The One You Feed - How to Embrace Change for an Authentic Life with Najwa Zebian

Episode Date: May 28, 2024

In this episode, Najwa Zebian shares her profound understanding of how to embrace change for an authentic life. Her personal journey, marked by overcoming challenges and transforming pain into wisdom, inspires listeners to navigate life’s transitions with self-trust and compassion. In this episode, you will be able to: Embrace change to unlock authenticity and personal growth Overcome the fear of life transitions and thrive in uncertainty Build self-trust and leadership skills for a fulfilling life Navigate grief to find personal growth and inner strength Learn strategies for personal resilience and successful adaptation To learn more, click here!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

that element of self-compassion that I'm talking about involves a lot of patience with yourself and soothing yourself when you feel like you're not getting anywhere and saying maybe this part of my life isn't about getting somewhere. Maybe it's about staying still and seeing what comes next. 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. 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. Go to reallyknowreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast,

or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really No Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Najwa Zabian. She's been a guest on the One You Feed podcast before, discussing her previous book and her incredibly popular TED Talks. Najwa is an activist, author, poet, educator, and speaker, and her new book is The Only Constant, a guide to embracing change and leading an authentic life. Hi Najwa, welcome to the show. Thank you. I'm very

happy to be speaking to you again today. Yes, again. I'm happy to be talking with you also. We're going to be discussing your latest book, which is called The Only Constant, a guide to embracing change and leading an authentic life. But before we get into that, we'll start in the way that we always do, which is with the parable. And in the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with their 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 and 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. It reminds me of the fact that I always have a choice. I can't just sit there and say, well, I just had to do this without taking responsibility, or I just had to come from a place of anger or come from a place of not doing what's in my best interest. To me, feeding the good wolf, feeding the kindness that's within me and the empathy that's within me and the part of me that wants to do what's best for myself and for the people around me. That's always a choice, just like feeding all the negative and dark sides of me is also a choice. Because I think for the longest time, I blamed my negative emotions on others,

because I'm like, I don't have anything bad inside of me. But it's like we all do. And it's why do they have to be bad sometimes? Like maybe your anger isn't a bad thing. Maybe healthy anger is a beautiful thing. Maybe it's a good thing. So just thinking about the answer on the spot, I think it reminds me of the first word that comes to my mind, like I said, is choice and owning up to my choices. I used to be very scared to admit that maybe I followed a negative thought, or maybe I fell into a pattern that's not good for me, because I it meant that I was as a whole a bad person. But now I look at it as those are parts of me that aren't being heard by me maybe. They're not

feeling like I understand where they're coming from. Like I said, like with anger or with resentment. like I said, like with anger or with resentment, there's this one phase that I went through over the last few years where I did things that were so out of character for me or felt so out of character for me, like cutting people off completely. And when I would think of why I was doing that, there was something inside of me that said, well, it's because you're a bad person. doing that, there was something inside of me that said, well, it's because you're a bad person. So diving deeper into that, I understood that there was so much pain there that I didn't want to deal with it. And so for me, the easiest thing to do was to say, I just never want to speak to you again. I don't want to talk to you again. I don't want to explain to you why I did this. And to bring, I guess, the balance between the good side and the bad side within me,

what I had to do was understand that as long as I sat down and listened to what was going on and what I was tempted to do, then maybe I could use the bad side for good. I could change it into something good. And maybe I could use my goodness to do things that I thought were bad for me. Yeah. Yeah. Long answer, but yeah. You know, sometimes I think the parable would be a better story if somehow the good wolf worked with the bad wolf and, you know, helped the bad wolf find, you know, find what the problem was.

Yeah. But that's probably a longer story. Maybe the bad wolf is just not really bad. Maybe it's just a misunderstood part of us. So something I'm going to be doing a little more often is ask you, the listener, to reflect on what you're hearing. We strongly believe that knowledge is power, but only if combined with action and integration. So before we move on, I'd like to ask you, what's coming up for you as you listen to this? Are there any things you're currently doing that are feeding your bad wolf that might make sense to remove? Or any things you could do to feed

your good wolf that you're not currently doing? So if you have the headspace for it, I'd love if you could just pause for a second and ask yourself, what's one thing I could do today or tonight to feed my good wolf? Whatever your thing is, a really useful strategy can be having something external, a prompt or a friend or a tool that regularly nudges you back towards awareness and intentionality. For the past year, I've been sending little good wolf reminders to some of my friends and community members. Just quick little SMS messages two times per week that give them a little bit of wisdom and remind them to pause for a second and come off autopilot. If you want, I can send them to you too. I do it totally for free and people seem to really love them.

