Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest who
Speaker 1: will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding
Speaker 1: of yourself, others, and the world we live in. Hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll also provide a glimpse into human possibility. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening and enjoy the podcast. So Hey, Hi everyone. My
Speaker 1: name is Taylor Chris. I am the executive producer of
Speaker 1: the Psychology Podcast, and today I'm especially excited to be
Speaker 1: interviewing my colleague and friends Cory Mascara. I could spend
Speaker 1: the entire episode talking about Corey's virtues, but I've picked
Speaker 1: a few gems here from his bio that I'm gonna
Speaker 1: read out loud. Corey's the founder of the Long Islands
Speaker 1: Center for Mindfulness, where he runs mindfulness retreats and teaches
Speaker 1: courses for people living in the Long Island in New
Speaker 1: York areas. This is a personal favorite, something we're going
Speaker 1: to need to delve into later. Corey spent six months
Speaker 1: living in silence, practicing meditation as a Buddhist monk in Burma.
Speaker 1: Corey serves as faculty at the Columbia Teachers College, where
Speaker 1: he co teaches a mindfulness based leadership course. He's also
Speaker 1: an assistant instructor for the Master of Applied Positive Psychology
Speaker 1: course at the University of Pennsylvania, where he completed his
Speaker 1: graduate work. Lastly, we have that Corey frequently shows up
Speaker 1: on The Doctor Oz Show as an expert in the
Speaker 1: topic of mindfulness meditation. Corey, So, glad to have you
Speaker 1: here today. Man, welcome, Thanks buddy. So Man, how are
Speaker 1: you doing well? Man, excited to be here, Glad to
Speaker 1: hear it, Thanks for coming on. Ye, So listen, We've
Speaker 1: discussed meditation in passing on the show before, but I
Speaker 1: look at this as a great opportunit community to take
Speaker 1: a deep dive into the topic. I thought we'd just
Speaker 1: start with talking about you though, Like I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear more about the whole burmous situation about how you
Speaker 1: got into mindfulness originally, Like how does this become your
Speaker 1: life path? Yeah? So, I think I have somewhat of
Speaker 1: a unique story when it comes to how I got
Speaker 1: into this practice. I think when someone thinks of like
Speaker 1: a meditation teacher or someone that's into meditation, they assume
Speaker 1: maybe that person is really spiritual or really religious, somewhat
Speaker 1: of a hippie, And actually that was not really the
Speaker 1: case for me at all. I got first interested in
Speaker 1: meditation mainly to impress a girl. Yeah, I think a
Speaker 1: lot of this kind, you know. I had this. I
Speaker 1: had a hippie girlfriend in college. She was sort of
Speaker 1: into meditation and kind of introduced me to it, and
Speaker 1: I just went with it more or less so that
Speaker 1: she would think I was cool. That didn't quite work
Speaker 1: out because she broke up with me, but I did
Speaker 1: actually sincerely try to meditate. It wasn't just something I
Speaker 1: was saying I was going to do, and so I
Speaker 1: made this New Year's resolution. I was going to meditate
Speaker 1: three times a week for you know, however long and
Speaker 1: in a short period of time, I started to notice
Speaker 1: some pretty cool shifts in my life. At that point,
Speaker 1: I was someone that was like waking up twenty eighty
Speaker 1: thirty times a night. I always have pretty bad insomnia,
Speaker 1: took sleep meds and stuff, and none of that really
Speaker 1: worked well. And within a few weeks of meditating, and
Speaker 1: I'm saying three times a week fifteen minutes, I went
Speaker 1: from waking up twenty to thirty times a night till
Speaker 1: like two to three times a night, and sometimes I
Speaker 1: wasn't waking up at all. Right, And I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that as like a sales pitch for meditation, because I
Speaker 1: do not guarantee those results to everyone, But for me,
Speaker 1: that was that's what I noticed. So anyone that's suffering
Speaker 1: from insomnia could resonate with how powerful that would be.
Speaker 1: But I was I was a business person at the point.
Speaker 1: My major was a managerial economics, and I was actually
Speaker 1: planning to work on Wall Street. That was like one
Speaker 1: of the intentions I had. And a shift happened around
Speaker 1: this point. So we were supposed to go to the
Speaker 1: New York socc Exchange, the entire economics department, and we
Speaker 1: were going to meet with this multi billionaire head front manager.
