Tiny Shifts with Dr Elisha Goldstein

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]Welcome to this live action for happiness event. My name is Mark Williamson and we're talking today about tiny shifts, small but vital changes that we can make in how we respond to the rather overwhelming situations we can often find ourselves in daily life.

[00:00:19]Thank you for being here. Thank you for welcoming each other from all around the world as always. And I'm particularly glad to be welcoming our special guest today, Dr. to Elisha Goldstein who's author of this fantastic book. We'll talk about Tiny Shifts and uh is going to guide us through this topic this evening. Elisha, thank you so much for being here.

[00:00:38]>> Mark, it's it's really great to be back with you.

[00:00:41]>> Yes, you're one of a few special guests who've been with us more than once and I'm really grateful to have a chance to explore this topic with you. Uh in a moment, we'll turn to to you and your background, but just to say first of all, thank you to everyone who's joining this from all around the world. Thank you especially to members of the action for happiness community who are trying to live these values in everyday life recognizing that the the tiny shifts we make in our own lives can affect our own well-being and they can also ripple out and help make the world a calmer, kinder, happier place for others as well. And I hope we'll have a chance to reflect on some of those ripple effects a bit later. But let's start uh and you will have a chance to ask Elisha questions. Uh so please do get ready for that later. But let's start Elisha maybe you could say a bit about your background um obviously lots of professional experience lots of people you've been helping but why tiny shifts and and why is this topic important right now you know um okay well we'll start with the first one first of all I'm so happy to be with everyone I'm really excited this is um you know just I think being with Mark makes me happy and being with everyone you all of you kind of lifts me up and seeing everyone seeing where everyone's coming from and really the global group here is exciting. Um I think in my mid20s sometime ago uh probably um you know over 25 years ago I made the decision that um I'm only going to do things in my life that have like a real tangible practical application. I'd been doing so many things for so many years just because people told me or it sounded good but I needed to see it actually translate in our lives. and and then, you know, I don't know, over the past decade, social media, everything like that. Um, I've been seeing so many things come through that are telling me all the the the things I need to do to be happier or to be more fit or to be a better person or to and they're all these these big changes in so many ways.

[00:02:42]And what I came to realize is that real change doesn't come from doing more. It it comes from learning how to relate differently to what's already here in our lives, to the lives that we're already living. And often times it's in these it's in these ordinary moments where we find ourselves, you know, just kind of stressed out. We find ourselves in this lowgrade chronic overwhelm whether it's with our family, our work, our relationship with exercise or what we're eating or whatever it is where we can learn how to pause and interrupt what's happening so that we can release a little bit of tension that's there, the sematic reaction. We can refocus on what matters and we can reinforce a healthier shift um in our lives. And and these small little tiny emotional pivots when in the moment might seem just kind of small even though they they make kind of a big effect, but when you weave them together like anything else, repetition is the mother of mastery. Our brain memorizes procedures. It's called procedural memory or implicit memory. And when we say neurons that fire together, wire together, whatever way we want to say it, when you weave in these small emotional pivots with repetition, that's what actually creates the real change.

[00:04:05]Yes. And I'm looking forward to exploring some of that in in detail. But maybe we could take a moment. Well, first of all, actually, just to drill a little bit more into the sort of work that you do, Elisha, because I I know one of the things I'm really excited that we're going to do to follow up this event is you've got some great free resources that we're going to share with participants and send them afterwards.

[00:04:24]But I know you work in various ways to help people and use these ideas. Am I right in saying that the kind of topics we'll be talking through together today are things that you've been trying out and refining and using to help people over many years? Yeah, I would say that the simplicity of of this model, um, took me a couple decades to get to.

[00:04:43]And so, um, and oftentimes I find that I find like I I'll listen to people like on stage throughout historically. I'm a clinical psychologist, so I've been going to conferences for, you know, like well over a couple decades now. And I I'm and historically seen some of the people that even Mark has had on action for happiness. um you know see them kind of speaking I'll say wow they really say that so simply and here they are they're like in their 60s or 70s and it just took them a long time to get to that simplicity and so I've been kind of working and refining in my work seeing people individually running global programs um around therapeutic coaching um written this is my sixth book that I've written >> wow >> and um I grew up in the field of uh originally in mindfulness-based stress reduction like that whole John Cabbadzen era early on in the you know late 19 late 1900s and um you know like I I found mindfulness to be a very important early on a very essential and important need as technology was starting to ramp up. I remember talking with someone about this and saying like this mindfulness thing like that was like you know back again in the late 90s is going to be really big because like just look at us we're getting like our attention's getting more fractured. there's or it feels like there's more stress in the world than before and like there's a natural balancing that needs to happen.

[00:06:06]So to train people how to be here um and more in their body and grounded seemed like a a need that was um yearning to be filled. So I think he came along at the right time with his program at that um and so I I was learning to become a clinical psychologist. I I found it very important to train ourselves how to get in touch with the meaningful moments in our daily lives. And I created a study back then called sacred moments implications on well-being and stress that was published in the journal of clinical psychology which trained us how to be aware of what mattered in our lives and pay attention to it for a few minutes a day for 5 days a week for 3 weeks and that had statistically significant results on stress reduction and and a variety of scales of well-being. So for me it was always about this tiny shifts is like full circle for me because it was always about the moments like how do we meet these these moments um in small ways uh and it comes back a little bit to that sacred moment study that I did. So, one of the things that struck me about tiny shifts is the starting point for this being that we are in a kind of culture of overwhelm. And one of our responses to that, as you were saying to me when we spoke the other day, that we there's more we need to do to sort of help ourselves and it becomes even more overwhelming. And and I like this idea you you use this idea of us being stuck in kind of emotional loops like a stress loop or a anger loop or an overwhelm loop. Could you say a bit more about loops and then maybe we could ask the audience a little bit about some of the loops we're all stuck in at the moment?

