Featured

Finding Joy in Your Relationship with Money with Elizabeth Husserl

In this episode, Sahil Bloom explores the idea of redefining wealth and the truth about money and happiness. He also shares a different definition of wealth – one that goes beyond financial success and taps into time, purpose, and relationships. Learn how to start finding the balance between striving for more while appreciating what’s right in front of us.

Key Takeaways:

The trap of “more” and the power of “enough”
Why time is your most valuable currency
How to create a “Life Razor” that guides your biggest decisions
The hidden cost of success and how to redefine it on your own terms
How to balance ambition with presence and joy

Connect with Sahil Bloom Website | Instagram | LinkedIn

Sahil Bloom is an inspirational writer and content creator, captivating millions of people every week through his insights and biweekly newsletter, The Curiosity Chronicle. He is a successful entrepreneur, owner of SRB Holdings, and the managing partner of SRB Ventures, an early-stage investment fund. Bloom graduated from Stanford University with an MA in public policy and a BA in economics and sociology. He was a four-year member of the Stanford baseball team. His new book is 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life.

If you enjoyed this episode with Sahil Bloom, check out these other episodes:

How Relationships Shape Our Happiness and Well-Being with Robert Waldinger

How to Discover What Matters Most in Life with Tami Simon

By purchasing products and/or services from our sponsors, you are helping to support The One You Feed and we greatly appreciate it. Thank you!

Episode Transcript:

Eric Zimmer 01:06

What if everything you’ve been told about wealth is missing the point? For years, we’ve chased more money, success, achievement, only to find it doesn’t always bring fulfillment. Today’s guest saw Hill bloom, had everything society says should make you happy, but it wasn’t until a quiet morning with his newborn son that he understood what true wealth feels like. So how do we balance striving for more with appreciating what’s right in front of us? Can we redefine wealth beyond dollars and status? What happens when we start treating time as our most valuable currency? That’s what we’re going to explore today. I’m Eric Zimmer, and this is the one you feed.

Sahil Bloom 01:50

Hi Sahu, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me thrilled to be here.

Eric Zimmer 01:54

I’m really excited to talk with you about your new book, which is called the five types of wealth, which is really a holistic way of looking at the different ways in our lives than which we can be wealthy. And I think it’s interesting to look at a as a way of seeing where we might want to be more wealthy, but also as a way of really recognizing there’s a lot of places we already are wealthy, and I think recognizing that is really important, because self improvement is part of the game, but so is self acceptance, you know, and appreciating what we have. And we’re going to get into all that after the parable, but let’s start there. And in the parable, there’s a grandparent who’s talking with their grandchild, and they say, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops think about it for a second. They look up at their grandparent. They say, Well, which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I’d like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do,

Sahil Bloom 03:00

it really is an important representation to me of a simple fact, which is that you have the power to choose. Each day. We have a choice in which wolf will feed. We can feed the dark Wolf and be filled with anger, fear, hate, jealousy, envy, or we can feed the light Wolf and be filled with hope, kindness, joy, love, optimism, and at the end of the day, that choice is fundamentally yours.

Eric Zimmer 03:34

Wonderful. I’d like to start with a quote that you use at least once in the book, if not a couple of times. Which is, you say, Never let the quest for more distract you from the beauty of enough. Let’s start there. I’m

Sahil Bloom 03:50

glad you pulled this out, because this is such a fundamental and important concept to the entire book, the entire idea, and really my life in general. The genesis of this was a very personal experience, which was that, shortly after my son was born, you know, after a two plus year journey with infertility that my wife and I had faced, we were blessed with a little boy, and I was walking him around outside early one morning, and an old man came up to me on the street and said, I remember standing here with my newborn daughter. She’s 45 years old now it goes by fast. Cherish it. And I took my son home, and I brought him into bed. My wife was still asleep, and the son was kind of coming through the windows, and he had this little smile on his face. And I just had this sensation that for the first time in my life, I had arrived, but there wasn’t anything more that I wanted. That moment was truly enough, and that was when that line came to me of never let the quest for more distract you from the beauty of enough, because it is so easy in life. Life to allow the things that you prayed for to become the things that you complain about. We see that over and over again in our own lives. The house that we prayed for becomes the house that we complain is too small. The car that we prayed for becomes the car that we can’t wait to trade in. The relationship we prayed for becomes the relationship with the person that we criticize. Today’s version of more becomes tomorrow’s version of not enough, if we allow it to, if we don’t stop, pause, catch ourselves and pull ourselves back into that moment and recognize that sometimes you are literally living out your prayers. So that is what that quote, what that line is all about, to never allow that Chase, that quest for the more, whatever it is, whatever more we are searching for to distract us, to pull us away from the beauty of enough in the present moment. Yeah, that’s so beautifully

Eric Zimmer 05:49

said, and so very true. We adapt to nearly anything and start to take it for granted, and then you’re even, you know, going a step further, which is we then see it as a burden, which is a really fascinating thing, and is a sure fire way to never be happy in life. And so there’s this balance, and I think I’ve been exploring it on this show for a decade, and I mentioned it kind of in the beginning, and you’re getting to it right in this question, how can I both strive for more, whether that be financially, in my relationships, etc. How can I do that? Because I do think that’s a natural human thing. It seems built into us, and also be satisfied with exactly where I am. And doing both those things is at the same time, turns out to be the thing that’s an art, far more than it’s a science.

Sahil Bloom 06:42

The fundamental tension there is an important one to wrestle with, and the way that I wrestle with it is to say that the quest for more needs to be grounded in the right things. Yeah, it is dangerous if it is about something as surface level, as money or fancy things. If you are chasing more because you just want a bigger number on your scoreboard, you want more fancy things to try to impress other people. For whatever reason, you are going to end up losing sight of the things that are more important along that journey. If you are chasing more because it’s your purpose to go and build something big, because you really feel fundamentally that you want to grow, that you want to develop yourself. You’re trying to get better at the things that you’re working on that is a very well grounded and important pursuit. And there’s nothing wrong with that, one where it goes awry for people and where they lead themselves on the road to the rich yet miserable existence that we know a lot of people are living is when that chase for more is just about these things like money or fancy things.

Eric Zimmer 07:49

I agree with you that that’s a fundamental distinction, and I have found even in my own life, even if my striving for more is pointed in the right direction. You know, I want to become a kinder person. Or, you know, it’s about growing this show, which is kind of the way that I try and put love into the world, that even within there, I can get caught in this more more more, which pulls me out of the moment. So I think what you’re saying is, first off, we’ve got to be really clear about what we’re striving for, and if that’s misguided, we’re always going to be off track. And then the second part comes to, even when I’m on the right track, how do I relate to being on that track? And how do I relate to being on a journey that, you know, there’s not a destination on?

Sahil Bloom 08:37

Yeah, I think that this comes back to a really beautiful quote. I believe it’s Viktor Frankl, who said that our power exists in the space that we can create between stimulus and response. And that concept of space is really essential to the whole book. It’s one of the pillars of what I think of as mental wealth, is the ability to create space. And the reason that space is so important is because that is where you actually get to choose your response. To go back to the wolves parable, the ability to choose every single day, you actually need to have the space to choose. You need to be able to stop and pause so that you can choose your response. Which Wolf are you going to feed? The same applies to this never ending Chase. If you’re able to pause on a daily basis and appreciate the things that you have while still pursuing the things that you don’t that are grounded, hopefully in the right reasons. That is where you find your sort of Goldilocks, like your sweet spot from a life standpoint. I think it was Kurt Vonnegut in 1997 he gave a commencement speech at Rice University, and he talks about his uncle, Alex, who had this tendency when things were going nice and, you know, the day was really pretty out, he would just stop, he would pause, and he would look up at the sky and he would say, if this isn’t nice, what is? And that idea of forcing yourself to pause and appreciate those moments literally said. It Out Loud say, if this isn’t nice, what is on a more regular basis, I guarantee you will find new joy in the journey in your life.

Eric Zimmer 10:07

Yeah. Vonnegut also has that classic story about enough of where he’s at a party with Joseph Heller, the author of catch 22 and they’re looking around and seeing all these people who have way more than they do. And Joseph Heller, basically, I think I’m paraphrasing, says something like, Yeah, but I have something they don’t, which is, I know what enough is, yeah, exactly

Sahil Bloom 10:28

the knowledge that I’ve got enough. It sort of all relates to one of my favorite stories of the fishermen and the investment banker. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this, but like this investment banker goes down to an old Mexican fishing village, and he comes across this old boat, and the fisherman is in the boat and has caught a few fish. And the banker says, How long did it take you to catch those fish? And the fisherman says, Only a little while. And the banker asks, Why didn’t you fish for longer? The fisherman says, Well, I have everything I need. In the morning, I fish for a little while, then I go home, I have lunch with my wife, then I take a nap, and then in the evening, I go into town and sing and dance with my friends. And the banker is like, you got this all wrong. What you need to do is you need to fish for longer so you can catch more fish. Then you can buy a second boat. Then that boat will make money. You buy a third boat, a fourth boat, a fifth boat. Eventually, you build a fishing boat enterprise. You move to the big city, you take the company public, and you’ll make millions. And the fisherman says, and then what? And the banker says, and then what? Then you can retire and move to a small fishing village. You can fish for a little while in the morning, and then you can go home. You can have lunch with your wife, take a nap, and in the evening, go into town and play music and dance with your friends, and the fisherman kind of just smiles and walks off. And that story, it’s interesting, is common interpretation is to say that the banker is wrong and the fisherman is right. I actually think it’s more nuanced than that. I really think this is about the two of them having a fundamentally different definition of what enough looks like. The banker may be grounded in this purpose of building something big, creating jobs, creating this growth, pursuing his definition, and he’s trying to apply that map of reality to the fisherman’s terrain, which is fundamentally very different. The fisherman is already living his enough life. And so for the two to be seen as in conflict is very interesting, because that’s what happens when we spend all of our time on our phones, comparing our lives to other people, we start getting obsessed with someone else’s life and starting to apply their map to our reality, which is a recipe for discontentment. Absolutely,

Eric Zimmer 12:33

I had an experience of this not too long ago. We spend a lot of time in Atlanta. My partner, Ginny, is from there, and I’ll be driving around Buckhead. And one of the most noticeable things about certain areas of town are the houses are enormous on these giant plots of land, like, it’s a lot of money that you just see kind of right out there. And as if I spend enough time driving around there, my brain starts going like, gosh, maybe I should have a house like that. Why don’t I have enough money to have a house like that? And then at the same moment as I was thinking that, I turned my attention back to what I was listening to on the radio, and it was a band called The Gaslight Anthem. They’re kind of a punk type band a little bit. And then it reminded me of, like, what my ethos actually is. And I was just able to see right in that moment, how easily I was getting turned away from my ethos to buy what I was surrounded by and what was attractive, and I needed help to be reminded of where my true values are. And I think that’s kind of what you’re speaking to here. And the and the problem is sometimes we don’t get those reminders often enough, and so we just get more and more sucked into this idea of someone else’s success.

Sahil Bloom 13:45

Yeah,and it’s so governed by the environment that you are in, the people that you’re surrounded by, I will say anecdotally, my friends that live in New York City or Los Angeles struggle with this much more than my friends who live in a small town in the suburbs, it is very much like a cultural indoctrination if you’re surrounded by people who measure their worth in terms of how expensive their kids school is, or how many weekends they get to spend in the Hamptons, or what charter plane they’re taking to X, Y or Z. It is very, very difficult to opt out of that game when you’re surrounded by it. The environments that we operate in really do govern our reality. They really shape the way that we view the world. And so I have often said to people that your environment that you spend time in, it’s sort of a it’s a two way feedback loop, because you shape your environments for sure, but your environments, then in turn, are shaping you, and you really want the environment that you operate in to be a reflection of your core values, because it will be very difficult for you if the two are in tension.

Eric Zimmer 14:52

Yeah, and I think a lot of people find themselves in this spot. I know a lot of our listeners certainly do, because I’ve just heard from enough of them. And worked with enough of them over the years where they’ve achieved some degree of conventional success, at least in the way that, like they’ve got a home, they’ve got retirement savings, they’ve had children, and then somewhere in there, something wakes up in them and starts desiring more. And yet they’re firmly embedded in this place that had these different values, rightfully so they’re very hesitant to be like, Well, I’m just gonna blow my whole life up here, right? Because they may have, you know, a good family and a wonderful spouse, but they need something else. And I think that’s why it can be so helpful to try and seek out, even in smaller doses, people who align with your values. It’s so important in being able to stay the course with anything. I think,

Sahil Bloom 15:47

Yeah, I mean the people you surround yourself with fundamentally determine your outcomes. There is clear scientific evidence that the expectations of the people that you surround yourself with actually determine whether you are kind of rising or falling to meet those expectations. The Pygmalion Effect is the name of this psychological phenomenon whereby we rise to the level of the expectations that others have for us. So if you’re surrounded by people who believe you are capable of more and sort of lift you up, you will actually rise to meet those expectations. But similarly, if you’re surrounded by people who make you feel bad, who put you down, who tell you you don’t have enough, or who show you that with their actions or their behaviors, you will fall to the level of those expectations in the way that you engage with the world. And it is fundamentally a call to action to be very, very careful about the people that you allow into your energy, into your reality, because they really will have a profound impact on your happiness or misery in life.

Eric Zimmer 16:47

Let’s talk through that in a little bit more depth. I’m curious how you would think about this, because you clearly value family and loyalty to family to some degree. And so let’s take my scenario, where somebody is middle aged at this point, and they find themselves surrounded by maybe their family and people that maybe do have lower expectations or don’t support their values, and yet, one of their core values is to be of support and love to the people that are around them. You know, how would you go about thinking about honoring those two values, one which says, Hey, I do recognize that the people that I’m around affect my trajectory. And one of my values is I don’t only see the people in my life that I love as an instrument for making me more successful.

Sahil Bloom 17:35

Yeah, I think that there’s a big difference between people who are sort of a neutral force in your life versus a truly net negative in your life. And at the end of the day, the person that you need to be most loyal to is yourself. Yeah, and I don’t mean that in the sense that you just, you know, cast everyone else off, and you’re like, you know, fundamentally selfish, but you do need to protect yourself in certain ways from people who consistently drain you and pull you down. And the way that you do that does not have to be cutting people off. The most traditional way that people talk about this is like, Oh, if you know, if you have a family member that treats you poorly, you have to just cut them off. You never see them again. And that’s easier said than done, and it’s frankly unrealistic in a lot of cases. Like, you know, I have family members who have not been a positive force in my life, fortunately, not direct blood relatives, but family members who I see it every holiday, or close family friends who are the same. And the way that I always advise people to manage that, which is the way that I have come to terms with it, is just because you are around someone physically does not mean you have to open up to them energetically or spiritually. If you believe in that you can be closed off to someone. If you know that someone is a toxic force on your life, if you know that they happen to say things that are negative or they put you down in certain ways, you don’t have to open up to allow them to put the knife in. And by the way, this is the reason that scientifically ambivalent relationships, relationships that are sometimes supportive and loving and sometimes demeaning are actually more negative for your health, yes, than purely toxic ones. This has been shown over and over again, like that. You know, you put someone up on stage to give a talk if the audience is purely toxic versus if the audience is ambivalent, sometimes booing, sometimes cheering, the blood pressure spikes and stress levels of the speaker actually are worse when the audience is ambivalent, because it opens you up when they’re really nice and so then the knife on the demeaning part really hurts the toxicity. And I think that with relationships and family members. That really applies. We need to really monitor who and how they are impacting our energy in those ways, so that we can create those level of boundaries that just allow us to continue in our own flow.

Eric Zimmer 19:52

Yeah, that’s such a great point, and I agree, ambivalent relationships like that are really difficult to sort out, because. Sometimes they’re good, and you’re like, Okay, this is great. And then sometimes they’re really bad, and you’re like, Oh, God, maybe, you know, if it was just always bad, it would be clear what to do. You’d be like, All right, you know, I really need to minimize my time with this person, or, you know, put them out of my life. And if it were only good, you wouldn’t be having the struggle. I think that so many things in life we end up with ambivalence about, and that ambivalence is really challenging. Yeah,

Sahil Bloom 20:22

absolutely, completely agree. I sort of ascribe to the wisdom that you should give everyone a second chance, but never a third. And I think that that is kind of a healthy way to approach these things, when it comes to relationships, and when it comes to relationships that are sort of on the edge for you in your life. Life is too short to allow people into your energy that are truly a consistent negative force over and over again. The first time someone’s that way, I personally default to empathy. I assume person’s having a bad day, even when I, like, encounter a stranger and they do something that is sort of negative, like, you know, treat you in a certain way. It’s like something is going on in this person’s life that caused them to act this way, give someone a little bit of grace. But when it becomes a consistent pattern, it’s no longer something that’s just a one off.

Eric Zimmer 21:10

So I want to get into the different types of wealth here in a second. But before I do, I’d love to talk about the life razor. Tell me what the life raiser is.

Sahil Bloom 21:19

So the life razor is this concept of having a simple, single statement that is an identity defining rule for your life. A razor, just as a term, is a sort of rule of thumb that allows you to simplify decision making. So a life razor is a rule of thumb that allows you to simplify decision making across your entire life. The way that I articulate it in the book is best brought to life through a story which is Mark Randolph, the first CEO, the founder, co founder of Netflix, has this thing that he has talked about and written about in the past, that throughout his entire technology career, he had a hard rule that on Tuesdays, at 5pm he was leaving the office to go out on a date with his wife, and he talks about the fact that what he is most proud of from his entire career, which founded all of these incredible companies, built these incredible things, is not that he achieved those amazing successes, but that he was able to do that while still remaining married to the same woman and having kids Who, as far as he can tell, love to spend time with him. And I thought that it was such an interesting thing after I spoke to him, In reflecting on it, because what I understood was that it didn’t really have anything to do with any one date or the date in and of itself. It had everything to do with the identity that it established in his life, that he was the type of person that never missed a 5pm Tuesday dinner with his wife. It means something about how he shows up in the world, and it sends a clear signal ripples to everyone around him about the things that he holds most dear and about the way that he is going to show up in these different situations in his life. To all have our own version of that Tuesday 5pm dinner rule, some single identity, defining statement for your own life that allows you to cut through the noise in the various situations that you encounter is very powerful. So on my desk, I have a little sheet of paper that says, I will coach my son’s sports teams. That is my life raiser. That is the idea that I am going to be the type of husband, type of father, type of community member, type of individual who is always going to put those things first, who is going to make sure that whatever decisions I have to make in life, they are not going to come into conflict with that ideal version of myself, how that version shows up in the world. You

Eric Zimmer 23:59

so I love this idea of a life raiser, and I have one of my own. I want to dig a little deeper here, though. I’d love to see how you think about this right, like you’ll coach your son’s sports teams. It’s a good overall framing. But even with that clarity, you’re going to be faced with lots of decisions about where time goes right? Do I put it towards one of my professional pursuits? Do I put it towards my son’s development? And you’re not always going to choose your son’s development, because if you take that to its extent, you could spend your entire life doing nothing but focusing on your child, which would be fine. How do you think about applying that? Like the Netflix guy’s rule was pretty straightforward, like, I just have to make sure for an hour and a half on Tuesday I show up. There’s a lot of latitude around that. How do you think about taking that I will coach my son’s sports team and practically applying it as you go through your day to day life?

Sahil Bloom 24:56

To me, it is about the statement about the time. Type of person you are. I mean, my son is two and a half, so he’s not even on sports teams yet, so this is very much a wide statement already. No, no, and I’m far from that type of parent, because my parents weren’t like that with me. But this is about the type of person that I believe I am when I show up as my best self. Let’s take an example. Someone comes to me and offers me a new business opportunity, and I’m looking at it, and it’s exciting. They’re going to pay me a bunch of money, but it’s going to require me to be on planes for 100 days out of the year, going around and doing a bunch of things. I can look at this card and say, well, this seems exciting, but what does the type of person who coaches his son’s sports teams do in these situations? Well, I probably can’t be away that much and still be the type of person who will be there for my family in this way. So that means I might need to go back and adjust the opportunity. It doesn’t mean I’m just gonna blanket say no to it, but maybe I need to make adjustments to the construct of how it exists. Similarly, if someone comes and offers me a bunch of money, but it might jeopardize my integrity or morals the way that we’re going to be making it. It’s a hard No. I can immediately look at this and just say there’s no way, because I cannot jeopardize my relationship with my son or wife, because for me to coach that team, that’s not just my choice. That’s his choice that he wants to have me around. That’s my wife’s choice, that she’s proud to have me out in the community with other people. So I cannot take actions that would jeopardize that if I’m the type of person who does these things. So it’s really important to understand the ripples that that one statement creates into other areas. And in Mark’s example of the 5pm Tuesday dinner, yes, it’s just this dinner, it also creates a ripple to all of his employees, because his employees see the CEO of the company creating these boundaries and prioritizing his family and having a life outside of work. Well, they’re empowered to now do something similar. It’s not to say that, you know, if you’re a junior person, you can do the exact same thing, but they can create something because they know that there’s a core value now, and that makes them more loyal to the company, that makes them want to stick around and work together, and it creates value for everybody involved. So it’s really those ripples that extend off that single statement that become very interesting.

Eric Zimmer 27:07

Yeah, I love that idea that is really good. And I also love the idea of having a statement, because life happens fast. It gets confusing, and having something that’s that always at hand can be so valuable, mine is just that I try and leave every situation, whether that a person a place better than I found it like that’s just kind of my life. Razor just sort of orients me in general. Doesn’t solve every decision making quandary I come up with, but it does point me in a direction, and it’s simple enough that it consistently can be useful.

