In short
How psychology shapes energy—moving from burnout/depletion to “wise effort”—and how to uncover “genius energy” by aligning values with character strengths, interests, emotional intelligence, and natural abilities.
Guest
Dr. Diana Hill, clinical psychologist, international trainer, best-selling author; host of the Wise Effort podcast; featured by NPR, Wall Street Journal, Psychology Today. Background includes work blending contemplative practice with psychological science and client work on aligning behavior with values.
Key claims
Burnout and fulfillment are separate constructs (burnout tied to context and lost parts of self; fulfillment tied to meaning/purpose). “Wise effort” (from Buddhist psychology) means using energy compassionately and aligned with values. Three mechanisms tangle “genius energy”: cognitive fusion/stuck in a story, experiential avoidance (avoiding inner discomfort), and “holding too tight” (gripping/control). Context matters: stress, sleep, biology/medications. Interoceptive awareness check-ins (H-E-A-R: hunger, emotion, activity, rest/tension) improve decision-making. Hardship can lead to post-traumatic growth and strengthen genius energy.
Notable examples
Thich Nhat Hanh telling a soldier he’s the person who should be there now; Hill’s own eating-disorder/DBT research journey after relapse and withdrawal; Shawn’s “spaghetti” chest tangle tied to “no time” stories and logic over emotion.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOThe Role of Energy and Stress in Our Lives
0:45 to 4:57
Exploration of how psychology influences energy levels and stress management.
“You're also going to learn the three psychological mechanisms that make us feel stressed out and trapped in unhealthy patterns.”
The Role of Energy and Stress in Our Lives
5:01 to 6:09
Exploration of how psychology influences energy levels and stress management.
“That's paleovalley.com forward slash model, P-A-L-E-O-V-A-L-L-E-Y.com forward slash model for 15 % off.”
Introducing Dr. Diana Hill
6:17 to 7:48
Introduction to guest Dr. Diana Hill and her background in psychology.
“Another YouTube review from at the City Stead Kitchen.”
Understanding Burnout and Wise Effort
7:48 to 14:00
Discussion on burnout, fulfillment, and the concept of wise effort in life.
“Diana Hill, I've got a big question to kick things off.”
Personal Struggles and Transformation
14:00 to 17:47
Hear Dr. Diana Hill share her journey through eating disorders and academic pressures.
“So sometimes context needs to change, but sometimes it's our own relationship with whatever is there.”
Understanding Genius Energy
17:47 to 21:46
Learn about the concept of genius energy and how it relates to our strengths and interests.
“was a story that I carry in my life now.”
Identifying and Overcoming Obstacles
21:46 to 28:00
Explore how cognitive fusion and avoidance of discomfort can misdirect our genius energy.
“the different colors together to paint just the right color that makes up you.”
Understanding Discomfort and Avoidance
28:00 to 31:20
Learn how avoiding discomfort can create additional problems and hinder personal growth.
“And so we avoid that discomfort in really unhelpful ways.”
Navigating Genius Energy and Its Duality
31:20 to 35:30
Explore the concepts of overusing and underusing one's genius energy, and how it can impact relationships.
“I would imagine you got to practice that because it sounds so good to be able to do that.”
Contextual Influences on Wise Effort
35:30 to 42:01
Discover how external factors like stress and environment affect our ability to engage in wise effort.
“Today, they have in the Harvard guy that is like the West Point grad, who's like the top of the top top.”
Show all 23 chapters
Understanding Body Signals and Interoceptive Awareness
42:01 to 43:19
Learn how body posture and awareness influence emotional responses.
“There's a bottom-up processing just as much as there's a bottom top down processing.”
The Importance of Interoceptive Awareness
43:20 to 45:56
Discover the role of interoceptive awareness in decision-making and emotional health.
“Interoceptive awareness is that thing that I said that I'd lost when I became anorexic, when I just shut off my body.”
Cultivating Inner Awareness for Better Health
45:57 to 47:59
Explore practices to enhance awareness of your body and emotions.
“check in you know yeah this would be i think a great piece of advice would be potentially just set maybe a reminder for yourself to check in with yourself.”
Influence of Environment on Our Nervous System
48:00 to 49:38
Understand how external stressors affect our inner state and relationships.
“So we have proprioception, we have interoception, neuroception.”
Post-Traumatic Growth and Its Gifts
49:39 to 52:29
Learn about post-traumatic growth and how challenges can lead to personal development.
“That's so powerful, such a good reminder.”
Finding Purpose Through Hardship
52:30 to 56:00
Discover how hardship can lead to newfound purpose and connection with others.
“The side effect of that was I felt so good.”
Personal Journey and Impact of The Model Health Show
56:00 to 58:00
Dr. Diana Hill shares her journey through postpartum challenges and the positive impact of The Model Health Show.
“yes, through Katie Bowman, but how I actually came here was in my second child, I experienced really severe postpartum.”
Shifting from Depleting to Energizing Efforts
58:00 to 1:00:20
Dr. Hill discusses practices to shift energy from depleting to energizing through recognizing choice points.
“I'd love for this conversation, you know, we want to have everybody be able to walk away with some things that they can do.”
Getting Unstuck: Strategies for Change
1:00:20 to 1:03:20
Exploring the concept of the 'get unstuck' button and the importance of doing something radically different.
“So he designs like the brains of Segways and self-flying planes and the robots that go into Afghanistan and look for landmines.”
Tuning into Your Emotions Through Music
1:03:20 to 1:06:00
Dr. Hill introduces a practice of connecting with your inner self through music and emotional care.
“Just like you could, I've got so many ideas bubbling up of just like things that you could do to change that pattern.”
The Importance of Self-Care During Stressful Times
1:06:00 to 1:09:05
Discussion on the challenges of birthday season and the need for self-compassion amidst stress.
“My youngest son's birthday was the beginning of the week.”
The Importance of Self-Care During Stressful Times
1:09:10 to 1:09:22
Discussion on the challenges of birthday season and the need for self-compassion amidst stress.
“And, you know, I have other stuff there, like stuff around self-compassion and psychological flexibility.”
The Importance of Energy in Life
1:10:01 to 1:10:29
Learn how managing energy helps navigate life's challenges and promotes growth.
“Having more energy is a huge part of this equation and successfully transitioning through and eventually, as Dr.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Shawn Stevenson:You are now listening to The Model Health Show with Shawn Stevenson. For more, visit themodelhealthshow.com.
0:11Shawn Stevenson:Welcome to The Model Health Show. This is fitness and nutrition expert Shawn Stevenson, and I'm so grateful for you tuning in with me today. Our lives are determined by our energy and specifically how we use that energy. Today, science is affirming that our psychology and the way that we perceive things has a huge impact on our daily energy. Today, you're going to discover simple daily practices that will help you to shift from energy that depletes to energy that energizes you. You're also going to learn the surprising science on how to find your unique genius energy. And this is a game changer.
0:53Shawn Stevenson:You're also going to learn the three psychological mechanisms that make us feel stressed out and trapped in unhealthy patterns. And our world leading psychologist guest today is going to demonstrate these three psychological mechanisms on me. And I had a big breakthrough in real time during this interview that I didn't expect. And so I'm so grateful to be able to share this powerful interview with you today. And one thing to keep in mind again, before we get to our special guest, is how much there's this battle between our energy and stress. Stress is energy itself. And it can be an expression of positive energy, but it also can be an energy depleter.
