How to Change Your Inner Voice & Transform Your Life | Faust Ruggiero, Ep 223

Jennifer Norman:
Have you ever caught yourself thinking, if only I had a different job, if only people weren't so annoying, or if only my parents gave me more freedom. Sometimes the biggest obstacle isn't what happens to us. It's the conversation happening inside of us. Today's guest has spent more than 40 years helping thousands of people break free from destructive thought patterns, emotional pain, addiction, anger, anxiety, depression, and trauma. He's been called one of the most interviewed self help authors in the world. But what struck me most isn't the number of interviews he's done, it's the consistency of his message. Real change doesn't begin by fixing everyone else. It begins by learning how to work with yourself.

Jennifer Norman:
If you've ever felt emotionally stuck, overwhelmed, or trapped by your own mind, I think this conversation will give you practical tools that you can begin using today. Welcome to the Human Beauty Movement podcast, everyone. This is the place where we explore life lessons from beautiful humans. People who challenge us to think differently, live more intentionally and become more fully ourselves. Today's guest is Faust Ruggiero, a counselor, author, speaker, and developer of what he calls the process way of life. His monthly radio program, Fix It With Faust reaches nearly 1 million listeners, and his award winning Fix Yourself Empowerment series has helped thousands of readers better understand anxiety, depression, anger, addiction, internal dialogue, and emotional resilience. Today we're talking about why so many people stay emotionally stuck. How our internal language quietly shapes every area of our lives, and what it really means to fix yourself not through perfection, but through awareness, responsibility, and daily practice.

Jennifer Norman:
Let's welcome Faust to the show.

Faust Ruggiero:
Thanks for inviting me. It's a pleasure to be spending time with you today.

Jennifer Norman:
Oh, it's a pleasure to be spending time with you today as well. I'm so glad that we're going to be having this important conversation because you've had so much experience. You've spent over 40 years helping people navigate some of life's deepest struggles. So I want to know, what is the single foremost idea that you're hoping that listeners will carry with them after today's conversation?

Faust Ruggiero:
I get asked that question so often, and the answer is always the same. Be willing to not just to fix what's bothering you, but learn how to enjoy that process. The person you're working to change is you. If you don't enjoy it, if you don't embrace the process of change, you won't do it. So by all means be able to say, you know what, I'm going to get up today, I'm going to work on me and I'm going to enjoy the process of doing it.

Jennifer Norman:
It's good to look forward to it because then you will enthusiastically be motivated, continue doing it. And you're right. I think that if people look at it like, oh, it's a chore, it's something that I don't want to do, then they think that it's just going to be hopeless. And so the attitude, the idea of, okay, let's take each moment day by day, each step as something of a gift, then that's a nice way to be. But it's not so easy for people to get into that mindset, is it?

Faust Ruggiero:
It's not. Why? Because they measure change by big, monumental destinations. And I keep telling people nothing ever changes right away. Small incremental steps which allow your brain to adjust and doesn't put pressure on you so you can enjoy the process if you put markers on it. I want to be. I want to be fixed by next year. This time, count on that not happening because you're not going to do the work and your brain is not going to adjust in that short period of time. It takes a while.

Faust Ruggiero:
And while you're doing that, your brain isn't pressured. So you enjoy the process.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah, I guess that there is that intention. And so having an intention is good, kind of like your New Year's resolution. But if it becomes a problem to actually continue doing it, then you'll fall off by the time March rolls around. Maybe even February, right?

Faust Ruggiero:
Yeah. Again, I say, people say to me, gee, how old are you? And I say, today. And they look at me and they laugh and I say, look, I'm today. I really want to get into all that age stuff. I am breathing, I'm living today. I have control over what I'm doing today. So if I decide I can put a small change into my program today, that's great. It accomplishes something.

Faust Ruggiero:
Gives me a chance to get. Get a little pat on the back, if you will, and then it paves the way for what I want to do in the next day. It's a very process.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah. Yeah. I wanna ask you what patterns, after you've spoken to thousands and thousands of people, what are the biggest patterns that keep showing up regardless of age or profession or background or circumstance?

Faust Ruggiero:
Well, aside from physical things like, you know, anxiety and depression, which can. Can be physically motivated, I think it's the way people talk to themselves. They say internally. When I ask people, when you're in your head, are you enjoying your conversation? Is there some humor in there? Maybe. Are you putting Some goals in place that you can accomplish. Can you be okay with the moment you're in? And after they lie and tell me yes, and I go deeper, they say, no, I don't do that. And I'm worried about this. And I'm mad that when my internal conversation is full of anger and depression.

Faust Ruggiero:
And I said, well, if that's what's going on in your head, that's what you're living with all the time and it's what you'll deliver to other people.

