Fasting Space

In the midst of struggle, difficulty, division,
animosity, violence,

I say, hey, let's dial in for just a few moments

here in this day, a space of peace.

I say, in here
we're trying to confront the emotions that we're trying to avoid.

Do you experience that in life? Do you have emotions?

It's like they pop up as like we're trying to avoid them,
but do they keep coming back?

do we need to confront them in order

to release them in order to let go of them?

If we're trying to find ultimately, which is what I want here,

a mental space of peace and contentment.

You see, we're not seeing that in the world right now.

We're not seeing peace and contentment, love, light, joy and.

Health flowing out in our society.

When we say we can feel so burdened by that, I know I do, man.

Last weekend. tough for me.

I say, hey, I'm going to just lean into health.

We got to take care of ourself first.

We got to move toward healing and health,

look toward the light in our own life
in order to find a space of peace and contentment.

We take that peace, contentment that we find
and then let's radiate it

out into the world that needs some more of that.

Many times, in order to get to a space like that,
we have to confront some sort of barrier.

Many times, the barriers that we really face, their emotions.

Maybe those emotions came because of some traumatic experience.

It could be a traumatic experience
we're not even really aware of.

Maybe we buried it so deep down in there

that we do not even consciously recognize it.

How to process these emotional, barriers.

Then we flow forward in the best way
possible toward health and healing.

This is what I want for people.

Want a healing space. And let us dive into it here.

I'm going to use, another section of this book.

The mountain is you to frame our thinking.

This is out of a section titled
Confronting Repressed Emotions and Taking Action.

And I love this.

You know, a big thing that we have, Been,

talking about building awareness.

And building awareness, yes, is good,
but I love where this is going.

Okay.

Start with the awareness and then move into action.

This say here,
there's a difference between understanding why we self-sabotage

and the act of no longer self-sabotaging.

See, this is the move from awareness into action.

From awareness of why things are the way they are

to the process of allowing them to be different.

Bringing all of our creative mind

to shaping the reality as much as we can.

We say especially in a time like this, okay,
a lot of things happening in the world.

These from my perspective, I say I wish it wasn't happening.

It shows us like we are not really in control here
in any practical way.

We don't.

We especially don't have control over external things

to ourselves as much as, we wish that we did.

Do you ever feel this way like we barely have control

over our own personal selves?

Oh, man, this is like, a huge thing that we're trying to do.

It's like, let's just.

Apart from controlling

political events and all kinds of things happening, they can.

We even control my own self.

I know sometimes I set out to do something.

I'm like totally dialed in.

Do you ever find this then? Oh, you're doing the opposite thing.

It's like why?

It's like before you even thought about it.

Remember how much of the psychology
we got into thinking fast and slow,

really teasing apart the mental processes,

but there's actually two different mental processes
going on this automatic decision making.

You could just flow through it.

Got to be really thoughtful to move into that space
and actually change it.

See, we're trying to do the deepest work here.

We're trying to get down to the root level.

This is what, in my view, medicine really, should be about

not covering over things, trying to get to the root level.

So that we can change it once move on from it.

That'd be ideal.

A process of changing things, though
it isn't usually a one and done.

It's a practice.

So say this means that once we understand the root

and the purpose of the behavior, we adjust it.

Remember what we look at often as negative things,

bad habits, so to say things that we we don't like that
we want to change.

We want to see the good in it to say,
what is the purpose of this?

Why really am I doing this?

Most of the time, if we're in a space like that?

Oh, we did something.

I didn't even want to do it. What is happening?

Hey, that's a process that helped us, at least at some point.

It's like we.

And and to change that, remember we want to figure out
why am I doing that?

Why has my being why have I come to be in the place
that that's the automatic choice that I make,

because at some point it will protect us either
physically or emotionally,

because at some point we were feeling badly
and that gave us comfort of some kind.

That's the level we want to get to.

If we stay at the level of like, oh, I ate the thing,
I didn't want to eat the thing, I ate the thing.

Okay. But why? That's what we want to get deeper.

I got angry, but why?

Overcoming self-sabotage is not a matter

of understanding why we're holding ourselves back.

It is being able or only.

It is being able to take action in the direction
you want and need to,

even if it is initially uncomfortable.

We've talked about that kind of psychology a lot, right?

Very difficult for any human being.

This is why we have grace with ourselves, right?

It's very difficult to change in any sort of domain, right?

Any process of change.

Difficult because change is different.

Things that are different
can make us feel uncomfortable with, tend to want to.

Which is sounds pretty good, right?

Make the comfortable choice.

Who doesn't want to feel comfortable?

But then it develops this difficulty
where not changing is also uncomfortable.

Dealing with a problem here.

Problem is not comfortable.