Just drop your information at oneufeed.net slash SMS and I can send them to you. It's totally free and if you end up not liking the little reminders, you can easily opt out. That's oneufeed.net slash SMS. And now back to the episode. My experience is oftentimes the bad wolf is just an antiquated coping skill that once upon a time served a useful purpose, but doesn't anymore. And it's sort of like just stuck on repeat, you know, when it's, it's no longer valuable. I love what you said about choice. And I love the way you broke the book up, which is all about change, really into two broad types of change, right? There's the change that we either slash want to make or know we think we

should make. It's self-initiated change. And then there's the change that happens to us that's not really a choice. But before we get into that, I'd love to just read the first couple sentences of the book because I think they're really beautiful. You say, I've always known that change is hard, whether it's a change I chose or one life chooses for me. I've also known that change is one of life's only constants. Not just that, change is one of life's most beautiful truths. Change is what puts life in our lives. Change is the gateway to authentic transformation. And I love that idea that change is what puts life into our lives. That's a really beautiful idea. Thank you. I was going through so much at the time that I decided to write The Only

Constant. And every part of my being was resisting going through those changes. So I was approaching the end of my doctorate program. And I spent my entire life up to that point in school, achieving things in a way proving my worth, because part of my upbringing and my conditioning is you do, therefore you are worthy. And through my writing over the last few years, I've come to learn on a logical level that it's no longer I do, therefore I'm worthy. It's I am, therefore I'm worthy. So I knew that on a logical level, but now that I was approaching the end of my program, like this was my 10th year of university alone. I knew that now I was going to be living in that way where I didn't have to be constantly running a never ending race or working towards something where I'm like, I'm going to get that

title. I'm going to get that achievement. I'm going to be seen as I'm such a hard worker, and I've gotten so much done in my life. Now that I was going to be living it, I was like, how am I going to get through things day by day when I don't have something that's like pushing me to get stuff done? How am I going to feel about myself when I'm no longer achieving, achieving, achieving, and now I'm just living and doing what I love, which is writing. Writing never feels like work to me. So I knew that I was embarking upon a really big change in my life, a really big transition. And then at that same time, my grandma passed away. So that was obviously a change that I didn't choose and one that I never wanted to accept and never wanted to be part of my reality, but it happened. And the

grief that I felt when I got the news, I fell to the floor. I couldn't believe it. I was in so much denial and in so much pain at the same time. I don't remember when I stopped crying. It was like hours after I found out. I think I kept crying for days and I would stop and then I would start again. And so that grief took me on a journey that shook my whole being in a way where I reflected on everything in my life I had been prioritizing up to that point and telling myself, you really didn't need to prioritize all of those things and all of those people and all of those goals over spending time with someone that you love so much, over spending time with someone who has unconditional love for you.

And so going through that grief and going through at the same time the transition of moving into life after school and hardworking my entire life, it also got me to reflect on what I want my life to be like. What kind of a life do I want to live where one day when I look back, I say that was the best life that I could have lived. And to me, the best life that I could live is an authentic one. So the third type of change that I put in there is the changes that we need to make in order to live an authentic life. So it felt like all of these things were happening. And I needed to write the only constant I needed to write a book about change. I knew and understood that even though life may throw changes my way that I really don't want. And it wasn't just the death of my grandma

that that had happened in my life, that I completely rejected or completely had a hard time accepting. It was also back when I first applied to my doctorate program, I got rejected the first time I applied. And I was told, don't even bother applying again, because you need 10 years of teaching experience before you can get accepted. Only 20 people from all around the world get accepted. And I was heartbroken. But I was 22 years old. And I wanted to get my doctorate in a program where every person who was there had been an expert in the teaching field. And I took that to mean something about myself. Every rejection I took with every job that I applied for that I didn't get, every job opportunity that I was pushed away from, that I wasn't afforded those opportunities. People walking away from me, like friends and

people I was interested in romantically and feeling like members of my community were displeased with me and just excluded me and family members. I had gone through so many of those changes that I really struggled with, that I really would have never chosen for myself. And so I was like, I don't think that I fully processed all of those changes. So I took it as an opportunity to tap into those past stories and experiences to write about how change is the fabric of our everyday life. It is what makes life what it is. If your cells don't move around a certain way and don't exchange things a certain way without you even knowing, it's happening constantly. If those changes don't happen, we wouldn't exist. So change is all around us and all within us.