1:38Shawn Stevenson:And one of the most valuable things that I did not learn in my university education about this essential nutrient has to do with its relationship to helping our bodies to healthfully process stress. According to data published in the Journal of Nutrition and Food Sciences, both emotional and physical stress can deplete our body's vitamin C levels and it can increase our body's requirement for vitamin C to maintain normal blood levels in the first place. When When stress depletes our vitamin C levels in our bodies, it reduces our body's resistance to infections and even symptoms of chronic diseases and increases the likelihood of further stress and even more depletion.
2:27Shawn Stevenson:It becomes a vicious circle. But the researchers found that when vitamin C intake is increased, the negative effects of excess stress hormones are reduced and our body's ability to cope with the stress response dramatically improves. I was not taught how much vitamin C is critical for how our bodies process and metabolize stress. When we're experiencing a stressful situation, our adrenals, this incredible stress response system is just dumping vitamin C into our system in response to this perceived stress. because through our evolution, if there is a heightened state of stress, it is possibly a situation where we can be injured or harmed and we're going to need to be able to fight an infection.
3:17Shawn Stevenson:So we know vitamin C is heavily related to supporting and modulating our immune system, but that's closely tied to the stress response. Or if we're not the one being hunted or injured, if we're hunting, our immune system needs to ramp up because we're gonna interact with this food source and it might not be savory. It might not be completely free from things that can harm us. So that immune system needs to be right on top of things. But today, our stress system, as you know, is getting false alarms all the time, just 24 seven cycles of things to be afraid of, of stress inputs, of all these things that are just pulling our attention and it can really stress us out and just be this low level of chronic stress.
4:05Shawn Stevenson:And so today, more than ever, we've gotta be proactive and making sure we're eating plenty of vitamin C-rich foods, easily found in citrus, in the berry kingdom as well, also certain vegetables like even broccoli. But the most science-backed, highest sources of vitamin C are going to be found in these super fruits called camu camuberry, amla berry, and acerola cherry. These three vitamin C dense superfoods are found in my favorite vitamin C supplement, the Essential C Complex from Paleo Valley. It's all organic. There are no synthetic ingredients, no binders, no fillers. Plus it has a 60 day, 100 % money back guarantee.
4:51Shawn Stevenson:So if you aren't absolutely thrilled with it, you'll receive a full refund, no questions asked. Just go to paleovalley.com forward slash model right now and you'll automatically receive 15 % off of your order at checkout. That's paleovalley.com forward slash model, P-A-L-E-O-V-A-L-L-E-Y.com forward slash model for 15 % off. Another reason that this is so important right now is that the vast majority, I'm talking over 90 % of all vitamin C supplements out there on the market, and this is some crazy stuff, they're made from genetically modified corn syrup and corn starch. These are highly refined, low quality versions of vitamin C.
5:39Shawn Stevenson:We've got several studies indicating that they simply do not compare. Matter of fact, they don't create that anti-inflammatory and antioxidant benefit that is seen versus when you use something like camu, camuberry. And that's affirmed in a fantastic study that was published in the Journal of Cardiology. Ordinary synthetic vitamin C supplements made no changes to oxidative stress and inflammatory biomarkers, but camuberry absolutely did, lowering oxidative stress and reducing inflammation. Again, go to paleovalley.com forward slash model for 15 % off their phenomenal essential C complex. And now let's get to the special YouTube review of the week.
6:20Another YouTube review from at the City Stead Kitchen. Thank you, Sean, for continuing to put episodes out that are meaningful and make a difference.
6:29Shawn Stevenson:That's what it's all about. Thank you so much for sharing your voice over on YouTube. If you're not subscribed to the Model Health Show YouTube channel, you are missing out. We're doing exclusive video content over on the YouTube channel that you're not gonna find anywhere else, as well as getting to hang out in the studio, all right? Come hang out with your boy. Hang out with our special guests. And also, of course, you get to see visuals when we talk about studies and things like that. But just to be able to hang out and be here in the Model Health Show studio is absolutely a vibe. So definitely subscribe to the Model Health Show YouTube channel and share your voice over there or wherever you're listening.
7:06Shawn Stevenson:Apple Podcasts, Spotify. Please leave a review, share your voice. It really does mean a lot. And without further ado, let's get to our special guest and topic of the day. Dr. Diana Hill is a clinical psychologist, international trainer, and best-selling author. Drawing from the most current psychological research and contemplative wisdom, Diana bridges science with real-life practices to help people grow fulfilling and impactful lives. She's the host of the top-ranked Wise Effort podcast and her insights have been featured by NPR, The Wall Street Journal, Psychology Today, and many other media outlets.
7:43Shawn Stevenson:Let's dive into this conversation with the one and only Dr. Diana Hill. Dr. Diana Hill, I've got a big question to kick things off. Why are we so burnt out? Why do so many people feel so unfulfilled right now? It's kind of like an epidemic. What's going on? Well, burnout and unfulfillment are actually two separate constructs in psychology. When we look at burnout, we often look at contextual factors in psychology, like maybe you have too much work and not enough resources, or you're in a toxic environment. You have a lot of stressors on you. But this piece around fulfillment is an important part of it.
8:26It's a separate construct, which has to do with meaning and purpose. we can become burned out when we're putting a lot of energy into things but especially when we're putting a lot of energy into things that don't matter to us and we have more and more expectations around going faster producing more creating content and maybe not all of that is really where our heart is at or what's sort of where our values are at and that can contribute to our burnout as well. So the way that I look at burnout is there's an individual inside you element that maybe you've lost a part of yourself. And then there's also a contextual element.
9:09There's all of our environmental factors that are burning us out, the stressors of the world and our lives and our unhealthy environments.
9:16Shawn Stevenson:It's like a perfect recipe, I think, right now, just with the kind of societal construct of things and also just the pace of things as well. And I think even though it's well-intentioned, you know, to dive into our work, you know, to provide for our families and to achieve, to strive, we can quickly find ourselves, you know, questioning like, why am I here? What's all this for? Feeling burnt out, feeling, and I tie them together, but I'm so glad that you mentioned like these are two different kind of psychological constructs. They often come together, but they have different core issues. And this is one of the reasons I'm so excited to talk to you is that you are so good at getting to the core issue.
9:55Shawn Stevenson:And what you're doing for us today, and this was really timely for me as well, is you're directing us towards utilizing what you call wise effort as we're interacting with our work, interacting with our relationships. there's a way to go about it that we don't have to have all of the kind of negative wake that that comes behind a lot of this stuff so can you talk about wise effort what is that well i think most people could just hear those words and think about a time in the last 24 hours when they've engaged in unwise effort and a time in the last 24 hours when they've engaged in wise effort what that means personally to them you just reflect on that the term itself wise effort is actually from Buddhist psychology.
10:42And it comes from the Eightfold Path. So Buddhism has all of these numbers. It's like the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. And part of the Eightfold Path is what is the path to freedom? What is the path to awakening? And on that path, there's things like wise livelihood, like what you're doing right here. It's pretty wise livelihood. You're using your energy wisely at work. There's wise speech. Are you being kind? Are you being truthful? And then there's wise effort. How are you using your energy? Are you using it in ways that are compassionate, that are aligned with your values? Or are you using it sort of like spinning your wheels, just putting a lot more energy into something that really doesn't matter to you and can result in burnout?
11:28So that's the term wise effort. But then I have a whole method that is more rooted in psychological science because that's sort of my blend. I take a conciliant approach, which means I draw from contemplative practice. I draw from psychological science. And then I draw from many, many years of working with clients to help them get back on track and get more aligned.
