Super Power U: Mental Models and Tactical Skills To Activate Your Inner Superhero

Divia Eden joins us today for a talk about her interesting and collaborative "high-trust high-stakes" parenting approach, which is steeped in futurist ideas with an ancestral framework. She also talks about the importance of creating a community, her assumptions and broad perspective the power of choice and the vision of sharing ideas, necessities, and space within a community.

Mentioned in This Episode:

• Becoming Eden
• The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
• Paul Graham
• “High Trust High Investment Parenting”
• Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Why Being a Great Parent is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think, by Bryan Caplan
• The Nurture Assumption
• Internal Family Systems Therapy
• Self-Therapy
• Friedrich Hayek

Quotes

“I’m typically most interested in ideas I don’t know how to express.”

“I want to do something high-investment, and I want to do something high-trust.”

 

“I really don’t want to force my ideas or my thoughts on other people.”

Super Power U Resources:

• Feedback and show ideas to [email protected]
• Super Power U Facebook PageLisa Betts-LaCroix on Twitter — @LisaBL
• Super Power U Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Google PlayLisaBL.com

There’s a reason our guest today is nicknamed the “Indiana Jones of the dream world.” Katherine Lawson is a doctoral student in the Mind-Body Medicine Degree Program at Saybrook University and a certified Embodiment Imagination practitioner. She is a woman on a mission to shift the current state of conventional medicine to a more holistic and integrative place for those suffering. Katherine shares how the grief and loss in her own personal life led her to follow her calling to become a healer, specializing in dream work and helping people explore what they need to bring into their waking life. She also talks about her current work with cancer patients and their family, and her upcoming programs to reach even more people with her important message.

Receiving Guidance From Your Dreams — DailyOM

[email protected]

Dreams Heal

• “I’m certainly someone that tends to view some of the best healers that I know as wounded healers, and I count myself in that tribe.”
• “You have to either go under as the result of tremendous amount of trauma and grief, or you have to try and make meaning. Meaning making led me to go deeper in my path in the field of psychology.
• “I’ve been able to find meaning in unbearable pain and sadness.”
• “Our dreams are working in service to us if we can figure out how to listen.”

Super U Resources: Feedback and show ideas to[email protected]

Super Power U Facebook Page Lisa Betts-LaCroix on Twitter — @LisaBL

• Super Power U Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play LisaBL.com

Stacy Brookman is this week's Super Power U Podcast guest.  Stacy affirms the belief that sharing our own story, and especially our trauma experiences, is therapeutic. She talks about boundaries and codependency, lessons learned from her past relationships, including with her narcissistic-sociopath ex-husband, as well as the antidote--the beautiful and cathartic nature of writing it down. The freedom and peace she gained from storytelling and freewriting has led her to helping others discover how to tell their own stories. Stacy's Real Life Resilience Podcast features stories of recovery from life's most difficult traumas and provides tools and resources for life-storytelling.

Takeaways:

• In Stacy’s early adulthood, she felt introverted and took to writing in high school as a way to feel seen and heard, despite her shyness. She had dreams of becoming a doctor but got talked out of it and attended secretary school instead. Stacy had two examples of relationships that took her out of her values and boundaries and knew that she needed to make a change to be an example for her children.
• Early warning signs of recognizing a narcissist in a relationship: they “love bomb” you very quickly and they try to manipulate you into feeling sorry for them. Many times they try to make you feel as though you are the guilty or troubled one. In a lot of circumstances, staying loyal and sticking with something doesn’t serve anyone to the highest good. When you are codependent, you are more likely to move your boundary line to accommodate somebody else.
• Stacy found that the more she wrote down her thoughts, feelings, and memories about what she had been through, getting it all out made her feel calmer and helped pave a way for the steps she needed to take to move forward. She took an interest in learning about and teaching the art of live storytelling and the benefits it brought, including a lighter mood and benefits to the immune system.
• Stacy knew she wanted to teach as many as possible about writing and storytelling and created a monthly webinar — a website and podcast where she could connect with others frequently.
• Stacy’s four steps to begin even when you don’t know how: Embrace, Enable, Enhance, and Elevate your story. Then she digs in with her community on the milestones, desires, and conflicts within their lives, which starts to unravel deeper themes and fabrics that have been held and woven together. They also partake in freewriting exercises to get past the surface everyday thoughts and the golden nuggets of wisdom we all have inside of us.
• Now Stacy raises her hand to life, and to her own needs and desires.

