The School of Greatness - 95 Simple Ways to Overcome Stress from Unmet Expectations in Life with Christine Hassler

Episode Date: September 28, 2014

"Whatever you're yearning for from out there, from someone else, is really something you're looking for inside yourself." - Christine Hassler To read all the show notes and connect with those mentioned in the show, head on over to www.LewisHowes.com/95

This is episode number 95 with Christine Hassler. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. What is up, Grace? Thanks so much for hanging out with me today. And I've got a question for you.

Have you ever set yourself an expectation so high to only come out the other end feeling extremely disappointed that the expectation was not met. I've done that thousands of times and it's getting a lot better as I get older, as I learn how to set expectations the right way and how to understand how to deal with the expectation hangover that I might have and how to go through it in a way that works for me, that way that's healthy. So we've got Christine Hassler on today who's the author of Expectation Hangover, Overcoming Disappointment in Work, Love, and Life.

And we're going to cover a lot of things to dive into this topic because I feel like so many people set these expectations specifically in relationships or on dates or in their business or whatever it may be with their family. They're setting these expectations, they're not being met, and then they don't know how to deal with the unmet expectation. They don't know how to deal with the feelings that they have, the resentment, the anger, the frustration, whatever it may be. So we're going to be diving into the role of expectations in searching for greatness, defining what an expectation hangover

actually is, what it is not, a system for being with the pain of a breakup, the differences between releasing and recycling emotions, and also coping strategies, what works and what does not work with an expectation hangover. So I'm very excited to dive into this topic with Christine Hassler. Now, before we jump in, I want to talk about a quick little fun fact about me today. And a lot of you guys are approaching me in person and saying that you like the facts. So I'm going to keep doing the facts for a while. Fun fact about me, it's my sister, Catherine. I've got two older sisters, but one of my sisters, Catherine, it was her birthday last week. And it reminded me, big shout out to the big sis, Catherine, I've got two older sisters, but one of my sisters, Catherine, it was her birthday last week. And it reminded me, big shout out to the big sis, Catherine, the one who let me sleep on our couch when I was down and out a number of years ago.

But it reminded me of my first kiss. You know, we're talking about relationships here, the expectation, hanging over. It reminded me of my first kiss. And I was in eighth grade. I actually had my first kiss. It was kind of like a peck in seventh grade. I was like terrified. I was so scared.

But my real first kiss was in eighth grade with a girl named Catherine Catron, a sweetheart of a girl. And I was living, I was at a boarding school in St. Louis, Missouri. And it was outside on a bench by the middle school girls dorm. So it was a co-ed school and there were dorms on both sides of the campuses. So it was like late at night, snuck out and like kiss tree. It was a lot of fun. Anyways, my question for you guys is, do you remember your first kiss and what it was like?

Go ahead and share with me on Twitter at Lewis Howes if you do and bring back that memory. I thought it was just fun. So big shout out to Catherine Catron for my first kiss. And let's go ahead and dive into this expectation hangover with Christine Hasler. What's up everyone? Thanks so much for coming back on the School of Greatness podcast. I'm your host, Lewis Howes, and I got Christine Hassler on. What's up, Christine? Hey, Lewis.

Good to see you. I'm so happy to be here. I am pumped because we've been friends for how long now? Like two, three years maybe? Yeah, something like that. And I think we met through AJ, right? AJ Yeager, yeah. Yeah. And also Alyssa Rankin and a few other people.

And we've had some interesting conversations, talked about a lot of fun things. We've been talking about relationships recently because I've dived into one. And so I'm asking everyone about it. But you got a new book out called Expectation Hangover, Overcoming Disappointment in Work, Love, and Life. And this is a very powerful book for everyone because a lot of us have expectations.

At least I know my entire life I've always set high expectations for myself and want to achieve certain things. And the interesting thing is I've had a hangover in the past when I didn't achieve it, but also when I did achieve the expectation. Yep. That's kind of crazy. Yep. So let's first talk about what can we expect from this book? Okay.

Okay. Yeah, there's actually a chapter what to expect. And I'll just back up and formally define an expectation hangover, which is when you don't achieve your expected result or you do achieve your expected result or outcome, but you don't have the feeling. But it wasn't what you thought it was. Yeah, it wasn't what you thought. It didn't turn out like you planned. Or life throws you an unexpected curveball.

And we're left with kind of hangover-like symptoms. You know, we have a sense of regret. Our head is aching. Maybe not a physical headache, but from all the thinking and rethinking. We're spinning in confusion. We lack motivation. And it's a real sense of disappointment. And it interrupts our productivity. We get disconnected. And it slows so much of us down. After the event happens, it slows us down from the next thing or? From everything. Because if you think about disappointment we personalize it okay right so anytime we're disappointed either we disappoint ourselves

because the person we're often hardest on is ourselves i know that's been true for me sure or we're disappointed by another we tend to make it personal we tend to think take it personally take it personally yeah totally defensive take it personally i did it personally. Yeah, totally. Defensive, take it personally. I did something wrong. Right. Right. So if my girlfriend hypothetically doesn't do something I want her to do or I'm expecting and I think that she should do or whatever, if I have that expectation, then I'm going to take it personally. Exactly. I'm going to get frustrated. Yes.

Angry. Yes. Defensive, guarded. Yes. If I have that expectation. Yeah. If you attach to it. Yes.

Attach to the result, yeah. The thing about expectations is that there's huge attachment. An expectation is much different than a goal. I'm all for goals and having intentions and all of that. But there's this sense of weighted obligation that comes with any expectation. And we hold out for this feeling

or a performance from someone else or something. And that's what sets us up for the disappointment. And disappointment is totally a normal part of life. I don't know any human being who's escaped the experience of disappointment. And I don't think it's so bad. And that's one of the things, coming back to your question about what we can expect from this book, I want to take the shame off of disappointment. Because it's been through my greatest disappointments that I've grown the most. I've had to have some major, major, major expectation hangovers to get me more on an aligned path, the path that's more created from my authentic self and not my ego.

Because we all are addicted to control and certainty. Yeah, of course. Being in control, being right. Yes. All those things. Yeah, I would definitely say that experiencing disappointment is a powerful feeling and we don't always have to be positive and have everything go our way. I think the joy of life is having some contrast to, you know, great things.

It's having things that aren't going so great so you can strive for greater things, right? Exactly. When I go to Bali, I go to Bali a lot. And it's hot. Super hot. I'm always sweating. And I notice the Balinese people, they don't really sweat that much. They're never complaining about the heat.

Hotter than LA? Palm Springs? It's hot. It's sticky. It's humid.'s sticky it's humid but the Balinese people have never left Bali they don't know

any other weather than hot I know it's hot and my body reacts to it because I know cold you know I know the contrast so the human experience

we learn through contrast you know we know hot because we know cold we know joy because we know sorrow and I think that one of the things like I've been in the personal growth industry for almost a decade.

