The One You Feed - Choosing Love in a Divisive World: Empathy as Our Guiding Light with Scott Stabile

Starting point is 00:00:00 When we're really taking care of ourselves and looking after ourselves, we tend to be much more caring in the way that we treat others. Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts. don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative

Starting point is 00:00:49 effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. First off, Scott Stabil is one of my favorite people. And when he talks about love, he isn't talking about rainbows and easy feelings. He's talking about the hardest choice he ever made to forgive the man who murdered his parents. Not because what happened was forgivable, but because he realized carrying hatred was destroying him. That's the kind of love Scott writes about in big love, the power of living with a wide open heart. It's about a love that's not sentimental, but fierce.

Starting point is 00:01:30 A love that asks us, even in our darkest moments, to choose connection over separation, empathy over rage. Today, we talk about how that kind of love transforms us. I'm Eric Zimmer, and this is the one you feed. Hi, Scott. Welcome to the show. Hey, Eric. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm excited to talk with you. You've got a book coming out soon called Big Love, The Power of Living with a Wide Open Heart. And we'll get into that book and talk about it in a moment.

Starting point is 00:01:57 but let's start like we normally do with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson, and he says, there are two wolves always inside of us that are at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear.

Starting point is 00:02:16 And the grandson stops, and he thinks about it for a second and looks up at his grandfather. He says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Sure. I love that parable. I've shared it at least a couple times in the past few years on my Facebook page. And what I love about it is that it speaks to the power in choice and in energy and the understanding that the energy we bring to our thoughts and our actions and really to everything makes a profound difference in the life. that we stand to create for ourselves. I do think it's really important to remember, though,

Starting point is 00:03:00 that we're all human. And as such, we all have all the wolves going on inside of us from the most loving to the most hateful. And that if we're open and if we're able to rest in awareness and in honesty and certainly in compassion, we stand to learn a lot from the wolves that populate the darker parts of our mind as well. You know, the growth, and learning doesn't just come from those moments that we're residing in our love and in our compassion and kindness. They come from being present in those times when we're being raging assholes, you know, and we're like complete prisoners to our fear. And how can we be aware in those moments and look at what those moments have to teach us as well? As far as the work I'm doing,

Starting point is 00:03:48 applying this to the work that I'm doing in my life right now, I think one of the main things I'm trying to express. And one of the main messages I'm working at conveying to people is that, hey, we are all human. It's okay. You are not alone in your struggle. You are not alone in your misery. You're not alone in those darker wolves. Many of us are working at being the most loving, the most kind, the most compassionate we can be, but that it takes work and it takes effort. And that if you can show up to this path and this journey with as much awareness as possible and as much compassionate, as possible that that's the best way to show up. Listeners have heard me say this a bunch, but one of the things I really like about the

Starting point is 00:04:31 parable is exactly what you said. I think it normalizes like this is going on inside of all of us. Absolutely. We all have this. And the way the parable reads, it sort of sounds like it's a pretty close battle between those two things. And that to me really normalizes like, oh, okay, that's what's going on with me. That's to be expected. Absolutely. 100%. I want to talk about something that you mentioned in the book and you talk about shame. And I'm just going to read a small line from the book and then, you know, we can kind of discuss it. You say, shame, however, lives and lies. It sees beauty and standards set by magazines and movie stars and tells us we're disgusting and need to hide ourselves when we don't meet those

Starting point is 00:05:09 standards, which is always, you are ugly at taunts. Shame sees success as money and power and toys and makes us feel little and worthless when we don't have enough of those things. Talk to me about your experience with that. Well, my experience with shame, is that it thrives on secrecy. You know, if I speak to the greatest shame I felt in my life, it was around my sexuality and growing up gay and feeling like that was certainly the biggest secret I had to keep because of all the shame I felt around it. And of course, the shame we're feeling around things is because of all the conditioning that we're seeing and we're growing up in a world that tells us we're supposed to be one way. And if we in any way fluctuate outside of

