(Breather) In this breather show, I focus on the advice from experts that truly have changed my life, as well as my relationships. All of the advice is centered around what is most important to all of us: love and relationships, and living a happy, peaceful life aligned with our values.

Highlighting the most integral messages and beliefs from visionaries like Dr. Wendy Walsh, Deepak Chopra, Dave Rossi, Dr. Robert Lustig, and more, this episode will show what you should be doing more of, as well as what you should be doing less of, to be truly happy in your life and relationships.

I always come back to Deepak Chopra’s 4 Daily Intentions. These four intentions are simple but powerful. Every morning in meditation, he reminds himself that this is how he wants to live his life:

1. Joyful Energetic Body: No toxic people, job, substances. He’s also become a plant-based and has little or no meat.
2. Loving Compassionate Heart: People want Attention and Acceptance as they are. (Even Trump! See how he was able to speak to people’s hearts (crazy thought, right?) in his specific way, making them feel seen, sparking and emphasizing the collective insanity among his followers – how else would he have gotten elected? By giving a huge amount of people attention and acceptance as they were).
3. Reflective Quiet, Alert Mind: This is how you access Intuition, Creativity, Vision, and Imagination, and are able to live life in a state of flow and have peak experiences.
4. Lightness of Being: No resistance, no anticipation, and no regrets. Operate by the standing conclusion that there is no explanation for anything.

And a little note about #3: Do not force positive thoughts. Dr. Chopra says that being exasperatingly positive is another form of stress. and can actually cause a turbulent mind. This was a big revelation for me — you can lose touch with your emotions, and fail to examine your present situation, weaknesses, and best possible future direction, all because you’re trying too hard to stay positive in a situation that is clearly causing some negative feelings or reactions in you. Instead, learn to listen to your intuition in those moments, because there is value in negative emotion, which is that it allows you to make adjustments based on what and how you are feeling. Without this contrast, how would you ever be able to consciously direct your life to go where you want to go?

Two time Get Over Yourself guest Dave Rossi says that when you experience stress, fear, or pressure, redirect your thoughts to your values and your vision. Fake it till you make it, if necessary. Just do something about it! Since the subconscious mind is trained through repetition, winning behaviors no longer require a ton of discipline or commitment.

And how about this great quote from Get Over Yourself guest, Seth Godin, who said, “The decline of our personal momentum might be the great untold story of our time. That electronic media, incoming, ‘breaking’, please reply, didn’t you see that, react right now, click here… this has a cost. And the cost is our internal drive to initiate, instead of to just react.”

Let’s talk about the great work of writer Kris Gage, who writes for Medium.com, and wrote Good Love Is Boring, in which she argues that “boring is beautiful” and that good love is, “like honoring one another as our own people. Like a relaxed connection. Like respect, and lightheartedness, and calmness. Like eye to eye, and shared rapport. Like going on loving even when we’re at our most hurt, or most angry, or most anything. Like never playing the victim  —  or thinking in terms of how we hurt or what we don’t get. Good love is like mutual self esteem, and self-love, and self-care; like taking responsibility for own emotional wellbeing, owning what’s ours, and coming to each other with fairness. Good love is like abundance mentality, and good love is like unconditional warmth.”

Speaking of a healthy mentality, I talked about Dr. Robert Lustig’s mind-blowing book, The Hacking Of The American Mind, on a previous show, because it will make you completely rethink the way you think about your mind and how you operate on a basic, instinctual and biological level. When pursuing instant gratification, dopamine hits, and you flood the brain’s dopamine receptors. This suppresses serotonin pathways where you achieve happiness and contentment, and you are left with a high possibility of spiraling into addiction. Once you start to trigger dopamine pathways, you’ll find yourself needing more and more of the same in order to get that pleasurable hit. Powerful corporate interests are highly incentivized to hack our dopamine pathways, and do this through a variety of ways, although the following are the most popular:

1. Sugar
2. Digital technology/hyper-connectivity – especially social media
3. Caffeine
4. Marijuana and street drugs
5. Antidepressant and painkiller Rx drugs
6. Chronic/extreme exercise high
7. Video games
8. Porn addiction

Another great person to consult on these matters is our past guest, Dr. Wendy Walsh, who has outlined the top three attributes males and females look for in a mate:

For Males

1. Youth and Beauty
2. Loyalty
3. Kindness

For Females

1. Resources
2. Intelligence
3. Kindness

If you’re thinking now, hmm, I don’t know about some things on this list, well just remember that, as Dr. Wendy has emphasized, these are subconscious hard-wired genetic drives. Sure, you can put “sense of humor” on your dating profile as the #1 thing you’re looking for, but really, sense of humor is just proxy for #2 on the list, which is intelligence, right? If you’re funny, you’ve got to be smart, so those two things are really just two different ways of expressing the same desire. Dr. Wendy also points out how strong these hard-wired genetic drives are, because even a female with ample resources of her own cannot escape her genetic drive to seek out resources and security.

