The One You Feed - How to Be Enough as You Are with Scott Stabile

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

Scott Stabile’s journey towards self-acceptance and self-love began with a simple yet powerful realization. He learned to acknowledge the small actions in his daily life that reflected self-care and love. This awareness and acknowledgement of these moments of self-love allowed him to shift his mindset and energy towards self-compassion. Scott’s shares the importance of recognizing and appreciating the seemingly mundane acts of self-care, which ultimately lay the foundation for fostering a deep sense of self-acceptance and love. In this episode, you will be able to: Embrace self-compassion and acceptance to transform your mindset and behavior Navigate the difficult emotions of envy and jealousy to unlock your personal growth potential Face difficult conversations that can lead to creating deeper connections Cultivate self-love and authenticity to live a more fulfilling life Manage overwhelming thoughts and emotions to find inner peace and clarity To learn more, click here!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Do you ever feel like life is just one problem after another? You finally feel like maybe there's a break and then BAM! Another problem? This is how it is for many of us, but there is a better way to respond. A way of responding that brings greater ease into your life and returns some of the energy that the problems drain from you. We are hosting a free live masterclass on Sunday, March 3rd called Learn the Keystone Habit to Unlock Energy and Ease in Your Life. In it, I will teach you how to tap into resources already within you

so that life feels less like a never-ending fight and more like an ever-evolving dance. You will learn the number one source of unhappiness that drains your energy and keeps you feeling stuck. And a simple mindset shift you can make right away so that life doesn't feel like such a constant struggle. This will be a live event and you'll have a chance to interact with me and each other. I've really grown to love these community events where we get to meet each other and deepen our connections and I hope that you can become part of that. Go to oneufeed.net slash live to learn more and register for this free event.

Again, that's oneufeed.net slash live. I hope to see you there. Take the time to acknowledge the small things you're doing throughout the day that are reflective of you caring for yourself in a loving way. And the reason I recommend that, even if it's five seconds, even if it's 10 seconds,

you're putting your hands on your heart and you're thinking, this is me loving myself right now as I brush my teeth. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.

But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction. How they feed their good wolf. Wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really No Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? Thanks for joining us.

Back on the show today is Scott Stabile, whose inspirational posts and videos have attracted a huge and devoted social media following. His previous works include Just Love, Iris, and the Lil Pet Hospital series. Scott also wrote the feature film The Oogie Loves in The Big Ballroom Adventure. also wrote the feature film The Oogie Loves in The Big Ballroom Adventure. He's a speaker and love advocate and runs day-long empowerment workshops nationally and internationally. Today, Eric and Scott discuss his new book, Enough As You Are. Hi, Scott. Welcome back. Hey, Eric. Thank you so much, man. Happy to be here. Yeah, I was saying before we started, I'm not sure how many times we've had you on,

but it's been- At least three. At least three. And I don't know whether one of those was for like a short episode or I don't know, but it's been a number of times and I have always enjoyed it. So when I saw you had a new book coming out, I was thrilled to be able to get to have you back on. Oh, I so appreciate it.

Thank you. Yeah. So we'll start in the way to which you are accustomed, which is I'm going to read that parable and ask you what you think about it. And I have no idea what you said any of the other times and probably no one else does either. So whatever. All right. In the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with a grandchild and they say in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things

like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops, they think about it for a second, they look up at their grandparent and they say, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Yeah. In this moment, as I'm hearing you recant that, what I'm feeling is the essence of the work I'm doing the most right now, which is built around self-acceptance and self-love. So for me, as I hear the parable, it's loving the good wolf and the bad wolf, understanding that no matter what is coming through, no matter what compulsions, desires, thoughts, feelings, words, that is within our power to show up for ourselves with love,

with grace, with compassion. And the more often we do that, I find that the more inclined we are to make choices that are more in line with love and kindness and compassion and all of the good wolf ways of being. Because for me, love is just energy. And it's an energy that is alive within us and outside of us. And it is a pure positive energy in my experience, which means it is always in service to everything. So I know that I'm human and that part of my, can we swear on this show? I don't remember. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It happens. I try not to turn it into an Andrew Dice Clay remix, but in general, yes, occasional swear word.

What a reference. That's great. Okay. Thank you. Just so I know. Yeah. Okay. No, but in general, it's understanding that sometimes we show up like a jerk, you know, sometimes we show up without compassion. Sometimes we make choices that are clearly not the healthiest for us. And can we still, rather than shaming ourselves for these choices, for these actions, recognize that shame is not the thing that's ever going to lead to healing and that it is within us to love ourselves no matter what. So I want to love both wolves and trust that by giving my love to both, I'm naturally going to be energizing the good wolf more often. So I love that idea, obviously, of self-love. And for me, self-compassion, self-love,

learning to do that for myself, forgive myself, has been one of the most important things that I have possibly done for my own well-being. And it is a very difficult thing to do at points, right? Absolutely. You know, it's interesting, like if you read the science on affirmations, right? It appears that affirmations seem to help the people most who don't actually really need them. Because they kind of already believe they're awesome. Absolutely. When you don't, a lot of this stuff of trying to love ourselves or be self-compassionate feels really, really

difficult. Like in my spiritual habits program, self-compassion is one of the core attributes because like you, I believe it underlies everything else that we do, right? Without it, when we don't live up to whatever it is we're trying to do. And in my program, it's like, you know, practice spiritual principles more in our lives. And when we don't do that, if we don't have self-compassion as a base, we just have another thing to feel bad about. And that's not the goal. But it is also the thing that most consistently people say, I hear what you're saying. I know. And yet, I can't seem to feel it. The voices keep coming that tell me I'm bad. The shame is embedded. What I'm hoping is that you can, in five seconds, give us a tip that will dispel all of that once and for all. all of that once and for all, if that's in this book, I'm going to recommend it.

