Modern world doesn't acknowledge, but in our time many yearn to break free of a prison of flat secular materialism.

Wait, wrong podcast.

But if you aren't already listening to Lord of Spirits, you definitely should be.

The modern health paradigm is just as beholden though to materialism.

We're constantly bombarded with Wellness trends, diet fads, and self optimization strategies, but very few consider health through the lens of Orthodox Christianity.

This podcast, Here to Change that, will dive into topics like fasting, prayer, stress, nutrition, and even physical training, and then while staying rooted in the timeless wisdom of the Church.

Each episode will break down key health topics from an Orthodox perspective, bringing in guests, whether they're priests, health professionals, or experts in traditional wisdom, to help us navigate the practical and spiritual aspects of true well-being.

Welcome.

To Orthodox Health, the podcast, we explore the intersection of Orthodox Christianity, physical health, mental well-being and spiritual growth.

I'm Doctor Michael Christian, joined by my Co host John, and we're excited to take this journey with you.

So grab a cup of coffee, lots of clean coconut or fasting and let's get started.

For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

Welcome back to the Orthodox Health Podcast.

I'm your host, Doctor Michael Christian.

And I'm your Co host, John, and I'm here to keep Doctor Mike from turning this into a 60 minute monastic boot camp for your nervous system.

Well, no, that's actually the whole idea of today is that we're doing the opposite of boot camp.

Because if we're being totally honest, January is the month where everyone tries to punish themselves into purity.

Absolutely.

And we've talked about that in our previous episode, that I've sinned with too many cookies and now I must atone through the treadmill.

Exactly.

And what we're doing today is trying to dismantle the entire framework.

And and this episode, like we told you last week, is from willpower to worship.

We're going to be building habits that heal.

And I want to say it's upfront.

If you came here for that new year, new me, we talked about all about last week, you're in the wrong place though.

Right, we don't do the new year new me here.

We do the same me but a less insane me.

Exactly the same me that you received when you were baptized into Christ.

So we do return, we do repentance, and we do metanoia, right?

That change of mind, that change of heart.

And then we do something that modern Wellness culture is pretty allergic to.

We build the rule of life.

Not 12 of them, but we do something that you can actually keep when you're tired, when your kids are melting down and when you're stressed, when work is chaos, when your motivation is all gone because willpower is not salvation and having a good strategy.

Absolutely.

Willpower is like trying to hold back a flood with paper towels.

It works until it just doesn't anymore.

I don't know man, I've seen those bounty commercials.

They didn't ask us to say that.

That's right, that's absolutely not paid advertisement.

But I want to connect us to the last week's episode because episode 42 wasn't just holiday tips, it was a theological correction because we were talking about the 12 days, not 12 lbs.

Because the feast is not meant to become a collapse.

It's meant to be a commandment of joy.

Order properly.

And we named the trap that hits most people every year.

You limp out nativity and you feel heavy physically, emotionally.

And then you hear that voice.

You failed.

Now go pay for it.

Absolutely.

And that voice you're hearing, if it's saying that it's not Christ, probably Krishna, Lord of mercy.

Right.

That voice, though, is accusation.

It's coming from the accuser or one of his minions, and that is the voice of despair.

And the world baptizes it, calls it discipline.

So episode 43 is US saying, no, we are not doing January as penance.

We're doing January as worship.

And that means habits.

Not hype, not reinvention, not identity warfare.

Absolutely.

And as Doctor Mike said, we're not doing January as penance, but repentance that turning around.

So this is huge because most people treat that January like an identity trial.

I'm going to prove who I really am this year.

Absolutely.

And I saw a reel the other day of a guy getting his black belt and saying I'm going to go to a new jitsu gym and say who is my resolution this year to really try out jiu jitsu and just see how that goes.

And I'm really tempted to do that, but it does end up becoming spiritual violence, not chest with violence like we like to call jiu jitsu.

But if your plan is I have must become a different person to be acceptable, you're already operating from the wrong God.

And that is where Orthodox health is different.

We're not separating the spiritual from the physical like they're two unrelated hobbies.

The body is not a separate project.

It is an arena for obedience.

Some might even say that we're on a journey to reality to get to the roots of everything regarding health and the Orthodox world.

If you know, you know.

Awesome plug.

But your habits like your sleep, your food, your training, your light exposure, your rhythms, those things can either help you love or they can make you more reactive, more impulsive, more anxious, more numb, and more self absorbed.

Yeah, absolutely, Doctor Mike.

And if for those of you who know Doctor Zachary Porcu, his show The Roots of Everything is phenomenal.

So if you're not listening to it yet, you definitely should be.

Go and check him out.

Absolutely.

It's kind of weird because we've never met him before and the Presbyterian Marina knows him, but we've actually had a lot of crossover in terms of our content.

When we were doing the AI episodes and the transhumanism stuff, he was also covering a lot of that same idea.

And then episode Rachel Wilson, he was doing a feminism arc.

And lately he's been doing the roots of the American religion, which we covered in depth during our Sacred Diets arc.

So we would love to talk to Doctor Zach.

If anybody here knows him and wants to let him know, please give him a shout.

Wonderful.

So Doctor Mike, it's interesting how we're sort of trying to Orient ourselves ourselves away from the idea that you're going to be a new you in the new year.

Because in a sense, what way can we understand repentance is doing exactly that?

When we're sinning, we are not really ourselves in the truest sense.

There's a way of looking at that, that you are actually less of yourself or less of a human the more you're sinning.

So if the goal is to repent, are we not new me in the new year?

Well, and that's exactly it though, is who is that new me that you're trying to become?

As I said before, when you were baptized, you became a Newman.

You died to the old man and he became a new man in Christ.

And So what we're trying to do is escape your ability to claim what it is that's going to make you the new person.

No, you don't need to become another new person.

You need to reorient yourself, that true repentance, that true metanoia, and in those ways that you've missed the mark, turn yourself back towards Christ.

That is the new man that you need to put on.

And we continue to do that.

Would it be improper then to say that in baptism you fully assumed the image, but now you have to properly?

I hate to use the word manifest, but properly manifest the likeness.

Well, yeah, I probably wouldn't use the word manifest in terms of what we're trying to do is trying to grow into that likeness and that is what theosis is at the end of the day.

Properly instantiate.

Yeah, I'll go with that.

So we have retained the image, but not the fullness.

While we retain the image of God, the image of Christ, it's been veiled.

And so, yes, in our baptism, we are lifting that veil slightly, but in order to regain that likeness, we need to continually be returning ourselves that repentance.

But most of the goals people have during this holiday season, those resolutions aren't necessarily to become healthy so that you become that steward, so that you can actually properly treat your body as temple.

It's more a vainglorious pursuit.

I think I, I understand a little bit better now where we were going.

So when you were saying earlier that people were pursuing it in a vainglorious way and that they were becoming self absorbed, we're looking wholly on paper, but in reality in our relationships, we're becoming quite unbearable to live with in that pursuit.

Exactly.

And that is what we're going after today, because I've seen this so many times.

People start getting healthy and somehow they start becoming less patient, less kind, less prayerful, and they're doing everything right.

And yet their home comes tents, their fuse is short, their spouse becomes an enemy, their kids are just interruptions, Lord forbid.

And then they say, I don't know what's wrong with me.

What's wrong with you is your health plan because it's become a new form of worship.

But it's the worst of control, not the worst of Christ, which is what we were kind of just getting out.

There, right.

And so in this case, the question isn't, is it healthy?

The question is, what spirit is it coming from?

Exactly.

And that is the whole episode.

So let's start with the Today is not here is the perfect morning routine.

It's not Here's how to become a biohacked monk.

It is, however how do you build habits that are medicinal, that legalistic, habits that will support your nervous system so that you can actually pray, actually show up, actually endure, but most importantly, actually love.

And we're going to make it painfully practical.

I find it interesting because we can of course be super helpful in terms of the practicality, but it's also important to then remember, again, that not legalistic backdrop.

It's important to not become Pharisaic.

So to that point, Dr.

Mike, we're going to get down to the nitty gritty Even so much as to say, tell me what to do tomorrow morning, step by step.

Right, because most people don't necessarily need more inspiration.

They need a rule.

And in Orthodox language, that's what a habit really is.

A rule.

You hear it most often in your prayer rule, but is a small, stable pattern that trains the heart over time.

Whereas a resolution is usually a burst of emotion, a rule is a faithful repetition.

Right.

A resolution is like a New Year's firework.

It goes up, there's a big explosion, and then it's dark again.

But a rule is like a candle that you can keep lit and it will continuously burn for a long time.

Exactly, and that is why the Church gives us what it gives us.

