You Are Not Your Emotions: The 90 Second Practice for Calmer Success with Dr. Rebecca Kochenderfer

Welcome And The Real Goal

Wendy 0:03

Hi, everyone. It's Wendy with Wellness and Wealth. Today, we are talking about the topic of success without abandoning yourself, and we're going to have Dr. Rebecca Cokenderfer on, Dr. Rebecca is an award-winning entrepreneur and author of the international bestseller, Mindful Living Made Easy. After building a multimillion-dollar company recognized by Forbes, she now helps women calm stress, quiet overthinking, and succeed without sacrificing their wellbeing. Welcome.

Rebecca Kochenderfer 0:39

Thank you for that lovely read. It's nice meeting you.

Wendy 0:41

Nice meeting you, too. So I'm really excited about this because I think this is a very important topic when we talk about females and self-care. I think that it happens a lot that we get busy in our lives, taking care of everybody else and everything else, that we've kind of abandon ourself as we're building this life as we go. So I'd love to know what success looks like to you, without abandoning yourself.

The Tortoise Path To Success

Rebecca Kochenderfer 1:12

I was receiving an award a few years ago, up on stage with a large audience, and I was the only woman, the only business woman receiving this legacy award. And one man after another got up there, and they talked about how they pedal to the metal, very masculine energy, and how the one bankruptcy story after another, another bankruptcy, another bankruptcy, and then when it was my turn to step up, I decided, to tear up my speech, and I said, "I was gonna talk about that, but after listening to all this, with respect, I would like to say that it doesn't have to be that way." That, Homeschool.com, which was my business at the time, became number one in the world, 2.2 million visitors every year, and I did it a boring way. I did it my way, right? I didn't go into debt. I didn't work myself into a heart attack. I didn't become a bad parent for it. So I think sometimes business has this masculine energy to it. And I said, "It isn't as sexy to be the tortoise in our business, but being the tortoise, there's sustainability there." And I think that part of being that tortoise is us taking care of ourselves and being in joy and loving what we're doing and remembering why we are doing it. And so that would be one of my big messages even now is that you get to do success your way. And in this, especially in the United States, in this American culture, there can be this very big drive to go big or go home. And doing it your way and doing it mindfully and with gratitude and with love and with health, maybe it isn't as sexy, but I think it's the quiet hero in this story.

Wendy 3:16

I love that. I see that all the time. There was that huge push to go, go, go and grind, and I'm like, "That's exhausting." That is exhausting, right? And I think that it's really important to understand that, we are, especially now, living in a time and, age that we can do it easier. We don't have to do it by the old boys club, for lack of a better word, right? We don't have to do all of those things, and I think it's wonderful that we're realizing that as opposed to continuing to burn ourselves out and be exhausted, and find joy in the actual process of building without having to overdo it. But I don't think that's what we are taught when we're little, right? I know that I was taught, don't put off tomorrow what you can do today." Like, go, go, go, and then keep going. And I think that it's really great that we're seeing the shift where we're losing this, grind till you can't think straight.

Worthiness Traps And A Wake-Up Call

Rebecca Kochenderfer 4:14

I think that sometimes there is a worthiness component behind that. I saw this cartoon that just cracked me up. When the man's looking in the mirror, he sees himself as Superman. He's so muscular- and he's so fit. But in reality, he has this, muffin top, and he's,, older and balding. Whereas the woman, who when she's looking in the mirror, she actually, she's like this, beautiful, fit woman, but when she looks into the mirror, she sees the sagging breasts and the fat thighs. And this view we have of ourselves, I feel like sometimes we're chasing worthiness, and it's this outside measure of ourselves, wanting to be a success so we can, be worthy, be worth it. That is such a trap, and I recognize that in myself. Like, why am I wanting to do this? Am I wanting to do this because it looks good, or I think that I will be a worthwhile human being if I have this outside success? I had a near-death experience on an airplane a couple of years ago, and, when they said, I heard them saying, I was so filled with peace. And I remember thinking to myself, "Oh, my gosh, they're right." When I was reviewing my life, I thought it really is all about love, that it isn't about this outside success that we are chasing. So to check in with ourselves, what is our motivation here? I think that love and joy have a very high level. Those are very high levels. Now, anger is higher than fear, but that's still, middle of the road. But checking in with ourselves and doing something from love and joy and gratitude, that is a very high place, and that's what led me from being an entrepreneur CEO who, built and sold businesses into doing my present work, which is about mindfulness and noticing our emotions and where we're coming from. Because otherwise, sometimes we are climbing the ladder of success only to find out that it's leaning against the wrong building. So when we can do things mindfully, knowing why we're doing it, not just reacting to our stuff, now we're building this dream life that is custom fit for us and what's important to us.

