The Nathan Crane Podcast
How to Like Yourself More: Alan Questel | Nathan Crane Podcast
Alan, welcome to the podcast. How are you man? I'm good. How are you today doing? Wonderful. Yeah, it's been a crazy busy day, but I'm happy to be connecting with you. And yeah, tell me a little bit about what you do. You guys have reached out, your team have reached out to have you on the podcast. Looks like you've you're up to some really great work. I actually saw a book of yours, Practice Intentional, Acts of Kindness, and like yourself more. I think just the title alone, Practicing Intentional Acts of Kindness, I think we could use a lot more of that in our world today. Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, that's something, you know, people always related to the bumper sticker of Practice Random Acts of Kindness, which is a great thing. But I found that, you know, Kindness is a skill that we can learn more about and generate. And Kindness not only towards others, but Kindness towards ourselves as well, which is actually more of a task for most people. Where did that, trying to remember where the Practice Random Acts of Kindness originated from? Do you know history now? No, no, I don't know. Now I'm going to Google it, I'll find out. Get back to you. Well, it's funny because there's so many things that we do. People do, you know, Kind of modernly or even in the last 100 years that we think is like groundbreaking and revolutionary. And this is such a great idea this person came up with. And the more you research into spiritual practices, you're like, Oh yeah, this is rooted actually in, you know, spiritual traditions from India 7,000 years ago, for example, or from China 4,000 years ago. And like when I was learning energy medicine in San Diego, you know, over 15 years ago, I had no idea that things I was learning because nobody told me at the time, you know, we're rooted in 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000 year old traditional Chinese medicine, also known as Qigong, you know, energy medicine practices, until I go study with a Qigong master from China. And you know, who's teaching me these things, I'm like, Oh, I learned, I learned that some of these tools and techniques and meditation practices, you know, from from an energy kind of healer person so many years ago. And so there's so much of this wisdom that's that's been around for a really long time. It's really an interesting idea for me because honestly, I think everything I write about in my book, my books, I think it's existed before. And my hope is that I can synthesize it or contextualize it in a way that has maybe a little bit of a different take or perspective to it that engages people more now. But you know, when I was writing the book, I was sitting there going, don't doesn't everyone know this? And I realized most people don't know it, you know, and I think, okay, kindness is something that's prevalent in our cultures for 1000s years, like you said. But this idea of liking ourselves more, that's something that I find is more novel for most people. They're a little surprised at that. I was taking a workshop called the Hoffman process, which is all about loving yourself, which is great. And this is one of the things people ask me, what about loving yourself more? And I said, well, that's great. Let's start with something that's more possible, liking ourselves. Anyway, in this workshop, you weren't allowed to tell people what you did for four or five days. And the last day it was revealed. And so I told people what I was doing. And then I was talking with a group about four or five people. And I said, really, what I do is help people like themselves more. And they all said the same thing. They said, oh, that sounds a lot easier than loving myself. And I find that, you know, I don't. And it's really funny because in some languages, like in French or Spanish, you can't say like yourself more. It's really hard. They have the concept of loving oneself more, but liking oneself more is kind of an anomaly to them. So the language you mean the language is not like saying that. Yeah, makes like in Portuguese, there's no word for wonder makes you wonder, you know, they use imagination for that. So sometimes it's very hard to express different concepts in different cultures. But still, once it's explained, it resonates with everybody. I've never met someone who doesn't want to like themselves more. You know, some say, I already like myself. And that's great. What about liking yourself more? And who would disagree with that? That's foundational to all of our self image. Now it's true. There's a lot of self-loathing and self-hatred today. Right. And I think that's what you're getting at is that there's and even if it's subconscious, even if people aren't aware of it, how much, you know, you just look in the mirror and go, Oh, man, look at this belly fat, how terrible fat I am, right? Or like everything has levels in my opinion. You know, when the great yogis and sages of India talk about, you know, the three vices that will basically make you live in hell on earth and preventing you from having God realization is anger, lust, and greed. Well, people think of greed and lust as very strong words. Very often, I think in English language, at least in my experience, it's like you think of like a level 10, right, lust, greed, and people go, Oh, I'm not greedy, right? But if you really are honest with yourself and you look at the levels of that, maybe you are a little greedy at level one or two or three or four or five, right? And that could just be something that's like, No, I'm not going to give that to you. This is mine. I want that. This is for me, right? That's greed. That's even if it's a level one greed that's still greed or lust, you know, you may not be out chasing, you know, a woman and try and lusting over, but in your mind, are you lusting over, you know, women walking by in a bathing suit at a level one to most men are probably level five, six or seven. And with social media, you can see because most of the accounts that do really well, you know, are ones where it's like women showing their ass in a bikini, you know, and what is that? It's that's the men that are just staring at the account and the women going, I wish I had that because my butt looks terrible. You know, I have a tiny butt. But most of us, most of us are wanting something other than who we are. And you know, like when you talk about greed, I think maybe we can say the opposite of that is generosity, but even that's a misunderstood concept, you know, and I'll tell you an interesting story that when I was writing the book, you know, because in the book, I have exercises to do in each chapter. And when I talk about generosity, one of the exercises is if you go to a restaurant, if you give like, for every $5 of a tip you give, give another dollar. So if you give $10, give $12. It's $20, give $24. And I typically, so I was writing this, I was simply just writing this part of the book, and I went out to dinner with some friends. And I normally give 20% tip. I picked up the check, it was about $70. And I thought, well, that's about $85. And I had a $100 bill in my pocket. And I thought, I'm going to give the $100 and I clutched. I was just like, oh my God, that's too much. I can't do that. My greed came up, my self-image stuff. And I kind of had to work it through in the moment. And I gave the $100. I left it there. And when I left the restaurant, the waitress stopped me and said, you just made my night. And you know, so it's like, whether it's greed or generosity or lust