Katie and Gay Hendricks – Authenticity is Sexy

Gay and Katie Hendricks
Dr Gay Hendricks and his wife Dr Kathlyn Hendricks have written 40+ books, trained thousands of coaches, appeared on Oprah, and hosted seminars around the globe. In this episode they share their lessons on how to "Create no blame zones, how to "Use body Intelligence" and why "Authenticity is sexy". Hosted by Duff Watkins

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About Dr Gay Hendricks

Gay Hendricks, Ph.D., has been a leader in the fields of relationship transformation and bodymind therapies for more than 45 years. After earning his Ph.D. in counselling psychology from Stanford, Gay served as professor of Counselling Psychology at the University of Colorado for 21 years. He has written more than 40 books, including bestsellers such as Five Wishes, The Big Leap and Conscious Loving (co-authored with his co-author and mate for more than 35 years, Dr. Kathlyn Hendricks), both used as a primary text in universities around the world. In 2003, Gay co-founded The Spiritual Cinema Circle, which distributes inspirational movies and conscious entertainment to subscribers in 70+ countries.

Gay has offered seminars worldwide and appeared on more than 500 radio and television shows, including OPRAH, CNN, CNBC, 48 HOURS and others. In addition to his work with The Hendricks Institute, Gay is currently continuing his new mystery series that began with The First Rule Of Ten.

About Dr Katie Hendricks

Kathlyn Hendricks, Ph.D., BC-DMT*, is an evolutionary catalyst, contextual disruptor and freelance mentor who has been a pioneer in the field of body intelligence and conscious loving for fifty years. She describes her purpose: “I feel through to the heart with laser-love and evoke essence through deep play.” Katie is the co-author of twelve books, including the best-selling Conscious Loving, At The Speed of Life and Conscious Loving Ever After: How to Create Thriving Relationship at Midlife and Beyond. Passionate about the power of embodied integrity and full-spectrum presence, her work explores the how of consciousness and the structures and practices that befriend and transform fear into presence, relational authenticity and resonant collaboration. She specializes in translating concepts such as commitment into directly felt experiences that lead to new choices and creative engagement. Her unique coaching and leadership programs have generated hundreds of body intelligence and relationship coaches in the U.S. and Europe. She developed and led the unique Leadership and Transformation Training for 30 years, and is currently joining with her community through the Foundation for Conscious Living to create the Big Leap Online Programs. These online videos are designed to support people in coming home to presence, restoring resourcefulness and creating caring communities.

*Kathlyn earned a Ph.D. in Transpersonal Psychology and has been a Board Certified-Dance/Movement Therapist of the American Dance Therapy Association since 1975.

Episode Notes

Lesson 1: Knowing How To Commit And Recommit Is The Central Skill In Reaching Your Goals. 00:07:28
Lesson 2: Create No-Blame Zones 00:11:51
Lesson 3: Authenticity Is Sexy 00:18:37
Lesson 4: Use Body Intelligence 00:26:30
Lesson 5: Conscious Listening Creates Magic 00:33:10
Lesson 6; Making And Keeping Agreements Creates Ease And Flow In Life 00:39:14
Lesson 7: The One Central Problem In Life Is The Upper Limit Problem 00:45:17
Lesson 8: Master The Shift From Fear To Presencey 00:50:18
Lesson 9: Genius Emerges In The Space Of Appreciation. 00:54:29
Lesson 10: Everything Can Be Resolved With Love And Willingness. 00:57:55

Katie and Gay Hendricks

 [00:00:03] Duff Watkins: Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 10 Lessons it Took Me 50 Years to Learn where we dispense wisdom for your career in your life. My name is Duff Watkins, and I’m your host, our guest today, are two Katie and gay Hendricks founders of the Hendricks Institute.

They are both prominent psychologists in the U S they have been together for over 40 years. They’ve, co-written produced somehow published over 40 books and they have trained coaches all around the world. They have appeared on Oprah and today listener their career peaks by appearing on our podcast.

Thank you for joining us.

[00:00:41] Gay Hendricks: This is it. We cannot go further now.

[00:00:44] Duff Watkins: I mean, how good can it get really? I mean, I mean, it’s real.

[00:00:49] Gay Hendricks: We’re looking for this next place to go after Oprah and it looks like we landed it.

[00:00:54] Duff Watkins: We’re all living in the fast lane on this podcast. I’m here to tell you. now Gay I know that you were a professor of counselling psychology at Colorado university for 21 years.

And Catherine, I know that you, your doctorate is in transpersonal psychology, and somehow that all translates into the Hendricks Institute. So, tell me more about that.

[00:01:12] Katie Hendricks: Uh, yes. Well, I’m Kathlyn but everybody calls me Katie. So, uh, when we met each other, we found, we were both very interested in. How we could use the natural resources of our body breathing and movement to assist our evolution because everybody was just talking and, and was pretty head centric.

And there’s not a lot of evolution that can happen just by talking about it. But we found when we added breathing and movement and ways of engaging your whole-body learning that people not only learned a lot, but they were able to share what they learned and were able to coach people much more effectively than simply talking to them.

[00:01:57] Gay Hendricks: We met actually, um, a little over 40 years ago, as a matter of fact, in October, we’re just, um, preparing for our 40th wedding anniversary. So, if you happen to be in the neighbourhood,

but we, we got together in around 1980 and I was very interested. I discovered the power of body centred tools like breathing and, uh, helping people learn to work with their emotions. And then I saw what Katie was doing in the whole field of movement therapy. She was one of the first, certified dance and movement therapists in the United States.

And I saw her. she would be able to work with a problem, just a regular ordinary problem that someone came in with, or a relationship issue between two people. And she would do this movement stuff with them, and it looked like magic because it worked so quickly. And so, we kind of, uh, put our, our heads together there and, uh, have been working together ever since.

And, uh, yep. We’ve written about a dozen books together and been all over the world and created a great relationship at the same time.

[00:03:05] Katie Hendricks: And what we do at the Hendricks Institute is to, provide resources for people to enhance their relationships, whether it’s corporate or romantic, personal or friendship.

And also, we teach seminars where we have taught thousands of coaches, how to use our techniques and they can. They can integrate our techniques into whatever they’re doing so that it enhances their ability to reach their goals, to be able to create new solutions

from corporate, uh, to personal kinds of coaching. So that’s one of the main things that we do with through the Hendricks Institute.

[00:03:43] Duff Watkins: From boardroom to bedroom. I read that somewhere that’s the topics that

[00:03:49] Katie Hendricks: yes, I believe we’ve said that. Yes.

[00:03:51] Gay Hendricks: Yeah, because we found that exactly the same principles that transform organizations are useful in the war between the sheets.

[00:04:00] Duff Watkins: Well, speaking of books, let me tell you how this all came about. About 20 years ago, a girlfriend of mine gave me a book called Conscious Living Katie, why a woman would give me a book about enhancing consciousness? I don’t know. I don’t know beyond me, so, but I read this and like you Gay, I read a lot of books.

I read well over a hundred books a year, and now you dispend some, pass them along and give them their friends and don’t retain them. Except that Conscious Living is my first introduction to the work of you both. And I have read it reread it. I annotated as often do I have taken notes on scripts and travel around with those notes, refer to them routinely throughout the, throughout, over the years.

And that’s an, and I need to say once again, thank you Gina, for giving me that book. Cause I know she’s going to watch this podcast and

[00:04:49] Gay Hendricks: Is Gina still in your life.

[00:04:50] Duff Watkins: She is, she is, we’re still friends. Yes. Married to other people. But yes. and I got to wondering why do I hang on to this book? And there was a couple of reasons, one it’s amusing.

I want you to know Gay, I think I pretty much liberated all your jokes and therefore my own purposes. Secondly, it’s accessible. I mean, you’re dealing with some pretty heavy psychological concepts, and I’m speaking as a person who used to work in psychiatry But really, it’s just so bloody useful. It’s just a good book to have to refer to.

And so, I want to mention that book Conscious Living I want to mention in particular now that’s just one of the 40, your latest book I believe is called The Genius Zone. Do you have, do you have a, Do you happen to have a copy of that there with you.

[00:05:34] Gay Hendricks: As a matter of fact, I’m surrounded. One day last week I found four gigantic boxes of books here and I’ve been signing my way through them. So yes, I happen to have many copies of these unions, but, um, yeah, The Genius Zone is a follow-up to my other book. The Big Leap that came out about 12 years ago and The Big Leap is widely used in coaching programs and all sorts of programs.

I was just giving a talk an hour ago to Benjamin Hardy’s, uh, group. He’s got a group of several thousand people that, uh, meet and they’re using The Big Leap and The Genius Zone as their curriculum for the next six months. And so, I was kind of leading off the charge there and giving them a talk. And so, what these books are about are about how to access and express your unique genius.

And I have found in working with people over the years, Most of us don’t realize how much of a genius we actually are. And so, we’ve provided a number of tools in the two books to access your genius and to get it on the line. And then also how to stay in what I call your genius zone. Your genius zone is when you’re doing what you most love to do.

And it’s also, you’re doing it in such a way that it makes the biggest contribution to the world around you or to your family or people in your business. And so, if you get those two things working together, what you love to do and what makes your biggest contribution, that’s what I call your genius zone.

And the book is basically about how to get there and how to stabilize there. So, you’re living there all the time.

[00:07:16] Duff Watkins: The Genius Zone the thing that I believe I detect and the work of you, both and in the Hendricks, Institute is how to help people get unstuck. From where they are to where they want to be.

[00:07:28] Lesson 1 Knowing How To Commit And To Recommit Is The Central Skill In Reaching Your Goals.

[00:07:28] Duff Watkins: So that takes us to our first lesson, lesson, number one, knowing how to commit and recommit is the central skill and relationship and reaching your goals and in resolving issues.

[00:07:43] Katie Hendricks: Yes, yes, yes. And what people don’t realize is that committing is an action. It’s not a thing. That when I commit, I’m actually gathering myself and taking myself in a chosen direction.

So, a lot of people don’t really get where they’re going because they haven’t decided where they’re going. And so, the first thing is, am I going to get into the game? Am I going to take my whole self toward what I want? But a lot of people think that’s it. Once I’ve committed it. That should be it. You know, it’s like once I’ve bought the product, you know, it should just start automatically producing for me.

So, the second skill is that when we fall off track, we forget, we mess up instead of beating ourselves up or blaming somebody else for it. We simply recommit go, oh, I forgot. Oh, I broke an agreement. Oh, I completely don’t understand where I’m going. I’m going to reconfigure and recommit. And when you learn how to recommit, it’s actually an even more important skill than committing.

[00:08:50] Gay Hendricks: Uh, because one thing, uh, we teach people to think of their personal growth as, and their goals as being like, uh, the automatic pilot on an airplane that you’re going to set it for a certain goal, but you’ve got to expect that you’re going to drift from time to time. And so, we put a special emphasis on teaching people how to recommit when they’ve kind of slipped off, the, the direction they want to go in.

Uh, because if you think of an automatic pilot, let’s say you’re in Brazil and you want to get to New York. the pilot sets the thing for New York, but it doesn’t get there in a completely linear fashion. It gets there by drifting and shifting it drifts off centre. And then a little voice in there says, Hey, we’re drifting off to the right,

let’s correct toward the centre. And oh, we’re drifting off to the left. So, all of this is programmed in, so that’s in a constant state of learning and being willing to recommit after it slipped off its original commitment. And it’s a better way to look at the world too, because that means that the automatic pilot gets from Brazil to New York by being wrong most of the time.

And that’s the way we are, you know, it, it’s not so much that you, you know, you set your goal, that’s important, but what to do when you drift off of it, whether you turn that into a big destructive drama or do you simply recommit and get back to the business at hand? I remember when I was taking my daughter, when she was six years old, she wanted to go on a horse-riding lesson for her birthday.

She’d never ridden a horse before. And so, I took her out to the place and there was a lovely woman who was the trainer. And I remember Amanda got up on the horse and they took off and they went about 20 feet before Amanda fell off. And I, of course I was watching from behind the fence and I’m jumping up and down and freaking out, but the trainer she just looked and made sure Amanda was okay when she put her right back up the horse and they took off again this time she made it about 30 seconds. She fell off again. They kept going around and finally, and to this day, Amanda can jump on a horse here 40 years later and take off in a Gallup cause she’s got it down in her bones.

Uh, but I remember that first stage of having to get back on the horse and get back on the horse. And it really taught me an important lesson about the value of recommitment.

[00:11:11] Katie Hendricks: And the other thing you notice about a, uh, an airplane is the up there in the cockpit. If you were listening in, when things go off, course, they’re not yelling at each other, which is what often happens with humans is that when you go off course, you look for who’s to blame rather than.

Oh, how did I help create this? And then you simply recommit to what you’re wanting to do, and you take an action in that direction rather than an action toward hassling each other. And so, then you learn over time to navigate the speed bumps, which are inevitable in any of us who don’t know that we’ve had a big lesson in that in the last year and a half or two years.

[00:11:51] Lesson 2 Create No-Blame Zones

[00:11:51] Duff Watkins: Well, and that takes us to lesson number two, about creating no blames zones, knowing how to create within your close relationships. These no blames zones as a framework, because that’s where creativity and harmony occur.

[00:12:08] Gay Hendricks: Yes. Yes. Very important point because, well, first of all, I just want to clarify, we’re talking about creating your relationship as a no blame zone so that what we’re teaching people is how to have relationships that do not have blame and criticism embedded in them.

[00:12:28] Katie Hendricks: Um, most relationships, their fuel is adrenaline and conflict. So, when you’re, when you’re experiencing adrenaline, like whose fault is it, you get that burst of energy, but it’s very short-lived and it creates distance and separation between you. But most people think that’s inevitable in relationship. And what we found is that when you’re not blaming, it gives room for creativity, for appreciation, for co-creativity to emerge, which cannot happen in a blaming relationship.

