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

This week we're talking about vulnerability – the experience of being susceptible to wounding, and the value of embracing that capacity as a strength rather than as a weakness. We talk about both the risks and rewards of allowing ourselves to be vulnerable – to injury, criticism, embarrassment, and more.

We explore the potential of moving beyond a state of armored self-protection in the service of forging deeper, more satisfying connections with others, with ourselves, and with the experience of being alive. Finally, we offer some simple experiments to help you explore the potential gifts of vulnerability in your own world.

• The difference between "elective" vulnerability (risking being hurt by people we know or whose approval we seek) and exposing ourselves to dangerous situations
• The physical manifestations of always being armored against vulnerability, as well as the stress state and health implications that result
• The deep human need to be accepted – how our fear of public speaking (concentrated social judgment) outweighs even our fear of death
• The vulnerability conundrum: Our tendency to hide those aspects of ourselves that are most likely to form the basis for authentic connection
• The vulnerability fallacy: Our flawed belief that assiduously protecting ourselves will spare us from experiencing pain
• The difference between sharing sensitive information about our historical experience vs. expressing current emotions surrounding that experience
• Tips for navigating vulnerable situations and relationships, and for maintaining boundaries while softening our habitual armor
• The importance of discernment when deciding with whom to be vulnerable, and the rewards that can result when both people are willing to take risks

Get full show notes at http://livingexperiment.com/vulnerability/

This week on The Living Experiment, we're talking about one of Pilar's all-time favorite topics: Healthy Deviance. It's a favorite because it's the subject of the book she's writing, and also an idea at the core of the work she's been doing for the past 15 years or so — including this podcast!

So, what does it mean to be a healthy person in an unhealthy culture? What's required of us, and what's available to us, when we choose to reject the norms of a society that's making a lot of us sick and unhappy a lot of the time? And how the heck can you even hope to do that when there seems to be so much working against you?

These are questions that both of us are fascinated by, and that we each explore in our own work in different ways.

So here, we journey together into The Way of the Healthy Deviant, and we offer you some fun opportunities to experiment with Healthy Deviance in your own life.

• Pilar's personal health journey and how it led her to become a rebellious health experimenter, a media-industry disruptor — and, ultimately, a Healthy Deviant
• The evolution of Healthy Deviance as expressed through Pilar's earlier works and projects, including Experience Life magazine, her Manifesto for Thriving in a Mixed Up World, and the "101 Revolutionary Ways to Be Healthy" mobile app
• Seeing what Pilar calls our "Unhealthy Default Reality" as a real-life Matrix of sorts — understanding the challenges and rewards involved in unplugging from the dominant-culture definitions of "normal"
• Evolutionary biology 101: Seeing the origins of our health crisis in the agricultural revolution, and understanding why "Paleo" diets and workouts alone can't provide a solution to our modern-day challenges
• Pilar describes The Way of the Healthy Deviant, including what she sees as three key competencies:
  • 1) Amplified Awareness (valuing, developing and safeguarding your own attention);
  • 2) Preemptive Repair (getting ahead of the daily damage that causes depletion, inflammation, imbalance and illness); and
  • 3) Continuous Growth and Learning (progressively building and expanding the "skills of the healthy person")
• The value of embracing the quest for Healthy Deviance as a Hero's Journey — an energizing adventure and opportunity for creative self-expression — rather than just a tough, thankless slog

Get full show notes at http://livingexperiment.com/healthy-deviance/

This week we're talking about fasting, the power of periodically foregoing food, and the significant health benefits that can proceed from doing it intelligently. Pilar shares what led her to embark on a seven day, medically-supervised water fast (yes, she consumed nothing but water for seven days, and lived to tell about it!). And Dallas shares what he knows about the increasingly popular intermittent fasting phenomenon. We talk about the potential pros and cons of fasting, and why it's not for everybody. We wind up with fasting experiments and suggestions you can try on your own, and offer up resources for further study. Finally, Pilar comes back to report on how her week-long fasting experiment went, and why, even though it wasn't all roses and rainbows, she's likely to do it again.