[00:07:42]>> Yeah, but let's all agree that since 2007, I mean, I mentioned, you know, hey, John Kabin came at the right time in 2000, you know, like he came in in 1979, but like it kind of like exploded in 2000 because I felt like the world was kind of beginning to unravel more. But since 2007 when the iPhone came out um and then social media eventually began to ramp up a bit and we've been we started getting hit with messages with repetition um and you know companies were spending trillions of dollars to get the base of our brain to to find out to unpack um you know what's going to make us pay attention longer so we can you know sell more ads and make more money. And so the more we started paying attention to this stuff, the more we started falling into this what that the reason chapter one of the book is called the culture of overwhelm is because we started falling into this you know just kind of very insidious subtle sense of chronic overwhelm. And um I relate the story that um David Foster Wallace said at like some um some uh graduate ceremony where he was like talking about these two fish and these two young fish swimming in the ocean and and um one older fish comes up to them and says looks at them and says like hey boys how's the water and they look at him kind of confused and carry on and then they one fish says to the other and says what the hell is water. And so we we live in this right now. We live in this time where we're constantly being pinged. We have this urgency bias to respond to people. Our nervous systems are always like looking for the next thing. We don't even notice it because again, it's just the water we swim in.

[00:09:30]But we live in a heightened state of arousal right now than you know a while back. And so um these emotional loops we get caught in are just these patterns that we've developed genetically since childhood and certainly reinforced by our culture of thoughts, emotions, physiological reactions or sensations and certain actions we take.

[00:09:56]So it's those four things and you can call I call I call the umbrella one right now I feel like in our culture the overwhelm loop. Um, but certainly like foundationally it's a stress loop.

[00:10:08]Emotionally we can cotton we get caught in anger loops or anxious loops or I try to have fun with them sometimes and say, "I can't believe the the the the sink is still full of dishes when I asked my son to do the dishes last night loop." um you know and you know whatever whatever we're going to do because to be able to recognize the the the loop that we're in is our first step to freedom. Well, I'd love to come to the steps in a moment because I know that you have a fantastic framework which we're going to explore together.

[00:10:43]But let's just take a moment to sort of check in with this community here live with us about the loops that we're in.

[00:10:49]So let's I love your core idea that there's an overwhelm loop. I think that captures how I feel and how many people feel a lot of the time. So, as you're listening to this folks, wherever you are, what what's something that's sort of causing a sense of overwhelm or keeping you in a stress loop right now?

[00:11:04]Um, let's start by being honest and recognizing how things are. So, share a few things that are causing overwhelm and I'll read a few of these out and then maybe Elisha you can respond to them. So, lack of money, the news, moving house, email overwhelm, climate crisis, aging parents, social anxiety, inflation, guns, tech, death of someone.

[00:11:25]I missed who that was, uh, politics, divorce, aging, caregiving, neighbors, noise, news, health, anxiety, loneliness, chronic injury.

[00:11:36]>> Oh, yeah.

[00:11:36]>> Fear of World War I. I mean, wow, that is >> real and really to see that list. I mean, how does that resonate with you?

[00:11:44]>> Yeah, the the first of all, what what what's really present with me? I mean, there's all all of this. There's so much um right now. Um the loneliness loop um is a big one we want to watch out for because I know I know we've been um you know Vivic Murthy's talked a lot about this and and other people but what's very current for us right now which is important to pay attention to is our relation our the kind of subtle relationship we're starting to kind of create with our AI companions and whether that's like engaging with claude or chat GBT or or or with those specific companions. And I'm only going to just make this note right now because I'm super interested how we're starting to be in relationship with this kind of new entity that's here. Um, and the American Psychological Association came out and said, uh, that um, right now the greatest use case for AI right now isn't productivity, which a lot of people are using it for in their business, but it's for companionship.

[00:12:46]And what they found, one study out of Harvard found that when people come in with a predisposed certain level of loneliness and they lean in hard to that kind of companionship or just kind of dialogue with it, they come out feeling more lonely. Um, that's different than people who come in with a moderate sense or a low sense of loneliness.

[00:13:07]>> Um, so I just think I'm just going to kind of name that because that one got me, the loneliness loop um that we get caught in. Yeah.

[00:13:14]>> Thank you. And I I think lots got me in that list. And I just wanted to sort of uh just to hold space for what people shared there, which is that's that's a lot. And uh for everyone who's dealing with any of those things, let alone more than one of them. And I recognize lots of those are very current. Uh thank you for sharing that. And again, let's just notice that that's there's a lot that we're dealing with. So with that in mind, I'm delighted to invite you, Ela, to share your framework that's in the tiny shifts book. Uh I think you call it the four Rs. Do you want to maybe set the scene and introduce that for us?

[00:13:44]Yeah, I see do see this one um uh off-topic comment, Mark, that someone loves your hair. So, I'm just I'm just kind of going to name that right now.

[00:13:53]>> I've just cycled back from London, jumped in the shower, got crazy messy hair, and rosy cheeks from from cycling in the rain. So, uh yeah.

[00:14:00]>> Uh yeah, >> I don't think my hair is one of the four Rs yet. So, uh >> so, you know, yeah, we're naming the the grief loop here. I'm seeing the grief loop. I'm seeing the um you know, I'm seeing there. By the way, there's also positive loops, too. There's the positive or emotionally comfortable loops too that we can kind of like cycle into and we can kind of note those as we're talking about it.

[00:14:19]>> Um, but here we're talking about kind of interrupting, you know, the ones that are unhealthy for us, the ones that we do feel like we need grand overhauls to change our life with. Um, and so I think your question was about the the framework. Was that it?

[00:14:33]>> Okay. So, so here's the here's the framework. It's taken me a couple decades to get to. I'm I'm a big fan of both acronyms that say what they're going to do and frameworks that are memorable. I'm a big fan of that. So, um this framework I created in four Rs basically. Um and you'll see there's there's there's science behind each one of them. There's um there's a logic that has a lot of um support in various areas be each behind each one of them. and and and I'll name that so you understand the where each one is coming from and the practical application of it. It wasn't kind of created out of you know out of thin air. So the first one the I I'll name it the four Rs are recognize, release, refocus, reinforce.

