A Magical Life: Health, Wealth, and Weight Loss

Explorations Over Expectations with Eric Teplitz

September 04, 2022 Eric Teplitz Season 1 Episode 136
A Magical Life: Health, Wealth, and Weight Loss
Explorations Over Expectations with Eric Teplitz
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Show Notes Transcript

Today's guest is Eric Teplitz.  Eric is a “life enthusiast” who routinely undertakes challenging endeavors that intrigue him and impel him to grow. He has recorded and independently released an album of original songs; acted onstage in community theater productions; backpacked over 500 miles of the Appalachian Trail; completed an Ironman triathlon (after three attempts); volunteered hundreds of hours in a hospital performing music for patients; overcome an aversion to needles to become a regular blood donor; and is the author of over 100 posts on Eric’s Inspired Living Blog.

As a personal coach, he is passionate about helping others open themselves up to a more expansive sense of what is possible; overcome resistance to following their interests, passions, curiosities, and dreams; and achieve a greater sense of meaning, purpose, and life satisfaction.

Connect with Eric on his website, https://ericteplitz.com/

Connect with Magic:

A Magical Life Podcast on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amagicallifepodcast/

On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wholisticnaturalhealth/

Online: https://wholisticnaturalhealth.com.au

A Subito Media production

Support the show

Connect with Magic:
A Magical Life Podcast on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amagicallifepodcast/
On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wholisticnaturalhealth/
Online: https://wholisticnaturalhealth.com.au
A Subito Media production

Magic Barclay:

Welcome back to a magical life. I'm your host magic Barclay. And today, Eric Plz joins us again. Now in episode 1 35, we of course discovered his answers to the questions that I always ask, but he talked about how we can start building our enthusiastic life. Welcome back,

Eric Teplitz:

Eric. I'm glad to be back. Thank you. Magic.

Magic Barclay:

My pleasure to have you here again. Now we touched on, you know, shutting out things around us that don't serve us. We touched on the power of our mind and our soul, and really connecting with nature and connecting with ourselves. And I think maybe this is something we need to explore more. But we also mentioned the freebie that you offered, and that was a preview of your online course. Can you tell us a little bit more about what that is?

Eric Teplitz:

Sure. The online course that you're referring to is called opening to greater possibilities, and this project was a true labor of love for me. I would say that though, I wasn't necessarily consciously. Thinking about it this way. When I first started creating it, it's basically the culmination of whatever wisdom I've attained thus far. And this is I'm gonna turn 50 this year. And I think that I was perhaps imagining. Creating this course for my 20 safe 25 year old self in my mid twenties. That was the darkest time of my adult life thus far. And it was an extremely difficult lonely, and in a lot of ways, hope, you know, hopeless time for me in terms of how I. And I really didn't know how to get out of that hole. Out of that darkness. I had this whole idea of what my life was going to be like and surprised things. Didn't quite turn out that way. And, you know, granted, I was only 25 years older or so, but I couldn't see out of the incredible. Depression and disappointments that I had experienced. So basically what I did was I just kept trying things and a lot of things didn't work or didn't help, but some things did. And when something did I reinvested in that and, and pursued it further and kept exploring further, and the bottom line is. Approximately 25 years have gone by. And I have had so many experiences since then that I never would've even imagined would've necessarily even interested me back when I was 25. And I have had a really rich, and this message that I wanna deliver to people is. if you are going through a hard time, if you are really struggling, if you are at a low point in your life, if you're experiencing what some refer to as a dark night of the soul, please, please listen to what I have to say, which is, this is a temporary experience. And on the other side of it, there are. So many possibilities that you can't see from where you are right now. I know I get it. I've been there. And so the course really is just a way of presenting a whole variety of different ideas. And mindsets that you can employ and they really should be explorations. That's how you should think of them. There are an abundant number of these in the course. And what's great about the course is that let's say you move through it now in its entirety, certain things are probably gonna be salient for you. Certain things will stick out to you as they speak to you for some reason or another, they really do. You know, they, they perhaps invite you to actually do them. There are many, you know, actual suggestions that I make in the course. And if you follow any number of those suggestions, they're gonna take you down a path and potentially open up new avenues of exploration for you. A year from now two years from now, you might move through the course, the same course again, and very likely different things may strike you. Different things may pop out as suddenly being relevant where maybe they didn't seem. So the first time around. And that's the beauty of this course is that you have lifetime access to it. If you purchase. And it's a course that you can return to as often as you need to. And I recommend returning to it at different points. Anytime you're in need of some inspiration, or if you feel stuck in some way, and you need a jumpstart. That's really what this course is all about. And I had to live it in order to create it So in a sense, my whole life has been preparation for the course to create this course. And while I would love to send it back in time to my 25 year old self, what I can do is send it. To anyone, regardless of their age, that might be at a low point or feeling stuck, or maybe they just feel like they have this sense that there's so much more to life than what they're currently experiencing. And for whatever reason, they're having trouble accessing those other possibilities for themselves. That's that's who this course is for. And that's what it's all about. So magic, as you had said, anyone can sign up for a free preview of the course, so you can at least get a taste of it and ex, and an experience of it. And, uh, if you do decide to purchase the course from there, I also offer a 30 day money back guarantee. That's how confident I am that you will find value in it. So you can sample it for free and decide for yourself whether or not it's of interest to you. And if you do make a purchase, you also can try out the course for 30 days and make sure. You're getting value out of it. You can get a full refund if for any reason you feel you're not, but it really, it really is a labor of love. It was a passion project for me, and it's something that I really hope other people will benefit from.

