Speaker 1: Pay attention to all the moments around us where we
Speaker 1: can find the wonder and the ease of grace. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the one you feed throughout time. Great thinkers have
Speaker 1: recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like
Speaker 1: garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think
Speaker 1: ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts
Speaker 1: don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good wolf YEA, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is Sarah Kaufman, a Pulitzer
Speaker 1: Prize winning critic, author, journalist, and educator. As the dance
Speaker 1: critic and Senior Arts writer of The Washington Post, she
Speaker 1: has written about the performing arts, pop culture, sports, and
Speaker 1: personal expression Since her first book, The Art of Grace,
Speaker 1: was a Washington Post notable book of two thousand, fifteen
Speaker 1: and a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Award winner.
Speaker 1: If you value the content we put out each week,
Speaker 1: then we need your help. As the show has grown,
Speaker 1: so have our expenses and time commitment. Go to one
Speaker 1: you feed dot net slash Support and make a monthly donation.
Speaker 1: Our goal is to get to five percent of our
Speaker 1: listeners supporting the show. Please be part of the five
Speaker 1: percent that make a contribution and allow us to keep
Speaker 1: putting out these interviews and ideas. We really need your
Speaker 1: help to make the show sustainable and long lasting. Again,
Speaker 1: that's one you Feed dot net slash Support. Thank you
Speaker 1: in advance for your help. And here's the interview with
Speaker 1: Sarah Kaufman. Hi, Sarah, Welcome to the show. Hi Eric,
Speaker 1: I'm so glad to be with you. Your book is
Speaker 1: called The Art of Grace on Moving Well through Life,
Speaker 1: and I'm excited to talk about what grace is and
Speaker 1: all the various ways that it can show up in
Speaker 1: our lives and how we can get more of it
Speaker 1: in our lives. But before we do that, let's start
Speaker 1: like we always do, with the parable. There's a grandfather
Speaker 1: who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life, there
Speaker 1: are two wolves that are always inside of us. One
Speaker 1: is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and
Speaker 1: bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 1: the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second,
Speaker 1: and he looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather,
Speaker 1: which one wins? And the grandfather says, is the one
Speaker 1: you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking
Speaker 1: you what that parable means to you in your life
Speaker 1: and in the work that you do. Well. I love
Speaker 1: that the parable draws on the natural world foremost, um,
Speaker 1: and it has such powerful images with the two wolves,
Speaker 1: and so that's a great way to get around the
Speaker 1: thinking process and just really feel the points that it's making.
Speaker 1: But here's my take on it. How about trying to
Speaker 1: live with both wolves and accepting that we all have
Speaker 1: these tendencies and emotions which can give us important information
Speaker 1: about how we're relating to the world. Um. I mean,
Speaker 1: for example, fear can be useful. It can let us
Speaker 1: know we're in a dangerous situation that we need to
Speaker 1: get out of. And then coming from the arts world.
Speaker 1: Since I cover the arts, A lot of art can
Speaker 1: arouse anger or anxiety and strong emotions, and that can
Speaker 1: to self reflection and even understanding. So I think what
Speaker 1: really matters, as you point out in your introduction, is
Speaker 1: how we act on these strong feelings. It's our intentions
Speaker 1: and our actions that matter the most. Excellent, I totally agree.
Speaker 1: I think that obviously the idea of getting rid of
Speaker 1: all a negative emotion is is not not something that
Speaker 1: we can do, nor should we be trying to in all.
Speaker 1: These emotions exist for a reason, you know, as as
Speaker 1: one of the neuroscientists I spoke to in the research
Speaker 1: for my book said, our emotions exist to teach us
Speaker 1: something about the world, to give us useful information, you know,
Speaker 1: whether we like something and so we want to experience
Speaker 1: more of it because it's good for us, or whether
Speaker 1: we dislike something and so we should move away from
Speaker 1: it and learn, you know, learn from that experience so
Speaker 1: that we can go on and survive and be successful. Yep, exactly.
Speaker 1: So let's now talk about your book. So the book,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned arlier, is called The Art of Grace
Speaker 1: on Moving Well through Life. Let's start off with the
Speaker 1: very basics So what is grace? Yeah, that's a great question,
Speaker 1: and that's what I spent a lot of time thinking
Speaker 1: about in in researching and preparing to write the book.
Speaker 1: And what it comes down to for me and my
Speaker 1: opinion is the idea of ease, ease in so many ways. Um.
