Inside Out with Jimi Hunt - The Mental Fitness Podcast

Should you get married? Well, as an unmarried man, Jimi wants to know the answer. So, he enlists the help of his wife, Libby, to find it. Confusing, right?

Over its 4,000 year history, marriage has taken on many different forms and meanings in society. Initially born out of necessity during the agricultural revolution, marriage has contributed to shaping the way we live as modern day humans.

Marriage has also contributed to the subjugation of women, the narrowing of bloodlines, the division of people into social classes but also, in recent history, has allowed loving couples to express a deeper level of connection and provided security and a sense of belonging. But, with divorce rates skyrocketing and far fewer people than ever in history choosing to get married at all, does marriage really equate to a deeper commitment or is it redundant?

Originally marriage was about achieving your basic physiological needs and we’ve gone past that we’re looking for more than just basic fulfillment, we’re actually looking for a partner to help us with self-actualisation and growth and a sense of vitality, we’re looking for someone to complete us. So it’s no wonder we’re falling short and divorcing at massive rates.”

Society’s definition of marriage has changed so much that nowadays marriage can mean almost anything and Jimi outlines the many modern iterations marriage ranging from heterosexual monogomous unions through to polyamory, thruples and polygamy.

Having both been married before, our hosts held very strong beliefs that they didn’t ever want to get married again so what compelled them to marry each other?

Listen as they discuss the history of marriage, how the idea of marriage has evolved over time and what, if any, benefits there are to being married in this day and age.

When is enough? How much is enough? When do you have enough?

In this episode Jimi takes an abstract concept and applies a narrative to it that allows us to better understand our beliefs and attitudes towards having enough.

We are constantly bombarded with marketing, advertising and social media all vying to convince us to want more, to buy more. More stuff, more things.

We are often tricked into a scarcity mindset through fear of not having enough, whether that be related to money, time, connections, status or security.

This leads to deeper feelings of loneliness or thinking we are undervalued. Or, more commonly, in Western society we gauge our worth around how much money we earn and believe that having more money will make us happier.

In reality, money does make us happier but only to a point. Jimi breaks down the numbers and explains why every dollar earned over what is considered to be the ‘magic figure’ not only doesn’t bring more happiness but actually contributes to greater feelings of pressure and stress.

Dissecting true necessity vs the things we think we need, Jimi outlines the game we play in modern western society comparing ourselves to others and what they have, believing that we need the newest and best of everything and once we obtain those things we will be happy. But it’s a never-ending cycle. It’s a game that we can never actually win.

Jimi imparts his wisdom once again and suggests some simple ideas for changing your mindset around what is enough, practicing gratitude for what you have and broadening your perspective to allow genuine content and increased happiness.

Jimi catches up with good friend, Doctor of Psychology, keynote speaker and super interesting human being, Paul Wood to dive deep into the waters of Mental Fitness, a term they have both spent a huge amount of time learning about, understanding and sharing with the world.

With an extensive background in leadership management, Paul combines his unique life-experiences and his expertise in teaching self-development to impart some easy to digest wisdom and tools to help you live a happy and fulfilled life.

Although both preferring to avoid the label of being ‘inspirational’ Jimi and Paul discuss the importance of owning your successes and capabilities in a way that favours humility over arrogance.

On the concept of Post Traumatic Growth, they go into some of the different types of trauma and how our evolution as a species has not left us equipped with the tools to deal with modern day trauma and stress. Both being conduits for giving people the knowledge and the space to embark on their own growth, this episode captures some truly impactful moments of conversation that will leave you with a better understanding of yourself and how to navigate your way up the Mental Fitness Continuum.

Listen as Paul describes how and why he gets into Matrix Mode and then Jimi answers Paul’s three questions to test his psychological flexibility.

Covering a vast array of topics including loving critics, emotional perfectionism, eco therapy and creating values, this is a both a practical and thought provoking episode that will leave you with numerous tools to add to your mental fitness toolbox.

-

LINKS:

Tasha Eurich's Self-Awareness Quiz - www.insightquiz.com

Paul’s website and books - @drpaulwood www.paulwood.com

Lifting the lid on secrets in a relationship, Jimi and Libby make the distinction between secrecy and privacy and they discuss their interpretations of these two concepts and what it means in their relationship.

They delve into how secrets have led to the destruction of previous relationships and how they navigate privacy and secrecy within their marriage.

Running the gamut from guilty pleasures (specifically, Jimi’s love for trashy TV) through to what are their deal breakers Jimi asks Libby some tough questions and they uncover the secret to keeping secrets in a relationship in a mutually respectful way.

While privacy is a basic human right, keeping secrets can be detrimental in a relationship and Jimi and Libby define their mutually agreed upon boundaries and discuss how rock solid communication is crucial to making sure that they understand and respect each other.

“What’s a boundary for some is not a boundary for others, and those boundaries are only felt by massive amounts of communication”

Despite one of the foundations of their relationship being brutal honesty, that doesn't mean telling each other absolutely everything.

“I think a good relationship is where you can tell the other person anything but you don’t necessarily have to tell them everything.”

This episode is me repeating a 10min chat I had with 2000 business leaders last week. I give some tips on some quick and easy(ish) ways to gain some perspective and understanding for everyone going through another lockdown in New Zealand.

It was very well received at the event, so I thought it may be of some value to everyone here on the podcast as well.

Jimi chats with his BFF as they jump into the current Global Loneliness Epidemic and discuss why friendships are so important, especially as we age.