Magic Barclay:

That's a very beautiful offer. Thank you. Now, is there something else we can offer the listeners today? Just from your experience, from your learning, something that you deal with every day, just to help them. I guess see where they're at. Now, you mentioned about, you know, where you were at in the twenties is not where you're at approaching 50. And I certainly feel that about to turn 50 myself so I think people, a lot of people go through life going well, in my twenties, I could do this. I could fit into this. I could go there. There seemed to be no repercussions in life. And now later, you know, my body's. More tired, worn down. Maybe a few injuries have happened. You know, life has changed. I now have commitments. It's not all about a good time. It's about an eventful long time. So what are some other things that you can share with the listeners about really attaching to where they're at now and appreciating what they have?

Eric Teplitz:

That's an excellent question. And I think that this is where life experience is beneficial. There's that saying that youth is wasted on the young, uh, I don't know if that's a universal truth or not, but it, it sort of is in line with what you were suggesting that we have. Perhaps greater health and vitality, at least, um, naturally speaking, when we're younger and as we age, we tend to experience some sort of decline or compromise to that vitality. Or at least we can experience it. I don't think that it necessarily has to be that way. Some people have the opposite experience, but there is a wisdom. And if only in just understanding yourself that comes with years of experience on this planet in this life. And that that experience is priceless. There's another saying that I, that I wanted to, um, refer to here, which is worth thinking about, and that goes something along the lines of when you're young, you trade your health for. And when you're old, you trade your money back for health. I think that there's a lot in that. And so I think that if you're on the younger side of things, it's worth keeping in mind that we pay a price. When we do things at the expense of our. And even though when you're younger, that price may not be as evident or as immediate, it is there to be paid at some point. So it's worth thinking about that in advance. If you're going to take a job that maybe is really well paying, but it's gonna, you're gonna be inviting all kinds of stress that might be negative stress, then consider that, that the financial reward for the job. Isn't the only thing that matters. Again, if you can have a job that affords you a more balanced lifestyle, and that acknowledges the fact that you're a human being with other needs and interests, other than the job, that even if it's significantly lower paying might be more, more beneficial to you in the long run. So these are some things to think about that are at the top of my mind. when you presented that question, the only other thing that I, I wanna say here is just that we all, I think tend to judge our experiences. It's very natural for us to do this. We judge things as good or bad, anything that happens to us. And as you get older and have more life experience, you start noticing that some of the things that you thought were really. Terrible things that happened to you. In retrospect, and with hindsight, you can see that there may have been precious gifts buried within those, those things that happened to you, and they weren't apparent to you at the time, but now years later, looking back, you can see them more clearly. And so when you've had that experience before, in any way, it's worth reminding yourself that we don't always know the long term. Of the things that we experience, we might see something that happens to us as, truly terrible and unfortunate, and it might be, but it's also possible that we are either misjudging it or that we can, as I had said in the last episode, we can find a way to productively, make use of it. Creative people do this all the time in their art. You know, if you experience something that was very painful. You can make a song out of it, or you can write a story or you can create a personal development course around it. You can help other people who are going through that thing. So there are any number of ways you can positively make use of a quote negative experience. So I guess the, the message is just to. What I'm finding is the more you can be experience equanimity, the more you can not let your highs get too high and not let your lows get too low and have some perspective. And just remember that everything that happens to us is temporary. Everything is constantly changing and evolving, and we don't always know what's truly in our best interest. And so if we can take a pause or if we can simply. Have the presence of mind to remember this, we might be able to respond more effectively in our lives to the things that happened to us.