Sahil Bloom 27:43

I love that one. That’s a very, very good one. Yeah, there’s several examples in the book that I go through from people in sort of different walks of life, and that’s a really important piece to this idea of the life razor too, to recognize that your life raiser will change across the different seasons of your life. My son is young now this is clearly a key focus when he goes to college or when our children are no longer in the house. It obviously doesn’t serve in quite the same way. So recognizing and assessing sort of pressure testing whether the life raiser that you have is still one that suits the stage that you’re in in life is also just a healthy kind of natural process. Over and over again.

Eric Zimmer 28:20

My son is now 26 so you know, if he was your son’s age, I might have a very different focus. The stage of life I’m in and the stage of life you’re in are very different. Yeah, I think that’s exactly right. So we just alluded a little bit to stages of life, and how you spend your time in different stages of life might be different. So let’s move on to the first type of wealth that you talk about, which is time wealth. And my favorite part from this is just this very simple question, Would you trade lives with Warren Buffett? Talk to me about that question, because that is such a great and illuminating question.

Sahil Bloom 28:57

I love asking young

people this question, yeah, it is such a simple articulation of a very important point, which is that time is your most precious asset. If I ask a young person, would you trade lives with Warren Buffett, it’s a hard charging young person just starting their career, and I tell them he’s worth $130 billion he flies around on a Boeing Business Jet. He has access to anyone in the world. He basically reads and learns for a living. Sounds pretty good, but you would never trade lives with him for one simple reason, he is 95 years old. There’s no way that you should agree to trade the amount of time that he has left for all the money in the world. And on the flip side, he would do anything to be 22 again, he would give up every single dollar that he has to be 22 and to have the amount of time that you have. So in that articulation, what you’re recognizing is that your time has quite literally incalculable value, incalculable value, and yet, on a daily basis, are you really wasting it? I mean, we’re spending all this time scrolling on our phone. Comparing ourselves to other people, stressing about the past, anxiety about the future, all of these things that are fundamentally disrespecting this one most precious asset that we have, the one asset that we can never get back once it’s gone. I love

Eric Zimmer 30:14

that question too, because you first hear it and you think, Well, of course I would, until you get to the 97 you know, he’s 97 years old piece. And I think then it kind of wakes you up to this idea. And as you were talking, I was thinking a little bit about, you know, we talk about spending time. If we really applied that idea of spending time the way we did money, there’s a lot of ways I spend my time that I would not spend money on. It’s really interesting to think about, like, I do this thing, but would I pay to do that thing? Of course, I wouldn’t. That’s a

Sahil Bloom 30:46

really interesting way of thinking about it. I’ve actually never articulated it that way in my mind, but it is an important framing. It is just really interesting. What changes you start to make when you recognize that time is really the thing that you have, and that all of these moments, these windows of time, are actually in a little bit more of your control than you think that is a really important piece, is to just recognize that you can actually create time for the things or with the people that you really care About in your life. You can make decisions. You can take actions that actually create more of these moments with the people that you want to spend time with, or for the things that you really enjoy, for the experiences that you really want to have. You can take actions that fundamentally create time in that sense. And once you realize that you start living differently in a lot of ways, but it all comes from that awareness of the fact that time is the really precious asset, not the money, right? And

Eric Zimmer 31:47

I think there’s a second level to this. The first level is being intentional about where I put my time. I think the second level is being intentional about what I bring to the things I’m doing. And this gets back to where we started. You said, you know, certain things that we used to pray for, we now see as a burden, right? It can be easy when you’re trapped in the just the word I use there describes the mind state that we’re in, even though I don’t believe in that word in this way with your two year old for four hours, and it can begin to feel overwhelming. So your time is in the right place, but what you’re bringing to that time is also an important part of what makes that time valuable or non valuable.

Sahil Bloom 32:29

I think what you’re hitting on is a really important concept, which is that your ability to direct your attention and energy into the moments or windows of time that really matter is where you achieve the greatest successes and outcomes in life. There are these particular windows of time during which certain people or certain opportunities present themselves, and they are weightier, they are more textured than others. The ancient Greeks actually had two different words for time. They had Kronos, which was the idea of chronological, kind of linear, quantitative time. And then they had Kairos, which was the idea that not all time is created equal, that there are certain moments or windows that have more texture, that have more meaning or more importance, and your ability to direct attention or energy into those is actually amplified in terms of the outcomes that you can create. So those moments with certain people that are really important, those business opportunities that are time sensitive, that if you just lean into and really sprint at you can generate these incredible outcomes for your life. It’s sort of like the Lionel Messi version of playing soccer, where he walks around the field the entire game and then he sprints in the exact right moment to achieve the incredible outcome that he’s going for. It’s taking the approach that to life, rather than the consistent jog, finding those moments of time and deploying your attention and energy into them.

Eric Zimmer 33:53

I want to do a thought experiment here with you, which is the business stuff I totally get right. Like this is the time you go hard, if we’re talking about time with family, let’s say, you know, you recognize that the first 10 years of your son’s life, you call him, I think the magic years. I’ve always said the glory years of parenting are like five to 11. But you’re right. The first 10 years are so critical, you can’t just pick a couple of moments to sprint there, right? Because that would be the equivalent of what, you know, people call the Disneyland dad, right? You drop in and you take your kid to Disneyland, you create these great moments, but day to day, your wife is doing kind of all of the work. And one of the things that I found is that sometimes training my attention in non important moments to be prepared for the important moments is valuable. I mean, I think in many ways, this is what meditation is. Meditation, I think, is training your attention in a moment that theoretically isn’t that important, right? Because you’re just sitting there with the goal, at least my goal is the ability to act. Actually really inhabit the important moments.

Sahil Bloom 35:02

I love that articulation training your attention in the unimportant moments for the important moments. It’s not dissimilar from my articulation of the reason we do hard things like I, you know, I am an avid cold plunger, way past the point where it’s no longer trendy like it once was. And the reason I believe in doing that is because I fundamentally believe that when you take on voluntary struggle, you are more well equipped for the involuntary struggle that inevitably comes into your life. And you’re sort of articulating the same thing when it comes to these moments which I love. I do tend to think of life more on a season basis than on a day’s basis. And I think that balance as a concept, attention as a concept, is actually more well thought of on a kind of waves, versus specific tiny moments like the Disneyland trip, because that is a really helpful framing, at least for me, that has provided a lot of comfort, and it’s provided a lot of security, and how we think about our son and this journey. I mean, like, just to be fully transparent, the last three, four months, I’ve been in a season of unbalance, like truly sprinting to put these ideas out into the world that I care deeply about, that I think are going to impact a lot of people, and being able to do that without stress and anxiety, knowing that it is in service of a season of balance to come, yes, that my wife and I are going to be able to zoom out and spend tons of time together with our son, present moments energy there, because of the fact that I sprinted and really leaned into this thing and was able to create that That is a really important reframing of these things, because what it tells you is that you don’t have to stress over a lack of balance in the days, as long as you understand on the Zoomed Out View that you’re working towards the balance in the seasons.

Eric Zimmer 36:54

I agree 100% with that idea, because people talk about work life balance, and I think when you look at it in short chunks, you might see that it’s really out of balance. If you’re looking at a day or a week, you know, if your kid is sick, that week may be way more child than work, because you’re at home and, you know, you’re taking days off to take care of the child, and suddenly work is out of balance. But I think the trick comes like, I think you’ve been real intentional about, okay, once I get through this time, which is a book launch, right? A book launch demands a ton out of someone, once I get on the other side of that, I’m going to be very intentional about how I’m rebalancing this. I think the problem that a lot of people fall into, and I did this, I think, for a number of years, was I kept believing that, just on the other side of this project, I was in the software world, once we get this release out, then I’m gonna dial it back. And the reality was, particularly if someone else is setting your priorities like the gas pedals all the way down all the time. And so I think in those situations, it did become more important to recognize, like, Okay, I have to watch a little bit closer that I don’t get stuck in the belief that, okay, I’ll balance this out later, and the next thing you know, three years have gone by.

Sahil Bloom 38:12

Later is the most dangerous word in the dictionary. We say I’ll spend more time with my kids later, I’ll spend more time with my partner or my friends. Later, I’ll invest in my health. Later, I’ll find my freedom and purpose later. And the sad thing is that later just becomes another word for never, because those things are not going to exist in the same way. Later, your kids are not going to be five years old. Later, your partner, your friends won’t be there for you later if you’re not there for them now, your health won’t be there for you later if you don’t invest in it now, you won’t magically wake up with freedom and purpose later if you don’t build those things now. And so the idea is that you have to design these things into your life in some tiny way. Today. It doesn’t have to be dramatic. We know that life has seasons, and you’re not going to be able to massively focus on all of these things at all points in time, but they need to be designed in in some tiny way on a daily basis, otherwise you’ll just end up regretting it later.

Eric Zimmer 39:27

You talk about these five types of wealth, I’m just going to put them out there, just real quick time, wealth, social wealth, mental wealth, physical wealth and financial wealth. But you have a concept in there of we tend to think about these things as like, I’m investing in this, or I’m not, and you talk about trying to take a dimmer switch approach to these five different areas of wealth. I think this piggybacks on what you just said. Talk to me about that mentality.

Sahil Bloom 39:54

I’m glad you brought this up, because I do think that this is probably the single most important idea. Idea to understand in your own life for building the life you want. The traditional wisdom around creating change in your life is that you have to pick an area that you’re going to focus on. You turn the light switch on, and then every other area of your life gets turned off while you focus on the one. So if I’m going to be trying to build my career, build my finances, I turn that switch on. And too bad relationships, too bad health, too bad mental health. Those all get switched off, and I’m just gonna be hard charging. And we actually pat a lot of people on the back for saying things like that. We say like, oh, obsession is good and grit and like, we use all these positive words for sacrificing all these other areas of your life to build the one I fundamentally reject the idea that you have to do that all of these areas of your life exist on dimmer switches, and you can, and probably should have one area turned up. That is the area that you are focusing on during this season of your life. But it doesn’t mean the other ones are turned off. It just means they’re going to be turned down. And the important point here is that down is infinitely better than off, yes, because anything above zero compounds positively. We know that when it comes to money, if you put $50 or $100 in the s, p5, 100 today, that’s better than zero, because it’s gonna stack up and compound over long periods of time. The exact same thing applies to these other areas of your life, your relationships, sending the one text to the friend when you’re thinking about them is better than doing nothing. Going for the 10 minute walk is better than doing nothing. But what happens is that ambitious people allow optimal to get in the way of beneficial. So they say, Oh, I don’t have an hour to work out, so I’m just not going to work out. I don’t have an hour to go on a coffee date with this friend, so I’m just not going to talk to them. That is the worst mentality. That is the light switch being turned off. And if you allow those light switches to be off for too long, you can’t turn them back on, or they will be very difficult to turn back on. So what we need to do is just have them down low design, a tiny investment on a daily basis in those areas into your life on a daily basis, send the text to the friend when you think about them, call your mom for two minutes in the car, get the group together for the annual trip once a year. Do the 15 minute walk even when you don’t really feel like it. Journal for three minutes in the evening. Breathe for three minutes in between meetings. Whatever those tiny things are, they stack wins, because anything above zero compounds,

Eric Zimmer 42:25

I love that line. Anything above zero compounds, I used to say to coaching clients all the time, a little bit of something is better than a lot of nothing. It’s this core idea. The other thing that I think speaks to why this is such a useful strategy is that these things tend to amplify each other, right? Like, if you are taking good care of your physical health or decent care of it and your mental health, your professional world is probably going to do better. So again, I think there’s these ways that not only are they each important individually, they work together to a certain extent. I have a friend, Jonathan fields. He wrote a book a number of years ago. The main idea was we have these different areas of life buckets similar to what you’re talking about, and that the lowest level of one of them can end up being a cap on all the others, if you’re not careful.

Sahil Bloom 43:17

I love that. I have often thought about that in the context of physical, wealth, your health, that the reason I harp on it so much, the reason I think it’s so important, is because it is a catalyst for all of the other types of wealth. When you take an action in your physical wealth and you see an outcome that rewires your brain to remind yourself that you are capable of creating change in your world, that you are capable of doing something and getting the desired outcome that has ripple effects into everything else that you do, because you start to see yourself that way, you start to recognize that you are capable. So if you’re ever feeling down and you start doing that, you start to remind yourself of that fact, suddenly you have this new energy to go and take on other things, because you recognize that you have that power, you remind yourself of that power that you have.

Eric Zimmer 44:06

I agree and for me, exercise is sort of this Keystone type habit, right? And it is because of what you just said, but it’s also because doing it actually does give me more energy, and that energy then can be deployed to these different areas of wealth, right? If I have enough energy, then I’ll go out after dinner to see a friend, versus just collapsing on the couch and watching Netflix, if you know, if I have energy to do it. And so for me, that is the keystone that unlocks a lot of other things.

Sahil Bloom 44:36

That’s absolutely right, completely agree.

Eric Zimmer 44:39

All right, let’s move on to social wealth for a minute, which, again, I love this idea of just having a question that anchors this whole thing, which is, who will be sitting in the front row at your funeral? And this comes from an exercise I learned in the seven habits of highly effective people like 25 years ago, where you imagine. Funeral, and you imagine what people get up and say about you as a way of orienting what’s important to you, but you’ve given it a slightly different spin. So talk to me about this front row idea.

Sahil Bloom 45:12

The idea is to visualize your funeral, but not in a morbid sense, in an empowering one, which is to say at your funeral, there will be a lot of people that will show up, and certain people will sit down in the front row. The recognition that those people hold a very special place in your world, and the recognition that you need to ask yourself whether or not you are cherishing those people, whether you are cherishing your front row people, making sure that they know that special place that they hold in your world, and whether you are being a front row person to someone else out there.

Eric Zimmer 45:52

Yeah, I love that idea. I love the funeral thing in general, because it allows you to step back from your life and think about what’s important. But I had never thought of it in this sort of front row way of really thinking about who would be in that for us. And also, I love what you said, where it’s, am I being a front row kind of person? Am I being the sort of person that would would deserve to sit in the front row for these people?

Sahil Bloom 46:18

Yeah, I think that that’s the important piece. Is like flipping these things on yourself and recognizing your own actions and how your actions are either creating or pushing you away from that future that you want. In a lot of the visualizations that I run through in the book, there is this idea of identify and visualize the future that you want. Then ask yourself whether your actions in the present are bearing out that future, and if they’re not, you can change your actions in the present. That’s great news. You can actually do something different today that will create the future that you want. But recognizing that there is that gap between what you want your future to look like and what it is likely to look like if you don’t change is the important first step, that awareness, that self awareness, which most of us are afraid to confront. Yes, the reason I talk about, I bring up all these questions in the book, is because I fundamentally believe one important fact, which is the answers you seek in life are found in the questions that you avoid, the questions that you avoid asking about your life, that is what we need to dig into. If we can sit with those questions, then we’re able to actually uncover and act on these answers that will change our world. That’s

Eric Zimmer 47:30

a great way of thinking about I’ve led groups of people through the funeral exercise before without the front row edition. For some people, it’s a really difficult thing. It’s a really difficult thing, because they are forced to see, indeed, the way in which they are not living according to what they want their, you know, quote, unquote, legacy to be. And a lot of us have a tendency when we when we come face to face with something that’s uncomfortable, a question that’s uncomfortable is to run away from,

Sahil Bloom 48:01

and it’s very easy to do. Yeah, I mean, look, there is nothing forcing you to confront these questions. It’s much easier to just sit around, scroll on your phone. You know, avoid asking these questions, avoid making the changes that are hard all like everything in the world today is about reducing friction. All of the technology we’ve developed over the last 20 years has reduced friction in your life. It’s made it easier to press the eject button out of these challenging situations. You have more choices than ever before. Everything is easier if you want it to be. And unfortunately, what you find is that the friction actually created a lot of meaning the friction actually was a good thing, because on the other side of that friction was the most beautiful things in life, and on the other side of the friction of asking yourself these hard questions is the life that you actually want to build for yourself?

Eric Zimmer 48:51

Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. Let’s talk a little bit about mental wealth. What does mental wealth mean to you?

Sahil Bloom 48:58

Mental wealth is all about purpose. It’s about growth. It’s about creating the space necessary to actually wrestle with some of the big, unanswerable questions in life, whether through spirituality, meditation, solitude, what have you, mental wealth is fundamentally about allowing yourself to pay the price for your distinctiveness in the world, I talk about this shareholder letter that Jeff Bezos wrote where he says that the fight against normalcy is the most important fight of your life. You have to every single day, pay a price to maintain your distinctiveness, to walk your path, rather than the one that was handed to you. That is really what mental wealth is about it’s about paying that price, about doing the things, pursuing your curiosity, pursuing your growth, to allow yourself to live your life rather than consent to the default that was handed.

Eric Zimmer 49:51

That line jumped off the page to me. It’s a life that pays the price for its distinctiveness. Such an interesting way to think. Think about what we’re trying to protect. You say that the mental wealth is a life of victory in the fight against equilibrium. And that’s another way of, you know, sort of pulling us back to what is kind of, well, that’s not the right way to say it, because distinctiveness is actually what is its normality as you say it or average?,

Sahil Bloom 50:22

Yeah, that’s exactly right. And I just think that this is not about that being grand or impressive to anyone else. You know, there’s this important idea of dharma, ancient Hindu idea of your sacred duty. And the most important part of that is that your dharma does not have to be grand impressive to other people sound so incredible or big, it just has to be yours, and doing your dharma imperfectly is better than doing someone else’s perfectly. That is so liberating to understand that your purpose, your pursuits, the things that you are excited about or doing, the path that you’re walking, does not have to be impressive to other people. You don’t need to go off and do these grand things or feel like you need to build the billion dollar company or be the biggest you know best at whatever it is. You just need to live your life. You need to walk your path, not one that you’ve been handed by default. You need to live by your own design.

Eric Zimmer 51:19

Yeah ,going back to what we talked about earlier, which is that even if you have your life pointed in the right direction, you can still get caught up in the concept of more, more, more, versus Enough, enough, enough. And I think that this happens to us in these Dharma, purpose type things, because we think that, you know, if we’re not starting like a charity that eliminates hunger. In Africa, we’re not doing anything valuable or important, but as we’ve talked about, seasons of life like for a parent, that’s a pretty critical it’s a pretty critical Dharma right there, which is in the years that your children are little, raising them to be good people,

Sahil Bloom 51:56

amen. Amen. Could not agree more.

Eric Zimmer 52:00

We’re near the very end of our time here. But I would love to just end with one idea that you talk about, which is that falling in love is easy. Growing in love is hard.

Sahil Bloom 52:10

This goes back to that idea of friction. Falling in love is what you see on social media. It’s the beautiful, manicured photos, the filtered moments, the perfect honeymoon phase, all of those fancy things. But that’s not reality. Real, beautiful, deep, loving relationships are built through shared struggle. They’re built through the growing, through the periods of crawling through the mud with someone, through embracing the friction and finding your way to the other side. And until you embrace that, until you recognize that we need to focus more on the growing than the falling, and recognize that that idea applies to much more than relationships in life, you will never find the things that you are actually seeking beautiful.

Eric Zimmer 52:55

Well, I think that is a wonderful place for us to wrap up. Thank you. Saw Hill. I really enjoyed the book, and I’ve really enjoyed this conversation.

Sahil Bloom 53:04

Thank you so much for having me. This was a thrill. I can’t wait to get to chat again soon.

Eric Zimmer 53:08

Thank you so much for listening to the show. If you found this conversation helpful, inspiring or thought provoking, I’d love for you to share it with a friend. Sharing from one person to another is the lifeblood of what we do. We don’t have a big budget, and I’m certainly not a celebrity, but we have something even better, and that’s you just hit the share button on your podcast app or send a quick text with the episode link to someone who might enjoy it. Your support means the world, and together, we can spread wisdom one episode at a time. Thank you for being part of the one you feed community.

How to Overcome Struggle & Find Freedom: Life-Changing Lessons with Spring Washam

March 14, 2025 Leave a Comment

Life Lessons with Dr. Edith Eger

In this episode, Spring Washam discusses how to overcome struggle and find freedom. She explores the extraordinary life and spiritual wisdom of Harriet Tubman—not just as a historical figure, but as a guide for breaking free from our own inner prisons. Spring dives deep into the intersection of spirituality, justice, and personal transformation.

Key Takeaways:

How Harriet Tubman’s unshakable belief in freedom shaped her legacy
Why struggles and hardships are often the gateway to growth and resilience
The connection between historical abolitionism and inner liberation
The role of ancestral wisdom and spirit guidance in healing
How to cultivate hope and courage in times of division and uncertainty
Why storytelling is a powerful tool for remembrance and resistance

Connect with Spring Washam Website | Instagram

Spring Washam is a well-known teacher, healer, and visionary leader based in Oakland, California. She is one of the founding teachers at the East Bay Meditation Center and is a member of the teacher’s council at Spirit Rock Meditation Center.. Spring is also the founder of Lotus Vine Journeys, a one-of-a-kind organization that blends indigenous healing practices with Buddhist wisdom for transformative retreats in South America. She is the author of A Fierce Heart: Finding Strength, Courage and Wisdom in Any Moment and her latest book, The Spirit of Harriet Tubman: Awakening from the Underground.

If you enjoyed this episode with Spring Washam, check out these other episodes:

Deep Transformation with Spring Washam (2020)

Spring Washam (2017)

By purchasing products and/or services from our sponsors, you are helping to support The One You Feed and we greatly appreciate it. Thank you!

Episode Transcript:

Eric Zimmer 02:01

Hi spring. Welcome to the show.

Spring Washam 02:04

Thank you, Eric. I’m so happy to be back with you.