11:49Shawn Stevenson:Amazing. Amazing. Speaking of Buddhism, you know, one of the great teachers is kind of, again, adjacent to that is Thich Nhat Hanh. I've had the opportunity to learn some of his work as well. You share a great story on perspective in your book about an experience he had getting a question from somebody who was kind of questioning what they were doing. Can you talk about that, share that story? Yeah, I think my, Thich Nhat Hanh has been one of the most influential teachers in my life. So I have this interesting background that I grew up going to Catholic school. My mom was Christian and my dad was Buddhist.
12:25And he would go every summer to Plum Village to Thich Nhat Hanh's monastery. And Thich Nhat Hanh is probably the most influential Zen Buddhist master that has brought Zen Buddhism to the United States, but done it in a very secular way. Done in a way of just basically the reason why we have mindfulness here and why it's been so proliferated. So when I was in my 20s, I was actually 19, and I was really struggling. I share a lot about sort of my personal struggle with striving and how it's gotten away from me many times in my life. And I went to Plum Village for the first time, which is his monastery in France.
13:05and he was giving a Dharma talk, which is a talk where they share sort of the wisdom, the teaching, and he was answering questions from the Sangha. The community was there, and one of the members stood up and said, I'm a soldier. I think it was during the time of the Iraq War, and now I'm learning about mindfulness, and I'm becoming more conscious, and what should I do? I don't want to go back. I don't want to be in a tank. I don't want to be behind a gun, And what Ty said to him was, you are the very person that should be there now that you know what you know. And I think about that in terms of, yes, I mean, that's like a big ask, right, for a soldier to go back and be mindful behind a gun.
13:49But we could do that in other ways. I mean, maybe we need to go back into a toxic work environment. We can't quit our job, even though it's burning us out and we don't want to be here anymore. But could we bring what we know in terms of wise effort to the places that we're in? And then we're part of the solution. So sometimes context needs to change, but sometimes it's our own relationship with whatever is there. And using that wisdom to guide our behavior, no matter where we are, can make a tremendous change in our life. Yeah.
14:20Shawn Stevenson:So you're saying we could change our perspective about the situation that we're in. We can change our perspective, but sometimes it's changing also how we are struggling with or relating to or even how we're showing up. So, for example, you know, when I was in graduate school, I went to University of Colorado at Boulder and I was getting my Ph.D. in eating disorders. And a lot of where this work came from was my own struggle with eating disorders. First anorexia, then bulimia. You can think about anorexia as sort of being like the Olympian of striving. like you actually are doing everything to the nth degree of what you should do right and so I was in recovery from that but when I got into my PhD program and I was studying eating disorders I was researching them I was running randomized controlled trials for people with eating disorders I relapsed I relapsed and so I was on the clinical floor PhD program.
15:20It's 1 % of the population that gets into this program, everything in my being to get there. And then I was going upstairs to the cognitive wing to go purge, and then going downstairs and running clinical trials. So that story that Ty told of how can you be in this environment and not shoot the gun? And maybe the shooting the gun is you're shooting it at yourself, right? So that was me. And I remember the day that I went home because I used to go and buy a ton of food and binge on it and then purge at the park and then go home. And no one knew, like I was like the top of it. I was like the top stats student and all the things.
15:58And I remember driving home and I had all this food in my car, had like Reese's buttercups and Ben and Jerry's and the whole, the whole gamut. And I looked at my face and I saw myself in that, in the rear view mirror. And I saw all the puffiness under my eyes. And I saw the swollen glance. It was the same faces of all of my clients. And I had this moment where I was like, wake up. What am I striving for here? And what is really important to me? And I walked in the door and I remember my husband, he was my partner, boyfriend at the time, and I just passed him all the food. And I was like, I've got to let this all go.
16:43So I ended up withdrawing from my program. And I was lucky and smart enough to go to a program in Boulder, Colorado, which is like the Mecca of spirituality. I ended up going to a yoga ashram, which was just a few miles up the mountain from us. And during that time, I thought, I'm like, I'm going to go be a yoga instructor. Throw this all away. I'm not going back. But like that soldier, I was like, well, wait a minute here. Maybe there's something that I know from this experience that will make me an even better researcher when I go back, an even better clinician. And I dug up at that time, one of the only people that was doing mindfulness and eating disorders, DBT and eating disorders, which was Deborah Safer at Stanford.
17:24And I contacted her after getting into a better place in recovery and said, can I work with you? I want to figure out how to connect this with this, how to bring mindfulness to the research. And I went back and got my PhD in mindfulness-based DBT interventions and then went on to lead a treatment center. So very much that story about the soldier was was a story that I carry in my life now.
17:52Shawn Stevenson:Thank you for sharing that. This was one of the things I wanted to talk to you about because you highlight this is directly from your book wise effort pick up a copy today often but not always our genius is developed and strengthened out of the hardship challenges and changes we face in life and you ask can you think of a life challenge that may have contributed to your genius energy and one of the funnest parts about the book and i i did the stuff i answered the questions and it took a while it took a couple of days to answer the questions but i got to know so many things about myself specifically through clear language all right so there's certain a lot of stuff we do we just do because it's us but for me to actually pay attention to those things and to give them names and words it was really it felt really good it felt like i knew myself a little bit more and this idea of our genius energy is so powerful and empowering, but it can be a little scary too.
18:59Shawn Stevenson:So number one, can you talk about what our genius energy is? And then we can dig in on how do we uncover this because you get some kind of archetypes and then also how we turn our hardships into really powerful character traits and expressions in the world. Well, I think anyone that's listening could describe Sean Stevenson's genius energy. And then they could probably think about their best friend. And they could describe what's that thing about their best friend that's so unique to them, that makes them shine, that stands out? What do you go to that person to for help? And maybe they could even find genius energy in like their dog.
19:44So the word genius, actually, a lot of us associate it with Stanford Bonet, you know or Einstein and that's not the type of thing I'm talking about here I'm talking about your je ne sais quoi like what is it that makes you you what's your life force going back to my yoga roots what's your prana the thing that is energetically inside of you that lights you up from the inside out and attracts people to you and when you're doing it and you're in it things come easily to you you're in flow and then I looked at it from a psychological science perspective and I actually said okay what is the science of that like what what are the components of that what do we know about that?
20:20And I identified these five key components that keep on showing up over and over again in psychological science. One is character strengths. So this comes from Martin Seligman, positive psychology, the father of positive psychology. And your character strengths are things like leadership qualities. You have a leadership aspect to you. You have a character strength as well um sean of being like very welcoming and um and warm and you also have a another aspect of you that it has to do with your personality so that we know a lot of psychological science around personality and that can be things like we were just talking about four taking risks how open are you to risks how are you extroverted versus introverted with your enneagram you know another aspect of your genius energy is your interests what do you do here's a good one when you were a kid after school what did you just love to do that's all you wanted to do
21:22Shawn Stevenson:for me play outside play sports compete with my friends yeah yeah yeah so you have interest in competition playing and athleticism right so your genius energy is in the right spot when you're doing those things. The other two aspects of genius energy have to do with your emotional intelligence and natural abilities. So when those come together, they sort of, it's sort of pulling the different colors together to paint just the right color that makes up you. And when we put our genius energy and use it in a way that's aligned with our values, life opens up. We are not burned out and we actually don't have this other thing that is showing up for people, which is bore out.
22:05You heard of bore out? It's another construct, right? So bore out is you're being underutilized. You're like in the workplace and nobody is actually putting something in front of you that's engaging, that you want to go for, that you want to work hard for. Because wise effort isn't just about taking more rests and relaxing and doing more yoga nidra. It's also about working hard in the places that matter to you. So when you align your genius energy with your values and you do it in a wise way, you are off to the races and things will open up for you and you will feel engaged in your relationship.