Mentioned in This Episode:

• Stacy Brookman
• Stacy Brookman Webinar
• Stacy Brookman Medium
• Podcast Recommendation of the Week: Storyical: Your Stories Are Your History

Quotes

“I chose someone else’s desire for me instead of my desire for myself. But in my head and my heart I knew there was something more inside of me.”

“Sometimes it takes getting out for someone else, but then you see the light.”

“I wanted people to hear how others overcome trauma in their life and see how great writing could be.”

“My life theme was not raising my hand. For forty years. And I didn’t like that.”

"I bounce back from adversity and help other people."

Super U Resources:

• Feedback and show ideas to [email protected]
• Super Power U Facebook PageLisa Betts-LaCroix on Twitter — @LisaBL
• Super Power U Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Google PlayLisaBL.com

Today's Super Power U Podcast is a report on Month #1 of Lisa's Intermittent Fasting Experiment outlining what she did and the results.    Generally, I really like to support independent podcasters but today I'm going to make an exception...because well, one thing you can count on is that I'll always make exceptions, without exception.    The podcast episode I listened to recently which I loved, which is an episode of Radiolab called A Journey from Where to Where which is snippets of Oliver's Sack's conversations and thoughts in the final months of his life.  I've always been a fan of Sack's work, especially his book "Seeing Voices: A Journey Into the World of the Deaf".  But Radiolabs audio portrait of Oliver Sacks inconsequential chats with his partner Billy Hayes and his frenzied attempts to get his thoughts on paper are poignantly captured on this show.  I'll put a link in the show notes.     Today I'm going to review the experiment process I began with Episode #23, Intermittent Fasting - A Primer and review each of the weeks since beginning that experiment.  I'll go over what I did each week, what kind of results I saw and some reflections on the process.  I'll also go over a some points to help you understand what we do and don't know about process of autophagy which is one of the purported benefits of fasting.  And then I'll tell you my plans for the next month.     Before continuing it seems prudent to repeat here that I'm not a Doctor, I'm describing my own experiences and nothing that follows should be taken as medical advice.  And while we're there here's another note from that show:   In the original Fasting episode #23 which aired on May 10th I introduced a few different approaches to Fasting including one which is often considered the easiest entry point to Intermittent Fasting the so-called 16/8 in which you fast for 16 hours followed by an 8-hour eating window.  That episode also offers a ton of research on the apparent benefits and health processes impacted by fasting and lots of practical resources on how to approach it.  If you haven't listened to that episode and you don't already know much about fasting I'd recommend heading back over to Episode #23 and listening to that first.    There I outline the specific benefits I'm personally after through fasting which I would abbreviate to combatting the onset of type 2 diabetes and improved insulin regulation, autophagy and cellular regeneration which I'll go into in more detail today and which appears to be associated with improved long-term health and anti-aging properties and finally weight loss, which is, for many people the primary reason for fasting.     At that point in time, I'd already revised my earlier belief that I could never fast.  I'd done a number of 36-40 hour fasts by stopping eating on a particular night, usually Sunday for me, skipping food altogether on Monday and then resuming eating mid-late morning on Tuesday.  My approach was pretty haphazard and uncommitted but at least I'd already dispelled my earlier belief that I could never, ever do it.  Much of that had to do with earlier progress I'd done by taking a break from drinking alcohol starting in February, which was supported by Rachel Hart's work on ways in which our actions (drinking or eating) follow feelings, which come from thoughts. That's also a great episode to go back and listen to Episode #22 Taking a Break from Drinking with Rachel Hart if you're trying to make a big, difficult change of habit or lifestyle.# I'd also already learned that for long fast days in particular, it's really important to drink a lot of water.   At the end of the episode, I made a commitment to check back in on the show once every month figuring that if I got a better routine in place and maintained it, and then made monthly adjustments as needed over 3 months I might learn more about myself and about fasting.  So I laid out the general plan that week because well, additionally public accountability can be really powerful.   So today is the day of that first check-in one month in.  But first here's what I was thinking at the outset. My intention was to do one 40-hour fast a week with the rest of the days fasts at 18 hours followed by one meal or OMAD approach inside of a 4-6 hour eating window.  My weight when I started was 140 lbs and I was definitely trepidacious.  