Want to feel better about yourself?

Head over to https://nathancrane.com/podcast/ for transformative insights into self-kindness.

Alan Questel reveals simple yet powerful ways to like yourself more, starting with everyday actions. In this conversation, learn how intentional kindness, generosity, and self-awareness can reshape your relationship with yourself.

From ancient wisdom to modern practices, Alan provides actionable steps to overcome self-doubt and live with greater ease.

Don’t just love yourself—start by liking yourself more every day.

Your host, Nathan Crane, is a Certified Holistic Cancer Coach, Best-Selling Author, Inspirational Speaker, Cancer-Health Researcher and Educator, and 20X Award Winning Documentary Filmmaker with Over 15 Years in the Health Field.

Visit The Nathan Crane Podcast on YouTube to watch the full podcast!

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Audio Transcript

 

(This transcript was auto-generated so there may be some errors)

 

00:00:00:01 – 00:00:02:07
Nathan Crane
Alan, welcome to the podcast. How are you, man?

00:00:02:16 – 00:00:03:21
Alan Questel
I’m good. How are you today?

00:00:04:05 – 00:00:26:12
Nathan Crane
Doing wonderful. It’s been a crazy busy day, but happy to be connecting with you and yeah, tell me a little bit about what you do. You guys have reached out your team and reach out to have you on the podcast. Looks like you’ve you’re up to some really great work. I actually saw a book of yours practice intentional acts of kindness and like yourself more, I think.

00:00:27:16 – 00:00:35:04
Nathan Crane
I mean, just the title alone. Practicing Intentional Acts of kindness. I think we could use a lot more of that in our world today.

00:00:35:07 – 00:01:00:06
Alan Questel
Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, that that’s something, you know, people always related to the bumper sticker practice, random acts of kindness, which is a great thing. But I found that, you know, kindness is a skill that we can learn more about and generate and and kindness not only towards others, but kindness towards ourselves as well, which is actually more to more of a task for most people.

00:01:01:05 – 00:01:12:15
Nathan Crane
Where did that? Trying to remember where the practice random acts of kindness originated from. Do you know do you know history now?

00:01:12:18 – 00:01:16:17
Alan Questel
No, I don’t. Now I’m going to Google it. I’ll get back to you.

00:01:17:10 – 00:01:44:24
Nathan Crane
Well, it’s funny, because there’s so many things that we do. People do, you know, kind of moderately or even in the last hundred years that we think is like groundbreaking and revolutionary. And this is such a great ideas person came up with. And the more you research into spiritual practices like, oh yeah, this is rooted actually in, you know, spiritual traditions from India 7000 years ago, for example, or from China 4000 years ago.

00:01:44:24 – 00:02:22:13
Nathan Crane
And, you know, like when I was learning energy, medicine in San Diego, you know, over 15 years ago, I had no idea that things I was learning because nobody told me at the time, you know, were rooted in 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000 year old traditional Chinese medicine, also known as qigong, you know, energy, medicine, practices. Until I go study with a qigong master from China and you know who is teaching me these things, I’m like, oh, I learned I learned some of these tools and techniques and meditation practices, you know, from from an energy kind of healer person so, so many years ago.

00:02:22:13 – 00:02:26:19
Nathan Crane
And so there’s so much of this wisdom that’s that’s been around for a really long time.

00:02:26:19 – 00:02:56:06
Alan Questel
It’s really an interesting idea for me because honestly, I think everything I write about in my book and my books, I think it’s existed before. And my hope is that I can synthesize, recontextualize it in a way that has maybe a little bit of a different take or perspective to it that engages people more now. But, you know, when I was writing the book, I was sitting there going, don’t, doesn’t everyone know this?

00:02:56:19 – 00:03:23:23
Alan Questel
And I realize most people don’t know it, you know? And I think, okay, kindness is something that’s prevalent in our cultures for thousands of years. Like you said, that this idea of liking ourselves more. That’s something that I find is more novel for most people. They’re a little surprised at that. I was taking a workshop called the Hoffman Process, which is all about loving yourself, which is great.

00:03:24:09 – 00:03:43:20
Alan Questel
And this is one of the things people ask me What about loving yourself more? And I said, Well, that’s great. Let’s start with something that’s more possible. Liking ourselves. Anyway, in this workshop, you weren’t allowed to tell people what you did for four or five days, and the last day it was revealed. And so I told people what I was doing.

00:03:44:04 – 00:04:08:10
Alan Questel
And then I was talking with a group of about four or five people. And I said, Really, what I do is help people like themselves more. And they all said the same thing. They said, Oh, that sounds a lot easier than loving myself. And I find that, you know, I don’t and it’s really funny because in some languages, like in French or Spanish, you can say, like yourself more.

00:04:08:10 – 00:04:17:08
Alan Questel
It’s really hard. They have the concept of loving one’s self more, but liking oneself more is there’s a kind of an anomaly to them. So it’s like.

00:04:17:13 – 00:04:21:23
Nathan Crane
What language you mean the language is not like saying that. Interesting.

00:04:22:13 – 00:04:48:01
Alan Questel
Yeah. Makes it like in Portuguese. There’s no word for wonder. Makes you wonder. You know, they use imagination for that. So sometimes it’s very hard to express different concepts in different cultures. But still, once it’s explained, it resonates with everybody. I’ve never met someone who doesn’t want to like themselves more. Yeah, some say I already like myself and that’s great.

00:04:48:02 – 00:04:56:13
Alan Questel
What about liking yourself more and who would disagree with that? That’s foundational to all of our self-image.

00:04:57:06 – 00:05:15:11
Nathan Crane
Now it’s true. There’s a lot of self-loathing and self-hatred, too. Right. And I think that’s what you’re getting at, is that there’s an even if it’s subconscious, even if people aren’t aware of it, how much, you know, you just look in the mirror and go, oh, man, look at his belly fat. How terrible or fat I am. Right?

00:05:15:11 – 00:05:40:08
Nathan Crane
Or like everything has levels. In my opinion, you know, when when the when the great yogis and sages of India talk about, you know, the three vices that will basically make you live in hell on earth and prevent you from having God. Realization is anger, lust and greed. Well, people think of greed and lust as very strong words.

00:05:40:08 – 00:05:58:17
Nathan Crane
Very often, I think in the English language, at least in my experience, it’s like you think of like a level ten. Right. Lust, greed. And. Oh, I’m not greedy. Right. But if you really are honest with yourself and you look at the levels of that, maybe you are a little greedy at level one or two or three or four or five.

00:05:58:17 – 00:06:15:08
Nathan Crane
Right. And that could just be something that’s like, no, I’m not going to give that to you. This is mine. I want that. This is for me. Right. That’s greed. That’s even if it’s a level one, greed, that’s still greed or lust. You know, you may not be out chasing, you know, a woman and try and lusting over.

00:06:15:09 – 00:06:35:23
Nathan Crane
But in your mind, are you lusting over, you know, women walking by in a bathing suit at a level one, two? Most men are probably level five, six or seven. And and with social media, you can see, because most of the accounts that do really well, you know, are ones where it’s like women showing their ass in a bikini, you know?

00:06:35:23 – 00:06:44:07
Nathan Crane
And what is that? It’s that’s the men that are just staring at the account and the women going, I wish I had that because my butt looks terrible. You know, I have a tiny but.

00:06:44:24 – 00:07:08:00
Alan Questel
But most of us most of us who are wanting something other than who we are. And, you know, like when you talk about greed, I think maybe we can say the opposite of that is generosity. But even that some is misunderstood concept, you know, and so I’ll tell you an interesting story that I when I was writing the book, you know, because in the book I have exercises to do in each chapter.

00:07:08:00 – 00:07:31:02
Alan Questel
And when I talk about generosity, one of the exercises is if you go to a restaurant, if you give like four every $5 of a tip, you give, give another dollar. Hmm. So if you give $10, give 12, $20, give 24. And I typically so I was writing this, I was simply just writing this part of the book.