Not do this perfectly forever, but rhythms, fasting, seasons, feasts, prayers, liturgy, because we are creations who need rhythm to become steady.

What we're going to do today, first we're going to talk about why the modern approach fails, not just morally but biologically.

Because a shame based January plan does not just make you miserable, it literally pushes your body into that threat that fight or flight state.

Your sleep gets worse, your appetite gets unstable, your mood gets reactive, your cravings go up.

And then people will start to interpret that as a lack of discipline, when in reality it's just the basics of stress Physiology.

That makes sense, Mike.

So it's not repentance, it it's essentially just adding more restriction.

Exactly as we said last week, it's that other side of gluttony.

It's a gluttony for control, which for the second point, though, we're going to give you an Orthodox alternative.

We're going to move from desire to rule to rhythm, and then to repair.

Meaning you're going to name what you're actually asking God to heal.

You're going to build one small practice, you're going to anchor it to your real life, and then you're going to build a return mechanism for when you fail so that you don't spiral.

Because Orthodoxy is not perfectionism, is repentance.

Thirdly, we're going to give you a clean January plan, the rule of three One spiritual habit, one physical habit, and one outward habit towards your neighbor.

Not ten things, not 20 things.

Three.

Because most people don't need more intensity, they need more stability.

Plus we're orthodox Christians, what better than the Trinity?

Absolutely.

And so to that point, you can't change your entire life at once.

It just simply won't work.

You'll change it for 8 days maybe, but then you become your own villain.

Absolutely.

The only time you're changing your life all at once is during your baptism.

To be a highly completely frank.

Amen.

Right.

And that's what we're trying to return to.

And honestly, that's actually a fun little sidebar on that.

But historically, that was a major part of the fast is that you were re entering into your catechumen phase.

You were joining along with them and reorienting yourself during that fasting period because most of the time baptisms would be occurring at the end of a great fast when the great feast arrived.

So you were preparing with them to be re baptized.

But as we know from the creed, I confess 1 baptism.

One sorry Protestant friends, for the permission of sins.

Once again, sorry Protestant friends.

But one last thing before we jump in.

I want to name a false assumption that many people have.

They think that if they feel intense enough, they'll finally change.

But intensity is not the engine, grace is the engine, rhythm is the vehicle, and most importantly, humility is the fuel.

Absolutely, Mike and I, I like what you just said about rhythm being the vehicle and humility being the fuel.

I think we should definitely keep that close as we move forward, continue to think about that and.

If you're listening now and you already feel behind because you didn't start on January 1st, then clearly you missed last week's episode because we told you you don't need to start on January 1st and we told you you don't need to wait until January 1st.

But you also, if you missed January 1st, that's cool too.

So if you missed that, or you missed a day during this period, or he's completely blew it away, listen to me carefully.

You are not behind.

That is the lie.

The Orthodox life begins the same way every single time with return.

So you have that choice to return right now, here, in this moment, not tomorrow, not when you're worthy, not when you get together, but return.

That in and of itself is true repentance.

And it's also how you stop the downward spiral.

Absolutely.

Which is why the the habit we were really building is not never fail, it's repair.

Return quickly.

Don't catastrifies, don't do the shame math, but return, full stop.

So having established that, let's talk about the January trap and why New Year's resolutions so often become self help projects that actually make you sicker.

And if you've ever said this is the year, I'm going to lock in, this episode is basically our intervention to you.

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So what actually is January for most people?

Because we pretend it's neutral.

We pretend it's just a new calendar, a fresh start.

Functionally, culturally, it's a ritual.

And since the Enlightenment, we know we want to overthrow.

Throw in an altar.

No rituals, but that's what it is.

And that ritual goes something like this.

I will justify myself by changing myself.

Right.

It's that whole imagery of the sculptor sculpting himself out of the marble.

Yeah, doesn't work.

But if you don't change yourself fast enough, you essentially just determined to punish yourself until you do.

Right.

And January is a modern penance.

We got rid of the church, we got rid of the priest.

So you have to do it yourself.

You have to beat yourself down into submission.

But there's no grace in that.

It's like confession but without repentance.

It's the situation where I acknowledge I'm not OK, therefore I must become OK through willpower.

And I want to name why that's so toxic spiritually, because that framework has a God at the center of it.

It's just not Christ.

It's the God of control or approval or fear, or the idol of the ideal self.

Absolutely.

And it seems that this ideal self is always, quite conveniently, 10 lbs lighter.

Never tired, never tempted, Never.

And somehow always in a good mood despite everything going on.

Right, your ideal self is basically an NPC.

Rather than the NPC, what I actually see as being the issue is that people have what I call main character syndrome.

So they're actually not the NPC.

They want to always be the main character.

But the way that you get out of that sort of prison is that you have to realize Christ is the main character.

So I wouldn't say that you're the NPC, but we're all sort of in a supporting role.

If this was a film, none of us are the main character here.

We're all in supporting roles that are oriented towards that main character's mission.

Absolutely, and that mission is to unite us to him.

But the key there is that qualifier of never.

There's nothing wrong with being 10 lbs lighter.

Unless you have an eating disorder and you're already underweight, there's nothing wrong with having energy.

I like to help you get to that.

There's nothing wrong with having some reasonable anxieties and awareness of what's going on in your own life and in the world.

It's just when that becomes a defining characteristic that's the problem.

So when you have that ideal self in mind, when you look at the real you, the one who's tired, stressed, living in a real house with a real spouse and real children and real bills, and you start treating the real you like an enemy, that is where it become a spiritual warfare there in the wrong direction.

You're not fighting the passions, you're fighting the person.

Absolutely.

And that's the wild part, because Orthodoxy is quite literally the exact opposite of this.

It's not fight the person, it's all about healing the person.

Unless of course, we're talking about putting the old man to death.

Then in that sense, we are fighting.

Exactly.

In Orthodoxy, change isn't self reinvention, it's return.

It's Lord.

I'm facing the wrong way.

That sin, the hamartia, right?

The Greek word for sin is missing the mark.

It's I'm facing the wrong way.

Turn me back towards you, reorient me towards you.

But the modern January script is I'm facing the wrong way, so I'm going to hate myself into a new identity and that is literally a different religion.

Right.

And all of this talk about reorienting, the turning around, it reminds me of a fantastic CS Lewis quote that I love.

And I'll, I'll quote you guys part of it.

It's about double the length of what I'm going to tell you, but it starts like this.

It says we all want progress, but progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be, and if you've taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer.

If you are on the wrong Rd.

Progress means doing an about turn and walking back to the right road.

And in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.

So to this point, when we're talking about the reorientation towards Christ, it's also another step further than that.

It's not just the man who turns, it's the man who turns in the right direction is the most progressive.

So when we're talking about making a small G God of whatever The thing is you've set up as your ideal in the new year, is that progress?

If Christ isn't that ideal, then probably not.

And furthermore, it shows because the fruit is always the same.

Get more anxious, they get more obsessive and of course more rigid.

And then when they crack under that pressure, they're going to swing into, you know what, just forget about it.

It's fine.

Right.

And clearly it's not fine.

But that swing, it's not random.

It's built into the system because the system is perfectionism.

And perfectionism always ends in either pride or despair.

You're either look at how clean I am or I'm disgusting.

I can't do this.

And then you end up calling both of those progress, like John just said, because you are stuck in that self focus.

Now let's make this painfully practical.

Most New Year's resolutions fall because they're not a plan.

They are a vow made by a person who's emotionally hungover.

Absolutely.

And to the point about perfection, we're of course called to perfection.

But again, it's be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect, not be perfect as you've defined.

It for the Instagram reel.

That's right.

And it's true though.

People limp out of the feast window.

Sleep is off, light is off, the meals are chaotic, stress is is high and the routine is gone.

And instead of rebuilding foundations they declare war.

They go cool starting tomorrow.

Less food, more training earlier mornings, no sugar, no fun, no rest, no mistakes.

They go full temperance mode and they think that is holiness.

Sorry, 7th Day Adventists and Mormons.

There's too many opportunities to call it back to that.

Absolutely.

But this sort of thinking is essentially along the lines of I'm going to become a Navy SEAL sort of St.

And while he may be a very smart and very disciplined guy, there is no St.

David Goggins yet.

Sorry, rather.

But the key is that your nervous system is like, man, I can't even help you find your keys.

Now here is the key.

Orthodox health move.

You cannot build spiritual stability on biological chaos.

If you are underslept, overstimulated, and you've been living on stress chemistry, your discipline is going to look like irritability.

It's going to look impatient, and it's going to look like the short beans.

And then people do this tragic thing.