Starting point is 00:05:52 that way, that's something to feel shame about. But what I've learned in my life and learn over and over and over is that the moment we announce those things that we feel shame about, we take the power away from shame. So for me, I mean, in terms of sexuality coming out as gay, the weight that that lifted from my shoulders, truly it's indescribable. We certainly all know what it's like to carry great shame about whatever in our lives. And I think many of us know, what it's like to share that shame with someone we can confide in or trust or a therapist or a complete stranger that we'll never see again. And we all know the relief by sharing it because it doesn't take ownership over us once we've announced it. Once it's out there,

Starting point is 00:06:40 it's like, okay, it's out there. And we see that we can survive announcing it and we see that we're okay. Does that make sense? Absolutely. How old were you when you came out? I mean, in varying degrees, I'd say in my early 20s, I moved to San Francisco after college in Michigan at 22 and started to come out to close friends around that time to my family, to my three sisters specifically, which was essentially coming out to the whole family. That was when I was 27, you know, so not especially young, especially nowadays, it seems like thankfully, you know, LGBT kids are coming out soon. and at a younger age. But even then, just knowing that that, and in shame, it's not just around my sexuality. I mean, I write about in the book how I spent my entire college years under a baseball cap because I felt so ashamed of losing my hair at such a young age.

Starting point is 00:07:38 And I felt like that was going to be something people were going to make fun of me for or see as a weakness. And so I spent so much energy on concealing the fact that I was balding. I mean, it was exhausting. instead of just lifting that cap off. And even then in my senior year in college, when I started to take the cap off a little more and certainly moving to San Francisco and in part because the shaved head look was becoming cool, I can't pretend that I had suddenly become enlightened and that's why I was showing off my bald head. But it was such a relief not to have to hide beneath the

Starting point is 00:08:10 cap. It was such a relief just to be out there with the truth of who I am. You know, and that's really a message I also, I write about in the book and share a lot with my face. Facebook community is it's okay to be who you are. It's not just okay. What you do for others by being who you are is profoundly beneficial because you create an opening and a doorway for others to see like, hey, maybe if he can be who he is, I can be who I am too, and that's okay. Yeah, I think that is one of the big benefits of being yourself is how it can help other people. You talk about how you think as you've gotten older, you have a lot more nonchalance about these sort of things about going bald or how we look and all that and that age has a lot

Starting point is 00:08:55 to do with it. And I think about that too. I'm like, well, yeah, I think it's, you know, could I teach a 25-year-old to have that same level of nonchalance that I do? But you also make a point that it's not just age, but that it was time of working through these issues. So it wasn't just that you got older. It was that you got older and you worked on these things at the same time. Absolutely. I mean, I think that really in my experience, the only way we really grow is when we start to bring more awareness to our lives. The whole point of big love really is to encourage people to consider making more and more choices in their lives from the place of love. Because I feel like love is the base note for everything that's most powerfully good in this world, like kindness, like compassion, like forgiveness, like authenticity with, which ultimately just represents self-love.

Starting point is 00:09:51 And so the more aware we become in our lives, and awareness is hard work. It means instead of just being a hateful person, checking in with yourself in those moments of hatred and looking at what's really going on for you, you know, why am I provoked in this moment? Because it's never really about the other person. It's never really rooted in the situation at hand

Starting point is 00:10:13 as much as what's going on inside of me. but just being present in in that awareness of like hey this is what's going on for me right now I'm feeling really envious I'm feeling really blameful how can I take ownership of those emotions how can I take ownership of those thoughts and and when we do take ownership we don't necessarily shift in this in that moment and suddenly become this enlightened wise loving human being but every moment we take ownership and ask ourselves the question like what does love invite me to do in this moment? How does love invite me to respond to this very provocative situation? I believe that we encourage greater growth.

Starting point is 00:10:57 So let's talk about that love. It almost sounds like you're talking about love as an action or an ideal and less about love as a feeling. I'm talking about love as an energy and in my understanding of love as this underlying energy that is beneath all the noise of all the negative wolves, all the darker wolves, you know, all the fear, all the rage, all the blame. Underneath all of that is love. And that when we are present in that space, I see love is a very, very clear energy as well. So that when we're coming from a place of love, we're being guided in a way that is much more clear and is much more aligned with truth than when we're being guided from our fears, when we're being guided from that ego place.

