The One You Feed - Learn Good Habits to Increase Mindfulness and Happiness and Decrease Anxiety and Depression (general)

Poe Ballantine- Full- The One You Feed

 

 

Poe Ballentine is a great writer. Thank goodness for that because it's through his gift and skill of writing that we get a glimpse into the experiences of his life which reach us at a moving level of beauty, truth, humility, and struggle. In this interview, you'll hear him talk about these things and the gift you'll get as a result is the knowledge and comforting feeling of knowing you are not alone in your struggles through life. You'll learn through hearing what he's learned about self-growth and self-improvement. Give yourself the gift of listening to this episode. You won't be sorry.

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This week we talk to Poe Ballantine

Poe Ballantine is a fiction and nonfiction writer known for his novels and especially his essays, many of which appear in The Sun. One of Ballantine’s short stories was included in Best American Short Stories 1998 and two of his essays have appeared in the Best American Essays series. His essays and short stories have also appeared in the Coal City Review, Kenyon Review, and Atlantic Monthly. Tom Robbins said " Poe Ballantine is the most soulful, insightful, funny, and altogether luminous “under-known” writer in America"

His books include Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere,  Guidelines for Mountain Lion Safety,  501 Minutes to Christ: Personal Essays and Things I Like About America: Personal Essays

 

In This Interview, Poe Ballantine and I Discuss...

  • The Wolf Parable
  • Finding himself or becoming someone else
  • The Moral Mechanism of the Molecule
  • Asking, in your own experience - rather than simply in ideas, what do you know?
  • How he found his way out of despair
  • Doing enough work to exonerate yourself
  • How important it is as an artist, creator to be hyper-aware of your life and environment
  • The price of individualism in America
  • How he loves to take care of his wife and son
  • How difficult it is to be married
  • That marriage is the molecular foundation of our society
  • His book - a true crime story, Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere
 

 

 

Direct download: Poe.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:44pm EDT

Robert Thurman- Full- The One You Feed

 

Robert Thurman is the leading American expert on Tibetan Buddhism and he has recently written a book called Man of Peace: The Illustrated Life Story of the Dali Lama of Tibet. Whether you embrace the teachings of Buddhism or not, this episode will educate you on powerful approaches to growing in wisdom and it will also paint a beautiful picture of how the concepts of Tibetan Buddhism apply in today's world. More than meditation and mindfulness, Robert Thurman gets to the heart of what the Dali Lama is working to achieve for all beings to have peace and enlightenment.

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This week we talk to Robert Thurman

Robert Thurman is Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies in the Department of Religion at Columbia University, President of Tibet House US, a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and promotion of Tibetan civilization, and President of the American Institute of Buddhist Studies. The New York Times recently hailed him as "the leading American expert on Tibetan Buddhism."

The first American to have been ordained a Tibetan Buddhist monk and a personal friend of the Dalai Lama for over 40 years, Professor Thurman is a passionate advocate and spokesperson for the truth regarding the current Tibet-China situation and the human rights violations suffered by the Tibetan people under Chinese rule. Professor Thurman also translates important Tibetan and Sanskrit philosophical writings and lectures and writes on Buddhism, particularly Tibetan Buddhism; on Asian history, particularly the history of the monastic institution in the Asian civilization; and on critical philosophy, with a focus on the dialogue between the material and inner sciences of the world's religious traditions.

Popularizing the Buddha's teachings is just one of Thurman's creative talents. He is a riveting speaker and an author of many books on Tibet, Buddhism, art, politics and culture, including Essential Tibetan Buddhism, The Tibetan Book of the Dead,  Infinite Life: Seven Virtues for Living Well, Inner Revolution, The Jewel Tree of Tibet, and Why the Dalai Lama Matters.

His latest book is a graphic biography of the Dalai Lama called Man of Peace: the illustrated life story of the Dalai Lama of Tibet

 

In This Interview, Robert Thurman and I Discuss...

  • The Wolf Parable
  • His book Man of Peace: the illustrated life story of the Dalai Lama of Tibet
  • Buddha Nature and Buddhahood
  • Enlightenment: When you get it, you realize that you've always had it
  • Whether or not we can actually reach enlightenment in this lifetime
  • His experience of tasting enlightenment
  • Clear light of bliss
  • The Buddha's mind in us
  • We are the Buddha's reality body
  • That the Buddha is pure love
  • That the future Buddha is currently manifesting as dogs
  • Kalachakra
  • That we can find a way to talk with our enemies and find peace
  • The common theme of "Love Thine Enemy" across religions and traditions
  • How the current Dali Lama is working to lay the path for all beings to reach enlightenment
 

 

 

Direct download: Robert_Thurman_Final_1.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:27pm EDT

In the first of a new series, Eric talks with good friend and Ph.D. Jon Mills.

Today we talk about a seminal paper in our understanding of how adverse childhood experiences can influence our lives decades later. We first explored this work in the conversation with Gabor Mate.

More about the study can be found here.

 

 

Direct download: Jon_Mills-_Trauma_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:57am EDT

Tim Urban - Full- The One You Feed

 
 
Tim Urban writes a pretty famous blog called Wait But Why - have you read it? Whether you have or you've never heard of it before, this episode will not only thoroughly entertain you but it will also help you implement a playful yet powerful approach to growing in wisdom. When it comes to concepts like "the consciousness staircase" or mindfulness about your moment to moment tasks, nothing helps your self-confidence more than reaping the benefits of making good decisions, "out of the fog", in the clarity of awareness. In this episode, Tim Urban teaches you hacks to do just that and you'll chuckle a lot along the way.

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This week we talk to Tim Urban

Tim Urban has become one of the Internet’s most popular writers. With wry stick-figure illustrations and occasionally epic prose on everything from procrastination to artificial intelligence, Urban's blog, Wait But Why, has garnered millions of unique page views, thousands of patrons and famous fans like Elon Musk

His recent Ted talk has been watched almost 15 million times.

His articles have been regularly republished on sites like Quartz, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, TIME, Business Insider and Gizmodo. In 2015, Fast Company wrote that “Wait But Why is disproving the notion that thoughtful, long-form content and virality are mutually exclusive.”

Urban has gained a number of prominent readers as well: authors Sam Harris and Susan Cain, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, TED curator Chris Anderson and Brain Pickings’ Maria Popova.

Recently, Urban received a call from Elon Musk, who told Urban he liked his writing and asked Urban if he’d like to interview him and write about his companies. Urban accepted, and spent the next six months writing a thorough blog series that Vox’s David Roberts called “the meatiest, most fascinating, most satisfying posts I’ve read in ages.” Since then, Urban’s relationship with Musk has continued: Musk invited him to host SpaceX’s launch webcast, solicited Urban’s input and slide illustrations in a talk he did at the December 2015 Climate Change Conference in Paris, and recently granted him early access to information about SpaceX's interplanetary transport system for use in a post on Wait But Why.

 

In This Interview, Tim Urban and I Discuss...

  • The Wolf Parable
  • The consciousness staircase
  • That wisdom doesn't correlate with age
  • Step 1: Being in the Fog
  • Step 2: Thinning the fog to reveal context
  • How meditation can help
  • Step 3: Whoa Moments
  • Step 4: We Don't Know What's Going On
  • How he's an agnostic about reality
  • The value of humility
  • How ludicrous certainty can be
 

 

 

Direct download: TimUrbanPart2_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:49pm EDT

Tim Urban - Full- The One You Feed

 
 
Tim Urban writes a pretty famous blog called Wait But Why - have you read it? Whether you have or you've never heard of it before, this episode will not only thoroughly entertain you but it will also help you implement a playful yet powerful approach to ending procrastination and augmenting your productivity on a daily basis. When it comes to things like building habits or mindfulness about your moment to moment tasks, nothing helps your self-confidence more than following through on something you told yourself or others that you were going to do. In this episode, Time Urban teaches you lots of hacks to do just that and you'll chuckle a lot along the way. Get ready to meet these cast of characters: the rational decision maker, the instant gratification monkey, and the panic monster.

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This week we talk to Tim Urban

Tim Urban has become one of the Internet’s most popular writers. With wry stick-figure illustrations and occasionally epic prose on everything from procrastination to artificial intelligence, Urban's blog, Wait But Why, has garnered millions of unique page views, thousands of patrons and famous fans like Elon Musk
 
His recent Ted talk has been watched almost 15 million times.

His articles have been regularly republished on sites like Quartz, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, TIME, Business Insider and Gizmodo. In 2015, Fast Company wrote that “Wait But Why is disproving the notion that thoughtful, long-form content and virality are mutually exclusive.”

Urban has gained a number of prominent readers as well: authors Sam Harris and Susan Cain, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, TED curator Chris Anderson and Brain Pickings’ Maria Popova.

Recently, Urban received a call from Elon Musk, who told Urban he liked his writing and asked Urban if he’d like to interview him and write about his companies. Urban accepted, and spent the next six months writing a thorough blog series that Vox’s David Roberts called “the meatiest, most fascinating, most satisfying posts I’ve read in ages.” Since then, Urban’s relationship with Musk has continued: Musk invited him to host SpaceX’s launch webcast, solicited Urban’s input and slide illustrations in a talk he did at the December 2015 Climate Change Conference in Paris, and recently granted him early access to information about SpaceX's interplanetary transport system for use in a post on Wait But Why.

 

In This Interview, Tim Urban and I Discuss...

  • The Wolf Parable
  • His blog, Wait But Why
  • The image of the rational mind being trapped inside with an animal
  • How it would be easier if we were just the "animal"
  • How procrastination works: a metaphor
  • Rational decision maker vs the Instant gratification monkey
  • Who has control of the wheel
  • The one thing that the monkey is terrified of: the panic monster
  • Creating your own panic monster by setting external deadlines
  • Which is the alpha character?
  • Chronic procrastinators
  • That when there are no deadlines, you don't really see procrastination happening - and with big life things, this can be very destructive
  • Icky daunting tasks
  • That a building is just a bunch of bricks
  • A book is just a bunch of individual pages 
  • The glorious, large achievement is just a bunch of small, mundane tasks combined
  • The danger of making the bricks too big
  • The importance of keeping promises to ourselves and seeing that track record
  • The power of intentionally starting the day with little wins over the monkey to shift the power dynamic a bit
  • That little steps taken in the right direction gets you there
  • The impact of a habit over time
  • The dark playground vs the dark woods
  • The air is filled with guilt and self-loathing, you're miserable while you're there, rational decision maker asking whyyyy??
  • The happy playground on the other side of the dark woods
  • The various rides in the dark playground 

 

 

Direct download: TimUrbanPart1Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:21pm EDT

Florence Williams- Full- The One You Feed

 
 
Florence Williams shares the scientific research behind the benefit to our mood and our health when we spend time in nature as part of our daily lives. Her book, The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier and More Creative is full of practical, intuitive wisdom that can be applied regardless of your lifestyle or circumstances. To that point, you'll be surprised at how little time it takes to have a significant impact on things like depression, anxiety, and stress as well as things like blood pressure and cortisol levels. You may have noticed feeling better after a walk in the woods; this episode will explain why by way of some fascinating research.

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This week we talk to Florence Williams

Florence Williams is a contributing editor at Outside Magazine and a freelance writer for the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, The New York Review of Books,  and numerous other publications.

She is also the writer and host of the new Audible Original series, Breasts Unbound. She is fellow at the Center for Humans and Nature and a visiting scholar at George Washington University, her work focuses on the environment, health and science.

Her first book, BREASTS: A Natural and Unnatural History received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in science and technology. Her latest book is called: The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier and More Creative.

 

In This Interview, Florence Williams and I Discuss...

  • The Wolf Parable
  • Her book, The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier and More Creative.
  • The research that supports the fact that when we spend time in nature it can boost our mood
  • That 15 minutes in a forest environment can reduce our cortisol levels
  • Natural Killer Cells (T-cells)
  • The roll of Cypress aerosols
  • Taking in nature as a whole as the benefit
  • That the benefit of nature as a whole being greater than the sum of its parts
  • Nature Deficit Disorder and trying to fill it with other more modern-day things
  • Nature being a better option for some people than meditation
  • Paying attention to our surroundings
  • Achieving a more relaxed, restorative state
  • The effect of the sound of birds
  • The benefits of walking alone in nature
  • The benefits of walking with others in nature
  • Attention Restoration Theory
  • The effects of spending time in nature on different parts of the brain
  • The amount of time we should spend in nature
  • Biophilia
     

 

 

Direct download: Florence_Williams_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:21pm EDT

Danielle Laporte -Full - The One You Feed

Danielle LaPorte is all about being honest when it comes to her experiences on the path to self-improvement, self-growth, and self-empowerment. In this interview, she shares so much of herself that you will remark how brave, vulnerable and real she is and how much you can relate to what she's felt, thought and been through. If you've ever struggled with feeling overwhelmed by the obligations in your life or if walking on a spiritual path has felt like another item on an ever-growing checklist, then this episode is a must listen for you.

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This week we talk to Danielle Laporte

Danielle LaPorte is an invited member of Oprah’s inaugural SuperSoul 100, a group who, in Oprah Winfrey’s words, “is uniquely connecting the world together with a spiritual energy that matters.” She is also the author of The Fire Starters Sessions: A Guide to Creating Success On Your Own Terms, and The Desire Map: A Guide to Creating Goals With Soul.

Her latest book is White Hot Truth: Clarity for keeping it Real On Your Spiritual Path— From One Seeker To Another. Millions of visitors go to DanielleLaPorte.com every month for her daily #Truthbombs. It has been named one of the “Top 100 Websites for Women” by Forbes, and called “the best place online for kick-ass spirituality.” Danielle’s multi-million dollar company is made up of nine women and one lucky guy, working virtually from five countries. A powerful speaker and poet, and a former business strategist and Washington, DC think-tank exec, Entrepreneur magazine calls Danielle “equal parts poet and entrepreneurial badass…edgy, contrarian…loving and inspired.

 

In This Interview, Danielle Laporte and I Discuss...

  • The Wolf Parable
  • Her book,White Hot Truth: Clarity for keeping it Real On Your Spiritual Path— From One Seeker To Another
  • Reframing your obligations into conscious choices
  • Bringing our artistic or creative spirit into everything we do
  • Loosening up under the weight of obligation
  • Spiritual path as yet another thing to achieve, another obligation
  • The practice itself having some delight to it
  • Pain as a motivator, laziness as an obstacle
  • That devotion isn't easy but it's worth it
  • The distinction between pain and suffering
  • That the world is not comprehensible but it is embraceable by embracing the things that are in it
  • Transformation begins with the acceptance of what is
  • Short circuiting the healing process
  • That what's repressed finds a way to sneak out
  • How we have more in common than we have differences
     

 

Direct download: Danielle_Laporte_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:51pm EDT

Scott Stabile- Full- The One You Feed

 

Scott Stabile has lived through some very difficult things in his lifetime, from feeling shame about his sexuality to the murder of his parents when he was just 14 years old. He can verify that life can be very hard. Yet, he has gone on to live a life full of love, empathy, compassion, and forgiveness. Learn some very practical, applicable wisdom in this episode. You will leave the conversation armed with steps to take towards a happier life for yourself.
 

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This week we talk to Scott Stabile

Scott Stabile’s inspirational posts and videos have attracted a huge and devoted social media following. His previous works include Just Love, Iris, and the Li’l Pet Hospital series. Scott also wrote the feature film The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure, an eye-opening experience he writes about in his new book, Big Love.

A passionate speaker and love advocate, Scott runs day long empowerment workshops nationally and internationally. He lives in his home state of Michigan with his partner.

 

In This Interview, Scott Stabile and I Discuss...

  • The Wolf Parable
  • His book, Big Love: The Power of Living with a Wide Open Heart
  • How shame thrives on secrecy
  • How and when he came out as gay
  • How you help others by being yourself
  • To consider making more and more choices in your life from a place of love
  • That awareness is hard work
  • Asking yourself "what does love invite me to do in this moment?"
  • Love as an energy
  • How his parents were murdered when he was 14 years old
  • That love is an action, more so than it is a feeling
  • Choosing to act from a place of love can be an extraordinarily difficult thing as well as an extraordinarily powerful thing to do in the moment
  • The path of empathy
  • Doing your best to connect with the humanity of others, especially when they have opposing views and they're right in front of you
  • How toxic it is to believe that something is unforgivable and that the pathway to it is empathy and compassion
  • Forgiving because not doing so takes a toll on you as a person
  • How good it feels to be loving
  • The importance of self-care
  • That there is choice in sobriety
  • Depression as a syndrome vs a disease
  • How we are all riding the fine line of addiction all the time
  • The importance of building a more fulfilling life
  • How happiness (and all feelings) is not simply a choice
  • Choosing actions that stand a chance to serve our happiness
  • That action helps assuage fear
     

 

Direct download: Scott_Stabile_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:11pm EDT

Lisa Feldman Barrett - Full- The One You Feed 

Have you ever wondered how emotions are made in our brains? This conversation with Lisa Feldman Barrett will explain this and more and as a result, you will be astounded. Full of scientifically backed concepts that you've probably never heard before, your view on how your brain manages how you feel at any given moment will be totally changed after hearing what this author and researcher has to say. 

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This week we talk to Lisa Feldman Barrett

Lisa Feldman Barrett, PhD, is a University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University, with appointments at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. In addition to the book How Emotions are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain, Dr. Barrett has published over 200 peer-reviewed, scientific papers appearing in Science, Nature Neuroscience, and other top journals in psychology and cognitive neuroscience, as well as six academic volumes published by Guilford Press.

Dr. Barrett received a National Institutes of Health Director’s Pioneer Award for her revolutionary research on emotion in the brain. These highly competitive, multi-million dollar awards are given to scientists of exceptional creativity who are expected to transform biomedical and behavioral research.

Among her many accomplishments, Dr. Barrett has testified before Congress, presented her research to the FBI, consulted to the National Cancer Institute, appeared on Through The Wormhole with Morgan Freeman, and been a featured guest on public television and worldwide radio programs. She is also an elected fellow of Canada’s most prestigious national organization of scholars, the Royal Society of Canada (analogous to the National Academy in the United States).

 

In This Interview, Lisa Feldman Barrett and I Discuss...

  • The Wolf Parable
  • Her book, How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain
  • The myth of the lizard brain
  • Emotions don't live anywhere in the brain 
  • Neurons being multi purpose
  • The idea of degeneracy
  • How complex emotions are
  • Multi purpose ingredients in your brain (like in recipes)
  • Our brains predict, rather than react, to the next immediate moment (those are our emotions and subsequent actions) 
  • Confirming or Correcting those guesses (or concepts) based on your past experiences
  • How this process is your brain is trying to make sense of the sensory input of your body in the world
  • How it's more efficient to guess in advance and correct in response than it is to react
  • The importance of keeping your body's energy budget in balance
  • We see the world as we believe it to be, through our concepts
  • Interoception - feedback from your body on how it's systems are working
  • Your brain is trying to anticipate what your body is going to need and then provide what's necessary to meet those needs before they arise
  • Tragic Embodiment
  • Most of the time you don't feel sensations from your body in a very precise way and if you do, you feel them in simple terms - "affect"
  • More intense sensations are used to make emotions whereas less intense ones are used to make thoughts and other things
  • How illness is an imbalance in systems in your body and how we experience it
  • How basic body sensations are the cause of our emotions and how we feel
  • How every waking moment of your life is simultaneously physical and mental
  • When your body budget is out of balance/disrupted, you will feel distressed
  • Reframing the feeling of anxiety as "preparing for something tough" and this is a good sign that your body is preparing for something tough
  • Take care of yourself and your body to feel better (sleep, eat, nutrition)
  • Understanding emotion and being more granular in our description is helpful because we better know what to do or not to do about it
  • When you're depressed or anxious, the distress is not helpful if you personalize it
     

 

Direct download: Lisa_Feldman_Barrett_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:39pm EDT

Sean Carroll- Full- The One You Feed

Think theoretical physics is irrelevant to your everyday life and way over your head? You'll think differently after listening to this interview with Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist, poetic naturalist, and author.The meaning of life, the finitude of life, the choices we make and our experience of happiness and suffering all have a connection back to the scientific realm that will both fascinate and provoke thought in you. 

