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Do you know what’s even more contagious than the Coronavirus? 

Fear.

It’s easy to get caught up in the global crisis mentality that’s going on right now which breeds fear and panic in the minds of people as we’re facing the coronavirus pandemic.

That’s not to say that fear is “wrong” or that fear “shouldn’t” show up in us at all. 

That’s also not to say that there are not good reasons for fear or worry around this situation.

Fear is an intelligent emotion and it certainly has a useful place in our lives – up to a point. 

Fear can help us take action, alerting us to potential danger or harm so that we can protect ourselves and others. That’s a very useful, good thing.

But fear can also become crippling and it can overwhelm us. It can be an unpleasant feeling and it can really do a number on us when it stays around for long periods of time. 

Because of that, I thought I’d share some ways to work with fear, point out a couple of podcast episodes that you can listen to on the topic, as well as teach you a Spiritual Habit that you can turn to for help moving through the feeling of fear so that you can connect to the place within you which is discerning, wise, and steady. 

In a recent interview about how to strengthen resilience, Linda Graham said, “How you respond to the issue IS the issue.”

So, the issue of how we each individually respond to the fear of a pandemic is the most pressing issue for each of us. 

I’ll offer up Stephen Covey’s idea of the circle of influence vs. the circle of concern. 

Covey says that your Circle of Influence contains things that you can take action on and affect directly. In contrast, your Circle of Concern contains things that you worry about but can’t really take direct action on to change.

It’s helpful to become aware of which Circle we’re spending most of our time in as it relates to the Coronavirus fear we’re currently all facing.

If we spend all of our time watching the news beyond that which is instructive or helpful, we’re in the Circle of Concern. And that can feel paralyzing.

But if we spend our time identifying the things we can take action on and affect, we’re back in the empowering Circle of Influence. 

One of the most impactful ways to spend time in the Circle of Influence is to focus on self-care. 

Supporting your (and your loved ones’) mental, physical and emotional health right now is especially important. 

By prioritizing the fundamentals of self-care – eating healthily, getting a good night’s sleep, exercising, meditating and seeking wisdom from sources that you know and trust – you take action on strengthening the pillars that will see you through this storm. 

And since fear is an initiatory energy, taking action will channel that energy in a productive direction, giving it somewhere to go rather than stagnating inside of you. 

We can turn our focus to the basics of what it means to Feed Our Good Wolf and take care of ourselves and when we do, we have the resources we need to navigate these difficult times. 

I recently interviewed Mark Nepo for a second time (episode to be released soon) and he said something that struck me. He said, “we’ve become addicted to the noise of things falling apart.” 

He went on to point out that things are also always coming together, too. Often, the things that are coming together are just a lot quieter. So, it takes us pausing to notice those quiet things coming together.

As in so much of life, where we place our attention will determine our experience.

So, how do we pause and respond to fear when it hits us?

It’s important to know that fear is fed through our thoughts but it is FELT in our bodies. 

So if we continue to stoke the fire of fear by getting carried away by the trance of fear-based thinking, irrational panic can take over.

But if we can pause when we feel fear set in and really feel the feelings without feeding them, then they can move through us, releasing their grip on us so that we can contact what’s true, what’s in our Circle of Influence and what (if any) action we can take.

Since fear is fed by our thoughts and is largely future-oriented, it can be really helpful to drop out of the thinking mind and into the present moment.

Conveniently, the body and the breath are always in the present moment (and also always with you no matter where you are).

So here are a couple of practices you can turn to when fear really hits. 

The first comes from another recent podcast episode with guest Fleet Maul who introduced us to the practice of straw breathing. 

You can practice straw breathing with or without an actual straw. If you have one handy, great, but you don’t have to have one in order to practice it. 

Essentially, you take a deep breath in and then you exhale in a slow, controlled manner, as if through a straw. 

Anytime your exhalation is longer than your inhalation, it is a signal to your brain that you are not in a fight/flight/freeze state of danger and your limbic system can relax.

I’ll also offer you a grounding on-the-spot Spiritual Habit that you can turn to when you feel fear taking hold.