You say we're trying to find a space of peace and contentment,
but I don't feel content here.

There's a problem. I don't like how this is. I want it to change.

So now we have discomfort without changing,
and we have discomfort with changing.

And so that's kind of like we got a rock and a hard place here.

Can't stay the same. Don't want to change then.

Then we can be this that can build the anxiety can it.

Or it's like we just don't really feel comfortable anywhere.

Yeah. Space of peace and contentment.

What I want for people should feel comfortable.

Nothing wrong with feel. Feeling comfortable.

But sometimes we have to go through a process, a journey
to get to somewhere comfortable, you know?

And that's the process of life is change because we
we change, we grow older.

We have experiences, good and bad,
that become a part of us and change who we are.

We have to change in, in response to our self,

you know, so even just we can't really stay the same
even if we wanted to.

We have to really we have to learn and grow in this existence.

I loved what we said yesterday.

We're talking about, okay, most people wait to change.

I know this has been a big part of my experience.

Wait to change until the pain of staying
the same is greater than the pain of changing,

and then that becomes the path of least resistance.

We said yesterday, this is what awareness is about it.

We don't have to wait for that point.

We don't have to hit rock bottom.

We can look at a situation and we can see,
I see where this is going.

You know,
I see that if I don't change, something worse is coming.

See, this is thoughtful.

And I say as difficult as it would be to break off

in a different direction, now, see,
this is the prudent thing to do, really.

So I'm going to try to alter this.

I'm not going to flow into a darker space.

I'm going to embrace the discomfort of change, help
to minimize the discomfort of staying the same.

To do this, they say you're going to have to confront the exact

emotions that you've been trying to avoid.

Yeah.

We just have more I want to say on this,
but just let's just think about that for like a little bit.

By avoiding emotions we're trying to protect ourselves. Right.

We don't want to feel some emotion.

Whatever it is. Maybe it's fear as like a big one.

You know, two of the biggest emotions.

This is, what people say.

Fear and greed driving most human activity.

Right?

We're either afraid of something
or we're trying to get something.

And we vacillate between these two, places.

Both fear and greed are definitely not places of contentment.

They certainly aren't places of peace,
and therefore they aren't really places of health,

you know, like to be in a true state of health and wholeness
and wellness.

Again, it's it's like a profound state

of contentment where there isn't any fear about anything.

No worry, anxiety gone.

Not needing anything else.

Yeah, that's the opposite of greed, right?

As like content with what we have. Health is here.

It isn't somewhere else. Nothing to buy, nothing to purchase.

This is where I go, with the fasting space
that we don't realize how much energy and power

present in the human body
that we are not so dependent on other things.

This is how we take the physical practice of fasting,
bring it into our mental emotional space.

Because so what we're truly after,

you say, if this is true for your life, it doesn't have to be.

But you said, are we really?

Are we trying to hit a number on a scale or on a meter,

or are we trying to bring a process into our life

that helps us to feel content
where we aren't so dependent on external things,

and we recognize the peace that we are seeking,

and therefore the health and the wellness
and the wholeness that we're seeking is always here.

Okay.

The process of getting it, you say when it's here,
but I don't feel it, okay.

The process of helping it to manifest
in our life process of removing things, it's

not by something else to remove things, say no to things,
open up space.

When we're opening up the space, okay,
we take away the distractions.

We turn off the phone for a while.

We silence the notifications.

We stop snacking on something.

If that's the crutch that we are leaning on
to help us avoid the emotion, right

then when we do that, when we take away these things,
the emotion is going to come into that space.

So you could try to avoid it.

This is what we're trying to say in this.

We don't want to avoid it when if we want to overcome it,
we need to front it.

Don't run away.

I say hunger is giving us in the body
a really physical manifestation of that.

Hunger is both physical and emotional.

Have you thought of it this way?

We feel physically hungry.

In the body can be a very intense feeling.

And because it's like at the core of our physical being,

we need energy to run this bodily system.

And when we are trained and, for good reason, to write,

when there's this flow of energy, energy
coming into the body, energy flowing out of the body,

and by the flow of energy, I mean, just mean the physical energy
of doing work to move your muscles.

Right? It takes energy to do that.

And then as you do that,
that energy really flows out of the body.

You can see it in the movement
also dissipating heat, like the energy flowing out.

Right. But it could be very subtle.

Over time, more energy
flowing into the body than flowing out body.

Trying to save that as a resource for us.

What if the famine strikes?

Think of our ancestors
and making it through some terrible drought, the brutal winter?

They don't die.

Okay, many of them didn't even, in the harsh circumstance

because, like,
the body is so strong, so much energy help people survive.

This is the top priority.

People think, you know, the top priority should just be
I just want to, like, look good.

You know, I want like 20 pounds gone.