I know it's a long-term process, right? But I would just love to hear when, you know, you must hear people say the same thing to you, given how much you write about self-love and self-forgiveness and self-compassion. Yeah. I mean, I agree with everything you're saying a hundred percent. And for me, I agree with everything you're saying 100%. And for me, what it comes down to often is just about bringing more honest awareness to the choices I am making in my life and taking the time to acknowledge those that are actually aligned with self-love. I think we take for granted a lot of the things that we do for ourselves. And I'll give you very basic examples like brushing our teeth or cooking food that tastes good or putting on clothes in which we feel good moving through the world. Every time we're doing these things, we're actually acting in alignment with self-love.

We're taking care of ourselves in a very specific way. And for me, one of my practices that has helped me a lot is just not taking all of those choices for granted, in part because I give a lot of workshops on self-love and I meet a lot of people who tell me they don't know how to love themselves. And I feel that we actually are loving ourselves, we're just not acknowledging it. And so, one thing I would recommend to people is, it may sound corny, I fear it's going to sound corny to some, but it's helped me, is just take the time to acknowledge the small things you're doing throughout the day that are reflective of you caring for yourself in a loving way. five seconds, even if it's 10 seconds, you're putting your hands on your heart and you're thinking, this is me loving myself right now as I brush my teeth. I could go through the day without doing that. This is me loving myself right now as I prepare this meal, this beautiful food

for myself. And for me, what that naturally does, because I do see everything as energy and energy does generate momentum, the more we're carving out these moments, one, the less time we're mired in self-abuse and this idea that we're not worthy. Even 10 seconds of connecting to the gratitude for care is 10 seconds less of I'm a piece of crap, right? And that matters. And then also, I feel like these choices invite more opportunities for self-love and self-care because in general, what you were speaking to is it's one thing to say I love myself just as I am, but if that's not my truth, if that's not what I'm actually feeling, my experience is what I'm feeling in that moment is always going to trump the words that are just coming out of my mouth. So I can't love myself with words if what I'm feeling inside is self-loathing.

But what I can do in my affirmations and what I encourage people to do is to land on the most honest statement that you can make. So if I can't honestly say in this moment, I love myself as I am, can I honestly say, I am willing to love myself as I am. I am willing to give energy to the practice of self-love and self-care. And if that feels honest, if that stands true in your body, that is a statement I feel like that will be helpful because it also reflects self-love. Even if you're not able to say, I love myself, being willing to, being willing to give energy to it is the same thing. It's all about the energy of you getting in a more harmonious relationship with yourself. Another thing I would say to what you brought up is that it's never too late with everything,

not just with self-love. I feel like if you've spent 30 years of your life mired in self-loathing, but there is a part of you right now that wants to create a different relationship with yourself, even if you don with yourself and be with yourself is going to impact what you do from this moment on. And in my experience, self-love has proven to just to be a skill. And like any other skill, the more you practice at it, the better you become at it. That's what I believe. So, the things I'm saying, I feel like they can be applied to any sort of spiritual practice, even beyond just self-love. We're talking about the journey of growth, the journey of healing, right? And I also want to speak to the shaming aspect because that's a very real thing that happens for many of us on the spiritual path. We end up judging ourselves against a more evolved version of ourselves that doesn't yet exist. So we're judging ourselves against a fictionalized version of who I am. And I've done this a thousand times over as someone who's been on a spiritual path, was in a cult, was chasing enlightenment, and was continuously shaming myself because I wasn't living the life of the enlightened version of Scott that has never existed and may never exist. And part of, and I think this is

the essence of a lot of the writings in Enough As You Are, What I've come to learn is that it is within me to honor my humanity, which is to say to remind myself consistently that I am human. When I am not showing up and making healthy choices, when I'm not looking in the mirror and thinking I look beautiful, but looking at all the spots I'd like to change, all of this is a part of our human conditioning, right? And so I'm less interested in transcending my conditioning, though I am interested in that as much as possible. Also understanding I may never transcend some of the conditioning because it's so deeply rooted. But even beyond that, what I'm interested in is offering myself grace when I'm unable to transcend my conditioning. To remind myself, this too is human. Every other human being on the planet with a human mind has been conditioned in

similar ways and is struggling with all of these same things. And it is entirely okay that you are where you are with them. So instead of doing the shaming thing or feeling, I don't look at my spiritual path as pressure anymore to achieve something. So I'm not putting that pressure on myself that you were speaking to and then feeling disheartened by my inability to show up the way I would want to. Instead, the practice that I'm doing is I'm approaching all of this with a bit more curiosity and a bit more nonchalance. And so for me, what that looks like is when my mind is doing its insane dance yet again, trying to tell me I'm a piece of crap and worthless and all the things that my mind wants to tell me. instead of internalizing those things the way I used to, I kind of look at it now with this, oh, okay, that's interesting that this is what my mind is doing right now.

