Episode 565: Dr. Elisha Goldstein: Emotional Health Strategies to Break Resistance and Build Discipline

25:05I remember seeing that. But the reason why I'm asking is because normally when people go into something like this, like fitness also, it's because they have some kind of close tie psychologically to why they're doing it. I think a lot of therapists go into therapy because they've had their own suffering. Trauma. Yeah, they've had their own trauma they've gone through. And certainly in my 20s, and I'll tell everyone who's in their 20s, like the same thing, who are feeling like, kind of like they don't really know, they can't really get the grasp on things. Like the 20s is a tough time. Yeah, so is 30s and 40s.

25:41Okay. But I mean, it's really, it's even more confusing, I feel like. There's even like, there's a lot of confusion. You come out of the structure of, if you went to school, let's say, and you're just trying to kind of find your way. And everyone thinks that high school, once I get out of there, I'm going to like know everything, but you're kind of starting all over again. But anyway, yeah, I was successful in my corporate job at the time. And I was playing a whole lot harder, like experimenting heavily with drugs and alcohol. And so I was I was pretty lost. So I think that where did you go to school?

26:12UC San Diego was my undergraduate. Yeah. And where did you like what would you say? Because I think the clinical psychologist can be a very vague term sometimes. Some people don't have this. They only went to school there. Not only, but I'm saying like, I wanted to know like, what is the education background? Did you go, do you have a PhD? Do you have a master's? Did you do the training at like? I said for myself, I, I. Are you a social worker? I mean, you know, like, like my, my doc. So I had been in like in and out of therapy and I've been kind of a self-help junkie for like a long time. I remember when I first read Don't Sweat the Small Stuff and It's All Small Stuff by Richard Carlson.

26:49I like loved that book. I was like, oh my God, this guy's saying everything. I like resonate. I kind of know this stuff, but the way he writes it, it really kind of lands on me. And so I loved that stuff, but I was also just, my emotional awareness was like, you're sort of in the toilet at the same time. Right, right, right. And so I, yeah, it was sort of a, it kind of sort of saved me to go to graduate school. Okay. And gave me a sense of purpose and direction. And I, what happened was at some point in my 20s, I was like walking down the Embarcadero in San Francisco and I was saying like, this just can't be how my life is going to roll.

27:26And I thought when I'm 50, which I've passed that point, but when I'm 50, what do I want to look back and wish I would have done? And then I realized like, hey, I want to like work with people and support people, support myself. I want to speak at places. I want to write. And so then I reverse engineered that and took a big risk. It was a huge risk because there was golden handcuffs in the world I was in. What were you doing exactly? I was in sales. I was managing sales teams. We were selling like long distance lines and like data lines connecting up corporate offices, you know, because back then.

28:06Right. Right. That's kind of what you need to do. And so wait a minute. So then what is your schooling behind it? What's your academic background for this? Do you have a PhD? Yeah. Okay. And then did you do like a bunch of hours and practical and all that stuff? Okay, so. You have to do 3 ,000 hours. I know, 3 ,000. It's a crazy amount of like time. I know, it's crazy. Do you feel that, like, did it help you help you? Did you getting your clinical psychology background and doing that work, has it actually healed you? Because that's what normally happens, like we said. I don't think that healed me.

28:45I will tell you what it did, what it gave me. And this is directly in line with what we're talking about right now. So if you're noticing you're kind of lost or you're anxious, you're overwhelmed, or you're having a difficult moment or you're continually stressed or you're falling into patterns that you don't like, the first step is to interrupt it, is just kind of name it. It's very simple. It's the idea behind tiny shifts. We're just kind of naming it, right? It's something we can do in the ordinary moments of our lives, just naming it. Stress is here. Overwhelm is here. My shoulders are bracing.

29:14I'm scrolling too long while my partner's talking to me, like we talked about before. But then, and then we release. And then this question that was like, for me, what I asked in that moment, I didn't have the word tiny shifts or emotional pivots or anything like that. What I asked was, what do I want to do that's going to be more meaningful for me in my life? Like, how do I want to look back? Like the question, how do I want to look back when I'm 50 and look back and say like, yeah, I'm really happy with what I've done. And I think supporting myself and other people felt like a good direction to go, felt meaningful.

29:50So what it gave me was purpose. It gave me a sense of purpose. It gave me a sense of meaning. And you know, because I know you've interviewed a number of people who have like talked about that kind of thing. We know that purpose is, first of all, if you make, the way I always make sense of it is like, why is purpose so having like a direction? By the way, when I say purpose, just so everyone knows, I don't mean it's like the whatever that book was, the balloon. I can't remember what it was called. But anyway, it's just like knowing your values and living alongside them. Yeah. That gives you a sense of purpose.

30:21I think purpose is the most fundamental thing you need to be happy over time. Right. A hundred percent because you feel a sense of integrity. And a sense of purpose. I mean, I feel like I always wonder, like, you know, there's a lot of people who have a lot of money, but they have zero purpose. Like they're just buying, like a lot of women I know, right? Like they have a lot of money, they're buying a lot of clothes, they're going on a lot of vacations, but they themselves are not contributing really anything. And I find those people to be actually the most miserable people deep down, right? It's like a lot of the external stuff really can't really match or help someone with self-esteem or self-confidence.

31:00But there's like a mixed message, right? Like, because everything is about outer, right? Like if you can get this and that and that, that will make someone happy. And that supports the deficiency gap. The deficiency gap? Yeah, because what happens is you never quite get, you're never going to be good enough. There's always going to be someone who has more or is better at or whatever. A hundred percent. And so once you get there, you see someone who's higher and it only highlights the gap. And so it highlights the sense that something's wrong with me. So it creates a self-worth issue that's there.