And one of my pet peeves, I guess, is that everything's supposed to be happy-go-lucky, positive all the time. And that leads us to an expectation hangover. In the book, I talk about the coping skills that don't work. Often when you're in the midst of an expectation hangover, like let's say someone just broke up with you or your business just failed or something like that, affirmations in a pep talk aren't really gonna get you so far, you know? Yeah, you gotta have a time period where you can just be in your experience

of feeling however you wanna feel, right? Yep. If you feel shitty, then you can feel that way for a certain amount of time. Now, obviously, you don't wanna be doing that for a couple of years, probably. No. Do you recommend, like say someone broke up with you i have a friend of mine who

uh they just broke up uh two friends of mine actually and he's heartbroken and he's like i don't know what to do he's just kind of having this these feelings of disappointment of frustration of confusion of why and what would you recommend someone like that who's going through a breakup um how long to give yourself this time of experiencing your experience of whatever's coming up for you where you want to eat whatever you want to say whatever you want to be frustrated is there a system someone could follow is it 24 hours then you go back to being positive is it six months you know what is the system well i think the time is different for everybody, but the system is something I really break down in the book. And the first, you know, the book is broken down into, you know, what sets up expectations and the hangover,

then the treatment plan on the emotional, mental, behavioral, and spiritual level. So the first is the emotional, because that's the one everybody wants to avoid. Everybody wants to kind of, yeah, like really processing the emotions. Because, so Lewis, what I've learned in my own life and working with so many people at this point is the difference between releasing and recycling emotions. And most people recycle them, which means, let's say I have a cry or your friend who just broke up, you know, like, cause men cry too. Men have hearts and feelings. And I love that more men like you are making it okay for vulnerability and emotions. But most people, when they have a good cry or whatever, they process their emotions, they have an analyzer going. So there's one part of them that's feeling it. And then there's another part that's go, when is this going to be over? Why am I feeling this way?

What's wrong with me? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that just recycles it. So part of the analyzing, the judging, the wanting it to be different, the kind of going into victim mentality. Why, why, why? Like when people ask me, why did this happen? I'm like, wrong question. We'll get to that, I'm sure, later in our talk. But when you're releasing feelings, you're just letting yourself have the emotion. Okay, so here's why therapy and coaching and things work. You're with someone that's holding a place of compassion. So a good therapist or coach will hold a loving space of compassion, no judgment, no analyzing, no diagnosing, but we'll just hold

this place space of compassion so that the person can have their feelings and they can emote. So what we're doing in therapy or coaching or whatever is modeling for the person how to be with themselves. Because there's always a part of us that's going through the feeling. And then there's this other part of us that's so compassionate and so loving. And so when we're having the feeling, like going through a breakup or going through a group of any time, there's one part of us that's having the feeling. And then there's another part that's like, it's okay.

Just let it out. It's okay. So for anyone right now going through a breakup or a loss of any kind, give yourself that. Use the tools in the feeling. And then there's another part that's like, it's okay. Just let it out. It's okay. So for anyone right now going through a breakup or a loss of any kind, give yourself that use the tools in the book. I talk about release writing. There's another tool called the temper tantrum technique where I'm, um, cause that was my biggest roadblock. You know, I was on antidepressants for 20 years of my life. So learning how to process emotions has been a big part of it. Yeah. And whenever you try to, you know, the thing you're learning the most, you become a great teacher at because you've like researched everything, you've tried everything and you know it works. So that's why I know this

is going to be an awesome book for people to dive into. Did you talk about, I think you briefly mentioned this, but what are the three types of hangovers? Did you mention that already? Yeah. So it's when a desired result does not occur or the desired result does occur and you don't have the feeling that you want from it. It doesn't count like you planned or an unexpected curveball. Yeah, and there are situate. Yeah, those are the three. And then so there are situational expectation hangovers, interpersonal expectation hangovers, and then the ones we put on ourselves. Okay.

So it's like someone else lets us down, a situation in life lets us down, or we let ourselves down. And on page 17, you talk about be, do, have, the process of being, doing, and then having. I think a lot of people expect to have something first before they are being a certain way and then creating what they want to get the result. Right. Can you talk about that? Yes.

We live very outside in. We expect. We expect. Things that come to get the result. Right. Can you talk about that? Yes. We live very outside in. We expect. We expect. Things to come to us. Yes. And then it's going to feel that way. Like once I get this job, then I'll be happy. Once my business takes off, then I won't have anxiety.

Once I have a boyfriend, then I'll feel good about myself. I'll feel loved. Whatever. Yeah. Once then, if then, blah, blah, blah. And the thing with, let's take the law of attraction, for example. I also talk about in the book, the flaw with the law, then, if, then, blah, blah, blah. And the thing with, you know, let's take the law of attraction, for example. You know, I also talk about in the book the flaw with the law of attraction because you can long for things and want things

and have 40 million vision boards all over your home. But if inside you aren't being that and you have misunderstandings and limiting beliefs about worthiness or not enoughness, then it's not going to work. Sure. It's it's not going to work. It's not just going to show up. We have to create those internal experiences. And I talk about form versus essence. You know, we get so obsessed with the form, the package we want things to come in that we're like, wow, like I, why don't I just feel this way right now? You know, one of my biggest breakthroughs, so as the author of a book on expectation hangovers, I've become an expert on them,

which means I've had to have many, many, I'm like, I'm not writing another book about disappointment. But one thing that I have really, really truly learned is that within each of these, it's like milking them for all they're worth. And one of them was going through a divorce. And I remember just really suffering over- Which is a big expectation.

Which is a big, oh my gosh, on so many levels, right? But I remember one day when I was really suffering over being single. And I thought, wait a second. The only reason I'm suffering is because I think it would be better if I wasn't. How do I know? So for anyone listening right now, whatever you think you want, how do you unequivocally think it would be better if I wasn't. How do I know? So for anyone listening

right now, whatever you think you want, how do you unequivocally know it would be better if you had it? And whatever you think you're going to get from that experience, the feeling of connection or the feeling of prosperity or confidence or whatever it is, what can you do in your life right now to generate that feeling, feeling to be it and then that's when you attract what's truly for your highest good and that's the other thing about surrender surrender is one of those sexy spiritual words it's like oh i surrender it is hard it is hard to surrender because control freaks it's hard to like oh for control freaks for planners for high achievers it's like it's it's almost impossible um But it's only when we surrender to like what is truly for our highest good and moving into full acceptance.

Yeah. In chapter three, talk about what doesn't work. And I'm wondering what I'm thinking about here with these questions now. The coping strategies that don't work? Yes. Can you talk, can you share a few of these? Yeah. The coping strategies that don't work?

Yes. Can you talk, can you share a few of these? Yeah. So most commonly when people have an expectation hangover, they do things like drinking more, which is no bueno because alcohol is a depressant. So if you already are feeling crappy and then you pour alcohol into your system, it's like you're going on a hike with a 40 pound backpack, you know, unless you want the extra workout. Trying to replace it with something else like super quick. Okay. Like if I broke up with someone, let me just, you know unless you want the extra workout um trying to replace it with something else like super quick okay like like if i yeah if i broke up with someone let me just you know

what's that quote the best way to get over someone's under under someone else yeah no not so much it does not work especially for the ladies it does not work um and and then the spiritual bypass is a big one also like oh well this is all happening for a reason i'll just look to the blessings right away and like meditate my way out of it but if you haven't processed your feelings and start to being positive right positive or just think that they can meditate or chant or say you know do whatever or do yoga every day and i love all those things i meditate i chant i do yoga but i also process my feelings change my mental patterns you know shift my behavior those

kinds of things yeah so it's like we aren't taught these things in school i mean i i mean i none of this none of this i aced calculus it did me no good right i wish somebody would have told me how to deal with my emotions my brain we've got to get into some type of emotional intelligence training for in education yes something one class like so people understand the basics of this yes that's part of my long-term vision that's good yeah absolutely so those are some of the kobe strategies that don't work um the spiritual bypass one is pretty interesting what does work then well the last section of the book i talk about you know more the transformational tools and some

of the quick fixes that work but first you got to go through the whole treatment plan. So the treatment plan in this book, like I mentioned before- Treatment plan, the four areas you addressed in the treatment plan. Yeah, the emotional, mental, behavioral, spiritual, in that order. Emotional, mental, behavioral, spiritual. Why in that order? Because we want to avoid emotion. That's the thing that we want to avoid the most, and that's the most unaccepted thing in our society and the most misunderstood. We either identify with our emotions and drown in them or suppress them. And oh my gosh, suppressing emotion is so toxic. It's so hazardous to our health. I think it's why so many people end up angry or irritable or sick

or whatever. Because if you think about it, anger- You can't express. Yeah. It's all bottled up and then it comes out. Bottles up or it comes out some way or it just ends up toxic. Emotion's energy. And if you don't express that in a healthy way, then it's going to manifest in some other direction.