And like, why is my mind doing it? Like bringing a sense of curiosity and a sense of nonchalance and an understanding that every other mind on the planet is doing this also has helped me feel a lot more okay with my own insanity. There's so many different things you said in there that we could touch on. I mean, the phrase that, and I don't know where I heard it, but what we practice, we strengthen, is a really powerful idea. And you touched on that in all aspects, right? Every little thing. And this idea of looking at the ways we are practicing self-love is interesting because I had a conversation. I went on, I joined a hiking group and I went on a hiking conversation that day and just ended up

with a PhD in psychology next to me, amazingly. And so we could have talked for, you know, 30 hours. But one of the things we ended up on is we were talking about, people actually change behavior. And we landed on this topic that he believes is fundamental, which is around identity. It shows up in behavior change literature of many different kinds. The example that's often given is, let's say you're trying to quit smoking and you're standing outside and somebody comes up and offers you a cigarette, if you say, no, thanks, I'm trying to quit. That's one thing. If on the other hand, you say, no, thanks, I don't smoke. That's an identity you've taken on as a non-smoker. Now the obvious problem with that is what if you're not living into that identity, right? So it's like, all right, I want to see myself as a person who moves my body every day. Like that's actually how I see myself. I'm a person who moves my body every day

and at every opportunity I can, cause I know it's good for me. But if I'm not doing, I mean, I've got years of sort of reinforcing that behavior. It's an easy identity, but very early on, you know, may not be doing that. Or if you're, if you're trying to quit smoking, you may be sort of successful and sort of not successful. So your identity doesn't quite line up. And he said something very similar to what you said. He said, what I do with patients is I try and focus on the ways in which whatever they are and however small they are, that they are living that identity. If you want to be a non-smoker and you're trying to say, I don't smoke as an identity, you look at the times you didn't smoke. Don't look at the few

times you did like look at the progress that's being made. And you were saying the same thing with self-love, right? If I focus on what these small things are that I'm doing to love myself, then I can begin to take on the identity of somebody who does love themselves. And I will continue to act more and more into that identity over time. And so I loved the way you said that, because I think it really lines up a lot with the importance of identity, because it's an important thing. You know, we can have the identity that I'm someone who hates myself, right? I mean, many people do. Right, right. You know, I'm neurotic. I'm any number of different things.

Absolutely. And I think one of the reasons that focusing on the times you are showing up the way you want to be or focusing on the times you are loving yourself, one of the ways in which that's helpful is because it is much harder for your mind to convince you of something when you are showing up the opposite way. Which is to say, we become more aware of the ways in which our mind is lying to us about who we are. As an example, with the last book, Big Love, as soon as I signed the contract, there was 10 minutes of joy and then panic. I have to deliver this book. Am I going to be able to write it? And literally I had 10 minutes of woo. And I was showing up every day to work on the book. And my mind was still saying, you're never going to do this. But day in and day out, I was doing it. And what I was noticing is my mind was continuing to get quieter because

it couldn't convince me that I can't do the very thing that I am showing up and doing every day, which is transfer that to self-love or to any other thing. If each day you're giving a little energy to focusing on the ways you are showing up, it's going to be harder for your mind to make the case to you that you don't know how to love yourself or that you hate yourself because those things are not true. They are products of the mind. And it is only when we are committed to believing our thoughts that we get locked into these lies. And so another practice for me that has helped me come to a better place with myself is really, and I know you've talked about this a lot on your show, the idea of bearing witness to our mind and bearing witness to our

thoughts, really, really internalizing the truth that we are not what we are thinking. We are not our minds. It is possible to create that detached separation. The metaphor I love the most is become the sky and allow your thoughts to be the weather. The sky is expansive enough to hold whatever's happening. Whatever insane thoughts are playing through our mind, when you're bearing witness, you're not becoming any of it. And what that creates for me is distance from those self-loathing thoughts and those self-abusive thoughts. And it allows me to look at them with a bit more curiosity and nonchalance because I'm not them. And I think a lot of people don't know that. They really believe everything that's happening in their minds when so much of it is

untrue. Yeah. To be able to do that is a profound practice and is a beautiful thing to do. What I have noticed, and I've had some of this recently, is that I can do that when the emotional scale and the thought scales around like a three to a four to a five, maybe even I can handle a six on a good day. You know, if I'm at my best, but once it's up at like eight or nine, that separation feels almost impossible. It's so overwhelming. And I love that you talk in the book some about distraction or numbing, right? Because I think that in a program I teach called Circle of Connection, one of the things we explore is working with difficult thoughts and emotions. And I created probably an overly complicated flow chart, but there's a point in it where you go, I give up. Like I've done everything that I've tried to be this guy. I've tried to work with my thoughts. I've tried to

think about what's true and what's not true. I give up. Can I find some non-destructive distraction? You know? And I think that we're often told like, you just sit with whatever you're feeling. And I think that's good advice in general, like feel what you're feeling. But there are times that we don't have it in us to do it. We just don't. And being willing to pull the rip cord into another frame of mind somehow, again, I encourage non self destructive, but sometimes self destructive might be all you got in your bag right now. But you talk about a doing that in your own life. And you also talk about forgiving yourself when you do do it in a way that maybe doesn't fully align with the choices you want to make. Say more about that. Yeah, it's such a great point you're bringing up because sometimes even with all the tools

that you and I and probably many of the listeners have in our tool kits, tool baskets. Tool belt. No one talks of a tool belt much anymore. Yeah. And our tool belt, even with all those things, sometimes the mind takes over. And for me, the words I come back to in that moment, when I know that I'm just in it and there's nothing I'm going to do, you're right. I can't become the sky in this moment. I really go to one of my favorite mantras, which is this too shall pass. That is one of the only things that offers me any sense of peace in this moment is just knowing it's not going to last forever. So I'm just going to have to ride it out. And then as far as numbing or escaping, I used to judge myself so harshly when I would check out and I really don't anymore. And I check out a bunch if I need to, and I don't even feel the need to forgive myself for it. It's not even something that needs to be forgiven. It's really just something that I need not shame myself for the way I used to, to recognize that this world is so intense and so violent and so overwhelming.

