Picture of Wayne Andersen

Wayne Andersen

Session 46: How to Accept & Grow from Life’s Challenges

Life doesn’t happen to you, life happens for you – if you’re willing to learn. In this session, learn more about How to Accept & Grow from Life’s Challenges.

Video Transcript:

Dr. A: Just to make sure, if you’re a first-time listener or viewer, the forum is designed for us to really discuss consciousness, awareness, what’s going on in our life in terms of how we’re showing up in the world. And today I’ve kind of set up for what I think is one of the most important things that we can have in our life. And it’s really about psychological flexibility. I really look at that in the world we live in now with AI moving along really fast, is that’s your superpower. That’s the part that allows you to go through and maintain internal stability and external equilibrium with the people and the things that you are surrounded by.

So today: How to Accept and Grow from Life’s Challenges. Basically, this is an essential skill for conscious living. It’s not just surviving challenges, but growing through them. We don’t choose the storms we’re in, but basically we choose who we become within those storms. So with that, life doesn’t happen to you. Life happens for you, if you’re willing to learn. Now, I’ve learned through decades of medicine and coaching and helping people build consciousness. Challenges are not detours. They’re going to happen. They’re the curriculum for life. And every challenge has two layers. The events and the meaning. So, let’s talk about those two layers. First, the event is what’s happening. The meaning is what we bring to it. Growth occurs in the meaning layer, not in the circumstance layer. So, as you can see, the outer event, the thing that’s happened to you, you can’t control.

There’s so many variables in our life, starting with when we get up or even when we’re sleeping to the time we go to bed and put our head on the pill. There’s so many things that are going to happen and we don’t have control over a lot of it. And unfortunately, we would like to have control over everything. And our ego, our personal mind would like to control everything in our lives. And that’s the problem. The inner meaning is what really is your choice? How do I respond to these challenges? How do I learn from them and how do I grow? So what is this challenge here to reveal or grow within me? You’ve got to shift from, “Why me,” to, “What is this revealing?” That moves you from victimhood into consciousness. This is where you move from being, basically, with no control to being the Dominant Force of your life, which I always talk about.

So basically, acceptance isn’t the same as resignation. It’s not giving up. It’s just seeing reality without distortion. It opens the space where conscious choice becomes possible. And it’s important that we have, in this part, clear communication of actually what’s going on. Engagement, making sure we’re not denying it or pushing it away. And then, as we’re in this situation, decision making, being clear on the choices and what choice makes the most sense to move us forward and create what’s most important in our life. So, the three levels of responding to challenge. First is react, second is to understand, and the third is to create. This is where real growth occurs in our life. So the first, the egoic level, is the reaction part. That’s our personal mind responding to it. The cognitive level is the coping. It’s starting to understand and deal with it, but it’s not quite there. The conscious level is when we now take that space, that event, and we help it create consciousness and create in our life what we most want, which makes the most sense to move us forward. Not based on our egoic or even our contemplation or coping, but actually how do we create? How do we take it, become the Dominant Force and move forward through the situation being in charge?

So let’s talk about those three levels. First the egoic reaction. This is the unconscious level. Everything feels personal here. There’s no growth, only repetition. This is when people keep repeating the same behaviors over and over. It’s when I watch news, the different news stations. Everybody kind of takes this theme, the others to blame. It’s part of the Drama Triangle. And there’s this autopilot, this fight, defend, blame. And identity feels threatened. The personal mind feels threatened here because things outside its control are involved. So we’re trying to make it right. We’re trying to be closed, defensive, and want to be right so that we get through it. Basically, the second level is the cognitive coping, you know, but it’s still coping. We’re analyzing, but we’re not transforming yet. This is managing our emotions. This is what we’re going to talk about, which you’ve heard me talk about for years, and Stop. Challenge. Choose., it’s about understanding the patterns. Understanding, why have I reacted previously to this? But it’s still mostly intellectual and it’s important for us to become part of our being.

So that leads to the third part. Consciousness equals choice. Choice equals growth. Observing our thoughts. Here the challenge becomes an invitation. The level transform our identity. Use these challenges as fuel. Respond from a higher identity. So you’re actually using this. You know, obviously I teach a lot about health, about people creating physical health and mental health and in those areas, basically, it’s really important to know you become the Dominant Force, you take personal responsibility, you use the ancient stoics, both the Greeks and then the Romans to follow, talked about stoicism. The obstacle’s the way. This is how it challenges us to become more, and in our health, it’s never been more important. You shouldn’t have to look down and see a donut and say, “Oh, I’m not doing that, because I can’t right now, because I need to lose weight.” That’s the wrong attitude. The right attitude is that, you know, what I decide, this donut is not something I want because it doesn’t add, it actually, if you’re monitoring your glucose, you’ll see your glucose spike. You won’t feel as well. You’ll be extra hungry afterwards. And so you learn that this is not a choice that supports what I want to become, which is a healthy person.

That is very different than conflict manipulation. When you say to yourself, “I can’t have this,” or “I can’t have that,” this is about making those choices based on taking all these obstacles and looking at them in a way where they now become of you. Building you. Forging you into what you really want, which is organizing your life around matters most. And obviously your relationships, healthy relationships, healthy physical health, healthy emotional health, all these things are critical to live a fulfilled, happy life. So there’s three practices for growing through the challenges. They basically turn any challenge into growth. The first is Stop. Challenge. Choose., which I created this technology almost 20 years ago and I found it to be so useful, even in my own life, and with my kids, but so many people have talked about how it’s changed their life. It’s put them to now being in charge of their life. The second, structural tension, I studied many years ago with my dear friend Robert Fritz, we wrote a book together, but the bottom line is, structural tension is a mechanism to keep you focused on what’s most important and how to reach that and then the identity shift, that’s the part where we actually, over time, we raise our standards and we become a healthier person. We become a more successful person, whatever is important to us, and we move forward and really, fully enjoy life.

