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Losing weight should't be expensive or complicated. The ideal process would reduce our stress while driving results. Dr. Z weaves together his perspective on physical and mental health and the powerful way that fasting can connect these two spheres of our lives. Let's move toward total wellness and a holistic vision of health and healing. Learn more at SimpleFasting.com
I have such an encouraging message for you
is to never doubt yourself.
Never give up on yourself.
If you are encountering a space of discouragement
or difficulty, lean in to trust.
That this body, this being, in this existence,
that it's going to see you through into a place
that is good and beautiful.
I'm going to take these thoughts from
maybe one of my favorite books.
Well, for sure, one of my favorite books, Creative Act Rick
Rubin, is giving us such encouragement today.
Never doubt we can have doubts.
And this is what I love about this book.
It's going to give us some really great perspective.
Take times of doubts, doubts about things in our life.
We can have doubts, but never about ourself.
That's what he's going to say. Diving in.
We had that beautiful session yesterday.
I love that connecting into the heart
and that's why I chose this today.
For us to follow up
this kind of two sections of this little passage that I like,
and he ends up just basically at that place that we gotta
trust the heart, lean into it there to help us.
So I thought about whether I would just share the first part
or the last part,
but I say, let's think of it like a a sandwich for us.
We've got these two framing thoughts,
and then this kind of flow in the middle
that is really giving us, you know,
I think some practical, tangible examples.
Listen to how he starts and think about this.
You know, in our life,
we are doing our very best creating our experience of health.
Right?
Think of all the decisions we make, things
that we eat, things that we do, things that we think.
These are like brush strokes on the canvas of our life.
We are painting our experience together today.
Say, I don't like how this painting is turning out.
Listen, it's an oil paint.
Have you ever painted or watched an oil painter?
This stuff takes a day to dry.
You can make a lot of changes
to that painting and that's a process, right?
Even a great deal painter.
They'll clean stuff up, don't move stuff around, change things,
look at it, reevaluate.
We can do all these things. Here's what he says.
It's worth noting the distinction between doubting the work
and doubting yourself.
An example of doubting the work would be.
I don't know if my song is as good as it can be.
Doubting yourself might sound like I can't write a good song.
I think about the song of our life.
This is the core thing.
I wanted to focus on the song of our life
or the the great work of our life.
Did that session back in the fall.
The great work of our life is our health, our very body,
our being.
This is our expression in the world.
And we can say, I don't exactly like this current expression.
Okay, that's like,
I don't know if my song if you're a songwriter,
I don't know if my song is quite what I'm trying to express.
Okay. So we can work on it.
We can change.
We can grow totally different.
So I can't write a good song. Like, I'm not an artist.
I'm not a songwriter,
as a person is saying is what they're trying to do, right?
So we're trying to be a healthy person.
We are trying to put our expression
of health and wholeness out into the world,
if for no other reason.
And it's probably the best way just to share
love and light in a dark and often difficult world.
We are looking toward the light.
We are trying to bring something good
and wholesome and healthy into existence.
Right?
This is just the opportunity that we have,
and if we haven't done that to the degree
we want, look at the miracle that is today.
We have an opportunity.
Give it another shot.
No pressure.
Nobody judging us on this other than ourselves. Right.
That's what we were getting to yesterday.
Got it.
Tell the drill sergeant to go home.
Just opening up
a space of health is a space of joyful expression.
Okay. All right. Now I'm going to flow through.
I'll give you some thoughts on the rest of some of this,
and then we'll get to the key thing to frame that.
All right.
We are seeing the distinction, doubting
the work we're doing versus doubting our core being
okay to do the former,
especially as it helps us to better express the latter.
Rick Rubin says these statements are world worlds apart
in both accuracy and an impact on our body,
on the nervous system, he says, this is so key.
Doubting yourself can lead to a sense of hopelessness.
Of not being inherently fit to take on the task at hand.
Do you ever feel that way in life?
Like, I can't even do this.
Like despair is just coming.
It's like if you've tried to do a health practice,
if you've say, oh, I don't,
I don't think I can start over again.
I don't think I can try another thing. I don't think I can.
I'm not even going to think about it.
Okay. Doubting yourself, this is all or none thinking.
He says all or none.
Thinking is a nonstarter, right?
This is like what we were doing yesterday.
We get trapped in cycles in our head, discouraging thoughts.
All these things coming in, how do we break out of it?
Get out of the head a bit. Into the body.
Into the heart.
Isn't that where our hope resides?
Isn't that where we find our spirit? Right?
The the ability to press on in the face of adversity.
Where we find love and compassion and kindness and grace.
He says doubting the quality of your work might at times
help you to improve.
It is possible to doubt your way to excellence.
Very interesting.
If that means questioning a curiosity,
how can I make this better?
You know,
that's what I think we have an opportunity to do in our day.
Like each of our days.
Like 1% better every day.
That's a time of habits, right?
How can I just squeeze 1% out of this here?
Just.
I like that.
Look,
you don't need all pompoms and cheerleaders, like, every day.
