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Three and a Half Days · Understanding Yourself: A Framework For Change

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Understanding Yourself.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Ben Lemmon.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is a collection of stories, ideas,
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: and conversations designed to help us better understand ourselves
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: and maybe experience life a little differently.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is the ninth episode of our first season.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's only one more after this.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've been here from the beginning, thank you.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate you continuing to spend this time with me.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Let's begin.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Three and a half days.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: What repeatedly failing at the seven day experiment taught me about attention.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Almost every time I meet a new client, I start with some version of the same question.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me briefly how you got here and what you hope to get out of this experience.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm meeting people because they're hurting.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Some people know exactly how much they're hurting.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Others have been hurting for so long that I'm not sure they remember what it feels like not to.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think about having a cold that hangs around forever, or recovering from an injury.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: At some point you adjust.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: You stop waking up every morning thinking I'm sick.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: You just go about your day feeling bad.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Then one morning you wake up and realize, oh, I feel normal again.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think emotional pain can work the same way.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we have no idea how much pain we're in until the pain stops.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: We don't realize how heavy something has been until we're no longer carrying it.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Pain can become our baseline.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: If I've worried for years, worry doesn't necessarily feel like worry anymore.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like thinking.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: If I've judged people for years, judgment doesn't necessarily feel like judgment anymore.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like seeing people accurately.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: People can usually tell me how they got here.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: They can tell me about the relationships that fell apart,
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: the job they lost,
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: the arrest, the relapse, the family members who stopped answering the phone.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Then I ask what they hope to get out of the experience.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: That question is harder.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually I'll hear something like, I want long-term sobriety.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously I understand the answer.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: I work in addiction treatment.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Long-term sobriety is pretty important, but I usually Maybe push a little further.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine walking into a fourth grade classroom
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: and asking everyone what they want their lives to look like when they grow up.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: You'd probably hear professional athlete, doctor, archaeologist, maybe YouTuber now.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's probably still one kid convinced being a dinosaur is somehow on the table.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty confident nobody is raising their hand and saying long-term sobriety.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Sobriety matters enormously, but it usually isn't the destination.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's what might make the destination possible.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: So what do you actually want?
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Peace?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Connection?
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Independence?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: A relationship with your children?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: The ability to trust yourself?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: A home?
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: A family?
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: A life you don't regularly feel the need to escape from?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Then I usually ask, What would you know you've accomplished that?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: What would be different?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: What would the people closest to you notice?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: I've become increasingly interested in that last question because the people closest
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: to us often notice changes before we do.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: They notice when something is wrong before we're willing to admit something is wrong.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes they notice that we're getting better before we realize it too.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite questions to ask somebody struggling with addiction is,
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: what would your life have to look like where it would no longer make sense
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: to entertain the idea of using?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: I wish I could tell you I developed these questions after years
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: of studying some incredibly sophisticated clinical approach.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: The truth is that I had an ungodly amount of treatment plans to complete.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: I remember one day in particular when I had several of them to finish.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: One of the clients I met with was a woman who had been through treatment
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: with us multiple times before.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: I asked her a pretty simple question.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you think you've had such a hard time maintaining sobriety?
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: She told me she went to Narcotics Anonymous.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: She had a sponsor.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: She was doing many of the things we would normally suggest.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: But she couldn't connect with the people in the meetings.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I asked why.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: She started explaining how different she was from them.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Her drugs had been prescribed.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: She hadn't lost everything.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: She still had a large home with a three-car garage.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: An Alexa sitting in it.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Her family was still involved in her life.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: She had been able to maintain employment.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: I listened and kept working on the treatment plan.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually I turned the computer toward her so we could review what I had written.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: One of the problems said, My judgment disconnects me from the help that I so desperately need.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: She looked at it.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Where did you get that?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: You told it to me.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as I said it, I looked back at what I had written and realized how harsh it sounded.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't nearly as confident as that response makes me sound.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: I immediately started backpedaling a little.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's look at what you just told me.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: She was going to meetings filled with people who had found a way to remain sober.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: She wanted what they had,
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: but before she could hear much of what they had to offer,
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: she had already identified all the reasons they weren't like her.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: The large house was real.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: The Lexus was real.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that her drugs had originally been prescribed was real.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And none of those things were helping her to stay sober.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Her judgment wasn't necessarily wrong.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: She was noticing real differences between herself and the people around her.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: The problem was what that judgment was costing her.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: It was disconnecting her from the very help she so desperately needed.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Past experience can work the same way.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing inherently wrong with trusting and relying on our past experience.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: But the truth is,
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: if we found ourselves back in treatment,
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: we're in desperate need of a new experience.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: And trusting and relying on our past experiences can block us off from having