Speaker 1: But it's kind of that idea of ease and effortlessness
Speaker 1: and naturalness, frictionless um and well being that I believe
Speaker 1: connect the three different types of grace that I look
Speaker 1: at in my book, and those are physical grace, So
Speaker 1: that of an athlete Roger Federer on the tennis chord,
Speaker 1: or Muhammad Ali or be Ladecki in the swimming pool,
Speaker 1: or a dancer or Chris when he is editing, right,
Speaker 1: Does that mean we should do this over? No? No,
Speaker 1: just he's he's very graceful. I just wanted to know
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of him, and you know, I love that
Speaker 1: you noticed that. That's so perfect. So um. Then social grace,
Speaker 1: you know, the person who's got a listening ear for
Speaker 1: your troubles or who welcomes you into his or her home,
Speaker 1: that that ability to make you feel at ease, or
Speaker 1: spiritual grace, the sense of divine love or a benevolent universe,
Speaker 1: that sense of comfort and acceptance that can help us
Speaker 1: get through difficult times and bring about ease. And so
Speaker 1: in looking at these three different forms that idea of
Speaker 1: just relief, you know, ease, appreciation, acceptance, those are the
Speaker 1: ideas that combine into the idea of grace. Yeah. Obviously
Speaker 1: you spent a book describing it, so me expecting you
Speaker 1: to answer it in a sentence is challenging. There is
Speaker 1: one place where you say, grace exists, where we forget
Speaker 1: ourselves and aim instead to bring pleasure to others. And
Speaker 1: I really liked that is of the many descriptions, that
Speaker 1: was one that really stuck with me. Great. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that is the theme that came up in so many
Speaker 1: of my interviews with people knowledge ale about grace, and
Speaker 1: that's really my starting point was I wanted to just
Speaker 1: know more about it, you know, how could I have
Speaker 1: some of what they have? You know, this this beautiful quality.
Speaker 1: And what came up over and over again was that
Speaker 1: idea of turning ourselves outward towards others, you know, supporting
Speaker 1: one another, really stepping up for one another. And that
Speaker 1: is what you see in the people that you find
Speaker 1: graceful the examples I bring up in my book. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's so many characters that I incorporated to kind of
Speaker 1: give a lot of dimension to that idea. But you know,
Speaker 1: look at these examples. I think we can all relate
Speaker 1: to Nelson mandela Um Muhammad Ali who was physically graceful
Speaker 1: in the ring for being a heavy weight, being light
Speaker 1: and buoyant and elegant, but also stood up for human
Speaker 1: rights and spoke up for religious tolerance and actually traveled
Speaker 1: to Iraq to help free fifteen American hostages. In when
Speaker 1: he was just weakened by Parkinson's, he was still making
Speaker 1: those connections and helping people. You describe that in our
Speaker 1: current culture we have a grace gap. What is that?
Speaker 1: I think that we can kind of agree. You know,
Speaker 1: so many of us may feel that there's just a
Speaker 1: bit of a dropping away of a concern about other
Speaker 1: people's feelings. You know, there's a coarseness that's come into society.
Speaker 1: You know, many different examples of that we can point to.
Speaker 1: But I think it's a combination of forces. Are busy lives,
Speaker 1: you know, the burdens placed on us in this day
Speaker 1: and age at work at home, we're overloaded at work,
Speaker 1: everyone's trying to do more with less um. We have
Speaker 1: so many demands on our time. We have a lot
Speaker 1: of family duties. We have technology that draws us in
Speaker 1: and takes up our time, and sometimes it can just
Speaker 1: feel exhausting being online with all of the snark and
Speaker 1: the comments and so forth that we can encounter. We're
Speaker 1: rush around physically, we're in close confines with other people,
Speaker 1: and you know, there are just a lot of stresses
Speaker 1: um that are accumulating day to day and that take
Speaker 1: us away from what's happening right now. In this moment,
Speaker 1: our thoughts are racing and we're very distracted, and being
Speaker 1: mindful of grace is really about paying attention. And that's
Speaker 1: one thing I have heard over and over again, and
Speaker 1: what I've incorporated into the book is trying to inspire
Speaker 1: people to pay attention to all the moments around us
Speaker 1: where we can find the wonder and the ease of grace.
Speaker 1: At one point in the book, you're exploring grace from
Speaker 1: sort of a religious angle, and you quote someone who says,
Speaker 1: I think a saint is someone who sees every moment
Speaker 1: in life as grace, field every moment as an opportunity
Speaker 1: to encounter God, that's sort of to that paying attention
Speaker 1: that you're talking about exactly. It's a matter of perspective, really, right.