They interpret that nervous system exhaustion as spiritual failure.

We were talking about a whole bunch last week, right?

You know, I can't pray, I can't focus, I'm distracted, I'm not present.

And half the time, not because the passions are completely taking you over, it's because you're exhausted.

And you're not exhausted because you've worked yourself to the bone and you've been isolated in prayer services all day.

You are living out in the world.

It's a very different animal to what the monks are experiencing.

Absolutely, Mike.

And then on top of all of that, they're adding guilt to the exhaustion.

So that's going to make things so much worse.

So.

January becomes a double bond.

In trying to get healthy, you end up becoming neither healthier nor holier because you're building both on threat Physiology.

Because I want to call something out.

The world thinks the problem with the Christmas season is that you enjoyed yourself.

That's not the problem.

The problem was that you enjoyed yourself without ordering yourself, or you enjoyed yourself as numbness, or you enjoyed yourself in isolation, or you did it without any kind of guardrails.

And then January becomes that punishment for the chaos.

Absolutely, Mike.

And as we've said before, it's the same sort of passion in two different costumes or different sides of the coin.

We have the December indulgence, then followed by that January control, right?

It's still that gluttony, that pride, just with different food.

Sember gluttony is more and more more that he Mystic mode where January gluttony is that need to control everything and restrict and neither one is gratitude.

And that is why last week we said the opposite of gluttony isn't dieting, it's Thanksgiving with those guardrails.

That's why we gave you a whole 12 of them last time, because bug Eucharist, that Thanksgiving, the true Thanksgiving, like we talked about before, is the real center of the Christian life.

Not clean eating, not lock it in, not discipline, but Thanksgiving.

Right, and the guardrails, because people hear gratitude and they think Pinterest quotes.

And what you mean is sleep, light, proper meals, sanity.

Eat, laugh, love, or whatever that one is, I don't know, but we use that term a lot.

Last week of the gratitude of guardrails.

But what it really means is I enjoy the feast, I don't destroy the temple that God gave me, I celebrate.

I don't sell Medicaid.

I receive the good by don't become enslaved to it.

That is what true freedom is, right?

But why does this matter in January?

Because if January becomes punishment, it trains you to fear joy, it trains you to fear celebration, and it trains you to fear the feast.

And then you end up living the Christian life like a suspicious person, with the idea that joy in and of itself is dangerous.

And that's absolutely tragic because during these times of great joy, the Church quite literally commands that we participate in the feast.

Right, the feast is not a mistake, but the beast is also not permission slip to live without that rhythm.

So if you want January be different, you have to actually address the spiritual lie of I can only be OK if I control myself perfectly.

That's a lie.

Orthodoxy says something very different.

You are healed by communion, by returning to Christ, by humility, by practicing it over and over, by mercy and by rhythm.

And that is why we're not going to give you 10 hacks today.

We're going to point you towards a true way of living.

Because the modern world has become obsessed with intensity, and intensity in and of itself is not transformation.

Right in the world, intensity is usually just adrenaline and ego, although I'd be besides myself to say that I don't like a little bit of intensity, but again, it's properly ordered.

Exactly, that intensity is often stress chemistry with a motivational soundtrack, maybe some classic rock, I don't know.

But transformation however, is slow, it's consistent and it's boring at 1st.

And that is why people hate the orthodox answer, because that answer is small, faithful, repeated obedience.

And that doesn't give you an ego high, it actually helps to give you peace.

Absolutely, Mike.

Peace is not necessarily trending in the modern world because peace doesn't sell supplements.

That's right, and it doesn't get you clicks.

But let's say it clearly.

If your January plan makes you more self absorbed, it's not actually health.

If it makes you more reactive, it's not actually health.

And if it makes you less capable of love, it's definitely not health.

Because health is so much more than just body composition.

Health is your capacity for virtue.

It's your capacity for presence, for prayer, and to endure hardship without becoming a monster.

Right.

And so the goal is not how quickly can I get lean, it's how quickly can I return.

And return is immediate.

I want to emphasize something.

This episode is not a scolding.

It's stop letting the feast become the set up for January despair because despair is never repentance.

It's another one of the great passions that we need to avoid.

Repentance, however, is hope filled.

Repentance says I fell, Lord have mercy now I rise, whereas despair says I fell therefore I'm fake as St.

Sila on the Athenite told us, keep your mind in hell and despair not.

What that's saying is be aware of where your failings are happening, but understand that and turn back.

Do not let that despair overtake you because while it seemed on the surface that it's the opposite of the pride of I'm so depressed and I'm just going to wallow in this whole, it is the opposite of true humility where you are lowering yourself.

Because while it might not be that super high narcissistic style of pride of self love, it's still, I'm just the worst person ever.

So you have a depressed self love.

That's not true humility.

And at the end of the day, the confusion between repentance and despair is a big problem we see here in these resolutions in January.

So, and that's fantastic, Mike.

And to circle back a bit, because I've been thinking about what you said about intensity and it's interesting the contrast between what the world considers intense and what I think as Orthodox we come to learn is intense.

And the spiritual warfare, although from the outside doesn't look like much, the participation in it, I think most who are doing it would agree is one of the most intense activities one could engage in.

So it's not shooting guns or throwing around on heavyweights with the heavy metal music on.

That looks intense.

It could be something simple, like a monk sitting on a rock in silence.

And the intensity of the battle going on is something you could not possibly fathom with your waking eyes, but it's real.

And that's it, though.

Humility is actual intensity, right?

We're told in scriptures that the way of the Cross is foolishness to those in the world, to those who are perishing.

And the idea is humility is true intensity.

It's properly ordered intensity.

And the problem then comes that the guilt we were talking about before is confused as humility, that guilt or despair.

But that guilt can be a signal, whereas the shame is the prison.

You're putting your mind in hell and despairing.

So we're not heeding the advice of Saint Silalon.

So here's what we're pivoting today.

We're going to take the new year out of the self help category like we talked about way back in the long ago times, Father John Wheeling.

But we're going to put it back in the worship category.

We're going to build habits, not from fear, not from disgust and not from pride, but from worship.

And the reason we keep saying worship is because worship reorders love and it moves you from me at the center to Christ at the center.

And once Christ at the center, you're habits stop being punishment and become offering.

That's right, Mike.

And so instead of quote, I need to prove I'm disciplined.

It becomes Lord, I'm offering what I can.

And just to qualify that offering what you can doesn't mean just going about your your life and calling whatever it is acceptable.

We do need to be very, as we said, intense in that battle.

You know, the Lord tells us if you love me, keep my commandments.

So this isn't permission to just let it be what it is.

We still have to fight.

Sorry Protestant friends, you guys catching a lot of strays today.

I'm sorry.

But to be clear, that is where healing begins.

So if you're listening and you're already behind, if you're already messed up this week, good, perfect, you're in the right place.

Welcome.

But what we're building is not a fantasy of perfection.

We're building the habit that actually matters, that return and to move forward.

Let's start to give you the engine for this.

How to name what you're actually asking God to heal?

How to choose that one small practice, how to anchor it in your real life, and how to repair so that when you fall you don't start to spiral.

Absolutely, Mike.

And that's how to fight properly, and that's how January stops being that courtroom and it starts being the path forward.

Exactly.

Because the orthodox life is not a performance, it's a path, and that path is walked one step at a time.

But let's build that engine, because if we don't define what we actually mean by habit, people are going to hear this and still default to that modern idea of productivity, optimization, self improvement.

And that is not all that we're doing in Orthodox terms, we're talking about is a rule.

Although to be clear, while we offered the 12 guardrails of Christmas last week, we are not giving you the 12 rules for life at this time, bucko.

That's right, Mike and Doctor Peterson aside, most people viscerally tense up at that word rule.

It sounds like the school principal clipboards punishments.

Right.

And it's what the American ethos is built on rejecting, right?

We don't need that king.

We don't need that altar.

We don't need rules.

But it's not meant to be a legalistic idea in the church.

A rule is meant to be medicinal.

It's not a prison.

It's a trellis.

And that is the first correction we really want to make here.

A trellis is not the vine itself.

The trellis doesn't produce the fruit, but the trellis gives the vine something to grow on such that the fruit can actually form.

And I'm sure our good buddy Nick, there's a lot more ideas on that because he's a vineyard expert as well.

Absolutely.

And to that point, the rule is the structure that's going to protect that growth.

Absolutely, and the modern world is allergic to structure unless it's self chosen and ego flattering.

But the human person actually thrives on structure, especially if you're trying to heal.

So here's that difference.

I know there's a lot of tension on that, but a resolution is usually just a dramatic declaration, whereas a rule is.

A stable offering.

