Elisha Goldstein on the Power of Tiny Shifts
Psychologist and mindfulness teacher Dr. Elisha Goldstein has spent decades helping people find their way back to themselves. He’s come to see that lasting change rarely comes from dramatic overhaul, but rather through the smallest possible pivots. His new book, Tiny Shifts, introduces a four-step method for interrupting the emotional loops that keep us stuck, and making real change in the ordinary moments of everyday life. Mindful editor-in-chief Siri Myhrom sat down with Dr. Goldstein to talk about the neuroscience behind the method, why our bodies know things our minds don’t, and what to do when the problems feel too big for a tiny shift. The heart of the book is the Four R Method: Recognize, Release, Refocus, Reinforce. Where did that come from? Was a method you’ve always had, or did it emerge from a need? I think the Four R Method evolved over time—out of my personal experience and also my teaching. The first R—Recognize—is foundational. It’s in many of the world’s wisdom traditions, psychology speaks of it, neuroscience speaks of it. This idea of recognizing, labeling, noticing. Awareness is on its own a regulation tool. It’s also the very first opening to anything. It’s the foundation of mindfulness. We need to rebalance the somatic reaction that’s happening, because that widens the space now between stimulus and response. That moment of awareness on its own is typically not enough. We need a wider space. That first R is really about stepping outside of the emotional loops that are patterned and conditioned within us—often unconscious, whether that’s anxiety, overeating, snapping at people, road rage, or just generally feeling overwhelmed. These loops happen because there’s so much repetition over years of our lives. We just don’t notice we’re in them. How many people, since 2007, have been programmed to fall into the gentle scroll—typically as some form of soothing, with boredom or dis-ease or restlessness underneath? To wake up to that has been foundational for me. But what typically wasn’t there—and what’s not taught systematically—is what I learned later as a psychologist: the somatic piece. That moment of awareness gives us a little wedge. But we can lose that wedge pretty quickly. What we need to do is rebalance the somatic reaction that’s happening. That’s what widens the space between stimulus and response. We don’t just need to step into the space—we typically need to widen it. Can you say more about what Release actually means? I think when people hear “letting go,” they imagine it means not feeling the hard thing anymore. So that’s a good question, what you’re pointing to here, because release is not about getting rid of the feeling. If you think about tiny shift, it’s like an emotional pivot. We’re just trying to pivot. It’s not about the outcome so much. Think of it more like a verb. It’s not whether the emotion is legitimate or illegitimate—it’s here. Release is taking a moment—taking a breath, a slightly longer exhale out, allowing the shoulders to drop, letting the muscles elongate—to feel a little more softness in my body around the activation. I’ll give you an example—a hypothetical moment that has happened many times. My teenage kids had agreed to clean up after themselves after their midnight snacks, and I came downstairs one morning to dishes everywhere. I notice myself really frustrated. Shoulders up, hands tense, face kind of scrunched, heart rate up. I’m about to storm into their room and let them know. And release is more about taking a moment to soften around that feeling. It’s not to get rid of the feeling, because the anger is actually justified. They crossed a boundary; there was an agreement. That anger is a healthy feeling. It’s not whether the emotion is legitimate or illegitimate—it’s here. So I recognize the frustration loop. And release is taking a moment—taking a breath, a slightly longer exhale out, allowing the shoulders to drop, letting the muscles elongate. That activates the parasympathetic nervous system. What’s happening there is that I’m taking that space between stimulus and response and widening it. The anger is still there. But I’m able to feel a little more softness in my body around the activation. Sometimes, too, I’ll notice a story in my mind that’s not serving me—something rigid, something about what was done to me—and as I take that exhalation out, I might see that story and say the word “release” and allow it to kind of come out. That doesn’t mean it magically disappears. But it does help soften the activation. It helps turn the volume down on the story a little bit. That’s what we’re after. Whether we’re going to use the anger constructively or destructively—that’s the important piece. And the release is what gives us enough space to choose. There’s a phrase in the book — “embodied cognition” — that gets at knowing through our bodies. Where do you think our disconnection from the body comes from? I think it’s cultural. Western culture, in particular. You see it from a young age—how we train kids to favor and prize thinking. And our bodies, how we feel, sensations—this type of stuff is implicitly taught as unimportant. So we don’t get a lot of reps with it. We’re also wired to problem-solve. So if we’re feeling anxious, frustrated, like something’s wrong—we’re going to try and problem-solve that. And the way we problem-solve is we start thinking. We think about all the problems in front of us, or possible problems that aren’t in front of us, or we reach back to our Rolodex of history and think about problems in the past. Meanwhile, we feel more anxious or upset, because that’s the emotion it feeds. The insight doesn’t translate into change until it drops down into the body. That’s the piece that’s so often missing. The pause can give us a moment of recognition, but then it’s gone. The insight doesn’t translate into change until it drops down into the body. That’s the piece that’s…