Jennifer Norman:
And a lot of people do have that negative dialogue going on and it impacts their mood, it impacts how they're interacting, as you said, with other people. And some people have almost like a self deprecating, but there might be humor about it. But over time, what tends to happen when people have that kind of self talk going on?

Faust Ruggiero:
Well, that's what you buy into then that is your world. When you. I always tell people we spend most of our time in our own head. Even when we're with other people, thoughts are going on, we're making judgments. Sometimes they're critical or fearful, whatever it may be. But we're in our own head. So the more we can introduce positive thoughts. And it's a very simple process.

Faust Ruggiero:
I tell people you are going to think negatively. Everyone does. When it happens, just say to yourself, no, I don't want to go there. That's the first thing. Put a stop sign on it. Then change the conversation. I think I'll start to think about this. Then that thought now that'll work for a while and then you'll, you'll regress, but you keep on doing it.

Faust Ruggiero:
That's the key. You don't say, well, that doesn't work. You say, well, I'm not at a point where it became part of me yet, so I'll keep on doing it. What I do every day. We all get that, oh, I can't believe that's going to happen. And it starts in your head. And I just use, use that formula. No, I'm not going there.

Faust Ruggiero:
I am not going down that wormhole. I am not going to be thinking about that. That is going to either kill or at least slightly affect my day. I don't want that. So think about this. And it may be something that I'm planning to do, it may be something that I enjoy doing, someone I enjoy talking to, whatever. Now I'm changing the conversation, the subject line changes. Now I follow through and develop and it works.

Faust Ruggiero:
We just keep doing it.

Jennifer Norman:
And how about for those who feel like oh, they're think about great things. But then something happens. Maybe some person cuts them off in traffic, or somebody's rude to them, somebody calls them a name, somebody gives them a look. And then of course, that causes a whole spiral in the mood and the attitude. And then your day is just completely ruined, Ruined because this person or that person did something.

Faust Ruggiero:
The watchword is you said, and maybe this happens. And I tell people, no, it's definitely going to happen. We have to program the into our minds the fact that other people, places and things will enter our lives, and some of them will be fun and they'll be nice and they'll be positive, and others will not be. But we have the power to say, what am I going to do with this? Am I going to let that affect me? See, because all that's happening is it's the reverse of what I said, what I said previously. The mind perceives something, it starts to think about something. It's negative. So what do we do? We develop that dialogue.

Faust Ruggiero:
But if you take control of your mind in that moment and say, no, I'm not doing this, that person may have cut me off driving and out the wind, out of the window, that finger went up and he yelled at me. And now my whole day I'm starting to think about that. Or I can say, that's what he did. I have no control over that. I am not letting that affect my day. I'm going to go continue to do what I was doing before. I'm going to think about something good again. These things will continue to happen.

Faust Ruggiero:
People are under the misnomer that if I start thinking positive thoughts, the whole world gets positive. They're not on board with what's in our brain. They're going to keep thinking what they do. We have control over what we do, and we have to be able to say, this is how I'm going to think about things.

Jennifer Norman:
So just recapping, if our internal language, that voice in our head, starts to become really powerfully negative or starts to ruminate, what are some of the most common internal phrases that you hear? And then can you give listeners again that practical exercise that can help begin changing their internal dialogue today?

Faust Ruggiero:
Things are going to happen. There are conditions in your life that cause you stress, fear, whatever. Oh, my God, what happens if this, at that point, you want to be able to ask yourself a different question, okay, what am I doing right now? Do I have a plan to change this? Or am I going to keep on spinning it? And I always tell them, it's like a snowball, you start real small. Next thing you know, it occupies most of your brain. So you want to be conscious. And the key here is conscious thought. These negative thoughts come into our head automatically because we've trained ourselves to think that. So the warrior, if you will, that, that battles that negative thinking is conscious thought.

Faust Ruggiero:
I am. What am I thinking about? I am not going to think about that. I'm going to think about this. Now I need a plan. How am I going to change this? And it doesn't mean I'm going to change it all at one time. Again, it may be something that changes over time. However, I have to stop the autopilot negative thinking I have. If you think about it, you don't sit back and say, you know what? I think I'll think about terrible thoughts.

Faust Ruggiero:
Right now. It just happens. Something triggers it, or that's what you typically do. So that's all unconscious. That's all something we're not controlling, gain control over our minds. Conscious thought does that we can do physically. Focus on your breathing, do those cleansing breaths because that does two things. It relieves the stress and it has your mind focusing on what you're doing in the present, which is really great.

Faust Ruggiero:
It's a great way to start. Then start thinking about other things you can do. Sometimes you have to leave. If you can leave the place you're in, this is happening. I'm in my living room and this is happening. Go outside for a few minutes, change the venue. That often works for people. Get active, go do something physically that exercise, go do yoga, meditate, learn these kinds of things.