or desire or because they're always healthy aspects of these things too. And so then, how do we practice it? That's my interest. How do we have a concrete relationship with these things that can generate a change and how I feel about myself and others? And I found that to make these changes, like I just described, it's a little challenging. Like, for me to leave that extra money was like, really uncomfortable. And I had to overcome that. So sometimes our self-image stops us and at first it's not so pleasant, but then once we acclimate to it, we find that, well, that's pretty good. But then we have to watch out for the other side. Like, what if someone doesn't acknowledge a big tip? Hey, didn't they say I gave him a big tip? What's going on? And I realized, oh, now I've got to deal with this part of it as well. So it's like, one thing leads to another and that's growth. To me, that's the definition of growth and it's the next thing that we have to encounter that's going to really grow us and it's a challenge. I've been through the exact same experiences you're talking about multiple times. And it is the awareness of the feeling encountering that head-on, not running away from it, and then doing something about it, right? So it's that awareness, oh, this is too much. Oh, no, this is kind of my fear and greed speaking. You know what? I'm going to do it anyway. And then you take the action and then you start to build that new neural network, that new habit, that new pattern of generosity, right? And that's what you're talking about of practicing. It's like every day we have these moments to practice these things and become somebody new, somebody better, somebody that we actually like and love more, somebody who is generous and caring and unselfish. You know, we have the opportunities every day to practice those things, even in little ways, it doesn't have to be a hundred dollar bill, you know, every day. It can literally be, you know, seeing somebody, you know, at the grocery store and helping them to reach something or, you know, stopping and talking to somebody who seems like they're lost or simple things. I walk around my neighborhood almost every day. I try to walk after I eat lunch and just listen to podcasts or spiritual conversation and it's good for digestion, get some sunshine. And what happened, it's so funny. So the first time I did it, there was a piece of garbage on the street, right? And, and I just thought, man, I have a long way to walk still. I want to carry this guy. I don't see any garbage can. No neighbors garbage cans are out. And I don't want to, I want to pick it up, but I don't want to carry it all the way in my house. I had to talk, I mean, something so simple, like leaving a piece of garbage on the street in the neighborhood. And so I picked it up and there was no garbage cans. I took it all the way home and then threw it away, my garbage can. I was like, you know what? I'm glad I did that. The next day, same thing, another piece of garbage somewhere, no garbage cans. And then same kind of little struggle, like, do I really want to carry this, you know, beer can? This one was like a beer can I dumped out, somewhere left in like, I want to carry this all around the block. People think I'm drinking beer. Work through that. I did it anyway. And now every day I walk, there's always one piece of garbage in the street waiting for me. And I'll either find a neighbor's garbage on the way, or I'll take it home and throw it away. And it's just like, it's become one of those little simple things of, this intentional acts of kindness. That's what it is. I'm doing kindness for my neighborhood without carrying what anybody thinks about it, right? I'm not posting it on social media. I'm not going, hey, guys, look at me. I have garbage. Like, it's just, it's just the action of doing good, which is what the great spiritual masters teach. Do goodness for goodness sake. You know, when they talk about humility, I've heard it said that one can't say that they're humble. Only someone else can. And I think the same is true of kindness. I think someone else determines whether we're kind. We can't determine it ourselves, right? And one way I think of looking at what you just described, which is a great example, is to be able to differentiate our feelings that we have, our thoughts that we have from our actions. To be able to act, not negating our feelings or our thoughts, but to be able to act in addition with those feelings and thoughts. And that's a pretty sophisticated level of acting in the world, you know? And the idea of a little thing, I think it's the most important access to liking ourselves and being kind. Because generally, what we do is we make, we make it such a big task for ourselves to do something and we set ourselves up for failure, you know? You know, when I was 19, I moved on to my parents' house and I had the thought that I'm not good at anything. I was already a failure. I wasn't even old enough to be a success, you know, 19, but I was already a failure. And I thought I'm going to teach myself to do one thing well. And I just happened on brushing my teeth. So, you know, I brushed my teeth, but I wasn't that regular. And, you know, and I thought, I'm going to learn to brush my teeth well. And the good thing about it was I had the opportunity to explore it twice a day. And if I didn't do it, nobody would know. Or maybe the dentist, but he knew already. So I would practice this, this little innocuous task. And what was really interesting was all the strategies unconscious, at first, strategies that I had that would sabotage my success started showing up. How I interfered with it. And if I had taken on something really big in two weeks, I probably would have quit, you know, and just said, "Well, I can't do it." You know, it's not worth it. You know, and it's a shame. Like I had some friends over for dinner the other night and I had a couple of daughters and ones 10 years old. And they're going to be staying in my house. I'll be traveling soon. And so we were going around making a video of things to show them about the house and stuff. And she said, "I want to be videographer." And I said, "Great." She said, "But I'm not very good at it." And I said, "Why do you say that?" You've got to practice it to get good at it, you know, and she had a great time doing it. But they're already at 10 years old. There's a self-image of what she doesn't like about herself, you know. And it starts even earlier than that. But it's a, it's a challenge for all of us. And it's something that I think we can turn like this act of liking ourselves more. So this is something I've taught for a long time. And it started out with a workshop I was created. I teach The Feldenkrais Method, which is a movement modality based on learning theories. And I work with people with orthopedic neurological problems, issues around self-image, professional athletes, dancers. And I train people how to do it. And I was doing this workshop on self-image. And I started to think our self-image is a reflection of how much we like ourselves or how much we don't like ourselves. So if I have a good self-image, I like myself, not such a good self-image. I don't like myself. And then I decided over time, this is my job to help people like themselves more. And of course the movement, the movements that I teach people have done very small and subtle. So they have the chance to practice moving in a way they like the way it feels. But then one day, and someone just asked me what it was and I couldn't remember, I did some random act of kindness. And in the