And what we have to do is look at ourselves in the present moment and say, there isn't any other place I would rather be, even though I'm currently changing as I'm in this present moment. I don't want to run to the future and I don't want to go back to the past and wish things away and wish that things were different. I would like to accept myself as I am right now and keep moving through life. Yeah, that's always kind of a challenge when we're right sort of in the middle of change, right? You know, whether that change has been forced on us or we're trying to change ourselves, in the middle of it feels undone. I mean, I know like I've been through situations where something in my life I really wanted was gone. And I was like you, I was bereft. I was in a great

deal of grief. I even had enough wisdom to know that it was going to go somewhere good. I know like, okay, it's going to get there. I've been through this enough to at least be able to have that kernel of wisdom. Doesn't take away the grief, but there's still that period. I often talk about that phrase, when one door closes, the other door opens, which is a lovely little phrase and probably true, but oftentimes the first door closes and there's a period of time before the next door opens and you're in the dark hallway, right? And I think that's what your book does a fair amount of talking about and talking about well, which is how to be in that dark hallway and maybe reframe it as something other than

the dark hallway. My metaphor for it is kind of a, doesn't sound like a great place to be. It's an awful place to be in because you can't see what's coming next. And we love certainty. We love to know. That's why movies that don't have a clear ending stick in our minds in a different way because we're like, I just want to know what ended up happening. We don't like not knowing the ending of a story. We don't like not knowing what happens next. It's the way that the whole industry works, where at the end of an episode, they will leave you with a really uncertain event where they're certain you're going to come back next week to watch because you want to know what happens. And I love that analogy that you used with the doors. And the one that I've been talking about is you have to imagine that you're on a foggy road and you can only see a meter or two ahead of you. You want to see the end of the road and where you're headed, but it's literally impossible because you have to keep your eyes ahead and make sure that you make it through this little bit of fog and then make it through this little bit until you get to that end point. But what fuels you to get through it is trusting yourself, trusting in your ability to get through it, trusting in your ability to take a detour to the side and take some rest if it gets too bad and trusting in your ability to know when you need to slow down a little bit more and speed up a little bit more. So self-trust and self-compassion as you go on your journey of change, as you embrace a new unfamiliar and a new uncertain path, those are so important because normally we look to

others to tell us what to do. We look to somebody who we think knows more or knows better to tell us what should happen. And the truth is when we do that, we, I don't want to say we give away all our power. I think it comes from a good place of wanting to know that you're on the right path. But think of all the people in your life who you've trusted to lead you to a place where you're happy and content and you feel like you belong and you're connected. And they've all led you down, especially if you're listening to this. You feel like you're at a point in your life where you've been listening to everyone, but there's these changes that you really want to choose for yourself, but you just don't know where to start. Well, you trusted all those people.

You've taken risks on them. You can do the same for yourself. If you're in that dark hallway, you could wait for somebody to come and turn the lights on for you. Or you could sit in that and say, maybe if I try to turn the light on before the time comes, as in if I try to force this new opportunity to come, maybe that's not what's meant for me. Maybe there's something better that if I wait a little bit more will come. And so there's that element of self-compassion that I'm talking about involves a lot of patience with yourself and soothing yourself when you feel like you're not getting anywhere and saying, maybe this part of my life isn't about getting somewhere. Maybe it's about staying still and seeing what comes next. And sometimes, like you said, it's after a door closes for a period of time that another one opens.

And sometimes when that door closes, we linger there in front of it for a really long time and say, I want you to open again. You know, and maybe there's another door opening, but we just see this one. So there's wisdom that will come to us during that period of time and in that darkness that's like in between. Yeah. And to continue the, I don't know if it's a metaphor or an analogy, you know, the other thing sometimes I know I've done is I run around banging on every door, like just something open for crying out loud, right? Without really thinking about what's best for me. You talk about self-trust a fair amount in the book. And I want to ask a couple of questions in regards to that, because I know that in my own life, there have been times that I wasn't particularly trustworthy.

And I don't mean to others. I mean, even to myself and the things that I did. And it was actually, there have been times in my life where following the right people actually turned out to be a really good thing for me. I'm primarily thinking about things like heroin addiction, for example. Like, you know, that was not a period in time where I was making good choices, right? I was making really bad choices. And when I found the right people, it kind of gave me a path out. But when you talk about self-trust, you also say something, a phrase that I really love, which is to be the leader of your own life. And as I was even just saying that part right there, I realized that even though I was asking others for help, I was still being the leader of

my life to lead me out of that place. So talk more about this idea of being the leader of our own life. When we think of self-leadership and self-trust, it's very important to look at the real elements of what leadership truly looks like. We never look at any leader around us and say, you have to be 100% perfect 100% of the time. We understand that leadership is a very difficult task because it requires taking quite a bit of risks. It requires going into the uncertain. That's why we're like, you do it. I don't want to do it. So when you think of yourself as the person who you're trusting to lead you, you have to imagine that there is someone outside of you, but also within you who you're saying, you are so brave and so courageous and you do all these amazing things and I trust you.