Faust Ruggiero:
We need to do conscious things that work against the negative thinking.

Jennifer Norman:
So what you're describing is a pattern interruption. It's essentially if you're used to habitually having these ruminating negative thoughts, the moment that you become self aware is a very important moment. Because the, the earlier that we can catch ourselves having those negative thoughts, then the easier it may be to actually step in and mitigate them. Because as soon as you're able to take that cleansing breath, think a different thought, go outside, take all of those things that you had just mentioned, are going to be able to just completely almost divert that negative thought and turn your attention to something else. It's almost like if you stub your toe and then you turn your att to your finger, then you don't think about the toe anymore. So all of those things that we can do to just create that pattern interruption that stops that cycle of doom and gloom that gets us onto something where we are more aware of our thinking and can more conscientiously think a different thought and have a different outcome, then it, over time starts to become more habitual in favor of positive thinking of better outcomes.

Faust Ruggiero:
And you're right on the mark. You know, we. We do want. We want that pause, and then we want to be able to repeat the behavior. Learning is nothing more than repetition over time. That's all it is. Think the brain. It does not get bombarded with something and it learns.

Faust Ruggiero:
That's. That can traumatize you. What we, what we want to be able to do is train our brain, slowly repeat the behaviors over and over again. Look at. It's any. If there's anything, any class you take, be it art, be something in sports, whatever it may be, you walk in not knowing a whole lot of what you're doing, and the teacher or the coach, whoever says, okay, no, do it this way. And then you do it the next time. Maybe you get it.

Faust Ruggiero:
But then your mind reverts back and you make the mistake again. They say, sweat it, and you keep repeating it. Before you know it, the exercise becomes something your brain automatically can do. The key to this is that our brains, a lot of our brain works on autopilot, and that's a survival feature. The brain can't focus on lots and lots of conscious things, so a lot of it becomes preconscious unconscious, if you will. So it wants to move the things that we're doing into that autopilot thinking. But we want it to be productive. Autopilot.

Faust Ruggiero:
It's something that works all the time. By repeating the behavior, the brain can now transition and make this something you don't have to consciously think about all the time. But it's got to start conscious. So we give our brain and repetitive. So we give our brain that ability to store it and make it a functional thing that we do without thinking about.

Jennifer Norman:
Right. Right now, the title of your book series, I think, immediately grabs attention. I think some people hear fix yourself, and then they think self improvement. But other people might hear criticism like, oh, you need to fix yourself. Can you tell us what do you actually mean by fix yourself? Do you think that somebody can begin healing before they fully understand why they're hurting?

Faust Ruggiero:
Yeah, Jennifer, I'm a real pragmatic person. I'm a person that says, okay, I'm wanting. And it's one of core concepts in the program is brutal honesty. I am going to peel off the onion layers until I get to the point that I want that the tears Want to come down my face when I get there. Now I know I'm honest. When I talk about fixing yourself, I'm really talking about getting honest, going inside yourself, finding the things that you say, well, they're not working for me. They're causing some pain. They're.

Faust Ruggiero:
They're misleading me. All those kinds of statements. And I want to fix those. I want to fix the things I'm doing that aren't so good. There was a point in self help, maybe 15. Yeah, 15 years ago, where people said, oh, we're not broken. Let's stop using that language. And I said, you know, we have to stop coddling ourselves.

Faust Ruggiero:
And we don't have to be brutal, but we have to be able to say, I need to face the facts. I'm doing this in a fashion that does not support my wellness. It doesn't work. I'm doing things that maybe hurt other people. I'm doing things that hurt myself. We have to be able to get honest with ourselves first. We're not too good at that. We have honesty kind of as a survival mechanism.

Faust Ruggiero:
I'm kind of. I'm going to go so deep. But as soon as it starts to hurt, I'm. No, I'm not doing that anymore. Ourselves. And some of it is understandable because we live in a world that's very critical and people can quite mean when they see, you know, a weakness in us. But like we have to tell anyone else, we just have to get honest with ourselves and then. And then begin to plan to fix whatever that part of ourself is that doesn't work.

Faust Ruggiero:
That's all.

Jennifer Norman:
Okay. And you also developed something called the process way of life. Can you tell us what that is and how it is different from simply trying to think positively?

Faust Ruggiero:
Sure. You know, many people who do what I do for a living, we have been through intense training, years of training, college, what have you. And they teach us all these different ways to help people. Now you get into the field and people are coming to your office and you start to see, well, that didn't work too well and that's outdated. And you begin to put together some of the components of your counseling program which you think work. I started to realize about five or six years into my career that people were using processes that either worked for them or didn't work for them. It's honest versus dishonesty, if you will. It is people pleasing versus working for yourself.