So, we made a decision. Gosh, a long time ago,

[00:13:05] Gay Hendricks: it was a year or so into our relationship early on,

bless their hearts, very dear people. Uh, but they bickered at each other constantly and they came to visit us in Colorado right after we’d gotten together. And. We w we spent the whole weekend listening to them bicker. And after they left, we got together and he said, you know, we’ve, we’ve gotten into the habit of bickering with each other.

We’re perpetuating that style in our relationship.

[00:13:30] Katie Hendricks: Particularly through criticizing.

[00:13:32] Gay Hendricks: And so, we decided to eliminate blame and criticism from our relationship, and we made a commitment to doing that.

[00:13:40] Duff Watkins: So, what do you talk about? I don’t understand what’s left?

[00:13:42] Katie Hendricks: exactly that’s what people would say. We would talk about what we’re discovering. We put actually a lot of attention into shifting from criticizing into appreciating. Cause people don’t realize that appreciating is one of the most valuable moves that you can make in your relationship. Because when you appreciate your creating an emotional reservoir of connection that you can draw on and also thriving relationships have at least a five to one ratio of appreciations to criticism.

So, when we would find ourselves criticizing this and this applies to the first rule, instead of rule, whose fault was that we go, oh, okay. We’re recommitting to stopping, criticizing and

[00:14:31] Gay Hendricks: we discovered this tool, which we’d love everybody on earth to learn. And we call it the Ha Hmm move because. People get lost in the Ha I know what you done. I know what you do. And you know, you’re the, you’re the reason I’m unhappy. And we started going, Hmm, how am I contributing to this instead of ha it’s your fault?

[00:14:55] Katie Hendricks: And that move Hmm shifts you from critical brain into wonder brain. And it also opens up the possibility of seeing yourself in your partner free of fear because criticism and blame drive fear that drives adrenaline that keeps us in a state of, uh, anticipating what’s going to go wrong instead of opening up to enjoying each other, being able to notice what’s wanting to happen rather than always having it be a fight and a conflict, and who’s going to be in control.

[00:15:32] Duff Watkins: I read somewhere that most relationship arguments are a race to occupy the role of victim. Am I quoting you?

[00:15:41] Gay Hendricks: Might’ve heard that somewhere.

[00:15:43] Duff Watkins: I knew it was in that book, Conscious Living.

[00:15:47] Gay Hendricks: It’s true too, because if you look at any relationship argument that persists for a while, you’ll see that both people are entrenched in the victim position and they’re visibly making the other person, the persecutor or the villain.

[00:16:03] Katie Hendricks: Oh, poor me look what you did.

[00:16:06] Gay Hendricks: But the other person, you know, if you blame another person, The other person doesn’t usually go along with it.

[00:16:14] Katie Hendricks: Oh yeah.

[00:16:15] Gay Hendricks: I am. The reason you’re unhappy. Yeah. I never had occurred to me that I was causing your unhappiness.

[00:16:21] Duff Watkins: Why didn’t I think of that? It’s so obvious now that you mention it.

[00:16:24] Gay Hendricks: But interestingly enough, the, the only way really to get out of blame is by taking healthy, personal responsibility, not blaming yourself, not saying, oh, why did I do this? Or how am I, uh, but it’s Hmm why would I create an argument at this particular time about that? Hmm. That takes responsibility. It’s a wonder move, and if one thing, the Hendricks Institute teachers, it’s the art of wonder, because if you can cultivate wonder in yourself, you’ve got to direct access to the creative energy of the universe.

Einstein, I’m just pointing over here because now you can’t see it. But I have an autographed picture of Einstein that Katie gave me a one year. It’s one of my treasured possessions. Einstein wondered about a particular issue in physics every day.

He said for 27 years, that’s amazing. That’s a Guinness book of world record of wondering. Um, but you know, if you look at pictures of it, you know, he looks like he’s living pretty well inside there. He doesn’t look like he’s unhappy. And so, I think the gift of wonder is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself because it’s the antidote to fear.

If you’re afraid about something, what better thing to do than to turn it into wonder? Hmm. I wonder how I created myself in this situation and how can I create it so I’m not in this situation? So that’s a great use of our emotions is to trip us right away into wonder.

[00:17:56] Duff Watkins: One of the great things about your work.

And I’m speaking about this personally is that you give us ways out. You show us ways out so that we don’t have to keep repeating mindlessly. And as you know, if you’ve worked in psychology and psychiatry, there’s so many patterns of human behaviour, some positive, some negative, some profitable, some very much not.

And you use the word shift and move. And I know that a lot of your work is exactly that showing somebody how to change reposition themselves, physically, emotionally, mentally psychologically. And you are so right. There is such a huge body of evidence to support this.

And so that’s, that’s one reason why I really appreciate the work that you folks do.

[00:18:37] Lesson 3 Authenticity is Sexy

[00:18:37] Duff Watkins: let me, let me proceed to lesson number three. Authenticity is sexy, which just tells me I need to tap the depths of authenticity. Cause I missed that one. So please do tell,

[00:18:49] Gay Hendricks: when you were transparent with people, they don’t get sexually aroused.

[00:18:54] Duff Watkins: I’ve not noticed it, but I will, I will try with renewed vigour now that I know that authenticity is sexy.

[00:19:02] Gay Hendricks: Okay. Well, let’s think about that. So

[00:19:05] Katie Hendricks: one of the most exciting things that I discovered, and I first discovered with you, because I would notice that when you were speaking, I could see you creating from what you were experiencing, that there was this direct line from what you were experiencing to what came out your mouth.

And of course, I found it incredibly sexy, and I wondered, how is he doing that? Because he wasn’t repeating. You know, the sense of repeating something that somebody had told him, he was revealing himself with everything that he said. And in all of the I’ve trained thousands of coaches. And in one of the things that we do with people is teach them how to access, what am I actually experiencing and how can I communicate that in a way that other people can receive it, but it also matches what I’m experiencing.

And when people do that, it’s electric, everybody in the room can see it because I’m in, it doesn’t have to be nice or, or gentle. It can be roaring or, you know, somebody really expressing something very deep, but it’s congruent. And that, that alignment, you know, it’s like a flower blooming in its own uniqueness.

And when people express their uniqueness, it’s very exciting. It’s probably. The most inspiring thing that I have seen in working with people, because most people are trying to fit in. They’re trying to say something that they’re going to get approval and avoid disapproval. And there have people like them and not be shunned or not be bullied and that kind of reacting contracts people.

So, they can’t really find their own originality, but when they commit to being authentic, then they start offering themselves and surprising things and really fun kinds of things can occur. Any one of our students could share with you probably 10 stories of how. Okay. They were blown out by somebody else’s authenticity or by watching our authenticity with each other.

[00:21:10] Gay Hendricks: Yes. As a matter of fact, we, we got here through a moment of authenticity.

[00:21:15] Katie Hendricks: That’s right.

[00:21:15] Gay Hendricks: in our first conversation with each other. I had just had a big download the month before of how I messed up relationships. And one of them was not being honest, not being transparent. I wasn’t good at talking about my feelings and I don’t know how many women had told me.

Gosh, you never say anything, you know, authentic in there, but I couldn’t figure out what they were getting at, you know, but then finally I realized, oh, My job is to simply say, what’s going on. Like, if I’m scared to say I’m scared, or if I’m angry, I say I’m angry. Or if I’m sad, I say I’m sad. It’s that simple.

A lot of times it’s just finding out what’s true and just saying it. And so, I figured out transparency. Okay. I want a transparent relationship. Number two, I was really sick of that whole blame thing. And I, I just caught onto the power of taking responsibility instead of blame. So, I want a relationship where both people can do that. And the third thing I, I decided I want a relationship where both people are equally committed to their creativity because I’d been in relationships where I always write every day. And so, I disappear into a room for two or three hours. And if that’s not okay with the person I was with, they would sometimes hassle me about that.

And so anyway, this had just happened. So, my first conversation with Katie, I wanted to ask her out for coffee. Cause I thought she was the most beautiful human being I’ve ever seen. I got

[00:22:33] Katie Hendricks: to tell you the very first thing that he said to me, because I went up at a break, ask a question and the very first thing he said to me.

I’m very attracted to you.

[00:22:43] Gay Hendricks: I’ve been watching her across the room. That is the correct form for a female human being to be in.

[00:22:52] Katie Hendricks: So that was the first thing he said to me followed by.

[00:22:57] Gay Hendricks: I don’t know if this is going to be our first conversation or the rest of our lives or the last conversation with the rest of our lives. But I would like to ask you out for a cup of coffee, but I want you to know I’m only interested in relationships where both people are honest and transparent and both people take responsibility rather than blaming each other.

And both people are equally committed to their creative path. So, on those terms, would you like to have coffee with me?

[00:23:22] Duff Watkins: That’s one hell of a pickup line?

[00:23:27] Katie Hendricks: When I came back was, how about lunch? Yeah.

[00:23:32] Gay Hendricks: Up the ante on me. And so, we’d been together ever since that was a long lunch, a 40-year lunch now. Um, and I, uh, married her as soon as I could just pin her down.

And, uh, so, um, we’ve been together now more than 40 years. so, the important thing we’re getting at here though, is that those three things are really crucial to relationship because we’ve had hundreds, if not thousands now of couples in here or in our seminars that were blocked because one or the other of them was sitting on an untold truth and it could be a big truth.

Like one I’m remembering where a woman said. I had a one nighter with your best friends seven years ago, you know, that, that makes for an exciting next 10 minutes or so of conversation. but I’ve also had people in here that were just afraid to say the simplest thing. I was really scared about that, or I don’t like doing that, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell you, you know, something that’s, that’s a simple truth that oftentimes is more common than they, I had sex with your best friend.

[00:24:43] Katie Hendricks: Yeah. It’s not the thing. It’s the act of expressing and what it took us a long time to learn is that that act of expressing opens up a liveliness, opens up connections, knowing yourself, feeling, located presence in yourself, being able to connect with others. And it starts with that decision to share what’s actually going on. And the purpose of all of our work is to reveal essence, who you really are and who you really are, is unique. And so, part of the journey of relationship is the continuous discovery of how each of you are becoming. ’cause you’re learning different things. You’re learning with other people.

You’re bringing that back to your relationship. You have different rhythms of wanting to be close and wanting to be separate. And those are all things that you can simply communicate about rather than thinking no. Is he going to like it? Is she going to get mad at me? You know, are they going to leave me?

If I say that, which is how part of how we control relationships rather than allowing them to flower and really make a contribution in the world.

[00:25:56] Gay Hendricks: I love to hear you talk. I don’t get to be interviewed very often with Katie only every week or two, but, uh, I really, uh, I always say Katie’s voice is better than any Mozart symphony I’ve ever heard.

And so, the opportunity to sit next to her for an hour, it’s really quite a treat. Um,

[00:26:14] Duff Watkins: well, what I’ve learned is that Katie hung out with Einstein and that a Gay became a roaring sex machine through authenticity. So those are let’s

[00:26:22] Katie Hendricks: keep it

[00:26:24] Gay Hendricks: only on, less than three.

[00:26:25] Duff Watkins: Well, let’s keep going and see what happens. I wonder, what’s going to come next.

[00:26:30] Lesson 4 Use Body Intelligence

[00:26:30] Duff Watkins: Lesson number four, got this sounds like you, a Katie, use body intelligence, whole body learning is a way to connect.

[00:26:39] Katie Hendricks: Yes. Because most people think that they basically are a head. They’re just a head. In fact, one of the quotes is one of my favourites is Thomas Edison said that the only good use of the body is as a vehicle to carry the head from place to place. And I think a lot of people, I remember also a couple who came in and the man said, if you could just get her to stop feeling, If she could just stop feeling.

And if she could get dinner at six o’clock, I be happy. So

[00:27:16] Gay Hendricks: a lot of good, you got to set yourself bigger goals.

[00:27:22] Katie Hendricks: So, when we start making the move from here to here with particularly the question. Well, how are you experiencing that in your body? So, if people come in and they’re stuck, they think it’s about something rather than it’s actually about being stuck. And if you look at and feel into, oh, I’m stuck, I’m not breathing.

Oh, oh. And when I breathe in some sadness comes up, oh, oh, I’m really sad. I felt disconnected with you last week. And I didn’t tell you about it. And then what’s actually going on, starts to emerge. And when people get into their bodies and they’re breathing and they’re moving, then you get to really see what the patterns are in communication.

Rather than when people are talking, they can conceal that for years and years. So, one of the, one of the patterns that I noticed a lot in relationships, because Relationship is about getting close and getting separate the urge to merge and the urge to individuate. But very often when one person wants to get close, if the other person doesn’t know how to communicate, they’ll either create an argument in order to get separate or they’ll run away, or when they want to get close, and the other person doesn’t.

And so, you have this kind of pinball machine going on rather than people going. Oh, I noticed that I tensed up when you said that and that kind of communication has a great power to open up presence, and then you can connect with another person and then you can collaborate in a new way.

[00:29:03] Gay Hendricks: One of the things Katie said, I wanted to highlight.

That we say the longest journey any human being ever makes is 12 inches from their head down to their heart. And, the act of integrating the power of the mind with our emotions and who we are deep inside, the space that we all are, will those kinds of things, get obscured a lot of times because people kind of duke it out on the mental level and don’t ever get down to resolve the real emotional stuff that’s underneath most arguments, like for example, we have something on our charitable foundation website called the fear melters that people can, access freely and they are Four different ways of dealing with fear. So that we, what we discovered is that fear is underneath a lot of problems in relationships, in the bedroom, in the boardroom, in the living room, uh, that one, or both people get scared about something and then communicate out of that fear. And oftentimes what happens is,

[00:30:10] Duff Watkins: visual aids now.