So let’s talk about it. Practice one is Stop. Challenge. Choose. I mean it’s been around — most of you have read about it in my books. It is in essence an interruption tool. I’ve never really labeled it that way before, but that’s what it does. It interrupts our pattern. The thing we’ve been doing, the thing that’s been holding us back, the thing that keeps us doing the same behaviors, that reactiveness, that reactive to our patterns, to our personal mind to do things, just reactive without thinking and certainly without conscious thought. And that interruption opens the door to consciousness. And the three parts are, Stop., which is breaking the pattern. You’re stopping because normally that stimulus would have you react in a certain way, like your kid leaves dishes in the sink or something, whatever it is, or someone says to you — something makes you think that they’re saying, “You’re stupid,” and going down that road. We break the pattern. We Challenge. We question the story we’re telling ourselves. Perceived threat is different then real threat. Our limbic area in our brain was designed to keep us from real threat so that we move back if a rattlesnake was in the trail but now most of our threats or perceived threats. There were things in our relationships where our personal ego is saying someone’s messing with us. So, question that story. Could the opposite be true? And then the third is, choose a higher response, one that supports you raising your identity and becoming more of what’s most important to you.

So, number two practice is structural tension. This is really about defining your current reality and the desired future you want for yourself. So, writing down — this is so important to decide, life is so chaotic now. There’s so many different variables and distractions. If you don’t know where you want to go, then you’re probably not going to get there. Someone else is going to have you do what they want you to do. Whether it’s clicking through TikTok or, you know, whatever it is, they’re going to waste your time and you’re not going to be on purpose. So, it’s really important to know what your desired outcome is and where you are right now. And the first part is, what is true right now in my life? In my health? In my ability to be around my kids? We just had Thanksgiving. How did Thanksgiving go? Were relationships great? Was it happy? Was it joyful? Were there arguments? Was there tension? Was there drama? You know, look at that and say, what is current reality and how I respond now to my environment? And how do I look at things the way they are now? How did I do in Thanksgiving? Did I eat everything that wasn’t nailed down? Did I let myself go totally out of control or did I do things within moderation? And the second part is — this is the most important — organize your life around what matters most. What did I want to create?

And then third, holding the tension between those two — between desired outcome and your current reality — will create this tension that will move you forward, to move towards what’s most important to you. That kind of motivation is easy because if motivation that’s designed around what matters most about the things that you have the highest value, you value the most, those things require little motivation. It’s the things that are highly non-motivational that we’ll get stuck with every time. And then the third is identity shift. It’s literally real transformation occurs when we evolve the one who meets the challenge. How do we evolve? Well, the four parts of that, who do I want to be in the face of this challenge? You know, and a great thing to do is journal and say, how did I react to Thanksgiving? Was I there as the most conscious person in the room? Did I basically eat in a way where I enjoyed mom’s home-cooked pie? I had my mother-in-law’s pie with ice cream on it and loved it, but I had a piece this big because that’s all I need. I just needed to have the taste. Was I thinking about, while I was eating dinner or in those relationships, future self-perspective on what’s important, were I embodying my strengths, the things that are most important, and when was I responding or were you responding with high energies? So, so critical. 

[00:10:43] So, challenges aren’t obstacles. They’re invitations to a higher self. Growth happens when we stop asking life to be easier. Instead, ask ourselves to become more awake, aware. Because when we’re aware and conscious, we don’t act robotically. We don’t go on autopilot. We actually respond in a way that makes sense. Where we stop, we challenge, and we choose the outcomes that move us forward. So, basically, life is a master teacher for us, you know, and to look at that — I’m open, curious, and want to grow — it’s preparing you for right now. It literally allows you to step in the role of a conscious creator moving from the Drama Triangle to the Empowerment Triangle and watch how your challenges elevate your identity, your presence, and your freedom. So meet the challenges and things that happen and start today with being curious, being fully present, creating versus reacting, and being conscious. So with that let’s open up, Rach, for Q&A.

Rachel: We have Melissa up first.

Dr. A: Hi Melissa.

Melissa: Hello. How are you?

Dr. A: Fantastic.

Melissa: Awesome. Awesome. I couldn’t get my question in there, but let me just tell it to you, okay?

Dr. A: Yeah.

Melissa: How do I handle an adult child that lives with me and all things happen to her? She’s like always in victim mode and my granddaughter is involved as well because my granddaughter, you know, lives with us.

Dr. A: Yeah. Well, so you know, the bottom line is you’ve been studying this for a while and for you, what we just did makes sense. I guarantee if she listened to it, she might get some of it, but probably her ego would get in the way and say, “No, no, my life’s not like that. My life’s different.” So, the most important thing to realize that you, you know, you can, the old saying, you can lead the horse to water, you can salt the oats, but you can’t make them drink. And so, it’s really important to open up periods. I like to use, for you to use, something, what we call upset technology. So, she comes to you and she’s a victim, and she’s upset, and she’s emotional. The first thing is to ask a series of very simple questions. First, what happened? And actually listen to her. Don’t agree. Don’t interrupt. Listen to her so she knows she’s being heard. Second, what was missing? In other words, what was missing in this session? What happened here that was missing, that I expect? What were my expectations? And then the third, is what’s next?

So what you’re doing is in the moment, when someone is emotionally upset, they’re operating from the limbic part, the mammalian part of their brain, not from the prefrontal cortex. So what you want to do is you want to get her to slow down, to react, and get back in control so that she can Stop. Challenge. Choose. The way for that to happen through your questions is when you ask her what happened, this is the part where she’s going to release emotionally. She’ll talk about it. She’ll be emotional. She might cry or be mad or pissed. And then basically ask her what’s missing. What was missing here? You know, what was missing? What did you expect to happen? What could have happened that would have been better? And then that requires her to slow down and start using this part of her brain. When she does that, suddenly, there’s possibility. When someone’s in the emotional part of their brain, they’re turned off. It’s like, if you think with your grandchild or or even with your daughter, when you were teaching her to read, sitting on the bed at night, basically they’re reading and then they make a mistake, right? And then they get a little upset and then you say, “No, no, you’re doing great.” And then they make another mistake because as soon as they start making mistakes, it goes from here, this part that’s learning to the limbic part, which is reacting. When the reactive brain is activated, the rational brain doesn’t work. It short circuits it. So that’s going to be the main thing for you to do, let’s say, is to really work and just slow her down. 