31:26A hundred percent. And also for men as well, when they reach a certain level of wealth and success, but yet like they don't really have a real purpose or they really don't have a real why, they're never really happy and they're just constantly chasing. But I was going to say something interesting. Today, I heard something that I thought was really, really interesting and I really loved it. And it was the grass is green where I am. I don't really care how green someone else's grass because I'm not looking there anyway because I'm focusing on the grass in front of me at my house. And so I thought that was like really profound.

31:58So that because you think that's profound and you resonate with that, this is how this would work for you. So the moment you notice yourself like on social media and you're comparing yourself to another person and saying like, how come this person has more followers and more like whatever, you know, like we all get caught in those loops, right? And so it's a comparison loop. So it's really natural for every human to have that kind of thing because we're constantly, our brain's constantly looking to see if we're safe. Is there a sense of belonging here or not? So it's scanning for that constantly.

32:27You would recognize that and say, okay, all right, this is the comparison loop. You'd recognize, you'd take a moment to see how your nervous system got pulled, take a breath, maybe a little longer exhale, you'll let your shoulders drop slightly. And then you remind yourself of that saying. Because if you just try, this is where it won't work as well. It won't work as well as if you're just like feeling overwhelmed and you try and pull that saying. Your brain's in sort of a not a receptive state. And so then we wonder why it's not working. Like that was such a great quote or saying, like, how come it's not making me calm or making me focused or like bringing, giving me the alleviation, the relief I'm looking for.

33:04Right. It's because we didn't do the first few steps. And so this is why, and this took me like 20 years to figure out, like, why is it that we know so much and we have these sayings, but they don't always connect with us or they don't create the impact we're looking for is because we haven't learned how to, just like very basically like release our nervous system for a second to create more receptivity. We need more blood flow to this part of the brain, the prefrontal region, and the way to make that land and take root more in like the ordinary moment when you are stressed and overwhelmed. So we recognize that.

33:40We say, okay, there's overwhelm here. Take a moment, we release, and then we pull. One of the ways that we refocus, so the 4R method is recognize, release, release, refocus, reinforce, right? So the refocus stage, one of the things we can do in the refocus stage is now pull from all the wisdom and experience that we have. Now we're in a more receptive state. So you can bring that in and it's going to land more for you. And that's, that's a really important, again, something tiny, something small, doesn't take a lot of energy. Remember our brain's looking for safety, certainty, and trying to, and energy conservation.

34:15None of this takes a lot of energy to do. So it flies under the brain's threat detection system. And if we do this with repetition, you probably know that phrase, repetition is the mother of mastery, right? I think you went to a Tony Robbins event like a while back or something. Didn't you go to that? On purpose? Did I? Maybe I did. I thought maybe you didn't. Oh, yes, I did. You were invited or something. Yes, how did you know? You know, you come to my feed sometimes. Oh, my God. I was invited to, yes, the one here in like a couple, a year ago. No, not even. Yeah, he uses that phrase a lot. It's not from him.

34:48It comes from history. Okay, what is his phrase? Repetition is the mother of mastery. So repetition, what you practice and repeat becomes automatic. I say the same thing, of course, 100%. I'm a big believer in, like, a big believer in practice. Like, practice, practice, practice. Well, because you train. Yeah, you clearly train. You know the value of training. Yeah, I do. In everything in life. There's a difference between exercise and training. Training is you're trying to build something and make it stronger. Exercise is you're just trying to like, you know, do something regularly that's healthy for you.

35:18Exactly. Right. Exactly. But I think fitness is a microcosm for life, though. That's my big thing. I think that doing something over and over again when you don't want to is how you get really, really good at anything and everything. So like doing a squat over and over again, yes, you're doing a squat and you'll get better. But if you can take that same methodology and apply it to anything you want to be good at, you're going to be better than 99 % of the world because nobody does it as much as that. But what's the methodology for somebody who has had a really hard time with having a consistent fitness practice?

35:53Yeah. Well, I think baby steps, tiny shifts, tiny things. Like, don't bite off more than that's humanly possible to chew. I think when people really get disillusioned is when they have a goal that's very lofty. So, like, make it really small. Like, these, like, tiny little things. Right. So, like, there's the atomic habits and the tiny habits. It's all the same. Atomic habits, tiny habits. But the reason tiny shifts. Mini habits, who cares? So what tiny shifts is. Yeah. Is it saying, let's go a layer deeper. Yeah. For a second. And saying like, even with atomic habits and tiny habits, why a lot of people still don't, why a lot of people still have a hard time following through with that is because they still feel, now that where that, where the value of that is, is it lowers the energy output, right?

36:36I don't have to do a lot of energy to do one pushup. Right. Right. And so. Yes. Can I tell you something? Yeah. Yeah, I agree. So I think you're going to say something that I, many years ago, I created a fitness app called Hot 5, five-minute workouts, right? Now it's very popular. That's still out? We sold it to Weight Watchers. That's why I used Weight Watchers as the example back when because I'm very familiar with the whole Weight Watchers ecosystem. But, and that's why I think, by the way, another, not to go on another tangent, but that's why I know of all the biggest programs, all these programs of all, now it's like everybody and their dog has a course of program.

37:14The one that works the best is Weight Watchers because of the accountability. They go into these like little stupid little rooms everywhere around the world. You walk in, you get weighed. I remember growing up, you've been seeing them everywhere, yeah. You count your points. People laugh at it all the time. But by the way, guess what? It is the most effective program still to date, in my opinion, because it keeps people accountable. It's not fancy. It's the basics. There's no magic potion. You're counting what you eat. People don't want what actually works. They want the newest flashy light bulb or the flashy influencer who's talking about some very fancy thing.

37:50Or just the one app that's going to help them that they'll pay, you know, whatever for. Because everyone's so distracted. If they can just focus on the one thing in general in life, like not jump around, like we're talking about these tiny shifts or talking about being aware. I think if people are aware of the fact that like if you're not constantly looking for the silver bullet, the magic potion, and you just stick to the thing, whatever that one thing is, that one workout you like, that one food that you like, that one whatever you like and just keep on doing it, you're going to get to your result.