And there is so much information and opinions and news coming at us from every direction all the time. I do not believe there's a person on the planet who can experience it without checking out. Whatever that checkout looks like for you. And so, yeah, I don't think I'd be around. I think I'd be in a cave somewhere if I couldn't do my Netflix binges and whatever else it is that I do to just forget about things. I think it's totally okay. that we don't have to be making the healthiest choices for ourselves all the time in order to be worthy of our love, right? That's some misguided conditioning that we've grown up with and taken on so many of us that like our worth is predicated on something other than the fact that it's inherent, right? Or that we are lovable simply because we're born lovable, not because of the choices we're making or because of our looks or how great our family is or any

other thing. When you really come to understand, and again, I don't know how to get someone to understand this. I don't know how I came to understand this other than probably the commitment to loving myself, my commitment to not listening to the voices of shaman. Suddenly, gradually over time, I embraced generally this idea that I am a worthy human being, period. And no matter how my mind wants to tell me otherwise, every baby born on this planet today is as worthy as every other baby. Every human being dying on this planet today is as worthy as every other human being in my experience, in my understanding. And so why would I not be a part of that worthiness story? Why would I be the one person who is not worthy when I see every other being as worthy? who is not worthy when I see every other being as worthy. And what that does for you when you really start to inhabit that sense of worth, that sense of enoughness, is it allows you to move through the world with much more openness, much more expansiveness. And then I believe that what

you invite from that place into your life is wholly different than when you're moving through the world energetically shut down and believing that you're a piece of crap who doesn't deserve love or doesn't deserve these things. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block

your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom cruise really do his own stunts his stuntman reveals the answer and you never know who's going to drop by mr brian kranson is with us how are you hello my friend wayne knight about jurassic park wayne knight

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And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really? No, Really? And you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There's a real nuance in this, right? Let's apply it to checking out or escaping and numbing, right? Yes. On some level, there is an understanding of, of course I have to check out. Everybody does sometimes. And there's also a recognition perhaps that the ways I'm

checking out aren't actually restoring me in any way, I'm actually checking out in a way that doesn't do what the purpose of checking out is, which would be to allow me to come back less frazzled than I left. Right. Well, then checking out would have a different definition for me than numbing or escaping. Because I feel like when we're numbing or escaping from what it is we're feeling, that thing is always going to be there on the other side of the numbing and escaping. That's speaking to what you're saying because I'm not doing anything about it. I'm just like smoking pot right now and watching Netflix. Yeah. Which is fine sometimes. Yeah, exactly.

I mean, yeah, it is okay. And, and this is the holding the both thing. If I do that all the time, then nothing changes. Right. And so I love this idea in Buddhism of like true refuge and false refuge. You know, true refuge is things that bring you back more restored. False refuge are things that just check you out for a while and you come back and everything's exactly the same as it is. We all need both, right? We all need both of those things. So what I'm looking at is how can I, and all this is without judgment and shame, do I need to be adjusting that balance? Am I numbing more than is useful for me in being the person that I want to be? There's a phrase that has been going through my mind as I've been reading your work, and it goes through my mind very often because I feel like I'm somebody who's holding sort of two things at once. up better than the great Zen teacher, Suzuki Roshi, who said, you're perfect exactly the way

you are. And you could use a little improvement. And I love that line because both those things are absolutely true. And if I don't have both of them, it's problematic. If I only think I need improvement, then I'm going to be trying to improve out of a sense of shame and unworthiness and less than this. And that may provide fuel for a while, but it's fuel that eventually gunks up the whole engine and everything turns crappy. Yeah, absolutely. So if I don't have the self-love, if somehow I were able to be, I'm perfect exactly as I am, I suppose if you could actually inhabit that 100%

fully, you would probably be okay. But given that I think part of our role in this world is to live according to our values, right? Like I want to live according to my values, which means I do need a little bit of improvement and I need to love myself. And I just, I find that balance a really like many, many things that we talk about a really nuanced thing in the same way of, should I try and eliminate those choices are making you feel and are affecting your life. And as much as possible, direct yourself into choices that have you feeling more meaning, more connection, more love in your life, you know, more wholeness and start eliminating the choices that are depleting you and have you feeling like crap and disconnected a hundred percent. You know, I'm someone who's a major processor, you know, but I have fun with it. Like I'm always looking at why I'm doing what

I'm doing. And like, but for me, that is, it's, it's entertaining. It's I'm curious about that. Yeah. And it's part of who you are. It's part of who I am. It's my personal as you are. Absolutely. Exactly. Like that self-love, like that's who I am. Okay. Exactly. But what's so important about what you said too, is like, Absolutely. And that's really the practice I'm really focused on in my life so much now is understanding no matter what choices I make, I can be a voice of love for myself. it takes away in any way from the possibility of making healthier choices down the line. It just allows me to live into ultimately what I've discovered is that one of the things I desire more than any other thing, which is to be in a good relationship with myself. Because if you're in a loving relationship with yourself, if you know you've got your back, you're in a loving relationship with yourself. If you know, you've got your back. If you know, you're going to be there no matter what you're likely to feel so much freer to take risks in

your life, to fail, to be rejected, to make choices that are in alignment with your heart, because you know that no matter what happens, rather than being a voice of shame on the other side of it, you're going to be a voice of compassion and love on the other side of it. And so if I know that my relationship is solid with myself, it matters much less what choices I'm making because I know that I'm going to be there for myself no matter what. Does that make sense? It 100% does. And if shame actually was an effective agent for change, you probably would have very little addiction in the world, right? Like, you know, I mean, it's the engine that