This Spiritual Habit won’t make the fear disappear, but it will open up more space inside of you, you won’t feel so possessed by the fear and you will have direct access to the present moment so that you can discern what’s present here and now vs. what is being imagined from a state of fear. From there you can move forward.

One of the things that all Spiritual Habits have in common is that they have a trigger or something that prompts you to practice them.

This Spiritual Habit’s trigger is anytime you notice you are caught in the trance of fear, the grip of fear or locked in fearful, ruminating thoughts:

First, pause. Notice and name the fear you’re experiencing. (“I’m feeling fear right now.”)

Next, place a hand on your belly and breathe into your hand so that your belly expands. Slowly exhale and as you do, sense your body and mind letting go of any tension and fear. 

Now, move your attention to feel where your feet touch the ground or where your seat meets the chair and feel supported by the earth beneath you. 

Then, sense where you feel any tension or tightness in the body and gently see if you can relax a bit in those areas, letting go and breathing into them. 

And finally, take just a moment to rest in this state of presence, in direct contact with that which is here now vs. being lost in the imagined future, and sense what has opened up inside of you, giving you some space between you and the fear you’re feeling. 

When you name the fear and sense that you are grounded and present, you become less gripped by and identified with the fear and more able to discern what the right action might be in the moment.

Bringing wisdom into the moments of your life and working with strong emotions are both things that I do as part of the Spiritual Habits Program.

In the 1-on-1 Spiritual Habits Program, I help people who have familiarity with spiritual principles like mindfulness, self-compassion or acceptance but can’t quite figure out how to consistently apply it all to their daily life to develop simple, actionable Spiritual Habits so they embody these principles and feel calmer, more at ease and more fulfilled on a daily basis.

To learn more about the 1-on-1 Spiritual Habits Program (and learn another Spiritual Habit for free) click here. 

Wishing you all inner stillness amidst outer chaos, 

Eric

It’s the end of January – has your motivation for your New Year’s resolutions started to dwindle yet?

If so, this post is for you.

If not, just wait – that moment is coming. It always does. And so this post is also for you.

I’m going to teach you what to do when motivation wanes (or dies completely) in order to keep your new habit alive, sustaining it for the long run.

The very nature of motivation is that it comes and goes. It waxes and it wanes. It ebbs and flows. It will be low to non-existent one moment and then back in full force not long after.

You know this from experience. Think back to any behavior you’ve changed or habit that you’ve started or stopped. There are moments when you’re very motivated and it propels you forward in the direction you want to go. You’re in a state of energy and flow and progress.

And then there are times when you can’t find a morsel of motivation anywhere and it takes the wind right out of your sails. It’s like you’re walking with concrete blocks on your feet. It’s hard, arduous and it feels like you’re pushing a boulder up a mountain.

If we rely on motivation alone to sustain a behavior, then that behavior will not last.

So what do we rely on to keep a behavior going over time?

In his new book, Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything, BJ Fogg teaches us exactly what to do in order to sustain a new habit or behavior.

(He and I discuss this in a recent podcast episode which came out a couple of weeks ago. If you haven’t listened to it yet, I encourage you to check it out when you have a moment. You can listen here or in your podcast player.)

BJ Fogg says, “A behavior happens when the elements of MAP (motivation — your desire to do the behavior; ability — your capacity to do the behavior; and prompt — a cue to do the behavior) come together at the same moment.”

He goes on to say, “…motivation and ability can work together like teammates. If one is weak, the other needs to be strong to get you [to take action]. In other words: The amount you have of one affects the amount you need of the other.”

This means that when your motivation is low, you need to make the behavior far easier to do.

The foolproof way to do this is to scale it way back and make the behavior tiny.

Remember, your goal is to keep the habit alive. If you do the behavior at all, you get an A+.

An example from his book: If your New Year’s resolution is to floss your teeth every day, then you have succeeded whether you floss all of your teeth or one tooth.

On days when your motivation is high, you might floss twice. On days when your motivation is nil, scale it way back, make it radically tiny and floss one tooth.

Your motivation will return and then you can floss all of your teeth three times a day if you want to. But on days when you just aren’t feeling the drive to do it at all, make the behavior tiny, floss one tooth and mark it down as a win.