[00:15:23]So with with recognize, what's happening is we're noticing, you know, the the the loop that we're in. We can kind of name any of these that that came in through here. Yeah. and uh and recognizes something that's in that's that has overlapping validity um across many different sectors. So for example in all in many of the world's wisdom traditions the ability to recognize label and notice is something that's been common for thousands of years. The importance of that in the field of psychology we also talk about naming your emotions being aware of how you're feeling like like the classic thing in therapy. How are you feeling today? Right? So there's that. In the field of neuroscience, um we also know that naming and recognizing and labeling brings more blood flow to the prefrontal region which is involved with emotion regulation and impulse control. That was a study um that was done years ago at a UCLA which had people kind of recognize um and name fearful or angry faces and shot and saw more blood flow in the prefrontal and less blood flow in the amydala at that time versus not naming them and seeing more blood flow in the amydala. So there's a lot of validity to labeling, noticing, naming. So the mo the moment we do that experientially, the moment I notice like, oh, I'm I'm, you know, there's there's a lot of stress here right now. So again, emotional loop, thoughts, emotions, sensations, actions, you can enter the first R in any of those. You might notice what you're thinking. You might notice some fe some the way your body is feeling. You might notice an emotion that's there. You might notice that you're just scrolling on your phone or you just shouted at your kid or you're about to tailgate someone in traffic. Um you you can you can enter and recognize and label and notice in any of these places. So that's the that's the power of recognizing. It steps us into that space between stimulus and response which is classic mindfulness in a lot of ways. Just awareness. Um nothing new but it's the foundation of the model because it's we can't enter anywhere without awareness. It's the 15th century Indian poet Kabir who said wherever you are that's the entry point and so and so there we are. So that's the first R.

[00:17:36]>> So so one of the ways I've described that before is sort of getting off autopilot because we I guess we're we're spending so much of our time just sort of rushing around a little bit automatically. And what we really say I mean people call it mindfulness but it's really just like >> I've just I'm here right now and I'm just noticing something about and it it's not necessarily naming it as good or bad. It's just like I'm angry. I'm I'm I'm busy. I'm rosy cheicked. I'm whatever I am just being like aware with it. Is that is that right? It's sort of getting into conscious mode rather than autopilot.

[00:18:05]>> Yeah. But I want to make it really practical for and simple for everyone.

[00:18:08]So for example, in the very f throughout tiny shifts the book um I have these things called tiny insights and tiny shifts in action in actions. The whole point is that as you're reading the book, you're not needing to lift anything. you're automatically starting to integrate what's there. So the very first one in reference to this is really just can you be aware where your body is bracing in any given moment. So if we're if we can if we can all agree that off and on we're in this lowgrade chronic stress or we get pinged into this urgency bias throughout the day um your body is reacting. This is like one thing we know that this is a nervous system.

[00:18:49]And so um when we are feel any kind of stress, our body goes into some variation of a fight, flight, freeze response, which means our heart rate starts to go up, our blood pressure starts to go up a little bit, our our our breathing becomes a little bit more shallow, we start to become tense in different areas of our body depending on what the emotional experience is. Um, and so, uh, we we I start I just ask the question, can you be aware of where you're bracing or or for me, I carry a lot in my shoulders throughout the day?

[00:19:24]Very simple just to be on the lookout for where you're noticing your shoulders tensing in the day. And the moment you recognize them, we can begin to go move into the sec. Sometimes the moment you recognize them begin to drop automatically. But we can move very slightly into the second R which is around releasing. Um and we can talk about that if you want to.

[00:19:47]>> Yes, please.

[00:19:48]>> Okay. Okay. So >> I mean I'm thinking like how would we do this? But maybe you could talk a little bit about release and then maybe we could actually try and practice a little bit of recognizing and releasing together right now. You know, I would even ask anyone who's listening right now, um, or, uh, you know, whether you're listening to this live or on the recording, like go ahead and chat in if you want to, like where do you notice, where do you hold your emotional reactivity in your body? Some of us hold it around our eyes. We get tension around our eyes or in the area between our eyes. Sometimes we hold it in the shoulders. Um, sometimes we hold it in our glutes. Some people hold it in our back or in our stomach. Some holding it in our hands. Um, where do you where do you hold it? That very idea of writing it out. So much coming over here right now. Jaw, hold my breath. That that's very common. Chest, back, neck, stomach, jaw lock, upper back. Like there's, you can see there's a variety of places we all kind of hold this stuff. And so we're on the lookout for it. And we want to keep this very simple. Like as we're learning this method, we don't even need to learn it all at once. Even though there's a simplicity behind it, we can just ask ourselves today like where do you um where where do you notice can can you just notice the bracing today and see if you can just see if you can name it or where it is. Let's just let that can that just be enough for today. Just be on the lookout for that and allow that to be enough for today. We can keep it that simple. I run a 21-day program. Um, it's called the 21-day tiny shifts experience where we kind of like drop voice notes in every day. And, you know, it's it's it's simplicity like this because we're starting to kind of build in these tiny shifts over time. The release piece, Mark, is understanding that when our nervous system gets involved, which it does every time, a lot of people think that awareness piece, you step into that space between stimulus and response, and that's good. Now I'm mindful. Now I'm aware. you know, I can kind of choose a different response, right? That's what the quote says. Between stimulus and response, there's a space. In that space lies our power to choose our response.

[00:21:53]We choose a response in that space. So, I go in a different I think differently.

[00:21:57]I act differently. I I choose to put the chips down. I'm not eating that bag of chips anymore. I'm not going to react to my kid and shout at them. I'm not going to tailgate the person. But that's not reality. reality is when our nervous system is involved, when we our muscles are tense and we're wound up from something to some degree and we become aware of it, if we try and think differently or choose a different reaction at the at that time, typically we just snap back because we're we're wound. So, we try pull that and it just kind of snaps back and we're like, "U, I knew it. I can't I knew I can't change.