drives it right now. There are things that cause it that are not shame based, right? Traumas and all that different stuff. But the engine that drives addiction is shame, you know, and it tends to be the engine that drives most of the choices that we make that we don't want to be making that very thing. And I love that idea, which is like, I think you said, you know, I absolutely have my back. We've interviewed a guy named Aziz Gazapura and I've been on his show and he has a phrase like be on your own side. And I love that because you can always be on your side. You can always have your back and you can have that. And I love that because you can always be on your side. You can always have your back and you can have that. And you can look at the choices you make and evaluate them and say,

oh, I would like to do more of this or less of that. Wow. At the exact same moment, being 100% on your side, having your own back. And that can sometimes again, is a nuanced thing to sort out, but it is the way, in my experience, that sustainable change in both our well-being and acting according to our values, that both those things happen best in that fertile soil. Absolutely. I mean, I've never shamed myself into healing.

And I have often loved myself into a better place of being, into a more healed place of being. And for those of you listening who are thinking, and I know there are some of you like, well, I don't have my back. Like self-love, it's very easy to say you can always have your back. But if you're someone who's like, I don't know how to have my back. I don't. I'm judgmental of myself. I'm critical. Small steps. For me, again, I really love the word willingness because for me, willingness is an invitation when we're not able to show up in the place, but we have a general energetic intention about being there. Are you willing to have your back? I would grab a sheet

of paper. What would that look like to you to have your back? Write down very specific things like, when I have my back, it looks like this. Or if I were to have my back, it would look like this. Make a list for yourself. And then from that list, start integrating some of those practices as best you could. Maybe it looks like having your back after a long day of work. It might look like preparing yourself a beautiful cup of tea and being very intentional about it. Maybe it might look like sitting for 10 minutes, staring at a wall in total silence. These are little examples of how we can go about taking care of ourselves in tangible ways that actually matter. They're actually impactful. So I really encourage anyone who goes to a place of,

well, I don't know how to do that and I can't do that and I haven't done that, to really ask yourself generative questions, not questions that are yes and no because your fear, your insecurity is going to take you to a no, but a question that generates the invitation to look at how you can go about doing it like, what would it look like to have my back? How can I go about having my back in a more proactive way in my day-to-day living? Those questions are an invitation for responses that align with the yes that you're seeking. Let's change directions a little bit here because you've got all sorts of stuff in this book on this topic of,

you know, kind of focusing sort of on the self-love piece. You have a line that I really love, which is you can't paint your self-portrait with someone else's hand. Yeah. What do you love about that line? What it is, is it's like many statements that once you hear them, something becomes extraordinarily clear, right? And what becomes for me in that statement, extraordinarily clear is, oh yes, if I'm going to paint my self portrait, who else could do it? It's a self portrait. It's an obvious like, oh yeah. Okay. Well only I can do that. Absolutely.

If someone else is painting something, it's not my self portrait. It's their portrait of me, right? Which is a completely different thing than my self portrait. So I love it because it's a sort of like when you hear the wolf parable, you kind of immediately get it. You're like, oh yeah, my choices matter, right? And that line, it becomes very clear like, oh, my image of myself can only be generated truly by me. Now I may be borrowing other people's images. I may be looking at other portraits that have been painted, but at the end of the day, it's mine to paint. For me, it speaks a lot to conditioning. I'd say a lot of the work I've been doing the last few years too is really looking at what responses are conditioned responses and what are authentic responses. And as much as possible, when I recognize that I'm aligning with just a

conditioned way of being that doesn't even feel necessarily true to who I am right now, or may never have felt true to who I am, then do I have the courage to align myself with what feels more true? Even if by doing so and sharing that, I might get judged more harshly because it's outside the bounds of what we've considered to be okay in our society. I might be misunderstood. I might be rejected. And for me, part of this path, this journey, should you choose to take it in a more healing consciousness way, is looking at what is real, what is true inside of me, and understanding. One of the most liberating moments I had years ago was when I had the realization that no matter what choice I make, I'm going to be judged by other people. And that realization felt really heavy in the moment of it because it was like, my God,

we are all so judgmental. We're all criticizing each other all the time. And it feels heavy to know that you can't do anything without being criticized. But a few moments later, I'm like, wait a minute, that is the most liberating realization I could possibly have. Because what that means is, if I choose to live in this restrictive box of conditioning, I'm going to be judged. Or if I live in the full expansiveness of my truth and freedom, I'm going to be judged. And knowing that both those choices are going to lead to judgment, why would I ever choose this restrictive box? Yeah, because the people we're being judged by in the restrictive box are the people closest

to us at that time. Sure. That's why that choice can often seem like the more appealing choice. But you're absolutely right that judgment's coming from anywhere. I used this example just yesterday. So hopefully these episodes don't get released right on top of each other, but it's top of mind for me. And it speaks to exactly what you are saying. It also speaks to the obviousness of, you can only paint your own self portrait. You know, for a long time, Jenny and I went back and forth between Atlanta and Columbus. Her mom was in Atlanta, Alzheimer's. My mom was in Columbus, had other things. And when we were in Atlanta, my mom was unhappy. And when we were in Columbus,

her mom was unhappy. And that caused me a lot of strain until one day I went, wait, it's impossible that one of them is not going to be happy. I can't make them both happy. Like literally cannot do it. What a freedom. Yes. Right. Now I'm not saying I didn't still try and think about their needs and who needed what and when they needed it. Of course. But I was able to just let go of an insoluble problem. Absolutely. Right?