Eric Zimmer 02:07

Yeah, third time, third time. So I love when I can connect with guests multiple times over the years. It’s a warm feeling I have and I love to see how people’s work evolves and their thinking, changes and grows. And we’re going to be discussing your latest book called The spirit of Harriet Tubman awakening from the underground. But before we do that, we’ll start like we always do with the parable of the wolves. And in the parable, there’s a grandparent who’s talking with their grandchild. And they say in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops, thinks about it for a second looks up at their grandparents as well, which one wins? And the grandparent says the one you feed. So I’d like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do.

Spring Washam 03:03

Yeah, you know, I was thinking about this topic. Last night, I was teaching an online class at Spirit Rock, or I’m on the teacher’s Council meditation community in California. And I was talking about the stories of the great leaders throughout time I was talking about the Bodhisattvas. And I was talking about Harriet Tubman. And I was talking about how important it is for us to tell the stories, we must tell the stories of these beautiful heroes over and over from every tradition, those who represent love and bravery and courage and have great heart. We can’t forget them right now in particularly, in the face of so much violence and so much greed and hatred and delusion. These stories are so important of people who fed the Good Wolf and lead others. And so for me right now, the stories that we tell that we must remember and share. They’re very important.

Eric Zimmer 04:06

Yeah, they are. As you were talking, it made me think of an exercise that I’ve done with people before I didn’t make it up. It was it was taught to me but I don’t remember by who. But it’s in trying to figure out like what your values are, what’s important to you. One way of doing it is to look at somebody you really admire, and what is it about that person that you admire so much that tells you something about what you really value? You know, and it points a direction for you to go. So I agree, I think looking at these people who are so extraordinary, Harriet Tubman being an exceptional example of that is a really powerful pointer to us in pointing the direction towards who we want to be.

Spring Washam 04:47

Exactly. And the stories from all the traditions, our mythology, our stories of all the heroes and the heroines and these are stories that we love to tell as a Buddhist teacher. We tell so many we’re storytellers who wouldn’t grow me stories and poems from this to that, and we gather, and we tell stories from the past and stories about how to live with more joy and compassion. And, you know, that’s all we’re doing is telling stories, our stories, our personal stories. And so I think it’s a good time to be remembering the stories of the goodness of the human heart right now.

Eric Zimmer 05:26

Yeah, it’s funny, because we look at these stories and any good story, there is challenge, there is conflict there is overcoming. And most of the time, we don’t want our stories, to look anything like that. Like, we want just a story of everything being good. But a doesn’t make for a very good story B isn’t the way the world works. And C isn’t, you know, really how we grow in life?

Spring Washam 05:52

Yeah, I mean, we all know that we go through challenge, but we don’t like it. You know, we do have this idea that we’re on this of this elevator, our awakening goes straight up one floor than the next floor, and we just go higher and higher, faster and faster. Well, it’s really not like that. Sometimes you go straight down to the basement and the hell around for a while. And then here and there. And then but I think we have to be willing to trust that life is teaching us and often it’s through enduring and experiencing suffering, and difficulties that allows us to become much stronger. It allows us to awaken qualities that we didn’t know we had, you need some struggle in this life, and nobody is struggle free. Let me let me just say that, right. You know, nobody gets out of this without some scratches and hardship no matter who you are. But I think it’s a time that we have to kind of embrace this idea that yeah, there will be hardships, there will be the 10,000 sorrows. And if we can lean into them as seeing them as valuable, we’ll learn and we’ll be resilient in a different way.

Eric Zimmer 07:05

Let me ask you a question about that. Because this has been on my mind a lot lately, we interviewed a woman you may know her. Her name is Dr. Joan kachori. She focuses a lot on traumatic grief, a lot of the work you’ve done, you know, focuses on trauma and healing of trauma. And so on one hand, we have this idea that yeah, it is through struggle and difficulty that we transform, and we grow. And yet, oftentimes, it’s the very worst thing to say to somebody who’s in the middle of deep struggle and difficulty or trauma, like it’s a growth opportunity, right? Like it makes you want to stab somebody. So I’m curious for you in your own life, as you’re going through challenges, how do you navigate that? Maybe I want to keep one eye on the fact that there is growth here in this. But I also want to allow myself to be where I’m at and experience the emotion and not try and spiritually bypass it right. Well, I think he’d

Spring Washam 08:00

do both, you know, when I’m going through difficulties, and as we were having our conversation before we started taping, I went through this period of tremendous suffering, I got this jungle disease, and I thought it was going to die from the treatment and all these difficulties. And what I realized is that I knew in the moment that this might be the hardest thing I’m facing, it was really like a life or death, shamanic Lee, at least it felt like dark night of the soul. But deep down, I didn’t know that this is going to be of benefit. I knew it was impermanent. Yeah. And so yeah, it doesn’t help when someone’s in their darkest hour to go, Hey, you’re gonna love this in six months, you know, no, I just show up compassionately. But I do remind people of their strength and moments of hardship, I do remind them that, you know, and this is why we remind ourselves by telling stories of those who have endured. This is why we take comfort, and oh, somebody else has been through this experience. And let’s talk about the story of how they did it. That does give us a kind of comfort, a compassion. I do recognize in the moment, when we’re experiencing something, there’s the belief that it’ll never end and I’ll never survive, and I’ll be like this forever. The ego mind tells us that, absolutely. But then, you know, that’s what I love about our hearts is that they recover. Yeah, we recover. Let us take joy in that we recover. And we go on, you know, to a new day. There is something about that deeper truth.

Eric Zimmer 09:39

Yeah. I love that idea of reminding people of their strength and reminding ourselves of our own strength is really important and our ability to cope and to weather storms without minimizing the real pain and difficulty but also, you know, remembering exactly what you said, our strength, our ability to cope and that we do indeed, recover. It’s one One of the great human attributes is we are remarkably resilient.

Spring Washam 10:03

Yes. Especially if you’ve ever had a broken heart, or you know, that’s a place where you can really see, you can feel devastated. And then, you know, six months later or even shorter, you’re back, you know, and you thought I would, I thought I was gonna die of this. And you’re like, Wow, no, it’s just it hurts. But I’m, I’m good. I’m good, you know? Yeah. And I think it’s important for us to remind ourselves that when we’re in the grip of something, it’s not to negate it is to say, Yes, this is really hard. This is really painful. I’m challenged. I’m at the edge. This is almost more than I can bear. And we meet people there, and we were with them. I’m with myself in those moments, and we don’t negate what’s happening. We’re always opening to that depth with them.

Eric Zimmer 10:50

Yeah, we’re gonna get into the book in a second. But I want to go a little bit more into the Peru situation. So you have led retreats in Peru? How would you describe plant medicine retreats in Peru? Would that be an accurate representation?

Spring Washam 11:05

Yeah, as a Buddhist teacher, I created an organization that we do these 14 Day journeys, where we blend Buddhist practice, embodiment practice, and plant based medicine, and South America. So you’ve

Eric Zimmer 11:18

been doing that for a while, and then you got this jungle based disease that made you really, really sick, and then the treatment made you even sicker. I’m curious, were you at a crossroads about going back and continuing to do that? Because that’s the sort of story that I hear. And I’m like, Okay, well, that’s why I’m not going to the jungle. Now, you might be much braver than I am. But I’m just curious, like, how did you sort of think through that and go, You know what, I’m assuming you got to some internal calculus that said, the work I’m doing down here, and the benefit I get outweighs whatever this risk and fear is, can you sort of share how you got through that for yourself?

Spring Washam 11:59

Well, the whole thing was very surprising. I’ve been going to Peru since 2007. I even lived in the upper Amazon, in a jungle lodge with no electricity for a year. I was fine. I never even had much of a fever. I had always found Peru in the jungle to be my power spot. You know, I went there, and I was restored. And I was renewed. I was I’ve loved Peru. I love the jungle there. And yeah, I got bit by this bug. And it was rare. I contracted this jungle disease that’s like a flesh eating disease literally starts to go into your body. And yeah, takes chunks out. Yeah, that’s terrifying. Oh, yeah. And if you don’t cure it, it goes into your organs, and it’s fatal. And it creates all this havoc. And so then you have to do the treatment. But the treatment is like chemotherapy, you have to to go many days and endure this, you know, almost the same kind of medicines that are in cancer treatments. And, and it’s really toxic and dangerous. So you have to often be in a hospital where they can monitor your organs, why you get this IV for hours of this toxic medicine. And I was having severe allergic reaction to that. But it did give me a breakthrough. I didn’t leave Peru and now I’m based in Costa Rica, I was already kind of thinking of making radical changes. So that did wake me up. You know, when you’re lying there and you think you’re gonna die. Everything comes into kind of this clarity, you know, you’re like, Okay, universe, you know, I’m here, I’m paying attention. It does put a stop to things. And I think now it went from being my apocalypse. 2021 was just brutal. For me. It was just everything dismantled. I mean, it was, wow, yeah. Battles to be this breakthrough year that opened my heart. And I’m not just saying not to be cheesy teacher, it really did the worst thing became the best thing because I grew. I changed in a good way from that experience.

Eric Zimmer 14:08

Yeah, I love how open you are in your writings about current struggles that you have, or very recent struggles, because there is a tendency, I mean, I know I have this tendency to talk about a struggle from 15 years ago, and how all my inner work has transcended and overcome and all this. I love teachers who are really open about like, Yeah, and you know what, just last year, I had, like three really crappy months, you know, because I think it shows the truth of what the spiritual journey is like.

Spring Washam 14:40

Yeah, and I think that, you know, as teachers I’m also forever a student. Yes. I don’t tell my students I don’t tell people I work with I’m awake and I’m on the path I’m walking. We’re together. We’re side by side. That’s just always how I have felt I have never tried to put myself above others, I’m struggling. There’s days that are great days that are hard. I’m doing the practices I talk about. I’m not just advising them. You know, I’m like, you know, so I’d like to talk about what’s real and what’s authentic. I’m just a human being. We all are.

Eric Zimmer 15:16

Yeah. Let’s turn our attention now to your new book. It’s called the spirit of Harriet Tubman awakening from the underground. How did that come about?

Spring Washam 15:25

Well, the book it was a shock to me, you know, I had always admired Harriet Tubman but I wasn’t like a Harriet Tubman fanatic who doesn’t love Harriet Tubman. Every year they pull out Harriet Tubman picture and story and Rebic yay, Harriet. Yeah, like everybody Black History Month, I would learn a few facts that I didn’t know. And I watched the movie in 2019, big Hollywood movie that came out and again, is great admiration. But this relationship that happened was is a big shock to me as anyone. I mean, I wasn’t expecting this. And I could say the spirit of Harriet Tubman began appearing in my consciousness. It was May of 2020. It was a week before George Floyd was murdered. For those of you you know, this whole case of police brutality is everywhere again right now, because of all these recent murders. But this was in a quarantine at that moment in a quarantine, where it was just so hard, right? The whole world was going into lockdown. And there was something I think in the summer of 2020, that it feels like the tectonic plates underneath. Our feet were quaking. There was a crack, I feel in a matrix. And I felt like it was the crack of compassion that started to emerge in consciousness, through the violence through the chaos through the pandemic. And I think Harriet through that crack just appeared in a dream. And I write about this in the first chapter, I read through the book chronicling what happened in as real as language as clearly and honestly as I can articulate, like, it’s still a mystery how this is happening, how an ancestor can come and begin to share ideas and thoughts and feelings. It’s not something that has ever happened to me before. So when Harriet appeared in this nightmarish dream, and I was running for my life, and I was holding on to something and all I remember was my hands burning. And it was the back of Harriet Tubman dress. And I remember going white, but then feeling relieved, like, yes, Harriet understands these problems, or having Harriet has been here before. And this is the right person who can help me. And I remember that was his great relief. And from there, it just takes on a life of its own the whole journey, which I share about very clearly in each chapter, how it led up to the finishing the book.

Eric Zimmer 17:57

Yeah. And so you have a dream about Harriet Tubman, you become a little more interested, you start this church of Harriet Tubman, and it’s enormously well received. And it’s a beautiful and joyous and vibrant thing. Talk to me about the journey from sort of where that is to starting the book, and what sort of things were happening for you.

Spring Washam 18:17

Well, during that time, where, you know, the first dream and then what was happening in society, I started feeling Harriet Tubman around me all the time, I started thinking about the name accom, I started doing research. And I just thought, well, maybe other people are having this experience with Harriet Tubman. I’ll put on a zoom class last week everybody was doing right. I was like, Okay, let’s do a zoom class. And then the class, you know, went viral. It started out it’s just a five week class, actually. And it was the dharma of Harriet Tubman. And unbeknownst to me, and that sea of faces, you know, all those faces in the Zoom rooms. My publisher, Patti gift from Hay House, the Vice President was taking the five week course I didn’t know they just signed up. And so contacted me during that time and said, you have to write a book about this. You had to write a book about Harriet Tubman. And I obviously felt completely inadequate. I was like, What are you crazy? I’m not a historian. I didn’t study African American history. This is way too much. It’s the Harriet Tubman I know I write spiritual books. I don’t want to write a historical book. This is way no no I’m not the right person call this person you call it you know, I was referring other people. I didn’t want to take on that. But that’s when Harry it kind of appeared shortly after that. I said, Well, I’ll wait for a sign but I’m a no this is way too deep, way too complex. I can’t. And then Harriet Tubman Spirit began to appear in one particular night and a very unmistakable experience. I write in the second chapter. She gives me the tasks he shows me. Oh no, you are supposed to write this book. And you agreed to this a long time ago. And it was like, what? You know, and so I don’t call the book channeling that word connotes that if I’m gonna sit here with you, Eric, and you’re gonna say, let me talk to Harriet and I go, Harriet Tubman has speaking. Now you know what it’s not what it is this is a conversation with an ancestor. And it doesn’t just come on. This is a deep process. This is something that I call sessions. And it’s like an agreed upon moment to for the greater good. And the stories that Harriet wanted me to help convey was the stories about her heart, her heart message, we know the facts, we know that she was a lawyer, we know all these things. But we often don’t recognize Harriet as a great teacher. And there’s like more to the story of this being than just the slave woman who led some missions and freed some people. No, it’s deeper than that. There’s a very profound spirit to this ancestor. And that’s what my role, my real task is to convey, to have a different conversation about this being this ancestor, who I will say, doesn’t just belong to me, this is a primordial ancestor. She’s your ancestors. Yes, you happen to be African American. And I’m African American. Yes. But this is beyond colored. This goes beyond she’s everyone’s ancestor. So I think I’d like to put it in that context, because it goes beyond these labels and boxes of gender color, religion class, it’s beyond that.

Eric Zimmer 21:47

I want to get to that inner message of Harriet Tubman, what came to you and your interpretation of it, but I think it would be helpful if maybe we do a brief sketch of her life, you hear it, but I don’t know that everybody remembers their parts of her story. I didn’t remember as I was kind of going through your book. So maybe we could just spend a minute and you could just lead us through like a several minute sort of arc of her life and what she did, just so that everybody has that picture before we go into some of the underlying pieces.

Spring Washam 22:17

Sure. So when we talk about Harriet Tubman live, and another reason that I was inspired about this book was to tell the real story of her life. So there’s these messages that conversations and they’re all about each stage of her life, right, where we talk about one thing, so it’s all very historically accurate, step by step that dates the times everything is very historically accurate. So we know Harriet Tubman was born around the 1820 to 1825, somewhere in there. And her grandmother came over on a slave ship. And then her mother was born and started kind of Harriet Tubman lineage. Harriet was born, and was born enslaved in Maryland, and was on a big timber plantation and her whole family was there. And you know, her childhood was just brutal. I mean, it’s all of the things that you see on TV shows and specials, just beatings and the abuse and all of that Harriet endured a tremendous amount of child abuse and being lent out and an enslaved child that no one cared about, and was subjected to all of that, and felt very, very passionate that she should be free. Right? Very much, always leaning into that. And then when Harriet was maybe it’s somewhere between 10 to 13. We don’t know that much about Harry’s exact age, because nothing was documented. When slaves were born, there was no birth certificates, or you know, we don’t know times and only that, so there’s always a little mystery about her exact date of birth. But she had this head injury, she went to a store to get some items. And in that moment, she saw a slave running into the store being chased by an overseer, somebody who oversees the plantations and keeps everyone in a very brutal working condition there. And he asked her to hold down the slave she denied immediately, no, I will not hold him down so you can beat him. And he threw a weight that was on the counter and hit her in the head. I think this is the first significant thing. There’s like some key things about her life born into slavery, her whole family, many siblings, then she gets his head injury and the head injury they thought she would die, right? They carried her back to her house, and for two days she went in and out of consciousness. But Harriet says that was the beginning of an awakening, and this incredible connection to the spirit world. It was like something open and she journeyed and saw herself and talked about throughout her whole life, this conversation With the divine, she became clairvoyant. She just had this awakening that happened there. So then she goes on to continue living as a slave, but it runs away. When she’s in her 20s 26. Somewhere around there. 27 finally runs away makes it alone. Nobody knew what to make of Harriet Tubman, because of the injury, she had narcolepsy seizures. And she would just pass out at any moment in the middle of a conversation just fall into a sleep state, they could never wake her up no matter what they did. But when she did wake up, she would have these stories. And they just thought this lady is crazy. She was seeing visions of the future and her role and being a conductor and being free and everyone thought she was just crazy. And Harriet, you know, was 100 pounds five feet tall. This was no large person. Right, so they thought this crazy woman. But Harriet’s early enough, made her way on her own all the way to Philadelphia walked 120 miles to get there, and then join the abolitionist society, the anti slavery society, and became a leader. And even though she was Wanted Fugitive, began speaking out right away when she got to Philadelphia, and she was wanted. And she began her first mission by rescuing a niece and her two children that were on the auction blocks going to be sold away from the farm that she grew up on. And that led her into rescuing people. And then she became one of the most famous conductors and her nickname was Moses, after she conducted on the railroad for 10 yards and rescue all of her family members, including her parents, in a very daring rescue as an underground operative. She then became involved and was recruited into the Civil War. And this is a part of the story that many people don’t know about. And also this has been kind of suppressed that Harriet was a great war hero, and it was extremely patriotic was a nurse and she had this magical ability with making plant concoctions that cure dysentery. So we had some gift with it. And she was saving countless lives with her medicine brews and her tinctures. But also she was recruited to be a spy for the Union army. And she’s the first woman in history to lead plan and execute her own military raids with her own troop of black soldiers, and lead very amazing successful attacks on the Confederate stronghold places and rescuing people. And I mean, who does this right?

Eric Zimmer 27:39

It’s incredible.

Spring Washam 27:40

I mean, this is a woman who’s formerly enslaved leaving. I mean, it just makes no sense. And then went on to join the women’s movement and fight with Susan beyond the need for the passing of the women’s voting rights act. And just her whole life was just dedicated to liberation and freedom that every being born should have the same equal rights. Yeah, I could say more. But those are some of the main things that stand out.

Eric Zimmer 28:31

Another part of that story that I had never heard was that her mother’s slave owner when he passed in his will, what you can tell that part I had never heard that and it’s sort of astounding and heartbreaking. Oh, yes.

Spring Washam 28:47

This is like a big one. Yes. So Harriet’s grandmother came over on a slave ship. Her name was modesty. And then modesty gave birth and I have a chapter called The Harriet and her grandmother modesty in the family tree that her mother was born on the plantation gave birth to Harriet was married Harry’s parents were married Hertzfeld me was very close knit. Her parents managed to stay loving and married and died at an old age together. They stayed throughout their entire life in marriage. And unbeknownst to her mother rich, her mother’s name was RIT Rydia, the grandfather who purchased her grandmother and then the whole family came freed her mother said, wrote in his will upon death rate is to be freed at the age of 40. And all of her offsprings. Well, when the patriarchal father died, they didn’t honor the request in a will. But the thing is, Harriet knew though, Harriet, add this on wavering knowledge that her family was being betrayed and saved up money even No, she was enslaved side job, somehow hustled together some money, went into town hired a lawyer to look into her family records. The lawyer found the record and said, Well, here’s the record of the will, you are free, but there’s nothing we can do. There’s no court that’s gonna listen to you just go back to slavery, but that burning feeling that you know, everything that’s happening to you is wrong. And that family that was locked into this battle of Harriet’s family, for all those years, fueled Harriet’s motivation, and I was so painful to see her mother working when she knew her mother was supposed to be free, and they were all supposed to have been let go, you know, and to live free lives. So that was a very powerful story of betrayal. Yeah, and this family that owned them, um, like they did everything, everything you could think of to Harriet’s family, including sold three of her sisters away. And it was a painful dynamic, I would say the least.

Eric Zimmer 31:00

And it’s remarkable that she had the fortitude to instead of being broken by it, she was fueled by it, yes.

Spring Washam 31:09

If you just also just use this analogy of, you’re supposed to be led out of prison, right? You’re supposed to be let out of prison, but the prison doesn’t tell you, they hide it from you, and keep you in jail another 20 years, right? And go, oh, well, they told the governor said you could go but we decided to hide that paperwork. And you know, that’s the kind of betrayal This is, yeah,

Eric Zimmer 31:32

it’s incredible. And the stuff about her in the Civil War, leading troops. And it’s, it’s she’s just truly remarkable, more so even than the basic facts that I knew about her, you know, the fact that she was a conductor on the Underground Railroad and how many people she had rescued, and, but that other stuff, too, is just, it’s kind of amazing. I’d like to shift us a little bit into some of the deeper messages embodied in Harriet’s life, in your interactions with her spirit, and how that also ties in with your dharma teaching. And so you know, one of the places I’d like to start is talking a little bit about prisons of the mind, we can clearly see the external prison that slaves are in, we can see external structures that black people still live in today. I mean, there’s external prisons of varying shapes and sizes and dimensions. But there’s also kind of the prisons of our mind share a little bit more about that, because that’s really very much in line with the Buddhist teachings on liberation.