Okay. Bad is like, okay, that's that'd be nice. Okay.

But we also want to stay alive.

All right?

So was like, when you get into the root level of the body,

you realize, oh man, there is like more going on here.

Like, we, we got to appreciate the body

for what it's trying to do, and then you've got to work with it.

Okay? Okay.

So we see hunger is part of that.

Hunger gets us to eat, right?

Doesn't it do its job?

Hunger is like we need energy.

We need to keep eating.

You can see that.

That's, like, helpful on a certain level.

Keep the energy coming when it's here.

You know, body's like, let's take advantage of it okay.

And then there's the emotional side of it
because these things are connected.

So like when we feel hungry it's
bringing emotional intensity into the whole, situation.

And that's that line where we start looking at it of the
emotional side of it, not just the physical need of the body,

but the emotional balm that is healing and at least temporarily

helping us to cope with the stress and the difficulty.

Open up a fasting space now.

Hunger can be there, the emotional part and the physical part,
and then every other emotion.

Maybe fear may be something
you know that we can all merge together.

This is why it's such a powerful space.

Because it is one of the ways, not the only way,

but it is one of the ways to directly confront

the emotions that are driving behavior that we don't like,
that are creating

recurring cycles of actions
that we say are not leading us in a good direction.

You want to move toward it, okay. Open space.

That's where these things come in, right?

Fasting space, meditation space.

Yeah. This is where they go next.

When you stop engaging in a self-sabotaging

behavior, repressed emotions that maybe you weren't even aware of

or start to come up
and they say you might even feel worse than you did before.

This is the reality is why I love this book.

It doesn't sugarcoat anything.

It doesn't tell you like, oh, look,

you just do these couple things, you're going to be feel great
and all your problems are going to be solved.

You know, that's not reality, okay?

That's the only thing you care about is reality.

To to move towards something that is literally

one of the very most important things in our life,
overcoming our mountain.

Whatever it is, you know, it can be different for everybody.

Something that could be deep and dark.

It could be related to trauma,
it could be related to times when we were hurt badly,

when we lacked something we really needed.

Very hard to just make something like that
go away takes time, takes intention.

Have to be open to these things, the emotions.

You can't you can't really process something
without actually experiencing it.

And yes, in that moment, can that be painful to do that?

Of course we all know it can.

This is why we can hide from our emotions.

It's not it's not an illogical thing.

So here's more grace to ourselves.

So don't feel bad. You say, oh, I've been hiding from it.

I've been running away from it.

Hey, don't feel bad, right?

It's because it's difficult, right?

It's we.

It is a very logical thing to say.

Oh, if something is difficult in my life, you know, I want to.

I want to take some steps away from that.

That's that's the thing.

And maybe we need to do it for a while. Right.

Maybe we need to give the grace and space to do that.

But when the time is right,
when I'm saying when the time is right to move toward it,

when you feel open to it, when you say, yeah,
I want to do the deep work.

I want to confront this so that I can overcome it, let go of it,

step on top of it up to the next level.

Here's what they say.

Here's the thing about this process

is that we don't often need to be told what to do.

We often know what we need to do.

Is simply that we are being held back by our fear of feeling.

We've talked about that before,
like the things that we feel resistance to our

are often the path that we often have to go toward.

I talked about that concept a lot
when I did my little fasting stone

that I say is like this little compass told the story, of this,
a while back.

They can tell us, like,
what are the things that I'm really feeling resistance to?

It's like, let's look right at that.

What are the things I'm actually afraid of?

We aren't really afraid of things that aren't important.

If something isn't part of our path, why should we fear it?

We don't have to deal with it.

But if like if there is a path
that's like we're trying to become healthier

or trying to move in this direction, and then it's like.

We kind of know in our subconscious like that
we need to walk in that direction.

But that's why the fear pops up.

Like, because we're like,

we know we might if we want to get where we want to
go, is like, we're going to have to go through that.

Then we feel afraid and we're like, oh, I don't want to do that.

You know?

That's why when we feel that resistance, we gotta look toward it.

If we want to do this, that type of process,

if we want to flow in a direction of our goal,
of health, of contentment,

remember to get to this place
mental space, peace and contentment.

Gotta let the negative emotions go.

The things that are holding us back, the anchors. Right.

We're talked about that.

What are the emotional anchors that are keeping us
tethered to the place where we've been?

We say we want to be new.

We want to be new.

You gotta go in a different direction.

That's the path.

Moving through those emotional spaces.

What are the emotional spaces that you feel most stuck in?

Where do you feel the most resistance when you feel that?
What are.

What are the things you say?

Oh, I don't want to go through that.

I'm just going to walk in the other direction.

Okay. To do. Okay to do. But.