A resolution is I will never do this again, whereas a rule is Lord, I will return to you in a small way consistently.

That is the key.

While the resolution is often ego, a rule is obedience and humility.

Right.

And the funniest part of this is people tend to think that the resolution is stronger, but the rule is the thing that actually takes real strength because it's not exciting, it's not flashy, but but it's effective.

Exactly.

The resolution gives you those fireworks just in time for New Year's, right?

But the rule gives you an A formation.

And most of life is not fireworks.

It's Tuesday.

It's tissues.

It's the commute with all the traffic, it's the kids whining, the bills fatigue, and it's temptations when nobody's watching.

So if your plan doesn't work out on Tuesday, it's not a plan.

So to clarify our terms, once again, an Orthodox habit is not just self-control for its own sake, is embodied repentance is a small act that says Christ is Lord over this part of my life too.

And that's why habits matter spiritually, because the passions are not just these abstract things out there.

They act on your body, they act in rhythms, and they act as triggers.

Because they don't technically have an ontological status outside of whatever the virtue is deprived of.

Absolutely.

And that's why the church doesn't just give ideas, but it gives you practices.

It doesn't say feel your way to virtue.

It says practice your way to freedom.

Use the prayer rule, that fasting rhythm, the almsgiving, the liturgy.

Those are not extra credit.

Those are actual medicines.

And what we're doing today is applying that same logic to the places that modern people are breaking.

The sleep, the light, the food rhythm, the training rhythm and their intention.

Not because you want to worship the body, because the body is where obedience gets expressed.

And so the habit isn't I'm going to become a high performing person, it is I'm going to become a a faithful person.

Exactly.

And that is the access shift.

And here's what I've noticed.

The moment you stop chasing that ideal self and you start chasing faithfulness, 2 things start to happen.

Spiritually, you become a lot less neurotic and you actually repent without that despair.

Physiologically, you stop activating that fight or flight on threat mode as your baseline because the ideal self chase is a constant accusation.

You are not enough.

And the body hears the accusation.

It hears as vigilance.

It hears as stress, so you can't even relax into your own life because you're always performing for an imaginary judge and then you call that motivation.

Yeah, you hear this all the time when people say they need motivation, but what they really probably are meaning is that they need enough fear and shame to to coax them into getting moving.

Right, and that is why they burn out.

So we're replacing fear based motivation with something else, an offering.

Now let's concrete, what does a rule actually look like?

A rule has four main characteristics.

One, it's small, 2, it's repeatable.

3, it's anchored to real life, a time, a place, a rhythm.

And four, it includes a return because you're going to miss the mark.

And that fourth place is the whole game because the world teaches us if you miss, you failed.

Whereas Orthodoxy teaches if you miss, you return.

And we've brought jiu jitsu analogy a lot of times, but that's an old expression in the jiu jitsu world of you either win or you learn.

And another part of that is you're never going to get good without tapping out.

You learn so much more from your failures.

Now do you want to fail?

Of course not.

But in that failure, you actually experienced that growth, so the rule helps to train how to return.

Absolutely.

Mike and I love the jiu jitsu analogy because that's why this is not about legalism.

We're not doing the moral calculus.

We're not obsessed with scoring like in jiu jitsu.

No one's counting how many times you tapped.

The goal is to just keep rolling.

So like we're saying here, the goal is to just get up and return.

Exactly.

Egoism is scorekeeping, whereas that rule is healing.

It's that growth.

Now this is where I want to connect it to January specifically because people treat January at the month of maximum effort.

But the church doesn't start the new year by telling you to become an upgraded person through intensity.

The church starts the civil new year with things like the circumcision of Christ and the feast of Saint Basil.

Which is discipline, yes, but not ego, not performance, not self hatred, but discipline as offering, as love, and as order.

And let's be honest, St.

Basil is probably over there saying, OK, cool, but what did you do for the poor?

Absolutely.

And to the modern world is extremely inconvenient because a lot of the New year resolutions, the New year plan is about them.

It's to be about their body, about their goals, their vibe, I suppose.

And St.

Basil's probably looking down saying that's all great, but did you feed anyone who was hungry?

Did you visit anyone who who was in prison?

Right.

Because in the church, the proof of a healed life is not just feel in control, the proof is love.

So when we're talking about habits that heal, we're not just talking about habits that make you thinner.

We're talking about habits that make you more capable of virtue.

Because you can be super disciplined like an ascetic stoic, but still be enslaved if your discipline is driven by pride or by fear.

Absolutely, Mike, You can be the most regimented person on earth and still be possessed by anger.

And I know I've talked about that in my own experience in previous episodes.

I was an extremely regimented person and I had that spirit of anger.

It doesn't give you peace.

No matter how optimized you get, it does not bring you the peace only Christ can give you.

Right, and that is what the question really is, what is this habit training?

Is the habit training worship or is it training control?

Is training patients or is it training rigidity or is it training humility or is it training self absorption?

That is the key diagnostic.

Now here is a really helpful distinction of people.

Whereas a resolution is usually built on emotion, it's built on I feel disgust, fear, hype.

A rule, however, is built on value.

How I value faithfulness.

And values don't just evaporate when you you become too tired.

That's right, Mike.

Things like your emotions, your sentiments, those are going to

evaporate at 3:00 PM when your kids are screaming at you and your boss is calling on the phone.

Everything's falling apart.

That stuff's not stable in that type of environment.

Exactly.

Why don't you get into that chaos of real life?

It's going to fall apart.

So let's talk about how to actually choose that rule.

This is what people make the second big mistake.

They choose a habit that's too big, too vague, and too disconnected from reality.

I'm going to pray more.

What does more mean?

I'm going to eat better.

What does better mean?

I'm going to work out consistently, defined consistently, or I'm going to be less stressed.

What does less mean?

Those are not habits.

Those are wishes.

Those are desires.

And then when you don't have that tangible goal, you wonder, why can't I do it?

Because you can't just execute A wish.

A habit has to be painfully specific.

It has to be when X happens, I do Y.

After I turn on the coffee, I pray for 30 minutes.

After lunch, I walk for 10 minutes.

And when the kids go down, screams go, I go off, I grab a candle, I have my short prayer rule, and then I get to bed.

That is a rule.

Right.

And so it's basically to stop waiting to become a different person and build the lane for the person who you actually are now.

Right, that new man in Christ and that's it.

I want to say something that's going to annoy the overachievers.

If you can't do it on a small scale, you're not going to be able to do it on a large scale.

If you can't manage 2 minutes of prayer, you're definitely not going to do 30.

If you can't walk for 10 minutes, you're not going to do a 90 day a marathon training plan.

And if you can't eat breakfast with protein, you're not going to have some perfect macro spreadsheet for the next three months.

And that's really the key.

You want to start small, not because you're weak, because you're wise.

Small movements start to train identity in the right direction.

It trains the idea that I'm the kind of person who returns, because when you make the big lofty goal and you fail, it's real easy to say, oh, well, who could actually manage that?

Where's the little one?

It has the progressive overload, right?

We talked about that a bunch, about lifting and other training is that you want to start small and continually improve over time, and that's the habits we're trying to do here.

Absolutely.

And the the gym analogies are great.

They're applicable across so many different disciplines, but this sort of thinking is what keeps you away from that all or nothing insanity.

Right, that all or nothing mindset is one of the biggest spiritual pathologies of modern life.

It's pride.

It's perfectionism, and it always ends in despair because, as we said, pride and despair are flip sides of the same coin.

And because Christ came as the true position to save those who are sick, not those who are well.

Orthodoxy is built for imperfect people.

Now, here's the lessons I want to add before we move forward.

A rule is not something you do to prove to yourself.

A rule is something you do to make room for grace.

It's cooperation.

And that means you're not trying to control the outcomes, you're trying to be faithful.

You don't control whether you feel amazing tomorrow.

You don't control whether temptation shows up.

It will.

And you don't control whether your kid gets sick or your sleep gets wrecked.

But one thing you can control is return.

And that's why the most powerful habit, orthodoxy is not never fail, it's.

Rise quickly?

Absolutely.

And so in this case, we could say that the habit you're cultivating is that I don't spiral.

Right.

And that's what we're training because the spiral is where people lose months and years.

It's not the mistake, it's the meaning you attach the mistake.

The world says the mistake means you're a fraud, whereas orthodoxy says the mistake means you're human return.

So we've got our definition, A habit as a rule, Rule as medicine, medicine as stable offering, and that offering as worship.

We can finally answer the question everybody's asking in January.

All right, So what do I do?

And the way we're going to answer that is not by throwing a checklist at you.

We're going to start one layer deeper because the right habit for you depends on the wound you're actually asking God to heal.