Basically, get her to get into the point of what was missing and then what’s next? How could that situation have been better? That way, what you’re doing is helping her start to take back control. Because when she understands, okay, this is what I wanted, but it didn’t happen. The easiest thing to do is to react to it because you feel good. You get emotionally charged. I’m pissed. You know, the Jerry Springer show, I mean, that’s what that show was all about, right? People think, well, I’m not as messed up as they are. So, the whole thing is to do it from a loving, you know, obviously you love her very much and you want to help her. I know it’s very frustrating for you. So the challenge on your side, what we just talked about, is for you not to do this. In other words, when she does this, you’re here. And so she can do all that she wants, but it doesn’t help. And so eventually this will happen and you’ll settle down. Does that make sense?

Melissa: Thank you so much. Yes, it does. Makes a lot of sense.

Dr. A: Try it. Let me know. Come back next month and tell me how it works.

Melissa: Definitely. I appreciate you. Thank you.

Dr. A: You’re welcome. Okay, who’s next?

Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Suzanne.

Suzanne: Hi, everybody.

Dr. A: Hi!

Suzzanne: This is along the same lines. Maybe it’s a redundancy, but I’ll ask anyway. So, whether we’re at a family event and a person, friend, or family member may be acting out, like playing games, and then kind of throws a fit, accusing people of cheating or gets upset because they’re not having the time that they want or also maybe more in a one-on-one situation, working with a friend, or a partner, or a family member on a project, and they have a very strong point of view about how it’s supposed to go and you do the listening and you say, “Okay, I understand that and that’s not the way that I’m choosing to do XYZ project.” and you give them outs like, okay, maybe you just don’t want to be involved. They say things like, I don’t want to be involved, but then yet they keep putting themselves in the situation to try and “help,” quote unquote, but it’s more of a frustration. You know, what is the, I mean, I think we say the same thing. We just stay up here and we listen and we give feedback and say, “Okay, I hear you’re not wanting to do this,” or you’re wanting to do it this way, and I’m not wanting to do it that way. So, what do you need to take care of yourself in this situation? But, I mean, am I making it clear, the kind of question?

Dr. A: Yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. First of all, let’s just go with some really important, what we call bright lines in law. In a contract there are bright lines and as long as you stay in the bright lines then everything’s okay on both parties or negotiation when someone goes outside the bright line. So remember the first part is acknowledgement. It’s not necessarily an agreement. Okay. So if you’re sitting there with someone and the dynamics of interpersonal relationships comes up, bottom line is, you know, blowing them off is not the right answer. Tired of what they are is not the right answer. In that moment, the right answer is to listen. Just, again, like we talked on the last one, listen to what they say and then basically ask them, okay, from your perspective, what’s missing here? And so basically, you’re getting their perspective. That’s acknowledging that you’re hearing what they’re saying. It’s not agreeing with what they’re saying. Okay? You may agree once they explain it. They may be like — I showed earlier, the clarity of the communication is important.

So they may not have the articulate skills to — maybe there’s something underneath that’s bothering them and you want to have that come out, right, because that way you can understand, but in a situation, if it’s a dynamic where you’re on a project you need to have your bright lines as well. And so if you’ve got five people working together and you have one that’s totally creating chaos and disagreeing with everything, then I think the questions you ask are appropriate. You know, is this project important to you? Because one of the things that we need to understand is if it is important to you, then great, we want to listen, but we have to work collaboratively. And if it isn’t, then maybe you should choose to do something else. The other thing is, in the moment, again, doing this, they can do all this they want, but as long as you don’t engage, you don’t perpetuate the “drama cycle,” you’re actually stopping the drama cycle, and you’re moving from, the villain is the challenger.

[00:19:06] So you may ask those questions from a challenging standpoint that — not making it personal, but when you say X, I would love you to explain that more to me because I’m not sure what that means. So in other words you’re giving them the opportunity to be heard, but you’re not necessarily agreeing. And at the end, depending if it’s two people, the worst thing is if they continue. The most important thing is to disengage. Just, again, what’s missing and then what’s next? Don’t react back, because if you even, if you’re — don’t be the hero. Okay? The hero is part of the drama track. Go from the hero, right? What does the hero become? The hero becomes the coach. Okay. The villain becomes the challenger and the victim becomes the creator of their own life, which is what this talk was about. Learning to become conscious, become aware, stop that gut reaction instant, you know, instant stimulus response, build Stop. Challenge. Choose.

So you’re stopping, you’re interrupting the pattern, and do this for yourself because there’s two sides, just like I talked with Melissa, there’s two sides to it, right? There’s your side, your involvement, and the idea is to get as clear in the moment as you can. How am I responding to it? So, it’s actually these dysfunctional relationships is a great opportunity for you to grow and that’s most important. Your role is not to change anybody. We have no control. We have no control over anybody, including our kids. We have boundaries we can set, but what they’re thinking and feeling, we can only open up so that they become conscious and sense the love, the care that we care for them and we’re loving them, not create dysfunction through creating. That’s one of the things parents have struggled with because lives are so complicated. They’ll either defer to an electronic device and not address it with their child or they’ll do it from a, “up one, down one.” I’m the parent, you’re the child and then they do this because I’m in charge. That’s not helpful either because even a little person is a fellow human. And although we need to help create safety for them and belonging and basically put them in mode to create, there’s got to be bright lines.

So you’re asking a pretty complex question. I’d have to see each individual. But as long as you focus on you and then you become — your identity is to grow, to become more malleable, to make it so that when people are dysfunctional — it’s like water on a duck’s back. You don’t engage emotionally, you don’t sense emotion, you just sense that okay, in this, let me ask some practical, pragmatic questions. What happened? What’s missing? What’s next? And you can also ask what the other one, what’s missing. You can say, what did you expect to happen? Which gives you a little more flexibility depending on what the situation is. Does that make sense?