When you're not feeling up for it, then you sit in the space

and you just, you know, let it simmer,
you know, sit there, say, hey,

I can see if it might be enough in a day
just to have recognized it.

Say, oh, I see that there is grief here.

I see that there is fear here.

We don't have to remember.

We talked a lot about our analogy of the plateau.

We talk about weight loss, plateaus.

People fear that.

Remember, we are flipping that upside down.

Say, hey, we have made it up to a new place, a base camp,
and we can just hang out in that space.

Remember, we don't fear a plateau.

Plateau is because we made a change.

We moved to a different level
and now we're equilibrate and we're adjusting.

So it's like it's enough to hang out in the base
camp for a little while.

And if you are, you can imagine the same physical process

that we're going through
is also there's an emotional parallel to it.

It's probably even more important, right,
when we're identifying route emotions at the core of our being

that we're struggling
with, like just staying at the base camp there, like a health

path, a wellness path that is moving toward

total well-being that we want both physically and mentally.

There's not a straight line.

Don't don't set up and expect tation of having a straight line.

It's like it's just like we've paved a road
right to the top of the mountain and we can drive drive up to it.

That was that was at Acadia.

Have you ever been to Acadia in Maine?

Cadillac Mountain, I think it was.

You know, we went there, we hiked it, you know, this whole thing.

And then we got up there and now there's all these cars.

They're like, oh, you can just drive on the other side.

They got the road, drives you right up.

So that that's a funny one.

In some places you could actually do it okay.

But like, our life isn't like Cadillac Mountain.

You know, you can't just really drive up to the top.

And so therefore, a winding path and some plateaus.

Remember, get to the base camp.

Remember we talked the other week about climbing Everest,
that you got to just rest a while

and you got to stay helps the body to adjust to the altitude
so you don't get sick, right?

You got to adjust.

So if you've confronted something,
you realize, okay, I have fear in my life.

I have grief here.

I have this difficulty.

It's just enough to sit in the base camp.

We don't have to blast right through it.

If it feels overwhelming,
it's like we want to charge up the battery, right?

We want to build the mental capacity
we want to as much as we can.

Like we recognize the struggle in life and.

And we realize our strength here, human being,
strong and powerful.

We can do difficult things. Okay.

But but the way that we want to do difficult things
as much as possible.

Is in embracing the flow through it, not struggling with it,

but flowing with it and around it and through it and over it.

So it's okay. I like the analogy.

Just walk along the riverbank for a while so you can maybe, you
know, you got afford the stream, you're going to have to get wet.

Maybe the water's cold, you don't have to dive in right away.

You can just think about it right, building up the mental space,

getting ready for it, and then start asking these questions.

This is what they say here next.

Why do I feel this way?

I think we've gotten to our base camp.

We see the fear of something we kind of know.

It looks like the path is through this place of fear.

This is what we're seeing confronting the emotion.

We know we have to do it, but we're not forcing it.

We're trying to understand it
more deeply as we bring the understanding to it.

Why do I have this fear?

Like really to sink into it?

Why do I feel this way?

Whatever it is, what is the feeling
trying to tell me about the action I am trying to take?

So that's the thing that's like a message.

Remember, some are way back and I'm going to get back to it.

I want to dive into this, wonderful book,
The Myth of Normal by Doctor Matt disease.

As teacher I do we don't so many things that happen
that are negative.

We just we either run away from them or we judge them.

But so many of the things that we see as negative have a message.

They are a form of communication.

Disease
in many cases is actually like that is actually a communication

that can show us if we're open to learning from it,
if we confront it.

That actually something and change can change,
and that that is a process of actually healing many conditions.

Amazingly, if we're really open our mind to it,
we'll get back to that big time.

What is the feeling here?

We're trying to go in emotional space to try to overcome
an emotional barrier that is keeping us anchored in a place.

What is the feeling? Say, I'm afraid of something.

I don't want to feel something. But why?

What are we afraid of, really?

Under the layer we say, okay, fear has two layers.

Fear has the initial layer.

This is how I don't want this. But then we ask deeper why?

Why are we afraid of it?

Is there something I need to learn?

And then this question
what do I need to do to honor my needs right now?

Remember, a lot of times a negative emotion in our life
is there because we have unmet needs in the core of our being.

We have something that we really want or some place that where

we're hurt or hurt, we need comfort from something, right?

And then the emotions are arising in some way to protect us

from having that happen again, which is good, right?

Or because it is giving us comfort from that.

And that's the layer that we want to get to.

What are the needs we really have?

If we feel stuck, we say we're at a plateau, where to space?

We're not moving forward
or we're struggling in a place we feel tethered in place.

Say, what do I need to do to honor my needs right now?