00:07:31:02 – 00:07:50:16
Alan Questel
And I went out to dinner with some friends and I normally give 20% tip. I picked up the check. It was about $70 and it was about $85. And I had a $100 bill in my pocket and I thought, I’m going to give the $100. And I clutched I was just like, Oh, my God, it’s too much. I can’t do that.

00:07:50:22 – 00:08:16:00
Alan Questel
My greed came up. My my self image stuff and I kind of had to work it through in the moment. And I gave the $100. I left it there. And when I left the restaurant, the waitress stopped me and said, You just made my night. And, you know, it’s so so it’s like whether it’s greed or generosity or lust or desire or because there are always healthy aspects to these things to like.

00:08:16:10 – 00:08:40:21
Alan Questel
And so then how do we practice it? That’s my interest. How do we have a concrete relationship with these things that can generate a change in how I feel about myself and others? And I’ve found that to make these changes like I just described, it’s a little challenging. Like for me to leave that extra money was like, You’re really uncomfortable and I had to overcome that.

00:08:41:08 – 00:09:03:03
Alan Questel
So sometimes yourself image stops us, and at first it’s not so pleasant, but then once we acclimate to it, we find that it’s pretty good. But then we have to watch out for the other side. Like, what if someone doesn’t acknowledge a big tip? Hey, didn’t they say I gave them a big tip was God? And I realize, Oh, no, I got to deal with this part of it as well, you know?

00:09:03:03 – 00:09:17:01
Alan Questel
So it’s like one thing leads to another and that’s growth, you know, that’s to me, that’s the definition of growth, that it’s the next thing that we have to encounter that’s going to really grow us. And it’s a challenge.

00:09:17:07 – 00:09:38:00
Nathan Crane
I went through the exact same experiences you’re talking about multiple times, and it is the awareness of the feeling, encountering that head on, not running away from it, and then doing something about it, right? So it’s that awareness. Oh, is this too much? Oh, no, this is kind of my fear and greed speaking. You know what? I’m going to do it anyway.

00:09:38:05 – 00:10:02:21
Nathan Crane
And then you take the action and then you start to build that new neural network, that new habit, a new pattern of generosity. Right. And that’s you’re talking about a practicing it’s like every day we have these moments to practice, these things and become somebody new, somebody better, somebody that we actually like and love more, somebody who is generous and caring and unselfish, you know, we have the opportunities every day to practice.

00:10:02:21 – 00:10:22:20
Nathan Crane
Those things, even in little ways. Does have to be $100 bill. You know, every day it can literally be, you know, seeing somebody, you know, at the grocery store and helping them to reach something or, you know, stopping and talking to somebody who seems like they’re lost or it’s simple things, right? I walk around my neighborhood almost every day.

00:10:22:20 – 00:10:44:11
Nathan Crane
I try to walk after I eat lunch. It’s just listen to podcasts or spiritual conversation and it’s good for digestion. Get some sunshine and what happen. It’s so funny. So the first time I did it, it was a piece of garbage on the street right. And and I just thought, man, I have a long way to walk still.

00:10:45:02 – 00:10:57:07
Nathan Crane
I want to carry this guy. I don’t see any garbage cans. No neighbors. Garbage cans are out. And I don’t want to I want to pick it up, but I don’t want to carry it all the way. My house, I had a talk. I mean, something so simple, like leaving a piece of garbage in the street, in the neighborhood.

00:10:57:07 – 00:11:13:23
Nathan Crane
And so I picked it up and there was no garbage cans. I took it all the way home and then threw it away my garbage can. I was like, You know what? I’m glad I did that the next day. Same thing. Another piece of garbage somewhere, no garbage cans. And then same kind of little struggle, like, do I really want to carry this?

00:11:14:03 – 00:11:33:06
Nathan Crane
You know, beer can. This one is like a beer can I dumped out and we’re left in like I want to carry this all around the block. People think I’m drinking beer work through that. I did it anyway. And now every day I walk, there’s always one piece of garbage in the street waiting for me. And I’ll find a neighbor’s garbage on the way or I’ll take it home and throw it away.

00:11:33:06 – 00:11:53:16
Nathan Crane
And it’s just like it’s become one of those little simple things of right, the intention of acts of kindness. That’s where as I’m doing kindness for my neighborhood without caring what anybody thinks about it. Right. I’m not posting on social media. I’m not going, hey, guys, look at me. I have garbage. Like, it’s just it’s just the action of doing good, which is what the great spiritual masters teach.

00:11:53:16 – 00:11:55:17
Nathan Crane
Do goodness, for goodness sake.

00:11:56:14 – 00:12:35:04
Alan Questel
You know, when they talk about humility, I’ve heard it said that one can’t say that they’re humble, only someone else can. And I think the same is true of kindness. I think someone else determines whether we’re kind. We can’t determine it ourselves. Right. And one way I think of looking at what you just described, which is a great example, is to be able to differentiate our feelings that we have, our thoughts that we have from our actions to be able to act, not negating our feelings or our thoughts, but to be able to act in addition with those feelings and thoughts.

00:12:35:13 – 00:12:58:13
Alan Questel
And that’s that’s a pretty sophisticated level of acting in the world. You know, and the idea of a little thing, I think it’s the most important access to liking ourselves and being kind, because generally what we do is we make we make it such a big task for ourselves to do something. And we set ourselves up for failure, you know?

00:12:59:00 – 00:13:23:00
Alan Questel
You know, when I was 19, I moved out of my parents house and I had this thought that I’m not good at anything. I was already a failure. I wasn’t even old enough to be a success at 19, but I was already a failure. And I thought, I’m going to teach myself to do one thing well. And I just happened on brushing my teeth.

00:13:23:19 – 00:13:45:22
Alan Questel
So, you know, I brushed my teeth, but I wasn’t that regular. And, you know, and I thought, I’m going to learn to brush my teeth. Well, and the good thing about it was I had the opportunity to explore twice a day. And if I didn’t do it, nobody would know. Well, maybe the dentist, but he knew already. So I would practice this this little innocuous task.

00:13:46:10 – 00:14:07:20
Alan Questel
And what was really interesting was all the strategies unconscious at first, strategies that I had that would sabotage my success started showing up, how I interfered with it. And if I had taken on something really big in two weeks, I probably would have quit, you know, just said, Well, I can’t do it. You know, it’s not worth it, you know?

00:14:07:20 – 00:14:24:14
Alan Questel
And it’s a shame. Like, I had some friends over for dinner the other night and a couple of daughters and one is ten years old and they’re going to be staying in my house. I’ll be traveling soon. And so we were going around making a video of things to show them about the house and stuff, and she said, I want to be the videographer.

00:14:24:14 – 00:14:41:22
Alan Questel
And it’s a great she said, but I’m not very good at it. And I said, Why do you say that? You got to practice it to get good at it, you know? And she had a great time doing it. But then already at ten years old, there’s a self image of what she doesn’t like about herself, you know, and it starts even earlier than that.

00:14:42:07 – 00:15:12:17
Alan Questel
But it’s a it’s a it’s a challenge for all of us. And it’s something that I think we can turn like this act of liking ourselves more. So this is something I’ve taught for a long time, and it started out with the workshop I created. I teach the Feldenkrais method, which is a movement modality based on learning theories, and I work with people with orthopedic, neurological problems, issues around self-image, professional athletes, dancers, and I train people how to do it.

00:15:13:05 – 00:15:34:23
Alan Questel
And I was doing this workshop on Self-Image, and I started to think our self-image is a reflection of how much we like ourselves and how much we don’t like ourselves. So if I have a good self-image, I like myself not such a good self-image. I don’t like myself. And then I decided over time, this is my job to help people like themselves more.