So many people that come to me with migraines or depression, for example, depression is suppression. I mean, that example, depression is suppression. I mean, that's what it is. Now, granted, there are some people that chemically are diagnosed and need medication and things like that. You know, I'm not saying that that depression is a made up thing, but I think so many people that report being depressed are really just suppressing their emotions. Not expressing their emotions. Exactly. Exactly. So that's why so much of the book is dedicated to tools to teach people how to do that. And then on the mental level, it really is, I mean, you and I were talking about this before we started recording, it's rewiring our brain. Only three to 5% of our behavior is

actually conscious, motivated by conscious thought. So, so much of our thoughts and behavior is automatic. And our ways of thinking have literally shaped our brain. And, you know, I'm kind of a nerd. I won the science fair when I was 15. No way. I did. I did. What was it? It was the cycle. A volcano? No, it wasn't a volcano. That's lame. Come on. I'm more creative than that. It was the psychology of color in relation to personality types. Oh, interesting. Yeah. And I did all the statistical testing. I, it was, I graphed. It was really funny. It reminds me of What the Bleep or something. Was that the movie What the Bleep? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Where it was like the words on the water or something like that? Oh, with the, yeah. Is that what it was? I think so. They put words on like frozen water or something and then it like turned into like cool crystals. It was love. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Ugly.

With the different energies. It was anger, yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. So it's kind of like that with colors. With colors and yeah. Wow.

But like how different colors create With colors and yeah. Wow. But like how different colors create different behavior and things like that. So I've always loved science. And so I talked to a lot of neuroscientists and neurologists about, you know, brains. And one of the things I learned is that repetitive thoughts create these grooves in our brain. And so if we have the repetitive thought, like a repetitive negative thought that life is hard or something like that, no matter what happens, our brain is going to default to that wiring. And so we have to take our brain to the gym just like we take our bodies to the gym. Right.

So the analogy that I use is that, and I never know if this is an analogy or metaphor, so if you know, correct me, please. so if you know, correct me please. Imagine that you have a house in a field and you want to drive a truck to that house, but the field is covered with rocks and bushes and trees and it's like super bumpy. So the first time you drive the truck to that house, it's going to be pretty bumpy and you have to concentrate and hang on. But if you drove the same truck down the same path day after day, what would happen? It would get smoother. It would smooth out. Yeah, naturally. And if you wanted to go a different route, you'd have to really concentrate and steer off of that. And that's what we have to do with our thoughts,

especially during our expectation hangover. So on each of these levels- So we fall back into automatic usually is what you're saying. We fall back into the automatic groups. The truck just wants to go down that lane. And if we want to go, if we want to really experience it to move past it in a healthy healthy way we've got to go through the bumps is what you're saying we got to go through the bumps so we got to get off the beaten path and rewire our brain yeah metaphor analogy yeah well i love those things the um other one that i use on each of these

levels is something called role playing rx because i've learned as a coach. Yeah, I was going to ask you that next. Yeah. So what is role-playing Rx? Role-playing Rx is, so my creativity expresses through my writing. Like I can't draw, I can't sing, like any of those things. So I get kind of creative in my tools and techniques that I teach and that I use on myself. I'm my best client for sure. But role-playing Rx, I found that when I use particular roles to put people in that they're familiar with, they can transform and use the tools more easily. So on the emotional level, you become the surfer, you know, and you learn to ride the waves of your emotion, you know, and you'd learn to use your surfboard, which is your compassion. And you learn to not fight the waves that are coming and

really ride an emotion all the way to the beach. So, and I talk a lot about that on the mental level, you're the horseback rider, because from my perspective, our mind is like this galloping, crazy stallion, right? It's just going off, but we are the horseback rider, especially with women. Yeah. Well, maybe you're mine. So we're the horseback rider, though. You know, we have the reins. We can direct the galloping horse. And one thing I just want to say to people, you know, there's a lot of misunderstanding about meditation and about working on the mental level. That if your mind isn't quiet, you're not meditating.

And people say, oh, I can't meditate because my mind isn't quiet. meditating and people say oh i can't meditate because my mind isn't quiet the process of meditation is really being that horseback rider really reigning the mind back using you know going whoa and reframing and it's not about totally being absent of thought so don't put that expectation on yourself sure interesting okay so we got this role playing uh how how would i do it myself then if we're gonna role play well you Well, you take it on. Like you're the horseback rider. So I go through each section of the hangover or the mental, the behavioral, each part of it first. So what happens is, so in the book, like on the emotional level,

I teach kind of the role plan arcs, which is like you're a surfer. So as you're using these tools. So I take it on myself. I don't do it with someone else. No, no, no. No, no, no. It's just an analogy so that you can use the tools better. Okay.

So that like when you're learning to, you know, use the temper tantrum technique, which is taking an emotion all the way through, you're sort of thinking about being a surfer and riding the waves of that emotion. And not fighting it. Gotcha. Really surrendering. Makes sense. Because so much about surfing is surrendering, right? Yeah. You know, having some direction, but really surrendering to whatever wave comes in.

Yeah, you're not in control of the waves. You're not in control, right? And we want to control our emotions. So we don't want to, you know, we want to let those go. Interesting. Okay. So in the emotional, let me go over the emotional section really quickly. Okay.

You have an acronym for FINE. What's FINE stand for? Feelings Inside Not Expressed. I'm fine. I'm fine. Feelings Inside Not Exp inside not expressed. I'm fine. I'm fine. Feelings inside not expressed. Yeah. I'm fine.

Yeah, I'm fine. When somebody, when I'm like, how are you? People are like, I'm fine. I'm like, hmm. Feelings inside not expressed. Yeah. But how do we, you know, with society, how do we really share our feelings when we're just saying hi to someone really quickly or for a few moments or we're about to get into

something? Should we really go into our feelings? Well, I think that doesn't have to be like our deepest, darkest feelings, but I think we can share about joy and excitement too. Like I'm doing great. I'm really excited about blah, blah, blah. Or I'm really grateful.

Gratitude is another feeling. It's not that we have to be emotionally vulnerable all the time. I think we have to pick and choose who we're that way with. But I think most of us, Lewis, we're just disconnected half the time. Like, how are you is a programmed thing. So what's another way we can connect with someone without saying, how are you? Eye contact.

Just looking at someone in the eye and checking in. One of the things when I really want to connect with someone i'll just look and i'll just say hi it's good to see you what's going on with you what are you excited about or what what's the latest thing that you've learned or something like that you know um but not feel like we we have to do that hey how are you just like yeah but it's amazing just and you're really good at this just what eye contact does. Just seeing someone. We all just want to be seen. I don't care how successful you are.

We're all little kids inside. Of course. And we just want to be seen. And play. And play. Yeah, that's a big part too. And have fun. Yeah.

That's one of the things that work in terms of expectation. Right. Play, creativity. Exactly. Because if you think about it, think about the songs and the movies and the art that we love. A lot of it's come from people's heartbreak and people's greatest disappointment.