next moment, I like myself more. And I thought, "Oh, there's the loop from the internal way of generating something from the interpersonal to the interpersonal." And I realized I'm not talking about doing acts of kindness to pat myself on the back, but to realize that that generates something in the other, that in me, that grows exponentially, actually. So yeah, little things for sure. Yeah, it's beautiful. I mean, I remember hearing about a study years ago where they were looking at people's brains and neurological responses and release, I believe of dopamine and/or serotonin. It was probably primarily dopamine, where they looked at somebody helping somebody, an elderly woman, I believe, across the street and look at the dopamine release from the brain and saw that by helping somebody across the street, you know, the person getting helped and the person helping both had a dopamine release, meaning they felt good. We were literally designed to help others to do acts of kindness, right? Well, they also looked at the person across the street watching it happen and noticed they had the same dopamine release that when you watch somebody doing an act of kindness, which is why, again, social media, some of the top from a positive perspective, some of the top videos and channels are people doing random acts of kindness to others and they get millions, hundreds of millions of views, you watch it and it gives you a little dopamine response. So what is that? Is that survival of the fittest? Is that Darwinian theory? Is that out to, you know, be the best and outrun and outlive everybody else? Of course not, right? Of course, that can't be true when we are literally designed to have pleasure molecules released from our brain by helping others, even those who are less fortunate or less able than us, right? So anyone who still believes in that theory, I mean, just look at the biological design and you'll see that it negates that theory completely. That's a perfect example of what's called mirror neurons that is a part, I mean, 10 years ago, it was a big deal and now it's more or just everyday thing, but it's something that we, our brain picks up on the things that we see, but it's done through action and movement, just watching it often isn't enough so that the action that it happens in real time in real life, that kind of plants it in us grows, it develops those neuropathos as you were talking about and there've also been studies done that infants have an innate direction towards kindness, that it's something that seems to be at a very, very, very early age, something that's part of who we are and you see it in kids and you can also see the development of kids, yeah, of course they go through that's mind stage and stuff, but it's always so touching when a kid offers you a piece of their sandwich or something, you know, and it's like they're just wanting to share stuff. Of course, we learn to hold on to things to get a little more constricted in life and in fact, you know, if you think about a child's way of regulating themselves, it is primarily through liking the way they feel and if they don't like the way they feel whether they're hungry of a wet diaper or something's not right, they cry, they get upset. So we've learned from going from childhood to adulthood to ignore these parts of ourselves. So like another simple way of learning to like ourselves more in an everyday way that no one would know you're doing is to simply move in a way that you like the way it feels. And I'm not talking about dancing to the bathroom or anything like that, I'm talking about if I go get up to get a cup of coffee to feel, am I just so directed towards where I'm going or can I feel myself in that moment and maybe feel myself move a little more easily, a little more pleasurably. And when we do that, that builds and grows inside of us so that we come closer to who we were when we were children and we can also differentiate like I was saying before the need to do something when I don't feel so good, you know. Once in a class, a public class, a woman asked me, this is in the Feldenkrais method, she said, what's the point of this work anyway? And I was like, oh, I really don't like those kind of questions. And I said, well, the point of this work is to make our lives easier and more comfortable. I mean, why would you pay money to do an extracurricular activity and spend your time doing something that wasn't to your benefit in some way? And she was satisfied with the answer, but I wasn't. And I came back the next week and I said, I have more to say on that. I said, the point of this work is to learn how to struggle well, because life is filled with struggle. The question is, can we engage in a struggle without injuring ourselves and move through it in a way that we get to the other side and feel like, you know, I just accomplished something by getting through that. So we need more of that. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think the challenge for all of us as human beings, unless you are born and enlightened family, which is very few and far between nowadays. I haven't seen that yet, but yeah. Then we have childhood traumas, we have ACEs, we have adverse childhood events that literally create these impressions and this subconscious programming where we don't like ourselves. We and oftentimes hate ourselves. And as a teenager, I hated myself and didn't even know it. I didn't like myself. I didn't like who I was becoming. I didn't like who I was and yet I was all in on that part of myself. I was unconscious to the fact that I was self-loathing and depressed and angry at the world and hated everybody and hated myself. I just acted out of that without any consciousness of what I was doing and led me to a very, you know, very challenging childhood and yet still so many people today, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, have not found that deeper liking and loving of themselves yet. And I think a lot of it does have to do with not having healed those childhood traumas. Would you agree? I do agree, but you know, and there's a large continuum of the severity of the traumas that we suffered. And the challenge is, can we overcome them? Well, I think we can come to terms with them. Like, this is a pretty sad story. So I had a woman come to me once for private sessions in the Feldenkrais Method and she had difficulty sleeping. And she had some event in her life that she didn't want to talk about and I said, "That's fine." And the third time I saw her, she told me the event. And she was a very wealthy woman for South America and she got divorced and her husband took the kids, literally took the kids. And it took her like three years to get the kids back. And they were flying for a vacation in Japan. She was in one plane, they were in another, and the plane they were in crashed. And they died. And I looked at her and I said, "Are people telling you you're going to get over this?" And she said, "Yes." I said, "No, you'll get through it. You're never going to get over it." And I know there's so much today about trauma, which is very useful and important for us. And still, we need to have, I think, more of a perspective of looking forward where I want to go as opposed to getting away from where I've been. Those are two very different attitudes. I can tell you a simple story of that. So, when I started my practice in New York, I was successful pretty quickly and my uncle was a dentist and he would come to me for sessions. I wouldn't charge him anything and he had lower back pain, he was always twisted to one side. And every time I saw