EP 05: Exploring Willpower with Dr. Amy Johnson

[Music] This is Annie Grace and you're listening to this Naked Mind Podcast where without judgment, pain or rules, we explore the role of alcohol in our lives and culture. [Music] Hi everyone, welcome to this Naked Mind Podcast with Annie Grace and say like I'm so excited, I'm so excited that I just say like what I really try not to say but today I'm here with Dr. Amy Johnson and literally this book is her book and this book is unreal. If you have not picked up this book yet you need to read it it's called the Little Book of Big Change and Amy you're insight into willpower and thought processes and how to not let habits overcome you and also just your incredibly positive approach. I mean I have chills because this book was it it just phenomenal. I was recommended to read it by some readers I read it about a month and a half ago and you might be able to see here but I like to when I like something I like to like put the page and literally how many pages have I marked right like it's just been such a great book but anyway would you mind just telling the listeners a little bit about you and how you came to write it and everything else in that. Yeah well thank you so much for having me I'm super excited to be here and um you know it's really cool when I I just came across you when your book fairly recently too when it's just so awesome to find that thing that's like wow there's so much overlap and I've been I'm just getting into your book but just in the beginning if I could show you my Kindle it's all highlighted too just like it's just so cool to see the synergy and the overlap center in it as as a person that does this I'm sure you feel the same way it like really just feels like oh like we're on to something real here you know like everybody has their own unique ways of talking about it their own stories their own language but there's such a core that that's in common with you and I and so many other people that we've learned from and that we call upon you know and it's I don't know I love that it's so cool to see that so yeah so I'm happy to be here and to to know you and talk to people and yeah so I um I've had a coach and a psychologist for quite a while and as I wrote about in the book I struggled with my own habits so really anxiety was sort of the the core of all of my stuff and I feel like I just was a very anxious child and that that went into some pretty severe anxiety when I was in graduate school panic disorder all kinds of diagnoses you know and did what I could to just kind of you know struggle through that mindset my way through that positive think my way through it and and then anxiety kind of morphed into other things other habits like smoking and drinking and binge eating which was my big one so I was in this binge eating habit for eight years and so frustrating because I knew better I was out there at that point helping other people I mean talking about feeling like a huge imposter and fraud you know like the thing is I I could see that I was able to help other people yeah it was such a weird cognitive dissonance thing in my head because I'm like why can't I get my stuff together like what is this you know why am I doing this and so like most hardworking people um I just kept trying harder and harder and pulling in more resources and trying more things you know and most of those things would give me a little bump they definitely give me some hope initially like oh maybe this will be the thing you know and then I'd feel kind of hopeful and on that maybe ride that that way you've hopefulness for maybe a few days or few weeks but then when I came crashing down when I would relapse um it you know it left me feeling lower than before so I'm like oh now what there's another thing that failed you know so I really kind of quickly saw how the harder I work and the more I use willpower the less this goes in my favor in the big term in the big picture um and so I you know several years ago and I six seven years ago now came across this understanding of of uh it's really kind of a new paradigm for psychology like how our mind works and it's as spiritual and it's like a logical kind of understanding of things and neuroscience it all kind of comes together and for me that just did it it's like I had some insights and it was just easy I just saw it differently fairly quickly not instantly um and it was easy and so in the years since then I've just looked at that a lot and tried to see like how can we break it apart and dissect it's that we can share this with other people yeah I love that something you said about you know these these ideas um we're talking about them obviously in our own language and and you and I like it's it's uncanny how much uh I'd say core themes are in common in our book like you say and and we've never met before and I never read read your book before and you haven't read mine yet and we're so so that to me just says that we're coming on some truth right like it feels very true to me and I think similarly in my experience you know trying with willpower just set me up for complete failure and it's what what yours you know it made me feel really worthless as a human like because yeah I had my crap together in all these other areas of my life and and yet drinking was my thing and I you know I couldn't get it together with that one area because it was what I really relied on and again similar to you I come from you know anxiety depression history and that was that was how I was self-medicating which was really interesting so let's get into some of these sort of sort of core principles because I love how you explain um you know one of the things I really like is just this idea of how much effort it takes to actually combat a thought so could you talk about that a bit yeah oh my gosh yeah so um when it looks like our thinking is dangerous and you