 

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This week we talk to Sean Carroll

Sean Carroll is a theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology. He received his Ph.D. in 1993 from Harvard University. His research focuses on fundamental physics and cosmology, especially issues of dark matter, dark energy, spacetime symmetries, and the origin of the universe. Recently, Carroll has worked on the foundations of quantum mechanics, the arrow of time, and the emergence of complexity. Carroll is the author of The Particle at the End of the Universe and From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time,

He has been awarded prizes and fellowships by the National Science Foundation, NASA, the Sloan Foundation, the Packard Foundation, the American Physical Society, the American Institute of Physics, and the Royal Society of London. He has appeared on TV shows such as The Colbert Report, PBS's NOVA, and Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman, and frequently serves as a science consultant for film and television.
 

In This Interview, Sean Carroll and I Discuss...

  • The Wolf Parable
  • His book, The Big Picture; On the Origins of Life, Meaning and the Universe Itself
  • That who we become is a combination of the choices we make and what the Universe gives us
  • The philosophy of Poetic Naturalism - 1 world, many ways of talking about it
  • 3 Levels of Stories: Fundamental, Emergent, Comprehensive
  • What it means to be real
  • You can't make "ought" out of "is"
  • That facts and moral values are different things
  • His perspective on life mattering - that it comes from within, that it's not imposed on us from the outside
  • The fact that we care is the origin of things mattering in this life and world
  • Life is a process, it's something that's happening - always moving and changing - and that there's always something else that we want
  • How his book lays out the design for you to decide how to live your life and what kind of person you want to be
  • The mistake of fetishizing happiness
  • How you cannot separate happiness and suffering in life - especially a life well lived
  • That our goal shouldn't be to reach some state of happiness and stay there because life is a dynamic process and it doesn't work like that
  • The finitude of life
  • The average human lives for three billion heartbeats
  • That the difference between right and wrong is up to us to decide and that can be scary
  • That the world - including us - is only really made up of 3 basic particles and 3 basic forces
  • That the big bang isn't necessarily the beginning of the universe but it's as far back as we can go
  • Physics books for the non-science people - look for books by either Brian Greene or Lisa Randall
  • Life's Ratchet by Peter Hoffman is another interesting book for a non-science person
     

 

Direct download: Sean_Carroll_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 4:17pm EDT

Spring Washam - Full- The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Spring Washam

Spring Washam is a well-known meditation and dharma teacher based in Oakland, California. She is a founding member and core teacher at the East Bay Meditation Center located in downtown Oakland. She is the founder of Lotus Vine Journeys an organization that blends indigenous healing practices with Buddhist wisdom. In addition to being a teacher, she is also a healer, facilitator, spiritual activist, and writer. Her upcoming book entitled, A Fierce Heart: Finding Strength, Courage, and Wisdom in Any Moment, will be available in stores on November 7th, 2017. She has studied numerous meditation practices and Buddhist philosophy since 1997. She has practiced and studied under some of the most preeminent meditation masters in both the Theravada and Tibetan schools of Buddhism. She has studied indigenous healing practices and works with students individually from around the world. She has completed a six -year teacher-training program under the guidance of Jack Kornfield and is now on the teacher’s council at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California. Spring is considered a pioneer in bringing mindfulness based healing practices into diverse communities and is committed to enriching the lives of disenfranchised people everywhere. She currently travels and teaches workshops, classes, and retreats worldwide.

 

In This Interview, Spring Washam and I Discuss...

  • The Wolf Parable
  • His book, A Fierce Heart: Finding Strength, Courage, and Wisdom in Any Moment
  • How she became a meditation teacher
  • How self-compassion is at the heart of Buddhist teachings
  • How being with ourselves in difficult times is an act of mercy
  • How a synonym for mindfulness is remembering
  • How we are always trying to change consciousness
  • Her controversial Peru ayahuasca retreats
  • How meditation and mindfulness was not enough to deal with her trauma
  • Her first ayahuasca ceremony
  • What ayahuasca is
  • The risks of using entheogens
  • The debate in the Buddhist community about this approach
  • Whether you need to go to the jungle for this
  • How we often need multiple approaches to healing ourselves
  • How feeling like you are innately good changes the whole path
     

 

 

Direct download: Spring_Washam_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:40pm EDT

Eric is interviewed on Awesome at Your Job podcast.  Lot's of the key ideas from the show are discussed here.

Direct download: Awesome_at_your_Job_Featuring_Eric_Zimmer.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:06pm EDT

Akshay Nanavati- Full- The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Akshay Nanavati

After overcoming drug addiction, alcoholism, PTSD from fighting the war in Iraq and recovering from the brink of suicide, Akshay Nanavati has since explored the most hostile environments on the planet and built a business helping people live limitless lifestyles. Combining his life experience with years of research in science and spirituality, he wrote a book called “Fearvana: The Revolutionary Science of How to Turn Fear Into Health, Wealth and Happiness.” Of the book, The Dalai Lama said “Fearvana inspires us to look beyond our own agonizing experiences and find the positive side of our lives.”

 

In This Interview, Akshay Nanavati and I Discuss...

  • The Wolf Parable
  • His book, Fearvana: The revolutionary science of how to turn fear into health, wealth, and happiness
  • How he got the Dali Lama to write the forward for his book
  • That we don't control what first shows up in our brain
  • How if you feel fear and stress is not your fault
  • The second dart/arrow parable
  • Acting your way into right thinking literally restructures the pathways in your brain
  • The ability to develop a positive relationship to suffering
  • Committing yourself to the worthy struggle
  • Reducing life to the simplest next step
  • Dealing with fear - it's ok to be scared
  • Bringing the rational mind into fearful situations
  • The challenge response
  • Fear is a gift if you believe it to be
  • The growth mindset vs The fixed mindset
  • If you want to be great you have to believe that you are
  • How ego can be both helpful and unhelpful
  • The worthy struggle
  • Keeping things automated in your day so that you can save self-discipline or willpower for the times you need it
     
     

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Direct download: Akshay_Nanavati_2_Final_V2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:43pm EDT

Eric Barker- Full - The One You Feed

 

 

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This week we talk to Eric Barker

Eric is a thought leader in the field of success. His humorous but practical blog, Barking up the Wrong Tree, presents science-based answers and expert insight on success in life. Over 270,000 people subscribe to his weekly email update and his content is syndicated by Time, The Week, and Business Insider. He has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and he was a columnist for Wired. With a writing career spanning over twenty years, Eric is also a sought-after speaker and interview subject and has been invited to speak at MIT, West Point, NPR affiliates, and on morning television.

His first book, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong is available now.

In This Interview, Eric Barker and I Discuss...

  • His book, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong
  • How he defines success
  • Achievement, Happiness, Significance, Legacy
  • The dangers of only using one metric for happiness
  • How money is a lever to something else that makes you happy rather than the thing that makes you happy in and of itself
  • There's no finish line in the quest of what makes me feel good
  • We must decide what is "enough"
  • New and novel make our brains happy
  • We must decide what really is going to make us happy in the long run
  • Turning what we do in our lives into games can be helpful in increasing our persistence and grit
  • Games have these attributes: Winnable, Novelty, Goals, Instantaneous Feedback
  • A feeling of progress and meaningful work keeps us engaged
  • Challenging yourself in a familiar task
  • True burnout is when you start to feel pessimistic about your job so you withdraw and then you get poor feedback so you finally disengage
  • Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose
  • A change is as good as a rest
  • That we are telling ourselves stories about what's has meaning and what doesn't
  • How telling your children about their lineage will increase the likelihood they stay away from drugs, stay in school etc
  • Therapy as editing the story we're telling about our lives
  • Cognitive reappraisal
  • The role of positive self-talk
  • I can do it vs I can't take this anymore
  • If you break your arm you wouldn't say "I am broken" you'd say "My arm is broken"
  • Listening to our thoughts from a distance and asking "is this useful?" to be more mindful about what thoughts we identify with
  • We don't choose what makes us happy, we choose what's easy
  • The role of a plan
  • How anticipation is happiness
     
     

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m is a good wolf which represents things like kindness, bravery and love. The other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed, hatred and fear.

The grandson stops and thinks about it for a second then he looks up at his grandfather and says, “Grandfather, which one wins?”

The grandfather quietly replies, the one you feed 

The Tale of Two Wolves is often attributed to the Cherokee indians but there seems to be no real proof of this. It has also been attributed to evangelical preacher Billy Graham and Irish Playwright George Bernard Shaw. It appears no one knows for sure but this does not diminish the power of the parable.

This parable goes by many names including:

The Tale of Two Wolves

The Parable of the Two Wolves

Two Wolves

Which Wolf Do You Feed

Which Wolf are You Feeding

Which Wolf Will You Feed

It also often features different animals, mainly two dogs.

Direct download: Eric_Barker_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:03pm EDT

Gregg Krech- Full- The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Gregg Krech

GREGG KRECH is an author, poet, and one of the leading authorities on Japanese Psychology in North America. His work has been featured in THE SUN magazine, Tricycle, SELF, Utne Reader, Counseling Today, Cosmopolitan and Experience Life. His books include Naikan: Gratitude, Grace, and the Japanese Art of Self-Reflection, A Natural Approach to Mental Wellness, and  The Art of Taking Action.  His newest book, Question Your Life, will be available soon.

Gregg and his wife, Linda, founded the ToDo Institute (http://www.todoinstitute.org), a non-profit center in Vermont that uses Japanese Psychology as an alternative to traditional Western approaches to psychology. Over the past 25 years, Gregg has introduced Japanese Psychology, particularly Naikan Therapy, Morita Therapy and Kaizen, to thousands of people through his workshops and online courses. His work supports a blend of the psychological, the spiritual and the practical, and helps individuals to clarify purpose, cultivate gratitude, develop compassion and engage in meaningful action. He is a member of the North American Naikan Counsel and Editor in Chief for the quarterly journal "Thirty Thousand Days: A Journal for Purposeful Living.

 

In This Interview, Gregg Krech and I Discuss...

  • The Wolf Parable
  • His book, The Art of Taking Actions: Lessons from Japanese Psychology
  • How Eastern wisdom is directed towards taking action, as well as contemplation
  • Taking your practice off your cushion
  • The misguided premise that we have to figure things out in our life before we can act
  • The power of momentum in action when small steps are taken
  • Cultivating gratitude
  • Avoidance, resignation, complaining
  • How accepting things as they are isn't necessarily passive
  • That complaining keeps us stuck in focusing on the trouble in our lives
  • The overlap between ACT and Japenese Therapy
  • Feelings and thoughts are uncontrollable by our will
  • Allowing feelings to be what they are but not letting them inhibit our ability to move forward and take action
  • Taking action based on the needs of the situation rather than just on the feelings we have
  •  How essential it is to step back from our lives and reflect and then make choices on how you need to move forward
  • How most of the time we do not feel like doing the things that need to be done
  • Exercise being an example!
  • The maxim: Lead with the body
  • How if you don't feel like something now, you're probably never really going to want to do it so get it done now
  • That the anticipation is often worse than the consummation
  • His next book that focuses on self-reflection
 

 

 

Direct download: Gregg_Krech_Final_V2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:23pm EDT

Matthew Quick - Full -The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Matthew Quick

Matthew Quick is the New York Times bestselling author of The Silver Linings Playbook, which was made into an Oscar-winning film; The Good Luck of Right Now; Love May Fail; The Reason You Are Alive; and four young adult novels: Sorta Like a Rock Star; Boy21; Forgive Me Leonard Peacock; and Every Exquisite Thing. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages, received a PEN/Hemingway Award Honorable Mention, was an LA Times Book Prize finalist, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, a #1 bestseller in Brazil, a Deutscher Jugendliteratur Preis 2016 (German Youth Literature Prize) nominee, and selected by Nancy Pearl as one of Summer’s Best Books for NPR. The Hollywood Reporter has named him one of Hollywood’s 25 Most Powerful Authors. All of his books have been optioned for film.

In This Interview, Matthew Quick and I Discuss...

  • The Wolf Parable
  • His new book, The Reason You're Alive
  • ICATS - what it means and why limiting it in your life is helpful to anxiety
  • How public speaking causes him to have anxiety
  • His calming practices to manage his anxiety
  • Why dismissing whole groups of people is a mistake
  • The importance and benefit of meeting people who are different than you
  • Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comforted
  • Generational tendencies in worldviews
  • The damage that's done when we shame others about their thoughts
  • The relationship between anger and fear
  • How silencing people is un-American and frustrating
  • The transparency of the main character in his new book
  • Humor is experiencing the unexpected
  • Laughing and Crying give relief to tension
  • The major life changes he has made over the past 3 years and their impact
  • Believing he couldn't function without alcohol and Rxs
  • The long-term benefit of passing on some forms of short term relief
  • The power of the past to continue to live on
  • Every experience leaves an impact on you and affects the rest of your life
  • The power of focusing on process and not result
 

 

 

Direct download: Matthew_Quick_3_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:32pm EDT

Russ Harris- Full - The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Russ Harris

Russ Harris is a medical practitioner, psychotherapist, and leading expert in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). His books include ACT with Love, ACT Made Simple, The Confidence Gap, and The Happiness Trap, which has now been translated into twenty-two languages. He lives in Melbourne, Australia, and travels internationally to train mental health professionals in the ACT approach.

In This Interview, Russ Harris and I Discuss...

  • The Wolf Parable
  • The principle of connection in ACT
  • Practicing attention in the shower
  • The exercise of "notice 5 things"
  • How to notice the person you come home to in a new way
  • The physical practices of yoga and tai chi
  • The observing self vs the thinking self
  • The scientific study of spirituality
  • Living a spiritual life even if it's not a religious life
  • Values = desired qualities of action
  • The difference between goals and values
  • Examples of how you can live your values on your way to your goals
  • Committed Action
  • Examining your life to identify areas where your behavior is not reflecting your values
  • The basic ACT formula of "Be Present, Open Up, Do What Matters"
 

 

 

Direct download: Russ_Harris_2_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:57pm EDT

Russ Harris- Full - The One You Feed

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This week we talk to Russ Harris

Russ Harris is a medical practitioner, psychotherapist, and leading expert in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). His books include ACT with Love, ACT Made Simple, The Confidence Gap, and The Happiness Trap, which has now been translated into twenty-two languages. He lives in Melbourne, Australia, and travels internationally to train mental health professionals in the ACT approach.

In This Interview, Russ Harris and I Discuss...

  • The Wolf Parable
  • Getting the wolves to cooperate and not battle
  • Embracing even our most difficult feelings
  • The Reality Slap and the Reality Gap
  • An overview of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
  • The Serenity Challenge
  • How we always have a chance to improve our situation 
  • Taking the action that is needed regardless of what we feel
  • What "psychological flexibility" is
  • Cognitive defusion techniques
  • Recognizing that are thoughts are not facts
  • Asking the question "Is this thought useful"?
  • Noticing and Naming our thoughts and feelings
  • "The Greatest Hits" approach
  • The "I'm not good enough" story"
  • "I'm having the thought that" de-fusion method
  • The artificial distinction between thoughts and emotions
  • The Struggle Switch
 
 

 

Direct download: Russ_Harris_1_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:43pm EDT

Justin Stenstrom - Full- The One You Feed

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This week we talk to Justin Stenstrom

Justin Stenstrom the founder of EliteManMagazine.com, the host of the Elite Man Podcast on iTunes, a best-selling author, life coach, and speaker.

He has been featured on major news websites like The Huffington Post, Maxim, The Good Men Project, Lifehack, Elite Daily, and many more.

In This Interview, Justin Stenstrom and I Discuss...

  • The Wolf Parable
  • His podcast, The Elite Man
  • Taking control of the thoughts in your head
  • Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP)
  • Hypnosis
  • How he has battled anxiety, panic attacks, and depression in his life
  • The powerful, subconscious mind vs the conscious mind
  • The role of positive affirmations and suggestions
  • Reprogramming the subconscious mind to be happier
  • What a successful hypnotic session feels like
  • How some people can be hypnotized and others cannot
  • The key learnings from his podcast
  • The guests from his podcast who stick out to him
  • The power of failure or rejection to propel people forward in their lives and/or careers
  • The supplements that he recommends for depression
  • Fish Oil with DHA and EPA
  • Omega 6 and Omega 3 ratio
  • Vitamin D
  • B complex
  • Magnesium Citrate
 
 
Direct download: Justin_Stenstrom_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:42pm EDT

Heather Havrilesky -Full- The One You Feed
LA Times- Michael Owen Baker

 

 

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This week we talk to Heather Havrilesky

Heather Havrilesky writes the popular advice column Ask Polly for New York Magazine’s The Cut. She is the author of the memoir Disaster Preparedness and the new advice book How to Be a Person in the World. She writes The Best Seller List column for Book Forum and has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Esquire, The Los Angeles Times, NPR's All Things Considered, and many other publications.

In This Interview, Heather Havrilesky and I Discuss...

  • The Wolf Parable
  • Her book, How to Be a Person in the World
  • Coming to peace with your flaws
  • Finding a place within yourself where who you are is enough
  • What a beautiful life is to her
  • How she is constantly checking and rebalancing areas of her life
  • The serenity prayer
  • "Is the juice worth the squeeze?"
  • That touching the same flame can be dangerous to some people
  • Seeing your life as a series of problems instead of a patchwork of things to savor
  • That there isn't an objectively "good way to be"
  • How people are far more complex than we give them credit for
  • The question of "does it serve you" is a good one to ask yourself in relationships
  • Not knowing how to get below the surface with people
  • How she has finally learned to relax around other people
  • That people are trapped in their head
  • To not beat yourself up for falling into the same "pot holes" over and over
 
 

 

 

Direct download: Heather_Havrileskly_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:20pm EDT

Colin Gawel Full The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Colin Gawel

Colin Gawel is the guitarist of the American rock band, Watershed. Colin also has a solo career both with and without his backing band - Colin Gawel and the Lonely  Bones. The album Superior - The Best of Colin Gawel was released in Dec 2016. Colin also lead writer, editor, and founder of the website Pencilstorm and the owner of the legendary Colin's Coffee in Columbus, Ohio.

This conversation was recorded live in Colin's kitchen and is focused on fatherhood in honor of Father's Day this weekend.

In This Interview, Colin Gawel and I Discuss...

  • Father's Day
  • His song, Dad Can't Help You Now
  • The challenge of watching your child live life beyond your protection
  • What it feels like as a parent for your child to leave home
  • Talking to your children about addiction in their family history
  • Being on the little league baseball team together as kids
  • How important it is to come back from adversity
  • Doing things for the love of doing them rather than for the anticipated outcome
  • His time in the band, Watershed
  • Keeping things in balance in life
  • That time is precious
  • How we find resilience in life
  • The importance of the people you surround yourself with
  • How he writes about what it's like to be an adult in his music
  • His song, The Words We Say
  • How different people react and interpret his songs differently
  • How unusual it is that as a musician, he prefers to perform sober rather than high on something
  • That he's conscious of how his son sees him consuming alcohol
  • Our mutual love of music
  • His song, Try a Little Faith
 
 

 

 

Direct download: Colin_Gawel_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:50pm EDT

Chris Niebauer - Full The One You Feed

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This week we talk to Chris Niebauer

Chris Niebauer received his Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuropsychology from the University of Toledo where he specialized in left-right brain differences. He has conducted research on consciousness, handedness, beliefs and the sense of self and is currently an associate professor of cognitive psychology at Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania. When he is not teaching, Chris likes to play guitar, spend time with his family, and work on new books. His new book is called The Neurotic's Guide to Avoiding Enlightenment: How the Left Brain Plays Unending Games of Self-improvement

In This Interview, Chris Niebauer and I Discuss...