I supported the process by reading and listening to podcasts on IF and I tracked my fasting hours in VORA (on Android) or in the iTunes Store and my weight with the Withings scale which uploads data to the Nokia Health Mate platform.      After one week on May 17th I reported that I was feeling really great about hitting that 18-hour fasting window every day with eating windows between 2 and 5 hours but I did also break my long fast early at 24-hours for a family social event that felt important.  That week I was noticing how quickly my thoughts went to the idea that fasting wasn't working and it wasn't worth the challenge.  I reminded myself then that I have an inclination towards impatience and decided that I was going to force myself to suspend my disbelief, ban any decision about whether or not this is workign or worth it, and take on the mantra of Keep On Going for at least one month.  I had a secret super power this week in the form of my husband, Joe would put all the data together for me.  It shows that quantitatively I fasted for a total of 143 hours which is an average of 20 hours per day but I only lost half of a pound.     After two weeks on May 24th my report shows that again I fasted for 18 hours every day except for Friday when I stopped at 16 because I wasn't feeling great and because I wanted to remind myself that I can be gentle, even imperfect and then pick back up again.  I broke my long fast at 39 hours and again I didn't feel so great.  Paying attention to my body is really important so I decided that I would shorten my long fast to 36 hour for the next two weeks to see if that helped.  After 2 weeks I was definitely frustrated because I wasn't seeing any difference in my weight.  It's interesting to me in retrospect that I was basing my feeling of frustration at the two-week mark on my sense that I didn't lose any weight probably because the scale numbers were jumping up and down a lot but because I'd committed to going to one month regardless of what happened and because I'd also started reading about something fasters call the Whoosh Effect which is a big sudden drop in weight usually after a plateau. The reality though which I know from Joe's data is that week two I fasted a total of 133 hours, a daily average of 19 hours and actually lost 2.5 lbs.  So the whoosh effect had begun even though I was feeling discouraged.  The brain is a funny thing.    On May 31 my Month 1, Week 3 update report describes doing 18 hours of fasting during the week and 15-16 hour fasts on the weekend.  I also took longer than usual eating windows on the weekend that week.  But after week 3 I noticed that I had actually lost weight with about a 5 pound differential since before beginning the experiment which is consistent with Joe's data which shows that went down another 2.5 lbs for a total of about 5 lbs in 3 weeks.  My total  fasting time for the week was 124 hours which averaged 18 hour a day. At that time, the only change I planned on was to add sea salt to the long fast day to avoid dehydration and headaches.     Today is the final day of week 4 and it was a rather challenging week in my life which a lot of stress and emotions so I skipped my long fast altogether which brought my total fasting hours down to 107 which is an average of around 15 per day substantially less than the first few weeks. Still my weight loss this week stayed consistent around 2.5 lbs.  I've been wondering how the probably cortisol will impact my body but I don't really have any way of controlling for or mesauring that.     Overall, it seemed like I got gentler and gentler with myself going from 20 hour a day the first week, to 19 the second,  18 hours average the 3 week and finally a big dip to 15 hours per week.  In terms of weight loss the first week I showed almost no weight loss in spite of it being the highest fasting week.  The following three weeks average around 2.5 lbs per week.  So, I'll be very curious to see how the next month plays out in terms of the relationship between total week-long fasting hours and calories lost.  I'm planning to continue with the more gentle approach by aiming for one long fast a week and an intended ideal 18 hour fasting day but will a willingness to be gentle when necessary.  I see this as kind of ideal scenario aspirational approach with a ton of leway for being human and life.     One thing I've been noticing is what seems to be a very big improvement in my skin tone.  This is totally subjective perception since I have no way of measuring especially since I wasn't really expecting it.     One of the great challenges with doing something new and challenging is finding the right motivation.  Because my motivation is largely based on research that suggests benefits but there is alway conflicting information, it can be hard to steer the course.  A few weeks ago my friend Keith forwarded an article from the Guardian which warned that fasting can raise the risk of diabetes which is exactly the opposite of the research I've been reading.  So, I'm far from a scientist but that's my husband's leaning so he showed me how to do research on PubMed and in the process we found an article called Cell Metabolism by Sutton, Beyl and others which concluded that even in the absense of weight loss an early time-restricted feeding schedule limited to 6 hours between 8am and 2pm improved insulin sensitivity, blood pressure and oxidative stress levels in pre-diabetic men.