[00:30:12] Gay Hendricks: And by the way, I don’t know, most people are probably accessing this on audio. Aren’t they?

[00:30:17] Duff Watkins: Both, there’s two channels, audio and YouTube, and a YouTube channel is surprisingly popular. So that’s fine.

[00:30:24] Gay Hendricks: Okay, good. So, if you’re not at a place where you can watch this, uh, the fear melters is there are four expressions of fear, fight, flee, freeze, and faint, and all mammals go through that.

And other species probably do. Uh, but most people don’t realize. That even their anger comes out of fear. It’s a response to fear.

[00:30:49] Katie Hendricks: It’s a fight response.

[00:30:50] Gay Hendricks: It’s a flight response.

[00:30:51] Katie Hendricks: Not really anger. and so, the, the moves here, oozing, Sumo, wiggling, and love scoops are very simple movements that move you from fear to presence so that you can actually think because when you’re in fear, other people become the enemy.

And when you’re in fear, you can’t use your whole brain. You’re only using the reptilian part of your brain. So, fear melters can shift you into presence in two minutes. And so, we want everybody to know how to do fear melters so that they can. Move from the, the juice of adrenaline and fear to the juice of presence and creativity.

[00:31:31] Duff Watkins: And let me clarify, when you say the reptilian part of the brain, that is the oldest part of the human brain in our species. It’s small, it’s the part that’s kept our species alive. So, I always like to take a brief moment to appreciate it, and because it sits out such powerful signals, the rest of the brain has evolved basically to damp down the signal sometimes because that fear response is so overwhelmingly powerful.

It doesn’t mean we’re not saying, you’re not saying we’re reptiles. In other words, uh,

[00:31:59] Gay Hendricks: the, um, well, there’s an old saying that you learn in therapy training that they say when a person comes in, you’re dealing. With a human being, a horse and a crocodile because we have three levels of our brain. The limbic system is all about emotion.

You know, a grapefruit. Most people have seen a grapefruit a grapefruit is approximately the same size as a brain, a human brain. And it’s arranged in a way like the thinking part, our cortex, the latest thing that has evolved is about the size of the rind of the grapefruit compared to the juicy stuff, which is about the size of the limbic part of the brain.

So, we need to make sure in life that we’re getting our smart cortex, that’s align now with our old emotional wiring because our emotions have been around for a lot longer than our thinking brain. And, especially those real old, old emotions, like fear and survival and things like that. So, we need to integrate our minds and our bodies and our emotions so that we can have access to the largest possible canvas on which to paint the magnificent story of our lives.

[00:33:10] Lesson 5 Conscious Listening Creates Magic

[00:33:10] Duff Watkins: takes us to lesson number five, conscious listening creates magic. Now, how does conscious listening different from just normal, plain vanilla flavoured listening?

[00:33:21] Gay Hendricks: Let’s do some unconscious listening.

[00:33:22] Katie Hendricks: Well, let me start.

[00:33:25] Gay Hendricks: There you go. Or don’t tell me you’re tired several times.

[00:33:32] Katie Hendricks: I’m tired.

[00:33:33] Gay Hendricks: Why don’t you. A little bit, you know, here’s an affirmation for you say I

[00:33:40] Katie Hendricks: am, so I’ll do it again. So, I’ve been feeling tired today, huh?

[00:33:49] Gay Hendricks: What’s wrong with you?

What the hell is wrong with you?

When are you going to think of somebody besides yourself?

[00:34:02] Duff Watkins: Go, go on, go on.

[00:34:04] Gay Hendricks: Yeah. You’re not paying us enough to go on

[00:34:13] Katie Hendricks: really conscious listening. There. There are three aspects of conscious listening that we teach people. One is and you think, well, that’s so simple. Why doesn’t everybody do that? Which is turning towards.

[00:34:26] Gay Hendricks: Just actually developing a listening posture. An open posture of listening.

[00:34:31] Katie Hendricks: So, turning toward and then, and turning toward we’ve had people turn toward like this turn toward and then fold up.

So, turning toward an opening, your posture and breathing. So those three things really set the stage for you being able to actually receive, give and receive information because truly most people are rehearsing. What they’re going to say, they’re rebutting or they’re in there judging, judging you or judging themselves.

So conscious listening is I think, such a key to having a successful life. I think all really conscious people evolved people know how to listen and give great attention. Too, they’re listening. So, they’re listening for accuracy.

[00:35:20] Gay Hendricks: Let’s do I’m tired again.

[00:35:21] Katie Hendricks: Yeah. Okay. I’ve been feeling tired today, huh?

[00:35:25] Gay Hendricks: And where are you feeling that in your body?

[00:35:27] Katie Hendricks: Oh, I know. I noticed I’ve got sort of chords that have some come up in my shoulders.

[00:35:33] Gay Hendricks: So that sounds like your neck is tense.

[00:35:36] Katie Hendricks: Yeah, my neck, yeah. My neck has been feeling tense.

[00:35:39] Gay Hendricks: And has that been something that’s been going on all day or did some particular thing trigger it?

[00:35:44] Katie Hendricks: Hmm. Oh, we know it was when I got that phone call.

I, yeah. You know, the phone call I was telling you about. I can just feel it right now. Oh yeah,

[00:35:55] Gay Hendricks: yeah. Yeah. So, notice what I was doing, there was just expressing interest in chaining off whatever she was saying. I wasn’t trying to fix her. And that was one of my biggest listening filters. When I got into relationship, Katie would tell me something and I thought it was my job to fix it.

And so, she would literally say, I’m tired and I’d say, well, why don’t you breathe a little bit, let’s go out for a brisk walk. So, I thought it was my job to solve her problem. And boy did, I, I get a lot from learning that she didn’t want me to solve her problems. She wanted me to just listen and appreciate and be with her.

And that she’s very capable of solving her own problems, but what she needed was just somebody to pay attention and listen.

[00:36:41] Katie Hendricks: One thing that I’ve really seen during the pandemic is the power of combined presence. So, we can all, even though we can’t be together physically, many of us. We can be together in our listening, and I can turn toward you, even if we’re not in the same place and open up my body and breathing, and then I’m adding my energy to yours.

I’m not adding content, but I’m adding presence. And in that collaboration is really where discovery gets to happen. And also, the deep sense of being connected to, because I think that what most of us are suffering from right now is not feeling connected. and that of course is the basis of addiction.

And, when people are able to feel received that their presence makes a difference, that they are heard, the whole physiology settles down. There’s this sense of possibility that opens up and, and a sense of. I have value. So, I think the, the great contribution of conscious listening is it demonstrates value to whoever you’re listening to.

[00:37:52] Gay Hendricks: Yeah. Another way to look at that too, is that almost everybody has listening shields or listening, filter where, you’re listening for criticism, you’re listening to find fault, or you’re listening to argue with the person. Uh, so what we’re after is a much more, open-hearted kind of listening where you really do your best to not only hear what’s going on, but also absorb it and feel, uh, because oftentimes if you can share feelings with another person in the sense of trying them on for yourself, it builds a real bond that, um, can really last forever.

[00:38:31] Katie Hendricks: I wanted to mention that on our charitable, uh, website, which is called foundation for conscious living. We have many videos that show people how to gain these skills. So, if they can’t come to a seminar, we have free videos and we have a whole-body listening map that people can download and has a little journey and different things that you can learn.

so, people want to dive into more of the skills. We have them either on hendricks.com or foundation for conscious living, because we want everybody to have access to these.

[00:39:04] Duff Watkins: Excellent. let me proceed because lesson number six, I say to the listener to the viewer, if you take away nothing today, take away this next one.

[00:39:14] Lesson 6 Making And Keeping Agreements Creates Ease And Flow In Life

[00:39:14] Duff Watkins: Lesson number six, making and keeping agreements impeccably is how you create ease and flow in your life. It really is just that simple in my experience. And I think, I think I must’ve learned this from, from you folks. So, one of your books, but, uh, I’ve been preaching this for, um, a decade plus now.

[00:39:33] Katie Hendricks: Yes, it is.

when you make an agreement, you’re actually creating a blueprint. You’re like setting out, like if you’re building a house, you’ll first have a blueprint, but when you create an agreement, you are actually making an energetic blueprint. And when you step into that, you like plug in your complete, the circuit on that blueprint.

But when you don’t keep your agreements, you say you’re going to do something, and you don’t do it. You, you throw a log jam into your ability to actually generate plans, to do what you say you’re going to do. You become much less effective. I’m remembering that. There are people who might have said, you know, who’ve said like, I’m going to call you at, at one.

And they do so me that goes, okay, this is a person with whom I can co-create. But someone who says, I’m going to call you at one and then they don’t call at one. And then when I finally get a hold of them, they say, oh gosh, I forgot.

[00:40:38] Gay Hendricks: Yeah. Broken agreements. Cause a lot of drama in relationships, not just romantic relationships or family, but also if you look in business relationships, you’ll see how much attention has to be put into repairing broken agreements.

And so, one of the things we teach, in fact, we have a whole deck of cards. We give people called the impeccability deck about how to really make and keep your agreements. Or if you cannot keep an agreement, how to change it consciously because sometimes that happens. But what we found is that oftentimes people have a pattern of not keeping agreements, a pattern of, being late all the time, or a pattern of, of not showing up where they’re supposed to show up or not getting the project done by the time, they said they were going to do it at five o’clock this afternoon.

So, picking up the slack is eats up a lot of energy that could be going into creative fulfillment of the ideas that your,

[00:41:38] Katie Hendricks: it also creates a lot of disagreement and a lot of disconnection. Because if, uh, if I’m depending on you, if you’re handing off something to me and it doesn’t happen, it affects my life.

And then all the people I’m handing it off to. And we think of that in business, but it’s really true in each part of our life. If someone is going to be delivering something. Makes a difference or even just an agreement that you’re going to talk over something, or you’re going to do something together when agreements don’t work well, you can kind of see in our country, you can see what’s happened in the last five years in the area of agreements.

people not doing what they said, they were going to do, doing the opposite of what they said they were going to do. So, we’re in the middle of needing to recreate our whole relationship with each other’s because hardly anybody’s keeping agreements until this last six months.

[00:42:34] Duff Watkins: I would say that, uh, in business, in my 30 year career, as an executive search consultant and executive coach plus running psychotherapy groups in psychiatric hospitals, um, if you want to do well in your relationships, if you want to do well in business, if you want to do well in your career, if you want to be promoted, if you want to have a, just a decent life, just keep your damn agreements really is just that simple.

that’s a good point. Gay. I hadn’t thought about there was a very high cost and business to having to repair broken agreements. That the, the phrase in businesses that a brand is a promise. You go to McDonald’s, you have certain expectations, you buy this brand of product, you have certain expectations, and they spend a lot of money, a lot of time trying to create those, instil those expectations in you.

And they’re not supposed to let you down cause that’s what you’re paying for. It literally. That’s what you’re paying for.

[00:43:29] Katie Hendricks: Yes. And the other thing I wanted to just give a little bit of attention to is that when people don’t keep an agreement or they’re anticipating not keeping agreements, people don’t know how to change agreements that are not working.

And so that’s one of the skills that we teach people is that if you’re not able to keep an agreement, change it before the due date, you know, so that you don’t say, oh, I was going to call you about that and say, I couldn’t do it. So just knowing this doesn’t work for me, I’m going to need to change this agreement.

and you can find out if that works for the other people and that, then it keeps you again in connection. With yourself and with the other person, and you’re not building up resentments and withholds

[00:44:14] Gay Hendricks: It’s much easier these days with technology too. I remember when I was a kid, my granddad was visiting up in Missouri and he was going to come down on the train and we went to the train station two or three days in a row when the train came, because we really didn’t know which one, he was going to be on.

And, um, because there wasn’t anything like you call up and say, Hey, I’m coming on the two o’clock train. but now, you know, like all the time, like today I knew I was going to be late for my trainer, that I work out with three days a week and he wouldn’t care if I was late, but it matters to me. So, I texted him.

I’m going to be about five minutes late. And so that kind of staying to make sure you, if you can’t keep an agreement to communicate about it in a way that doesn’t inconvenience the other person, because you know, like he knew I was going to be five minutes late, so he ran up to the coffee shop and got a cup of coffee.

So, he gave him time to do that, that he wouldn’t have done if he had known that I was coming. So, yeah, keeping agreements, if you want to keep your life elegantly smooth and free of drama, that’s a good one to do.

[00:45:17] Lesson 7: The One Central Problem In Life Is The Upper Limit Problem

[00:45:17] Duff Watkins: All right. Well, let us proceed to lesson number seven, the one central problem in life is the upper limit problem. Is that scary enough? You have no idea what that means by the way. So, I’m hoping you’ll enlighten me, but

[00:45:31] Gay Hendricks: well, good. I, I have a tiny understanding of what that means, so I’ve done my best, by the way, by the way, if you haven’t read the big leap folks, uh, the big leap is about two big things.

one it’s about how to find your genius zone, and also, it’s about how to overcome your upper limit problem. The new book, the genius zone is about how to live in the genius zone all the time. Uh, so the reason the big leap has a goldfish on the cover diving into this new bowl is it usually takes a big leap to get us into our genius, but the upper limit problem is the one problem because wherever you find yourself getting stuck, you will find that that very thing.

If you open to it correctly is an invitation to your genius. So, for example, if I get stuck on something that some problem, we’re having between me and Katie, the moment I can, you know, become transparent about it and communicate about it in a way that takes a hundred percent responsibility for it, suddenly this flow awakens, and I’ve seen it in boardrooms, and I’ve seen it a thousand times in the office here that people overcome whatever upper limit they are.