Starting point is 00:11:49 Because if you and I are fighting right now, my ego is going to tell me to go to battle with you. My ego is going to tell me to make you wrong and make me right. But that surface, the love that resides beneath that ego is going to invite me to find connection between us. It's going to invite me to listen with openness to your point of view instead of just needing to be right. about my point of view. And that's just one example of love in action in our communications. But when we bring the energy of love to everything that we're doing, it transforms. You know, that's been my experience. All the stories in Big Love were all moments in my life, some really casual moments about being on an airplane and watching a flight attendant act

Starting point is 00:12:35 from a place of deep empathy with a grieving passenger to much heavier moments in my life of losing my parents, them being murdered when I was 14 years old, but in reflecting on all of it, recognizing that it's when I can approach my life with as much love as possible, I feel the best, I feel the most whole, I feel the most grounded, the most centered, and I also recognize that the energy I have to offer others is the most pure, if that makes sense. It intrigues me because I'm not a person who, I don't know that I would say I feel, love in this like very effusive sense and yet if I look at the actions that I take in the way that I behave looking at it from the perspective you're describing I see it there underlying so many things

Starting point is 00:13:25 and that's kind of why I was asking about you know I've certainly heard the phrase you know love is an action more than it's just a feeling absolutely and and I think that love in action is more often than not very hard work right you know when we when we look at the world around us and all the rage and anger and war and violence, those are the easier choices. I mean, again, if you, I don't know why I keep coming to this example of you and I fighting. You're a very nice person. I don't expect we're going to go to battle. But if it's like it's very easy to get pissed off at someone who makes you angry, that's a very easy choice. It's very easy to go to a place of unforgiveness with somebody who betrays you.

Starting point is 00:14:07 These are all easy choices and these, these tend to be the choices that many of us are making. more often than not because our minds go there so naturally. It's when we choose to act from love no matter what is going on, no matter what is presented to us. That is the most difficult choice. And that's the choice I believe that we're all being called to make more than ever in this world where we are inundated with separation and war and violence and bigotry and all the the list goes on and on and on and on yeah you know we are called to love more than ever i agree and that makes a lot of sense to me that idea that it's that it can be very hard that it doesn't feel like this you know la la la feeling right can be very difficult and i think about you know my son is going to

Starting point is 00:14:55 college next week and so that's kind of a big deal right um but i look back on being a father to him and i think a lot of the times that i acted maybe with the most love they weren't really that pleasant or enjoyable for it was it was challenge absolutely if your kid is running into the middle of traffic and you're yanking him out of traffic and maybe screaming in that moment that is a reflection of love for your child too i mean that's the thing i think we're there is this misguided notion we have that love is all hearts and rainbows and this gentle almost i think some people see it as a weak choice but I don't see it as that at all. I see it almost always as the most difficult choice we can make in the moment

Starting point is 00:15:41 and the most powerful choice we can make in the moment. We are not going to heal our country and our relationships and our planet through hatred. You know, it's just not going to happen. It's just not how anything happens. We only stand to heal it through love. Yep. And that is really a strong saying at this point because I remain pretty flummoxed by the dialogue in this country. And here I go again on the podcast. I shouldn't do it,

Starting point is 00:16:09 but here we go. Because every time I go in this direction, I end up getting myself in trouble with somebody. But my point is really, I've been told before, like I'm excusing people who are, you know, bigots or racists. And that's not at all the intention. But to your point, I've just found, like, until we can have some way of communicating with each other in some sense of love. This doesn't get better. And it's not like I came up with that idea, right? Martin Luther King and all the great teachers, you know, Jesus, they've all taught this idea. You know, hate can't conquer hate. And how do we fight what, in a lot of cases, looks like it's monstrous in our world right now without being monstrous ourselves? Absolutely. It's not easy. And I think

Starting point is 00:16:51 for me, and I have not mastered this. I will say that first and foremost, when politics becomes a discussion. I have gotten better a lot of the time, but I'm still not this all-peaceful, all-loving person when it comes to talking about the state of this country. But I will say the truest path to that place is a path of empathy, which again, I think is one of love's mandates. It's really looking at whomever you are speaking with, whoever sitting in front of you, whatever they're saying, and doing my best to connect with their humanity, doing my best to look at what may have transpired in their in his or her life to this point to get that person to the place of thought where they are right now you know my parents were murdered when i was 14 years old and i didn't at the time even consider the idea of forgiveness for their killer i was just like trying to survive that moment in those years and like makes sense of of my life in that moment right but at some point in my 20s i recognized whenever i did think of their killer it was with rage It was with hatred. It was with this unforgiving attitude and this belief that what he did was