So, here’s the question you need to consider:

How can you make your new habit or behavior radically tiny so that you can ride out the days when motivation is low, still doing the thing you’ve set out to do, thereby keeping the habit alive?

It’s a question worth thinking about because another principle of behavior change is to separate decision from action. Decide now what you’ll do on days when it feels really hard so that you don’t have to think about it in the moment when you are struggling for will power.

There are 2 other ways to make a behavior easy to do, according to BJ Fogg:

1. Increase your skills
2. Get tools and resources

One way to address each of these factors is to work with someone to level up your skills and add to your list of available tools and resources.

That is precisely what I do when I work 1-on-1 with clients in The One You Feed Personal Transformation Program.

Through weekly calls and daily email communication, I teach my clients how to apply the science of behavior change to their specific goals based on their unique life circumstances, ensuring their long term success.

To learn more about the program, click here.

To find out if the program is a fit for you, I offer a free 30-minute Personal Transformation Coaching Session. You can book your call by clicking here.

On this call, you will tell me about the changes you’re looking to make and I will offer you my thoughts on how you might go about doing this. If we’re a match to work together, that will be clear and I never pressure people on these calls. If the program is not right for you, we part as friends and you will have my ideas to consider as you move forward towards your goals.

I am going to be making some changes to how I work with private clients starting next month, so if you’re interested in The One You Feed Personal Transformation Program, go ahead and book a call with me.

As BJ Fogg says, “If you’ve attempted change in the past and haven’t seen results, you may have concluded that change is hard or that you stink at it. Neither is accurate. The problem is with the approach itself, not with you.”

Change your approach and you’ll change your results.

Wishing you well,

Eric

2020 is just weeks away. It’s a new year and a new decade so it’s a great big clean slate and a fresh start.

In this post, I’m going to teach you how to set New Year’s Resolutions that give you more joy, peace, fulfillment, and meaning in your life – at a deeper, more lasting level than what you might think is even possible.

To start, there are two types of New Year’s Resolutions.

First, there are New Year’s Resolutions based on what you think you should do. 

You think you really should eat healthier, you should exercise more, you should make more time for friends etc.

But those types of New Year’s Resolutions are short-lived.

Why?

Well, for one, the motivation for those “should” types of resolutions is extrinsic rather than intrinsic. The word “should” signals that it is coming from someone else’s voice rather than your own.

As Kendra Cherry writes for the website Very Well Mind:

“Extrinsic motivation refers to behavior that is driven by external rewards such as money, fame, grades, and praise. This type of motivation arises from outside the individual, as opposed to intrinsic motivation, which originates inside of the individual.”

Extrinsic motivation can be effective to get you started. But intrinsic motivation keeps the change going long term.

This leads me to the second type of New Year’s Resolution; one based on what you deeply want to do. These types of resolutions are rooted in what you value and therefore you are intrinsically motivated to take action on them.

Even more than fostering sustained change, tapping into and experiencing intrinsic motivation is the signal that you’re on a path towards living a life that feels more deeply rewarding, satisfying, full of meaning, joy, and personal growth.

You might be thinking that it sure would be helpful to have some sort of framework or exercise to guide you through figuring out what New Year’s Resolutions to make so that you experience this deep, lasting connection to what really matters for your life.

Click here for a quick but powerful exercise (created by Kelly Wilson) that will help you determine what you value, what truly matters to you at this point in your life and which of these areas needs some New Year’s Resolution type attention. In other words, you’ll discover how aligned your life is with those values. It’s really illuminating.

If you have been feeling adrift, this exercise will help you come back to shore. Your values can be the touchstone of your life, helping you to strengthen your sense of self, purpose, enjoyment, clarity, and strength.

Setting New Year’s Resolutions to help you live more according to your values will transform your life in the deepest way.

The bridge that connects you to a life that feels deeply satisfying, one that’s connected to a source of strength and inner peace is found in the behavior changes you’ll make to align these important value-based areas of your life.