38:21And that's behavioral too in everything, right? Like, I don't think that I think what's really confused the ecosystem and the ether in the world right now is choice. Like too much choice. Too much choice. My mom used to say to me when I was little, she'd be like, you know, basically you have too much choice, Jennifer, you're going to end up with nothing. So like there was like, you know, and in general, right? Like if you go to the big Walmart, you know, you're overwhelmed with all the different options. But if you go to the little ma and pa shop and they have only one type of tape and only one kind of bread and one type of milk, you get those and you're happy, you know?

38:59But you have too much and you end up with like, you literally walk out like completely empty handed with nothing. So even in that type of moment where there's too much. Too much. So then the question is like. The paradox of choice. How do I kind of go for it? And then how do I, how do I, I can only be in charge of me. And so in that moment when I'm feeling overwhelmed with too much choice, the very simple path forward to move in the direction of doing the tiny, the atomic habit or the tiny habit, you know, that BJ Fogg and James Clear's kind of work, to be able to do the hot five. Well, that's just the reason, by the way, why I said that was giving someone five minute workouts is much more psychologically attainable for someone to do.

39:47Like, oh, I can do five minutes. Much easier than saying, go and do a 30 minute HIIT training. Go and do that tape for 40 minutes. If you say to someone, do five minutes, people are like, all right. I can do that. I can do five minutes. And the biggest resistance for people is actually the beginning, right? like putting on their shoes and getting their sports bra on or whatever, and then like going to get the mat. If you can like eliminate or like minimize that resistance or once you can basically get past that, five minutes psychologically and also I see on the analytics will turn into 10 minutes.

40:24It'll be like, oh, I can do 20 minutes. The power of habit. There was so many different things in this, right? Habits and hustle, right? So I think the layer that I'm hoping when people listen to this that they're kind of taking away is that that strategy is one strategy that's been successful of being able to kind of dial it back. I used to ask people, like, how much do you think you can do? I think I could do five minutes. Okay, why don't you go do four then? You know, so that there's a kind of no excuse for that. But that's one strategy. Now, if you recognized the overwhelm of too many choices, let's say, and you just noticed like, okay, this is like I'm feeling flooded right now by too much.

41:04And you noticed you paused for a second and you just kind of named it flooded, overwhelmed, you know, whatever you want to say. And you notice that your body is now tensing like somewhere, chest, shoulders, face. And you just took a moment and just softened for a second, all of like five seconds that takes to do. And then you asked yourself the question, okay, what's going to be most supportive right now? What's one thing I can do that's going to enhance the next three or five minutes from this in this moment? Now, it might be, well, I'm just going to take five minutes and do this. Or it might be, you know what?

41:34I need a person. I need another human. Like maybe that's what someone actually needs. Like I'm a huge fan of other humans. Like we weight watchers. Even one other person. That could be a buddy. That could be a coach. That could be someone. Maybe someone needs that. Maybe that's really what they need. So we want to get in touch with personally what that person needs versus just a one-size-fits-all type of thing. it might be the shorter practice. It might be a person. It might be that, you know what, today's just not the day. Actually, what I need is I need rest. And then because rest is important in your fitness and your training kind of regime.

42:06I need recovery. It's a recovery day for me. I'm just so, I might need to talk with somebody. Like, so that third step of refocus is either we're going to have now the capacity to reach for something that I know is helpful for me, like that mantra, that saying that you had said, my grass is already green and I don't need to look at the other person's grasp. Or, you know what? Why don't I just dial this down to five minutes? Like, I know that works for me. Or we can ask ourself a question. When we ask ourselves questions, our brain looks for answers. And so we do this all the time. Our mind's asking us, like, what if this doesn't work out?

42:39What's wrong with me? Like, you know, what's wrong with this person? Whatever. And so we get caught in these kind of loops. And so we can ask ourself, like, I say this kind of in the book, we have this artificial intelligence that we're all like either enamored or scared by right now, right? Either way. And then, but we have this natural intelligence too, this NI. Both are kind of have their value. And when we ask our brain questions, just like when we ask the artificial intelligence questions, it also gives us answers. We just need better prompts. Better prompts lead to better answers. We're hearing this all the time in the AI world.

43:13Same with ourselves. So if we ask ourselves the question, what's going to be most supportive for me right now? So after we recognize release, We don't just recognize and jump to that question. We have to do the release place. That's the part that most people miss because that helps expand our emotional capacity to be able to ask a different question or reach for a piece of wisdom so that it takes root. So we say, what do I need right now? That's when we can kind of tattoo on our brains what's going to be most supportive in the next few minutes. I'll tell you this, this is an everyday type thing.

43:42I was on the on the I was going to my friend's house for dinner and I was exhausted but it was my friend so it was like cool I didn't have to like wasn't gonna take a lot of energy so I was like happy to go he calls me midway he's like oh change of plans I totally forgot we got invited to our friend's house I didn't know this person and they're like but they said you can come too and I'm like I'm like oh no this is not like I don't know these people I'm gonna have to like be on I'm gonna have to like you know whatever it's gonna take more energy my brain's like You don't have the energy to give, you know.

44:12So I just paused and noticed kind of the resistance that was there and the overwhelm. I was already on the 405. I was already, it was in the valley, so I was already on my way there. And I recognized the resistance. I took a moment, kind of took a breath. That longer exhale, as you know, is a really important one because it activates the parasympathetic nervous system. It really, it's really enjoyable, by the way, if no one's, I'm sure people in your audience have done that before. I hope so. Yeah, yeah. So that's a form of release. That's just an example of that lowering your shoulders, a little longer exhale, just an example.

