just aren’t built for these long durations of stress and volatility. We need to return to baseline to rebuild our tolerance and resilience. We need breaks, we need quality sleep, we need to feel safe.

As we were washing our groceries, we started to think more consciously about what we were eating. We were learning to bake sourdough and create home-cooked meals.

Isolation and loneliness were amplified which proved just how much we need human connection for our health and well-being. Families needed each other to help with childcare and schooling. Grandparents moved from retirement communities to live closer to their adult children and grandchildren. We began to see the reality that we had missed before. How important safe and healthy childcare is, what needs to change in how we educate our children, What we miss when we cannot be together – to celebrate, to grieve, to scaffold, to comfort, to encourage, to challenge.

The perfect storm became the impetus for breakthroughs.

Our learning curve trajectory was on a rapid ascent. It was integrating with medical and science advancements that would deliver many missing pieces to our human puzzle.

We may not have realized that as we were accepting changes that we had no control over, we were in turn making changes of our own – based on meeting our needs and what mattered most to us. We were micro-dosing change as we found new ways to support ourselves and our families through the pandemic. It was definitely not linear, and we back-tracked more than a few times, but our trajectory has become evident.

It takes a lot of commitment, practice, dedication and perseverance to become an overnight sensation.

We think that rock stars and celebrities, inventors and AI blow onto the scene and create seismic shifts in an instant. But this is not the case. And it certainly has not been the case for medicine and science when it comes to the recent explosion of knowledge, tools and teachers for emotional health. It just feels like an aha moment. It has been a long time coming — and it arrived when we were most ready to soak it up.

As I looked through the past five years of my blog posts, I re-discovered the moments where I was seeing the integration of so many modalities for personal growth and self discovery. As a neuroscience geek, I was so excited. I had long wondered if there wasn’t a better, more enticing way to draw people into doing their own inner work. Why did we have to hit rock bottom or have our world fall apart to begin engaging in self improvement?

To be candid, if not for the pandemic, I may have thought my own personal growth work was done. I had a solid “starter kit” of improved self awareness and better life skills. I was handling myself much better than ever before.

But the real test and the real growth happens when we take our individual work into our relationships. The pandemic delivered a plethora of opportunities to put the new skills and practices to the test. Suddenly, there were a lot more people coming onboard with a keen interest in emotional health and personal growth.

As parents realized how their own childhoods had impacted them in unhealthy ways, they embraced the new parenting models that integrated emotions into the developing brains of their children. Again, there were so many emotions welling up in all of us that it was crystal clear we needed better skills so as not to compound an already complex problem.

We had poked holes in our awareness, seeds had been planted, some had sprouted and there was a growing demand for education, support and counseling. A huge pivot had occurred – the veil around mental health was lifted. Seeking therapy and counseling became normalized, just like hiring a fitness trainer or life coach. The demand for counseling was so high that there simply were not enough professionals to meet it. Just a few years prior, BetterHelp online therapy was only promoted on personal growth and wellness platforms. Today, BetterHelp is a sponsor for business and news podcasts, influencers and fitness gurus.

When neuroscience handed us the missing piece of our human puzzle — emotional health — all the other pieces that had been discarded or misunderstood, fell into place. Are you aware that we had tunnel vision for a very long time – and believed that all our troubles were lodged in psychology? Breakthroughs in neuroscience changed everything – and now we are treating PTSD and childhood trauma in much more beneficial ways, with remarkable lasting results.

The pandemic’s one major positive contribution is the shift from “treating” problems to “preventing” them. After all that we have been through both individually and collectively in the past five years, many people are embracing the truth that we can take better care of ourselves and each other.

The conversations that we are having today and the growing trends in preventative practices to improve our quality of life and our healthy longevity came about because of change. Today we understand that we need to take care of our brains first and foremost. We having a better working knowledge of how our brains operate, what they are capable of and how we can maximize the full capacities.

We are no longer ignoring the warning signs, no longer numbing the pain or putting a bandaid on it, no longer believing that suffering is the way we get to the path of healing. We are enthusiastically proactive.

Here is what I find so exciting about what might transpire for all of us in the next 5 years. As we begin to take better care of our brains and bodies, we will in turn take better care of our children. Our children will grow up with healthy attitudes, resilience and an overflowing toolkit of life and relationship skills. We will be leading by example.

Did you know that when we are overstressed, we are full of cortisol that keeps us in a heightened state of fight, flight or freeze….and when we are with others, they can sense that (especially kids). We end up pushing people away because of all that negative energy.