Doesn't have to be some pep squad, you know, and say,
how about doubting your way to excellence?
Like, I think that's okay.
I love, you know, phrase. I've used a lot.
Like it's good enough.
Like, we're just looking for good enough. Perfection.
Not required.
Maybe an attitude is like,
I don't know if I'm going to make it
through this today, okay,
but you still give it a shot, you know?
And then you do, like, in a way that's good enough, you know?
So to me, that kind of idea taking the pressure off.
Here, he's talking more about art.
If you have an imperfect version of a work
that you really love,
you may find that when it finally seems perfect
that you don't love it in the same way.
This is a sign that the imperfect version was actually the one.
The work was never about perfection.
See, I don't know.
This writing just resonates with me.
I just love this stuff.
I probably read this all day, I think.
My life is not about some giant cosmic test.
I say to find perfection.
I laughed at this section a little bit yesterday.
He says.
One thing I've learned through having a spell check
is that I regularly make up words.
I'll type a word
and then a computer will tell me it doesn't exist.
But since it sounds like what I'm aiming to say,
I sometimes decide to use it anyway.
I know what it means.
And perhaps the reader will understand the meaning better
than if I used an actual word.
And I laughed at that.
Okay.
And to me, you know, it's not like this is a giant funny joke,
but it's like just bringing a little lightness,
you know, to this writing.
To me, that was an encouragement.
Like no rules in our path, like our weight loss path.
Like we get so stuck, like, oh, healthy. I've got to.
That's the drill sergeant, the taskmaster, saying,
it's like, I'm going to punish my way to health.
I'm going to follow every rule and everything,
and we can get put inside a little box.
Doesn't feel good even to do it.
I'm putting myself in a little box for fun on the screen.
But, you know, then my neck is already getting kinked up.
You know, the thing that we want,
we want openness in what we're doing.
To me, this is why I've got fasting space for everybody.
I want fasting space to be here is just open practice.
How did we phrase it yesterday?
Not punishing our way to health, nurturing our way to health.
That's the thing.
Fasting space is healing space in the body.
This is what I want people to see.
It's not anything restrictive.
It's like an opportunity to take a deep breath
as like a deep breath is not restrictive.
We're opening up space inside the body as the lungs diaphragm
expands, open space air is coming in actually lighter.
You know, if you're in the pool and you're trying to float,
you take a big, deep breath.
You rise up in the water
like decreasing the total density of the body.
Okay, this is fasting space in our metabolism, in
our life is like a deep breath,
like we stop the intake for a while.
We open up the space.
It's like a breath.
We did that beautiful breathing practice to start the week.
Framing our sensation meditation.
When you take the breath, like breathe into the body
and feel it and listen to it.
I love that
the imperfections you are tempted to fix might prove to be
what makes the work great, and sometimes, maybe not.
We rarely know what makes a piece great.
No one can know.
The most plausible reasons are theories at best.
Why is beyond our comprehension?
The thought that is flashing into my mind.
Did you see this movie ever? Everything.
Everywhere. All at once.
Did you see that?
I don't know if I can recommend it
because it's kind of violent.
Okay, don't.
I don't want people watching violent things.
Okay, but I watched it. Very interesting.
You know, this woman is in in the movie,
there's like, these multiple dimensions.
Is like, every time you make a decision, it's creating like
another universe where you exist there,
and then they can jump between them and see, like,
oh, in this, when you follow that path, you,
the woman ended up as some famous singer.
And when she followed this,
she ended up as a master martial artist.
And and so there she's basically visiting
all these different versions of herself
and collecting all these knowledge
that she learned in these different paths.
But like the thing about her one, the life
where she started this like,
this is the decision
where you made every single wrong decision in your life
and you ended up in this state with like, no skills and like,
completely unhappy and all these things. And.
You said is where I'm going with this,
all these imperfections you're tempted to fix.
But even in that state, you say this is the worst existence
you have out of a thousand lifetimes.
They're saying, but it was the the place.
I don't want to wreck the movie for you, where she found
love and connection to her family
and ended up being the thing
that, you know, made every difference.
It's so beautiful, actually. So beautiful.
She spent the whole movie hating herself. Right.
And you think about what we're trying to do.
Build love for ourself.
Think how everything was a disaster there
and it came out beautiful.
An incredible piece of art.
If we can't know we're stuck in this middle right now.
You know, I say we don't know what has happened in the future.
We don't know how all of these pieces are coming together,
you know?
I'm thinking of this quote. Steve Jobs has a quote like that.
I might have said it before.
It's something like it's only in retrospect
that you can see that the pieces will come together.
People think that you're a genius in the future, like,
oh, you planned out all this stuff.
Maybe he's saying that about himself.
He's like, because you know the story of Steve Jobs.
Like, he he took calligraphy in college and and then learning
all this stuff is how I was able,
you know, design, elegant iPhone, all this stuff.
He's like, he didn't have any idea what he was doing.
He's like, I just I didn't know what to do.
He started drawing some stuff.