Speaker 1: And everyone said, like, this is the guy you want
Speaker 1: to be. If there's anywhere you could get in your career,
Speaker 1: it's here, you know, take notes, because this is he's
Speaker 1: going to show you the path. So it's like, all right, cool,
Speaker 1: maybe this guy will rekindle my enthusiasm for business. And
Speaker 1: we went in there, all of us. This guy gave
Speaker 1: us a two hour talk and it just sucked my
Speaker 1: soul right out of my body and wow, yeah, and
Speaker 1: I you know, I said, I don't know exactly what
Speaker 1: I want to do with my life, but I know
Speaker 1: I don't want to end up like this guy. And now,
Speaker 1: to be fair to this guy, he could have just
Speaker 1: been having a bad day, maybe got up on the
Speaker 1: wrong side of the bed, who knows. But the point
Speaker 1: is that that experience challenged me to start asking, well,
Speaker 1: if I don't want to end up like that, what
Speaker 1: is it that I want? And it kept coming down
Speaker 1: to the response like, I want to be happy, and
Speaker 1: so that became the fertile soil for this really long
Speaker 1: journey into mindfulness and you know everywhere else it went
Speaker 1: from beyond there that we could talk about more if
Speaker 1: you'd like, But that was the shift for me. Wow,
Speaker 1: I love all of that so much to impact there
Speaker 1: with regard to mindfulness, and thank you for sharing yourself
Speaker 1: with us. Sure I love at this point if we
Speaker 1: could gear towards actually trying to define the thing itself.
Speaker 1: You know, I feel like mindfulness is kind of a
Speaker 1: hot word that you see every time you pick up
Speaker 1: the New York Times. At this point that the meeting
Speaker 1: might feel a little ambiguous to people, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: there are many definitions. Actually, it'd be very difficult to
Speaker 1: just give me the objective answer what is mindfulness and actuality?
Speaker 1: But you know, I sort of my own operating definition.
Speaker 1: If I can hand that over to you can tell
Speaker 1: me how you feel about it. Yeah, and if it's
Speaker 1: totally out based, I'll just delete this part from the episode. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: in a mindful way. Yeah, let's see. I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: So the way that I generally operate, or like the
Speaker 1: definition I give when I'm talking about mindfulness, is an
Speaker 1: intentional and non judgmental awareness of present experience. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: like that intentional non Wait say they got intentional, intentional,
Speaker 1: non judgmental awareness awareness present experience. Yes, So that incorporates
Speaker 1: many of the main components that we see in my
Speaker 1: traditional definitions. John Cavidsen's paying attention on purpose in the
Speaker 1: present moment, non judgmentally. I think the scientific definition and
Speaker 1: that we have that some academics set up to put
Speaker 1: forth was an attending to the present moment. Or it's
Speaker 1: a self regulation of attention with an attitude of openness, curiosity,
Speaker 1: and acceptance. So there's some similar threads there. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: some My my sort of working definition, very much working
Speaker 1: is it's sensing into deeply sensing into our internal and
Speaker 1: external experience with an attitude of non judgment and childlike curiosity.
Speaker 1: But also, yeah, but there's also addendum to that, which
Speaker 1: is there has to be there's like this discerning quality
Speaker 1: to the awareness of your experience and exploring sort of
Speaker 1: the cause and effect relationship of whatever the variables are
Speaker 1: at the moment, such as like, as this thought arises,
Speaker 1: is it influencing or leading to well being or suffering?
Speaker 1: As this emotion arises, does a trigger this thought? So
Speaker 1: there's like an investigative quality to that awareness that often
Speaker 1: gets overlooked in a lot of the definitions of mindfulness
Speaker 1: that I think is important. I totally agree. I mean,
Speaker 1: from my understanding of how mindfulness is used with regard
Speaker 1: to like cognitive behavioral therapy and things like that, there
Speaker 1: is like a metacognitive element thinking about thinking. It's like, sure,
Speaker 1: I see that this thought has come in front of
Speaker 1: my mind's eye, but how does that make me feel?
Speaker 1: What does that effect does that have on my behavior?