And in the same way for you, what we're talking about, being judged is an insoluble problem. Right? Absolutely. It's going to happen. You are going to be judged by the people around you. And, you know, again, given that point, wouldn't I rather be living truer to who I really am? And I think the reason that choice sometimes feels harder is that the people right around us are,

the people who are closest to us currently are the ones who will judge the choice to break out of the box. Well, that's why it takes so much courage. Yeah. Once you're out of the box, then it's a different story. But getting out of that box does take a tremendous amount of courage. And even when you're out of the box, like I'm not going to pretend to be someone who's always living in my authentic truth. I would say I'm more authentic than I've ever been. And that continues to grow. And sometimes I cower to my fear. Sometimes I make a choice that is probably more conditioned because I don't want to feel the backlash. I don't want to my fear. Sometimes I make a choice that is probably more conditioned because

I don't want to feel the backlash. I don't want to be judged. I'm not in the mood for it in that moment. And that's part of this journey as well. There's two lines that you wrote that I really love about the future, which is also informed by the past. And you say, do not limit yourself based on past realities. And you also say, I will not set myself up for a future at my life through the lens of my past and using my past as a means to prevent me from moving forward in alignment with my heart instead of as a means to support me in moving forward in alignment with my heart. So I could look at, let's say I submitted a screenplay that got rejected 10 times or I've, you know, and so I'm working on a screenplay now and my mind is going to tell me you've already been rejected 10 times. Like this isn't going to work for you. Like,

why are you even bothering? And my mind's going to come up with a whole host of reasons why I shouldn't do this. I could use my past to prevent me from continuing to write and continuing to try to share my writing in a bigger way. Or I could look at my past and say, well, wait a minute, I have the experience of trying this 10 times and the experience of those 10 times is fueling what I'm doing right now. And with every time, why there's no reason to believe I'm not getting closer to what my goal is, right? It's like, how do you want to frame your past? And for me, if I catch myself using my past to limit me, I know I'm doing a disservice to myself.

And it's not necessary, right? And the same thing about the future. So often, we're not doing things because we're so afraid of how it's going to end up looking in the future. We're always, well, not always, but we're often going to worst case scenarios. We're always, well, not always, but we're often going to worst case scenarios. And it's those worst case scenarios that prevent us from even taking the first step toward creating the moment we have awareness that we're locked into those thoughts is the moment we have an opportunity to either reframe them, create different thoughts around them, or just think about something entirely different that has nothing to do with them. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden.

And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a floor? We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog

truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Brian Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park.

Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really, No Really. Yeah, really.

No really. Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really, No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I would encounter this with coaching clients a lot. They would come in and, you know, by the time you hire a coach to help you change behavior, you've probably failed at changing it a bunch

of times, right? That's not your first choice, right? You know, sort of the last resort, like, oh God, I got to hire a coach. So they've tried many times and they haven't been successful or they've been successful for a little bit. And so there's a story there, which is like, I can't do this. I'm not going to be able to do it. And so we'll get off to a good start and their brain will be saying, yeah, you've started before you never can stick with it, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy if you're not careful. Right. And so there's a real art in doing exactly what you said, which is like, well, we're going to talk about and learn from what didn't happen before.

B, you're a different person than you were then. Exactly. Like you're not the same person. And C, we're going to bring new resources to bear that you didn't have before. And so we can all apply that same thing to whatever it is. Like you said, you know, it's a screenplay, whatever it is, which is saying, Oh, I'm going to learn from what happened. I'm going to recognize that I'm not the same person. Yes. Ideally I've changed and I've grown and see, I can use that energy. that's telling me that to ask myself,

well, what else could I get now that would support me in doing what I want? What are other resources I could avail myself of that would make me more likely to be able to do this thing in the future? And so it can be helpful to reflect on those things, to learn and change, but not to predict the future with. Absolutely. You sound like a very good coach. Every once in a while, every once in a while. I'd hire you. All right. Well, let me know. So I want to talk about jealousy and envy. They show up a number of times throughout the book. You say you're sort of a jealous person,

you're sort of an envious person. I'm going to ask you to rethink your labels about yourself. No, I actually don't think you say that. I don't actually think you say I'm a jealous person. I think you say I often have or, you know, whatever. My mind is, yeah. My mind is, yeah, yeah. So tell me more about those energies in your life and how you've learned to work with them more usefully. They're two of the most uncomfortable energies for me anyway. My mind can be incredibly envious of everyone for everything. I've learned in the past couple of years just how jealous my mind can be. You like to think that you're beyond something or that something isn't as heavy, and then you're handed a circumstance that shows you, oh no, honey, you're not even close to being on this. You're every bit as insane as you were. What my therapist said about that, because I was asking recently about this,

because I had this sort of like, I thought I was past this, right? And he said, when you're dealing with these deeply conditioned traumatic sort of things that are driven out of that, he's like, you're never fully past it. What happens is you can handle it. It doesn't get brought up in you. You can handle more and more circumstances without it coming up. But there will always be some circumstance triggered enough that it's still there. And I thought that was a really useful way to think about it instead of thinking,

oh, I thought I was beyond this. I'm not all this work I've done doesn't mean anything because I handle lots of circumstances way better than I ever did. Absolutely. And when the ante gets high enough, uh-oh. Yeah. Life's there with a little treat for you. Yeah. Yeah. Life's there with a little treat for you. Yeah. Yeah. I like the way I'm in relationship with my envy and jealousy more than I've ever been,

which is to say, you know, with envy, however many years ago I was talking to a good friend, he got a great job promotion and a lot more money. And I knew he had been working for this for a long time. and I was genuinely really happy for him for a minute. No, probably. I mean, there was genuine happiness. I was. I got the word congratulations out. I choked it out.