know it looks like that to everyone on earth so I'm not like and to me too half the time still you know what I mean like I mean we can know better but we're still human beings having this extremely vivid experience of life that comes from our own heads and it doesn't look like it comes from our own heads it doesn't look like some little thought it looks like oh my gosh this is life and this is me and all you know it just looks so vivid and real but when when we're in that place of misunderstanding how our experience works and how safe it truly is and you know we can talk more about that but when we get caught up in that and it looks scary of course we're gonna do things we're gonna do anything we can to make it go away to change it to try to feel better yeah if if our you know affirmations don't work and all of our thought changing doesn't work and all our willpower doesn't work then we'll drink green because hey we know we're meant to feel good and that's torture so I think it's so cool to see yeah like our our thinking comes out been it it's just so real and we're always just doing the best we can it's just that for most of us and for me too for a really long time the best we can do looked like oh well let's change this thought or let's let's you know go for it like they say take a bubble bath go for walk journal it's like sorry that's not happening here right I'd love that because there's so much that you touched on like in your book you talk about this idea of you are whole human you are okay human you are not you know flawed you are simply doing the best that you can do in every given moment and when you look at it that way so say you're having a really long hard day and your kids are getting on top of you and you have this incredible amount of conditioning that alcohol is going to take that pain away and in that moment you you really are just doing the best you can to keep it together for your family to keep together for yourself to not go insane to not have like complete meltdown and so you have a drink somehow you're thinking that wasn't the best I could have done and that I think is this universal kind of misunderstanding like no with all the information available to you in that moment that was the best you could have done that that was only thing you could have done it was not malintended and so even though maybe some bad stuff comes from that drink and then you don't want to have many more than you want it or whatever the case is you have to understand that your intentions here are not flawed right because we we go into this conversation around whatever addiction it is with this idea that somehow our intentions are flawed and then somehow ourselves are flawed and then somehow we're creating this whole vision of ourselves and I know I did this for me that I am just a bad person like at my core and and I love your work because you unravel that myth you know and the thing is from and get even this even this myth from what we saw and understood before we just thought we were looking at the facts you know what she's like clearly I'm weak I know better clearly I'm self sabotaging why else would I be doing this you know like from that thinking it just looks so obvious but to to flip that and to see exactly what you just said like no, we're just, we experience life from our moment to moment thinking. We cannot experience life separate from our whatever's there in our minds in that moment. And it's like we all have glasses on and we're just seeing out of the glasses. You can't take them off. So from those glasses, if you're wearing red tinted glasses and then you're mad at yourself because everything looks red, it's ridiculous. And it's just going to make it so much harder to change. You know, it's going to ever, because then you feel worse than you need more drinks. You know, it's like, it's just that actually compounds the problem. So yeah, it's so important to start to just see how this works in a, in a clear and accurate way because it's such a amazing kind system. We've been given like the human design is incredible. And when we really kind of come to understand it, we get to work with it rather than trying to manipulate it and fight thoughts and do this and that change it. I love that. I think that, so the first step is just basically realizing without anything else that you in your actions are not coming from a bad place. You're coming from a place of doing the best you can in the moment with the information you've been given. And then when that sort of, you know, acceptance of, okay, that gets you out of the cycle of beating yourself up. And by the way, when you're in the cycle of beating yourself up, guess what you do is you drink more because we drink to avoid pain. And so when you get yourself out of the cycle of beating yourself up and you get yourself into a bit of self acceptance and say, okay, I'm going to realize that my intentions are not bad. They're not flawed. Then you can start to investigate the information you've been given. You know, investigate why are these glasses red? You know, what is it that is leading me to believe that in this moment of, you know, parenting hell and work hell and drama and stress that, you know, eating is going to solve it or drinking is going to solve it or smoking is going to solve it. What are the facts, right? And I really like where you go with this too is, you know, really digging into this idea of you have this thought like, okay, and you're going to say this better than I do, but you have a thought whether it's a craving or something. And it takes a lot of energy to try to disprove that thought. And so you give this great technique for actually expanding less energy and helping it to more or less like go of you. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not even a, I mean, a technique is going to take energy, but it's more of just exactly what you're saying, like that bigger understanding of it. It's like if we know that everything that moves through us is just, it's moving. A thought, feeling, it's all the same. It's a way I understand it. It's all the same. It's just a different manifestation of this one big energy that moves through us. And it moves through every human being. It's not about us. It's not personal. We all operate in the same way. We have this energy that brings thoughts and feelings and all this stuff to life within us. And it keeps moving. It's like weather. It keeps on moving. And it doesn't affect the sky and our thoughts and feelings. If we see this, we can feel stuff. And we in our health, and our clarity and our piece of mind, we're not affected by that. Then it's like the stuff just goes. Okay. But what happens, like you said, is we put all this energy on, let me grab, oh no, I'm having an urge, you know, and we bring out this big metaphorical spotlight. And we're like shining it on our urge. And this is a little thought that just wants to keep moving. But we're grabbing it by the tail. And we're like, no, I'm going to tell you why you're not going to win today. And all the while, it's like we're holding it in place in assembly, of course. But you know, when you start to see, wow, all this effort, it kind of requires that we pay a lot of attention to what we're trying to not feel, which is kind of important. And it's kind of like trying to change the weather. Why would you try to change your weather? Because you know, it's going to change on its own anyway. You know, it just stops making sense. And that's what I love. That's one of the overlaps that I've seen in your work too. It's like it isn't about fighting things. It's about seeing it in a way, really what I call insight, you know, but seeing it in a way to where it just doesn't make sense, like it used to. Right. Right. And I think, you know, that's a big thing about just sort of investigating what are what are your beliefs that are telling you that that drink at the end of a hard day is going to do you any favors. But then also when you feel that urge and you've decided, you know, consciously that you don't want to have that drink, almost, and I guess what is your sort of best advice for how to deal with that, right? Because I do have a lot of readers. You know, read my work and they're like, okay, I understand all the facts, right? I understand that, you know, this study said that alcohol actually will make me more stressed over time. And I understand that it's a short term fix. And I understand this, that and the other thing. But the truth is I just still have this deep craving for a drink in these moments because I've built up this habit that's been conditioned by five o'clock every single day. I pour myself a drink and I don't even know how to unwind at the end of the day without it. So in that moment, like, how would you tell people to deal with those feelings? Yeah. That's a great question. You're right. It's a really, really common question. I'm not a fan of an end-of-the-moment thing because here's the thing. Like in that moment, as we know, like the resources are kind of zapped already. They're really caught up in this bad feeling. You know, it's more of a, like, seeing how this works. But what happens is when you see how this all works in a bigger sense, in that moment, you tend to see through what's going on. You see what's going on in a different way in time. So if you know that, and of course, no, there's so many levels of no way. But let's say some, you know, we really, this is like beyond logic. It's beyond intellect. It's really deeply kind of seeing how it works. Like we all deeply intuitively know that no matter what we do, we're not going to make it stop raining. It's just not going to happen. So that's why no one is out trying to make it stop raining. We complain about it. And even then, we kind of realize, this is ridiculous. I'm complaining about the weather. But we do it anyway. But you know, no one's out really trying to stop it from raining. So because we just get how that works. Or like a nightmare, which is a great example, when you wake up from a nightmare, you pretty much let it go. It might linger. The feeling's linger a little. But you're not, you don't try to solve the fight that you were in in your nightmare when you're awake. Because we just know very deeply how that works. Oh, that's not real. So as we start to see our own thinking that way, like this craving, this strong urge that someone has at five o'clock every night, where they're drinking, it is energy moving through them. That their mind has grabbed onto a habitually and said, Oh, drink would help this. The drink would fix this. You need a drink. This isn't going to go away unless you have your drink. Like, that's all that's just like press and play on a tape recorder. Like it's just this whole thing that starts. And to tell them that in a moment, I don't know, might help might not. Great chance it won't, right? Because they're kind of really in it. And they're just lost in the feeling of that. But but to see that in time and really deeply see that, to see that you the drink is just a conditioned thing. Like you tell yourself that, Oh, the drink's going to help because of what we've heard and then conditioned with and all that. But but it can't really like like what you need, what you want that peace of mind, it's in there already. If you're not paying attention to all this all this pain and discomfort, even if you are paying attention to it, it's going to settle down on its own. It cannot. I mean, thoughts just don't stay there forever. We can't get lost in them. So it's going to work that way. But it's hard because we don't trust it. Then we get more caught up and we'll know and I don't like this feeling now. And you know, but some more we just kind of see, okay, that everything is safe. It's