What New Year’s Resolutions do you need to make? How do you go about making behavior changes in your life so that they are high in impact but low in the overwhelm factor? How do you structure your life and environment so that you are set up to succeed right out of the gates and also over time?

I can help you answer and take action on these questions.

During the month of December, I will be offering FREE 30-minute Personal Transformation Session  to discuss Values-Based New Year’s Resolutions. 

Click here to schedule yours. Spaces are limited.

Here’s what will happen during the call: You’ll share your New Year’s Resolutions with me as well as the biggest challenge you foresee in making these changes. I will then teach you how to overcome that challenge and I will also give you my #1 recommendation based on your values and goals to set yourself up to make the changes you want to make in this new year.

One thing I won’t do on this call? Hard sell you on signing up for the program. That is not my style – if we’re a fit to work together, that will be clear enough without some awful “hard close” to end our call. You have my word on that.

Spaces are limited so go ahead and click here  to book your free session.

If you want to learn more about The One You Feed Personal Transformation Program, click here.

I wish each of you every good thing as we move forward into this new year and new decade.

Remember, the best way to predict the future is to create it.

Eric

“If you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your family.” 

– Ram Dass

If what Ram Dass says resonates with you, then read on. This post is for you. 

In the United States, November marks the beginning of the holiday season. Our holiday, Thanksgiving, happens at the end of the month and it is all about being with family. 

Then, after Thanksgiving we all roll into the December holidays of Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, New Year’s Eve and the family gatherings continue. 

Spending time with family can be a dicey and difficult thing for so many people. It can also be a very good thing, but as with most things in life, it’s often a combination of being both challenging and rewarding. It would serve us well to enter this time with a better perspective and some helpful tools to use when we feel triggered.

In the Spiritual Habits course that I taught several months ago, we explored the topic of perspective as it relates to how we experience life and the world within and around us. 

We see things through a series of filters or perspectives. We can’t completely get rid of them and that’s ok, but it’s important to recognize that is what’s happening. 

Our perspectives are derived from our own moods, emotions, and beliefs (often generated by family experiences). When our perspective becomes small, fixed, rigid or narrow, we often experience suffering.

The key to not getting sucked into the negativity around us lies in our ability to get curious about, question and reframe our perspectives on things. 

There’s a saying in 12 step programs: Expectations are premeditated resentments. 

Taking that idea further, Dr. Albert Ellis taught that unhappy people tend to have 3 expectations: They expect they should always do well, they expect others should treat them well, and they expect life should go well.

Reflecting on the expectations we bring into the interactions we have with family over the holidays is a worthwhile exercise. 

Anytime you find yourself using the word “should” in this context, you’ve hit on an expectation and you may want to see how it’s serving you in that relationship.

Here are some examples:

• My mom should know that I hate it when she asks me why I haven’t found a nice person to settle down with.
• My sister should keep her kids quieter when we are all trying to have a conversation.
• My dad should stop focusing on all the things going wrong in the world and find something positive to talk about once in a while. 

Former guest of the show, Ruth King, says that nothing is personal, nothing is permanent and nothing is perfect. 

Meaning, we can really suffer when we get caught up in how dysfunctional or difficult our unique family can be. 

It’s helpful to remember that difficult family dynamics are a universal experience. People throughout time and around the world struggle with family dynamics and subsequent old, deep wounds. It’s not personal or unique to just you. It’s an experience of being human. 

Also, life is fluid and changing. That’s the very nature of life. You won’t always be stuck at that dinner table. You won’t always have to deal with the dynamics you’re dealing with. Things evolve. Impermanence is a law of nature. 

And lastly, nothing is perfect – at least in terms of how we might define “perfect”. Flaws and problems abound.

But here’s an even greater truth: Life doesn’t have to be perfect to be good.

This holiday season, we can examine our expectations and perceptions going into time with family. Then, with amended expectations and a few on the spot practices to turn to when things get stressful, we can touch back into the deeper wiser part of ourselves. This will allow us to respond rather than react, show up as the best version of ourselves, and ultimately, suffer less by creating a more positive experience.

Would you like some support in navigating the difficult terrain of family time during this holiday season? You can’t change or control other people but you can absolutely change the way you experience them and react to them. I can help you do that through The One You Feed Personal Transformation Program.