[00:22:33]I knew it's all just back to square one or whatever." What we need is we need an unwinding to happen in that moment. Just a little bit, not a lot. So the release is saying if I notice my shoulders here, can I take a breath, maybe a little slower exhale, and notice my shoulders slightly dropping? What's happening is, and everyone can try this right now.

[00:22:54]Let's play with this for a second.

[00:22:57]I want you to take a breath in and notice how your shoulders slightly rise.

[00:23:02]Take a slightly slower and longer breath out. And notice how your shoulders slightly fall and that your shoulders are beginning to stretch. The muscles stretch ever so slightly. Do that one more time now that you know what we're doing. Breathing in, shoulders slightly rise. Breathing out, your shoulders slightly fall and your muscles begin to stretch ever so slightly. So in the release, and you can kind of notice how that felt. Very simple. In the release, what we're doing is we're not just stepping into the space between stimulus and response. Now, we're widening the space between stimulus and response. So, there's more emotional capacity now in the moment. We have more access to choice, possibility, and freedom. And we're a little bit more grounded.

[00:23:50]There's a little bit more spaciousness.

[00:23:51]Not a ton. We don't need to be all calm, all at ease, all it's not about that.

[00:23:56]It's about beginning to shift our tendency in a different direction from where our mind was going. There's a great great quote that I'll just kind of name. I don't know exactly where it came from, but it's it's wherever our attention goes, energy flows. And then some neuroscientists came and said and that's the way the brain grows, right?

[00:24:14]And so if we're if we're focused on the troubles, the worries, the the next thing always the whatever's whatever the thoughts are that are involved in that loop, we get one thing. If we begin to shift our focus towards just beginning to, and this is just the beginning, beginning to to redress the physiological reaction, we start to get lean in a little bit more towards ease and calm, groundedness, steadiness. Um, and that sets us up for the next one.

[00:24:43]But even that alone um is a really powerful move. Yeah, I find that powerful in that moment, Elisha, in that my awareness was helping me realize that I was breathing quite sh in a quite shallow way and I had lower lower the lower back is where I tend to hold my strain and it was noticing that I was a bit tense there. So actually that um breathing and actually allowing my lower back to relax, I can feel that my heart rate sort of like lowered a bit and I just feel a bit more at ease. And so even though I haven't got to thinking about doing anything differently, I've just sort of seen something, named it, and just slightly disarmed it a little bit. So that feels like a good starting point. So that's that's the first two of those steps. So where do we go after um recognize and release? What's next?

[00:25:29]Okay. So you can see here like in this process like I I could do that while walking from my bedroom to the kitchen.

[00:25:36]I can do that while I'm driving. I could do that while talking with someone and feeling activated by what they're saying. Um the what we're trying to do is we're trying to work with something that we can use in real time in our lives in these ordinary moments. So we recognize we release now that the now that the space by the way just want to kind of name something else about release Mark just so everyone's it's not just our shoulders or you know sometimes release comes in the form of just taking a moment and kind of shaking things out.

[00:26:05]What we're looking to do is like release some of the sematic energy that's there that's being tied up. Um, you know, sometimes release can be in singing.

[00:26:14]Sometimes I need to get my thoughts on paper and so I'm releasing them out on paper because there's a story in my head. That release step, which doesn't take very long, um, can be in all of these different ways. Um, the idea again, very simple. We're just trying to kind of release the stored energy that's come from the emotional loop that we got stuck in um or that cycling within us.

[00:26:36]It's a again, there's nothing wrong with us. It's just a conditioning and patterning that we're caught in. That's it. And if we've learned a certain conditioning and patterning, we can learn to interrupt it and begin to build something new. So, just kind of like naming that for everyone. Thank you.

[00:26:52]>> The second the third the third step is refocus. So now that we've recognized and we've released, so we we're in a little bit of a wider space, a little more blood flow to our prefrontal region. Now we're feeling a a bit more steady. All we need is like a few percentage points. We're not looking for something big, right? We're we're tiny shifts is, you know, the name of it all.

[00:27:13]So it's these small emotional pivots. So one of the most powerful ways of refocusing is asking ourselves questions. Why? Because think think about this. when you're feeling stressed or worried or um you're caught in like a shame loop, let's say, um your your mind's asking what's wrong with me? Um is this person mad at me? Um uh or or how are things going to go terribly wrong in this scenario? The world, how is the world going to go to the hell in the hand basket right now? Like where our brain's always asking questions because it's trying to help prepare us and keep us safe for the future. Even even taking a moment to release sends safety signals to the brain like I'm safe enough to exhale. I'm safe enough for my body to relax. So with the refocus, we're asking a different question. When we ask our brain questions, it searches for answers. I like to call this accessing our natural intelligence.

[00:28:12]So, um, if I'm sitting there and this was a real thing and people who anyone here who's kind of followed my work has likely heard this story and it's certainly in tiny shifts and and actually it happened while I was writing this book which was which at some point I was like oh this is really great because you know it's happening while I'm writing this book but it was a a moment I was um basically Facebook scammed uh by someone who said who it was a celebrity who wanted me to be on their health panel on some Facebook live that they were doing and it seemed like a really cool thing because I was writing this book and I'm like I'm writing this book. This is going to be good exposure for the book.

[00:28:50]I'm like I was excited about it.

[00:28:52]Anyways, there was a lot of little red flags on this tech check that they did with me and they had me go into my Facebook manager and kind of like update some things or whatever and immediately I contacted them afterwards cuz it seemed a little strange and they told me like, "You've been scammed. Um, this person's been doing this to us using our name. don't give them any information.

[00:29:12]Well, I already had given them some information and so uh immediately I checked. I was locked out of my Facebook. Some weird stuff was coming up on my Facebook public figure page and and I I was immediately caught in an anxious loop. So, I'm going to bring you through exactly what happened so we can see this in real time. Recognized this at some point my whole body was like tensing up so I could be aware of it.

