Speaker 1: Stay Calm as a production of I Heart Radio. Hi.
Speaker 1: I'm Bob Roth, and I've been teaching people to meditate
Speaker 1: for fifty years, helping them to stay calm under pressure,
Speaker 1: reboot and re energize their lives, and basically be a happier,
Speaker 1: healthier version of themselves. And now I want to help
Speaker 1: you do the same. Welcome to Stay Calm, your daily
Speaker 1: dose of calmness. Every weekday morning, I'll share a meditation story,
Speaker 1: offer a simple practical tip about how you or loved
Speaker 1: one can stay a bit calmer in your life, and
Speaker 1: then we'll end each episode together with a moment of gratitude.
Speaker 1: My hope is that I can share what I know
Speaker 1: to anyone who needs it. Ready, sit comfortably, take a
Speaker 1: few deep breaths, and let's begin today's journey. I love baseball,
Speaker 1: always have even as a kid played little league, would
Speaker 1: have loved to have played professional baseball. I also love
Speaker 1: this San Francisco Giants loved Willie Mays for you old
Speaker 1: timers who patrolled center field at Candlestick Park. I tell
Speaker 1: you all of this because I had a very fortunate
Speaker 1: experience many years ago. I received a phone call from
Speaker 1: a man named Barry Zito. Barry was a pitcher with
Speaker 1: the San Francisco Giants, and he invited me to teach
Speaker 1: him and his wife Amber to meditate. Barry was an
Speaker 1: all star his whole life. Signed with the Oakland A's
Speaker 1: two thousand two, was twenty three and five, got a
Speaker 1: Cy Young Award, and he was the best pitcher in
Speaker 1: the American League. Signed in two thousand six by the
Speaker 1: San Francisco Giants with a huge salary and great fanfare,
Speaker 1: and in a way he would say, the bottom dropped
Speaker 1: out from under him. Things just didn't go well. As
Speaker 1: an outsider following the San Francisco Giants, it was obvious
Speaker 1: that he was getting beat up by the press. But
Speaker 1: what was also obvious Barry Zito was a special i,
Speaker 1: a gentleman. Never spoke ill of others, never got reactive,
Speaker 1: never got angry, just continued to do the best job
Speaker 1: he could. The reason he called me is because he
Speaker 1: needed to get his career back on track and he
Speaker 1: was hoping that transcendental meditation would give him the calm,
Speaker 1: the equanimity, the focus, and the resilience to get back
Speaker 1: on track. It would be a storybook ending to say
Speaker 1: that he learned t m and his career returned to
Speaker 1: being completely stellar again. It didn't, but his career did
Speaker 1: right itself, and he had many good seasons with the Giants,
Speaker 1: and he was a starting pitcher on the team during
Speaker 1: their first two World Series championships in and he credited
Speaker 1: transcendental meditation for helping him restore his confidence and his mechanics.
Speaker 1: I tell you this story because one of the more
Speaker 1: interesting conversations that Barry and I had along the way
Speaker 1: is we talked about sort of philosophy of life and
Speaker 1: how did he handle the ups and downs of success
Speaker 1: and failure. You do well headlines in the newspaper, everybody
Speaker 1: loves you. You have a bad outing, creamed and I
Speaker 1: shared with him a quote from the ancient meditation texts.
Speaker 1: You have control over action alone. Never over the fruits,
Speaker 1: never over the results. You can only do the best
Speaker 1: job you can possibly do. As a picture, you can
Speaker 1: put that fastball on the outside corner. If the batter
Speaker 1: gets lucky and hits a double down the right field
Speaker 1: line runs or scored, you don't have control over that.
Speaker 1: Don't lose yourself the picture who loses himself next pitch
Speaker 1: has pitched out of anger or irritation or frustration. You
Speaker 1: have to stay in the self, in your inner equanimity.
Speaker 1: Meditation does that, but there's a lot of other things
Speaker 1: to do that, being rested, having a good support group, exercise,
Speaker 1: eating right. And I'm going to transition here because we're
Speaker 1: not very zedo, but we have ups and downs in
Speaker 1: our life, and sometimes there's a lot of downs and
Speaker 1: we're in a sad mood or a bad mood when
Speaker 1: it comes to diet, when it comes to healthy eating,
Speaker 1: here's one tip that every expert always says. You cannot
Speaker 1: eat yourself through a bad mood, through a depression. You can't.
Speaker 1: What we do is we get impulsive and we reach
Speaker 1: for the low nutrition foods. We reach for the sugar,
Speaker 1: the candy that cakes. You know what that does makes
Speaker 1: us feel worse. It's a downward spiral. Be aware of
Speaker 1: that tendency. It's just going to make you feel worse.
Speaker 1: Eat something, be healthy. It will save your psychology and
Speaker 1: it will save you days and trying to recover from
Speaker 1: that bad mood. All right, let's end this time together
Speaker 1: doing something that I think should be a feature of
Speaker 1: our everyday life, and that's appreciation and gratitude. So let's
Speaker 1: take thirty seconds of quiet, thirty seconds to take a break,
Speaker 1: Just take a moment. It turns out when we do that,
Speaker 1: it's good for our health as well. I'll be right
Speaker 1: back all right. Thank you for joining. This is Bob Roth.
Speaker 1: Keep calm, Thanks for listening today. I hope you heard
Speaker 1: something that inspires, that uplifts you and that you can
Speaker 1: incorporate into your own life. Until next time, remember, meditate,
Speaker 1: be kind, and be true to yourself. Hey, all of
Speaker 1: you out there, I'd love to hear from you. You
Speaker 1: can send me your stories, your questions, or anything else
Speaker 1: on your mind. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook
Speaker 1: or Instagram at meditation Bob. You can also send me
Speaker 1: an email at meditation Bob Roth at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: I look forward to hearing from you.