• The history and ancient wisdom of fasting, and its potential dark side (e.g., eating disorders and orthorexia)
• The difference between fasting (long-term and intermittent) vs. restricted diets and detoxing
• The essentials of intermittent fasting protocols, including potential benefits and risks
• The reasons for doing longer-term and more "extreme" water fasts, and why they should always be medically supervised
• The phases the body goes through during and after the fast
• Warnings against fasting when it isn't a well-reasoned part of a nutrient-dense, whole foods diet
• This week's experiments
• Postscript: Pilar shares her water-fasting experience and invites questions (follow-up episode, anyone?)

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

This week we're talking about the fine art of being nourished. By that, we mean not just being adequately fed or fueled, but being amply supplied with all the subtle nutritive and sensory properties that our bodies and minds require for optimal function and satisfaction.

We look at the epidemic of chronic undernourishment — driven both by under- and over-feeding — and we explore the strategies that most reliably lead to a happy nutritional balance. Finally, we suggest some experiments to help you fine-tune your self-nourishing strategies in ways that work for you.

• The advantages of getting your nourishment from whole, unprocessed, nutrient-dense plants and animals vs. processed foods + nutritional supplements
• Moving beyond nutritional reductionism
• The common "overfed/undernourished" and "underfed/undernourished" phenomena associated with standard American diets
• Why "well-nourished and overfed" is not a common scenario (thanks to the leptin signaling and hunger/energy regulation of healthy systems)
• Effects of food choices in nourishing the body and brain
• Why a lean and muscular appearance doesn't necessarily signal vibrant health
• The key to moving from overfed/underfed to properly fed and nourished (it's not just a macronutrient problem)
• How low-nutrient, empty calories lead to the "always hungry" problem
• The role of the thyroid gland in regulating nourishment and body composition
• Why calorie-focused diets don't work for most people (and often compound the undernourishment problem)
• The process of getting to an optimally nourished state

Get full show notes at: http://livingexperiment.com/nourished/

This week on The Living Experiment, in what Dallas calls our "most terrifying episode" to date, we're talking about the qualities of masculinity and femininity. What does it mean to be masculine or feminine, and how do these traits both limit and empower us?

We wade into this delicate topic in an effort to explore the rich territory of gender-associated characteristics and the complex relationships between them. We share our own experiences with masculine/feminine dynamics and we offer you some trait-related experiments to help you explore them in your own life.

• The nature of feminine (yin) and masculine (yang) traits, and how we experience them in ourselves and others
• How entrenched chauvinism has caused us to undervalue the feminine, and contributed to patriarchal societal imbalances that don't really serve any of us
• The complex spectrum of masculinity and femininity, and how to best honor the full range of these traits in ourselves and each other
• Our culture's approved gender-expressed roles — the competitive, conquering, producer-protector and the nurturing, sensitive, relational peacemaker — how we learn them, and how adhering to them too rigidly can limit our full expression
• One fun way that masculine and feminine energies can serve and balance each other — the honest expression and mutually satisfying fulfillment of feminine desire
• How stress interacts with masculine and feminine traits, and the health implications of that difference
• The value of exploring our assumptions and perceptions around gender-nuanced traits, and of perceiving our own preferred expressions of them

Dallas suggests: Find someone you trust and who knows you well, and offer them the opportunity to comment constructively on how you express both your masculine and feminine traits.

Pilar suggests: Focus on two accomplishments in your life, and reflect on both the masculine and feminine characteristics that helped you achieve both goals.

Get full show notes at http://livingexperiment.com/masculinefeminine/

Busy is the new black — and none of us are wearing it well. We're all over-scheduled, under-rested, rushing and running on empty most of the time. It's costing us in ways most of us don't even recognize. So this week on The Living Experiment, we talk about the epic burdens of busyness, and how we can get out from under them. We offer suggestions for reclaiming your margins and for managing your energy (rather hyper-controlling every last minute of your time). And we suggest some experiments to help you restore spaciousness and sanity in your life.