Speaker 1: We can look at things in so many different ways,
Speaker 1: and yet if we slow down and we kind of
Speaker 1: take a moment two exercise what I call a flexible
Speaker 1: lens to zoom in on the moment, and then also
Speaker 1: take a step back and see what's really going on,
Speaker 1: what matters about it? What else can I discover that
Speaker 1: maybe I've overlooked so many times in our lives, so
Speaker 1: many hardships, so many irritations and frustrations, can actually reveal
Speaker 1: something else, you know, maybe it's really not so bad.
Speaker 1: Maybe this led me to think about something I hadn't
Speaker 1: thought about before. Maybe it caused an encounter with a
Speaker 1: person that actually ended up being rewarding. Or maybe it's
Speaker 1: in the past and I don't need to think about
Speaker 1: it anymore and I can just keep going forward. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you were describing, you know, the things that are
Speaker 1: causing a grace gap, it it brought to mind for
Speaker 1: me me trying to get out of the house some
Speaker 1: mornings and how ungraceful it must be with like a
Speaker 1: backpack on one shoulder. And then this bag of clothes
Speaker 1: on the other and then coffee in one hand and keys,
Speaker 1: and iously just kind of made me laugh, like, Yep,
Speaker 1: that's not I'm sure that's not a very graceful moment.
Speaker 1: And to your point, it's how much getting crammed into
Speaker 1: one day, right, getting crammed into one day and getting
Speaker 1: crammed onto our bodies. You know, we are so overloaded
Speaker 1: with kind of having to carry our accordable offices around
Speaker 1: with us, um laptop, you know, iPhones and notebooks and
Speaker 1: books and what have you, and the physical experience of
Speaker 1: all that is exhausting. And the physical is such a
Speaker 1: big part of this idea of grace and of how
Speaker 1: we in how about our bodies. That's something to really
Speaker 1: pay attention to because you know, what I came away
Speaker 1: from after writing this book and or after doing the
Speaker 1: research on the book, is that grace is really a worldview,
Speaker 1: it's a philosophy, and it allows us to take care
Speaker 1: of ourselves as well as taking care of others. And
Speaker 1: the taking care of ourselves is a really big part
Speaker 1: of it. At the end of the book, you talk
Speaker 1: about some different tips for moving through the world with grace,
Speaker 1: and one of them was, you know, lightening up your
Speaker 1: physical load. And my backpack is like I have everything
Speaker 1: in the world in it. I travel so much that
Speaker 1: it's like that's kind of my like you said, portable
Speaker 1: office slash life in there. But boy, it is heavy sometimes,
Speaker 1: there's no doubt about that. And so if I'm if
Speaker 1: I'm traveling, I sometimes on the weekends, if I got
Speaker 1: time to go out, you know, how little can I
Speaker 1: go out with? Not slepping that thing around? For sure
Speaker 1: is wonderful. It makes a big difference. We are kind
Speaker 1: of newly bipedal. I mean, if you look at our
Speaker 1: solution in the grand scheme of things over the millions
Speaker 1: of years that our primate heritage extends back to, it's
Speaker 1: a very small sliver of time that we've been fully
Speaker 1: upright and we're still adapting to that. You know, so
Speaker 1: our spine takes such a load. And you know, one
Speaker 1: image to think about, as far as grace goes, is
Speaker 1: defying gravity. You know, that sense of to go back
Speaker 1: to Roger Federer or a ballet star like Mikhail Barishnikov
Speaker 1: who can just leap across the stage and take your
Speaker 1: heart with him. That lightness we can all kind of
Speaker 1: try to breathe that in and stand upright and open
Speaker 1: our shoulders and drawing a big breath, and oh that
Speaker 1: feels so good. And when we're loaded down with stuff
Speaker 1: on our shoulder, we are compromising that breathing and that
Speaker 1: defying gravity sense. You know, we're instead weighing ourselves down.
Speaker 1: So the more we can do to lighten up, to
Speaker 1: stand upright, to breathe, to kind of try to almost
Speaker 1: have your spine be floating upwards, but better will feel.