Speaker 1: Other cognitions? And yeah, yeah, right, and so it kind
Speaker 1: of it starts with that in order to see that,
Speaker 1: you first have to be aware of that. And as psychology, right,
Speaker 1: we call that metacognition, and there's that element of mindfulness,
Speaker 1: and you know it is fair. Just for the record,
Speaker 1: so many people are still debating what is the actual
Speaker 1: definition of mindfulness. Is a word that we're translating from
Speaker 1: Buddhist texts, this word called sati, which is actually translated
Speaker 1: as remembering to remember, meaning like to remember what's here
Speaker 1: right now in this present moment, so feeling into the body,
Speaker 1: the thoughts, emotions, anything that you're seeing, so like remember
Speaker 1: coming back to that. And so it's still confusing and
Speaker 1: ambiguous how exactly we define this thing, and many people
Speaker 1: do just end the definition at like a non judgmental
Speaker 1: awareness of what's happening. And so in the context of
Speaker 1: like cognitive behavioral therapy, you know, you first need to
Speaker 1: have an awareness of what other thoughts before you can
Speaker 1: begin shifting them. And in mindfulness, you're not actually shifting
Speaker 1: the thoughts intentionally, but you are observing how are they
Speaker 1: influencing your experience and how when this thought arises, how
Speaker 1: does it impact this emotion or you know, as some
Speaker 1: would say, is this thought wholesome? Or unwholesome, skillful or unskillful,
Speaker 1: and specifically as it relates to the context of like,
Speaker 1: is this supporting well being or is it leading to
Speaker 1: more suffering for myself and other people? Which may be
Speaker 1: more of the Buddhist take, which does have an ethical
Speaker 1: component to it. In the mainstream world that is not
Speaker 1: emphasized as much, but I still think it's important. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: if that makes sense. So, like, are my actions leading
Speaker 1: are they out of a place of compassion for both
Speaker 1: myself and for other people, which is a big component
Speaker 1: of this fantastic I imagine that could lead to a
Speaker 1: better world if we gets more mindful. Yeah, imagine if
Speaker 1: we could take five percent of that each person, or
Speaker 1: even just the intention not to not to kill one another,
Speaker 1: just that basic framework living through that model, it would
Speaker 1: be tremendous. But it's, you know, not a reality that
Speaker 1: we're living in, but one that we could aspire to
Speaker 1: move toward. Mindfulness might be a nice conduit and a
Speaker 1: helping skill spread around, which is one reason we're doing
Speaker 1: this podcast right now. Yeah, let's get that word out.
Speaker 1: I love. So we've covered some of the definitions I love.
Speaker 1: I'd love to like experiment with some examples with regard
Speaker 1: to the definitions that we've given, Like mentally, you know,
Speaker 1: so if I can, I'm gonna run with just my
Speaker 1: own because I have that memorize an intentional and non
Speaker 1: judgmental awareness of present experience. Now, I feel like it's
Speaker 1: maybe nebulous is the right term, or open to many
Speaker 1: different kinds of experiences that could be called mindfulness. So
Speaker 1: I'm curious, like, what would your thoughts be on if
Speaker 1: I were to tell you that listening to music is
Speaker 1: a mindfulness exercise for me? Would you say that's like
Speaker 1: proper use in that term? Yeah, I it depends on
Speaker 1: how you're listening to it. Sure, So often in meditation
Speaker 1: we get obsessed with the thing we're listening to, and
Speaker 1: so like the most common thing I think people think
Speaker 1: of with meditations like, oh, I have to focus on
Speaker 1: my breath. Yes, And really this has very little to
Speaker 1: do with the breath. The breath is just an object
Speaker 1: of our awareness. But what we're most interested in is
Speaker 1: the quality of awareness and attention that we're bringing to
Speaker 1: that experience. Sure, so when you take that perspective, it
Speaker 1: really doesn't matter what you're listening to or what you're
Speaker 1: focusing on. It's how you're focusing on it and how
Speaker 1: you're listening to it. So if you're listening to music
Speaker 1: and you're just completely lost in it and it's just
Speaker 1: going on in the background, nothing against that, but I
Speaker 1: would argue that that's not mindfulness. Sure. However, if you're
Speaker 1: choosing to deliberately just you put on the headphones and
Speaker 1: listen to the music and actually just be with the
Speaker 1: sound of the music and following the rhythm, the tempo,
Speaker 1: the nuances of the song and being there for each
Speaker 1: moment of it, that is a different kind of presence
Speaker 1: and awareness that you're bringing to it, especially if you
Speaker 1: go into it with a realm of like not judging
Speaker 1: every part of the song as it arises or this
Speaker 1: is good, this is bad, sort of just moving fluidly
Speaker 1: with the like this is here now, this is what
Speaker 1: I'm listening to. I hear like intentionality and judgment with
Speaker 1: regard to how you're talking about listening to music. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the way that you approach it is anchor the right term.
Speaker 1: I feel like the music would be an anchor for
Speaker 1: the attention. Yeah, right, Yeah, there would be an intentionality
Speaker 1: that if I'm listening and my mind starts to wander
Speaker 1: to what I'm going to do later, like a to
Speaker 1: do list. Then I'm not exactly practicing mindfulness as I
Speaker 1: listened to that music, right, because my attention is drifted
Speaker 1: away from the thing that I'm trying to cultivate attention towards. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: and that is since if yeah, that were the intention
Speaker 1: to focus on, to actually be with the sound of
Speaker 1: the song, and the mind wanders off to your grocery list,
Speaker 1: and you're just You're like, oh, now I'm going to
Speaker 1: start thinking about my grocery list. Well, now now you're
Speaker 1: thinking of your grocery list. Sure, and there's nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with thinking, and oh good, I do that. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: can't stop. Good. It means you're alive. And if anyone
Speaker 1: were to stop thinking, I would I would be concerned.
