The One You FeedScott Stabile’s journey towards self-acceptance and self-love began with a simple yet powerful realization. He learned to acknowledge the small actions in his daily life that reflected self-care and love. This awareness and acknowledgement of these moments of self-love allowed him to shift his mindset and energy towards self-compassion. Scott’s shares the importance of recognizing and appreciating the seemingly mundane acts of self-care, which ultimately lay the foundation for fostering a deep sense of self-acceptance and love.
In this episode, you will be able to:
- Embrace self-compassion and acceptance to transform your mindset and behavior
- Navigate the difficult emotions of envy and jealousy to unlock your personal growth potential
- Face difficult conversations that can lead to creating deeper connections
- Cultivate self-love and authenticity to live a more fulfilling life
- Manage overwhelming thoughts and emotions to find inner peace and clarity
To learn more, click here!
Do you ever feel like life is just one problem after another. You finally feel like maybe there's a break, and then bam, another problem. This is how it is for many of us. But there is a better way to respond, a way of responding that brings greater ease into your life and returns some of the energy that the problems drained from you. We are hosting a free live masterclass on Sunday, March third, called Learn the Keystone Habit to unlock energy and ease in your life. In it, I will teach you how to tap into resources already within you so that life feels less like a never ending fight and more like an ever evolving dance. You will learn the number one source of unhappiness that drains your energy and keeps you feeling stuck, and a simple mindset shift you can make right away so that life doesn't feel like such a constant struggle. This will be a live event and you'll have a chance to interact with me and each other. I've really grown to love these community events where we get to meet each other and deepen our connections, and I hope that you can become part of that. Go to oneufeed dot net slash live to learn more and register for this free event. Again, that's one you feed dot net slash live. I hope to see you there.
Take the time to acknowledge the small things you're doing throughout the day that are reflective of you caring for yourself in a loving way. And the reason I recommend that even if it's five seconds, even if it's ten seconds, you're putting your hands on your heart and you're thinking, this is me loving myself right now as I brush my teeth.
Welcome to the one you feed throughout time. Great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good Wolf, thanks for joining us. Back on the show today is Scott Stabil, whose inspirational posts and videos have attracted a huge and devoted social media following. His Previous works include Just Love, Iris, and the Lil Pet Hospital series. Scott also wrote the feature film The Oogie Loves in the Big Ballroom Adventure. He's a speaker and love advocate and runs day long empowerment workshops nationally and internationally. Today, Eric and Scott discuss his new book Enough as You Are.
Hi, Scott, welcome back, Hey Eric, Thank you so much. Man. Happy to be here.
Yeah.
I was saying before we start, I'm not sure how many times we've had you on, but it's.
Been least three, at least three, and.
I don't know whether one of those was for like a short episode or I don't know, but it's been a number of times and I have always enjoyed it. So when I saw you had a new book coming out, I was thrilled to be able to get to have you back on.
Oh.
I so appreciate it. Thank you.
Yeah. So we'll start in the way to which you are accustomed, which is I'm going to read that parable and ask you what you think about it, and I have no idea what you said any of the other times, and probably no one else does either, So whatever, all right? In the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with a grandchild and they say, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops think about it for a second. They look up at their grandparent and they say, well, which one wins, And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do.
Yeah, in this moment, as I'm hearing you recant that what I'm feeling is the essence of the work I'm doing the most right now, which is built around self acceptance and self love. So for me, as I hear the parable, it's loving the good wolf and the bad wolf, understanding that no matter what is coming through, no matter what compulsions, desires, thoughts, feelings, words, that is within our power to show up for ourselves with love, with grace, with compassion, And the more often we do that, I find that the more inclined we are to make choices that are more in line with love and kindness and compassion and all of the quote unquote good Wolf ways of being. Because for me, love is just energy, and it's an energy that is alive within us and outside of us, and it is a pure positive energy in my experience, which means it is always in service to everything. So I know that I'm human and that part of my Can we swear on this show or I don't remember?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it happens to turn it into an Andrew Dice Clay rematch, But in general, yes, occasional.
Okay, thank you, just so I know, yeah, okay, no, But in general, it's understanding that sometimes we show up like a jerk, you know, Sometimes we show up without compassion. Sometimes we make choices that are clearly not the healthiest for us. And can we still, rather than shaming ourselves for these choices, is for these actions, recognize that shame is not the thing that's ever going to lead to healing, and that is within us to love ourselves no matter what. So I want to love both wolves and trust that by giving my love to both, I'm naturally going to be energizing the good wolf more often.
So I love that idea obviously of self love and for me self compassion self love. Learning to do that for myself, forgive myself has been one of the most important things that I have possibly done for my own well being, and it is a very difficult thing to do at points, right. Absolutely, you know, it's interesting, like if you read the science on affirmations, right, it appears that affirmations seem to help the people most who don't actually really need them because they kind of already believe they're awesome. Absolutely, when you don't, a lot of this stuff of trying to love our selves or be self compassionate feels really really difficult. Like in my Spiritual Habits program, self compassion is one of the core attributes because, like you, I believe it underlies everything else that we do right without it, when we don't live up to whatever it is we're trying to do. And in my program, it's like, you know, practice spiritual principles more in our lives, and when we don't do that, if we don't have self compassion as a base. We just have another thing to feel bad about. And that's not the goal, absolutely, but it is also the thing that most consistently people say. I hear what you're saying, I know, and yet I can't seem to feel it. The voices keep coming that tell me I'm bad. The shame is embedded.