So that's another thing you can do with your expectation hangover. Create. Channel it into something. Create something. So how do you truly experience your emotions? Well, a lot of what i've kind of said before not recycle them not recycle them give yourself full permission so what the temper tantrum

technique is as i basically teach adults how to have exactly what it is yes so let's just let's just picture this so all of us probably have seen a little kid or maybe some of you listening have a child you've seen them have a temper tantrum and if you don't a couple weeks ago did you really was that too bad we didn't have to be a kid we didn't have to get it on you could be any age well that's that's what i'm saying you know yeah we were we even though we grow up we still have these emotions like i don't age doesn't opt us out of having feelings right but if you watch a little kid and you don't interrupt them and they have a temper tantrum you know they get upset they scream they yell then they yell, then they sob. And then they kind of go to light sob that, you know, and then they call themselves, they rock themselves. They self

soothe, which is another thing we've forgotten how to do. And then they want ice cream and they're fine. And they're fine. Yep. And they can let it go. They can let it go they can let it go not bottle it up and then explode into something crazy later exactly yeah yeah and i think in a lot a lot of times in men it comes more explosive and in women it comes out and forms like irritability bitchiness those kinds of things yeah so now i used to cry a lot as a kid like probably every day until I was like eight or nine probably for whatever reason not feeling seen not feeling appreciated

getting hurt like all sorts of different stuff right I was always I remember screaming in the middle of the night couple nights a week like screaming for my mom

right so this is I don't think I've ever told anyone this but I used to cry a lot my mom I could not go to sleep until my mom was in bed with me

and I had my arm around her and I could fall asleep. And I don't really feel like I need to cry anymore. Like over the last year, I've gone through like a journey of opening up about a lot of stuff in my past and I've cried a lot. Yeah. But I don't feel, in general, I feel like I don't need to have a temper tantrum or not need to cry. Right.

I allow myself to cry when I'm watching a movie that really inspires me or moves me or when I'm feeling like someone's going through something that really touches me, I definitely will go there. But I don't feel like on a daily basis, like when I was a child, like I need to cry and scream like I did so much when I was a kid. Yeah. Well, and not everybody does. I mean, this is a lot of these techniques are, you know, there's another tool on the

emotional level called release writing, which is more of a journaling process. These are, you know, processing that heavy emotion is like when we're in the midst of an expectation hangover. A big expectation hangover in general. But if you don't set expectations, then you may not have to do well and that's kind of impossible the thing is though life's gonna throw us unexpected curveballs so even if we have no expectations like we're gonna come up we're gonna feel like oh this sucks and like I think as little kids we are more open and we are more sensitive I mean from a spiritual perspective we're really just wide open psychically

until about seven um that's kind of when the veil drops, they say. So, you know, darted. Yeah. And you're analyzing. Totally. And we become kind of less empathic. You know, we're also empathic as kids and we move out of love to more fear. And why?

Well, because of conditioning, because of beliefs, because and this is what's so exciting about our generation is we're starting to shift the consciousness. You know, it's so exciting to be alive at this time. I love being alive at this time because, you know, we're having conversations like this, where in the past it was more based on survival and we're evolving out of just surviving right now. You know, for so long we had to be afraid because we might've been attacked. And it's taken the human civilization a long time to evolve out of survival. And I think this is one of the, to get philosophical here, I help a lot of people. A lot of people that come to me are women. And women who go through breakups, oh my gosh, they really struggle. And so as I've been reflecting on my own and they analyze and,

but here's what it triggers. It triggers survival because if you think about it back in the day, women needed a man to survive. So even though we don't anymore, like again, only three to 5% of our thinking is conscious. We still have that kind of unconscious programming. Yeah. Yeah. And so as we're evolving out of that, we're going to need less and less fear yet. That's still been our conditioning. So, so much of what kind of the Dory of transformation expectation hangover opens is to move out of fear and move back into love. Interesting. Okay. Uh, can you explain the beach ball analogy? We're talking a lot about emotions. So the beach ball is, you know, me too. Um, the beach ball analogy. We're talking a lot about emotions. So the beach ball is-

I like emotions. I know, me too. The beach ball is like, okay, so you've been in a swimming pool, right? Of course. Okay, have you ever tried to hold- I used to swim. Okay, there you go. Have you ever tried to hold an inflated beach ball underwater?

It's impossible. It's impossible. Well, it's hard. It's very hard. You can sit and kind of bounce for a minute, but then it's like going to fly up somewhere. And splash you in the face and, you know. And that's what we try to do with our emotions. We try to hold them under the water.

Yep. And it takes a lot of energy. It takes a lot of energy. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. So don't try to hold your emotions under the surface.

No. And you mentioned release writing with journaling. Yes. So if I am having these feelings and maybe i don't feel like expressing them verbally another way that i can release these emotions is through writing it all down right yes but this is a specific technique that's a little different than journaling because journaling is more reflective and oftentimes you keep it and you want to look back release writing is a way to purge it's like fuck you write as fast as yeah yeah you just exactly you screwed me worst thing. Exactly. You screwed me over, this is blah.

Yeah, it's all the blah. It's all the blah. And it's really good for stress. This is something that a lot of my entrepreneur clients use a lot when they're feeling like really stressed or whatever, they'll just get a pen and start writing really, really, really, really fast and just get it all out, all their fears,

all their limiting beliefs, everything, and then burn it. Oh my gosh. I have a vivid memory of going through a really hard breakup, getting back together, breaking up from a previous relationship of mine where I remember typing an email probably a few times. I was just like beating on the keyboard. I remember typing so fast and like so angry. Yeah.

And then I would be like, I was like typing whatever like nasty stuff. And then I would just start like going like this. And that would be in the email. Oh, like typing everywhere. Perfect. Not making any sense. And then I'd go back into typing a few words like I hate you. You're so mean to me.

And I can't remember if I sent those or not. I hope not. I probably did some because i didn't have any control then yeah that's the thing we don't want to get our anger out at other people it's so much better don't send it to anyone yeah don't do it and then look at it rip it up yeah yeah delete it or remove or yeah burn it and it's actually really good to do by hand too because handwriting triggers your right brain which is you break pencils you also talk about this bringing up a lot from here you also talk about the ac on you

you talk about uh making a date with your feeling exercises yeah yeah what does that mean so a lot of times people are like if they get triggered or really upset, you know, like all of a sudden I'm in Whole Foods and my memory of my breakup comes up or something like that. You can't just break down in Whole Foods, right? Screaming, wailing, crying. I mean, you could, but you'd probably get like,

you'd probably get carried away. I start screaming in no place when I'm mad. I'm like, ah, just scare people. What happens? People just look like a big, weird white dude. Yeah. It's like, what? It's LA. So what it's la so maybe

it's more they're like i mean he must be either crazy or an actor um now i totally lost the question what was it oh making a date with your feelings so if you have like a feeling coming up what you can say to it is like okay anger okay sadness like i feel you i can't deal with you right now so i'm gonna make a date with you and at nine o'clock tonight i'm gonna journal about this or something like that. Because we have to break the habit of suppression. Just like we have to break our habits mentally. We've got to break our habits of how we suppress emotions.

So let's say I go through one of these exercises or all of them and a temper tantrum, writing in the journal, role playing with myself, all these different things. And I still have these emotions come up. Like, when is it over? Well, okay, so the other part, because we haven't gotten to mental or behavioral or spiritual yet, right? Wait for that thing. Yeah, so, but part of this,

and this is the thing, if they keep coming and keep coming, that means you're recycling. That means some part of you is judging. Oh. You know? And when we talk about the spiritual, we'll talk about things like forgiveness and things.