him, he felt better. And the next week he had pain again. This went on a number of times and finally I said, "You look like golf, right?" And he went, "Oh, I love golf. What do you want to improve in your golf?" And he talked about his power and stuff like that. So, I started working with him about how he can improve his golf and his back pain went away. So, there's a good example when he was going towards something and had a positive reinforced effect that would sustain itself when we're trying to get away from something. There's a value to that, but we attach ourselves to it at the same time. So, it's a bit of a paradox in terms of how to go about doing that. And when you describe yourself and you're growing up and stuff, I'm still learning to like myself. It's not like, "Oh, I've arrived or anything like that. I'm learning." And in fact, and this was a bit of a shock for me, that the next level for me to be kinder, the next level for me to like myself more. Each next level is even a bigger challenge. You're like, "It's funny you say that because let's say you're 80 or 90 percent of the way there, which took you however many years." And you feel like, "Man, I'm like so much. I'm like right there, but every percent more, if you will, is like leaps and bounds ahead of where you were 1 percent ago, right?" Yeah. Well, I'll tell you something about percentages that I think is kind of funny, which is when someone says, "I'm not 100 percent behind it yet." And I said, "All you need to be is 51 percent." And I hadn't asked, "Do you know what 100 percent is?" Right? Because in fact, what was 80 or 90 percent to me five years ago is not the same thing today. And the more I learn about myself, the more I encounter and become aware of things, the more I realize how little I know, and I'm probably at 2 percent. If I'm realistic, you know. And you know, the other thing you're talking about, which is this is a real big interest of mine, is the awareness part, right? Because in order to make these kind of changes, in order to develop ourselves like this, we need to become aware of what we're doing first. So if everything is happening unconsciously, whether it's a childhood trauma or just the nature of how we grew up or whatever, unless I can become aware of it, it's almost impossible to change it. It's just happenstance that changes it. You know, it's like a random act of kindness generates something. But what did I do? How did I know to do that, right? Can I become aware of it? And to do that, and this is, you know, this is an idea for another book, but honestly, I don't know the answer to this question yet. It's written about in a lot of different things, whether it's mystical traditions, religions, psychology, the idea of a pause, to get angry, pause, before you react so you can respond. And I'm really interested, in order to create the pause, you have to want it. If you don't want it, no one's going to do it. If you're not self-reflective that way, you just go on as you are, you live your whole life, it's fine. It's a good life, it's not bad, but it's, you know, it's not something that necessarily generates a greater spirit in the world with ourselves and others. And that's where I think it's always at the individual level, you know? Yeah. And it's, and I have to agree, it's either you have to want it. But even to get to the point of wanting it, you have to have that awareness to realize that there's something more for you to let go of, or become, right? Becoming often is very much actually just letting go of who we are not. Getting back to that childhood innocence that you were talking about. I do want to kind of challenge a little bit on what you said about, you know, the woman who lost her children, the plane crash, and anyone who's gone through very traumatic situations, whether it's rape, molestation, it's, you know, all kinds of things that happen, terrible things that happen to all of us, right? And, you know, the idea of getting over something, maybe that maybe the language is kind of the block there or the key, the entryway, where maybe people think, oh, getting over it means I'll never think of it again, or I'll forget about it, or whatever. And I would say, from my own experience, my own life, clients I've worked with, you know, over almost 20 years now, and friends and colleagues in the health space and the, you know, traumatic healing space, I've done a lot of trauma healing work, I've done a lot of work on, you know, healing my own childhood traumas and helping others, as well, especially with the cancer patients that we work with, a big part of the cancer diagnosis is helping get to the underlying traumas that had led to either the cancer showing up in the first place, or the behaviors, the lifestyle behaviors that led to the cancer proliferating in the body because they're so directly connected, that I say you absolutely can fully heal from any childhood trauma, and when I say heal, I don't mean get over it in a sense of you'll never think about it again, or you'll forget about it, but that that thought, the memory, or the thought of the people you lost, the person that raped you, the children that died, you fully accept it, and you fully forgiven yourself and others, and you fully healed so that that thought doesn't bring you that pain that it once used to do. I'll give you one example, a good friend of mine, or eight, I would say good friend, a friend and colleague of mine, she was diagnosed with breast cancer literally within two or three months after she found out her her grown son had been molested by the babysitter when he was a child, and she didn't know this whole time until he was like later 20s or 30s, and he told her, and she just, she felt so guilty, how could I let this happen right under my own nose in my own house and not know that my own son was being molested by the babysitter that I hired, right? She had so much anger towards the babysitter and she had so much guilt towards herself, and literally she had a breast tumor grow like out of nowhere within a couple of months, and we know, you know, I talk about this all the time, the sympathetic nervous system, the stress response, all these things, and breast cancer very often is in women associated with a child in your life, but anyway, she was aware enough and she had, you know, she she's actually in the emotional healing, health space, a doctor in that space, and she knew what it was from, and so she went into all the work that she guides her own clients through, and she ended up fully forgiving, fully accepting, fully forgiving the babysitter, and forgiving herself, and going through this emotional healing, and she went from, you know, personal trauma, guilt, resentment, anger, just all of that to complete peace, and within three months her breast tumor went away. Yeah, I think, I think the, there are two words you use, one I completely agree with, which is forgiveness, right, and how do we, how do we forgive ourselves, because that's also the path to liking ourselves more, right, and to really to forgive ourselves, if I've done some act or have created something or I have to forgive someone else, there needs to be a forgiveness on a feeling understanding, and it's not just the thought of I forgive you, it's like I cause someone pain, they cause me pain, how do I forgive that, right, but the other word you use that I hope to take a little issue with is fully, because I find the word fully is incomplete, it's like what I was talking about, as much as I've come to like myself more, there's more, there's another step for me, and so to fully