00:15:35:08 – 00:16:05:16
Alan Questel
And of course, the movement, the movements that I teach people have been very small and subtle, so they have the chance to practice moving in a way they like the way it feels. But then one day and someone just asked me what it was and I couldn’t remember. I did some random act of kindness and in the next moment I liked myself more and I thought, Oh, there is the loop from the internal way of generating something to the from the interpersonal to the interpersonal.

00:16:06:00 – 00:16:21:03
Alan Questel
And I realized I’m not talking about doing acts of kindness to pat myself on the back, but to realize that that generates something in the other, that in me that grows exponentially actually. So yeah, little things for sure.

00:16:21:10 – 00:16:56:02
Nathan Crane
Yeah, it’s beautiful. I mean, I remember hearing about a study years ago where they were looking at people’s brains and neurological responses and release, I believe, of dopamine and or serotonin. And it was probably primarily dopamine where they looked at somebody helping somebody, you know, an elderly woman, I believe, across the street and look at the dopamine release from the brain and saw that by helping somebody across the street, you know, the person getting helped and the person helping both had a dopamine release, meaning they felt good.

00:16:56:02 – 00:17:20:05
Nathan Crane
We were literally designed to help others to do acts of kindness. Right? Well, they also looked at the person across the street watching it happen and noticed they had the same dopamine release that when you watch somebody doing an act of kindness, which is why, again, social media, some of the top from a positive perspective, some of the top videos and channels are people doing random acts of kindness to others.

00:17:20:05 – 00:17:48:15
Nathan Crane
And they get millions, hundreds of millions of views. You watch it and it gives you a little dopamine response. So what is that? Is that survival of the fittest? Is that Darwinian theory? Is that out to to, you know, be the the best and outrun and outlive everybody else? Of course not. Right. Of course, that can’t be true when we are literally designed to have pleasure molecules released from our brain by helping others, even those who are less fortunate or less able than us.

00:17:49:00 – 00:17:56:07
Nathan Crane
Right. So anyone who still believes that theory, I mean, just look at the biological design and you’ll see that it negates that theory completely.

00:17:56:18 – 00:18:28:17
Alan Questel
That’s a perfect example of what’s called mirror neurons. That that is a part I mean, ten years ago it was a big deal and now it’s more just everyday thing. But it’s something that that we our brain picks up on the things that we see, but it’s done through action and movement. Just watching it often isn’t enough so that the action that is happens in real time, in real life, that kind of plants it in us, grows it, develops those neural pathways, as you were talking about.

00:18:29:01 – 00:18:50:16
Alan Questel
And there’s also been studies done that infants have an innate direction towards kindness, that it’s something that seems to be in a very, very, very early age, something that’s part of who we are. And you see it in kids and you can also see the development of kids. Yeah, they of course, they go through that’s mine stage and stuff.

00:18:51:03 – 00:19:15:07
Alan Questel
But it’s always so touching when a kid offers you a piece of their sandwich or something, you know, and it’s like they’re just wanting to share stuff. And of course we learn to hold on to things to get a little more constricted in life. And in fact, you know, if you think about a child’s way of regulating themselves, it is primarily through liking the way they feel.

00:19:16:04 – 00:19:39:08
Alan Questel
And if they don’t like the way they feel, whether they’re hungry, where diaper or when something’s not right, they cry, they get upset. So we’ve learned from going from childhood to adulthood to ignore these parts of ourselves. So like another simple way of learning to like ourselves more in an everyday way that no one would know you’re doing.

00:19:39:08 – 00:19:59:08
Alan Questel
This is simply move in a way that you like the way it feels. And I’m not talking about dancing to the bathroom or anything like that. I’m talking about if I go get up to get a cup of coffee and feel if I just so directed towards where I’m going, who can I feel myself in that moment and maybe feel myself move a little more easily, a little more pleasurably?

00:19:59:17 – 00:20:22:05
Alan Questel
And when we do that, that builds and grows inside of us so that we come closer to who we were when we were children. And we can also differentiate, like I was saying before, the need to do something when I don’t feel so good, you know, was once in a class of public class. A woman asked me, This is in the Feldenkrais method.

00:20:22:05 – 00:20:40:02
Alan Questel
She said, What’s the point of this work anyway? And I was like, Oh, I really don’t like those kind of questions. And I said, Well, the point of this work is, is to make our lives easier, more comfortable. I mean, why would you pay money to do an extracurricular activity and spend your time doing something that wasn’t to your benefit in some way?

00:20:40:09 – 00:21:05:20
Alan Questel
Right. And she was satisfied with the answer, but I wasn’t. And I came back the next week and I said I had more to say on that. And I said, the point of this work is to learn how to struggle well, because life is filled with struggle. The question is, can we engage in a struggle without injuring ourselves and move through it in a way that we get to the other side and feel like, you know, just accomplish something by getting through that.

00:21:06:07 – 00:21:07:10
Nathan Crane
So, yeah.

00:21:07:17 – 00:21:08:19
Alan Questel
We need more of that.

00:21:09:02 – 00:21:22:17
Nathan Crane
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think the challenge for all of us as human beings, unless you are born in an enlightened family, which is very few and far between nowadays.

00:21:23:14 – 00:21:26:16
Alan Questel
I haven’t seen that yet. But yeah.

00:21:26:16 – 00:21:48:20
Nathan Crane
Then we have childhood traumas, we have aces, we have adverse childhood events that literally create these impressions and this subconscious programing where we don’t like ourselves, we and oftentimes hate ourselves. And as a teenager, I hated myself and didn’t even know it. I didn’t like myself. I didn’t like who I was becoming. I didn’t like who I was.

00:21:48:20 – 00:22:19:11
Nathan Crane
And yet I was all in on that part of myself. I was unconscious to the fact that I was self loathing and depressed and angry at the world and hated everybody and hated myself. I just acted out of that without any consciousness of what I was doing and led me to a very, you know, very challenging childhood. And yet still so many people today, 50, 60, 1780s have not found that deeper liking and loving of themselves yet.

00:22:19:11 – 00:22:27:19
Nathan Crane
And and I think a lot of it does have to do with not having healed those childhood traumas. Would you agree?

00:22:28:08 – 00:23:02:07
Alan Questel
I do agree. But, you know, and there’s a large continuum of the severity of the traumas we suffered and the challenges can we overcome them? Well, I think we can come to terms with them like this is a pretty sad story. So I had a woman come to me once for private sessions in the Feldenkrais method and she had difficulty sleeping and she had some event in her life that she didn’t want to talk about.

00:23:02:07 – 00:23:25:03
Alan Questel
And I said, That’s fine. And the third time I saw her, she told me the event and she had she was a very wealthy woman from South America, and she got divorced and her husband took the kid, literally took the kids, and it took her like three years to get the kids back. And they were flying for a vacation to Japan.

00:23:25:03 – 00:23:48:05
Alan Questel
She was in one plane, they were in another, and the plane they were in crashed and they died. And I looked at her and I said, Are people telling you you’re going to get over this? And she said, yes. I said, No, you’ll get through it. You’re never going to get over it. Right. And so and I know there’s so much today about trauma, which is very useful and important for us.

00:23:48:18 – 00:24:13:01
Alan Questel
And still, we need to have, I think, more of a perspective of looking forward where I want to go as opposed to getting away from where I’ve been. Right. Those are two very different attitudes. I can tell you a simple story of that. So when I started my practice in New York, I was successful pretty quickly and my uncle was a dentist and he would come to me for sessions and he wasn’t.

00:24:13:02 – 00:24:29:16
Alan Questel
I wouldn’t charge him anything and he had lower back pain. He was always twisted to one side and every time I saw him he felt better. And the next week he had pain again. This went on a number of times. And finally I said, Leyte Gulf right here. Oh, I love golf. What do you want to improve in your golf?