• The cult of "busy"
• The nature of the stress that busyness produces — and why, on some level, we like it
• How work hours have increased over the past 50 years
• Why most of our "leisure" activities aren't really helping us relax
• Our culture's glorification of the busy lifestyle, and the consumer machine that has us in its grip
• Dealing with the uncomfortable thoughts and feelings that arise when we aren't stimulated
• How to become comfortable with being idle
• Strategies for transitioning from being a "human doing" to a "human being"

Dallas suggests: Read How to be Idle: A Loafer's Manifesto by Tom Hodgkinson as a way of challenging your current patterns and assumptions around how you spend your time.

Pilar suggests: Practice doing one thing and one thing only. While you do it, notice what it feels like to have your attention on this one thing, and to allow your mind to wander. See if you can get comfortable just being with yourself for this brief moment.

• For example, instead of working or surfing social media while you eat your lunch, simply eat. For extra credit, put your utensils down between bites so you pace your bites and keep your attention on chewing and tasting, rather than wolfing down your food and rushing back to your work.

For full show notes visit http://livingexperiment.com/busy/

The start of a new year is a great time to re-evaluate and adjust the way you are spending your time and energy. So this week on The Living Experiment, we pull back the curtain on how we are doing that with one project in particular: the podcast itself.

As a way of modeling a reflective and strategic process you can use in your own life, we discuss our original goals and intentions in doing the show, where we feel like we're on course, and where we feel we're losing steam or burning valuable time and energy (mostly with the copious amounts of behind-the-scenes work).

We also invite input from you on our initial ideas for making pragmatic adjustments in ways that won't undermine the value of the podcast for us and our listeners.

• Dallas and Pilar share what's going on in their lives, the big changes they made in 2016, and what they're re-assessing (3:10)
• Reflections on creating and producing a podcast (7:55)
• Positive feedback from listeners that confirms the podcast is achieving its primary goal of helping people rethink their choices and improve their lives (11:30)
• What's been working, and what we feel needs to change to support a more sustainable process (don't worry, we're not quitting!) (13:15)
• The limitations of using social media for communication and promotion, and why we're dropping the podcast's Twitter feed at the very least (25:00)
• The hours that go into these show notes, and our desire to know if they are valuable to listeners (Let us know!) (33:50)
• Re-thinking the content of the weekly newsletter (42:15)
• Modeling the reflective process — scrutinizing goals and objectives and what you're doing to meet them, deciding what works and what doesn't, identifying options, and facing fear of change (45:55)
• The love for the work and fear of self-promotion that Dallas and Pilar share (50:10)
• Final thoughts on the importance of periodic reflection (56:05)
• Suggested experiments for the week (58:15)

Dallas suggests:

Think about a task or activity that isn't serving you, and swap it with something you've wanted to try or do more of. You may find that eliminating what isn't bringing value or satisfaction will free up the time, energy, or money you need to do sometime more rewarding.

Pilar suggests:

Pick one area of your life that feels overworked or an activity you've come to dread, and renegotiate the commitment. Give yourself permission to not do a thing you don't want to do, or do it in a way that is more enjoyable.

Bonus experiment:

Let us know what you think about our proposed changes to the podcast! We'd love to know if we talked about eliminating something that you find extremely valuable, if you think we're on the right track, or anything else you want to share.

Get complete show notes at http://livingexperiment.com/what-now/

For many of us, the New Year is a fresh start, an opportunity to get a new outlook on life. This week on The Living Experiment, we talk about the nature of the New Year experience, from the "New You!" media frenzy to the tradition of setting goals and resolutions, to the value of investigating the motivation behind those desires. We share our favorite approaches for pursuing change in our own lives, and explore expert theories about why your goals may be eluding you.