Speaker 1: And I think this is just one of the biggest
Speaker 1: misconceptions of mindfulness is that it's a complete absence of thought,
Speaker 1: and in fact, the awareness of your mind wandering off
Speaker 1: to thinking about your grocery list, that awareness is as
Speaker 1: much a part of the meditation as the awareness of
Speaker 1: the song itself or the breath itself, or whatever it
Speaker 1: is you're trying to focus on. Seeing that your mind
Speaker 1: wanders off then gives you the ability to choose if
Speaker 1: you'd like to bring it back to this moment. It
Speaker 1: also gives you ability to choose if you'd rather just
Speaker 1: prefer to let it wander off, and there's nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with that. So I do want to make clear to
Speaker 1: anyone listening that mindfulness is not saying like you can't
Speaker 1: think about things, you can't mind wander, you can't think
Speaker 1: about the future, you can't plan, absolutely not. What it's
Speaker 1: doing is allowing you to have enough awareness, enough presence
Speaker 1: so that you can actually intentionally choose what you're paying
Speaker 1: attention to and not be so caught in things that
Speaker 1: perhaps you didn't intentionally set out to be thinking about
Speaker 1: or focusing on. And sometimes mind wandering is fine, and
Speaker 1: letting ourselves wander in that way, as the new research
Speaker 1: is showing, especially the resource that Scott is doing, it
Speaker 1: can be incredibly helpful, especially as it relates to creativity
Speaker 1: and everything else that's coming up that I'm not as
Speaker 1: aware of as I should be. I think if we're
Speaker 1: just lost on that automatic pilot mind wandering for much
Speaker 1: of our lives, where we end up not living a
Speaker 1: lot of our lives. We're kind of just caught in
Speaker 1: our own heads. And there's something to me about living deliberately,
Speaker 1: intentionally with purpose and awareness and wakefulness that I find
Speaker 1: to be highly compelling. Yeah, wonderfully foot man goodness. Lots
Speaker 1: of unpack there. So I am a person who used
Speaker 1: to think that meditation was a bit of hippy dippy
Speaker 1: New Age poppy cock. I thought it was something that
Speaker 1: people kind of did to fit in as part of
Speaker 1: like a bohemian subculture. But after so much research, after
Speaker 1: pouring over a lot of research, I felt it difficult
Speaker 1: for a science minded person to avoid how useful mindfulness
Speaker 1: can be when pursuing well being, And so I set
Speaker 1: out to do it. I really tried to take on
Speaker 1: a practice which is a very new thing for me,
Speaker 1: and geez, I just found it so difficult. And I
Speaker 1: think a lot of that has to do with the
Speaker 1: misconceptions that you just addressed. Even you know that when
Speaker 1: I sit, my mind should be totally clear, my mind
Speaker 1: should not wander, I should not have thoughts and means
Speaker 1: I'm doing it wrong, And at that point I get
Speaker 1: frustrated and I quit. Yeah, and you know, I think
Speaker 1: that these misconceptions actually get in the way of a
Speaker 1: lot of people picking up a mindfulm's practice and sticking
Speaker 1: with it on any level. And I think it's a
Speaker 1: great service that you're doing by helping us understand that
Speaker 1: it's helped me a ton. I mean, you know, I've
Speaker 1: actually I've worked with Corey, someone extensively over known in
Speaker 1: the past year's mind Foster treats and things that are wonderful,
Speaker 1: little touching moment. Yeah, you know, if I can just reiterate,
Speaker 1: I think it's so important to understand that sitting down
Speaker 1: for a mindfulness practice does not mean not thinking or
Speaker 1: that there's something wrong if your mind starts to wander,
Speaker 1: because that's just what minds do. I feel like, as
Speaker 1: you say, right, like, it's always going to drift. I
Speaker 1: don't you know. We've sat and listened to doctor Michael Bame,
Speaker 1: who's an expert of mindfulness working over at the University
Speaker 1: of Pennsylvania, and he always says that it's a great
Speaker 1: moment of celebration when you notice that your mind has
Speaker 1: wandered away from your breath, because in that there's an
Speaker 1: opportunity in awareness to choose what you're going to pay
Speaker 1: attention to, whether you're going to guide your attention back
Speaker 1: to the breath, or whether you're going to choose to
Speaker 1: let your mind rest elsewhere. And I think that so
Speaker 1: much of our life is determined by what we're thinking
Speaker 1: or what we're focused on, that this ability to become
Speaker 1: more aware of what we're thinking about and maybe even
Speaker 1: of some of our more automatic thoughts, gives us the
Speaker 1: ability to choose what our life is like. It allows
Speaker 1: us to more intentionally and deliberately select what our experience
Speaker 1: is going to be like, which I think is a
Speaker 1: cornerstone of living in existentially and philosophically satisfying existence. To
Speaker 1: go on a bit of a tangent or yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: quol Man, so jeez. So far, I feel like we've
Speaker 1: covered a definition of mindfulness well that we can work with,
Speaker 1: and we have an idea of what it isn't and
Speaker 1: what it might be. I'm curious if there's a listener
Speaker 1: right now who's not bought in, which couldn't happen of
Speaker 1: course after listening so far, But what would you say
Speaker 1: are some of the practical benefits of taking on a
Speaker 1: mindfulness practice? Yeah? So, I mean this varies for everyone.