And that's really yourself. So when you speak to yourself in that way, you are motivating yourself through compassion and understanding for how difficult this task is. Whatever the change is, maybe you want to go into a different career. Maybe you want to write a book. Maybe you want to start a program from scratch that is completely unrelated to what you did in school, just like what I did writing. I didn't go to school for writing or literature. I went to school for science and I became a teacher. To speak to yourself in a compassionate way and say, I know how scary this is. I know how big of a risk this is. I know how much energy it's going to take out of you to keep moving in that direction when you don't really know what the end result is going to be.

I know that, but I'm not going to speak down to you in the same shaming voice I used to speak to myself in the past. Who do you think you are to be able to achieve something like that? You're always a failure. You always ruin things. You need people who've gone through things to explain to you how to do things. I am not going to motivate myself through shame because as I say in the only constant, what is fueled by shame is sustained by shame. So if you fuel your change with shaming yourself, you're going to need to continue shaming yourself to keep that change or to move forward to evolve that change and let it grow with you throughout your life. Who wants that? What's sustained through self-compassion, sorry, what's fueled by self-compassion is sustained by self-compassion.

And I think that's just so beautiful. So use the approach with yourself that you would use with somebody that you truly love and believe in. You would never tell your best friend, who the hell do you think you do you know about starting a program like that? What do you know about going into a program that you have absolutely no experience in? What do you know about that? You'd never say that to a friend of yours. So why would you say that to yourself? And the last thing I say with regards to this question is we always want to know the end result. this question is we always want to know the end result. And we think that maybe self-leadership means leading ourselves in a direction that we absolutely know is going to work, but that's not really what it is. Sometimes the safety net appears after you jump. Sometimes the answer

appears after you ask the question. And I know that sounds, you know, it's words, but sometimes you don't find out what you're supposed to be doing until you have the inner courage to say this question, this pursuit means that much to me. Therefore, I'm going to seek that answer. Instead of just letting it linger inside of me and I feel stuck every single day and I haven't done anything and I haven't moved anywhere. What if the answer appears after I ask the question, what if I get to the destination safely after I take the leap toward that destination? That's what self-trust and self-leadership are about. 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.

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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 iHe it on the I heart radio app on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Sometimes it's like we're standing at the edge of a forest and we're looking in and there's a path and about, you know, five feet down the path, you know, make sort of a hard turn to the right. And we really would like to know what's around that corner before we get too far down the path. But the problem is you'll never see it from where you're standing. You can sit there and stand and stare and think about it and wonder forever. You'll never see it. But if you take a couple steps, all of a sudden you start to be able to see a little bit further. It's kind of back to the

light through the fog, right? You just kind of have to be willing to go a little ways. And I know for me, trusting myself is often knowing that I don't know now, but I'll know more as I go. And I can always sort of course correct, I can always sort of change. And that if I embark on something as whole heart as I'm capable of, right, I don't want to say a whole heart, because it sounds like, you know, we don't always have that. But as much as I'm capable of, right? I don't want to say a whole heart because it sounds like we don't always have that, but as much as I'm capable of, I've also always found that those steps, even if it turns out to be not the right direction or not the right thing, are still valuable learnings that enhance me. Absolutely. I love everything that you just said, and it reminds me of The Alchemist. I actually talked about it in The Only Constant where the whole lesson is, it's not about the destination that you're headed to,

because the main character ended up exactly where he started. But doesn't mean that he was the exact same person. No, he was completely changed his perspective on life and what really matters. And it really changed on your journey toward whatever that change is. You will learn to see things differently. You will learn to see yourself differently. You will learn about capabilities that you never thought you had. And you will show yourself in action that everything that scared you, the fear of exposure, the fear of actually speaking up, the fear of contributing an idea, the fear of trying something new, those were all things that were just holding you back and you were more than capable of navigating through them. So the destination itself might not

change, but the journey that you went on to maybe come back to the exact same place that you were at to begin with, that journey makes you someone who sees that place that you were in, in a much different way. You gain a different appreciation for your life and for the people around you and for who you are, and you gain more perspective on what are the things that really do mean something to me. So you have to look at the growth as a measure of success more than you look at where you ended up as a measure of success. Absolutely. It makes me think of an old Zen phrase that says, in the beginning, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers. Later on, mountains are not

mountains and rivers are not rivers. And still later, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers. Meaning you go through this change and while you're in the change, it's all sort of strange, right? But then again, at the end of the day, the mountains are still mountains and rivers are rivers, but obviously your relationship to them is very, very different at that point. Absolutely. I love that so much, and the fact that there's mountains in there, because, as you know, one of my most well-known quotes is, these mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb.

And it's like the definition of a mountain changed for me based on whatever it was that I was going through. A mountain at a certain time would have been such a heavy weight to carry, like maybe the weight of all the past beliefs about myself. weight to carry, like maybe the weight of all the past beliefs about myself. And at different times, that mountain would be a beautiful goal that I had, like to write my first book or to get a publishing deal or to learn whatever there was to learn about getting a publishing deal to write my dissertation while I was in school, like My doctorate program, I was in that program for three full years. That was a mountain, but it was a beautiful one that I understood.