Exactly. And then my mind started to go to that place of envy, just like he makes a lot more money. He's a lot more successful. All these stories that my mind was coming up with and what I was doing at that time in my life when envy would surface was try to pretend it wasn't happening. I'm not being envious right now. This whole ridiculous attempt at denying what is happening in a big way in my body and in my mind. We try to push it down and I think we all probably have the experience my mind. We try to push it down. And I think we all probably have the experience, those things we try to push down or put in the dungeon behind a closed door, they just make that much more noise pounding on the door. So I'm really in the practice in my

life now more and more of just inviting it all in. When I'm feeling envious now, I don't spend a second trying to deny it anymore. I acknowledge it. I'm not speaking it to the person necessarily. I'm doing this internally. But it's like, this is me. This is just envy. And all human minds are envious at times. And it's totally okay.

And it's also rooted in a host of fears and insecurities that are real, but they're not true. And for me, I like the distinction between what feels real and what feels true, because what my mind conjures so often feels real. It's creating a physical response to an emotional response, but so often it's untrue. When I'm really aligned with my heart center, really connecting to love, that's when I feel most deeply in my truth. And so that distinction for me is important, but I welcome my envy to have a seat at the table with everything else I'm feeling, even though I don't like it. I don't think I'll ever like my envy. It's wildly uncomfortable, but what I've come to learn is I can love it still. I'm not going to shame myself

for being envious in moments. I'm just going to come here, Envy. You're okay. And then I think there is a benefit in, or there can be, if I'm able to get myself in this place of really looking at, well, what exactly are you envying? Beyond just like they have more money or they're more whatever. It's like, what are you envying exactly? And is there a way to foster more of that in your lived experience now? If that's something you truly are desiring, how could you go about bringing that into your life in a bigger way? Yeah. You know, envy and jealousy are emotions that do feel so yucky. And we think they're so undesirable that we want to push them away. But like anything, you can learn something there. You know, the other thing

that I found to be helpful is to go, all right, okay, if I'm going to envy that person for that thing, I also have to look at what they're doing and having to do and go through and do in life in order to get that thing. Yeah, great. Because I'm like, oh, they have more money. And I'm like, I just want more money. Of course, I want more money. I want more money. But that person may be doing a job I don't want to do at all. They may be taking on more commitment and responsibility than I want. So I think oftentimes we envy something because we see the shiny side of it. Absolutely.

It can also be helpful to try and flip it around and go, well, what's the not shiny side of it? Yeah. What are the other realities going on here? I mean, it's obviously like we all know that that's what's happening to us on social media, right? We're being presented the shiny side, but we're not seeing necessarily what the other pieces of that are. And that's been really helpful for me. You know, like I made a choice, you know, five years ago to leave a really lucrative corporate career to do this. And I get by, I'm okay, I'm fine, but I don't have the money that I used to have or the money I would have today in that job five years later. I just don't.

So when I start getting envious about money, I have to go, well, if I could get that money on my terms, great. But on those terms, no, thank you. Yeah. I hear you, man. Like I look at my life, I had a lot more money at different times in my life than I do now. And I'm also living a life that I want to be living and I wouldn't trade it, I guess is what I'm saying. And I yeah. You know, and I think what you're speaking to is very important about the full picture. Yeah. Taking in the full picture sometimes helps us.

And also understanding, I think that like jealousy, for me, it triggers the place in me that isn't confident about my worth, right? That is the wound that gets triggered. Like I am someone who loves myself. I am someone who generally feels worthy and i also have the places inside where i lack self-worth and struggle with it and in things like envy and jealousy they push that button so intensely and that is for me one of the hardest buttons to be with to just sit with with. It's painful. It feels gross. It feels disgusting.

It really does. And the shame follows for me very quickly on those emotions, particularly like the jealousy side. Envy to me can be slightly more benign if I'm envious, and I can sort of reframe it and be like, oh yeah, I do wish that my podcast career was as successful as that person. Oh, that does tell me something about what matters to me. Okay. There's a way that I can sort of work with envy in certain cases. Jealousy, that is to me, like you said, it's far more about core worth, you know? And that is the yucky stuff. It's the yucky stuff, but everyone experiences it. That is helpful for me when I'm going through stuff like that, because what our shame wants

to tell us is we are especially disgusting because of our jealousy and our shame wants to communicate on some level, like you're the only one who's like this, who's feeling this in this way. And I like to remind myself, everybody feels this to some degree. It's just part of the human experience. There's nothing to be ashamed of here and it's not going to last forever until the next round comes when you think you're over it. Right. We kind of hit this before, but I want to hit it again because I think it's a really important point. And you said this line almost word for word earlier. So why am I bringing it up again? I can't help it. And it is that often the only comfort I can

find in despair is the understanding that it, like everything else, won't last forever. I mean, I think that is such an important idea. Literally, there are times that we're just going to feel awful and that's okay. And in those moments, often the only solace for me, and I'm bringing it back up because it resonates so strongly with me, right? Is, oh yeah, this will sooner or later pass. And actually even further to notice within it being here that it's not always here. And what I mean by that is like, let's say I'm in grief about something. I might spend three, four hours that day deep in grief. And if you ask me how I'm doing, I would say, well, I'm deeply grieving, but there were a bunch of hours in

there where I actually wasn't right. Right. Where there was actually a little bit of a break. That break might've been 10 minutes. It might've been three or four hours, but not labeling our experience monolithically allows us to see that yes, grief in the broad sense will fade over time. You will heal. But even within now, there are pockets of things. And it sort of goes back to what we were talking about with self-love, like looking for, what are the ways I'm loving myself? What are the ways that there's something other than grief here right now? Not to deny it, but to simply say, oh yes, my experience is always sort of changing, even hour to hour, moment to moment. Yeah. And we can trust that if, you know, there's always so much more that exists in this reality than what we're experiencing.