Only in retrospect does it come together.
In Japanese pottery, there's an artful form of repair
called can Sue G.
If I can say that when a piece of pottery
breaks, rather than trying to restore it
to its original condition, the artisan accentuates the fault
by using gold to fill the crack,
and this beautifully draws attention
to where the work was broken, creating a golden vein.
Instead of the flawed, diminishing the work,
it becomes a focal point,
an area of both physical and esthetic strength.
The scar tells the story of the piece,
chronicling its past experience.
Like what a beautiful metaphor to take.
Look where we started doubting ourselves, right?
Like we can doubt the work.
We could doubt ourselves.
We can feel like we are broken.
We can feel like we have failed.
We can see all the imperfections like we've been going through.
And this is telling us you don't have to run away from that.
You don't have to hide from it.
You can lean into it and even accentuate it.
Everything that has happened to us in
our life is experience that we can draw from.
To make something beautiful in this present moment
certainly doesn't feel like that.
In the midst of a difficult circumstance.
Here's the concluding sentence
that I wanted to frame really with the beginning.
Doubt the work, but not ourselves.
We can apply this same technique to ourselves,
embrace our imperfections.
Whatever insecurities we have can be reframed
as a guiding force in our creativity.
I rephrase that same sentence
whatever insecurities we have can be reframed
as a guiding force in our life and health.
Okay, they only become a hindrance
when they prevent our ability to share
what is closest to our heart.
That takes us back to yesterday.
That beautiful heart.
Hand resetting practice.
Get into the body.
Feel it and listen to it. Help to get out of the mind.
Say what is closest to the heart.
Like Rick is saying,
how are you going to know if you don't listen to it?
I say, spend some time today.
Quiet the mind, do some breathing,
maybe putting your hand like this,
actually saying,
getting close to the heart and listening for a little bit.
Maybe have a little conversation about doubting yourself.
Have you done it?
You know, have you been in a space where maybe you felt it?
Maybe. Maybe it was the gut.
Maybe it was a heart, right?
We said, these are the two places
where our emotional center really seems to reside.
We think it's here.
We're looking in the mind,
and then the mind's like, I don't know what to do.
And then it's like, but we don't know what else to do.
Okay, but do you hear it?
Or maybe you did hear it a little bit like the body was trying
to send a little nudge like, hey, we can help you.
Hey, what if we did this?
You know, you get a feeling, right? Our intuition.
I think what our intuition really is, it's
like the body trying to break into the mind to let us know.
Hey, we really think you should do this, you know, like so.
Taking enough.
But it can be subtle, right? Can be quiet.
And we've got to take enough space.
We've got to care enough about the body, realize,
okay, body is us just as much as the mind.
A lot of times
we think, oh, body's just here to serve the mind.
I think we should flip that around.
Mind is really here to serve the body.
Mind is like the collective manifestation of the entire body
is there to help the body really the same thing?
Slow down, open up some space,
listen to the body, have the mindset.
How can I use this mind to help serve the body?
Hey, we're heading into a fasting space.
To me, always say that's like a gift to the body.
Space where the body can breathe, say,
whoa, what we have here a blank canvas?
Let's start painting something. Get out the paints.
We got energy here. Everything going to be okay?
Are they saying that in the short term might not feel like that
if we haven't practiced a fasting space,
if we've got a ton of other stress in our life,
if we are in a personal practice,
a habit of using food to cover over emotional situations.
Okay.
Open up some space can start to release some of that.
This is one of the barriers to entry.
Say I don't think I want that space.
I want to keep the lid on the pressure cooker.
And maybe you need to do it for a while, right?
I got too much in my life to deal with right now.
Okay, there's a time and a place for everything.
Okay.
But, you know, is there a time and a place?
How many use all of my conscious ability
to create the space where I actually can open that up,
and maybe we need help to do it, and maybe that help
is a therapist, medical provider of some kind.
Maybe it's a friend or the journal, you know.
Meditation space. Certainly taking us there.
To me, fasting as the other side of a meditation
there really the same thing
the more I think about it, just like we artificially split out
body and mind,
you know, it's like the same mirror fasting, meditation, open
space and mind and body, both very powerful,
take you to pretty much the same place, I think,
and merge them together into a total experience.
But you open up any of that space, a fasting space,
a meditation space.
Thoughts are going to come into that space.
Don't you know it?
Don't judge them, don't have to judge them in any way.
Can let them come.
Actually less than judging as more even just accepting them
right?
Acceptance might be the true path
to release so many of the things that are weighing us down.
Doubts about ourself,
something that can definitely weigh us down.
See them when they come.
Maybe accept that they are there as I'm thinking about it.
But don't. Don't accept the doubt.
Accept that you are a human being that has doubts.
You can see that. And then.
Let them fly off into these beautiful clouds
that we see going by.
Beautiful. To share this space with you today.
I hope you are very well.
Share your reflections and thoughts in the comments.
Look forward to having a conversation with you
and we'll connect with you again soon.
Have a great day everybody!