just my own thinking, it's my own condition mind. And it's totally temporary, totally impermanent. And then it just almost doesn't even feel the cravings kind of don't have to feel that horrible way. Like you might still feel it habitually. But you know, like you know, you feel that craving and it's almost like, oh, I see you. I know what you're doing here. And I'm in charge. You know, the whole thing starts to change. There's a way that I just work in my second book and there's a way that I explain this in the second book. And it's you are in, you're the mom, right? And you've got a five year old and the five year old is your craving. And the five year old wants a nice cream. And if you know any kid with your own or a Neesor nephew, they do not stop. There is not, I mean, they get louder and louder and louder. And they get more and more insistent. And then they start coming up with all of these but ice cream, but but we didn't have it yesterday. But but you know, Sally got ice cream and I didn't, but it's not fair. Do you know, like every single ex reason, you know, and it's this very incessant voice and it's going and going and going. But the difference is that as a mom, you realize, okay, this is annoying, this little kid, but I'm actually in charge. I can get my wallet out and buy the ice cream where I cannot. This child does not have any money to buy their own ice cream. And that's the same with with your craving and with your thought. Like, it is loud and it is annoying. But you're actually in charge. The problem comes when we as the mom, in this example, think that this kid will never ever be quiet if we don't buy it the ice cream. Or we use the fact that this kid is really yelling is okay, fine, I'm just going to give in. Two things happen. Number one is that kid learns. Oh, okay, the louder I am, the more ice cream I'm going to get, you know, equally if you say, okay, anything you say, you can sit there and you can talk as long as you can talk. I've made my decision. I'm not giving into this. I'm not going to have an ice cream and I'm just going to go along my way. I'm just going to hear it. It's over here, but I've said this is not something that can make me do anything. Then all of a sudden that kid or that craving becomes quieter over time because they exhaust themselves, because it does run, because it is moving, because nothing lasts forever. And none of our thought process lasts forever. And all of a sudden that kid realizes, okay, when when she says no, she actually means it. And I'm not going to get that ice cream, right? But I think what you said, Amy, was so powerful is we have a fear that it isn't safe to say no to our cravings. Like we believe that these cravings and these feelings and these thoughts are so powerful that they're going to take us over. So we do one of two things. We either give in because we're so afraid that it will never stop or we fight it head on, right? And imagine if you started arguing with that five year old, right? They would come back every single thing you said, you would say, no ice cream is going to ruin your dinner. No, no, I promise I'm not. You know, you can imagine how the fight could escalate and escalate. And then all of a sudden you spend a half an hour fighting with a five year old. And that's what happens to us because we've been told that the way to deal with the craving is to come at it head on and repeat some mantras and tell ourselves we're not going to do it. We're stronger than that. And like as you and I have from our experience can can say like that didn't work long term. Like yeah, we were successful in some of those fights, but the five year old was successful and a lot of those fights too. Yeah, I have a five year old. Very close to home and you're absolutely right on the ice cream front and on the half the front. But what's interesting is what you said, like you're right, we have those two choices. We're either going to give in because we think we kind of have to or we're going to fight it. And both of those make it harder. Now in the end of the day, we always have control. So all the time clients will say to me, I give into an urge, I just made my habits stronger. Like they're so afraid, right? Like that they they woke up this monster in their head and it's like either way, even if you, even if you gave you five year old, the ice cream and then he comes back louder the next day, you're still in control. He's just to be a little louder. You know, so that's the good thing to know. Like our control never goes away, but you're right because both of those options, they may get harder for us in the short term. And so that third option. How is that for you? Like how is the, you know, you talk about it really eloquently, like the letting it go, the sitting with it, the, whatever it is. Like how does that work kind of inside, inside you when you deal with those cravings? Yeah. It's so, it's so hard to put words around. And I think sometimes like, you know, it's different for everyone because when you really have an insight about it being safe, everyone's going to feel that kind of in their own way. But for me, it was all kinds of different things like in part part of it was like excitement. When I really kind of had that click where I saw, oh, I am always in charge, no matter how loud and bossy my head gets. It was almost like, I mean, it was everything, but it was everything from like, oh, I hear you and, you know, okay, I'm in charge, like, but still a little like nervous to completely at peace and feeling really separate from it. And those moments were few and far between, but had that experience. To almost like excitement, like, oh, cool. Yeah, go ahead. New y'all all you want. I'm not giving you the ice cream. That again, for me, I probably was saying that I'm not having the ice cream. So you yell all you want, brain, but it's not happening today. And