But when we are calm, emotionally regulated and resilient, we are full of oxytocin (the feel good hormone) and yes, others can sense that too — and guess what — it is like a magnet drawing people to us because it feels good.

As we are making these discoveries for ourselves, we are integrating it into our lives. We start making better choices and in turn those healthier decisions shape who we are becoming. In 5 years, just imagine the books being written right now that we will read in the future. Just imagine the friends you will be making – the ones that make you feel good and inspire you to discover all kinds of new things. Just imagine how your body will feel with 5 years of really good sleep, consistent hydration, regular exercise, healthy eating habits.

If you believe that all these positive, proactive and preventative measures will have a profound impact on your “growing forward” trajectory, you are right.

Take some time to reflect on what you have learned about yourself over the past five years and want you want for yourself and your family in the next five years. There has never been a better time to tap into incredible resources, education and mentors to help you achieve your goals.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

Ryan Dusick, founding drummer of Maroon 5, talks with Doug Boost about losing everything, finding recovery and rebuilding his life https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-adversity-advantage-with-doug-bopst/id1496406333?i=1000624725432

Metabolism, Brain Energy & Mental Health with Dr. Chris Palmer. Discover how we are evolving in our treatments for mental health issues that can negatively impact our quality of life.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/being-well-with-forrest-hanson-and-dr-rick-hanson/id1120885936?i=1000625115529

Dr. Martin Seligman is often referred to as the father of Positive Psychology. He wrote about post traumatic growth in his book Flourish in 2012.. Now 11 years later, he offers his insights with both psychology and neuroscience to help us prepare to live in a new normal of rapid change

Dr Peter Attia is leading the charge for a long overdue pivot in modern medicine. It is time to become proactive turning our attention to presentation rather than just treatment. Have a longer health span, and better quality of life. Emotional health is the cornerstone.

Authentic Self

It dawned on me recently that the truest test of being our “authentic self” is when we can move through our various roles and interactions without a costume change, an edited script, or adjusting the dial.

Give it some thought. Do you find yourself making personal adjustments to accommodate others, a situation, or to feel like you belong?

We’ve all done this. We know when we are walking into a situation that feels like eggshells and landmines, so we shape-shift a bit to stay in our comfort zone. Or, we sugar coat our truth and hope that we will get the desired result. We might even put up with some bad behavior and decide not to call it out just to keep the peace. We say yes to things that we really don’t want to do. We stay silent when we know in our hearts we should speak up.

One of the compelling reasons it is so hard to disengage from all the costume changes we put ourselves through is because we have multiple identities. And before you freak you, just know that this is really good thing.

Take a moment to think about your own multiple identities. It is a fun exercise and admittedly a little mind blowing. You can be a child, a sibling, a parent, a spouse, a grandparent, an employee, a boss, an entrepreneur, a friend, a gym rat, a yoga student, a writer, a musician, an artist, a volunteer, a birdwatcher, nature enthusiast, a mentor or coach, a member of a pickle ball, golf or bowling team. Are you surprised at all the hats you wear, the interests you have and the variety of people with whom you interact?

It is only natural that we would make some adjustments as we move in and out of our roles throughout the day. We may shift from being a sole decision maker as a parent to a team member at work, a student in a class or a caregiver for an aging parent.

As we are working on our personal growth, we may discover that we are more cognizant of the situations where we do “make adjustments.”

This is a very positive sign that we are gaining traction with the changes we are making – the very changes that get us showing up as our true “authentic self” in every one of our multiple identities.

Think of your authentic self as the “mothership”. You will step into all those other identities grounded in your core identity.

Our core identity is shaped by personal attributes we value. These core values are the touchstones for our words, our actions and behaviors. When we are clear about our values, we cultivate the skills and tools we need to show up more consistently as the person we want to be. We also hold ourselves accountable and make amends when we make mistakes.

A sign that we might be making adjustments that are not in alignment with our authentic self is when we feel discomfort. Think of discomfort as the warning signal that our values and our actions aren’t matching up.

If we are trying to fit in with a group and we go along with something that conflicts with our core values, it’s going to feel uncomfortable. If we have to dial back our natural effervescence, we are going to feel flat. If we bite our tongue instead of speaking up for ourselves or others, we will feel disempowered.