[00:29:36]That was my entry into the emotional loop. being able to name that there's anxiety here and um I was able to kind of take a breath. I was able to get support which is something that I needed right now. My assistant was able to come on and help me. Um I needed something different so I decided to take a walk outside. I leashed up my dogs, went on a walk. What happens when in real life when you're working with this work is it's not so cut and dry. Um it's not so much like um I'm just in an anxious loop or I'm just in this. What happens is it begins to shift and change when you begin working with it. So for me, I noticed this anxious loop that was there. It began to translate into a shame loop. Um what did that mean? I started noticing how mean my mind was being to me. What's wrong with you? You should have known better. You saw the red flags. You went with it anyway. Um and and I noticed in that moment I'm like I'm this recognize this is a shame loop. It's it's a really severe one in fact. So recognized released. Release doesn't again release sometimes means for me I was noticing this heaviness in my chest. All I could do was soften around it. I started walking a little bit slower. I started releasing with my breath and asking myself the question that so many people have heard here before. But just because you've heard it here before doesn't mean that it's not worth using. It just means it's probably perennial. Which if there's one question we all need to tattoo on our brain. It's really just if we don't remember any other questions, it's really that question like what do I need right now?

[00:31:08]Like what do I need right now? Um bring to me brings us directly to um like a puzzle piece like fitting in a puzzle piece that's missing and that led to another question which was well I need I need to be kinder to myself. So another question was, "Can I even be kinder to myself?" And a small voice, there was a lot of loud voices happening, but a small voice said, "Yes, I think you can." Okay. So another question, "Well, what would that look like?"

[00:31:37]Well, that would look like, and this is me, so those of you who have seen like videos of me like um filming in my neighborhood, like me walking around, like doing little reels or something like that. This was me in my neighborhood, same thing. And I was walking around. I began to put my hand on my a hand or two on my actually just a hand because I had my other um hands on the leashes on my chest. And the reason this works by the way for a lot of people even though it's become a little cliche almost like hand on your chest. Yeah. Is because when you put your hand on your chest if you can feel your fingers on your chest that means your brain is mapping the sensory network which there's an inverse relationship. I call it the difference between the spinning gear and the steady gear. There's an inverse relationship between being able to be present to a sensation and the and the default mode, the narrative network that many of you have heard of here before um which is also like the spinning gear. Um between the intensity and loudness of that. So when one is up, the other goes down.

[00:32:40]It's like a seessaw effect. So if you're really feeling your hand here, the the intensity and loudness of your thoughts are going to come down. Also, the heart or making contact with our bodies is associated with kindness and care. And so you get a little bit of that, which is what I was needing in that moment.

[00:32:56]That then translated into anger eventually shifted into anger, which was probably the healthiest one of the healthiest emotions I had because I had been violated and someone had intruded into, you know, did they take my one of my anxious? Did they take my identity?

[00:33:10]are they stealing my financial information? And um and I could be like more constructive with that. So my question there was can I allow this? Can I allow this feeling just to be? I used to have a lot of struggles with anger.

[00:33:21]You'll read in read about it in tiny shifts but um can I allow this to be?

[00:33:27]And I said yeah so I can walk. I can be present. I can allow the anger to be here. And you notice how this all began to shift. Emotions are energy in motion.

[00:33:37]So if you if you work through this kind of protocol, you'll notice that things begin to shift and change. Sometimes it'll just kind of peel away and you'll notice yourself just kind of steadier and calmer sooner. Sometimes it'll shift into other feelings and emotions that are there and we work with them all in the same way.

[00:33:55]It's really powerful to hear that real life example and it reminded me of a time that Action for Happiness's Twitter account got hacked and there was all that kind of like worry of like somebody might be being us in the world and not being adhering to our values and all the sort of guilt and complexity that comes with that. So hearing how you handle that situation was really yeah compelling to understand it. And I guess I'm feeling that the the recognize the mindfulness, the the the release, the sort of breathing practice or the get outside or whatever and the refocus that feels like a pretty, you know, great response to a difficult situation. In many ways, you your question of what do I need? You shifted your perception, etc. That sort of feels like a complete picture. So, what's the fourth step of your four Rs? Because in some ways, that's the most intriguing to me in in a way.

[00:34:42]>> Yeah. I before we get to that, I just want to kind of name one thing, >> which is >> um I said with the most powerful way to refocus is to learn how to ask ourselves new questions. What do I need is just the one that's the one we want to kind of tattoo on our brain, but the but there's a variety of everyday ones that we can use. What what's something I can do to enhance the next five minutes of this of of this day?

[00:35:08]um what what's something what what's the most important thing for me to focus on right now? Like there's so there's so many things depending on what the the moment calls different questions that are going to help you help your mind kind of naturally refocus. With that said, sometimes I'll say this, sometimes um not even sometimes, everyone who's here right now, every single person who's here has listened to podcasts, has um read books, has likely gone maybe to therapy off and on or coaching or things like that. You have a lot of wisdom. You have a lot of experience. you likely already even know maybe what you need in that moment. And the issue isn't with the information or the content. And that's why we just don't need like always just more content. We need to learn how to access what we already know. So that's another way of refocusing is being able to call on the wisdom that you already know. And so sometimes you don't need to ask a question. Sometimes you can just kind of go with what you already know. Like you already know that putting your hand on your heart is activates the parasympathetic and supports you. you for me for for insomnia, I already knew that bringing my attention to my body and being curious about the sensations there even though my mind was telling me that nothing will ever work that way would eventually impact me neurologically that would help my body go to rest. I I knew this stuff. It was just about accessing it. So sometimes it's that. Sometimes it's about learning how to reframe a situation um in that moment. Can I see this differently? Um, and sometimes it's just about getting out and changing the channel. Sometimes it's about like just go, as some of my students have said, sometimes I just need to in these moments where I'm feeling overwhelmed or I'm caught in this emotional reaction, I recognize I release and I just go outside and put my hands in the dirt. Sometimes it's just that, right? So that's a refocus. So now I'll get to the ref.