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: that new experience.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: I understand that because I had spent years doing exactly the same thing.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: I still could.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: The focus of the treatment plan was humility and human worth,
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: and eventually something changed for her.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: She began connecting with people in recovery differently,
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: and she went on to maintain her sobriety.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: I don't remember everything else I wrote on her treatment plan that day.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: I remember that sentence.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: My judgment disconnects me from the help that I so desperately need.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Somewhere along the line,
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: questions I had learned to ask clients became questions I started asking myself.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: What do I want has become one of the most important.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think we can go a surprisingly long time without really asking it.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Most of us know what we need to do today.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Get to work, return emails, pick someone up, make dinner, pay a bill.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Finish whatever needs to be finished so we can wake up tomorrow and do
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: the next group of things.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: And usually we're pretty good at knowing what we don't want.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to feel like this.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want this problem at work.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to fight with my spouse.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to worry about money.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want this person treating me this way.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to sit in traffic.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Traffic is a big one for me.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone who knows me knows traffic is one of my biggest pet peeves.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: If Cincinnati had better public transportation,
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: I would happily sell my car and never drive again.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Years ago I lived in Madeira and worked in Blue Ash.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: It generally took me about seven minutes to get from my front door to my office.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Occasionally I'd hit traffic and seven minutes would become 15 or 25.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'd finally get to work and someone would ask how I was doing.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm okay, but you wouldn't believe the traffic on 71 this morning.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: A few hours later I'd be heating up lunch and someone else would ask how I was doing.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'd tell them about the traffic.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: A few hours after that I'd be leaving and someone would ask what I was doing that evening.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Not much.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm getting dinner with so-and-so.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just praying I don't hit the same traffic I hit this morning.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: The traffic lasted 20 minutes.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: I managed to think and talk about it for the next eight hours.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody was asking me to do that.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: I could do the same thing with much bigger problems.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: When I had a problem, I would examine it closely and explore all of my options.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: If I couldn't find an acceptable option, I would complain about the lack of options.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Somehow, complaining about the lack of options never created more options.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Years ago, I came across an Emmet Fox pamphlet that described putting a problem in quarantine.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually that became part of my vocabulary.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: My friend Brian knows what it means today.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: If he asks me about something and I say, that's in quarantine, he knows we're moving on.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not thinking about it.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about it.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Pick another topic.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: I use it when I've looked at a problem,
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: considered what I can reasonably do, and don't see an acceptable answer.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: If there's something I can do, I want to do it.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: But if I don't have an answer,
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: I've found very little benefit in spending the next six hours reminding myself
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: that I don't have one.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: I suppose that can look like burying my head in the sand.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: I've come to experience it as getting out of my own way.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Getting out of my own way has become incredibly important in my life,
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: and I don't mean anything complicated by it.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Most of the time it simply means taking my attention off Ben and Ben's problems
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: and putting it on someone else.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'll call someone I haven't spoken to recently and ask how they're doing.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they'll eventually turn the question around.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: How are you?
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, just trying to get outside of self, which generally means we're not talking about me today.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: I did this constantly in early recovery.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: I remember going through relationship problems,
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: which probably wasn't surprising considering I was operating from a belief
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: that I wasn't enough.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I would drive over to the treatment center where I first got sober
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: and play cards with the new clients.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: We'd play cards, laugh, and give each other a hard time.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'd get interested in whoever was sitting around the table.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: For an hour, the relationship problem disappeared.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Then I'd walk outside, get in my car, close the door.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Before I even put the car in drive, there it was.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing had happened.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: No phone call, no text, no new information.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: I had simply been alone with my thoughts again for about 30 seconds.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes I'd call somebody.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: How are you doing?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd try again.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: It was a lot of work at first.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Around the same time, I came across another Emmet Fox practice called the Seven Day Mental Diet.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: The directions were insanely simple.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: For seven days,
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: I was not to obsess or dwell over anything negative,
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: and I definitely wasn't supposed to talk about anything negative.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: I waste considerably less time complaining.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: I get into fewer conflicts.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Problems that once would have consumed enormous amounts of my attention seem
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: to pass more quickly.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe when I'm not completely consumed by worrying,
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: complaining,
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: and repeatedly reminding myself that I don't have an answer,
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm simply able to see more of what's already available.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: My relationship with meditation changed in a similar way.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: For years I thought meditation meant clearing my mind.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm terrible at that.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: My mind loves to think.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Trying to force it not to think usually just gives me another thing to think about.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Years ago I attended a workshop where meditation was described in
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: a way I had never heard before.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Meditation could simply be the act of thinking about God.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: That changed meditation for me.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Suddenly I wasn't being asked to fight my mind.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was being given something to think about.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think that means everyone should stop trying to clear their mind.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you can do that and it brings you peace, please continue.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm slightly jealous.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: But if your mind works anything like mine,
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: maybe you don't always have to fight the fact it wants to think.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you can give it something worth thinking about.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: As I became more interested in God outside of an hour on Sunday,