00:24:29:16 – 00:24:52:11
Alan Questel
And he talked about his power and stuff like that. So I started working with him about how we can improve its golf and his back pain went away. So there’s a good example. When he was going towards something, it had a positive reinforced effect that was sustained itself. When we’re trying to get away from something, there’s a value to that, but we attach ourselves to it at the same time, right?

00:24:52:19 – 00:25:26:03
Alan Questel
So it’s it’s a it’s a bit of a paradox in terms of how to go about doing that. And, you know, when you describe yourself and you’re growing up and stuff, I’m still learning to like myself. It’s not like, Oh, I’ve arrived or anything like that. I’m learning. And in fact, and this was a bit of a shock for me that the next level for me to be kinder, the next level for me to like myself more each next level is even a bigger challenge now.

00:25:26:13 – 00:25:46:08
Nathan Crane
It’s when you’re like, It’s funny you say that because like, let’s say you’re 80 or 90% of the way there, which took you however many years and you feel like a man. I’m like, so much like right there, but every percent more, if you will, is like another is like leaps and bounds ahead of where you were 1% ago.

00:25:46:08 – 00:25:46:17
Nathan Crane
Right?

00:25:47:10 – 00:26:09:18
Alan Questel
Yeah. Well, I’ll tell you something about percentages that I think is kind of funny, which is when someone says, I’m not 100% behind it yet, and I said, all you need to be is 51%. And I ask, you know what 100% is, right? Because in fact, what was 80 or 90% to me five years ago is not the same thing today.

00:26:10:01 – 00:26:21:01
Alan Questel
Right. And the more I learn about myself, the more I encounter and become aware of things, the more I realize how little I know. And I’m probably at 2%.

00:26:21:01 – 00:26:21:21
Nathan Crane
I know if.

00:26:21:21 – 00:26:50:19
Alan Questel
I’m a realist, you know, and you know, the other thing you talk about, which is this is a real big interest of mine, is the awareness part, right? Because in order to make these kind of changes, in order to develop ourselves like this, we need to become aware of what we’re doing first. So if everything is happening unconsciously, whether it’s a childhood trauma or just the nature of how we grew up or whatever, unless I can become aware of it, it’s almost impossible to change it.

00:26:50:19 – 00:27:11:11
Alan Questel
It’s just happenstance that changes it, you know? It’s like a random act of kindness generates something. But what did I do? How did I know to do that? Right? Can I become aware of that? And to do that and this you know, this is an idea for another book. But honestly, I don’t know the answer to this question yet.

00:27:11:16 – 00:27:37:19
Alan Questel
It’s written about in a lot of different things, whether it’s mystical traditions, religions, psychology, the idea of a pause to get angry, pause before you react so you can respond. And I’m really interested in in order to create the pause, you have to want it. If you don’t want it, no one’s going to do it. If you’re not self-reflective that way, you just go on as you are.

00:27:37:19 – 00:27:54:12
Alan Questel
You live your whole life for it’s good. Life’s not bad, but it’s, you know, it’s not something that necessarily generates a greater spirit in the world with ourselves and others and that’s where I think it’s always at the individual level, you know.

00:27:54:19 – 00:28:13:12
Nathan Crane
Yeah. And it’s and I have to agree it’s either you have to want it, but even to get to the point of wanting it, you have to have that awareness to realize that there’s something more for you to let go of or become. Becoming often is very much actually just letting go of who we are not right. Right.

00:28:13:12 – 00:28:36:21
Nathan Crane
Now, getting back to that childhood innocence that you were talking about. Yeah, I do want to kind of challenge a little bit on what you said about, you know, the woman who lost her children in the plane crash and anyone who’s gone through very traumatic situations, whether it’s rape, molestation, it’s you know, it’s, you know, all kinds of things that happened, terrible things that happen to all of us.

00:28:36:21 – 00:29:11:22
Nathan Crane
Right. And, you know, the idea of getting over something, maybe that maybe the language is kind of the the block there or the or the key, the entry way where maybe people think, oh, getting over. It means I’ll never think of it again or I’ll forget about it or whatever. And, and I would say from my own experience, my own life, clients I’ve worked with, you know, over almost 20 years now that and friends and colleagues in the health space and the traumatic healing space done a lot of trauma healing work.

00:29:11:22 – 00:29:39:10
Nathan Crane
I’ve done a lot of work on, you know, healing my own childhood traumas and helping others as well, especially with the cancer patients that we work with. A big part of cancer diagnosis is helping get to the underlying traumas that had led to either the cancer showing up in the first place or the behaviors, the lifestyle behaviors that led to the cancer proliferating in the body because they are so directly connected that I say you absolutely can fully heal from any childhood trauma.

00:29:39:18 – 00:30:03:24
Nathan Crane
And when I say heal, I don’t mean get over it in the sense of you’ll never think about it again or you’ll forget about it. But that that thought, the memory or the thought of the people you lost, the person that raped you, that the children that died get you, you fully accept it, and you fully forgiven yourself and others and you fully healed.

00:30:03:24 – 00:30:28:20
Nathan Crane
So that that thought doesn’t bring you that pain that it once used to do. Yeah. I’ll give you one example. A good friend of mine or a I would say good friend. A friend and colleague of mine. She she was diagnosed with breast cancer literally within two or three months after she found out her her grown son had been molested by the babysitter when he was a child.

00:30:29:13 – 00:31:00:21
Nathan Crane
And she didn’t know this whole time until he was like later, 20 or thirties. And he told her and she just she felt so guilty. How could I let this happen? Right under my own nose, in my own house, and not know that my own son was being molested by the babysitter that I hired? Right. She had so much anger towards the babysitter and she had so much guilt towards herself that literally she had a breast tumor grow like out of nowhere within a couple of months.

00:31:00:21 – 00:31:21:10
Nathan Crane
And we know you know, I talk about this all the time. It’s a sympathetic nervous system, the stress response, all these things. And breast cancer very often is in women associated with a child in your life. But anyway, she was aware enough and she had you know, she she’s actually in the emotional healing health space doctor in that space.

00:31:21:10 – 00:31:45:01
Nathan Crane
And she knew what it was from. And so she went into all the work that she guides her own clients through. And she ended up fully forgive it, fully accepting, fully forgiving the babysitter and forgiving herself and going through this emotional healing. And she went from, you know, personal trauma, guilt, resentment, anger, just all of that to complete peace.

00:31:45:07 – 00:31:47:18
Nathan Crane
And within three months, her breast tumor went away.

00:31:48:03 – 00:32:21:20
Alan Questel
Yeah, I think I think the there are two words use one I completely agree with, which is forgiveness. Mm hmm. Right. And how do we how do we forgive ourselves? Because that’s also the path to liking ourselves more than to really to forgive ourselves. If I’ve done some act or I’ve created something or I have to forgive someone else, there needs to be a forgiveness and a feeling, understanding.

00:32:21:20 – 00:32:43:15
Alan Questel
It’s not just the thought of, I forgive you. It’s like I caused someone pain or they caused me pain. How do I forgive that? Right. But the other words, whose that I hope take a little issue with is fully because I find the word fully is incomplete. It’s like what I was talking about as much as I’ve come to like myself more, there’s more.

00:32:44:06 – 00:33:07:22
Alan Questel
There’s another step for me. And so to fully forgive someone, I would say simply to forgive someone and then see in three more years, is there another level to it? Is there another step that I can take that settles me more myself in that act of forgiveness? Right now, it’s always about coming to terms with our history and stuff like that.

00:33:07:24 – 00:33:08:21
Alan Questel
Yeah, for sure.

00:33:08:21 – 00:33:23:19
Nathan Crane
I love that you said that is a levels. I’ll give you an example. It’s having my own life. You know, I, I was kicked out of my house when I was a teenager and I was going through a hard time. And I went to my mom and said, Hey, can you help me take me back in? I want to, you know, get off drugs and alcohol and get off the streets.