  • His book, The Neurotic's Guide to Avoiding Enlightenment: How the Left Brain Plays Unending Games of Self-improvement
  • That your thoughts and behaviors should match and when they don't you look to make it happen - Cognitive Dissonance
  • Confirmation Bias
  • The power of gratitude
  • The mechanics of thoughts themselves
  • The law of opposition
  • Why if you accept a bad mood, it begins to dissipate
  • That the universe is always becoming something that it isn't
  • The good and bad news about the ego
  • The impermanence of "things"
  • The eternal nature of "verbs"
  • The often incorrect storytelling, or pattern finding nature of the left brain
  • The left brain interpreter
  • The ego as a story that we tell ourselves
  • The challenge of finding consciousness in the brain
  • "Doing" rather than "having" consciousness
  • The analogy of jogging to consciousness or ego: if you stop jogging and pat yourself down trying to find the "jogging" in you. It's a verb, not a noun
  • The connection between pattern finding and depression vs anxiety
  • A state of enlightenment and the left, pattern-finding brain
  • How we want the universe to be a mystery
 
 

 

 

Direct download: Chris_Niebauer_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:13pm EDT

Thomas Sterner Full1 The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Thomas Sterner

Thomas Sterner is the founder and CEO of The Practicing Mind Institute. He is considered an expert in Present Moment Functioning. He is a popular and in-demand speaker who works with high-performance individuals including, athletes, industry groups and individuals, helping them to operate effectively within high-stress situations so that they can break through to new levels of mastery.

He has been featured in top media outlets such as NPR and Fox News. He is the author of the best seller The Practicing Mind. His latest book is called Fully Engaged: Using the Practicing Mind in Daily Life

In This Interview, Thomas Sterner and I Discuss...

  • His newest book, Fully Engaged: Using the Practicing Mind in Daily Life
  • How you can't change anything that you're not aware of
  • That most of us spend our day as someone in their thoughts as opposed to someone who is having thoughts
  • Meditation being the vehicle for growing in self-awareness
  • Learning to recognize the truth that "I am not my thoughts, I am the one who has thoughts"
  • The strengths of being observer oriented rather than in a state of reactivity
  • That people who think they've had a "bad meditation" have actually had a very good meditation
  • That meditation is never a done task
  • The value of thinking of meditation like you do exercising
  • The innate sense in us that is misinterpreted
  • That the desire to expand is built into our DNA
  • The power of the question, 'And then what?"
  • That real perfection is the ability to expand infinitely
  • It's the interpretation of the experience that makes it feel the way it does
  • Making decisions about how to handle a "road block" beforehand
  • How we can control our emotions and doing so is a skill
  • The difference between a feeling and the truth
  • The importance of setting goals with accurate information
  • How you have to be in a situation to learn how to function in that situation
  • That struggle is a sign that we are expanding and learning and up against our threshold

 

 

Direct download: Thomas_Sterner_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:26pm EDT

Dani Shapiro Full - The One You Feed
Credit Kwaku Alston

 

 

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This week we talk to Dani Shapiro

Dani Shapiro is the bestselling author of three memoirs and 5 novels.  Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Tin House. The New York Times Book Review, The Los Angeles Times, and has been broadcast on NPR's “This American Life”.  Her newest book is Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage

 

In This Interview, Dani Shapiro and I Discuss...

  • Her newest book, Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage
  • Her book, Devotion: A Memoir
  • How we are all connected
  • Her history with Orthodox Judaism
  • This sense that she had to pray though she didn't know who or what she was praying to
  • Her process of figuring out what she believes in a spiritual realm
  • Living inside the questions, exploring spiritual wisdom
  • How she moved away from an all or nothing mentality
  • That if her only two choices are "all or nothing", she's going with nothing
  • With her book Devotion: A Memoir, she wrote the book so that she could go on the journey, not the other way around
  • "If you want to do something, begin it, because action has magic, grace and power in it." - Goethe
  • The "third thing" that's essential in relationships
  • What it means to walk through life with another person
  • What it is like to be comfortable not knowing things in life
  • The saying "we can make the best out of everything that happens" vs "everything happens for a reason"
  • Her parents terrible accident
  • The death of her father and it's effect on her life

 

 

Direct download: Dani_Shapiro_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:51pm EDT

Peter Singer Full1- The One You Feed

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This week we talk to Peter Singer

Peter Albert David Singer, is an Australian moral philosopher. He is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and a Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne. He specializes in applied ethics and approaches ethical issues from a secular, utilitarian perspective. He is known in particular for his book Animal Liberation, in which he argues in favor of vegetarianism, and his essay Famine, Affluence, and Morality, in which he argues in favor of donating to help the global poor. For most of his career, he was a preference utilitarian, but he announced in The Point of View of the Universe that he had become a hedonistic utilitarian.

On two occasions, Singer served as chair of the philosophy department at Monash University, where he founded its Centre for Human Bioethics. In 1996 he stood unsuccessfully as a Greens candidate for the Australian Senate. In 2004 Singer was recognized as the Australian Humanist of the Year by the Council of Australian Humanist Societies, and in 2006 he was voted one of Australia's ten most influential public intellectuals. Singer is a cofounder of Animals Australia and the founder of The Life You Can Save.

In This Interview, Peter Singer and I Discuss...

  • His book, Ethics and the Real World: 82 Brief Essays on Things That Matter
  • How he's widely considered the most famous living philosopher
  • Utilitarian philosophy
  • The importance of preventing unnecessary suffering
  • How the world is better today than it's ever been
  • The reasons why we don't donate to help save children across the world
  • Where to find highly vetted charity organizations to donate to
  • How we've evolved to respond to help the person right in front of us but not yet to respond to someone who needs help on the other side of the world
  • The science of measuring happiness
  • Which is a better, more important question: asking people if they're satisfied with their lives or enjoying their lives moment to moment
  • Reducing unavoidable suffering vs. making people happier
  • The link between happiness and money at various levels of society
  • The importance of living in accordance with your values
  • The importance of believing that your life has some purpose
  • Personal identity or the idea of self
  • The public good as a value and then individual liberty as another value
  • Physician-assisted suicide
  • His views on animal rights
  • The value of starting new things later in life and taking on things you may not be great at

 

It also often features different animals, mainly two dogs.

Direct download: Peter_Singer_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:25pm EDT

Kurt Gray- Full- The One You Feed
Photo Kris Snibbe/Harvard News Office


 

 

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This week we talk to Kurt Gray

Kurt Gray is an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He received his BSc from the University of Waterloo and his Ph.D. in social psychology from Harvard University. He studies the mysteries of subjective experience and asks such deep philosophical questions as: Why are humanoid robots creepy? Why do ghosts always have unfinished business? Why do grandma's cookies taste the best? And why do adult film stars seem stupid? His research suggests that these questions—and many more—are rooted in the phenomenon of mind perception. Mind perception also forms the essence of moral cognition.

In science, he likes to wield Occam's razor to defend parsimony, asking whether complex phenomena can be simplified and understood through basic processes. These phenomena include moral judgment, group genesis, and psychopathology. He has been named an APS Rising Star and was awarded the Janet Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Research.  He was also given the SPSP Theoretical Innovation Award for the article "Mind Perception Is the Essence of Morality." His work has been generously funded by the John Templeton Foundation. He recently published the book,  The Mind Club: Who Thinks, What Feels and Why it Matters

In This Interview, Kurt Gray and I Discuss...

  • His book, The Mind Club: Who Thinks, What Feels and Why it Matters
  • People who we perceive as having a mind similar to ours
  • The uncertainty about the minds of others
  • The two fundamentally different factors in how we see minds
  • Agency: the capacity to act and to do
  • Experience: the capacity to feel and to sense
  • The moral responsibility connected to these two things
  • Thinking doers
  • Vulnerable feelers
  • Didactic completion
  • The objectification of women
  • That child abuse often occurs with parents who view their children as having a higher agency than they are capable of having
  • The danger of inferring intention
  • Moral typecasting
  • That we treat our heroes poorly
  • The Just World theory
  • How we rationalize our behavior
  • That we give more sympathy to people who are at a greater distance from us
  • The poorer you are, the more likely you are to believe in God
  • Seeking control as a motivation
  • How to increase self-control
  • The implementation intention study
  • The when and the then and how it takes away self-control entirely
  • What the self is from the perspective of his work
  • The analogy of particle board for the self
  • The way people respond morally is the most essential to our perception of who they are (vs physical traits)
  • That we perceive the world rather than understand it directly

 

 

Direct download: Kurt_Gray_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:16am EDT

Sam Weinman- Full- The One You Feed
 

 

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This week we talk to Sam Weinman about losing

Sam Weinman is Golf Digest’s digital editor. He previously covered professional golf and the NHL for Gannett Newspapers. His first book is called WIN AT LOSING: How Our Biggest Setbacks Can Lead To Our Greatest Gains

In This Interview, Sam Weinman and I Discuss...

  • His book, Win at Losing: How Our Biggest Setbacks Can Lead to Our Greatest Gains
  • The truth that we learn more from losing than we do from winning
  • That you're far better served listening to those who have lost constructively than those who've simply won
  • How you can learn to lose and fail better
  • That sports are a window into everything else in life
  • The difference between losing and failure
  • The '87 Masters lesson
  • How to find the balance between being hard on yourself and beating the sh*t out of yourself
  • The power of talking to yourself like you would a really good friend
  • Shifting the emphasis away from the results and more towards an ongoing process
  • That if you're always the victim, there's nothing you can do about your circumstances
  • The relationship between a growth and a fixed mindset and focusing on the goal vs the results
  • Counterfactual thinking: Focusing on what could have been vs what is
  • The fact that losing teaches you more about who you are than winning teaches you
  • How your past doesn't define you, it prepares you
  • What "not this but that" means
  • Post Traumatic Growth
  • Ways to foster resilience in yourself
  • Cognitive Restructuring
  • How important context and mindset is

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Direct download: Sam_Weinman_FINAL.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:42pm EDT

Tom Asacker Full The One You Feed 1 

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This week we talk to Tom Asacker

Tom Asacker, a popular speaker and acclaimed author, is recognized by Inc. Magazine, M.I.T., and Y.E.O. as a past member of their Birthing of Giants executive leadership program. He is a former General Electric executive, recipient of the George Land Innovator of the Year Award, and a former high-tech business owner. Asacker has been a strategic adviser to startups and Fortune-listed companies. He is the author of critically acclaimed books including his latest, I Am Keats. 

In This Interview, Tom Asacker and I Discuss...

  • His book, I am Keats: Escape Your Mind and Free Yourself
  • John Keats and Samuel Taylor Coleridge
  • That once you have a story, that's the end of any change
  • How limiting a story is
  • That we are spinning stories all of the time
  • The difference between fact vs truth
  • How attached we are to our perception of the world
  • That technology promotes the myth that we are in control
  • The truth that you can't learn about life by merely reading about it, you can only truly learn about life by living it
  • Our reasoning mind that differentiates us as animals
  • That life is a journey of paradoxes and ambiguity
  • The importance of being empathizing and being mindful throughout this journey
  • The desire for meaning
  • How everyone is looking for meaning externally in their lives
  • How that won't work because our culture is broken
  • That it is a personal discovery journey to live life
  • How we always have the opportunity to make other people's lives better but we have to be awake in life to do so
  • The importance of control and certainty in our lives
  • How to differentiate the voices in our heads
  • That the end result of anything that we're seeking is a feeling
  • Human nature is to be curious, compassionate and creative
  • What would happen if characters in movies could control their scenes? The result would be crushingly boring movies. Can you see the correlation between this idea and life itself?

 

 

Direct download: TomAsackerFinal.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:40pm EDT

 Sarah Kaufman- Full- The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Sarah Kaufman about grace

SARAH L. KAUFMAN is a Pulitzer Prize-winning critic, author, journalist and educator. For more than 30 years, she has focused on the union of art and everyday living. She is the dance critic and senior arts writer of the Washington Post, where she has written about the performing arts, pop culture, sports and body language since 1993. Her book, THE ART OF GRACE: On Moving Well Through Life, won a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, was a Washington Post Notable Book of 2015 and has been featured on NPR’s “On Point with Tom Ashbrook.” Sarah Kaufman recently appeared at the South-by-Southwest Interactive Festival, speaking on a panel inspired by her book, titled, "Can Grace Survive in the Digital Age?" She has taught and lectured at universities and institutes around the country. In 2010 she became the first dance critic in 35 years to win the Pulitzer Prize.

In This Interview, Sarah Kaufman and I Discuss...

  • Her book, The Art of Grace on Moving Well Through Life
  • How she defines grace
  • The idea of ease at it relates to grace
  • The three different types of grace that she looks at in her book
  • Physical Grace
  • Social Grace
  • Spiritual Grace
  • That grace exists where we forget ourselves and aim instead to bring pleasure to others
  • The fact that we have a "grace gap" in our current culture
  • The religious take on grace
  • The relationship between overload and grace
  • That grace is a worldview and a philosophy that allows us to take care of ourselves and others
  • Considering the idea of "defying gravity" when considering the idea of grace
  • The paradox of grace
  • That practice makes graceful
  • The graceful balance skill with ease
  • The role of movement in grace
  • Posture - how do you do it and why is it important
  • The grace of a smooth running commercial kitchen
  • How being present is crucial to observing grace
  • That grace doesn't demand perfection, it simply means that we lean into our humanity
  • Tips to practice grace

 

 

Direct download: Sarah_Kaufman_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:00pm EDT

 

Joey Svendsen- Full- The One You Feed

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This week we talk to Joey Svendsen

Joey Svendsen grew up in Charleston, SC and received a degree in Elementary Education from Winthrop University in 1999. After graduation, he taught school for 5 years and served as a youth minister at New Beginnings Church in James Island.

He is now the campus pastor Joey for the James Island Campus of Seacoast Church.

His book is called Fundamentalist and describes his journey of growing up in a fundamentalist church while having OCD and depression.

He is also part of the popular The Bad Christian Podcast

 In This Interview, Joey Svendsen and I Discuss...

  • How the rigid do's and don'ts found in Christianity are so contrary to Jesus
  • How he found a form of Christianity that worked for him, so much so that he became a pastor
  • His podcast, Bad Christian
  • How he grew up in a fundamentalist Christian church as a child with OCD and depression
  • How we can accept that as humans we're flawed and also move forward with a good life
  • Scrupulosity
  • That you can train your brain to be consumed with fear, self-loathing and punishment
  • How his goal is to be a catalyst to unity and understanding
  • That we the people make the country regardless of what's happening in the government
  • The stupidity and ignorance of assuming your beliefs are 100% right and the beliefs of the other side is 100% wrong
  • His beautiful description of depression
  • That it's hard to properly evaluate a situation when your brain is the problem
  • How he manages his periods of depression
  • The importance of having grace with those suffering from depression
  • Thinking of the brain as a physical organ when it comes to depression
  • How important it is to give people the benefit of the doubt
  • How his view of depression has evolved
  • How to be open

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Direct download: Joey_Svendsen_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:52pm EDT

Direct download: Fighting_Depression_Mini-_Episode_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:53pm EDT

 

Mark Shapiro Full The One You Feed

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This week we talk to Mark Shapiro about being authentic

Mark Shapiro is a former marketing director at Showtime Networks Inc., Mark left his six-figure corporate job after 12 years and is on a mission to bring more of what’s real & authentic to the world. He is the founder of AreYouBeingReal.com, the Host of The One & Only Podcast, and a heralded transformational trainer, coach, and speaker.

 In This Interview, Mark Shapiro and I Discuss...

  • His podcast, The One and Only
  • What "authenticity" means to him
  • What it means to live "authentically"
  • Why authenticity is important
  • How focusing on authenticity can build confidence, liberate you and fulfill you
  • How living authentically can bring huge value to the world
  • That it can be hard not to live authentically
  • His choice to leave corporate America
  • People who are not afraid to be themselves
  • People who are afraid to be themselves
  • How living in alignment with your core values can contribute to living authentically
  • That we're either growing or we're dying
  • To always keep the door open to growth and redefining who we are
  • How to remain flexible to new ideas as we age
  • That though we don't like to be uncomfortable, it's rewarding when we take smart risks and try something new
  • How setting goals and being held accountable supports living outside our comfort zones
  • Doing the thing that scares you the most first thing in the day
  • The questions we can ask ourselves to see if we're living authentically

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Direct download: Mark_Shapiro_Final_2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:13pm EDT

 

Charles Fernyhough-Full- The One You Feed

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This week we talk to Charles Fernyhough about the voices in our heads

Charles Fernyhough is a writer and psychologist. His non-fiction book about his daughter’s psychological development, A Thousand Days of Wonder, was translated into eight languages. His book on autobiographical memory, Pieces of Light was shortlisted for the 2013 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books. 

His latest non-fiction book is called The Voices Within. He is the author of two novels, The Auctioneer and A Box Of Birds. He has written for TIME Ideas, Nature, New Scientist, BBC Focus, Guardian, Observer, Financial Times, Literary Review, Sunday Telegraph, Lancet, Scotland on Sunday, Huffington Post, Daily Beast and Sydney Morning Herald. He blogs for the US magazine Psychology Today and has made numerous radio appearances in the UK and US. He has acted as consultant on theatre productions on Broadway and the West End (‘The River’, Royal Court, 2012, and The Circle in the Square, 2014; ‘Old Times’, Harold Pinter Theatre, 2013), numerous TV (BBC1 and Channel 4) and radio documentaries and several other artistic projects. 

He was shortlisted for the 2015 Transmission Prize for the communication of ideas. He is a part-time chair in psychology at Durham University, UK, where he leads the interdisciplinary Hearing the Voice project, investigating the phenomenon of auditory verbal hallucinations. 

 In This Interview, Charles Fernyhough and I Discuss...

  • His new book, The Voices Within: The History and Science of How We Talk to Ourselves
  • The stages of speech in childhood development and how it relates to our inner voice in life
  • The theory that says that our internal speech comes from external speech that we hear/the dialogue we hear as a child which we eventually move inward and it becomes our internal speech
  • Vygotsky's theory
  • What inner speech does for us
  • Inner speech plays a role in regulating behavior
  • It has a role in imagination and creativity
  • It has a role in creating a self
  • That the fact that we create and construct a self, doesn't mean that it is an illusion
  • The theory that says that inner speech is how we bring different parts of our brain together into a coherent narrative
  • How using inner speech skillfully can give us significant advantages in life
  • That talking out loud to yourself actually probably serves some useful function
  • Social speech - private speech - inner speech
  • As the task gets more difficult, children and adults move from inner speech to more private speech
  • How difficult it is to study inner speech
  • The dialogic thinking model
  • How his research that shows it can be helpful to teach mentally ill people who hear voices in their head to think differently about this form of inner speech
  • Theories about why people hear different voices in their head
  • That there is a strong correlation between childhood trauma and hearing voices in one's head as an adult
  • That people hear the voices of the people in books that they've read
  • Experiential crossing
  • How to work with your inner speech to improve the quality of the experience of your life
  • How difficult it is to silence your inner voice so it's better to learn how to productively interact with it, even dialogue with it

 

 

 

Direct download: Charles_Fernyhough_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:20pm EDT

 

Daniel Levitin Full The One You Feed
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This week we talk to Daniel Levitin

Daniel Levitin is an award-winning scientist, musician, author and record producer.

He is the author of three consecutive #1 bestselling books: This Is Your Brain on Music, The World in Six Songs and The Organized Mind. He is also the James McGill Professor of Psychology and Behavioural Neuroscience at McGill University in Montreal, where he runs the Laboratory for Music Cognition, Perception and Expertise.

Dr. Daniel Levitin earned his B.A. in Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Science at Stanford University, and went on to earn his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Oregon.

He has consulted on audio sound source separation for the U.S. Navy, and on audio quality for several rock bands and record labels (including the Grateful Dead and Steely Dan), and served as one of the “Golden Ears” expert listeners in the original Dolby AC3 compression tests. 

He taught at Stanford University in the Department of Computer Science, the Program in Human-Computer Interaction, and the Departments of Psychology, Anthropology, Computer Music, and History of Science. Currently, he is a James McGill Professor of Psychology, Behavioural Neuroscience, and Music at McGill University (Montreal, Quebec), and Dean of Arts and Humanities at the Minerva Schools at KGI.

His latest book is called Weaponized Lies: How to Think Critically in the Post-Truth Era

 

 In This Interview, Daniel Levitin and I Discuss...