Magic Barclay:

That was, uh, a pretty amazing answer to my rather boring question. Thank you. Now I'm hearing a bit of underlying story here with you, Eric. So I'm going to delve into this. Because it seems to be a bit of a theme. Who is Eric? What have you experienced that you'd like to share with the listeners? Because they're probably listening to you right now going, oh, he's never had a problem in his life. You know, how could he tell us about this equanimity? Like I think maybe we just need to open the door here a little bit so that people understand that your learnings have come from some.

Eric Teplitz:

Sure. So first of all, let me stress that equanimity. I see that as an aspiration. Do not claim to have mastered this Um, but I do think I've gotten better at it over the years. So it's not that I don't have my reactions. It's not that I don't get upset. And it's not that I don't, that I don't experience quote, negative emotions. I, I say quote, because again, emotions are just information. And if we listen to them, then. If we listen to the messages that they're giving us, then they're actually helpers. They're helpful to us, but sometimes certain experiences that, that we call negative. They're just really what they are is they're unpleasant. Um, so, but you know, then I'm not avoiding the subject. You're asking about my personal experience and personal difficulties that I've faced. And one of the, the big ones for me was I had this idea. For myself from a fairly early age, that music was my singular passion in life. And it was the only thing that could make me happy. And what I mean by that is pursuing it as a livelihood. That that was my dream. And that was what I wanted more than anything else. And I, I gave everything to it. I really, you know, wholeheartedly went after. And did all the things in my power that I could think of to do, to manifest this dream. And I just wanna emphasize that the dream was to be able to make a living and, uh, a sustainable living off of doing the things that I loved, which were writing, recording, and performing my own music. So in other words, like I didn't have to necessarily be rich and famous, although I certainly wouldn't have turned it down when I was younger. I might. Now that's the interesting thing is I might now, I don't know. but I poured myself into this dream and the return on my investment, so to speak was extremely poor. I gave everything that I had to give and I never planned on stopping the pursuit because it was the only thing that I wanted to do. But what happened was I kind of got blindsided by what I would call accumulative toll of disappointments and, you know, in a, in a sense heartbreak and devastation. And I got to a point where I no longer had anything left to give. I was in pretty bad shape. And, what can I say about this? I can say that looking back part of the problem was that. An oversized sense of my own self worth was tied up in this identity that I had for myself, that I am this thing. I am a singer songwriter. And in order for me to have any worth at all in this world, I have to be successful at it. And by successful, I meant. Artistically successful. In other words, feeling that I've done the best work that I can creatively and then commercially successful, which again didn't necessarily mean, mean untold millions, but it just meant that I'd be able to sustain myself doing my music and, this cost me a great deal in terms of my mental health. you know, it sort of sounds obvious saying it now that your overall wellbeing has to kind of come first, that without that you really can't do much of anything. sounds obvious. But I had to learn that the hard way. and I did learn that there are other ways in which I can be in the world that are gonna be fulfilling and there are other avenues toward happiness and satisfaction in life. And when we get attached to things, having to be a certain way, the, the more strongly we clinging to this idea that we have of how things have to be the more, I think we're inviting pain and disappointment, and the more we can relax our notion of what might make us happy and what might bring us joy, the more likely we are to experience it. Thank you for

Magic Barclay:

being so open about that and. That's an amazing journey and some big life lessons, not only for you, but that you've now shared with the listeners. So again, thank you for that rawness that openness.

