Speaker 1: There's a lot of talk about mindfulness these days, which
Speaker 1: is fantastic. I mean, we all want to be more
Speaker 1: present and self aware, more patient, less judgmental. We discuss
Speaker 1: all these themes on the podcast, but it's hard to
Speaker 1: actually be mindful in your day to day life. That's
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Speaker 1: a few years now with the goal of making mindfulness
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Speaker 1: your mind, Change your life. Imagine the strength and the
Speaker 1: resilience you'll have when you're able to become better even
Speaker 1: from someone who's bitter. When you're able to grow even
Speaker 1: when someone's trying to guilt you. When you're able to
Speaker 1: find a shift even when someone's trying to shame you,
Speaker 1: Imagine how powerful you become when you can transform turn
Speaker 1: anything into gold. That's what the real mistouch is. The
Speaker 1: number one health and wellness podcast, Jay Sheety Jay Shedy
Speaker 1: Only shet Hey, everyone, Welcome back to on Purpose. I
Speaker 1: am so excited and grateful to be here with you
Speaker 1: right now. Thank you so much for making the time
Speaker 1: to tune in to become happier, healthier, and more healed.
Speaker 1: I love having these check ins with you, whether you're
Speaker 1: listening every day, multiple times per day, every week, it
Speaker 1: means the world to me. And I love the fact
Speaker 1: that so many of you come up to me and
Speaker 1: share your stories, and so many of you share on
Speaker 1: Instagram and TikTok. It's unbelievable, and I deeply appreciate those
Speaker 1: of you who are leaving reviews. It makes a huge
Speaker 1: difference to podcasters, So thank you, so so much. Now.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is inspired by something I saw posted from
Speaker 1: a creator called Kim Parrots on TikTok, and she said
Speaker 1: she was trying to find the original creator who said it,
Speaker 1: who I believe was stere l. Hope. Now, what they
Speaker 1: were sharing was this insight and I loved it Ever
Speaker 1: since I heard Kim say it, I absolutely loved it.
Speaker 1: And it was this idea that everyone you meet in
Speaker 1: your life is either a mirror, a window, or a door.
Speaker 1: And I really love this concept. Make sure you go
Speaker 1: follow Sterel Hope and Kim Parrots on TikTok, who've really
Speaker 1: helped popularize and share this concept because they're making other
Speaker 1: amazing content as well. But today I wanted to to
Speaker 1: share my own reflections on this idea. I wanted to
Speaker 1: share some of my own viewpoints, some of my own beliefs,
Speaker 1: and maybe some of my own directives of how to
Speaker 1: think about this. Clearly, the first one is a lot
Speaker 1: of the people we meet in our life are like
Speaker 1: a mirror. Now what does that mean. It means they
Speaker 1: mirror back to us our flaws. They mirror back to
Speaker 1: us our mistakes, They mirror back to us our triggers.
Speaker 1: How many terms have you met someone where they mirror
Speaker 1: your dark side? When you see them, they show you
Speaker 1: some of the challenges you're dealing with. They expose you
Speaker 1: to some of the flaws, some of the intricatencies, the
Speaker 1: nuances of some of the difficulties you might be going through.
Speaker 1: When you look at them, you're reminded of what you
Speaker 1: still need to improve. So sometimes these people can come
Speaker 1: informs that are overtly helpful. And sometimes these people come
Speaker 1: in the form of someone that we don't like at all.
Speaker 1: When someone shows us parts of ourself that we're not
Speaker 1: comfortable with, we struggle to be comfortable with them. When
Speaker 1: someone truly acts like a mirror with us, it can
Speaker 1: be one of the most difficult things to deal with
Speaker 1: because we don't want to see that about ourselves. So
Speaker 1: often we discard, we disregard, we distance ourselves from these people.
Speaker 1: Whether they want to help us or not is a
Speaker 1: completely different story. But what I do know is this,
Speaker 1: the information they're giving us, the signals they're giving us,
Speaker 1: the insights they're giving us are helpful. Sometimes the most
Speaker 1: helpful people in your life will feel like they're unhelpful.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the most powerful, profound messages you'll receive will be
Speaker 1: from the most difficult messages. Sometimes what you need to
Speaker 1: hear will come from someone you don't want to listen to.