Okay, cool. I'll ask that question at the end. So the mental side of things, you mentioned this with the horseback rider. What's the woeing technique? Okay, so again, our mind really responds well to our own pattern interrupts. And when I've tested this,

everybody knows what the sound whoa means. It's a whoa, slow down. So with a pattern interrupt, a lot of times like we can start going down a train of thought and we don't even realize we're going down the self-sabotage train till it's like way left the station. But eventually we realize we're on a bad train. And so in that moment, if we go, whoa whoa this is not the direction i want to go then we can start to shift the thought and redirect it so actually saying that internally in your mind helps break that pattern okay so you say whoa to yourself when you start or even a lot if you're alone you know that help yeah like what kind of a relax moment yeah exactly just like you would

another person if they were coming at you you know you'd be like whoa whoa wait wait a second you know it's that interrupt okay and what is pendulum thinking can you explain oh so this is kind of another thing like the the pattern interrupt something i see people do is they go from thinking you know i i'm a loser like i just got rejected or i'm gonna lose my business field or whatever and then someone's like oh just think positive and positive. And they're like, well, I'm awesome. And I'm sorry, your brain doesn't go from I'm a loser to I'm awesome. And believe you're like broke and jobless and have no girl or boyfriend or whatever.

Exactly. So I'm not awesome. You're not, you're not awesome. You're like the evidence supports that I'm not so awesome right now. Based on results, I suck as a human. Exactly.

But you, you can go a little more neutral. Like I'm doing the best I can. Just that simple thing. I'm doing the best I can. Yeah, and I'll do a little bit better tomorrow. Exactly. Exactly.

That often works way better than I'm awesome. Yeah, because you're not going to become a multimillionaire with the woman of your dreams overnight. Yeah. And even if you had that, you still might have an expectation hangover. Or you may lose it. Exactly. You may go bankrupt, you may lose the girl, whatever. Exactly, the outside things cannot be our sources

of safety and security or worthiness. So there's a couple of things on the mental side of things. So the behavioral, I've got a lot of points here. What's the iceberg example? You know, this is something I've heard before, but for people that don't know the iceberg example. So that's the iceberg example? You know, this is something I've heard before, but for people that don't know the iceberg example. So that, that's the visual example of what we've been talking about in terms of what's

conscious and not conscious. So there's only that three to 5% of our behavior that's above the surface that you can see, but we can shift it. We can, I think, you know, like for people like you and I,

and a lot of people listening to who've done work, a lot more does become conscious because you're willing to go look at what's been unconscious. Yeah, you're willing to go below the surface. Okay. And what's a great self-care plan? Well, a self-care plan that we do on the behavioral level is, you know, one of the things that happens in an expectation hangover is we start to lose trust and faith, right?

And the person we often... In what? Everything. Ourselves, the universe, other people, society, whatever. Human beings in general. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Don't trust or believe in anyone. Yeah. We become hopeless, helpless and cynical. That's another thing. Cynical. And when we have a self-care prescription, we start taking care of ourselves. We start to establish self-trust again. So in the book, I keep it really simple because I've learned that sometimes we need complex things and sometimes we need simple

things. And so the self-care plan is to take an inventory of everything you're doing or not doing in your life in terms of behavior. Think of one thing to add, one thing to take off, and one thing to modify. In terms of behavior. In terms of behavior in terms of behavior diet exercise social activity any kind of like behavior patterns that you're in one thing to add and one thing to take off one thing to add one thing to take off and one thing to modify you know so for example like get a manicure once a week yeah it'll be something to add yeah take off drinking for 30 days modify tv watching from six hours a week too because you know tv alcohol drugs any of those things they're just numbing devices they're they're band-aid

they're not gonna they're not gonna work in the long term and you're just gonna have repeat expectation hangovers that's what's gonna happen it's gonna be a different cast of characters different scenery yeah but you're gonna be back restarted interesting you know it's amazing I used to watch a lot of TV yeah me too tons of it specifically you know in high school and college

actually not that much in high school in college watched it all the time and when I'd be injured all I'd do is watch TV like stupid shows like Road Rules

and Real World and just drama shows that's quality television right that's quality yeah just all the Bravo shows like I just become addicted to drama.

Because it was interesting. It was like something unique, right? And when I moved out of my sister's couch for a year and a half, I was watching a lot of TV there. But when I moved out of there, I moved to my brother's place for a little bit and started watching less TV. Then when I got my first place, I didn't have a TV. Yeah. And for about four years, I didn started watching less TV. Then when I got my own, my first place,

I didn't have a TV. Yeah. And for about four years, I didn't have a TV. There might have been one in one of the places, but I didn't ever turn it on. It would be just to watch like SportsCenter at like 11 o'clock at night to watch highlights. Yeah. And I realized I was so focused

and was able to feel and experience things on a different level when I just completely got rid of TV. Now I'll go back and watch shows from time to time. I love House of Cards. Oh my gosh. Orange is the New Black. So I watch shows on demand.

Yeah, me too. But it's more of like downtime for me. It's like watching a movie, which I really enjoy. It's relax time rather than numb out time. Yes. Where I used to watch TV every night. Like after practice, it'd be like TV from six till midnight. And I would never create anything or do anything.

It was just like whatever I was loathing about. Yeah. I just watched TV and feel better. Yeah. Well, it's totally, it's like when we don't have other tools, we go to what we have. The default, right? TV was mine too. I mean, you and I have talked about like I was teased a lot growing up.

I was bullied and was really lonely for most of my, you know, young life. And TV was it for me, you know, and I would just zone out into TV. And I know that I'm headed down, like, a bad behavioral path if I'm watching more TV, because to me, that's feedback for I'm trying to avoid something. I'm trying to suppress something. I'm not looking at something. You're trying to avoid connection. You're trying to avoid relationship. Yeah, trying to suppress something. I'm not looking at something. You're trying to avoid connection. You're trying to avoid relationship. Yeah, I have an expectation hangover that I need to treat a little bit or I'm not, you know, I'm just,

that's my feedback for when I'm numbing out from, you know, really being on purpose. I'm almost on the opposite spectrum now where I'm like, I don't take enough downtime. So I'm like, when I am not watching TV ever, it's like, okay, let me just take tonight. Let me take the night and just kind of like watch a couple episodes and catch up on Glee.

You know, it's like. And exactly. I love it. I love that you watch Glee and like Road Rules. I don't watch Road Rules anymore. But now I watch Glee and I love Nashville. Any singing shows. I'm like a singing show freak.

I love Nashville. I wish I could be on Broadway. Well, you know, I wouldn't put it past you. We may see you on Broadway. I mean, everything else you've done. If I want to do it, I'm sure I'll do it. I'm sure we'll see you on Broadway. But I love those shows.

I don't know what it is about them. Well, it's just so much joy and creativity. I think that that's part of it. And that's the thing. It's fun, too. It's so fun. And that's our natural essence, right? Is to be that.

But we have to go through some of these disappointments and learnings and everything to get to the other side of it. Exactly. Yeah. Okay, cool. So that's a good self-care plan. Make sure you're modifying, adding, and taking off something. Simple.

We already talked about the compensatory strategies. Oh, compensatory strategies. We haven't yet. Okay. So what is... I don't even know what compensatory... Well, I made it up. Compens compensatory strategy what is that yeah so this is another thing that again just we talked about this in the beginning i don't think we did we

talked about before the episode yeah before the episode we did off the high achievers things like that right yeah yeah so all of us all right so let me just kind of like open it up for you no sure you can open it up um so all of us when we're, so let me just kind of like. I'm going to open it up for you. No, no, sure, you can open it up. So all of us, when we're born, start off knowing we're whole, complete, perfect, right? We talked about how we start off in love. And then things happen, and we start to move out of love and into fear. We start, we get hurt. We see something that happens.