Suzanne: Yeah, it makes perfect sense and I love it. One additional ad, if another person, say two people in the project are alone talking about the project, sharing feelings about what other people are doing and then perhaps one of the people shares frustration and kind of name calling or judgmental things, my response was, “Hey, I get it. I don’t like this situation either, but let’s refrain from name calling because that’s not — these are all people that I love, and I don’t want to have that energy.” And then the response that I get back is unfavorable to that request.

Well, I mean, yeah, but the bottom line, you only have control over you. I want to make sure that’s the main emphasis. That’s why I do this. You’re on the call. You’re listening. You want to grow. You’re open, curious, and want to grow. You’re responsible for you. You’re not responsible for anybody else, to tell anybody else to do anything other than obviously if you have caregivers, you have to do certain things that are responsible for their safety. But other than that, this is an inside job for you. And by you growing, right? And so gossiping, which is what you’re talking about, is basically you should be saying the same thing. Anytime someone’s talking about someone else with a third party, you should discipline yourself that unless you would say that to that person, you just don’t do it because basically it’s part of integrity. The whole idea in this for our identity is to become an integrous person.

You’re doing things that you’re not telling white lies. You are actually responding in a way where you’ve now decided that I’m going to grow as a person and I’m going to put myself in position with external equilibrium, that in any situation where have someone else, because if they start saying — bad mouthing, see they’re trying to pull you into the Drama Triangle and so you have to think, is in this situation, are they the villain, the victim, or are they trying to be the hero? None of those positions — and then think to yourself, okay, if they’re being the villain here, I want to turn them into the challenger, right? The challengers, objectively, what was being said and anything within that that we’re working on, not make sense from a challenging standpoint. Not from an individual personality standpoint. That’s the discipline of this. Make sense?

Suzanne: Yes. Thank you so very much. I appreciate that.

Dr. A: Yeah. And this is something that everybody deals with. You know, we start learning this. It’s just like — by the way, helping people get healthy. They have metabolic dysfunction or they’re extremely obese, we look and know, okay, we could help them, but do they want to be helped? Because if they don’t want to be helped and you try to put onto them, they’re going to respond from their personal mind and you’re actually taking them further away from working on their health. They become, deep down, doubling down on their own defense mechanisms. And that’s not what a coach does. A coach lives in the empowerment triangle. A coach coaches, they don’t “hero.” A coach challenges, does not make someone a villain. A coach helps someone move from the victim mentality into the creating where they start focusing on organizing their life around what actually matters to them most. Because when a person’s actually moving on the track, where they’re in the creative process, it’s the most beautiful thing that can happen in your life. And that’s where real joy comes because you’re helping yourself, helping others, and we’re helping work on a very dysfunctional world.

Suzanne: Yeah.

Dr. A: Right. Thanks. Okay. Who’s next?

Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Jan.

Dr. A: Jan!

Jan: Hey, Dr. A. How are you?

Dr. A: I am fantastic.

Jan: Oh, so good to hear it. Okay. I just have a fun physiological question for you.

Dr. A: I love that.

Jan: So, back in the day, before I found the program of Opavia, helping me to balance my blood sugar and understand how to eat properly, I struggled with chronic headaches. And I didn’t put the two together until I experienced the balance that I achieved through the program. And lo and behold, the headaches went away, right? It was fantastic. So, as long as I practice those habits and I continue to eat that way, I can create my own reality. Right?

Dr. A: Right.

Jan: So, when Thanksgiving came around this year, I was missing my mom and I decided to make one of her pies, just because I was missing her, and I had some of it and then I had a little more and a little more. I got a little out of hand. Dr. A.

Dr. A: Yeah.

Jan: And within about 20 minutes, I got hit with a headache to beat the band. So, it kind of ruined the rest of my day, but I didn’t take anything for it because I was like, “Dang it, girl. You got to remember this is what happens to you when you eat sugar or carbs.” Because I’ve never been a sugar person much. Like, I tend to eat the carbs, the cereals, the crackers, the bread, that kind of stuff, which I’ve learned to keep at bay. I just want you to explain what goes on physiologically that creates from the time I eat that, in 20 minutes my head starts to hurt, like what is going on in there?

Dr. A: Yeah. Well, that’s a great question. Well, you know, your brain is one of the most metabolically active organs in the body, along with the kidneys and the brain CMR2, or oxygen consumption, is very, very high. So, it wants to consume pure sugar or ketones. It likes ketones even better. By the way, ketones are the breakdown products of fat, and when our insulin is low, bottom line, is we make ketones. And that’s why, when people go on the program and start getting healthier within 3 days, they feel better, have more energy because the ketones are a beautiful energy source for the brain. Glucose, as it raises it changes the osmotic load and it actually changes the physiology of the cells. And when you have a high osmotic load, because now you’ve loaded your brain with sugar, it changes the meninges — which are the lining — and actually the brain itself has no pain receptors. The meninges, which surround the lining of the brain, that’s where the pain receptors are, and that’s where these vascular headaches come from.

And when you suddenly change the osmotic load, because sugar pull is a very high osmotic load, it pulls in you’re changing creating [unintelligible] equilibrium between the interstitial which is the space in between the cells and between the cells and the meninges are going to change their position, so you’re stretching them or collapsing, depending. That’s why people have a headache. Like on the opposite side, the glucose is pulling all that water in versus when you drink alcohol and then you get dehydrated and then next morning you have a hangover. That’s because the meninges are shrinking and you’re causing the stress receptors, and that’s what cause that throbbing headache. So that’s why — and also, by the way, if anybody — just blink your eyes if it’s happened to you. If you basically in the morning after you’ve drank too much and you’re dehydrated, you now go have a Dunkin’ Donut, your headache’s going to get worse because you’re now putting sugar into it and it’s pulling the water and you’re actually getting— your headache becomes worse. What we normally want after a hangover, not that I’m an expert at it, but bottom line is we want something fatty. We want a juicy hamburger or something that would be more soothing because our body senses, “I want something that’s fat, that’s going to load my fuel, give me fuel, but not create that sugar load.”