forgive someone, I would say simply to forgive someone, and then see in three or four years, is there another level to it, is there another step that I can take that settles me more in myself in that act of forgiveness, right, and it's always about coming to terms with our history and stuff like that, yeah, for sure. I love that you said that, it's the levels, I'll give you an example, it's happened my own life, you know, I was kicked out of my house when I was a teenager and I was going through a hard time and I went to my mom and said hey, can you help me, take me back in, I want to get off drugs and alcohol and get off the streets and she said no, and she said basically get out of here, she just couldn't handle me, right, and it traumatized me, it was the first time in years that I had just broken down, crying, and like I felt so rejected and traumatized and then just kept going deeper and deeper, dark down that dark rabbit hole, nearly dead at 17, and so we didn't talk for years, I had so much, you know, resentment and then I had a big awakening moment, moved away, started my life over, you know, got sober, started down the path of personal development at 18 years old and I just had this insight like I need to forgive my mom, I was holding all this resentment and anger and all this stuff and so I did, I called her and I and I forgave her and really what I was doing was forgiving, you know, you forgive somebody else because really it's hurting you inside, right, it's like, and so, but I didn't know at the time, I just knew I needed to forgive her and it's not, I don't think she needed my forgiveness, I needed to forgive her. I don't know about that, I would imagine that her acts that she suffered from that act, I can't imagine anything, yeah, and she and she told me actually I just found this out recently, so this is, you know, 18, 19 years, almost 20 years later she told me when I, when I did that and said no and all that, I just, I didn't know what to do and I was so scared, I just gave you to God, I prayed to God, I said God please take him, I, I can't do this and literally within months like she found out I was moving to San Diego from Montana and she's like what are you doing, God I didn't mean take him to San Diego, you know, and I told her, I said thank you for giving me to God because that's exactly what needed to happen, that's, that's the change I needed, so thank you so much. My point being is that level of forgiveness was not fully in the opinion, in, in, we're talking about levels because it was life-changing for me and I think it was life-changing for me, we have a great relationship today, but I did, years later I did the work Byron Katie, have you ever done, yeah, yeah, beautiful right, I was doing the work one day and literally I had this memory pop up, something that my mom had said or did when I was younger and it was like, and I still had a charge to it and so I did the work on it and released that and it was like I forgot all about that and yet here I was still harboring something, even a little bit of resentment, level three resentment, but there it is in my subconscious and so there was more forgiveness to do. That's why the word fully is a bit challenging, but you explained it beautifully that it's fully for now, you could say, you know. Well, when I say fully, not meaning that you're gonna do it immediately fully and necessarily, but that to be free from that pain, complete freedom from the pain, complete attachment from the pain, I think we do have to get to a level of fully forgiving, right, even if that takes months or years, then we'll be free from that pain, then we won't have those negative associations with so I would look at it in yet another way that let's say I have the experience of some pain in my life, right, and usually when it comes up, the question is how much time do I spend there? Can I shorten the time? So for me to like myself more, right, I can go into all these negative loops about myself and I don't think, you know, one of the best definitions I've ever heard of enlightenment is you get enlightened and then you get enlightened again and then you get enlightened again. It's like people think this is a constant state. Now, this is the thing we move towards and away from all the time and I'm happy if I find that the challenges in my life, the ruminations I go through, the suffering for whatever reason or history that I don't spend as much time there, that makes me happier. That makes me like myself more. That's something that I think we can all move towards and then it's a series of successive approximations towards an easier sense of myself, liking myself more, being kinder to others, all of that, you know. One thing that you said about your mother that caught my interest and I don't know if this is true but you know at some point there's the idea of tough love, right, and at some point it's like how how long do you support someone hurting themselves? When do you finally say I can't do this anymore? This isn't good for me and it's not good for you but it's not a happy decision to do that. Tough love is a really challenging thing to do to be able to say no to someone you love and care about because you know it's in their best interest as much as we can know. None of us are omniscient that we can fully know the outcome of our actions or anything like that but we can just make a choice and say maybe I can make a choice and consider it in a way that I'm reversible, that I can change my mind that it's not absolute in any way like that. But that idea of tough love is another thing that it's part of being kind to someone, tough love, you know. If I have a friend who's an alcoholic and he wants a drink or something it's like I'm not going to say no, I'm not going to support you in that. I don't drink. I was at a friend's house years ago with someone who drank a lot and they bought this special tequila for me because I used to drink tequila a lot and they kept trying to push it on me and I kept saying no. I don't want to and the person got very upset with me. You know it was like what's the matter with you? Why don't you want to drink? I said it's not you, it's me, you know. So to be able to be clear about our boundaries and be firm with them in a way is actually often a better act of kindness than just giving in and saying yes all the time. You know I got a funny story for you. A friend of mine was a therapist and she was at her friend's house for dinner. I had a three-year-old kid and it was before dinner and this little kid comes in with this bag of M&Ms because mommy mommy I want an M&M and the mother says you can't have an M&M now we're going to have dinner soon and the kid starts to lose it and the mother she goes okay okay you can have three M&Ms. So she gets the three M&M she walks off happy and my friend the therapist says to her I can't believe you let her manipulate you like that and she said look she has to learn in life that sometimes she's going to win but she doesn't know yet that I'm the one who's deciding that I'm going to win this battle right and so sometimes you give in and sometimes you don't and you know I mean she had a bigger picture of it of course the kid ate dinner then everything was fine but we have to win battles and lose battles and be comfortable with comfortable with both ends of that. That's a good point yeah and it's so tough with children going back to your point of tough love I I really hope that my mom listens to this podcast by the way you know and I want to say I love my mother very much and it took me a long time to recognize that you