so it's like one of the metaphors I use a lot. We have a, my five year old has a, we have a neighbor who is his age and she comes over and she puts her nose on our window like this and like, looks in our house to see if he can come out and play. And you know, because messes up the windows, but anyway, you just want to like take your shoulders and like, okay, Allie, just back up. Like you're a little too close to even see anything. And that's kind of how we can get with that, right? Like that five o'clock craving can be like where like, Allie, there knows in the window or it can be over here and we're feeling it or it can be out here. And you're like, oh, that's nothing like it used to be. Or and then and then it stops coming around. Right. It's so powerful. And I think you're right. Like this, this conversation is interesting because this stuff is hard to put into words. It really is because it's, it's, um, it's almost magical in a way. I feel the same when, when I had these insights and epiphanies and, and realized all of these things and they kind of stacked up and all of this deep seated feelings of, of intense need for alcohol, like go of me. It felt really magical. It wasn't linear. It wasn't like, okay, you do this and you feel this. It was like, you do all of these things and then everything shifts, but none of these things actually connect. And so it's, it's interesting because it is really hard to put into, into words. But I do think, you know, one thing that, that I found really useful and actually has been backed up just by lots of studies is this idea of just really observing. You know, and I think you talk about this and then you have a chapter of the power and the pause and just saying like, I'm going to stop and observe and I might give into it. I'm not going to like put a huge fest. I'm not going to fight it. I'm not going to get into the ring. I'm just going to wait a second. You know, can you talk about that power in the pause a little bit? Yeah. It's, um, it just starts to show you that you can do that. I think that's a huge thing it does for people. It's like before. I don't know. Like I can remember having these urges to binge and I would try to wait it out or pause, but without the understanding all it felt like as I was way not going. I was like just trying to distract myself. It was so high energy. There was no relaxation in it. It was like, oh my gosh, is it going to go away? What's going to happen? Can I do this? But I do this. You know, it was horrible feeling. And of course that feeling makes you want to do your thing even more. But there's something about as people start to see this to be able to take a peaceful pause and just maybe for the first time really see, well, that's possible. Like again, this can be over here, just doing what it's doing. The kids talking about ice cream and the mom truly can just be okay. Like they don't have to touch each other, you know, but with our habits, it sometimes is the first time for people when they've really not just sort of put the blinders on and gone for the drink or the food or whatever. Like they've just said, oh, I can feel this and not do anything. I just think that and enough itself. It invades that magic and it brings more insights because all of a sudden, I don't know, you know, exactly how it would go for someone. But for me, it was like starting to just see that. Oh my gosh, this I actually am in control. I just didn't really know how to be in control. You know, I didn't have the understanding to back it up. There was this amazing study and it was done. I'm going to butcher, I'm not going to even guess at the university, but it was done where they just invited smokers into a room and they had them sit and they had had them have stayed from cigarettes for 24 hours before. So all these smokers were having really intense physical cravings. And so they had them sit there and they had them, they all had a fresh pack of cigarettes. They all unwrapped it and then they had to wait a minute and just sit with the feeling of really wanting that cigarette. And then they had to smell it and sit with the feeling and then they had to get one pack their pack and then they had to sit with the feeling, get one out, sit with the feeling. Light the lighter, sit with the feeling and they didn't actually get to smoke it during this experiment. And then they walked outside and they all lit up, of course, because they're like, oh my gosh, I'm sitting with this feeling. And it's just building and building and building. But the miracle happens with during that 40 minutes of sitting with those feelings, they went and tracked these smokers over the next however long and they cut back on their smoking by like 40 to 60% without any effort whatsoever because they'd taken the fear out of the craving. Because when they're sitting there with that craving instead of feeling like this is overpowering me and I'm just going to give into it, they said, how does it feel? And guess what? It wasn't as bad as any of them had imagined. So then when the cravings came up subsequently, again, the magic happened, they weren't aware of this, but they were just kind of like, okay, it's not terrifying. You know, because I used to akin it to, you know, I'd have the craving for a drink and then I had the desire not to drink. And I felt like, damn, if I did and damn, if I didn't, like if I didn't have the drink, the drum almost wasn't going to stop beating. It was going to be building and building and building, but then if I did, I know it was going to be similar where I didn't want to be because I wasn't even enjoying drinking right by the time I stopped. I had too high of a tolerance, it's just making me feel bad, right? So both of these things were like, I felt such in a spot and I think often when you have these opposing forces, whether it's, you know, anything, I mean, even from