And most people skip that step.

They just copy somebody else's morning routine.

So let's do the part that most people don't want to do, but we'll actually change everything.

Let's name the desire, not the goal, the desire.

And what is it that you are actually asking God to heal in you this year?

Because if you don't name that specific thing, you're just going to pick our random habit and and turn it into another performance.

But before we go any further and once again our common refrain, I am not your spiritual father.

John is not your spiritual father, at least not this one.

But I want to put up our rail down so that nobody misunderstands what we're doing.

Because everything we're saying, the rule, the rhythm, the repair can sound Orthodox and still accidentally become the same modern religion with icons on it.

So let me say this plainly.

This is not replacement for going to the church.

It's not replacement for partaking in the mysteries, spiritual therapy, nor is it by regulating my nervous system I will achieve salvation.

That's right, because people can really take anything and then turn it into a solo project.

Right.

And Orthodoxy is not a solo project.

It is not self help.

Orthodoxy at its core is life in the body of Christ.

Which means if you were trying to heal without that Sacramento life without confession, without communion, without liturgy and without guidance of your priest, then you are missing the center.

We're not building a personal brand of holiness.

We are cooperating, operating with grace inside the church.

100% and to that point, this is not about how to become your own spiritual director, God forbid.

Absolutely.

Amen.

You need your spiritual father, you need your parish, and you need that Sacramento life.

I think we've been clear on that throughout the course of our run of episodes, but we just want to really drive that home.

And when we're saying rule of life, this is not us inventing our answer to Jordan Peterson.

Our rule of life is shaped by that liturgical, by those fasting seasons, the prayer rule, and guided by obedience, not an ego.

So that rule of three we're going to talk about is not replacing your prayer rule or replacing the church's rhythm.

It's meant to support it so that you actually can show up.

Absolutely.

And that there is the missing piece in a lot of the spiritual and personal growth content that we see online.

It's always just you alone at the grind basically.

Right, and that grinding is not salvation.

And this is where Saint John Clinic is in the ladder.

Divine Ascent really drives us home when he says that great is the power of small things done consistently.

A little effort becomes a great virtue when practiced with perseverance.

And that is the whole spirit we're trying to do here.

Not big dramatic vows, not spiritual or physical theater, but small obediences that become real over time.

Actually taking those small steps up the rung, up the ladder 100.

Percent, Mike.

And that actually sounds like real orthodoxy, like we said earlier about the intensity of that monk sitting humbly in the spiritual war.

Humble, hidden, but consistent.

Absolutely.

And here's the balance we're holding.

Christ is the healer.

The church is the hospital.

The habits themselves are not the cure.

That works righteousness, right?

Protestant friends, so many strays today.

But those habits are the support beams that keep your life stable enough to receive the cure.

And that is why we're going to talk about the biology, because the biology is not the ultimate.

But when your nervous system is consistently under threat, you start interpreting everything as failure.

You start calling that exhaustion spiritual weakness.

You start calling that dysregulation a lack of discipline.

And that's not discernment.

That's just a deeper confusion.

And so the goal isn't health equals stability.

The goal is, of course, communion.

Stability just makes you less likely to implode on your way there.

Exactly.

So let's talk about why willpower fails, starting with that desire before going straight into the tactics or straight into the checklist.

So when people say I want to get healthier this year, what they usually mean is one of four things.

I want to feel in control again.

I want to stop feeling tired and wired.

I want to stop numbing the pain away.

Or I want to stop feeling like I'm behind or failing.

And these are not just fitness goals.

Those are spiritual and nervous system realities.

Absolutely, Mike.

A lot of ethical language in there because if it was just a food plan, people would just do it and move on.

But it's never just about food or about exercise, is it?

Right, it's not I lack information, although a lot of people do It's I'm carrying a load and I'm trying to survive it.

So now here's what we need to talk about.

Why willpower alone fails because if you don't understand this, you will keep interpreting failure as your moral weakness.

Like you said that ethical language and that's the lie that keeps people stuck.

Willpower fails because most modern people are trying to build discipline on top of stress debt.

That's a fantastic phrase.

I like that stress debt.

Right.

And we talked about that real early on in terms of your allostatic load, that's exactly what it is.

That is that debt that builds up when eventually you're going to break.

So your stress debt is when your nervous system has been overdrawn so long that your baseline becomes reactivity.

You're underslept, you're oversimulated, you're in artificial light at night, you're on your phone constantly, you're eating in chaos, rushing, you're carrying low grade dread, and you're calling that normal life.

Then when January 1st hits, if the wheels haven't fallen off completely already, you're just OK.

Well, I'm going to become disciplined now.

But your body is not hearing disciplined.

Your body is hearing threat, and that threat always pushes you into the same set of behaviors.

More cravings because we don't know if there's enough food coming in, More impulsivity, worse sleep, more irritability, more anxiety, and more.

I just need something and then you rebound so the person thinks I failed when in reality you tried to run a marathon with a sprained ankle and then got mad at your ankle.

So, Mike, you're telling me that the existential dread us moderns feel is not normal?

I'm going to lean towards known.

When looking out at the world.

But that is a rhetorical question though to the people listening because remember, Christ has overcome the world.

So no dooming here.

No black pills.

That's right.

And to bring it back to our marathon runner, we're not even acknowledging the injury there.

You're just screaming at your broken ankle.

Right.

You treat the body like it was a disobedient child instead of a wounded member.

Now let's put it in a way that people can actually feel.

Most January resolutions are built on this idea that I'm going to clamp down, which means less sleep, more early mornings, less food, more workouts, more restrictions, more pressure, more intensity, and more self talk.

But if you actually clamp down on a system that's already just regulated, you don't get holiness, you don't even get health, you get backlash.

Absolutely, Mike.

And the backlash here is, quite frankly, always the same.

By day 10, you're going to be angry, hungry and spiritually drained.

And probably judging everybody at coffee hour too.

Exactly.

You know, we're at the point where we're fasting from that joy.

Right, so here's the biological reality.

When your body perceives a threat, it prioritizes survival over higher functions.

Which means your patience goes down, your executive function goes down, your ability to delayed gravitation goes down, your ability to be present goes down.

And people start to say, why can't I pray?

Because prayer requires attention, and attention is one of the first things that stress starts to steal.

100% attention is absolutely a depreciable asset.

And so it's not that you're incapable of prayer, it's that you've trained yourself into a state of being where prayer feels like trying to read a book in a hurricane, right?

And we've said this before too, if you how are still in that state, still try to read the book in the hurricane because despite the chaos, even the most lackluster prayers are still going to be training in the proper direction.

But let's also address all the other issues that are impeding you in the 1st place.

So we don't want to interpret this physiological chaos as a spiritual failure where you start to then become guilty and that guilt leads to more stress and then you're stuck in that vicious cycle, that loop that never ends.

This is where the Orthodox framing is so important.

We're not trying to discipline ourselves into worthiness.

We're trying to reorder a life so that prayer becomes more feasible again.

And that requires one thing that the modern world truly hates Stability first.

That's fantastic, Mike.

And what you said about still reading that book in the hurricane reminds me of a fantastic quote from Saint Ephrem of Katanakia.

And it reads, if I read 100 Prayers in the Silence of Mount Athos a day, and you in the noise of the city with work and family responsibilities, read 3 prayers, then we are in the same position.

And to that point, as you had said, January does not need more intensity.

You don't need to force that same 100 prayers that they do in the monastery, so to speak.

What you need is more rhythm, the three prayers said consistently.

Exactly that small habit and that rhythm is mercy.

So let's name the common January fantasies, because if you can identify the fantasy, you can stop worshipping it.

Fantasy #1 I'll wake up early and be a new person.

But if you wake up early without fixing your night, you're just extending your day and reducing your recovery.

And then you're like, why am I crashing at 2:00 PM?

Well, you're not living in that monastery, You are living in modern chaos.

Fantasy #2 I'll cut my food down and my life will become horribly.

But if you're cutting food while stressed, you're offered going to just increase your stress chemistry.

And then you start having more cravings, you start to binge, you start to spiral.

And that is exactly we're trying to avoid here.

So fantasy #3 I'll start training hard again, and now I'll fix everything.

Training is good, we highly recommend it.

Movement is medicine, but training hard on low sleep and high stress is like trying to build a house during an earthquake.

And then you get hurt or inflamed or exhausted and then he quit, which will lead you to despair because your interpretation is that you quit because you're lazy.

No, you're just under recovered.

Perfect.

And so the issue of course here isn't the training.

The issue is that you're using training as therapy for things that training is not meant to fix.

Exactly.