44:43And then I asked myself the question because I was in a different state. I changed my state, my mind state in that moment by the recognize and release. I was a little more receptive. And I said, what's going to be something I can do to enhance this evening? Because I was already going. So I can either go gritting my teeth and like, you know, what's going to what's something I can do to enhance this evening? And what came to me is like, OK, I wasn't this wasn't coming to me before in the state that I was in was when I meet these people. that I don't know at the door, I'm going to start off with a little gratitude.

45:13I'm going to say, thank you so much for inviting me here. And then I reminded myself that I can be quiet while I'm there. I can be like tired. It's okay. I don't have to be entertaining. You know, and what happened was that completely shifted my energy. Like, and so then I got there and what ended up happening was there was this guy that was this podcast dude that was there and - Who do I know? No, I don't remember. I actually don't remember his name. Oh, okay. But the - Can't be that memorable then. No, no, but it was an enjoyable conversation. Okay, okay. I'm like, by the way, just historically bad with names in general.

45:43Really? Do you know my name? Jen, yeah. Just kidding.

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47:39You know what's interesting? You just reminded me of something. I had this podcast. I've been talking about it since I've done it. It just went up maybe a couple weeks ago with a guy named Kevin Trudeau. Do you know who he is? It sounds familiar. Okay. I'm bad with names. You're thinking of Pierre Trudeau, who was a former prime minister of Canada. Maybe. No. But Kevin Trudeau, he wrote a book 25 years ago or more, Natural Cures book. He sold like 100 million copies or like something insane, okay? That is very successful. No, no, no. As far as book sales. No, no. He sold like maybe 50 million.

48:11It was a lot of copies of this book. Yeah. And he was like the infomercial king. Uh-huh. And he was very, very popular. And then he got into trouble with the law. and he went to jail for 10 years. Everyone assumed he went to jail because he did something really bad and shady. Turns out he was put in jail for contempt of court because he was arguing with the judge. But he got 10 years. That was like, that's the maximum you can get. That sounds crazy. Crazy. The podcast was amazing. I'm just saying. It was still one of my favorites of all time. Anyway, he sat here and I was just blown away by what he said to me.

48:50He said he was in jail for 10 years. Maybe I think he got out a year early for good behavior. And I said, oh, my God, like, how was your time in jail? Like, holy crap. Like, you were like, you had all these millions of dollars. You were like riding high. And then you had all these legal problems, blah, blah, blah. And he's like, it was fantastic. I'm like, what do you mean it was fantastic? He's like, it was amazing. I had a great time. I was a cook in the kitchen. I got to choose the kind of food we got to make. It was like a retreat for him. Yeah, that's what he said. He was like, I got to choose the kind of food we ate.

49:21I read a lot of books. I would never, if I never went to jail, I would never have been able to read all those books. I was never, I would never be able to meditate as much as I did. All these, like, I would never, like, he's like, it was, he was like, I'm like, I'm like, you're making it sound like it was like the four seasons. And he's like, you know what? I get into, he's like, this is the, he's like, this is the deal. This is the truth. You go into, you get sentenced to 10 years in jail. Jennifer, you can either, you have two choices. You can complain and bitch and moan the whole time and be miserable.

49:52And those 10 years go by really, really, really, really, really slow. Or you can like reframe and be really and have a different attitude and be like, you know what? I'm here anyway. I'm not going anywhere. I might as well make the best of this situation. And so everything was like he turned everything into a positive and he had a great like and legitimately he looked like he had a great time in jail. So it's so amazing to me how like just a different like reset and a reframe of how you experience or take on that experience can change everything. Yeah. And what I want to say is that not everyone is the same.

50:31Not everyone has the same. I would never be able to do it. Right. Not everyone. No, maybe. But not everyone has the same. Some people like like I always I always think of athletes. Like some athletes are just naturally talented and they train, right? Some have to really train a whole lot harder because they're not quite as naturally talented. You know, some grow up with harder conditions. So with that example, I don't know him, but with that example, the way someone could get there who that's a little harder for, they try and kind of do reframes, but it kind of bounces back on them. and then it's not working as well is, because when stress is low, scale of one to 10, I mean, that stress would have been like really high for just about everybody.

51:11But in general, for people, when stress is low, you can jump to like noticing like, I'm kind of like out of whack right now and just kind of try and reframe the situation and it's helpful. That's one of the paths of refocusing. Ask a question, grab from your own wisdom because you already know it. Reframe the situation. Or sometimes I say, just take a joy detour. You have to change the channel. That's like going outside and putting your hands in the dirt or jumping in the pool or whatever. Right. That's why the release piece is so important for most people. Because when they try and jump from just recognizing they're out of whack to reframing the situation, it doesn't land like they're feeling anxious or overwhelmed.

51:49And so they're trying to kind of like force their brain into a different view. But it's just not kind of like, it's like they're trying to wedge something into it, but it's not going in there. So you're saying for somebody who is not naturally inclined to do a reframe, that's a really good point. Or their stress is high. Or their stress is high and it's not as easy for them. What they can do is do that third R, which is the release. Well, no, the second R. So they recognize it. They notice they're like, I'm overwhelmed. I'm angry. I'm sad. I'm just too much. They can just say too much. Sometimes they say like, I want to pull my hair out of my head loop.

52:22You know, like whatever. You don't have to have. It's good to have an emotional vocabulary. We can all learn an emotional vocabulary. I have a whole thing on my website that kind of goes. We'll go into the emotional vocabulary when you finish what you said. So just finish what you said about the release. Okay. It's really the second R, that release piece that allows our nervous system to soften a little bit. When I say our nervous system, it's literally just like your muscles. That five-second thing, right? Yeah, just allow your shoulders to drop. By the way, when you do that, because I know you've done that on here you said, that idea of that inhalation, a little bit longer exhalation.

52:55Well, it's parasympathetic. I talk about that all the time. Parasympathetic. But what I layer in there is when you do that, you notice your shoulders lift a little bit on the inhalation. When you exhale, your shoulders slightly drop. And when your shoulders slightly drop, what's happening? Your muscles between your neck and your shoulders are lengthening a little bit. And that's what we're after. We're after moving from constriction to lengthening of the body in the release stage. We can also kind of brain dump and just kind of like write stuff in a journal as a way of kind of getting our thoughts out.