  • His new book,Weaponized Lies: How to Think Critically in the Post-Truth Era
  • Evidence-based thinking
  • Critical Thinking
  • The myth that the MMR vaccine causes autism
  • The difference between correlation and causation
  • Belief Perseverance
  • The danger of adopting a belief before all of the evidence is in
  • That we tend to make decisions emotionally rather than based on evidence
  • Persuasion by association
  • How important it is to question the status quo
  • Information overload
  • His book, The Organized Mind
  • What's wrong with multitasking
  • The effect of multitasking
  • Rapid task switching
  • Decision fatigue
  • The benefits of restorative time for the brain
  • His book, This is Your Brain on Music
  • The 6 songs Daniel Levitin gave his friend who didn't really get rock 'n roll
  • The songs he would add to that list now
  • The role of music in our brains
  • How music and the arts can regulate our mood
  • The power of the arts to re-contextualize things for us
  • Music therapy vs Music and emotion
  • The role of opioids in experiencing musical pleasure

 

 

 

Direct download: Daniel_Levitin_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:07pm EDT

 Richard Rohr and Eric The One You Feed Full

 

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This week we talk to Richard Rohr, again

Fr. Richard Rohr is a globally recognized ecumenical teacher bearing witness to the universal awakening within Christian mysticism and the Perennial Tradition. He is a Franciscan priest of the New Mexico Province and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Fr. Richard’s teaching is grounded in the Franciscan alternative orthodoxy—practices of contemplation and self-emptying, expressing itself in radical compassion, particularly for the socially marginalized.

Fr. Richard is the author of numerous books, including  The Naked Now, Falling UpwardImmortal Diamond, His newest book is The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation.

In This Interview, Richard Rohr and I Discuss...

  • That the normal two paths for expanding the soul are great love and great suffering
  • Suffering = whenever you're not in control
  • That Jesus is a map of the human journey
  • That if there's no good reason for suffering you have every right to be negative and cynical
  • How the honeymoon period and the grief period are non-dual states
  • What you're learning in these times is how to stay there and if you don't do this you loose the wisdom that comes with suffering
  • If you don't transform your suffering you transmit it
  • That growth occurs when an individual has just the right amount of feeling safe and ok within the conflict
  • And friendship and love give us this safety to hold us
  • Order - Disorder - Reorder
  • How we don't really want to see the pattern of loss and renewal in life
  • When you hear truth, don't ask "who said it?" Just ask, "is it true?" And if it's true, it's always from the Holy Spirit
  • How important the undeserved nature of Jesus' suffering is
  • Grief = Unfinished hurt
  • How we grow up in a world that is disenchanted
  • That it's hard to heal individually when the culture one lives in is so dysfunctional
  • Clear seeing means seeing the whole picture without our filters in place
  • How love applies to imperfect things, and it's a terrible mistake to wait for things that are "worthy" of our love and perfect
  • The reality and wisdom of "carrying the burden of the self"
  • The greek word for sin literally means when you're shooting the arrow and you miss the bullseye which doesn't mean a culpable thing that makes God not like you
  • How the clergy haven't been very motivated to move beyond a simple, punitive version of God because it keeps the laity codependant on the church
  • Relationships based on Guilt and Shame and You Owe Me are largely co-dependent in nature - it passes for love but it isn't
  • Much of religion - the church, catholic and protestant is built on codependence between the laity and the clergy
  • It has been job security for clergy to keep things this way because you keep people coming back on shame and guilt (the lowest level of motivation)
  • The truth is that God is infinite love. Any other version of God cannot continue and it doesn't lead to God's true nature
  • Evil is almost always absolutely sure of itself - it suffers no self-doubt
  • That faith is balancing the knowing and the not knowing
  • How fundamentalist Christians have moved too far away from this
  • That the great sin of America is superficiality
  • How democracy only works if the people have some degree of awareness and critical thinking
  • The incarnation is finding God IN things, in this world
  • Christian meditation is freeing yourself of yourself so that you can see God in everything
  • The "true self" is unique for every person and is also completely united
  • The "false self" (not the bad self) is the raw material God uses to break you through to your true self. It's cultural, it's passing

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Direct download: Richard_Rohr_2_Final_2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:08pm EDT

Many people could benefit from a 12 Step program to help handle their addictions but the issue of not believing in God can be a real blocker for them.

I discuss a way to use 12 Step programs while not believing in God.

Direct download: 12_step_God_mini_episode.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:36pm EDT

 Richard Rohr and Eric The One You Feed Full

 

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This week we talk to Richard Rohr

 

Fr. Richard Rohr is a globally recognized ecumenical teacher bearing witness to the universal awakening within Christian mysticism and the Perennial Tradition. He is a Franciscan priest of the New Mexico Province and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Fr. Richard’s teaching is grounded in the Franciscan alternative orthodoxy—practices of contemplation and self-emptying, expressing itself in radical compassion, particularly for the socially marginalized.

Fr. Richard is the author of numerous books, including  The Naked Now, Falling UpwardImmortal Diamond, His newest book is The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation.

In This Interview, Richard Rohr and I Discuss...

  • Non-dualistic thinking
  • That non-dualistic thinking is not a balancing act, but rather it's about holding the tension of opposites
  • The difficulty of living without resolution
  • The human psyche identifies with things - it searches for an identity
  • The story of the tree from the garden of Eden is a warning against thinking one knows what perfect good and perfect evil is. It's a warning against dualistic thinking.
  • Trans-rational thinking is beyond access to the rational mind
  • The 6 things that require trans-rational thinking
  • How we can be active in our world but not hate our enemies
  • That we've confused information with transformation
  • Soft Prophecy
  • That the message of the prophets is only about 2% about foretelling Jesus
  • How important it is to change your mind
  • How we've confused cleaning up, growing up, waking up and showing up in our lives
  • That the ego wants 2 things: to be separate and superior
  • Projectors vs Introjectors
  • That prayer is about changing you, not changing God
  • You'll be as hard on other people as you are hard on yourself

 

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Direct download: Richard_Rohr_1_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:50pm EDT

Erik Vance Full The One You Feed a

 

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This week we talk to Erik Vance about the power of our expectations

Erik Vance is a native Bay Area writer replanted in Mexico as a non-native species. Before becoming a writer he was, at turns, a biologist, a rock climbing guide, an environmental consultant, and an environmental educator.

His work focuses on the human element of science – the people who do it, those who benefit from it, and those who do not. He has written for The New York Times, Nature, Scientific American, Harper’s, National Geographic, and a number of other local and national outlets.

His first book, Suggestible You, about how the mind and body continually twist and shape our realities was inspired by his feature in Discover.

 

In This Interview, Erik Vance and I Discuss...

  • All the ways that our brain twists reality in order to make what it expects into reality
  • How our brains are driven by expectations
  • How we take the past, apply it to the present to predict the future
  • Whether we were alive at the same time as saber tooth tigers
  • How powerful the placebo effect
  • How the placebo effect actually generates the neurochemicals in our brain we would expect to see
  • It's not that we imagine we feel a certain way; we really do feel it.
  • "It's All in Your Mind" is totally true
  • How we have a wave of information from our brain, and a wave of information from our body; where they meet is what we feel
  • His experience of being electro-shocked at the NIH
  • How our brains don't want to be wrong
  • How we all have different responses to placebo and type of placebos
  • The gene that helps predict whether you might be a placebo responder
  • Placebo and chronic pain
  • Belief and expectation play a large role in chronic pain
  • The trouble to create new drugs given such high placebo response rates
  • How nocebo's work
  • How much of our pain is create by our expectations
  • The power of hypnosis
  • Hypnosis compared to meditation
  • How fallible our memories are
  • How easy it is to create false memories in people

 

It also often features different animals, mainly two dogs.

Direct download: Erik_Vance_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:03pm EDT

Adyshanti Full- The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Adyashanti about waking up

Adyashanti, author of The Way of Liberation, Resurrecting Jesus, Falling into Grace, and The End of Your World, is an American-born spiritual teacher devoted to serving the awakening of all beings. His teachings are an open invitation to stop, inquire, and recognize what is true and liberating at the core of all existence.

Asked to teach in 1996 by his Zen teacher of 14 years, Adyashanti offers teachings that are free of any tradition or ideology. “The Truth I point to is not confined within any religious point of view, belief system, or doctrine, but is open to all and found within all.” Based in California, Adyashanti teaches throughout the U.S. and in Canada, Europe, and Australia.

 

In This Interview, Adyashanti and I Discuss...

  • That our work as humans is on the journey from a walking contradiction to a walking paradox
  • That if we see something out of alignment with our value system we feel it in our body as tension
  • That our bodies are our best aid when it comes to navigating our inner consciousness
  • That there are different types of awakening
  • That awakening is a fundamental shift of identity
  • The primary task of any good spiritual teaching is not to answer your questions but to question your answers
  • What to do when you WANT to change but then you can't seem to change
  • The 5 foundations of spirituality
  • What is my aspiration?
  • That wanting to feel pleasure can only take us so far
  • When we start feeling better we'll stop looking deeper
  • Never abdicate your authority
  • That "true" meditation is the art of allowing everything to be exactly as it is
  • That meditation is there for us to get experiential insight into the nature of our being, our consciousness
  • The importance of bringing your intelligence along for the ride in meditation
  • To let go of what the outcome should be in meditation
  • Our whole body is a sensory instrument through which we experience life
  • That self-inquiry is joining the intellectual mind with the contemplative spirit
  • An unresolved deep question is often what sparks an awakening
  • How contemplation is different from meditation and inquiry
  • The three means of evoking insight: contemplation, meditation, and inquiry
  • The Jesus story is a map for awakening
  • How the Jesus story is so compelling
  • What life is like for awakened people
  • That awakening can be sudden and/or it can be a gradual unfolding
  • How enlightenment is the end of one game and the beginning of another
  • The difference between exploration and seeking
  • Whether or not psychedelic drugs play a role in awakening

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Direct download: Adyashanti_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:35pm EDT

Dean Quick Full Final- The One You Feed

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This week we talk to Dean Quick about the healing power of music

Dean Quick, MT-BC is the Program Director and Board Certified Music Therapist for TranscendED, a treatment center for eating disorders. He also provides broader music therapy through his personal practice. He is also a member of the Music Therapy Association of North Carolina.

 

In This Interview, Dean Quick and I Discuss...

  • His work as a music therapist for people with mental illness
  • How he works with clients who have no musical ability or skill
  • That live music is most effective as well as the client's preferred music in music therapy
  • That music bypasses the cognitive processes of trauma and allows a person to reach a place within themselves that might otherwise be difficult to access
  • How Gabby Giffords has used music to retrain her language
  • That music can ignite the brain unlike anything else
  • Where someone would go to explore music therapy as a patient
  • That music can be used as therapy for children with developmental disabilities
  • How music can be used by anyone as therapy on their own as therapy with some simple approaches
  • Being mindful of the power of music in your own daily life
  • Honoring the feeling in the moment with music
  • Asking yourself "how am I honoring my feeling in this present moment"
  • How we can engage with music in a mindful way to increase the power it has in our lives
  • Using music to pace your practice of progressive muscle relaxation
  • Why it's better to choose our own music rather than buying music playlists that are "for relaxation"

 

 

Direct download: Dean_Quick_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:08pm EDT

Emma Seppälä - Full The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Emma Seppälä about success and happiness

Emma Seppälä, Ph.D is Science Director of Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education and the author of The Happiness Track: How to Apply the Science of Happiness to Accelerate Your Success. She is also Co-Director of the Yale College Emotional Intelligence Project at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and a Lecturer at Yale College where she teaches The Psychology of Happiness.  She consults with Fortune 500 leaders and employees on building a positive organization and teaches in the Yale School of Management’s Executive Education program.  She graduated from Yale (BA), Columbia (MA), and Stanford (PhD).

 

In This Interview, Emma Seppälä and I Discuss...

  • Her book, The Happiness Track: How to Apply the Science of Happiness to Accelerate Your Success
  • The false notion that in order to be successful you have to work so hard that you postpone your happiness
  • The 6 major false theories that are behind our current notions of success
  • The false theory of "You can't have success without stress"
  • That our stress response is only meant to be fight or flight, not "most of the time"
  • That high adrenaline compromises our immune system, our ability to focus, make good decisions
  • The role of meditation in one's success
  • What prevents us from getting into a creative mindset
  • How to manage your energy vs managing your time
  • What we can learn from the resilience in children and animals
  • Where veterans and civilians can go to learn the art of breathing to recover from trauma
  • For Veterans: Project Welcome Home Troops
  • For Civilians: Art of Living
  • How "looking out for #1" can actually be harmful to you
  • Why workplaces are incorporating compassion training

 

 

Direct download: Emma_Seppala_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:26pm EDT

Srini Rao Full- The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Srini Rao about being unmistakable

Srini Rao is the host and founder of The Unmistakable Creative podcast. He has written multiple books including the Wall Street Journal bestseller The Art of Being Unmistakable; and his latest book: Unmistakable: Why Only Is Better Than Best

He is the creator of the 60-person conference called the Instigator Experience; He has an economics degree from the University of California at Berkeley and an MBA from Pepperdine University.

In This Interview, Srini Rao and I Discuss...

  • His book, Unmistakable: Why Only is Better than Best
  • That the process holds so much joy and that there really is no moment of arrival
  • How doing the work itself is the reward and the importance of being present
  • The temptation of trying to copy something that works and expect the same result
  • The three layers under which everyone's unmistakable nature lies
  • Stories, Labels, and Masks
  • The story of I have enough and the story of I don't have enough
  • That labels limit our capacity
  • The importance of constructing environments
  • That 96% of personal development projects fail
  • Just because it's a best practice doesn't mean it's best for you
  • That life is basically just one giant experiment
  • The idea of being ready and how it gets in our way
  • How crucial it is to commit to the process rather than the outcome
  • The insidious nature of validation
  • Our warped perception of longevity

 

 

 

Direct download: Srinivas_Rao_Final_V2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:50pm EDT

The Middle Way- The One You Feed

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The Middle Way

One of the wisest teachings I have found is the middle way. Both Aristotle and the Buddha taught it. The Middle Way has been used as a wisdom tool in many traditions.

 

 

 

Which Wolf are You Feeding

Which Wolf Will You Feed

It also often features different animals, mainly two dogs.

Direct download: Mini_Episode-_The_Middle_Way_1-001.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:58pm EDT

Greg Marcus Full The One You Feed

 

 

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This week we talk to Greg Marcus about the spiritual practice of Mussar

Greg Marcus has a BA in Biology from Cornell University, and earned his Ph.D. in biology from MIT.  He worked for ten years as a marketer in the Silicon Valley genomics industry, after which he became a stay-at-home dad, writer, life balance coach, and biotech consultant. Greg’s first book, Busting Your Corporate Idol: Self-Help for the Chronically Overworked, is a five star Amazon best seller. His latest book is called The Spiritual Practice of Good Actions: Finding Balance Through the Soul Traits of Mussar

In This Interview, Greg Marcus and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • His book, The Spiritual Practice of Good Actions: Finding Balance Through the Soul Traits of Mussar
  • Mussar: A Thousand Year Old Hebrew Spiritual Practice
  • Soul Traits
  • That you can be too truthful and it can  be counter productive
  • That being untruthful to spare yourself embarrassment is not ok
  • That being untruthful to spare someone else's feelings can be ok
  • And the intention is the most important determiner of whether or not to tell the truth
  • Choice points
  • The evil inclination and the good inclination
  • Mussar helps us by opening the space between "the match and the fuse"
  • That we all have free will but it's not always accessible to us
  • What qualifies as an act of kindness
  • Mussar = "Extreme Spiritual Fitness"
  • Morning Mantra, Daily observations and practices, Evening journaling
  • Mussar helps you specialize and deepen your knowledge and practice of the Soul Traits
  • The four assumptions of Mussar:
  • We all have a divine spark that is occluded by our baggage
  • We all have the same Soul Traits but we have different amounts of each
  • We have a conflict between the good inclination and the evil inclination
  • We all have free will and it's not always accessible to us
  • That patience is the cure for helplessness
  • Mussar: repairing the Soul Traits within us and how it can help the world

 

 

Direct download: Greg_Marcus_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:50pm EDT

Brian Tom O'Connor Full

 

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This week we talk to Brian Tom O'Connor

Brian Tom O’Connor is an actor, theatre director, cabaret performer, and formerly depressed guy who stumbled onto the source of joy and happiness in the background of all experience. 

In This Interview, Brian Tom O'Connor and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • His new book, Awareness Games: Playing with Your Mind to Create Joy
  • Real reality vs Virtual reality
  • Why games are a more effective approach than questions to exploring awareness
  • The fact that you don't have to believe anything to play a game
  • That trying to reproduce an experience isn't doable
  • That trying to get rid of an unpleasant feeling isn't doable
  • That the mind is an excellent servant but a poor master
  • The power of noticing "the whiteboard itself" rather than what's written on it
  • The three basic questions: What's in awareness now? What is awareness? Who/what is aware?
  • The Future Fishing game
  • The Past Catching game
  • The game, Slippery Mind
  • That awareness games can be a good break from a serious meditation practice
  • The benefit of allowing emotions to flow through you
  • The game, Include Include Include
Direct download: Brian_OConner_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:01pm EDT

Emily Esfahani Smith Full The One You Feed
 

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This week we talk to Emily Esfahani Smith

Emily Esfahani Smith is the author of The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life That Matters

She graduated from Dartmouth College and earned a master of applied positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.

She writes about psychology, culture, and relationships. Her writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times,TimeThe Atlantic, and other publications. Emily is also a columnist for The New Criterion, as well as an editor at the Stanford University's Hoover Institution,

 

In This Interview, Emily Esfahani Smith and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • Her new book: The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life That Matters
  • The difference between happiness and meaning
  • That the defining feature of a meaningful life is connecting and contributing to something that lies beyond the self
  • The three criteria of a meaningful life: feeling that one's life is significant in some way, feeling that one's life is driven by a sense of purpose and feeling that one's life is coherent
  • That human beings are meaning-seeking creatures
  • That there's more to life than feeling happy
  • That our current culture doesn't emphasize meaning and purpose
  • Victor Frankel's important work related to the role of meaning in our lives
  • The role of meaning when facing adversity
  • That responsibility and duty are wellsprings of meaning
  • That the wellsprings of meaning are all around us
  • The four pillars of a meaningful life: Belonging, Purpose, Storytelling, and Transcendence
  • The wisdom in what George Eliot has to say about the people that keep the world going in small yet indispensable ways: that the goodness of the world is dependent on their unhistoric acts
  • What kind of relationships lead to a sense of belonging
  • That purpose can come in all shapes and sizes
  • That reflecting on the story of your life can lead to a greater sense of meaning in your life
  • The two different types of storytelling
  • That transcendent experiences are crucial to having a greater sense of meaning in life
  • The good news about what's happening to us as a species
     

 

Direct download: EmilyEsfahaniSmithFinal.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 4:48pm EDT

Koshin Paley Ellison- Full- The One You Feed 

 

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This week we talk to Koshin Paley Ellison

Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison, cofounded the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care,  which delivers contemplative approaches to care through education, direct service, and meditation practice. 

Koshin is the co-editor of Awake at the Bedside: Contemplative Teachings on Palliative and End of Life Care . He received his clinical training at Mount Sinai Beth Israel Medical Center and the Jungian Psychoanalytic Association. He began is formal Zen training in 1987. He is a senior Zen monk, Soto Zen teacher, ACPE supervisor, and Jungian psychotherapist.

 

In This Interview, Koshin Paley Ellison and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • His new book: Awake at the Bedside: Contemplative Teachings on Palliative and End of Life Care
  • The influence of his grandmother on his life and his work
  • The story that changed his life forever
  • That to truly love someone means to love all of the parts of them, even the ones you don't understand or like
  • The importance of asking "where am I contracting away from things around me?"
  • How we get into trouble because of our aversion
  • The power of asking "I'm so curious about why you are angry?"
  • Learning how to feel the feeling without becoming the feeling
  • How his job is not to change people but to be with people
  • That it's difficult for someone to move until their cry has been fully heard and received
  • The healing connection with other people
  • That dying people reflect on how well they loved and who loved them in their lives
  • The recipe of resiliency: Including ourselves in how we care, the importance of community and having a contemplative practice with a group
  • The relationship between having a contemplative practice and caring for the dying
  • Learning how to give and receive freely = generosity
  • To show up with beginners mind, to bear witness and identifying the loving action are the three important teachings for service
  • Operationalized meditation
     
     

 

 

Direct download: Koshin_Paley_Ellison.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:11pm EDT

Rick Hanson- The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Dr. Rick Hanson about hardwiring happiness into our brain

Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a neuropsychologist and author of Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence as well as Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love  and Wisdom and Just One Thing: Developing a Buddha Brain One Simple Practice at a Time.