Speaker 1: One of the questions that I get asked most often
Speaker 1: is what podcasts do you listen to? And so one
Speaker 1: of the podcasts that I listened to a lot, and
Speaker 1: it's a guest we had on the show is The
Speaker 1: Art of Charm by Jordan Harbinger. I think they get
Speaker 1: as interesting to guests as as we do, in my
Speaker 1: own opinion, and so I love checking out what they've got,
Speaker 1: and I've got Jordan's here from the Art of Charm
Speaker 1: with me Hi, Jordan's Hey, thanks for having me on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was particularly interested in the Scott Adams episode you
Speaker 1: had recently. You want to tell folks a little bit
Speaker 1: about that one. Yeah, Scott Adams was an interesting guy
Speaker 1: because he came in and I don't do politics right.
Speaker 1: It's it's not worth it. It's it's not a good
Speaker 1: look for the show. And man, I'll tell you. He
Speaker 1: came in with a thesis that Trump is a master persuader,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to dissect that a little bit. And
Speaker 1: he's a trained hypnotist. We talked about hypnosis persuasion, how
Speaker 1: hypnosis in persuasion are used by Trump. He gives concrete examples.
Speaker 1: So this was a little bit controversial. But whether you're
Speaker 1: pro Trump or or anti Trump, or you don't care
Speaker 1: and you're trumped out, this was one of the most
Speaker 1: popular episodes we've done recently because Scott Adams is a
Speaker 1: creative guy created Dilbert, and here he is talking about
Speaker 1: persuasion and influence and how that's being used to shape
Speaker 1: the world. But by one of our current times, most
Speaker 1: iconic people love him or hate um. So that was
Speaker 1: a really interesting show for us. Excellent and tell people
Speaker 1: where they can find you if they want to listen.
Speaker 1: Sure we're at the Art of Charm dot com, slash
Speaker 1: podcast or just you know you're listening to a podcast
Speaker 1: right now, you might as well search for the Art
Speaker 1: of Charm podcast in whatever podcast player you've got Stitcher,
Speaker 1: Spotify or iTunes excellent. Well, thanks for spending a minute
Speaker 1: with this, Jordan, thank you, And here's the rest of
Speaker 1: the interview with Sarah Kaufman. You've listed a bunch of people,
Speaker 1: Muhammad Ali and Roger Federer, and and ballet dancers, these
Speaker 1: people who seem so graceful. It's it's almost as if
Speaker 1: it's without effort, and yet at the same time, there
Speaker 1: is a tremendous amount of effort behind that. I think
Speaker 1: you refer to that as the paradox of grace. Can
Speaker 1: you talk a little bit more about that. Yes, it's
Speaker 1: that practice makes graceful. So the graceful athlete balances skill
Speaker 1: and ease. So now it's mysterious, and it's a beautiful
Speaker 1: mystery in my opinion, why Roger Federer is so much
Speaker 1: more graceful than many other tennis players, or why Sandy
Speaker 1: Kofax the gorgeous picture looked so delicious and delightful as
Speaker 1: he was pitching his fastballs, you know, with devastating speed,
Speaker 1: more so than other pictures that seem to achieve the
Speaker 1: same results, but just with so much more effort. So
Speaker 1: it's balancing the skill and the ease, And really it's
Speaker 1: the practice that's put into it. The more that a
Speaker 1: person practices something, the more the neurons in the brain
Speaker 1: are wired together along those pathways, and those connections get
Speaker 1: stronger and stronger and stronger. So any of us can
Speaker 1: achieve a level of physical grace as long as we
Speaker 1: are aiming for that and trying and getting out there
Speaker 1: and moving, walking any kind of physical activity. But that
Speaker 1: also goes for the social graces. You know, we can
Speaker 1: practice warmth and compassion and understanding and slowing down. Um,
Speaker 1: we can practice those things and we'll get better at them.
Speaker 1: You stress movement a lot in the book. Tell us
Speaker 1: about the importance of movement in your mind just to
Speaker 1: our overall well being and how it ties into grace.
Speaker 1: We are more than just ahead. And you know, I
Speaker 1: live in Washington, d C. We are very much in
Speaker 1: our heads here in this city. Um, but we're connected
Speaker 1: to a body, and the physical experience of living in
Speaker 1: our bodies is not something that we may all think
Speaker 1: about all the time. That's how our brain is fed
Speaker 1: so much information. So what I said about grace being
Speaker 1: like a philosophy in a world view that allows us
Speaker 1: to nurture ourselves and nurture those around us well. Moving
Speaker 1: our body through the world is how our brain gets information.
Speaker 1: So the more that we get up out of our chairs,
Speaker 1: that we try to take walks, that we try to
Speaker 1: incorporate activity into our lives that fires up our brain.