And they move immediately into that beautiful flow state that I’m calling genius. And so, the direct effect of overcoming an upper limit problem is that it gives you a direct door into the creative essence of yourself and the universe. So, the reason we say it’s the only problem is just about anywhere you look and your relationships or with your kids or in your business or whatever, you’ll see that people come up against the upper limit problem and get stuck because of some limiting belief they have. And then if things work well, they move through that and go into a new level. They take their lives to the next level or take their work to the next level.

[00:47:29] Katie Hendricks: So, in our understanding of the upper limit, what we call the upper limit is that we each have a thermostat setting for how good we can feel and how much, exchange of, uh, friendship or relationship we can enjoy.

And that thermostat, we didn’t set it. It got set by our family. It got set by the culture in every culture that we’ve ever been in. Uh, from Australia, you know, about the tall poppy syndrome. So, people are all taught. Don’t be a tall poppy cause guess what happens to the tall poppy? It gets cut off. And so, you know, like I heard a lot, you know, don’t be so full of yourself, you know, who do you think you are?

And there are all kinds of messages that the culture has, and it’s really intended to keep us safe. I think the upper limit is really, it’s a survival program that all of us have. And so, the, the purpose of our work is to enjoy more and more giving and receiving love every day. To expanding our capacity for enjoying love, success and abundance every day.

And that’s really the, that’s why we call it the only problem. Cause you can turn in all of your current problems for this one. Am I willing to expand my capacity every day for giving and receiving more love and enjoying a love, abundance and success?

[00:48:54] Duff Watkins: And so, the upper limit problem is if I’m hearing you correctly, it’s the limiting beliefs we have.

And it’s a constellation, how much joy or success or whatever we permit ourselves.

[00:49:08] Katie Hendricks: Yes, yes. Before we punish ourselves or limit ourselves or bring ourselves back down. Yeah. So, make a lot of money and then lose the money there. You know, if you look anywhere in life, you’ll see that people will come up against, uh, I can’t possibly do that, and they’ll bring themselves back to a more familiar level.

[00:49:28] Gay Hendricks: A good example of that is, uh, I did a big study of lottery winners when I was writing the big leap and an astonishing large percentage of people that win a lottery are within a year or so back down to where they were below or sometimes worse off than where they were below.

And so, uh, you know, that’s a very vivid example of the upper limit. in real life, most people won’t encounter anything quite that dramatic, but what they notice is that things will be going along for a while. And then an argument will ensue or there’ll be feeling good for a while. Then they’ll get a cold or now have good money issues for a while.

And then they’ll run into a wall there. So, it’s our own little unique method of self-sabotage and it’s all grounded in fear. So, the thing to do is start looking underneath that and unpacking those fears that, that drive it.

[00:50:18] Lesson 8: Master The Shift From Fear To Presence

[00:50:18] Duff Watkins: And that takes us directly to lesson number eight, master the shift from fear to presence.

[00:50:25] Katie Hendricks: Yes. Yes. And that’s what we were talking about with you earlier, particularly through, fear melters, but in any way. Cause when you’re in fear, when any of us are in fear, we contract, so we’re not breathing as much, we’re not moving freely. And so just even making any kind of spontaneous movement, opening your breathing.

Those will assist you to be able to explore what’s underneath your fear rather than being just stopped by your fear. And when people are in fear, they just recycle survival mechanisms and you kind of think, well, why is that person doing that crazy thing again, that they always do? It’s because they’re not thinking.

So, the moving from fear to presence, because people always say, all you need to do is move from fear to love. You know, just, you know, the only thing you have to fear is fear itself. And as if you could just muscle your way out of fear, but we’ve found that if you use just gentle body intelligence moves, you can presence yourself.

And when I’m present, I’m able to respond. And we really think of responsibility is being able to respond, not reacting when we’re in fear, we’re simply reacting in the ways that we learned in the fear patterns that we were describing. So, when you move to presence then the world becomes available. Again,

[00:51:49] Gay Hendricks: one of the things we say here is fear is excitement without the breath.

In other words, when you remember to breathe, suddenly fear turns into excitement. If you’re clutched up and holding your breath, fear gets to be a very compelling. Sophocles said when we’re scared everything rustles, you know, if you’re contracted and fear, everything looks scary out there. And uh, sometimes actually only takes about three breaths, three good breaths to begin to melt down the stress chemistry in your body.

[00:52:20] Duff Watkins: And this is the thrust of it. When you make the move, the shift from fear to presence, your ability to respond, your responsibility is regained or enlarged or, or, or activated. Cause it’s probably shut off in fear. And that’s the power of this shift.

[00:52:38] Katie Hendricks: Yes, because then you can make a new choice.

Cause what makes people leave their relationships? Whether it’s romantic or at work is just the same old, same old of conflict and power struggles, and that are all run by fear. And then when you’re in fear, adrenaline really runs you. But adrenaline, since it has a short half-life has to be accentuated.

So, you get more adrenaline, you get more drama, you get more. And we’ve seen that play out in our country vividly over the last five years, the acceleration of adrenaline, the acceleration of drama, uh, because people are reacting and in, from fear rather than being in presence

[00:53:25] Duff Watkins: What I love about your work is that you’re, again, you’re giving us an out, Gay, I know a lot of your work, or both of your work is a lot on breathing consciously and as a counter action, because you don’t negate fear. I mean, it’s either there or it’s not, and you don’t get a choice. It just it’s either there or it’s not. but being able to cope with it and to diffuse it into employee it to your benefit now that now that’s very valuable.

[00:53:50] Gay Hendricks: It really is because you got to realize too, that emotions are energy. And then we turn them into a meaning in our head. You know, it’s a stirring energy in your belly, or it’s a stirring energy in your back. So, they’re all energetic issues. The emotions are. And there’s a great, bit of a poem.

I love from Walt Whitman, where he says I am large and contain multitudes. And what we’re kind of teaching is how to experience that big spacious self in which you have some fears, anger, sadness experiences, but it’s the vast spaciousness of yourself. That’s your true identity.

[00:54:29] Lesson 9 Genius Emerges In The Space Of Appreciation

[00:54:29] Duff Watkins: And with that, we’ll proceed to lesson number nine, genius emerges in the space of appreciation.

In fact, relationships flourish with liberal appreciation.

[00:54:40] Gay Hendricks: Yes. Um, we, um, we’ve always practiced a lot of appreciation of each other, but then we came across that level study from John Gottman’s people up at, uh, university of Washington, where they found that thriving relationships have a five to one ratio of appreciations or positive comments to negative comments and, relationships that are going out of business heading toward divorce, have about a one to one.

For every positive thing that said there’s a negative thing that’s said on the average. And so we began, we started thinking, okay, let’s take that seriously. Let’s give each of ourselves at least five appreciations today. And then we started building up from there. Uh, but that’s a good place to start.

Just think of five things that just blow you away about your partner and, and communicate those to her. And, uh, I appreciate Katie so much during the day. last night, I remember we had a wonderful conversation. We were just lying there, reading, and suddenly I felt this incredible wave of appreciation for you.

And I just shared it with her, and it led to the most wonderful connection for a while. And so, uh, you know, it’s the best theatre on earth ourselves are really true, better than any television series.

[00:56:01] Katie Hendricks: Also, appreciation allows you to create a new story. Instead of the story of whose fault it is and who gets to be in control.

It’s a story of discovery because see we’ve been together over 42, well, over 42 years now. And the experience that we had last night was a new kind of energetic expansion and feeling so deeply connected with each other. It was incredibly nourishing. Our two cats had to come and see what was going on.

They were, they could feel it. And so, then we become generators of, of creativity, of a liveliness of connection for others, as well as ourselves. And I’ll tell you when, when people are appreciated, what you’re pointing out to them is something that they may think, oh, well, that’s, doesn’t everybody do that.

You know, like an ability to really be deeply present with others or an ability to notice the nuances. And if you appreciate that about something to go, oh, oh, it doesn’t everybody do it. No. And then they begin uncovering, oh, well maybe that’s part of my genius because genius is easy. Genius is something that you love to do.

And it also makes a contribution to others. And so, the gateway to that is by ritually appreciating. So, w whoever is appreciating whether you’re giving or receiving it, everybody gets to benefit.

[00:57:32] Duff Watkins: All too true. I’m thinking of in business appreciation is a form of psychic income and I’ve seen it so many times in so many companies to which I’ve consulted. Psychic income cost you nothing. It costs a business, nothing to, to say, you know, thanks for the effort. Thanks for working late. I say, again, it costs nothing, and the benefits can be extreme.

[00:57:55] Lesson 10: Everything Can Be Resolved With Love And Willingness.

[00:57:55] Duff Watkins: lesson, number 10, and everything can be resolved with love and willingness. Wait a minute.

What? Everything?

[00:58:03] Gay Hendricks: Yes. Love. Love is our most underrated healing tool. I think because it was such a magnificent day in my life. The first time I realized many years ago, There’s a lot of me that I’ve just been criticizing all the time. Let me just love myself for once the way I am. That was a huge moment for me. And since I, followed that up by writing a whole book called learning to love yourself because of the power of that moment.

And I get letters to this day, even though it’s almost 50 years now, since I wrote that book that, the act of learning to love yourself is one of the most transformative things people can do. We’re not talking about egotism here. Egotism is an attempt to prove that you’re lovable when you really don’t feel lovable.

And that’s why it looks so tacky. but, um, the actual genuine act of lovingly accepting yourself. That’s so powerful and then of course, that leads to your ability to lovingly accept other people, which is the grand payoff for it, because the extent to which you love yourself as the same extent to which you can love another person, the two interact like that.

[00:59:12] Katie Hendricks: And so, it’s almost always something that you, when I contract when other people contract is because I’m afraid, you’re going to find out that there’s something fundamentally unlovable about me. And so, I try to hide it. But if I take a moment to love myself for feeling unlovable, because love it can contain its opposite.

So, I can love myself for feeling critical. I can love myself for feeling that there’s something fundamentally wrong with me. And the more, even if we say, just start with a drop of love, just give a drop of love somewhere where you’d be willing to receive it. And then that starts the the opening and the expanding to be able to give and receive more love.

[00:59:59] Duff Watkins: Okay. Let me ask one unscheduled question. This’ll be our, let me finish with this. We’ve been talking a lot about the things that you’ve learned in life. What have you unlearned lately? Something that you thought was true used to think was true, but now realize it’s just not the case at all.

[01:00:16] Gay Hendricks: Let me think about that for a moment.

what have I unlearned recently? Oh man. I’m in a constant process of unlearning thing.

[01:00:26] Duff Watkins: Yeah, it’s hard.

[01:00:29] Gay Hendricks: well, one thing I, I recently I found myself kind of withdrawing from a relationship. and I think the reason. I was doing, it was based on a limiting belief of who that person really was. And so, I let go of that, to the best of my ability and then things have shifted, you know, I feel differently about the relationship now.

And so, I think that would be an example of something I unlearned and I kind of do that on a fairly regular basis. I think I try, I like to catch myself in a limiting belief of some form, some form.

[01:01:04] Katie Hendricks: I would say though, one of the most important things that I’ve unlearned is that I thought I could make everything better if I just kept you know, trying to understand and trying to listen into it, that I could fix somebody else’s. So, my own commitment to fixing Gay, used to listen to fix. I used to organize my whole life around fixing. I know, and when I really let go of, oh, it’s not possible for me to fix others. That was a big, that was a big unlearning.

They can step into making their choices, but I can’t do that for them.

[01:01:43] Duff Watkins: Any, even though you make a contribution to that effect.

[01:01:47] Gay Hendricks: Sure.

[01:01:48] Katie Hendricks: I make a contribution. It’s like I set the table, but they have to kind of pick up the utensils.

[01:01:53] Duff Watkins: And eat

[01:01:56] Katie Hendricks: and eat. Yes, no. Just pick up and throw the utensils at people.

[01:02:01] Duff Watkins: Okay. Well, we will finish formally and officially on that note, you’ve been listening to the podcast, 10 Lessons it Took Me 50 Years to Learn our guests today have been Katie and Gay Hendricks of the Hendricks Institute. You can learn more about their events, their seminars, their numerous books, everything on https://hendricks.com

um, Katie, you also mentioned the chair, the foundation for conscious living.com.

[01:02:25] Katie Hendricks: It’s a.org about org. Okay. That’s true. Yes. But you can get to it from.com. We have both of them, um, covered. So, so people can find it. Yeah. And there are lots and lots of resources and you’d be so welcome. We have also, um, free classes that our coaches offer.

So, there are lots of resources for, uh, for people to make use of.

[01:02:45] Duff Watkins: And so, our listeners have been listening to us, but we’d like to hear from you. You can email us, you want to know anything about Gay and Katie’s books or seminars. You contact me. It’s email addresses podcast@tenlessonslearned.com  that’s podcast at 10, the number one lessons learned.com.

And I will, I will get you the book. I will get you the information, anything you want we’ll do it. this episode has been produced by Robert Hossary and is sponsored as always by the professional development forum, a PDF www.professionaldevelopmentform.org. They supply seminars, webinars for young rising leaders.

They do podcast parties, anything you want, everything you need. It’s all there at professionaldevelopmentforum.org. And while you’re at the email, go ahead and hit the subscribe button so that you don’t miss any episodes of our continued, conversations with leaders and luminaries. And do remember this is the only podcast on the internet that makes the world a wiser place lesson by lesson.

Thank you for listening.

 This episode is produced by Robert Hossary. Sponsored as always by Professional Development Forum, which office insights, community or discussions, podcasts, parties, anything you want here, but they’re unique and it’s all free online. You can find the www.professionaldevelopmentforum.org you’ve heard from us we’d like to hear from you. Email us it’s podcast@10lessonslearned.com that’s podcast, 10 number one zero, lessons learned.com. Remember, this is the podcast the only podcast. That’s makes the world wiser lesson by lesson.

