Money coach Dave Ramsey talks about the importance of “feeling money” as it passes through our hands. It’s easy to spend foolishly when we’re just waving credit cards through machines or authorizing direct withdrawals from digital accounts.
It’s much harder to make bad money decisions when we have to remove hard currency from our wallets and hand it over to someone.
So we have a choice: feel the pain in the moment or feel a lot more pain later, when the consequences come home to roost.
I’ve been thinking about how broadly this concept applies in our world. We spend so much time, money, and effort to avoid feeling immediate pain and future consequences of our actions that we end up numb. And the less we allow ourselves to feel, the more we become invested in staying numb.
Because we know intuitively that the pain behind that numbness will flood us like a broken dam if we crack for even an instance.
Numbing Out on Food
I’ve spent much of my life using food as a drug. It helps me avoid feeling bored or frustrated or sad.
And I’ve done my fair share of ignoring the negative impact of my food choices: on my immediate wellbeing, on my long-term health, on my family, on the animals who suffered for my choices, on the humans who weren’t fed so I could feed my addictions, and on the long-suffering planet herself.
My own journey has involved reclaiming the capacity to feel, and developing the courage to face the feelings I’ve spent so many years avoiding.
And it’s a humbling journey, believe me.
But it’s worth it.
Starting to feel again is like when you realize your arm or leg has gone numb. The pins and needles can be so intense, you might want to return to the numbness even though you know it’s not good for your circulation.
When you ride the wave of sensation and emotion, it eventually resolves.
And feels good. Pleasurable. Alive again.
Grief and Praise
As Martin Prechtel writes in The Smell of Rain on Dust, grief and praise are two sides of the same coin.
When we truly allow ourselves to feel and mourn our losses, we’re actually offering full-throated praise for what we’ve lost. And that allows us to feel and appreciate what we still have.
Money and food are my portals into this bracing acceptance of reality. They both challenge me to live with my eyes open, engaging fully in this dance of existence. Feeling the grief and feeling the praise.
Activism from the Inside Out
The way to individual and planetary transformation, I believe, goes through this same portal.
We can – and must – demand transparency in our food supply. And at the same time we have to encourage our community’s ability to handle that transparency by increasing our ability to feel.
We can –and must – agitate for reform of our system of agricultural subsidies. And at the same time we have to acknowledge the fears of those whose livelihoods currently depend on those unjust and counterproductive subsidies.
We can act – we must act – in communal and political ways if we want to have a future worth living.
But we must also work on ourselves, on our own capacity to replace numbness with feeling. That’s the shift in consciousness that, when it takes place, will change everything in an instant.
Transparency is the key to change. When there’s no opacity between action and consequence, we naturally do what is best.
But we have to be strong enough to handle transparency. Otherwise we will lash out and numb out when the harsh light of truth threatens us.
That’s why my current practice – personal, social, political, and spiritual – is to feel what I feel as much as I can, as often as I can.
May these words be a blessing.
Dr Howie Jacobson
This podcast is a labor of love and a way to give back to the world that has given me so much. That's why there aren't any sponsors (except me :).
My day job is helping leaders and their teams master their mindsets to remove all obstacles to heart-centered high performance.
Here are three gigs that I do:
1. Executive and Senior Leadership Mentoring and Facilitation
I work with high performing executive teams in organizations — and executive teams that need to become high performing. My focus is mindset mastery, because it’s our mindsets that either support high performance or get in the way.
At this level, everyone’s got the skills and experience to excel and contribute at the highest level. What holds people back is mindset stuff: specifically the triggers that get them out of creative engagement and into fight-or-flight defensiveness.
My practice is all about teaching people to respond differently to those triggers by updating old maps — essentially removing the glitches that the triggers grab onto.
2. Executive Coaching: Quick Wins for High Performance
I work with individual executives and leaders, one on one. The program is called Quick Wins for High Performance, and what we do is, we work strategically on one or two areas that are holding you back and keeping you from performing at your best.