There was no jumping from the bottom of the mountain to the top. I absolutely had to climb it. I had to get through it. I had to be present through every moment of it. So that's life. It's all about perspective and it's all about how you look at things and how you label them. And I think that really impacts your ability to get through certain things. Yeah. I mean, our perspective is so hugely important. Let's talk about something related, which is the idea of resistance. And I don't want to talk about resisting changes that we don't want, right? The changes that come to us that we don't want, right? There's a natural amount of resistance and we may talk about that, but I'm really interested in the resistance that happens around changes that either we say that we want or that we think we

should want. You know, we know that lots and lots of people try and make changes in their life, whether those be big changes like you going back to school to get a doctorate, whether those be small changes like exercising more or meditating, and that there is a lot of people not being successful in making those changes. And, you know, some of it is sort of mundane things like time or, you know, kids or trying to do too much, right? But some of it is also some form of internal resistance. Share a little bit about what you've learned about that. So I've learned that most times when we decide to do something, when we decide to change something in our lives, if we don't take the step where we ask ourselves, do I genuinely want this? Or do I want it because I think that it's going to bring me happiness? Or do I want it because I think

that it would raise my status in the eyes of those around me? Maybe I want it because it promises a certain level of peace of mind. Do you want it because you actually want it? Now, when I say because you actually want it, I mean, because authentic you actually wants it, not the you that you've constructed over the years based on how the world around you wants you to be or how you think the world around you really want to make this change? Because once you can be clear on that, then resistance becomes something that you look at as this is such a natural part of any change. If my body's used to a certain kind of routine and a certain kind of comfort zone, when I try to push it out of it, of course, it's going to resist. And that's not an indication that something is wrong with this change that I'm making. It's just an indication that my body is actually going through a change. And resistance is extremely natural. So once you're able to look at that resistance as a natural human bodily and mental response,

you say to yourself, I feel a little bit of resistance coming up and I understand why it's there, but I can work through it. I could push through it. The resistance is actually, when you really think about it, it's a beautiful thing because it's an indication that you are changing, that you are doing something differently, that you are inviting something foreign into your life. And of course, that's something that we want when we're embarking on a life that we do want. The whole reason we want to make changes in our lives

is we are sick and tired of living in the exact same way. So when you feel this new unfamiliar, this new uncertain feeling, this new like, oh, I've never experienced this before. And it feels so scary. That's great, because that's so different from what you've experienced so far. And I've said this so many times, but we love things staying the same. The reason that resistance comes up is we know how to navigate things as they are. And as bad as they are, we know how to navigate them. We've adapted over the years. We know when we need to be quiet and not speak up for ourselves. We know when we need to disappear or hide parts of years. We know when we need to be quiet and not speak up for ourselves. We know when we need to disappear or hide parts of ourselves. We know how to navigate them. So better the devil

you know. And I say in response to that, why don't you say better the angel you don't know, better the peace you don't know, better the healthy, authentic love that you don't know, better the peace of mind that you don't know, better the job that you never thought that you could enjoy that you don't know yet. So there's always a way to speak to that resistance and tell it, I know that you are trying to protect me from the unknown and the uncertain. So thank you for that. But at the same time, look at everything that we've experienced so far, and we're not happy. So if we want to change something, we're going to have to move forward together. So then in a way you kind of befriend that resistance and it stops actually deterring you from moving forward. And it begins being a sign

that you're moving in the right direction for yourself. So listener, consider this your halfway through the episode integration reminder. Remember, knowledge is power, but only if combined with action and integration. It can be transformative to take a minute to synthesize information rather than just ingesting it in a detached way. So let's collectively take a moment to pause and reflect. What's your one big insight so far, and how can you put it into practice in your life? Seriously, just take a second, pause the audio, and reflect. It can be so powerful to have these reminders to stop and be present, can't it? If you want to keep this momentum going that you built with this little exercise, I'd encourage you to get on our Good Wolf Reminders SMS list. I'll shoot you two texts a week with insightful little

prompts and wisdom from podcast guests. They're a nice little nudge to stop and be present in your life. And they're a helpful way to not get lost in the busyness and forget what is important. You can join at OneYouFeed.net slash SMS. And if you don't like them, you can get off the list really easily. So far, there are over 1,172 others from the One You Feed community on the list, and we'd love to welcome you as well. So head on over to oneyoufeed.net slash SMS, and let's feed our good wolves together. I think that beginning piece of getting clear on what you want, why you want it, and then even I find, you know, there's a step beyond that, which is to

think through the parts of you that aren't sure, or, you know, in psychology, we would call them competing commitments. What are your competing commitments, right? Like, well, I want to eat better because I want to be healthier and have more energy. Well, you've got a competing commitment, which is I want to eat delicious food, right? Like that is going to be there. And so if we can think about those things and recognize them in the beginning and think about how to work with them, it does allow, like you said, and I think you said it really beautifully. Once I go through that, I can look at resistance as a natural part of change and not as a sign I'm doing the wrong thing. And that's often what happens is we second guess our changes again and again because these competing commitments come up.