It takes courage to show up authentically in our various roles when we are making changes, but once we get over that initial discomfort, we will discover that we are moving with greater ease and more self confidence. It honestly takes less energy and brain power to tap into consistent behaviors and actions than to be adjusting constantly. In fact, our neural networks will be rewiring to support our better habits and the desired consistency.

Some of the places that may be hardest to step into our authenticity is with our family members. It is pretty commonplace for us to get stuck in old paradigms. Once the baby of the family, always the baby of the family — even if that baby is now 45. Or on the flip side, the eldest child may be the one everyone turns to when health care decisions need to be made for aging parents. Family members can inadvertently keep each other trapped in a long ago past.

Complex family dynamics are often the most challenging places to practice showing up authentically. It may also be the place where some of our most surprising changes take place. Just one family member showing up authentically and shifting the old paradigms can set off a cascade of positive improvements.

The reality is that none of us really stays the same. We are all impacted and changing by our life experiences. Some people will embrace change and work hard to evolve through their trials and tribulations. They will be the ones who will be the cycle breakers, the ones who offer insight and wisdom, the ones that hold space without judgment, the ones that show up as their true selves.

I’ve read books by people who have evolved into their authentic self and they write so eloquently about how freeing it is, how much joy they get out of each day and how much younger they feel. These same sentiments are echoed by the diverse guests of the podcasts I enjoy. Best of all, I see it emerging in my family and friends. It is so evident that they are moving with fluidity and grace through all their roles and experiences.

Authenticity comes from a strong sense of self identity, with clarity about our core values. Those values become the touchstones for decision making, emotional regulation, setting boundaries, being self compassionate, leaning into vulnerability and not getting attached to the outcome. When we can show up consistently with these attributes and skill sets regardless of the role we are in, we will feel a major positive change.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

Nedra Glover Tawwab has become the “go to” expert for understanding how boundaries help us take better care of ourselves and our relationships.

These conversations with some of our favorite icons will lift your spirits and motivate you to be your most authentic self. Check out this podcast on your favorite platform.

Dr. Maya Shankar hosts this podcast about real life events that dramatically changed people’s lives. Talk about moving into authenticity due to a major change of plans…these conversations will touch your heart. Check out this August 1st episode with author Dan Pink on the Science of Regret https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-slight-change-of-plans/id1561860622?i=1000623007434

Any Brene Brown book will support your efforts to become your authentic self. Sometimes it is just super comforting to know we are not alone and this one nails it.

White Water Rapids of Life

When I was in my mid-40’s, I used to tell my friends that I was in the white water rapids of life without a paddle when my plate was too full. Life was coming at me fast and furious and I could barely catch my breath, let alone juggle it all.

It seemed, without fail, that after three or four months of pushing through, burning the candle at both ends, making endless sacrifices without discernment, I’d get sick or there would be one monumental family crisis that would grind the fast pace to a halt. At that moment, it would feel like my attempts to “shoot the rapids” left me stranded on the rocks, teetering precariously.

This pattern became so apparent that I’d find myself bracing for it. I could feel the tension mounting every 3 or four months and could feel it in my bones that we were heading for something cataclysmic. Looking back, I can see that bracing for it was also a lifelong pattern of mine. I could feel the ground trembling metaphorically and the only preventative action I took was to steel myself against the inevitable. I would harden up, silently willingly myself to take it — whatever “it” was.

If things were really out of control, I would embellish my story about the white water rapids of life — I would lament to my friends that this time I was in the white water rapids of life without a paddle AND life jackets. Clearly this was the graphic imagery that I used to declare to myself and others that I was in over my head.

This pattern dominated a few years in my mid-40’s – that time when we find ourselves doing some of the hardest life work ever. We are gaining traction in our careers, or deciding we want to change careers in the mid-stream of life. Our parenting has often moved into the more challenging waters of adolescence (maybe that is where I felt I had no life-jackets). Financially we find ourselves looking both backwards and forwards – what’s the balance on the mortgage and how we will fund college educations? No wonder I felt like I was in the white water rapids of life. There was in fact a lot of changes underfoot, all swirling around unseen obstacles as we headed into unchartered water.

When my book club friends and I share stories from that time in our lives, we discover that this is exactly how most of us were feeling during that stage of our lives. We all might describe it a little differently but the patterns bear much similarity.

We’d have these peaks and valleys that could literally be put onto a graph that resembled stock prices or an EKG. The troughs in those graphs were the times where we cried uncle and had no choice but to stop and catch our breath.