[00:29:32] So yeah, you’re sensing it, and the reason why your headache is worse is because you become more and more sensitive. And that’s so important because if we look at people eating high unhealthy, highly processed food, they’ve been doing it for decades, their dopamineergic receptors, which are basically the dopamine reward system, their receptors are shrunk down. So they need that high fructose load. They need the 68 ounce Coke or Pepsi or whatever. Whatever your fuel to jar is and with that, basically, those receptors need that to respond. In fact, that’s why places like Fuddruckers and places that have these huge portions because the only way we get satisfied — because we’re not getting that dopaminergic click, is basically through engorgement, through vascular or through a gastric engorgement, that’s why the GLP-1s have a place to help break that, again, pattern disruption.

They can help, but they need to be done in a way where we’re also learning habits. So that’s why it occurs and it also, to your point, you rewarded yourself by saying, “Hey, I’m reinforcing.” That’s the negative feedback of I don’t want to experience it and that’s really important. That’s why I suggest for people that have struggled to try for a month or so a glucose monitor, because it gives you immediate accountability. You eat something and within 30 minutes, 30 to 60 minutes, how your body responds to it. It can really help. I mean I did it during writing my new book, which just got released, which got sold out in the first few days, is all about understanding how that physiology works, and for people, whether they’re thinking about going on the GLP-1 medicines or not, putting them in position to basically evaluate, are they right for me or do I just need another way to get away from sweets? Right? Like using fuelings or low glycemic program versus if I do use, knowing the period I am using them, they’re giving a training tool, they’re an antidote that if I don’t go do the other things and learn the habits that are necessary and become a healthy person in a year or so I’ve just kicked the can down the road and if I didn’t learn to eat healthy and exercise I probably changed my metabolic rate and my body composition and I’m now probably less healthy than I was before. So all these things are so important. So that was a long answer to your short question.

Jan: I love it. Thank you. And I read your book and it was amazing. So, thank you.

Dr. A: Yeah, we really need to get that. In fact, I’ve had some doctors say to me that, you know what, that book, My Prescription for Life, if you’re going to write a script for a GLP-1 medicines, you know, Ozempic or Wegovy, or whatever, you’re writing it for, the bottom line is that you should have the person read that before they go on. And if they’re going on, use it to help guide them. And then also look for a coach because a coach can really help make sure their experience, while they’re on it — or if they decide they don’t want it, help them do it without it because the drugs, even though they’re helpful, aren’t necessary to really be successful. If someone, you know, just needs to work on eating healthier.

Jan: Right. Awesome.

Dr. A: Awesome. Thanks, Jan. All right.

Jan: Good to see you.

Dr. A: Yep. Awesome. Who else?

Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Hannah.

Dr. A: Hi, Hannah.

Hannah: Dr. A, I hope you can hear me okay.

Dr. A: I can hear you.

Hannah: I’m in a Starbucks right now. So, my question was, how do you get to the root of eating or feeling like you need to have, like that doping hit, having a drink or having that food to eat or what have you. Like, I feel like for me, my evenings and my weekends are kind of the hardest times for me with that. Like I can do fine all day long and I don’t really know what the root cause is or why that tends to be something that I’ve struggled with. I love everything you’ve had to say today so far and I think that’s going to be helpful to just, you know — stopping that pattern, but just kind of curious if you have more thoughts on that.

Dr. A: So, yeah, the key to all this is consciousness. It’s awareness. It’s being fully present. We have a tendency, because life is so distracting, to get on automatic. And we develop patterns. And the patterns, we call them, basically, they’re blocks of activities that occur which keep us so that when you drive a car, when you first learn how to drive a car and you started, you had to look for where the blinkers were. You had to get used to moving your foot from the accelerator to the brake. You had to adjust the mirrors and make sure you looked so you didn’t run into anything backwards. There were so many skills you had to learn, but over time you learned those and now you drive a car pretty much on automatic. So those are behaviors that are good. Other than that, if we get distracted and we’re talking on the phone and we’re not paying attention to what we’re doing, still a safety issue, but as a whole, we learn to do things so we can marginalize the amount of energy, amount of thought process for routine things like washing the dishes and things like that. But for things that are just that are basically not serving us, the first thing is becoming aware of those.

So, one of the key things, and it’s something that most people don’t like to do, but it can be really helpful is have a journal and just have it, you know, I have a journal right here and basically when we finish today, there’s a few things I’ve been thinking about that I’ll write down in this which will help me and then I can go back and I got this journal five years ago and actually Venice, Italy, you can see the the famous bridge. But, you know, I can look back at these and reflect on them and said, “Okay, has my identity changed? Have I noted these areas where I needed to work on or I needed to learn to teach better or whatever it was and become more fluent at communication and then using those to find out, okay, what triggered me. So in those periods where you ended up — you’re not going to be perfect. It’s just not going to happen. But small, incremental improvement, and the best way is to identify what are those triggers?

So, just to give you an example, bottom line is when I was at Thanksgiving at Hilton Head with my whole family and my wife’s family and we had like 17 people and two of the guys are master chefs. There’s food everywhere. I mean, it’s everywhere and I’m having pecan pie with some ice cream and I was not as — and I’m pretty good at this now. I mean, I lost 15 pounds. My waist circumference is what it when I was in college because I use a glucometer and really focused on being fully present. But during that high structure where basically around me I don’t have any control over the people that are — and some of those people are overweight and they have bellies and they need to eat healthier. That’s not my job to do that. My job is to, how do I negotiate it? And it’s easier for me because my identity is: I’m a healthy person. But you do have those temptations.