Starting point is 00:18:01 unforgivable and recognizing the toll that that took on me as a human being because we all know what it feels like to feel hatred, that toxic, toxic feeling of believing that something is unforgivable. It wears on us. It feels awful. And I knew on some level that to feel more whole and to feel better in my life, I was going to have to open to the possibility of forgiving this man. And I didn't know how, but I knew that by becoming committed to that possibility, there was a chance I would find my way there. In reflecting on how I found my way there, it was only when I started to become empathetic to his experience. It was only when I allowed myself to consider the very true reality that nobody operating from any place of self-worth or self-love or of being seen in this world could walk into a market and kill other

Starting point is 00:19:01 people. It's just not possible. So what could that man have been going through in his life? How horrible must his life have been? And I understood that I hope I can never relate to the place of acting in violence towards someone. That's not something I connect with in myself, is the place of actually murdering someone, but I certainly can connect to such rage that I've wished people would die, horrible deaths. You know, I can connect to not being seen. I can connect to feeling like a complete outsider. I can connect to all of those things that I suspect he was also experiencing on some level in his life. And from that place of empathy and connection, I didn't just someday say, okay, I forgive him. But what I found was that when I would think about,

Starting point is 00:19:51 my parents' murderer, it started to shift. And suddenly it wasn't with rage. Suddenly it was with compassion, you know, which walks hand in hand with empathy. And ultimately, it was with forgiveness. And when I think of him now, that's what comes up for me. It's the recognition like he is a human being who made some horrible choices in his life. But he's a human being like all of us struggling to make sense of this extremely messed up in unpredictable reality and doing whatever we can to do so. Running a podcast in a small business means the work never really stops. Even when I close my laptop, my mind keeps circling.

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Starting point is 00:21:12 They make it easy to post a job, share. it with your network and get in front of the kinds of candidates who can actually help you move forward. It's not just about resumes. It's about finding people who fit. It's like what I talk about on the one you feed. Small steps compound into big outcomes. Post in one job opens you to an entire network of possibilities. And that one conversation you have with the right person, it can change the trajectory of your business. So if you're hiring, try it out. Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com slash one you feed. That's LinkedIn.com slash one, the number, Y-O-U-F-E-D.

Starting point is 00:21:53 So, LinkedIn.com slash one you feed to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. There are a lot of Holocaust films that focus on the horror, and rightfully so. But what struck me about bow, artist at war, is that inside all that darkness, you see something else. love, humor, creativity, even moments of laughter. It's people insisting on their humanity when everything around them is trying to take it away. Joseph Bough was an artist and a dreamer. He risked everything to help others survive and to keep his love for Rebecca alive. In the middle of the concentration camps, they secretly married. A wedding and a concentration camp. It wasn't

Starting point is 00:22:37 only an act of love. It was an act of defiance. And for me, This film isn't about what was lost, it's about what was found, the resilience of the human heart. And if you know me, you won't be surprised to know that by the end, I was in tears. BOW, artist at war, directed by Sean McNamara, opened September 26. You can watch the trailer and find showtimes at bowmovie.com. That's spelled B-A-U-Movie.com. I think there's a couple key things that you just said there. one is it's not about forgiving an action or saying that a certain behavior or action is okay.

Starting point is 00:23:16 That's not what it's about. It's about that empathy, particularly if we're talking about politics again and trying to change people's mind, it seems like that's the only possible approach that will work. Just on a strictly pragmatic sense, nobody suddenly gets screamed at about what a terrible person they are and suddenly goes, oh, I guess you're right. Let me change my view. It doesn't work. And then the other thing you said there about forgiveness is really that sense of you realized what it was doing to you. And I think for me, you know, I'm a recovering alcoholic and addict. And one of the maxims in a 12-step program is that resentment is the surest way back to a drink or drug. And so that you, having them is extraordinarily dangerous. And so I think I was led to the path of learning to forgive people. I