 
Gay and Katie Hendricks

Katie and Gay Hendricks – Authenticity is Sexy

Dr Gay Hendricks and his wife Dr Kathlyn Hendricks have written 40+ books, trained thousands of coaches, appeared on Oprah, and hosted seminars around the globe. In this episode they share their lessons on how to "Create no blame zones, how to "Use body Intelligence" and why "Authenticity is sexy". Hosted by Duff Watkins

About Dr Gay Hendricks

Gay Hendricks, Ph.D., has been a leader in the fields of relationship transformation and bodymind therapies for more than 45 years. After earning his Ph.D. in counselling psychology from Stanford, Gay served as professor of Counselling Psychology at the University of Colorado for 21 years. He has written more than 40 books, including bestsellers such as Five Wishes, The Big Leap and Conscious Loving (co-authored with his co-author and mate for more than 35 years, Dr. Kathlyn Hendricks), both used as a primary text in universities around the world. In 2003, Gay co-founded The Spiritual Cinema Circle, which distributes inspirational movies and conscious entertainment to subscribers in 70+ countries.

Gay has offered seminars worldwide and appeared on more than 500 radio and television shows, including OPRAH, CNN, CNBC, 48 HOURS and others. In addition to his work with The Hendricks Institute, Gay is currently continuing his new mystery series that began with The First Rule Of Ten.

About Dr Katie Hendricks

Kathlyn Hendricks, Ph.D., BC-DMT*, is an evolutionary catalyst, contextual disruptor and freelance mentor who has been a pioneer in the field of body intelligence and conscious loving for fifty years. She describes her purpose: “I feel through to the heart with laser-love and evoke essence through deep play.” Katie is the co-author of twelve books, including the best-selling Conscious Loving, At The Speed of Life and Conscious Loving Ever After: How to Create Thriving Relationship at Midlife and Beyond. Passionate about the power of embodied integrity and full-spectrum presence, her work explores the how of consciousness and the structures and practices that befriend and transform fear into presence, relational authenticity and resonant collaboration. She specializes in translating concepts such as commitment into directly felt experiences that lead to new choices and creative engagement. Her unique coaching and leadership programs have generated hundreds of body intelligence and relationship coaches in the U.S. and Europe. She developed and led the unique Leadership and Transformation Training for 30 years, and is currently joining with her community through the Foundation for Conscious Living to create the Big Leap Online Programs. These online videos are designed to support people in coming home to presence, restoring resourcefulness and creating caring communities.

*Kathlyn earned a Ph.D. in Transpersonal Psychology and has been a Board Certified-Dance/Movement Therapist of the American Dance Therapy Association since 1975.

Episode Notes

Lesson 1: Knowing How To Commit And Recommit Is The Central Skill In Reaching Your Goals. 00:07:28
Lesson 2: Create No-Blame Zones 00:11:51
Lesson 3: Authenticity Is Sexy 00:18:37
Lesson 4: Use Body Intelligence 00:26:30
Lesson 5: Conscious Listening Creates Magic 00:33:10
Lesson 6; Making And Keeping Agreements Creates Ease And Flow In Life 00:39:14
Lesson 7: The One Central Problem In Life Is The Upper Limit Problem 00:45:17
Lesson 8: Master The Shift From Fear To Presencey 00:50:18
Lesson 9: Genius Emerges In The Space Of Appreciation. 00:54:29
Lesson 10: Everything Can Be Resolved With Love And Willingness. 00:57:55

Katie and Gay Hendricks

 [00:00:03] Duff Watkins: Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 10 Lessons it Took Me 50 Years to Learn where we dispense wisdom for your career in your life. My name is Duff Watkins, and I’m your host, our guest today, are two Katie and gay Hendricks founders of the Hendricks Institute.

They are both prominent psychologists in the U S they have been together for over 40 years. They’ve, co-written produced somehow published over 40 books and they have trained coaches all around the world. They have appeared on Oprah and today listener their career peaks by appearing on our podcast.

Thank you for joining us.

[00:00:41] Gay Hendricks: This is it. We cannot go further now.

[00:00:44] Duff Watkins: I mean, how good can it get really? I mean, I mean, it’s real.

[00:00:49] Gay Hendricks: We’re looking for this next place to go after Oprah and it looks like we landed it.

[00:00:54] Duff Watkins: We’re all living in the fast lane on this podcast. I’m here to tell you. now Gay I know that you were a professor of counselling psychology at Colorado university for 21 years.

And Catherine, I know that you, your doctorate is in transpersonal psychology, and somehow that all translates into the Hendricks Institute. So, tell me more about that.

[00:01:12] Katie Hendricks: Uh, yes. Well, I’m Kathlyn but everybody calls me Katie. So, uh, when we met each other, we found, we were both very interested in. How we could use the natural resources of our body breathing and movement to assist our evolution because everybody was just talking and, and was pretty head centric.

And there’s not a lot of evolution that can happen just by talking about it. But we found when we added breathing and movement and ways of engaging your whole-body learning that people not only learned a lot, but they were able to share what they learned and were able to coach people much more effectively than simply talking to them.

[00:01:57] Gay Hendricks: We met actually, um, a little over 40 years ago, as a matter of fact, in October, we’re just, um, preparing for our 40th wedding anniversary. So, if you happen to be in the neighbourhood,

but we, we got together in around 1980 and I was very interested. I discovered the power of body centred tools like breathing and, uh, helping people learn to work with their emotions. And then I saw what Katie was doing in the whole field of movement therapy. She was one of the first, certified dance and movement therapists in the United States.

And I saw her. she would be able to work with a problem, just a regular ordinary problem that someone came in with, or a relationship issue between two people. And she would do this movement stuff with them, and it looked like magic because it worked so quickly. And so, we kind of, uh, put our, our heads together there and, uh, have been working together ever since.

And, uh, yep. We’ve written about a dozen books together and been all over the world and created a great relationship at the same time.

[00:03:05] Katie Hendricks: And what we do at the Hendricks Institute is to, provide resources for people to enhance their relationships, whether it’s corporate or romantic, personal or friendship.

And also, we teach seminars where we have taught thousands of coaches, how to use our techniques and they can. They can integrate our techniques into whatever they’re doing so that it enhances their ability to reach their goals, to be able to create new solutions

from corporate, uh, to personal kinds of coaching. So that’s one of the main things that we do with through the Hendricks Institute.

[00:03:43] Duff Watkins: From boardroom to bedroom. I read that somewhere that’s the topics that

[00:03:49] Katie Hendricks: yes, I believe we’ve said that. Yes.

[00:03:51] Gay Hendricks: Yeah, because we found that exactly the same principles that transform organizations are useful in the war between the sheets.

[00:04:00] Duff Watkins: Well, speaking of books, let me tell you how this all came about. About 20 years ago, a girlfriend of mine gave me a book called Conscious Living Katie, why a woman would give me a book about enhancing consciousness? I don’t know. I don’t know beyond me, so, but I read this and like you Gay, I read a lot of books.

I read well over a hundred books a year, and now you dispend some, pass them along and give them their friends and don’t retain them. Except that Conscious Living is my first introduction to the work of you both. And I have read it reread it. I annotated as often do I have taken notes on scripts and travel around with those notes, refer to them routinely throughout the, throughout, over the years.

And that’s an, and I need to say once again, thank you Gina, for giving me that book. Cause I know she’s going to watch this podcast and

[00:04:49] Gay Hendricks: Is Gina still in your life.

[00:04:50] Duff Watkins: She is, she is, we’re still friends. Yes. Married to other people. But yes. and I got to wondering why do I hang on to this book? And there was a couple of reasons, one it’s amusing.

I want you to know Gay, I think I pretty much liberated all your jokes and therefore my own purposes. Secondly, it’s accessible. I mean, you’re dealing with some pretty heavy psychological concepts, and I’m speaking as a person who used to work in psychiatry But really, it’s just so bloody useful. It’s just a good book to have to refer to.

And so, I want to mention that book Conscious Living I want to mention in particular now that’s just one of the 40, your latest book I believe is called The Genius Zone. Do you have, do you have a, Do you happen to have a copy of that there with you.

[00:05:34] Gay Hendricks: As a matter of fact, I’m surrounded. One day last week I found four gigantic boxes of books here and I’ve been signing my way through them. So yes, I happen to have many copies of these unions, but, um, yeah, The Genius Zone is a follow-up to my other book. The Big Leap that came out about 12 years ago and The Big Leap is widely used in coaching programs and all sorts of programs.

I was just giving a talk an hour ago to Benjamin Hardy’s, uh, group. He’s got a group of several thousand people that, uh, meet and they’re using The Big Leap and The Genius Zone as their curriculum for the next six months. And so, I was kind of leading off the charge there and giving them a talk. And so, what these books are about are about how to access and express your unique genius.

And I have found in working with people over the years, Most of us don’t realize how much of a genius we actually are. And so, we’ve provided a number of tools in the two books to access your genius and to get it on the line. And then also how to stay in what I call your genius zone. Your genius zone is when you’re doing what you most love to do.

And it’s also, you’re doing it in such a way that it makes the biggest contribution to the world around you or to your family or people in your business. And so, if you get those two things working together, what you love to do and what makes your biggest contribution, that’s what I call your genius zone.

And the book is basically about how to get there and how to stabilize there. So, you’re living there all the time.

[00:07:16] Duff Watkins: The Genius Zone the thing that I believe I detect and the work of you, both and in the Hendricks, Institute is how to help people get unstuck. From where they are to where they want to be.

[00:07:28] Lesson 1 Knowing How To Commit And To Recommit Is The Central Skill In Reaching Your Goals.

[00:07:28] Duff Watkins: So that takes us to our first lesson, lesson, number one, knowing how to commit and recommit is the central skill and relationship and reaching your goals and in resolving issues.

[00:07:43] Katie Hendricks: Yes, yes, yes. And what people don’t realize is that committing is an action. It’s not a thing. That when I commit, I’m actually gathering myself and taking myself in a chosen direction.

So, a lot of people don’t really get where they’re going because they haven’t decided where they’re going. And so, the first thing is, am I going to get into the game? Am I going to take my whole self toward what I want? But a lot of people think that’s it. Once I’ve committed it. That should be it. You know, it’s like once I’ve bought the product, you know, it should just start automatically producing for me.

So, the second skill is that when we fall off track, we forget, we mess up instead of beating ourselves up or blaming somebody else for it. We simply recommit go, oh, I forgot. Oh, I broke an agreement. Oh, I completely don’t understand where I’m going. I’m going to reconfigure and recommit. And when you learn how to recommit, it’s actually an even more important skill than committing.

[00:08:50] Gay Hendricks: Uh, because one thing, uh, we teach people to think of their personal growth as, and their goals as being like, uh, the automatic pilot on an airplane that you’re going to set it for a certain goal, but you’ve got to expect that you’re going to drift from time to time. And so, we put a special emphasis on teaching people how to recommit when they’ve kind of slipped off, the, the direction they want to go in.

Uh, because if you think of an automatic pilot, let’s say you’re in Brazil and you want to get to New York. the pilot sets the thing for New York, but it doesn’t get there in a completely linear fashion. It gets there by drifting and shifting it drifts off centre. And then a little voice in there says, Hey, we’re drifting off to the right,

let’s correct toward the centre. And oh, we’re drifting off to the left. So, all of this is programmed in, so that’s in a constant state of learning and being willing to recommit after it slipped off its original commitment. And it’s a better way to look at the world too, because that means that the automatic pilot gets from Brazil to New York by being wrong most of the time.

And that’s the way we are, you know, it, it’s not so much that you, you know, you set your goal, that’s important, but what to do when you drift off of it, whether you turn that into a big destructive drama or do you simply recommit and get back to the business at hand? I remember when I was taking my daughter, when she was six years old, she wanted to go on a horse-riding lesson for her birthday.

She’d never ridden a horse before. And so, I took her out to the place and there was a lovely woman who was the trainer. And I remember Amanda got up on the horse and they took off and they went about 20 feet before Amanda fell off. And I, of course I was watching from behind the fence and I’m jumping up and down and freaking out, but the trainer she just looked and made sure Amanda was okay when she put her right back up the horse and they took off again this time she made it about 30 seconds. She fell off again. They kept going around and finally, and to this day, Amanda can jump on a horse here 40 years later and take off in a Gallup cause she’s got it down in her bones.

Uh, but I remember that first stage of having to get back on the horse and get back on the horse. And it really taught me an important lesson about the value of recommitment.

[00:11:11] Katie Hendricks: And the other thing you notice about a, uh, an airplane is the up there in the cockpit. If you were listening in, when things go off, course, they’re not yelling at each other, which is what often happens with humans is that when you go off course, you look for who’s to blame rather than.

Oh, how did I help create this? And then you simply recommit to what you’re wanting to do, and you take an action in that direction rather than an action toward hassling each other. And so, then you learn over time to navigate the speed bumps, which are inevitable in any of us who don’t know that we’ve had a big lesson in that in the last year and a half or two years.

[00:11:51] Lesson 2 Create No-Blame Zones

[00:11:51] Duff Watkins: Well, and that takes us to lesson number two, about creating no blames zones, knowing how to create within your close relationships. These no blames zones as a framework, because that’s where creativity and harmony occur.

[00:12:08] Gay Hendricks: Yes. Yes. Very important point because, well, first of all, I just want to clarify, we’re talking about creating your relationship as a no blame zone so that what we’re teaching people is how to have relationships that do not have blame and criticism embedded in them.

[00:12:28] Katie Hendricks: Um, most relationships, their fuel is adrenaline and conflict. So, when you’re, when you’re experiencing adrenaline, like whose fault is it, you get that burst of energy, but it’s very short-lived and it creates distance and separation between you. But most people think that’s inevitable in relationship. And what we found is that when you’re not blaming, it gives room for creativity, for appreciation, for co-creativity to emerge, which cannot happen in a blaming relationship.