Faust Ruggiero:
It's all those kinds of things. So I put together a program of about 52 processes that people can use. And I teach those. It's not a program you have to run through. You got to get from 1 to 52. It's which parts aren't working for you is honesty. Something is fact, finding something you're not doing too well. I have a little thing I call I over E.

Faust Ruggiero:
Is your intellect taking something, you know, experiencing something first, getting the facts, putting it in order, and then do you emote about it, or do you remote quickly and have a difficult time with that? So that process of intellect over emotion, not instead of just before. That's another one that we use. You know, not building walls, all those kinds of things that we do. There are processes involved, and I teach them the process involved with anything they're doing that doesn't work or something that they're doing well, but we can really make a much more powerful statement with it. And I just teach those processes to them. That's all it is. The finish when it comes to helping people is that person. What are the processes that go into helping that person? There are many.

Faust Ruggiero:
And when we teach them how to use all of them with incremental forward movements, small movements forward, things change. It's very practical.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah. In some cases, processes had evolved as some sort of protective mechanism, defense mechanism, survival mechanism. And so whereas they may have at one point helped to shield somebody from pain, then over time they might not be so useful anymore, and they actually may be detrimental to relationships or to. To manifesting what they wish to have in their lives. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I think that, you know, some people who have really. And you've written books on anxiety and depression and anger and addiction, all these very serious things, ptsd. I'm just curious, how do you get down to the roots of those struggles? Do they share common roots? And how do people separate out, okay, what might be useful and what is not so useful anymore when it was used to help them survive?

Faust Ruggiero:
You know, when people come to counseling, they're looking for two things. First, they want it to be safe, and they want that. That bond between myself and. But the second thing they want to know is, okay, whatever I bring up, I trust him. He can get me to it. I can. Now, once we have that, they're willing to go deep. And I can usually get that done in two or three sessions.

Faust Ruggiero:
And now we're talking. Now we're getting deep. And I'm going to, you know, I bring things up and I say, and I want them to understand you're human. You're going to do These things, some of the things you did, because the circumstances of your life maybe weren't so. So. So they weren't safe. You needed to use them. You.

Faust Ruggiero:
Your honesty, you know, if. If you were too honest, you might have been hurt, someone might have physically hurt you or came at you and really emotionally tore you down. Okay, it worked for you then. However, your dishonesty will get in the way of your emotions, your ability to really become the powerful person you can be because you won't be facing the facts. So now we go and we start looking at why they started to use it, how it was used in those circumstances. And now look, you're using it. You're still using it.

Faust Ruggiero:
It's an old tool, but do you think it applies to what you're doing now? That's when they grasp it and they say, okay, I can see the difference. Things are safe now. I don't have to use that tool. Or maybe I just became a person who. I told myself nice things about myself because that's what I wanted to hear, but it wasn't really true. So my foundation wasn't so strong, and I kept. Kept sinking, you know. So by teaching these processes, we break through all the facades.

Faust Ruggiero:
Defense mechanisms are huge. Denial is the big one for all of us. Honesty. But we rationalize, too. We tell ourselves, well, I did that because. Or we intellectualize. Those are the three that I teach the most. Well, you said that looked really good to you.

Faust Ruggiero:
Well, yeah, it did at the time. Yeah, but it wasn't, was it? You know, those types of things. Once when you get a person who embraces good, deep, brutal honesty, that person can do anything. It's the first process I teach. And let's get honest with each other. If I'm honest with myself, regardless of what you tell me, whether it's good or bad, it has no meaning. If you tell me I'm the most wonderful person you've ever interviewed, I would say, well, thanks so much, but it wouldn't change. But me, it shouldn't.

Faust Ruggiero:
Even though. Wonderful compliment. Anyone who's being interviewed would say, gee, I love to hear that. Likewise, if you said, well, I don't know how good he was. That can't change me unless I look at it and say, well, you know, she was right on some of those things. I'll get honest with myself. But your opinion is only an opinion. It's yours, but it's.

Faust Ruggiero:
It's not mine unless I decide to take it on. And that leads to the next subject. Was Is which we have to stop molding who we are based on what we find, what we hear outside of ourselves. We really. We're. We're masters at following the crowd. We really are.

Faust Ruggiero:
And I always great, who's leading, and they just look at me. I said, you know, you want to be able to access the power inside you so you don't have to follow the crowd.

Jennifer Norman:
Well, some of that can seem awfully contradictory to a lot of people, because if you're saying, okay, I'm going to be honest with myself, and I'll just use a light example. I grew up in New York, where people were more brutally honest and very blunt with each other in their communication. That's just the way it is, and that's the sign of love. But having moved to LA, people have a different communication style. And if you are blunt with people, then they can really get caught off guard. They can be very offended. And it can be cultural, too. If somebody from America goes to Japan, there's a different way of communicating, and it could be seen as very offensive.