Next up is advice from Mark Manson, and I focus on his thoughts on the concept of ‘changing’ and how it’s an arbitrary definition. Here’s an excerpt from a recent email he sent titled, Stop Trying To Change Yourself: 

“Here’s the problem with using the word ‘change:’ it gets your identity involved. And when you get your identity involved, you become really emotionally attached to imaginary things. You throw fits and beat yourself up and blame others and decide that you are, in fact, a worthless piece of shit who has no hope in this world.

It’s one thing to say, ‘I want to start going to the gym every week.’ It’s another to say, ‘It’s time I finally change and become the type of person who goes to the gym each week.’

The first statement is simple. You want to go to the gym. So, you go (or not).

The second statement implies that to go to the gym, you must completely reinvent yourself. And that raises the emotional stakes massively. If you succeed (spoiler: you won’t), you’ll gain this blissful feeling of being a ‘new person,’ which will last until the next time you feel crappy and want to ‘change’ again. If you fail, you’ll chastise yourself for your irredeemable sloth.”

This falls in line perfectly with the title of this show – just get over yourself!

We wrap up this show with a focus on mindfulness, citing writer Whitney Stewart’s article, 10 Steps to Mindful Conflict Resolution:

“We appear to be devolving into our reactive emotions a lot these days: venting on social media, choosing to pay attention to media outlets that regurgitate our positions back to us, all of which further attaches us to our own views in a dangerous configuration that can fuel the flames of outrage, violence, and hate.

Mindfulness, which has been shown to help mental, behavioral, and physical outcomes in both youth and adults, is a powerful tool that can help us respond to conflict in a non-reactive way.

According to Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), “Mindfulness is awareness that arises from paying attention, on purpose, to the present moment, non-judgmentally. With present-moment awareness, we learn to identify our thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations without defining ourselves by them. When we can patiently witness our own fears and hurts, we give ourselves the chance to release them, which in turn helps us develop understanding and compassion for others.”

TIMESTAMPS:

Tips from Dr. Deepak Chopra are these insights: Joyful energetic body; Loving compassionate heart; Reflective quiet alert mind; Lightness of being. [02:26]

Dave Rossi says whenever you experience stress, fear, and pressure, redirect your thoughts back to your values and vision.  [04:49]

Godin quote: the decline of our personal momentum might be the great untold story of our time.  [07:07]

Take responsibility for your own emotional wellbeing. [08:30]

When you eat sugar or use digital technology, the dopamine hits you and floods the brain’s receptors, spiraling into addiction. [09:29]

What males look for in a partner and what females look for in a partner are mentioned by Dr. Wendy Walsh. [12:20]

Stop trying to change yourself. If you fail the change, you’ll chastise yourself. [15:37]

Praise the effort, not the outcome. [17:56]

Mindfulness is awareness that arises from paying attention on purpose to the present moment non-judgmentally. [18:52]

LINKS:

• Dr. Deepak Chopra
• Dave Rossi
• Seth Godin
• Dr. Robert Lustig
• Dr. John Gray
• Dr. Wendy Walsh
• Ashley Merryman
• Whitney Stewart.
• Mark Manson

LISTEN:

Get Over Yourself Podcast

Brad (00:08):
Welcome to the get over yourself podcast. This is author, an athlete, Brad Kearns, discovering ways to be healthy, fit, and happy in hectic, high-stress, modern life. So let’s slow down and take a deep breath. Take a cold plunge and expertly balance that competitive intensity with an appreciation of the journey. That’s the theme of the show.

Brad (02:26):
Okay, here’s a very fun breather. We’re going to try a collection of totally disparate, interesting life tips, tricks and insights from a variety of experts and little things that I write down and figure, Oh, you would like to hear about and reflect upon. So here we go. Let’s start with something you’ve probably heard about before. If you listen to the show, dr Deepak Chopra’s four daily intentions, he reminds himself every morning in meditation that this is how he wants to live his life. I love these insights so much. It’s such a wonderful starting point. You can put them up every day. Maybe memorize them someday, right? I even threw these into the mofo mission at mofo landing page. You can check them out there, but here’s dr Deepak’s.

