130: 90 seconds to a life you love with Dr Joan Rosenberg

Every now and then you come across a book that is a ‘Goosebump book’. Best-Selling author and cutting-edge psychologist Dr Joan Rosenberg delivers one such book with her latest “90 seconds to a life you love: How to master your difficult feelings to cultivate confidence, resilience and authenticity. I wanted to make today’s show not so much a step by step through the chapters, because I truly call on each of you to read this for yourselves, but more the kind of show that would also leave you feeling able to put things into practice from today and get started connecting firstly, more to your own feelings, and in turn more deeply to the feelings of others. We move through life often not realising how easy it is to become disconnected from what’s truly important - look at how we did it with our food source or with the very basic biological need to ground through contact with nature. What we need to also realise that it’s not just about how connected we are to where our T-shirt comes from, or how our strawberries were grown, or where the floorboards we’re choosing came from, or what ingredients are in our shampoo, but how connected are we to our SELF and in turn to others. I hope you feel as deeply excited about the opportunity presented to each of us in today’s show as I am from having had the gift of this conversation with a truly gifted clinician and thought leader such as Joan. If you’ve ever felt powerless to speak up, disconnected from your child or not knowing how to build their confidence, or perhaps conscious that you distract yourself from unpleasant feelings with Facebook, Alcohol or criticism of yourself or others, this show’s for you. Enjoy and as always, the show notes, sponsor offer and low tox club details are over on lowtoxlife.com/podcast Alexx x

Questions I asked Joan…

 

Neuroscientists suggest a ‘feeling’ lasts about 90 seconds, often starting with a bodily sensation: That’s so fascinating because we think our hearts/minds are doing the feeling but our body is the first clue - can you talk us through what’s happening during those 90 seconds? Of all the feelings to feel there are 8 unpleasant one - why stop at 8? hehe… Can you share some of them with us and their significance? You are on a mission to help people move away from feeling disconnected from others, ashamed of lack of achievement… What are some of the pitfalls to leading an awesome life? What does a 90 second feeling and how we respond to our feeling have to do with us becoming more abundant, more connected? Can you share a recent unpleasant feeling and what it brought up for you? What does it take to develop [or feel] confident? Is it a specific practice we can undertake when faced with uncomfortable feelings, that pops us out the other side with more and more confidence? Having emotional strength is part of confidence too - what goes into developing emotional strength? “Developing confidence” is almost paradoxical or counterintuitive (or backwards to some). What do you mean by that? Lots of people struggle with fear and anxiety - how can someone handle their anxiety better or perhaps even experience less of it? You talk about ‘releasing it’ which I find a beautifully freeing visual… Let’s talk about “Faulty thinking” - is this simply thinking that doesn’t serve us? With how visually ‘perfect’ the internet can seem, “her life is amazing” and “I could never look like that or achieve that!” Harsh self-criticism gets in the way of pursuing people’s goals or dreams – what’s your take on harsh self-criticism and how best can we navigate a world that seems to have us increasingly self criticising? 8. On the flip side of harsh self-criticism are compliments – yet so many people push them away or really play them down. You think they are really important. How come? People are always being encouraged to speak up or be assertive.  How does speaking up relate to having confidence? How does speaking up relate to being more authentic or genuine with others? In Chapter 10 as you move towards closing the book you talk about committing to one’s true self. LOVE this chapter… how would you like to challenge each of us to do a little somethin’ this week, every day, to commit to our true selves?