EPISODE 99

Healthy Deviance 2

By popular demand: More insights and details on Pilar’s concept of Healthy Deviance and what it takes to be a healthy person in an unhealthy world. Here, Pilar and Dallas reflect on the way Healthy Deviance is entering the public consciousness and conversation, and why it matters. Pilar does a deep dive on what she sees as the essentials of Healthy Deviance, drawing on ideas from her forthcoming book. Are you a Healthy Deviant? It’s time to find out …

This week we’re talking about Healthy Deviance (again!), so we’re calling this episode Healthy Deviance 2.

First, we explore the evolution of Pilar’s notion of Healthy Deviance, reflecting on how it has taken ahold and become part of a larger conversation about how to be a healthy, happy person in an often unhealthy, unhappy world.

Next, after Dallas dashes off to catch his flight, Pilar breaks down some of the key concepts of her book about Healthy Deviance, which is now on shelves. Yay!

Pilar describes the nature of what she calls the Nonconformist Competencies of Healthy Deviance, as well as the wide range of healthy-person skills you need to claim and sustain them for yourself.

Finally, Pilar offers you some experiments to help you evaluate whether or not you currently identify as a Healthy Deviant, and where you might be right now on the Healthy Deviant Hero’s Journey of your own life.

Want to go deeper and get ongoing support for your Healthy Deviant way of life? Check out Pilar’s Healthy Deviant U experience.

“Healthy Deviance 2” Episode Highlights

  • Part 1: The crazy that passes for normal, the unseen problem, and the renegade solution
  • Part 2: The Making of a Healthy Deviant and the stages of the Healthy Deviant Hero’s Journey
  • Part 3: The Way of the Healthy Deviant and the Nonconformist Competencies of Amplified Awareness, Preemptive Repair, and Continuous Growth and Learning (Pilar goes into detail later on these competencies)
  • Social media’s and technology’s influence on our lifestyles and health
  • Going beyond telling people “what to eat” and “what to do” by giving them tools to make their own healthy choices in any situation
  • Learning to relate and self-identify differently to the world around you
  • Pilar’s Renegade Rituals for building resilience to the Unhealthy Default Reality: Morning Minutes,  Ultradian Rhythm Breaks, and a Nighttime Wind-Down Ritual
  • Part 4: An overview of the two-week program that guides you through integrating the Renegade Rituals (plus other Healthy Deviant experiments) and reflecting on how your life is changing as a result
  • Part 5: Taking it to the Streets — how do you bring what you’ve learned to the larger world, and why does that matter? What could we accomplish as a society if the majority of us were healthy and happy?
  • Pilar offers a closer look at the Nonconformist Competencies and the logic behind them

Amplified Awareness:

  • The importance of noticing what is going on inside and around you
  • Observing how you are doing, when you suffer, struggle or get off course
  • Noticing how you’re feeling in body and mind, what triggers you to make good or not-so-good choices?
  • How much you depend on numbing agents or coping strategies (medications, distractions, alcohol, etc.) to get through your days?
  • What makes you feel inadequate, disempowered, or in need of fixing? What drives you to buy stuff?
  • The value of keeping a wish-list file of all the “improvements” you want to make and reviewing it monthly, looking deeper to see patterns in what truly inspires you, and then deciding what you really want to do about it

Preemptive Repair:

  • The importance of getting out ahead of the damage that is done to you — and that you do to yourself — simply by virtue of living in an unhealthy, pro-inflammatory society
  • The role of continuous, accumulated damage and delayed maintenance as a trigger for chronic disease and depression
  • Inflammation as the inevitable result of going along with the Unhealthy Default Reality, and why our so-called “healthcare” cannot solve the problem
  • The restorative effects of a healthy whole-food diet, plenty of water, taking breaks, daylight, good sleep, and a strong relationship with self; how these fundamentals function as pre-emptive repair strategies

Continuous Growth and Learning:

  • The role of a growth mindset as a foundation of Healthy Deviance
  • The necessity of building the “skills of the healthy person” over time
  • The stress brought on by our cultural confusion around healthy choices and trying to learn everything all at once (hint: you can’t)
  • Starting with the primary skills of basic self-nourishment and the Renegade Rituals
  • Coming to grips with the fact that you are the first generation of humans to be faced with these challenges
  • Accepting that you will never know everything, and that every day is a chance to learn something new
  • The real challenge and opportunity: Joyfully embracing the challenges of choosing to be a healthy person in an unhealthy world, and accepting the unusual position that puts you in

Choose one of the following (or do both for extra credit):

1) Take my “Are You a Healthy Deviant?” quiz to find out where you fall on the healthy deviant spectrum. Your quiz results will also give you suggestions for how to move forward on your path.

2) Reflect on where you are in your own Healthy Deviant hero’s journey. Are you stuck in Compliance with the Unhealthy Default Reality? Have you waded into the Descent of unhealthy choices, self-judgment, and worsening health outcomes?  Have you hit the Darkness that comes from seeing no way out and feeling helpless to change your circumstances? Are you in Divergence, experimenting with more progressive approaches and considering a better way forward? Are you in Rebellion — fed up with trying to adhere to unachievable ideals and following the “authoritative” (but ineffective) mainstream prescriptions of the unhealthy culture? Or have you moved into the more nuanced, non-reactive, energy-sparing, self-sustaining stage of Healthy Deviance? Where are you headed next?

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