Speaker 1: Even if most of our life is thinking or using
Speaker 1: our intellect. That is how your brain is fed is
Speaker 1: through this physical activity. Now we think about grace and
Speaker 1: wanting to acquire grace, that goes hand in hand with
Speaker 1: moving um and connecting to people. You know, the way
Speaker 1: that we connect with people is through this kind of
Speaker 1: physical warmth, exercising. The ability to sense one another's emotions,
Speaker 1: which we all have. Empathy is deeply tied in with
Speaker 1: the body. We connect with one another body to body um.
Speaker 1: If you think about if you're listening to someone tell
Speaker 1: us sad story, you'll probably lean forward a little, your
Speaker 1: eyes might tear up. You know, we can't help but
Speaker 1: be connected to one another in that way, and that's
Speaker 1: all part of grace, being connected body and spirit with
Speaker 1: other people. You give advice in the book about posture
Speaker 1: about how to have better posture, and it's funny. I
Speaker 1: spent most of the day yesterday in an emergency room,
Speaker 1: which is actually reading your book and being there. There's
Speaker 1: a surprising out of grace there in the kindness of
Speaker 1: the people around in certain cases. But I spent lots
Speaker 1: of time kind of walking up and down the halls
Speaker 1: practicing your your posture, and I've noticed there is something
Speaker 1: to how I carry my body certainly has to do
Speaker 1: with how my mood and emotions are. There's lots of
Speaker 1: studies that kind of show that stuff. You know, there's this,
Speaker 1: there's this back and forth between the mind and brain.
Speaker 1: But in a in a relatively short way, what is
Speaker 1: good posture? And why is it important? So I guess,
Speaker 1: how do you do it? And why is it worth doing? Okay, great,
Speaker 1: I love those questions. So I'll flip it around and
Speaker 1: I'll talk about the importance of it. First of all,
Speaker 1: it's worth doing because good posture allows more air to
Speaker 1: get into our lungs, you know, more oxygen. So that's
Speaker 1: a good thing. Right, if we're slumped over, if we're hunched, um,
Speaker 1: if we are not standing upright, we can't open up
Speaker 1: our chest, we can't take those deep breaths to get
Speaker 1: the air in. And when we slump and um, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe any kinds of sort of losses of verticality in
Speaker 1: our spine mean that there's a kink in there, there's
Speaker 1: a twist in there somehow, which means those cells are
Speaker 1: not getting oxygen and blood flow, and that's also not
Speaker 1: a good thing. So posture has been very strongly connected
Speaker 1: to health, to oxygen flow, to blood flow, to tissue health,
Speaker 1: to avoiding all kinds of inflammations and other calamities down
Speaker 1: the line, which which I talk about in my book.
Speaker 1: The essence of good posture is that it should feel upright,
Speaker 1: elegant and light. So if you can think about, you know,
Speaker 1: standing and lifting up out of your hips, having that
Speaker 1: firm core, not a clenched core. Nothing should be tight
Speaker 1: or restricted, but just lifting up, lifting up all the way,
Speaker 1: lifting up in your chest, kind of relaxing the shoulders
Speaker 1: and let them slide down. Feel those shoulder blades sliding
Speaker 1: down the back, having the head be right up on
Speaker 1: top of the shoulders, everything in a nice vertical line.
Speaker 1: And if you stand against a wall, this is an
Speaker 1: easy way to do it. If you stand with your
Speaker 1: back against a wall, your heels, your butt and the
Speaker 1: back of your head should touch the wall and then
Speaker 1: you know that you're upright, and then you say, just
Speaker 1: try and move away from the wall and keep that posture,
Speaker 1: that position. We shouldn't forget the important that I was
Speaker 1: making sure to practice yesterday in the emergency room of
Speaker 1: nipples firing. Yeah, love that. That's the phrase, exact. That's
Speaker 1: the phrase that was given to me by a dancer
Speaker 1: who's done choreography. She said, this is what she tells
Speaker 1: her dancers to do when they're strutting out onto that stage,
Speaker 1: nipples firing, because that means your test is up, you're
Speaker 1: you know, you're you've got beautiful pasta, and that's whatever
Speaker 1: what everyone's going to notice. Yep. I thought that was
Speaker 1: kind of funny, and the thought of me practicing that
Speaker 1: in the emergency room corridors is as an image that
Speaker 1: makes me giggle. So another part of the book that
Speaker 1: you described that I really related with was you talked
Speaker 1: about the grace of groups of people moving together. So
Speaker 1: the obvious one is army's marching together or dancers dancing together,
Speaker 1: but you also use NASCAR pit crews and how well
Speaker 1: they work, and you reference the grace of a kitchen
Speaker 1: and a long time ago. In What Feels like another life.
