Being Well with Forrest Hanson and Dr. Rick Hanson

What Addiction (and Recovery) Can Teach Us About Change with Eric Zimmer

02.13.2023 - By Rick Hanson, Ph.D., Forrest HansonPlay

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Eric Zimmer, a behavior coach and the host of The One You Feed podcast, joins Forrest and Rick to explore what really supports us in changing our ingrained patterns of behavior through the lens of Eric’s journey with addiction and recovery. They share the key lessons from speaking with hundreds of experts, the role of insight, why some people go from insight to action and others don’t, acceptance, shame, and responsibility, and the balance between determinism and agency.

About our Guest: Eric is a behavior coach, interfaith spiritual director, and host of The One You Feed, which has over 500 episodes and 25 million downloads. At 24, Eric was homeless and addicted to heroin. In the years since he’s been in recovery, built a meaningful and fulfilling life for himself, and has used the lessons from his own life to help others do the same.

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New Online Course From Dr. Rick: Learn the tools you need to build strong, healthy, fulfilling relationships of all kinds in Rick's new Strong Heart Relationship Series. The program begins on February 18th, and all the teaching is recorded so you can watch on your own schedule. Visit RickHanson.net/strongheart to learn more and get 20% with coupon code BeingWell20.

Key Topics:

0:00: Introduction

2:25: The parable of the two wolves

7:45: Applying our values to our own mental processes

13:00: Change as a three part process: insight, acceptance, and action

14:50: Why some people have an easier time changing than others

19:30: Continuous feedback, quick iterations, and where you rest your mind

23:00: Do we all have the same level of choice?

26:40: Shame, and differing interventions for differing levels of agency

32:40: Feeding the good wolf

40:35: How to want what’s good for us

47:10: Acceptance, responsibility, and beginner’s mind

50:10: What’s missing from the abstinence model?

52:20: Innate goodness, bumping into enlightenment, and self-compassion

1:01:50: “Devote yourself to what remains”

1:03:55: Recap

 

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