Starting point is 00:24:01 think it comes to me maybe a little bit more naturally than other people. But I think when I really understood the harm it was doing me. I got to the point that you did, which was, I'm not there. I'm not able to do it, but I'm going to set that as a goal or an intention. That's where I'd like to get. Absolutely. You know, if for no other reason, then I don't want to suffer. Absolutely. And look, I think if that's the reason that someone goes to forgiveness, that's beautiful. I think however we get there, the end result is the same. That's forgiveness. And that can only serve us and all involved, you know. And I think what you said right then was important. And also one thing I've seen in my life over and over, because people ask me all the time, well, how did

Starting point is 00:24:43 you become so loving? And how do you forgive? And these are difficult questions to answer because there's no, for me, really specific one note answer. If you do this and this and this, you will forgive everyone in your life. But the only thing I know for sure is that it takes a commitment and it takes a dedication because I am deeply committed to being as loving as possible, as often as possible. So I know that when I fall off the love train and act like an asshole and do whatever else I'm doing, that I'm going to bring myself back on the love train because that's my greatest commitment in this life. And it's the same with forgiveness. You can read 10 books on forgiveness, but if you are not deeply committed to being a forgiving person and forgiving that person

Starting point is 00:25:30 or action, you'll never find it. It doesn't happen. You know, we need that intention. I want to touch on something you alluded to there when we were talking about, hey, if you give forgiveness out of your own motive to feel better, that's okay. And you talk about this idea that you say, it's talking about self-care. And you say most selflessness comes with some selfishness wrapped into it. We almost always consider ourselves and the choices we make, even when we think we're only considering others. And I love that idea because it allows us to have less than pure motives all the time. And I actually think that's almost the only way we can be. Yeah, well, I definitely think it feels good to give to others.

Starting point is 00:26:12 This is the other thing. I don't try to present myself as this selfless, like, all good, do-gooder, you know what I mean, at all? Because if being loving didn't feel so good, I would not make it a priority in my life. Like for me, being a kind, compassionate and loving person as often as possible, it feels really great, you know. And so that's where the selfishness comes into selfish behavior. Because when we're being selfless, quote unquote, we feel good. When we're helping out others in our lives, it feels good to us as well. And that's what I was trying to say there. Because selfishness gets a bad rap. And self-care, I think, sometimes gets a bad rap as being just totally selfless. But what I've learned in my life is that

Starting point is 00:26:55 when we're taking care of ourselves, when we're really taking care of ourselves and looking after ourselves, we tend to be much more caring in the way that we treat others as well. Hey, friend, before we dive back in, I want you to take a second and think about what you've been listening to. What's one thing that really landed? And what's one tiny action you could take today to live it out? Those little moments of reflection, that's exactly why I started Good Wolf Reminders. Short, free text messages that land in your phone once or twice a week. Nearly 5,000 people already get them and say the quick bursts of insight help them shift out of autopilot and stay intentional in their lives.

Starting point is 00:27:38 If that sounds like your kind of thing, head to one you feed.net slash SMS and sign up. It's free, no spam, and easy to opt out of any time. Again, that's one you feed.com. slash SMS. Tiny nudges, real change. All right, back to the show. I wanted to have a brief discussion about addiction because you said some things that were very interesting. So your brother died from addiction. And you kind of went on and said that you used to believe that the drugs were more powerful than your brother. And you don't believe that to be the case anymore because you see other people recover. And I'm just interested, this is a discussion that fascinates me

Starting point is 00:28:22 as a recovering addict and alcoholic. I think it is so confusing to me how some people get sober and how some don't or why some do and why some don't. You reference that as a topic, so I thought it might be interesting to talk about for a minute. Yeah, I mean, I certainly don't have the answer as to why some people get sober and why some don't if the intention in both those people is to get sober. My trajectory around how I approached addiction growing up with a brother who was addicted to heroin was, as a child, not understanding in any way why he was addicted to heroin and just thinking he was this terrible person bringing a lot of grief to our family. And why didn't he just stop? When I went to college and learn more about

Starting point is 00:29:03 addiction and the notion that addiction is as a disease, my thought process shifted to this idea that my brother had no control over his action. I went from one extreme to the other that he he had complete control to he had no control and that he wasn't in any way to blame or responsible for anything that he was doing. And then I shifted again. And what I view addiction now, where I view it, is that there is choice in sobriety. And that is a really important component. And if addiction were only an incurable disease, which is how it is sometimes outlined, then how are people getting sober? It doesn't make sense to me to view addiction as only an incurable disease, I absolutely believe that drugs and alcohol can be