Speaker 1: Let me say that again. Sometimes what you need to
Speaker 1: hear will come from someone you don't want to listen to.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you'll have to face something from someone that you
Speaker 1: don't want to see, and sometimes you'll have to understand
Speaker 1: something from someone who's misunderstood you. A lot of the times,
Speaker 1: the lessons we need to learn, the things we need
Speaker 1: to change, the shifts we need to make, come from
Speaker 1: people that we don't want to hear about it from.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. The message is more important than
Speaker 1: the messenger. What we need to learn is more important
Speaker 1: than the person who brings the lesson. Often what we
Speaker 1: do is we don't get the message because we don't
Speaker 1: like the messenger. Often what happens is we don't grow
Speaker 1: because we don't like the person who's inviting that growth.
Speaker 1: What we end up doing is postponing our own potential.
Speaker 1: What we end up doing is pushing back our own progress.
Speaker 1: What we end up doing is pulling away from our
Speaker 1: own purpose. Take a moment to just reflect who in
Speaker 1: your life has been a mirror positively in the sense
Speaker 1: that they were helpful, they were tactful, they were not critical.
Speaker 1: And who has been a mirror in your life that
Speaker 1: was maybe more uncomfortable. They could have said it nicer,
Speaker 1: they could have been better themselves. They could have held
Speaker 1: themselves to a higher more and value themselves. But what
Speaker 1: could you even learn from them? I know this is hard,
Speaker 1: I know it's difficult, and I know it's complex because
Speaker 1: once we've labeled someone as negative, we usually think that
Speaker 1: anything that comes from them is the same. But I
Speaker 1: remember in the monastery, we were always taught that we
Speaker 1: should be able to find in a toxic place. That
Speaker 1: doesn't mean we see them as positive. It means that
Speaker 1: we believe that we can learn something from anyone. We
Speaker 1: can gain something from anyone. But it's hardest and harshest
Speaker 1: when the messenger isn't easy, and isn't in flow, and
Speaker 1: isn't someone that we can easily digest something from. I
Speaker 1: get it. I've been there. I know what that feels like.
Speaker 1: I would have learned so many lessons earlier had I
Speaker 1: not judged the teacher. And now I've started to realize
Speaker 1: that the lesson is the most important thing the universe. God,
Speaker 1: the energy is trying to share something with me, and
Speaker 1: I can ignore it because I don't like the messenger,
Speaker 1: but then there'll just be another messenger who has to
Speaker 1: find their way through it. To me, it's almost like
Speaker 1: an alarm tne that you don't like the sound of,
Speaker 1: it's still trying to wake you up. Right, you may
Speaker 1: not like it. You can change it if you don't
Speaker 1: like it, but the point is you still have to
Speaker 1: wake up. And often in our lives we're constantly getting
Speaker 1: wake up calls, but because they come from people we
Speaker 1: don't like, or we don't like the sound of them,
Speaker 1: or we don't like how they carry themselves, we press snooze,
Speaker 1: we push it off. So want us to really reflect
Speaker 1: on that who in your life has been a mirror
Speaker 1: that's triggered you, that you know was exposing you to
Speaker 1: a higher truth, that was pushing you to a higher standard.
Speaker 1: But because they didn't do it in a way that
Speaker 1: you didn't like, you ignored them, You ignored the message,
Speaker 1: You didn't take it seriously and take a moment to
Speaker 1: ask yourself what were you being called to do? What
Speaker 1: were you being invited for? How can you disconnect the
Speaker 1: message from the messenger and digest the message even if
Speaker 1: the messenger doesn't know how to deliver it. We'll give
Speaker 1: an example. Let's say you order something off of Uber Eats,
Speaker 1: door Dash, whatever it may be, and the delivery person
Speaker 1: didn't deliver it perfectly, they left it a few doors
Speaker 1: down from yours, or maybe they delivered it but it
Speaker 1: was slightly squashed. You're still gonna eat it because you
Speaker 1: want the nourishment. Now, you could sit there and be like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I wish they'd delivered it properly, and I didn't want
Speaker 1: my burger to be smashed. Of course, I don't want
Speaker 1: to smash burger either, But you get the point. Sometimes
Speaker 1: we're complaining about the delivery that we don't get the nourishment.
Speaker 1: If we can challenge ourselves to learn, even from the
Speaker 1: most unlikely, unwor oarrented places, imagine that kind of mindset
Speaker 1: that you have. Imagine the strength and the resilience you'll
Speaker 1: have when you're able to become better even from someone
Speaker 1: who's bitter, When you're able to grow even when someone's
Speaker 1: trying to guilt you, when you're able to find a shift,
Speaker 1: even when someone's trying to shame you. Imagine how powerful
Speaker 1: you become when you can transform turn anything into gold.