Brad (03:14):
Four daily intentions. Number one is joyful, energetic body. Yeah, got to start with the body people. Otherwise the other stuff’s not going to work out too well, right? So that means no toxic substances allowed in nor toxic people, toxic jobs or situations. Get that body vibrating Haya next loving, compassionate heart. Making the realization that people want attention and acceptance just as they are. So give it to them. Loving, compassionate heart. Come from your heart. Next, reflective, quiet, alert mind. This is how you access intuition, creativity, vision, and imagination are able to live a life in a state of flow and have those peak experiences. And finally, lightness of being. This means no resistance, no anticipation, no regrets operate by the standing conclusion that there’s no explanation for anything and a little add on for that third one, the reflective quiet alert mind dr Chopra urges you to not force positive thoughts. He says, being exasperatingly positive is another form of stress and can actually cause a turbulent mind. For me personally, this was a huge revelation that you can lose touch with your emotions and fail to examine your present situation, your weaknesses, and your best possible future direction if you’re just eternally peppy and positive all the time.

Brad (04:49):
All right, now we move on to Dave Rossi, author of the wonderful book, The Imperative Habit, twice guest on the podcast. This guy rolls hard, man, you wind him up and he goes off. We had a great skiing weekend together and he literally hit it hard nonstop for about eight hours with incredible life programming and kind of changing, escaping some of these flawed patterns that he’s lived through himself and written about so passionately. He has a great, great message. And the thing that really stuck out with me when I did his first seminar was this concept of values and vision.

Brad (05:27):
And he says, whenever you experience stress, fear and pressure, redirect your thoughts back toward your values and your vision, right? So you’re having a tough day at work and you ask yourself, what am I doing here? What am I doing this for? Oh yes, I’m pursuing the highest expression of my talents as an attorney that I studied so hard for and worked so hard to get to this point. And today I’m having a tough day. But get away from that pressure and that negative thinking and go back to values and vision as your starting point. Same with being a parent or having a tough day as a parent. What about at mile 23 of the marathon? Wondering what you’re doing out there? Oh yes. I’m challenging my body with, uh, esteemed fitness goals and making these accomplishments a part of living the best life I can.

Brad (06:16):
Okay. Carry on for three more miles then and shut up brain. Okay. That’s what he’s talking about. Guess what he says, permission to fake it till you make it if necessary. The subconscious mind is trained through repetition so that winning behaviors no longer take a ton of discipline or commitment. Okay? So catch yourself when you’re feeling fearful and you’re feeling that pressure, redirect your thoughts toward values and vision. Do it over and over again. If you’re feeling stressed about your finances for five times in a single day, keep redirecting values and vision, values, and vision. I’m having a tough time, but I’m committed to the longterm game. Whatever you want to say to yourself. Keep doing that. Repetition, winning behaviors, and then you reprogram the subconscious mind one day down the road,

Brad (07:07):
ah, about Seth Goden, author of numerous bestselling books. We did a great show together. We can go back and reference that, or you can literally go to Google and type in Seth and you will find his super popular blog. He writes these daily emails that are very short and pithy. You’ll love it. So subscribe to his email newsletter list. Here’s a quote from him relating to crazy high tech modern life. Some of the downsides of hyper-connectivity quote, the decline of our personal momentum might be the great untold story of our time that electronic media, incoming breaking. Please reply. Didn’t you see that react right now? Click here has an extreme cost and the cost is our internal drive to initiate instead of to just react and quote, Oh man, I’m going to try to remember that one, people. Especially in my shoes where I’m trying to create as my main ambition, main objective and succumbing to the pole of hyper-connectivity and distractability. It’s a huge battle. I hate it. Uh, I acknowledged that I am fighting the battle. I haven’t overcome it yet. So keep it in our awareness please.

Brad (08:30):
And we jump quickly to Chris Gage, the great relationship writer who publishes on medium.com,. uh, love her articles. Here’s a nice passage, good love. I think the title of the article was good. Love is like honoring one another as our own people. Like a relaxed connection like respect and lightheartedness and calmness like eye to eye and shared rapport. Like going on loving even when we’re at our most hurt or most angry or most anything like never playing the victim or thinking in terms of how we are hurt and what we don’t get. Good love, like mutual self esteem and self love and self care. Like taking responsibility for our own emotional wellbeing, owning what’s ours and coming to each other with fairness. Good love is like abundance mentality and good love is like unconditional warmth.