And that gets us back to desire because people will use health goals to treat deeper wounds.

Loneliness, anxiety, a lack of meaning, a lack of peace, and a lack of prayer.

So they think the solution is control.

But control itself does not heal wounds, it only manages the symptoms.

And Orthodoxy says the wounds are healed by the communion, by repentance, by mercy, and by prayer.

And the habits themselves support that healing.

Instead of placing it, you are Co working with Christ.

Now let's put the Physiology and the theology together in one sentence.

When you build your plan on shame, you end up training threat Physiology, whereas when you build your plan on worship, you'd start to train peace.

And peace in of itself is not soft.

That peace is.

Stability, just as Christ tells us in John 1427.

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.

That peace that Christ gives is strong.

Peace is what actually lets you endure.

Exactly.

So now let's talk about the specific thing that makes January so deceptive, that identity warfare.

And no, we're not talking about any politics.

We're going to skip that to the side.

But people don't just say I want on a walk more.

They say I'm going to become the kind of person who never misses.

And that sounds motivational, but at the root of it is pride.

It's a fantasy of a frictional self.

Then the reality hits.

You miss a day and now you don't just feel like you missed a walk, you feel like you failed as a person.

And that's what people spiral, because they didn't set a rule, they set a verdict.

Absolutely.

They set that courtroom standard and then they judge themselves.

Right, so the Orthodox correction is your identity is not something you earn with perfect behavior.

Your identity is given in Christ and then you practice faithfulness as a response.

So when you miss, your identity doesn't end up shattering, you start to repent, you return.

And now that return is not just spiritual, it's also biological.

Because the spiral, the shame, anxiety, the self hatred, they keep your system in that threat state.

Whereas the return, the humility, the mercy, the stability, they help your system to downshift.

And so the return quickly thing is literally nervous system therapy.

Exactly.

It's a spiritual truth and biological wisdom at the same time.

So let's be even more specific.

Why does willpower collapse in the evening?

Well, because it is often downstream from energy.

If you're under fueled, under slept, and over stimulated your body, your brain will choose relief.

And that relief usually looks like scrolling, snacking, pouring a drink, zoning out, buying something, binging on something, anything that can release that dopamine and change the feeling quickly.

Then January people start to interpret that as I'm undisciplined.

No, your system is begging for downshift.

It's begging for that relaxation.

So the answer is not just getting meaner and more abusive to yourself.

The answer is to get wiser.

Build your day so that your downshift is possible without engaging with those passions, without engaging in sin.

Build your night so that sleep is protected.

Build your meals so that your hormones are stable.

And most importantly, build your habits so that you're not relying on your willpower alone, your weakest hour.

Absolutely, Mike.

And this is where the guardrails that we've mentioned previously really start to matter because people want the spiritual life to float above their biology, but it doesn't.

Those things are intertwined.

Exactly.

And that's what we've been trying to do here this entire time.

It's why we keep saying sleep and light are ascetic tools, not because they're the most important thing, they aren't, but because they help to build a foundation.

They are the guardrails that make prayer and patients more accessible.

If you're blasting bright light

at 11:00 PM and scrolling until your eyes are vibrating, you're less likely to wake up with a calm heart.

So let's name the real enemy here.

Not food, not exercise.

Those are both great.

But the enemy is franticness.

Modern life trains this, and so the January resolutions often intensify that franticness.

And unfortunately, that in turn kills prayer, because prayer requires stillness, and stillness is impossible when the body is braced and tense.

So if you want habits that heal, the first goal is not more output.

The first goal is, can my system become steady enough to be present?

Can I show up for my wife, my kids, my parish, my work without constantly feeling like I'm drowning?

That is a legitimate desire to name before God.

I suppose for most of us that prayer requires stillness, but I'm called to that time.

You mentioned Fedor saying the Jesus prayer through all his fights and I'm thinking if that's a true story.

Well, to be clear, though he's in the midst of that chaos, he's still still.

He's doing the opposite of Saint Peter's failure here.

He loses that faith for a moment.

That's probably times when Phaedor lost.

He lost his stillness, right?

And that's the distinction.

Right.

It's the second you lose that trust and that faith in God, that's when you start to drown.

Why did you doubt?

Exactly.

That's beautiful.

And so to that point, the desire here might literally be I want to stop living like I'm being chased.

Absolutely.

That is a real desire.

It's not solved by 30 days of discipline.

It's solved by worship, order and rhythm.

Now here's where people get stuck.

They want that one big heroic act.

They want the dramatic conversion montage.

Day one I woke up early, prayed for an hour, I ran 5 miles.

I ate perfect and never sinned again.

Trust me, I've played the montage in my head myself.

But that is not how transformation works.

That is how delusions of grandeur work.

Transformation is usually God giving you that one small step, and then and then another small step, and then another, until your life actually becomes different.

And the reason it works is because the nervous system learns safety through repetition.

So small faithful habits don't just build discipline in some nebulous state, they build an actual internal environment where you can change.

Right.

And so the question then becomes, what's the smallest version of obedience that I can actually repeat consistently?

Clean your room, bucko.

If that's what it is, do it.

Sadly, he's not wrong on that.

Part He's on to something.

Right.

So that really is the question and that's what we're going to do now, because now that you understand why willpower collapses and why shame based January that plans backfire, we can finally build this the right way.

We're going to take what you named as your desire and we're going to turn it into a small rule anchored in rhythm with a built in repair magnet.

And when you do that, something changes.

January stops being a trial, but rather becomes practice and it becomes worship.

And that's how you actually get a new year without becoming newly neurotic.

Exactly.

So taking this out of theory and do something you can actually live.

If we were to stop at willpower is bad and worship is good, people will not and then go right back to doing the exact same thing they planned on doing in January.

But we're going to try to do is build a framework that you can apply in real time in your actual life, in your actual limitation.

And I want to start, start by saying something.

Hopefully there's freeing to a lot of people.

You don't need that massive overhaul.

What you need is a true aim, a true Talos that you're pointing towards, and a small rule.

Absolutely.

Like Doctor Mike said, you don't need that complete makeover on day one.

What you need is just a new change of direction, proper orientation.

So direction and orientation over drama.

So here's the engine.

4 steps as simple enough that you can remember it even when you're tired.

Name, offer, anchor and repair.

And this is going to sound almost too simple, but that's literally the point.

Simple is repeatable.

Repeatable is healing.

So first name what it is you're actually asking God to heal.

And I wanted to slow down here because most people will refuse this step.

They'd rather copy somebody else's routine than to tell the truth.

So naming is not I want to lose weight, What naming is?

I'm using food to numb my anxiety.

I'm exhausted, I don't know how to rest.

I'm addicted to simulation.

I'm angry and I take it out of my family.

Lord forbid I'm lonely and I'm medicated with screens or I'm afraid and control is my idol.

And so essentially this naming it is basically a sort of confession.

We're shining the light on some things that we may not want to recognize.

Absolutely.

It's not your proper confession, but it's a realization of the way things are in your life.

It's truthful, it's sober, it's not theatrical.

And the reason naming matters is because you cannot heal what you will not name.

So if you rename the wrong thing, you build the wrong habit.

As an example, if your real issue is loneliness and you build a habit of no carbs, you're not actually treating the wound, you're just building new distraction.

If your real issue is exhaustion and you build a habit of wake up at 5:00 AM, you're not treating the root cause that wound, you are intensifying it.

Naming is how we stop doing random pennants and start actually healing.

The second one, though, is offering.

So you want to offer one small practice, not a dramatic vow, not a lifetime pledge, but a small offering.

And this is where most people mess up.

They choose something that requires a version of them that doesn't exist.

That I'm going to pray an hour every day.

I'm going to train six days a week.

I'm never going to eat sugar again.

That's not a rule as a fantasy built on adrenaline, that new convert zeal, as they like to call it.

But a rule is something you can do on a hard day.

Absolutely.

If you can't do it when you're tired, you can't do it.

Exactly.

So if your habit only works when you're rested, motivated, and life is calm, it's not a habit, it's an event, so the offering itself is small.

If your desire is I want peace, your offering might be 3 minutes of prayer while the coffee brews so you're still actively doing something thing else.

If your desire though is I want to stop numbing at night, your offering might be 10 minutes of screen free time before bed along with a short prayer.

If your desire is I want steady your energy, your offering might be something as simple as protein at breakfast.

If your desire is I want to stop living in my head, it might be a 10 minute walk after one meal.

These are offerings, not performances, and while they seem small, just try them for 30 days and see what happens.

Next up we have our anchor.

So we're going to anchor the practice to a real rhythm.

And, and this is where it becomes a rule, a habit floats away if it's not attached to a time and a place.