[00:37:03]>> Well, let's So let's I love what you did earlier, Elisha, when we kind of just shared a moment of where we hold our attention. And why don't we just cuz you said that we should get this question tattooed on our brains. Why don't we just take a moment with the audience to ask that the the the number one question of like what do I need right now? Maybe wherever you are listening to this and you you thought initially about something that's creating a sense of overwhelm. You've noticed where you're holding tension. Maybe just answer in a couple of words if you'd like to. What do you need right now? Not for our benefit although we'd love to see it, but more for your own benefit to name it. So let's just see what comes up in the chat >> um for a moment before we move on to the final step. And it's very practical. I see people saying like, "I need I need food." Sometimes that that's true.

[00:37:42]You're in your day.

[00:37:43]>> A cup of tea, peace, self-compassion, a stretch to sit up straight. These are lovely.

[00:37:50]>> Yeah. Sometimes it's just that practical. It's like, I've been sitting all day long. I need to stretch.

[00:37:55]Sometimes it's like, "Wow, I've gone all day and I haven't had any food or I've been inside all day. I I need sunshine on my face." Sometimes it's that.

[00:38:01]Sometimes it's I need to talk with someone. What else are we saying here?

[00:38:04]>> Yeah. A laugh. Uh love. uh food. Yeah.

[00:38:08]Um some kind of sympathy or understanding, a good walk. Um yeah, just cut myself some slack. Uh to spend a bit more time tidying up to have a shower. I I love the practicality. So that's our three steps. I'm intrigued by where we go finally with the fourth R.

[00:38:25]Can you uh let us know more about reinforce, Elisha? So, if if I was to say the two steps that people miss the most in in trying to make, you know, these kind of ordinary these these kind of emotional pivots is we're really good at we've heard a lot about recognizing, okay, I'm able to I mean, we we're we're not I wouldn't say we're always that skilled at it, but um we we've heard about that we can recognize and I want to refocus onto something different. So, we we typically miss the release place, the release stage um and we and we miss the reinforce stage. So, this is the fourth R, the reinforce. So with reinforce what we're doing is we're we're building off of something in the field of neuroscience that's called emotional tagging. So what we want to do is if we feel if we move through an experience and we feel like some relief or some ease or an insight an insight something something new like someone said to be kinder to myself like an awareness to be kinder to myself and you actually did some kind of move that moved in that direction. The moment you notice a like a a little shift that's there physically, emotionally, mentally, something you're doing different, um, uh, we want to tag it in the same way that with social media, you tag somebody and it brings their attention to it. We want to make it more memorable. So in the next context, the next time you're with your kid and that he or she says that thing and it just kind of triggers you or the next time you get, you know, you're in traffic and you know, you forget that you're part of the traffic, too. or the next time you are coming home from a late day and you know you're exhausted and you want to reach for that you know gl that that glass of alcohol that you which not I'm not not demonizing alcohol but just saying that maybe if that's a habit a regular habit that you're wanting to kind of lessen a little bit whatever it is the um we when that shift is made we want to make it more memorable so there's variety there's a few ways that are simple to do this and I'll name I'll give a couple examples.

[00:40:28]But the intention of is it of it is to give yourself a little bit of space to let it land. Don't just move on to the next moment. We want it we want our brain to register it as context dependent short-term memory. So what we do is we take a moment and we notice it and we say, "Wow." We can just say to your in your mind, "Wow, that really was helpful to me." Or, "That was really supportive to me." Or, "Wow, I'm really noticing this shift right now." or you might name the the feeling that you're you're noticing.

[00:40:58]Take a moment to let it land. You might put your hands on your body for a moment and close your eyes and just take a moment to register. This doesn't need to be a minute or five minutes or 10 minutes. I'm talking about like take 10 seconds. Take 15 10 seconds actually is quite might even feel like quite a long time. 10 seconds. Let it land. Close your eyes for a moment if you want to see the moment and take a snapshot. see a picture being taken in your mind.

[00:41:26]These are all things that can support memory. Another way of letting it land is taking a moment and taking your phone out or getting out a piece of paper and just writing out what was supportive for you about that moment. That's another experience of letting it land. It's going to be more memorable for you in the future. And um and so in that moment when that thing happens, the way it looks like in looks in real time is like this. I had a client who I um worked with for a while around this exact thing. He was a a wealth manager and he had very wealthy clients, like billionaire clients. And so I guess there's like a number of billionaires now, like more than ever in the world before. It's it's not it's it's uncommon, but there's still out there's more out there than ever. Anyway, so he had this um client and this was I think a few years ago when the market just really tanked for a little bit and when the market tanks for these wealth managers, they get a lot of calls. And so he got this call and on the other end of that call was this was the guy who I guess lost probably I'm sure tens of millions of dollars or something like that. And he was screaming at him on the other end of the phone. And so for him he had done practice with this before and so he noticed himself getting im you can't there's no uh when something like that happens or just in our daily lives the pattern gets ignited immediately and he kind of just like with my Facebook hack he immediately felt his whole body getting taken over because he was basically being attacked and so um he was able to recognize this is something he had practiced before. He noticed this kind of like overwhelming feeling that was coming over him and an urge to fight back, to shout back, and he was able to take a beat and allow himself just to settle just a little bit while this screaming was coming in. And one way that he did that was he had this phrase that he developed called let it out the back door. What? So he imagined like a door in the back of his head and it kind of being let out the back door. So the yelling that was happening was coming here and going out. So he wasn't holding on to it. His refocus then in that moment was what do what do I need? What does this man need right now? Well, what I need and we talk about this in in chapter 12 of of the book around values about being aware of our values what's meaningful to us and what he want his value was being able to serve his clients and living in aligned with his integrity. So, um, and he needed to remain calm and grounded and steady. So, he was holding his body steady. The guy kind of like got his got what he needed to get out. And he was able to communicate with him in that moment and say, "Look, I know the market dropped.