You know.
What I'm hoping is that you can, in five seconds give us a tip that will dispel all of that once and for all. If this, if that's in this book, I'm gonna recommend it.
Yeah.
I know it's a long term process, right, but I would just love to hear when you must hear people say the same thing to you, given how much you write about self love and self forgiveness and self compassion.
Yeah, I mean, I agree with everything you're saying one hundred percent. And for me, what it comes down to often is just about bringing more honest awareness to the choices I am making in my life and taking the time to acknowledge those that are actually aligned with self love. I think we take for granted a lot of the things that we do for ourselves, and I'll give you very basic examples, like brushing our teeth or cooking food, that tastes good, or putting on clothes in which we feel good moving through the world. Every time we're doing these things, we're actually acting in alignment with self love. We're taking care of ourselves in a very specific way. And for me, one of my practices that has helped me a lot is just not taking all of those choices for granted, in part because I give a lot of work on self love and I meet a lot of people who tell me they don't know how to love themselves, and I feel that we actually are loving ourselves, we're just not acknowledging it. And so one thing I would recommend to people is it may sound corny. I fear it's gonna sound corny to some, but it has helped me is just take the time to acknowledge the small things you're doing throughout the day that are reflective of you caring for yourself in a loving way. And the reason I recommend that is then we're living even if it's five seconds, even if it's ten seconds, you're putting your hands on your heart and you're thinking, this is me loving myself right now as I brush my teeth. You know I could go through the day without doing that. This is me loving myself right now as I prepare this meal, this beautiful food for myself and for me. What that naturally does, because I do see everything as energy, and energy does generate momentum. The more we're carving out these moments one, the less time we're mired in self abuse and this idea that or not worthy. Even ten seconds of connecting to the gratitude for care is ten seconds less of I'm a piece of crap, right, and that matters. And then also I feel like these choices invite more opportunities for self love and self care because in general, what we're committing to is the acknowledgment and the intention around loving ourselves. I want to speak to affirmations as well, because I'm someone who uses affirmations in my life. But what I discovered for myself is what you were speaking to. Is It's one thing to say I love myself just as I am, But if that's not my truth, if that's not what I'm actually feeling my experience is what I'm feeling in that moment is always going to trump the words that are just coming out of my mouth. So I can't love myself with words. If what I'm feeling inside is self loathing. But what I can do in my affirmations and what I encourage people to do, is to land on the most honest statement that you can make. So if I can't honestly say in this moment, I love myself as I am, can I honestly say I am willing to love myself as I am. I am willing to give energy to the practice of self love and self care. And if that feels honest, if that stands true in your body, that is a statement. I feel like that will be helpful because it also reflects self love. Even if you're not able to say I love myself, being willing to being willing to give energy to it is the same thing. It's all about the energy of you getting in a more harmonious relationship with yourself. Another thing I would say to what you brought up is that it's never too late with everything, not just with self love. I feel like, if you've spent thirty years of your life mired in self loathing, but there is a part of you right now that wants to create a different relationship with yourself, even if you don't know how, I do know that it is always what you do from this moment on that's going to matter the most, which is to say that the choices you make, the practices you integrate, the podcast you choose to listen to, the way you're choosing to talk with yourself and be with yourself is going to impact what you do from this moment on. And in my experience, self love has proven to just to be a skill, and like any other skill, the more you practice at it, the better you become at it. That's what I believe. So and the things I'm saying, I feel like they can be applied to any sort of spiritual presure, right, even beyond just self love. We're talking about the journey of growth, the journey of healing, right, And I also want to speak to the shaming aspect because that's a very real thing that happens for many of us on this spiritual path. We end up judging ourselves against a more evolved version of ourselves that doesn't yet exist. So we're judging ourselves against a fictionalized version of who I am. And I've done this a thousand times over as someone who's been on a spiritual path, was in a cult, was chasing enlightenment and was continuously shaming myself because I wasn't living the life of the enlightened version of Scott that has never existed and may never exist. And part of and I think this is the essence of a lot of the writings in Enough As You Are. What I've come to learn is that it is within me to honor my humanity, which is to say, to remind myself consistently that I am human when I am not showing up and making healthy choices, when I'm not looking in the mirror and thinking I look beautiful, but looking at all the spots I'd like to change. All of this is a part of our human conditioning, right, and so I'm less interested in transcending my conditioning, though I am interested in that as much as possible, also understanding I may never transcend some of the conditioning because it's so deeply rooted. But even beyond that, what I'm interested in is offering myself grace when I'm unable to transcend my conditioning, to remind myself this too is human. Every other human being on the planet with a human mind has been conditioned in similar ways and is struggling with all of these same things, and it is entirely okay that you are where you are with them. So instead of doing the shaming thing or feeling I don't look at my spiritual path as pressure anymore to achieve something. So I'm not putting that pressure on myself that you were speaking to and then feeling disheartened by my inability to show up the way I would want to. Instead, the practice that I'm doing is I'm approaching all of this with a bit more curiosity and a bit more nonchalance. And so for me, what that looks it's like is when my mind is doing its insane dance yet again, trying to tell me I'm a piece of crap and worthless and all the things that my mind wants to tell me. Instead of internalizing those things the way I used to do, I kind of look at it now with this, Oh, okay, that's interesting that this is what my mind is doing right now, and like why is my mind doing? Like bringing a sense of curiosity and a sense of nonchalance and an understanding that every other mind on the planet is doing this also has helped me feel a lot more okay with my own insanity.