Book a free 30-minute call with me to see if we might be a fit to work together. We will put behavioral principles and ancient wisdom to work for you in really practical, actionable ways this holiday season so that you feel more open to receive the good that’s there and less hooked and caught up in the bad.

Having someone in your corner helping you process and plan through the perceptions and experiences you’ll encounter over the holidays can be transformative and lead to great personal growth for you.

Click here to book a call. 

Wishing you well,
Eric

We’ve all been there: you start a new routine or habit, you’ve stuck to your plan for a few days and have some momentum going, and then – you slip up and miss a day.

How do you make sure that the inevitable slip up doesn’t become a complete derailment landing you right back into the way of life that wasn’t serving you very well in the first place?

I’ll teach you 3 proven approaches to getting back on track after slipping up and back to the new behavior you want more of in your life.

First, it’s important to realize that everyone gets off track at some point. It’s not your personal failing as much as it’s human nature and to be expected. Thinking you’ll adhere perfectly to a new – or even established – routine is unrealistic and unsupported by life experience and lots of behavioral psych research.

So, it’s not if but when you’ll have a stumble.

But what keeps a stumble from becoming a wipeout fall? Why do some people get derailed by a slip-up and others continue on their positive new path?

It turns out, you can learn how to ensure a temporary slip doesn’t result in a permanent fall.

Let’s use exercise as an example. (But, these tips apply to any new behavior, routine or habit that you might want more of in your life.)

1. Plan for your inevitable slip-ups

Waiting until you slip to figure out what you’ll about it will send you right down the slippery slope to permanent derailment.

I have two rules of thumb when it comes to creating a plan for when I slip:

Reduce the scope, stick to the schedule: If you can’t do everything you want to do when you want to do it, do a smaller version within whatever time constraints you have.

Never miss twice: When you miss one day, resolve that no matter what, you’ll do some version of the habit the next day so that you keep the habit alive. It’s critical to get right back on the horse as soon as you can.

So let’s take our exercise routine as an example. My plan could be: If I’m supposed to exercise for an hour today and something comes up making it so that I can’t do it, I’ll do 20 push-ups and sit-ups before I go to bed tonight.

2. Be aware of your mindset

Guest of the show and renowned behavior change expert BJ Fogg says:

“People change best by feeling good, not by feeling bad. So feeling bad about ourselves when we slip does not help.”

I work with my private coaching clients all the time on their mindset when the inevitable miss happens. It’s important not to attach a ton of meaning to falling off track – just get back to it. The more we beat ourselves up for falling off track the harder it makes it to get back on track.

When we slip, it’s very common for our minds to create a whole narrative about how we’re the type of person who never keeps up with an exercise routine. Remember, everyone misses. It is not just you and some personal failing you have. It is human nature and it is inevitable.

As John Norcross (upcoming guest on the show) in his book, Changeology, puts it:

“Condemn the behavior, not the person. A slip is not a fall.

If you believe a slip will lead to a relapse, it probably will. If you believe a slip is a natural reminder to recommit, that’s what you’ll do.

You control your mind, and your mind controls the outcome of a slip…Think of a slip literally: you did not fall, you caught yourself first.

Avoid feeling guilty or depressed because of a single exception.

Go positive. Focus on what you have already accomplished, not the exception of a slip. You’ve succeeded 99 percent of the time since you committed to your goal. Are you really going to allow the 1 percent to determine how you proceed? Think big picture. The path to relapse is filled with potholes of pessimism and despair.”

3. Reflect on your slip-ups and learn from them

You will set yourself up to succeed if you structure your environment and lifestyle to support your desired habit or routine. And this is not a “set it and forget it” type of plan. It is fluid. It will change and improve based on what you learn as you go.

When you have a slip-up, take a moment to reflect on what happened. Here’s how John Norcross puts it:

“Identify what you were thinking, what you were doing, what you were feeling, and whom you were with when you slipped…Your answers will overlap with your high-risk triggers [and underlying urges].