Speaker 1: That's what the real mind is. Touches the ability to
Speaker 1: turn criticism into creativity, the ability to turn feedback into
Speaker 1: future motion, the ability to turn mistakes into megas success.
Speaker 1: It's a powerful trait, one that's extremely hard to follow,
Speaker 1: one that's extremely hard to do because we think the
Speaker 1: message is disqualified if the messenger is unqualified. But I'm
Speaker 1: here to tell you this, I've learned the hard way.
Speaker 1: Take the message. Take it even if you don't like
Speaker 1: the messenger, reflect on it, introspect on it, disconnect it
Speaker 1: from the messenger so that you can truly digest it.
Speaker 1: The next thing that these two wonderful creatives shared and
Speaker 1: popularized was this idea that we also meet people in
Speaker 1: our life who are like a window, and they talked
Speaker 1: about the window is someone who sees more for you,
Speaker 1: who sees more for you, who sees more potential in you,
Speaker 1: who shows you a portal into a new space, a
Speaker 1: new world. I'm sure you've met people that showed you
Speaker 1: your potential when you can't even realize it. When you
Speaker 1: met people who showed you a vision that you'd never
Speaker 1: even considered before. Someone who opened the blinds and opened
Speaker 1: the window and let the fresh air and the sunlight
Speaker 1: in when you were in the darkness. What's interesting about
Speaker 1: this type of person is that often when they first
Speaker 1: show us the light We're almost like vampires, like we
Speaker 1: like close our eyes and we're like, oh, I don't
Speaker 1: want to see this. I don't want to This literally
Speaker 1: happened to me the other day. Raley woke me up
Speaker 1: to go to my workout, and my first reaction was like,
Speaker 1: why did you wake me up? But I didn't want
Speaker 1: to wake up. I'm so tired. You shouldn't let me sleep,
Speaker 1: And she's like, how am I meant to know? And
Speaker 1: then afterwards I was like, I'm really sorry, I'm really
Speaker 1: happy you woke me up. I was really glad I
Speaker 1: got to work out in Often, people who show us
Speaker 1: the window, we may even often show them the door.
Speaker 1: When they're seeing more for us. We may even discount
Speaker 1: that and say, you don't love me for who I am.
Speaker 1: You don't see what I do have. And that may
Speaker 1: be true. It's not that you're wrong. They may be condescending.
Speaker 1: It may not come in a great tone either, but
Speaker 1: chances are it's because they believe in you in some way.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean you have to believe in their dream
Speaker 1: for you, doesn't mean you have to chase their dream
Speaker 1: for you, but maybe it will give you a glimpse
Speaker 1: into what could be possible for you. People who create
Speaker 1: wider possibilities in your life and possible options by showing
Speaker 1: you windows and glimpses can be some of the most
Speaker 1: profound people in your life. I remember I used to
Speaker 1: have a mentor. He used to always say to me, Jay,
Speaker 1: will find your potential when you go through pain. He
Speaker 1: was opening a window for me, a vision, and I
Speaker 1: used to think to him and say to him, Hey, like,
Speaker 1: come on, I know my potential. And then when I
Speaker 1: get through went through pain, I was reminded of that
Speaker 1: window he'd open me expose me to. He would also
Speaker 1: say to me, Jay, you're an entrepreneur, and I'd say, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not an entrepreneur. He'd say, no, you are. You're
Speaker 1: a leader, and I'd say, no, no, I'm not a leader.
Speaker 1: How many times have you said no to someone when
Speaker 1: they have a vision for you. I used to also
Speaker 1: think he had no awareness of who I actually was.
Speaker 1: That I've grown and expanded, I've recognized that he was
Speaker 1: so right about so many things. And that's the interesting
Speaker 1: thing about the windows that come into your life. Hopefully
Speaker 1: they stay long enough that you can thank them, but
Speaker 1: a lot of them leave before you notice their impact.
Speaker 1: That's true of the first one too. Some mirrors come
Speaker 1: into our life, and they may not be permanent mirrors.