So, we made a decision. Gosh, a long time ago,

[00:13:05] Gay Hendricks: it was a year or so into our relationship early on,

bless their hearts, very dear people. Uh, but they bickered at each other constantly and they came to visit us in Colorado right after we’d gotten together. And. We w we spent the whole weekend listening to them bicker. And after they left, we got together and he said, you know, we’ve, we’ve gotten into the habit of bickering with each other.

We’re perpetuating that style in our relationship.

[00:13:30] Katie Hendricks: Particularly through criticizing.

[00:13:32] Gay Hendricks: And so, we decided to eliminate blame and criticism from our relationship, and we made a commitment to doing that.

[00:13:40] Duff Watkins: So, what do you talk about? I don’t understand what’s left?

[00:13:42] Katie Hendricks: exactly that’s what people would say. We would talk about what we’re discovering. We put actually a lot of attention into shifting from criticizing into appreciating. Cause people don’t realize that appreciating is one of the most valuable moves that you can make in your relationship. Because when you appreciate your creating an emotional reservoir of connection that you can draw on and also thriving relationships have at least a five to one ratio of appreciations to criticism.

So, when we would find ourselves criticizing this and this applies to the first rule, instead of rule, whose fault was that we go, oh, okay. We’re recommitting to stopping, criticizing and

[00:14:31] Gay Hendricks: we discovered this tool, which we’d love everybody on earth to learn. And we call it the Ha Hmm move because. People get lost in the Ha I know what you done. I know what you do. And you know, you’re the, you’re the reason I’m unhappy. And we started going, Hmm, how am I contributing to this instead of ha it’s your fault?

[00:14:55] Katie Hendricks: And that move Hmm shifts you from critical brain into wonder brain. And it also opens up the possibility of seeing yourself in your partner free of fear because criticism and blame drive fear that drives adrenaline that keeps us in a state of, uh, anticipating what’s going to go wrong instead of opening up to enjoying each other, being able to notice what’s wanting to happen rather than always having it be a fight and a conflict, and who’s going to be in control.

[00:15:32] Duff Watkins: I read somewhere that most relationship arguments are a race to occupy the role of victim. Am I quoting you?

[00:15:41] Gay Hendricks: Might’ve heard that somewhere.

[00:15:43] Duff Watkins: I knew it was in that book, Conscious Living.

[00:15:47] Gay Hendricks: It’s true too, because if you look at any relationship argument that persists for a while, you’ll see that both people are entrenched in the victim position and they’re visibly making the other person, the persecutor or the villain.

[00:16:03] Katie Hendricks: Oh, poor me look what you did.

[00:16:06] Gay Hendricks: But the other person, you know, if you blame another person, The other person doesn’t usually go along with it.

[00:16:14] Katie Hendricks: Oh yeah.

[00:16:15] Gay Hendricks: I am. The reason you’re unhappy. Yeah. I never had occurred to me that I was causing your unhappiness.

[00:16:21] Duff Watkins: Why didn’t I think of that? It’s so obvious now that you mention it.

[00:16:24] Gay Hendricks: But interestingly enough, the, the only way really to get out of blame is by taking healthy, personal responsibility, not blaming yourself, not saying, oh, why did I do this? Or how am I, uh, but it’s Hmm why would I create an argument at this particular time about that? Hmm. That takes responsibility. It’s a wonder move, and if one thing, the Hendricks Institute teachers, it’s the art of wonder, because if you can cultivate wonder in yourself, you’ve got to direct access to the creative energy of the universe.

Einstein, I’m just pointing over here because now you can’t see it. But I have an autographed picture of Einstein that Katie gave me a one year. It’s one of my treasured possessions. Einstein wondered about a particular issue in physics every day.

He said for 27 years, that’s amazing. That’s a Guinness book of world record of wondering. Um, but you know, if you look at pictures of it, you know, he looks like he’s living pretty well inside there. He doesn’t look like he’s unhappy. And so, I think the gift of wonder is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself because it’s the antidote to fear.

If you’re afraid about something, what better thing to do than to turn it into wonder? Hmm. I wonder how I created myself in this situation and how can I create it so I’m not in this situation? So that’s a great use of our emotions is to trip us right away into wonder.

[00:17:56] Duff Watkins: One of the great things about your work.

And I’m speaking about this personally is that you give us ways out. You show us ways out so that we don’t have to keep repeating mindlessly. And as you know, if you’ve worked in psychology and psychiatry, there’s so many patterns of human behaviour, some positive, some negative, some profitable, some very much not.

And you use the word shift and move. And I know that a lot of your work is exactly that showing somebody how to change reposition themselves, physically, emotionally, mentally psychologically. And you are so right. There is such a huge body of evidence to support this.

And so that’s, that’s one reason why I really appreciate the work that you folks do.

[00:18:37] Lesson 3 Authenticity is Sexy

[00:18:37] Duff Watkins: let me, let me proceed to lesson number three. Authenticity is sexy, which just tells me I need to tap the depths of authenticity. Cause I missed that one. So please do tell,

[00:18:49] Gay Hendricks: when you were transparent with people, they don’t get sexually aroused.

[00:18:54] Duff Watkins: I’ve not noticed it, but I will, I will try with renewed vigour now that I know that authenticity is sexy.

[00:19:02] Gay Hendricks: Okay. Well, let’s think about that. So

[00:19:05] Katie Hendricks: one of the most exciting things that I discovered, and I first discovered with you, because I would notice that when you were speaking, I could see you creating from what you were experiencing, that there was this direct line from what you were experiencing to what came out your mouth.

And of course, I found it incredibly sexy, and I wondered, how is he doing that? Because he wasn’t repeating. You know, the sense of repeating something that somebody had told him, he was revealing himself with everything that he said. And in all of the I’ve trained thousands of coaches. And in one of the things that we do with people is teach them how to access, what am I actually experiencing and how can I communicate that in a way that other people can receive it, but it also matches what I’m experiencing.

And when people do that, it’s electric, everybody in the room can see it because I’m in, it doesn’t have to be nice or, or gentle. It can be roaring or, you know, somebody really expressing something very deep, but it’s congruent. And that, that alignment, you know, it’s like a flower blooming in its own uniqueness.

And when people express their uniqueness, it’s very exciting. It’s probably. The most inspiring thing that I have seen in working with people, because most people are trying to fit in. They’re trying to say something that they’re going to get approval and avoid disapproval. And there have people like them and not be shunned or not be bullied and that kind of reacting contracts people.

So, they can’t really find their own originality, but when they commit to being authentic, then they start offering themselves and surprising things and really fun kinds of things can occur. Any one of our students could share with you probably 10 stories of how. Okay. They were blown out by somebody else’s authenticity or by watching our authenticity with each other.

[00:21:10] Gay Hendricks: Yes. As a matter of fact, we, we got here through a moment of authenticity.

[00:21:15] Katie Hendricks: That’s right.

[00:21:15] Gay Hendricks: in our first conversation with each other. I had just had a big download the month before of how I messed up relationships. And one of them was not being honest, not being transparent. I wasn’t good at talking about my feelings and I don’t know how many women had told me.

Gosh, you never say anything, you know, authentic in there, but I couldn’t figure out what they were getting at, you know, but then finally I realized, oh, My job is to simply say, what’s going on. Like, if I’m scared to say I’m scared, or if I’m angry, I say I’m angry. Or if I’m sad, I say I’m sad. It’s that simple.

A lot of times it’s just finding out what’s true and just saying it. And so, I figured out transparency. Okay. I want a transparent relationship. Number two, I was really sick of that whole blame thing. And I, I just caught onto the power of taking responsibility instead of blame. So, I want a relationship where both people can do that. And the third thing I, I decided I want a relationship where both people are equally committed to their creativity because I’d been in relationships where I always write every day. And so, I disappear into a room for two or three hours. And if that’s not okay with the person I was with, they would sometimes hassle me about that.

And so anyway, this had just happened. So, my first conversation with Katie, I wanted to ask her out for coffee. Cause I thought she was the most beautiful human being I’ve ever seen. I got

[00:22:33] Katie Hendricks: to tell you the very first thing that he said to me, because I went up at a break, ask a question and the very first thing he said to me.

I’m very attracted to you.

[00:22:43] Gay Hendricks: I’ve been watching her across the room. That is the correct form for a female human being to be in.

[00:22:52] Katie Hendricks: So that was the first thing he said to me followed by.

[00:22:57] Gay Hendricks: I don’t know if this is going to be our first conversation or the rest of our lives or the last conversation with the rest of our lives. But I would like to ask you out for a cup of coffee, but I want you to know I’m only interested in relationships where both people are honest and transparent and both people take responsibility rather than blaming each other.

And both people are equally committed to their creative path. So, on those terms, would you like to have coffee with me?

[00:23:22] Duff Watkins: That’s one hell of a pickup line?

[00:23:27] Katie Hendricks: When I came back was, how about lunch? Yeah.

[00:23:32] Gay Hendricks: Up the ante on me. And so, we’d been together ever since that was a long lunch, a 40-year lunch now. Um, and I, uh, married her as soon as I could just pin her down.

And, uh, so, um, we’ve been together now more than 40 years. so, the important thing we’re getting at here though, is that those three things are really crucial to relationship because we’ve had hundreds, if not thousands now of couples in here or in our seminars that were blocked because one or the other of them was sitting on an untold truth and it could be a big truth.

Like one I’m remembering where a woman said. I had a one nighter with your best friends seven years ago, you know, that, that makes for an exciting next 10 minutes or so of conversation. but I’ve also had people in here that were just afraid to say the simplest thing. I was really scared about that, or I don’t like doing that, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell you, you know, something that’s, that’s a simple truth that oftentimes is more common than they, I had sex with your best friend.

[00:24:43] Katie Hendricks: Yeah. It’s not the thing. It’s the act of expressing and what it took us a long time to learn is that that act of expressing opens up a liveliness, opens up connections, knowing yourself, feeling, located presence in yourself, being able to connect with others. And it starts with that decision to share what’s actually going on. And the purpose of all of our work is to reveal essence, who you really are and who you really are, is unique. And so, part of the journey of relationship is the continuous discovery of how each of you are becoming. ’cause you’re learning different things. You’re learning with other people.

You’re bringing that back to your relationship. You have different rhythms of wanting to be close and wanting to be separate. And those are all things that you can simply communicate about rather than thinking no. Is he going to like it? Is she going to get mad at me? You know, are they going to leave me?

If I say that, which is how part of how we control relationships rather than allowing them to flower and really make a contribution in the world.

[00:25:56] Gay Hendricks: I love to hear you talk. I don’t get to be interviewed very often with Katie only every week or two, but, uh, I really, uh, I always say Katie’s voice is better than any Mozart symphony I’ve ever heard.

And so, the opportunity to sit next to her for an hour, it’s really quite a treat. Um,

[00:26:14] Duff Watkins: well, what I’ve learned is that Katie hung out with Einstein and that a Gay became a roaring sex machine through authenticity. So those are let’s

[00:26:22] Katie Hendricks: keep it

[00:26:24] Gay Hendricks: only on, less than three.

[00:26:25] Duff Watkins: Well, let’s keep going and see what happens. I wonder, what’s going to come next.

[00:26:30] Lesson 4 Use Body Intelligence

[00:26:30] Duff Watkins: Lesson number four, got this sounds like you, a Katie, use body intelligence, whole body learning is a way to connect.

[00:26:39] Katie Hendricks: Yes. Because most people think that they basically are a head. They’re just a head. In fact, one of the quotes is one of my favourites is Thomas Edison said that the only good use of the body is as a vehicle to carry the head from place to place. And I think a lot of people, I remember also a couple who came in and the man said, if you could just get her to stop feeling, If she could just stop feeling.

And if she could get dinner at six o’clock, I be happy. So

[00:27:16] Gay Hendricks: a lot of good, you got to set yourself bigger goals.

[00:27:22] Katie Hendricks: So, when we start making the move from here to here with particularly the question. Well, how are you experiencing that in your body? So, if people come in and they’re stuck, they think it’s about something rather than it’s actually about being stuck. And if you look at and feel into, oh, I’m stuck, I’m not breathing.

Oh, oh. And when I breathe in some sadness comes up, oh, oh, I’m really sad. I felt disconnected with you last week. And I didn’t tell you about it. And then what’s actually going on, starts to emerge. And when people get into their bodies and they’re breathing and they’re moving, then you get to really see what the patterns are in communication.

Rather than when people are talking, they can conceal that for years and years. So, one of the, one of the patterns that I noticed a lot in relationships, because Relationship is about getting close and getting separate the urge to merge and the urge to individuate. But very often when one person wants to get close, if the other person doesn’t know how to communicate, they’ll either create an argument in order to get separate or they’ll run away, or when they want to get close, and the other person doesn’t.

And so, you have this kind of pinball machine going on rather than people going. Oh, I noticed that I tensed up when you said that and that kind of communication has a great power to open up presence, and then you can connect with another person and then you can collaborate in a new way.

[00:29:03] Gay Hendricks: One of the things Katie said, I wanted to highlight.

That we say the longest journey any human being ever makes is 12 inches from their head down to their heart. And, the act of integrating the power of the mind with our emotions and who we are deep inside, the space that we all are, will those kinds of things, get obscured a lot of times because people kind of duke it out on the mental level and don’t ever get down to resolve the real emotional stuff that’s underneath most arguments, like for example, we have something on our charitable foundation website called the fear melters that people can, access freely and they are Four different ways of dealing with fear. So that we, what we discovered is that fear is underneath a lot of problems in relationships, in the bedroom, in the boardroom, in the living room, uh, that one, or both people get scared about something and then communicate out of that fear. And oftentimes what happens is,

[00:30:10] Duff Watkins: visual aids now.