We get sort of confused inside. We're not sure we want to do it. And then we start to doubt the whole enterprise. Absolutely. I think of this thought just came to me right now. When you're doing resistance training that resistance hurts you know the longer you are exercising the more difficult it becomes to like get through it but you know it means that it's working so it's the same thing when it comes to causing any kind

of change in our lives and And I think it also ties to resilience, which I also talk about in The Only Constant. And for me, a mind blowing way of thinking about resilience was maybe resilience isn't about being able to snap back into your normal or to snap back into your life the way that it was before. Maybe resilience is about snapping forward into the life that actually carries the change that you went through and everything that you learned from it. Because I always thought resilience means I'm able to go back to the person I was before the event that maybe happened in my life that I didn't want to happen. And I know now we're going back to talking about changes that we

don't want, but I think it ties in a way to resistance because we resist changes that we want to go for because of the fear of the identity that we're also leaving behind. So when I think about resilience, I'm like, we've mistaken resilience to mean going back to an identity that we held in the past, but it's moving forward into an identity that we grew into as a result of what we went through. There's no point in denying that you went through something or denying your experience by saying, I was able to get back to exactly the person I was before. You're not. You're just hiding it. You're tucking it in somewhere. You're pretending like it never happened or you're saying,

I'm too big to feel that. But that's still inside of you and it's still waiting to be resolved 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. Bryan Cranston is with us today. How are you

two? 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 may get this wrong, but I think it's right,

which is that there's a term called allostatic change, you know, or allostatic load, which means you don't go back to where you were. You actually, you know, move forward from that place. You end up in a better place. You used a word there called comfort zone. And I wanted to key in something that you talk about a number of different times in the book. And, you know, the first place I really noticed is in Chapter 1 where you're talking about why change is hard. And you say change is hard because we judge ourselves for the choices our bodies make.

And I think this relates to comfort zone. So say more about what you mean there. Yeah, that was a mind blowing change for me. Once I understood that it is not only my mind that makes choices, but my body can also make choices. So I was in a therapy session and I was talking to my therapist about how much at that time I had been judging myself for knowing how toxic certain relationships were in my life, but not ending them. And I was like, I know better. Why am I choosing to stay? And my therapist said, have you considered that maybe your body makes choices too? And I was like, I felt like I dissociated from myself so much because of how powerful that statement was. But at the same time, I came into full alignment.

All of a sudden, it made sense that it wasn't just the knowledge that I had in my mind, that I needed to fall back on, it was also the knowledge that my body accumulated over the years, since the moment I took my first breath, there are certain traumas that are stuck in my body that need to be tended to, and released, my body will act based on its survival mode. So maybe yes, in my mind, I knew that I needed to end certain things and certain relationships in my life, but my body was too terrified to change the environment, change that comfort zone, change that survival mode. It's like, these are the limits that we had. It's kind of like you're living in a cage. And yes, the door is open because the fear beyond your survival mode really is imaginary if you're going to look at it in a realistic kind of way.

But it's not imaginary to your body. Your body thinks, for example, if you were conditioned as a child to be quiet when any kind of turmoil or crisis arises, that if you were to speak up, you would be in trouble or're an adult, and you know, on a logical level that you need to speak up, but your body's still like, this is literally terrifying. And that's why and I'm sure so many people can relate to this feeling. You could say to yourself, that's it, I'm gonna say something. And then the moment you're about to do it, your knees lock and your throat goes like scratchy. You can't talk anymore and you just feel like you froze. Or you find yourself running away from the situation. You would rather fall into a way of dealing with the discomfort of what you were just attempting to do, than to actually do the thing because you're so terrified. Your body's like, if we do this,

it'll be the end of our life. As in, these people that we care about so much are going to abandon us or they are going to hurt us or they are going to say something in return that completely like upsets us. So we just go quiet. So change is hard because we judge our bodies for the choices that they make. Change is hard in other words because we are not in alignment and in attunement with the experiences that our bodies go through. So when you say, I really want to go through this change, and then you feel like you're so stuck and you can't do it, you start judging yourself for being someone who quote unquote is lazy or someone who doesn't want the change badly enough or someone who's not capable, but those aren't truths. What you need

from yourself is that attunement to go inwards and say, why is it that that change scares you so much? And just to give some examples, let's say you're making a career change. Let's say you're moving to a new country. Let's say you're ending a relationship that you've been in for so long and you know that your family's going to be hard on you and their family is going to be hard on you and the community might be hard on you. You know those things, but you really can't're still there for a day, for two days, for a whole year, for maybe five or 10 years after you know that you shouldn't be in it. And so you start saying, well, something's wrong with me. Clearly, I'm betraying myself.