Take before we go through that

like if we feel intimidated,
if we feel overwhelmed, if we can't do it,

is that a barrier that is teaching us, say,
what do I need to learn?

What do I need to do here
to build up the strength, emotionally or physically,

so that I actually come to the place where I feel like,
you know, I'm ready to take the step now, know,

because that's the space where I want people, where
I would suggest that if anyone is trying to do any type of health

practice from exercise or even cooking, changing
what we do see, changing anything is hard.

Any type of health practice, it can be barriers anywhere.

And if we're feeling like, oh, we have something we feel
called to, but then we can't really, like make ourselves do it.

Do you ever have that?

It's like, I know I need to do this, but then I don't do it.

Like I'm just stuck.

Like we don't have the the drive to do it.

I just think that's actually
that can be a very discouraging place.

It can be frustrating space.

I say let's like really look at that space.

So to me, a lot of people will get discouraged in a place.

They'll start walking back down the mountain
right from that place.

But to me, I think when we're in that space
where wrestling with the things that are

actually the very most important,
we're like right on the edge of the breakthrough.

Like that analogy from Atomic Habits.

Like we're turning up the room temperature.

The ice cube is sitting here in this 20 degree room,
and then we're turning up the temperature.

It's like we're getting it right up there 30 degrees, 31 degrees.

And it's like,
which way a thing is going to go melting or back to freezing.

You know, it's like.

Want to unlock that situation
by recognizing the importance of it?

That's the first thing
that's like a big awareness right away can feel in a space.

We've gotten into a space where identifying something,
we feel stuck.

We look at that and say, oh, is that a barrier?
Is that the thing?

If we start recognizing the importance of a space like that?

No, this is like the threshold.

You know, this is like the gateway that we have to pass through

to get to somewhere different emotionally
and to actually just not run away from it.

This is the whole point of the session. Confront the emotions.

Sit in the space, learn from that space.

See, that can be very subtle, right?

Like if you think everything
that we're programed in this society now

screens and flashing things and commercials
and media advertising like social media,

it's like as like to pull back from everything like that, say,
but look where society is flowing,

everything flowing in the direction
people spinning around is like, we don't hardly know.

Like what is true,
what is real, how, how do we even know, like what to do

to get into a space where we feel stuck, like it just immediately

feels like this isn't valuable space?

You know, this feels like a failure, a way to wow,

take a deep breath here because you might be very, very close,

and especially if you have been intentionally moving towards
something like, look, if you're feeling stuck

and you're spinning in circles somewhere,
but you haven't been intentionally going anywhere like that's

that's a different space, like that's its own space
to say I need to start going, you know, somewhere.

But if you have an intention, if you are on a path where you say,

I am feeling like thoughtful, I know my goal.

I'm trying to climb the mountain, right? Whatever.

It is a process you're trying to overcome,
whether it's weight loss

or anything like, you know, like, no, I'm moving toward it.

Like I'm dialing in on thoughtful processes.

I'm, you know, I'm writing this stuff out in my journal,

and I'm giving myself whatever mental space I can.

I'm carving out ten minutes
to just kind of sit and breathe for a bit

and try to open up the space and like,
now I'm going here is like.

But I feel stuck. Okay.

That is like that is gold in my view.

That's like gold at the heart of the mountain.

Then like that, we're trying to mine out of there
to ask questions like this.

Is there something I need to learn?

But then they say you reconnect to the inspiration.

To your vision for life.

What it is, what is it?

We're trying to create it. We're trying to build on it.

Get clear on why.

And then make a change when you're ready.

Right when you're ready, make a change.

This is where we're going in this session.

Right from the awareness to the action.

That's the step, the critical step from having things

being a thought process to making them tangible in our life.

We're at the base camp or floating along, okay.

We aren't charging up the mountain full steam
before we have adjusted.

We're asking the questions and when the time is right.

Do you feel it right?

We're trying to bring all of our mental energy to there,

and solving the most important questions that we have.

How do I overcome the barrier in my life?

What are the emotions that we need to step over?

And we can think we're just walking around them.

We're contemplating.

And when the time is right, we feel the
we keep at tenacious, right?

We're keeping after it.

We don't have to dive in the river right away,
but eventually we want to do it.

And when the day is right,
when the time has come, when we feel inspired,

we take our best shot, recognizing,
okay, there's no guarantees in life.

Thomas Edison, a famous inventor, made the light bulbs.

You know, we, are so grateful for it.

He says I didn't so much invent the light bulb.

I just figured out 10,000 things that didn't work.

Okay, so we try something that didn't work, like, well, okay,
it's like we're.

But then we're learning, right?

And every day there's an opportunity to learn.

We are learning.

How do we, in our unique situation with our history

and our difficulties, how do we move forward?

In our life toward health? We got to learn to do that.