Those troughs were the brief respites we were forced to take due to illness, or the acknowledgement that we can’t control a lot that happens in life. They were times where we were so sick, we were mandated to stay in bed for a few days to regain our physical health. Or the times when we had to sit alone in the dark and reflect on what really mattered. Brene Brown aptly named this period of time in our lives as “the great unraveling”.

I recently revisited what Brene wrote in her 2018 blog post about this midlife unraveling and found myself holding my breath as I took in the magnitude and wisdom of her words:

Midlife is when the universe gently places her hands upon your shoulder, pulls you close and whispers in your ear: “I am not screwing around. All of this pretending and performing — these coping mechanisms that you’ve developed to protect yourself from feeling inadequate and getting hurt – has to go. Your armor is preventing you from growing into your gifts. I understand that you needed these protections when you were small. I understand that you believed your armor could help you secure all the things you needed to feel worthy and lovable, but you’re still searching and you’re more lost than ever. Time is growing short. There are unexplored adventures ahead of you. You can’t spend the rest of your life worrying about what other people think. You were born worthy of love and belonging. Courage and daring are coursing through your veins. You were made to live and love with your whole heart. It’s time to show up and be seen.” — Brene Brown (see link to her blog at the end of this post.)

I often wonder if I had read a wisdom so profound in my mid-40’s how it might have landed on me. I’ll be honest, it’s highly doubtful that it would have resonated in the compelling way that it does today. When I close my eyes and sit with the feelings that emerge from reading it, I can transport myself back to what my own “white waters of life” were so earnestly trying to tell me.

Back then, I did not possess the knowledge and education that now underpins all that Brene imparted. In fact, when she gave us this pivotal message in 2018, we had not yet mainstreamed all that we were learning. Here we are 5 years later and that landscape has changed dramatically. Today it almost feel like a firehose has been turned on — and we are drenched in digestible neuroscience, engaging educational content as well as charismatic, dynamic leaders and teachers and endless resources. We are now fluent in emotional armor, childhood attachment styles and adaptive behavioral patterns. Emotional health has taken its rightful place at the top of the quality of life pyramid.

I couldn’t be happier that so many people of all ages are now absorbing this game-changing knowledge much earlier in their lives. Perhaps the mid-40’s and 50’s will no longer be the great “unraveling” but rather the “great transformation”. Imagine being able to shift gears in the mile markers of our life with vastly improved self-awareness and relationship skills. To be treating adolescence as the apprenticeship it truly is – and preparing our young people to go into the white water rapids of life with all the right tools, skills and burning desire to grow into their natural born gifts.

It is not longer just my wild imagination that envisions this phenomenal pivot, but the reality that we are already farther along on this transformational path than ever before.

There is rarely a day that I have a chat with someone where Dr. Andrew Huberman and his neuroscience podcast, the Huberman Lab are not mentioned. From neighbors to my dentist to seat mates on planes, Andrew Huberman has become a household name. Looking at the arc of his podcast popularity and the emerging topics he now discusses, we can create yet another graph that makes it clear that our trajectory for learning and the breakthroughs that are occurring are soaring.

I recently learned that Andrew Huberman started his highly successful podcast in 2021 because he wanted the general population to have the knowledge and tools they needed to support their physical and cognitive health through the pandemic. He was aware that we were not getting this invaluable information from our leadership and he wanted to educate people about the proactive steps they could be taking that were free, do-able and would have noticeable positive impact.

Think about this — Andrew Huberman saw a need and he stepped up to the plate. He has more than 3.5 million subscribed followers for his podcast launched in the midst of a pandemic. That’s 3.5 million people that have most likely changed their habits – like making consistent sleep a top priority, taking breaks from screens every 45 minutes, getting morning sunlight, changing their relationship with caffeine and alcohol, committing to varied exercise programs and understanding the impacts of their emotional health on their physical and cognitive health.

All of this happened one podcast episode at a time. Knowledge coming at a time of great need and receptivity; a willingness to put in the work and make changes; witnessing the positive effects of those changes and being motivated by all of it to learn more.

Andrew Huberman is throwing his net wide and bringing more diverse guests onto his podcast and for good reason. He is integrating teachings and research from other disciplines because they are all inter-connected to this bigger picture of current evolution. Breakthroughs are occurring fast right now and just like striking a match, they are catching fire quickly with those folks who are hungry to learn more.

