Tony tackles an essential skill needed for lasting change, "cognitive flexibility," from the book ACT Made Simple - Second Edition by Russ Harris https://amzn.to/3FsneJ0

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Transcript:

Hey everybody. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Festivus, I can't remember if you say Merry Festivus. Happy Festivus, but it is that time of year. And what time of year? Well, I feel like people coming into my office are either experiencing a lot that is going on that can feel very overwhelming or possibly the opposite of that, not enough going on, which can feel a bit underwhelming, but either way, that familiar pang of the holidays can bring around the old familiar, and you may have guessed it, what's wrong with me? What's wrong with me that I simply can't feel grateful or appreciate what I have? Or why doesn't anybody reach out to me? Or if I didn't put myself out there to my fill in the blank? Family, friends, neighbors. Nobody would even notice me or what's wrong with me that another year has passed and I don't feel like my marriage has improved or my parenting is any better, or my financial situation is any different or I'm in the same place financially or worse than last year.

And so I think a lot of us right now feel like we are moving past this almost the great pause of the pandemic is over, so either we should already be in a much better place or again, fill in the blank, our relationships, our jobs, our finances, our health, our faith, any of those things should be better. But the truth is, most likely we will be finding ways to continually beat ourselves up. And we are constantly playing out the “what's wrong with me?” dialogue. And to make matters worse. Well, let’s not say worse. Let's reframe it and say what makes things more challenging is that, as I've shared before, our brain is a don't get killed device and its default programming is to keep us in a constant state of fear and anxiety because it really does think that it's clever the brain that is, that it thinks that's what's best for us. And it doesn't give much of a rip about whether or not you have a happy holiday because to your brain it's check, another year down. Let's just keep kicking that can of change down the road because as your brain is thinking, I can't trust this guy all talking about change. What if that change comes with somebody abandoning him, or what if that change comes at the cost of his physical health? I mean, if I let my own brain, literally my brain do its thing, it's probably telling me, okay, okay. Yeah, you ran a little further than you have in the past few years, a few weeks ago. But, really? You're thinking about ultramarathons again. Can't we be happy with just a nice 5k, maybe a 10k? Seriously, you're 53 years old, in the Middle Ages you'd be sending a carrier pigeon to the Guinness Book of Worlds Records at the time to come etch your story on some stone tablets of how is this guy still walking around past the age of 50? I mean, what are the secrets to this insane longevity? So how about we dial back that enthusiasm and look,