Speaker 1: At this point, I was a cook and a sux chef,
Speaker 1: and I don't miss that world very much, except I
Speaker 1: do miss that. I miss that coordination of a kitchen
Speaker 1: that's moving right and everybody's just sort of flowing together
Speaker 1: and there's a real race and a joy to it.
Speaker 1: And that's the one part of it that I missed,
Speaker 1: and I really related with that. When you're talking about
Speaker 1: that part, well, I'm so glad. And that's that's really
Speaker 1: exciting to hear about that part of your life, because
Speaker 1: you know, I've talked to other people who were cooks
Speaker 1: at some point in their life and they say the
Speaker 1: same thing. It's that coordination that you get into where
Speaker 1: everything's working, everyone's firing, and those nights where there's just
Speaker 1: this smooth cycle, everyone knows what he's doing and it
Speaker 1: all flows that really stand out. And that was such
Speaker 1: a joy to do in this book, too, direct attention
Speaker 1: at these moments of grace that are happening around us,
Speaker 1: and like you said, in the emergency room, that's a
Speaker 1: fantastic place to observe it. You know, where you can
Speaker 1: see if it's possible to see the nurses and the
Speaker 1: doctors in the way they can move if it's a
Speaker 1: really great team and there's there's been some practice, that's
Speaker 1: a crucial element of delivering care in a urgent situation.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the classic grace under pressure, right to
Speaker 1: be able to move with ease. And I think those
Speaker 1: um medical folks will say it's been practiced, and that's
Speaker 1: another example of the practice makes graceful. These are all
Speaker 1: practiced maneuvers that then become easy. One of the things
Speaker 1: that you talk about is you mentioned how as moderns,
Speaker 1: the concept of self improvement, which is something that's been
Speaker 1: on everybody's mind from you know, as probably as long
Speaker 1: as we've had a self has moved from a more
Speaker 1: traditional viewer. You know, self improvement was about building up
Speaker 1: our character, something that was slow and took time, and
Speaker 1: that more and more self improvement is seen as you know,
Speaker 1: by buying things, by acquiring something different. Can you share
Speaker 1: a little bit about that, yes, exactly. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: we can think of people like Benjamin Franklin, George Washington,
Speaker 1: you know, our founding fathers in the colonial period. We're
Speaker 1: really obsessed by this idea of character development and it
Speaker 1: was inner qualities that were to be worked on cultivating patients, generosity, gratitude, sympathy, understanding,
Speaker 1: and going back to when we first have records to
Speaker 1: show the very first text that we have that is
Speaker 1: considered the first book was a set of hieroglyphics from
Speaker 1: about five thousand BC in ancient Egypt, where the writer
Speaker 1: was talking about kindness, and at a time when the
Speaker 1: pyramids were being built, he was writing down maxims to
Speaker 1: his son idea is to live by and one of
Speaker 1: the most important ones that he wanted to pass on
Speaker 1: with kindness. Kindness is a man's memorial. He wrote, um,
Speaker 1: in the long view of time, the kind have a
Speaker 1: greater claim than the rude. So all through time you
Speaker 1: can find echoes of that. And in the Renaissance era,
Speaker 1: books were being written about how to perfect human behavior,
Speaker 1: just in the way that Michelangelo and other painters were
Speaker 1: perfecting the human form. And then in the colonial era,
Speaker 1: George Washington considered very graceful, not only for the way
Speaker 1: he moved and the fact that he was tall and
Speaker 1: elegant and a athlete, but also for his equanimity and
Speaker 1: his ability to listen, the fact that he would look
Speaker 1: people right in the eye and actually listen to what
Speaker 1: they were saying, and he had that kind of magical
Speaker 1: quality of connecting on a deep level, and gradually that
Speaker 1: slipped away. You know, I think with the rise of
Speaker 1: commercialization television, possibly we are acquisitive people, you know, where
Speaker 1: this is kind of part of our nature to be
Speaker 1: looking at what everybody else is doing and being interested
Speaker 1: in what we all have and what other people have.