So, the first thing is to get rid of anything that you’re really, highly susceptible to. So, you know, when I was in high school, my girlfriend was the captain of the cheerleaders and before the game, she’d always make me hot chocolate chip cookies. So, I’m addicted to warm chocolate chip cookies just, you know, they’re around me. I can smell it. So, my girls used to use that to my disadvantage. Now, I don’t have those in my house. When they come, they get the kind in the tube and they make one. And I may have one of them, but basically, I don’t do that. You buy your willpower at the grocery store. That’s the first thing. You create an underlying structure. The sixth MacroHabit is your surroundings. You become the chief and these are things you can do immediately. Your habit formation, moving to becoming a healthy person is going to take time and it’s not easy. It’s something that’s going to require discipline. But the thing you have complete control over, and so the things you want to immediately look at, let me optimize my environment. Let me make sure in my environment I don’t have these kinds of things that are high glycemic starches, all the things that Jan was talking about. Making sure I have healthy snack items. I have, depending on whether you’re on the program right now, healthy fruits, you know, an apple is awesome. Apple juice is terrible, right? So, you know, peeling an orange is okay. Get bananas. Bananas have been so processed. There’s so much Mangoes. Those are so full of sugar. Get the fiberladen, you know, vegetable — avocados are a great choice. Get something you enjoy and have that as your treat.

And what you can do is actually, because fast food is fast, and that’s why we have a tendency to go to it, basically — remember you want to make anything that’s not healthy harder to do and anything that’s healthy easier to do. So take up an apple. You know, one of the things I tell you, that sometimes I won’t take an apple, but I’ll tell you, if one of my girls are home and they put it in that thing and sliced it into pieces, I love to grab a piece, right? So, take, create a little zip lock with that and make it so it becomes easier to do the things. That’s the second thing. And then the third thing is use this technology we just talked about, the three, the Stop. Challenge. Choose. Use that to basically disrupt, as a pattern disruption, you know, as an interruption device. So if you suspend for a moment, you start breaking those recurrent patterns, get off autopilot. Second is the creative process. Look at what you want your life to become. Bottom line is what does that entail? What’s your desired outcome? Where are you now and what are the secondary choices and pick some things — like, I’m no longer going to eat high carbs. I’m just eliminating from my diet. I’m gonna bring in fresh fruit. I’m going to have a bowl of fruit in my kitchen. I’m going to put something on the — could be a picture of you looking the hottest you’ve ever looked — on the refrigerator. It doesn’t matter what it is. It’s all different for each and every one of us, but I use the glucometer. I have it on right now. And I put it on, as soon as — I didn’t have it on while I was there. Just so happened that I didn’t have any at the time. I put one on as soon as I got home and bottom line, all the metabolic parameters have totally normalized again because I want to make sure I’m acutely aware, because these patterns are, it’s a journey of a lifetime.

[00:39:39] You are being subjected to an obesionic world between high addictive foods, sedentary lifestyle, stress in our lives, interaction, things with our family, sleep patterns being disrupted. You have so many things that if you’re not aware of those and constantly working on them they’ll creep back into your life. Just like Jan was saying, and she’s been studying this for years. You get around and you make a pie and all of a sudden you’re thinking about your mom and the memories float in and you’re eating it and it’s so easy for us. So it’s about becoming aware and why Stop. Challenge. Choose. is so important, you’ll feel the “icky sauce.” You’ll start feeling that, “Oh, I’m getting ready to do something that I don’t want to do,” and you want to stop right there. You want to interrupt that pattern before that becomes, you start moving into the Drama Triangle, right? Where now you’re doing it, you’re blaming somebody. You’re the victim and I’ve got to have this. It’s important to me. And so, it’s a matter of that discipline. And it sounds like a lot of work, but I can tell you the results are when you become a healthy person, everything changes in your life. You sleep better. You have more energy. You enjoy all the aspects of life more. Nothing tastes as good as thin feels, and metabolically being healthy. So, hopefully that’s helpful.

Hannah: Yes, thank you.

Dr. A: Yep. You’re welcome.

Hannah: Thank you so much.

Dr. A: Yep.

Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Melissa. Hi, Melissa.

Melissa: Hey, Dr. A.

Dr. A: Hey, how are you?

Melissa: I’m doing good. How are you?

Dr. A: Good.

Melissa: Third person to ask you.

Dr. A: That’s okay.

Melissa: I really have been struggling because I fall into — I gravitate towards the the hero space in the Drama Triangle and I am really struggling with being positive and being a light which is something that I pride myself on and I built my whole identity around and it’s who I am. Number one is woo on my strengths and so it’s what I do, but I really feel like I’m fighting for it this year, and I’ve had a lot of close friends, colleagues you could say, that I feel like have dimmed their light and feel that it’s wrong to be super positive in a space where, you know, I think you said it’s a broken world or I can’t remember how you put it just earlier on this call. And so I’m really struggling with how do I cut through the noise of making it wrong to be who I am and to be keep being bold in the things that I’m passionate about health and wellness and I’m a pharmacist and so I’m super passionate about kind of how the GLP’s have affected the population and so I’m just struggling to stay positive, but also out of the hero space, if that makes sense. So, I don’t know how to bounce.

Dr. A: Yep. So, I’m going to draw a little diagram. You may have seen me draw this before, but this is really important. So, can you see that? Let me make sure I got — Okay, so on this side are the creator, and this is the creation. The idea is that you’re — what I hear you saying is that you’re here and you want to do this. You want to help people. You want to make a difference. But what’s happening is there’s a feedback loop and what’s happening is you’re making it about yourself. You got to get beyond that. That’s really really important. And the hero. So just to define what the hero is, and by the way, that feedback loop is that you can never create what you really want if you make it about you. Okay? So you need to be removed from the equation from that standpoint. You want to create, you love helping people. You want to help them move forward but that you’re getting that loop when they’re saying those things. You’re taking that personal and that’s what a hero does. And then the hero, even though it sounds like the hero of the, you know, the victim, the villain, and the hero — because in, I mean, look at Marvel magazine. I mean, we look kind of at heroes as being special.

Hero in this case means that you’re trying to take over and take responsibility for someone else because that relieves the pain for you. Okay? That’s not your job. Your job isn’t to get people to do anything. Your job is to await. And this is really important. I love — you’re closing your eyes because your job is to awaken them to the possibility, and for those that want to move forward and raise their hand to change their life. The world is in a negative space right now. There’s no question. And when they say, “Well, you shouldn’t be positive.” No, that’s not true. First of all, in your life individually, you are the Dominant Force in your life. That’s what I wish for everybody. When you’re the Dominant Force, all those outside voices no longer matter. Those voices are just data coming in you because you can look around you at anything and you’ve got people all around you that are going to judge you because it’s about them. 