Speaker 1: It's not like a pill that just has the same
Speaker 1: results for each person. Everything that has preceded this moment
Speaker 1: of your life becomes like the platform for doing this
Speaker 1: work of being present and what you experience doing this
Speaker 1: work and being the present. And so people come to
Speaker 1: this practice with all different things and all different backgrounds,
Speaker 1: and some people are more prone to lots of mind wandering,
Speaker 1: some people have a trauma experience. Some people are just
Speaker 1: trying to figure out, like what do I want to
Speaker 1: do with my life? Some people are highly stressed, highly anxious,
Speaker 1: highly depressed, just an ability to focus. So really like
Speaker 1: what's going to occur or what you're going to get
Speaker 1: out of this will depend on first what you're bringing
Speaker 1: to it, and often what we think we're trying to
Speaker 1: get out of this is different than what we actually
Speaker 1: need on a deeper level or what we actually get
Speaker 1: out of it. But in general, what we I mean
Speaker 1: with the research supports is just continued seeing the reductions
Speaker 1: and stress, anxiety, and depression being more of an ability
Speaker 1: to manage mind wandering and direct your focus to where
Speaker 1: it is you are trying to focus. Improvements and joy, empathy, creativity,
Speaker 1: ability to connect with other people in relationship. So that's
Speaker 1: pretty cool. And what I would say you'd get out
Speaker 1: of this usually across the board if we're looking for
Speaker 1: something just generic that most people would experience, and that
Speaker 1: actually becomes a foundation for all change. It's just a
Speaker 1: greater understanding of who you are from the inside out
Speaker 1: and your tendencies, your quirks, your conditionings, your patterns. Most
Speaker 1: of these things that we're often blind to because we're
Speaker 1: running them so often is kind of like just asking
Speaker 1: a fish what is water. We're so used to our
Speaker 1: personality traits, our reactivities, our conditionings that we don't even
Speaker 1: know that their conditionings, their reactivities, that they're patterns, and
Speaker 1: just waking up to these things it gives us more
Speaker 1: freedom to choose how we'll live our lives. Victor Frankel
Speaker 1: said it well. He said, between stimulus and response, there's
Speaker 1: a space. In that space is our power to choose
Speaker 1: our response, and in our response lizes our growth and
Speaker 1: our freedom. And I think what we're doing in mindfulness practice,
Speaker 1: above and beyond anything else, is learning to see that
Speaker 1: space and then inhabit that space. Only in that space
Speaker 1: that we can direct our lives with any sort of
Speaker 1: intentional anality, clarity, purpose, meaning and direction. So at the
Speaker 1: foundation of this, we're giving people freedom to choose how
Speaker 1: toy to live their lives. And let me also say,
Speaker 1: it's like we're not giving that to people. People are
Speaker 1: giving that to themselves. This is a capacity that is
Speaker 1: innate to anyone that's a human being. So it's not
Speaker 1: like me, as a mindfulness teacher, is giving that to someone.
Speaker 1: All I do is just create the space for them
Speaker 1: to explore this and understand this. But we have to
Speaker 1: do the work as petitioners. You have to do the
Speaker 1: work as a practitioner to cultivate this for yourself. But
Speaker 1: it's on you. It's always on you, and it's just
Speaker 1: an important thing to keep in mind where my teachers
Speaker 1: are not gurus. This is not like a system that
Speaker 1: you have to put in place. Put put in place
Speaker 1: my system or the eyefulness system. Well, it's just just
Speaker 1: tapping into an innate capacity that you have as a
Speaker 1: human being that tends to be lost, especially in our
Speaker 1: culture with so much distraction. Yeah magic, then yeah, I
Speaker 1: think so another at least misconception that I had, and
Speaker 1: so you know, through my projecting, I'm thinking other people
Speaker 1: had this perception also. The mindfulness is supposed to just
Speaker 1: be easy and euphoric. Yeah. You know, there's this great
Speaker 1: picture that gets passed around. We were part of the
Speaker 1: same master's program that you pen for applied positive psychology,
Speaker 1: and I feel like that one gets tough whenever there's
Speaker 1: a presentation. So it's at the same times magazine picture
Speaker 1: of this woman who just looks like she is having