• The New Year holiday as the caboose on the Thanksgiving-to-Christmas marketing train (2:10)
• Arguments against January 1 as a hard date for making big changes (4:00)
• Pilar's Goal Flower model for setting and achieving goals (7:10)
• Accomplishing less instead of more (10:30)
• Why uncovering the belief systems that are holding you back may be more effective than simply addressing surface problems like excess weight, disorganization, and debt (12:15)
• Dallas's approach to goal setting (and the holidays) (13:30)
• Making resolutions when you're ready and in your own way, instead of when and how the calendar or culture says you should (16:40)
• The shared energy of forming new habits with everyone else in January (or any other time), and the value of using camaraderie to launch into autonomy (20:15)
• Creating sustainable change and escaping commercially-driven cycles (23:15)
• The Prochaska Transtheoretical Model of change (25:15)
• Dallas's insights on self-sabotage, and Pilar's thoughts on our inherent "immunity to change" (28:30)
• Making small transformations on the road to accomplishing larger goals and avoiding self-sabotage (34:10)
• The difference between building sustainable change and making cyclical changes to break up an unsustainable lifestyle (38:15)
• The right and wrong motivations for modifying behaviors – love vs. fear (40:05)
• The power of conscious language (42:30)
• How to embrace the opportunity of the New Year to achieve what you really want (44:45)
• Acknowledging universal obstacles to change (48:50)
• Suggested experiments for the week (55:25)

Dallas suggests:

Look at the changes you want to make for 2017, and articulate the motivation behind them.

• Ask yourself: Am I doing this out of fear or out of love?
• Replace a behavior that has typically been fear-based with one done out of love. It doesn't have to be a different behavior; it may be the same action, but with a different motivation in play.

Pilar suggests:

1) Make an Immunity Map following the steps in the Experience Life article, "How to Overcome Immunity to Change".

2) Create a Goal Flower using the "Cultivate Your Goals" section of Pilar's "Refine Your Life" workbook.

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

It's hard to know what to believe. Online, in print, via TV and radio broadcast, the health media delivers a lot of mixed messages and downright confusing data. And as corporate interests increasingly shape and influence content streams, the more challenging it becomes to discern fact from profit-driven fiction. This week on The Living Experiment, we explore some of the dynamics that undermine accurate health-media coverage, and offer suggestions on how to navigate this often disorienting territory. We also suggest some experiments to help you become a better informed and more empowered media consumer.

• The barrage of confusing and conflicting headlines, especially about food and nutrition (4:20)
• The problem of health experts who resist admitting they got things wrong and refuse to update their conclusions (6:10)
• The corporate influences at work in scientific research and health media (8:05)
• How research published in respected medical journals is steered by funders with profit-driven motives (9:45)
• The unholy alliance between an industry and researchers — and how the results influence policies and nutrition guidelines (10:45)
• An example of an "authoritative" national institution that disseminates horribly misguided (but media-friendly) "healthy eating guidelines" for kids (11:20)
• The disturbing shift away from high-quality reporting toward viral, traffic-producing posts, often at the expense of decent coverage (15:50)
• The pernicious influence of advertising dollars on media content, especially from food conglomerates and pharmaceutical companies (18:15)
• Prevention magazine's bold move to remove all advertising from their printed publication in an effort to safeguard their reporting (21:50)
• The importance of finding trustworthy experts and media sources, and Dallas's short list (24:45)
• The problem with imposing conclusions from very specific research on the wider population (26:20)
• Filtering health data using your own developed logic or philosophy (28:00)
• Rote, media-repeated phrases like "fruits and vegetables" and "lean proteins" that sound healthy but can be misleading (31:55)
• A caution about recommended "food swaps" that promote lower calories, less sugar, lower sodium and less saturated fat but are inherently unhealthy (35:15)
• Pilar's trusted short list of health sources (36:05)
• The functional medicine revolution, and the lack of media coverage (or hostile attacks) progressive physicians and researchers receive (38:45)
• "Half of what we've told you is wrong, but we don't know which half" — the conundrum shared by responsible journalists and medical schools (41:30)
• The power of lifestyle choices and changes that can limit or eradicate the need for long-term use of medications (43:45)
• The value of reading outside the mainstream media canon (including government agencies and associations) (46:10)
• How health messages on television are influenced by industry priorities (48:35)
• How advertising drives magazine content, and why ads that disagree with editorial coverage may actually be a good sign (51:20)
• Looking more closely at "expert" sources (their associations, sources of industry connections or funding, and any boards they serve on) (53:20)
• Why certain so-called "pro-science" and "watchdog" websites tend to be questionable sources of information (54:20)
• The wisdom in consulting multiple trustworthy sources and avoiding being whipsawed by headlines, trends and fads (59:00)
• Self-experimentation for testing health recommendations — tracking what works or doesn't work for you over the long-term (1:00:55)
• Suggested experiments for the week (1:06:53)

Dallas suggests:

Read an article or two that peaks your interest from the list of trusted resources (see the Resources section, below) and choose something practical to change as a result. For example, replace margarine with coconut oil and butter.