Speaker 1: And television, stores, advertising, the internet all reward that behavior that, oh,
Speaker 1: if only I could buy that, if only I can
Speaker 1: acquire that, if only I can get that thing, I'll
Speaker 1: be happy. I'll be good. I'll be you know, I'll
Speaker 1: be using it to better my life, rather than that
Speaker 1: slower process of cultivating inner qualities. And we know that
Speaker 1: can be a slow processed a lifelong practice. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of examples of grace in the book, and I
Speaker 1: love the stuff about Motown and how the Motown stars
Speaker 1: were really taught grace and polish and how to handle themselves.
Speaker 1: We're not going to go there, though, this is a
Speaker 1: little teaser for people for the book. That is really
Speaker 1: a great a great story and I found really interesting.
Speaker 1: The one I want to talk about, though, is the
Speaker 1: dance class for people with Parkinson's. I love that experience,
Speaker 1: and it's in a chapter on grace for those with
Speaker 1: physical difficulties. So I want to underscore that grace is
Speaker 1: not about perfection. You know, it doesn't demand perfection. It
Speaker 1: only demands that we lean into our humanity and that
Speaker 1: we connect with one another through that humanity. And so
Speaker 1: this dance class arose to work with people who have Parkinson's,
Speaker 1: which is a neurological disorder that you could say kind
Speaker 1: of takes away physical grace. It makes balance and even
Speaker 1: walking and controlling movements, reaching for something, holding a cup
Speaker 1: without spilling the contents makes those very difficult. This is
Speaker 1: a dance class that gets people together with Parkinson's and
Speaker 1: teaches movement together that everyone can do, whether the participants
Speaker 1: are sitting in a wheelchair, sitting in a chair, or
Speaker 1: able to stand. Uses music from Broadway, from all kinds
Speaker 1: of popular songs that's very rhythmic, you know, real momentum
Speaker 1: to pull people along. And these participants have so much
Speaker 1: fun and it is such a pleasure to participate and
Speaker 1: to watch it because it's not therapy, you know, it's
Speaker 1: not let's do this set of exercises and improve your balance.
Speaker 1: No this is art. It's let's experience this music. It's
Speaker 1: just about fun and making art and being together, being
Speaker 1: in a community. And the series of classes Dance for
Speaker 1: p D Dance for Parkinson's Disease. You can find it
Speaker 1: online if you google Dance for p D. It has
Speaker 1: spread into really a movement and there are classes all
Speaker 1: around the tree and in fact, all around the world.
Speaker 1: The description of it was very touching and I definitely
Speaker 1: want to check out that. Sounds like there's a documentary
Speaker 1: made about it also. Yes, indeed, it's a wonderful endeavor
Speaker 1: that can be replicated in so many ways, you know,
Speaker 1: because if we have ailments, if we have limitations, we
Speaker 1: may not feel like getting out and being part of
Speaker 1: the community. You know. There's so many ways when people
Speaker 1: with these kinds of difficulties can become isolated. And yet
Speaker 1: there are so many ways when people can be brought
Speaker 1: together with like interests just for the joy of it,
Speaker 1: and at whatever level can be embraced and experience the
Speaker 1: community of people. That's the wonder and that's the grace
Speaker 1: of it, and it's it's fantastic to be a part
Speaker 1: of I read a lot of things and so every
Speaker 1: once in a a while, I just feel like every book
Speaker 1: I read brings up an idea, you know, the same idea,
Speaker 1: and and your book did the same thing. And it
Speaker 1: was this idea that it wasn't very long ago, like
Speaker 1: like a blink of an eye, go and human history,
Speaker 1: that all of us were singers and dancers and we
Speaker 1: all did that stuff. It wasn't where we are now,
Speaker 1: where some of us are are performers and some of
Speaker 1: us are are people who watch. Everybody did these things
Speaker 1: very recently in human history. And I just think that
Speaker 1: I'm often struck by that switch and how fundamental that
Speaker 1: might be that we don't really even understand yet exactly.
Speaker 1: We can feel embarrassed, you know, to to get up
Speaker 1: and sing or to get up and dance, when really
Speaker 1: it's kind of like this is humanity's birthright. We all
Speaker 1: came along doing that. That's why every culture everywhere in
Speaker 1: the world has some kind of dance tradition, has some
Speaker 1: kind of music, tradition, has some kind of art making it.