government or whatever, you need almost this third way to come through and it's just sitting with it and realizing that you are in control. And it doesn't sound like it's going to work. That's the funny thing about it. Like, okay, how is, how is just sitting and saying, how does it feel to really want this beer? How does it feel? How does it smell? And just sitting with it and pausing before you actually do it doesn't mean don't do it at that moment. Like, you know, get gentle with yourself, but it's, it's phenomenally powerful. This idea is it reminds me of like, you know how when you bring it, repeat a word like 300 times it loses all its meaning. It's just a bunch of weird sounds. Like that's kind of like I think we get this instant, our brain like goes into all these memories and how you're gonna feel. It's already telling you, you already relax when you decide you're gonna drink. You have any, that's the interesting part, me too, with food. Like it hasn't even entered your body. So it is not that substance alone, you know, it is all the subject stuff. So, so it's like already, you know, your mind instantly goes back to these memories and how great it's gonna be and all this stuff. And when we're in that, that's super hard. But when you sit with it, that waxes and wanes a little bit. And especially if you know that it will, that's the thing. I think having an understanding of how this works is so helpful. If you know, no, the super intense craving, it almost kind of can't last that long without us and innocently, but without us really going back to it. And like, in hindsight, you can see how maybe, like, how am I doing? Oh my gosh, is it still here? How am I feeling now? How long is it bad? You know, like all that again, or our willpower, whatever, all of that just keeps bringing it back. But I remember hearing that an emotion is in your brain for like 90 seconds. It be chemicals, the path it takes. It's about 90 seconds. And that makes sense. Because if you look at very little kids who don't hold onto things yet, they throw temper tantrums. They feel it for their 90 seconds when they get older, of course, they can keep it going. But you know, like it just, it wants to move. So cravings and urges and all of that do too. And yeah, like being able to, it's like repeating a word a million times, like it kind of loses it to just sit there and be like, oh, okay. Here's the smell of the beer, and I'm not drinking it. It does. It just invites in so much magic and just really leaves you seeing it in a different way. - Yeah, it's so cool. I think you're right. I think one of the biggest aha moments for me was when I asked myself, when do I actually start to feel relaxed? And it wasn't after I drank the four ounces of wine, that first drink. It certainly wasn't bad. And then I kind of backed it up. It wasn't even after the first sip. I realized that after a bunch of kind of self-experimentation, I started to feel relaxed when I opened the cabinet. When I was opening the cabinet and getting out the glass, that is when it was like, and I was like, wait a second. (laughs) That's not the alcohol. That's something in my own mind. And then you start observing now with other people. People, they arrive at the pub, after work, and people are already in a good mood. They're just being there, just knowing whatever that they're gonna end this craving. 'Cause the craving obviously has a physical aspect as well. And so when you, 'cause all sorts of, even I assume if you're binge eating, there's a dope mean that's released. And you create this entire physical chain reaction too. But that's so interesting when you start to see that and you start to say, okay, okay, this is not as scary as I thought it was, but that's really cool. - I've heard that from a heroin addict who said, he felt better calling up his dealer. - Yeah, he instantly felt better already calling his dealer. So even things, you know, the things that are supposedly the most physically addicting substances on earth, like even then, I mean, we don't feel the substance in a vacuum. We feel it through our thinking and memories and all that. So yeah, that's huge to see that. - Yeah, it's amazing. I wish there was some way to bottle the feeling of anticipation, you know, 'cause that's sort of, sort of what it is that gives you that. But yeah, I read another study and show you read it too, but about how when heroin addicts have gone into prison and they were completely separated from the substance and there was no option to do it, they had few to know withdrawal symptoms. Yet if they were even years later released and they went back into their old haunt and they tried not to do it, the cravings were as intense as ever and they hadn't put heroin in their body for years in some instances. So yeah, it's so much is happening in your mind. And so if you can really, as Amy says, let's sit back and just say, okay, I'm gonna watch how this chatterbox works and another thing that I love and we'll just touch on this before we close, but you kind of say, okay, identify the stories that this voice is telling you so that you can separate it from the true you, right? So how does that, how do you know that it's the voice, the five year old, instead of any grace, you know? - Yeah, I think that can be helpful sometimes to do that. One thing I will say, I think sometimes when we get too caught up in the content of our thinking, it's a bit of a mess. So I say like get to, it's not like right down all your thoughts because as you know, with the conscious ones, that's only the tip of the iceberg and that's not gonna do very much. But yeah, if you're noticing this stuff, I mean the way you know, I think it's just in the feeling of it, you get tense. There's something there to me like the feeling of a craving or an urge or stress or anything, anger is a helpful sign there to show us that there's a story