The coalescing of personal growth, self development, mental health, emotional health with all the sciences was amplified during the pandemic. It was a collective moment – a tsunami in the white water rapids of our shared experience. It was a great unraveling. Go back now and re-read Brene’s insights for a mid-life unraveling and see if you can spot a similar message for our collective, complicated issues.

As each of us begins to do our own work, taking better care of ourselves and our families, with all that we learn from Andrew Huberman and others just like him, we are contributing to the greater good for everyone. Trust me, people are taking notice. Younger generations are looking at older generations and seeing the effects of ignoring our physical, cognitive and emotional health. Motivated by their desire for longer, healthier, and more satisfying lives, they are charting a new course with the improved knowledge, resources and tools so readily accessible.

Is it any wonder that there is a groundswell of keen interest in all that Andrew Huberman and others like him are enthusiastically sharing with us? Think about what happens when each of those 3.5 million followers shares what they have learned with just one workout buddy, one colleague, or one family member — now that is a powerful ripple effect in the right direction.

We are piecing together how old parenting models that created our armor and ineffective coping strategies also embedded a lot of fixed mindset and limiting belief impediments that hold us back from achieving our full potential and using our natural gifts. As we dig a little deeper on these topics, we are discovering vastly improved ways to educate our children to have a growth mindset, to foster resilience and determination through setbacks, and become critical thinkers.

We are doing this work together and it’s contagious in the best possible way.

Pay attention to the new books being published and the overlapping themes that fit like puzzle pieces. You’ll notice this on the colorful displays in your local bookstore. Check out guests that your favorite podcasters invite for meaningful conversations. Notice how personal stories take up a greater percentage of the discussion now – because that’s how we best integrate all this new information.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t confess that this blog post was inspired by my current read, TomorrowMind by Gabrielle Rosen Kellerman and Martin Seligman (who is often affectionately referred to as the father of positive psychology.). I think you’ll find my “connect the dots” story about Martin Seligman delightfully fascinating.

I began my curiosity about psychology about the same time that Dr. Seligman published his book Flourish in 2012. The subtitle of his book was “A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being.” It focused a lot on how positive psychology could help us “preload” so that post traumatic growth might be possible rather than recurring PTSD. At the time I was in a relationship that puzzled me to no end. I could not understand the inability to “bounce back” from even minor setbacks. I was at a loss on how I could help so I was on the hunt for tools and education.

His book and his research set me on a path of self discovery and personal growth that I may have never otherwise considered. And I have never looked back. It’s eleven years later and my friends tease me that I have possibly earned an advanced degree or two. My passion for this learning has grown into my purpose, which is sharing what I am learning with others.

I have observed how often the topics I first read about have gone through a few transformations of their own over the past two decades, with scientific evidence debunking myths, depeening our initial understandings and bringing clarifying proof through neuroscience. For those reasons, I was intrigued to see what Dr. Seligman now had to share – in April 2023 in this brand new book.

I could barely put it down.

Had you been here with me as I began to read this book, you would have heard the resounding laughter that came from me when I read his words that had once been my own — Dr. Seligman uses the metaphor of the white water world of work! He talks about shooting the rapids, and navigating currents, obstacles and change. If he were here, I would hug him. I get the analogy – and I am deeply grateful. I am not at all surprised that we are now embarking on taking the work that we have been doing individually out into the big wide world.

The gear and the skills we need to navigate the white water rapids of life – at home and in the workplace are found in personal growth, self development and attending to our emotional health.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

Listen to the July 24th episode of the Huberman Lab podcast with Dr. Maya Shankar on Shaping Your Identity and Goals. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/huberman-lab/id1545953110?i=1000622115223

This July 17th episode is entitled Enhancing Performance & Learning By Applying a Growth Mindset. Dr. Carol Dewck, author Mindset, is an esteemed colleague of Dr. Huberman. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/huberman-lab/id1545953110?i=1000621365285

I have listened to Dr. Maya Shankar’s podcast for several years and am always inspired and uplifted by these incredible stories of people who overcame adversities that left them no choice but to reinvent themselves. Check out this episode with Dr, Kristin Neff on Self Compassion https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-slight-change-of-plans/id1561860622?i=1000617332975

Buckle your seatbelt for this very real conversation with Terry Real, Author of US, and Peter Attia. Dr. Attia has been revelational in his message about the importance of our emotional health in his book, Outlive. He turned to Terry Real for the therapy he needed to work on his “Bobbie Knight” inner critic and the behavioral reactions he wanted to change.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbI4fm2cNz8