Spring Washam 32:39

I mean, we can definitely see where we’re imprisoned by our thoughts, right, and how we can get imprisoned by greed, we can be imprisoned by hatred and delusion. And that to be walking the path is to be breaking out of all these constructs about who we are, who other people are, and ultimately letting go of greed and letting go of hatred and letting go of delusion and seeing the truth of who we are. But I really believe that these mind states are real prisons. And the idea is that we’re freeing ourselves from them. And I think what stood out for me about Harriet Tubman was she was never imprisoned by the inferiority demon. They tried to beat it into her her you’re worthless, you’ll never be free. You know, you’re a woman, who do you think you are. And it was this ability of Harriet, somehow she was never beholden to the program. She was always like, I’m outside of that. I don’t subscribe to that, right, I won’t adopt. I’m inferior because I’m black and a slave and a woman. And those were hard conditions to overcome and born into slavery. And your mother was born into slavery and your grandmother was brought over as a slave. I mean, to have a vision of seeing yourself as somebody other than that, to see yourself as you are in that eyes of what do you call God or Buddha or to see your true nature to rise up? That’s what I mean by breaking out of the prison. It’s a prison of concepts that limit us to who we are. And Harriet was tried to liberate people from hatred. Dr. King used to say that I’m gonna liberate you from your hatred, you don’t see it as a prison. You like it? Or you’re you’re involved in it, right? brutalizing others hating other people is a prison. There’s no freedom in that. There’s no happy result in that. There’s no winning in that. That’s a path of destruction. And so that’s what prisons do. They imprison us from seeing our goodness. So the whole of the spiritual path is waking up and letting go and shedding more and more of these cells that we lock ourselves in. And now on the outer level, yes. Are people literally inside Al’s literally experiencing on the physical level imprisonment, but many more are dealing with the prison of their mind. And we can see this now that where we are in this time is a war of consciousness, right? Like who’s gonna win the war? Which wolf wins right now? Right? That’s so classic.

Eric Zimmer 35:20

Yeah. And we all know examples of people in situations that they are not free in many ways. But they are, in many other ways, very free, freer than most of us. You know, Nelson Mandela is a historical example of that. But we can read Memoirs of people in prison. And we can see like, wow, that person, yes, while they were living in terrible circumstances, but inwardly they were free. Nicole on our team who helps put these episodes together and do research, she really drew a parallel that I’m glad she did about when you’re talking about Harriet Tubman and having to free not only the slaves once they were physically free, but having to free their minds. And it reminded me of Edith Eger. I don’t know if you know who she is, she was in the Holocaust camps, I think, at Auschwitz. But she talks about that even after being freed. She had work to do to free her mind, from captivity, and how many people remain imprisoned in their mind, even after they were set free.

Spring Washam 36:25

Yeah, and even trauma is a form of being imprisoned still. Yeah, right. We’re still enacting, we’re still reacting until we even heal our trauma, we’re imprisoned by it. We’re imprisoned by fear. And when it has happened to us, our bodies Hold on. So freeing your mind is no easy job at times, you know, we’ve got like, it’s not easy on the external level, right. But this is the time that we’re in now we’re in a time and space where we have to look at our mind, and what we are creating the hell realm. Because exactly, you meet people all over who live in very difficult situations, but are experiencing much more joy. We see billionaires on TV right now creating hell rounds and saying crazy, you know, they’re in a hell realm of their mind, they might have a billion dollars, but it doesn’t buy you real freedom. And it doesn’t buy you compassion, it doesn’t buy you wisdom. And so there’s a guy that I love a lot who’s on death row right now named Jarvis J. Masters. He’s at St. Quentin prison. And he’s someone that I think about every time I drive over the Richmond bridge, you know, because he’s in a tiny unit right there on death row, and practicing hour after hour after hour after hour, right? And he’s like, if I die here, okay, so be it. I was free to long time ago, my heart is free. They can do whatever they want to my body now prison it, beat it laid here, even kill it, you know, but I know my heart is free. And so this is what we talk about the prison of the mind. And this is a high level we’re talking about, you know, this is a higher level of consciousness.

Eric Zimmer 38:10

I love what you said there about how difficult this is, right? I mean, it is extraordinarily difficult to free ourselves from the prison’s of our mind. But in my experience, to do it, to whatever extent we are able to free ourselves is valuable. You talk about abolitionism later on in the book, and you say that there’s three levels of it inner, outer and ultimate. Talk to me about what you mean by that.

Spring Washam 38:36

Yeah, you know, I was thinking a lot about that word abolitionism. And abolitionist, you know, those who that word was so popular when people were seeking to abolish slavery, right, they wanted to abolish this law, they went to abolish this mind state, right. And then, you know, where it kind of went out of style a little bit, it was very popular, the abolitionist society, these were kind of like the activists of our time, you know, so that word abolishing, you know, and I think about that right now, in our abolitionist is this abolishing our own greed, hatred and delusion, it’s the seeking to abolish that which is destroying us, right? We’re going to abolish these habits, these patterns, and we’re going to liberate ourselves from them. I mean, as a Dharma practitioner, it’s all we’re ever doing is uprooting the seeds and planting new ones, or cultivators are farmers of our consciousness. And you’ve got to be willing to tackle these habits and these mind states. So the inner is the willingness to do the work of abolishing or racism or cruelty, our inner hatred, and we don’t do that with a state of, you know, the baseball bat. We’re doing this with the heart of compassion, you know, so we’re the inner abolition, the outer is just that we become all so sensitive to what is happening around us, we don’t walk around with blinders on, oh, sorry, I’m sorry, that’s happening. It’s not happening to me why someone’s being murdered outside in front of us, well, sorry, like we seek also to end it in our environment is it becomes an extension. This is an extension of me, you know, and when I see the suffering right outside my house, there’s a movement to reduce it to help support abolishing any place where this hatred is living in society. And so that’s kind of the outer it’s that movement to reduce in that abolitionist our ancestors who were some of the greatest abolitionist ever. They didn’t live in slave states, they didn’t have to, they wanted to abolish it because of its cruelty. So I know for a lot of us right now, I want to abolish the current way policing is done in America and re envision another way, a safer way, a more loving way. You know, that’s something that that word is picking up steam, again, about abolition, you know what, let’s abolish this system and create something else. And then ultimate, is just kind of moving in the path of like the Buddhas and the prophets and the awakened beings, it’s seeing that all of this is just the dream, ultimately, is the abolishing of the ego itself. Right? ultimate liberation is the self, the whole idea has gone and we’re just in a sea of compassion, and we’re just being used in the service of humanity and that way, so I write that as the ultimate level of the ego has been abolished. Now, you’re really free. Yeah,

Eric Zimmer 41:44

I love thinking of it in those ways. And that we do have work to do inner outer and at least a glimpse in occasionally at that ultimate freedom is there. I want to change directions a little bit here and talk about the North Star, what is the historical importance of the North Star? And what’s the symbolic importance of the North Star? Why is there a chapter that’s very much focused in that direction?

Spring Washam 42:09

When I think of a North Star, you know, first of all, Harriet Tubman was someone who followed the North Star by herself walked all the way from Maryland to Philadelphia, following just the lights in the sky. I mean, imagine there was no cell phones, there’s a maps. This is someone who could not read or write this is someone who was avoiding slave catchers and dogs and, you know, bounty hunters and his faith in the stars. This kind of reminds me of when Dr. King used to say, this Jong arc of the universe bends toward justice. Right. And the history of the North Star is so interesting. It used to think it was a star of Bethlehem going back that far. And the North Star is a interesting Polaris, it doesn’t move, it stays like in the same direction pointing north, and sailors used it. And it has this amazing history, Native American tribes used it, they would refer to it as their Chief star, right. And they would build their lodging around looking at the star and it felt like a star that was a protector star. So here you have this star system as leading people that actually becomes a map a light a beacon to what they were figuring was the promised land, but they had been dreaming a place out of slavery out of change into a place where they could be free and, and not be brutalized. So Harriet’s belief and faith and the North Star was profound. She had a great like, this is I know I can follow this and I know the stars are helping me and that night would walk all through the night slept for the day hiding and all through the night walk just following the stars and and because I’m such a stargazer, I love it. You know, I always feel that when I look in the sky and see the stars, you feel like there’s a benevolence there.

Eric Zimmer 44:06

Yeah, I didn’t know that. A Frederick Douglass anti slavery paper was called the North Star, which I found another really interesting parallel there. A question for you historically, was Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman were they contemporaries, or was one later earlier than the other were their timelines,

Spring Washam 44:25

their lives overlap a lot. First of all, they were born in Maryland and both escaped from slavery. Frederick Douglass was first and also incredible. There’s more stories coming out about Frederick Douglass is such a hero. I mean, I didn’t know that much about Frederick Douglass until I read his gets three biographies chronicling his long life. And I remember when I was writing the book, I read all three of them and listen to them in Ottawa and I was like, wow, you know, just his journey is so incredible, but They knew each other. Frederick Douglass was a great supporter of Harriet Tubman. In fact, Harriet Tubman had taken refuge and Frederick Douglass is home in New York. He is home was a stop on the Underground. This is all very secret society. Yeah, but yeah, so apparently she had come through his home on her when she was conducting and had a group of passengers. He wrote very beautiful things about Harriet Tubman and saw her as a great hero. And I wrote a quote in there that he had written about Harriet and his paper, the North Star in the eye, he called his paper the North Star after the SAR such as symbolism of hope and freedom.

Eric Zimmer 46:07

You say in its deepest spiritual, meaning the light in the sky, and especially the North Star represent our own inner light, the light of truth, love and wisdom, at times, our light can be obscured, like clouds temporarily hide in the moon, but its essence can never be destroyed. Talk a little bit more about that idea.

Spring Washam 46:26

Well, I think this is really something that came through a lot in the book with Harriet Tubman, too. And as with all great teachers, they talk about this innate goodness that we have that you know, even though right now, we are being bombarded with violence and negativity in our media, for every one terrible action, I believe there’s million more than are not being aired that are not being amplified. This goodness, that we have, like, there’s this natural movement toward compassion. And I think Harriet sees this as our inner light. You know, in the Buddhist tradition, they say, you’re all Buddha’s, you just forgot, you know, and the whole journey is about waking up to that true to who we are, you know, and that light that in the sky feels like the universe, like you, you know, imagine when these people were walking and praying, and they had their hopes and their dreams and this new life and the universe’s twinkling, I follow me back in in you, you feel like yes, there’s something greater that’s moving me that’s moving this spirit of love and truth. And, you know, I believe the universe is a compassionate place. And we are reflections of that we are cells in the mind of this universe, you know. So that goodness is in us now. Confusion? Wow. We’re in the depths of it. Right? We’re in the depths of it. But that doesn’t mean that, you know, the sun is still shining, even when the clouds are there. Right. And I believe that so I believe there’s something about this light that we are light, we are spirit.

Eric Zimmer 48:06

Let’s transition a little bit from here to a chapter you’ve got called general Tubman in the Civil War, where you sort of bring out what we’ve shared a little bit about what Harriet Tubman did in the Civil War, which is remarkable. But you also then go into the deeper underlying idea of a nation that’s divided. We certainly see that today. We hear all the time that polarization is really bad. And it does seem to be, but you point out very rightly, and there’s a lot of historians who also point out this is not new me say the idea that the United States has ever been truly united as a figment of our collective imagination. A fantasy many of us are slowly giving up on black people really understand that America has always had two distinct sides with radically different ideas about what freedom and democracy are. And then you go on to share this idea, which is talking about, you know, this crack goes back to our founding fathers in a very, very clear way. George Washington owned more than 100 slaves were another founding father, Benjamin Franklin freed his slaves and became an abolitionist in both these guys wrote the Constitution together. And so this divide, is there, kind of from the start, share a little more about that?

Spring Washam 49:23

Yeah. I mean, I think this is why understanding history is so important, because people don’t understand how did we get here? And I think a lot of young people, there’s a movement to try to suppress history, or suppress all this information about how the US how the America came to be with its 10,000 joys and it’s 10,000 sorrows or you just want to tell the joys and focus on the Mayflower and the gait, but then no one understands that. But why are we having so many problems if this was so beautiful, right, and I think it’s important to know that The history to know that this difference of opinion around life, and human rights for all beings goes back to the very beginning, there was a difference, some agreed and some didn’t. And some were totally against this, you know. And we saw that even with Abraham Lincoln, he was very against the idea of slavery, and there was others that were very in favor of it. So again, we have these figureheads over and over who represent this battle line, like I don’t agree with this, I don’t want this. And then other people saying, this is our way of life. We do want this and we don’t agree with you. So history is definitely coming back what we are experiencing now Eric feels very similar. When I studied our history of the lead up to the Civil War. That happened in 1860. It started and went to 1864. But everything is mirroring, including people believing half the country believing there’s another president. And the other half is astounding, though. I’m raising the alarms on all this. And I think Harriet is back because there is another war brewing. And we all feel that we feel like where’s this going? This can’t be going anywhere. Good. You know, there’s a buildup of military happening militarization of people in their own home. So this is what happened. This is what happened in the 1800s. And it’s interesting to see that so I think it’s important that we understand history so that we have more compassion to what is happening now. And we can bring more awareness to what’s happening now, how do we heal this crack? You know, what is it going to take for us to heal this? You know, how can we find commonality around human rights and equal justice for all beings? So this is our challenge for this generation.

Eric Zimmer 51:57

Yeah, I think so too. And, you know, with the the idea of a civil war, you know, generally stay fairly far from politics on this show. It is scary in a way. And I sometimes worry, though, that by us forecasting, that’s where we’re headed. And I’m not saying that’s what you’re doing. You’re just saying there are signs here that mirror it, that we are pushing ourselves in that direction, that we’re tallying up our differences. I always think about the stock market, I’m always like, Well, I mean, the stock market is like, it’s bad, because people think it should be bad. Like, I mean, it’s this very strange thing that responds. People always talk about the stock market, like the market was feeling fear today. Like it’s this living creature, which in some ways it is. It just always weirds me out, though, because I’m like, but we’re the consciousness that’s driving the entire day. Yeah. So same thing with the divide that is very real and is here and does need healed, you know, is like what way of relating to it helps us, like you said, to bridge it, to narrow it, to stop it from getting to the point where we have to fight each other, you know, because there’s nothing good that comes out of that. My belief is, and I know yours is that like, whatever the question is, violence is a bad answer.

Spring Washam 53:18

Well, I absolutely agree with you. And I know that without the Civil War, slavery would not have ended. Yeah. So in order for that system to collapse, it had to be a battle because it was so dug in. Yeah, right. It wouldn’t have there was no resolution, people were willing to go to battle over it. Right. They were willing. And so I hear you, like, you know, all of this is our minds. We are creating it, we are creating the divide, we create the stock market, it’s all our dream, right? We create our concepts. And these are the prisons that people are willing to die for the prisons of our concepts, you know, and so I don’t know what it would mean to have another civil war. If that’s eminent All I’m saying is that when you study the three, four years before, you know, in the 1860s Wow, it almost is an exact replica of what’s happening now. The divide is even the same states. Yeah, it’s almost like a history it’s trying to repeat itself all these years later, but but now we have more awareness. So what does this mean for a more conscious society? And I think it’s hard to know if talking about it creates something more real or not talking about it. Inevitably we wind up there like what what heels ignoring it or going, what’s happening, let’s focus on the joy everybody and then there’s a you know, next thing, you know, there’s a build up outside your front door and you go, Well, how did this happen? Well, it was happening, so it’s hard to know what’s creating. Why,

Eric Zimmer 54:58

agreed 100% There’s no right answer there, I want to go back a little bit to something that you said a little while ago, which was, you know, for every terrible act, we see on the news, you believe there’s lots and lots and lots of other acts of love and compassion and kindness and decency that are out there. And, and I share a very similar belief. So we know that news can be toxic for us in many different ways. I mean, at the very least, it’s just one view of the world. And it’s a view of everything that’s going wrong in the world, largely, that’s what it is. That’s its view and its orientation. And so on one hand, being exposed to it too much, will at the very least skew our belief about what’s happening in the world, because we will say, Oh, we’re only looking at the bad not, again, all the wonderful acts of kindness that if you walked out your front door you would be seeing so how do you orient towards being in touch with what’s happening, paying attention to the news so that you do know what’s happening, but not getting lost in it? Because I do think that you still have a view of humanity. That’s, as you said earlier, the universe is a compassionate place. So how do you in your own life very practically manage that desire to be informed with the desire not to drown in negativity? Well, I don’t

Spring Washam 56:22

have a television, that’s for sure. I haven’t for a year or so I don’t have CNN on while I’m cooking and cleaning or whatever people want VODs new any any of it, it is going 24 hours. It’s an addiction. Yeah. It’s an addiction, I think to the media. And so I’m very aware of what I watch. And also I’m very somatic and very sensitive. And, you know, in all the media rather, Netflix or Hulu, if you see the amount of violent programming. I feel like Hollywood’s responsible for mental illness by just putting out endless crimes and violence and stories and homicide, eggs and killer this and it’s all sensationalized, you know all these serial killers. And I mean, if you’re a child, and you’re just as I absorb me, my God, no wonder our children, you know, are suffering from mental health crisis is. So watching dehumanization happen hour after hour after hour after hour does something to your consciousness. It’s a form of programming. The world’s not safe, it’s terrible. People are horrible. They’re everywhere, you know. So I limit everything I watch, I am very aware of what I take in and I try very consciously, to watch positive things. If I’m going to engage in something on my computer, I’m going to make sure that it there’s some positive spin on it, because I need everything I can get right now. So I implore people, we need every help we can have, you know, that help was with our minds because this onslaught of violence, it’s just if you really just go look at what’s trending all the top things they’re all basically greed, hatred and delusion magnified and packaged in a glamorous lay, sadly, you know,

Eric Zimmer 58:12

yeah, well, I’m in the middle of watching series called Vikings, which Yeah, the level of violence in it is, for me, personally, the battle scenes, I’m like, that’s not what I want. It’s the story that’s happening here. You know, Jenny puts a blanket over her head, and I started it and fast forward. Fast forward to get through it.

Spring Washam 58:32

But But imagine that eight year olds mind alone, no, I get it. I get AVN online now, you know, we had they had to live like that for years absorbing hours and hours of just like, you know, we just dehumanize, you know, you show it over and over again. It creates a violent society. So just something for us all to think about. But we do all the time. I know.

Eric Zimmer 58:55

Yes, yes, I certainly can fall prey to it. I wanted to end with we started talking about the importance and value of stories. And you tell in chapter 11, which is really about women, you know, the heart of women and you know, Harriet Tubman, after working on free in slavery became, as you mentioned, a part of the women’s movement and but you tell a story in there about a important part of the story of the Buddha Sujata Am I pronouncing that correctly? Yeah. So she often gets a footnote when we tell sort of, you know what happened with the Buddha. Right, but share a little bit more about that part of the story and what it means to you. Well, I

Spring Washam 59:35

have such a good connection with that story and the story of Basu. Jatha always was very meaningful. I remember when I went on a pilgrimage to India. I went to Sujata village and went to this place where they created this whole shrine and you know, I took photos and there was an orphanage and I gave a bunch of donations to the orphans and I prayed outside that a little me Jeff Hergert with a rice bowl you know, and it was felt like a very special place but it felt so neglected compared to all these other monuments. You know, it’s like right Sujata is off over here and it looks kind of like a graveyard and here you know, it was like, it kind of symbolizes the feminine in the in the role like yeah off over here. Yeah, this person to Jaco basically saves the doctor’s life. But you know, who cares? You know, she’s only here. But I just remember going in I had to the to connection. Yeah, but the story is, you know the widow to be Siddhartha was killing himself, practicing in this warrior way and destroying his body. You know, eating only a grain of rice a day and not sleeping, and not bathing and just practicing this kind of aesthetic way that was so violent, he was near death. And in the story, that there’s a very beautiful story where the gods and the heaven were like, oh, no, he’s gonna die. He’s killing himself. You know. And then we have this I have Sujata, who, on that day that Siddhartha was face planted near death, couldn’t even move his body any longer to practice, the data comes through the forest, having made this bowl of rice pudding all morning, hour after hour, and was going to make an offering as is customary in many cultures, when we make offerings to spirits, we make offerings to these altars, we make offerings to our ancestors in the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. And then saw this mangled man and the dirt, you know, and her heart opened, and she then gives this bowl of food and then helps him and this becomes the balance of the feminine, the feminine spirit, like you can’t just think that we’re a blend of masculine and feminine energies. And she represents the mother, everything hands up, press, the wife, his mother, the family, I’m alone, I’m a man, I’m gonna do this. She kind of comes in and feeds him and then bathes him. And interesting enough, and other stories and tick, not Han story, they become lovers. Interesting. So yeah, she nursed him back to health, not just for a day or two days, but over a long period of time, because he was so ill from how he had had needed a long period of restoration. But as you know, these stories, nobody wants to talk about the Buddha having a girlfriend or Jesus being married, or, I mean, these are like this evokes, I mean, I don’t even want to get into you know, Islam and what that would mean if a woman appeared anywhere in the story, you know, it’s such a, it’s so much destructive energy toward the feminine, you know, so. So I talk about that story and how Sujata has making resurgence the last women and the Buddha’s life has ont and the people who raised him and also the Gospels of Mary Magdalene, you know, arising and, you know, the pope recently said, yes, these are legitimate gospels, we have destroyed them for a long time. But here, you know, which tells a different story. And so Harriet loves that, that that this this feminine and masculine, they need to work together, one doesn’t overpower the other. It’s like the eagle and Condor prophecy. Right, these these energies fly together. One doesn’t dominate. And so this chapter was about Harriet’s leaf and the feminine spirit needing to rise and to be in harmony with the masculine.