Eric Teplitz:

Now my pleasure. And I just wanna say that if you want more details about that, cuz I didn't go into, I could go into lots of detail. If, if you are interested in hearing more of the details of that story, there are a couple places where you can. That, um, number one would be my blog. Eric's inspired living blog. You can also access it from my website, Eric s.com. And there is a series of posts that I wrote some years ago called what do you want to be when you grow up? And it's a 10 part series. And in that series, I go into great detail about. Pursuit specifically of the music career, as well as other things, as well as my attempts to answer that question for myself, even in the aftermath of that dream kind of falling apart. And then the other place you can go to, um, read about that in a more succinct way yet still a lot more detailed than, than this podcast is an article that I wrote for a website called tiny Buddha. If you go to my website and go to the tab, that's called articles or selected writings. One of those two things it's on there, it's something like, uh, when the pursuit of happiness makes you unhappy, I think is the name of the, the article.

Magic Barclay:

I love that. I was just about to send people over to your website. So thank you listeners. I really do hope that you've grasp. A few lessons here that Eric and I have learned the hard way. And hopefully you don't have to. And that is that, you know, life changes the people around you change the things that you believe change your direction changes. And none of that is a failure. And you know, I know a lot of people sum this up with saying, but everything happens for a reason. Sometimes that reason has to hit you over the head. And sometimes it's just a tap on the shoulder, but there is always another direction to go. And even in the depth, even when you are so despairingly empty, there's still another direction to go. So I really do hope that. Eric sharing his story has helped you in, in some way to see that there really are those sliding doors moments throughout life. And all you have to do is open the door. It's as simple as that. Thoughts,

Eric Teplitz:

Eric. Yeah. A phrase that I love that I have been using myself. That's applicable. Is explorations over expectations. Now, again, this like so many things can be easier said than done, but the more you can view things in life as explorations, when something calls to you and interests, you think of it as an exploration, you don't know where it's going to lead. And the more attached you are to it leading to a certain place. The more you you're likely to get in trouble. And that's the expectation part when you have expectations about things, but if you can just see them as explorations and be okay with wherever they lead or don't lead for that matter. And then if you come up against, let's say a dead end, you now have the experiential knowledge of that exploration. And you don't even know the ways in which that might serve you down the line and what you can then do is pivot and go, okay, well, this clearly wasn't the path for me, or is no longer the path for me. So what next, what can I explore next? And the more that you can have that sense of curiosity and openness. The more it will serve you. Now. I know, again, it can be really easier said than done. I've experienced the same thing, and I'm sure some of you have in regard to relationships, the more you get attached, you meet someone and they're so exciting and you think this is the person for me. Okay. Maybe, maybe not. It's an exploration. Go explore and see, and find out the more attached you are to an expectation of what this is going to, how this is going to change your life and fulfill every fantasy you've ever had and just make you the happiest being on earth. Well, the more attached you are to that expectation, the more it's going to be crushing. If that expectation does. Come to be. So rather the healthier approach, again, through the benefits of years lived and wisdom earned the healthier approach is to think of it as an exploration and go, Hey, you know what? This person seems interesting to me. There are definitely some things here that are intriguing. Let me go see, let me explore and see if there's something there. This person may not want to even engage with. In which case end of story. End of exploration. Fine. I maybe I learned something I can go explore elsewhere, but so that that's that's one of my mantras of late is explorations over expectations.

Magic Barclay:

Beautiful. I love it. Listeners. This was your episode, 1 36. Thank you so much for your time. In episode 1 37, Colin Stewart talks to us about your. Brain for now. Thank you, Eric, for your time.

Eric Teplitz:

My pleasure. Thanks so much magic

Magic Barclay:

and listeners as always. We appreciate your time in listening. Go forth and create your magical life.