Another purported benefit of fasting, which is difficult to understand and challenging to prove is that it increases autophagy. Autophagy means "self-devouring" and is the natural way that cells disassemble and recycle their broken components. These parts include things like amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins.  Because autophagy makes these new parts usable to the cell, it also means they don’t have to come from food. And as you might have guessed, when we are low on food, autophagy is one way our cells can continue to get the needed components and so the process is accelerated.  There is a growing body of evidence, nicely summarized in a review in the New Scientist a few weeks ago, that increased autophagy can improve health and delay some diseases, like Huntington’s Disease and Parkinson’s disease. Autophagy is also thought to improve health by clearing old dysfunctional and toxic cell components. However, please keep in mind that the study of autophagy is new (for instance, the Nobel Prize for discovering it was only awarded two years ago) and while overall autophagy looks to be healthy, it’s also not a simple story. There are at least 6 distinct types of autophagy in our cells, and also increasing autophagy is not always good --some types can potentially lead to multiple sclerosis and accelerate certain types of cancer.  Like many areas of biology, when we don’t understand something, we have to look to general experiments to see actual outcomes. Overall, intermittent fasting appears to have beneficial effects, so to the degree that autophagy is responsible for these, there is probably some wisdom in the body that allows it to promote only the healthy kinds of autophagy. 

This concludes my update from month one.  Next month we'll look the effects of fasting on other aspects of health.    

Other Fasting resources:

More tips on Fasting

Eat Yourself to Live: Authophagy's Role in Health and Disease

Super U Resources:

• Feedback and show ideas to[email protected]

• Super Power U Facebook PageLisa Betts-LaCroix on Twitter — @LisaBL
• Super Power U Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Google PlayLisaBL.com

Meryl Klemow is a refreshing blend of earnestness, openness, and self-deprecation in the world of podcasting and entertainment. She hopes that she is a blazing a path so weird and out there that others feel safe to set fire to their own. Lisa and Meryl talk about her experience in music industry marketing, comedy writing and her current project, the podcast Campfire Sht Show. Meryl shares advice on how to combat what she calls “freelance freakout moments”, how she made the #1 Trending page on Reddit, and how she recharges in order to be fully engaged in her own Super Power.

Highlights:

● Meryl’s focus while at school in Syracuse was a career in a music industry; how the industry changed encouraging her shift to venue publicity ● The chemistry between Meryl and her podcast partner Beau on the Campfire Sht Show. ● The importance of solitude, time spent outdoors, and self-care for maintaining creativity and the ability to recharge. ● how Meryl made the #1 Trending page on Reddit with a cunningly photoshopped whipped cream publicity stunt.

Mentioned in This Episode:

Campfire Sht Show @MerylKlemow Belly Up Podcast My San Diego Falconry “Celebrities Stuck in Traffic,” by Lauren O’Brien

See the FULL TRANSCRIPTION of this show!

Super Power U

• Feedback and show ideas to [email protected]
• Submitting your Super Powers
• Super Power U Facebook Page
• Twitter @lisabl
• Super Power U Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play
• The Super Power U Podcast. Please subscribe to the show on iTunes and get more information at LisaBL.com

 

 

Most Americans are fearful of death! And our collective resistance to talking about is in the way of making compassionate care increasingly available.  Lisa talked with Dr. Sandy Buchman --who was her mother's home hospice doctor-- about being a life-long learner and creating a free student-run highschool with other dropouts, how birth and death are natural and should be seen as community events, and using his Super Power of Compassion in Action in his work supporting the dying and their families in their homes and on the streets. 