Unwrap the urge…Your strong urges…express needs and feelings. Take a few moments and reflect on your urges: What do they want? What feelings or images come to mind? Does a craving have a story or history to tell?”

Let’s say that upon reflection, you discover that if you plan to workout at 3 pm, that coincides with a mid-afternoon energy and will-power slump and too frequently you forgo a workout for a snack or a nap. It turns out what your body really seems to need at that time is a rest not a push so you move your workout to the morning and you just get up a bit earlier to make it happen.

Do you have a new habit, routine, lifestyle or behavior that you want help implementing – this time, ensuring that you sustain it over the long run?

If you can envision your life with this new structure in place and all the benefits it will give you – such as being present for your life in a meaningful way, embodying mindfulness to the benefit of not only you but those around you, or releasing your inner critic that holds you back from living your fullest, best life – but you just need some support and guidance to get there, I can help.

Click here to learn more about working 1-on-1 with me in The One You Feed Personal Transformation Program.

If you already know about the program and would like to book a free 30-minute coaching call with me to see if we might be a fit to work together to bring about the change in your life that you are looking for, click here.

There’s no pressure to sign up to work with me – if we’re not a fit to work together, I’ll wish you well, we’ll part as friends and at the very least I’ll offer you my perspective and ideas on your particular situation so you’ll have that to consider.

You can make the changes in your life that you want to make and your life can be exponentially better because of it. Let’s book some time to talk about how.

Before I begin, let me say that my girlfriend, Ginny, has given me full permission to share all of this.

Ginny struggled with emotional eating for about 30 years. But she only truly realized it in the last 5 years. And then she truly overcame it in the last 2 years.

When we met and starting dating, she was about 40 pounds heavier than she is today. Her emotions were driving a lot of her problematic behaviors when it came to eating but they were lurking below the surface disguising themselves as intense food cravings.

Sometimes she knew she was turning to food for comfort but sometimes she fixated so much on a specific food craving that she thought the only solution was to have that particular food and she attributed the craving and the behavior to that food alone – not her emotions.

About 6 months ago, I was teaching a workshop in Cleveland, OH and during a group discussion, Ginny said something that struck a chord – I’ve quoted her several times since:

“When I thought all I wanted was a cupcake – there was only one solution: A cupcake. But when I realized what I deeply wanted was not to be bored, for example – well, there are a lot of solutions for that.”

See, once she identified the underlying emotion or feeling driving her intense food cravings, she could begin to learn to work with it more skillfully.

And she would tell you that “giving in to feel good” was a behavior pattern that sabotaged her in many ways when it came to her emotions.

She had to learn how to experience her emotions in a way that was helpful and healing and strengthening. Not sabotaging.

The point here is that there are specific ways to do this – they have been taught through the ages by spiritual teachers and more recently by professionals in the mental health arena.

Ginny would say that’s good news because it means you aren’t doomed to always be in an unhealthy relationship with food – you just need to learn a specific skill set that you don’t currently have.

I would agree with her.

Learning the techniques associated with emotional regulation can be life-changing.

Whatever the difficult emotion – sadness, loneliness, fear, anger, boredom – they aren’t emergencies. They are feelings and they can be destructive or instructive depending on how you interact with them.

Emotional regulation and techniques to help you experience your emotions in healthy ways are skills that I teach to nearly all of my private clients through The One You Feed Personal Transformation Program.

When we work together 1-on-1, I not only teach you the skills but I walk with you every step of the way as you learn to implement them.

Through daily check-ins and weekly calls, I am there to help you understand what happened when things don’t go so well and I am there to celebrate with you when things go really well.

Emotional eating and other behaviors that stem from unskillful reactions to difficult emotions can’t be overcome alone.

Whether it’s me, another professional or a supportive group of some kind – you need others in your corner helping you along the way.

I offer a free 30-minute coaching call to see if we’re a fit to work together. If you’re interested, click here to book a call with me. There’s no risk – if we’re not a fit, we part as friends and at the very least I’ll offer my thoughts on your current situation so you’ll have some ideas to consider as you move forward.

Don’t stay stuck in an unhealthy relationship with food and your emotions. There’s a better way.