00:33:23:19 – 00:33:41:23
Nathan Crane
And she said no. And she said, basically, get out of here. She didn’t she just couldn’t handle me. Right. And it just it traumatized me. It was first time in years that I had just broken down crying and like I felt so rejected and traumatized and then just kept going deeper and deeper, dark down that dark rabbit hole, nearly dead at 17.

00:33:42:06 – 00:34:02:10
Nathan Crane
And so we didn’t talk for years. I had so much resentment and then I had a big awakening moment, moved away, started my life over, you know, got sober, started down the path of personal development at 18 years old. And I just had this insight like, I need to forgive my mom. I was holding all this resentment and anger and all this stuff.

00:34:02:10 – 00:34:20:09
Nathan Crane
And so I did. I called her and I and I forgave her. And I really what I was doing was forgiving. You know, you forgive somebody else because really, it’s it’s hurting you inside, right? It’s like, yeah. And so but I didn’t know at the time. I just knew I needed to forgive her. And it’s not I don’t think she needed my forgiveness.

00:34:20:19 – 00:34:21:22
Nathan Crane
I needed the friend.

00:34:21:22 – 00:34:29:22
Alan Questel
Yeah, I don’t know about that. I would imagine that her acts that she suffered from that I can’t imagine anything. Yeah.

00:34:29:23 – 00:34:47:05
Nathan Crane
And she, and she told me actually I just found this out recently. So this is, you know, 18, 19 years, almost 20 years later, she told me when I when I did that and said no and all that, I just I didn’t know what to do. And I was so scared. I just gave you to God. I prayed to God.

00:34:47:05 – 00:35:02:12
Nathan Crane
I said, God, please take him. I, I can’t do this. And literally within months, like she found out, I was moving to San Diego from Montana and she’s like, What are you doing? God, I didn’t mean take him to San Diego, you know? And I told her, I said, thank you for giving me to God, because that’s exactly what needed to happen.

00:35:02:12 – 00:35:11:11
Nathan Crane
That’s that’s the change I needed. So thank you so much. My point being is that level of forgiveness was not fully in the opinion in.

00:35:11:11 – 00:35:11:24
Alan Questel
That’s right.

00:35:12:02 – 00:35:24:22
Nathan Crane
We’re talking about levels because it was life changing for me and I think was life changing for we have a great relationship today. But I did years later I did the work. Byron, Katie, have you ever done.

00:35:24:23 – 00:35:26:04
Alan Questel
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:35:26:09 – 00:35:43:08
Nathan Crane
Beautiful, right? Yeah. I was doing the work one day and literally I had this memory pop up, something that my mom had said or did when I was younger. And it was like and I still had a charge to it. And so I did the work on it and released that and it was like, I forgot all about that.

00:35:43:08 – 00:35:55:15
Nathan Crane
And yet here I was still harboring something even a little bit of resentment, a level three resentment. But there it is in my subconscious. And so there was more forgiveness to do. I Yeah.

00:35:56:04 – 00:36:04:01
Alan Questel
That’s why the word full is a bit challenging. But you explained it beautifully that it’s fully for now. You can say.

00:36:04:08 – 00:36:29:22
Nathan Crane
You know, when I say fully not meaning that you’re going to do it immediately, fully necessarily, but that to be free from that pain, complete freedom from the pain, complete attachment from the pain. I think we do have to get to a level of fully forgiving. Right. Even if that takes months or years, then we’ll be free from that pain then we won’t have those negative associations with.

00:36:29:22 – 00:36:58:16
Alan Questel
So I would I would look at it in yet another way that let’s say I have the experience of some pain in my life. Right. And usually when it comes up, the question is, how much time do I spend there? Can I shorten the time? So so for me to like myself more, right? I can go to all these negative loops about myself.

00:36:58:24 – 00:37:27:07
Alan Questel
And I don’t think, you know, one of the best definitions I’ve ever heard of enlightenment is, you enlightened, and then you get light again, and then you get enlightened again. It’s like people think this is a constant state. Now this is the thing we move towards and away from all the time. And I’m happy if I if I find that the challenges in my life, the the ruminations I go through, the suffering for whatever reason or history, that I don’t spend as much time there.

00:37:27:22 – 00:37:59:12
Alan Questel
That makes me happier. That makes me like myself more. That’s something that I think we can all move towards. And then it’s it’s a series of successive approximations towards an easier sense of myself liking myself more, being kind of to others, all of that. You know, one thing that you said about your mother that caught my interest and I don’t know if this is true, but, you know, at some point there’s the idea of tough love.

00:37:59:22 – 00:38:00:05
Nathan Crane
Yeah.

00:38:00:15 – 00:38:30:00
Alan Questel
Right. And at some point it’s like, how how long do you support someone hurting themselves? When do you finally say, I can’t do this anymore? This isn’t good for me and it’s not good for you, but it’s not a happy decision to do that. Tough love is a really challenging thing to do to be able to say no to someone you love and care about because you know it’s in their best interest.

00:38:30:09 – 00:38:58:14
Alan Questel
As much as we can know, none of us are omniscient, that we can fully know the outcome of our actions or anything like that. But we can just make a choice and say, Maybe I can make a choice and consider it in a way that I’m reversible, that I can change my mind, that it’s not absolute in any way like that, but that idea of tough love is another thing, that it’s part of being kind to someone tough love.

00:38:58:21 – 00:39:21:12
Alan Questel
You know, if I have a friend is an alcoholic and I, he wants a drink or something, it’s like I’m going to say, no, I’m not going to support you in that I don’t drink. I was at a friend’s house years ago, someone who drank a lot and they bought this special tequila for me because I used to drink tequila a lot and they kept trying to push it on me and I kept saying, No, I don’t want to.

00:39:21:12 – 00:39:41:22
Alan Questel
And the person got very upset with me, you know, it was like, Yeah, your words matter with you. What did you want to drink? I said, It’s not you, it’s me, you know? So to be able to be clear about our boundaries and be firm with them in a way is actually often a better act of kindness than just giving in and saying yes all the time.

00:39:41:22 – 00:39:57:13
Alan Questel
You know, I got a funny story for you. A friend of mine was a therapist and she was at her friend’s house for dinner. They had a three year old kid and it was before dinner. This little kid comes in with this bag of Eminem’s goes, Mommy, Mommy, I want an Eminem. And the mother says, You can’t have an Eminem.

00:39:57:13 – 00:40:20:22
Alan Questel
Now we’re going to have dinner soon, and the kid starts to lose it and the mother, she goes, okay, okay, you can have three Eminem’s. So she gets the three Eminem, she walks off happy. And my friend, the therapist says to her, I can’t believe you let her manipulate you like that. And she said, Look, she has to learn in life that sometimes she’s going to win.

00:40:21:21 – 00:40:44:11
Alan Questel
But she doesn’t know yet that I’m the one who’s deciding that I’m going to win this battle. Right. And so sometimes you give in and sometimes you don’t. And, you know, I mean, she had a bigger picture of it because the kid a dinner and everything was fine. But we have to win battles and lose battles and be comfortable with comfortable with both ends of that second.

00:40:44:11 – 00:41:08:20
Nathan Crane
Good point. Yeah. And it’s so tough with children. Going back to your point of tough love, I, I really hope that my mom listens to this podcast. By the way. You know, and I want to say I love my mother very much. And it took me a long time to recognize that, you know, how when she said no to me, when she gave me that tough love, that that’s exactly what I needed.

00:41:08:20 – 00:41:27:00
Nathan Crane
And it took me a long time to be grateful for that and and to love her for that. You know, and how tough that was for her to go through that. I mean, how incredibly challenging it was for her to deal with that, to say no to your own child. But it’s like I needed that tough love. I really needed it.