Brad (09:29):
Okay. Remember my show covering the great book, the hacking of the American mind by Dr Robert Lustig. Here’s a little tidbit pursuing instant gratification. Dopamine hits and you flood the brain’s dopamine receptors. This suppresses the serotonin pathways where you achieve happiness and contentment and instead you have a high probability of spiraling into addiction. Once you start triggering these dopamine pathways, the way it works is you need more and more of the same to get that pleasurable hit. We have powerful corporate interests that are highly incentivized to hack our dopamine pathways via a variety of methods. Number one on his list is sugar because that’s, uh, his, uh, body of work. The anti sugar crusader with, uh, great books, uh, in his past. And then he opened up the conversation to the various other ways we flood the dopamine pathways. Uh, one of them is the digital technology, the hyper-connectivity, the social media, right? The text message ding, or the intermittent variable rewards, which is what makes social media so powerful.

Brad (10:48):
It’s the slot machine effect. We know that, uh, we’re going to get a hit of pleasure when we, uh, check in with something that’s predictable. So when I go do a sprint workout and push my body, I’m getting that instant gratification of a job well done. And the, uh, endorphin like chemicals that flood my bloodstream after an intense exercise session, very predictable, but even more powerful and even more addictive in nature are those intermittent variable rewards where the text message dings and you don’t know who sent you the text, so you’re compelled to reach for it. And, uh, that’s what social media is all about, is, uh, triggering those intermittent variable rewards. So that’s on the list. Sugar, digital technology, caffeine gives you that instant hit of pleasure. Uh, the boosting of the central nervous system, uh, marijuana and street drugs, anti-depressant, painkiller and other prescription drugs.

Brad (11:46):
Uh, we talked about the extreme exercise high and then we have video games and porn. Uh, Dr. John Gray pointing out these are extremely disturbing and have a negative longterm repercussions in society. So trying to manage all that and stay in control, people, of course, you’re allowed to go seek a quick pleasures like a, a, a hit of sugar for dessert if that’s what you’re, you’re feeling right now that you deserve after a busy, stressful day. But we have to keep these things managed rather than, uh, proceed in the direction of addiction.

Brad (12:20):
Next, Dr Wendy Walsh, she was on the show twice with some fabulous commentary, rapid fire. She’s got a great podcast of her own called Meeting Matters, which you can find on iHeartRadio. Uh, but one of my favorite takeaways was the top three attributes that males and females look for in a partner top three male list, top three female list. And Dr. Walsh reminds us if you disagree, uh, that these are subconscious hardwired genetic drives. So let’s say for example, on your dating profile, you put sense of humor as your number one attribute and you’re firmly convinced that that’s your number one attribute for relationship, what’s really happening is that sense of humor represents something that’s on the list of your, uh, hardwired genetic drives. And in that exact example, dr Wendy mentioned, uh, that sense of humor is just a proxy for the number two item on the list, which is intelligence, because if you’re, uh, if you’re funny, it means you’re pretty clever, right? You have to come up with the right quips and jokes and uh, malaprops and double entendres. Right? Okay. So the male list number one thing that males look for in a partner is youth and beauty.

Brad (13:42):
Number two,:loyalty. Interesting. Number three, kindness. why loyalty? Wendy Walsh says, because deep down our genetic drive is to reproduce, right? So if we can’t be sure, sure who the father is, right? Back in the primal times, we want females who are going to being loyal. So we get youth and beauty, loyalty and kindness. Isn’t that nice to see on the list? Then we go to the female side. Number one, things that females look for in a mate. Resources, right? The Ferrari, the gold chains, the wealth. Number two, intelligence. And number three is kindness. Why is intelligence number two? Remember what Dr Wendy said? It’s because if you’re smart and you lose your resources, you’re smart enough to go back and get more resources. So the female wants that resources as her protection, right? For her offspring. Again, our genetic drives are to reproduce. And this is all simplifying things that no longer hold all the important weight in progressive, modern society, but we’re still hardwired.

Brad (14:51):
That’s where the conflict comes in. And so we’re still these people that want resources. Number one, as a female, even when a Dr. Wendy mentioned that, uh, now females can earn a high income and not require any support. They can live their own lives without having to count on some dang man to provide for them. And that’s a wonderful, uh, progression of culture. But deep down, you can’t escape that drive for resources as your most important thing. And she talks about, uh, the high prevalence of relationship dysfunction, separation, and divorce when the female earns more income than the male. Because this is in conflict with our genetic drives where even though you don’t need the resources, you want the guy with the resources. Trip out on that. Huh?