I'm doing the wrong thing for myself. That's not what it is. So you need to imagine sitting down with yourself like you would sit with someone you love and say, what's really going on? Like what's actually scaring you? Why is it that your knees lock or buckle? Why is it that you feel like your heart is gonna be ripped out of your chest every time that you think of walking away? Why is it? And your body will tell you. It'll give you certain sensations that will help you understand and take you back to things that you went through that taught you those lessons about yourself. That's a really poignant one for

me. I was in a bad marriage for way longer than I should have been. And I think, you know, a huge part of me knew that getting out was the right thing. And yet, like you said, I was terrified. And what happened is, and we talked about this a little bit earlier, talking about like shame, right? What would happen is I wouldn't do it. And so then I would be ashamed of myself. And like you said, thinking I'm betraying myself. I'm a coward. I'm all that stuff. And that would just add even more pain on top of the whole situation. So the only thing I could then do was just avoid even thinking about ending and just pretend everything was fine because the load of the fear itself plus the feeling bad about

myself for not doing it stacked on top was just I couldn't face it. One of the things I had to learn to do was forgive myself. And this is while I was in it. Forgive myself for two things. One was not being able to figure it out because, you know, there were children involved. It was not an easy decision to make. There was this part of me that thought like a man with clear convictions and courage would just do this, right? But I couldn't seem to get clarity. And then I couldn't seem to do anything with it.

And I had to sort of forgive myself and go, you know what? Like, this is a really difficult situation to figure out. And if it were easy, you would have figured it out by now. Absolutely. The fact that you haven't speaks to how hard it is. And that allowed me to do more of what you're talking about, which was to actually talk about it with other people, to figure out what was so scary to me, to actually work on and process it. But it wasn't until I had

some compassion for myself in the midst of it that I was able to do any of that work. I love that you said all of that, because this is practically the whole principle in action that you can't shame yourself through a change. You absolutely have to self-compassion your way through a change. And I love that you said that. And I'm sorry that you went through that. And I can't imagine the kind of inner turmoil that you were going through, knowing that you were in such a bad place, but judging yourself for staying in that bad place. It's like a pain on top of a pain. Yeah, not the best years of my life. No. What was your snapping point? You know, actually, there wasn't what would happen is I would hit snapping points where I would get pushed to the edge

and then I would do something and then it wouldn't work. Actually, it ended up not being a snapping point. And the way the whole thing unfolded, I never would have believed was possible, which was that she and I finally were able to have conversations about how this wasn't working and how, though, we valued our children. We each had a child from a different marriage and the children's situations on the other side of the family had been a little bit chaotic and we were kind of the stability. And so, you know, we were able to talk about how we valued that for the kids. And we ended up saying, we're going to stay

together till the kids graduate from high school, meaning we're going to live together in this house, but our romantic relationship is done. And, you know, we can see other people if we want, but we're going to be co-parents. And we were able to talk to the kids about it. And the whole thing unfolded in some way that I never would have thought actually possible. Wow. So it didn't turn out to be a snapping point. It ended up just, I don't know how we did it, but we managed to find our way into that solution and it actually amazingly worked. So, you know, it turned out kind of best of both worlds, right? Because I got to preserve the stability that I wanted to for the kids and, you know, some of the things, and we got to be the family, which I'd always valued that. But she and I, once we were able to disengage from like we're romantic partners, as soon

as we put that to bed, it was like everything just got easier. It was really strange. So the safety net appeared after you jumped. Yes. Yep. That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that with me. You're welcome.

So reflecting back on that, I'm going to ask you a question. What did you do differently when you contemplated entering new relationships? Or maybe you are in one? Yeah. Oh, I am have been for quite some time. What did I do differently? I mean, I, I was able to overcome some patterns that I had dragged along, you know, with me that are a result of different, you know, childhood experiences, where as soon as the relationship would be generally good, I would get bored and start thinking I wanted to be somewhere else. I wouldn't actually do it, but I would be thinking about it and then I would disengage. And so, I mean, this time I was like, I think after being in a very contentious and conflict-ridden relationship, I was able to really appreciate like a good relationship in a way that I don't think the younger me could have.

And then just a commitment to be myself. Wow. As fully as possible all of the time. Because I found in that relationship it was difficult. But even in some of the earlier relationships that I would sort of decide I really wanted to be with this person. And often they were subtle ways, but they were real ways. I contorted myself into the person that would be attractive to that person. Of course, then when I wanted to uncontort, right, things didn't really match up.