Jennifer Norman:
If that person receives feedback like, you're being too blunt, then does that person say, well, am I to follow the crowd? Am I to be myself? Am I to change? Like. And so I think that a lot of people get conflicting messages about should I stay true to my roots and who I am and how my personality is, and is that the best way to be? Or do I change and please the crowd? Do I change and try to fit in so that I can get along better with the folks around me? So I think that there's always this dynamic balance. And that, again, is a very light example. But. But I think that that is a real conundrum that people face as. As to the balance between who I am and how I am versus what they want me to be and how I should potentially evolve given where I am now.

Faust Ruggiero:
You know, I get those questions like that when I'm counseling people and I ask them, okay, if you're going to follow the crowd and you. And they're going to help you be that person you want to be, how will you know when you got there? And then they look at me, because that following the crowd doesn't have a destination. It's a process that is continuous. So you have to continually maintain that social standing and those connections in order to feel good about yourself. There's nothing wrong with having those, but I don't think they should be the primary way one develops their internal power. I think you want to have that, and then when you go and you're with other people, you'll enjoy yourself. And they may say some of those brutally honest things. And I have a lot of friends from the boroughs in New York, and I always say, you guys are really honest with everybody, but not yourself.

Faust Ruggiero:
They are some of the most offensive people I know. It's one thing to be honest with other people. And you're right. As you go west, it changes. It changes by the time you get to the Midwest. But, you know, I have a son in California and, you know, it's laid back and no one really gets in your face, really. I mean, it's not the way it works. The key is that there'll be different social measures depending where you are.

Faust Ruggiero:
But you yourself want to be strong enough to say, I feel good about me. And if they say, you should go here, I might say, well, let me see if I want to do that. Do I feel that that's a good thing for me? Will I enjoy myself? Will I learn whatever it may be? Or do I want to say, no, I don't think I'm going to follow along on that one today. So nothing wrong with following and learning from influencers, if you will. But once again, you're back to the conscious thing. It's this, what I want to do in this situation. That's all I ask people to do. The following isn't the bad thing, it's the following blindly with the hope of becoming better by doing that that concerns me because I think everything should start.

Faust Ruggiero:
I think we work inside out, not outside in. Although outside will come in an influence. We want to gain as much control over that as we can. That's all.

Jennifer Norman:
And I think what was described is really a balance between the self and then ourselves in relation to other people, no matter who it is. It could be a family member, it could be somebody at work, et cetera. And so there is this desire to be very strong and empowered, but there's also in many cases a desire to please and a desire to address the needs of the other person and trying to balance the give and the take between, you know, that. That special dance in the relationship. And sometimes that's where the most critical aspects of mental health can really, really lie.

Faust Ruggiero:
They do. But you said the key word balance. And that's what the process way of life is all about, to get to the point of internal balance. You know, I. I've been teaching for years that, you know, we are, we humans are people who have. Are physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual. And if you go through not only My go into Buddhist writings and talk about Nirvana, we're talking about balance, and that's what all of this is designed to do. As you work all these processes, as you begin to really get honest with yourself and work from the inside, you know, it would be hard to find a Buddhist monk who said, oh, yes, I really follow the crowd outside there.

Faust Ruggiero:
Not for internal balance. If you want the balance, then what you want to be able to do is have those four attributes operating in harmony, not at some high level. Doesn't matter whether it's a scale of 1 to 10, it's a 10 or a 1 that's irrelevant. Just so the balance is there. And if you think about it, on any, Any day that you felt really good, what a great day I had. Your intellect was not full of chaos. Your emotions weren't misfiring all over the place. Physically, your body felt good.

Faust Ruggiero:
And there's some type of a connection deeper inside, whether God or whatever you want to choose. But, you know, and we have a tendency to push aside one or two of those attributes. I don't like to work out my body. I know I'm way overweight and I'm. But I'm a happy person. Okay, you know, or I'm emoting or I know I fire off quickly and. But, you know, I always make up. And, you know, intellectually, am I learning? Am I trying to do the thing so my brain can learn? Am I trying to connect spirit spiritually that, you know, we.

Faust Ruggiero:
We have a tendency to push one or two to the side involved or we don't believe one of them. You know, the spirit easiest for most people to want to kick to the side, which quite frankly, in my mind, is. Is the pinnacle of everything. When you get to the point that you can connect there, you can connect anywhere. But, you know, it's. It's about balance. It's about putting balance in one's life.

Faust Ruggiero:
Everything I do, what, what book I write, whatever workshop I run, it's always aimed at getting to the point of internal balance, because that's when we are at our best for sure.