Wendy 6:55

I'm so glad that you said the higher emotions are, love and joy. I have a dear friend who, years ago she said to me, I must've been complaining about something. And so she would, anytime I would call her and with anything, she'd say, "The answer is love. What's the question?" It's one of my favorite quotes because when you realize that, then it takes all of that away 'cause you're like, "Okay, that's what I'm supposed to do." And, just recently, I was driving in New York, and a driver cut me off while merging, I'm used to driving there, and I was like, I could get upset, and I just went through the whole day going, "I hope that person has a wonderful, blessed day." And it makes such a difference 'cause then none of that stuff bothers you. And I really think that it has to do, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but if we're in that spiritual, joyous, looking for the joy, then we find it. If we're not, which is the question I want to ask you, then we find the opposite, right? we find what we're looking for based on where we are in our own mindfulness growth story. So I'd love to know, especially for women, what did you learn about how one uncomfortable emotion can turn into a whole spiral of thinking, and how does that show up for women in business?

Breaking The Emotion Thought Spiral

Rebecca Kochenderfer 8:04

Oh, that's a classic, is that you open up an email and it's something that you don't like, and if you don't process that emotion right away, that one emotion, according to studies, it can cause a thousand thoughts. So your mind starts thinking, which then generates more emotions, which causes more thoughts, and now you're trapped in this loop. And in neuroscience too, you become incoherent. Your brain and your heart are no longer operating in sync now. Your brain is firing in all these different directions. The different parts of the brain are not operating, coherently in sync. It's much, much harder to think and to have clarity. That's why of course it's a classic take 10 breaths. Step away from it. Or it's the five-year rule. If you're not gonna remember this in five years, probably not that important. Or in The Calm Mind that I directed, we use notice, name, relax, release. So you want to notice that you are having an emotion from this mindful observer part of yourself because When you see that email and you experience that anxiousness, that anger, that worry, you are having an emotion. You are not the emotion. So you wanna develop that observer part of you because the chemical lifespan of an emotion is just 90 seconds if we let it move through us. But if you look at this email and you say, "Oh, there's something wrong with me. I'm not allowed to be angry," and you cram it down, that emotion that even in Buddhism they call it a samskara, that can be trapped in you, and there is, scientific, reasons for that as well. It can be trapped in you and you can carry that all the time. Or you let it mean something about you like, "I'm a bad person because I'm angry," or you tell yourself a story, "I don't know how to respond to this," or, "This always happens, and now it's happening again." We can really get trapped in the story of it. So the key is you see this email and you notice from the observer part of you, "Oh, I'm having some emotions coming up." You just take a deep breath literally. You take a breath and you say Ah, what emotions am I experiencing right now? I'm feeling angry. Big breath, relax and release, and you let that anger, almost like a bubble, come bubble up and out of you. And well, I'm feeling anxious. Big breath. And so you catch these emotions at the beginning of their cycle. And according to Harvard, emotions only last 90 seconds, a minute and a half, if we let them complete their journey through us. And so that's why rather than getting trapped in that email, you just have the experience of the email. You read it, what emotions are you feeling? And the breath is the key. Just deep breaths until you've let all the emotions move through you. Now you are seeing that email through a clean windshield, not through the bugs of those emotions that are stuck there. You're seeing it through a clean windshield, and now you have this centeredness, this wisdom, this clarity, and you can respond to the email then from a better, higher place

Wendy 11:31

I am just curious because, I was raised in a workaholic home. You go till you drop kinda thing. I would watch my grandmother do 12-hour days and be like, "We'll eat when we get home." And even As a kid, as much as I admired where she got in the business world, I also was like, "This is probably not good for anybody." So how, when you're working with women, where do you start for those women who are like, "This has just been the way it is," it's really hard to slow down, to be like, "Oh, there's a different way." What would you be your advice to start to be like, is my life like this and I don't realize, and then what are those starting steps to be like, "Oh, maybe I could at least try to do it a different way"?