We figure out that there's some way we need to be in order to get love. We give trust to someone and then we lose the trust. Exactly. Basically, life happens to all of us. We all have our stories. we figure out that there's some way we need to be in order to get love yeah exactly basically life happens to all of us we all have our stories you know i talk a lot about our stories right so as humans because we have an ego right we all have egos whenever we feel lack we have to find a way to compensate so wherever we feel less than we strive to find a way to compensate. So wherever we feel less than, we strive to find a way to compensate for that. So that's where these compensatory strategies came in. So the best way to explain it is just to tell you mine. So from being teased and being bullied in the I Hate Christine Club, when that happened, I formed the belief system that there's something wrong

with me. I'm unlikable. I'm going to be alone. I'm not going to have friends. So I had to figure out some way to make up for that. My way was to be an overachiever. So I couldn't just get a 95. I had to get 100. If there was extra credit, I had to get 104. I was so driven. People were like, whoa, look at her.

Exactly. She's awesome. That's how I got my worth, right? I'm like, if no one's going to like me, I'm at least going to be super uber duper successful. So the sneaky thing and the dangerous thing about these compensatory strategies is they are effective on what I call the goal line, right? They can make things happen. Like I was able to go to a great college,

move out to LA and be the youngest ever female agent, make things, make a lot of money in my life. But I was driven by this. It was, it was driven from a place It was a fear or a lack. It was a fear-based drive. Yeah, I had the same thing, yeah. Was yours overachiever? Is that yours? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I was picked last on teams all the time, made fun of because I was tall and goofy and ugly.

And I was just like, screw everyone. I'm going to become the best. They're all going to be laughing. And look at it. I bet they're laughing now. Yeah, yeah. You're laughing. You're laughing.

I'm laughing at all you screw you all i was like and that's what drove me you know i was really ignorant in school i couldn't focus or get a seat to save my life but i knew my talent was sports and i became really good at that so i was like i'm gonna be the best at every sport and beat everyone and everyone's gonna lose and i'm gonna win i'm gonna show all. And that ended up working for me in terms of being a great athlete and winning, but it left me feeling very empty, very lonely, very emotionally challenged and frustrated and angry and have a huge expectation of hangover.

Yeah, and that's what these compensatory strategies do. They get us somewhere on the outside, yeah, but the inside that we're looking for doesn't happen. So we mentioned ours, high achiever. Some other ones are being a people pleaser, like thinking that you get love and acceptance from people pleasing or kind of being a chameleon. This is really common among women too, like doing what people want you to do. That's how you get your worth. Being a control freak, like I'm not going to be let down because I'm just going to be total type A and put everything in my control

an approval seeker like always doing things for validation always needing kind of that like outside approval recognition the performance or comedian

you know I see a lot of people that as soon as things get intimate or vulnerable all of a sudden they throw in a joke you know and they don't want to go there

or people that make fun of themselves yes self-deprecation oh my gosh yeah comedians I mean there you go look at someone like Robin Williams you know we don't know go there. Or the people that make fun of themselves. Yes, self-deprecation. To make other people laugh. Oh my gosh, yeah. Comedians. There you go. Look at someone like Robin

Williams. We don't know what's going on on the inside with a lot of those things. The rescuer or caretaker. I'm not going to look at me. I'm just going to take care of everyone else. Perfectionist. There's a lot of them. They're all in the book and you can figure out which one yours is. And we can be combinations of them too. Yeah.

Because I see myself in a lot of them. okay cool so we talked about those and what do we do when we realize which one we are like once we see okay we we've been some of these before or we are some of these then what do we do with that okay so then so then, see our compensatory strategies, right, just are because we think we lack something. And really my whole, one of my main messages that if I could have everybody know one thing, it's that there's nothing wrong with you. There's just nothing wrong with you at all. At all, even if you think there are,

there's just nothing wrong with you. Yeah, just like the circle on the cover of the book. The whole and complete. And we're all so hard on ourselves and we think that that's an effective form of motivation and it's not it's not being hard on ourselves does not lead to inspiration it can lead to getting things done but we're always gonna it's like a bucket with holes we just feel empty and so we get out of our compensatory strategies and we start to see what our superpowers are and all of us have superpowers. What's yours? Our unique ones.

Well, my main one, there's many but one that I use a lot is intuition. It's been one for- What's your birthday? A long time, nine, nine, some Virgo. Oh, that's an intuitive birthday? Well, I don't know, maybe. With the signs?

Virgos are kind of intuitive yeah yeah i think so i think so um astrologists can correct me on that one sure um but but that's your that's just your power intuition yeah intuition and and within that are things like love and compassion and all of those things and so support and understanding and those things that come naturally to you because here's the thing with most people. Most people don't even realize what their gifts are because they come so naturally. And we think that what makes us unique or what makes us great has to be this thing, this skill that we've struggled to adapt, that we've had to become masterful at.

Sure. But really, it's just those things that come naturally. And that's why you've become a coach because you're intuitive. Most coaches are great at intuition. Yeah, exactly. And it's also, you know, the empathy, the sensitivity, all of that. And we all are intuitive.

We all have a lot of superpowers. And when we start to come from that place of what makes us unique and what our gifts are, then we move from a place of inspiration rather than motivation. And everybody has them and i think the key is we we can't look at someone else and compare we get into these comparison comas i call so many people do this i mean i do this everyone does that it's human yeah it's human

and so when so how do we not compare ourselves well i'll tell you what to do when we do because it's kind of like how do we not have expectations right yeah that's always gonna it's how do we work with these things that are just naturally human like hello we're human let's be let's let like let's normalize normal yeah so when i find myself comparing there's two things that can happen one is all right what do i see in that person that i can learn from that I really want to model? Right. And then this is the good news about comparison. I can't see in you, Lewis, anything that is not in me.

Of course. I wouldn't be able to recognize it. If you spot it, you got it. Good and bad. And there's a lot of talk about negative projection, but there's positive projection too. So if I'm jealous of your, let's say say success or something like that, or if I'm comparing myself to you, that means I'm not fully owning my gifts and my success. So when you find yourself comparing yourself to someone, I tell people to write, like when I look at you, I see, I feel you are like, like really get a snapshot of what you're seeing when you're comparing or what you're jealous of.

And look at how you need to own that about yourself instead of beating yourself up and thinking you're less than, which isn't true. And there's, and PS, there's enough abundance to go around. A lot. There's so much. It's infinite. It's infinite. Just because somebody else has it

doesn't mean you don't have your form of it. Exactly. Now you talk about replacing expectations with values. Why do you suggest that? And how do we go about that? Well, because expectations are elusive, right? They're not even real. And they're external. They're wanting something outside of there.

But our values are things that are more, again, essence-driven and less form-driven. And when we're moving toward our values, then we're not so attached to the form. Right. So for example, I'll use the example because so I'm a woman and most women feel a desire to have a baby. Okay. And they put that expectation on it. Right. Yeah. Certain time or like whatever. But if you look at kind of most women also value love, they value connection, they value creativity. I would say most people, especially women, those will be on their list somewhere. Having a child isn't the only way to do that. You know, I get fulfilled that way by working with people, nurturing people, writing books,

creating all those types of things. And so if I keep my eye on my values rather than expectation, then I'm going to have less expectation hangovers because if I'm value driven, then I'm creating those intrinsic experiences that live into those values. And then we live more mission driven lives than we do like external stuff driven lives, which, you know, isn't't the conditioning but i think we're moving more and more towards that yeah yeah you talk about the important why it's important to have three core values why is it significant to have three core values well three is one of those special numbers in terms of numerology if you think of like three points that's the first time like a shape is formed.

When you have like three things, you can put a form on it. So it's just a powerful number. Even though it's a three and it's an odd number, not an even, it's a very whole number. And when we do things and think in terms of three, that's just something that our unconscious mind can wrap around. But you can have, I mean, it's not a rule. It's just, I like to tell people, look, what I say is a buffet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Take what resonates and leave the rest behind. Yeah, I've had a lot of, I've got five core values that kind of live on now principles.