There's so many different things you said in there that we could touch on. I mean the phrase that and I don't know where I heard it, but what we practice we strengthen is a really powerful idea, and you touched on that in all aspects, right, every little thing. And this idea of looking at the ways we are practicing self love is interesting because I had a conversation I went on. I joined a hiking group, and I went on a hiking conversation of that day and just ended up with a PhD in psychology next to me, amazingly, and so we could have talked for thirty hours. But one of the things we ended up on as we were talking about, you know, how people actually change behavior, and we landed on this topic he believes is fundamental, which is around identity. It shows up in behavior change literature of many different kinds. The example that's often gived is let's say you're trying to quit smoking and you're standing outside and somebody comes up and offers you a cigarette. If you say no thanks, I'm trying to quit, that's one thing. If, on the other hand, you say no thanks, I don't smoke, that's an identity you've taken on as a non smoker. Now, the obvious problem with that is what if you're not living into that identity? Right, So it's like, all right, I want to see myself as a person who moves my body every day. Like that's actually how I see myself. I'm a person who moves my body every day and at every opportunity because I know it's good for me. But if I'm not doing that, I mean, I've got years of sort of reinforcing that behavior. It's an easy identity, but very early on, you know, may not be doing that. Or if you're trying to quit smoking, you may be sort of successful and sort of not successful, so your identity doesn't quite line up. And he said something very similar to what you said. He said, what I do with patients is I try and focus on the ways in which whatever they are, and however small they are, that they are living that identity. If you want to be a non smoker, and you're trying to say I don't smoke as an identity, look at the times you didn't smoke, don't look at the few times you did, Like, look at the progress that's being made. And you were saying the same thing with self love, Right, if I focus on what these small things are that I'm doing to love myself. Then I can begin to take on the identity of somebody who does love themselves, and I will continue to act more and more into that identity over time. And so I love the way you said that because I think it really lines up a lot with the importance of identity, because it's an important thing. You know, we can have the identity that I'm someone who hates myself, right. I mean many people do, right, right, you know, I'm neurotic, I'm any number of different.
Things, absolutely, And I think one of the reasons that the focusing on the times you are showing up the way you want to be, or focusing on the times you are loving yourself, one of the ways in which that's helpful is because it is much harder for your mind to convince you of something when you are showing up the opposite way, which is to say, we become more aware of the ways in which our mind is lying to us about who we are.
You know.
As an example, like with the last book, Big Love, as soon as I signed the contract, there was ten minutes of joy and then panic, like I have to deliver this book, am I going to be able to write it, and literally I had ten minutes of whoo. And I was showing up every day to work on the book, and my mind was still saying, you're never going to do this, But day in and day out, I was doing it. And what I was noticing is my mind was continuing to get quieter because it couldn't convince me that I can't do the very thing that I am showing up and doing every day, which is transfer that to self love or to any other thing. If each day you're giving a little energy to focusing on the ways you are showing up, it's going to be harder for your mind to make the case to you that you don't know how to love yourself or that you hate yourself, because those things are not true. They are products of the mind. And it is only when we are committed to believing our thoughts that we get locked into these lies. And so another practice for me that has helped me come to a better place with myself is really, and I know you've talked about this a lot on your show, the idea of bearing witness to our mind and bearing witness to our thoughts really really internalizing the truth that we we are not what we are thinking, We are not our minds. It is possible to create that detached separation. The metaphor I love the most is become the sky and allow your thoughts to be the weather. The sky is expensive enough to hold whatever's happening, whatever insane thoughts are playing through our mind. When you're bearing witness, you're not becoming any of it. And what that creates for me is distance from those self loathing thoughts and those self abusive thoughts, and it allows me to look at them with a bit more curiosity and nonchalance because I'm not them. And I think a lot of people don't know that they really believe everything that's happening in their minds when so much of it is untrue.
Yeah, to be able to do that is a profound practice and is a beautiful thing to do. What I have noticed, and I've had some of this recently, is that I can do that when the emotional scale and the thought scales around like a three to a four or a five. Maybe even I can handle a six on a good day if I'm my best. But once it's up at like eight or nine, that separation feels almost impossible. It's so overwhelming. And I love that you talk in the book some about distraction or numbing right, because I think that in a program I teach called Circle of Connection, one of the things we explore is working with difficult thoughts and emotions. And I created probably an overly complicated flow chart, but there's a point in it where you go, I give up, Like I've done everything that I've tried to be the sky, I've tried to work with my thoughts. I've tried to think about what's true and what's not true. I give up. Can I find some non destructive distraction? You know? And I think we're often told, like you just sit with whatever you're feeling, And I think that's good advice in general, like feel what you're feeling. But there are times that we don't have it in is to do it. We just don't and being willing to pull the ripcord into another frame of mind somehow. Again, I encourage non self destructive, but sometimes self destructive might be all you got in your bag right now. But you talk about a doing that in your own life, and you also talk about forgiving yourself when you do do it in a way that maybe doesn't fully align with the choices you want to make. Say more about that.
Yeah, it's such a great point you're bringing up, because sometimes even with all the tools that you and I and probably many of the listeners have in our toolkits, tool baskets.
Tool belt, much of it. No one talks about a tool belt much anymore.