know when she said no to me when she gave me that tough love that that's exactly what I needed and it took me a long time to be grateful for that and to love her for that you know and how tough that was for her to go through that I mean how incredibly challenging it was for her to deal with that to say no to your own child but it's like I needed that tough love I really needed it and I'm so grateful for her for doing that and you know there are people in in her life I think they could use some tough love I'll just say that but I think I think all of our lives and and so on the tough love maybe you can talk a little bit about that like how do we do it in a way that is loving but is tough right because I think tough love can also come like what we really have inside I think often is is anger or sadness or guilt or all kinds of emotions and then when we go to give the tough love it comes out as a big explosion which is not what we're trying to do right we're trying to like say hey look this is not working I can't support this anymore this is why and we're trying to do it calmly but because we care about the person the love is there but all the other emotions get in the way and so how do how can people manage that better I have some ideas but before I say that I just want to say to your mom if she's watching this looks like you did a pretty good job with this guy back to tough love because you described it really well in terms of how it gets presented presented and misrepresented and the unfortunate part of practicing tough love is exactly what I just said we need to practice it because we're not skilled at it we're not taught how to communicate in a way that can help someone right I write about it in the book I talk about how difficult conversations that look if I if I was gonna if I had some look with you and I said look we need to talk right away you're on the defensive it's like oh what's coming I don't want to hear this you know and and there are ways to to begin it like you think it's okay if we have a conversation that might be a little difficult or awkward and you might say no in which case we're done I don't keep pushing it but if you say yes at least I've contextualized it in a way that if something is difficult in the moment we can acknowledge it that we knew this when we were going into it maybe let's stop for a while and come back to it maybe I need to learn how to communicate things better the most effective way of telling someone something is that this is about me it's not about you it's not about correcting you you know I had a student in one of my trainings in Australia and she was actually making up time from from another training in Australia and she was there once and you know I give people some attention but they're not my focus as my own students and then she was there again and then she was there a third time and I said how much time are you making up you know and she told me I said you should have just transferred here in any case and in that segment she was technically going to graduate and this was not my decision this was the educational director her her program and I wasn't going to interfere with it but I was so confident about her so look I didn't interfere I let her graduate and I said to her can we have a cup of coffee afterwards and she kind of looked at me and she said you're going to drop a bomb on me I said no I said it's going to be awkward but I'm not going to drop a bomb on you okay and we sat down and I said look this is my opinion but I don't think you're ready to graduate yet I think you're close but not yet and it's really not my job but so-and-so's job it's your educational direction she says well it's your job too and I said no he hasn't called me asking my opinion or anything like that so I'm not going to interfere but I said yet and so and she was pretty upset with me and I said look what I think you need to do is you graduated now go and practice for two years for free and visit other trainings get more education and see what happens and it turns out she did that and she came to me later and she said you know that was really hard but I'm really glad you told me to do that because what I ended up with was a sense of confidence in myself rather than this feeling of I'm never going to be good at this and I said look this is my expert opinion but it's just an opinion right you know you don't have to take my advice you can do whatever you want but those situations are really hard because you can be pretty sure that at the moment that you start talking talking to someone directly they take it as criticism right they hear some absoluteness in it that's not accurate and we need to be we need the the talker the teller needs to be able to tolerate the feelings and anxiety that the other person comes to without running away from it or shutting them down or just listening you know so I think listening is a big component there too yeah listening that's huge and anytime I've done couples therapy for example you know describing the situation that the therapist always says you know talk about it from I feel this way I think this way like don't say you make me feel like this it's like no if you want to describe you know criticism is helpful in growth especially in any kind of relationship it's the it's it's the um I'm missing the word right now the nagging the um there's a stronger word beyond criticism but there's healthy criticism right and and then there is like putting somebody down and if you say something like you know when you do this you make me feel like this you know of course they're going to be defensive of course but you say you know when this is happening or you're doing these things this is this is how I feel this is what I think about this and yeah but what you just said when you do these things that already colors it that the other person is causing it yeah I think I think there's a healthy way to do it though and like like if somebody's doing something like in your own household that's their actions are very unhealthy right that are harming others or can be harmful right it's like I think some awareness bringing some awareness around it can be helpful that's just my experience I don't know but well yeah I agree with you trying not to judge or point or blame but bring awareness and then bring it back to me like this is this is how I feel this is what I think about it and then creating boundaries right at the end of the day right like at some point I think we have to create some boundaries always it's really about boundaries I don't know if you're familiar with the work of Marshall Rosenberg yeah of non-violent communication you know because that's a body of work that really changed my whole way of teaching and interacting with people which was not getting caught in the content of the event but what's the underlying feeling that's going on in the person what's the unmet need and when I can find that I can listen better and they and the other people feel more heard so I'm not trying to correct or change their behavior anything like that it's simply like you were saying this is how I feel in this moment and you know someone might say well what do you want me to change I know I'm just telling you how I feel you know that's it and we have to be careful with that too because so often we have a hidden agenda yeah I want you to change of course I want you to change I don't want you to do that anymore you leave me alone when I was married my wife went away for a six-day workshop right and I was thinking you know she could change six days a lot you know I thought it's good I like