Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's Eric from the one you feed with
Speaker 1: this week's mini episode. Before we jump into that, I
Speaker 1: just want to say thank you to all the listeners.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Some of you may have noticed this,
Speaker 1: some others may not, but we were recently named as
Speaker 1: one of the best podcasts at two thousand fourteen by Apple,
Speaker 1: which is in this industry sort of like winning a Grammy.
Speaker 1: So we were very excited and very honored about that.
Speaker 1: So thank you to all of you who are listening.
Speaker 1: Without you, guys, there wouldn't be any point really in
Speaker 1: doing this, notewood there. So this week's mini episode is
Speaker 1: going to be titled Notice, Don't Resist. What I've noticed
Speaker 1: is that my brain has a tendency to take a
Speaker 1: stimulus that has occurred and over dramatize it and tend
Speaker 1: to hype it up and repeat it over and over.
Speaker 1: Most recently, I noticed this when it came to being cold.
Speaker 1: So I would go outside and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: it would be cold, and my brain would start saying
Speaker 1: things like, oh God, I'm cold. I'm so freaking cold. God,
Speaker 1: it's damn cold out here, and it would just sort
Speaker 1: of subconsciously be going on and on, and I would
Speaker 1: very much have a strong I don't want to be cold.
Speaker 1: This is awful mentality about it. And what I learned
Speaker 1: in the past was that if I can catch that
Speaker 1: and turn my thoughts to become more curious or more
Speaker 1: noticing about the cold and less resisting, and I'm better off.
Speaker 1: And so what does that look like? It looks sort
Speaker 1: of like becoming interested in it? Well? Where am I cold?
Speaker 1: Is that? My nose? Is that? My hands? Is that
Speaker 1: my whole body? How does it feel? What's that like?
Speaker 1: Where's the wind coming from? Just getting really interested and
Speaker 1: curious in the moment itself, and by doing that, I
Speaker 1: tend to lose a that sort of crazy hyped up
Speaker 1: self talk and be I try and not resist it.
Speaker 1: In the phrase I is for myself is notice, don't resist.
Speaker 1: And so this works really good with things like being cold.
Speaker 1: It also works really well if you have to go
Speaker 1: to the bathroom. But we can extend this out to
Speaker 1: any part of our lives. I remember a long time ago,
Speaker 1: it seems like a long time ago, when my son's
Speaker 1: mother and I split and I was in an enormous
Speaker 1: amount of pain, and I read a bunch of books.
Speaker 1: One of them was Pemma Children's When Things Fall Apart,
Speaker 1: and her insight that I got from that was to
Speaker 1: learn to sit there and notice the pain, notice what
Speaker 1: it was like, become curious, and just stop trying so
Speaker 1: hard to make it go away. And remarkably that helps.
Speaker 1: It doesn't necessarily make the pain go away, it certainly
Speaker 1: makes the pain of being in pain better, if that
Speaker 1: sounds if that makes any sense. We talked on the
Speaker 1: show about layering on all these additional levels of suffering
Speaker 1: on top of the base things. So the base suffering
Speaker 1: and the example before was I'm cold. All the additional
Speaker 1: suffering I'm giving myself is that I'm telling myself how
Speaker 1: cold I am. I'm hyping it up, I am resisting it,
Speaker 1: and by doing all that, I'm making it worse. And
Speaker 1: the same thing was true in a lot of cases
Speaker 1: with emotions. And so I've learned to do this or
Speaker 1: learned to strengthen this muscle by using it in meditation.
Speaker 1: And one of the things I do in meditation is
Speaker 1: try and focus on what are the body sensations I'm having? Uh.
Speaker 1: If I have an itch, I try and get curious
Speaker 1: and interested in the itch. Although the truth is even
Speaker 1: after doing that, the only description I can come up
Speaker 1: with for an itch is God damn it itches. But
Speaker 1: with pain there is the ability to get a little
Speaker 1: bit more curious or interested. Where is it? Is it burning?
Speaker 1: Is it throbbing? Is it deep underneath? I mean you can,
Speaker 1: you can get interested in what's happening there, and for
Speaker 1: some reason, that process of doing it and not resisting
Speaker 1: it so much makes it less painful. Now, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to pretend for people who are suffering from chronic
Speaker 1: pain that this is some sort of pantasy and I'll
Speaker 1: just get interest in your pain and everything will be fine.
Speaker 1: But it is a way that I found to deal
Speaker 1: with unpleasant sensations that I'm having where I'm not making
Speaker 1: them worse. So that is this week's many episode. Notice
Speaker 1: don't resist, and I hope you have a great week.
Speaker 1: We'll have another episode out on Tuesday, which will be
Speaker 1: our before Christmas episode. So happy holidays to all of
Speaker 1: you and uh AS always stay in touch and we'll
Speaker 1: talk soon. Bye.