53:26But that's sort of what you're after, like loosening your body because your nervous system just got coiled. And we want to just release it a little bit. You don't have to have to be fully released. That is what expands the emotional capacity to be able to do any of those things, like do that reframe more successfully. Reach for that piece of wisdom one day at a time, one moment at a time. This too shall pass. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change or change the things I can't. grab from your mom's or your grandma or your spiritual teacher's wisdom, whatever it is, it's going to land more when your nervous system feels a little bit more, just a little bit looser, a little bit more grounded, just not everything, but it takes all five to 10 seconds.

54:10That's the part most people miss. They just want to go from one to the shifting their mind state, and they wonder why it doesn't stick. So when you say release, you just mean breathe. What I really mean is - Deep breathe, let your body kind of - So breathing, if that's supportive for somebody, like for most people, if they take that breath in, that longer breath out, that does kind of create a little bit of a release. That's really what it is. Sometimes I think of like a thought, there's a self-critical thought happening, like what's wrong with me? Why did I do that? You know, this type of thing.

54:41As I'm breathing in, as I'm breathing out, I'm seeing that thought like flow out of my mouth and like flow out of my body. Not that that's actually happening. There's a paranormal situation happening. But it's just, it's another way of your, you'll notice your body starting to feel a little bit differently. That's the release so that now you can refocus. Ask a different question. Grab from some wisdom. Do a reframe. Go out, go take a change of the channel. Sometimes you just need a different environment. That's the refocus. Well, yeah. It's that little area between like, you're right. I think because people always say to me like, well, how do you?

55:18Like it's one thing to, you know, people like, how do you get motivated? And then I answer with you don't rely on motivation. You rely on discipline. And they're like, well, how do you get disciplined? It's like, well, you got to practice. Well, how do you get the motivation enough to practice enough to get the discipline? and so then do the thing over and over again. It's like, it's basically the chicken or the egg, right? And I always get stuck in that, right? I'm like, I don't know how to tell somebody how to do something over and over and over again when they just are not someone who wants to do it.

55:46Okay, so that's it, right? So now you've touched on something very important. Right. Well, it's not that they're not someone who wants to do it because now we're saying this is part of their identity. That's what we want to move away from. Enough of the PC way. How do we get them to do it? Well, no, no, no, because it makes a difference because when someone says like, look, when someone says I'm an anxious person. Yeah. Then they feel, I know, then that becomes your identity and you think you're anxious. Okay. No, they think from that way. They think from the anxiety place. So what we say is, and that discipline is something that is a value of someone, going back to that, right?

56:18This is a value of your discipline. You just have a hard time with it. Okay. So now we say, okay, it's a value. So what we're going to do is we're going to train it. What training means is you're going to fall off. You're not going to be perfect with it. But what we're going to do is realize that you have some resistance to discipline. There's something there internally. It's an inside job. So you have this idea of discipline is working out, discipline of working out, discipline of writing, discipline of whatever the heck they want, someone wants to do in their life, the habit they want to create.

56:44And you, you, you have a schedule you've created for yourself, these five minute thing, a 10 minute thing or whatever of making, planning your meals, Weight Watchers. And you say, I'm not endorsed or this is not an ad, by the way, I don't have been spoken to a Weight Watchers human for probably eight years. They're just getting free marketing, which is perfect. They're just getting free, you know, basically, exactly, shout outs constantly. Shout out other people. Shout out Magic Mind. Shout out someone else. Okay, go ahead. I have Magic Mind on Main Street, right? I love that. I love that company.

57:16Have you ever tried it? I haven't. I haven't tried it. Yeah. Okay. But they've reached out to me. They did? Like a year or so ago. That is probably the best mental performance shot on the planet. I'm not just saying that. I am actually, I take one every single day before I work out. This one has zero caffeine. You should try one. And everyone, I've been doing this for five years. I've been trying, I love them. This is one of my favorite companies. I have to talk to you about it more offline. You can tell me more about it. Okay. You should drink one though. Okay. Right now. Oh, okay. All right.

57:46No, I'm serious. Like right now. Okay. This is going to change this podcast entirely. Hold on a second. That one has zero caffeine. Yeah, it's tasty. Yes. Okay. We're going to see if I say things a little bit clearer and differently. And more concise. Exactly. And more focus. Okay. Go ahead. So they have this value. The value is discipline. We're going to train it. We're going to, we have, you have a task that's part of the, whatever, writing every day for half an hour or exercise, whatever. Yeah. Sleep routine, you know. And you notice this resistance because when it comes up, because A, again, underneath it, your brain's asking the question, is it safe?

58:22Is it certain? And is it going to take more energy than I have? Right. And you notice this resistance. So you notice it. The resistance loop, call it. Great book, The War of Art. Oh, it's great. Love that book. Steven Pressfield. Yes, yes, yes, yes. He was supposed to be on the show a couple of times. I don't know what happened. Right. So it's a great example, right? He does a great example in that book of naming an emotional loop. It's just resistance. and with the repetition of the word he uses in there just helps with people like recognizing it more and getting better sense of what that feeling is for them.

58:56So you recognize the resistance to the discipline, right? But when you, the resistance is creating a physiological reaction in you. You're not aware of it because it's underneath everything. I want people to become more aware of their bodies and the emotional experience of resistance is actually a physical experience too. Emotions are biology. I wanna be very clear about that. And so then we take a moment and we just kind of like soften our bodies. You can even kind of stretch it out or shake it out. But you keep on saying the same thing, which is the softening of your body, releasing, breathing.