Jennifer Norman:
And in a world that seems so out of balance right now, or polarized, if you will, then I think that a lot of people feel this chaos, this tearing up of, you know, it's all hopeless or defeatist or, you know, what, and they lose their sense of purpose. They lose that. That connection with the, you know, with their higher self or with the greater good and think that things might just be meaningless or, you know, they go into these existential crises when, you know, things seem like they're just not going well. How do you help people to find that balance in themselves?

Faust Ruggiero:
Well, the first thing I do, and, you know, people come in and they'll say, let's start working on me. And I say, well, let's purge first. And they say, I don't understand what you mean. And I say, well. Well, let's give you an example. You come in and you say, I've got lots of anxiety. The first thing I'm going to do is say, let's talk about what you're doing. How much do you drink coffee? Do you drink energy drinks? Lots of sugar and carbs and most of my anxiety? People will say, yes.

Faust Ruggiero:
And I say, well, we need to cut down all those things first. Want me to teach you things, cognitive things about anxiety? And you're putting accelerants in your body. We're really not being fair to you. I can give you these things to do while I'm not paying attention to that. So I'm not saying you can't have coffee, but let's get it to the point that it does not affect you. And, you know, you know, nine out of every ten coffee drinkers tell that I could drink it before I go to bed. It doesn't bother me. And I said, that's not true.

Faust Ruggiero:
That is simply not for some people. You know, the body adjusts to it. Tolerance goes up. But my point is using that as an example, I want to purge what doesn't work. It could be relationships. It could be. Be something physical. It could be the emotional chaos you bring into your life.

Faust Ruggiero:
You know, we want to purge. We want to look at all those things. Let's find out what you're doing that's not working, and let's start moving those to the side. And we'll replace it with some good things. You know, we are living in a world. You were talking before about how the world is flowing. Chaos is there, and we're adjusting to it.

Faust Ruggiero:
My deepest worry about our culture, is that we're learning what the brain. The brain is adjusting and normalizing is that this chaos and this anger is normal. And we're intellectualizing that to say, yeah, it has a purpose. We need to do it. No, we don't. There are many other ways. You know, anything you can do with love in your heart usually overpowers that.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah, that's very interesting. Do you find that that is easier to start with, the purge of like, okay, what are you doing? That may not be serving you. Let's get rid of that first. Or maybe not necessarily get rid of it, but try to find a compatible replacement.

Faust Ruggiero:
Yeah. You know, and short of placating people, I said, we have to get these out of there. But while we're doing that...

Jennifer Norman:
A lot of people are like, I can't give up my energy drinks. I can't give up my coffee or whatever, you know, and...

Faust Ruggiero:
And I love when they make that statement and I say can't. Is that the right word you want there? How about won't? How do you know you can't? If I give you a way to do this that doesn't throw you into a withdrawal, would you be willing and, you know, a cigarette smoker, for example. Oh, my. I'm a day person and I say I can get you off of those in two months with little to no withdrawal.

Jennifer Norman:
Really?

Faust Ruggiero:
Sure. I said, if you smoke 20 cigarettes a day, let's just take one out for the next couple days, smoke 19. Then we'll do it again, and every two days we'll take a cigarette out. Your body's not going to miss it 10 days later, if you're doing the what we. If you stick to it, your body will adjust now to 10 cigarettes. And then we'll take all those ritual cigarettes out. You know, the one that has to happen with your coffee and what you're going to be left. What I find is we get down to five or six cigarettes a day.

Faust Ruggiero:
And they do it. They can. Most people, let's say you work in an office setting that says, well, you can't smoke for four hours at lunchtime. You. There's the smoke room. You just went four hours without a cigarette. Now I say if you can do that, well, then we can train you little by little to purge this out of your system. Coffee.

Faust Ruggiero:
Same thing. Coffee. People love that. They love the taste of it and everything in the world, and that's fine. We just. I don't care if your threshold for coffee is six and it doesn't bother you at all, and it's not part of your anxiety. Go drink six cups of coffee. I don't care if it is part of your problem.

Faust Ruggiero:
We need to get it out of the picture.

Jennifer Norman:
That's right. So it's being honest as to the accelerants, per se.

Faust Ruggiero:
Right. You know, and again, anyone can do this. I just asked them to try. I said, give me an attempt. I need you with without to cut your coffee down for. We'll do it in six weeks. Give me that. Six weeks.

Faust Ruggiero:
And at the end of it, I just want you tell me how you feel. And they'll say, but I'm not going to be able to think clearly. And you know what, caffeine has that effect. So they will experience that. And then we'll do some other things. We'll talk about other ways to put clarity into your mind. And we'll do this while we're purging. So to the point that you're down to maybe a cup or two, you're not going to say, I can't think.

Faust Ruggiero:
Yes, you will. You will be able to think because we're gonna...

Jennifer Norman:
I can't wait to hear about what you do to help people think with clarity.