22:35You can put your genius energy anywhere. I talk about genius energy in the bedroom. Like what's your sexual genius and are you using it? Or has it gotten off track? Is it aligned with your values or maybe it's gotten out of alignment with your values? It's everywhere, this genius energy. But what happens is that there's all sorts of things that start to show up and I think three things in particular that can send your genius energy off track and all of a sudden when it's off track you get entangled and you can get burned out you can get bored out or you can be really misdirected with it say more say more the three things yes please
23:13Shawn Stevenson:can I do an example with you of course yeah okay so can you think of a time in the past week when you felt like you were getting all tangled up in a problem and you really wish your genius energy could show up there. Those leadership qualities, the warmth I was talking about, the athleticism or playfulness that makes you you. Can you think about that time? You don't have to say specifically what it is if it's a... Yeah. Yeah. It just happened within the 24 hours. Yes. You can. Okay. In the book, I ask people to draw it, what it felt like in their body in that moment. So we're on audio or, you know, I don't have a piece of paper.
23:53If you were to draw it, visually draw it for us, what was it like in your body? Spaghetti. Spaghetti. Yep. Uh-huh. And like all like messy spaghetti or like at that Nobu restaurant where it's all beautiful?
24:05Shawn Stevenson:Yeah, it was a pretty, I mean, it wasn't super messy, but there was like some lines twisting up and getting a little tangled. A little tangled in there. Where was that tangle happening in your body? In my chest. In your chest. Yeah. Yeah. So a tangle of energy, a tangle of spaghetti in your chest. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So there's usually three things that are tangling up that spaghetti. There's all the outside stuff that we want to blame. We say it's because of this and because of that. But in our inner world, there can be three things, three psychological things that that we are doing that's tangling up our genius energy the first one in psychological science we call it cognitive fusion in buddhism we call it delusion but in common terms we call it being stuck in a story so being stuck in a story was there a story that was going on in your own head that was tangling up that spaghetti that was getting in the way of you showing up as your warm playful leader genius Sean Self.
25:06Shawn Stevenson:For sure for sure. Yeah yeah. What was the nature of that story? The story was this shouldn't be happening right now you know and I a little bit little sidebar is I don't have time for this. Yeah oh that's a really good one yeah so this shouldn't be happening right now and I don't have time for this right and when you believe that story to be true like it's dominating if you imagine you're to write that story in your hand and it's like right in front of your face and the the way that you want to act is in front of you you can't get there when you believe that story to be true how did it push your behavior around what it make you do I don't have time for this and it shouldn't be this way it may it pushed me into being more logical really leaning into logic when being more welcoming of emotion was more important yeah more important yeah so oftentimes in an interpersonal relationship that's really important that we are aware of emotion or even a relationship with ourselves so that's one thing that gets us gets mr x our genius energies we and we have humans just have the human mind has a tendency to make stories, it's actually a beautiful thing.
26:23We can tell stories, we can share through story, we connect through story, but when we get all entangled in our story and we don't have the capacity to step back from our thoughts or say, oh, that's my story. And usually our stories have to do with wanting to control something, they have to do with wanting approval, or they have to do with security, wanting to get safety in some way. The other thing that can really misdirect our genius and maybe was happening then is avoidance of discomfort. There was something uncomfortable happening and we want it to end or we want to get away from it. We don't want to be in it.
Read the full transcript
26:58I don't like it. What was the discomfort? And then how did you avoid?
27:05Shawn Stevenson:For me, I was avoiding pain. It was a pattern that I saw that I've experienced pain in it before. and I think I still have a little PTSD from the experience that I had and so I didn't want to feel pain. Yeah, yeah. PTSD is a strong word to use with a psychologist but you had a little, your body kept the score, right? So there's a memory, an embodied memory of, ooh, when I'm in this pattern or when this pattern happens it is a painful thing and i don't want to go down that yeah and so you may try because the pattern is it has to go through to completion and i'm going to be depleted at the end of it yeah and then have to pull myself back up yeah yeah so you don't want to have that happen again yeah you need wiser effort there you need your genius self to show up for you and you need some wisdom to show up for you but maybe you haven't had that experience in that pattern fully or you don't feel like you can do it yet.
28:15And so we avoid that discomfort in really unhelpful ways. And in the field of psychology, there's sort of two big consequences to our avoidance of discomfort when it's inner world pain, not outer world pain, like avoid the pain of like getting your hand on a hot stove. But when it's your inner world pain, when you avoid discomfort, two things happen. One is usually the way in which you are avoiding discomfort creates another problem that is uncomfortable. So like if you're avoiding discomfort by drinking or in my case by eating or not eating, now I have my original problem, which was the stress that I was eating or not eating over.
28:55And I have the secondary problem of eating or not eating, you know, having an eating disorder, right? So usually the way in which we avoid adds another layer of problems.
29:05Shawn Stevenson:I think drinking is a good example for a lot of people. Yeah. You know, it's just, again, it's like an escape. Uh-huh. drinking, smoking, spending money, going on your phone, all the things in which we do these avoidance behaviors that end up having secondary problems. But the one that I get really interested in, the other part of it, is that when we avoid discomfort, it also has another cost. Because often the discomfort that we are avoiding is closely linked and in the same direction of something that we love, something that we value. Right? And so if we're doing like these mental or physical gymnastics to get around it, we're also getting around and not making contact with the very thing that we love.
29:52Think about parenting. I have two teenage boys. It's a lot of discomfort in our household and lots of multiple reasons. But if I just detach myself and distance myself from it, and stay busy and so I don't have to experience whatever I'm experiencing, then I'm also detaching and distancing myself from my kid, right? So that's a consequence of avoiding discomfort. So we have, were you stuck in a story? Were you avoiding discomfort? And then the third one that's, so I'll say, were you stuck in a story where you're avoiding discomfort, which is called in clinical psychology, we call it experiential avoidance.
30:29The third one is, are you holding too tight? you're gripping too hard. You're getting rope burn because you're trying to control the situation. And when you are holding too tight to something, there's no room for whatever needs to flow through to flow through, for another person to participate in the moving towards something different or solving of a problem because you are gripping to it. Were you holding too tight to anything, Sean? You don't have to have all three. Maybe not.
31:02Shawn Stevenson:a little bit a little bit but definitely not this wasn't the big the big one but yeah a little bit for sure i kept on like i loosened up and then i tighten loose yeah yeah yeah so those are the three things that misdirect our genius energy and the practice of wise effort is to be able to first get curious and spot them like oh and just it's an intervention in itself to ask yourself am i stuck a story here am i avoiding discomfort am i holding too tight and then the next step is okay how do i open up how do i open up to feeling something maybe it's something that i don't want to feel how to open up my mind that i just have one view in but there's many different views here and how do i open up my sense of self to a wiser sense of self that can be in this whatever situation I am in to help direct my genius so that it can be flowing more freely.
32:00So it's like a inner check-in. I would imagine you got to practice that because it sounds so good to be able to do that.
32:11Shawn Stevenson:It's kind of like you're jumping back and grabbing the wheel again, but it's the practice, I would imagine. one of the things i want to ask you about related to this is what happens when our genius energy is and you've kind of talked about it like things that can kind of dampen it or like um muffle it specifically you talk about when our genius energy can be overused or underused in certain situations because it sounds really weird that this genius energy that we all have Again, this is a unique thing for us and it can be overused, right? It sounds like we should be spraying out that genius energy everywhere, but it can be overused and we see some ramifications of that.