59:29But that doesn't make somebody go back and do the thing over and over again. What it does is it sends safety signals to the brain when you do kind of release because it says, okay, I'm not under threat. If my body's able to relax. But we're changing the way of our subconscious thinking through physiology in that release stage. So if your body can relax, if you can, like, soften your muscles, you send safety signals to your brain. You say, like, I'm safe enough for my muscles to relax. I'm not under threat anymore. If you can take a deep breath, you send a message to your brain, I'm safe enough to exhale, to exhale for a second.

1:00:07That's what you want. You want your mind body to be in a sense of feeling more safe so that you can get to the next stage. Which is what? Which is the refocus stage. Okay, so now the question is. The question is. You ask yourself, how am I going to feel after I do this thing? That's a common question, right? But now since you've recognized and released, you can ask yourself that question. You can remind yourself, okay, there's this resistance here. I sent these safety signals to my brain by just taking a few seconds to kind of soften. Then you ask yourself a question because you want to access your natural intelligence in that moment.

1:00:41What's one thing I can do that would support me in the direction of this? How am I going to feel after I do this workout, after I do this sleep routine, after I, you know, make this healthier meal? And if a positive, we know that positive emotions are motivating. That encourages a positive emotion that's there and like a vision of a different experience. What's that thing called when you kind of eliminate the resistances so you can actually do the thing? Limbic resistance? Limbic something? Have you heard of this? I don't know. Yeah. Like take out all of the possible things, triggers, resistances so you can actually do the thing.

1:01:24Like for example, put your shoes out in the morning, your gym shoes, put your clothes out to work out. Like work, put the treadmill in your kitchen, like whatever it is. What are those called when you eliminate any of the distractions or the blockages so you can actually do the thing called? I know what you're talking about. I'm not, a name for it is not coming to me. Yeah. I'm just saying, based on what you said, if I were to be honest with you, this is the same stuff I've heard this many times. And at the end of the day, I'm a big believer. And if you want it, if someone wants to do something bad enough, they're going to do it.

1:01:58You can say that if this value means something to you and you can loosen your body and you can do this and you can do that, and then maybe they'll do it once or twice. But if you have a very powerful reason why you're doing something or why you want to change, you'll do it. Like I've been down this road many a times with a lot of people in a lot of ways. And like I've noticed that most people are very stuck in their chaotic loop of their own habits. They can be bad habits. They can be unhealthy habits. They can be negative habits. But it's how they are. That's their survival mechanism. So it's very hard to break survival mechanism habits, right?

1:02:41unless something traumatic or something really negative, like something really is forcing you to do it. You can train it. You can train your way through that. I've done this for 20 years with people. Yeah. So I'm completely in alignment with you. Yes, your why. Simon Sinek talks about this. Tony Robbins talks about this. People for years have talked about it. If I had, I talked to people, I said, listen, you can't get this. You don't think you can do this thing, cross this threshold, get this done regularly. Let me ask you a question. Has someone held a gun to a person you love's head? And they said, you do this, you do it.

1:03:12Okay, that just means your reasons aren't strong enough. Okay, so we understand that. So the why is— Or how about just pure laziness? Is it okay these days to just say that maybe someone's just lazy and they don't want to do the actual thing? Well, what's lazy? That's like, again, a blunt instrument. Like, what does that word mean? Like, what's underneath that word? Oftentimes under laziness is fear. Okay. I mean, yes, sometimes it is. Yes, sometimes it is. There's those three elements happening. I don't, I'm not sure if there's a threat on the other end of this. I'm not sure if I'm going to fail once again and remind myself that, you know.

1:03:46I have a friend. Okay, let me tell you this. I have a girlfriend. I've been a friend of mine for 20 years, okay? And she's, she doesn't, she refuses to exercise. She's very overweight and she refuses to exercise. Yeah. She will do everything and anything to lose weight except the one thing that everybody has told her. myself that she needs to do. She will go to every retreat. She'll go to every spa. She will take every potion and lotion. And at the end of the day, the one thing she needs to do is exercise. She will not do it. There is a blockage. Now, usually that's because of something much more deep rooted, of course, right?

1:04:27I would argue there's an emotional reason. There's an emotional, for sure there is. So is this is, this is probably where your awareness comes in, right? Like if someone has the awareness to know what that thing is, it's much easier to unlock it, right? To then get past the, what people, you know, whatever that blockage is to then do the thing, right? Yeah. Like that, this would come into the refocus stage of like, I try, I repeat, I fail. I try, I repeat, I fail. You know, like there, if I got to the, if I was, if I was able to recognize that I was once again resisting, you know, exercising, even though it was on my schedule, and I took a moment just to kind of ground myself, that would be the kind of release stage.

1:05:08And I refocused by saying like, what's really underneath there? What's going to support me in really unpacking what's underneath this? Like, how can I, how can I better start moving in the direction of this? Like, if it's deeper, what I might need is some kind of other type of support to help me. It might not just be like, it's not all pulling ourselves up, but this kind of method is not pull myself up on my bootstraps, do this method all by myself. Sometimes like we really just do need other people. Sometimes we don't want to let go of something. Sometimes, yeah, sometimes there's like a willfulness there that underneath that is there's like an anger that's underneath.

1:05:46Right. That's my point. I think that there's like sometimes, sometimes we're trying to like fit a square into a circle. Okay. I have some rapid fire questions. Can you go rapid fire? Yeah. But I'll just say before we go rapid fire, that's the angle behind and underneath the recognized stage is getting a better idea of your feelings and your emotions because those are really the things that are pulling the strings for most people. Those are subcortical. It's not conscious. And so having a better handle on or intimacy with the actual feelings and emotions that are there can really be helpful in being able to move forward with these other things.

1:06:22And by the way, I'm guilty of this myself, right? Like I can be considered to be maybe a high performer because I work out and I have a lot of my own, you know, nonsense and, you know, kookiness and I can't get out of my own way in a lot of things too. Even though I have the awareness, I have the ability to kind of know why I do what I do. And it's still really, really hard to do it, right? Like it's very, very, very difficult. None of this is easy, right? Like self-awareness, you know, they sometimes say ignorance is bliss, right? Because self-awareness can also be very, you know, difficult. Yeah.