Faust Ruggiero:
There's so many things, you know, once they get to the point that they can sit still. Know I say, have never meditated. Oh, I said, well, meditation and mental clarity, I don't know that it gets any more powerful. Some people use prayer, some people will do a combination of things like yoga and exercise and meditation. We're going to just change the way you do things. Physically you will feel better, your clarity of thought will increase, and emotionally you won't be a wreck. Gee, wouldn't that be nice?

Jennifer Norman:
Yes, it would. So if emotional wellness worked like physical fitness, what do you think that the daily workout would look like?

Faust Ruggiero:
You know what I tell them, don't start by, you know, going into the workout room and you're going to really nail it because you're going to die if all you can do is get on a bike and you can only ride for two minutes. Give it the two minutes and tomorrow let me try for two minutes and 15 seconds. Seconds. And let me build it up till I get to the point that I get to 20 minutes and it'll come faster than you know, it really will. I don't want you to have to leave and be so sore that you can't walk up the steps. That doesn't make any sense. We're not compromise your body. We're going to help you, your body and your mind transition into a machine that can handle this kind of work.

Faust Ruggiero:
It's, it's again, incremental steps. But you know, the thing is when you're doing four or five incremental steps at a time, the person has as much as they need to concentrate on.

Jennifer Norman:
True, true. It is a lot. Yeah.

Faust Ruggiero:
And I tell them, reward yourself. You know, if now you can work out for five minutes, pat yourself on the back, go do something you like that doesn't interfere with the program or hurt you. Go reward yourself by all means. Feel good about it. Then come back and increase it again if you can.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah. I'm curious. What habits do you think have the greatest long term impact? Would it be meditation? Would it be eating clean?

Faust Ruggiero:
You know, it's different for different people. There are people who will never be able to sit long enough to do 20 minutes of meditation. And for them it's the exercise room, it's the sports or whatever, it's running, it's. And that becomes their, you know, their nirvana, if you will. I introduce them to many. I say, let's find the one you like. I, you know, myself, I love to sit for a half hour and you know, it's quiet and there's no thought whatever in my mind. My mind is, I know my mind is recharging.

Faust Ruggiero:
I can feel it. When you're ready to come out of a meditation, the, the energy, conscious, physical, emotional is all now something you're, it's like it wakes you up. It's a little alarm. It says, okay, we're done and let's get up and go. And you feel that, that rejuvenation. That's when I'm telling people, not everyone can do that. Some people can't sit long enough. That's just not the way they're wired.

Faust Ruggiero:
But they can get on a bike or they can get on, they can do something physical that works for.

Jennifer Norman:
I think that there's, yeah, there's, there's this false thought that meditation means just sitting still and, and, and clearing the mind that way. But there are so many different ways to meditate. One of the ways that I meditate without even thinking about meditating is I take a drive. Because your mind automatically goes into theta and you're, you're almost in a trance like state when you're just driving. Some people are in the shower and they're meditating. Some people are taking a walk and they're having a walking meditation. There's. You don't have to sit still like a guru on the mountain in order to meditate.

Jennifer Norman:
So you don't y.

Faust Ruggiero:
And you can combine those things. You know, I love to work out. At my age, I'm still working out every day. And when I do, I put the mental exercises in place while I'm working out. Thought moved, moved aside some positive things. I'm setting some nice goals. I'm doing things that increase the connection with my soul while I'm working out. So I'm Doing two or three things at one time.

Faust Ruggiero:
I don't advise people, people to start with that, but by all means you can get to a point that as your program evolves, you become more proficient and your mind begins to say, hey, let's try the next thing too. Let's put that in there. And you can have such a well rounded program and the piece of your life is for most people what you've always wanted.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah. Yeah. How do you know that you're actually growing and not just becoming more comfortable?

Faust Ruggiero:
All because you keep challenging yourself? You said the word grow. Grow. Growth does not have a destination. Growth is a journey. I don't want to be cliche here, but you keep on doing it. Your mind then adjusts to the point where it says, I want to keep doing this, I want to keep growing. It's not a passionate, I've got to move forward. It says every day, you know, maybe I'll learn one thing today.

Faust Ruggiero:
That's always been kind of my little mantra. Let me just get one thing, one thing today that I didn't know yesterday. Let me try one thing I never tried before. Let me accept this thing that I wouldn't accept for. Let me take a risk. Let me step outside of my comfort zone. That's how you do it. I define my comfort zone and I say, okay, I need to step out of that for a little while.

Faust Ruggiero:
It gets a little risky, not as comfortable. And then my mind gets comfortable with being uncomfortable. And that's when you know things are going well.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah. Yeah. So what's one discomforting thing that you did today or the day before today?