He is the Founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom and an Affiliate of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, he's been an invited speaker at Oxford, Stanford, and Harvard, and taught in meditation centers worldwide.

An authority on self-directed neuroplasticity, Dr. Hanson's work has been featured on the BBC, NPR, CBC, Fox Business, Consumer Reports Health, U.S. News and World Report, and O Magazine, and his articles have appeared in Tricycle Magazine, Insight Journal, and Inquiring Mind.

In This Interview Rick and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable.
  • His latest book: Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence.
  • That feeding the good wolf is a daily habit.
  • How it's our responsibility to feed our good wolf- no one can do it for us.
  • How frequently our brain changes.
  • Experience-dependent neuroplasticity.
  • That our brains are like velcro for the bad and Teflon for the good.
  • Deciding what we cultivate and what do you restrain.
  • The human tendency to overlearn from our bad experiences and under learn from our good ones.
  • Learning to "install" our beneficial experiences.
  • His practice of "taking in the good".
  • The difference between positive thinking and taking in the good.
  • The benefits of realistic thinking over positive thinking.
  • Moving positive memories into longer term memory.
  • How neurons that fire together wire together.
  • Ways to deepen our experiences: Duration, Intensity, Multimodality, Novelty and Salience.
  • The fundamental neuropsychology of learning,
  • Taking on the good in four words: Have it, Enjoy It.
  • How self hate and harshness are not motivating in the long term.
  • Being numb from the neck down.
  • The three-step way to working with negative emotions.
  • The analogy of a garden for how we tend to our minds: Be with the Garden, Pull the Weeds, Plan Flowers.

 

 

 

 

Direct download: Rick_Hanson_2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:30pm EDT

glennon doyle melton the one you feed

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This week we talk to Glennon Doyle Melton about staying open to life

 

 In This Interview Glennon and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable.
  • Having to get through the bad stuff to get to the good stuff.
  • Being terrified of pain.
  • If we work with our negative emotions we can transform them into something beautiful.
  • The benefit of sitting with our negative emotions.
  • Learning to use envy as a positive tool.
  • Losing ourselves to pretending and addition.
  • The continuous journey of valleys and mountains.
  • Being "brutiful".
  • How pain is a harsh but great teacher.
  • How a broken heart is not the end of anything, it's the beginning.
  • Using pain as fuel.
  • The mantra "staying open".
  • The power of service and art.
  • We can numb our feelings and hide or feel our feelings and share.
  • The power of the words "Me Too".
  • How getting sober is like recovering from frostbite.
  • Getting sober is hard but being sober is wonderful.
  • The benefit of being forced to our knees.
  • How no one is allowed to try and give you perspective in the middle of your pain.
  • Bringing our whole selves to all our roles in lives.
  • Surface conversations leave us lonely all the time because everyones surface is different, at deeper levels we are all the same.
  • The fear of being honest about who we are.

 

 

 

 

Direct download: Holiday_Bonus_Re-Issue-_Glennon_Doyle_Melton.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:27am EDT

bj fogg- the one you feed

 

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This week we talk to BJ Fogg about changing our behavior

Dr. BJ Fogg directs the Persuasive Tech Lab at Stanford University. A psychologist and innovator, he devotes half of his time to industry projects. His work empowers people to think clearly about the psychology of persuasion — and then to convert those insights into real-world outcomes.

BJ is the creator of the Fogg Behavioral Model, a new model of human behavior change, which guides research and design. Drawing on these principles, his students created Facebook Apps that motivated over 16 million user installations in 10 weeks.

He is the author of Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do, a book that explains how computers can motivate and influence people.  BJ is also the co-editor of Mobile Persuasion, as well as Texting 4 Health.

Fortune Magazine selected BJ Fogg as one of the  “10 New Gurus You Should Know”.

 In This Interview BJ and I Discuss...
  • The One You Feed parable
  • The wolf you pay attention to is the one you feed
  • The two main limits in life: time and attention
  • The Fogg Behavioral Model- Motivation, Ability and Triggers
  • How behavior change is about more than motivation
  • Designing effective behavior change
  • Managing the Ability part of the behavioral model
  • Designing behavior to fit into our every day routines
  • The bigger the change the more motivation you need
  • Why taking baby steps is so important
  • How motivation comes and goes
  • How behaviors get easier to do day after day
  • Building upon small successes
  • That the ability to change behavior is not a character issue
  • Keeping habits going during difficult times
  • Creating good triggers
  • Thinking about behavior change as behavior design
  • Super Habits
  • That triggers need to change with context changes
  • The importance of celebrating small habit changes
  • How emotions create habits
  •  

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Direct download: BJ_Fogg.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:31pm EDT

James Clear- The One You Feed

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This week we talk to James Clear about building habits 

James Clear is an entrepreneur, weightlifter, and travel photographer. He writes at JamesClear.com, where he talks about scientific research and real-world experiences that help you rethink your health and improve your life. His blog gets millions of visitors per year.

 In This Interview James and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable.
  • How money can be an addiction that society rewards.
  • How much we over estimate one defining moment versus steady day to day behavior.
  • The aggregation of marginal gains- improve by 1% in everything you do.
  • Small changes can lead to big results.
  • Reduce the Scope, Stick to The Schedule.
  • Not letting your emotions drive your behavior.
  • The difference between professionals and amateurs.
  • It's not the result that matters but the action and habit.
  • The 2 Minute Rule.
  • How willpower often comes after we start, not before.
  • "Start with something so easy you can't say no to it"- Leo Babuta
  • You don't have to be great at the start, you just need to be there.
  • Learning from our failures and seeing it as a data point.
  • Seeing failure as an event, not as part of us.
  • How mentally tough people define themselves by their persistence, not failure.
  • Acquiring more mental toughness or grit.
  • How 21 days to create a habit is a myth.
  • Missing a habit once in awhile is not a big deal.

 

 

 

 

Direct download: James_Clear_Dec_2016.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:35pm EDT

Noah Levine- The One you Feed

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This week on The One You Feed we have Noah Levine.

We were lucky enough to sit down with Noah in the Against the Stream headquarters in Los Angeles. Noah's teachings are core to everything that I have come to believe over the years. I'm really excited to present this interview.

Noah Levine (born 1971) is an American Buddhist teacher and the author of the books Dharma Punx: A Memoir Against the Stream,  and The Heart of The Revolution. As a counselor known for his philosophical alignment with Buddhism and punk ideology, he founded Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society

As a youth, Levine was incarcerated several times. His first book, Dharma Punx, details teenage years filled with drugs, violence, and multiple suicide attempts—choices fuelled by disillusionment with American mainstream culture. His substance abuse started early in life—at age six he began smoking marijuana—and finally ended in a padded detoxification cell in juvenile prison 11 years later. It was in this cell where he hit "an emotional rock bottom" and began his Buddhist practice "out of a place of extreme drug addiction and violence".

He recently started Refuge Recovery which is a community of people who are using the practices of mindfulness, compassion, forgiveness and generosity to heal the pain and suffering that addiction has caused. His new book is titled Refuge Recovery: A Buddhist Path to Recovery from Addiction.

In This Interview Noah and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable.
  • How he found Buddhism through his life failures.
  • What "going against the stream" means.
  • That the bad wolf has a stronger tendency in us and wins by default.
  • How our capacity for kindness, generosity, and love have to be cultivated.
  • Why the path of the Buddha is revolutionary.
  • Going against the status quo.
  • How to be in the world but not of it.
  • The distinction between suffering and pain.
  • The difference between craving and desire.
  • Why suffering is not your fault.
  • How the 1st Noble Truth normalizes the experience of suffering.
  • The impermanent nature of all things.
  • How we can never satisfy happiness through sense pleasure.
  • How we layer suffering on top of our pain.

 

 

 

 

Direct download: Noah_Levine_RE-Issue.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:38pm EDT

 Dr. Dan Siegel Full- The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Dr. Dan Siegel

Daniel Siegel, MD is a graduate of Harvard Medical School and completed his postgraduate medical education at UCLA

He is currently a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, and executive director of theMindsight Institute, an educational center devoted to promoting insight, compassion, and empathy in individuals, families, institutions, and communities.

His books include Mindsight, The Developing Mind and Parenting from the Inside Out 

He has been invited to lecture for the King of Thailand, Pope John Paul II, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Google University, and TEDx.

His latest book is called Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human

 

In This Interview, Dr. Dan Siegel and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • His new book: Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human
  • That where attention goes, neuro-firing flows and neuro-connection grows in the brain
  • The mind is not only what the brain does, or brain firing
  • The mind is more than merely energy and information flow
  • The mind is a self-organizing, emergent and relational process that is regulating the flow of energy and information both within you and between you and the world
  • The role of differentiating and linking in a healthy mind
  • That an unhealthy mind is too rigid and/or too chaotic
  • The importance of integrating rigidity and chaos in the brain
  • The Connectone Studies
  • The fact that integration of the brain is the best indicator of a person's well-being
  • That when we honor the differences between us and promote linkage between us and others, we foster integration in our brains
  • That people with trauma have impaired integration memory
  • What "mindsight" is and how it differentiates from mindfulness
  • How mindfulness can help foster mindsight and well-being
  • The wheel of awareness
  • That change seems to involve awareness
  • That energy is the movement from possibility to actuality through a series of probabilities
     

 

Direct download: Dan_Siegel_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:08pm EDT

Brain Pickings Maria Popova The One You Feed

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Our guest today is Maria Popova: a writer, blogger, and critic living Brooklyn, NY.  She is best known for Brainpickings.org, which features her writing on culture, books, and many other subjects. Brain Pickings is seen by millions of readers every month. Maria’s describes her work as  a human-powered discovery engine for interestingness, a subjective lens on what matters in the world and why, bringing you things you didn’t know you were interested in — until you are….

 In This Interview Maria and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable.
  • The critical importance of kindness.
  • The 7 things she has learned from 7 years of Brain Pickings.
  • Being so impatient that we don't dig deeper to understand peoples motivations.
  • The difference between wisdom and knowledge.
  • How we've become bored with thinking.
  • How we have a biological aversion to being wrong.
  • The uncomfortable luxury of changing our minds.
  • How being open minded requires being open hearted.
  • That as the stakes get higher we are less likely to be willing to change our mind.
  • How most world religions exist to take away the feeling of not knowing.
  • Presence is more important than productivity.
  • How we can see spiritual growth as another thing to mark off on our checklist.
  • Dispelling the illusion of the self.
  • How we are creatures of contradictions.
  • Trying to remove contradictions from our lives is a fools errand.
  • Learning to love and live the questions.
  • How it's silly to try and choose between the body and the soul, both are equally important.
  • Why cat pictures on the internet will not relieve your existential emptiness.
  • The average person spends two hours a day looking at their phone.
  • That habit is how we weave our destiny.
  • Whether we need to get something done every 4 minutes of our lives?
  • Balancing presence and productivity.
  • How it's easier to be a critic than a celebrator.
  • Expect anything worthwhile to take a long time.
  • There is no such thing as an overnight success.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Direct download: Maria_Popova.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:24pm EDT

For Group Transformation Program email eric@oneyoufeed.net

 

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This week on The One You Feed we have Dan Millman. Dan is a former world champion athlete, university coach, martial arts instructor, and college professor as well as a best selling author.

After an intensive, twenty-year spiritual quest, Dan’s teaching found its form as the Peaceful Warrior’s Way, expressed fully in his books and lectures. His work continues to evolve over time, to meet the needs of a changing world.

Dan’s thirteen books, including Way of the Peaceful Warrior, have inspired and informed millions of readers in 29 languages worldwide. The feature film, “Peaceful Warrior,” starring Nick Nolte, was adapted from Dan’s first book, based upon incidents from his life.

In This Interview Dan and I discuss…

The One You Feed parable.
The choice we face every day.
What does window cleaning have to do with spirituality?
How to get moving in the right direction.
How life always comes down to whether or not you take the action.
Starting small and connecting the dots.
That a little of something is better than nothing.
The danger of the all or nothing mentality.
That knowledge alone is not enough.
Life purpose.
A definition of wisdom.
Skillful versus unskillful action.
The Four Purposes of Life.
How life is a perfect school and the lessons get harder if we don’t learn.
The conventional realm and the transcendental realm.
The process of writing a book with his daughter.

Direct download: Dan_Millman.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 4:57pm EDT

Claire hoffman- The One You Feed- Full

 

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This week we talk to Claire Hoffman

Claire Hoffman works as a magazine writer living in Los Angeles, writing for national magazines, covering culture, religion, celebrity, business and whatever else seems interesting. She was formerly a staff reporter for the Los Angeles Times and a freelance reporter for the New York Times.

She has a masters degree in religion from the University of Chicago, and a masters degree in journalism from Columbia University. She serves on the board of her family foundation, the Goldhirsh Foundation, as well as the Columbia Journalism School. Claire is a native Iowan and has been meditating since she was three years old.

Her new book is called: Greetings from Utopia Park: Surviving a Transcendent Childhood.

In This Interview, Claire Hoffman and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • Her new book: Greeting from Utopia Park: Surviving a Transcendent Childhood.
  • Growing up in a transcendental meditation community
  • How that community changed over time
  • The meditation only trailer park
  • Rationality versus belief
  • How things can be so much more beautiful and strange than logic allows
  • Moving away from the meditation community in her late teens
  • Being tired of the negative cynical voice in her head
  • Revisiting the meditation community many years later
  • Can meditation cause people to levitate?
  • Quieting the cynical doubting mind
  • Is evolution antithetical to happiness?
  • Yogic flying: what it is and what it looks like
  • How she felt about seeing her mom attempt to fly
  • The desire to escape being human, to be divine
  • That part if being who she is is feeling uncomfortable
  • Accepting what it's like to be a person
  • Her evolution as a meditator
  • That she doesn't aspire to being enlightened

Claire Hoffman Links

Direct download: Claire_Hoffman_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:16pm EDT

Jesse Browner- Full- The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Jesse Browner

Jesse Browner is the author of the novels The Uncertain Hour and Everything Happens Today. His latest book is the memoir How Did I Get Here: Making Peace with the Road Not Taken.

Browner has also translated books by Jean Cocteau, Paul Eluard and Rainer Maria Rilke, as well as Frédéric Vitoux's award-winning Céline: A Biography. More recently, he translated Matthieu Ricard's Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill and Frédéric Mitterrand's The Bad Life.

His freelance writing includes contributions to Nest magazine, Food & Wine, Gastronomica, New York magazine, The New York Times Book Review, Paris Review, Salon.com, Slate.com and others.

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In This Interview, Jesse Browner and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • His new book, How Did I Get Here? Making Peace with the Road Not Taken
  • That in our "unlived lives" we are always happier and more fulfilled
  • Making peace with the choices we've made in our lives
  • How to approach the question, "what if" by asking instead, "what is"
  • That the most persistent monkey on an artists back is happiness
  • The belief that happiness whitewashes all the things that makes us unique
  • Bet on the likelihood that you're not a genius and that you can make meaning in your life in other ways than your art
  • Why bet against yourself?
  • To work hard at something you love: you'll be the best you can
  • His life's motto: Work and Love
  • How he's been called "the angry Buddhist" by his children
  • The importance of and remedy in being more deeply involved in the life you have

 

Direct download: Jesse_Browner_Final_2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:21pm EDT

Lesley Hazleton Full- The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Lesley Hazleton

Lesley Hazleton  is a British-American author whose work focuses on "the vast and volatile arena in which politics and religion intersect." Her latest book, Agnostic: A Spirited Manifesto, a Publishers Weekly most-anticipated book of spring 2016, was praised by The New York Times as "vital and mischievous" and as "wide-ranging... yet intimately grounded in our human, day-to-day life."

Hazleton previously reported from Jerusalem for Time, and has written on the Middle East for numerous publications including The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, Harper's, The Nation, and The New Republic.

Born in England, she was based in Jerusalem from 1966 to 1979 and in New York City from 1979 to 1992, when she moved to a floating home in Seattle, originally to get her pilot's license, and became a U.S. citizen. She has two degrees in psychology (B.A. Manchester University, M.A. Hebrew University of Jerusalem).

Hazleton has described herself as "a Jew who once seriously considered becoming a rabbi, a former convent schoolgirl who daydreamed about being a nun, an agnostic with a deep sense of religious mystery though no affinity for organized religion"."Everything is paradox," she has said. "The danger is one-dimensional thinking".

In April 2010, she launched The Accidental Theologist, a blog casting "an agnostic eye on religion, politics, and existence." In September 2011, she received The Stranger's Genius Award in Literature and in fall 2012, she was the Inaugural Scholar-in-Residence at Town Hall Seattle.

In This Interview, Lesley Hazleton and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • Her new book, Agnostic: A Spirited Manifesto
  • Why she is a curious agnostic
  • That belief is an emotional attachment
  • That belief is an attempt to establish fact when there is no fact
  • To be a "believer" means you've made up your mind
  • The double meaning of the word "conviction"
  • Why she loves doubt
  • Why binaries concern her
  • That agnostics are often mislabeled as wishy-washy or indecisive
  • How to take joy in our own absurdity
  • That you don't have to believe in a fact because a fact just exists
  • The human tendency to find pattern in anything
  • That perfection is boring

 

 

Direct download: Lesley_Hazleton.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:17pm EDT

Benjamin Shalva- The One You Feed 1

 

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This week we talk to Benjamin Shalva

Benjamin Shalva is the nationally renowned author of Ambition Addiction: How to Go Slow, Give Thanks, and Discover Joy Within and Spiritual Cross-Training: Searching through Silence, Stretch, and Song and has been published in the Washington Post, Elephant Journal, and Spirituality & Health magazine. A rabbi, writer, meditation teacher, and yoga instructor, he leads spiritual seminars and workshops around the world.

 In This Interview, Benjamin Shalva and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • His new book, Ambition Addiction: How to go slow, give thanks and discover the Joy Within
  • That ambition can be healthy and it can also cross the line to being destructive
  • The casualties ambition can leave behind
  • The mirage of "any day now"
  • The signs and symptoms of ambition addiction
  • That addictive behavior is something we do often and it's counterproductive
  • The helpfulness of the question: Is my goal an all or nothing goal?
  • That the road to hell is not paved with good intentions, it's paved with unexamined intentions
  • Recovering from ambition addiction
  • The technique of breath, word and deed
  • The key step of slowing down

 

Direct download: Shalva_2Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:39pm EDT

Michelle Gielan Full- The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Michelle Gielan

Michelle Gielan, national CBS News anchor turned positive psychology researcher, is the bestselling author of Broadcasting Happiness.

Michelle is the Founder of the Institute for Applied Positive Research and is partnered with Arianna Huffington to study how transformative stories fuel success. She is an Executive Producer of “The Happiness Advantage” Special on PBS and a featured professor in Oprah’s Happiness course.

Michelle holds a Master of Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, and her research and advice have received attention from The New York Times, Washington Post, FORBES, CNN, FOX, and Harvard Business Review.

 In This Interview, Michelle Gielan and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • Her new book, Broadcasting Happiness: The Science of Igniting and Sustaining Positive Change
  • The role that watching the news has in causing us to feel depressed
  • How three minutes of negative news can lead to a 27% lower mood all day long
  • How believing we are helpless can be one of the leading causes of depression
  • The importance of believing that our behavior matters
  • The three greatest predictors of success
  • Stress isn't necessarily bad, it's the perception that matters
  • Feeding the good wolf in others
  • The myth that we can't change other people
  • Is this positive thinking?
  • Focusing on the good
  • The power lead

 

 

Direct download: Michelle_Gielan_2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:43pm EDT

Roger Housden Full- The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Roger Housden about dropping the struggle

Roger Housden founded and ran The Open Gate, a conference and workshop center in England that introduced the work of Ram Dass, Thich Nath Hanh, and many others into Europe.

His work has been featured many times in The Oprah MagazineThe New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times.