00:41:27:00 – 00:41:51:15
Nathan Crane
And I’m so grateful for her for doing that. And, you know, there are people in her life, I think, that could use some tough love. I’ll just say that. But I think I think all of our lives and so on. The Tough love. Maybe you can talk a little bit about that is like how do we do it in a way that is loving but is tough, right?

00:41:51:15 – 00:42:15:11
Nathan Crane
Because I think tough love can also come like what we really have inside, I think often is is anger or sadness or guilt or all kinds of emotions and then when we go to give the tough love, it comes out as a big explosion, which is not which is not what we’re trying to do. Right. We’re trying to like say, hey, look, this is not working.

00:42:15:11 – 00:42:29:09
Nathan Crane
I can’t support this anymore. This is why and the reason we’re trying to do it calmly, but because because we care about the person, the love is there, but all the other emotions get in the way. And so how do you how can people do better?

00:42:29:17 – 00:42:58:04
Alan Questel
I have some ideas, but before I say that, I just want to say to your mom, she’s watching. It looks like you did a pretty good job with this guy. So but back to tough love, because you described it really well in terms of how it gets present, presented and misrepresented. And the unfortunate part of practicing tough love is exactly what I just said.

00:42:58:21 – 00:43:20:04
Alan Questel
We need to practice it because we’re not skilled at it. We’re not taught how to communicate in a way that can help someone write. I write about it in the book. I talk about how difficult conversations that look. If I if I was going to if I had some with you and I said, look, we need to talk right away, you’re on the defense.

00:43:20:04 – 00:43:48:16
Alan Questel
It was like, oh, what’s coming? I don’t want to hear this. You know, and there are ways to to begin it. Like, if you think it’s okay, if we have a conversation that might be a little difficult or awkward and you might say no, in which case we’re done. I don’t keep pushing it, but if you say yes, at least I’ve contextualized it in a way that if something is difficult in the moment, we can acknowledge it that we knew this when we were going into it.

00:43:48:24 – 00:44:21:06
Alan Questel
Maybe let’s stop for a while and come back to it. Maybe I need to learn how to communicate things better. The most effective way of telling someone something is that this is about me. It’s not about you. It’s not about correcting you. You know, I had a student in one of my trainings in Australia and she was actually making up time from from another training in Australia and she was there once and you know, I give people some attention, but they’re not my focus is my own students.

00:44:21:18 – 00:44:46:19
Alan Questel
And then she was there again and then she saw a third time and I said, How much time are you making up? You know? And she told me, you should have just transferred here. In any case, in that segment, she was technically going to graduate. And this was not my decision. This was the educational director and her program, and I wasn’t going to interfere with it, but I was so confident about her.

00:44:46:24 – 00:45:01:09
Alan Questel
So, look, I didn’t interfere. Let her graduate. And I said to her, Can we have a cup of coffee afterwards? And she kind of looked at me and she said, Are you going to drop a bomb on me? I said, No. I said, It’s going to be awkward but I’m not going to drop a bomb on you. Okay.

00:45:01:20 – 00:45:24:15
Alan Questel
And we to her and I said, look, this is my opinion, but I don’t think you’re ready to graduate yet. I think you’re close, but not yet. And it’s really not my job. It’s so-and-so’s job. It’s your educational work. She says, Well, it’s your job, too. And I said, No, he hasn’t called me as my opinion or anything like that, so I’m not going to interfere.

00:45:24:15 – 00:45:58:23
Alan Questel
But I said yet. And so and she was pretty upset with me and I said, Look what I think you need to do is you graduated now, go and practice for two years for free and visit other trainings, get more education and see what happens. And it turns out she did that and she came to me later and she said, you know, that was really hard, but I’m really glad you told me to do that because what I ended up with was a sense of confidence in myself rather than this feeling of, I’m never going to be good at this.

00:45:59:09 – 00:46:22:12
Alan Questel
And I said, Look, this is my expert opinion, but it’s just an opinion, right? You know, you don’t have to take my advice. You can do whatever you want. But those situations are really hard because you can be pretty sure that at the moment that you start talking and talking to someone directly. They take it as criticism. They hear some absoluteness in it.

00:46:22:20 – 00:46:43:01
Alan Questel
That’s not accurate. And we need to we need to talk or the teller needs to be able to tolerate the feelings and anxiety that the other person comes to without running away from it or shutting them down or just listening, you know. So I think listening is a big component there to.

00:46:43:13 – 00:47:09:24
Nathan Crane
Yeah, listening. That’s huge. And any time I’ve done couples therapy, for example, you know, describing the situation that the therapist always says, you know, talk about it from, I feel this way, I think this way. Like, don’t say you make me feel like this is like, no, if you want to describes, you know, criticism is helpful in growth, especially in any kind of relationship.

00:47:10:06 – 00:47:32:06
Nathan Crane
It’s the it’s it’s the missing the word right now the nagging the there’s a stronger word beyond criticism, but there’s healthy criticism, right. And and then there is like putting somebody down. And if you say something like, you know, when you do this, you make me feel like this. You know, of course they’re going to be defensive. Of course.

00:47:32:06 – 00:47:39:18
Nathan Crane
But you say, you know, when this is happening or you’re doing these things, this is this is how I feel. This is what I think about this. And yeah.

00:47:39:18 – 00:47:47:22
Alan Questel
But what you just said when you do these things that already colors it, that the other person is causing it.

00:47:48:08 – 00:48:09:17
Nathan Crane
Yeah, I think, I think there’s a healthy way to do it. And so like if somebody is doing something like in your own household that their actions are very unhealthy, right? That are harming others or can be harmful. Right. It’s like I think some awareness, bringing some awareness around it can be helpful. That’s just my experience. I don’t know.

00:48:09:17 – 00:48:10:01
Nathan Crane
But.

00:48:10:04 – 00:48:11:01
Alan Questel
Oh yeah, I agree.

00:48:11:01 – 00:48:22:24
Nathan Crane
You trying not to judge or point or blame but bring awareness and then bring it back to me like this is this is how I feel. This is what I think about it. And then creating boundaries, right? The other day.

00:48:23:08 – 00:48:23:14
Alan Questel
Right?

00:48:23:18 – 00:48:27:21
Nathan Crane
Like at some point I think we have to create some boundaries always.

00:48:28:09 – 00:48:51:24
Alan Questel
It’s really about boundaries. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the work of Marshall Rosenberg. Yeah, nonviolent communication, you know, because that’s a body of work that really changed my whole way of teaching, interacting with people, which was not getting caught in the content of the event, but what’s the underlying feeling that’s going in the person, what’s the unmet need?

00:48:52:10 – 00:49:12:20
Alan Questel
And when I can find that, I can listen better and I and the other people feel more heard. So I’m not trying to correct or change their behavior or anything like that. It’s simply like you were saying, this is how I feel in this moment. And, you know, someone might say, Well, what do you want me to change?

00:49:12:20 – 00:49:21:12
Alan Questel
I don’t know. I’m just telling you how I feel, you know, that’s it. And we have to be careful with that, too, because so often we have a hidden agenda. Yeah, I want you to change.

00:49:21:18 – 00:49:22:05
Nathan Crane
That, right?

00:49:22:07 – 00:49:22:17
Alan Questel
Yeah.

00:49:24:18 – 00:49:28:15
Nathan Crane
Of course I want you to. I don’t want you to do that anymore. You leave me alone.

00:49:28:15 – 00:49:46:06
Alan Questel
When I was married, my wife went away with a six day workshop. Right. And I was thinking, you know, if she could change six days a lot, you know, and I thought, that’s good. I like change. That’s great. She came home and she was different and I was looking at her and was like, this, you’ve changed. It’s great.