Speaker 1: They were there for a moment, they were there for
Speaker 1: a fleeting experience, and of course we may move on
Speaker 1: from some mirrors. We don't have to hold on to
Speaker 1: a mirror. If it's negative for us, if it's unhealthy
Speaker 1: for us, if someone is raising things for us that
Speaker 1: are so triggering and so hurtful, sometimes we want to
Speaker 1: break the mirror, and we may drop it, we may
Speaker 1: run away from it, and then in hindsight, with time
Speaker 1: gone past, we can begin to value it. Similarly we
Speaker 1: do that with windows. In the moment, we may think, well,
Speaker 1: you don't know me, you don't understand me, you don't
Speaker 1: recognize me. But actually, in the long term we think, well,
Speaker 1: I'm so glad they showed me that window. One thing
Speaker 1: I've begun to realize is just because I don't see
Speaker 1: what someone else sees, it doesn't mean I have to
Speaker 1: walk away. When someone sees what I don't see, the
Speaker 1: first thing I do is I ask them, how do
Speaker 1: you see that? Where do you see that? Why do
Speaker 1: you see that? It's a point of being curious. I
Speaker 1: think we have a natural reaction when something doesn't perfectly match.
Speaker 1: We almost disregard it rather than being curious about it.
Speaker 1: How can we be curious about it? How can it
Speaker 1: be truth to it? How can there be value to it?
Speaker 1: How can there be some basis for it? And we
Speaker 1: can also ask some of our doubts about why that
Speaker 1: doesn't work for us, why it doesn't make sense, why
Speaker 1: we can't make sense of it, why it doesn't feel
Speaker 1: right right now. And that's the key. Just because it
Speaker 1: doesn't feel right right now doesn't mean it can't be
Speaker 1: right one day. Just because something feels wrong right now
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it can't be right one day. And something
Speaker 1: that can feel perfectly right right now may not feel
Speaker 1: right one day. So don't focus so much on whether
Speaker 1: something's right or wrong. Allow it to be what it is,
Speaker 1: which is that it's okay right now, it makes sense
Speaker 1: right now. I think what we often do is we
Speaker 1: want something that makes sense right now to make sense forever.
Speaker 1: We want something that feels right now to feel right forever.
Speaker 1: And then what happens is when we discover that it's
Speaker 1: no longer what we want, we then look back and think, oh,
Speaker 1: I wasted a lot of time. Oh I wish I
Speaker 1: knew this before. And what we do is we discount
Speaker 1: and invalidate the last few years. You didn't get something wrong.
Speaker 1: You did the best with what you knew then, and
Speaker 1: guess what, You'll make more mistakes because you're only doing
Speaker 1: the best with what you need now. And that's okay,
Speaker 1: That's totally okay. Stop beating yourself up for not learning
Speaker 1: the lesson earlier. Stop ridiculing yourself and criticizing yourself for
Speaker 1: not knowing things before. Stop hating on the past version
Speaker 1: of yourself. Because it got you here to the present.
Speaker 1: It got you here right now, to this answer, this solution,
Speaker 1: this resolution, this point of change, this pivot in your life.
Speaker 1: You got here because of that mindset. It protected you,
Speaker 1: it provided for you, and now it's your pivot. Often
Speaker 1: what protects you one day may harm you, and your
Speaker 1: job is only to realize the day that it turns
Speaker 1: into harm, that you let it go. Your job is
Speaker 1: not to look back and make the past feel like
Speaker 1: a waste of time or irrelevant or insignificant. So when
Speaker 1: you meet someone who shows you a window, be curious.
Speaker 1: When you meet someone who shares a vision with you,
Speaker 1: be curious. You don't have to follow it, you don't
Speaker 1: have to pursue it, but be open to it. Aspect
Speaker 1: of the types of people we meet in our life,
Speaker 1: this person said was a door. These are the people
Speaker 1: that open doors for us. They are a door for us,
Speaker 1: They're a path for us. And I like to edit
Speaker 1: this one. I feel like it's someone who opens doors
Speaker 1: for you. These are usually what I call the in
Speaker 1: between us. I promise you that you have a friend today.