His first book was published in the U.K. in 1990, and as of 2014, he has published twenty two books, including four travel books, a novella, Chasing Love and Revelation, and the best-selling Ten Poems series, which began in 2001 with Ten Poems to Change Your Life and ended with the publication in 2012 of Ten Poems to Say Goodbye.

His latest book is called Dropping the Struggle: Seven Ways to Love the Life You Have

 In This Interview, Roger Housden and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • His new book, Dropping the Struggle: Seven Ways to Love the Life You Have
  • The power of poetry to reach deeper than the rational mind
  • That struggle is not the same thing as effort
  • That struggle is not the same thing as work
  • That struggle is an extra push that really originates in fear, adding a note of desperation, that rarely ever works

For more show notes visit our website

 

Direct download: Roger_Housden_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:35pm EDT

This is a very brief summary of my thinking today post-election.

 

 

Direct download: Eric_post_election_comments_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:51pm EDT

Mike McHargue

 

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This week we talk to Mike McHargue about beliefs

Mike McHargue (better known as Science Mike) is the best-selling author of Finding God in the Waves, host of Ask Science Mike and co-host of The Liturgists Podcast. He's a leading voice on matters of science and religion with a monthly reach in the hundreds of thousands. Among other outlets, Mike has written for RELEVANT, Don Miller's Storyline, BioLogos, and The Washington Post.

 In This Interview, Mike McHargue and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • His new book, Finding God in the Waves
  • His analogy of our brains being like the government
  • Where God is found in our brains
  • That if you continually analyze your relationship with a person, eventually that relationship will be less emotionally based and more intellectually based
  • That the arts as well as anything looked at or experienced as a whole rather than reductively will help feed your "romantic" wolf in a relationship
  • His journey from the Southern Baptist Church to losing his faith to where he is today
  • His faith today is a posture of gratitude, surrender, an awareness that life is just something that we have that we didn't do anything to receive and it is a rare and precious gift and that he extends that gratitude to God (which is found in our unique human capacity to love)

For more show notes visit our website

Direct download: Mike_McHargue_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:21pm EDT

Shinzen Young Full- The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Shinzen Young about the science of enlightenment

Shinzen Young is an American mindfulness teacher and neuroscience research consultant.

His systematic approach to categorizing, adapting and teaching meditation has resulted in collaborations with Harvard Medical School, Carnegie-Mellon University and the University of Vermont in the burgeoning field of contemplative neuroscience.

He is the author of The Science of Enlightenment, Natural Pain Relief  and numerous audio offerings.

 

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 In This Interview, Shinzen Young and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • His new book, The Science of Enlightenment
  • The five fundamental good wolves
  • The skill set of mindful awareness
  • How meditation helps you concentrate
  • How the ability to concentrate is at the base of the pyramid of anything you want to do
  • That mindful awareness is the ability to focus on anything you want, whenever you want for as long as you want
  • Untangle and be free
  • How to break down our inner space
  • How to track your sense of self
  • Breaking the self down into these three things: Mental images, mental talk and body emotions
  • That when you have a strong emotion you almost always will have a change in body sensation
  • How to parcel body sensation into emotional and non-emotional
  • The experiment you can do when you move into a situation that is emotionally intense but that is not currently intense
  • How to suffer less in life and be 10x happier
  • The difference between pain and suffering
  • The habit of equanimity
  • That one of the goals of meditations is to achieve happiness regardless of conditions
  • The periodic table of meditation techniques
  • The unified mindfulness system
  • A "name and claim" meditation

 

 

Direct download: Shin_Zen_Young_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:30pm EDT

Michael Bungay Stanier- The One You Feed- Full

 

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This week we talk to Michael Bungay Stanier about habits

Michael Bungay Stanier is the founder of Box of Crayons, a company that helps organizations do less Good Work and more Great Work. He’s the author of several books, including The Coaching Habit and Do More Great Work. Michael has written for or been featured in numerous publications including Business Insider, Fast Company, Forbes, The Globe & Mail and The Huffington Post.

He was the 2006 Canadian Coach of the Year. He was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University and holds a Masters of Philosophy from Oxford, and law and arts degrees with highest honors from the Australian National University.

 In This Interview, Michael Bungay Stanier and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • His new book, The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More and Change the Way You Lead Forever
  • The way that the question, How do you stay curious for just a little bit longer? Can transform the way you show up in your life
  • How feeling safe can help us access our highest selves
  • The power of sitting in the ambiguity of asking a question rather than jumping to the feeling of certainty of telling someone an answer
  • The Karpman Drama Triangle: the victim, the persecutor & the rescuer
  • The heart of the Victim role: There's only one way to do this, but you don't like the way it's being done.
  • The best coaching question in the world: And what else?
  • That the first answer someone gives you isn't their only answer and it's rarely their best answer.
  • It's a great self-management tool for rescuers because it keeps you from jumping in, it allows you to stay curious a little bit longer
  • It's a great question for the victim role because it helps give them other options
  • Most people only consider two options before making a decision: should I stay or should I go? Asking this question can give you a third option
  • The five essential components to building an effective new habit
  • That 45% of our waking behavior is habitual
  • The 95% of our brain activity happens in the unconscious brain
  • Since it's inevitable that when building a new habit you will "fall off the bus" or fail, it's important that you have a plan for what you'll do at that point
  • How do you hold yourself firmly but compassionately accountable when it comes to changing your behavior?
  • The kickstart question - a good way to start conversation with anybody: What's on your mind

 

Direct download: MichaelBungayStanierFinal_1.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:05pm EDT

Eric Kaufmann- The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Eric Kaufmann about leadership

Eric Kaufmann guides leaders to make better decisions and achieve better results. He has consulted for hundreds of leaders, including executives and teams at Sony, T-Mobile, Genentech, Alcon Labs, and Teradata. He is the founder and president of Sagatica, Inc. and serves on the board of the San Diego Zen Center.

His new book is called the Four Virtues of a Leader and shares practical ideas and tools that deepen a leader’s ability to be efficient, effective and deliberate.
 

 In This Interview, Eric Kaufmann and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • His new book, The Four Virtues of a Leader
  • How leadership is like The Hero's Journey
  • How he used the spiritual bypass
  • His definition of leadership
  • Leadership in day to day life
  • His four questions surrounding leadership
  • The three hurdles we have to overcome to be effective
  • His definition of courage
  • Ways you can build courage
  • The important difference between fear and anxiety
  • The lifelong process of discipline
  • The three gems of Buddhism
  • Procrastination
  • How spiritual surrender plays into leadership

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It also often features different animals, mainly two dogs.

Direct download: Eric_Kaufmann_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:25pm EDT

Jonathan Fields- The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Jonathan Fields about living a good life

Jonathan Fields is a New York City dad, husband, and he currently runs a mission-driven media and education venture, Good Life Project, where he and his team lead a global community in the quest to live more meaningful, connected and vital lives. He produces a top-rated podcast and video-series with millions of listens and views, where he hosts in-depth conversations with leading voices from Sir Ken Robinson to Brene Brown, Elizabeth Gilbert and hundreds more.

Jonathan has also been featured widely in the media, including everything from The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and FastCompany to Real Simple, O Magazine, Self, People, Vogue, Elle, Allure, and many others.

His latest book is called How to Live a Good Life: Soulful Stories, Surprising Science, and Practical Wisdom

 In This Interview, Jonathan Fields and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • His new book, How to Live a Good Life: Soulful stories, surprising science and practical wisdom
  • The three good life buckets: Connection, Vitality, Contribution
  • Improving your experience in your "day job"
  • The mistake in his business manifesto: Thou shalt do epic shit
  • The role that money plays in living a good life
  • That the way that you spend your money plays a big role in a satisfying life
  • What gives you a sense of purpose? What in your life do you do passionately?
  • Sparks
  • The middle way
  • Three ways to deal with the energy vampires in your life: self-care, compassion & find your beacon
  • That your life can only be as good as the level of your lowest bucket
  • How to improve your life by assessing the levels of your buckets and what actions to then take

Jonathan Fields Links

 

Direct download: Jonathan_Fields_2_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:18pm EDT

Barbara Karnes Full The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Barbara Karnes about living and dying well

Barbara Karnes, RN, is an internationally respected speaker, educator, author and thought leader on matters of death and dying. She is a renowned authority to explain the dying process to families, healthcare professionals and the community at large.

Barbara has held both clinical and leadership positions, including staff nurse, clinical supervisor and executive director. She has won numerous awards including THE INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN WOMAN OF THE YEAR 2015 from the World Humanitarian Awards.

 In This Interview, Barbara Karnes and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • That knowledge reduces fear
  • How her work with & knowledge of the dying process influences how she lives
  • That as long as we're breathing it is an act of living
  • What to do when one receives a terminal diagnosis
  • The labor of dying
  • The process of gradual death
  • The significant changes that happen 1-3 weeks before death
  • How to know if someone is minutes to hours away from their death
  • That dying is not painful; disease causes pain
  • The spiritual driver releasing its hold on the physical body
  • The importance of telling the dying person that you understand that they 

For more show notes visit our website

 

Direct download: Barbera_Karnes_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:58pm EDT

Melody Warnick Full The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Melody Warnick

Melody Warnick has been a freelance journalist for more than a decade, she has written for Reader’s Digest, O: The Oprah Magazine, Redbook, The Atlantic’s CityLab, and dozens of other publications.

She is the author of This Is Where You Belong: The Art and Science of Loving the Place You Live.  How we come to feel at home in our towns and cities is what Warnick sets out to discover in This Is Where You Belong. She dives into the body of research around place attachment—the deep sense of connection that binds some of us to our cities and increases our physical and emotional well-being—then travels to towns across America to see it in action.

 In This Interview, Melody Warnick and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • Moving often
  • Liking where you live
  • Committing to where you are and making the best of it
  • The difference between people who are movers, stuck and rooted
  • Always thinking happiness is "out there" somewhere
  • Why walking more helps you love where you live
  • What is your Walk Score
  • Each town is different to each person depending on perspective- there is no objective town
  • Where would you take visitors in your town?
  • Taking advantage of the things your town offers
  • The paradox of choice
  • How important nature is in feeding your good wolf and loving where you live
  • Buying local
  • The power of "weak ties"

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Direct download: Melody_Warnick_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:19pm EDT

Taylor Hunt Full- The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Taylor Hunt

Taylor Hunt is a devoted student of Ashtanga, a system of yoga originally transmitted by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois. The system is now transmitted by his teacher, Sharath Jois, in Mysore, India.

Taylor was the first Ashtanga teacher in Ohio granted Level II Authorization to teach from the Sri K. Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute (KPJAYI) in Mysore, India. He is dedicated to sharing the transformative and healing practice with others by teaching daily Mysore classes at Ashtanga Yoga Columbus and offering workshops around the country. He is also the author of the recently published book, A Way From Darkness, and director of the Trini Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to sharing the life-changing practice of Ashtanga with those suffering from addiction.

 In This Interview, Taylor Hunt and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • How the parable applies to a person with addiction
  • Addiction = A disease of denial
  • His book, A Way From Darkness
  • The varying amounts of meeting attendance and other support mechanisms in the recovery process
  • The importance of being connected to one's self in a healthy life
  • The importance of state of mind and intention when it comes to the practice of yoga
  • The ways emotions show up in our body
  • Ashtanga Yoga
  • How he helps his students connect to their yoga practice on a spiritual level
  • The importance of not comparing your insides with someone else's outsides
  • The surprising thing that his dad said to him when he asked for his blessing to go to India
  • "Bring Your Ass to Class"
  • How he built the self-discipline to cultivate a consistent yoga practice
  • The danger of identifying ourselves with our thoughts

 

 

Direct download: TaylorHuntFinal.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:32pm EDT

Tara Brach- Full- The One You Feed

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This week we talk to Tara Brach

Tara Brach is an American psychologist and proponent of Buddhist meditation. She is a guiding teacher and founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, D.C  Brach also teaches Buddhist meditation at centers for meditation and yoga in the United States and Europe including Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California, the Kripalu Center,and the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies.

Brach is an engaged Buddhist specializing in the application of Buddhist teachings to emotional healing. Her 2003 book, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha, focuses on the use of practices such as mindfulness for healing trauma. Her 2013 book, True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart, offers practices for tapping into inner peace and wisdom in the midst of difficulty.

 In This Interview, Tara Brach and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • Being kind to the parts of ourselves that are more primitive
  • The difference between feelings and thoughts
  • Dropping the storyline
  • The question of "What am I unwilling to feel?"
  • How we have to go through the difficult emotions to get to peace
  • The importance of remembering the good
  • Not being addicted to suffering
  • The habit of looking for what's wrong
  • What's the moment like if there is no problem
  • How we tend to always anticipating a problem 
  • How we are almost always lost in thought
  • Practicing coming into our senses
  • Self-compassion as the most important quality on the spiritual path
  • Only being taught one type of meditation
  • Trying different types of meditation until we find the one that works best for us.

For more show notes visit our website

 

Direct download: Tara_Brach_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:48pm EDT

matthew-quick- The One You Feed

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This week we talk to Matthew Quick about mental health

Our guest this week is Matthew Quick. He is here for his second visit to The One You Feed.

He is the New York Times bestselling author of The Silver Linings Playbook, which was made into an Oscar-winning film; as well as many other novels. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages, received a PEN/Hemingway Award Honorable Mention, was an LA Times Book Prize finalist, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and selected by Nancy Pearl as one of Summer’s Best Books for NPR.

His latest book is called Every Exquisite Thing

 

 Our Sponsor this Week is Casper Mattress

Visit casper.com/wolf and use the promo code “wolf” to get $50 off!!

the one you feed- matthew quick

 

In This Interview, Matthew Quick and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • Short term pleasure versus long term gain
  • Imposter Syndrome
  • Thinking that money and fame will create happiness
  • Removing the stigma of mental health
  • Intrinsic vs extrinsic goals
  • What drives us
  • The voice of depression
  • Finding the middle ground between rebellion and conformity
  • The power of literature to allow us to see different worlds and possibilities
  • How sometimes quitting is the right approach
  • Parental understanding 
  • How his father thought he was crazy to leave a job to become a writer
  • The pressure to be someone that everyone else wants you to be
  • Letting our children be who they are
  • How lonely people need to find each other
  • How we need music and art to rally around
  • Social anxiety and depression
  • The role of mental health in creating art
  • The artist as the canary in the coal mine
  • How being adjusted to a sick society is not healthy
  • How do we know if we are artistic, mentally ill or just different
  • Affecting an air of superiority over "normal" people

For more show notes visit our website

 

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Direct download: MatthewQuick2Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:15pm EDT

howard martin The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Howard Martin (HeartMath) about the intelligence of the heart

Howard Martin is one of the original leaders who helped found HeartMath. HeartMath was founded to help individuals, organizations and the global community incorporate the heart’s intelligence into their day-to-day experience of life. They do this by connecting heart and science in ways that empower people to greatly reduce stress, build resilience, and unlock their natural intuitive guidance for making better choices.

During his career with HeartMath, Howard has delivered programs for Fortune 100 companies, government agencies, all four branches of the U.S. military, and many school system.

He coauthored The HeartMath Solution and Heart Intelligence:Connecting with the Intuitive Guidance of the Heart.

 In This Interview, Howard Martin (HeartMath) and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • How polarized our world is
  • How important our day to day choices are
  • What "heart intelligence is"
  • The benefit of looking "within"
  • The science of heart intelligence
  • What heart rate variability is
  • How the heart is considered part of our hormonal system
  • The two-way communication between the heart and the brain
  • Measuring heart rate variability 
  • What heart coherence is 
  • The Heart Coherence method
  • How it takes time for these practices to create results
  • The difference between our heart talking and our mind
  • Following our heart
  • HeartMath promotion

 

 

 

Direct download: Howard_Martin_Final_1.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:59pm EDT

Ralph White- The One You Feed

 

 

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This week we talk to Ralph White 

Ralph White is co-founder of the New York Open Center, America’s leading urban institution of holistic learning where his current role is Creative Director. The Open Center receives almost 60,000 visits annually from participants in its year round programs and has presented the major writers and speakers in the fields of wellness, social/ecological change, inner development, world spiritual traditions, art and creativity  for over twenty seven years. He is an international speaker on spirituality, consciousness, the history of the Western Tradition. He is also editor of the award winning Lapis magazine, and taught the first fully accredited course in holistic thinking and learning at New York University.

His new memoir is called: The Jeweled Highway: On The Quest For a Life of Meaning

 In This Interview, Ralph White and I Discuss...The One You Feed parable

  • His latest book, The Jeweled Highway
  • The role of music in his life
  • His involvement in building spiritual retreat centers
  • How you retain your centeredness in an urban environment
  • If there are parts of the world that are more conducive to places of spiritual retreat than others
  • The powerful role of retreat centers of bringing together people of like mind
  • The importance of contact with nature
  • The importance of a spiritual practice
  • The importance of cultivating community

For more show notes visit our website

 

 

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A grandfather is talking with his grandson and he says there are two wolves inside of us which are always at war with each other. 

One of them is a good wolf which represents things like kindness, bravery and love. The other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed, hatred and fear.

The grandson stops and thinks about it for a second then he looks up at his grandfather and says, “Grandfather, which one wins?”

The grandfather quietly replies, the one you feed

The Tale of Two Wolves is often attributed to the Cherokee indians but there seems to be no real proof of this. It has also been attributed to evangelical preacher Billy Graham and Irish Playwright George Bernard Shaw. It appears no one knows for sure but this does not diminish the power of the parable.

This parable goes by many names including:

The Tale of Two Wolves

The Parable of the Two Wolves

Two Wolves

Which Wolf Do You Feed

Which Wolf are You Feeding

Which Wolf Will You Feed

It also often features different animals, mainly two dogs.

Direct download: Ralph_White_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 1:11am EDT

will always take effort- the one you feed

This was on my mind this week. I thought it would be good to revisit this episode- Eric

Life will always take effort

Most of us have a fantasy that we will hit some point where life won't take effort. We will read the right book, learn the right meditation, rub the right crystal and our troubles will vanish.

I think this is a fallacy. Life always take effort, and I think this is good news. It's our unrealistic expectations that cause us problems and cause us pass over what works and chase more snake oil.

Make the effort, life is worth it.

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Some of our most popular interviews that you might also enjoy:

Kino MacGregor

Strand of Oaks

Mike Scott of the Waterboys

Todd Henry- author of Die Empty

Randy Scott Hyde

Direct download: Reissue_Aug_21_2016.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:27pm EDT

Tami Simon The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Tami Simon about What Matters Most

Tami Simon founded Sounds True at the age of 22 with the mission of disseminating spiritual wisdom. As a pioneer in the conscious business movement, she focuses on bringing authenticity and heart into the workplace while honoring multiple bottom lines. Tami hosts a popular weekly podcast called Insights at the Edge, where she has interviewed many of today's leading teachers, delving deeply into their discoveries and personal experiences on their own journeys. With Sounds True, she has released the audio program Being True: What Matters Most in Work, Life, and Love.

 In This Interview, Tami Simon and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • The core invincible goodness that's deep inside of us all
  • Her new audiobook, Being True: What Matters Most in Work, Life and In Love
  • What "There's no there there" means as it relates to enlightenment
  • How she balances both accepting the moment and striving for things in her life
  • The role that healthy ambition plays in daily life
  • The types of feedback that our bodies give us to indicate that things are out of balance
  • What her spiritual practice looks like today
  • Somatic Meditation
  • How she's working on integrating the meditative state into her everyday life
  • The never ending process of deep attending within ourselves
  • The five keys to living with integrity
  • How support plays a big role in us having the courage to bridge the gap between knowing and doing
  • Her experiences with some of the great spiritual teachers that she has met
Direct download: Tami_Simon_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:46pm EDT

The One You Feed

Get more information on The One You Feed Coaching Program. Enrollment open until August 20th

 

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This is a bonus episode of Eric being interviewed by Greg Berg on his excellent Life on Purpose podcast

From Greg's show notes:

What is a life worth living? How do change your behavior and establish lasting habits? Which wolf do you feed?

For Life on Purpose Episode #35, my guest is podcast host/producer Eric Zimmer from The One You Feed, which was named one of the Best Health Podcasts of All Time by The Huffington Post.