Starting point is 00:29:46 addictive. But my experience, knowing a lot of people who are addicted and who are in their addiction, who are in their recovery, is that there's more at play. Yeah, no, I think there definitely is. I think it's almost, that disease term has always bothered me, even when I was early in recovery. And the idea of it makes sense, right? Because on some level back to that shame idea right like if i just think that i'm this hopelessly awful person i'm not going to get better i need something to to help me recognize that like this just isn't all like me just making bad decisions there's more going on there than that and at the same time you're right there is some element of choice to it and you know we had a we had a guy on gabermate who's an addiction

Starting point is 00:30:33 doctor and he you know talks about and you mentioned it in the book how strongly childhood trauma is link to addiction. And I think that, you know, I think of addiction more, kind of like I think of depression is sort of like a syndrome. There's so much going on that it's so hard for there to be easy answers to that. It's like, why are you depressed? Well, there could be 50 different things happening there. Same thing with addiction. It could be so many different causes, childhood trauma, or you don't have enough dopamine in your brain naturally. I mean, there's all these different things and and so i think that that to think that what helps one person will always help the other person or that one person uh has choice and can get out of it and another person who doesn't they just made a

Starting point is 00:31:15 bad decision it's just to me it's so much more confusing and confounding than that's and i think that's partially why it's so hard to solve either of those things because i don't think you can go like here's the cause you know like the common cold you are there's that virus that did absolutely this stuff is so Absolutely. And I don't think you can also say, here's the solution, matter of fact. And I think the other thing I really believe, Eric, is we live in a wholly addictive society. I think that whether you consider yourself someone who is addicted to a substance or to gambling or to shopping and you're aware of it or not, like we are all riding the fine line of addiction all the time. And what I write about in the book when I talk about addiction is really in terms of love,

Starting point is 00:32:00 and kindness and growth and how we're serving ourselves is how can we go about creating lives that are more fulfilling so that we don't feel the need to escape them? Because ultimately, all we're doing in addiction is numbing ourselves from feeling the reality of our lives. And we all do that. Whether you count yourself as an addict or not, we're all doing that constantly. So how can we make choices in our lives and how can we create the kind of lives that we don't want to escape from? And I really believe that that is a necessary component of living a sober life. Yeah, I agree. I used to think there was a line you stepped over that made you an addict.

Starting point is 00:32:40 And I think it's much more of a continuum than I ever thought before. And I agree with you, although I would modify what you say a little bit. I don't think it's always to numb something that's happening. For me, and I think some people, it's to actually awaken something that you have self-numbed for so long. Ah, interesting. Yeah. It's to feel alive. It's not like I'm feeling pain.

Starting point is 00:33:01 I'm feeling dead inside, and this brings me alive. It's a variation on the same thing. Yes, yeah. But I like that distinction. Yeah. I mean, it's an escape. It's an escape from feeling or from not feeling or, you know. But I like how you put it as well.

Starting point is 00:33:29 Let's talk about happiness. You used to say, I believe happiness is a choice. We can choose to be happy. And you don't believe that anymore. Talk to me about that change. You know, I think I did a happiness challenge on my Facebook page. I've got a Facebook page with a big community there. And last February, I announced a happiness challenge.

Starting point is 00:33:55 And the intention was for every day of February, we were, whoever wanted to be involved in the challenge would choose one thing each day that they would do that stood the chance of serving their happiness. So I chose to do yoga for at least an hour every day. And I didn't launch the challenge believing that we could choose happiness anymore because I'd already come to the understanding that happiness is not a choice. But what I've come to realize is that, you know, we can't choose our feelings. That's the bottom line. We can't choose to be happy simply by saying, I want to be happy right now. If your partner just left you, your wife just left you, you can't scream. I'm going to be happy right now. You're going to still be miserable.

