Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - BITESIZE | The Simple Habit That Can Transform Your Life | Robert Greene #445

Episode Date: April 18, 2024

So many of us struggle to make change in our lives, and each of us has our own journey ahead of us, but, as today’s guest highlights, life is short; all of us have less time than we think to make the changes we want to make. Feel Better Live More Bitesize is my weekly podcast for your mind, body, and heart. Each week I’ll be featuring inspirational stories and practical tips from some of my former guests. Today’s clip is from episode 320 of the podcast with best-selling author and speaker, Robert Greene. In this clip he shares how meditation can help us gain a better understanding of who we really are, and why self awareness is key to creating lasting change in our lives. Thanks to our sponsor https://www.drinkag1.com/livemore Support the podcast and enjoy Ad-Free episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts https://apple.co/feelbetterlivemore. For other podcast platforms go to https://fblm.supercast.com. Show notes and the full podcast are available at drchatterjee.com/320 DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or qualified healthcare provider. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.

Today's Bite Size episode is brought to you by AG1, a science-driven daily health drink with over 70 essential nutrients to support your overall health. It includes vitamin C and zinc, which helps support a healthy immune system, something that is really important at this time of year. It also contains prebiotics and digestive enzymes that help support your gut health. It's really tasty and has been in my own life for over five years. Until the end of January, AG1 are giving a limited time offer. Usually they offer my listeners a one-year supply of vitamin D and K2 and five free travel packs with their first order. But until the end of January, they are doubling the five free travel packs to

10. And these packs are perfect for keeping in your backpack, office, or car. If you want to take advantage of this limited time offer, all you have to do is go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. Welcome to Feel Better Live More Bite Size, your weekly dose of positivity and optimism to get you ready for the weekend. Today's clip is from episode 320 of the podcast with best-selling author and speaker Robert Green. In this clip, he shares how meditation can help us gain a better understanding of who we really are and why self-awareness is key to creating lasting change in our lives. Self-awareness is something that I also find is missing a lot these days. Sometimes people will make changes when their motivation is high, and it will last a few weeks, maybe a few months, but often they'll revert back. And over the last few years, Robert, I've really been thinking,

it's not just information that my patients need, it's changing the last few years, Robert, I've really been thinking, it's not just information that my patients need. It's changing the way they think, changing the way they approach the world. Actually, at its core, it's about understanding themselves better, why they find certain things easy to do, why they fall back into certain patterns when life gets tough, which really speaks to a lot of the things I think that you write about. Very much so. You are generally in a state of sleep. You are not really aware of who you are, of what makes you an individual, of what makes you tick, of where your thoughts come from, of where your emotions come from. And that lack of disconnect to something essential and vital about what makes you an individual,

it has a very deleterious effect on all the things that you do in life. And it's not easy, you know, because the way our brains are set up, the way our physiology is, we don't really introspect a lot. It's not easy to look at yourself. We are easily distracted by appearances, by what's going on in the environment. You have to spend quality time actually thinking about your desires, your needs, about some of the patterns of your behavior. And that is not often a pleasant process, quite frankly. And one thing that happened in writing The Laws of Human Nature,

each chapter deals with a sort of a negative quality in our nature, more or less, you know, aggression, irrationality, grandiosity, envy, conformity, et cetera, et cetera. Coming to terms with the fact that you share these qualities is not pleasant. It's not easy. It's not fun. And I had to go through that in writing the book. I had to become aware of the fact that I, the writer of the book, am actually quite self-absorbed. I have narcissistic tendencies, right? But if you can't come to terms with the fact that you are by nature self-absorbed, how can you then begin to change it and become more empathetic and become more interested in other people? So I completely agree with what you're saying.