[00:44:13]This is a scary situation. Um, I know a lot of money has been lost. I'm your wealth manager. What we want to do is create a plan right now that's going to support you feeling safe and you kind of growing your assets. Do you want to work on that collaborative collaboratively together? Something like that. But it was really the recognize, release, refocus. And in that moment after the phone was put down, he was able to re he was able to um or actually it wasn't in that moment. Sometimes the reinforce happens and communicating this with someone. So in our next session, I would say um when he was uh relaying this to me, I asked him, "What are you noticing as you're telling me this story?"

[00:44:53]and he noticed this sense of of pride and the sense of accomplishment and the sense of um confidence that no matter what comes his way, he can handle it.

[00:45:02]He's going to be okay.

[00:45:04]And that was a moment of reinforcing.

[00:45:08]>> What a powerful example. Elisha, we're getting towards the end of our time and I'd love to turn to questions from the audience. So folks, if you have a question for Elisha, please use the Q&A function and if you see one you like, please give it a vote so we can get those questions up to the top. And just while I'm letting people put some questions in, Elisha, what I love about that reinforce that final step, it reminds me, in fact, it's given me a name for something I've noticed I was doing and I hadn't really thought of it so consciously before, but one of my big emotional triggers is in a in an everyday situation with a loved one when I think I've been unfairly treated or there's a accusation, I get defensive, I might say something a bit sort of, you know, hostile in response to feeling like I'm attacked. And I've gradually found times when like that's happening and I and I'm able to say it's not about me. I can just let this pass. I can take a breath. I can move on. And sometimes I'm able to do that and sometimes I'm not. But more recently when I've been able to sort of go, I don't need to get involved here. I can just breathe and be compassionate or whatever. I've been able to say, "Oh, well done. That felt good." And like notice that I've managed to hold that space with the other person without going off on a an emotional, you know, unhelpful direction. and and that I think as you say that that experience of going, "Oh, I feel grateful that I was able to stay calm in that moment and and the fact that I've experienced that positive emotion about that difficult situation makes it more like to, as you say, reinforce me doing that again next time." So, I'm really grateful you've given me that vocabulary for that experience. Thank you.

[00:46:33]>> Yeah. Yeah. So, it's so important to to be able to celebrate the the shifts that we make. Like I don't I don't think that's in our regular practice.

[00:46:44]>> Well, I mean we do have a regular practice in this community of gratitude.

[00:46:47]And I wonder of course you do. Yeah.

[00:46:49]Could sometimes be not about like a good thing that happened to us but more like gratitude to ourselves for the way we handled some difficulty or the way we put our attention and refocused and so on. So um we will I hope before the end of the session just re remind ourselves of the four Rs one more time. But I think that's been really powerful to go through them in detail. I'd love to come to some of these questions. So, if you don't mind, Elisha dear Dre asked, "How can I control overeing using this practice?" Maybe that's a nice case study we could quickly work through the four hours with.

[00:47:18]>> Yeah. So, um, so I would I would I would I would I would take out a piece of paper or or a you know, something that's that's here. And if or we could kind of work through this live in this moment, but I want you to know that it's good to have something physical. And you might look at first the emotional loop. You might say, "Okay, so that moment that I'm because you can you can you have many memories of this. Um you're getting involved with the urge. That urge was a physical sensation. A craving is a thought. Um and an urge is a physical sensation. You can feel it. the moment that's about to happen. Um, and sometimes you can bring yourself to a memory and allow yourself to pause it to get in touch with this. Um, what what is the thought? What's the craving? I want this. I need this. I, you know, um, just just just just this just just now. Um, what's the emotion? Is there an underlying anxiety that's there? Is there a restlessness that's there? Is there a sadness that's there? Is there what's that? We're just kind of we're just being curious. You don't have to get it perfect. We're just kind of fleshing it out. What's the sensation in the body? Where is the urge? Where do you feel it? Is it in the throat? Is it in the chest? Is it somewhere in the shoulders? Like just be curious about it. Where are you noticing the sensation of it? And then the action is obviously to, you know, eat to eat to continue eating to, you know, that kind of thing.

[00:48:45]Um, and so and so we just want to kind of like with curiosity map out the emotional loop to begin with. Then we might also then we might after you do that, we might want to back up and say, "All right, what was the trigger?" Um what what's the the what what is the the event that happened prior to that? Like it could be a trigger, by the way. Could be time of day, could be location, could be a feeling in our bodies, could be something someone said, could be a thought that we had. What was the trigger? And then we want to first just start off that because that just begins with the recognize.

[00:49:21]Then what we want to do is you want to see yourself in that scenario. So don't don't do this don't expect to do this in real time immediately right we want to kind of just first we want to kind of bring through the visualization then we just want to work on recognizing then we want to layer in releasing then we want to layer in refocusing I I try and take this in stages and kind of build on it.

[00:49:46]So then we want to kind of see ourselves in that moment. Whether the overeating is at a table with other people or whether it's by yourself or we want to see if if you can be aware of where you're feeling it in your body, that urge. See what it's like to soften around that a little bit. Slow the tape down a little bit in your mind and see what it's like. Complete permission to do this. See what it's like to soften around it. Then ask yourself the question after you do that, you've widened that space. You've increased your emotional capacity a little bit in that moment. Then ask yourself the question, yeah, what what is it that I'm really needing right now? Like what kind of nourishment or what what what am I what am I really needing right now?

[00:50:26]Because if there's some kind of soothing that's needed, maybe it's connection that's needed, like what am I what am I really needing right now? And then we can we can begin to come up with alternative ways to support that need.

[00:50:42]And then see yourself engaging those ways. See yourself in your mind engaging those ways because that's using that context dependent memory. Visualizations create memories too. And then after you do that, see yourself taking a moment and appreciating that choice to do that or taking a moment to let it land or taking a moment to celebrate that shift, that experience. Then in real time after you do that, just ask yourself like the next time today, you know, I want to be on the lookout for this. See if I can notice this loop that happens, the overeating loop that happens or the urge loop or whatever you want to call it.

[00:51:21]Um, see if you can just do that and and then I'd be curious. See what happens.