If you get shot in the head, it’s not about you, it’s about them. I mean, it’s going to hurt. So, that’s really important. When they say things, you’re taking that personal and you’re allowing that to affect you as the creator and you’re not doing what you do. There’s a lot of people out there that want to be helped. You go help the people that want to be helped and then you use the technology that we talked about today to minimize this, right? So it isn’t the Drama Triangle, because you are instead of the hero, you are a coach and a coach knows that if someone’s doing this, you don’t do this. You actually ask those questions. What’s happened? What’s missing? What did you expect? And what’s next? And then when you do that, you’re going to calm them down. Whether they agree with you or not doesn’t really matter, but what you’re doing is you’re staying in the space. And I can tell you, people are attracted to people that have the calm. And when you’re in an environment, someone’s talking to you and they want to go into the Drama Triangle. If you’re not, if you’re in the hero triangle, you go, “Oh, it’s okay. It’s going to be all right. I’ll help you.” No, that’s not your role. Your role is to ask them questions.

Again, going back, so important, acknowledgment is not agreement. They may be so far off track and that’s why they’re dysfunctional and why they’re pissed off because they found that by reacting like that, it brings that adrenaline and it makes them feel alive. That’s why the news stations have gone — Huntley Brinkley, 50 years ago, used to have objective reporting. They would do the facts and just the facts. Now it’s all, “Who did it?” Villain, victim, you know, hero, and there’s this dynamic going on. 95% of the world is in that dynamic. So, don’t be surprised that as you’re continuing your journey to become more and become the Dominant Force in your own life and being organizing life around what matters most to you. Those people, their input, basically should be like water in a duck’s back. Now, if there’s something going on, you want to take that obstacle and use that as a growing device for you. How can I handle it? That’s why today I went over the the three basic — looking at Stop. Challenge. Choose. Using structural tension, and third is working on improving our standards so our identity becomes what we want it to be because when your identity — my identity is that I would never stop now at a Dunkin Donut. Just wouldn’t do it. No desire to. It’s not who I am. Coffee is good for you. I make coffee. I actually built a new home and I have a really cool coffee maker that I push a button and it makes me coffee. I just read a study this morning. Coffee may increase our lives up to five years. So that’s actually a good thing. And I — there, see? There you go — But I don’t drink five cups of coffee [sound of an applause].

That’s got to be that’s got to be Chris. He is absolutely twisted. That’s our support, or does all our support. But anyway, the point being is that there’s things that are good for us and we want to double down. Those are our strengths and the things that aren’t. So you already know that you’re on the right track. You are the Dominant Force in your own life. And as long as you’ve organized your life around what matters, look at you smile. I watched you in a moment there, go through a period where you were concerned and now you’re smiling. You’ve got this girl and all you’re, and I’m not being your cheerleader. I’m just saying, the principles are the principles, and the principles are: the only person you’re responsible for is you. If you have kids, yes, you’re responsible for their safety and making sure you build an environment for them to grow and flourish, but with all the relationships, you’re not the hero.

You are the coach. And the coach on a football team, you know, just taking right now the coaching carousel. We got 50 new coaches last week. Bottom line is, a coach is there to help an athlete who wants to learn to be good at that. If someone wants to become healthier, you’re there to help coach them, not to be their friend. Now, you can build rapport and trust. That’s important for a coach. Friendship is not. Friendship is a bonus. If that happens, great. But basically what happens with friendship, unfortunately, as you know, friendship sometimes is kind of like having family members, right? Where they then, all of a sudden, they can get away with stuff. And you want to have a clear, in coaching, you want to have a separation where yes, you can be there to support them, but you’re there to coach them, not to hear them, to make them feel good.

[00:49:36] You’re there to help lead them on a journey and to awaken them. When that light dims, we’ve heard people talk about that today, when it dims, bring back and refresh. Why do I want a bright light? You know, back in the, for what? Ten years, back in the late, I think it was the 1800s, Nantucket became the center of commerce in the world. Why? Because they could create a brighter light because whale oil burns brighter than traditional, right? And they didn’t know about, they didn’t have oil in the, there was no oil from— we didn’t know about oil under the ground yet. So basically in that period for 10 years, it burned brighter. Now what burns brighter is helping people manage. So that rather than getting caught up in this draw — Drama Triangle — they can come out and start building their life with the creative process, realizing that the reactive states they’re in, that they’ve carried over since childhood, are not serving them and they’re actually all cost and no benefit, and I can tell you in medicine, I left traditional critical care because I was helping people at the end of life with very aggressive, aggressive techniques and tools and chest tubes and Swan-Ganz catheters and I was leading the end of metabolic dysfunction, and now I get to move upstream and help people become healthy so they never suffer from that and that’s something that someone has to — your job is to awaken them so that they want to do it and if it’s dulled, the reason why it normally dulls is because they don’t think they can do it and you want to transfer the belief that they can because they don’t believe it and help them and and show you have to have self-efficacy where over time they become successful. It’s the gain in the gap, right? It’s that they need to have small wins and the small wins build their self-efficacy and keep them on track with that feedback loop. That’s what a coach does. Cool?

Melissa: Yeah, that was very needed.

Dr. A: Good. Awesome. Like go do it, girl. You got this.

Melissa: Thank you.

Dr. A: Don’t let anybody keep you from your dreams. Anybody. Because what we do, what this is about, what we’re talking about today, the world needs this. My Prescription for Life, my new book, the world needs it. Half the people that are going on those GLP-1s don’t need to use them. They actually, if they work with us with a system, they can do it on their own. And if they do need them because they’re highly susceptible, and we can figure that out in that little quiz I have. If they are, then let’s make sure while they use them as a powerful tool to help them combat and is the antidote to this obesionic world, to this highly unhealthy, highly processed food, sedentary life. So, let’s get them up, moving. Let’s make sure they’re eating healthy proteins and let’s make sure they’re doing all the things that are necessary.