32:54Shawn Stevenson:And also, and I think a little bit more logical for my mind is being underused. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So we can all think about that friend that has a genius at whatever their genius is. And are there times when that genius becomes a problem for them? Right? So even self-help or self-awareness, overused, your self-awareness could turn a little bit into self-absorption. You know, you're like reading every self-help book. It's all about self and it's the selfiness. And you did that. Anything. Can't stop taking selfies. Can't stop taking selfies and posting about your self-help situation. That anything can turn into too much, right?
33:36This is Jungian's. Every shadow has a strength. But oftentimes what we can do as well is that we can play small. We can hide parts of ourselves. And there are parts of ourselves that, at least for me, so one of my geniuses that I've figured out over time is I'm extremely emotionally sensitive. And when I was a little girl, that emotional sensitivity meant I could feel everything that was happening at the Thanksgiving table. Like I knew who was drinking. I knew who was getting a divorce. I knew who was mad at who. Right? And it was all eyes out, so sensitive that I was picking up on everything.
34:15That way of being was a problem for me. But then the swing of that was also a problem for me when I decided to shut all of my emotional sensitivity down by starving myself, right? So if you turn off your interoceptive awareness system by turning off your hunger, you get the side benefit. it, you turn off all of your inner world. You turn off your emotions. I was void from my head down. I had no connection to my body because I learned how to turn off my emotional sensitivity. That's a problem as well. So, how do we identify what our genius energy is? Again, you're a je ne sais quoi. And then you kind of use it in the right amount.
35:00I figured out a path for that, a place for that as a therapist. It's a really good fit for me. You want emotionally sensitive therapist, right? But then you also don't want a therapist that's like, every time you cry is sobbing on the couch with you, you know? So, I learned the practice of one eye in and one eye out, you know? I can toggle into what, how's Sean doing? Like, I'm tracking you, Sean. I'm tracking you, because that's my emotional sensitivity. Like, how's he doing over there? And then, how am I doing over here? One hand on my chest, lower breath in my belly toggling back and forth and that's how I've learned how to work with my genius of emotional sensitivity someone else needs to work with their genius of being funny it's great you're I mean I was reading your books you're so funny but does that ever become a problem you know it's like the friend that's funny and is making jokes at inappropriate times yeah that can be a problem for you or you're you're avoiding your own emotions by just being funny all the time no matter what genius you have it can become your frenemy so this is the the practice of awareness of your strengths and what we know about strengths and strength spotting is that i mean everything from i was just preparing for i'm doing a leadership retreat for ypos for for CEOs tomorrow, 45 CEOs tomorrow morning.
36:23Today, they have in the Harvard guy that is like the West Point grad, who's like the top of the top top. And then tomorrow I come in and I'm like, Oh my gosh, am I going to be good enough? Am I going to be smart enough? Are people going to like me like Stuart Smiley, you know, that whole bit. So I'm over preparing. And I was, I was reading up on strengths in leadership roles. If you are a leader and you point out the strengths of your employees, you're just highlighting strengths, you can increase their performance by about 30%. If you point out their weaknesses, you decrease their performance by about 29%.
37:05Just highlighting strengths in another person improves them. It's like watering a plant. They perk up. And you can do that for yourself with your own geniuses, right? So you can highlight your own strengths and it will help you feel more engaged. It'll help you channel your energy in a way that you feel a little bit brighter. You could do that in the interpersonal situation that you're struggling with, highlight strengths. But you also want to be careful that you do it with wisdom. You're not just tooting everyone's horn all the time. You do it with wisdom. You're channeling it wisely.
37:40Shawn Stevenson:This is so good. This is so good. All right. So I mentioned earlier that you have some archetypes and there are many others but certain forms of genius energy you kind of gave names to them and i can identify with certain ones very much and certain ones i was like oh this is my wife you know um so a couple of them that identify with is or are the idea generator also identify with helping hero articulator identify with that as well but it's the one that jumped out the most was calming force. And this was based off of my feeling, but also just the feedback from my environment. And the calming force, I'm going to share this, is described as you are the grounding force that people look to when things become chaotic.
38:26Shawn Stevenson:You can stay calm under pressure, soothe others, and have a measured response when others are losing their cool. this is like that's me however this genius becomes your problem when people interpret your coolness as apathy or when it prevents you from taking action when it is overused and this is i really identify with this part when it is overused you spend a lot of energy cutting yourself off from your emotions or trying to keep others calm. When it is underused, you may not be able to offer yourself the calming force that you need. That, I really felt that. And I just, I had to take a moment and just pause.
39:12Shawn Stevenson:And again, I'm grateful to be able to kind of identify and to give a name to this experience that I have in the world and to understand that there's a wise effort way to approach this this is a blessing that i have this but to approach this with wisdom and not overuse it or under use it to the best of my awareness okay so i'm going to circle back to that problem that you're that was spaghetti inside of you do you think you could have used that calming force energy towards yourself in that moment yep yep that's yeah i was trying to protect it instead of being that calming force for myself. Yeah.
39:53Shawn Stevenson:Yeah, I was more defensive. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's not like me. That's not like, that's not my typical, you know, but it's just like, again, PTSD is strong label, but just a historical pattern of certain things happening. And then this thing being brought to me after, I want to ask you about this. Would you say based on your experience and your research, it tends to be easier to fall into unwise effort when our needs are not being met or we're too stressed or there's a lot going on oh yeah so i have a whole chapter on environment in there so the field of psychology has done a really poor job historically at blaming the individual everything's about you and your inner world and your but there are a lot of contextual factors Stress being one of them, not eating, sleep, not having good sleep, having medical conditions can really impact you.
40:54Being on medications. I work a lot with clients that are on all sorts of different medications that are impacting their ability to engage in wise effort in a certain situation, right? So absolutely, there are contextual things. There's workplace, there's relationships, there's biology. that can get you off track. And that's why we need to attend all that. We need wisdom for that too. We need to sort of do the, I did a bit in the 12 steps a while back when I was like 17, 18 years old. I've done everything, everything under the sun. But I did a bit and what I always liked from the 12 steps was the halt.
41:33Are you hungry? Are you angry? Are you lonely? Are you tired, right? In here, I talk about heart. Are you hungry? What's happening in your emotional? world? Do you need a little activity? Sometimes we're just irritated because we haven't moved. We need to like get up and go for a walk. And then all of a sudden everything shifts, right? I haven't had enough. My body has not moved enough today. And all of that energy is getting pointed into this frustrating situation, right? So H-E-A-R, do I need more rest? And T, what about tension? Know about the physiology of our body. There's a bottom-up processing just as much as there's a bottom top down processing.
42:15So if your shoulders are up at your ears and you're breathing in the top third of your chest and you're gripping your jaw, you are sending signals to your brain, there is something wrong here. And then your partner comes in the room and you're like, oh, it's them. Right? I mean, there's even research that if you've gotten in a poor night's sleep in the morning, you're more likely to judge your partner as mad at you just from a poor night's sleep, right? So physiology impacts how we interpret situations. It impacts how we behave in situations. So we have to pay attention to all of it.