change that's great she came home and she was different and I was looking at her and I was like this you've changed that's great and internally I was going stop it stop it and I was so resistant to it because if she changed it meant I had to change so that's one of the biggest things in terms of changing someone's behavior I think needs to start with the change in our behavior I give you an example of that so my mother died when I was pretty young and maybe a year or two later I was watching TV with my dad and I realized I never told him I loved him but I was younger I did and I thought I so I worked up the courage it was hard for me so watching TV in a commercial comes on I said dad you know I watch her know I love you and he goes I love you too what's on channel four what's on channel five and I was mortified I was like I just bared my soul and he is watching TV looking for something to watch and I you know I've ruminated on that for maybe an hour and then I let it go and I realized I did this for me not for him but the real kicker was about a year later we were on the phone and I said well I love you and he went love you too and I said did I hear that and then he started saying it took a year but you know what if we change our behavior then the other person could change their behavior and if they don't then it's a signal for us to go this isn't a healthy relationship for me I need to not spend as much time with this person I need to draw different boundaries or do something different but all I can really change is my behavior towards something and then see what's the result of that you know and what we're talking about are habits those that's the biggest thing because their compulsions habits things that we've learned unconsciously and we don't know why we do these things but again it's like what you said it's the awareness of it that brings us to a place that we can begin to generate a new action in some way yeah a lot of the ancient texts talk about you know if you're having these problems in life and in relationships and constantly running into these barriers we're talking about and it very often comes down to you know one of two things usually both it's selfishness and it's attachment right and so it's attachment to the outcome attachment to our ideas attachment to the way we want things to be attachment to results right or selfishness it's I want it to be my way you know this is for me this is you know there's a healthy level of self-fullness taking care of ourselves right yeah ourselves liking ourselves treating our taking care of our bodies meditating eating proper you know eating healthy these kinds of things that's self why they call self-fullness or self-love-ness or you know self-likeness right but the selfishness is not accepting the other person as they are and that's it's easy to say but it is very very difficult especially to the people who are closest to us right it seems like the people who close us to us we want to change them the most absolutely because they're in our face all the time you know the thing you talked about which which I agree with a hundred percent I don't know what a hundred percent is but I agree with it a lot you know is the part that's missing when I read about these things when when someone gives me a talk about these things is okay what's the concrete everyday thing I can practice to make a change that's what I'm interested in the concrete solution to the things that you're talking about because we all need something to practice otherwise I can't practice an idea I need an action an act that I can practice and it's through those acts of practicing challenging difficult whatever it is that it turns me into a different person over time and so then we're talking about patience too because we live in cultures now where everyone wants everything yesterday you know and for the most part it takes a fair amount of patience to like ourselves more to be kind to others and the perspective of patience is one like sometimes I'll be working with someone and dealing with some habit they have and I'll say to them so how long you think it would take to change this and they go three weeks and I've laughed I really think so in three you just created failure for yourself right okay six months and I said no you've had that habit for 48 years and you think that's right that's right that's right so I tell people it's going to take you a year and a half to two years to change this habit first they freak out then I said think about it if you have a year and a half in six months you haven't achieved it yet you have another year in a year you have another six months and over that amount of time people do recognize the incremental changes that add up to a point where they go I can keep going now because otherwise they stop themselves they go out I failed I can't do it I'm no good anymore yeah it's too difficult won't be able to do it I just give up give up hope now there's no hope right I've been trying this and nothing's happened nothing's changing right we've all been through that it's like yeah you start a new habit you try and it's like kind of go back to the old tendencies and you try some more and you kind of go back and try some more and then I think even not even consciously very often we just give up on things because we're not seeing progress I think we're wired for progress right to see yeah I mean just feel and see some sense of progress but in you know in the gym it's easy to see those things because you can see progress quickly right if you commit going to the gym two or three weeks or learning a new sport or something I mean two or three months learning a new sport or something you've never done before but you show up every day five days a week two or three months you're going to see significant difference but in something like you know emotional changes and thinking behaviors and these patterns if it's just an awareness practice I mean like you said it can take months or years to see tangible results what I where I see the biggest tangible results in the short amount of time is through very powerful spiritual practices or emotional practices right so so awareness practices let's say call them mindfulness practices just thinking about things and then trying to create new habits it works but I see it takes a lot of it can take a lot of time versus like deep you know criya yoga meditation practices or map a good friend of mine collet store colleague of mine collet striker who put 40 years of psychology together into a single program called map make anything possible has seen literally in one or two sessions level 10 phobia is gone like that kind of deep subconscious quick healing I did a RTT session rapid transformation therapy session there was a two hour or two and a half hour deep dive emotional healing session we focus on three childhood events I totally forgot about and literally the next day I was a totally different person you know you go to a six day retreat like your wife you you dive in eight hours a day for six days you're going to come out of that a different person you know hopefully yeah work is deep but I mean but you're still going to have stuff baggage whatever I were still going to have to practice these things but you find you know we went to a three day retreat my wife and I meditation retreat up in Boone North Carolina recently and coming out of that we have a daily meditation practice we do every morning when we wake up and just that alone I'm seeing you know in 30 40 days of practicing every day a difference in both of us and so we're going for a four day you