But I've had 10. I've had, you know, when I was a kid, it was like, whatever, 20, who knows. But you want to do it. You want to do the exercise. And I take you in the book how to do that and and really really get clear and and and make every choice either internally or externally is this moving me towards my values yeah and if it's not it's a no yes yes i agree and always come from that place that foundation you have a commitment contract you talk about what is that well back to self-trust and how important self-trust is the person we break our agreements That foundation. Mm-hmm. You have a commitment contract you talk about. What is that?

Well, back to self-trust and how important self-trust is. The person we break our agreements with most is ourselves. And when we don't trust ourselves, it's setting ourselves up for another expectation hangover. You know, one of our journeys here as these humans is to reparent ourselves. Some of us really hit the jackpot when it comes to parents. Some of us didn't. And we just kind of, we can be angry about that and use our childhood issues as a reason why we don't have what we want, or we can accept it. That doesn't mean we have to like it, but we can accept it, stop being a victim of it and start to parent ourselves in the way that we wanted to be parented.

And one of the ways we do that is to keep our commitments with ourselves. So a commitment contract is actually writing out agreements that you're going to keep with yourself and signing it and putting them up. And being your word. Yeah, just like you are being your word. Just like I showed up here at 1 o'clock today because we had a commitment, do I show up for myself in the things that i'm doing just for me or do i break those agreements so like if you're listening right

now really think about that like are you better at showing up for other people than you are keeping your agreements to yourself interesting interesting okay i like that uh so that's the third part and the fourth part is the spiritual yeah oh can i say one more thing about the fourth part is the spiritual. Yeah. Oh, can I say one more thing about the behavioral part? And on this level, we play the scientist. So we're becoming more observers of ourselves. This is key for people. We are excellent at judging ourselves. The more you judge yourself, the more you're just going to be on the hamster wheel. You change your behavior when you start observing yourselves like a scientist does a gorilla in a zoo and and seeing what you're doing and what what the results are and tracking your behavior

and modifying it and things like that without the judgment we've got to stop judging ourselves how do we let go of judgment well when we catch ourselves in the act we forgive ourselves for judging ourselves right and and rather than make ourselves wrong, it's like, what do I want to add, modify, or change? What can I do in this situation? It's sort of like the serenity prayer, accept, how does it go? Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the wisdom to know the things I can and the courage to know the difference or something like that, but really becoming discerning. That's the word, discernment over judgment. Judgment has an opinion.

Judgment has a charge. It gets us nowhere, but we're like judging machines. It's another hard habit to break, but if we can move into observing. The difference between judging and discerning, discerning meaning- Discerning means-

Having the judgment to understand what's the difference between what and discerning discerning meaning discerning means being having the judgment to understand what's the difference between what's going to serve you and what's not going to serve you judgment has an opinion or a charge discernment is just like yes or no like like chicken or fish okay yes or no yeah you know um looking at other people's behavior and going nope that's not someone i want to engage with. Instead of, they're such a jerk. That's judgment. Or seeing yourself do something and go, wow, I didn't really like the way I behaved in that.

I'm going to behave differently. Rather than, why did I do this? Oh my gosh. Because another thing I talk about in the book a lot is regret, which people get trapped in. And it's completely pointless. It's like using the information you have now to go back in time and beat yourself up for what you didn't know then.

It's a complete waste of energy. Right, right. I agree with that. That's why I like to do everything so that I won't regret it. I'll take on something because I don't want to regret it later. If I think I might regret it, I'm like, let's do it. Let's go after it and try it. At least I know I went for it. At least you know you went for it. Exactly. But a big part of that is because you're clear on your values. Yes, exactly. So you always knew what you, you know what you're moving towards. I don't want to go after it. I don't like to think about it. I'm just like, let's go. I love it. So in the spiritual section. Yes. Is the spiritual section about a religion? No. And what is spirituality? You know, everybody can have their own definition

of spirituality. To me, it's being connected to something greater than yourself, some higher power. It can be nature, call it God, divine spirit, Allah, you know, to me, it's not a organized religion, although if that's what works for you, great. But I think we all, we all have this human need to feel connected to something bigger than ourselves. And I think when we don't have some kind of spiritual connection, our expectations of others are way out of control. So having a connection to a higher power, whatever that is for you, knowing that you're not alone, knowing that you're not separate, knowing that everything really is happening for a reason if you don't know what the reason is, and actually making

that more of a relationship. I think that people either have negative experiences with religion or feel completely kind of disconnected from spirituality in general and don't know where to begin. But all of us have that connection. So a lot of times people say, well, we need to learn to love ourselves. We need to learn how to feel connected to God or spirit again. And I say we need to remember because we came in connected. We came in knowing all of those things.

We already have it. We already have it. And so really it's just a process. You don't have to find it. It's already there. It's already there. It's a process of remembering. And some people,

it's their expectation hangovers that put them on a spiritual path. I mean, I know it was for me. I had a suicidal moment on my bathroom floor and it turned into a spiritual awakening where I, for the first time in my life, felt this unbelievable love and compassion and it just

overtook me and it only lasted for a moment because my mind came in pretty quick and was like what's going on uh started analyzing started analyzing and judging and trying to make sense of it um but we can't put those experiences into form or to words and a lot of people you know get or have those brought to their knees moment i was just reading um again like i'm a nerd so i like research part You've probably heard of post-traumatic stress, right? So there's also, have you heard of post-traumatic growth? No. So there's all this research right now that, um, is documenting how from a traumatic incident, people have their biggest growth periods.

I believe it. Yeah. I mean, I live that for sure. And that's why I'm so excited when someone has an expectation hangover because I'm like, if you leverage this, if you melt this, it's a huge doorway. Huge.

Right. Interesting. I never thought about it that way but all my biggest hangovers or breakdowns have turned into big breakthroughs for me. Yep.

Yep. So if we can embrace them and go, what am I learning? Now, here's the thing. In between, and this is another reason I wrote this book, because I hear so many inspirational stories of people who had the breakdown and now they're at the breakthrough, but like, what's the middle? Like, what do you do in the middle, right? Like, so if I have,

if I'm holding a bottle of water and I want to put it down and pick up like a bottle of juice, I have to put down the bottle of water. and then as I'm reaching for the juice, there's that in-between period, right? The chaos period. And in between the breakdown and the breakthrough, there's all the disassembly that happens when things feel like kind of a mess and kind of scary. And you have to know that that's part of it

and learn how to leverage that and not try to avoid it or try to get to feeling better right away because all the kind of good juicy part is in the chaos. Sure, sure. What is living in out, not out in? Well, kind of what we talked about before about like wanting that external thing to bring me to happiness rather than creating it intrinsically

and then seeing the opportunities that come in. Okay, okay, cool. Can you explain the soul line and goal line? Yeah. So I studied at the University of Santa Monica, which is the only place that offers master's degrees in spiritual psychology, which is an awesome program.

What is it, spiritual psychology? Spiritual psychology. Oh, interesting. And we talk about how there's two lines in life. The goal line, which is all the physical stuff, money, relationships, jobs, like just physical world reality stuff that everybody's obsessed with.

And that's more of a goal line. That's a horizontal line, yeah. And really all that happens on that line is you just get more. You just get more of whatever. Right. The soul line is a vertical line. And at the top of that, you can imagine love, connection, all those things. Kind of like your purpose line, right? Yeah, your purpose line. And these are top of that, you can imagine love, connection, all those things. Kind of like your purpose line, right?