[00:51:25]And then you want to layer and see if I could just do that in that moment. And then see if I can soften around the sensation. See what happens. See what happens when I step into the space. See what happens when I widen the space. But take it one at a time. You don't need to layer it all in at once. Um, we're just beginning to practice in getting the mind used to interrupting the emotional loop, interrupting it, being able to widen the space and send safety signals to the nervous system. That's the release piece so that we can steer our mind in a different direction which then will impact our actions. And we kind of massage this in over time.

[00:52:06]Elisha, that's a really lovely worked example um of the release, refocus, reinforce with some extra help from your K9 friend as well. Um we have exactly 5 minutes left, in fact, slightly less than. And I'd love to have a chance for a final recap at the end. So, let's see if we can do a couple of really quickfire answers on some other questions just to get a little bit of more voices in here.

[00:52:30]So Annie said, "What can you recommend for morning anxiety on waking up?"

[00:52:35]>> This is great and this is so common for all of us. And and by the way, that that that's probably a more common experience than not nowadays. Um, but again, the very first thing we want to do is is be able to take a moment, allow yourself just just a a little bit of space in the morning to go through this process and see if you can kind of map out your loop right in the morning. So, basically, all you're doing is you're mapping out, you're asking yourself the question, how's my body feeling right now? Um, what emotion is present? And by the way, you don't need to have the emotional granularity yet. And in chapter four of this book, I I'm a big fan of non-violent communication. I've I've it's helped me a lot in my life, Marshall Rosenberg's work, and I have a whole feelings inventory and needs inventory with within the book. Um, also, uh, I think you you had mentioned, Mark, um, the tiny shift bundle. The Tiny Shift bundle, which everyone here can will be able to have access to, um, also has a full feelings and needs inventory to help with that emotional granularity in the moment. Um, but how am I feeling right now? It could be as basic as comfortable or uncomfortable or neutral, or you can be more specific. Feeling some anxiety here. Um, and then ask yourself, um, what what am I thinking right now? Or you can just say like, "My thoughts are um, uh, really busy right now or calm." Or you might have specific ones. And then see if you can take a moment to soften around any tension you feel from the beginning of the morning.

[00:54:04]Right at the beginning, see if you can take a moment just to allow yourself to soften around it. What I mean by that is you can take you you can breathe and take a little bit longer exhale, but you can also see if you're holding tension around your eyes. See if you can allow that to soften. See if you're noticing any tension in your in your chest. And you can put your hand there. Just a little bit of a release is okay. Um and then refocus. And I love your your question. If you have the capability in that moment, um or you can ask yourself, what's a supportive way I can start this morning? You can see yourself doing it the day before too. That would be helpful. Um uh if if it's a low-grade anxiety, you can start with what's something that I appreciate about today right from the beginning. When when anxiety is high, it's hard to ask that question. When it's a little bit lower, the emotional intensity is a little bit lower. we can access those positive states, those questions that access that when our emotional intensity is high, our brain thinks we're kind of lying to ourselves. And so we want to kind of access more self-compassion. Um, and when it's but when it's lower, we can try and ask questions that access those positive states.

[00:55:15]>> Thanks, Elisha. In fact, that's a nice answer to a question Karen had here, which is about, you know, this is a great framework, but what do we do when we're in a panic state and the brain's flooded and you can't quite access your logical brain. And I think you're sort of, in fact, this whole way of starting with like where am I right now is a nice sort of route in. I always say to myself like um just noticing when you have a heightened emotional response or you're feeling a strong emotion is a pretty good starting point to think, right, that's the beginning. Let me just let me just Yeah, let me just share with whoever that was that said that like I I I this this whole thing was born from me working with past panic attacks of mine and deep deep heavy insomnia of mine.

[00:55:56]the very first step of kind of being able to recognize what's happening and knowing that you don't need to um solve the panic or create calm or ease in the moment but instead uh learning to begin to soften around it and access to be able to have the access to what supports you. So for me in my moments of panic I had done like a lot of work around it and also insomnia um I knew because of the way the brain works like how I talked about how um there's a steady gear and a spinning gear in the brain two different areas it has like a seessaw effect when one is up the other goes down the brain the the higher the panic the our brain is just lying to us like crazy like it's just it's just saying things and we and it are so convincing um in that moment moment. But if you know that if you can just kind of begin to shift your attention to the steady gear things that support steadiness for you and sometimes it's something outside of you looking at thinking of looking at a mountain or a tree um something it's sometimes it's something inside of you depends on what is supportive for you. This method recognize release and be able to refocus on something you already know. For me, I knew when I turned my attention to something in the moment, whether because I had done a lot of work with breath, but um whether it was something around me that was steady or something that was a sensation in my body like with insomnia, I knew that that would begin to settle my mind down. Whatever my brain was telling me um that was untrue, I knew that's the way the brain worked. So the recognize, release, refocus is exactly the method that was born out of that. Um, so anyway, we play with it little by little, but then eventually you begin to really trust it.

[00:57:46]Elisha, thank you. Recognize, release, refocus, reinforce. You've certainly given me a new toolkit to cope with that overwhelm, which as you said, so many of us are are dealing with in these unhelpful loops. Tomorrow we're going to send around details of Tiny Shifts and particularly that free bundle of great resources that you're making available.

[00:58:04]Thank you for putting that out into the world so generously. I'm particularly grateful to everyone in this community for being here and participating. All the great questions, all the really honest um you know answers people have shared and also as I've seen whizzing past so much generosity and support between community members towards each other which is always very heartwarming to see. But above all, massive gratitude to you, Elisha, for your time today, for these insights, for all this work. Thank you for being here and uh thank you for sharing it with us today. Really appreciate it.

[00:58:33]>> Yeah, to you too, Mark, and for for all the work you put out with your organization and and for your wonderful new book that that came out and I'm really excited about that.

[00:58:43]Yeah, thank you so much uh everyone and uh let's keep creating a happier, kinder world together and make the tiny shifts that really can make a difference for ourselves and also in the way we show up in the world for each other as well.

[00:58:55]Thanks Elisha. Thanks everyone. See you soon.