We got to learn the way of being,
learn the ways we take an action. But.

When your motivation is the fact that you want to live

a different and better existence, you're going to find

that a lot of the resistance fades

because you're being pushed by a vision
that is greater than your fear.

So when I say you're struggling with fear.

Build a vision that is greater than your fear and move into that.

A beautiful is that love that.

That is a way of being
that is healthy and positive and looking toward the light, right?

Not fighting with something or struggling something.

Building a big, beautiful vision and moving toward it.

Right?

Isn't that the health process that would be sustainable?

You know, think how much how many times we are punishing our way

to health, punish ourselves, say, you know, I'm a big exerciser.

I want to be strong.

I did my sessions on here, run a marathon.

I want everybody strong.

Okay, you got to exercise.

You got to use the body to make it, strong.

But that expression, just like a fasting expression,

should be a joyful, positive expression of health.

How many people punishing themselves,
how many people actually hate going to the gym, but

they force themselves to do it
because we haven't done the deep work

of getting into the emotional space, and people have anger

and people are punishing themselves,
and the worse people feel, the more intense they do it.

Because even I mean, hopefully nobody does.

But if you do be open to it, you have even self-hatred, right?

It's like we're so far away from love for ourself
that we are trying to punish our way to health.

I've interacted with a lot of people over my time in medicine
that have treated themselves

this way, and I would say I can even recognize in myself
that I have done that.

Okay, this is not sustainable though.

This is the type of way that that can work.

Okay, so here's the perverse part of that.

You start punishing yourself in the gym.

You can get results from that.

Okay?

It doesn't matter.

A body is going to respond to some exercise.

You go start exercising, you're moving the body.

You're going to get stronger.

And then this can give us very negative,
reinforcement on our process.

Oh, the more I beat myself up look, the stronger I'm getting.

Maybe we even do lose some weight.

But are we getting, To a better emotional space

when we say we have more peace and contentment in our life? This.

This is the process. Yes. You are it yourself. Okay, absolutely.

I've encountered
a lot of people who have gotten in a cycle like that,

and it was working
okay, quote unquote, until they hurt themselves.

And then everything really unravels

because it's like we haven't found contentment.

We haven't fixed relationships with food now,
we can't exercise now.

Every outlet for that is gone.

I mean, it can really spiral badly.

I tell everyone,
please don't punish your way to health with exercise.

Please don't punish your way to health with fasting.

Everything that I am here, trying to tell people

is that fasting is a process of openness to me.

It should be embraced always in the very, very most thoughtful

way, full of curiosity and just a joyful exploration

about the physical capability of the body
to do something that people don't think it can do.

Right. Our society thinks, and I don't.

I don't eat all the time.

I'm just going to wither away right away, I think.

I couldn't believe it the first time I started practicing

fasting and to flow through a space where I was hungry
and I didn't eat.

And then the hunger went away.

I'm like, are you serious?

And then I felt better. I'm like, whoa.

And then I had been struggling.

This was ten years ago and I've been struggling to lose weight.

I was definitely punishing myself.

You know, I was running 50, 60 miles a week.

You know, I'm just huge.

I mean, a lot of it, because I was I was so embarrassed.

I had put on, you know, this weight I always envisioned myself,
I'm going to be the healthiest, strongest person now.

I'm a young doc.

I was pretty insecure,
you know, when I was starting out, you know?

And,
I just felt like I always thought I should be the healthiest,

you know, person so I can lead other people to be healthy.

And I was like, I don't even know how to do this.

Like I said, I have this huge loans.

Oh, my gosh, huge loans coming out of medical school.

Pay for this premium. You know, medical education.

I can't even make myself, you know, the weight
I want as it was so frustrating.

Embarrassing something.

I was just I was really miserable by it.

I start to see a fasting space. I'm like, oh my gosh.

Like, I struggled for multiple years

of just running myself ragged.

I got very strong, okay?

I was running very fast.

I like, see this? It's not that it's all bad, okay?

But I was not mentally stable with it.

I wasn't even really enjoying it.

I mean, I love to run, but I wasn't even really enjoy it.

I was frustrating, like, why does this not working for me?

Hit into the fasting space.

Oh, and that was like the unlock where I was like.

Create the openness that was joyful to me.

I want people to find a joyful.

If you're coming into a fasting space,
you feel overwhelmed in any way.

You're not feeling joyful.

I tell people, don't do it. Please.

Okay. Moderation. Everything. Moderation.

That's another space,
like we were saying, floating along the river.

Okay, you just look at it.

You say you don't even have to do it.

Like we were saying the other day, fasting to me, is a mindset

even more than a physical practice,
like if you physically are not in a place is not jiving.

Never force yourself through it.

Just like we don't force ourselves like this,
so we don't force ourself

through our fear, but we we confront it.