42:52Shawn Stevenson:Amazing, amazing. All right, so we gotta remember that acronym for heart. Yeah. So can you repeat it again? So we've got the H, hunger, emotion. Emotions, activity levels. activity? Do I need some activity? R is rest and T is tension, physical tension in my body. Yeah. So we can check in on all of those. And that check-in is, it's something called, it's an interoceptive awareness check-in. It's checking in with your body. Interoceptive awareness is that thing that I said that I'd lost when I became anorexic, when I just shut off my body. But a lot of people are walking heads and they don't have a lot of awareness of their bodies.
43:32They don't check in with what's going on inside. And what's fascinating and important about interoceptive awareness is that the more you are aware of what's going on inside of your body, the better decisions you make. They've done studies where they've looked at stock market traders. They perform better in their financial training, trading. They make more money when they have higher levels of interoceptive awareness.
44:01Interoceptive awareness, the higher levels of interoceptive awareness also predict better eating habits. The more you are aware of your hunger and fullness and emotions, you can tell the difference between am I angry or am I hungry? Sometimes you can't tell that difference. Am I stressed or am I craving? And so that process of paying attention to our inner world is very much part of the wise effort process that sort of checking in and opening up to what's going on inside so that you
44:29Shawn Stevenson:can be wiser with your actions would you say that more people struggle with interoception today absolutely everything's pulling us out of interoception my aura ring right so i could wake up in the morning and i could check in with my body how am i feeling this morning or I can wake up in the morning and I can open my phone and say, how's my sleep score? Right? It's not bad. I utilize this. I like it. But there's a lot of things that we're using that are pulling us out of our bodies to try and give us metrics for some things that we should also be checking in with our bodies for. Or maybe we use both.
45:11We can use our sleep score or we can use our glucose monitor in conjunction and there's some research out there now they're starting to look at things like glucose monitoring with appetite awareness right in conjunction with to start to train you to be able to tell that you're hungry because you've lost track you don't even know if you're hungry or full anymore right so you could look at your glucose monitor for that but there's more things than not that are pulling us out of our bodies and part of our embodied awareness comes from yes emotional awareness but just time and space to be in our bodies so we're not waiting in line anymore we're in line on our phones we still every single margin of our life with something and without those margins there's there's just no no room to
46:00Shawn Stevenson:check in you know yeah this would be i think a great piece of advice would be potentially just set maybe a reminder for yourself to check in with yourself. And how powerful is that to be able to have, of course, we know proprioception is awareness of our body in space, this external environment, that relationship, but interoception and knowing what's going on inside of our bodies in our inner world, how valuable is that to just check in with your body? Like, are my toes happy right now? Or are they feeling a little bit crunched up? What's going on with my gut? How am I feeling with my breathing?
46:35Shawn Stevenson:What's happening with my heart? What's going on? Do I feel pressure or tension in my body? And just checking in and then you can inquire why, why do I feel this way? And start to rekindle that relationship because your body is the most valuable N of one data feedback, more powerful than any study could ever be. Your body is telling you and more than ever, like we need to get some direction to go inward and to pay attention what are what will happen when you do that is you start to rewire the connection like anything you know what fires together wires together so every time you pay attention to something you're strengthening that connection so it'll become that you don't have to set an alarm to check in with your body your body will you'll hear the alarms within your body yeah right i have a a lot of awareness around my inner world now just because I've practiced it so much.
47:31I've done so many hours on the mat, so many hours in meditation, so many hours of paying attention to my hunger and fullness to get back to a place of recovery. And now it's become more natural to me again. This was very natural to us many, many generations ago, right? And as you continue to do that, something else will start to happen is that you will also develop your intuition. You develop your emotional intelligence. You'll be able to tune into, here's another one. So we have proprioception, we have interoception, neuroception. The signaling of another person's body to your body. So Shawn Stevenson is sending me signals through what's happening with his eyes, through what's happening with his shoulders, through what's happening with the speed of his breath.
48:23And many of those signals are unconscious. So when we're in a fight with our partner, it's not just the words that are signaling. It's the tone of voice. It's the facial signals. It's the closing off or the opening up. And our body picks that up first through the process of neuroception. This is polyvagal theory by Stephen Porges. So you start to become awareness of your own nervous system. You get better awareness of how other people's nervous systems are impacting your nervous system. And you get a little more like, okay, like I'm in the airport. Why do I feel so stressed? because everyone around me is sending me signals of stress.
48:59I was at Starbucks. I don't like Starbucks, but I was at Starbucks, forced to get coffee at Starbucks.
49:05Shawn Stevenson:Just to be clear. Just to be clear. I don't go to Starbucks that often, but I was at Starbucks. And the energy of the barista behind the camera, they were so stressed. It was a holiday weekend. I was picking up the vibes, and then I was feeling so stressed. All of that is stuff to be aware of, because then I can tend to my own nervous system and then I can also be a nervous system that's sending signals to other people's nervous systems. Their neuroception can pick up on my slow breathing or on my smile or on my openness. So it's all part of the shift towards wiser efforts. That's so powerful, such a good reminder.
49:45Shawn Stevenson:We can obviously be influenced, but we can also be the influencer, you know, and we can bring it to it, bring the energy to certain situations. I love that so much. So let's dive a little bit more into one of the ways that our genius energies are kind of cultivated that we might not like when we're going through the thing. but our hardships, our greatest challenges, and us asking ourselves, has the thing that we've gone through that was very difficult in our lives, has that developed certain character traits or certain capacities or gifts that you didn't know you had or that you didn't have previously?
50:26Shawn Stevenson:Is there any blessing in what you went through? And I'd love to talk to you about this and how relates to genius energy well you mentioned ptsd before there's another concept in psychology called post-traumatic growth and it's these qualities that develop out of hardship post-traumatic growth their quality is a greater sense of spirituality greater sense of meaning greater sense of interconnection and knowing your own strength right and so when you go through a And hardship, not everyone has post-traumatic growth, right? But for many of us, we do. We can think about, wow, by going through that and getting the other side of that, something happened inside of me that shifted that I can use now and I can offer to others now, right?
51:19We have a tendency to want to bubble wrap ourselves and bubble wrap our kids and protect them. like I wish like when my babies came out I'm like I just want to bubble wrap you and like on your first day of school send you and bubble wrap but but I know now that actually just like with our immune system you they say like your kid needs to get sick in the first year of life it's going to be helpful for them they need to develop immunity we need to develop resilience and immunity within ourselves and part of that is some of the geniuses that we develop out of the hardship. And when you see that, when I see that with my clients, I see the hardship that they've been through turn into the most amazing things, the most amazing things, like somebody that goes through cancer and then starts, you know, cancer groups for other people.
52:09Somebody that I write about a pet sitter in this book and how she, as a kid, she experienced a lot of trauma and abandonment and now her whole mission in life is like abandoned cats and dogs like she's like got a genius for animals right we all have that the the things that develop out of our hardship and it's not to we don't want to go to post-traumatic growth too soon with people it's a little bit dangerous it's a little bit of toxic positivity but you'll see it naturally emerge oh my gosh
52:41Shawn Stevenson:so good i mean i wouldn't be sitting here with you today if it wasn't for that and i love that that label or that framing for it because it truly did create so much growth and develop like I didn't know that I had all this in me at the time you know I grew up in I mean the most turbulent environment you know in the U.S. let me be clear it's different you know growing up in poverty here is different like we still had TV you know we still had we get the Nintendo like a year later but we still had a nintendo you know um but just the the violence that was outside of my house and inside of my home and just the ways of being and how we handle things handle conflict and having all of this all of these experiences really make me become so much more self-centered and it was a survival mechanism i i was trying to keep myself alive but i didn't know that that was cutting me off from the greatest joys in life, which is contribution and love and giving and opening myself up to other people, right?
