The Living Experiment: Rethink Your Choices. Reclaim Your Life.

This week we’re talking about psychedelics — the consciousness altering substances, and the extraordinary moment they are having in our culture at this time. We explore the reasons that popular interest in psychedelics has risen dramatically in recent years — although certainly not for the first time — and we consider the historical and emerging scientific research that supports their use in a variety of applications. We also share our own range of lived experiences with psychedelics and why we have both chosen to dabble with — or avoid — them over the years. Finally, we offer some considerations on why and how you might choose to learn more about, experiment with, or take a pass on psychedelics yourself. And as always, we leave you with some experiments to help you delve deeper into this fascinating topic, if you choose.

Full show notes and resources at https://livingexperiment.com/psychedelics/

This week we're talking about Nutritious Movement, the brainchild of our brilliant friend, biomechanist, fitness expert, and best-selling author Katy Bowman. Katy's term "nutritious movement" refers to the type of movement that nourishes, educates, shapes, energizes, and repairs us in ways that support optimal health and vitality. And, as Katy explains during the conversation, that does not describe most conventional fitness approaches. So here, Pilar talks with Katy about a great many science-y things very few of us have ever learned about movement and exercise, including some key differences between the two. Katy shares some misconceptions most of us hold about what good fitness constitutes and requires, and she offers up some wonderfully simple, effective, and sustainable strategies for improving your body's physical form and function. We wrap up with a few experiments to help you discover what nutritious movement feels like and how you can easily enjoy more of it, starting today.

Full show notes and resources at https://livingexperiment.com/nutritious-movement/

This week, we're talking about Pandemic Era Discoveries. Last winter, after two years spent in various forms of social isolation, Dallas and Pilar met up at an improvised San Diego studio to catch up live and in person. We compared notes about how we'd weathered the weirdness of COVID reality, where we're at now, and some of the most rewarding stuff we encountered along the way. From craniosacral therapy to cigars, from continuous glucose monitors to toe correctors, from garden plot puttering to nature-based spirit questing, we serve up some of our favorite COVID keepers, along with some of our just-emerging curiosities. And, as always, we leave you with some experiments to get you thinking about what you'd like to take away from this next phase of post-COVID reality.

Get full show notes and resources at https://livingexperiment.com/pandemic-era-discoveries/

This week we’ve got a special guest episode with Brian Johnson, the creator of Optimize and the Founder + CEΦ of Heroic Public Benefit Corporation. Brian has spent half of the last twenty-five years as a Founder/CEO and the other half as a Philosopher, creating hundreds of his PhilosophersNotes summaries of all sorts of brilliant books worth reading. As a Founder/CEO, he’s built and sold two market-leading social platforms. As a Philosopher, he’s served tens of thousands of people from every country in the world with his Optimize membership, and he has also trained over 3,500 people from 90+ countries with his Optimize Coach program — a 300 day program scientifically proven to change lives for the better. Most recently, in March 2021, with the support of 2,500+ Founding Investors from 75+ countries around the world, Brian’s new business — Heroic Public Benefit Corporation — made history in ways he explains in his chat with Pilar.

Get full show notes and resources at https://livingexperiment.com/optimize-brian-johnson/

This week, Pilar talks with special guests Leslie Salmon Jones and Jeff W. Jones, co-founders of Afro Flow Yoga. Leslie and Jeff created Afro Flow Yoga in 2008, fusing a new blend of expressive movement and rhythmic music from their own explorations of healing and their African-American and Caribbean heritage, in West Africa, Haiti and Jamaica. Leslie and Jeff describe Afro Flow Yoga as an embodied practice, integrating dance movements of the African Diaspora with meditative yoga and live healing music, promoting individual and collective healing in a compassionate, inclusive, non-judgmental and safe environment. In this conversation, Pilar talks with Leslie and Jeff about what inspired them to create Afro Flow Yoga, the special role this practice has in helping us heal our fractured selves and culture at this time, and where they see it going from here. If you haven't already checked out one of their virtual classes, we hope you will so you can experience the whole-person "aha" of Afro Flow Yoga for yourself.

Get full show notes and resources at https://livingexperiment.com/afro-flow-yoga/

This week Pilar talks to a special guest — James Beard award-winning journalist, author, and food legend Dorothy Kalins. Dorothy is the founding editor of Saveur magazine and Metropolitan Home. She's also a celebrated cookbook creator and the author of a terrific new book, The Kitchen Whisperers: Cooking with the Wisdom of Our Friends.

This week on The Living Experiment we bring you an episode that has been a very long time coming — a special guest episode with New York Times bestselling author John Zeratsky. John is the co-author — with Jake Knapp —  of two terrific books, Sprint (a popular business title from 2016) and Make Time: How to Focus On What Matters Every Day, which came out in the fall of 2018. In this episode, recorded in the fall of 2019, John and Pilar talk about both titles, and about the themes connecting them. From the value of creating clear mental space for our most pressing priorities to the importance of respecting the limits of our time and attention, John makes a case for doing our lives differently than we're doing them now so we don’t get overwhelmed and start feeling like our lives are passing us by.

Get full show notes and resources at http://livingexperiment.com/make-time/

This week on The Living Experiment, we're talking about the concept of the New Year — from meaningless consumer hype to contemplative pursuits that really can make a difference.

We explore the potential pros and cons of leveraging the New Year as an opportunity for self-improvement, and we share the approaches we like best for pursuing change in our own lives.

From expert theories of change to the awkward realities of working on a goal that eludes you, we take a thoughtful look at New Year's conventions, and we offer some experiments to help you establish a better, more self-compassionate plan for your year ahead.

Get full show notes and resources at http://livingexperiment.com/new-year/

This week on The Living Experiment, we're talking about Midlife — that fun and potentially funky moment when you realize you might well have fewer years ahead of you than you've already put behind you. It's a clarifying moment for many, and a moment of crisis for others. A moment when we realize that we may not have lived our own highest choices up until now — and that if we're going to make the rest of our lives more the way we'd like them to be, this is the time to make that happen. In the midst of all of this is the anxiety about getting older, looking older, being seen as just plain old in a culture that glorifies youth and youth-centric standards of beauty. And then, of course, there's our mortality to consider. So here, we talk about what middle age means to us, and the meaning our society has ascribed to it — cliches, stereotypes, prejudices and all. We explore the assumptions we've had to challenge, and the gifts we've only begun to unwrap. Dallas shares his view of life past 40, and Pilar shares her view from the other side of 50, which is looking pretty darn good to her. Finally, we offer you some experiments to help you more fully appreciate — at any age — the years you've lived into while also making the most of the years you have left to embrace.

Get full show notes and resources at http://livingexperiment.com/midlife/

Life continues to be weird. So we are just rolling with it. This week on The Living Experiment, Pilar offers some updates and options for folks who want to stay connected and who are eager keep experimenting through the rest of 2020.

Get full show notes and resources at http://livingexperiment.com/mini-update/