Yeah, and our tool belt, even with all those things, sometimes the mind takes over and for me, the words I come back to in that moment when I know that I'm just in it and there's nothing I'm going to do. You're right, I can't become the sky in this moment. I really go to one of my favorite mantras, which is this too shall pass. That is one of the only things that offers me any sense of peace in this moment is just knowing it's not going to last forever. Yep, so I'm just gonna have to ride it out. And then as far as numbing or escaping, I used to judge myself so harshly when I would check out, and I really don't anymore, and I check out a bunch if I need to, and I don't even feel the need to forgive myself for it. It's not even something that needs to be forgiven. It's really just something that I need not shame myself for the way I used to recognize that this world is so intense and so violent and so overwhelming, and there is so much information and opinions and news coming at us from every direction all the time. I do not believe there's a person on the planet who can experience it without checking out whatever that checkout looks like for you, you know. And so yeah, I don't think i'd be around. I think I'd be in a cave somewhere if I couldn't do my Netflix binges and whatever else it is that I do to just forget about things. I think it's totally okay. And part of that, again is coming back to this idea that we don't have to be making the healthiest choices for ourselves all the time in order to be worthy of our love. Right. That's some misguided conditioning that we've grown up with and taken on so many of us, that like our worth is predicated on something other than the fact that it's inherent right, or that we are lovable simply because we're born lovable, not because of the choices we're making, or because of our looks, or how great our family is, or any other thing, when you really come to understand. And again, I don't know how to get someone to understand this. I don't know how I came to understand this other than probably the commitment to loving myself, my commitment to not listening to the voices of shame. And suddenly, gradually, over time I embraced generally this idea that I am a worthy human being, period, And no matter how my mind wants to tell me otherwise, every baby born on this planet today is as worthy as every other baby, Every human being dying on this planet today is as worthy as every other human being in my experience, in my understanding. And so why would I not be a part of that worthiness story? Like why would I be the one person who is not worthy when I see every other being as worthy? And what that does for you when you really start to inhabit that sense of worth, that sense of enoughness, is it allows you to move through the world with much more openness, much more expansiveness. And then I believe that what you invite from that place into your life is wholly different than when you're moving through the world energetically shut down and believing that you're a piece of crap who doesn't deserve love or doesn't deserve these things.
There's a real nuance in this, right, Let's apply it to checking out or escaping and numbing. Right, Yes, on some level, there is an understanding of of course I have to check out, everybody does sometimes, and there's also a recognition, perhaps that the ways I'm checking out aren't actually restoring me in any way. Right, you know, I'm actually checking out in a way that doesn't do what the purpose of checking out is, which would be to allow me to come back less for as old then I left.
Right, Well, then checking out would have a different definition for me than numbing or escaping, because I feel like when we're numbing or escaping from what it is we're feeling, that thing is always going to be there on the other side of the numbing and escaping, Right, that's speaking to what you're saying. Because I'm not doing anything about it. I'm just like smoking pot right now and watching Netflix.
Yeah, which is fine sometimes exactly, I mean, yeah, it is okay, And and this is the holding the both thing. If I do that all the time, then nothing changes, right, And so I love this idea in Buddhism of like true refuge and false refuge. You know, true refuge is things that bring you back more restored. False refuge are things that just check you out for a while and you come back and everything's exactly the same as it is. Yeah, we all need both, right, We all need both of those things, you know. So what I'm looking at is how can I and all this is without judgment and shame?
Of course?
Do I need to be adjusting that balance? Am I numbing more than is useful for me in being the person that I want to be. There's a phrase that has been going through my mind as I've been reading your work, and it goes through my mind very often because I feel like I'm somebody who's holding sort of two things at once. And nobody has summed this up better than the great Zen teacher Suzuki Roshi, who said you're perfect exactly the way you are, and you could use a little improvement. And I love that line because both those things are absolutely true, and if I don't have both of them, it's problematic. If I only think I need improvement, then I'm going to be trying to improve out of a sense of shame and unworthiness and less than this. And that may provide fuel for a while, but it's fuel that eventually gunks up the whole engine and everything turns crappy.
Yeah.
Absolutely so if I don't have the self love, if somehow I were able to be I'm perfect exactly as I am. I suppose if you could actually inhabit that one hundred percent fully, you would probably be okay. But given that, I think part of our role in this world is to live according to our values, right Like I want to live according to my values, which means I do need a little bit of improvement and I need to love myself, and I just I find that balance a really like many many things that we talk about, a really nuanced thing. In the same way of should I try and eliminate those negative thoughts? Should I try and listen to them? The answer is, at different times a little of all of that.
Absolutely, you know. For me, there's always value I think in looking at the choices you're making and how those choices are making you feel and are affecting your life, and as much as possible, direct yourself into choices that have you feeling more meaning, more connection, more love in your life, you know, more wholeness, and start eliminating the choices that are depleting you and have you feeling like crap and disconnected one hundred percent. You know, I'm someone who's a major processor, you know, but I have fun with it, Like I'm always looking at why I'm doing what I'm doing, and like, yeah, for me, that is it's it's entertaining, it's I'm curious about that.
Yeah, And it's part of who you are.
It's part of who as you are, absolutely exactolutely like.
That self love, Like that's who I am, Okay, exactly.
But what's so important about what you said too, is like if we can get in the practice of not doing any of this with shame, It's like, if you're numbing and it's in an unhealthy way, that isn't going to serve you, there's still no need to shame yourself for that choice. And that's really the practice I'm really focused on in my life so much now is understanding no matter what choices I make, I can be a voice of love for myself and by doing so, it's not to justify my actions. I don't believe it takes away in any way from the possibility of making healthier choices down the line. It just allows me to live into. Ultimately, what I've discovered is that one of the things I desire more than any other thing, which is to be in a good relationship with myself. Because if you're in a loving relationship with yourself, if you know you've got your back, if you know you're going to be there no matter what, you're likely to feel so much freer to take risks in your life, to fail, to be rejected, to make choices that are in alignment with your heart, because you know that, no matter what happens, rather than being a voice of shame on the other side of it, you're going to be a voice of compassion and love on the other side of it. And so if I know that my relationship is solid with myself, it matters much less what choices I make because I know that I'm going to be there for myself no matter what.