53:50Shawn Stevenson:And so I didn't know that until I went through my own health issue and getting a so-called incurable disease diagnosis with my spine and eventually recovering from that and not just coming back, but coming back far better than I knew was possible. The side effect of that was I felt so good. I wanted to share it. And people started to ask me for help. And I felt this natural inclination to serve, right? I went from being self selfish to serving others. And that's what got me out of bed every day from that moment forward for years. Like it just, it inspired me in so many different ways. And that's what led me to be here with you now.
54:39Shawn Stevenson:But at the time it didn't feel good at all. It didn't feel good sitting in that room by myself, the dark room, this dark room, mattress on the floor, Ferguson, Missouri, on all these medications and in pain. None of that felt good. But being able to find a way out which was funny enough and this is the conversation with you it was by finding a way in is how I found a way out yeah and yeah so again for everybody listening if you're going through a difficult time right now this isn't to jump into this labeling but just know that there's so much you have you have so much capacity and there are so many things that are dormant within us and And sometimes these hardships show up to help us to express those things that are dormant and these great gifts that are within us.
55:33Can I say something in response to that, Sean? So violent, use the word violent and chaotic. And the genius that you shared earlier is the calming force. So it makes a lot of sense that you became a calming force. given that early childhood experience and environment. In my experience of you, how I came here to the Sean Stevens, yes, through Katie Bowman, but how I actually came here was in my second child, I experienced really severe postpartum. I mean, you know, you got mental health problems, they're gonna show up at times of stress. And I had had a stillborn, and then I got pregnant right away, and I had this baby, and I was stuck at home with a baby with colic and a toddler and i it was like the worst and my husband was trying to help me and somehow he passed me the model health show and i and i started it was the same time i started listening it's like this was my kid's 12 now so this is 12 years ago started listening to sean stevenson and your voice was the most calming voice to me it was like i just want to hear sean stevenson i i and then there was katie and what katie was teaching me about how i could move my body without having to go to the gym and be on the treadmill for 45 minutes.
56:56So we would listen to Shawn Stevenson and Katie Bowman in our living room and I'd have like babies crawling on me. And then I found my way to like we got we bought like a battle rope. I have like the club. We started getting into structured water. We were like all Shawn Stevenson all the time. And I remember way, you know, this is, you know, four books ago. I hadn't done any of this stuff. and just what a calming force you were in our household. So you don't know who you're reaching or how you're impacting people just by the sound of your voice. And if that has come from your own hardship, the tune is so much clearer.
57:44It's like, it's not some false tune. It's a true tune of a calming force. And so you've impacted me in profound ways. Yeah. Thank you.
58:00Shawn Stevenson:I'd love for this conversation, you know, we want to have everybody be able to walk away with some things that they can do. And I'd like to talk about some practices that we can do to help shift from energy that depletes to effort that energizes. what are some what are some things that we can do okay the first thing you can do is start to notice choice points choice points are moments in time when you can either choose to move towards your values or away from your values your values are how you want to show up who you want to be what matters to you what you want to represent right and a lot of times we get off track And when we get off track, we beat ourselves up for being off track.
58:47And then we're in the hole. It's the man in the hole with his shovel. Dig, dig, dig, dig, dig to try and get ourselves out, right? But a choice point is an opportunity. It's I've gotten off track. Here's an opportunity. What do I care about here? And how do I prioritize what I care about? What's most important? Just like clear the wreckage and focus your energy on that. The most important thing. And a lot of times it's simple things like the most important thing here is just love. In relationships, how many times I've been in fights with my partner and if I just drop the fight and focus on love, how many times I walk into my kid's room and the other day I found there was the bottom sports drawer was open and in the drawer was a bowl with milk in it.
59:36He left the bowl of milk from the cereal. I'm like, I want to yell at him. and he was about to leave for a trip so there was stuff all over the place. He was about to go on this backpacking trip. What's most important here? The cereal bowl? Or my son about to go on a backpacking trip and connecting with him before he goes? What's most important here? It's a choice point. So sometimes we'll yell about the cereal bowl and then we'll have that ping of regret and that regret is just your value system saying, oh, get back on track. So what's one thing you can do? Choice points are powerful and usually choice points are inside of us, right?
1:00:12They're just inside. When you notice that twinge, like I'm off track, here's a choice point. And if you miss it, there'll be another one. It's like a stoplight. You'll have another one, don't worry. So that's one thing. Another thing that I use a lot is that probably the most effective thing you can do if you are feeling stuck and you feel like you just, I'm stuck, I'm like, I've tried everything, is to do something different, radically different than what you are doing. My brother-in-law is a roboticist. So he designs like the brains of Segways and self-flying planes and the robots that go into Afghanistan and look for landmines.
1:00:51And he said that he designed this button into robots called the get unstuck button that goes off, it gets deployed when a robot is trapped. And when that button goes off, what this robot does, the get unstuck button, is everything in its repertoire. It does a backflip, It runs really hard forward. It jumps up and down. It spins around. It lies down on the floor. It crawls. So usually what we do when we're stuck, and this is a misdirection of our energy, is we just go harder at the same thing. So if you want to get unstuck, do some other things that you haven't tried. Whether you're stuck in exercising or I'm stuck in a relationship pattern, just do anything other than what you're doing and then see what works.
1:01:37and when you do something that works like a tiniest little bit, like the tiniest bit, reinforce that. Reinforce the heck out of it. Keep going at it and then it'll grow and it'll become a new wise habit for you. That's the evolution. That's behavioral evolution in real time. Variation, selection, and retention. And it's the patterns of evolution across a lifetime, across a species, but also in real time. Variation is key. So do something different.
1:02:03Shawn Stevenson:That's so good. So good. And I could see so many different ways to do it. Even just if you're dealing with something, and again, you've just said it, we tend to just do that same thing harder. The Einstein quote is the definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again, expecting a different result, right? And what if you just go to a different environment? Like if you're struggling with something and you're in the house, like maybe even go somewhere you haven't been, like drive a different way. Just that novelty, it activates so much in our brain and our nervous system. Or of course, you could do something, read a different type of book.
1:02:44Shawn Stevenson:Maybe you're really into 50 Shades of Grey type of stuff. I don't know why. You're dating yourself. I bring up this. You say this is great. I don't know why I picked that one. I do know why. I was just watching an interview with Marlon Wayans and he had a parody movie. I think it's called 50 Shades of Black, maybe. And anyway, so that's where that came from. But maybe, you know, you read something different. Maybe you read the four agreements, right? You just do something different that you normally wouldn't do. And it is like, it's kind of like that get unstuck button. I love that concept so much.
1:03:21Shawn Stevenson:Just like you could, I've got so many ideas bubbling up of just like things that you could do to change that pattern. Yeah. Can I give you one more? Absolutely, please. So a lot of my work prior to this is in the area of compassion and self-compassion. And there's also a practice of tuning in, offering your genius to yourself, yes, and taking care of your feeling. And this really simple practice that a good friend of mine offered to me the other day, which was so helpful, which was such a beautiful example of taking care of your feeling, which was going to that part of you that hurts. or that messed up, or that little kid part of you that's still in the violence and the chaos, but it's inside of you, or that feels shame.