Faust Ruggiero:
I had to work with someone and not as a client, but someone that I don't particularly enjoy working with. They're confronted a little closed minded. But I did have to do some things as part of a program I'm working with. So I said, okay, I'm going to try a different route and I'm going to just say, yeah, okay, let's look at that and then let's look at this also. So I kind of led them into a point where they felt confident because really what happens with people with this particular person is they're a bit insecure and so they have a tendency to come on strong. So I let them try this approach. I know I have to work, I'm going out of the comfort zone on this. Let me try this and get this person a little bit more secure and then kind of just sway it things sideways a little bit and say, how about, yeah, we had it went well, we'll see how it develops.

Faust Ruggiero:
But it put me in a position where I could have said, oh, I really don't want to work with this person, or I could have just not gone or challenged him or did whatever we had to do in the meantime. It was something that both of us, I think, said, well, we can do this again. We can try to expand on some things and maybe things work out.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah, that's good because it might have also helped that person, as you said, close minded, try something a little bit out of that person's comfort zone too.

Faust Ruggiero:
Exactly.

Jennifer Norman:
So you did it together. Well done. That's nice. What do you think gives you hope after working for 40 years with so many people?

Faust Ruggiero:
Well, you know, for me, Jennifer, it was, it was not a job, it's a calling. I knew that I knew what I was going to do since I was a child, really. Not that I was going to be a psychologist, but that I was going to be a person that was going to be. I just love to be with people and, you know, they, you know, really get me to the point that I'm just so engaged. So I'm still doing that. And you know, when you, when you can help a person to feel better and, you know, they're engaged and they really want to do that and, and you see it happen, it's just a very fulfilling way to live life. And the thing is, if you stay with it, like as long as I have, you keep learning every day. So that little mantra, I have something every day.

Faust Ruggiero:
All I have to do is spend time with my people and they're going to say something, I'm going to say, yeah, that's true. I should, I should be thinking about that and, and that, you know, and then, so I learned from them. Then I turn that back into teaching and it's, you know, I have, you know, an old saying I said, you know, to become, to be a good teacher, you have to be a good learner. And when that we think we've, we've arrived and we know everything, we stop learning and then we not so great teachers. So I like learning and they keep teaching me.

Jennifer Norman:
Amazing, Amazing. Well, Faust, this has been truly exceptional. At the end of each episode, I do close with the same common questions for every guest. There's three questions. My first for you is, what do you think makes you beautiful?

Faust Ruggiero:
My love for other people, my willingness to be in service. That's always been the core of me. You know, people ask me, you know, about how I deal with the world and I say, one person at a time. And I can at that point share my love for them, just for them. And if we all did that, I think it's a much different way to live in the world. One, one person at a time. Just love them.

Jennifer Norman:
Amazing. Yeah, yeah, I ascribe to that. What do you think it means to be human?

Faust Ruggiero:
Human? To be human is to is to be able to love yourself and embrace your weaknesses, be willing to admit that you have them there and then say, I'm going to work with those and make myself better. The other part of being human is to be able is the willingness to accept that we are part of a greater whole. We are so much alike. I don't care how much different we look or think. We are so much alike. We are created to be beautiful people. And I just think we need to go out and embrace that.

Jennifer Norman:
I love that. And my last question, what is one truth that you live by?

Faust Ruggiero:
For me, I'm a very spiritual person. So I live by my faith, my faith in God, my willingness to acquiesce. But also I draw my strength from that source, which I believe is the most powerful source in the universe. So I never ever turn off my love for the Lord.

Jennifer Norman:
Oh, beautiful. Well, Faust, thank you so much for sharing not only your experience, but all of your practical wisdom too. I really appreciate that you remind us that there's something both empowering and deeply compassionate. We don't have to wait for these perfect circumstances before we begin healing. I think think each day offers another opportunity for us to notice our thoughts, to choose a healthier response, and to become more aligned with that person that we really want to be inside. It's not really about becoming anybody new. It's just about removing what keeps us from becoming fully ourselves. So thank you so much for that.

Jennifer Norman:
So beautiful humans, if today's conversation resonated with you, please be sure to share it with somebody who could use a little encouragement right now. You can learn more about Faust Ruggiero, help his books, his process, way of life, and his latest work by visiting www.faustruggiero.com. You can also follow him on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube for more insights and practical guidance. And if you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review and join us next time as we continue exploring life lessons from beautiful humans. I'm Jennifer Norman and this is The Human Beauty Movement Podcast. I'll see you in the next episode.

Jennifer Norman:
Thank you for listening to The Human Beauty Movement Podcast. Be sure to follow, rate and review us wherever you stream podcasts. The Human Beauty Movement is a community based platform that cultivates the beauty of humankind. Check out our workshops, find us on social media and share our inspiration with all the beautiful humans in your life. Learn more at thehumanbeautymovement.com. Thank you so much for being a beautiful human.