know silent retreat level two going the next level it's like those deep dives in my experience can be so powerful and can speed up the progress significantly but we need the daily habits too that's right you know and the thing you said I mean to me it's the essence of it all is practice right and you know and my book like I said at each chapter there's several different exercises that are approachable for most people it's not just skip to the next chapter or something but that we can do every day so we can start to track and see that we are capable of change and growing ourselves in some way can you give an example of another practice in your book you talked about the generosity one which was great at right and brushing your teeth you can pick anything like that around your house like that or moving in a way that you like the way it feels or listening taking the time to listen to someone right to see what are they really saying without me wanting to jump in and respond takes work to really listen like that right to take the time or I have different mantras in there like I have one mantra I created I was coming back from Europe I've been teaching for a month and I was going to be home for like a week and a half and off to Australia and on the plane I started thinking of all I had to do and I got completely overwhelmed but and that's the pause part but I caught it and I caught it and I went Alan is this a good time to be thinking about this and the answer was no you are a plane you have no access to materials you can't do anything you're tired let it go and I just relaxed for an hour and then it ramped up again and then I had to go through it and I discovered that every time I asked myself that question the answer is no it's not a good time to be thinking about this and then there are other ones too like if I'm ruminating on something right it's like if I can catch it I can go I'm driving around in a bad neighborhood right this isn't going anywhere I need to get out of here right and so and then Tough Love is another one to really think but again it takes practice to do these things to learn how to communicate well enough to be understanding enough that that I may not get the response I want initially but I have to start somewhere right and so it's in all these actions that we have to take it's a good point because even sometimes diving into a new practice or new you know healing work or new spiritual practice for two weeks a month two months sometimes it feels like the things that were in your face or the things that you didn't like actually show up even more right for the first few months it can get worse actually it can it's more in your face it's like it's going up to the surface yeah but recognizing and being ready for that going you know what this this healing work this awareness work is meditation practice is the purpose is to help bring these things to the surface so then we can let them go and we can transcend them right and so knowing like it might get a little worse like a Herxheimer's reaction for anyone who does a cleanse I've been doing cleanses and detoxes for almost two decades now and sometimes they do a cleanse and you actually feel sick for a day or two because you're releasing so many toxins from your fat cells into your bloodstream your digestive tract and you feel like this cleanse is terrible it's not working I feel awful and it's like no it's doing its job you're gonna feel terrible for a day or two and then you're gonna feel better in this case you might not feel that great for a few weeks or a month or two but then things start to get better right sure yeah you know I've I've had friends so I've meditated for many many years and I started originally with the idea of can I sustain my attention for longer periods of time I was up for a job at a PhD program and my referee they asked him if I had a spiritual practice and he said he said oh yeah he meditates every day that's not a spiritual practice so I'm trying to sustain my attention I kind of argued it and really the longer I meditated the less I thought I knew right and then I would meet so many people I've been meditating for two weeks and then I go I just smiled at them I think good for you man good for you and then I think let's talk in 10 years you know let's see if you sustain that and what do you do with it and how long does it carry you through the ups and downs that you're talking about you know to come back to it again and again no to that point I mean I've been I've been meditating for 20 years and I feel like right now I'm still a beginner like it's changed my life in so many ways and it's helped me and so there I can I could I could list a hundred ways that it's totally helped my life my business my relationships my health everything so the benefits are clearly there but even still sitting down and learning new practices and experimenting with new practices and you know always coming back to the breath and really looking diving deeper into the practice like I still feel like there's still so much more there's more to let go of there's more to open up to there's still so much more to know and and to release right and it's like that's why I was pushing up against you a little bit with the word fully yeah if you just described that oh yeah fully huh yeah it's a big word it's a good word yeah it's a good point it's a really big word and will we ever know anything fully I mean that's that's the highest goal of certain spiritual practices is yeah only awakening to our god self our enlightened self our oneness with god oneness with our highest you know soul I mean that's that's the goal and aim of many ancient traditions but they say it can take if you believe in past lives they say it can take thousands or millions of lives you know so yeah but they also say it's possible in this life you know that's the other thing with with certain practices it's also possible to awaken to our highest self meaning really pure love it's described as bliss and ecstasy it's described as you know god commune in his bliss and ecstasy pure love non-attachment non-jealousy non-selfishness you know devotion to a higher source and and freedom it's called liberation right liberation from the pain and suffering of the mind because we know that basically all if not all pain and suffering really comes from the mind and even physical pain we know that we can their practices that you can overcome the physical pain through the mind so at the end of the day a lot of it is learning to control this thing and and it's it sounds easy but even with the daily practice it's not easy yeah but it's necessary i hope so yeah allen it's been it's been a pleasure to talk to you and get to know you um thanks for coming on the podcast what where your book is a practice intentional acts of kindness where's the best place for them to to get the book to connect with you learn more about your work uh you can i have a website for it it's called practicing dash kindness dot com and there there's information about the book and other things and the book's available on amazon as a paperback oh you found it there's a paperback as i like to say a kindle instead of a kindle and also as an audiobook that i read and uh at the website there's a contact page if you have any questions or anything you can always feel free to contact me and i also want to say thanks so much for having me on your show i really enjoyed our conversation and uh yeah it's really been great yeah my pleasure thanks for coming on and uh wish everybody so much health and happiness we'll talk to you next time take care bye bye