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: I started spending more time actually thinking about God.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: One of the most powerful things I've read is Emmett Fox's writing on
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: the seven main aspects of God.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: I began reflecting on those ideas and looking for God in the people,
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: circumstances, and experiences around me.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Something interesting happened.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: When I made time to think about God, I started noticing God in my world.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And when I was thinking about God and noticing God,
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: more of that naturally started showing up in the way I interacted with the world.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: The opposite has been true too.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: When I spend my time thinking about what's missing,
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: I become incredibly good at noticing what's missing.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: When I spend my time thinking about everything that's wrong with my life,
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: I find more evidence that something is wrong.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually whatever is going on inside of me starts coming out.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Scarcity doesn't stay inside.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Neither does gratitude.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Neither does judgment.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Neither does love.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Neither does God.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: I don't mean that we simply think our circumstances into existence.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Fifteen years ago my life was genuinely difficult.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Years ago I met a young woman who for whatever reason reminded me of my youngest brother.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Something about her mannerisms and energy immediately gave me a soft spot for her.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: I remember her sharing in a meeting,
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: there's so much suffering in the world that I feel bad being happy.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: We spoke after the meeting, and I told her I agreed.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: There is an extreme amount of suffering in the world,
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: but to me that's all the more reason why we should strive to be an expression of joy
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: in it.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: A close friend of mine used to deliver pizza.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: He would call me after work and tell me about the things co-workers had said or done
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: that he felt were disrespectful.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: I understood why he was upset.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Some of it was disrespectful.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I would keep asking him some version of the same question.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: What would forgiveness look like?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually he got irritated with me.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't it get old being a doormat?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: I remember pausing because I had never thought about myself that way.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: No, what got old was being at home with my friends and family and not being able
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: to enjoy their company and my time off because I was obsessing and dwelling over all
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: the horrible things that happened at work.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: That was my experience.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Forgiveness didn't mean pretending someone treated me well when they didn't.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't mean I needed to continue putting myself in situations
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: where someone could treat me poorly.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: I just became less willing to give someone eight additional hours of my life
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: because they had already ruined 20 minutes of it.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: A beautiful life isn't much use if I'm not available to experience it.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: I can be sitting across from someone I love while mentally arguing with someone
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: who isn't even in the room.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: I can leave work and bring half the building home with me.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: I can have something beautiful directly in front of me and barely experience it
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: because my attention is somewhere else.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: I know because I've done it.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes what I carried around inside of me wasn't worry.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: It was judgment.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: About a year before my relapse,
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: I was leaving a recovery meeting when someone in a group of people asked,
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Hey Ben, would you like to get dinner with us?
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: I responded by saying,
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: I can barely handle you people in a controlled environment where you're only allowed
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: to speak one at a time.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not signing up for a free for all.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Reflecting back, I'm appalled at my behavior.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's such a hateful thing to say to another person.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: But that's what was going on inside of me.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I had to share with the world.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: I could only keep doing the next right thing for so long
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: before expressing my true thoughts and feelings.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: It was ugly,
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: it was unkind,
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: and it was exactly who I was at the time,
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: despite actively trying to be someone different.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Years later, gossip came up while I was sharing an inventory with a sponsor.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: He asked where I gossiped most, and I said work.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Then he asked why.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: I thought about it.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's how I build relationships with my coworkers.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Even as I said it, I knew it sounded pretty sick.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: He asked whether those were the kind of relationships I actually wanted.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: No, of course not.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: As we talked about it, I realized I wasn't usually initiating the gossip.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: I was participating when someone else brought it to me.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: So what could I do instead?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: I decided that whenever someone brought me something negative about another person,
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: I would identify something I genuinely liked about them.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: That was it.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: At first, I had to do it deliberately.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I had to actually search, but I kept doing it.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: People gradually stopped bringing me as much negativity.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: About a year and a half later, I was sitting in a meeting with a supervisor and a new employee.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Another employee came up in conversation,
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: and without thinking about it, I immediately said something positive about them.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: My supervisor rolled her eyes.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Don't listen to Ben.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: He likes everyone.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: I laughed, but I remember thinking about it after the meeting.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's how she sees me.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: She had no idea how much work had gone into that.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: A year and
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: a half earlier I had told my sponsor I thought gossip was how I built relationships
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: with people.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now someone who worked closely with me was rolling her eyes
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: because apparently I liked everybody.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: I hadn't noticed the change happening.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: She did.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Somewhere along the line I had stopped having to look for the good thing.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: It was just what I saw.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of the most interesting things I've learned about change.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: The people closest to us sometimes recognize it before we do.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: They notice when we're becoming more angry,
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: more withdrawn, more fearful, more difficult to be around.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes they notice when we're becoming more patient,
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: more interested, more loving, more present.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's one of the reasons I still ask clients.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: What would the people closest to you notice?