Eric has spent the past two years asking these questions of thought leaders, scientists, and teachers such as Simon Sinek, Byron Katie, don Miguel Ruiz, Sharon Salzberg, Bob Proctor, BJ Fogg, Dan Millman, and many more.

Eric joins me for a great, in-depth conversation about his own life journey (being addicted to drugs and homeless 20 years ago), what he’s learned doing the show, tools and tips for self-awareness and behavior change, and much more!

 

 

 

The Tale of Two Wolves

A grandfather is talking with his grandson and he says there are two wolves inside of us which are always at war with each other. 

One of them is a good wolf which represents things like kindness, bravery and love. The other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed, hatred and fear.

The grandson stops and thinks about it for a second then he looks up at his grandfather and says, “Grandfather, which one wins?”

The grandfather quietly replies, the one you feed

The Tale of Two Wolves is often attributed to the Cherokee indians but there seems to be no real proof of this. It has also been attributed to evangelical preacher Billy Graham and Irish Playwright George Bernard Shaw. It appears no one knows for sure but this does not diminish the power of the parable.

 

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Direct download: Life_on_Purpose_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:38pm EDT

Matthew Fox - The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Matthew Fox about The Four Paths to God

Matthew Fox is an American priest and theologian. Formerly a member of the Dominican Order within the Roman Catholic Church, he became a member of the Episcopal Church following his expulsion from the order in 1993.

Fox was an early and influential exponent of a movement that came to be known as Creation Spirituality. The movement draws inspiration from the mystical philosophies of such medieval Catholic visionaries as Hildegard of Bingen, Thomas Aquinas, Saint Francis of Assisi, Julian of Norwich, and Meister Eckhart as well as the wisdom traditions of Christian scriptures.

Creation Spirituality is also strongly aligned with ecological and environmental movements of the late 20th century and embraces numerous spiritual traditions around the world.

Fox has written 30 books that have sold millions of copies. His latest book is called A Way to God: Thomas Merton's Creation Spirituality Journey

 In This Interview, Matthew Fox and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • Feeding "the love of life" vs the "love of death"
  • How fear can drive compassion out
  • Embracing the difficult
  • Silence and solitude
  • Balancing engaging with the world vs retreating from it
  • Battling our narcissistic tendencies
  • Learning to let go and let be
  • Developing a "portable solitude" that we can take with us
  • His Four Paths to God- Via Positiva, Via Negativa, Via Creativa, Via Transformativa
  • Creativity as a path towards God
  • Getting "off the cushion" and into the world
  • Via Positiva
  • Awe and astonishment as a path to deeper spirituality
  • Nature as part of the Via Positiva
  • Via Negativa
  • Facing suffering and grieving as part of the Via Negativa
  • Via Transformativa
  • Keeping our attention on being compassionate
  • The "glittering Niagra of Trivia" that is our culture and media
  • Thomas Merton's transition to mysticism
  • Was Thomas Merton assassinated by our government?
  • Technology as the main problem of our time
  • How technology will not redeem us
  • Being expelled from the Dominican Order
  • Supporting homosexuality

 

 

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A grandfather is talking with his grandson and he says there are two wolves inside of us which are always at war with each other. 

One of them is a good wolf which represents things like kindness, bravery and love. The other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed, hatred and fear.

The grandson stops and thinks about it for a second then he looks up at his grandfather and says, “Grandfather, which one wins?”

The grandfather quietly replies, the one you feed

The Tale of Two Wolves is often attributed to the Cherokee indians but there seems to be no real proof of this. It has also been attributed to evangelical preacher Billy Graham and Irish Playwright George Bernard Shaw. It appears no one knows for sure but this does not diminish the power of the parable.

This parable goes by many names including:

The Tale of Two Wolves

The Parable of the Two Wolves

Two Wolves

Which Wolf Do You Feed

Which Wolf are You Feeding

Which Wolf Will You Feed

It also often features different animals, mainly two dogs.

Direct download: Matthew_Fox.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:42pm EDT

Conor O'Brien The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Conor O'Brien about celebrating our uniqueness

Conor O'Brien is an Irish singer and songwriter for the band Villagers.

The band came to prominence in 2010 with the release of their debut album, Becoming a Jackal. Released to critical acclaim, the album was shortlisted for the 2010 Mercury Prize and the Choice Music Prize. The band's second studio album, {Awayland} was released in 2013. It won the Choice Music Prize that year and was also shortlisted for the 2013 Mercury Prize. Their 2015 record Darling Arithmetic quickly became on of Eric's favorite records of last year. It also won an Ivors Award for Best Album of the Year.

 

In This Interview, Conor O'Brien and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • Using art to explore our inner challenges
  • His "meditation" song
  • His song about smiling into the void- Nothing Arrived
  • Embracing the difficult
  • How most music tries to cover up the cracks in life
  • How music that seems sad can be very comforting.
  • Being part of something bigger
  • Realizing how little we know
  • Becoming more comfortable talking about his sexuality
  • Being an introvert
  • The sweet relief of knowing nothing comes for free
  • Looking for shortcuts in life and how they don't exist
  • Why being on The One You Feed is sort of like going to a therapist
  • How therapy is less accepted in Ireland as much as America
  • Having faith in the things that make you different
  • Finding the things in ourselves that are unique and magnify them

For more show notes visit our website

 

 

 

 

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A grandfather is talking with his grandson and he says there are two wolves inside of us which are always at war with each other. 

One of them is a good wolf which represents things like kindness, bravery and love. The other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed, hatred and fear.

The grandson stops and thinks about it for a second then he looks up at his grandfather and says, “Grandfather, which one wins?”

The grandfather quietly replies, the one you feed

The Tale of Two Wolves is often attributed to the Cherokee indians but there seems to be no real proof of this. It has also been attributed to evangelical preacher Billy Graham and Irish Playwright George Bernard Shaw. It appears no one knows for sure but this does not diminish the power of the parable.

This parable goes by many names including:

The Tale of Two Wolves

The Parable of the Two Wolves

Two Wolves

Which Wolf Do You Feed

Which Wolf are You Feeding

Which Wolf Will You Feed

It also often features different animals, mainly two dogs.

Direct download: Conor_OBrien_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:46pm EDT

Brad Warner- The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Brad Warner about not being a jerk

Brad Warner is an ordained Zen teacher and author of the books There Is No God And He Is Always With YouSit Down and Shut Up and Hardcore Zen. He’s also a writer for the Suicide Girls website, bass player for the hardcore punk rock group 0DFx (aka Zero Defex), star of the movies “Shoplifting From American Apparel” and “Zombie Bounty Hunter M.D.,” director of the film “Cleveland’s Screaming!” and former vice president of the US branch of the company founded by the man who created Godzilla.

His latest book is called: Don't Be a Jerk: Other Practical Advice from Dogen, Japan's Greatest Zen Master - A Radical but Reverent Paraphrasing of Dogen's Treasury of the True Dharma Eye

In This Interview, Brad Warner and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • His book, Don't Be a Jerk and Other Practical Advice from Dogen, Japan's Greatest Zen Master
  • That we become the people we need to become
  • How a person can be a buddha one minute and a jackass the next
  • That once you realize what your "negative" urges are, they become less attractive for you to respond to
  • The answer to the question, "How do you strive to be a better person AND accept life exactly as it is?"
  • That the most intelligent course of action is the one that benefits everyone involved
  • How one of his teachers said that you need to hold an equal amount of faith and doubt
  • The idea that thoughts are just the secretions of your brain the same way your stomach acid are the secretion of your stomach

For more show notes visit our website

 

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A grandfather is talking with his grandson and he says there are two wolves inside of us which are always at war with each other. 

One of them is a good wolf which represents things like kindness, bravery and love. The other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed, hatred and fear.

The grandson stops and thinks about it for a second then he looks up at his grandfather and says, “Grandfather, which one wins?”

The grandfather quietly replies, the one you feed

The Tale of Two Wolves is often attributed to the Cherokee Indians but there seems to be no real proof of this. It has also been attributed to evangelical preacher Billy Graham and Irish Playwright George Bernard Shaw. It appears no one knows for sure but this does not diminish the power of the parable.

This parable goes by many names including:

The Tale of Two Wolves

The Parable of the Two Wolves

Two Wolves

Which Wolf Do You Feed

Which Wolf are You Feeding

Which Wolf Will You Feed

It also often features different animals, mainly two dogs.

Direct download: Brad_Warner_Final_2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:27pm EDT

Michelle Segar Full- The One You Feed

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This week we talk to Michelle Segar about making lasting change

Michelle Segar, PhD, is a motivation scientist and author of critically acclaimed No Sweat! How the Simple Science of Motivation Can Bring You a Lifetime of Fitness . She is also the Director of the Sport, Health, and Activity Research and Policy Center (SHARP) at the University of Michigan, and Chair of the U.S. National Physical Activity Plan’s Communications Committee.

Her evidence-based ideas about what motivates people to choose and maintain healthy behaviors is changing the conversation across fields. She consults with global organizations on these issues and delivers keynotes and sustainable behavior change trainings. She ran with the Olympic Torch at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona.

In This Interview, Michelle Segar and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • Her book, No Sweat: How the Simple Science of Motivation Can Bring You a Lifetime of Fitness
  • How considering a different "why" for starting to be more physically active can be helpful
  • That why we engage in physical activity and what it is that we do are critical when it comes to us sticking with it
  • How too many "whys" dilute their positive effect on us
  • Intrinsic vs Extrinsic goals
  • How answering the question, "What kind of physical activity did you enjoy doing as a kid?" can be important
  • That we should start doing what makes us feel good and stop doing what makes us feel bad when it comes to physical activity
  • That any physical movement is better than none at all - Everything counts!

For more show notes visit our website

 

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A grandfather is talking with his grandson and he says there are two wolves inside of us which are always at war with each other. 

One of them is a good wolf which represents things like kindness, bravery and love. The other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed, hatred and fear.

The grandson stops and thinks about it for a second then he looks up at his grandfather and says, “Grandfather, which one wins?”

The grandfather quietly replies, the one you feed

The Tale of Two Wolves is often attributed to the Cherokee indians but there seems to be no real proof of this. It has also been attributed to evangelical preacher Billy Graham and Irish Playwright George Bernard Shaw. It appears no one knows for sure but this does not diminish the power of the parable.

This parable goes by many names including:

The Tale of Two Wolves

The Parable of the Two Wolves

Two Wolves

Which Wolf Do You Feed

Which Wolf are You Feeding

Which Wolf Will You Feed

It also often features different animals, mainly two dogs.

Direct download: Michelle_Seager_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:31pm EDT

James R Doty - The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to James R Doty about the power of compassion

James R Doty, MD, is a Clinical Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at Stanford University and the Director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University School of Medicine. He completed his undergraduate education at the University of CA, Irvine and medical school at Tulane University. He trained in neurosurgery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and completed fellowships in pediatric neurosurgery at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia.

As Director of CCARE, Dr. Doty has collaborated on a number of research projects focused on compassion and altruism including the use of neuro-economic models to assess altruism, use of the CCARE developed compassion cultivation training in individuals and its effect, assessment of compassionate and altruistic judgment utilizing implanted brain electrodes and the use of optogenetic techniques to assess nurturing pathways in rodents.

Dr. Doty is also an inventor, entrepreneur and philanthropist having given support to a number of charitable organizations including Children as the Peacemakers, Global Healing, the Pachamama Alliance and Family & Children Services of Silicon Valley. Additionally, he has endowed chairs at major universities including Stanford University and his alma mater, Tulane University. He is on the Board of Directors of a number of non-profit foundations including the Dalai Lama Foundation, of which he is chairman and the Charter for Compassion International of which he is vice-chair. He is also on the International Advisory Board of the Council for the Parliament of the World’s Religions.

He is the author of Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart 

In This Interview, James R Doty and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • His book,  Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart 
  • The impact of compassionate acts on our brain, health and well-being
  • How early in his childhood he felt like a leaf being blown around by an ill wind
  • The four key lessons that, when learned, changed the trajectory of his life
  • The difference between you and your inner voice
  • That when you create the internal circumstances for reaching your goal, that allows for the possibility of the outward circumstances to align themselves for your own success
  • A scientific perspective on the connection between the brain and the heart and the rest of the body

For more show notes visit our website

Direct download: James_R._Doty_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:08pm EDT

Parker J Palmer- The One You Feed
Photo Credit: Dan Kowalski, Bainbridge Island, WA

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This week we talk to Parker J Palmer about finding wholeness

Parker J. Palmer, is the founder and Senior Partner of the Center for Courage & Renewal. He is a world-renowned writer, speaker and activist who focuses on issues in education, community, leadership, spirituality and social change. He has reached millions worldwide through his nine books, including Let Your Life Speak, The Courage to Teach, A Hidden Wholeness, and Healing the Heart of Democracy.

Parker holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California at Berkeley, as well as eleven honorary doctorates, two Distinguished Achievement Awards from the National Educational Press Association, and an Award of Excellence from the Associated Church Press. In 2010, Palmer was given the William Rainey Harper Award whose previous recipients include Margaret Mead, Elie Wiesel, and Paolo Freire. In 2011, he was named an Utne Reader Visionary, one of “25 people who are changing your world.”

 

 Our Sponsor this Week is Casper Mattress

Visit casper.com/feed and use the promo code “feed” to get $50 off!!

the one you feed- barry mangione

 

In This Interview, Parker J Palmer and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • That wholeness is not about perfection but it's about embracing all that we are
  • His book, Hidden Wholeness: A Journey Towards an Undivided Life
  • What the idea of "the Soul" means to him
  • His experiences with clinical depression and the lesson he's learned, a.k.a. "the pearl of great price"
  • What "the divided life" is
  • That we need BOTH community and solitude
  • The voice of depression
  • The important concept of, "If you can't be in community, watch out for being alone and if you can't be alone, watch out for being in community."
  • The idea of "The Circle of Trust"
  • That sometimes giving advice to someone is like giving CPR to people who can breathe for themselves & when we give them CPR, we're actually inhibiting their own capacity to breathe
  • The importance of letting another person work their way to the answer themselves
  • His book, Healing the Heart of Democracy
  • What he has to say about the current state of politics
  • That rather than looking at the right vs left division in politics, another view is to look at the people who think they can't do anything politically and have given up vs the activists
  • That our founding fathers really got it wrong when defining who "we the people" are
  • The important role that conflict brings to our form of government
  • The Five Habits of the Heart that are important to healing the heart of democracy

For more show notes visit our webpage

 

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Direct download: Parker_Palmer_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:58pm EDT

A.H. Almaas- The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to A.H. Almaas about spiritual awakening

A. H. Almaas is the pen name of A. Hameed Ali, creator of the Diamond Approach to Self-Realization. The Diamond Approach is a contemporary teaching that developed within the context of both ancient spiritual teachings and modern depth psychology theories.

Almaas has authored seventeen books about spiritual realization, including the Diamond Heart seriesThe Pearl Beyond PriceThe VoidThe Unfolding Now, and The Point of Existence.

He founded the Ridhwan School, an inner work school devoted to the realization of True Nature. The orientation of the school is directed toward helping students become aware of and embody their “essence” or essential nature.

His latest book is Runaway Realization: Living a Life of Ceaseless Discovery.

In This Interview, A.H. Almaas and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • The different layers of consciousness
  • The angelic and animal nature
  • How the animal side is focused on our survival- the drive to survive
  • Being is our fundamental essence
  • Self Realization- when our Being and our identity becomes the same thing
  • The primary method of The Diamond Approach- direct experience of being
  • The process of inquiry
  • Engaging in some practice that questions what we assume to know about ourselves
  • How taking things at face value shortchanges ourselves of deeper knowledge
  • How the separate sense of self is not an illusion, but it is only one of the ways to view reality

For more show notes visit our website

 

 

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A grandfather is talking with his grandson and he says there are two wolves inside of us which are always at war with each other. 

One of them is a good wolf which represents things like kindness, bravery and love. The other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed, hatred and fear.

The grandson stops and thinks about it for a second then he looks up at his grandfather and says, “Grandfather, which one wins?”

The grandfather quietly replies, the one you feed

The Tale of Two Wolves is often attributed to the Cherokee indians but there seems to be no real proof of this. It has also been attributed to evangelical preacher Billy Graham and Irish Playwright George Bernard Shaw. It appears no one knows for sure but this does not diminish the power of the parable.

This parable goes by many names including:

The Tale of Two Wolves

The Parable of the Two Wolves

Two Wolves

Which Wolf Do You Feed

Which Wolf are You Feeding

Which Wolf Will You Feed

It also often features different animals, mainly two dogs.

Direct download: Hameed_Ali_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:13pm EDT

Norman Rosenthal The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Norman Rosenthal about transcendental meditation

Dr. Norman Rosenthal is a world-renowned psychiatrist, public speaker and best-selling author who is known for his innovative research and inspirational writings. He is currently clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University School of Medicine. He is most known for his discovery of Seasonal Affective Disorder.

He is currently clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University School of Medicine. His new book is Supermind: How to Boost Performance and Live a Richer and Happier Life Through Transcendental Meditation

 

In This Interview,Norman Rosenthal and I Discuss...

For more show notes visit our website

Norman Rosenthal Links

A grandfather is talking with his grandson and he says there are two wolves inside of us which are always at war with each other. 

One of them is a good wolf which represents things like kindness, bravery and love. The other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed, hatred and fear.

The grandson stops and thinks about it for a second then he looks up at his grandfather and says, “Grandfather, which one wins?”

The grandfather quietly replies, the one you feed

The Tale of Two Wolves is often attributed to the Cherokee indians but there seems to be no real proof of this. It has also been attributed to evangelical preacher Billy Graham and Irish Playwright George Bernard Shaw. It appears no one knows for sure but this does not diminish the power of the parable.

This parable goes by many names including:

The Tale of Two Wolves

The Parable of the Two Wolves

Two Wolves

Which Wolf Do You Feed

Which Wolf are You Feeding

Which Wolf Will You Feed

It also often features different animals, mainly two dogs.

Direct download: Norman_Rosenthal_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:59pm EDT

kira asatryan- The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Kira Astrayan about overcoming loneliness

Kira Asatryan is certified relationship coach, author, blogger, loneliness expert, and speaker. She loves to speak publicly on the topic of loneliness, as it's a problem of epidemic proportions in our modern times. She maintains a private coaching practice in San Francisco where she helps couples, and individuals develop closeness - the antidote to loneliness - in their relationships.

She has struggled with loneliness her whole life and has come to find that there are many others out there like her.

She has spent her coaching career researching, pondering, and reflecting upon what specifically makes relationships feel good or bad.

 

In This Interview, Kira Asatryan and I Discuss...

  • The One You Feed parable
  • Her book, Stop Being Lonely; Three simple steps to developing close friendships and deep relationships
  • The new type of loneliness in modern society
  • How closeness means direct access to another person's inner world
  • How knowing and caring are the two things that create closeness
  • The importance of seeing others from their perspective and letting them see you from your perspective
  • The role of being interested in and invested in another's well-being
  • That instead of fostering closeness, that worrying about someone can sometimes push them away
  • What it is about technology that can cause distance even when we're around other people
  • That love is not a reliable solution to loneliness

For more show notes visit our website

 

Direct download: Kira_Asatryan_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:32pm EDT

John Prendergast The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to John Prendergast about tuning into our body

John J. Prendergast, PhD, is a psychotherapist, retired professor of psychology, spiritual teacher, and founder and editor-in-chief of Undivided: The Online Journal of Nonduality and Psychology.

 He received my undergraduate degree from UC Santa Cruz and my M.A. and Ph.D. from the California Institute of Integral Studies.  He is licensed as a Marriage and Family Therapist.
 
 

In This Interview, John Prendergast and I Discuss:

  • The One You Feed parable
  • How important our body is
  • What "knowing" is
  • Learning to trust our deeper knowledge
  • The difference between inner knowing and hunches based on fear
  • Finding true knowing from ego desires
  • The static in our system
  • Observing thoughts as just thoughts

For more show notes visit our website

Direct download: John_Prendergast_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:52pm EDT

Russell Simmons Full- The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Russell Simmons about being a giver

 

Russell Simmons is an American entrepreneur and author. He began his entrepreneurial career in his youth, but on the wrong side of the law, selling marijuana to make money while an active member of a local gang.