So I was just a lot more focused on like, okay, I'm going to just, you know, to the best of my ability, be 100% who I am. So that if this person is indeed attracted to me, they're attracted to the real me, not some, you know, best version. So you weren't willing to trade your authenticity for connection? I was not. Gabor Mate has talked about, you know, trading authenticity for connection. And I think that's a dance we're all always sort of negotiating. But I realized where truly like there were parts of authenticity that I couldn't trade for connection because more than anything else, because it simply didn't work, meaning it didn't lead to long term connection.

It actually led to long term strife, you know, and so seeing that it wasn and for what a relationship adds to your life or what a partner would add to your life. And so, like you said, if it was younger, you wouldn't be seeing things the way that you're seeing them now. And you had to go through all of that. I mean, you didn't have to, but going through all of that led you to see yourself and relationships differently right now. Yeah, yeah. As you were asking that and I was replying to that, it just made me think of another line from your book. You know, kind of what you were just pointing to in that last bit there was about learning from the difficult things that happened to me or quote unquote learning from my mistakes. And you had a line in the book that really struck me and I just want to find it. Oh, here it is.

I used to believe that a smart person learns from other people's mistakes. Say more about that, because on first glance, that's a statement that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I was taught when I was younger that being smart meant that I looked at everybody around me and saw the things that they did that weren't good. And I automatically should know not to do the things that they did. And I think that was taught to me to protect me from harming myself maybe in certain ways. But it also deterred me from looking at myself as somebody who tries things that might be risky. Or somebody who tries new things. Or somebody who believes in my ability to do something that somebody else did but succeed at it.

So I was always deterred from doing things that I wanted to do out of fear of failing and being looked at as why would you even try to do something like that? You know that that's not the right thing to do. So I'll give you the example of the time when I started writing. I can't tell you the number of people who told me at the time, you're so stupid. Like, you just went to school to become a teacher. And you're writing like you'll never make a living off of writing. I even had my very first agent. So not the agents that I have right now. They're incredible. But she told me at one point, you know, most writers can't make a living off of writing, so make sure that you have a job that's stable and steady. it as a writer and be able to make a living. And so that all goes back to this whole idea that you're supposed to just be logical and not think outside the box. Most people who write can't make a living out of it. Therefore, you fall into that category. So you start thinking of the worst

possible scenario based on other people's experiences. Now I think that a smart person is somebody who tries things, is somebody who's willing to look at a hundred or maybe a thousand people who tried for something that really meant something to them and it didn't work and to say, you know what, I'm going to try it too. I would like to learn from my own mistakes. I would like to fall down a few times and develop that resilience and develop the ability to not judge myself based on how well I achieve a goal or not, how well a certain change goes on in my life or not. like having that mentality that if I make a mistake that means I'm stupid or I'm dumb or something's wrong with me for not knowing any better before I went for this thing that really cages you into an even smaller cage than the one that your the limits of your survival mode are it's like stay in your place don't try things. Just take a path that's been paved by somebody else. Well, the only way to have a different life than the one that you've lived

up to this point, than the one that those around you are living is to do something different. And you can't do something different without the possibility that it might not work out. But it doesn't mean that it won't work out. So listener, in thinking about all that and the other great wisdom from today's episode, if you were going to isolate just one top insight that you're taking away, what would it be? Not your top 10, not the top 5, just one. What is it? Think about it. Got it? Now I ask you, what's one tiny,

tiny, tiny, tiny little thing you can do today to put it in practice? Or maybe just take a baby step towards it. Remember, little by little, a little becomes a lot. Profound change happens as a result of aggregated tiny actions, not massive heroic effort. If you're not already on our Good Wolf Reminder SMS list, I'd highly recommend it as a tool you can leverage to remind you to take those vital baby steps forward. You can get on there at oneufeed.net slash SMS. It's totally free, and once you're on there, I'll send you a couple text messages a week with little reminders and nudges. Here's one I recently shared to give you an idea of the type of stuff I send. Keep practicing, even if it seems hopeless. Thank you. Totally free and easy to unsubscribe. If you want to get in, I'd love to have you there.

Just go to oneufeed.net slash SMS. All right, back to it. I think that is a great place for us to wrap up. I think that's a wonderful note to end things on. I'm not even going to attempt to resummarize because you said it so well. But, Nadja, thank you so much. I always love talking with you. I think change is the only constant, and figuring out how to do it well is such an important skill. And this book is a real help in that. And thank you so much for coming on again. Thank you so much for having me. And I

thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. And I hope that every person who listens to it walks away feeling like they can change their life in whatever way they want. That's a beautiful wish. 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. Go to reallyknowreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really Know Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.