Melissa: Yep, I’m on it.

Dr. A: All right. Good.

Melissa: Thanks, Dr. A.

Dr. A: You’re welcome. Okay.

Rachel: All right. We have Barb up next.

Dr. A: Hey, Barb!

Barb: Dr. A, how’s it going?

Dr. A: Great.

Barb: Yes. Good. So, I have two questions and that’s because as I’ve been listening, something just occurred to me. And that is one, August of 2023, I was diagnosed with diabetes. And on that day, my doctor referred me to her coach. And three months later, I was no longer diabetic. So, I had my metabolic flip. And that’s what made me become a coach. Because I couldn’t believe it and I wanted to share it with everybody. So now I’m even more enamored with our pathway of how we’re trying to help more people understand metabolic health.

Dr. A: Yeah. No, that’s awesome.

Barb: With saying that, when you say, “Organize your life around what matters most to you,” well, what matters most to me is that, and is my health, and my coaching business. But the problem is I devote most of my time to it because I enjoy it so much and I’ve got a lot of stress going on financially and I’ve got a surgery coming up and a husband with dementia. All kinds of stuff that I need to focus on more, but I’m having a hard time figuring out how to trade feeling amazing for feeling miserable.

Dr. A: Okay. Well, basically there is no benefit in feeling miserable. Zero. 100% cost, no benefit. Beating yourself up, right? Just like I said, staying in that pattern of being a victim because you have to take care of your husband. You got all this stuff going on, my finances, that serves no purpose at all. It’s zero. 0% and it’s 100% cost so going back to this is, you want to do this, you want to build — if you build a huge business, right through the creative process three things happen. First, your health will be magnificent because as you do this, you’ll have more time to work on yourself because you’re helping people. You’ll be more in the mindset and your identity will become a healthier person and you’re going to realize the finances so that you can pay your bills, get some help for taking care of your husband, and your life’s going to get better. So, you need to double down on this. It’s not about me. It’s about what I’m building. And for the next two to three years focus on this and all the things that are issues for you will get better. That’s the key.

That’s what I mean by organize your life around what matters most. Obviously, you identified those. Your health, your husband, your future, being financially sound, those are four parameters that are important. So lead from that future and then in the moment, basically, only say yes to things that are moving that forward. All the rest of the stuff is basically not necessary and that becomes more important in the world we live in because AI is going to penetrate every area of your life and the job of AI is like the apple in the Garden of Eden. It’s to get you to do things that function for the corporations that put that stuff out, not for your best interest. So that’s more important than ever to be so clear on your North Star, where you’re going, and then say no. If it’s not a full body yes, if when something happens and you can’t say yes up here in your heart and in your gut, say no. And that will start giving you the time. You have 168 hours in a week. Okay? If you take eight hours basically times seven, that’s 56. Bottom line is, that puts you in a position to know that you have over a hundred hours, when you’re not resting, that you have to work on this, right?

Barb: Yeah. And I do that. I just fear that I’m avoiding things that maybe I should also be doing.

Dr. A: Like what?

Barb: I guess being miserable about everything.

Dr. A: Oh, okay. There’s no time. You know what? That’s some of the [crosstalk 00:56:37]. No. And again, going back, I’m not just giving you something to understand. I’m giving you the technology that I’ve developed to help you with three things you’ve got to do. You’ve got to — number one, you’ve got to — the most important thing is structural tension. You’ve got to decide, what’s your future? What’s that future I want? Organize my life — what are the most important things in my life? Write those down. Be so clear on those. You should have that written down, memorized. It should be on your — be wherever you spend your most time. On your desk or wherever you can look at them and review that daily. In fact, maybe spend a moment, either when you go to, depends on when you learn better, either in the twilight hour, the hour before you go to sleep, or the hour in model morning in the morning. Look at it every day. And you’re looking at it to show you, this is what I want to bring into being. This is the creation I want. Not just financial, but my health, all that is in there. Your health, your finances, your success, your ability to maximize the time you have with your husband, all those things are in here. It’s not here.

You’re feeling sorry, suffering, all that stuff is of zero value. All that stuff slows down. It’s like handcuffs you’re putting on yourself that minimize your ability to go forward. The key to going forward is to focus on what you want. I can tell you that I knew I was going to be a physician when I was seven years old and I came from a family — I’m the only one in my family that went to college. Bottom line is, no one was going to shake that for me because that’s what I wanted and I stayed true to that. Same thing here. Organize your life. Don’t let life get distracted. Don’t let it become the imagery that seeing stuff on TV about a certain car or something. Make it about what’s most important to you. It requires very little motivation then. And then spend no time. Remember the idea is to make progress and if you’re not making progress then you’re not focused on it because if you’re focusing that 100 plus hours on the things that you want, you will make progress. Our speed will depend but you will build momentum and the halo effect is when you work on one area like on your health or on sleeping better, it helps all the other areas. It helps you think stronger. It takes care of that point when you’re feeling sorry for yourself. Does that make sense? 

Barb: Yeah. Yeah, it really does. And it just, I guess it affirms that I shouldn’t feel guilty for focusing on what matters most in my life. That’s really what I’m getting at, is that…

Dr. A: No, that’s your — that’s why your here. Remember that’s why you’re here. You’re only here for a short period of time, a hundred years or so. While you’re here, basically, the idea is for you to evolve your soul to move from self-interest to be in service of your soul. Your ego should be in service of your soul. Not your self-interest or your personal, right?

Barb: Yes.

Dr. A: It should be things that are important to you. As long as you stay there, you’ll never go wrong and you’ll become better at everything you do. Cool?

Barb: Great. Yes! Cool!

Dr. A: All right. Well, listen, have a great week. We’re out of time. Thank you. These are amazing questions and great dialogue and I’m looking forward to seeing you guys next month. Have amazing holidays and I’ll see you in January! Bye.

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