Starting point is 00:34:36 And what I've seen in this self-help world in the world of personal development and spirituality is this mantra is said over and over and over. And it is happiness is a choice. Happiness is a choice. What I came to discover was like, wait a minute, if happiness is a choice, wouldn't we all be happy all the time? And if happiness is a choice, why am I so unhappy so often? And it got me feeling worse about myself because I believed I fell into that belief that I could choose my happiness and yet I'm living in a reality where I'm not happy so much of the time. So what's wrong with you? And it adds to this weight of shame, honestly. And what we can choose, though, and I think this is really important. And it's aligned with the wolf parable is we can absolutely choose actions.

Starting point is 00:35:25 that stand to create happiness in our lives. And the example I use in the book is, I love playing tennis. So I know that by choosing to play tennis, I stand to create happiness in my life. I'm not choosing happiness. I'm choosing to play tennis. And there's a difference. So we can absolutely choose actions. If we become more aware, what makes me happy?

Starting point is 00:35:45 Okay, it makes me happy to be outside. Why don't I get outside more often? And then if I'm finding, hey, I'm feeling a little happier more often, that's no coincidence. it's because of the choices we're making. I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, that very much mirrors my opinion and my experience. And it also mirrors what a lot of the positive psychology people will say, which is, you know, a lot of us have sort of a happiness set point.

Starting point is 00:36:08 Some of that is just built into you. And yet, you have the ability to move that to a certain degree. And you have the ability to do that by the actions you take. And I think that's totally true. I think to flip happiness on its side, I talk about depression a lot. I think about with depression. Like, once I'm. in depression, there's not a whole lot I can really, I'm not going to think my way out of that.

Starting point is 00:36:29 Sure. But I do believe that there are things I can be doing in my life that make it much more likely I'm not going to slide into that depression. And that I have some control over. And I think happiness is the same way. I can't choose to be happy, but I can choose to take actions that lead in that direction. I can choose to try and work with thoughts that I know get in the way of that. Absolutely.

Starting point is 00:36:51 I've always thought about emotions is like, like you said, you can't change them, but I've always thought by working with action and thoughts that those can act as levers that can help move the emotion, even though I can't control it directly. I love the way you put that. I agree. Absolutely. And I think it's so important to do it. It's so important to consider our self-care. It's so important to be making choices in our lives that stand to create more fulfillment, more happiness in our lives. You know, to be. make that a habit. Yep. So while we're on the topic of taking action, let's talk about, you've got a line, and I love this line. You say, action helps assuage fear. Yeah. Talk about writing the book for you, because that's your example that you use. Well, writing the book was a scary, scary thing for me. I mean, when I got the book deal, I mean, there's this immediate elation, of course, you got a book deal. That elation probably lasted maybe a half an hour. And then the reaction. of oh my god i have to write this book now you know like now this this is very very real and seeing

Starting point is 00:37:58 you know here's i'd like to say one thing about fear in general is just that i don't believe fear is something we conquer i don't believe that we ever become fearless it's just not how life works i believe that what we can do and what i've started to do in my life that's made a profound difference is to have a different conversation with my fear to recognize i've always seen my fear as a bully, you know, as this abusive tyrant that was keeping me from living my best life possible. And I, I coward to it so often. My fear told me, don't ask this person out on a date or don't submit your book to this. And I would listen to it for fear of rejection or fear of the unknown or fear of change, whatever our fears are. And now I realize that my fear is just trying to

Starting point is 00:38:44 protect me. That's its job, but that it's not very smart. You know, it's like, it's trying to protect me from submitting a book proposal with the same fervor that it would protect me from running into a building on fire. It doesn't have emotional intelligence and it's not distinguishing between those things that are scary. It's just saying, don't do it. Don't do it. This is going to be uncomfortable. So the example I use with writing the book was that, okay, I got the book deal. Okay, I'm really afraid. And every day I would show up to work on the book, my fear was there with me. But I was showing up to write the book and I was working on whatever chapter I was working on. And what the message that I was giving my fear was like, yes, I hear you. Yes, I'm

Starting point is 00:39:31 afraid. And I can still move forward despite these fears that I'm feeling. And so after so many days of showing up to write the book, your fear is going to start to take the hint that when I said action assuages fear, when you begin to act and when you show up for your life, your fear is going to take the hint and it's going to take the passenger seat instead of driving the car. And that's been my experience time and time and time again. It's not that the fear goes away, but it doesn't command our actions. We can still act. I find that a good way to deal with anxiety too. Often I get this generalized anxiety and I've got all these different things going on. So I'll just sit down and write down everything that I can think of that I'm anxious or nervous about and then write down