00:49:46:06 – 00:50:21:09
Alan Questel
And internally I was going, Stop it, stop it. And I was so resistant to it because if she changed it meant I had to change. MM So that’s one of the biggest things in terms of changing someone’s behavior I think needs to start with a change in our behavior. I give you an example of that. So my mother died when I was pretty young and maybe a year or two later I was watching TV with my dad and I realized I never told him I loved him when I was younger.

00:50:21:09 – 00:50:39:09
Alan Questel
I did and I thought so. I worked up the courage. It was hard for me. So watching TV in a commercial comes on and said, Dad, you know, I just want you to know I love you. And he goes, I love you too. What’s on Channel four? What’s on Channel five? And I was mortified. I was like, I just bared my soul.

00:50:39:17 – 00:51:01:02
Alan Questel
And he is watching TV looking for something to watch. And, you know, I ruminated on that for maybe an hour and then I let it go. And I realize I did this for not for him. But the real kicker was about a year later, we were on the phone and I said, Well, I love you. And he would love you too.

00:51:01:02 – 00:51:20:18
Alan Questel
And I said, Did I hear that? And then he started saying, It took a year. But you know what? If we change our behavior, then the other person could their behavior. And if they don’t, then it’s a signal for us to go, this isn’t a healthy relationship for me. I need to not spend as much time with this person.

00:51:21:02 – 00:51:41:11
Alan Questel
I need to draw different boundaries and do something different. But all I can really change is my behavior towards something and then see what’s the result of that, you know? And what we’re talking about are habits, those that’s the biggest thing because they’re compulsions, habits, things that we’ve learned unconsciously. And we don’t know why we do these things.

00:51:41:19 – 00:51:50:21
Alan Questel
But again, it’s like what you said, it’s the awareness of it that brings us to a place that we can begin to generate a new action in some way.

00:51:51:21 – 00:52:18:14
Nathan Crane
Yeah, a lot of the ancient texts talk about, you know, if you’re having these problems in life and in these relationships and constantly running into these barriers we’re talking about, and it very often comes down to, you know, one of two things. Usually both it’s selfishness and it’s attachment, right? Yeah. And so it’s attachment to the outcome, attachment to our ideas, attachment to the way we want things to be, attachment to results.

00:52:18:24 – 00:52:42:21
Nathan Crane
Right. Or selfishness. It’s I want it to be my way. You know, this is for me. This is, you know, there’s a healthy level of of soulfulness taking care of ourselves, right? Liking ourselves, treating art, taking care of our bodies, meditating, eating properly, you know, eating healthy. These kinds of things that self I call self fullness or self-love ness or, you know, self likeness.

00:52:43:04 – 00:52:58:11
Nathan Crane
Right. But the selfishness is not accepting the other person as they are. And that’s it’s easy to say, but it is very, very difficult, especially to the people who are closest to us. Right. Seems like the people closest to us. We want to change them the most.

00:52:58:11 – 00:53:27:03
Alan Questel
Absolutely. Because they’re in our face all the time. You know, the thing you talked about which which I agree with 100%, I don’t know what 100% is, but I agree with it a lot, you know, is the part that’s missing. When I read about these things, when someone give the talk about these things is, okay, what’s the concrete everyday thing I can practice to make a change.

00:53:28:02 – 00:54:07:03
Alan Questel
That’s what I’m interested in. The concrete solu to the things that you’re talking about because we all need something to practice. Otherwise I can’t practice an idea. I need an action, an act that I can practice. And it’s through those acts of practicing, challenging, difficult, whatever it is that it turns me into a different person over time. And so then we’re talking about patients too, because we live in cultures now where everyone said everything yesterday, you know, and for the most part, it takes a fair amount of patients to like ourselves more, to be kind to others.

00:54:07:14 – 00:54:24:15
Alan Questel
And the perspective of patients is one. Like sometimes I’ll be working with someone and dealing with some habit they have and I’ll say to them, So how long do you think it would take to change this? And they go, Three weeks and I laugh. I really think so. And three, you just created failure for yourself, right? Okay. Six months.

00:54:24:15 – 00:54:25:00
Alan Questel
And I said.

00:54:26:04 – 00:54:30:03
Nathan Crane
You’ve had that habit for 48 years and. That’s right. That’s right.

00:54:30:18 – 00:54:45:11
Alan Questel
That’s right. So I tell people it’s going to take you a year and a half to two years to change this habit. And first they freak out. Then I said, think about it. If you have a year and a half in six months, you haven’t achieved it yet. You have another year and a year you have another six months.

00:54:45:19 – 00:55:02:08
Alan Questel
And over that amount of time, people do recognize the changes that add up to a point where they go, I can keep going now because otherwise they stop themselves, they go out, I’ve failed. I can’t do it. I’m no good anymore, too difficult.

00:55:02:12 – 00:55:18:13
Nathan Crane
We won’t be able to do it. I’ll just give up. Give up hope now. There’s no hope, right? I know I’ve been trying this and nothing’s happened. Nothing’s changed. And I think we’ve all been through that. It’s like you start a new habit, you try and it’s like you kind of go back to the old tendencies and you try some more and you kind of go back and try some more.

00:55:18:13 – 00:55:44:16
Nathan Crane
And then I think even not even consciously, very often we just give up on things because we’re not seeing progress. I think we’re wired for progress, right? To see. Yeah. Mean is feel and see some sense of progress. But in, you know, in the gym it’s easy to see those things because you can see progress quickly, right? If you commit going to the gym two or three weeks or learning a new sport or something, I mean, two or three months learning a new sport or something you’ve never done before.

00:55:44:24 – 00:56:16:21
Nathan Crane
We show up every day, five days a week, two or three months, you’re going to see significant difference. But in something like, you know, emotional changes and thinking behaviors in these patterns, if it’s just an awareness practice, I mean, like you said, it can take months or years to see tangible results. What I where I see the biggest tangible results in the short amount of time is through very powerful spiritual practices or emotional practices.

00:56:16:21 – 00:56:54:11
Nathan Crane
Right? So so awareness practices, as I say them, mindfulness practices, just thinking about things and then trying to create new habits. So it works. But I see it takes a lot. It can take a lot of time versus like deep, you know, kriya yoga, meditation practices or map. A good friend of mine, Collette, or a colleague of mine striker who put 40 years of psychology together into a single program called Map Make Anything Possible has seen literally in one or two sessions Level ten phobias gone like that kind of deep, subconscious, quick healing.

00:56:54:11 – 00:57:15:08
Nathan Crane
I did a RTT session, rapid transformation therapy session. It was a two hour, two and a half hour deep dove emotional healing session. We focus on three childhood events I totally forgot about, and literally the next day I was a totally different person. You know, you go to a six day retreat like your wife. You dove in 8 hours a day for six days.

00:57:15:08 – 00:57:17:23
Nathan Crane
You’re going to come out of that a different person. You know.

00:57:17:23 – 00:57:18:10
Alan Questel
Hopefully.

00:57:18:14 – 00:57:39:09
Nathan Crane
The work is deep. I mean, but you’re still going to have stuff, baggage, whatever, right? We’re still going to have to practice these things. But you find, you know, we went to a three day retreat, my wife and I, a meditation retreat up in Boone, North Carolina, recently. And coming out of that, we have a daily meditation practice we do every morning when we wake up.

00:57:39:18 – 00:58:01:18
Nathan Crane
And just that alone, I’m seeing, you know, in 30, 40 days of practicing every day a difference in both of us. And so we’re going for a four day, you know, silent retreat level to go in the next level. It’s like those deep dives, in my experience, can be so powerful and can speed up the progress significantly. But we need the daily habits, too.

00:58:01:19 – 00:58:28:12
Alan Questel
That’s right. You know, and the thing you said, I mean, to me, it’s the essence of it all is practice, right. And, you know, in my book, like I said, each chapter, there’s several different exercises that are approachable for most people. It’s not just skip to the next chapter or something, but that we can do every day. So we can start to track and see that we are capable of change and growing ourselves in some way.

