#50 Gentle Nudge: Practice, Practice, Practice

Ever feel like there’s a daily battle between your best self and… well, the other one? What if winning was as simple as choosing which one to feed? 🤔 

In this powerful episode of Be the Sun, Not the Salt, Dr. Harry Cohen and Connie Fontaine unpack Chapter 28: “Practice, Practice, Practice”—a transformative look at the one habit that changes everything.

Why should you tune in?

• Discover the ancient parable of the two wolves and what it reveals about mastering your inner world.
• Learn the crucial difference between honoring your negative feelings and accidentally pouring lighter fluid on them (a game-changer for emotional regulation!).
• Unpack the science of practice—how you can literally rewire your brain to make positivity your automatic reflex.
• Get inspired to build your “heliotropic muscle” and understand why a tiny mental shift from “I got to” to “I get to” can change your entire day.

Being heliotropic isn’t about perfection; it’s about practice. Whether you’re trying to build better habits, manage stress, or simply live a more positive life, this conversation offers the “how” behind the “what.”

Ready to start feeding the right wolf? Hit play for a powerful dose of inspiration.

Looking for more?

• Share this episode with a friend who’s on their own personal growth journey.
• Subscribe for your weekly dose of positive mindset, self-improvement, and practical wisdom!
• Revisit our episodes on gratitude and emotional regulation to deepen your practice.

To explore the book, or for more episodes, information, tips and tools to live a more heliotropic life, visit us at bethesunnotthesalt.com and find us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok.

Transcript

​[00:00:00] 

Harry Cohen: Welcome. My name is Dr. Harry Cohn, the author of be the son, not the salt. I'm joined by my cohost, Connie Fontaine, chief super spreader. Connie, what chapter are we doing today?

Connie Fontaine: Today as part 28. Practice, practice, practice, which is our everyday mantra. And I think for those that don't know, we started doing this gentle nudge series as part of the episodes, um, that we do with our podcast, because we find that they're very valuable to us reviewing the chapter every day a very specific chapter every day, because it's part of what this one's about today, which is chapter 28, practice, practice, practice. Doing these gentle nudges is our version of practice.

Harry Cohen: It really is, you know, I don't know what chapter is the day until I look at it in the 

morning. And I love this one too, because it's the parable of the two wolves. It's the ancient [00:01:00] parable of the young man who asks his grandfather, you know, What is the secret to life? And the grandfather explains that there's a battle that rages daily inside us, which is the forces of evil and the forces of good.

They're like two wolves that fight. And the young grandson says, Well, which wolf wins? And the grandfather says, The wolf you feed. so, what this is about is feeding the good wolf and starving the evil wolf. And those are two great practices, which is feed the tendency for us to do and be good and starve the tendency for us to do and be evil.

And you say, 

Connie Fontaine: Or even just negative emotions, right? It's also just like, it's about the good and the bad, it's the, but it's the simple stuff too. It's just like, what would feed you well, you know, your body and your mind and what takes away from your day.

Harry Cohen: Now this is important to understand [00:02:00] because people misinterpret negative emotions as something that should be pushed down, avoided at all costs. And it's a huge misunderstanding. We don't want to feed. negative emotions. We want to acknowledge and honor them and learn from them and recognize them. But the difference is feeding a negative emotion will fuel that fire and that's not a wise strategy.

So let's just pick anger as an example. When you are on a continuum from irritated, annoyed, furious, and angry, You don't want to fuel that by feeding it. Oh my God, you know what else she did? And you know what else? And it reminded me and another thing, it's just going to work us into a frenzy versus acknowledge what we're feeling, but don't necessarily feed it and make it worse, pick some quote unquote, negative [00:03:00] emotions, disgust, anger, fear.

Um, you know, all of those. are very healthy and normal to understand, but you don't want to pour lighter fluid on the fire.

Connie Fontaine: Yes. And the flip side is starting with feeding the good, the good emotions, the good positivity. I, you know, I know one way and we've talked about this with a chapter on gratitude is, you know, feeding and starting off the day, not like, oh, here we go again. I got to do this. I got to get a, I got it starting with, oh my gosh, I get to

Harry Cohen: And that, that little, that little shift, that little tiny mental shift from got to to get to, I've heard myself say it, and then I catch myself.

And it's the catching that is the good, which is feeding the good wolf, feeding the good side of us. This is a great expression. 

Connie Fontaine: hmm. 

Harry Cohen: together, wire together. The more that we feed, , the good wolf and not the bad wolf. The [00:04:00] easier and more automatic our reflexes are. It still doesn't stop us from, you know, when someone cuts us off on the highway and the reflex and the anger rises, you can just decide in that moment, okay, easy, big, fell easy, big fella has settled down, you know, she or he 

Connie Fontaine: the practice part of it is, And I think you said it at first, you acknowledge it, you realize what you're doing, you choose cause that's the other piece of it. You choose not to feed that negativity and you go the other direction when you can. Mm hmm.

Harry Cohen: And there's lots of ways to do both use which work, which techniques and strategies and behaviors work for you. But just this basic principle, I want to feed the good wolf. I don't want to feed the bad wolf, which is not to say that there are bad emotions.  We're not saying that.

Connie Fontaine: Yes. Because those are important to acknowledge. Yeah. I thought, I love the, the idea around practice because [00:05:00] it's also similar to whether it's a meditation practice, a yoga practice. I mean, there's a, there seems to be a heliotropic muscle that gets stronger. The more you practice and if you, and if you choose to try and be your best self every day, every interaction, there's the power of it get because it does get easier.

Harry Cohen: Now that insight Connie is huge, which is any practice, pick any practice. I just started to learn piano, but yoga practice, exercise practice, any practice that you work at, it does get easier, doesn't get easy per se, but it gets easier and more automatic with practice. So the joy is in the doing of the practice, period.

Connie Fontaine: Yeah. We've said that, you know, this, this content is simple and it's easy, but not necessarily easy to practice. It's easy to practice it. It's not necessarily easy to do all the time. So the practice actually makes it easier.

Harry Cohen: Keep it going. [00:06:00] That's our job. 

Connie Fontaine: right. That's our job. That's our job. So today we've inspired ourselves to continue to practice it. And hopefully we've inspired you to continue this practice with us. And hopefully you're sharing this practice with others. Please follow our podcast and make sure that your friends are too. And thanks for listening today.