Laura Coe

Longtime listeners will remember Laura from episodes 192 and 209, over two years ago. Her book, Emotional Obesity, made a big effect on me, as did her warmth and move from success in tech entrepreneurship to her podcast, The Art of Authenticity. She pursued authenticity in herself and her coaching clients. We became friends and kept in touch since. She's continued exploring, where it led. As you'll hear in this episode she shared with me where it's led, which she's sharing in three new books, The Nature of Love, The Nature of Self Love, and The Nature of Boundaries, available here. In them she explores and shares about an energy field called Akasha and its access to otherwise unseen wisdom and more. I'd never heard of Akasha either. As you'll hear, Laura acknowledges her current work lies out of the mainstream and said I didn't have to bring her on if I didn't want. Of course, I'm bringing a longtime guest and friend back. From my perspective, trying to view everyone's perception of the supernatural with an open mind, I'm as curious about her views and perspective as someone's about a mainstream religion. As you'll hear, she shared her teaching with me before this episode and I valued that experience. I'm glad she shared her work with me and I'm happy to share it with you.

Laura and I explore the feelings and emotions around our environmental behavior, specifically that we don't like, like throwing away food. I predict you'll find her descriptions of how people feel familiar. In other episodes I've shared how I find that our emotions are causing our environmental problems, not CO2. The behavior of CO2 simply results from our behavior. That's why I feel what's missing is leadership: influencing people's emotions. Now people consider acting on the environment a chore, distraction. If we want people to like acting on their environmental values, it will help to help them connect rewarding emotions. Laura describes the emotional landscape of someone not acting on their values, and how to change them. This concept of saying people don't care inhibits people from acting. I find everyone cares. To say the don't makes them feel you don't understand them, which undermines your ability to influence them. I can't stand people making environmental behavior a moral issue. If you say to someone that they don't care, they think, "I do care. If you think I don't, up yours. You're not superior." But discounting others' emotions and cares create more counterproductive results: it leads them to think of their justification for what behavior affected the environment, reinforcing the feeling you're trying to change. It's like when trying to attract a guy or girl who isn't showing you attention. I recommend not asking, "why don't you find me attractive?" or similar questions. Whatever feelings they had, you led them to voice them, which solidifies and strengthens them. Now they find you less attractive more strongly. Tell someone they don't care about the environment and you lead them to keep doing what they were doing. People have done it with you. Laura speaks thoughtfully and with experience on how we feel and react, which I consider the major frontier for environmental action now that the science is clear. It's also most people's major frontier to improve their lives.

Laura and I go back a few years, from being on her podcast. We talk about her concept of emotional obesity: a parallel between physical health and emotional health. I find it a rich analogy on many levels. Characteristics of addiction to food that cause obesity resemble thoughts that cause emotional obesity. She describes her concept in more detail, but I find most helpful about it that it enables you to make yourself emotionally healthy in the ways you make yourself physically healthy. You'll note the parallels in problem and solution as she describes it. Think of thoughts you kick yourself with. If your friend said those things you'd leave that friend. Yet we keep doing it, unable to see that we can stop it. Dwelling in unproductive thoughts and blame doesn't help. We expand it to environmental obesity, where we look at addictive environmental behaviors, another approach that helps understand and solve behaviors we don't like.