Eric Zimmer 1:03:34

Yeah, it’s a beautiful story. And I love the way you sort of pull more out of it. Because again, in the way that Buddha store is normally told, it’s just sort of like, well, and then someone gave him food. And then he went on and you know, became enlightened, and there’s more there and it is a real turning point. And so I love the way you brought that out. We are out of time. So spring, thank you so much for coming on. I always love talking with you. The new book is called the spirit of Harriet Tubman awakening from the underground and we’ll have links in the show notes to where people can get the book and learn more about you and your work. So thank you so much for coming on. Again.

Spring Washam 1:04:11

Thank you, Eric. I always have so much insight and joy talking with you so thank you

Relationship Mistakes & How to Love Better with Yung Pueblo

March 11, 2025 Leave a Comment

How to Feel Lighter with Yung Pueblo

In this episode, Yung Pueblo discusses relationship mistakes and how to love better. He explores how attachments can masquerade as love and how true connection requires flexibility, sharing this powerful insight: attachment is just a deep form of inflexibility—it can look like love, but it’s often about control. Diego also delves into why growth, kindness, and compassion are green flags in a partner, and how to advocate for personal needs without clinging too tightly to rigid expectations. This insightful discussion offers practical wisdom for anyone looking to build healthier, more fulfilling relationships.

Key Takeaways:

Attachment vs. Love – Attachment can often masquerade as love, but it’s really a deep form of inflexibility and control. True love allows for freedom and growth.
The Power of Emotional Flexibility – Our ability to adapt, shift perspectives, and embrace change is essential for healthy relationships.
The Role of Personal Growth in Love – Your relationship is only as strong as your willingness to grow. When both partners prioritize self-awareness, connection deepens.
Kindness and Humility as Green Flags – Instead of looking for perfection in a partner, look for their willingness to grow, their kindness in difficult moments, and their ability to see beyond their own perspective.
The Danger of Comparison – Social media can create unrealistic expectations in relationships. Instead of comparing, focus on what truly matters in your connection.
Balancing Freedom and Commitment – Love thrives when we allow each other to change and evolve while staying committed to the relationship.

Connect with Yung Pueblo Website | Instagram

Diego Perez is a meditator and #1 New York Times bestselling author who is widely known by his pen name, Yung Pueblo. He has sold over 1.5 million books worldwide that have been translated into over 25 languages. Online he has an audience of over 4 million people. His writing focuses on the power of self-healing, creating healthy relationships, and the wisdom that comes when we truly work on knowing ourselves. Diego’s new book is How to Love Better: The Path to Deeper Connection Through Growth, Kindness, and Compassion.

If you enjoyed this episode with Yung Pueblo, check out these other episodes:

The Art of Poetry and Prose with David Whyte

Life Through Poetry with IN-Q

By purchasing products and/or services from our sponsors, you are helping to support The One You Feed and we greatly appreciate it. Thank you!

Episode Transcript:

Yung Pueblo 00:00

If you really want a relationship to be nourishing and happy and compassionate, you got to really work on letting go of your attachments, because when you lessen the attachments, you’re increasing not only your freedom, but your partner’s potential for freedom.

Chris Forbes 00:22

Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don’t strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy or fear, we see what we don’t have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it’s not just about thinking our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf?

Eric Zimmer 01:07

What if the biggest thing getting in the way of love is the way we hold onto it? That was one of the biggest insights I took from this conversation with Diego Perez, better known as young pueblo. He said something that really stuck with me, attachment is just a deep form of inflexibility. It can look like love, but it’s often about control. And that really hit me. It reminded me of something my partner, Ginny has said, which is that when we fixate on one specific thing, like a cupcake, nothing else will satisfy us, but when we step back and recognize what we actually need underneath it, so many possibilities open up. That’s flexibility. And in this episode, Diego shares how meditation reshaped his relationships, why growth kindness and compassions are green flags in relationships, and how we can advocate for our needs without clinging too tightly to our stories. This was such a warm and insightful conversation, and I know you’ll take something valuable from it. I’m Eric Zimmer, and this is the one you feed.

Hi Diego. Welcome to the show.

Hey Eric, thank you for having me.

Eric: Yeah, it’s a pleasure to have you back on this time around, we’re going to be discussing your book, How To Love better, the path to deeper connection through growth kindness and compassion, and so we’ll get to that in a minute. But let’s start like we always do with the parable. In the parable, there’s a grandparent who’s talking with her grandchild, and they say, in life, there’s two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And grandchild stops think about it for a second. They look up at their grandparent and they say, Well, which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I’d like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do.

Yung Pueblo: Yeah, I mean, that parable is really so powerful, and it’s nice, you know, hearing it once again and reflecting on it, and immediately it made me think back to how the wolf that I was afraid of was fear itself, like the fear to feel my own emotions. And I think what it really means is like embracing the Good Wolf, embracing like the good qualities of life, is really just having the resilience to feel, just the resilience to feel the simplicity of that and how that’s turned my life in a much better direction.

Eric: The thing that comes through in this book, very clear is your meditation practice. It’s, it’s really emphasized, I think you say in the book you’ve been at it for about 12 years, and that you have something like 12,000 hours of practice, which that’s a lot of diligence, right? I assume some of that gets stacked up in you know, longer silent retreats, but that’s a very dedicated and focused practice. As someone who’s been a long time meditator myself, I do find that the motivation wanes from time to time for you. How does it stay high enough to keep that level of continuous practice up.

Yung Pueblo 05:00

I guess I’m really motivated by the results. Honestly, I think it’s the best investment I’ve ever made. It’s, you know, better than investing in the s, p5 100. It’s just like such a strong result oriented practice where I see how when I go to retreats, I started making better decisions when I was back home, and then when I started meditating daily, my capacity and my creativity started expanding. And not only that, on the individual level, but on the interpersonal level, like all my relationships started deepening. So there are definitely times where, you know, it’s more difficult than others to sit my you know, two hours a day, but I always get it done, because I know that I’m just better off for it. And it’s almost like, you know, feeding myself daily, like I have to feed myself, bathe myself, and at the same time, I also have to tend to my mind. So it feels pretty essential.

Eric Zimmer 05:13

Have you had any time in there where you have slipped a little bit and done less of it and then been like, oh, boy, I can really tell the difference. Or are you still just sort of running off of, I know this is really good for me. Keep doing it kind of thing.

Yung Pueblo 05:28

Yeah, honestly, it would take a lot to make me not do it, but I haven’t. I’ve been doing it now for like. I started meditating in 2012 and I started going to retreats, but then I started meditating daily in the beginning of 2015 and it’s been ongoing now for, what is that like, almost 10 years in the summer, yeah, so, yeah. I mean, I’ve been, I think it was just like, you know, I’d have to be, like, really sick or something like that, or in a coma or or, you know, if I had, if I had a child, and they, like, needed me, yeah, you know, 24/7 or something like that. But because right now I have that, that luxury of, you know, not having kids and being healthy, it gets the priority it needs.

Eric Zimmer 06:10

Got it all right? Let’s move into the book itself, about how to love better. We’re going to explore some of the big ideas in the book, but I want to start with you talk about something called green flags in relationships. We’ve heard the term red flag in a relationship, but you know, three green flags that you talk about are growth, kindness and compassion. And I’m wondering if you could share a little bit about why you chose those and why they’re important for relationships,

Yung Pueblo 06:41

yeah, I think, you know, they felt really critical, especially the, you know, the growth one, where you get into a relationship, and as soon as you’re in there, you start seeing very clearly what you’re good at and what you’re not good at. You know that you can see if you lack the skill of listening well, or if you lack patience and whatnot. And I think embracing your own growth and understanding that it’s really a lifelong journey, whether you’re in partnership or not, that that’s going to help you just show up as the best version of yourself. And I think a lot of times people want to be in a relationship with someone who has their stuff figured out. But the reality is, I, like everyone comes into a relationship quite imperfect. And instead of wanting someone to like, you know, have all the emotional skill set and all of that figured out, instead what you’re really looking for is that they embrace growth, that they see, and then can hold themselves accountable, and then can step up and repair what they need to repair. The other element, you know, one of kindness, is that when you’re in proximity to someone, whomever you’re in proximity to, whether it’s a roommate, whether it’s a family member, whether it’s someone you’re you know in an intimate relationship with, the person that you’re closest to is going to see the best of you and the worst of you so being intentional about having the vulnerability to let someone see you in your down moments, but also still doing your best to be sweet with them, to give them your kindness, to treat them gently, because that kindness that you can receive from another person, it helps you move through the ups and downs of life. And then the last element of compassion. I’m speaking about a very specific form of compassion where you are doing your best to step outside of your perspective, to see the perspective of another person. Because this is the fundamental skill set that you need to be able to solve arguments when they arise.

Eric Zimmer 08:46

I was going to ask about the difference between compassion and kindness. So in this case, kindness is sort of all the gestures and the general orientation towards a person in your general interactions, yeah, the care, the gentleness, yeah. And compassion is the ability to say, Hang on, I don’t necessarily agree with what they’re saying, but I’m gonna pause, and I’m going to perhaps elevate myself a little bit and try and see their side of it before I have a reaction.

Yung Pueblo 09:15

Oh exactly. You know, it’s an element of humility, where you understand that, okay, I may be having my own set of experiences, but my perception is not perfect. I don’t know exactly what’s going on. I may know for myself, but let me take a moment to really listen to my partner and hear how things are moving for them.

Eric Zimmer 09:31

Humility is a word that you use a lot in this book, and it is not a word that shows up a lot of places very often. Now I got sober in a 12 step program, and you know, one of the steps has the word humility, or humble in it. And the aa big book talks about humility a fair amount, but I don’t see it very often. Why is that a word that resonates with you? And maybe before you tell us why it resonates with you, tell us what it means to you.

Yung Pueblo 09:58

You know, it’s funny. I’m glad that you’re like. Catching on that too, because I find that it’s not a very popular word. Like, if you try to write a post and you’re sort of building that post around the word humility, like it is just gonna flop, even for your audience, yeah, for sure. And that’s why, like, you know, a lot of the stuff that you’ll see on my Instagram account, it’s to pique your interest and to hopefully so that you can develop a sense of trust, so that you then give me your patience to then hear about subjects like humility and how important they are. I mean, to me, humility is the simple art of fully understanding that I don’t know everything, and I have a lot to learn, and that my perspectives and whatnot, what my views, they’re not complete, they’re not perfect, and that it’s worth learning and communicating with others to be able to expand what I know. That’s a great definition. Yeah, you know, not only is that like critical in your own growth journey, but in your relationship coming into it like, I think about it as if there’s another green flag, it’s when you are really getting to know somebody you see that you know they don’t act like they know everything that they ask questions that they’re like, curious about. You know, tell me more. Like, tell me more is one of my favorite sentences. Yep,

Eric Zimmer 11:13

the definition that I had heard for a while is slightly different. I think it’s just a slightly different orientation of the same idea, which is that it’s about having a very accurate assessment of your good and bad qualities, right? It’s not about knowing all about what’s bad about you. It’s not about denying what’s good about you. It’s about having a relatively clear picture of here’s the type of person I am, but I really love that idea of just recognizing you don’t know everything, and being open like that is such a important skill. And talk about, like green flags, it is one of the things that attracts me to other people in any way, shape or form, and perhaps handles me from people who think they know everything, like, I’m allergic to it a little bit, you know, like, almost to the point that I need to, like, get over it a little bit, but it’s one of my least favorite character traits. I’m

Yung Pueblo 12:07

with you, and I think when I encounter people who have that humility to learn more from others, to me, it’s an immediate sign of intelligence and that they have the sort of, like, mental capacity and framework for for higher intelligence to be able to, like, keep building on complexity, because any views that any human is going to develop, they’re just going to be very tilted, tainted, imperfect, like we can only see so far. That’s why we need each other.

Eric Zimmer 12:36

So let’s move into one of the first key ideas in the book, to me, which is that our own personal growth is really foundational to a good relationship.

Yung Pueblo 12:48

You know, to me, it was quite shocking that I went into meditating for my own personal development, for my own healing, and I started receiving the results of that pretty quickly. I started seeing that my mind felt lighter. Self awareness started developing. But it was a surprise, a good surprise, to see that it was immediately affecting my relationships in a very positive way, you know, started deepening my relationship with my parents, my relationship with my wife, who was then my girlfriend, started getting deeper, even relationships with friends, and it started really dawning on me how my relationship was just showing me so much of where I needed to grow, and if I refused to grow in these areas, like listening better, having more patience, pausing, slowing down, my reactions to just, you know, give myself time to think, if I didn’t accept that challenge to grow, then the relationship is just going to keep staying hard and probably getting harder. So, you know, in my mind, there’s no other alternative than to understand, like, whether you meditate or not, like, you know, there’s a lot of room for growth in a relationship for every individual.

Eric Zimmer 14:00

Well, you could just focus all your energy on getting the other person to grow and change. Does that work?

Yung Pueblo 14:08

And I know, I know from experience, yeah,

Eric Zimmer 14:10

that’s often the standard approach.

Yung Pueblo 14:12

The first six years of my relationship with my wife, it was just like a giant blame game. You know? It was just like, How can I figure out, how can I make this tension in my mind your fault? Yeah, and we never won. Neither of us won.

Eric Zimmer 14:28

No, it’s funny to me, and I laugh from having been in this exact situation at times where I’m sitting there learning something new about growth and thinking in my mind like, you know, who really needs to hear this?

Yung Pueblo 14:45

Oh, I know. And the answer is, me. It’s like, it’s you, the person who’s looking in the mirror.

Eric Zimmer 14:49

You make an interesting point, though, about how growth from both people is sort of important, and I’ve seen this happen a lot. My peers are older than yours. But I’ve seen this happen a lot with people you know, somewhere near my age, the kids are finally up and out of the house, and one of the partners just really embarks on like growth and change and wanting to be a different person in a lot of ways. And the other person just says, Think, I’m just gonna stay right here, yeah, and that becomes really problematic and really painful for everybody involved, because, on one hand, you can’t fault the person who’s like, but we’ve been in this marriage all these years, and you were this way, and now you’re different, and you’re expecting me to come along like all of a sudden, right? And yet, you can’t fault somebody either for being like, I want to change. I want to grow and and I think we can talk about this a little bit more later in the conversation, but I think some of figuring out, is this workable? Am I okay with this in those situations where it’s a little more nebulous, right? Like, nobody’s done anything wrong, right? Both people in the relationship are kind and good people, yeah, you know. And figuring that out is really difficult, yeah.

Yung Pueblo 16:05

And I think, you know, it’s funny, because that even comes back to humility in a certain degree, where you have to learn to be okay with people growing in their own way, and also, and also growing at their own speed, yes, like, we’re not going to grow this, like we have such different conditioning, you know, some people have experienced immense amounts of traumas. Others less so. And so that means, like, you know, when you’re trying to grow, like, developing some qualities might be super, super difficult, like someone developing patients when all they’ve known for years is survival, yeah, and they’re just like, you know, trying to dodge things so that they can not be hurt. So I think understanding that one, we don’t have to change the same way. We don’t have to change at the same speed, and that growth for you may look super different, yeah, for me, like, if someone is really adamant about I don’t know, like meditating or going to therapy or just doing whatever it is, and maybe another person just needs to accept they just need to accept themselves as they are, and that can be one of the biggest growth moments for them in their life, because they’ve been striving, striving, striving, and, you know, trying to be a very productive member of society or whatnot, and to just be able to accept yourself as you are, could open up a world of peace inside of you, and I’ve seen it work in a lot of different ways. You know, with couples of all ages, where one person is really interested and takes care of themselves by hiking and being in nature, doing art, other people who really enjoy therapy, really enjoy meditating. I think people just have different tools that connect with them well.

Eric Zimmer 17:44

Yeah, I mean, one of the things I’ve realized as my partner and I have been together longer, and I think we’re in essentially our 10th year, is in the beginning in a lot of relationships, I think there’s a certain amount of you sort of move towards each other because you’re trying to connect and and then over time, if things are good, you this is another theme we’re going to get to, right, this ability to sort of have freedom to grow and change and move in a relationship. And so with my partner and I, Jenny, I’ve noticed that we have grown apart in some areas. And I don’t mean a part as a couple. I mean like, I like this, and she likes that. Yeah, in the beginning we might have both been a little bit more like meeting on that, and now there’s a little bit more like just letting the other person be like, Oh, I like this, and me making sure that I like this only means I like this, not you should like this, right, right? Like, you know, thinking that the choices that I make are somehow more conducive to a good life or whatever, and realizing, like, that’s preposterous. Like, no, it’s not. It’s really preference and who we are as people, and allowing that to sort of be that’s something I continue to learn.

Yung Pueblo 19:03

Yeah, thank you for sharing that, Eric, because that really to me, it’s a sign of very healthy love. Because, from my perspective, you’re not only getting the safety of commitment right, clear commitment towards each other, but because that is so firm and established, you have the freedom to explore, to explore your interests, to like, just go and, you know, see what’s out there in the world, and still be able to come back home and have that nourishment of your partnership there. And I think a lot of people get scared by the word freedom, because you immediately think, Oh, they’re gonna start sleeping with other people and dating other people, but that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about the freedom to like, let your preferences change, to let like, even something as simple as like what you like to watch on TV, and for it to like become something different, or what you like to read, for it to you know, evolve and change over time and and. Even the way that you like to show up for people, and I think that’s one of the beauties, is like, if you’re really feeling nourished by your relationship, you will have that element of freedom to be able to continue evolving. And just because you don’t have the same tastes doesn’t mean you’re going to stop loving each other. I think it was one of the hardest journeys, something as simple, because in our relationship, you know, Sarah and I, we, like, had this long series of years where we really enjoyed moving lockstep with each other, just like we’re eating the same foods, doing the same exercises, like, you know, just like existing as similarly as possible. And that felt right for the time. But then we started learning that, oh, actually, the diet that she needs needs to be drastically different from my own, yeah, yeah. And the exercise that she needs is also not the same. And now, like, you know, we have learned the peculiarities that we need for the both of us to optimize and feel like our best version of ourselves, and it’s not the same. And I think, honestly, it was hard to accept in the beginning, but then I realized, Oh, this is actually like us actively caring for each other, is giving each other that freedom.

Eric Zimmer 21:10

So let’s go back to that a little bit. We’ve kind of hit on a few of the different points, but I want to talk about sort of between freedom and connection. So you know, you differentiate between love and what we would call attachment based behaviors. So first, let’s lay out kind of what we mean by that, because I don’t think we can have the right balance between freedom and connection if attachment is the thing that’s running the show.

Yung Pueblo 21:42

Totally, totally and just to clarify too, whomever is listening to we’re talking about not the Western psychology style of attachment that is quite popular nowadays, but we’re talking about the old school type of attachment that the Buddha put forward, you know, as one of the causes of misery and by attachment in the book, I’m talking about the craving for things to exist in a very particular way, you know. And that could mean like, you know, having your partner act in very specific ways, or having, you know, all the things that you love always be there, and you being, you know, clinging for all the things that you really enjoy to always exist, the rigidity of attachment, it’ll first manifest in your mind as a certain mental image. You know, this is what I want to happen. But the way it manifests through your actions is that it emerges as control. You know, you’re sort of like just really stiff about how you want things to exist. And if you really want a relationship to be nourishing and happy and compassionate, you got to really work on letting go of your attachments, because when you lessen the attachments, you’re increasing not only your freedom, but your partner’s potential for freedom.

Eric Zimmer 22:55

Before we dive back into the conversation, let me ask you something. What’s one thing that has been holding you back lately. You know that it’s there. You’ve tried to push past it, but somehow it keeps getting in the way. You’re not alone in this, and I’ve identified six major saboteurs of self control, things like autopilot behavior, self doubt, emotional escapism, that quietly derail our best intentions. But here’s the good news, you can outsmart them, and I’ve put together a free guide to help you spot these hidden obstacles and give you simple, actionable strategies that you can use to regain control. Download the free guide now at one you feed.net/ebook, and take the first step towards getting back on track.

I want to go back to what you said there about, we’re talking about attachment in a classic Buddhist sense, often translated as craving, is another word for it. And then saying, you know, we’re not talking about Western attachment, but in a sense, we are, I think, in that, if we talk about attachment styles, there’s one style that I never get my terms right, but it’s basically securely attached. That’s the good one. And then there’s, I think, avoidant and anxious attachment. And my favorite, which is, you do both, you’re completely confused, which is me like, I just Okay, that didn’t quite work. I’ll try the other one. Wait, that’s not working. I’ll try, yeah, like, bounce back and forth. Like they call it, like it’s not a term confused. It’s even better than that, because I do think that those styles that we’re describing are what happens when we don’t have the secure attachment. And it’s one thing to say, like, I want to give my partner all the freedom in the world, right? But like you said, that’s really hard to do if you don’t have some sort of secure attachment. But then, ironically, it’s very hard to have a true secure attachment when you’re interested in controlling your partner, right? It can be this difficult game because you’re wanting to control your partner. Because you’re afraid they’re going to move in a direction you don’t want, and that very active then controlling is causing them not to be securely attached to you.