They dissect how after reaching adulthood so many of us struggle to form new friendships due to life events and grown-up responsibilities reducing the time we have available to meet new people.

It is increasingly common for us to find ourselves feeling lonely. Life transitions can often result in our friendship groups becoming smaller and it can be difficult to know how to move through that feeling of loneliness and look for new connections.

But, friendships have huge mental fitness implications as well physiological benefits including better immune function, decreased risk of disease, illness and injury, increased longevity, reduced stress and faster recovery from illness. It is important to have friends!

Distinguishing the difference between feeling lonely and feeling alone, this episode is geared towards the external factors of feeling lonely and, using the example of how he navigated having to make new friends when his first marriage ended, Jimi gives his best ‘how to’ tips to finding new friends and developing more meaningful friendships.

They talk about the mental and physiological benefits of being connected with other people, how we need to destigmatise feeling lonely and put ourselves out there to meet new friends and then work on deepening our casual connections to become closer ones.

Jimi catches up with one of NZ's foremost fitness trainers, Darren Ellis. With an incredible amount of experience in the fitness industry, including the CAREER HIGHLIGHT* (this is unconfirmed) of getting Jimi physically ready to Lilo the Waikato 10 years ago, Darren shares his abundance of wisdom on physical fitness and how a majority of us are approaching it wrong.

Challenging our perception of what a ‘proper’ workout should look like, Darren details the benefits of consistency over intensity and how doing a little bit every day has a greater overall benefit to our longevity than going hard and fast for an hour or so a few times per week.

Taking a step back from the traditional ‘12 Week Challenge’ model which encourages rapid physical change over a short space of time, Darren jokingly has members of his fitness community sign up for a '12 year challenge'.

Darren encourages us all to reassess the way we are approaching fitness as a tool to improve our wellness. Goal based fitness pursuits like CrossFit are great when we are in our 20s and 30s but, as he says, at some point you will no longer be able to reach that same level, or improve upon it, so do you just give up?

How do we find purpose, fulfillment and satisfaction out of fitness training if it’s not about goals?

It starts by understanding that our longevity depends on movement more frequently and with consistency. 

“We need to train more often, but we don’t need to train as hard, it doesn’t need to be intense, it just needs to ‘be’.”

Family is defined as 'a group of one or more parents and their children living together as a unit'. But, in this deeply personal episode, Jimi and Libby delve into what they believe the real meaning of family is and why it doesn’t always have to include people you share DNA with.

Studies show that as we age, friendships are more important than family for our happiness and our physical health.

When we are very young we rely heavily on the family that we were gifted by circumstance and then once we hit adulthood we can choose our family, once we have the freedom and the resources to do so.

Speaking from her heart, Libby lifts part of the lid on the story of her childhood growing up in a tiny cult and explains how she made the extremely difficult, life-changing and ultimately best decision of her life to estrange herself from her biological family, which led to her needing to create a new one.

Want to find out why an encounter with a ‘half-naked’ man playing a pan flute on a really big rock in Arizona changed the way Jimi hugs forever?

As he chats with his favourite person to hug in the whole world, Jimi reveals the reason he wants you to change the way you hug and he details his two hard and fast rules about how to give a ‘proper’ hug. Detailing his ‘how-to’ take your hugs from a casual hello to a powerful and beautiful shared human experience, Jimi shares stories about some of the best hugs he has been a part of and the impact they have had on the recipient.

We know that physical, human contact is crucial in our development and well-being through childhood, adolescence and into adulthood and in this episode Jimi and Libby discuss how, as a society, we are starved for contact and platonic touch and how extended periods of time without giving or receiving physical touch can have an adverse effect on our mental fitness.

Highlighting some of the differences between Eastern and Western culture and how touch is perceived between the two, they talk about how stigmatised and sexualised we have made hugging and physical contact and the detrimental effects this leads to.

Hugs can be a form of healing, connection, joy and happiness. Embrace the embrace and improve your mental fitness and overall well being.

Jimi has a fun little chat with professional player Wade Jackson. With a background in drama, health science and martial arts, Wade explains how he has knitted all of those skills together in order to teach others the skill of improv.

They discuss the role of play in our lives and how it is crucial to our mental fitness and overall wellbeing but is woefully overlooked as a tool in most adults’ lives. As children we are encouraged to play and there have been many studies into the value of play in child and young person development - so how does this impact us as adults when we’re told to grow up and act our age?

As Wade puts it, “if you’re not playing, you’re slowly dying.”

Wade explains what play actually is and how it benefits us in our entire life. Looking at play as a mindset rather than an activity.

Looking at play as one of the fundamentals to a healthy life, Wade talks about his lessons in not taking life so seriously. How holding onto things and outcomes so tightly can take a toll on our physical and emotional well being and how learning to let go can alter our life experiences for the better.

“It’s like when you do defensive driving and they talk about ‘don’t hold the steering wheel so tight, don’t become so rigid’. The harder you hold onto life and the seriousness of it all, the  harder it is.”

So, what exactly are some of the benefits of incorporating play into your day?

It will help you get along with other people better, increase your emotional intelligence, dictate how successful you will be in life, you’ll have more fun at work and at home, you’ll have better relationships with the people around you, you become more attractive, more energised, biochemical flow in your body will function  higher, you’ll learn how to share more easily, you’ll live healthier and longer in a play state than in any other state.

Want some of that? Listen as Jimi and Wade offer up some great insight and tips into what we can do to teach ourselves to be more playful and ways to incorporate playfulness into our day.

Links:

https://www.coverttheatre.com/

https://www.inspiredlearning.global/