1:04:09And asking that, I'm going to ask you to ask yourself this, this week when you had that struggle, what song does that kid want to hear? What song does that person want to hear? And a song will come to you pretty quick. What song, if you could does that part of you want to hear that's so crazy like this song popped up i haven't
1:04:32Shawn Stevenson:heard this song in a minute yeah it's called someone to love by john b in baby face okay popped right in my head someone to love baby face oh my god and it's usually a random song from somewhere i mean when i did this i got circle in the sand belinda carlisle i mean i hadn't listen to that song because I was in junior high but the lyrics are coming to you from your subconscious I swear talk about synchronicity so what what do those lyrics say all right so the beginning lyrics say don't even like to think about it I don't know what I do without it I only know I live and I breathe for your love.
1:05:18Shawn Stevenson:This was a silly conflict with my wife. And I'm going to go to the chorus. Oh, my God. Another lyric is, it's because of you I was able to give my heart again. You give me someone to love. Yeah. It's pretty powerful. Pretty powerful. So now you got a theme song. You can listen to it on your drive home before you walk in with your wife and see her. Someone to love. Yeah, I miss her. Yeah. So we have the capacity to care. We have a whole wise self that's in there, a whole subconscious wise self that's like knows just what's right for us. And sometimes there's creative ways to access it. Yeah. Yeah.
1:06:04Shawn Stevenson:You're just, before we even got started, you were already helping me because you already picked up and I, I felt comfortable telling you the little, the little conflict and something else I didn't say is like, this is birthday season. And we were sharing all the birthdays. Today's my, my oldest son's birthday. My youngest son's birthday was the beginning of the week. Mine was about a little over a week before that. Her best friends was a week before that. It's birthday season and she always gets extra stressed. It's just like, When's her birthday? It's not this season, is it? No, of course not.
1:06:33Right, of course not.
1:06:35Shawn Stevenson:And another one of her friends' birthday, well, I mentioned us all going to the restaurant. That was two days after my birthday, but another one of her friends' birthday is next week. And so she's a giver. She loves, that's one of her love languages. And just knowing, again, that it's that thing. And for me, of course, I'm just like, change the story on this. That was one of our things that we did talk about. and she, which I should have recorded, she said, you're right. You know, just like when you're going into this season, you've got to approach this differently because this always stresses you out to the nth degree and it never feels good later.
1:07:15Shawn Stevenson:Like in the moment you enjoy the process, but let's approach this different and change the language that you have, that you're using with yourself around this. And yeah, so I'm just grateful that I got to talk this out and to see, because sometimes we can get so focused on the small pieces that we don't zoom out and see the bigger picture. And I was wanting her to do that, but I was doing it in certain ways myself. So I forgot it was birthday season and like, why are you acting up? So yeah, thank you for that as well. That's wisdom. So if I were your psychologist and I had my little prescription pad and you were a couple in my couples therapy session, I'd prescribe to you some wise effort.
1:07:57Like, contact your wisdom here, Sean. It's here. It's available to you. It's always available to you. You've got it. Lucky you. And then I'd write on the prescription for your wife, some self-compassion. It's birthday season. Give yourself a break, and it's not your birthday. That sucks. So she probably could use a lot of that self-compassion and taking care of herself and remembering this is hard because she cares. And her genius is giving. Her genius is creating these incredible children and loving people. And she can turn that genius around towards herself too. Yeah.
1:08:38Shawn Stevenson:And when you're over giving, sometimes you can forget to give to yourself. That's right. Genius becomes your problem. Yeah. This is so awesome. Thank you so much. And again, we're just kind of scratching the surface of what's in wise effort. And as of this recording, It's going to be available in bookstores everywhere. Of course, you can go to Amazon, your favorite book retailer. Is there any other places you want people to go and to follow your work or find the book? Well, if you want to learn more about Wise Effort, you can just go to wiseeffort.com. I have a lot of resources and programs. I have a podcast.
1:09:13And, you know, I have other stuff there, like stuff around self-compassion and psychological flexibility. But it's all at wiseeffort.com.
1:09:21Shawn Stevenson:Wiseeffort.com. Amazing. This has been such a joy. Thank you so much. You brought me some wonderful gifts, by the way, from your garden. Like we had some new experiences. We had caviar limes before we got started. I just appreciate it so much. You've really helped to fill up my cup today. And I know that a lot of people feel the same and you're amazing. Thank you so much. The one and only Dr. Diana Hill. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode today. remember that addressing our psychology and taking on some of these tools and strategies will help us in so many ways to manage our energy and to express more energy and to most importantly build up more energy for us to be able to do the things that we love to do in our lives and when stuff gets a little rocky being able to have the energy to manage and handle those things when again, life's inevitable curve balls happen.
1:10:17Shawn Stevenson:Having more energy is a huge part of this equation and successfully transitioning through and eventually, as Dr. Diana Hill mentioned, getting into a post-traumatic growth era. I appreciate you so much for tuning in to the show today. Truly, this is such an important conversation. If you enjoyed, please share this out with the people that you care about. Of course, you can send this directly from the podcast app that you're listening on, or take a screenshot of the episode and share it on social media, wherever you like to hang out, whether it's on X, Facebook, or Instagram. And if you do, make sure to tag me.
1:10:55Shawn Stevenson:I'm at SeanModel on Instagram and X, and I'm at The Model Health Show on Facebook. We've got some incredible masterclasses and world-class guests coming your way very, very soon, so make sure to stay tuned. Take care, have an amazing day, and I'll talk with you soon. and for more after the show, make sure to head over to themodelhealthshow.com. That's where you can find all of the show notes. You can find transcriptions, videos for each episode and if you've got a comment, you can leave me a comment there as well and please make sure to head over to iTunes and leave us a rating to let everybody know that the show is awesome and I appreciate that so much and take care.
1:11:32Shawn Stevenson:I promise to keep giving you more powerful, empowering, great content to help you transform your life. Thanks for tuning in.
1:11:43Thank you.
From the publisher
Your energy is one of your most precious resources; it allows you to pour into your relationships, accomplish your fitness goals, and so much more. But with our busy schedules and constant distractions, it can be easy for our energy to become misguided and misdirected.
Today, you’re going to learn how to focus in on what really matters, using principles from psychology. Our guest is Dr. Diana Hill, a psychologist and author of the new book, Wise Effort. In this interview, you’re going to learn how to tap into your unique genius energy, and the three psychological mechanisms that can keep us trapped in negative patterns.
These simple principles will help you recharge, refocus, and spend more time doing the things that energize you. So listen in and enjoy this interview with Dr. Diana Hill!
In this episode you’ll discover:
The difference between burnout and unfulfillment. (8:01)
Where the term wise effort comes from. (10:38)
What genius energy is and how to identify yours. (19:18)
The five key components that make you unique. (20:21)
A question you can ask yourself to find your natural interests. (21:16)
The importance of aligning your energy with your values. (21:52)
Three things that can misdirect your energy. (22:50)
How avoiding discomfort can create more problems. (28:20)
Why highlighting someone’s strengths is so powerful. (36:46)
How your environment can affect the way you respond. (40:34)
What the abbreviation HEART is. (41:30)
What interoceptive awareness is, and how to improve it. (43:21)
The definition of neuroception. (48:02)
What post traumatic growth is. (50:35)
How to use choice points to redirect your energy. (58:22)
An exercise you can use to tap into your subconscious. (1:03:38)
Items mentioned in this episode include:
Paleovalley.com/model - Use code MODEL for 15% off!
Wise Effort by Dr. Diana Hill - Get your copy today!
Connect with Dr. Diana Hill Website / Podcast / Instagram / Facebook
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This episode of The Model Health Show is brought to you by Paleovalley. Use my code MODEL at Paleovalley.com/model to save 15% sitewide on nutrient dense snacks, superfood supplements, and more.