1:07:00But there's the, I think that just want to kind of name for those people who have kind of gone deep into this. Self-awareness, we want to kind of like, and again, I think what you're touching on is very important because you're talking about the reality of imperfection with all this stuff with teachers and people who are speaking about it and psychologists and whoever you look up to i always tell people i'm like whoever you look up to who you think is like the guru or whatever i go i've been with some of those people believe me like oh i i say it all the time i say like there's anybody that you're don't ever meet the person that you admire the most because like you would be very very shocked to see just what when that when the curtain is unveiled everybody has shit right nobody's perfect and i've said this all the time like The people that you think are the smartest, the coolest, the most successful, I've sat with them all.

1:07:55Probably 85 to 95 % of them. And they're no great shakes, to be honest. It's always like I'm usually not that impressed with those people. It's actually the people who show that they're flawed, who are not the people that you're putting on a pedestal, who are the most impressive people. People you don't know and they don't need the applause. You know what I mean? And I think the takeaway there is that if anyone's listening or watching this right now and you're feeling like you have your imperfections, that just means you belong. A hundred percent. Listen, I'm going to use myself as an example, right?

1:08:24People think, oh, you're so fit. That means blah, blah, blah. It means nothing. It means I have one area that I'm good at. That's good. But how about all these other areas, right? Like I feel like just never look at somebody and think just because you admire that one thing that their whole life is better than yours because it's actually not true. Everyone has things that make them good and bad and make their lives good and makes other people. Like, never compare yourself because you never know what someone's really going through or what their situation is or why they're there or how they got there or what baggage they have.

1:08:59I think it's a very—I'm really, really adamant about this. And I've been talking about this so much more lately because I feel like social media has done such a number on everybody. Oh, huge. And now it's making everybody more insecure. Like everybody I know is getting facelifts like they were going to get a cup of coffee at Starbucks. I mean, it's insane. We live in L.A., by the way. Yeah. Oh, but these are people not even in L.A. By the way, I would use I used to say, oh, it's because L.A. I travel a lot. It's not just L.A. I guess I guess the Internet's actually made it probably. Social media.

1:09:29These people are in like in Tennessee, in Kansas, in, you know, whatever they are. People are people. Right. And if you see something in an image or a person or you hear something enough times, you actually believe to think that's like that's now become the norm. And we shouldn't make things like that the norm. You know, people should. I just think that like because of that, I want people to kind of remember these are just filters that people put on their life. I just want to say, well, I'm going to say it a different way than the way that you said it. Yeah, go ahead. Which is because people are going to naturally compare themselves to others.

1:10:02Yes, it's human nature. It's human nature. Instead of not doing it because it's going to happen, what we want to do is recognize that that's happening and then to kind of put it into this kind of method. Then you want to kind of take the somatic moment with yourself just to kind of like ground for two seconds. Then you want to ask yourself a question or you want to bring – then you can bring this wisdom into it of saying like, could it be that this person also has other imperfections in their life? Could it be that because – I just said. Yes. And I just wanted to kind of the way that the different way that this is happening, that I'm saying it is I'm I'm I'm using the method of like asking a question so the brain can search for answers versus saying, don't do this.

1:10:46Right. Which is because they're going to do it. I love that. We're all going to do it. Yes, I love that. So you're saying I love that. You're saying when you are recognized, when you're seeing somebody and your human nature goes into like, oh, that person is so much better than me in that way. Feeling shame or feeling bad about yourself or whatever. Ask yourself the question of, well, is that maybe they have, do they, it's just because they have that going. Maybe they have another issue somewhere else that you don't know about. Or is my brain making them overly perfect? Or what am I proud of? What's one thing I'm proud of myself today?

1:11:20I love that, asking the question. You're right, because it just also changes the direction of where your brain is going. And that makes a difference. Again, it's all connected. So the way you're thinking impacts how you feel, impacts how you stand. It's called embodied cognition. And then you can kind of shift that through the way your body is. Oh, I love that, actually. That's a great one. A lot of things we can do to shift our state. Okay, here are rapid-fire questions, which means you have to be rapidly fast. Okay? So no long, drawn-out questions. Well, I think that magic line made me... Good, I'm glad.

1:11:54Ready? Question one. What is the one thing someone can do in the next 60 seconds to calm their nervous system? I just think it's really just simple. Notice where your body is holding the tension and see if you can loosen that a little bit. Okay. That's it. You shift your thoughts through your body. Number two. What is the fastest way to interrupt a negative thought spiral before it takes over your entire day? The fastest way is first do a little planning for a second. And just notice if you can name like your top three negative thought spirals that you fall into, whether it's a comparing loop or whether it's a catastrophizing loop or whether it's some other kind of loop.

1:12:32And then you can spend and you can set an intention to be on the lookout for that. And if you can name it and be on the lookout for it, just that awareness alone in that moment can create a little bit of an interrupt. And then again, again, this is all very simple. And I say this with repetition for a reason. If you can notice how it's pulling on your body, you do want to be able to, you do want to loosen that and then ask yourself, see if there's a reverse question you can ask yourself. Okay. If someone only has five minutes a day, what mindfulness practice would actually make the biggest difference?

1:13:04For me in my life, it's the body awareness. practice. So you're actually just kind of going through your body and you're curious about the sensations of your body and you're kind of moving through from your toes to your head. That practice, and I know we're rapid fire, so I won't say exactly why it works neurologically, but that practice healed my insomnia. Wow. Yeah. I want to know now. Okay. Can you tell me that answer as fast? How did you heal your insomnia in 60 seconds or less? Go. Okay. There's two different levers of the brain. There's the part that creates steadiness, and there's the part that creates a bit more narrative chaos.