Speaker 1: the most wonderful time of her life sitting there practicing mindfulness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I don't think that's something that is excluded. I've
Speaker 1: had moments like that myself when I've been practicing. But
Speaker 1: I feel like that puts an undue pressure where when
Speaker 1: you sit there and you're not having funny you should
Speaker 1: just stop because it's not a worthwhile practice or something. Yes, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And so this is one of the issues you're going
Speaker 1: to get anytime that's something like well, anytime something becomes
Speaker 1: mainstream in capitalists America, marketing firms and the media will
Speaker 1: take it and distort it and figure out how to
Speaker 1: package it. And you know, that's just it's the nature
Speaker 1: of the beast. And if this is going to grow
Speaker 1: in a substantial way, that's an inevitable byproduct. So yeah,
Speaker 1: we do end up seeing things like Time magazine, and
Speaker 1: it's great that they're covering mindfulness, but on the cover
Speaker 1: you have like the most beautiful woman in the world,
Speaker 1: and her hair is like blowing in the wind, and
Speaker 1: she looks super peaceful and her eyes are closed and
Speaker 1: it looks like she's hit Nirvana, and I have you know,
Speaker 1: the majority of my meditations are not like that. It's
Speaker 1: often kind of like gritting your teeth trying to get
Speaker 1: through it and squirming a lot and being in pain,
Speaker 1: and so it sends the message that mindfulness is like
Speaker 1: feeling good, illness is rainbows and unicorns, or even that
Speaker 1: mindfulness is peace, and that's not the case. Now. That
Speaker 1: is sometimes a by product of mindfulness, peace, greater ease,
Speaker 1: greater well being, greater happiness, greater really from suffering, absolutely
Speaker 1: a byproduct of this practice, or else we wouldn't do
Speaker 1: it in the first place. We're not going to do
Speaker 1: it so that we suffer more. But in the process
Speaker 1: of turning towards your own experience and being with yourself
Speaker 1: and taking time to be still and drop in, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like looking in the mirror and taking a long,
Speaker 1: hard look in the mirror, and sometimes we see parts
Speaker 1: of ourselves that we don't want to see. Sometimes there
Speaker 1: are things that come up that are uncomfortable. Sometimes there's
Speaker 1: pain in the body that comes up that is painful,
Speaker 1: and thoughts and emotions. Sometimes there's grief, Sometimes there's tragedies.
Speaker 1: Sometimes there's just memories that arise out of nowhere that
Speaker 1: have been suppressed for so long that never had the
Speaker 1: opportunity to heal. And so this process of moving into
Speaker 1: greater peace that people are looking for, a greater well being,
Speaker 1: it's actually it's not a process of just like uninterrupted
Speaker 1: blissful moments, because that's just not life. It's actually a
Speaker 1: process of learning to be with the full range of
Speaker 1: who you are as a human being, the pleasant thoughts
Speaker 1: and the difficult thoughts, the pleasant emotions, the difficult emotions,
Speaker 1: the pleasant sensations in the body, the difficult sensations and body,
Speaker 1: the ten thousand enjoys, the ten thousand sorrows, embracing the
Speaker 1: totality of what it means to be a human being.
Speaker 1: Because we can't just shut ourselves off to that which
Speaker 1: we don't want and then expect to be able to
Speaker 1: tune into that which we do want. It just doesn't
Speaker 1: work like that. And so this practice is to me
Speaker 1: a process of growing into what it means to be
Speaker 1: a human, the fullness of what it means to be
Speaker 1: a human. And when there's pain, allowing ourselves to feel
Speaker 1: the pain without fighting it, without resisting it, without saying
Speaker 1: I shouldn't be feeling this way without immediately trying to
Speaker 1: be happier. And when there's joy and well being, allowing
Speaker 1: yourself to appreciate that and savor it and take it in,
Speaker 1: but not hold on to it in such a way
Speaker 1: that you know, if this isn't here anymore, then my
Speaker 1: life is ruined. Right, we do that in relationship. We
Speaker 1: hold on to this person. It's like I need this
Speaker 1: person to complete me, and if they're not there anymore,
Speaker 1: my life, My life is ruined. With houses, with cars,
Speaker 1: with material objects, none of there's no issue with that.