Pilar suggests:

1) Read Experience Life magazine's article, "Decoding Health Media" to get a better understanding of the contemporary challenges media consumers face, and how you can overcome them.

2) Notice key words and phrases in health media, on product labels, and in advertising, noticing how they influence your assumptions and choices.

• Keep your eye out for features and seals that make a product sound healthy even when it may not be.
• Watch for phrases like "light," "wholesome," "low-fat," "zero cholesterol," "air popped," "contains whole grains," and "baked, not fried" — then read the label and challenge the underlying assumptions.

Get full show notes at http://livingexperiment.com/health-media/

Eating out offers many potential benefits – tasty food, fun with friends, and a break from cooking – but it can also lead to pitfalls for your well-being. This week on The Living Experiment we unpack the challenges of eating out, including the hidden world of food suppliers, cuisines built for profit rather than health, and misconceptions about gluten-free menus. We provide suggestions for taking command in making educated food choices – how to identify restaurants that value good food sourcing and think outside the box when ordering from a menu. To make eating out a life-giving experience, we offer experiments that encourage exploration and creativity in your dining adventures.

• Getting past "I can't eat anything" and "I must eat everything" mindsets, and making empowered food choices instead (3:30)
• Embracing dining as a pleasurable experience vs. an exercise in self-denial and "nutritionism" (6:30)
• Scoping out and supporting places that make healthy food from good sources (8:10)
• The value of knowing the types of restaurants that work for your preferred eating approach (9:30)
• A caution about "greenwashing" — industrial factory-farmed foods as "farm fresh" or sustainably/humanely raised when they aren't (11:55)
• What your server can tell you about a restaurant's real values (12:30)
• Keywords to try when using mobile apps to search for healthy places in unfamiliar locations (13:30)
• Items to look for — and avoid — when browsing a menu (15:10)
• Mixing-and-matching to create an edible meal almost anywhere (18:15)
• Creative solutions for ordering vegetables when they're not well represented on the menu (20:30)
• Clues that a restaurant is sourcing their food consciously and imaginatively — or not (25:15)
• Industrial supply-chain insights — the reality of where most restaurants get most of their food (26:50)
• Strategies for gluten-free dining (29:30)
• How not to be a prisoner of gluten-free menus, and how you can expand your healthy GF options (32:20)
• The tyranny of the menu, and how to advocate for your own best interests (34:50)
• The problem with kids' menus (36:20)
• Pre-nibbling veggies as a damage-control strategy for iffy restaurant situations (39:00)
• Deciding about alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages with meals (40:15)
• Dessert as an optional pleasure (45:20)
• Dessert alternatives (49:40)
• Suggested experiments for the week (53:00)

Dallas suggests:

The next time you go out to eat, try a new restaurant by asking for recommendations.

• If you're traveling, ask a local or use specific search terms in an app like Yelp.
• If you're at home, ask a friend for his or her faves (based on your stated priorities).
• Strive to find a place offering locally-sourced or farm-to-table food.

Pilar suggests:

Ask for food swaps that suit your preferences, and through practice, expand your comfort level in asking for what you want.

• If an entrée comes with two sides (like a potato or rice or pasta plus veggie), consider swapping out the starchy option for another non-starchy vegetable.
• If you like the looks of a protein-based starter option, order that and combine it with extra veggies or other sides.
• Ask about available fresh green vegetables that might not be listed as side options but could be easily and simply prepped for you (per Dallas's trademark request, "Can you cook me something green?")
• Asking for what you want gets easier (and more addictive) every time you do it.

Get full show notes and resources at: http://livingexperiment.com/eating-out/