1:13:44And so when you hit the lever, which is just being aware, allowing yourself to direct your mind to being curious about sensations of the body versus the story the mind is telling that's keeping you awake, it's like a seesaw effect. The other one goes up while one goes down. It's a little bit like training a black stallion because you're going to be knocked off a bunch of times, but you have to trust the neurology of it. And if you keep coming back, you recognize your release, you refocus back on the sensation that's here. Then the lever of the kind of more chaotic gear will begin to go down and just kind of continue to bring it back with repetition.

1:14:19A little bit, 60 seconds is tough to kind of explain that in, but yeah. What is the one thing people misunderstand about meditation that keeps them from not sticking with it? That it's meant to be calm. That you're... Well, mindfulness is... Tell people what... How about this? Mindfulness is awareness. Meditation is a practice. Okay, that's good. So mindfulness... How about this? Mindfulness and meditation are not the same thing. Mindfulness is actually about being... It's not about being calm. It's about being aware. And meditation is a practice. Yeah, but meditation... People do meditation for an outcome.

1:14:55And that's the wrong thing. Meditation is meant to be a training. So in other words, if I want to train emotional awareness, my meditation will be on my emotions. If I want to train concentration, I'll focus on my breath for concentration. If I want to train like more equanimity, which means open awareness and being aware of things coming and going, I'll do a different type of meditation practice. Prayer is meditation if I want to get closer to God. So the question is, what's your intention with this practice? Treat it like a training and not for the outcome. That's not what you're after. You're after like the practice and repetition of something.

1:15:28You want to train in playing an instrument? It's not that every now all of a sudden you'll get an outcome of a beautiful song that you'll get, but you're training the agility of your fingers on the instrument. You're training. That's what you're doing with meditation. It's just a training. That's all it is. I like it. All right. So Dr. Elisha, I said it, yes, Goldstein, his book, his new book is called Tiny Shifts, and it's out everywhere, right? It's one of your third book? My sixth book. Oh, geez. Yeah. Sixth book. Wow. Okay. Well, he's been around a while, I guess. You guys go grab a copy. And you can also, where can people find you if they want to know more about tiny shifts or anything that you talk about?

1:16:10I think, you know, I'm on Instagram. I'm on the most universal spot. It's just my website, elishagoldstein.com. There's also this tiny shift bundle there that you can get that's going to give you a bigger emotional vocabulary, give you a few practices to train with. That was what I forgot to ask you. When you say emotional vocabulary, what do you mean? I just mean like being able. Yeah, it's more words being able. Well, it's two things. It's words. So being able to know what you're feeling while you're feeling. So, for example, and this is part of my story, and I'll say this pretty quick, is that my parents got divorced when I was six.

1:16:46My mom left the family to pursue other things that ended up being really wonderful for her. But for me, I was kind of left with a lot of anger. And then I shut the anger down. I decided like, I guess, unconsciously that I would just not be angry. And you just wouldn't see that. I had no connection with the feeling of anger. And so one time in my 20s, I was at my mom's house and I was like being irritable with her and frustrated. And she's like, I think you're angry with me. And I said, no, no, I'm not angry. And she said, but when you notice that you are angry with me, I want you to know that I'm open to talk to about it.

1:17:18That's when I ran into to Marshall Rosenberg's work on nonviolent communication, which really expanded a whole massive vocabulary of emotions. And I started realizing annoyance, frustration, irritation, these are all experiences of anger. So all of a sudden I was noticing more anger and the value of that is being able to communicate it. And also you have different needs depending on how you're feeling. You're going to need something different if you're overwhelmed versus sad, versus lonely, versus afraid. And so being able to accurately name how you're feeling is key to understanding what your underlying needs are.

1:17:51Damn, why did you leave it to the, okay, you mentioned it like 10 minutes ago and I was like, I really love that emotional vocabulary. We're going to have to come back to it, but we got to it too late. That's a great, I want to know more about that. Clip that out, yeah. I want to clip that. I want to know more because I think that is so accurate because I think what we, the way we describe how we feel or what a situation is, is usually not accurate enough. And therefore, so we're not getting the right solution back at us, right? Like if I'm saying to you, for example, I'm really frustrated, but it really isn't the frustration at the word.

1:18:31The word isn't a frustration. It's really a different word, like sad or angry or hurt or whatever. Then like, I'm not, I'm not explained, when I'm not explaining myself, right? Or anybody not explaining themselves correctly, then they're not having the correct conversation and the correct kind of back and forth to actually get a resolution. Yeah, and you or your partner or your friend or whoever you're communicating with doesn't know what you need. And so because we're not able to name what's happening as well. And so if we can get clear on what our emotions are and what our needs are, it's like a puzzle piece.

1:19:05They fit together. What are some of the main emotional words that people misuse by accident? Well, I think most people just say they're feeling fine. Right, exactly. That's true. But they don't. So, you know, they just kind of, again, we don't really have a good vocabulary. But I think sometimes we say we're feeling sad and we're feeling lonely. Those two go together. So sad and lonely are two. Sometimes we're just feeling agitated really underneath that we're feeling lonely. Sometimes we're feeling angry, but underneath it is really sadness. Sometimes we're feeling sad, but underneath it is anger.

1:19:40Sometimes we just are feeling like a yearning to feel loved or cared about and understood. And instead we get agitated with people. And so to just kind of be able to get a little more intimate with, that's why I kind of point to the body a lot because emotions, they're physical. And so when we're able to name them, we also want to know like how they feel so we can better identify them when they're arising. And that helps us communicate it with the people that we care about. Listen, when you do this, it makes me feel like that. I wonder if we can like compromise and kind of do this in the future.

1:20:11I love that. Okay, go look at, go check him out, Dr. Elisha Goldstein, and learn more because I love that, that emotional vocabulary. Thank you for being here. Yeah, it's been great. Thanks for having me. Of course. Bye.