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

This week on The Living Experiment we're talking about Healthy Deviance (again!), so we're calling this episode Healthy Deviance 2.

First, we explore the evolution of Pilar's notion of Healthy Deviance, reflecting on how it has taken ahold and become part of a larger conversation about how to be a healthy, happy person in an often unhealthy, unhappy world.

Next, after Dallas dashes off to catch his flight, Pilar breaks down some of the key concepts of her forthcoming book about Healthy Deviance, which has now found a publisher, and is scheduled to be published in the winter of 2019. Yay!

Pilar describes the nature of what she calls the Nonconformist Competencies of Healthy Deviance, as well as the wide range of healthy-person skills you need to claim and sustain them for yourself.

Finally, Pilar offers you some experiments to help you evaluate whether or not you currently identify as a Healthy Deviant, and where you might be right now on the Healthy Deviant Hero's Journey of your own life.

Get full show notes and resources at http://livingexperiment.com/healthy-deviance-2/

This week on The Living Experiment, we're talking about coping — the base level, essential things we do to get through our days, particularly when we're under pressure and stress.

In a world that can lead us to feel helpless, reactive, and overburdened, it's important to have strategies for calming our nervous system, for managing our internal and external resources, and for creating a stable sense of center.

So here, we talk about how we wade through the craziness of everyday life, and the fundamental skills we use to stay aware and resilient even in the face of depletion and reactivity.

We look at the physical, mental, and emotional dynamics of coping — from anti-inflammatory eating and sleeping to anti-insanity media habits. And, of course, we offer you some experiments to help you relate with more consciousness and self-compassion to the coping scenarios in your own life.

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

This week on The Living Experiment we're talking about Introverts and Extroverts — from the different ways these two distinct types show up in the world to the sometimes perplexing ways they can relate.

In the process we unpack our own introverted and extroverted tendencies, and we share expert insights on what both these types have to share with, and learn from, each other.

Finally, we offer you some experiments to help you expand your own awareness of introvert-extrovert dynamics and how they might be showing up in your own life.

Get full show notes and resources at http://livingexperiment.com/introvert-extrovert/

This week on The Living Experiment we're talking about Motivation — the force that gets us to do, accomplish, and change the things we want to. And the force that sometimes fizzles without our really understanding why.

So here, we talk about the nature and source of motivation, and the art of cultivating it in the service of our highest goals.

From the dynamics that cause us to procrastinate and avoid fulfilling ostensibly worthwhile commitments, to the science behind making change even when change is hard, we explore the realities of harnessing the willingness to do what must be done.

We also acknowledge the reality that an unlimited supply of superhuman willpower is often not the magic bullet that many motivational gurus might have you believe.

Finally, we offer you some experiments to help you tap into your own best sources of motivation, and to put them to work in ways that feel most rewarding to you.

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

This week on The Living Experiment, we're talking about Meditation — its near-countless benefits for body and mind, and also the real and perceived barriers that keep many from embracing it.

From the challenges of making space for a regular practice, to the frustration that can set in when we attempt to calm our chaotic minds, we talk about the block-and-tackle of meditation and the many forms it can take.

We also share our own experiences with meditative practices and the benefits we've found in exploring and expanding them over time.

Finally, we offer you a snack-size taste of a guided meditation and some experiments to help you discover the profound gifts you stand to gain from building more meditative practices into your own life.

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

This week on The Living Experiment, we're talking about the Enneagram — a personal wisdom tool that has been transforming lives and relationships for thousands of years.

The Enneagram is generally thought of as a personality typing system, and it does sort people into 9 primary types, but it's different from other personality typing systems in a variety of important ways.

The central aim of the Enneagram is to help people understand their own and others' deepest motivations. It helps us develop our central strengths while working around our most challenging and potentially self-destructive tendencies.

One thing we both like about the Enneagram is that it is an incredibly rich body of knowledge, one that you can use to keep learning about yourself and others for the rest of your life.

So in this episode, we share an overview of our experiences with the Enneagram, and how we've benefited from it.

We offer some very basic information about the nature and origins of the system, and how it helps people evolve toward their highest and healthiest potential.

Finally, we offer you some experiments to help you discover more about your own Enneagram Type and put its wisdom to work in your own life.

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

This week on The Living Experiment we're talking about Weight Loss — the myths, the methods, and the massive struggle it represents for the majority of Americans today.

Starting with our own frustration with the muddled messages often broadcast on this topic, we strive to set the record straight.

From the madness of trying to control one's weight through low-fat eating, calorie counting, and "portion control," to the sensible strategies that work a whole lot better, we share what we know, and what we wish more people knew, about the keys to managing your weight in a healthier, happier way.

Pilar shares her Healthy Deviant approach to weight loss, and Dallas draws from his two New York Times bestsellers to help you rethink not just the way you're eating, but also the way you are managing your thoughts, your energy, your daily patterns, and your biochemistry.

And of course, we offer you some experiments to help you recast your assumptions about weight, and weight loss, for the long haul.

Get full show notes and resources at http://livingexperiment.com/weight-loss/

This week on The Living Experiment, we're talking about Quitting — the importance of knowing when to do it, and the stigma that so often accompanies that decision.

From jobs and relationships, to projects and attachments, we talk about both the pain and the relief of letting go of the things we once decided to pursue. And we point out that quitting needn't represent a failure or a referendum on your value as a person.

Dallas makes his case for becoming an "expert quitter," and Pilar shares some of the biggest, baddest, most formative quitting experiences of her life.

We also offer you some empowering experiments to help you explore the potential of quitting more skillfully and selectively in your own life.

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

This week on The Living Experiment, we're talking about being Childless by Choice. That's a decision that an increasing number of people are making these days, so the assumption that any given person is hoping to someday "get married and have babies" is increasingly a questionable one.

And yet, those who consciously decide not to have kids are often confronted by the judgment of others. From opinion leaders who argue that not having children is "selfish," to relatives who are counting on you to carry on the family line, there's no shortage of reasons you might feel pressure — or peevishness — as the result of other people's investment in your reproductive capacity.

So here, we talk about the many reasons a person might choose not to have kids, and how to cope with the reactions that choice might provoke. We also offer you some experiments to help you get more comfortable and compassionate with your own decision, and others'.

Get full show notes and resources at http://livingexperiment.com/childless-by-choice/

This week on The Living Experiment we're talking about Questions — the value of asking more of them, and the potential of making inquiry a regular life practice.

Rainer Maria Rilke once advised a young poet to "live in the questions," and that advice can serve all of us.

So here, we share the questions we've found most helpful in keeping us on a good path, as well as the questions that tend to get us in trouble.

From the reality-challenging questions that define Byron Katie's "The Work," to the Learner and Judger questions that make up Marilee Adams' Choice Map, we explore the evolution that is possible when we ask, rather than assume.

Finally, we offer you some experiments to help you consider the questions you might benefit from asking in your own life.

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