Yung Pueblo 25:08

And it’s interesting, because I think those frameworks are really helpful to people, but I’m one who, you know, I honestly have an aversion to all labels, like I feel like human beings, they exist on such a wide spectrum that, like, one day I have secure attachments another deck and have anxious attachments, and it’s just like, you’re just going to be changing all the time. So to me, it’s like, how can I simplify my approach? And instead of focusing on attachments and expectations, why not just fully vocalize how I like my happiness to be supported and see where we can make commitments to each other, you know, like, if I can tell my wife, this is how I like my happiness to be supported, and she says, Oh, I can do X, Y and Z for you. And like, This feels good to me. This is a way that I can try to show up for you. And from commitments can come a level of security that has nothing to do with, you know, the coercion that sometimes happens from expectations or from attachments, where it’s like you’re demanding someone to really exist in a particular way for you, and instead, you’re just saying, like, these are my needs, and this is how they might relate to, like my past traumas, or how I’ve experienced life. And you know, from how these breakups and you know, these things that have happened that have really affected the way I show up now and how I’m currently working on them, but having things be clear and well informed between the two of you just really sets you up for success. Because, you know, expectations and attachments like, you don’t want things to be a mystery. You don’t want to set up traps for your partner. You want clarity for them?

Eric Zimmer 26:42

Yep, I have a few thoughts there. I also am not a huge fan of labels. I think they serve a purpose for a certain period of time. I think they help us see patterns that we get stuck into where it’s like, yes, okay, you know what, like? I don’t want to say I am that, but you know what, I keep doing that. So there’s a pattern there that that’s worth seeing, but they’re only useful, I think, until they start limiting you. The question here around attachment is this all sounds good in the I tell my partner the way I would like them to support my happiness, and they say yes, and then they support my happiness in that way. And everything’s great, except when it doesn’t quite work that way, meaning, like, these sort of nuanced things you get into in relationship, and I’m just going to pull out two cliches, right? One is one partner wants more sexual attachment than the other, more sexual contact than the other, like, it’s a connection point, right? The other would be somebody who says, like, I’d like my partner to be more emotionally expressive, right than they are. And those things are, there’s often still a tension there, and I think it gets tricky. At least I have found it tricky in my life to see when am I calmly advocating and stating what I would like in a relationship? When am I having an expectation and attachment or craving to things being a certain way? And it gets in that nuanced area where, like, you know, again, there’s the perfect world where, you know, we say what we want, we get it all the time. There’s the other world where we say what we want, we never get it. Those are pretty easy, right? But most of life happens in between those in relationships. So I’m curious how you think about particularly that like I’m stating what I want and my partner isn’t quite able to meet me there. It seems to keep coming up for me. How do I let that go? I just think that’s something I’ve been in, and I’ve seen others in that just gets trickier.

Yung Pueblo 28:47

Oh totally, totally. And it gets very nuanced, and it’s very situational to like the intrinsic qualities of your relationship, especially when you’re hearing different people’s advice, like, does it really match to your situation and the current conditions? Yeah, I think a lot of times, like one from my experience, like the arguments have decreased in terms of their level of tension, because we’re less attached. But often the arguments are the same. It’s like, we’re still, like, you know, argument about similar things over and over, and it’s because we have deeply ingrained patterns, you know, like, I’m more of a people person. Sarah is more reserved, like, I’m more forward. She’s, you know, a little less forward, and is just like more calmly, exists within herself. And there are these aspects and, you know, character types that we have, that we have to kind of work with, and what you end up finding is that you want to have a healthy balance of giving and receiving. And I think that’s where, like, a lot of the tension gets resolved, where, like, if you feel like you’re doing your part to care for your partner and you’re doing your best to. To meet their needs and meet the way that they like to be supported. That doesn’t mean you’re going to get 100% all the time. Yeah, right. That just means that you’re trying and you’re you have some clarity around it, but then there are going to be some months that are way harder than others, and you’re not going to be able to show up as well. But I think having the sense of like, one you’re not always going to get what you want. Like, you’re not like, that’s not what a relationship is. It means like you’re joining this journey and this like, in some ways, it’s a joyful challenge. They add so much beauty and harmony to your life and elevate your life. But it’s also it’s going to have its own ups and downs, and you’re just never expecting your partner to be perfect. You’re just expecting them to show up for you and have a degree of accountability when they make mistakes. You know, basically the simple accountability of apologizing and trying to change the behavior when something does go wrong. But I really think, like, you know, you just can’t expect things to always go your way, and if you do, then there’s a problem there. There’s something that you need to work on within yourself, because your partner is not like they’re a human being who also, you know, is going to ebb and flow in their energy, and they’re not always going to be able to give at the same rate. So we need to be mindful of that. You know, is there balance with our giving and receiving?

Eric Zimmer 31:15

Yeah, I have been in some, uh, distinctly unjoyful challenges also, in the past, my current one is a joyful challenge. I’ve been in the unjoyful challenge. There’s something you say, though that I think that gets to the heart of this a little bit. And it is that you say attachment is a deep form of inflexibility, yeah. And I really like that idea, because I think when we’re looking at a relationship as by talking about what we did earlier, right, sort of going up a level and looking at the thing as a whole, there are going to be places where perhaps I would like to be supported in that way there, but I’m not as much as I would. But you know, these three other areas, boy, I’m really deeply supported over there. And when we become inflexible, which is like, no, it’s got to be that way and this way. And you talk in the book about how it’s good to recognize that, like you ask your partner how they want to be cared for, is good. And I think that’s important. And we’ll talk about that. There’s also something to be said to being flexible enough in certain cases that you let your partner care for you in the way that they like, you know what I mean, like, yeah, the way they naturally show care and support. But I just love that idea. I love the idea of flexibility in general, and I love the idea of thinking of attachment as deep in flexibility.

Yung Pueblo 32:42

Yeah. This all really stems from, you know, understanding how essential this law of impermanence is to the entirety of the universe, like, literally, you know, at the atomic level, the biological level, the cosmological level, like, everything is always changing. So what that’s taught me is that I need to work with the universe and not against it. If everything is changing and flowing forward, what does that tell me? It means I need to embrace change. When change comes and I can’t do anything about it, and my actions can’t, you know, resolve things or change things in a way that I would prefer, then I have no other opportunity but to accept, yeah, and it feels like this, you know, inflexibility. You’re basically trying to move against the river of the universe, where it’s just flowing and changing and moving forward. So work with the universe, not against it.

Eric Zimmer 33:36

You may know this being a poet, in addition to the other things that you do. But I just had a conversation before this one with a mathematician, and we were talking about calculus. And he then referenced the poet Adrienne Rich, which I did not see coming out of a calculus conversation, but he talks about her poem, which the famous line in it is the moment of change, is the only poem which just made me as you were talking about sort of that dynamic nature of everything, I just think that’s such a beautiful line.

Yung Pueblo 34:06

Oh, it’s so beautiful. I haven’t heard that one. It’s literally like, when I think about what I’m learning in this lifetime, it’s just that, it’s like, I’m just learning to embrace change.

Eric Zimmer 34:14

Yeah, I don’t know what the poem is called, but the moment of change is the only poem I would go look at it, because it unfolds on a bunch of really, sort of, to me, mind blowing levels about how she just keeps going, like, one level deeper, you know, into like, this is the poem. But wait, no, that’s the poem. No, not that, you know. And it’s sort of like, when you start looking at like, I know, you think about this stuff a lot, like the nature of self, you just keep going down another level and the bottom keeps falling out, yeah, and this poem kind of does that. So it was kind of amazing.

Yung Pueblo 34:45

I just wrote down the line. I’m gonna look it up after, after we finish our chat,

Eric Zimmer 34:49

not being flexible and insisting on things being our way, that’s a problem. I also know that I’m guilty of the other side of it, which is that I go, ah. You know what? I guess that I’m not going to get that from them, and so I’m not going to say anything again. Why bring it up again? You know, I end up sort of faux accepting. Yeah, I end up sort of accepting on the outside, and yet inside, there’s still a little bit of churning going on and and I think I know for myself, how to figure that out, but how do you think about that?

Yung Pueblo 35:23

I think that’s a great point, and it’s such a like an everyday point where, you know, you may have requests of your partner, but they’re not able to meet them, and you feel that sense of, you know, a small bit of agitation that you’re not getting what you want. And I think what really helps is having your sort of own internal measuring system of like, let’s say you’ve been traveling too much and let my wife know that my parents have been going through a hard time. It’s really important to me to go visit my parents, and would be more than happy if you come with me, but you don’t have to. But you know, as long as, um, I have your support to, like, go and be with them, and just letting let you know. And that’s one example. Just, like, but you’re letting an individual know when something is really important to you and when you’re really asking for their support. Because a lot of times, like, do I really need to argue about this? Like, do I really need to fight about this? Like, is this, this important to me? Like, usually now, like, usually I can just let it go. But then there are other times where, like, something feels really critical and you have to just express it, vocalize, like, communicate about it, so that you’re on the same page.

———–

Eric Zimmer 36:32

I think what I figured out for myself is, if I’m in a position where I’m like, Okay, I think I need to go accept this, and I go do the work of trying to accept it, and yet I can’t. I don’t, yeah, right, like, it keeps sort of churning inside me. Okay, yeah, that’s a sign that it may not be an easy conversation. We’re gonna have to find a way to be able to talk about this, because as much as I want to just let this go, I don’t seem to be completely able to and sometimes that’s our own work to do. But there are other times where I think it’s not our work, where I think we can go, You know what, for whatever reason, for my makeup, this thing is genuinely, really kind of a big deal, yeah. And again, for me, that usually comes after I will try to accept too hard. Like, I mean, that’s my nature. Like, I’m going to go off and try and figure this out myself, because I don’t want to put my stuff on anybody else Exactly. Yeah, that’s a big value of mine. But eventually I might go, Well, you know what? Like, I’m in relationship. Like, that’s part of being relationship

Yung Pueblo 37:36

totally. And you know what’s interesting, building off of what you’re saying, it’s reminding me of something that I’ve been seeing sort of evolving in my relationship now, where there are times where there’s some agitation that lingers. There are so many situations that pop up that are not just like between the two of you, but how the two of you handle other situations that arise, that are problems that the two of you need to solve together. And you know, it could be like a family member getting sick, or, you know, something happens. And there are times where I found myself, you know, letting my wife know, like, Oh, I’m so agitated about one of these decisions that we made. I don’t have an answer, but can we talk about it more? Yeah, I don’t really know what we should do, but let’s just talk about it more, and in the process of like, both of us sharing the way that we feel, where it’s not combative, it’s just like, you know, like there’s something here. It’s quite nice, because even if the decision doesn’t change, there’s still a greater opportunity for both of us to feel seen.

Eric Zimmer 38:36

I go back to something you said earlier that I wanted to touch on, and we just kind of moved on from but I thought was very well said, which was this idea of the same problems sometimes are there, but our level of emotional turmoil over them is lessened. Yeah, we keep coming sort of back to this same thing, because it seems to be an area that we do have some some degree of an incompatibility, or some sort of thing that doesn’t line up, but it’s far less important than it used to be. So it’s not gone. And I often think about that being a version of that, of, like, the metaphor of like a spiral staircase and growth, like, if you imagine, like going up a spiral staircase and there’s a picture on the wall, like, you keep coming back around to that picture, but ideally, the next time around, you see the picture from a slightly different angle. You’re a little higher up and a little higher up,

Yung Pueblo 39:28

you’re really making me think too. Like my wife and I have this very simple, like argument that, you know, pops up every now and then, and it’s we’re so different in our character, where I’m very touch oriented, like, I need hugs from her. I need, you know, kisses, or even just like having, like my arm on her leg, or, you know, just like some sort of touch. And she’s much less so she’s very sort of, like action oriented, you know, will care for you through, through activities and through. I don’t know, moving things forward, and we joke, you know, like, I joke with her, and I’m like, Oh, I’m, I’m touch sensitive, you know, like, if you don’t touch me, I get sensitive. And it’s, it’s a common thing, but I think when the argument comes up, it just doesn’t come up with that same intensity of, you know, feeling uncared for or feeling unloved, because I’ve learned more about her. Yeah, I’ve learned that like, oh, actually, it’s not that she doesn’t care for me. It’s just that she has particular ways that her conditioning shows care. And we’re trying to meet each other in the middle. I’m trying to work on receiving the way that she likes to care for me, because it’s valuable, and like, I’m also learning from that and learning how to care in that way too. And she’s doing vice versa, like, you know, understanding the way I like to be cared for too. But it just feels like such a learning moment, and the valve of tension is released, because having spent all those years together, I just see more about her, like, I’ve had more time to understand where she’s coming from.

Eric Zimmer 41:05

That’s a great example. And I like what you said there about you’re trying to meet in the middle, right? Because in the book, you do talk about, like, it’s really helpful to a state how you like to be cared for, and it’s ideal as a partner, to try and care for the person in the way they they want to be. And as we’ve said, like, you know, you can’t always get things exactly the way you want. So you and your wife are trying to sort of meet, you know, she’s trying to say, Yes, I recognize that’s important to you. I’ll try and think to do that. But you know what, it’s not my natural way of doing things. So I may need reminded totally, you know, and you’re going, it’s okay not to be that way. I see your perspective. And it’s that meeting in the middle that I think is often so important.

Yung Pueblo 41:45

And it’s so funny how, like, the little things, where a hug to me is just as valuable as like me taking care of the compost for her, like, that is to her, it’s like, oh my gosh. Like, he’s really, like, it’s just he’s really showing up for me right now, and I’m like, Oh, I’m like, teaching myself that and trying to show up the way, like she likes that care.

Eric Zimmer 42:06

Speaking of labels, there was that book that, you know, got so much attention five love languages, where it talked about, like, you know, each person has, like, a certain love language. And totally, I found that a that’s illuminating in that we feel cared for in different ways, and a little overly simplistic. Because actually, I think, yeah, right, we all have some varying degree of many of those things, and they often shift over time. And so let’s talk about comparison, and you talk about how you know, comparing our relationship to other people’s relationships can be very problematic. And you mentioned, one of the key ways this happens today is social media. I’m curious about, you know, broadly speaking, how you feel about social media, because it’s been, I would say, largely right, like what, sort of launched your career and sustains your career. So there’s clearly some good things about it, and there’s clearly lots of difficult things about it when it comes to talking with other people about how they might engage with social media. How do you think about it? It’s

Yung Pueblo 43:16

a like and dislike relationship. I think there are so many adverse effects of social media where, you know, if you were just to not bring any analysis to it, and you were examining your own relationship, by looking, you would think, Okay, how much I love my partner is dependent on how many vacations we take together, you know. But like, it’s just full of illusion. And honestly, my recent approach is, like, obviously, I still post on Instagram, and I keep that going, and I keep trying to put up good material on there, but I’ve been leaning on the longer format, like going back to the essay format, you know, doubling down on the newsletter as like a means of deeper communication. And I find that I think it’s really interesting. Like my my guess, if I were to make a real bet about what’s going to happen with social media is, I think that there’s always going to be a place for it, but because of the advent of AI, it’s making things so fake and so untrustable. Like, you know, I’ll literally, like, I go online and I’ll see videos and whatnot, and I’m just like, I don’t even know if that’s real. Like, I don’t I don’t know if it’s real, yeah. So it’s totally losing my trust, yeah. So what does that mean? I’m hoping that this puts a new premium on human to human interaction, where we’re like, going out to hang out with friends more often, where we’re going out to see plays, or we’re going out to like book readings, you know, or where we can, I can literally see that what you’re putting forward is real. And, yeah, I think, you know, social media will have its place, because it’s important for us to be connected. Each other, but I think it’s losing everybody’s trust, particularly

Eric Zimmer 45:02

if you have some sense of what AI is capable of, you’re a little bit, like, terrified by it, you know, yeah,

Yung Pueblo 45:08

and even from, even from six months ago, yes, like, it’s so much better now. Like,

Eric Zimmer 45:12

all the cute animal videos that I would see of animals doing something incredible, and now I’m like, is that? I don’t even know if that’s real. Like, is that guy? Is that dog really on the surfboard? You know? Does that dog really love that duck? You know? Like, it’s taken all the fun out of it. For me, even

Yung Pueblo 45:27

with the news, I’ve seen things like this on Tiktok and Instagram where, like, they’ll set up situations where it literally looks like a real reporter, and it’s not real. It’s not like, it’s not real news, and it’s so hard to just know, like, what you can trust. I

Eric Zimmer 45:44

I was talking with Deepak Chopra recently, and he’s created digital Deepak, and I was like, You know what? We are six months away from, probably, with just a little bit of effort, digital Eric being able to interview digital Deepak, yeah, and it largely being impossible to tell. I don’t know what to do as a person who creates content sort of for a living. What you do with that?

Yung Pueblo 46:09

You know? And it seems initially like a clever idea, but I think what we’re going to learn from that is that what it just produces is repetition and stagnation, right? Because how creative can it really get? And you know, like you’re losing the magic of life, like you’re losing the magic of you, and I like we’re literally just wrapping together. We’re just like, we’re building, bouncing off each other, like I had no idea where this conversation was going to go. And I know that, you know, AI podcast can do something similar, but because of our imperfections, because of our conditioning, interacting in this moment, there’s some beauty to that that you can’t really replicate. And, you know, I wonder about, we were just talking about this too, with different meditation teachers in the tradition I’m a part of where, you know, some teachers are going to try to keep themselves alive forever and like, you know where they’re just like, all the teachings are encoded, and I’ve heard about this from many different traditions now, but you’re losing the magic of teacher to student. Yeah, transmission. You know, where it’s like, you’re have a student in front of you, and they’re asking you a question, and you’re almost looking past the question to see where is the real block, and AI is not going to be able to do that. It’s just going to regurgitate

Eric Zimmer 47:31

before we wrap up, I want you to think about this. Have you ever ended the day feeling like your choices didn’t quite match the person you wanted to be? Maybe it was autopilot mode or self doubt that made it harder to stick to your goals, and that’s exactly why I created the six saboteurs of self control. It’s a free guide to help you recognize the hidden patterns that hold you back and give you simple, effective strategies to break through them if you’re ready to take back control and start making lasting changes. Download your copy now. At one you feed.net/ebook let’s make those shifts happen, starting today. One you feed.net/ebook

I think it’s very interesting, because there are studies out there that have shown things that are kind of, again, for those of us, I think that are arguing on the human side, that start to become concerning, like people will rate an AI therapist as a better therapist than a human therapist, very often, until they know that it’s an AI therapist, of course, at which point they’re like, hell no, they’re creeped out, yeah, but I’m not sure that people that are 10 years younger than you are gonna feel that same way. And so, you know, I think it’s a both, uh, fascinating and interesting and terrifying time, yeah, and you can

Yung Pueblo 48:54

look at it from different perspectives, where, like, maybe because the AI therapist has this wide knowledge base, and because it’s not a real human being, you can feel that you can really just say exactly how you feel without being judged. And I can see some people, you know, putting a high value on that. But at the same time, I think the human condition requires a wide variety of tools for human beings to feel like they’re flourishing. For human beings to feel like, you know, we’re growing and evolving and overcoming our past hurts. So in one way, I’m glad, I’m glad that there’s a variety of tools that can meet people where they’re at. But at the same time, I think over the next five to 10 years, everything’s going to drastically, drastically change. And what I’m hoping for is that, you know, the same way, when, like the iPhone popped up and we all became these digital human beings, I think with AI, like AI, is going to support us in being healthier, being more connected and whatnot. But it’s good. It’s just going to. Right, push us back outside.

Eric Zimmer 50:02

That’s certainly my hope. You and I are going to continue in the post show conversation. I want to talk a little bit about the art of arguing, and we started to talk about comparison a little bit, but I really do want to talk about, how do I know, like, is my relationship good enough? Am I comparing it to something that’s unrealistic. You know the nuance that we get into there. But before we wrap up completely, if you wanted people to take away, sort of like one key idea about love, what might it be? The key

Yung Pueblo 50:33

idea that I want people to walk away with is that love is not constant excitement. It’s not perfection. It’s not going to take all your problems away. If anything, it’s going to make you see more of yourself, and that’s going to be challenging at times. But a challenge appearing doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily in an unhealthy relationship. If anything, ups and downs are absolutely natural in a relationship, and when the downs appear, there’s usually opportunities to develop deeper connection with each other. It’s a block making itself very clear so that the two of you can undo it so you can understand each other better.

Eric Zimmer 51:16

That is a beautiful place to wrap up. Diego, thank you. I always enjoy talking with

Yung Pueblo 51:20

you. Yeah. Thank you so much, Eric, this is really fun. Thank you so much

How to Be Okay When Life Feels Overwhelming with Liz Fosslien

March 7, 2025 Leave a Comment

Embracing Emotions at Work with Liz Fosslien (2019)

In this episode, Liz Fosslien discusses how to be okay when life feels overwhelming. Do you ever feel overwhelmed by emotions like anger, envy, or uncertainty—and then feel guilty for feeling that way? Liz challenges some of the biggest myths about emotions. She also dives into why negative emotions aren’t actually bad, how perfectionism holds us back, and why uncertainty feels so unbearable. She shares research-backed insights and actionable strategies to help us navigate difficult feelings in a more constructive and self-compassionate way.

