This week we're talking about News – the kind that comes at you 24 hours a day via all sorts of media. The kind that can make you feel a little crazy and hopeless if you let it. Particularly in times like these, when competing headlines come fast and furious, and when so much of the news seems disturbing or difficult to interpret, it can be tough to moderate your intake – and your response.

So here, we share our counsel on how to balance your desire to know what's going on in the world with your need to maintain some sense of sanity and resilience. We also offer some experiments to help you manage your news consumption in ways that work for you.

"News" Episode Highlights

• Why habitual (or excessive) intake of news can distort rather than inform our view of the world, with anxiety-inducing effects
• "If it bleeds, it leads" – the predominant media bias toward fear-producing, violent, and disturbing topics
• The increasingly blurred lines between marketing, propaganda, and actual news
• The importance of understanding where your news is coming from, and discerning the slant or agenda behind a story
• The value of being informed via a wide variety of sources (including some that don't necessarily confirm your biases and beliefs)
• Counsel of moderating your news intake — balancing the responsibility of informed citizenry with the physical- and mental-health risks of news overload

Get full show notes at http://livingexperiment.com/news/

This week we're talking about vulnerability – the experience of being susceptible to wounding, and the value of embracing that capacity as a strength rather than as a weakness. We talk about both the risks and rewards of allowing ourselves to be vulnerable – to injury, criticism, embarrassment, and more.

We explore the potential of moving beyond a state of armored self-protection in the service of forging deeper, more satisfying connections with others, with ourselves, and with the experience of being alive. Finally, we offer some simple experiments to help you explore the potential gifts of vulnerability in your own world.

"Vulnerability" Episode Highlights

• The difference between "elective" vulnerability (risking being hurt by people we know or whose approval we seek) and exposing ourselves to dangerous situations
• The physical manifestations of always being armored against vulnerability, as well as the stress state and health implications that result
• The deep human need to be accepted – how our fear of public speaking (concentrated social judgment) outweighs even our fear of death
• The vulnerability conundrum: Our tendency to hide those aspects of ourselves that are most likely to form the basis for authentic connection
• The vulnerability fallacy: Our flawed belief that assiduously protecting ourselves will spare us from experiencing pain
• The difference between sharing sensitive information about our historical experience vs. expressing current emotions surrounding that experience
• Tips for navigating vulnerable situations and relationships, and for maintaining boundaries while softening our habitual armor
• The importance of discernment when deciding with whom to be vulnerable, and the rewards that can result when both people are willing to take risks

Get full show notes at http://livingexperiment.com/vulnerability/

This week on The Living Experiment, we're talking about one of Pilar's all-time favorite topics: Healthy Deviance. It's a favorite because it's the subject of the book she's writing, and also an idea at the core of the work she's been doing for the past 15 years or so — including this podcast!

So, what does it mean to be a healthy person in an unhealthy culture? What's required of us, and what's available to us, when we choose to reject the norms of a society that's making a lot of us sick and unhappy a lot of the time? And how the heck can you even hope to do that when there seems to be so much working against you?

These are questions that both of us are fascinated by, and that we each explore in our own work in different ways.

So here, we journey together into The Way of the Healthy Deviant, and we offer you some fun opportunities to experiment with Healthy Deviance in your own life.

"Healthy Deviance" Episode Highlights

• Pilar's personal health journey and how it led her to become a rebellious health experimenter, a media-industry disruptor — and, ultimately, a Healthy Deviant
• The evolution of Healthy Deviance as expressed through Pilar's earlier works and projects, including Experience Life magazine, her Manifesto for Thriving in a Mixed Up World, and the "101 Revolutionary Ways to Be Healthy" mobile app
• Seeing what Pilar calls our "Unhealthy Default Reality" as a real-life Matrix of sorts — understanding the challenges and rewards involved in unplugging from the dominant-culture definitions of "normal"
• Evolutionary biology 101: Seeing the origins of our health crisis in the agricultural revolution, and understanding why "Paleo" diets and workouts alone can't provide a solution to our modern-day challenges
• Pilar describes The Way of the Healthy Deviant, including what she sees as three key competencies:
  • 1) Amplified Awareness (valuing, developing and safeguarding your own attention);
  • 2) Preemptive Repair (getting ahead of the daily damage that causes depletion, inflammation, imbalance and illness); and
  • 3) Continuous Growth and Learning (progressively building and expanding the "skills of the healthy person")
• The value of embracing the quest for Healthy Deviance as a Hero's Journey — an energizing adventure and opportunity for creative self-expression — rather than just a tough, thankless slog

Get full show notes at http://livingexperiment.com/healthy-deviance/

This week we're talking about fasting, the power of periodically foregoing food, and the significant health benefits that can proceed from doing it intelligently. Pilar shares what led her to embark on a seven day, medically-supervised water fast (yes, she consumed nothing but water for seven days, and lived to tell about it!). And Dallas shares what he knows about the increasingly popular intermittent fasting phenomenon. We talk about the potential pros and cons of fasting, and why it's not for everybody. We wind up with fasting experiments and suggestions you can try on your own, and offer up resources for further study. Finally, Pilar comes back to report on how her week-long fasting experiment went, and why, even though it wasn't all roses and rainbows, she's likely to do it again.

"Fasting" Episode Highlights

• The history and ancient wisdom of fasting, and its potential dark side (e.g., eating disorders and orthorexia)
• The difference between fasting (long-term and intermittent) vs. restricted diets and detoxing
• The essentials of intermittent fasting protocols, including potential benefits and risks
• The reasons for doing longer-term and more "extreme" water fasts, and why they should always be medically supervised
• The phases the body goes through during and after the fast
• Warnings against fasting when it isn't a well-reasoned part of a nutrient-dense, whole foods diet
• This week's experiments
• Postscript: Pilar shares her water-fasting experience and invites questions (follow-up episode, anyone?)

Get full show notes and resources at http://livingexperiment.com/fasting/