So we don't say I'll pray more.

We say after I turn on the coffee, I'll pray for three minutes.

We don't say I'll walk more.

We say after lunch, 10 minutes.

And we don't say I'll go to bed earlier.

We do say is at 9:30, screens are off, lights are low, prayer and then bed.

Absolutely, Mike, because your calendar is how you concretize these ideas.

If one of these practices is not on your schedule, it's not really real for you yet.

Exactly.

So your life is shaped by what you actually do, not what you intend.

So anchoring is how we stopped lying to ourselves.

And here's the key that anchoring removes the daily negotiation because most people don't fail because they lack discipline, they fail because they negotiate with themselves everyday.

Should I Could I?

I don't feel like maybe later.

I'll start tomorrow.

Anchoring says no negotiations after XI do Y.

That's a rule.

Now, the final step, and this is the step that makes the whole thing Orthodox, is repair.

Because the world teaches you how to build habits on perfectionism.

The Church teaches you how to build habits on repentance, and repentance means you're going to fail, but with that, you're going to have to return.

So what do you do when you miss a day?

If you don't have a repair protocol, you start a spiral.

You miss one day and your mind says, well, I ruined it.

Then you miss a week.

Then you restart.

February maybe, but that's a yo-yo repairs.

How you break that yo-yo?

Absolutely.

And so repair is essentially you refuse to do that shame math to begin with.

Exactly.

You refuse to make missing a habit mean something that about your identity.

Unlike most of the modern world.

Our sins, our failures are not our identity, and I'll leave it at that for now.

But you treat it for what it is, a stumble, and then you return.

So here is a simple repair protocol for 60 seconds.

You made the sign of the cross, say Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a Sinner.

You name the truth.

You say I repel, please have mercy on me.

And then you move on and go to the next small right, correct action.

It's not heroic, but it's what the fathers have given us.

It's not a punishment action.

It is a corrective action.

So you missed your prayers yesterday.

Pray for two minutes.

Now you can find those two minutes.

You missed your walk.

Walk 5 minutes.

Now you can probably find time for that.

You ate in chaos.

Eat the next meal slowly, samely, ideally with other people.

Repair means you don't wait for tomorrow to be clean.

That's fantastic, Mike.

And again, I know we've mentioned it, but to be clear, because we're referencing things like falling here, always bring these things to your spiritual father.

And in no way does it practice like this replace Sacramento confession.

So although this is what we're doing at the moment, in order to avoid the spiral, you definitely need to be going to your priest to confess.

And so this is different than the New Year's resolution vibe because that resolution is essentially saying that my streak is what defines me as a person.

Right.

And these streaks are not salvation.

We're not going to gamify our way to the theosis.

A streak based mentality is spiritual pride dressed up as discipline.

It's the same energy as the Pharisees that I thank you, that I am not like other men.

I have a 40 to 3 day streak.

That's right, I fast twice a week and I close my rings daily.

Exactly.

Orthodoxy is not look at my streak.

Orthodoxies, Lord have mercy.

So the habit we're really building is not never miss.

It's returned quickly without despair.

The end of the day, habits reveal worship and habits can reorder worship.

So let's turn back into the church's rhythm.

And this matters because you're not doing January alone.

You're not building habits in a vacuum.

You are in the nativity season moving towards theophany, which means the church is literally saying don't come out of the feast and collapse into despair.

Stay in the light, stay in the rhythm, keep the heart soft, keep the table open and keep prayer alive.

So as we've said numerous times, this engine is not self help.

It's about how you walk from feast to feast without becoming fragmented.

And without turning that calendar into a spiritual panic attack.

What if the medicine in the future it was ancient?

What if the practices that steady your nervous system, train appetite, and restore meaning weren't new hacks, but old paths we've forgotten fasting, prayer, almsgiving, and communion?

What if healing was less about novelty and more about returning to what heals the whole person?

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In it you'll find a practical 40 day path with simple actionable steps to begin, prayer, anchors, fasting, guidance, sleep and light, hygiene, movement, breath and a short daily exam.

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That's right.

So we've got that engine, that name offer Anchor Repair.

Next, let's move into that rule of three.

One spiritual habit, one physical habit, and one outward habit towards your neighbor.

Fantastic.

And as we've said previously, we're going to stop turning January into the courtroom.

Right, so your plan for January and onward, it's simpler to remember and strong enough to carry you.

3 habits.

Not ten, not 20, not a whole new identity besides the one you've received in Christ.

And the reason we're doing it this way is because it keeps you from the 2 ditches.

1 is that ditch of chaos of I'll just vibe and hope I change.

And two is that ditch of control, of clamp down and punish myself into holiness, into health.

So these three habits act as the trellis structure without tyranny.

Right, it's just enough structure to stop that spiral without turning your life into a spreadsheet religion.

Exactly, and each of the habits must be small enough to be able to survive your worst day.

Because if it only works on your best day is not a rule, it's a fantasy.

So let's start to build it out that spiritual habit.

Pick one.

Let's be clear.

1 And it has to be a practice that returns you to God in a small, repeatable way.

So either of those 3 minutes of prayer in the morning, 1 Psalm a day, the Jesus Prayer for 5 minutes in the car before you're walking to work, or evening prayers for four nights a week.

Not necessarily 7 at first, not I'll be perfect, but I will be faithful.

And in people do need to hear that four nights is not a failure, four nights is stability.

Right.

And if you are somebody who is past that point in your spiritual life, then add one more small rule that means sense to you.

And again, these are conversations to have with your spiritual father, of course.

But this is just for people who are bare bones at the minimum, or they've fallen off and they need to reorient themselves.

Here are some super basic ways because faithfulness is not about perfectionism.

So this is addressed to the person who always says I want to pray more, but I never do.

Usually that means two things.

One, your prayer is not anchored in the queue, or two, you're trying to do it when you're already depleted, so anchor it to that queue that already exists.

Coffee, brushing your teeth, going in the shower, starting your car, getting the kids down, and keep it short.

You can always add more progressive overload, but you need to be able to keep it because prayer doesn't become a real through just white knuckling it through that intensity.

It becomes real through repetition.

Absolutely.

And so the first win here in this sequence is not that you prayed for the full hour.

The first win is that today I returned.

Exactly.

So it's moving to rule 2, the physical habit.

Let's pick one physical habit that is not January punishment training, but rather foundations that help to make the virtue of treating your body as a temple possible.

The physical habit should stabilize your system, not destabilize it.

So it might be morning light for 5 minutes just getting that light on your eyes outside early.

That's a clock setting tool.

That is stability.

It might be protein at breakfast.

Not because macros are salvation, because blood sugar chaos makes you irritable and impulsive.

Maybe it's that 10 minute walk after a meal, not run for five miles, not train like an athlete, but walking.

Maybe it's two strength sessions a week.

Not to failure, not deconstruction, just consistency.

And maybe it's actual real meals that are not grazing.

If you're constantly stacking, you're constantly spiking and crashing.

Feast at your meals, but stop feeding the chaos.

Absolutely, Mike.

And that really is quite countercultural because most people do want that heroic workout plan.

And I can empathize.

But again, here we're talking about turning around the spiral returning, whereas you might want to go to failure in that workout after you've been consistent for some period of time.

You don't have to force it on day one.

Exactly, you don't have to be rocky running through the mountains with a log on your back yelling DRAGO on your first day of return.

It's about building those habits and eventually you can get there.

Eventually you can knock out the Russian.

Just not every random Russian.

You know we like the Russians here.

Bolsheviks on the other hand, that's a different conversation.

You want that montage, right?

Rocking is built on that whole idea.

But montage discipline dies when life starts to happen.

A 10 minute walk does not die when life happens.

Neither does a protein breakfast or getting into that morning light.

And if you're someone who always overdoes it, this is your warning.

The goal is that it's prove how tough you are.

The goal, however, is to become steady.

Because steadiness is what carries you into great length, carries you through the rest of the fasting seasons, carries you through the stress of life, through sickness, through grief.

And it is that steadiness, full stop.

As to our third rule, And this is the one that modern Wellness almost never includes.

And it's the one that the church keeps putting back in your face, your neighbor.

And as we said, St.

Basil will definitely slap you in the face with it, even though Saint Nicholas is the one who's known for his slapping.

But if your January plan is completely self absorbed, didn't leave Egypt, you simply rearranged chains to pick one habit that turns the feast outward and turns your health outward.

One act of I'm giving weekly, Give quietly but intentionally.

One act of hospitality a week, invite someone, include someone.

One checking message weekly to someone who's lonely.

Pretty simple.

A phone free dinner where you actually look at people and bless the table.