Speaker 1: You may have a job you love, you have something
Speaker 1: in your life that's meaningful, and you forgot the person
Speaker 1: who introduced you to it. Whether it's a book, whether
Speaker 1: it's an album, whether it's a person, whether it was
Speaker 1: a job, whether it was a community center or a sport,
Speaker 1: whatever it may be, there's someone in your life who
Speaker 1: introduced you to something amazing. They open the door to
Speaker 1: something and you've forgotten who they are and that person
Speaker 1: who opened the door for you. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: if someone opens the door for you at a mall,
Speaker 1: you walk through it. You may never know who they are,
Speaker 1: You may never even ask who they are. You may
Speaker 1: smile and say thanks. Imagine the people that are doing
Speaker 1: that for you in life. There are people literally opening
Speaker 1: doors for you in life that we forget, we lead behind,
Speaker 1: we move on from because we moved forward. Take a
Speaker 1: moment to send that person a message, Take a moment
Speaker 1: to thank that person, Take a moment to acknowledge that
Speaker 1: person today. Maybe send them a message, send them a note,
Speaker 1: because that person's amazing. They open a door for you.
Speaker 1: I wanted to add one more to this. I think
Speaker 1: we also meet people who are like keys, people who
Speaker 1: unlock parts of us in the most beautiful, gentlest of ways,
Speaker 1: and the way that fits perfectly right with the window.
Speaker 1: It was someone showing us a window. With the door,
Speaker 1: it's someone opening the door. It's with the mirror. It
Speaker 1: could be harsh, it could be easy, but with the key,
Speaker 1: everything makes sense. Everything unlocks, everything's the perfect fit. And
Speaker 1: sometimes you have to try a lot of keys to
Speaker 1: find the one right. Imagine you've got all these keys
Speaker 1: around your you know, a big keychain, and you're testing
Speaker 1: each key to see if it works, and one fits
Speaker 1: kind of half and one gets stuck, and one doesn't
Speaker 1: quite turn the lock. It takes a lot of keys
Speaker 1: to find the one key that unlocks it all. And
Speaker 1: that's what life can be sometimes, like especially romantically, where
Speaker 1: romantically we've had a lot of mirrors, people who showed
Speaker 1: us the worst parts of ourselves, the best parts of ourselves,
Speaker 1: and maybe even showed us broken mirrors. I think that's
Speaker 1: a really interesting part of it, where really, in relationships,
Speaker 1: what we're doing is we're both holding up a broken
Speaker 1: mirror and we're reflecting broken parts of ourselves and the
Speaker 1: other person to each other with the window. In a
Speaker 1: romantic relationship, someone shows it, but we may not be
Speaker 1: ready yet, we may still be in bed going I
Speaker 1: don't want to see anything right now, And often we
Speaker 1: live to regret that. We end up thinking, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I wish that person who saw my potential could still
Speaker 1: be here right now. But guess what that was. Their role,
Speaker 1: their role in your life was just to move you
Speaker 1: in that direction and you weren't ready for them yet,
Speaker 1: and that's okay. And then we'll meet people who open doors,
Speaker 1: and maybe they are the people we forget, they're the
Speaker 1: people we leave behind. Let's not do that. Let's remember them,
Speaker 1: let's thank them, let's appreciate them, and finally they'll be
Speaker 1: the key. The rarest of them all, people that hard
Speaker 1: to find, people that other people try to pretend to
Speaker 1: be false keys until we find the right one. What
Speaker 1: does this mean for us? It means that when you
Speaker 1: meet someone, reflect from what role they played in your life,
Speaker 1: not what they did to you, maybe not even what
Speaker 1: they said to you. What role did they play and
Speaker 1: how did you leave them a better person. People may
Speaker 1: not leave you better off, but you can leave them
Speaker 1: better off for yourself. People may not leave you happy,
Speaker 1: but you can heal to happiness yourself. People may not
Speaker 1: easily help you become better, but you can help yourself
Speaker 1: not become bitter. I wish you all the best in
Speaker 1: your relationships. I wish you all the best in all
Speaker 1: of your endeavors. Remember that I'm forever in your corner
Speaker 1: and I'm always rooting for you. And again, don't forget
Speaker 1: to follow kim Perrot's and stery Our Hope on TikTok.
Speaker 1: Amazing creatives putting out great content that I think you'll love,
Speaker 1: and I'm so glad to both of them for introducing
Speaker 1: me to this idea that hopefully I've remixed today added
Speaker 1: some of my own thoughts and reflections in a way
Speaker 1: that is helpful to all of you. Thank you, if
Speaker 1: you love this episode, you'll enjoy my interview with doctor
Speaker 1: Daniel Ahman on how to change your life by changing
Speaker 1: your brain. If we want a healthy mind, it actually
Speaker 1: starts with a healthy brain. I've had the blessing or
Speaker 1: the curse to scan over a thousand convicted felons and
Speaker 1: over a hundred murderers, and their brains are very damaged.