Does That make sense, It one hundred percent does. And if shame actually was an effective agent for change, you probably would have very little addiction in the world. Right, Like you know, I mean, it's the engine that derives it, right Now there are things that cause it that are not shame based, right, traumas and all that different stuff. But the engine that drives addiction is shame, you know, and it tends to be the engine that drives most of the choices that we make that we don't want to be making. Yes, that very thing. I love that idea, which is, like I think you said, you know, I absolutely have my back. We've interviewed a guy named Aziz Gazapura and I've been on his show, and he has a phrase like be on your own side, and I love that because you can always be on your side. You can always have your back, and you can have that and you can look at the choices you make and evaluate them and say, oh, I would like to do more of this or less of that, while at the exact same moment being one hundred percent on your side having your own back, And that can sometimes again is a nuanced thing to sort out, but it is the way, and my experience is sustainable change in both our well being and acting according to our values, that both those things happen best in that fertile soil.
Absolutely. I mean, I've never shamed myself into healing and I have often loved myself into a better place of being, into a more healed place of being. And for those of you listening who are thinking, and I know there are some of you like, well, I don't have my back like self love, It's very easy to say you can always have your back. But if you're someone who's like I don't know how to have my back, I don't. I'm judgmental of myself, I'm critical. You know, small steps like for me again, I really love the word willingness because for me, willingness is an invitation when we're not able to show up in the place, but we have a general energetic intention about being there. Like are you willing to have your back? I would grab a sheet of paper. What would that look like to you to have your back? Right down? Very specific things like when I have my back, it looks like this, or if I were to have my back, it would look like this. Make a list for yourself, and then from that list, start integrating some of those practices as best you could. Maybe it looks like having your back after a long day of work. It might look like preparing yourself a beautiful cup of tea and being very intentional about it. Maybe it might look like sitting for ten minutes staring at a wall in total silence. These are little examples of how we can go about taking care of ourselves in tangible ways that actually matter. They're actually impactful. So I really encourage anyone who goes to a place of well, I don't know how to do that, and I can't do that, and I haven't done that, to really ask yourself generative questions. Questions that are yes and no because your fear, your insecurity is going to take you to a know, but a question that generates the invitation to look at how you can go about doing it, Like what would it look like to have my back? How can I go about having my back in a more proactive way in my day to day living? Those questions are an invitation for responses that align with the yes that you're seeking.
Let's change directions a little bit here, because you've got all sorts of stuff in this book on this topic of you know, kind of focusing sort of on the self love piece. You have a line that I really love, which is you can't paint your self portrait with someone else's hand.
Yeah, what do you love about that line?
What it is is it's like many statements that once you hear them, something becomes extraordinarily clear, right. And what becomes for me in that statement extraordinarily clear is oh, yes, if I'm going to paint my self portrait, who else could do it? It's a self portrait, right, It's an obvious like, oh yeah, okay, well only I can do that.
Absolutely.
If someone else is painting something, it's not my self portrait, it's their portrait of me, right, which is a completely different thing than my self portrait. So I love it because it's a sort of like when you hear the wolf parable, you kind of immediately get it. You're like, oh, yeah, my choices matter. Right in that line, it becomes very clear, like, oh, my image of myself can only be generated truly by me. Now I may be borrowing other people's images, I may be looking at other portraits that have been painted, but at the end of the day, it's mine to paint for me.
It speaks a lot to conditioning. I'd say a lot of the work I've been doing the last few years too, is really looking at what responses are conditioned responses and what are authentic responses, and as much as possible. When I recognize that I'm aligning with just a conditioned way of being that doesn't even feel necessarily true to who I am right now or may never have felt true to who I am? Then do I have the courage to align myself with what feels more true, even if by doing so and sharing that I might get judged more harshly because it's outside the bounds of what we've considered to be okay in our society, I might be misunderstood, I might be rejected, And for me, part of this path, this journey, should you choose to take it in a more healing consciousness way, is looking at what is real, what is true inside of me, and understanding One of the most liberating moments I had years ago was when I had the realization that no matter what choice I make, I'm going to be judged by other people. And that realization felt really heavy in the moment of it, because it was like, my god, we are all so judgmental, we're all criticizing each other all the time, and it feels heavy to know that you can't do anything without being criticized. But a few moments later, I'm like, wait a minute, That is the most liberating realization I could possibly have, because what that means is, if I choose to live in this restrictive box of conditioning, I'm going to be judged. Or if I live in the full expansiveness of my truth and freedom, I'm going to be judged. And knowing that both those choices are going to lead to judgment, why would I ever choose this restrictive box.