Takeaways

• The difference between palliative care and hospice.
• Sandy's belief that his good fortune and privilege require that he give back
• How in the 1970's Sandy and other dropouts started their own accredited school, high school in Toronto.
• Sandy early career began with the home birthing movement and he sees birthing and dying not so much as medical events but as social events.
• The challenges of working with the homeless population in Toronto and the desperate need for support for that community

Quotes

“I always felt an obligation to pay it forward and pay it back. We have a mandate and social responsibility to improve lives.”

“I see birthing and dying not so much as medical events but as social events.”

“I base everything on the principle of autonomy.”

Guest References and Contact Info  

• Dr Sandy Buchman of the Temmy Latner Center
• On Twitter @DocSandyB
• Neshama Hospice on Canada Helps

Other References and Resources  

• Kate Sweeney in a CNN article called The American Fear of Dying.  
• Super Power U #23: Intermittent Fasting
• Pearls From My Mom - The Podcast; Episode #17 about my mom Naomi Patricia LaCroix and Episode #20 - Pearls from my Mom - a Mothers Day Episode
• Super Power U #24: Facing Death; Leading with Love with Maya Lockwood
• Joe Betts-LaCroix: TedxSF: Stayin' Alive
• Palliative Care and Education for the Homeless (PEACH)
• Canadian Medical Association
• McMaster Medical School
• Stratford Ontario
• Lorne Buchman, The Art CenterAtul Gawande, Being Mortal (book)
• The Ken Page Memorial Trust
• Toronto Jazz Treasures
• Maclean's Magazine article "The Doctor Who Took on Death"

Super Power U

• Feedback and show ideas to [email protected]
• Submitting your Super Powers
• Super Power U Facebook Page
• Twitter @lisabl
• Super Power U Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play
• The Super Power U Podcast. Please subscribe to the show on iTunes and get more information at LisaBL.com

Today's show is all about Intermittent Fasting, how Lisa approaches it. It's chock full of resources from scientists, doctors, and friends to help listeners learn about IF and prepare to try it out for themselves.   You'll Learn About:

• Lisa's appearance of the Experience 50 podcast with Mary Roger's Episode #124
• How Phil Libin of the AI startup All Turtles and Evernote inspired Lisa to try Intermittent Fasting
• A reminder to go back and listen to Ep. #7 with Tiago Forte on productivity and creativity
• Lisa's love of chicken soup A
• types of Fasting
• A brief description of "ketosis" (with more at "Ketosis Explained")
• What an 18/6 fast and the variation on it 
• Lisa's 40 hour fast 
• Info from Jason Fung, Ted Naiman 
• Why the greatest benefit from fasting occurs between 18 and 24 hours of fasting. 
• The Benefits: 
• Advice for fasting: water, fat, gentleness
• Why 18-24 hour is the sweet spot
• Jason Fung's Two-compartment Model 
• Lisa's upcoming Monthly Fasting Protocol Update

More Intermittent Fasting Resources:

• Wired: Inside One Founder's Personal Fast Club
• Business Insider: Evernote co-founder says Silicon Valley's favorite fasting diet has changed his life
• YouTube: Evernote CEO Phil Libin Lost 80lbs Fasting
• More types of fasts described on Livestrong and global healing center
• Naiman's Burn Fat, Not Sugar 
• Will Eden's Quick Starter Guide to Fasting.
• An article by Dr Eric Berg on Autophagy.
• The work of Dr Rhonda Patrick 
• Dr. Rhonda Patrick on the Tim Ferris Show "Exploring Smart Drugs, Fasting and Fat Loss" 
• Rhonda Patrick on the Joe Rogan Show on Time Restricted Eating Benefits on Muscle
• Rhonda Patrick on Time Restricted Eating
• The Intermittent Fasting Podcast (with Gin Stephens and Melanie
• The Complete Guide to Fasting (audio book, online)
• The Art of Manliness Episode on Intermittent Fasting 
• Girl Gone OMAD Podcast
• Gin Stephen's book "Delay, Don't Deny" (affiliate link) 
• Here is an interview Rhonda Patrick did with Valter Longo on Fasting and Fasting-Mimicking Diets for Longevity and As a Way of Combatting Cancer Cells on Dr Patrick's Found My Fitness show
• And another person's 44 Hour fast.
• Here is Jason Fung on Fasting on the Balanced Bites Podcast

Please join in the conversation about Intermittent Fasting and share your current experience on our Facebook page. Visit the Super Power U and "like" the page and then join the Super Power U Group. It would be great to have you there.       FULL SHOW TRANSCRIPTION

Connect with Us!