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes the evidence that something inside of us has changed is that
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: the people around us begin describing us differently.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: I've also become much less concerned with whether someone has
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: an impressive motivation when they begin changing.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: I learned that one personally.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: When I relapsed after six years of sobriety, I ended up in detox.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: My friend Brian asked me,
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: why don't you require the same treatment everyone else sitting in detox requires?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: I had worked in behavioral health for years.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: Professionally,
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: I knew that if someone's substance use had progressed to the point
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: that they required medical detox,
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: treatment afterwards was probably a reasonable recommendation.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently, that applied to everyone except me.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: There was something absurd about a behavioral health professional with six years
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: of sobriety, sitting in detox, explaining why he probably didn't need treatment.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Even after Brian pointed this out, I still went home.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: My first day home, he called me.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: You could take a leave from work and use your short-term disability.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're talking.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: At the time, I was working in community mental health.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was demanding, and I was absolutely dreading going back.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm being truthful,
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: one of the biggest factors in me agreeing to treatment was
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: that treatment meant I didn't have to go to work.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: There was no sudden spiritual awakening.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: I simply didn't want to go to work.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently that was enough.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Clients sometimes tell me proudly, I'm here because I want to be.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not court ordered.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: I've never been particularly impressed by that distinction.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: I've never had someone sit across from me and say, well Ben, everything is going great.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: My marriage has never been better.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: I just got promoted.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: My kids love having me around.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: I feel fantastic.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: I noticed I was drinking a little more than I'd like,
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: so I figured I'd check myself into treatment.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: I've never met that guy.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: People usually walk through the door because something has become painful enough
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: that they're willing to try something different.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a judge.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's probation.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's an employer, spouse, parent, friend, or child.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: Mine was short-term disability.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: What gets us through
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: the door doesn't necessarily determine what we can experience once we're inside.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I wanted relief.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes someone I trusted suggested something.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I didn't like the alternative.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I tried something simply because I was out of ideas.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then I learned from the experience.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: That may be the part of all of this that means the most to me.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: Change has rarely happened for me because I finally understood something perfectly.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: It happened through experience.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: I try something.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: I pay attention.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: I learn.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: Then I try again.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: Fifteen years ago, I could not have imagined much of my life today.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: The external differences are enormous,
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: but some of the changes that mean the most to me are harder to photograph.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: I waste less time fighting people who aren't in the room.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: I can recognize a problem without always making it the only thing happening in my life.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm much more interested in what I want than endlessly describing what I don't want.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: I look for good in people more naturally.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: I spend more time thinking about God.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: And because I think about God, I notice God more often.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: I still worry.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: I still judge people.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: I still complain.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: I still get stuck in my own head.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: There is still a seven-day mental diet out there waiting for me to finally make it to day four.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: But that's kind of the point.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't transform in seven days.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't even make it seven days.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of this happened so slowly that I didn't notice it was happening.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: Then every once in a while, someone says something.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Don't listen to Ben.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: He likes everyone.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I get to see myself through their eyes for a second.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I am different.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the things I repeatedly give my attention to really do become easier to see.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe what I see more often eventually becomes part
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: of what I naturally have available to give.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Scarcity doesn't stay inside.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: Neither does gratitude.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Neither does judgment.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: Neither does love.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: Neither does God.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I keep coming back to the same question.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: I've asked thousands of times sitting across from other people, what do I want?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever I'm working with a group of people,
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'll acknowledge that our energy levels are all different.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Some people are younger,
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: some are healthier, some people simply got better sleep the night before.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: But the one thing that is true for all of us,
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: we have a limited amount of energy each day,
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: and I want to spend as much of that energy as I can on what I want.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: I can spend it complaining about the lack of options.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: I can spend it replaying something that happened eight hours ago.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: I can spend it thinking about what's missing or everything I don't want.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Or I can identify what I do want and begin placing my attention and energy there.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Not because wanting something guarantees I'll get it,
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: but because once I know what I want, I have some idea of where to look.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: And after enough time looking in that direction, I might be surprised at what I begin to see.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for spending this time with me.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: This was episode nine of the first season of Understanding Yourself.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's just one more episode left.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've listened to one episode, all nine or anything in between, thank you.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: I genuinely appreciate you giving me some of your time and allowing me
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: to share these ideas with you.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, keep asking better questions and keep understanding yourself.