[00:30:12] Gay Hendricks: And by the way, I don’t know, most people are probably accessing this on audio. Aren’t they?

[00:30:17] Duff Watkins: Both, there’s two channels, audio and YouTube, and a YouTube channel is surprisingly popular. So that’s fine.

[00:30:24] Gay Hendricks: Okay, good. So, if you’re not at a place where you can watch this, uh, the fear melters is there are four expressions of fear, fight, flee, freeze, and faint, and all mammals go through that.

And other species probably do. Uh, but most people don’t realize. That even their anger comes out of fear. It’s a response to fear.

[00:30:49] Katie Hendricks: It’s a fight response.

[00:30:50] Gay Hendricks: It’s a flight response.

[00:30:51] Katie Hendricks: Not really anger. and so, the, the moves here, oozing, Sumo, wiggling, and love scoops are very simple movements that move you from fear to presence so that you can actually think because when you’re in fear, other people become the enemy.

And when you’re in fear, you can’t use your whole brain. You’re only using the reptilian part of your brain. So, fear melters can shift you into presence in two minutes. And so, we want everybody to know how to do fear melters so that they can. Move from the, the juice of adrenaline and fear to the juice of presence and creativity.

[00:31:31] Duff Watkins: And let me clarify, when you say the reptilian part of the brain, that is the oldest part of the human brain in our species. It’s small, it’s the part that’s kept our species alive. So, I always like to take a brief moment to appreciate it, and because it sits out such powerful signals, the rest of the brain has evolved basically to damp down the signal sometimes because that fear response is so overwhelmingly powerful.

It doesn’t mean we’re not saying, you’re not saying we’re reptiles. In other words, uh,

[00:31:59] Gay Hendricks: the, um, well, there’s an old saying that you learn in therapy training that they say when a person comes in, you’re dealing. With a human being, a horse and a crocodile because we have three levels of our brain. The limbic system is all about emotion.

You know, a grapefruit. Most people have seen a grapefruit a grapefruit is approximately the same size as a brain, a human brain. And it’s arranged in a way like the thinking part, our cortex, the latest thing that has evolved is about the size of the rind of the grapefruit compared to the juicy stuff, which is about the size of the limbic part of the brain.

So, we need to make sure in life that we’re getting our smart cortex, that’s align now with our old emotional wiring because our emotions have been around for a lot longer than our thinking brain. And, especially those real old, old emotions, like fear and survival and things like that. So, we need to integrate our minds and our bodies and our emotions so that we can have access to the largest possible canvas on which to paint the magnificent story of our lives.

[00:33:10] Lesson 5 Conscious Listening Creates Magic

[00:33:10] Duff Watkins: takes us to lesson number five, conscious listening creates magic. Now, how does conscious listening different from just normal, plain vanilla flavoured listening?

[00:33:21] Gay Hendricks: Let’s do some unconscious listening.

[00:33:22] Katie Hendricks: Well, let me start.

[00:33:25] Gay Hendricks: There you go. Or don’t tell me you’re tired several times.

[00:33:32] Katie Hendricks: I’m tired.

[00:33:33] Gay Hendricks: Why don’t you. A little bit, you know, here’s an affirmation for you say I

[00:33:40] Katie Hendricks: am, so I’ll do it again. So, I’ve been feeling tired today, huh?

[00:33:49] Gay Hendricks: What’s wrong with you?

What the hell is wrong with you?

When are you going to think of somebody besides yourself?

[00:34:02] Duff Watkins: Go, go on, go on.

[00:34:04] Gay Hendricks: Yeah. You’re not paying us enough to go on

[00:34:13] Katie Hendricks: really conscious listening. There. There are three aspects of conscious listening that we teach people. One is and you think, well, that’s so simple. Why doesn’t everybody do that? Which is turning towards.

[00:34:26] Gay Hendricks: Just actually developing a listening posture. An open posture of listening.

[00:34:31] Katie Hendricks: So, turning toward and then, and turning toward we’ve had people turn toward like this turn toward and then fold up.

So, turning toward an opening, your posture and breathing. So those three things really set the stage for you being able to actually receive, give and receive information because truly most people are rehearsing. What they’re going to say, they’re rebutting or they’re in there judging, judging you or judging themselves.

So conscious listening is I think, such a key to having a successful life. I think all really conscious people evolved people know how to listen and give great attention. Too, they’re listening. So, they’re listening for accuracy.

[00:35:20] Gay Hendricks: Let’s do I’m tired again.

[00:35:21] Katie Hendricks: Yeah. Okay. I’ve been feeling tired today, huh?

[00:35:25] Gay Hendricks: And where are you feeling that in your body?

[00:35:27] Katie Hendricks: Oh, I know. I noticed I’ve got sort of chords that have some come up in my shoulders.

[00:35:33] Gay Hendricks: So that sounds like your neck is tense.

[00:35:36] Katie Hendricks: Yeah, my neck, yeah. My neck has been feeling tense.

[00:35:39] Gay Hendricks: And has that been something that’s been going on all day or did some particular thing trigger it?

[00:35:44] Katie Hendricks: Hmm. Oh, we know it was when I got that phone call.

I, yeah. You know, the phone call I was telling you about. I can just feel it right now. Oh yeah,

[00:35:55] Gay Hendricks: yeah. Yeah. So, notice what I was doing, there was just expressing interest in chaining off whatever she was saying. I wasn’t trying to fix her. And that was one of my biggest listening filters. When I got into relationship, Katie would tell me something and I thought it was my job to fix it.

And so, she would literally say, I’m tired and I’d say, well, why don’t you breathe a little bit, let’s go out for a brisk walk. So, I thought it was my job to solve her problem. And boy did, I, I get a lot from learning that she didn’t want me to solve her problems. She wanted me to just listen and appreciate and be with her.

And that she’s very capable of solving her own problems, but what she needed was just somebody to pay attention and listen.

[00:36:41] Katie Hendricks: One thing that I’ve really seen during the pandemic is the power of combined presence. So, we can all, even though we can’t be together physically, many of us. We can be together in our listening, and I can turn toward you, even if we’re not in the same place and open up my body and breathing, and then I’m adding my energy to yours.

I’m not adding content, but I’m adding presence. And in that collaboration is really where discovery gets to happen. And also, the deep sense of being connected to, because I think that what most of us are suffering from right now is not feeling connected. and that of course is the basis of addiction.

And, when people are able to feel received that their presence makes a difference, that they are heard, the whole physiology settles down. There’s this sense of possibility that opens up and, and a sense of. I have value. So, I think the, the great contribution of conscious listening is it demonstrates value to whoever you’re listening to.

[00:37:52] Gay Hendricks: Yeah. Another way to look at that too, is that almost everybody has listening shields or listening, filter where, you’re listening for criticism, you’re listening to find fault, or you’re listening to argue with the person. Uh, so what we’re after is a much more, open-hearted kind of listening where you really do your best to not only hear what’s going on, but also absorb it and feel, uh, because oftentimes if you can share feelings with another person in the sense of trying them on for yourself, it builds a real bond that, um, can really last forever.

[00:38:31] Katie Hendricks: I wanted to mention that on our charitable, uh, website, which is called foundation for conscious living. We have many videos that show people how to gain these skills. So, if they can’t come to a seminar, we have free videos and we have a whole-body listening map that people can download and has a little journey and different things that you can learn.

so, people want to dive into more of the skills. We have them either on hendricks.com or foundation for conscious living, because we want everybody to have access to these.

[00:39:04] Duff Watkins: Excellent. let me proceed because lesson number six, I say to the listener to the viewer, if you take away nothing today, take away this next one.

[00:39:14] Lesson 6 Making And Keeping Agreements Creates Ease And Flow In Life

[00:39:14] Duff Watkins: Lesson number six, making and keeping agreements impeccably is how you create ease and flow in your life. It really is just that simple in my experience. And I think, I think I must’ve learned this from, from you folks. So, one of your books, but, uh, I’ve been preaching this for, um, a decade plus now.

[00:39:33] Katie Hendricks: Yes, it is.

when you make an agreement, you’re actually creating a blueprint. You’re like setting out, like if you’re building a house, you’ll first have a blueprint, but when you create an agreement, you are actually making an energetic blueprint. And when you step into that, you like plug in your complete, the circuit on that blueprint.

But when you don’t keep your agreements, you say you’re going to do something, and you don’t do it. You, you throw a log jam into your ability to actually generate plans, to do what you say you’re going to do. You become much less effective. I’m remembering that. There are people who might have said, you know, who’ve said like, I’m going to call you at, at one.

And they do so me that goes, okay, this is a person with whom I can co-create. But someone who says, I’m going to call you at one and then they don’t call at one. And then when I finally get a hold of them, they say, oh gosh, I forgot.

[00:40:38] Gay Hendricks: Yeah. Broken agreements. Cause a lot of drama in relationships, not just romantic relationships or family, but also if you look in business relationships, you’ll see how much attention has to be put into repairing broken agreements.

And so, one of the things we teach, in fact, we have a whole deck of cards. We give people called the impeccability deck about how to really make and keep your agreements. Or if you cannot keep an agreement, how to change it consciously because sometimes that happens. But what we found is that oftentimes people have a pattern of not keeping agreements, a pattern of, being late all the time, or a pattern of, of not showing up where they’re supposed to show up or not getting the project done by the time, they said they were going to do it at five o’clock this afternoon.

So, picking up the slack is eats up a lot of energy that could be going into creative fulfillment of the ideas that your,

[00:41:38] Katie Hendricks: it also creates a lot of disagreement and a lot of disconnection. Because if, uh, if I’m depending on you, if you’re handing off something to me and it doesn’t happen, it affects my life.

And then all the people I’m handing it off to. And we think of that in business, but it’s really true in each part of our life. If someone is going to be delivering something. Makes a difference or even just an agreement that you’re going to talk over something, or you’re going to do something together when agreements don’t work well, you can kind of see in our country, you can see what’s happened in the last five years in the area of agreements.

people not doing what they said, they were going to do, doing the opposite of what they said they were going to do. So, we’re in the middle of needing to recreate our whole relationship with each other’s because hardly anybody’s keeping agreements until this last six months.

[00:42:34] Duff Watkins: I would say that, uh, in business, in my 30 year career, as an executive search consultant and executive coach plus running psychotherapy groups in psychiatric hospitals, um, if you want to do well in your relationships, if you want to do well in business, if you want to do well in your career, if you want to be promoted, if you want to have a, just a decent life, just keep your damn agreements really is just that simple.

that’s a good point. Gay. I hadn’t thought about there was a very high cost and business to having to repair broken agreements. That the, the phrase in businesses that a brand is a promise. You go to McDonald’s, you have certain expectations, you buy this brand of product, you have certain expectations, and they spend a lot of money, a lot of time trying to create those, instil those expectations in you.

And they’re not supposed to let you down cause that’s what you’re paying for. It literally. That’s what you’re paying for.

[00:43:29] Katie Hendricks: Yes. And the other thing I wanted to just give a little bit of attention to is that when people don’t keep an agreement or they’re anticipating not keeping agreements, people don’t know how to change agreements that are not working.

And so that’s one of the skills that we teach people is that if you’re not able to keep an agreement, change it before the due date, you know, so that you don’t say, oh, I was going to call you about that and say, I couldn’t do it. So just knowing this doesn’t work for me, I’m going to need to change this agreement.

and you can find out if that works for the other people and that, then it keeps you again in connection. With yourself and with the other person, and you’re not building up resentments and withholds

[00:44:14] Gay Hendricks: It’s much easier these days with technology too. I remember when I was a kid, my granddad was visiting up in Missouri and he was going to come down on the train and we went to the train station two or three days in a row when the train came, because we really didn’t know which one, he was going to be on.

And, um, because there wasn’t anything like you call up and say, Hey, I’m coming on the two o’clock train. but now, you know, like all the time, like today I knew I was going to be late for my trainer, that I work out with three days a week and he wouldn’t care if I was late, but it matters to me. So, I texted him.

I’m going to be about five minutes late. And so that kind of staying to make sure you, if you can’t keep an agreement to communicate about it in a way that doesn’t inconvenience the other person, because you know, like he knew I was going to be five minutes late, so he ran up to the coffee shop and got a cup of coffee.

So, he gave him time to do that, that he wouldn’t have done if he had known that I was coming. So, yeah, keeping agreements, if you want to keep your life elegantly smooth and free of drama, that’s a good one to do.

[00:45:17] Lesson 7: The One Central Problem In Life Is The Upper Limit Problem

[00:45:17] Duff Watkins: All right. Well, let us proceed to lesson number seven, the one central problem in life is the upper limit problem. Is that scary enough? You have no idea what that means by the way. So, I’m hoping you’ll enlighten me, but

[00:45:31] Gay Hendricks: well, good. I, I have a tiny understanding of what that means, so I’ve done my best, by the way, by the way, if you haven’t read the big leap folks, uh, the big leap is about two big things.

one it’s about how to find your genius zone, and also, it’s about how to overcome your upper limit problem. The new book, the genius zone is about how to live in the genius zone all the time. Uh, so the reason the big leap has a goldfish on the cover diving into this new bowl is it usually takes a big leap to get us into our genius, but the upper limit problem is the one problem because wherever you find yourself getting stuck, you will find that that very thing.

If you open to it correctly is an invitation to your genius. So, for example, if I get stuck on something that some problem, we’re having between me and Katie, the moment I can, you know, become transparent about it and communicate about it in a way that takes a hundred percent responsibility for it, suddenly this flow awakens, and I’ve seen it in boardrooms, and I’ve seen it a thousand times in the office here that people overcome whatever upper limit they are.