Redefining Hustle Through Self-Care

Rebecca Kochenderfer 12:16

Okay, so here's the thing. You're not slowing down. I've really discovered that I'm actually able to do more because I'm not battling my frigging stuff all the time. My windshield is clear. Nobody goes through life without collecting some bugs on their windshield, right? But if we can just, throughout the day, we keep cleaning our windshield by noticing the emotions we're having, oh, my gosh, you're able to actually do so much more. And I also wanna say something that really helped me too, through my business career and through parenting. I had three children five and under, and in the beginning, what's kinda modeled for us is life is hard. Kind of that martyr thing. And so in the beginning, I was really having a hard time with my children. I was talking about how tired I was, how hard this was, and then I caught it. And I went, "Wow, is that the experience you really want to have here?" And I realized, no, I want to enjoy this. And I think it was I was out walking in the stroller, and an older person in the neighborhood said, "Oh, you are so lucky. This phase is going to pass so quickly, and I know it's hard work. Enjoy it as much as you can." Changed everything for me another thing too is that, I thought I'm modeling for my daughters. A lot of times I won't do something for myself, but I'll do it to be a good role model for my daughters. What do I want them to see me doing? Do I want them to see me doing everything and damaging my health and suffering? Or do, I want them to see me taking good care of myself, taking vacations, loving life, enjoying the parenting, enjoying the business. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail, and it's okay. So that really helps me even right now as I'm getting older because there's a lot of negativity, negative expectations around getting older. I'm in the thick of it now. But, we are the designers of our life. And just like I did my businesses my own way, you have to be brave to go countercultural. You have to be brave and have a certain amount of trust, but it's so important. And now when I'm getting older, I'm like, "Well, what am I gonna model for my daughters?" I'm gonna model for them me writing another book, going out on book tour, having lovely dinners, going to the gym, swimming laps, playing pickleball, having girlfriends. What for me is a beautiful, rich life. So maybe I couldn't do it for myself because I would label it as selfish, but I can sure do it for my daughters to see, maybe you can age with joy and with health and vitality. Create this rich life for yourself. Whether you have three children five and under, or you're getting ready to do Medicare, you are the designer of your life. You get to start with what it is that means something to you, what it is that you want, and it's not selfish. Because when we are happy and we're fulfilled, that puts a vibe out there, we know what it's like to be around somebody who's happy. It's infectious. And so when we are taking good care of ourselves, that feeling, our beingness, it changes the atmosphere of other people, and it also is a role model for what is possible. I have a friend who travels a lot, and she'll post it on Facebook, and people will say, "Oh, I could never afford that." And she says, "Oh, it doesn't have to be expensive. You can do this, this, this, and this." So she has modeled a possibility, and because of her, there must be, five people who have their passports who never would have even thought it was possible if she hadn't modeled this possibility in life. I love the fact that when we're doing things, we are kind of role models for what is possible.

Wendy 17:25

Yeah, I love that too. And I love the travel thing. It's one of my favorite things to do. Part of that though, you talked

Morning Pages And Clearing Old Baggage

Wendy 17:31

about the the 90 seconds to pass through the emotion when you get the email. In general, because I know part of the importance of the journaling too so what's an exercise that you could walk us through now to show women how easy it is to take that step back to be able to move forward even more?

