What Addiction (and Recovery) Can Teach Us About Change with Eric Zimmer
Eric Zimmer, a behavior coach and the host of The One You Feed podcast, joins Rick and I to explore what really supports us in changing our ingrained patterns of behavior through the lens of Eric’s journey with addiction and recovery. We discuss the key lessons Eric has learned from speaking with hundreds of experts, the role of insight, why some people go from insight to action and others don’t, acceptance, shame, and responsibility, and the balance between determinism and agency.
About our Guest: Eric is a behavior coach, interfaith spiritual director, and host of The One You Feed, which has over 500 episodes and 25 million downloads. At 24, Eric was homeless and addicted to heroin. In the years since he’s been in recovery, built a meaningful and fulfilling life for himself, and has used the lessons from his own life to help others do the same.
Watch the Episode: Prefer watching video? You can watch this episode on YouTube.
Key Topics:
0:00: Introduction
2:25: The parable of the two wolves
7:45: Applying our values to our own mental processes
13:00: Change as a three part process: insight, acceptance, and action
14:50: Why some people have an easier time changing than others
19:30: Continuous feedback, quick iterations, and where you rest your mind
23:00: Do we all have the same level of choice?
26:40: Shame, and differing interventions for differing levels of agency
32:40: Feeding the good wolf
40:35: How to want what’s good for us
47:10: Acceptance, responsibility, and beginner’s mind
50:10: What’s missing from the abstinence model?
52:20: Innate goodness, bumping into enlightenment, and self-compassion
1:01:50: “Devote yourself to what remains”
1:03:55: Recap
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