Key Takeaways:

00:00 – Introduction to Big Feelings and Emotional Myths
05:55 – The Illusion of Certainty and Why We Overestimate Risk
14:37 – The Cycle of Anxiety, Thought Filtering, and Anxious Fixing
22:53 – Perfectionism as Fear of Failure and How to Break the Pattern
32:35 – The Power of Language: How “Always” and “Never” Reinforce Negative Thinking
38:39 – Comparison Isn’t the Problem—How to Use It for Growth
48:54 – Time Chunking: A Survival Strategy for Emotional Overwhelm
54:49 – Closing Thoughts: Accepting Big Feelings as Part of the Human Experience

Connect with Liz Fosslien Website | Instagram | X | LinkedIn

Liz Fosslien regularly leads interactive, scientifically-backed workshops about how to create a culture of belonging, help remote workers avoid burnout, navigate different work styles and effectively harness emotion as a leader. Her work has been featured by The New York Times, Ted, The Economist, and NPR. She is also the co-author and illustrator of The Wall Street Journal bestseller, No Hard Feelings along with the book discussed in this episode, Big Feelings: How to Be Ok When Things Are Not Ok.

If you enjoyed this episode with Liz Fosslien, check out these other episodes:

Befriending Difficult Feelings with Adreanna Limbach

By purchasing products and/or services from our sponsors, you are helping to support The One You Feed and we greatly appreciate it. Thank you!

Episode Transcript:

Eric Zimmer (00:00.0)

Have you ever had a day where you just feel off? Not sad exactly, not mad either, but just a swirling mess of feelings that won’t sit still? I certainly have. And as it turns out, that is completely normal. In fact, my guest today, Liz Fossiline, has spent years studying why we feel the way we feel and why we often believe we shouldn’t feel that way. She’s here to bust some of the biggest myths about emotions, like why anger isn’t actually the enemy, where envy can be useful, and why it’s not just you feeling like everyone else has it figured out. By the end of this episode, you’ll walk away with a whole new way to think about your emotions. One that just might make your life a little lighter, a little easier, and a little more human. I’m Eric Zimmer, and this is the one you feed.

Hi, Liz, welcome to the

Liz Fosslien 02:31

show. Thanks so much for having me. Really excited to be here again, yes, excited

Eric Zimmer 02:35

to have you back again, and you have a new book called big feelings, how to be okay when things are not okay, which is a great topic that I know listeners are gonna love. But before we get into the book, let’s start like we always do with the parable. There’s a grandparent who’s talking with their grandchild, and they say, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops and thinks about it for a second and looks up at their grandparent says, Well, which one wins? The grandparent says, the one you feed. So I’d like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Yeah,

Liz Fosslien 03:22

I like that. It acknowledges that we all experience these emotions and have these within ourselves. I think that’s a common misconception when people maybe feed or feel the sort of quote, unquote, negative emotions that they’re alone in it. So I really like that. And then I think the concept of feeding these emotions is really great too. Something that I look at a lot in my work is when you’re experiencing something that’s difficult, how do you learn from it, but then try to move through it so that it gives you some useful information, but you don’t get tangled up in it and continue to feed it and get dragged into it. So I really love that parable

Eric Zimmer 04:00

you hit on something there that you talk about early on in the book, which is really some myths about, you know, what you’re calling big feelings. You hit one of the, you know, myths there. But can you talk about a couple of the others?

Liz Fosslien 04:14

Yes, I think the one you’re mentioning I hit on, which I actually think is worth revisiting again, is for the book. We surveyed about 1500 people all across the world from all different backgrounds, and we asked them, Have you experienced any of these big feelings, which in the book include things like anger, envy, burnout, perfectionism, and basically, to a person, everyone said, Yes. And so I think one of the myths is, again, that when we experience envy, that we should feel ashamed because we’re the only person feeling that which is absolutely not true. Another one is just around the intensity of those feelings that people often also think, in comparison to others, that they’re the only ones that are really getting bogged down in. Think depression is a good example of this. When you feel despair, often you feel like everyone else is thriving, and that’s one of the ways in which it warps your view of the world. And that’s just also not true. And then the last one that we cover in the beginning of the book is just that there are good, quote, unquote, and bad feelings, so things like envy, anger is one too. We’re often taught that anger is associated with violence and is really harmful to other people, and there are absolutely ways that you can express anger, like punching a wall or punching a person, that are harmful. But at its core, Anger can motivate us. It’s just a flag that there has been a violation, so it can motivate us to advocate for ourselves, to find a better situation for ourselves, to advocate for someone else. So I wouldn’t call that a bad emotion. You can take bad actions based on it, but at its core, an emotion is simply data and something that your brain is producing,

Eric Zimmer 05:55

right? And we’ve got this podcast parable that talks about good wolf and Bad Wolf, which, if we’re not careful, sets that myth up, which is that negative emotions, quote, unquote, negative emotions, are bad. It’s why I love the the take that you had. It’s one of the reasons I love the parable, is it just says, like, hey, everybody has these. You know, that’s, I think so, so important. And, you know, the thing that’s really interesting. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, because we’ve had a couple of guests recently that have talked about this. One is a woman named Sarah Fay, who just released a book she’s diagnosed with six different things over her life, right? And she sort of takes on the DSM, which is the way that, you know, mental health professionals diagnose people. But I think it gets to the question of, when is something normal human emotion that we all go through, and when is something what we would classify as mental illness, and is that distinction even useful? Curious? Your thoughts?

Liz Fosslien 06:53

I’m not a licensed psychiatrist to make these calls. Yeah, of course, sort of. My intuition on this is that when it becomes something that you really can’t move through, and when you’re actively harming yourself or other people, that’s when it requires, maybe medication or like, more professional help. But that said, I mean, I think medication and professional help can be useful even if you’re sort of depressed but functioning? Yeah. So I think it’s, it’s always valuable to consider these things on a spectrum, yep. And so I think there’s not like a clear line. Sometimes it’s just a judgment call that you make yourself, or the people around you make, or your therapist makes of okay at this point, there needs to be some more serious intervention. But I think I don’t feel like the depths of some of these, like, really more sort of, quote, unquote severe disorders that are in the DSM, but on any given day, I feel good, and then an hour later I feel bad. And, you know, like, is that? Yeah, am I, like, vacillating too much between emotion? I don’t know. That’s my baseline, yeah. So these are all definitely, like, arbitrary lines that are still useful to have in some cases,

Eric Zimmer 08:03

totally Yeah. And I do think every case is different, and it’s something I think a lot about as someone who has what I would call, maybe today, I’ll call it depressive tendencies. Instead of saying, I, you know, I have depression. I have a tendency in that direction. But at the end of the day, I think that the tools that are very useful for working with a lot of these things are the same, regardless, and that’s really where you guys spend a lot of time. In the book, you go through these big feelings, and for each of them, you talk about some myths, and then you talk about how to work with each of them. I love the structure of the book. It’s laid out very clearly, very helpfully, and of course, it has the drawings for which you guys are are very well known. They’re so great. They really add so much that we just won’t get in a visual or we won’t get in an audio only conversation. But they add so much to the book. Let’s jump into some of the big feelings. Is there anyone that you would like to hit? One that feels like more top of mind today for you than others? I’ve got a couple I might choose, but I’m curious what you might choose.

Liz Fosslien 09:09

Yeah, I think I would choose uncertainty and perfectionism. Uncertainty. You know, the last two years easy to say they’ve been very uncertain indeed. That’s one that I’ve struggled with a lot, and I think a lot of people have as well. Okay,

Eric Zimmer 09:25

so what are some of the myths around uncertainty? Two

Liz Fosslien 09:30

that resonated with me when I first started to investigate them. The first was that certainty is attainable. It’s really comforting to think, Oh, I just wish I could go back to when I was a child and things were certain, or pre pandemic, when life was more it was obvious what was going to happen next, and I could plan for it. And the truth is, you can never plan for the future, because you can never exactly predict what it is. And yes, there are times when there’s more alarm. Confirming things that could happen in the future. But generally, I think it’s actually really useful to let go of this myth that there is a perfect stability that you can attain, because again, it helps you look back at your life and say, I’ve always been operating in some level of uncertainty, and for the most part, I’ve been able to successfully navigate it. I’m still here. So I think that can help you even in moments that feel a little more unstable than others. And then the second myth is that the anxiety we feel in the face of uncertainty is perfectly predictive of how much risk we face. So I think it’s so easy to wake up in the morning with this like nebulous pit of anxiety in your stomach, and then lean into that and say, Oh, because I feel bad, that means something bad is going to happen, and now I need to be on full alert and in panic mode. Yeah, funny thing that I don’t know, funny, but somehow a lot of the research around uncertainty involves shocking people, like giving them harmless but painful electric shocks, like every single study involved this so uncertainty researchers loved electric shocks. That seems actually fair. But in one of these, okay, but in one of these studies,

Eric Zimmer 11:13

I’m not going to sign up for any studies around uncertainty. I do not, as somebody owned an old guitar amplifier in really lousy houses in long time ago, I used to get shocked all the time. I hate it, yeah,

Liz Fosslien 11:24

yeah. So same. I’m not signing up for any of those. But in one of these studies, they segmented people randomly into two groups, and one group had a 90% chance of getting shocked, so it was pretty much guaranteed that that they were going to get this painful experience, the other group had a 50% chance, and the group that had a 50% chance was three times more stressed than the group that was certain they were going to get shocked, which speaks to this, like we would rather know that something bad is going to happen, then not know what’s going to happen. So we really, really hate uncertainty, which, again, speaks to like, you can be super anxious, but that doesn’t mean that you’re guaranteed a horrible thing that’s about to happen. There’s a

Eric Zimmer 12:08

couple things in what you said there that I think are important, that this idea that certainty ever exists is certainly a myth. Like, I think those who study Buddhism, they sort of Bang us over the head with this sort of stuff. Like, you know, it doesn’t exist. There’s a poet, author out there, Mark Nepo, who talks about something called the terrible knowledge, which is that anything can happen to anyone at any time. And I think that’s true. But I think there’s a positive too to recognizing uncertainty, besides feeling less anxious about it. The other positive is you don’t take things for granted as much if you actually realize the true uncertainty of things you recognize, like, oh, you know, let me be grateful for my dog who’s laying here right next to me, because I just don’t know how much longer that will happen. You know, it can knowledge of uncertainty can also contribute to our lives in positive ways. Yeah,

Liz Fosslien 12:59

absolutely. I have a friend who is, you know, in his early 30s, extremely oppressive athlete, eats very healthy, and he had some pain in his ankle last year, which then was diagnosed as bone cancer and needed an amputation. And just like, you know, had a horrendous year, and now, luckily, seems to be in remission. But I just remember that experience like, it really felt like out of nowhere. Yeah, I don’t want to use his story as like, it made me feel really good, but it did. It kind of crystallized, like, out of all of us, he’s the last person I would have predicted to have such a health crisis at this age, and that it just like, put my own health in much more perspective. And I agree with you, it made it was like, wow, things like this do happen, and it’s horrifying. And so even if I’m not having a great day, I’m still grateful that generally things are okay, yep.

Eric Zimmer 13:53

And the next question I’m going to ask is, you know, as we look at working with emotions, and people who talk about emotions and theorize about emotions. Some people have a belief that like, thoughts cause our emotions. You know, there’s a there’s a, you know, thoughts leading to emotion. There’s other people that think it’s a more complicated than that. And when you were talking about anxiety, it made me think of that sense of some how some days you just wake up, and before you’ve even had a thought, there’s a mood, and then it’s like every thought gets filtered kind of through that mood. Is that sort of what you were talking about with, like anxiety, like you wake up and it’s just, you know, you feel a certain way, and now all of a sudden, your thoughts all take on the color of that feeling absolutely

Liz Fosslien 14:37

yes. So my view is that emotions are often the product of like stimuli we’re taking in, and it can just be a result of our brain chemistry, which is often the cause as well. And so I think it depends on how you define a thought, but then like the conscious thoughts we have get, as you said, filtered through this emotion that’s coming up. So one example. Example of kind of how I consider emotion is way, way back in the day, if a lion was charging towards you, it was really important that you just feel fear right away, that your brain was able to process like lion coming fear right away, and that it wasn’t like this very conscious like, oh, there’s a lion. Perhaps, you know, and you can, I think you can debate forever, if the thought comes first what a thought is, but then everything after that is filtered through this, like physiological response you’re having in response to that emotion, and with anxiety, I think it’s the same, right? So if you Doom scroll late at night, go to bed, have bad dreams, or there’s just this, like subconscious thing running through you that the future is really scary. There’s all these horrible things happening in the world. You wake up, you have this pit. You’re not even really conscious of what thoughts are driving that. But then that starts to create these thoughts that might not necessarily be true for me personally, which, as I’ve talked to people, I think a lot of people experience this. It also generates this frantic energy that leads you to kind of exhaust yourself in an effort to get over the anxiety, but because you’re not sitting with it and really trying to understand what might be driving it, it’s not productive. So to give more color to that, I used to wake up, especially during the early days of the pandemic, feel so anxious, and I would just vacuum the floor. I would answer all my emails. I would create all these new projects for myself. I would call someone. I would just have this to do list and mercilessly bang my way through it. And at the end of the day, I was just exhausted, but I had never stopped to think, why am I anxious? Like, what can I actually do about that underlying emotion. So I just didn’t feel any better. Actually felt way worse. And so I think that’s also sometimes it’s not even that we have thoughts that are helpful. It’s like the thought becomes, I just want to run away from this. What can I do? What can I do? And what our brain generates is like what I can do next often, isn’t actually what we need to do to address that underlying emotion. So

Eric Zimmer 17:01

what are some tools for working with uncertainty? Yeah,

Liz Fosslien 17:05

so the first is just to stop this cycle of what psychologists call anxious fixing. So this is you feel anxiety, and it feels good to cross things off a checklist, and so you do and you do and you do, but you’re not actually addressing that underlying need. So it’s really just, in this case, when you feel that overwhelming panic or anxiety, it’s to stop and don’t rush into anything else. Just sit there and say, like, I’m this moment, I’m very anxious, and then try to think through, like, what are my fears? So anxiety is more nebulous, this sort of anxious feeling we have, versus a fear which is centered around something specific. And so you might say, you know, over the past years, like, I’m afraid I’ll get COVID, I’m afraid someone I love will get COVID, and those are terrifying things. But once you actually map out the exact fears you have, it’s easier to start thinking, What can I do to prevent that? What steps can I take? Versus with anxiety? There’s not a clear next step, so I think the first piece of advice would just be, just stop and sit with it, as uncomfortable as that might feel in the moment. It’s really important. Yep.

Eric Zimmer 18:16

And then you sort of led into another one there, which is to try and go from vague anxiety into more specific fears, like, what am I really afraid of? And, you know, the more specific oftentimes, the better. Yeah.

Liz Fosslien 18:29

I think one thing that came up a lot as I was speaking with both experts and then just people about this, is some people mentioned they find it useful to ask themselves, what’s the worst thing that could happen? And then realizing that it’s not so bad is comforting to them. And so if that works for you, that’s great. I do want to share that tip for me personally. I can come up with some really doomsday so, you know, like, what’s the worst thing that can happen? I am very creative when it comes to this question. So if that’s you, I would not ask that, or I would say, what’s the worst thing that could happen, and then follow it up with, what’s the best thing that could happen, and what is the likelihood that the worst thing happens? Because often it’s like, yeah, I dreamed up this nightmare scenario, but it’s extremely unlikely that that’s actually what’s going to happen tomorrow. And so it’s important to keep that in mind as well.

Eric Zimmer 19:25

Makes me laugh. My partner’s mom has Alzheimer’s that that does not make me laugh, but within that, you know humor is is helpful. And she would get these anxious fears. And so I would try and reason with her like she was always afraid she was going to starve to starve to death. And I’d be like, what you’re not, you know, and I’d start going into why she’s not going to starve to death every time, she would just come up with a more and more fantastical story about how this was going to happen. And I just after a while, I realized, like, this, this is, this is not working, like, you know, like, this is one where. Her, her ability to dream up scenarios is well beyond my ability to, you know, come up with contingency plans. And I know some people who are like that also like, you know, what’s the worst thing that can happen? They’ve got some doozies, you know.

Liz Fosslien 20:13

Oh, yeah, that’s definitely me.

Eric Zimmer 20:16

What’s the worst thing that can happen for me is generally a pretty good one, you know, because I’ll go like, well, you know, I guess we won’t make any money if we don’t make any money for a few months, you know, I’ll figure it out. Which sort of leads me to another one of your tips for uncertainty, which is to sort of reflect on moments that bring you confidence, or reflect on your ability to cope with what uncertainty brings. Yeah,

Liz Fosslien 20:41

so this is, I think, one of the best ways to navigate uncertainty. It’s not about creating confidence for yourself that something’s gonna happen at a future point in time, because, like we said, you can’t really do that. It’s about building confidence that you will be able to handle it. And so one great way to do that is to look back and try to find moments when you were overwhelmed or you didn’t think you could make it through an experience and you did. So, for example, I actually, for I don’t know, 20 years, struggled with a really intense needle phobia, and I went to cognitive behavioral therapy to overcome it, but it was an example of where my anxiety was absolutely not proportional to the risk, right? Like, getting your blood drawn is a very low risk procedure, and I would, like, faint I couldn’t sleep for days. I would avoid going to the doctor because I just didn’t even want to risk needing blood work. And so through CBT, I was able to, like, gradually, like, expose myself to the situation more and more, and now it’s still an unpleasant experience, but every time I feel this fear, I remind myself think back to the last blood draw where everything was fine. You didn’t pass out, you were able to make it through. And so every subsequent blood draw has been easier and easier, because I’ve built that confidence in myself. And so the same thing can be applied to uncertainty. If you’ve gone through something really hard. Often we wish we hadn’t had to go through that hard thing, but you can take away the lesson that you are capable of surviving it and of making it through. And one quick phrase I want to end with on this is I found it so valuable to also tell myself, I’m a person learning to x, so when you’re confronted with uncertainty saying like, I need to have it all figured out right now, I can’t do this just I’m a person learning to continue to move through uncertainty. And I’ve done it before, and there’s lessons there, but I’m still going to find new ways to do it. And I think that phrase can really help you shift your mindset to be more open to it’s okay, I will make it through

Eric Zimmer 22:47

this excellent Well, let’s move on to I think you chose perfectionism as your next one, right? I did.

Liz Fosslien 22:53

Yes, this is a big one for me. Tell us about your perfectionism. Yeah, my perfectionism definitely manifests in my work. So just, I think, becoming overly obsessive with getting to 100% versus, you know, saying, like, in this case, actually 80% is more than enough, and it’s actually better for everyone if I don’t spend more time on this. But it also has shown up a lot in my personal relationships. So when I first started dating my now husband, I felt in many ways, that I was two people. And the first was me who sometimes, you know, likes to stand in my kitchen in ratty old pajamas and eat cheese directly from the fridge. And then the person that I was when we were dating and not living together, which I always, you know, I would put on makeup and tried to be funny and gregarious and have stories and would eat really politely, and then when the relationship was going well, and then we talked about moving in together, and that was terrifying for me, because I was like, Oh, my God, he’s going to discover this person that’s so different, that’s kind of a mess, that has anxiety attacks at night. I just hidden that all away because I really thought that to be in a relationship, to have someone love you, you just had to be perfect, and you had to be fun to be around all the time. So it’s for a lot of my life, shown up sort of In every facet of both professional and personal life, music,

24:39

music.

Eric Zimmer 24:53

Before we get into coping tools, let’s follow the way we’ve been going, which is what’s a couple of myths people have about perfectionism. So one

Liz Fosslien 25:00

myth is that you’re not a perfectionist. And I think people who have perfectionist tendencies often they’re so hard on themselves that it’s incomprehensible to them that they’d be a perfectionist, because they’re like, I’m not perfect, I’m a complete failure. I’m not perfectly dressed for every situation. I don’t ace every single presentation at work. How can I be a perfectionist? And perfectionism is not about like color coded folders and looking a certain way or behaving a certain way. It’s about desperately trying to avoid failing. So it’s one thing to aim for 100% on a test and get 94% and feel pretty good. It’s another to aim for 100 get 98 and then beat yourself up because you didn’t get that one question, and that’s perfectionism. So I think being honest with yourself that you might have these tendencies, even if you don’t think of yourself as perfect or perfectionist. And then another one is that perfectionism helps us. I think a lot of myself included. It was like, Oh, if I abandon this, if I try to move away from these thoughts or tendencies, I’ll turn into a couch potato and I won’t have any drive, and I’ll just be a complete basket case on the floor when, in fact, perfectionism, a lot of research shows, makes you focus so much on this fear of failure that it holds you back much More than it helps you move forward. So the two are, you might have perfectionist tendencies, even if you don’t think and then once you accept that it’s okay to move away from them, they are not as helpful as you think they are. Yeah. And

Eric Zimmer 26:33

then the third myth is what you sort of hit on in your personal story, which is, you know, I have to be perfect to be valued.

Liz Fosslien 26:38

Yeah, exactly. And I think that for many people shows up in their personal lives,

Eric Zimmer 26:44

yep, yep. How have you worked with perfection in your own life? And then, you know, we can go into some of the the tools from the book, but I’m just kind of curious, like, in your personal life, like, that’s a big one, you know, how have you worked through that? Yeah,

Liz Fosslien 26:55

so I did see a therapist, which was really helpful. And the story I share in the book that has stuck with me the most is my therapist asked me to recall a time like just a really great experience I had with a pet. And I remember this like Grumpy Persian cat that I used to Cat sit, and she, you know, she had the face that indicated she hated everyone, and she had a breathing problem at that point, so she would have these little snorts. And I adored this cat. And she would, you know, she would just like, come and sit, and sometimes she looked, she seemed like irritated there, but just by sitting there, like I just liked to be around this cat. And my therapist said, Isn’t it possible that, like your boyfriend, just likes to be around you, and even if you’re just sitting on the couch and you’re not telling a joke and you don’t look a certain way, that there’s just a lot of comfort and having another person be there, even if they’re just being there. And so that is something. And I also think about my mom. If I call her, I have a close relationship with her, it helps me feel better. And that’s how I felt about my boyfriend, like he didn’t, you know, if he just woke up and had bad head and everything like, I don’t know, I just loved that he was there. And so starting to see things from that perspective. And then the second was also actually one of the tips that is in the book, too, is about moving away from avoidance goals to approach goals. And so an avoidance goal is avoiding failure, so I don’t want him to see me without makeup. And an approach goal is about attaining something positive. And an approach goal is inherently more exciting, and you feel good when you reach it right, like, if you just avoid failure, that’s not an inspiring goal. You’re going to avoid failure. And it’s like, Great, okay, I don’t get anything out of this. So in the context of that relationship, an approach goal might have been, I’m gonna put on my ratty pajamas and I’m gonna show him my favorite cheese, and we’re actually gonna have like, a fun time eating cheese out of the fridge, you know? And like, that was like, opening up a little more. But then it was also it culminated in this, like, really fun bonding experience. And so often we we just get into this mindset of, I don’t want to mess up this presentation, and instead, if we think free of expectations, how can I just really show people how excited I am about the material? And that’s a really different way of starting to work on that presentation.