• Feedback and show ideas to [email protected]
• Submitting your Super Powers
• Super Power U Facebook Page
• Twitter @lisabl
• Super Power U Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play
• The Super Power U Podcast. Please subscribe to the show on iTunes and get more information at LisaBL.com

Rachel Hart coaches women who want to take a break from alcohol and helps them to rewrite their stories to help them feel deeply confident, powerful, and present in their own Super Powered lives. I appreciate and am inspired by her passion for helping others that’s not based on a black and white dichotomy of “bad” or “good,” but rooted in helping them observe and bear witness to their own their thoughts, feelings, and actions. Her approach is similar to a successful scientist — she stays open, curious and looks for certain patterns to pinpoint thoughts that lead to specific actions.

Rachel and Lisa talk about the important ties between language and emotions, the neutrality of alcohol itself, the emotions surrounding the choice to drink or abstain, and how we can create habits that are better aligned with what we really want from life.

SHOW NOTES

Resources:

• Feedback and show ideas to [email protected]
• Submitting your Super Powers
• Super Power U Facebook Page
• Twitter @lisabl
• Super Power U Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play
• The Super Power U Podcast. Please subscribe to the show on iTunes and get more information at LisaBL.com

Ankit Shah's Super Power is initiating vulnerability and creating a space for everyone to have space. His organization Tea With Strangers and his work with Airbnb have been deep learning in creating community for the purposes of connection and doing good.  He is unusual in his ability to engage and connect people in a heartfelt way and to come from a deep place of authenticity and today Lisa digs in to reveal the skills and frameworks which will help you deepen your ability to connect with loved ones and strangers alike.  Let's call Ankit's Super Power Connection through Authentic Presence.

 Full Show Notes

What You'll Learn:

• What Tea With Strangers is all about!
• The Power of  a "no strings attached conversation"
• How to facilitate a group conversation.
• Foundational approaches to creating an environment ripe for authentic presence
• The power of being vulnerable or unorthodox
• The characteristics of a good question?
• How to be a shepherd to an intimate conversation
• Recognizing what makes people special
• How Random Acts of Kindness can change the world.

Resources:

• Feedback and show ideas to [email protected]
• Submitting your Super Powers
• Super Power U Facebook Page
• Twitter @lisabl
• Super Power U Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play
• The Super Power U Podcast. Please subscribe to the show on iTunes and get more information at LisaBL.com.

Today is a deep dive into the process of Mirroring, one of the most profound skills to use in relationship to facilitate connection and rapport. It's an extremely effective tool to use when there is tension or when you don't feel understood in your relationship.    The process as outlined by Harville Hendrix is a 3-step dialogue exercise you can do with your partner or with a close family member or any loved one to communicate about an issue or a disagreement that might be in the way of intimacy, fulfillment, and connection in your relationship.  This episode focuses primarily on mirroring, which is the first step because it's the starting point and the central piece; the part that supports listening to your partner without distorting his or her thoughts or feelings. Lisa is joined by Victoria Lorient-Faibish (Relationship Expert, Keynote Speaker, Author, Holistic Psychotherapist, Wellness Coach and one of the Creative Core Founders of the incomparable Positive People Army).   FULL SHOW NOTES   I'm collecting input for a future ongoing show segment called Listener Super Powers.  Here's what I'd love to get from you by email, DM or voice recording.    1. Your Name 2. Your show or your business so I can give you a shout out 3. What you see as your Super Power and how it shows up in your life.

• Feedback and show ideas to [email protected]
• Super Power U Facebook Page
• Twitter @lisabl
• Super Power U Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play
• The Super Power U Podcast. Please subscribe to the show on iTunes and get more information at LisaBL.com.