Yeah, because the people were being judged by in the restrictive box are the people closest to us at that time. Sure, that's why that choice can often seem like the more appealing choice. But you're absolutely right that judgment's coming from anywhere. I use this example just yesterday. So hopefully these episodes don't get released right on top of each other, but it's top of mind for me, and it speaks to exactly what you are saying. It also speaks to the obviousness of you can only payt your own self portrait. You know, for a long time, Ginny and I went back and forth between Atlanta and Columbus. Her mom was in Atlanta Alzheimer's, my mom was in Columbus and other things, And when we were in Atlanta, my mom was unhappy, and when we were in Columbus, her mom was unhappy, and that caused me a lot of strain until one day I went, wait, it's impossible that one of them is not going to be happy. I can't make them both happy, like, literally cannot do it. YEA, what a freedom? Yes, right now, I'm not saying I didn't still try and think about their needs and who needed what and when they needed it. But I was able to just let go of an insoluble problem.
Absolutely right.
And in the same way for you, who we're talking about, being judged is an insoluble problem. Right, It's going to happen. You are going to be judged by the people around you. And you know, again, given that point, wouldn't I rather be living truer to who I really am?
Absolutely?
And I think the reason that choice sometimes feels harder is that the people right around us are people who are closest to us currently are the ones who will judge the choice to break out of the box.
Well, that's why it takes so much courage.
Yeah, once you're out of the box, then it's a different story. But getting out of that box does take a tremendous amount of courage, and even.
When you're out of the box, like I'm not going to pretend to be someone who's always living in my authentic truth. I would say I'm more authentic than I've ever been, and that continues to grow. And sometimes I coward in my fear. Sometimes I make a choice that is probably more condition because I don't want to feel the backlash. I don't want to be judged. I'm not in the mood for it in that moment, and that's part of this journey as well.
There's two lines that you wrote that I really love about the future, which is also informed by the past, and you say, do not limit yourself based on past realities. And you also say I will not set myself up for a future I don't want by convincing myself it's the future I'm going to get. I loved both of those. They're twins to me in a way.
Yeah, I think I just think we do ourselves such a disservice. I know I've done myself such a disservice looking at my life through the lens of my past and using my past as a means to prevent me from moving forward. In alignment with my heart instead of as a means to support me in moving forward in alignment with my heart. I could look at let's say I submitted a screenplay that got rejected ten times, you know, and so I'm working on a screenplay now, and my mind is going to tell me you've already been rejected ten times, like this isn't going to work for you, Like why are you even bothering? My mind's going to come up with a whole host of reasons why I shouldn't do this. I could use my past to prevent me from continuing to write and continuing to try to share my writing in a bigger way. Or I could look at my past and say, well, wait a minute, I have the experience of trying this ten times, and the experience of those ten times is fueling what I'm doing right now, and with every time, why there's no reason to believe I'm not getting closer to what my goal is, Right, It's like, how do you want to frame your past? And for me, if I catch myself using my past to limit me, I know I'm doing a disservice to myself and it's not necessary, right and so, and the same thing about the future. So often we're not doing things because we're so afraid of how it's going to end up looking in the future. We're always, well, not always, but we're often going to worst case scenarios. And it's those worst case scenarios that prevent us from even taking the first step toward creating the reality we want to take, because we're certain we're just going to flounder and it's going to explode. Right. So, for me, it's about recognizing that there are a whole host of thoughts we can give our energy to that are not doing us any good. And the moment we have awareness that we're locked into those thoughts is the moment we have an opportunity to either reframe them, create different thoughts around them, or just think about something.
Entirely different that has nothing to do with them.
I would encounter this with coaching clients a lot. They would come in and you know, by the time you hire a coach to help you change behavior, you've probably failed at changing it a bunch of times. Right, that's not your first choice, right, you know, sort of the last resort, like, oh god, I'm got to hire a coach. So they've tried many times and haven't been successful, or they've been successful for a little bit, and so there's a story there which is like, I can't do this. I'm not going to be able to do it, and so we'll get off to a good start and their brain will be saying, yeah, you've started before, you never can stick with it, which becomes a self fulfilling prophecy if you're not careful, right. And so there's a real art in doing exactly what you said, which is like, well, we're going to talk about and learn from what didn't happen before. B you're a different person than you were then. Exactly you're not the same person. And see we're going to bring new resources to bear that you didn't have before. And so we can all apply that same thing to whatever it is, like you said, you know it's a screenplay, whatever it is, which is saying, oh, I'm going to learn from what happened. I'm going to recognize that I'm not the same person. Yes, ideally I've changed and I've grown. And see I can use that energy that's telling me that to ask myself, well, what else could I get now that would support me in doing what I want? What are other resources I could avail myself of that would make me more likely to be able to do this thing in the future. And so it can be helpful to reflect on those things to learn and change, but not to predict the future with absolutely.
You sound like a very good coach.
Every once in a while. Every once in a while, i'd hire you. All right, Well, let me know. So, I want to talk about jealousy envy. They show up a number of times throughout the book. You say you're sort of a jealous person, You're sort of an envious person. I'm going to ask you to rethink your labels about yourself. No, I actually don't think you say that. I don't actually think you say I'm a jealous person. I think you say I often have or you know where my mind is, Yeah, my mind is yeah. Yeah. So tell me more about those energies in your life and how you've learned to work with them more usefully.
They are two of the most uncomfortable energies for me anyway, My mind can be incredibly envious of everyone. For everything I've learned in the past couple of years, just how jealous my mind can be. Yeah, you like to think that you're beyond something, or that something isn't as heavy, and then you're handed a circumstance it shows you, Oh no, honey, you're not even close to me beyond this. You're every bit as insane as you were.