In the process of moving through it.

Yeah, this never force pretty much very few things

in life, get better by forcing things

hard to come up with examples, things in the short term.

Right?

Some things can look like they're working.

We force ourselves into the gym even when we don't want to.

Can look like it's working for a while.

Maybe it is working in some fashion for a while,

but the path of joy is what is sustainable.

We have to find the health practices
that are bringing joy to our life.

Then when we do them, then they're a wellness practice.

So if one person is forcing themselves into a fasting space,
imagine that they watch some video on night.

They say, oh, you just you do this
and then like, this is like just the way to lose weight.

And then they do it even if they don't really want to do it.

And then they're feeling hungry,
but they haven't came to the emotional space

where that feels like the right thing to do,
where they really want to do it,

and then that that'll build the negative reinforcement
every time they're doing this.

And then mentally,
this is why the mindset has to be the most positive space.

When you get the mindset in the positive space
where you feel called to it,

and that is a path that is joyful, then you can flow through it.

That's the only way that it could be sustained.

You know, in the long term, in my experience, I could if I

yeah, I mean, I could never do it
if I didn't want to do it, you know.

And so that's what I tell you.

If you don't want to do any health practice
jam, cooking, special foods,

fasting thing, whatever it is, just give things space.

Like this is saying ask the questions.

What do I need to learn?

What am I afraid of?

Why do I feel that way?

And when you feel like I think this might be the thing to do,
then gently move toward it.

See, the body responds to anything.

You start gently moving toward exercise.

Body will respond to it.

You're not pushing yourself over some limit.

That's why I tell people walking
probably the world's healthiest activity.

It's like if you can just take a walk totally free.

So nothing forced.

If you feel better mentally taking a walk,
you feel better physically.

Sometimes on this path, they say you might run into emotions

such as anger, sadness, or inadequacy.

When those feelings come up,
it is very important to make space for them.

This means allowing them to rise up in the body and observe them.

So not judging them right?

You want to move beyond something
that are you struggling with any emotions like that?

Don't judge them.

Don't run away from them.

Give them space to observe them.

Watch where they make you feel. Tense up.

Feel what they want you to feel or see that.

Isn't that a piece of advice?

Feel what these emotions want you to feel so many times.

See, when we run away from them, these feelings want to get out.

This is what I really think.

I think a lot of feelings of negativity.

They're trying to come out the process
of being or of releasing them.

Right.

We know the analogy.
They don't bottle everything up inside, right?

Somebody say, oh, we just bottle it up inside
and it just stays and think of grief.

You're mentioning grief and grief.

You know, I don't know how these things really work.

And, you know, we can talk, we can personify an emotion.

Like it's a like a being or a thing. You know, grief.

What is it? How does this work?

You know,
I don't know, but grief wants to be experienced or felt.

And so we don't want to feel that. So we bottle it up.

We pretend everything is okay, but then we haven't felt it.

I just I think a lot of the process that this is describing

open up the space and actually feel the negative emotion

and just let it run its course as long as you're safe.

And if you are dealing with a severe process,

a deep depression,
you know, if you have suicidal thoughts or something, please

connect with a thoughtful health care practitioner

to, you know, in any of these spaces, you know, this is a thing.

You don't have to do it alone.

I always encourage everybody, you know, get a counselor, work
with a therapist, talk with a friend.

Part of the process of allowing these things

to be felt
and experienced is to communicate, to share, to express.

The opposite of bottling them up is just to experience

and feel and share and if that burden is very heavy
because so many things in life are so dark,

so dark, that we have experienced, okay,

you have a friend, another human being, to share the burden with.

Hey, if if you want to overcome it, if you want to move beyond it

and release it, who knows another way to get an emotion out

other than this, most processes that we go through about

burying something, bottling it up, suppressing the path.

And then that is the thing, in my, view,

like to hold that there takes energy.

Don't you feel that?

It's like we got some processes running.

It's like the beach ball that we're holding under the pool.

You got to keep working there. And if you let go, it's gonna.

It's it. That's what it wants to do, right? It wants to come out.

And then that is actually the process to actually confront
it, stop trying to avoid it.

And I'll tell you many people experiences,
you can move on from these things.

And this is what we want when we move on from things like that,
that we've been bottling up.

It opens up the resources, all the resources
we were putting into holding that beach ball under the pool.

We can now free up that energy
to taking the next leg up on our path.

It's like we're trying to climb a mountain.

We're trying to accomplish some, Process.

We made it to a certain level.

It's like we're digging through
all the things that are holding us back.

Releasing every anchor and burden.

This is the path to wellness, right?