Speaker 1: You know, science dis believe that creativity and making art
Speaker 1: may be absolutely fundamental to human existence, which is why
Speaker 1: so many scientists are starting to study that right now,
Speaker 1: which I draw on some of the results of those studies,
Speaker 1: which are so fascinating. That's one way, you know, to
Speaker 1: express the idea of the pleasure that we take in
Speaker 1: watching dance or listening to music, is that it's a
Speaker 1: way in for many of us to these powerful expressions
Speaker 1: that we may not otherwise have a way into nowadays. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm loosely considered a musician, right, And if
Speaker 1: it was a talent game, I never would have stuck
Speaker 1: with it, right, if that was the whole point of it. Um.
Speaker 1: And I'm glad that I just kind of kept going.
Speaker 1: Like I've talked about this on the show before, Chris
Speaker 1: is so gifted as a musician that he's just remarkable,
Speaker 1: and I do not have that gift in any measure.
Speaker 1: But I still make music, and I make a lot
Speaker 1: of it, and and it's just been by some of
Speaker 1: it is just you know, some some degree of stubbornness,
Speaker 1: but a lot of it was that I've spent a
Speaker 1: lot of the time focusing on the joy it gives
Speaker 1: me and making it and less on how good it is.
Speaker 1: And I think we could all put more things into
Speaker 1: our lives if we approached them that way versus the
Speaker 1: I can only do it if I'm really good at
Speaker 1: it exactly. And you know, we have this editor, most
Speaker 1: of us have this self editor up in our head,
Speaker 1: which is why I like to think about inhabiting the
Speaker 1: body more. The body will let us know that it's
Speaker 1: just fun, you know, it's just fun to to to
Speaker 1: jam in your bedroom or to get together with your
Speaker 1: friends and just have a late night jam session without
Speaker 1: the mind overthinking it too much, you know, And that
Speaker 1: really the grace is in the connection that we make,
Speaker 1: the connection with other people, in the connection with our
Speaker 1: deepest cell, with this creativity that we are longing to
Speaker 1: be able to express. You end the book by talking
Speaker 1: about tips to move more gracefully through life, So why
Speaker 1: don't you leave us with a couple of those before
Speaker 1: we wrap up the show. Great, So, the number one
Speaker 1: tip is slow down. That's difficult in this hurly burly
Speaker 1: age that we're in where you know, as we've discussed,
Speaker 1: lots of temptations to rush, lots of needs to rush often.
Speaker 1: But if we can find moments to slow down, that's when,
Speaker 1: first of all, we'll be able to pay closer attention
Speaker 1: to what's happening around us. We may find we don't
Speaker 1: trip over curbs or you know what, I've certainly made
Speaker 1: quite a spectacle of myself falling upstairs. Um. But you know,
Speaker 1: when we slow down, we've got more control over the
Speaker 1: situation and we can tune in more to the people
Speaker 1: around us, which leads to the second tip, which is
Speaker 1: to practice tolerance and compassion. And those qualities come first
Speaker 1: from slowing down and trying to understand where another person
Speaker 1: is coming from. I guess another one of my favorite tips,
Speaker 1: and the one I end the book with, is enjoy.
Speaker 1: You know, just enjoy, celebrate this life. As you mentioned,
Speaker 1: one of the priests I spoke to for the book
Speaker 1: said that his idea of a saint was someone who
Speaker 1: recognized every moment in every day as grace filled. There
Speaker 1: are those moments that we can look around and savor
Speaker 1: and really hold onto, hold in our hearts and build on.
Speaker 1: And those are fleeting, but it's uh the time that
Speaker 1: we spend savoring them and paying attention to them make
Speaker 1: them real. And that's kind of what matters in life, right,
Speaker 1: the connections that we make. And I feel that grace
Speaker 1: is really all about deepening connections with others. Well, I
Speaker 1: don't think there's any better way to end than what
Speaker 1: you just said there, which was beautiful. So Sarah, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for coming on the show. We will
Speaker 1: have links in the show notes to your book as
Speaker 1: well as to your website and all the information about
Speaker 1: you will have links to some of your stuff on
Speaker 1: the Washington Post also, so thanks so much for taking
Speaker 1: the time to come on today. Thank you so much. Eric.
Speaker 1: It was just a pleasure. And I really love the
Speaker 1: work you're doing. I've encountered so many interesting ideas and
Speaker 1: thinkers through your podcasts, and you're just building a terrific
Speaker 1: body of knowledge. So thank you for that. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. Okay, take care, take care, Bye bye bye.
Speaker 1: M If what you just heard was helpful to you,
Speaker 1: please consider making a donation to the one you Feed podcast.
Speaker 1: Head over to one you Feed dot net slash support