What my therapist said about that, because I was asking recently about this, because I had this sort of like I thought I was past this, right, and he said, when you're dealing with these deeply conditioned, traumatic sort of things that are driven out of that, He's like, you're never fully past it. What happens is you can handle it, it doesn't get brought up in you. You can handle more and more circumstances without it coming up, but there will always be some circumstance triggered enough that it's still there. And I thought that was a really useful way to think about it, instead of thinking, oh, I thought I was beyond this, I'm not. All this work I've done doesn't mean anything because I handle lots of circumstances way better than I ever did. Absolutely, And when the antie gets high enough, oh.
Yeah, life's there with a little treat for you.
Yeah yeah.
I like the way I'm in relationship with my envy and jealousy more than I've ever been, which is to say, you know, with envy. However, many years ago, I was talking to a good friend. He got a great job, promotion and a lot more money, and I knew he had been working for this for a long time, and I was genuinely really happy for him for a minute. I mean, there was genuine happiness I was.
I got the word congratulations out shut it down.
And then exactly and then my mind started to go to that place of envy. Just like he makes a lot more money, he's a lot more success, all these stories that my mind was coming up with. What I was doing at that time in my life when envy would surface, was try to pretend it wasn't happening, you know, like just I'm not being envious right now, Like this whole ridiculous attempt at denying what is happening in a big way in my body and in my mind right you know, we try to push it down, and I think we all probably have the experience those things we try to push down or put in the dungeon behind a closed door, they just make that much more noise pounding on the door. So I'm really in the practice in my life now more and more of just inviting it all in. And when I'm feeling envious now, I don't spend a second trying to deny it anymore. I acknowledge it, like I'm not like speaking it to the person necessarily, I'm doing this internally. But it's like, this is me, this is just envy, and all human minds are envious at times, and it's totally okay. And it's also rooted in a host of fears and insecurities that are real but they're not true. And for me, I like the distinction between what feels real and what feels true, because what my mind conjures so often feels real. It's creating a physical response to an emotional response, but so often it's untrue. When I'm really aligned with my heart center, really connecting to love, that's when I feel most deeply in my truth. And so that distinction for me is important. But I welcome my envy to have a seat at the table with everything else I'm feeling, even though I don't like it. I don't think I'll ever like my envy. It's why mildly uncomfortable, totally, But what I've come to learn is I can love it still. I'm not going to shame myself for being envious in moments. I'm just going to come here, envy, You're okay, And then I think there is a benefit in or there can be if I'm able to get myself in this place of really looking at, well, what exactly are you envying? Beyond just like they have more money or they're more whatever, It's like, what are you envying exactly? And is there a way to foster more of that in your lived experience? Now, if that's something you truly are desiring, how could you go about bringing that into your life in a bigger way?
Yeah? You know, envy and jealousy are emotions that do feel so yucky and we think they're so undesirable that we want to push them away. But like anything, you can learn something there. You know. The other thing that I found to be helpful is to go, all right, Okay, if I'm going to envy that person for that thing, I also have to look at what they're doing and having to do and go through and do in life in order to get that thing. Because I'm like, oh, they have more money, and I'm like, I just want more money of course I want more money. I want more money, but that person may be doing a job I don't want to do at all, you know, they may be taking on more commitment and responsibility than I want. So I think oftentimes we envy something because we see the shiny side of it. Absolutely, it can also be helpful to try and flip it around and go, well, what's the not shiny side of it? What are the other realities going on here? I mean, it's obviously, like we all know that that's what's happening to us on social media, right. We're being presented the shiny side, but we're not seeing necessarily what the other pieces of that are. And that's been really helpful for me. You know, like I made a choice, you know, five years ago to leave a really lucrative corporate career to do this, and I get by, I'm okay, I'm fine, but I don't have the money that I used to have or the money I would have today in that job five years I just don't. So when I start getting envious about money, I have to go, well, if I could get that money on my term's great, but on those terms, no, thank.
You, Yeah, I hear you, man, like I look at my life. I had a lot more money at different times in my life than I do now. And I'm also living a life that I want to be living and I wouldn't trade it, I guess, is what I'm saying, right, Yeah, you know, And I think what you're speaking to is very important about the full picture. Taking in the full picture sometimes helps us and also understanding. I think that like jealousy, for me, it triggers that the place in me that isn't confident about my worth right, that is the wound that gets triggered. Like I am someone who loves myself, I am someone who generally feels worthy, and I also have the places inside where I lack self worth and struggle with it. And things like envy and jealousy they push that button so intensely, and that is for me one of the hardest buttons to be with to just sit with. It's painful, it feels gross, it feels disgusting.
It really does. And the shame follows for me very quickly on those emotions, particularly like the jealousy side. You know, Envy to me can be slightly more benign if I'm envious, like and I can sort of reframe it and be like, oh, yeah, you know, I do wish that my podcast career was as successful as that person. Oh that does tell me something about what matters to me. Okay, there's a way that I can sort of work with envy in certain cases, jealousy that is to me, like you said, it's far more about core worth, you know, and that is the yucky stuff. It's the yucky stuff, but everyone experiences it. Yes, that is helpful for me when I'm going through stuff like that, because what our shame wants to tell us is we are especially disgusting because of our jealousy, and our shame wants to communicate on some level like you're the only one who's like this, who's feeling this in this way. And I like to remind myself everybody feels this to some degree. It's just part of the human experience. There's nothing to be ashamed of here, and it's not going to last forever. Yeah, until the next round comes when you think you're over it. Right, We kind of hit this before, but I want to hit it again because I think it's a really important point. And you said this line almost word for word earlier. So why am I bringing it up again. I can't help it, and it is that often the only comfort I can find in despair is the understanding that it, like everything else, won't last forever. I mean, I think that is such an important idea. Literally, there are times that we're just going to feel awful and that's okay, And in those moments often the only solace for me, and I'm bringing it back up because it resonates so strongly with me, right is oh, yeah, this will sooner or later pass, and actually even further to notice with in it being here, that it's not always here. And what I mean by that is like, let's say I'm in grief about something. I might spend three four hours that day deep in grief, and if you ask me how I'm doing, I would say, well, I'm deeply grieving, but there were a bunch of hours in there where I actually wasn't right right, where there was actually a little bit of a break. That break might have been ten minutes, it might have been three or four hours. But not labeling our experience monolithically allows us to see that, yes, grief in the broad sense will fade over time, you will heal, but even within now there are pockets of things. And it sort of goes back to what we were talking about with self love, like looking for or what are the ways I'm loving myself? What are the ways that there's something other than grief here right now? Not to deny it exactly, but to simply say, oh, yes, my experience is always sort of changing, even hour to hour, moment to moment.