Brad (15:37):
Next Mark Manson, author of the subtle art of not giving a F U C K I wonder if I still get bleeped out for that. We’ll see. Fantastic book will make you think for a long time. Very deep, very vulnerable, honest account, a runaway sensation. Love this guy’s act and he has a little message about stop trying to change yourself. I think this came through on his email rather than excerpting from the book. Here’s the problem with using the word change. It gets your identity involved and when you get your identity involved, you become really emotionally attached to imaginary things you throw fits and beat yourself up and blame others and decide that you are in fact a worthless piece of shit who has no hope in the world. It’s one thing to say, Hey, I want to start going to the gym every week and it’s quite another to say it’s time I finally change and become the type of person who goes to the gym each week. The first statement is simple.

Brad (16:43):
You want to go to the gym so you’d go or maybe you don’t go. The second statement implies that to go to the gym you must completely reinvent yourself and that raises the emotional stakes massively. If you succeed and guess what, you probably won’t cause you’re not that person already. You’ll gain this blissful feeling of being a new person which will last until the next time you feel crappy and want to change again. If you fail, you’ll chastise yourself for your incredible sloths. That’s a great little insight and the takeaway point I think, uh, is the same stuff that I’m talking about. Get over yourself and release your attachment from the outcome. Release the attachment of your self esteem from the outcome of what you do. Just focus on the process and make the effort and don’t identify yourself as the marathon runner. Cause then if you drop out, then you’re going to identify yourself as a marathon dropout loser, worthless piece of crap that can’t run, even though that’s your identity. So you’re a person who runs marathons, right? You’re a person who creates and tries to sell it and sometimes it sells and sometimes it doesn’t. Who cares? You’re an artist. Congratulations on making the effort.

Brad (17:56):
Remember my show with Ashley Merryman, author of Top Dog and Nurture Shock, coauthor, talking about how, uh, the effort based praised is vastly superior to the results based praise, especially when we’re talking about child rearing and forming a healthy psyches and emotional beings. So, uh, everything is all about the effort and results are transient. Celebrate them, move on, do the next thing. But I love her distinction that she made in recent years with more research where we’re talking about the effort based praise, but we also want to make sure that it’s effort toward improvement. So if you get up every day and make a lousy effort in the wrong direction, you’re using the wrong tools, you’re barking up the wrong tree.

Brad (18:41):
Then we have to recalibrate that and make sure that we’re making our best effort, but we’re also being smart about it and maybe changing course if we need to. Okay.

Brad (18:52):
Let’s end this breather show with one MOA and this is from an article by Whitney Stewart on the medium called 10 steps to mindful conflict resolution. I’m not going to get into the 10 steps here, but this is a great description of mindfulness and how it can benefit you. Here we go with a quote from the article. We appear to be devolving into our reactive emotions a lot these days. Venting on social media, choosing to pay attention to media outlets that regurgitate our positions back to us. All of which further attaches us to our own views in a dangerous configuration that can fuel the flames of outrage, violence, and hate mindfulness, which has been shown to help mental, behavioral, and physical outcomes in both youth and adults is a powerful tool that can help us respond to conflict in a nonreactive way.

Brad (19:47):
According to Jon Kabat Zinn, founder of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, M B S. R quote, mindfulness is awareness that arises from paying attention on purpose to the present moment non-judgmentally. With present moment awareness, we learn to identify our thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations without defining ourselves by them. When we patiently witness our own fears and hurts, we give ourselves the chance to release them, which in turn helps us develop understanding and compassion for others.

Brad (20:24):
Thank you everyone for listening to that breather show for going on the windy road with me. What do you think? Maybe we’ll do it again. Send some feedback, get over yourself podcast@gmail.com and also if you can take the time to spread the word about the show. My podcast app called Overcast is really cool. There’s a new feature where you can, uh, share a sound excerpt where you can use the soundbar, pick your favorite moment of the show or a minute or two minutes or three minutes and then text it to someone and they can play the recording really cool.

Brad (20:58):
That’s just happens on Overcast whatever podcast app you’re using. Uh, if you’re on Apple podcasts, like a large percentage of Overall podcast listeners, I would love it if you can go on there and leave a review and it’s tedious. You have to go to your desktop and desktop iTunes, go find the show, uh, search for it. And then there’s a button in there that says, leave a review. You put the stars, the number of stars between five and five, and then you write a comment, uh, takes a minute or two. But it’s a huge help to help other people discover the world of getting over ourselves. Right. Thanks listeners. Have a great day.

Brad (21:38):
Thank you for listening to the show. We would love your feedback at getoveryourselfpodcastatgmail.com and we would also love it if you could leave a rating and a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. I know it’s a hassle. You have to go to desktop, iTunes, click on the tab that says ratings and reviews, and then click to rate the show anywhere from five to five stars. And it really helps spread the word so more people can find the show and get over themselves cause they need to. Thanks for doing it!