Starting point is 00:40:15 like one action I could take for each of those things that would be any sort of moving forward. And then from there, I try and do one of those things. And instantly, I feel better. That makes 100% sense with anxiety as well. And just the idea, because underlying it all is energy. Whether the conscious action you want to take is a five-minute walk or a half-an-hour walk, that's the action. But along with that action is the energy that you are sharing to life, to God, to the trees, whatever you believe in, that is saying, I matter enough to myself in this moment to take care of myself in this way, and that energy is powerful. So we're near the end of time. I want to talk about one other thing that the show talks

Starting point is 00:40:58 about often, and I love the way you say this. I'm just going to read it. You say, most of us want to believe in cure-alls, but they don't exist. I've spent much of my adult life searching for the one book, Superfood, or habit to eradicate all my emotion or physical problems. If I just do yoga, I'll discover inner peace. If I drink more water, I'll be energetic all the time. If I sleep eight hours a night, I'll be less moody. Okay, that one works, but I'm still plenty moody. Healthy habits will always service, but they don't guarantee happiness either.

Starting point is 00:41:27 Yeah, that's just the hard truth. I know, it's such a drug. You know what I mean? It's like, I've become more okay with that. Look, our emotions are fleeting. We're going to be happy, and then the happiness is going to go away, and then it's going to come back if we're lucky, and it's going to go away. The same with sadness.

Starting point is 00:41:42 you know, the same with all the emotions, they're fleeting. You know, still, we can still, we always serve ourselves by considering the choices that we're making in our lives that stand to create the most meaning and the most joy. We always serve ourselves. If in our minds, as you know, our minds go much more naturally to the negative, our minds go much more naturally to self-abuse, to negativity, to looking at all the downsides of a situation. And what I try to remind myself, and I don't always succeed, but I'm better at it, is, look, if I'm going to at least spend 50% of the time considering the upsides of a given situation, you know, at least spend 50% of the time putting energy toward positivity, not in a phony like Pollyanna, everything's all great, spiritual bypassing sort of way, but just with this understanding that it's not real to be negative all the time either. That's not why we're here. That's just as much bullshit as pretending that we're happy and positive all the time. As we wrap up, take one thing from today and ask yourself,

Starting point is 00:42:50 how will I practice this before the end of the day? For another gentle nudge, join Good Wolf Reminders text list. It's a short message or two each week, packed with guest wisdom and a soft push towards action. Nearly 5,000 listeners are already loving it. sign up free at one you feed dot net slash SMS no noise no spam just steady encouragement to feed your good wolf i agree with everything you said and i love that idea of i think for me when i stopped thinking that the next book or the next thing would do it like i'd find this ultimate happiness somehow i became a lot more comfortable with the fact that well all right i guess like you said day in day out i'm just going to

Starting point is 00:43:33 have to make these choices i'm going to have to i'm going to have to keep doing this work And I think as long as I thought that I was going to find it somewhere in the magic bullet, I resented or didn't want to do the work or didn't do the work. And accepting that like, okay, unfortunately, that's not going to happen. Right. It made it easier for me just to keep doing it. Absolutely. It comes down to the hard work we're doing on our own growth.

Starting point is 00:43:56 I mean, that's how we serve ourselves the greatest, you know? Yep. Excellent. Well, Scott, thank you so much for coming on. We'll have links to where people can get your book in the show notes, links to your Facebook group and all that. Thank you so much for taking the time. I've really enjoyed it.

Starting point is 00:44:10 Thank you so much. Okay. Bye. Bye. Thank you so much for listening to the show. If you found this conversation helpful, inspiring, or thought-provoking, I'd love for you to share it with a friend. Sharing from one person to another is the lifeblood of what we do.

Starting point is 00:44:26 We don't have a big budget, and I'm certainly not a celebrity, but we have something even better, and that's you. Just hit the share button on your podcast app or send a quick text. with the episode link to someone who might enjoy it. Your support means the world, and together we can spread wisdom one episode at a time. Thank you for being part of the One You Feed community.

The One You Feed - Choosing Love in a Divisive World: Empathy as Our Guiding Light with Scott Stabile

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