Unless we can truly be transparent and honest with where we are at now and those tendencies that we have, we're never going to be able to make meaningful change. Which is why we, in my view, stay locked in all kinds of negative cycles because we're pushing back. my view, stay locked in all kinds of negative cycles because we're pushing back. Being present is something, again, many would say might be becoming a lost art for many human beings these days for a whole variety of different reasons, including, I guess, how easy it is to distract ourselves into the lives of other people these days. I know that you meditate every morning and you have been for many years. Meditation I guess is a practice that helps cultivate a huge level of self-awareness. So when I'm meditating, I've been doing it now for 12 years, although I wish it had been more more of my whole life. And I do it every morning,

no matter what, even if I'm flying on a plane, I managed to do it every single day. And what it does is you're sitting there. And if you've ever done it, you know that thoughts immediately bubble up that you don't know where they come from. And a lot of them are unpleasant thoughts, things that you were maybe a little bit ashamed about, or that reveal kind of pettiness or anxieties that you really wouldn't want to expose to the world at large. And you start picking up things about yourself. And it creates a kind of humility. Whereas you can go through the day thinking, wow, I'm so confident, I'm so in control. You know, I have all these great ideas, etc. When you're on those pillows, cushions, and'm so confident, I'm so in control, you know, I have all these great ideas, et cetera.

When you're on those pillows, cushions, and you're meditating, it's humiliating because you realize you're not. You're full of doubts, insecurities, anxieties, stupid, petty, trivial thoughts, et cetera, et cetera. It's a real way of looking into who you are. And so you go deeply, deeply into yourself. And eventually, you get beyond all of those niggly little thoughts and those kind of insecurities, et cetera, and you find something deeper about yourself. But you're becoming incredibly sensitive

and present to who you are. That awareness allows you to maybe change things. So for instance, Awareness allows you to maybe change things. So for instance, I'm aware of how many silly anxieties I have. I'll be sitting there meditating. And then I'm sitting here worried about, you know, the stupid little conversation the day before. And then I learned through this that I have to drop these feelings and drop them and alter myself. Well, that same kind of presence and awareness

that you develop for yourself, a kind of sensitivity to who you are, to your moods, to what makes you different, to your good qualities and your bad qualities, is what now makes you able to deal with that with other people on a higher level. As I think about your work, cultivating this deep level of self-awareness is essential. For me, it's a central theme. Like if you're going to know how to interact with the world around you, if you're going to better yourself, do more with your life, turn your life around, whatever it might be, you have to be honest with yourself.

You have to know yourself better. And I've spoken about this on the show before. I think everyone needs a daily practice of solitude of some sort. Now, you do meditation. I do meditation, but there can be other forms of it. But I feel solitude, intentional solitude each day is how we take the pulse on our own life. So for example, on those mornings where I'm going through my to-do list and it all feels really busy and crazy, I also make a mental note to myself now. Hey, Rangan, you're not at your calmest today. When you're interacting with your wife, when you're interacting with the kids later, just be aware of that. And I think that really speaks to your work. I think that's, it doesn't mean I'm suddenly not reactive. It just means I'm intentionally knowing that I may

not behave as my optimal self today. And by knowing that, in those moments, I can actually go, yeah, I'm not going to choose to react to it. I'm going to stay calm. Does that make sense? Oh, that makes incredible sense. I can completely understand what you're talking about. And this would happen all the time, particularly initially when it was first getting in the most important period of the process where normally I would find myself reacting and getting angry and upset. And then suddenly the same situation would come up and there would be a step, a half a step back. And that half a step back was all the difference in the world. It made me go, oh, I kind of feel what's going on here. I kind of see what's happening in the moment. I'm not going to react, right?