We reverse engineer the presenting problems — too much work and not enough time, underperforming employees and teams, maddening organizational inefficiencies, etc — and identify and rewire the suboptimal mindsets that are behind those problems.
The work is all about updating your mental maps so your actions and responses are always appropriate, proportionate, and strategic.
3. High Stakes Conversations for Fast Growing Small Business Teams
I help small business teams have high stakes conversations with skill, humor, and grace. When people feel safe, they can do their best, most creative, most collaborative work.
So that's what I do. If you'd like any of those results, drop me a line and tell me about yourself.
You CAN Change Other People!
Well, that's what Peter Bregman and I claim in our provocative book of that title.
What we really mean is, you can bring out the best in the people around you. If you think you're powerless to help people change, it's because you've been going about it the wrong way.
Discover our straightforward, replicable process here: You Can Change Other People.
Music
The Plant Yourself Podcast theme music, “Dance of Peace (Sabali Don),” is generously provided by Will Ridenour, a kora player from North Carolina who has trained with top Senegalese musicians.
It can be found on his first CD, titled Will Ridenour.
You can learn about Will, listen to more tracks, and buy music on his website, WillRidenour.com.
Gratitudes
Thanks to Plant Yourself podcast patrons – Kim Harrison – Lynn McLellan – Brittany Porter – Dominic Marro – Barbara Whitney – Tammy Black – Amy Good – Amanda Hatherly – Mary Jane Wheeler – Ellen Kennelly – Melissa Cobb – Rachel Behrens – Tina Scharf – Tina Ahern – Jen Vilkinofsky – David Byczek – Michele X – Elspeth Feldman – Leah Stolar – Allan Kristensen – Colleen Peck – Michele Landry – Jozina – Sara Durkacs – Kelly Cameron – Janet Selby – Claire Adams – Tom Fronczak – Jeannette Benham – Gila Lacerte – David Donohue – Blair Seibert – Doron Avizov – Gio and Carolyn Argentati – Jodi Friesner – Mischa Rosen – Michael Worobiec – AvIvA Lael – Alicia Lemus – Val Linnemann – Nick Harper – Bandana Chawla – Molly Levine – The Inscrutable Harry R – Susan Laverty the Panda Vegan – Craig Covic – Adam Scharf – Karen Bury – Heather Morgan – Nigel Davies – Marian Blum – Teresa Kopel – Julian Watkins – Brid O'Connell – Shannon Herschman – Linda Ayotte – Holm Hedegaard – Isa Tousignant – Connie Haneline – Erin Greer – Alicia Davis – Heather O'Connor – Carollynne Jensen – Sheri Orlekoski of Plant Powered for Health – Karen Smith – Scott Mirani – Karen and Joe Crabtree – Kirby Burton – Theresa Carrell – Kevin Macaulay – Elizabeth Rothschild – Ann Jesse – Sheryl Dwyer – Jenny Hazelton – Peter W Evans – Dennis Bird – Darby Kelly – Lori Fanney – Linnea Lundquist – Emily Iaconelli – Levi Wallach – Rosamonde McAtee – Dan Pokorney – Stephen Leinin – Patty DeMartino – Mike and Donna Kartz – Deanne Bishop – Bilberry Elf – Marjorie Lewis – Tricia Adams – Nancy Sheldon – Lindsey Bashore – Gunn Marit Hagen – Tracey Gulledge – Lara Hedin – Meg from Mamasezz – Stacey Stokes – Ben Savage – Michael K – David Hughes -Coni Rodgers – Claire England – Sally Robertson – Parham Ganchi – Amy Dailey – Brian Tourville – Mark Jeffrey Johnson – Josie Dempsey – Caryn Schmitt – Pamela Hayden – Emily Perryman – Allison Corbett – Richard Stone – Lauren Vaught of Edible Musings – Erin Hastey – Sean Owens – Sagar Naik – Erika Piedra – Danielle Roberts – Michael Leuchten – Sarah Johnson – Katharine Floyd – Meryl Fury – for your generous support of the podcast.
Disclosure
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