00:58:28:17 – 00:58:33:20
Nathan Crane
Can you give an example of another practice? In your book? You talked about the generosity one which was great, right?

00:58:33:20 – 00:58:56:09
Alan Questel
Brushing your teeth. You can pick anything like that around your house like that or moving in a way that you like the way it feels or listening, taking the time to listen to someone right to see what are they really saying without me. Wanted to jump in and respond. Takes work to really listen like that right to take the time or I have different mantras in there.

00:58:56:09 – 00:59:12:18
Alan Questel
Like I have one mantra I created. I was coming back from Europe. I’ve been teaching for a month and I was going to be home for like a week and a half and I’m off to Australia on the plane I started thinking of all I had to do and I got completely overwhelmed. But and that’s the pause part.

00:59:12:23 – 00:59:40:12
Alan Questel
But I caught it and caught it and I went, Alan, is this a good time to be thinking about this? And the answer was, no. You are a plane. You have no access to materials. You can’t do anything, you’re tired, let it go. And I just relaxed for an hour and then it ramped up again. And then I had to go through it that I discovered that every time I ask myself that question, the answer is no, it’s not a good time to be sick.

00:59:41:19 – 01:00:15:06
Alan Questel
And then there are other ones too. Like if I’m ruminating on something, right, it’s like, if I can catch it, I can go. I’m driving around in a bad neighborhood, right? This isn’t going anywhere. I need to get out of here. Right. And so and then tough love is another one to root to really think. But again, it takes practice to do these things, to learn how to communicate well enough, to be understanding enough that that I may not get the response I want initially, but I have to start somewhere.

01:00:15:20 – 01:00:18:14
Alan Questel
Right? And so it’s in all these actions that we have to take.

01:00:18:23 – 01:00:44:24
Nathan Crane
Mm. It’s a good point because even sometimes diving into a new practice or new, you know, healing work or new spiritual practice for two weeks, a month, two months, sometimes it feels like the things that were in your face or the things that you didn’t like actually show up even more. Right? For the a few months it can get worse.

01:00:44:24 – 01:01:04:10
Nathan Crane
Actually, it can. It’s more in your face. It’s like it’s going up to the surface. Yeah, but recognizing and being ready for that going, you know what, this, this healing work, this awareness work, these meditation practices is, the purpose is to help bring these things to the surface so then we can let them go and we can transcend them.

01:01:04:10 – 01:01:23:21
Nathan Crane
Right? And so knowing like it might get a little worse, like a hurt swimmer’s reaction for anyone who does a cleanse. I’ve been doing cleanses and detoxes for almost two decades now, and sometimes you do a cleanse and you actually feel sick for a day or two because you’re releasing so many toxins from your fat cells into your bloodstream, your digestive tract, and you feel like this cleanse is terrible.

01:01:23:21 – 01:01:36:19
Nathan Crane
It’s not working. I feel awful. And it’s like, No, it’s doing this job. You’re going to feel terrible for a day or two and then you’re going to feel better. In this case, you might not feel that great for a few weeks or a month or two, but then things start to get better.

01:01:37:05 – 01:02:00:23
Alan Questel
Right? Sure. Yeah. You know, I’ve I’ve had friends, so I’ve meditated for many, many years and I started originally with the idea of can I sustain my attention for longer periods of time. I was up for a job at a Ph.D. program and my referee, they asked him if I had a spiritual practice and he said, Oh yeah, he meditates every day.

01:02:00:23 – 01:02:20:03
Alan Questel
And that’s not a spiritual practice. I’m trying to sustain my attention. I kind of argued it, and really the longer I meditated, the less I thought I knew, right? And then I would meet so many people. I’ve been meditating for two weeks and then I go. I just smile at them. Are they good for you, man? Good for you.

01:02:20:03 – 01:02:33:24
Alan Questel
And then I think let’s talk in ten years, you know, let’s see if you sustain that and what do you do with it and how long does it carry you through the ups and downs that you’re talking about? You know, to come back to it again and again?

01:02:34:08 – 01:02:54:18
Nathan Crane
No. To that point, I mean, I’ve been meditating for 20 years and I feel like right now I’m still a beginner like it’s changed my life in so many ways and it’s helped me. And so I can I could I could list 100 ways that it’s totally helped my life, my business, my relationships, my health, everything. So the benefits are clearly there.

01:02:55:04 – 01:03:17:20
Nathan Crane
But even still sitting down and learning new practices and experimenting with new practices and, you know, always coming back to the breath and really looking, diving deeper into the practice. Like, I still feel like there’s still so much more. There’s more to let go of. There’s more to open up, too. There’s still so much more to know and and to release.

01:03:17:20 – 01:03:18:06
Nathan Crane
Right.

01:03:18:10 – 01:03:24:02
Alan Questel
And so that’s why I was pushing up against you a little bit with the word fully. You just described that. Oh, yeah.

01:03:24:02 – 01:03:29:04
Nathan Crane
Fully, huh? Oh, is a big word. Is a big.

01:03:29:04 – 01:03:29:18
Alan Questel
Word. Yeah.

01:03:29:23 – 01:03:40:22
Nathan Crane
A good point. It’s a it’s a really big word. And will we ever know anything? Foley? I mean, that’s that’s the highest goal of certain spiritual practices.

01:03:40:22 – 01:03:41:12
Alan Questel
Is, yeah.

01:03:41:22 – 01:04:06:02
Nathan Crane
Fully awakening to our God self, ah, enlightened self, our oneness with God, oneness with our highest, you know, soul. I mean, that’s, that’s the goal and aim of many ancient traditions. But they say it can take if you believe in past lives, they say it can take thousands or millions of lives, you know. So but they also say it’s possible in this life.

01:04:06:02 – 01:04:30:14
Nathan Crane
Now, that’s the other thing with with certain practices. It’s also possible to awaken to our highest self, meaning really pure love. It’s described as bliss and ecstasy. It’s described as, you know, God. Communion is bliss and ecstasy, pure love, non-attachment, non jealousy, non selfishness, you know, devotion to a higher source and and freedom what is called liberation, right?

01:04:30:14 – 01:04:53:24
Nathan Crane
Liberation from the pain and suffering of the mind. Because we know that basically we all, if not all, pain and suffering really comes from the mind and even physical pain. We know that we can there practices that you can overcome the physical pain through the mind. So at the end of the day, a lot of it is learning to control this thing.

01:04:54:16 – 01:05:02:01
Nathan Crane
And and it’s it sounds easy, but even with the daily practice, it’s not easy now. But it’s necessary.

01:05:02:15 – 01:05:05:10
Alan Questel
I hope so. Yeah.

01:05:05:10 – 01:05:22:10
Nathan Crane
Allen, it’s been it’s been a pleasure to talk to you and get to know you. Thanks for coming on the podcast where your book is Practice Intentional Acts of Kindness. Where’s the best place for them to get the book to connect with you? Learn more about your work you can.

01:05:22:10 – 01:05:46:02
Alan Questel
I have a website for it. It’s called Practicing Dash kindness dot com and there there’s information about book and other things and the book’s available on Amazon as a paperback. Oh, you can do as a paperback as I like to say, a Kindle instead of a Kindle and also is an audio book that I read and at the website there’s a contact page.

01:05:46:02 – 01:05:58:02
Alan Questel
If you have any questions or anything, you can always feel free to contact me. And I also want to say thanks so much for having me on your show. I really enjoyed our conversation and yeah, it’s really been great.

01:05:58:08 – 01:06:04:17
Nathan Crane
Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks for coming on and, uh, wish everybody so much health and happiness. We’ll talk to you next time. Take care.

01:06:05:06 – 01:06:05:22
Alan Questel
Bye bye.