Rebecca Kochenderfer 17:52

So, I am a journaler. Not everyone does, but if you are comfortable with journaling, the morning pages are a classic for the reason. That just means you get up, 15 minutes early and you write three pages of stream of consciousness journaling. It's just whatever's on your mind. That's a way of cleaning your windshield, cleaning your thoughts and your emotions. I love to start the day that way. I find sometimes I'm creative, sometimes it's just word vomit, but it's great. It's onto this page, and at the end you just shred them and you throw it away. It's not like it's something you keep, but at least you're starting the day. So that would be the number one thing I've found to be the most helpful is I do morning pages every morning. It just takes about 15 minutes, just three pages. Your pen just starts moving and maybe in the beginning you say, "I don't know what I want to write," and then your pen just starts writing. It's a way of emptying your mind, emptying your emotions, just getting it all out, and now you're starting the day centered, and from a clear place. So if you can get up a little early and do that, love that. I have found that this notice, name, relax, release technique, to be one of the most life-changing things I have ever done. Nobody gets through life without picking up stuff, but I did have this life of poverty and, my father died and then two weeks later my mother died. I have two sisters who committed suicide 'cause they could just never get past the tough childhood. So I did have more emotions, more baggage that I needed to work through that was stuck in me. And I just... notice, name, relax, release, like what emotions am I feeling right now? And it takes a lot of bravery 'cause sometimes those emotions are not pretty. Sometimes they're even big like terror. And I notice for me, I have a lot of fear emotions that come up all the time, but I don't want to live my life coming from that place. And as I get older, I would like to clean out all of those things so I can have a clearer road trip through life. I want to go through life with a cleaner emotional windshield. It works so well. You just check in throughout the day, like in the morning, or before a phone call, or before you come back home, or before a meeting, because emotions are present and they are driving your car. They're driving your car for you because we're not aware of them. But if we can just be brave and check in with them, and also sometimes the emotions we're feeling are so beautiful as well. What am I feeling right now? I'm feeling so much love, joy, so much gratitude. Oh my gosh, I'm having such a wonderful time here. Big breath. Let those emotions move on through too, because you know that more good emotions are on their way. You're just keeping things moving through you. And because I do this practice, I'm able to do things like a book tour or speaking on stage that I could never do before. As the CEO of Homeschool.com, I was always invited to speak, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't get past myself. I would go to the conference. I'd be so filled with nerves, I'd have three days of diarrhea. I would eat off all my fingernails. It was a singularly unpleasant experience, and I couldn't do what I wanted to do. I wanted to be of service. I wanted to be with those beautiful people and to encourage them and help them get started on something that I'm sure was very scary at the time, but I couldn't. But as soon as I started doing notice, name, relax, release, I was able to let the emotions through that were coming up in live time, but also a lot of old emotions that had been stuck in there. And now I'm on a world tour. I spoke in Japan, and it was such joy and love behind it, and connecting with people. I met a member of parliament. I got to speak on, TV Malta on my birthday. I'm able to do these incredible things now, and I think it's because I've cleared my stuff out. When we do our inner work, it isn't always comfortable, but the rewards are vast And that's what this mindfulness is, that 95% of our life is unconscious. Our body is just going through the motions. But I would encourage your listeners, be brave. Just check in with yourself. What are you really feeling right now? And even when it's the big ones, the chemical lifespan of an emotion is just 90 seconds. You can handle 90 seconds. No matter how many emotions there are, no matter how big they are, it's a minute and a half. Go ahead and let that move through you. Be freed of that. I had this story of myself where I couldn't cook. "I'm not a good cook. I can't cook." I've noticed lately I'm putting on these beautiful, loving dinners for people. Think it came from doing the inner work, where now I can do those things because I'm freed of the baggage, freed of the stuff. And so this notice, name, relax, release has been one of the easiest, fastest, and yet most powerful things I have ever done in my life, keeping me present, letting the emotions move through. When I was on that airplane having that near-death experience, I saw rays, these shining golden rods of love coming from some of the, passengers, and it wasn't coming from all of them but some of the passengers were sending me love, and in this altered state I was in, I saw it. And so now when I see a car accident on side of the road or I see someone who's struggling, I send them love because we just don't know. They might be receiving that and feeling that. So that's one of the biggest changes I've made, too. But this notice, name, relax, release, letting your emotions move through you, you're whole. You're who you want to be, and you have clarity, and you have wisdom, and you have centeredness, and then through that place, you find yourself creating this beautiful life for yourself, doing things that you were never able to do before, and isn't that what we really want?

Wendy 24:20

A couple of things that you were talking about that I was hearing. One is that, there is something about when you finally, let

Learning To Receive And Speak Up

Wendy 24:26

go and you see that there is a way through. 'Cause when I was in a different frame of mind years ago, before I learned about mindfulness and all of that, I would be really afraid that if I did any of those things, that I wouldn't be who I was, not realizing that I could be so much better in my own skin and enjoying what I do more if I wasn't always in constant worry trying to control all the outcomes. I always felt like it was exhausting, right? It was really tiring to try to, feel like you had to control it, keep it moving, and I think that's one of the biggest changes is when you do mindfulness, when you start to meditate and do the journaling and everything, you don't have to, be in control of the universe anymore, which is amazing, like, that you don't have to be. But also what you were talking about, the receiving love, is that it's sometimes hard for women to receive because we are such givers. I'd love to have your thoughts now that you had this near-death experience on the importance of allowing yourself to receive, to be on the opposite side of that love, because I know there's a lot of women who struggle with this idea. They're so used to giving, always, to everything, that receiving's really difficult.