floating through our hands that we don't realize is a meetup story. - Right. - I guess it's just the coolest system in the world. That's your Chuck Engine light, right? Your Chuck Engine just came on. You don't wanna see it on, but thank God you have it. Now pull over, let your car cool down and call somebody who knows how to diagnose it, but it's just that sign. So I think, yeah, you know, when you feel that tension, you feel whatever it is you feel, you can kinda start to, a lot of times, they just pop out of the woodwork, those old familiar stories. And with a lot of the binge eaters I work with, that's just the stuff like, oh, I shouldn't have had that. You start off your day with pancakes instead of granola or whatever their beliefs are about what's healthy and suddenly there's all this or you catch a reflection in the mirror or something and it just snowball, you know, tips off all of that thinking. And it is, it is going to just let it kinda come to awareness when it does and just see it for what it is. - I recently had a big group going through a 30 day alcohol experiment is what I'm calling it, just experimenting 30 days of that alcohol, see how you feel, like go into it with a mindset that's really about what you gain, not what you give up and being really positive. And I had everybody going into it, write me or and say, okay, what are they most afraid of? And it's amazing because we think that this is our fear, like it's personal to us and it certainly feels that way. But I mean, of the 700 responses I got, you could categorize them into six or eight things and they were all the same. And it was that the mind, not Annie's mind, but the mind giving this specific fear here or there. And you know, when you think, oh, I'm never gonna be able to relax without alcohol or I'm gonna be such a bore or none of my friends will invite me out or I'm not gonna be able to sleep at night or I'll be really boring. Other people will be boring to me or all of these things, they feel real. But they're really just the story that makes you uncomfortable. And then when you examine them compared to kind of objective evidence, you see, okay, that's not actually real, but I think becoming really aware of those stories and being able to sort of separate that from the true you because the true you is the one that really wants the health and wellness. You know, that's why you have the conflict because you've got this being inside of you that wants to take care of your body and take care of yourself. And then you've got this, you know, all of these things where you've gotten confused where you've just kind of gotten off path. And I think that the conflict comes from that but then also the conflict comes from the fact that we really beat ourselves up for the confusion instead of accepting that, okay, we're humans and that has happened, you know, it's not, it's certainly not our fault and it wasn't our intention and there was no bad intention. I don't think, you know, anybody said, okay, I'm gonna really screw my life up and go get addicted to something, you know, it was just like not something we consciously. I'm gonna mess up all my family and friends, I'm gonna show them, I'm gonna destroy myself, you know, just as it happened. And so kind of having that forgiveness and awareness that we're not doing this to ourselves intentionally and then from there, from that point of kind of self-acceptance, you can start to unravel all these stories and I love what you said about the check engine might like. All right, starting to feel something bad, let's just take a pause and see what story are you telling yourself, you know. - It's all just built on innocent misunderstanding, you know, if we knew how it worked or again, like little kids, they don't get caught up in this stuff. They feel all kinds of lights, but they don't get caught up in it like we do with the visual style, like little kids before they start thinking a lot, you know, and identifying with me and all that. So like, you know, one and a half and younger, like life just kind of flows and it flows through us. Like we don't lose that. That doesn't expire when we become adults. It's just that we identify, like you said, with all that those thoughts we think that's us and it's only us and this is my thought and it's not my thought. It's thought, you know, it's universal thought. It's just thought showing up and it's just amazing to have a feel for how that works a little bit because everything just relaxes. And then you're like, yeah, this is just a simple misunderstanding. And like you said, it's not my fault, but do this on purpose. It doesn't mean more weak, it doesn't mean any of that. and just letting it be easy like that, letting it be so. and kind of let it go on all the tension and the trying to fix it and everything. Things start to kind of just right themselves. You know, like you do it, you bounce back, you notice that you're resilient and you realize you can pause. All the things we've been talking about, you realize not to do pass, you realize you are okay. You know, like we have insights, we're built to have those kind of insights. So we just need to do our best to see what we can to be able to get out of the way. And then trust, you know, the systems are like, "I'll help us out." Right. I heard it explained, well, it might have been in your book, but I'm not sure, but basically the idea was you're driving down a highway and all the cars are passing, passing, and the trees are passing. And you're just having this very experience of just driving in here. And you're just like not really, you know, you're not attached to anything. You're just there and you're seeing the colors and its sensory input. And it's great. And then all of a sudden, you notice one of the cars on the other side of the road looks like, you know, your ex-boyfriends car, and it looks like there's someone