Yeah, And we can trust that if there's always so much more that exists in this reality than what we're experiencing, and we can trust that if we're focused on only one thing and that one thing is creating for us a lot of internal misery or heartache or heartbreak, that we are shutting ourselves off to a world of other possibilities out there. And for me, when I remember that it's just an invitation to do what you're speaking to is like, well, wait a minute. Within this grief, there's also been moments of connection and moments of laughter, and if it helps to give energy to that beautiful and also the idea of remembering that this too shall pass can also serve us in making courageous choices instead of putting them off. For instance, had this world ruin relationship at the beginning of the year and ended it, and prior to ending it was so scared about it because we both fell hard for each other. I knew it was going to be super painful, not only the conversation but the fallout and the sorrow afterwards. And I reminded myself preemptively, it's like, yes, that's all true, and it's all going to pass. Just think about all the other times you've been through something similar and it's painful and heartbreaking and unbearable until it isn't. So not only remembering this too shall pass when you're in the muck, but even remembering it when you need to make a change in your life and you're putting it off, putting it off, putting it off because of the potential painful outcome of it, knowing that these things don't last forever.
Similar to that topic, you have a line you say, quit putting off the conversations you need to have.
Oh boy, Yeah, what I just said speaks to that as well, right yeah, yeah, because we all know, we all do it, and we all know how relieved we feel when we finally have the conversation.
Right yeah, yeah. A question I asked myself with lots of different things like that. Basically, anything I don't want to do, as I ask myself, I try and be really honest, like will I ever want to do it? And often the answer is never, because my brain will tell me like, well it's not quite the right time or maybe you could, you know, And I'm like, will it ever feel like the right time?
Never?
Will I ever want to do this? And if the answer is never, then I try and go well, then just do it as quickly as you can, because if it's going to be difficult whenever you do it, all the time between now and you doing it is just time that you're worrying about doing it. You could at least cut that out. You can't cut out the difficulty of the conversation, you can't cut out the fear, but you can cut out the torment about it for the next three months. Well you put it off, you know. Now, Again, that doesn't always work because sometimes it takes a out of summon the courage, right, Sometimes we just don't have the courage to do it. I mean there's been plenty of times in my life where that's been the case. Like I just for whatever reason, it took me x amount of time before I could do it because I didn't have the courage and and be forgiving about that. But that little trick there of like, well, I ever want to do this often helps me get over the hump on.
Those Yeah, I like that. And also, you know, I think when we're focusing on the dreaded conversations, we're living in the dread of what we imagine that conversation to be and the potential fallout. And I think it can be a good practice to go beyond with like focused kind of visualization of if it's something you know you need to communicate and you know that eventually you're going to feel better by having done, so take yourself to the place of feeling better. Maybe grab your journal and write down all of the benefits that you can imagine coming from having this conversation. So instead of living in the dread, you're actually centering yourself in the reality of what you're imagining will come from having had it, and that will help you potentially generate the courage to have it.
Yeah, so can you walk us through maybe, And again you can say I don't want to unearth all this right now, it's too real and too fresh, but you knew you had to have a difficult conversation about ending this relationship, right, and so in that circumstance, what sort of things would you visualize the positive that would come out of it, knowing that it's not like you're gonna have the conversation and you're gonna be like, Okay, thank god, we all feel happy now, right, So how do you do it in a situation like that where it's like, I'm not quite sure I can forecast the benefit of this one.
You know what I actually did in that situation, Eric, was I think I well, I know, I focused more on what actually wasn't working, and so for me, the benefits were that these things weren't going to be going on in my life anymore once the relationship was over, So it was a little more focused on the negatives within the context of the relationship. It would no longer be a part of my life anymore.
Yeah, that accomplishes the same thing.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, Scott, we're at the end of our time. I have enjoyed it as always. You and I are going to continue in the post show conversation, and there I kind of want to talk about I'm going to read just the beginning of the statement of what we're going to try and talk about, which is let the violence and pain in your world route you even more deeply in your commitment to be kinder and love harder. I want to explore that idea because we can look around and see lots of violence and pain in our world, and so how do we use that to do that to make us actually better people? So we'll cover that in the post show conversation. Listeners, we'd love to have you join our community. You can get post show conversations ad free episodes. We're going to be doing a community meeting. There's all sorts of great stuff out there and we really could use your support, So go to one feed dot net slash join Scott again. Thanks so much, it's such a pleasure. Until next time.
Yeah for me too, brother, Thank you so much.
Eric.
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