He then partnered with Rick Rubin to create Def Jam Records, and signed artists like the Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, Public Enemy and Run-D.M.C. He is also The Chairman and CEO of Rush Communications, he cofounded the hip-hop music label Def Jam Recordings and created the clothing fashion lines Phat Farm, Argyleculture, and Tantris.

He is also a vocal proponent of meditation and veganism.

In This Interview, Russell Simmons and I Discuss:

  • The One You Feed parable
  • How good givers are great getters
  • Giving before you get
  • Dissociating ourselves from the results of our labors
  • How success and fame don't necessarily make us happy
  • Improving our health through veganism
  • Improving the health of the planet through veganism
  • Corporate greed
  • The horrors of factory farming
  • His experience with Occupy Wall Street
  • The corruption in politics
  • His daily yoga practice
  • Combining yoga, meditation, and veganism
  • Remaining useful and active as we age

For more show notes visit our website

 

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Direct download: Russell_Simmons_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:57pm EDT

Benjamin Shalva- The One You Feed 1

 

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This week we talk to Benjamin Shalva about spiritual cross training

Benjamin Shalva is a rabbi, writer, and yoga instructor, he leads spiritual cross-training seminars and workshops around the world. He received his rabbinical ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City and his yoga teacher certification from the Yogic Physical Culture Academy in Los Cabos, Mexico. Shalva serves on the faculty of the Jewish Mindfulness Center of Washington and the 6th & I Historic Synagogue in Washington, DC, leads musical prayer services for Bet Mishpachah in Washington, DC, and spends his summers as the camp rabbi of Tamarack Camps in Michigan. His writings have been published in the Washington Post, Elephant Journal, and Spirituality & Health magazine. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he lives in Reston, Virginia, with his wife and their children.

 

In This Interview, Benjamin Shalva and I Discuss:

  • The One You Feed parable
  • His book, Spiritual Cross-Training: Searching through Silence, Stretch & Song
  • How he has been searching all of his life
  • That spiritual work produces nothing tangible
  • That spiritual growth is slow yet real & discernable in our lives
  • Spiritual connection & growth, like friendship, is built through time, energy & attention
  • What "spiritual cross-training" is
  • His spiritual experience with the 3 modalities of silence, stretch & song
  • How sticking to just one spiritual practice, over time becomes hobby
  • The importance of "diving deep" into your chosen 2-3 spiritual practices
  • How to deal with ego & ambition when it shows up in your spiritual practice
  • How inviting the ego voice in his head to join him in his spiritual practice has been a useful tool in his life
  • How what you resist, persists
  • That, in the spiritual journey "...when we've exhausted all other options, we always have one weapon left in our arsenal....laughter"
 

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Direct download: Benjamin_Shalva_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:39pm EDT

behavior change mistake 2

Get more information on The One You Feed Coaching Program. Enrollment open until May 25th

 

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The #2 Mistake Most People Make When Trying to Change Behavior:

Dropping Old Behaviors Without Putting Something In Their Place

Nature abhors a vacuum. Behaviors that have been done frequently enough that they have become habits are things that are now done mindlessly or effortlessly during our day. If at a certain time of day you do something and then all of the sudden you stop doing that thing, you are now left with a slice of time that was filled and is now empty. When faced with that empty space of time, it’s going to be really hard to resist doing the thing you’ve become habituated to do. So, put some other behavior in it’s place.

In addition, a lot of our “negative” behavior patterns happen for a reason. There is something that they are doing for us (or did at one time). Removing them without some sort of substitute leaves a need unmet.

For example, let’s say that everyday when you get home from work you have a snack. You’d like to stop having that snack because it’s close to dinner time and you don’t want the extra calories. Instead of coming home from work, sitting on the couch and doing nothing, resisting the urge to have something to eat, maybe you go for a 15 minute walk around your neighborhood instead.

 

 

 

The Tale of Two Wolves

A grandfather is talking with his grandson and he says there are two wolves inside of us which are always at war with each other. 

One of them is a good wolf which represents things like kindness, bravery and love. The other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed, hatred and fear.

The grandson stops and thinks about it for a second then he looks up at his grandfather and says, “Grandfather, which one wins?”

The grandfather quietly replies, the one you feed

The Tale of Two Wolves is often attributed to the Cherokee indians but there seems to be no real proof of this. It has also been attributed to evangelical preacher Billy Graham and Irish Playwright George Bernard Shaw. It appears no one knows for sure but this does not diminish the power of the parable.

 

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Direct download: Behavior_Change_Mistake_2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:30pm EDT

Robbie Vorhaus The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Robbie Vorhaus about following your heart

Robbie Vorhaus is widely recognized as one of the top three reputation and crisis experts and advisors in the world.

Robbie’s path is fascinating: On the outside, renowned crisis expert and communications strategist, Robbie Vorhaus’ life appeared ideal: a New York City Park Avenue apartment, a home in the Hamptons, two adoring children in world-class private schools, and a thriving PR agency representing world leaders, celebrities, sports stars, entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 companies. Privately, though, his life was falling apart.

A marriage in trouble, jeopardized health, and financial pressures culminated on vacation when his family asked: “Dad, are you really happy?” Realizing he was in peril of losing everything he held dear, Robbie courageously followed the advice he had given clients for decades: Follow your heart. Choose to be happy. And consciously make everything better than you found it. The result: Vorhaus closed his agency, moved his family to their small Sag Harbor home, started a leadership and crisis consultancy, and began anew.

Now transformed, healthy, happy, and celebrating a marriage of more than 25 years, Robbie drew on his life’s work and experience to write a column for his local newspaper, The Sag Harbor Express, outlining a step-by-step plan for following your heart and being happy, which, after going viral, became the basis for his next seven years writing. His book is called One Less. One More. – Follow Your Heart. Be Happy. Change Slowly.

In This Interview, Robbie Vorhaus and I Discuss:

  • The One You Feed parable
  • The choice we face in every moment
  • How if we feed our ego we are always alone, if we feed our heart we are always connected
  • How you have to start now
  • The math of One Less, One More
  • Add one more good thing to your life each day and do one less thing negative thing
  • Why we fail at major life transformation when we try to do too much at once
  • The uniqueness of every human
  • Doing less of what is no longer working for you
  • Facing the fork in the road
  • How there will always be resistance to our dreams.
  • Committing to being our own person
  • Following our heart
  • The process of becoming
  • How much choice do we have in our mood?
  • The power of curiosity
  • The power of small changes
  • The crying Zen Monk
  • If you think you are enlightened spend a weekend with your family
  • Dealing with the perception of others
  • How we tend to judge people by their worst moments
  • Not allowing others to define us
  • Do we want to be dust or ash?
  • How wealth and fame do not necessarily bring happiness
  • Committing to being our own person and being authentic

For more notes visit our show page

Direct download: Robbie_Vorhaus_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:15pm EDT

The #1 Mistake


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The #1 Mistake Most People Make When Trying to Change Behavior

Starting Too Big

The key to making lasting change is to break things down into really small steps. Most people want to start at point A and jump to Point Z but you don’t get there overnight. Break the new habit down into the smallest possible increments and be specific when planning each step along the way.

In the beginning the most important part of behavior change is to be successful. This increases your motivation and makes you want to do more. If you start small it is much easier to “succeed” and build from there.

For example, let’s say you want to take up a meditation practice. Instead of trying to meditate for 30 minutes a day, start with 3 minutes. Then once that becomes a daily habit increase it to 5 minutes, etc. As Leo Babuta of Zen Habits says “Make it so easy you can’t say no.”

On one of our earlier episodes Dan Millman discussed the importance of “starting small and connecting the dots”. You will be amazed at what a series of small steps done consistently over a period of time will accomplish.

 

 

The Tale of Two Wolves

A grandfather is talking with his grandson and he says there are two wolves inside of us which are always at war with each other. 

One of them is a good wolf which represents things like kindness, bravery and love. The other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed, hatred and fear.

The grandson stops and thinks about it for a second then he looks up at his grandfather and says, “Grandfather, which one wins?”

The grandfather quietly replies, the one you feed

The Tale of Two Wolves is often attributed to the Cherokee indians but there seems to be no real proof of this. It has also been attributed to evangelical preacher Billy Graham and Irish Playwright George Bernard Shaw. It appears no one knows for sure but this does not diminish the power of the parable.

 

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Direct download: The_1_Mistake_People_Make_When_Trying_to_Change_Behavior.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:45pm EDT

125: Mary O"Malley

Mary O'Malley- The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Mary O'Malley about awakening to the world around us

Mary O’Malley is an author, teacher, and counselor whose work awakens others to the joy of being fully alive.  Her inspired and transformative approach to compulsions offers a way to replace fear, hopelessness and struggle with ease, well-being and joy. Through her individual counseling and coaching, books, classes, retreats and ongoing groups, Mary invites people to experience the miracle of awakening.

Acknowledged as a leader in the field of Awakening by many Mary clearly sees both the big picture and the details of human patterns and conditioning.  She possesses an extraordinary ability to understand and connect with people. And she is skilled in empowering people to work with difficult mind states resulting in greater inner awareness and presence and a greater capacity for joy.  Eckhart Tolle says, “Thank you, Mary, for your contribution to the evolution of human consciousness.”

Her latest book is called What’s In the Way, Is the Way: A Practical Guide to Awakening.

In This Interview, Mary O'Malley and I Discuss:

  • The One You Feed parable
  • The intertwining of good and bad, the yin and yang
  • Dealing with eating problems
  • How what we fight, we empower
  • Creating a relationship with the dark side
  • The impact of the early years of our lives
  • The conditioned self
  • How we are addicted to struggle
  • Being present to life instead of thinking our way through life
  • The "low-grade suffering" that permeates our lives
  • The storyteller in our minds
  • The Four Let's- Let Life, Let it Be, Let it Go,
  • Learning to not listen so closely to the storyteller in our mind
  • The difference between being here for life and being in a conversation about life

For more show notes visit our website

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Direct download: Mary_OMalley_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:27pm EDT

Oren Soffer and Dan Harris

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This week we talk to Dan Harris and Oren Sofer about mindful communication

Our guests this week are Dan Harris and Oren Sofer.
 
Dan was a previous guest and we discussed his great book, 10% Happier. In addition, Dan is the current anchor on the weekend edition of Good Morning America as well as Nightline.

 

He has begun creating a series of courses based around 10% Happier. One of those courses features Oren Sofer.

 

Oren is a teacher and practitioner of Buddhist meditation, Nonviolent Communication (NVC), and Somatics. Oren is a specialist in the role of mindfulness in creating better conversation.

 

This conversation was recorded in Dan's office in the ABC Studios in New York.
 

 Our Sponsor this Week is Casper Mattress

Visit casper.com/feed and use the promo code “feed” to get $50 off!!

the one you feed- barry mangione

 

In This Interview, Oren Dan and I Discuss:

  • The One You Feed parable
  • Why mindfulness is useful in communication
  • The 10% Happier app
  • Learning to see confrontation as an opportunity to improve the relationship
  • How our cultural conditioning teaches us the Win/Lose paradigm
  • How we have a strong negative conditioning against confrontation that becomes hard-wired
  • How mindfulness allows us to slow down and monitor our emotional reactions in conversation
  • The role of curiosity in communication
  • How to become more curious
  • Learning to ask "What matters here" when listening to others
  • Learning to say that we don't feel like talking instead of just pretending
  • The minor discomfort of being real
  • How to say things in a way that the other person can hear and understand
  • Learning to hold our tongue in certain situations
  • How being silent can lead to its own challenges
  • The importance of timing in choosing when to address issues
  • Context sensitive communication
  • The two criteria of good communication: does the other person understand and does it lead to connection

Dan Harris Links

10% Happier Homepage

Twitter

Facebook

Oren Sofer Links

Homepage

 

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Direct download: OrenSoferFinal.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:32am EDT

Colin-Beavan The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Colin Beavan about being happy AND changing the world

Colin Beavan’s writing, speaking, consulting and activism have encouraged tens of thousands of people to examine their lives to discover what’s really important to them.

He is among the world’s best-known spokespeople on environmental issues, consumerism and human quality of life. He was called “one of the ten most influential men” by MSN, an “eco-illuminator” by Elle Magazine, a “best green ambassador” by Treehugger.com, and his blog was selected as one of the top 15 environmental blogs by Time Magazine.

Colin has appeared on The Colbert Report, Good Morning America, Nightline and countless other TV and radio shows.

Colin’s latest book is How to Be Alive: A Guide to the Kind of Happiness that Helps the World

In This Interview, Colin Beavan and I Discuss:

  • The One You Feed parable
  • The illusion that we are separate from this world
  • How to give energy to what is true for you
  • How to give less energy to what is not true for you
  • His experience as "No Impact Man."
  • The martyr, victim, scoundrel, and hero
  • The four psychological needs we need to satisfy to be happy
  • Intrinsic vs Extrinsic goals
  • The stories we tell ourselves about the world and our lives
  • Analogical Thinking
  • The ukelele approach

 

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Direct download: ColinBeavanFinalV2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:02pm EDT

steven c hayes- the one you feed

 

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This week we talk to Steven C Hayes about getting out of our minds and into our lives

Steven C Hayes is Nevada Foundation Professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Nevada. He is an author of over 35 books and over 500 scientific articles. He is considered one of the founders of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

In 1992 he was listed by the Institute for Scientific Information as the 30th “highest impact” psychologist in the world. His work has been recognized by several awards including the Exemplary Contributions to Basic Behavioral Research and Its Applications from Division 25 of APA, the Impact of Science on Application award from the Society for the Advancement of Behavior Analysis, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies.

He is best known for his book Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life: The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

 

In This Interview, Steven C Hayes and I Discuss:

  • The One You Feed parable
  • His book, Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life
  • That you know if your thoughts are good or bad by the fruits that they bear
  • The ACT approach to therapy
  • The difference between pain and suffering
  • The importance of putting the human mind on a leash
  • That suffering comes from when we mishandle the present moment, and we amplify certain thoughts and feelings
  • The meaning of Cognitive Fusion: when we can look only from our thoughts and not at our thoughts
  • The importance of and various types of contemplative practice
  • Various diffusion techniques (listed in a free episode download!)
  • The concept and practice of experiential avoidance
  • The full impact of acting for "short term gains with long term pains"

For more show notes visit us at our website

 

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Direct download: Steven_C._Hayes_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:34pm EDT

121: Aaron Anastasi

aaron anastasi- the one you feed

 

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This week we talk to Aaron Anastasi about not listening to the voices that hold us back

Aaron Anastasi is a Southern California native who graduated with a master’s degree from Princeton where he studied philosophy and psychology.

He’s also a serial entrepreneur with online businesses such as Superior Songwriting Method, Signing Success, and the internationally recognized, Superior Singing Method, an online singing lesson program that grosses seven-figures annually.

Having a love for adventure, he was a pro snowboarder in Vail, Colorado, scaled Glacier Lake mountains in Bolivia, and cut pathways through the jungles of Contagem, Brazil.

Along with being a Los Angeles based actor and filmmaker, Aaron is also a prominent success coach for clients in industry-leading roles, ranging from film directors to marine biologists to TEDx speakers. His new book, The Voice of Your Dreams,was recently released.

Fracture- The One You Feed

In This Interview, Aaron Anastasi and I Discuss:

  • The One You Feed parable
  • The limiting voices in our head
  • The "You don't have what it takes" voice
  • Instead of asking "Do I have what it takes" ask "Do I have the capacity to find the resources I need to be successful"
  • The fixed vs growth mindset, again
  • How the limiting voices often appear as reality
  • How inspiration and passion often arise while we are in action
  • Waiting on inspiration is a mistake and a misunderstanding of how it works
  • The importance of just getting started- the hardest part is right before we start
  • Breaking things down to very small chunks to help us get started
  • Recovering from pessimism
  • The old Hemmingway trick- Finishing while you still have one idea left

For more show notes visit our website

 

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Direct download: Aaron_Anastasi_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 4:18pm EDT

robert sessions-the one you feed

 

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A native of South Dakota, Robert Sessions earned a B.A. from Drake University and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Michigan.  Before focusing on photography, for more than four decades he taught at Kirkwood Community College, Grinnell College, Luther College, and the University of Minnesota in Duluth.

As a photographer he works frequently with his wife, travel writer Lori Erickson. Together they produce Spiritual Travels, a website describing holy sites around the world, and Holy Rover, a blog hosted by Patheos, the world’s largest website on religion and spirituality. His photos also appear regularly in publications that include the Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Gazette and Group Tour Magazine. He is a member of the Society of American Travel Writers.

In addition, Sessions is the author of Becoming Real: Authenticity in an Age of Distractions and co-author of Working In America: A Humanities Reader.  He has also published several dozen articles on environmental philosophy, the philosophy of work, ethics, and the philosophy of technology.

He lives in Iowa City, Iowa.

 

In This Interview, Robert Sessions and I Discuss:

  • The One You Feed parable
  • His new book, Becoming Real: Authenticity in an Age of Distractions
  • That authenticity is something fundamental that is at the heart of what we are all seeking
  • How authenticity is impacted by variables found on the inside as well as in the world surrounding a person
  • The three main distractions that get in the way of authenticity
  • That work is a major context within which we discover ourselves
  • How bad habits surrounding technology can get in the way of being our authentic selves

For more show notes visit our website

 

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Direct download: RobertSessionsFinal.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 4:37pm EDT

Rick Heller- The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Rick Heller about secular meditation

Rick Heller is the author of the new book, Secular Meditation: 32 Practices for Cultivating Inner Peace, Compassion, and Joy — A Guide from the Humanist Community at Harvard.

Rick leads weekly meditations at the Humanist Community at Harvard.

Rick received a master’s degree in journalism from Boston University. He also holds a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from MIT

In This Interview, Rick Heller and I Discuss:

    • The One You Feed parable
    • His new book, Secular Meditation: 32 practices for cultivating inner peace, compassion & Joy (A guide from the Humanist Community at Harvard)
    • How in the brain, two negatives do not equal a positive
    • What a "Humanist" is
    • A secular view of meditation & mindfulness
    • Other types of meditation other than breath focused meditation
    • How there's no such thing as an inherently negative stimulus
    • What face meditation is
    • How the muscles in your face can affect your inner speech
    • How to relate to emotions with mindfulness
    • That recognizing an emotion actually brings it's feeling back toward neutral
    • What "positive equanimity" is
    • The difference between cognitive reappraisal and positive thinking
    • Different approaches to help us achieve "mindfulness of life"
    • When you're more "in your head" about something than you are collecting sensory information about something, you're really just dealing with abstractions
    • Skepticism surrounding the concept of "no self" as a goal to pursue
    • His working definition of enlightenment
    • A secular version of the serenity prayer

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Direct download: Rick_Heller_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:11pm EDT

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein- The One You Feed

 

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This week we talk to Rebecca Newberger Goldstein about the relevance of philosophy in today's world

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein is an American philosopher who is also a novelist and public intellectual. She is the author of ten books, many of which cross the divide between fiction and non-fiction. She holds a Ph.D. from Princeton.

Her latest book is called Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away, an exploration of the historical roots and contemporary relevance of philosophy. In the book Plato is brought to life in the 21st century and demonstrates the relevance of philosophy by arguing with contemporary figures such as a software engineer at Google headquarters, a right-wing talk show host, an affective neuroscientist, and others.

Goldstein is a MacArthur Fellow, has won the National Jewish Book Award, and numerous other honors. In September of 2015  she was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Obama in a ceremony at the White House.

 

Fracture- The One You Feed

In This Interview, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein and I Discuss:

  • The One You Feed parable
  • Winning a National Humanities Medal and meeting President Obama
  • Cultivating the positive emotions
  • Her latest book Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away
  • What Plato would say about the Parable of the Two Wolves
  • Plato's Parable of Two Horses
  • Why virtue is good for us
  • The story of Socrates death
  • The most famous sound bite in the last 2500 years

 

For more show notes and a free download of the best quotes from Plato at the Googleplex visit our website

 

 

 

 

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Direct download: Rebecca_GoldsteinFinal.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:30pm EDT