And we can trust that if we're focused on only one thing, and that one thing is creating for us a lot of internal misery or heartache or heartbreak, that we are shutting ourselves off to a world of other possibilities out there. And for me, when I remember that, it's just an invitation to do what you're speaking to is like, well, wait a minute, within this grief, there's also been moments of connection and moments of laughter. And if it helps to give energy to that, beautiful. And also the idea of remembering that this too shall pass can also serve us in making courageous choices instead of putting them off. For instance, I had this whirlwind relationship at the beginning of the year and ended it. And prior to ending it,

was so scared about it because we both fell hard for each other. I knew it was going to be super painful, not only the conversation, but the fallout and the sorrow afterwards. And I reminded myself preemptively, it's like, yes, that's all true. And it's all going to pass. Just think about all the other times you've been through something similar and it's painful and heartbreaking and unbearable until it isn't. So not only remembering this too shall pass when you're in the muck, but even remembering it when you need to make a change in your life and you're putting it off, putting it off, putting it off because of the potential painful outcome of it, knowing that these things don't last forever. Similar to that topic, you have a line, you say, quit putting off the conversations you need to have. Ooh, boy.

Yeah. What I just said speaks to that as well, right? Yeah. Yeah. Because we all know, we all do it and we all know how relieved we feel when we finally have the conversation, right? Yeah. Yeah. A question I asked myself with lots of different things like that, basically anything I don't want to do is I ask myself, I try and be really honest, like, will I ever want to do it? And often the answer is never. Because my brain will tell me like, well, it's not quite the right time. Or maybe you could, you know, and I'm like, will it ever feel like the right time? Never. Will I ever want

to do this? And if the answer is never, then I try and go, well, then just do it as quickly as you can. Because if it's going to be difficult, whenever you do it all the time between now and you doing it is just time that you're worrying about doing it. You can at least cut that out. You can't cut out the difficulty of the conversation. You can't cut out the fear, but you can cut out the torment about it for the next three months. A hundred percent. Well, you put it off, you know, now again, that doesn't always work because sometimes it takes a while to summon the courage,

right? Sometimes we just don't have the courage to do it. I mean, there's been plenty of times in my life where that's been the case. Like I just, for whatever reason, it took me X amount of time before I could do it because I didn't have the courage and try and be forgiving about that. But that little trick there of like, will I ever want to do this often helps me get over the hump on those. Yeah, I like that. And also, you know, I think when we're focusing on the dreaded conversations, we're living in the dread of

what we imagine that conversation to be and the potential fallout. And I think it can be a good practice to go beyond with like focused kind of visualization of if it's something you know you need to communicate and you know that eventually you're going to feel better by having done so, take yourself to the place of feeling better. Maybe grab your journal and write down all of the benefits that you can imagine coming from having this conversation. So instead of living in the dread that you can imagine coming from having this conversation. So instead of living in the dread, you're actually centering yourself in the reality of what you're imagining will come from having had it. And that will help you potentially generate the courage to

have it. Yeah. So can you walk us through maybe, and again, you can say, I don't want to unearth all this right now. It's too real and too fresh, but you knew you had to have a difficult conversation about ending this relationship, right? And so in that circumstance, what sort of things would you visualize the positive that would come out of it? Knowing that it's not like you're going to have a conversation and you're going to feel like, okay, thank God we all feel happy now, right? Yeah. So how do you do it in a situation like that where it's like, Oh, I'm not quite sure I can forecast the benefit of this one. You know what I actually did in that situation, Eric was, I think I, I, well, I know I focused more on what actually wasn't working. And so for me, the benefits were that these things weren't going to be going on in my life anymore once the relationship was over. So it was a little more focused on the negatives within the context of the relationship that would no longer be a part of my life anymore.

Yeah. That accomplishes the same thing. Yeah, exactly. Well, Scott, we are at the end of our time. I have enjoyed it as always. You and I are going to continue in the post-show conversation. And there I kind of want to talk about, I'm going to read just the beginning of the statement of what we're going to try and talk about, which is, let the violence and pain in your world root you even more deeply in your commitment to be kinder and love harder. I want to explore that idea because we can look around and see lots of violence and pain in our world.

And so how do we use that to do that to make us actually better people? So we'll cover that in the post-show conversation. Listeners, we'd love to have you join our community. You can get post-show conversations, ad-free episodes. We're going to be doing a community meeting. There's all sorts of great stuff out there and we really could use your support. So go to oneufeed.net slash join. Scott, again, thanks so much. It's such a pleasure. Till next time.

Yeah, for me too, brother. Thank you so much, Eric. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a monthly donation to support the One You Feed podcast. When you join our membership community with this monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members-only benefits. It's our way of saying thank you for your support. Now, we are so grateful for the members of our community. We wouldn't be able to do what we do without their support, and we don't take a single dollar for granted. To learn more, make a donation at any level,

and become a member of the One You Feed community, go to oneyoufeed.net slash join. The One You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer.

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