This is the path to mental peace, contentment,

staying away in our life
from every type of fear and greed and every distraction

that is trying to push us off
a path, trying to make us unhealthy,

trying to intimidate us from taking the bold and decisive action
that will actually lead to health.

Not a lot of forces in our society today trying to push people

into better health, but wouldn't that be like the total opposite?

Like right now we got a lot of forces
pushing us in directions that are unhealthy.

Like, you don't have to do anything like just, do this,
like just buy this product.

It's going to fix things for you.

Okay.

So, like, we feel push this way everywhere we turn, there's

advertising and marketing telling us, like, you need to do this
and this and this.

Okay.

Wouldn't it be amazing
if every, every time we had experiences like this,

it's like it was just the most positive,

you know, experiences, like everywhere
you turn, you are strong and powerful.

There is energy within you.

And you know you can walk your path today.

You can make difficult choices.

You are here is like, this is what I want.

So like for this space to be, to be just encouragement

to filling people up with like the very most positive ideas

that you are strong, powerful, capable person

and that there is energy here available to you,
and that there are tangible steps that you can take

to move forward in health, and that the actual process of health
and healing can be joyful and positive.

And you don't have to consume or buy anything in order to do it.

You know that really what we just have to do, say

no to so many things, cut them off.

I love that.

Cut off these things
and give space for health to flourish, and give space

where we can do
the deep work of identifying the things in our own life

and our own decision
making that are keeping us from taking powerful steps forward.

Trust yourself.

So much of our society, you know we live in this expert culture
where it's like you can only just do something

that some important knowledgeable person just tells you,
oh this is the thing to do.

But what do you feel?

You know, what is your gut tell you.

You know, it's like, listen to that.

We drove deep on that yesterday
about sometimes, you know, we can question our own feelings.

Sometimes our feelings are based on cycles or patterns
that aren't taking us in a good direction.

Right. But then we are very thoughtful.

We dig deep
and we realize there's a lot of knowledge that we have

about our situation in here,
and we can learn to trust ourselves to.

Listen to this if you're angry.

This is just an example of this process.

If you're angry about how one of your parents treated you,

it probably won't come as a surprise that the core feeling

of why you are sabotaging
your relationships is anger and mistrust.

Because these things are cycles that feed back around.

Can you even feed around if you see through generations?

Whoa!

The feelings associated with self-sabotage

are usually not random, and the fact they can lead us

to deeper insights about what we really need

and what problems within us are still unresolved.

That's pretty deep. I think. Here's how they end this section.

Listen to this to fully release those feelings.

Once you are aware of them, try writing yourself a letter.

Write something to your younger self
from the perspective of your future self.

Remind yourself that you love yourself
too much to settle for less.

That it's okay to be angry in unfair
or frustrating circumstances.

Give yourself the space to experience the depth of the emotion

so that they no longer have to control your behavior.

That is so profound in my view.

Look what it's saying when we are bottling this stuff up,

when we are keeping it in there, we allow it to control us.

When they say or give the space is what this whole experience

I'm trying to be fasting space for body and mind.

Space to experience it.

Allow the grief to be experienced so that it can be released.

Then it does not have to control us any further.

Whatever the negative emotion is, the anger. It's okay.

Look what it says.

Like you say here, acceptance.

Accept the anger.

Don't bottle it up.

Don't keep it there. Experience and feel it.

Does it have a legitimate reason why this is the thing?

Why is the anger there and is it actually legitimate?

Does it need to be experienced and expressed?

Same with anything?

Sadness.

This may be where we need the counselor, you know.

We need the friend.

Help us feel it can be overwhelming, right?

Anyone who's having any overwhelming experience
reach out for help.

Connect with a friend or a fellow human being,

a health professional,
someone who can help walk along that space with you.

We don't have to do it alone
unless we want to, unless we are called to.

Unless you feel the power of any say.

I am walking on this path and and you have the mindset and you.

The journal is is that for you? You know.

And you write it out if you feel like, no, I am on that path.

I am moving forward. Okay.

Like lean into that.

That's beautiful. Right.

But don't stay in a space alone
where you're stuck in a dark and difficult space

when someone can come alongside you and help you.

Okay? So nice to share this space with you.

Thank you for being here.

Let's do, the, the very important and,

Therapeutic work of confronting, difficult emotions.

Has something been coming up for you?

And I know it has for me.

You know, it's like I'm giving you my reflections.

I'm thinking through my own things.

Let's confront any barriers that we have today.

Experience them.

And, I'm going to pull out my journal
and I'm going to write them out,

and, let's move toward, love, light,

health, healing, peace, contentment, joy,

every positive thing in the midst of every struggle

and difficulty that we see in life, we do our very best,

to take the most positive step forward in health
that we can today.

Wish you the very best.

Look forward to chatting with you again tomorrow.

Be well everybody.