Eric Zimmer 29:24

You talked about not needing to get things to 100% as being, you know, one thing to do, how do you start to know within yourself when you’re sort of in that zone of like, okay, I’m spending a ton of extra time to get very little value out of that. How do you know that? Because I think that’s hard for perfectionists. And then secondly, once you know that, what are some of the things you might say to yourself to actually get you to set it down and move on? Yeah.

Liz Fosslien 29:55

So one question that I found helpful is, when would I. Be ready to ask someone for feedback, and they could give me useful feedback. Usually, if you get to 100% you’re actually not open to feedback anymore, because you’re like, This is great. I don’t why

Eric Zimmer 30:12

should I need anyone to help that’s so interesting? Yeah? Like, if

Liz Fosslien 30:15

I’m, let’s say I’m writing an article. I also can’t hand someone a page that just has completely incomprehensible notes on it. They’re not going to give me feedback. So I think that’s a nice heuristic of like, when is this in enough shape where someone gets where I’m going and they can provide useful direction? I think that’s one. And then I think it’s also just opening yourself to learning. And so saying another thing that I found useful is if I am in a silo working on this to 100% I might get to 100% and realize this is not something that resonates with people or not what my boss wanted. So I’m actually creating more work for everyone, as opposed to, like, handing it to her at like 70% and then maybe making some course corrections. So it’s about creating some breaks for yourself. And then also, I really like this question of, like, when would this be ready for feedback? Yeah,

Eric Zimmer 31:10

my partner and I were talking about that recently in that, you know, when I’m giving a talk for our spiritual habits program, or, you know, the second spiritual habits circle of connection, she co teaches, but I tend to start the lessons, and what I realized was exactly what you just said, although I wouldn’t articulate it as well, which is that I think I’m almost done by the time I bring her in, and at that point I don’t really want feedback, because what I want is to be done, you know. Like I think I’m done, you know, right? And so we talked about like, I gotta bring her in, like, there’s got to be enough there for her to critique to your point, like, but I need to bring her in much earlier, because I may be way more open to feedback at that point and not take it in the way that I, you know. Sometimes I just get a little grumpy, you know, yeah, and the more time I spend with it, oftentimes, the more attached I get to the way it is totally which is in the music business, we used to call it rough mix. Itis right. You’ve listened to it this certain way in this rough mix for so long that that’s how you think it should sound. And somebody comes along and may have a much better mix, but you’re not open to it, because you’re sort of mired in in what your idea of it was,

Liz Fosslien 32:20

yeah, I love those examples. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You also

Eric Zimmer 32:24

talk about one of my very favorite topics, which is how extreme language can cause extreme emotion. And you talk about getting rid of always and never.

Liz Fosslien 32:35

Yeah. So those are two words that usually show you’ve slipped into your perfectionist tendencies and that your self reflection has turned self destructive. So examples are good. Parents never yell at their kids. Great. Employees are always turning everything in five days before the deadline, and those are extreme views of the world that just aren’t true. So again, it’s usually a sign that whatever thought is banging around your brain is not an accurate perception of reality. And so I think it’s nice to have those words so that when you notice them say like, oh, okay, I see what’s happening here. I need to think about this differently. So, you know, like, good parents never feel frustrated at their kids and actually say, like, good parents do feel frustrated. It’s totally fine. How can I just navigate through this situation? How can I make it better in a work context? You know, great employees or employees who get promoted never make mistakes, also not true, and so allows you to step back from that and say, I made a mistake? Can I ask my boss for advice on how to avoid making that mistake in the future? I think it just allows you to detach a little bit from these extreme ways of thinking that cause us to berate ourselves and then start to feel really down and low.

Eric Zimmer 33:56

Yeah, those two words tend to be destructive wherever they show up, whether it’s in our own lives. Like you said, a good parent should never get angry. Or when we’re communicating to somebody else, you always do this or you never do that, you know, like they just, they’re troublesome words, yeah,

Liz Fosslien 34:10

I love that you brought up too in communication and conversation. You know, if you say you always do X, that person is just immediately going to come up with an example of when they didn’t do it 100% Yep, it’s not a useful conversation.

Eric Zimmer 34:24

I’m sure I’ve done plenty of the saying always or never, but I know for sure I’ve been in relationships with people who have used those phrases. And you’re right, I’m immediately like, but that’s not true. You know, like, you know, which is missing the point totally. A more nuanced version of me would be like, All right, I understand what they’re saying underneath. Ignore the word, you know, that’s a feeling, but, but it’s very hard, totally, it’s very hard to not counter, you know, a factual incorrectness there. Yeah. You talk about naming your inner perfectionist and finding a non perfectionist role model. Say a little more about that.

Liz Fosslien 35:44

Yeah. So it’s, again, a method to allow yourself to distance yourself from your thoughts. And so you know, for your perfectionist, it might be a part of you that is useful to engage with sometimes, but you don’t want it to consume all of you. And so calling your perfectionist, I think in the book, we give examples of like, grace or Darth, Vader or Bozo. Can be a goofy name, whatever feels good to you, yeah. And then when you start to have these thoughts, like, good parents always do X, great employees never do Y, saying like, Oh, that’s Bob, my inner perfectionist, yeah, and I’m actually gonna say, like, what does Bob want in this moment? Right? Like, there actually might be some useful information in there. Like, Bob really wants to be a great employee. It’s useful to know that, like, Oh, I do want to do well in this job. But you’re not sort of like leaning into those emotions and taking them or those thoughts and taking them as fact and then a non perfectionist role model. I think it’s actually really useful if there’s someone at work that you really admire, a mentor, just someone in your personal life, to also note when they flub something or they don’t immediately respond to an email, because, again, I think it helps you realize that everyone makes mistakes. No one is like on their A game, 24/7, and so you can still be successful and impressive and this incredible person in someone’s life, even if you’re not, you know, striking a home run every second of the day. If

Eric Zimmer 37:15

anyone needs a clear example of non perfection in their life, I offer myself up. Say, I love that. Yeah, I love naming my inner characters I’ve shared often. You know about my inner depressive tendency? Person is Eeyore, you know, from Winnie the Pooh. You know, that’s a good Yeah? And it makes me kind of laugh every time I start putting my thoughts in yours voice, you know? Yeah, it’s good. So I’ve had people ask me if I would record whole guided meditations for them in yours voice, but I have stayed away from that for now. All right, now it’s my turn to pick a a I’ve got a bug flying around here. I’m not going to fall into the perfectionist idea of that, like it should never have a bug in your house.

Speaker 1 38:04

Yep, bugs are everywhere. They’re everywhere. Yes,

Eric Zimmer 38:08

I’m gonna pick my big feeling, and I’m gonna go with comparison, not actually, because it’s one of the ones that I struggle with as much, because I actually don’t as much anymore in my life, but it’s one I know a lot of people do struggle with, and I found a lot of the things you guys had to say about it, in a lot of cases, counter intuitive and counter to what people think. So let’s talk a little bit about comparison. It can be one of the most painful, big feelings out there. What are a couple of the myths around comparison? Yeah,

Liz Fosslien 38:39

I think nowadays, so much of the conversation centers around social media, and so I think it’s easy then, to assume if I get off of Instagram or Facebook, I will be free of comparison. And that’s just not true. There’s infinite examples of like your neighbor, your colleague, your whatever. You’re still going to compare yourself to people. So it can be absolutely helpful to limit social media intake, but it’s not sort of the magic wand with which you can eradicate all of these emotions. The second one that we talk about in the book is, if you just get to a certain point, you’ll feel great about yourself, and you’ll never compare yourself to anyone else. You know, it’s very true that there’s always going to be someone who is better than you, quote, unquote, on some metric. If you have infinite money, you’re suddenly going to turn to like looks, or, I don’t know, access to some whatever, or maybe even like meaning or whatever it is, you’re just you can never be the best at everything. And so I think it’s really useful to catch yourself when you hear yourself saying, like, I’ll be happy when blank, because the truth is, that’s not guaranteed, and it’s more important to figure out how to be happy with what you have. Those are two. Big ones, and then the one that I find the most interesting, which we stumbled across this research a couple years ago, and it’s been really helpful to me, is that to overcome comparison or to envy, you should compare yourself less. So that’s the myth. Is that just like don’t look at other people. And the truth is, it’s actually research shows makes you feel better to compare yourself more. So what the researchers find is they asked people like, how good of a runner Do you think you are? And people said they were not good runners, because in their head, they thought of the absolute best runner they knew. But when the researcher said, list out in your life 10 people you know personally and how well they run, and now evaluate how good of a runner you are. People were like, Oh, I’m pretty good, yeah. And so it’s like, I think it’s really easy. If we think about, you know, how successful Am I, we think about Mark Zuckerberg, and we’re like, I’m so unsuccessful. But then if you actually put it into perspective, like you’re in the top 5% of all money brackets, or what or whatever it might be, or you think about your peer group, you’re usually not like far, far, far behind everyone else. And so I think actually having a wider comparison range can put things into better perspective.

Eric Zimmer 41:15

Yeah, I also think that ideas around what types of comparison can actually be helpful is really interesting. Yeah, absolutely.

Liz Fosslien 41:23

So comparison is sort of inevitable. So then it starts, you start to think about when I have when I notice myself comparing, or I notice myself being envious of someone, what is helpful to me and what is harmful. And so what is helpful is to take a step back from that emotion and say, What is my envy telling me? So envy can reveal what you value. So it might be you really envy a colleague who just got promoted. And what you learn is that maybe you really want to be promoted too, or you really want to do well, but then it’s still useful to kind of drill down of like, yes, you want that. But do you want the day to day of that? Because it might be that you’re envious of a CEO because they’re successful, and you’ve been sort of socialized to want to be the most successful. But do you actually want to do everything it takes to be a CEO? Is that the work life balance you want is that this want to make the same sacrifices? And so I think it’s about really asking yourself this series of questions that can then highlight when the comparison isn’t useful and it’s flawed, and then it allows you to more easily step away from it.

Eric Zimmer 42:32

Yeah, I really love that idea of really thinking about I’m looking at this thing that I think I want. What does that really entail? What do I really need to do to get there? What are some questions that are helpful for getting into that? I think you guys call it the nitty gritty, right? Getting into the nitty gritty of, like, I look at somebody and I’m comparing myself the CEO one is a is a great one. You know? I could think about, I could look at somebody, a male model, Men’s Health Cover Model and look at that me like, well, I want to look like that. But when I think about the way that guy has to live, yeah, I suddenly go, Ah, well, you know, I think I’m doing okay, you know? Like, I’m not sure that I want that life. Yeah,

Liz Fosslien 43:13

absolutely, yeah. So I think the first question is just like, what do they have that makes me feel less than in that example, it’s like they have whatever this body that is on the cover of a magazine. And then it’s also useful to think about, like, do I really want that? And am I willing to, like, you just said, like, live the life that would lead to that. And often we say no. So one example I share in the book is I’m an introvert. My worst days are when I have, like, back to back meetings. I’m just exhausted. And I have a friend who is very successful was promoted, and like took over a team of 200 people. And I initially was really envious of her, and then I saw her Google Calendar, and was just like, Nope, you know, I could not do that. It’s not for me. And then it it just really helped those feelings abate quite a bit. So I think the day to day question is really great, but then it’s also useful to ask, like, what void would having that fill? Because often we anchor too much on the specific thing versus like, what actually is like the bigger need behind the feeling of envy. So it might be that it’s not really that you want the body that’s on the cover of a magazine. You just wish you could feel more confident. And then it’s useful to think like, oh, there’s actually many other ways that I can improve my confidence that don’t have to do with me, like never touching anything with sugar in it again,

Eric Zimmer 44:43

right? I just go over to Chris’s and look at his body, and I suddenly feel way, way better. It’s not nice. And I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding. You’ve got a question in there too that I love, which is, you know, swap out the question, why don’t I have that with Do I have enough? Yeah,

Liz Fosslien 45:00

again, it’s so easy for us to anchor our comparison benchmark on people who are better than us, or not better, but like, seem like they’re doing better. That was a correct wording. And it is then really useful to think, like, actually, I’m pretty happy with my life. And, you know, I don’t want for many things. And so right now I’m really just comparing myself to this, maybe 10,000 extra dollars, you know, every two years would be really nice. But fundamentally, like, I live in a safe country with a stable government, and like, it’s just useful to remind yourself of that as well, of like, all that you have, as opposed to only focusing on everything you do not have.

Eric Zimmer 45:44

Yeah, I had a moment. I’ve shared this a couple times on the podcast, but it was a really poignant moment for me. It was years ago. We were relatively early in doing the podcast, and we went out to LA and we interviewed Lewis Howes, who has gone to be a huge podcaster. He’s been on, like, Ellen and all this stuff, and so he had this really nice apartment in Hollywood, and I went out on his balcony, and I was just looking down at the view, and I was just thinking, like, Man Lewis has got it all. Like, wow, this is incredible. And feeling a little bit of envy, and I looked up over my shoulder, and what I saw were these just incredible houses on the hill. And I went, you know what? I bet Lewis looks over his shoulder at those houses. And to your point, that that never ends, right? That is an endless process. And so that’s one of the best things for me. And why I like that question of, you know, do I have enough? Is when I really start to recognize that again, I think what you’re saying is that recognizing what we’re envious can tell us a little bit about what we value, which is true. And sometimes it can be really helpful to realize this thing that I think if I had it, then I would just that I would be happy to realize, like, that’s not true. Yeah, like that happiness doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t come from like, Oh, if I just was in Bali this week, like, those people are I would be happy. Like, that’s not true. I’ve been on vacation in beautiful places and been perfectly miserable. You know? It just helps me to recognize that sort of unwind some of those feelings.

Liz Fosslien 47:18

Yeah, same. I’ve also been, you know, on the trip of a lifetime, and just been not happy at all. It’s in the book, we talk about something called the new level, new devil phenomenon, which is actually from video games, but it’s often, yeah, it’s like, when I achieve X, I’ll be happy. So it might be when I become a manager, I’ll be happy. But when you become that your peer group also changes somewhat. And so now everyone around you is also a manager, because now you’re going to manager meetings. And so it sort of normalizes this thing that seems really unattainable at some point. And so you just start looking upwards again. So it’s kind of like whatever level you get to, there will be a new devil of the new thing that would, quote, unquote, make you happy?

Eric Zimmer 48:03

Yeah, we’ve talked about it as sort of that, you know, if this thing, then I’ll be happy. And one of the things that a, getting older and B, having some degree of success will do for you doesn’t always do this, but it can confer a certain degree of wisdom, because you have enough opportunities where you’re like, Oh, I got what I thought I wanted, and look, it didn’t do it right. Like, it didn’t fix me, you know, it didn’t. And you really start to go, oh, okay, you know, what are the skills that I can have that allow me to actually inhabit where I’m at right now more fully? Yeah, totally. Is a way through that. Well, we’re nearing the end of time. What other things from the book really stood out to you, or from this work that you feel like would be really helpful for listeners as a last couple things, if anything comes to mind, if not, I can certainly drum up another question or two. But

Liz Fosslien 48:54

yeah, I think something that I found really valuable actually comes from our chapter on despair, and it’s this concept of time chunking, which is, you know, the emotions we’re talking about are really hard. There’s often messaging that’s like, you know, this was meant to happen for a reason. You know, this is a learning experience. And though you know, like, it’s a sure, maybe it’s a learning experience a year from now, maybe you can look back on it and craft a meaningful story. But I think most of us something like grief or deep regret, we’d rather not experience it. And so in those moments when it’s just like, so so hard, I think it’s so easy to be like, this is how I’m going to feel forever. And what I found really valuable is time chunking, which is then I need to get through the next hour. And it might be like I need to get through the next moment, and then I need to get through the moment after that, I think it’s fine to say there are days when my goal for the day is to make it through the day. Yep, you know. And like, just what do I need to do today? Because maybe after. Sleep tomorrow will look a little different. Maybe I just need to, like, watch Netflix all day. Maybe I need to, you know, like, lie on the couch and just be sad. And often, when we talk about these big emotions, there’s not enough that’s focused on just like, how do you just make it through when you’re in the worst of it and in those moments when it’s actually hard to believe there’s a better and it’s hard to believe that this will ever be a memory that is meaningful or has created meaning for you. And I think it really comes down to like one foot in front of the other, or like one breath at a time, if you’re lying down, can’t get up, yeah? But time chunking is something I’ve come back to, yeah,

Eric Zimmer 50:39

as a recovering alcoholic, right? I mean, aa, I think is the place that sort of, that probably didn’t invent it, but certainly the place that made one day at a time, like the popular phrase that it became, because it’s so valuable. You know, when you’re first getting sober, it’s so overwhelming to contemplate, like, I have to do this forever. Are you out of your mind? Yeah, like, there’s no possible way. So, okay, just today. And like you said, sometimes it’s like, just this hour, just don’t take a drink this hour and hope that something shifts. Yeah, that time chunking is such a valuable skill to be able to do. And I love what you said about recognizing, like, okay, maybe this is a growth lesson, and I’m gonna grow from this is one of those things that I always find it when somebody’s in despair, I feel like I’m always trying to balance when I’m trying to help somebody who’s in despair, like 97% of me is going I feel you. I simply like I’m with you. 3% of me wants you just to keep your eye just a little bit on the horizon that says, like, this is going somewhere for you, so not to minimize what you’re feeling like the vast majority of is like, it’s okay not to be okay. And I know when I’ve been in despair, it’s always helpful to have just a little bit of looking at the horizon where I realized, like, this will change. I’m gonna grow from this. What’s the right balance of that? I think is always challenging, but I find it really helpful to have both those things in my awareness a little bit.

Liz Fosslien 52:09

Yeah, absolutely. I think that often when someone comes to us, or when we just notice that they’re suffering or going through something, it feels good to be like, Okay, I have solutions. I’m gonna help you fix this, and that’s not a bad thing, necessarily, but I agree with you. It’s like, first, you just need to say, you know, maybe I don’t totally know what you’re going through, but I acknowledge that, like, this is really hard, and I’m here for you, and I, you know, just like, it’s okay, whatever you’re feeling, it’s okay. I’m here. And I think that is just so, so crucial before you start doing this, like it’ll get better, or there’s like a light at the end of the tunnel type thing, I think too often we just skip that part entirely. Yeah,

Eric Zimmer 52:48

there’s a psychologist at the University of Michigan. His name’s Ethan cross, and he wrote a book called chatter. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it, but he had some really interesting studies about helping people who are going through really difficult times. And what these studies seem to point to was only sympathizing with people didn’t lead to good results that you did need some degree of that solution oriented piece. And when I was reading it, it just sort of struck me that, like, of course, it’s both right. We all know, if you skip right past the empathy, sympathy part of the game and you try and shepherd somebody right to solutions like that doesn’t work. Nobody wants nobody wants that. So it is a matter of like, okay, how can I be with you in this first and how long that takes really depends on the person, right? Like, I can’t say, like, well, all right, I gave you your 15 minutes, and now we’re going to talk solutions. Like, it really does depend on the thing. But I found the research interesting that it sort of said you kind of need both. And it made me think about the argument that I hear a lot between men and women, where, you know, women are saying, I just need you to hear me, and men just want to solve the problem. And when I was reading it, I went, like, we’re both right. Like, there’s value in both of those. How do we make sure that they’re both there? But you can’t get to the second one, I don’t think, effectively without the first one

Liz Fosslien 54:17

totally. Yeah. Agree with all of that, and that research is super interesting. Yeah.

Eric Zimmer 54:22

Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. It is such a pleasure to have you back on. I love the book, like I said, I love the way it’s organized. I love the title, how to be okay when things aren’t okay. And I love the drawings. It’s really well done. We’ll have links in the show notes to where people can get access to you and to the book, and all of that is there anywhere you want to point people to

Liz Fosslien 54:43

no show notes. The book is available everywhere books are sold, so hopefully you can drag it down, yep,

Eric Zimmer 54:49

yep. And it’s called big feelings, how to be okay when things are not okay. Thanks again. Liz, it’s always lovely to see you. You

Liz Fosslien 54:56

too. Thanks for having me. You.

Chris Forbes 55:13

If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a monthly donation to support the one you feed podcast when you join our membership community with this monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive, members only benefits. It’s our way of saying, Thank you for your support. Now we are so grateful for the members of our community. We wouldn’t be able to do what we do without their support, and we don’t take a single dollar for granted to learn more, make a donation at any level and become a member of the one you feed community. Go to one you feed.net/join the one you feed podcast. Would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show.

The Happiness Formula: Using Your Body to Transform Your Mind with Janice Kaplan

March 4, 2025 Leave a Comment