The Living Experiment: Rethink Your Choices. Reclaim Your Life. – Details, episodes & analysis

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 on The Living Experiment, Pilar interviews a special guest, hunter-gatherer and rewilding enthusiast Daniel Vitalis. Daniel is a well-recognized advocate for what's known as rewilding, a term that he points out means very different things to different people. To Daniel, and also to Pilar, it means reclaiming and reconnecting with aspects of our own wild-creature origins, and for getting into a closer, more intimate connection with our natural world. Daniel visited Pilar's family farm in Wisconsin in summer 2019 to film an episode for his forthcoming TV series, called "WildFed." In the process, he collaborated with Pilar's partner, Forager Chef Alan Bergo, to put on an amazing dinner of pigeon and wild-harvested plants. But Daniel wasn't always the hunter-gatherer type. In fact, for a long time he was a hard-core raw food vegan — a way of life he has happily left behind. So here, we talk about the evolution of Daniel's viewpoints, including some of the mistakes he says have taught him a lot of what he knows today. Along the way, we offer up some reflections on the history of humans, both ancient and modern. And as always we leave you with some experiments to help you re-connect with nature and your own natural self, right here and now.

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

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/