Speaker 1: And mindfulness is not saying like you have to live
Speaker 1: as a renunciate monk, but it's saying, explore your relationship
Speaker 1: to experience and in there is the is the wisdom
Speaker 1: that leads to this deeper liberation that we're often talking about,
Speaker 1: This deeper freedom that leads to higher levels of peace
Speaker 1: and well being and reductions and suffering that is pervasive
Speaker 1: and just being a human being. Well quote, man, it's
Speaker 1: going to be like my life in the night, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: She's as the executive producer. I always have to make
Speaker 1: nods to other episodes. Make sure to listen to Todd
Speaker 1: Kshton also on like a Wonderful book, The Upside of
Speaker 1: Your Dark Side, talks at length about a lot of
Speaker 1: research it shows that those uncomfortable feelings, things like anxiety
Speaker 1: or anger, are actually strategic and essential to living a
Speaker 1: life of well being. And I mean, of course, like
Speaker 1: being our authentic selves and getting in touch with who
Speaker 1: we are and just the human condition. It involves those
Speaker 1: kinds of things, you know, they're just around. And he
Speaker 1: also talks about he puts this whole chapter that put
Speaker 1: down mindfulness. Yeah, I believe it was in that book,
Speaker 1: The Upside of Your Dark Side. I don't quite agree
Speaker 1: with all the statements that were made in that chapter,
Speaker 1: but there are good points. And the main point is
Speaker 1: that you don't have to follow mindfulness as a prescription
Speaker 1: for every moment. I mean, allow mindfulness. This is not
Speaker 1: a doctrine. It's not saying like you need to live
Speaker 1: your life in this way. What it is is saying, hey,
Speaker 1: there's this capacity of awareness that you have that perhaps
Speaker 1: you've been out of touch with, and when you tune
Speaker 1: into it, it can give you access to more resources
Speaker 1: and understandings of who you are on a deeper level
Speaker 1: and how you might be in a different relationship to
Speaker 1: this moment, and ways that cultivate well being and reduce
Speaker 1: suffering for yourself. It's really it is. It's a science experiment.
Speaker 1: You're the researcher and you're the subject, as John Kvitson says,
Speaker 1: and everything that comes up is the experiment. It's the curriculum,
Speaker 1: it's what you're working with. So each moment of paying
Speaker 1: attention is just another moment of new data that you
Speaker 1: get that you get to use to inform how do
Speaker 1: you want to live your life in the next moment.
Speaker 1: That's so exciting. So to transition to a different line
Speaker 1: of questioning here in terms of my own experience forgetting
Speaker 1: the audience for a second kidding, we love you guys.
Speaker 1: I figure, actually this is an issue that many of
Speaker 1: us have. I've really enjoyed the times that I could
Speaker 1: stick to my mindfulness practice. You know, I after you
Speaker 1: retreat very immersive. I got to spend many hours in
Speaker 1: the day practicing with you and some close friends, and
Speaker 1: it kept up for a good two weeks, and I
Speaker 1: really like noticed a palpable difference in the texture of
Speaker 1: my experience to try and use some of the language.
Speaker 1: It was a wonderful thing. I really appreciated it. But
Speaker 1: I just kind of I stopped. I fell off, you know,
Speaker 1: And I think that it's bound to happen at some point.
Speaker 1: Nobody's like a you know, completely going to adhere to
Speaker 1: every goal I've ever had at all times, forever and always.
Speaker 1: It's natural. But I was wondering, essentially, do you have
Speaker 1: some tips, tricks, things that you'd recommend for how to
Speaker 1: stay on the horse, how to keep your practice going. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So this is again one of the most common things
Speaker 1: I see with my students and hear from other teachers,
Speaker 1: is that people just they really want to start a
Speaker 1: meditation practice, but maybe they do a four a tuck
Speaker 1: of time and then they fall up the wagon. And
Speaker 1: so here is my latest feelings around this, theories around
Speaker 1: this prescription for this. When somebody takes some mindfulness course
Speaker 1: or listens to maybe a podcast episode, they often get
Speaker 1: really inspired, they hear some great research, they think, wow,
Speaker 1: this is what I need, and so they say, all right,
Speaker 1: I'm going to meditate for thirty minutes every day. I'm
Speaker 1: where I do this forever, and so like that's great.
Speaker 1: And so maybe the first few days they're really into it.
Speaker 1: Maybe the first week they've been doing it every single day.
Speaker 1: As time goes on, without the support of people like
Speaker 1: minded people maybe doing this with you, or without a
Speaker 1: course to support you, it can be very easy for
Speaker 1: old conditionings to come up and for like that thirty
Speaker 1: minute block you have, you start think about, oh, I
Speaker 1: need to meditate today. The mind could go well, you
Speaker 1: could also go for a walk and that would be
Speaker 1: really nice too. Or you could sleep in for another
Speaker 1: thirty minutes, or you could go read a book, or
Speaker 1: you can watch TV, or you could go sit in
Speaker 1: that couch and eat potato chips. And often that can
Speaker 1: be a lot more seductive and a lot more appealing
Speaker 1: than sometimes just sitting in silence meditating for thirty minutes,
Speaker 1: especially when meditating can be uncomfortable in the beginning, and
Speaker 1: so what happens is the mind sees or thirty minutes
Speaker 1: of meditation, there's no way I can do that right now,
Speaker 1: or I don't want to do that, and we end
Speaker 1: up arguing ourselves out of the meditation and like that,
Speaker 1: it can just slip through our fingers. So what I
Speaker 1: encourage people to do, because I'm a big believer in
Speaker 1: having a regular daily practice, something that you do in
Speaker 1: your life regularly is just commit to one minute a day.