Purpose line. And these are all your life lessons. And to me, we're spiritual beings having a human experience and everybody's searching for their life purpose. It's not in some job. It's not, or a relationship. It's really in our life lessons, what we're here to learn. We just kind of come back as how we started. And the soul line are those life lessons, what we're here to learn. We just kind of come back as how we started, you know? And the soul line are those life lessons that we learn. And that's where expectation hangovers happen. It's like, what am I learning from this rather than why is this happening? And as we resolve things on the soul line,

you know, that kind of personal growth line, that, like I said, life lesson line, things on the goal line start to match up and start to emerge and move in a way that's more aligned with who we truly are. that's cool rather than our conditioning because we create a lot from our ego and we're matching both those up it's probably seems like people when you see individuals who have those two matched up it probably seems like everything they do works and it's effective and they're just killing on every level and they're happy. Yes. Life gets a lot easier.

Yeah. And I, you know, I look at my life now and there's not too much upset. There's bumps because I'm human. And again, that's how I grow. Life's pretty good. Life's pretty good, you know? And that's what you'll notice as you do this work is that the time between expectation hangovers gets longer and the time you spend in kind of the suffering

of them and the learning part gets shorter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you understand you've been there before, so you understand how to go through it. Right, and you have the tools and you trust yourself. And there's no there. Yeah. I don't, there's no there. Anyone who's enlightened is probably not on this planet.

Yeah, and you've got some, for those that get the book, I highly recommend it. There's some really cool prayers that you can use on page 177 of the book I have, and maybe a different page, but in the spiritual section. So make sure to go through those prayers. There's guided visualizations too. Yes. And meditations that you can download for free of me reading them to you. Those are, that's at expectationhangover.com slash bonus, I believe. What's the secret sauce for pursuing your goals? Oh, the secret sauce. Okay. So there's all kinds,

there's different ways to perceive our goals. Most people do it with a lot of attachment. That sets you up for expectation hangover. They're attached to the results. They're attached to it, which means that my worthiness, my happiness, my sense of self depends on,

they have so much riding on the outcome, so much riding on the outcome, right? So the secret sauce is pursuing our goals with high intention and involvement, meaning I'm giving it everything I got, I'm giving it my focus, I'm giving it my commitment, I'm not breaking my word with myself, but low attachment,

meaning my worthiness doesn't depend on it. My self-care isn't suffering in pursuit of it. I'm not making the outcome mean anything about me. And that's the thing. And that's what I'm practicing with this book right now and releasing it, is doing everything I can, high involvement, without sacrificing my values. I like that.

Without sacrificing my self-care, and without its success meaning anything about me as a person. What if people are like, well, I need to sacrifice because I don't have the time right now. I've got kids. That's a story. And what does sacrifice mean? Do you look at- I can't take care of myself because I've got no time in the day.

I've got all these other people to take care of and there's three jobs and- Story. Taking care of yourself a day could be five minutes of meditation in the morning, five minutes at night. Sure. It doesn't take that much longer to eat a little cleaner. You can cut out caffeine and sugar drinks. There's always things to do.

So I just lovingly challenge people to look at the excuse you, because we're meaning making machines and we're really good reason makers. We're really good at making excuses. And there's this, another unconscious belief, Lewis, that I think a lot of us carry around

is that in order to like achieve something great, we have to sacrifice. It's like this old penance thing that I think we're carrying around. And you don't. And this is where having a spiritual connection also comes in handy. The way I do my to-do list every day, I write the date. Why are you laughing already? I haven't even told you. I'm like, so, because I love this. So I write the date, and I write me on one side,

divide a line, and then write God on the other, or universe, spirit, whatever word you want to use. And so I write down the things that I need to take care of, and then I'd write down the things that I'd like the universe's help with. Everything from no traffic to an appointment

to if I need to have a conversation with someone that I'm a little nervous about, I'll ask for help with that. And what's interesting is the longer I've been doing this, the shorter my list gets and the longer kind of the universe's list gets.

So also realizing- Surrendering. Surrendering and asking for help. I think that's another thing that people that say they don't have time aren't good at. Asking for help

from both a higher power and from other people in your life. Sure. A lot of people struggle with that. Yeah, there's no badge of honor for doing everything on your own. Yeah. There's more questions I want to ask,

but I want to let people the opportunity to get the book. I highly recommend it. Expectation Hangover, Overcoming Disappointment in Work, Love, and Life. And I've got two final questions for you. Where can we get the book first?

Just expectationhangover.com? Well, actually, Amazon, bookstores, Barnes & Noble, it's out there, I have two final questions for you. Where can we get the book first? Just expectationhangover.com? Well, actually, Amazon, bookstores, Barnes & Noble, it's out there or expectationhangover.com. And then your main website? ChristineHassler.com. Okay, cool. Yeah, or you can go to expectationhangover.com.

All of it works. Whatever you do, this is one of my coping strategies that is one of my favorites in terms of avoiding expectation hangovers is I tell people, don't go to a Chinese restaurant and expect to get nachos. So that comes to people in your life. I think that's one of the things that we do a lot. We expect people to be what we want them to be instead of accepting them for who they are.

So I don't go to a Chinese restaurant. Even if I bring nacho ingredients, they're not going to know how to make them. So be conscious of what you're expecting of people in terms of being realistic and not setting yourself up for an expectation hangover. And remember, whatever you're yearning for from out there for someone else is really something that you're looking for inside yourself. That's good. Okay. Two final questions. First one is, what are you most grateful for recently?

Oh, most grateful for recently. Every, honestly, now that I'm doing more interviews for the book and talking about it more, every expectation hangover I've ever had and every one that I've been able to witness that other people have had, it's shown me so much just about the human spirit and about what we all go through and about how within each

of us, we have this tremendous capacity and capability to thrive no matter what our circumstances are. And it's often in those moments that we find our greatest power and potential. Okay. And the last one is, what's your definition of greatness? Oh, yeah, that question. It's like, I knew you were going to ask it, but I didn't think about it. You know, Lewis, it's who we are. It's not anything we have to become. So it's our essence.

It's all of us. We are all greatness. That's it. And it's just remembering that and removing any story or any belief that tells us we are all greatness that's just that's it and it's just remembering that and removing any story or any belief that tells us we aren't i like it it's not finding it it's remembering it's remembering it and and being it and accepting your version of it it's good i like that it's a good one well christine i appreciate you i acknowledge you for this incredible work you're doing obviously Obviously, I know you had to go

through a lot of pain and a lot of suffering to experience what you've experienced, to have the journey and the quest of writing about this and practicing it over and over and supporting other people in this work. So I really acknowledge everything you've been up to, how much emotions you've been through, good and stressful. And it's truly a blessing that you're doing this work and you're supporting so many people. So thank you. And I'm extremely grateful for you. I'm extremely grateful for you too. Thank you so much, Lewis, for the work that you're doing. And I just, yeah, I love it all. Just love being in this conversation. Yeah. Awesome. Thanks so much.

There you have it, guys. Thanks so much for hanging out with me today on the School of Greatness podcast. Make sure to go back to the show notes over at lewishouse.com slash nine five to get all the information, the links to Christine's book and her website over there. Again, lewishouse.com slash 95. Also, big shout out to all the Dave Asprey fans who I met at the biohacking conference in Pasadena recently. I was on Dave's Bulletproof Executive podcast recently and saw a bunch of people that said hi to me. And I appreciate you guys so much for saying hi and sharing your stories and letting me know what you're up to. So big shout out to Dave. And again, if you guys see me anywhere at conferences or out or at a

speech, just come up and say hi. I'm pretty friendly. Give me a hug. And I would love to hear what you're up to, what your favorite episode is, and what your definition of greatness is. So again, thank you guys so much. Please share this over on Twitter and Facebook, lewishouse.com slash 95. You guys know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Hey