It gave me that slight little bit of distance, the ability to step back and say, I can control this to some degree. And it's immensely powerful and immensely liberating. And, you know, it doesn't mean that you don't get emotional. Yeah. Now I, I, I'm dealing with an issue, um, where with, with a stroke, and this is quite common with patients like this is that you get very, your emotions get kind of heightened. And I had mine was in the right hemisphere of my brain brain which is where more it's the brain isn't totally by lat i mean things cross the hemisphere it's a bit of a myth but there are more emotional control is in the right hemisphere and people with my kind of stroke tend to say we have less

control of our emotions and what that means is i get so deeply frustrated. Like I can't tie my shoes. I can't button my shirt. It takes so long. And the meditation has really, really helped me. I still, some days get so angry. I can't help it. But most of the time I can go, you're being foolish here. It's irrational to behave like that. You're alive. Life goes on. The birds are chirping. The sky is beautiful. Things are happening. There's no need to get so frustrated, right? And just that little half step back is what can save you from so much drama and turmoil in your life. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. One of my favourite chapters is chapter six, Elevate Your Perspective, The Law of Short-sightedness. And I just love this chapter.

I love the idea that we can elevate our perspective. I think in many ways, a lot of the work I've read of yours, Robert, is talking about you can choose the way you look at this, actually. The other law, though, that's similar to what you're talking about is the law about your attitude towards life, how you look at the world. And I say, if you alter this attitude, you can literally alter your circumstances, right? And it's the same thing sort of in elev alter your circumstances, right? So, and it's the same thing sort of in elevating your perspective, right? Is training yourself to always have,

to have a degree of detachment to the events that are going on around you and to be able to say, this is how things will look a year from now. I mean, look at your own life. When an event happened, you have this one reaction, oh my God, it's so dramatic, so important. And then a year later, you haven't even remembered, or you have a much different take on it, right? Imagine if you could have that perspective of a year later, in the present moment, you could go, this isn't going to matter. Why get sucked into people's negative energy right now? I could have that elevated approach. I could look at it as if I'm standing on a mountain looking down a year later

on this argument going on. I'm going, how trivial, how unimportant. The power in that is immense. Getting there is the hard part, right? Because we are not animals trained to elevate our perspective. We're animals trained to react, react, react, react. We go on the appearance of things. If things look golden and glittering, we grab for them, not realizing that there's consequences to pay for it. So it's almost unnatural to elevate your perspective. It takes a lot of practice, right? And meditation can be extremely important for it. Thank you, Robert. Robert, this podcast is called Feel Better, Live More. When we feel better in ourselves, we get more out of our lives. For people who are struggling right now,

for people who feel stuck, they want to make a change, but they don't know where to start. who feel stuck, they want to make a change, but they don't know where to start. Have you got any final words for them? The thing is, you know, change doesn't happen from within unless you're highly motivated. I have a chapter in one of my books that I call the death ground strategy. When you feel your back is against the wall, when everything is against you, you call up all of your energy, all of your spirit. You have a sense of urgency, a sense of desperation. When you're in that mood, a human being can accomplish absolute miracles, and history has shown that. The worst situation is to feel like you're miserable, you're unhappy,

you feel blocked in what you're doing, but you don't have the requisite energy to change yourself. You try different things, but you're kind of half-assed about it. You meddle here for a few weeks. You consider changing your career. You maybe start thinking about some new skills, but you're not emotionally, deeply, deeply engaged in what you're trying to change. And you have to have that intense emotional energy, urgency, welling up from within you to say, damn it, I don't want to live like this anymore.

You've got to push yourself into that feeling, I'm afraid. Life will pass by quickly. You have to tell yourself, time is of the essence. You have less of it than you think. You could die tomorrow. It's not going to come easily, right? So you have to be energized and motivated and excited to actually make the change. So don't give yourself an out, right? And then tell yourself, I don't have all of this time. I can't wait a few more years for this to happen. I have to make a change. I have to take steps and you start writing them down. You'll already make a change within yourself. You'll start to feel the difference. You'll start to feel that energy coming up, right?

It's your level of degree of want and energy that will get you out of your rut. And sometimes you have to feel desperate and urgent in order to really get the requisite energy. Knowing what I know about human nature, that's to me the most important lesson I would give people. Hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip i hope you have a wonderful weekend and i'll be back next week with my long-form conversation on wednesday and the latest episode of bite science next friday