in the passenger seat or whatever. And all of a sudden, you're like, "Yeah!" And then you're just looking at that car. And then even when that car is passed, you all you see is that car. And you've stopped seeing the beautiful trees and you've stopped seeing all the colors of the other cars because you've stopped on that thought. And that's so often what we do with, you know, this idea that you go out to the bar and you're trying to just drink a soda and lime. And then the someone says something like, "Oh, come on, that's boring!" And then all of a sudden, like, "Nee, I'm going to be boring if I'm not a drinker." And you just stop there. And you stop having this multi-sensory experience of just being in a social place with a lot of amazing people which is a great experience on its own. You stop having that because you've stopped on that one thought. And you've really gotten stuck there. And so the idea of just saying, "Okay, that was a thought." And I'm just going to let that go for a minute and just like be back here. And yeah, I'll deal with it if it really is important. But guess what? Then it just passes and then you realize, "Wow, that really wasn't important." It's really a lot of passes. Just see that we bounce back like that. That we can't, you know, that if we just say, "Oh, okay, now I'm stuck on this thought." Okay, like, there's nothing we have to do to reverse that because it's in our nature to just, that thought, to keep on going. If we're not stopping it and replaying it a million times. So yeah, just seeing that are resilience and that bounce back that our mind does naturally. It's awesome. I love that. Like, it's in our nature. So I think it was in your book you wrote something like the natural state of the mind is peace. And I really at first took kind of issue with that because I was like, "Really?" "Mine natural state of mind does not feel very peaceful all the time, Amy." And so I was really kind of digging into that. I was talking about it with my husband. I was like, "How is this? How is this?" And we recently had a little baby, right? And she's three months old. And if you look at her, her natural state of mind is peace. Before the language came in, before the identification came in, before anything else came in, you're absolutely right. The natural state of mind is peace. Like, it's just unbelievably true. And I was like, "Wow, that's so true." I was also discussing with my husband and we were kind of talking over this concept. And we both had been through bad breakups way back when before we were married. And I remember that when I was dealing with a really bad breakup or anything traumatic in your life, you would wake up in the morning and you would have probably five or six seconds of just peace where you didn't feel anything. It wasn't bad. And then all of a sudden, you remember what was happening. You'd remember the story of your life. And all of a sudden, it was very much like, you weren't feeling that peace anymore. But guess what? When you first woke up, before you told yourself this story, it was peaceful, right? So fascinating. So I'm a convert, I believe you. That's my favorite evidence too. Like, right when you wake up and right as you're falling asleep, when all this conceptual thought stuff is habitual as it might be, when all that falls away, everyone feels peace. Everyone, you know, but sometimes you don't notice it. And it's very easy like anything. When you believe or when you're just kind of thinking, "Huh, I think my natural state is anxiety." Or I think my natural state is whatever, you'll find tons of evidence for that. But it's so cool to see the other way and then you see evidence of that. Yeah. And then you start to, because it is, it can be so tiny that you don't notice it until you start to make, you know, more room for it. But in order to do that, you have to sort of say, you know, is this story about whatever I'm telling myself, I'm going to be a bore if I don't drink. You know, is that true or not true? And it's not like you have to argue with it or answer it. You just have to ask the question, really. Just give the question to your mind. Just give the question yourself. Is that really true? All right, I'm going to worry about that later and just keep on going. Right? And just kind of let it go. But it's brilliant. It's not very cool. Well, Amy, I mean, this has been awesome. I'm so glad to have you on the podcast. And yeah, if you have not read Amy's book, it's the little book of Big Change by Dr. Amy Johnson. And it's phenomenal. It's the no willpower approach to breaking any habit. And the brilliant thing about this book is that it works, you know, I think for anything that's a habit. And we talk, you know, you get confused with habit and addiction in all these words. But really, it's something that has become below your conscious awareness. So something that's habitual is something that you're doing without necessarily thinking about it. And I think the addiction part for me, at least how I define it, it comes in when you become conscious that you don't want to be doing that thing. And you feel trapped. So it's something that you no longer want to be doing that you that you feel a strong urge or desire to do. But that did start as a habit. Like all addictions, like they start as a habit. And I think the pain of the addiction just comes when you're in battle with it. Because that battle is quite painful. But it's all semantics anyway. But anyway, the book is phenomenal. And Amy, it's been such a pleasure to have you. Thank you so much. Yeah, it's a great conversation. Yeah, yeah, very cool. All right, we'll have a great day. Thank you, you too. This has been Annie Gray. So this naked mind podcast. Thank you so much for listening. You can learn more at thisnakedmind.com. And please remember to rate, review, and subscribe as it really helps us spread the word.