This week we return from a nearly one-year recording hiatus with a report from the outer limits of book writing and creative life.

Dallas unpacks the contents of his forthcoming title, The 4 Season Solution. And Pilar reflects, with unexpected emotion, on both the final push to turn in her book, The Healthy Deviant AND one of her most intense years on record.

We both share some of the insights and appreciations that have come to us while we’ve been away, and of course, we offer you some experiments designed to help you take stock of your own comings and goings.

Oh, and by the way both our books are now on shelves, so you can order them from your local independent bookstore or favorite online retailers. Wooo hoooo! Please buy as many copies as you can for you and your health-motivated friends and family. We’re wildly grateful for your support!

“We’re Back” Episode Highlights

• A heartfelt thank you for sticking with us!
• Dallas shares the evolution of his next book, The 4 Season Solution, and the challenges he overcame to write and publish it
• A summary of that book’s contents (food, circadian rhythms, body movement, social and self connection)
• Balancing accessibility and reality: The challenge of writing a non-formulaic yet successful book
• How our bodies interact with the environment via the light/dark cycle, and the other cycles that may have profound but not-yet-understood influence on us
• The target audience for Dallas’s book: Real people who live real lives with real challenges and are motivated to face those trials in a healthy, integrated way
• The approachability of both books: Breaking down the science and making sense of the nonsensical
• Pilar’s journey over the past super-intense year, as she finished her book and also took a new job in New York City
• Why being a New York Times bestselling author isn’t all that
• The five parts of Pilar’s book:
  • “The Crazy that Passes for Normal” (how we got here)
  • “The Making of a Healthy Deviant” (Pilar’s story and yours)
  • “The Way of the Healthy Deviant” (specific competencies and rituals for living a healthier life)
  • “Your Healthy Deviant Adventurer (a 14-day program for developing your Healthy Deviant mojo)
  • “Taking it to the Streets” (changing the Unhealthy Default Reality through individual and collective action)
• Why Pilar considers this book to be her opus, and the feeling that having completed it (often against naysaying and resistance) evokes for her
• What to expect from Season 11 of The Living Experiment and how it will be both similar to and different from our previous seasons
• Pilar’s upcoming series of Healthy Deviance workshops being offered as part of a weeklong retreat at Rancho La Puerta 
• P.S. If you haven’t already, please subscribe to this podcast to get previous episodes and get new content as soon as it becomes available

Think about a period of your life that was particularly difficult, stressful, sad, heartbreaking, etc. and identify the gift that came out of it. Was it a learning experience, a revelation about yourself or someone else (or the world)? A pay-it-forward opportunity? Recognize that you were able to bring beauty out of suffering, and let that beauty grow.

1) Reflect on something that you’ve let go of, consciously or unconsciously, that might be calling to come back into your life. It might be an abandoned hobby, a social circle, a self-care ritual, or a difficult project. Is there any part of your world that you’ve put away that deserves to be reconsidered or welcomed back?

2) Think about the period that The Living Experiment podcast has been on hiatus. How does it feel to have something you enjoyed (and perhaps even came to rely upon) suddenly be gone (even for a while)? Notice whether it made you clearer about your desires, needs, and values; if it made you recognize your appetite for knowledge or meaningful conversation; or if it just made you appreciate the podcast more. What are some other ways that you can honor the insights from this experience in other parts of your life? 

We’d also love to have you connect with us on Facebook. Tell us about your experiments, and share your thoughts, stories and reflections there.

Resources

• Order Dallas’s book via Amazon or Barnes & Noble
• Order Pilar’s book via IndieBound or Amazon
• A study on how solar flares and other geomagnetic activity affect the body-mind, including heart-rate variability, perception of time, and more (we’re still looking for that multi-decade study Dallas referenced, and we’ll post it when we find it, but in the meantime, you’ll get the gist from this)
• For more on circadian rhythm and the light/dark cycle, check out our seasonal episodes: “Seasons”, “Winter”, “Spring”, “Summer”, and “Autumn”
• For more on Pilar’s concepts of the Healthy Deviant, listen to “Healthy Deviance” and “Healthy Deviance 2”
• Pilar’s Healthy Deviant Facebook group, where you can find out how to get the first chapter of Pilar’s book for free!
• Pilar’s December 14-20 retreat at Rancho La Puerta in Tecate, Mexico: “Inner Fitness: Healthy Deviance”

Plus …

• Sign up for The Living Experiment newsletter so you can stay up to date with us, and receive notifications when new episodes are released
• Subscribe to The Living Experiment on Apple Podcasts to have fresh episodes delivered to your podcast feed as soon as they’re released

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