And they move immediately into that beautiful flow state that I’m calling genius. And so, the direct effect of overcoming an upper limit problem is that it gives you a direct door into the creative essence of yourself and the universe. So, the reason we say it’s the only problem is just about anywhere you look and your relationships or with your kids or in your business or whatever, you’ll see that people come up against the upper limit problem and get stuck because of some limiting belief they have. And then if things work well, they move through that and go into a new level. They take their lives to the next level or take their work to the next level.

[00:47:29] Katie Hendricks: So, in our understanding of the upper limit, what we call the upper limit is that we each have a thermostat setting for how good we can feel and how much, exchange of, uh, friendship or relationship we can enjoy.

And that thermostat, we didn’t set it. It got set by our family. It got set by the culture in every culture that we’ve ever been in. Uh, from Australia, you know, about the tall poppy syndrome. So, people are all taught. Don’t be a tall poppy cause guess what happens to the tall poppy? It gets cut off. And so, you know, like I heard a lot, you know, don’t be so full of yourself, you know, who do you think you are?

And there are all kinds of messages that the culture has, and it’s really intended to keep us safe. I think the upper limit is really, it’s a survival program that all of us have. And so, the, the purpose of our work is to enjoy more and more giving and receiving love every day. To expanding our capacity for enjoying love, success and abundance every day.

And that’s really the, that’s why we call it the only problem. Cause you can turn in all of your current problems for this one. Am I willing to expand my capacity every day for giving and receiving more love and enjoying a love, abundance and success?

[00:48:54] Duff Watkins: And so, the upper limit problem is if I’m hearing you correctly, it’s the limiting beliefs we have.

And it’s a constellation, how much joy or success or whatever we permit ourselves.

[00:49:08] Katie Hendricks: Yes, yes. Before we punish ourselves or limit ourselves or bring ourselves back down. Yeah. So, make a lot of money and then lose the money there. You know, if you look anywhere in life, you’ll see that people will come up against, uh, I can’t possibly do that, and they’ll bring themselves back to a more familiar level.

[00:49:28] Gay Hendricks: A good example of that is, uh, I did a big study of lottery winners when I was writing the big leap and an astonishing large percentage of people that win a lottery are within a year or so back down to where they were below or sometimes worse off than where they were below.

And so, uh, you know, that’s a very vivid example of the upper limit. in real life, most people won’t encounter anything quite that dramatic, but what they notice is that things will be going along for a while. And then an argument will ensue or there’ll be feeling good for a while. Then they’ll get a cold or now have good money issues for a while.

And then they’ll run into a wall there. So, it’s our own little unique method of self-sabotage and it’s all grounded in fear. So, the thing to do is start looking underneath that and unpacking those fears that, that drive it.

[00:50:18] Lesson 8: Master The Shift From Fear To Presence

[00:50:18] Duff Watkins: And that takes us directly to lesson number eight, master the shift from fear to presence.

[00:50:25] Katie Hendricks: Yes. Yes. And that’s what we were talking about with you earlier, particularly through, fear melters, but in any way. Cause when you’re in fear, when any of us are in fear, we contract, so we’re not breathing as much, we’re not moving freely. And so just even making any kind of spontaneous movement, opening your breathing.

Those will assist you to be able to explore what’s underneath your fear rather than being just stopped by your fear. And when people are in fear, they just recycle survival mechanisms and you kind of think, well, why is that person doing that crazy thing again, that they always do? It’s because they’re not thinking.

So, the moving from fear to presence, because people always say, all you need to do is move from fear to love. You know, just, you know, the only thing you have to fear is fear itself. And as if you could just muscle your way out of fear, but we’ve found that if you use just gentle body intelligence moves, you can presence yourself.

And when I’m present, I’m able to respond. And we really think of responsibility is being able to respond, not reacting when we’re in fear, we’re simply reacting in the ways that we learned in the fear patterns that we were describing. So, when you move to presence then the world becomes available. Again,

[00:51:49] Gay Hendricks: one of the things we say here is fear is excitement without the breath.

In other words, when you remember to breathe, suddenly fear turns into excitement. If you’re clutched up and holding your breath, fear gets to be a very compelling. Sophocles said when we’re scared everything rustles, you know, if you’re contracted and fear, everything looks scary out there. And uh, sometimes actually only takes about three breaths, three good breaths to begin to melt down the stress chemistry in your body.

[00:52:20] Duff Watkins: And this is the thrust of it. When you make the move, the shift from fear to presence, your ability to respond, your responsibility is regained or enlarged or, or, or activated. Cause it’s probably shut off in fear. And that’s the power of this shift.

[00:52:38] Katie Hendricks: Yes, because then you can make a new choice.

Cause what makes people leave their relationships? Whether it’s romantic or at work is just the same old, same old of conflict and power struggles, and that are all run by fear. And then when you’re in fear, adrenaline really runs you. But adrenaline, since it has a short half-life has to be accentuated.

So, you get more adrenaline, you get more drama, you get more. And we’ve seen that play out in our country vividly over the last five years, the acceleration of adrenaline, the acceleration of drama, uh, because people are reacting and in, from fear rather than being in presence

[00:53:25] Duff Watkins: What I love about your work is that you’re, again, you’re giving us an out, Gay, I know a lot of your work, or both of your work is a lot on breathing consciously and as a counter action, because you don’t negate fear. I mean, it’s either there or it’s not, and you don’t get a choice. It just it’s either there or it’s not. but being able to cope with it and to diffuse it into employee it to your benefit now that now that’s very valuable.

[00:53:50] Gay Hendricks: It really is because you got to realize too, that emotions are energy. And then we turn them into a meaning in our head. You know, it’s a stirring energy in your belly, or it’s a stirring energy in your back. So, they’re all energetic issues. The emotions are. And there’s a great, bit of a poem.

I love from Walt Whitman, where he says I am large and contain multitudes. And what we’re kind of teaching is how to experience that big spacious self in which you have some fears, anger, sadness experiences, but it’s the vast spaciousness of yourself. That’s your true identity.

[00:54:29] Lesson 9 Genius Emerges In The Space Of Appreciation

[00:54:29] Duff Watkins: And with that, we’ll proceed to lesson number nine, genius emerges in the space of appreciation.

In fact, relationships flourish with liberal appreciation.

[00:54:40] Gay Hendricks: Yes. Um, we, um, we’ve always practiced a lot of appreciation of each other, but then we came across that level study from John Gottman’s people up at, uh, university of Washington, where they found that thriving relationships have a five to one ratio of appreciations or positive comments to negative comments and, relationships that are going out of business heading toward divorce, have about a one to one.

For every positive thing that said there’s a negative thing that’s said on the average. And so we began, we started thinking, okay, let’s take that seriously. Let’s give each of ourselves at least five appreciations today. And then we started building up from there. Uh, but that’s a good place to start.

Just think of five things that just blow you away about your partner and, and communicate those to her. And, uh, I appreciate Katie so much during the day. last night, I remember we had a wonderful conversation. We were just lying there, reading, and suddenly I felt this incredible wave of appreciation for you.

And I just shared it with her, and it led to the most wonderful connection for a while. And so, uh, you know, it’s the best theatre on earth ourselves are really true, better than any television series.

[00:56:01] Katie Hendricks: Also, appreciation allows you to create a new story. Instead of the story of whose fault it is and who gets to be in control.

It’s a story of discovery because see we’ve been together over 42, well, over 42 years now. And the experience that we had last night was a new kind of energetic expansion and feeling so deeply connected with each other. It was incredibly nourishing. Our two cats had to come and see what was going on.

They were, they could feel it. And so, then we become generators of, of creativity, of a liveliness of connection for others, as well as ourselves. And I’ll tell you when, when people are appreciated, what you’re pointing out to them is something that they may think, oh, well, that’s, doesn’t everybody do that.

You know, like an ability to really be deeply present with others or an ability to notice the nuances. And if you appreciate that about something to go, oh, oh, it doesn’t everybody do it. No. And then they begin uncovering, oh, well maybe that’s part of my genius because genius is easy. Genius is something that you love to do.

And it also makes a contribution to others. And so, the gateway to that is by ritually appreciating. So, w whoever is appreciating whether you’re giving or receiving it, everybody gets to benefit.

[00:57:32] Duff Watkins: All too true. I’m thinking of in business appreciation is a form of psychic income and I’ve seen it so many times in so many companies to which I’ve consulted. Psychic income cost you nothing. It costs a business, nothing to, to say, you know, thanks for the effort. Thanks for working late. I say, again, it costs nothing, and the benefits can be extreme.

[00:57:55] Lesson 10: Everything Can Be Resolved With Love And Willingness.

[00:57:55] Duff Watkins: lesson, number 10, and everything can be resolved with love and willingness. Wait a minute.

What? Everything?

[00:58:03] Gay Hendricks: Yes. Love. Love is our most underrated healing tool. I think because it was such a magnificent day in my life. The first time I realized many years ago, There’s a lot of me that I’ve just been criticizing all the time. Let me just love myself for once the way I am. That was a huge moment for me. And since I, followed that up by writing a whole book called learning to love yourself because of the power of that moment.

And I get letters to this day, even though it’s almost 50 years now, since I wrote that book that, the act of learning to love yourself is one of the most transformative things people can do. We’re not talking about egotism here. Egotism is an attempt to prove that you’re lovable when you really don’t feel lovable.

And that’s why it looks so tacky. but, um, the actual genuine act of lovingly accepting yourself. That’s so powerful and then of course, that leads to your ability to lovingly accept other people, which is the grand payoff for it, because the extent to which you love yourself as the same extent to which you can love another person, the two interact like that.

[00:59:12] Katie Hendricks: And so, it’s almost always something that you, when I contract when other people contract is because I’m afraid, you’re going to find out that there’s something fundamentally unlovable about me. And so, I try to hide it. But if I take a moment to love myself for feeling unlovable, because love it can contain its opposite.

So, I can love myself for feeling critical. I can love myself for feeling that there’s something fundamentally wrong with me. And the more, even if we say, just start with a drop of love, just give a drop of love somewhere where you’d be willing to receive it. And then that starts the the opening and the expanding to be able to give and receive more love.

[00:59:59] Duff Watkins: Okay. Let me ask one unscheduled question. This’ll be our, let me finish with this. We’ve been talking a lot about the things that you’ve learned in life. What have you unlearned lately? Something that you thought was true used to think was true, but now realize it’s just not the case at all.

[01:00:16] Gay Hendricks: Let me think about that for a moment.

what have I unlearned recently? Oh man. I’m in a constant process of unlearning thing.

[01:00:26] Duff Watkins: Yeah, it’s hard.

[01:00:29] Gay Hendricks: well, one thing I, I recently I found myself kind of withdrawing from a relationship. and I think the reason. I was doing, it was based on a limiting belief of who that person really was. And so, I let go of that, to the best of my ability and then things have shifted, you know, I feel differently about the relationship now.

And so, I think that would be an example of something I unlearned and I kind of do that on a fairly regular basis. I think I try, I like to catch myself in a limiting belief of some form, some form.

[01:01:04] Katie Hendricks: I would say though, one of the most important things that I’ve unlearned is that I thought I could make everything better if I just kept you know, trying to understand and trying to listen into it, that I could fix somebody else’s. So, my own commitment to fixing Gay, used to listen to fix. I used to organize my whole life around fixing. I know, and when I really let go of, oh, it’s not possible for me to fix others. That was a big, that was a big unlearning.

They can step into making their choices, but I can’t do that for them.

[01:01:43] Duff Watkins: Any, even though you make a contribution to that effect.

[01:01:47] Gay Hendricks: Sure.

[01:01:48] Katie Hendricks: I make a contribution. It’s like I set the table, but they have to kind of pick up the utensils.

[01:01:53] Duff Watkins: And eat

[01:01:56] Katie Hendricks: and eat. Yes, no. Just pick up and throw the utensils at people.

[01:02:01] Duff Watkins: Okay. Well, we will finish formally and officially on that note, you’ve been listening to the podcast, 10 Lessons it Took Me 50 Years to Learn our guests today have been Katie and Gay Hendricks of the Hendricks Institute. You can learn more about their events, their seminars, their numerous books, everything on https://hendricks.com

um, Katie, you also mentioned the chair, the foundation for conscious living.com.

[01:02:25] Katie Hendricks: It’s a.org about org. Okay. That’s true. Yes. But you can get to it from.com. We have both of them, um, covered. So, so people can find it. Yeah. And there are lots and lots of resources and you’d be so welcome. We have also, um, free classes that our coaches offer.

So, there are lots of resources for, uh, for people to make use of.

[01:02:45] Duff Watkins: And so, our listeners have been listening to us, but we’d like to hear from you. You can email us, you want to know anything about Gay and Katie’s books or seminars. You contact me. It’s email addresses podcast@tenlessonslearned.com  that’s podcast at 10, the number one lessons learned.com.

And I will, I will get you the book. I will get you the information, anything you want we’ll do it. this episode has been produced by Robert Hossary and is sponsored as always by the professional development forum, a PDF www.professionaldevelopmentform.org. They supply seminars, webinars for young rising leaders.

They do podcast parties, anything you want, everything you need. It’s all there at professionaldevelopmentforum.org. And while you’re at the email, go ahead and hit the subscribe button so that you don’t miss any episodes of our continued, conversations with leaders and luminaries. And do remember this is the only podcast on the internet that makes the world a wiser place lesson by lesson.

Thank you for listening.

 This episode is produced by Robert Hossary. Sponsored as always by Professional Development Forum, which office insights, community or discussions, podcasts, parties, anything you want here, but they’re unique and it’s all free online. You can find the www.professionaldevelopmentforum.org you’ve heard from us we’d like to hear from you. Email us it’s podcast@10lessonslearned.com that’s podcast, 10 number one zero, lessons learned.com. Remember, this is the podcast the only podcast. That’s makes the world wiser lesson by lesson.

 

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