Or simply one intentional prayer and outreach to someone who you know is struggling.

Absolutely, Mike.

And this is where it's it's honestly quite providential that St.

Basil's feast is on New Year's Day.

Absolutely.

Whereas everybody is so hyper focused on themselves.

He's not going to let that fly.

He'll probably tell you that's great that you got your membership.

He was very big on health of the body, but he's more concerned with who did you feed?

And that question is not meant to shame you.

It's meant to heal you.

Because a life aimed only inward becomes smaller, whereas a life and outward becomes brighter.

And the wildest part is that people who start actually practicing mercy consistently often find that the hell improves.

Their mind, calms down, their cravings calm down.

Because a lot of those cravings are not just hunger, their loneliness, their emptiness, their meaninglessness.

They're that God size hole in your heart.

And when you start to give, your heart expands, just like the Grinch.

Absolutely, Mike.

And so essentially, you're saying that some of these metabolic issues are really just spiritual compression.

Absolutely.

And mercy decompresses the soul.

And here's the part that makes this usable.

Write your 3 habits as after XI do Y.

After coffee, I pray for three minutes.

After lunch, I go for that walk.

Every Friday.

I give alms.

I check in on somebody, I invite someone.

You anchor it.

Then write your repair plan in one sentence.

When I miss, I do not spiral.

I return with the next small step.

That is the whole thing.

Absolutely.

And that's so much more realistic than the never missing today for the rest of your life idea.

Exactly.

Now I can hear the pushback OK, but what I want bigger change.

Great.

Bigger change comes after stable foundations.

If you cannot keep the small rule, a bigger change will lead to bigger chaos.

It's the equivalent of guys singing a reel on Instagram, a flying armbar and saying I told you why to do that today.

Dude, you ever know what side control is?

So just shut up.

I know we've had a couple of shots at the Protestants, but isn't that essentially what the whole Protestant Reformation was pretty much?

And for the big fix and cause a lot of chaos.

Absolutely.

So January is not about maximum output.

It's just about laying down that track.

Now, as we said, some of you are in seasons where this rule of 3 is going to look embarrassedly small, and that's fine because you're not trying to impress anybody.

You're trying to heal.

If you got a newborn, if you're caring for someone who's sick, if you're under severe work stress, your rule of three might be something as simple as one short prayer, one small movement habit, and one hour act of mercy.

And that is enough.

That is faithful.

Absolutely, and it's more orthodox than trying to cosplay as a monk while ignoring your family and causing them to hate you.

Right.

And here's where we really want to make this land for people.

So here's the practical health piece.

If you want your rule of three to stick, protect 2 main hinge points, your morning and your evening.

There's a reason why, in addition to the rest of the hours of the day, you generally have, at the very least, your morning and your evening prayers, right?

You want those hinge points up morning and evening.

Because if your morning is chaos and your evening is chaos, your day will feel like you're being dragged behind a car.

So the morning hinge point really should include some kind of light, some prayer and food stability.

Not all three perfectly, but something.

Your evening hinge point should include some form of a downshift, the reduction in stimulation, and a short return to God.

Because the body doesn't heal without that downshift, the nervous system does not heal without that downshift, and your spiritual life will not flourish under constant stimulation.

You are avoiding that stillness.

That's right, Mike, you can test the validity of that claim by trying to pray while your brain is going on TikTok speed.

Exactly, So if you want your plan to actually heal, the health hacks themselves are secondary.

The primary thing have to do is ask do I have a life that allows me to return?

So I want to speak to the skeptic who's listening.

Like okay cool, but how does this actually change my body?

Well, it changes your body because you stop sending the body mixed signals.

When you live in chaos, your appetite is chaotic.

When you live in stimulation, your cravings are over stimulated.

When your sleep is fragmented, your say CID signaling is distorted.

When you're under recovered, your training becomes a stress, not an adaptation and you're more prone, become injured.

So the moment you start to stabilize that rhythm, the body stops fighting against you.

And that's why you've seen this happen.

Somebody starts going to bed at a consistent time, getting their morning light, eating their regular meals, walking daily and praying a little, and all of a sudden they're like, I'm not craving as much.

I'm calmer, I'm not snacking all night.

Not because they became a superhero, it's not the prettiest thing, but it's because their nervous system isn't screaming.

Right.

And so the goal is to stop living like you're constantly being hunted.

Exactly.

And that is the phrase.

But before we close, I want to do one more thing.

I want to give people a January warning label because there are two patterns that will stabilize you even if your rule of three is good.

Number one is the all or nothing #2 is the compensation.

The ideas of if I miss, I will quit on the all nothing phase, or if I miss, I will punish on the compensation phase.

Both of those are the same spirit pride.

And as always, the antidote is that repair.

It's that humility, It's that repentance.

So here's the warning label.

If you miss a day, do not quit, punish spiral, need to restart Monday.

Instead, return today with that next small corrective action.

That is the most orthodox thing you can do, and it's actually the most metabolically same thing that you can do.

Absolutely, because that spiral is essentially an inflammatory event.

Absolutely.

Spiraling is stress Physiology, full stop.

You start stressing about stress and it's causing you to get worse and worse and worse.

Met a level stress?

Exactly.

So that is really it, keeping that rhythm.

And the Church has asked me to stay near through the feast and towards theophany.

So your rule of 3 is not a New Year's superstition.

It's a way of walking the season with sobriety.

And if you do it in this way, January is less likely to be a collapse.

You'll be a continuation.

Fantastic.

And that's really the whole point we're trying to get out here, is that you're not starting over, you're staying in the same story you've been in, just trying to improve.

Exactly.

So as we're starting to land this plane, before we get to this final closing, I want you to pause the episode and actually write down your rule of three.

Take that time to choose what it is that you're going to follow on the spiritual, the physical, and the outward facing end.

What are you actually going to change right now?

So take this time to actually write that down if you're driving.

Don't write it down.

If you're at home, pause.

But I want you to actually do this.

Not later, but now.

100% and be sure not to just pick the ones that make you look good.

Pick the ones that are the most true and the ones you need the most.

Exactly.

The goal is truth, not branding.

And once you have your rule of three down, I want you to write one more important line.

When I miss, I will not spiral.

I will return with the next small corrective action.

That sentence is your safety net.

Fantastic.

And that sentence is basically the difference between a healing year and a year that becomes a yo-yo.

Absolutely.

Because missing is not what ruins people.

Spiraling ruins people.

So now you got your rule of three.

You have your idea of what you're going to do to recover when you've made a mistake.

What you want to have is your minimum.

What is it you're able to do on your worst day with a bonus of what you can do when life allows?

Because when your day has even small points of return, the heart because of softened.

And once the heart softens, you can actually repent without despair.

And once you repent without that despair, you can actually change without breaking.

And that's why this isn't self help, it's just the Christian life applied to the modern chaos.

Now, if you haven't had a chance to actually write that down, if you want a template, DM me the word rule on Instagram or shoot us a message over on Telegram and I will send you over a simple copy paste version of what we just walked through.

And if you want help personalizing it because some of you do have some complex health issues, complicated schedules, and you don't need the guesswork, then coaching is there.

So it will help you to actually build a rule that you can actually keep.

And if you're the person who always goes nuclear in January and ends up hitting yourself by the 10th, this is the intervention for you.

Absolutely.

So take that intervention, humble yourself, start small, and return quickly.

That in turn leads us into our next week's episode, which we are tentatively titling Sanctified matter, living after theophany.

And we had hoped to have a Theophany episode this time for you, but we had to call an audible and we brought you this one.

So we're going to be covering next week though, is theophany related because as we said this time, if we can't just brute force healing, what makes matter even capable of healing at all?

And the church answers us by saying God enters matter.

Matter is sanctified.

And now we live accordingly because theophany is the feast where Christ enters the waters, not to be purified, but to purify.

And we've covered that in some episodes before, but we're really going to dive deep on that for this one because theophany tells us that matter itself is not neutral.

Is that profane?

But it's also not something that we can manipulate any of our ourselves.

It's something that God enters into and sanctifies and that we need to cooperate with.

So it's not just about our effort, but what it means to live in a world where water, our bodies, the seasons themselves, and even illnesses are touched by God.

So we're going to dive deep into that next week.

But for now, Christ is born.

Glorify Him.

Absolutely, and we'll see you on the next one.

God Bless is available on Spotify, Apple Music, and all of your other favorite listening locations.

And you can also find us available on YouTube at Doctor Michael Christian Rumble at Orthodox Health and Sub SAC at Orthodox Health Podcast.

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Until then, stay strong in faith, take care of your temple, and keep Christ the center of your health journey.

God bless.

The.