Rebecca Kochenderfer 25:38

It still is for me. That's a work in progress I'm 65 years old now. This is still a work in progress. I don't know if that's just because it's a female thing or a thing in our culture. The men in my lives don't seem to have a hard time with it, but, I still have a hard time with it and I find myself sliding over to what somebody wants. But nice thing about noticing my emotions, I'm catching it. I'm catching it, and also I do notice that sometimes I'm sliding to what the other person wants. There's a little bit of laziness behind it. So I'm being honest with you from my perspective. I was out walking with my husband. I really wanted to go to Silver Falls and see the colors changing in the trees. So we started walking. We saw the waterfalls, and it started sprinkling, and my husband, if he says something with, passion or confidence, I tend to slide over to whatever that person wants. So he says, "Okay, I wanna go back. I need to get to work." And instead of just sliding over to what that person wanted, I made the effort to check in with myself sometimes it's easier for me to just slide to what the other person wants to give, rather than taking the moment to pause and say, "Beck, what do you want?" So I caught myself. I didn't automatically slide over to what that person wanted. I said, "Okay, what do you want?" And I realized I'm having a really great time here. I would like to stay and finish this 1.2 mile loop. So from that centered place, I was able to say to my husband, I know it's raining and it's kinda muddy, but I'm actually having a really good time here in my yellow rain jacket walking with you, walking through the rainbow, walking through this Crystal Falls." And when I came from this centered, kinda happy place, he said, "Okay." So then we finished it and we were both better. We both had this beautiful experience because I took the time to check in with myself, to be brave, to risk selfishness, to check in with myself to say, "What do I really want here?" And then to come from that clear, centered place changed the experience for all of us. Isn't that beautiful?

Wendy 27:57

I love the fact that it's simple it's not like sometimes we think it's receive and we're, like, waiting for the million dollars. It's not that kind of receiving. It is those simple moments where you allow yourself to be present and speak up to it's okay to want something. That is fantastic. I have so enjoyed having you on. I know that you have a book that you're gonna share, with our listeners, how they can find you and find

Book, Tools, And Final Takeaways

Wendy 28:20

your book. I'm really excited, and we will, just so that our listeners know, we'll have it in our show notes, so you'll be able to click in the link, but you'll also share for our listeners

Rebecca Kochenderfer 28:31

I would love to. The book is called Mindful Living Made Easy, and it's about these minute-and-a-half science-based practices to calm the mind and nurture the soul. Amazon is probably the easiest place to find it, and you'll see that blue cover, Mindful Living Made Easy by Dr. Rebecca with the long last name. But, I really like this book because it talks about, you are the designer of your life, and it gives you a tool chest, and it really does teach you how to use that notice, name, relax, release that we tested for my PhD, we tested notice, name, relax, release with 200 people in the Calm Mind Study, and people are still using it. They're telling their children about it. They're telling their therapist about it. So I would love for people to give that technique a try, and I think that they will really like the book., I loved writing it, I loved talking about it, and I'm so grateful to you, Wendy, for inviting me to be on your show and to connect with all of your listeners. What a pleasure and an honor.

Wendy 29:36

Thank you for being on the show today. This was great. I love doing these shows 'cause I feel like I get to catch everything from my guest and, soak it all in, and then I get to listen to it again because of editing. I always listen to it, right as the right moment when I go to edit things, so, it's wonderful. So thank you so much. Like I said, Dr. Rebecca's book link will be in the show notes, so make sure that you click on that link and go, see what she has to offer. It sounds fantastic. Thank you so much, Dr. Rebecca.

Rebecca Kochenderfer 30:04

My pleasure. Final words for your listener. Remember, you are the designer of your life, and that you are having an emotion, you are not your emotions. Be brave. Just notice the emotion, let it move on through you. Give it its minute and a half.

Wendy 30:19

Thank you. And I want to thank all our listeners today. If you liked what you heard, please subscribe to the show, and we will have a new show in the next two weeks.

Rebecca Kochenderfer 30:28

Bye, everyone.