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Doug Lisle on the Evolutionary Uses of Pain and Sacrifice: PYP 160

doug-lisleDoug Lisle, PhD, is an evolutionary psychologist, Director of Research at True North Health Center, and co-author of one of the most important and – to me – challenging books on human happiness and health, The Pleasure Trap. The other author, Alan Goldhamer, was a recent guest on this podcast, and credited his desire to beat Doug at basketball as the motivating factor behind his own search for the truth about health.

I say The Pleasure Trap is challenging to me because there’s a lot about evolutionary psychology that I don’t want to believe. I don’t like the thought of all our desires and motivations ultimately reduced to the imperatives of survival and mating.

So when I asked Doug about being a guest on the show, I told him that I wanted to have a spirited debate. He agreed gleefully (I’m guessing I’m not the first person he’s come across who prefers a different interpretation of human nature to his own).

But when it came time for the conversation, I had other things on my mind. Specifically, pain.

You see, The Pleasure Trap posits three legs on the stool of human motivation:

  1. Seeking pleasure
  2. Avoiding pain
  3. Conserving energy

The book, as you might guess by the title, focuses on the human search for pleasurable experiences that can be had as cheaply as possible. As in McDonalds drive-thrus and Snickers Bars and pornography.

Since our society messes with us by making pleasurable food so easy to obtain at such low cost, we get fat and sick.

But what about pain? Are we also suffering from a deficit of discomfort and danger and physical hurt?

And how does our willingness to endure pain (or not) influence our self-esteem?

And how does our self-esteem influence our willingness to resist the hyper palatable foods that are killing us?

We ended the conversation with a cliffhanger – Doug had to jump off the phone for an appointment, and offered to join me for part two, to explain why we have such trouble performing the actions we commit to doing. Stay tuned…

[powerpress]

Meanwhile, in today’s conversation, we covered:

  • Doug and Alan’s “superhero origin story” as reclusive high school students, trying to get strong on weights, peanuts, and orange juice
  • the book that influenced Doug’s father when it came to healthy eating
  • the fateful Yosemite backpacking trip that got Doug bent out of shape about food
  • Steve Plant, natural hygiene, and the works of Herbert Shelton
  • how Doug cured his daily stomach agony after basketball practice with a plant-based diet – in one day!
  • pain as a short-term motivator
  • pain avoidance as a long term motivator
  • the difference between real problems and “BS problems”
  • the importance of conscious calibration of life problems
  • the wisdom of Louis CK and the Dalai Lama
  • why “psycho-excavation” is the wrong approach to dietary lapses
  • healthy living as a submarine two miles deep in hostile water (no “happy happy fun fun” from this guy! 😉
  • blaming the wrong things for our eating problems
  • the dynamic balance of our survival and reproductive programming
  • rites of passage as sexual advertisements of hardiness
  • mazes, cheese, and fights – how male rats prefer a good fight to a good meal
  • the dynamics of esteem and self-esteem
  • the role of our internal audience
  • self-esteem as the outcome of an embrace of gritty little behaviors
  • chasing daily microgoals rather than big wins
  • and much more…

Enjoy, add your voice to the conversation via the comment box below, and please share – that's how we spread our message and spread our roots.

Links

EsteemDynamics.org – Doug's practice site and teaching clearinghouse

True North Health Center

The Pleasure Trap, by Douglas J. Lisle, PhdD, & Alan Goldhamer, DC

Psychodietetics: Food as the Key to Emotional Health, by E Cheraskiun

Louis CK video (4 minutes): Everything's Amazing and Nobody's Happy

The Art of Happiness, by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler, MD

The History of Natural Hygiene and Principles of Natural Hygiene, by Herbert M. Shelton

Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition, by T. Colin Campbell, PhD, with Howard Jacobson, PhD

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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.

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You can learn about Will, listen to more tracks, and buy music on his website, WillRidenour.com.

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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. Trigger-Free Leadership: 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.

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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.

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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.

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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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2 comments on “Doug Lisle on the Evolutionary Uses of Pain and Sacrifice: PYP 160”

  1. Judith M Donovan says:
    August 25, 2016 at 12:39 pm

    Hi,
    This podcast will not download on iTunes. Can you look into it for us?
    Thanks,
    Judy

    Reply
    1. Howard says:
      August 25, 2016 at 6:06 pm

      Hi Judy,

      No idea why not – I’m not in the least bit technical, and I haven’t heard from anyone else with the same issue. My suggestions are to try again, and if it continues not to download, try getting a different podcast app like Stitcher or Overcast. Hope this helps a little bit…

      Reply

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Hi, I’m Howard Jacobson, host of the Plant Yourself Podcast, co-author of You Can Change Other People and Sick to Fit, and co-founder of WellStart Health Coach Academy.

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