Speaker 1: And the reason for this is severalfold. There's the first
Speaker 1: obvious is that it's just they're very little barriers to enter.
Speaker 1: Everyone has minute. Yeah, if you don't have a minute,
Speaker 1: you don't have a life. And so I will never
Speaker 1: take that from anyone that I don't have a minute,
Speaker 1: even if you're going through some serious circumstances, like if
Speaker 1: you're in the bathroom, you could take just another minute,
Speaker 1: just while you're sitting on the toilet to drop in
Speaker 1: so we can all find a mint a minute. And
Speaker 1: so with that in mind, the mindset where you start thinking,
Speaker 1: I gotta do my meditation practice today, and you go
Speaker 1: all right, I gotta do a minute. It's very hard
Speaker 1: to argue yourself out of a minute. It's like, all right,
Speaker 1: finally I'll do a minute. It, yeah, I'll get do
Speaker 1: a minute. I I'll do a minute, and so we
Speaker 1: wake up, maybe we sit down. All right, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do my one minute, and we sit down and maybe
Speaker 1: we get to like the fifty five second mark, and
Speaker 1: then as we're sitting it starts to feel it's like,
Speaker 1: all right, this is kind of nice. In mind goes
Speaker 1: all right, maybe maybe i'll do two minutes. Right, so
Speaker 1: we sit a little bit longer. Maybe it's at a
Speaker 1: minute fifty five. Now it's like, well, all right, i'll
Speaker 1: do three minutes. I'll do three, and a time goes on,
Speaker 1: we get up to three minutes and it's like, actually,
Speaker 1: you know what, this feels really good. I need more
Speaker 1: of this, and we might do four and five, And
Speaker 1: so that one minute can turn into five minutes, ten,
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes as time goes on. And so what's interesting
Speaker 1: you see the shift here? Will we go from the
Speaker 1: thirty minutes we end up arguing ourselves out of the meditation.
Speaker 1: When we start with one minute, we get ourselves to
Speaker 1: do it, and then we often start arguing ourselves into
Speaker 1: the meditation. Sure, which I'm very into for a lot
Speaker 1: of reasons, especially as it relates to a DC and
Speaker 1: Ryan's work on self determination. Theory where yeah, to feel
Speaker 1: intrinsically motivated, to feel self self determined, we need these
Speaker 1: three psychological core competencies of autonomy, relatedness, and yeah and competence. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the one I'm most interested in there is autonomy.
Speaker 1: And when you set like a timer for yourself or
Speaker 1: you have the standard of I need to do thirty minutes,
Speaker 1: it's a form of external regulation and it's subtle, and
Speaker 1: I haven't heard anyone actually talk about this in the
Speaker 1: meditation world. It's still kind of like a working theory
Speaker 1: that have but it's my feeling that that subtle external
Speaker 1: regulation of the timer actually prevents some intrinsic motivation to meditate.
Speaker 1: Whereas if you start with one minute and there's no
Speaker 1: time that you have other like beyond the minute, it's
Speaker 1: like I could get up whenever I want. You have
Speaker 1: full autonomy there, and you are choosing in every single
Speaker 1: moment whether you'll stay in the meditation or whether you'll
Speaker 1: leave in the meditation, And in my experience with that,
Speaker 1: there's a different quality of paying attention. It's a different
Speaker 1: quality of presence because you're self selecting. It's a difference
Speaker 1: between like being a kid and really wanting to sign
Speaker 1: up to play soccer, versus your parents saying you need
Speaker 1: to play soccer. You're going to go there, You're going
Speaker 1: to go through it kind of because you have to.
Speaker 1: But if you signed up and you're excited for it
Speaker 1: and you're interested in it, there's going to be a
Speaker 1: different quality of attention. And so I think if we
Speaker 1: can bring that into the mindfulness practice, it shifts it
Speaker 1: from being this chore something that we need to do,
Speaker 1: to something that we are actually exploring with this childlike inquiry, curiosity,
Speaker 1: investigative nature that can get lost. Oh yeah, yeah. So
Speaker 1: I think just one minute can be helpful for people.
Speaker 1: Just make that your commitment and then some times, some
Speaker 1: days it's like, okay, just be at one minute. If
Speaker 1: you say after a minute, I got to get up good,
Speaker 1: it's important to honor and to respect yourself and to
Speaker 1: show your future self that that's a possibility. If you're
Speaker 1: creating the regulation in your mind and no, I have
Speaker 1: to do more than one minute, you've already missed the point.
Speaker 1: The idea is just to have at least one minute
Speaker 1: just to get your butt on the cushion, your butt
Speaker 1: on the chair to do it, and then after one minute.
Speaker 1: If you feel like you're compelled to go further, you
Speaker 1: can continue going further. And I'm sure the pushback to
Speaker 1: this will be people saying, well, you know, in the beginning,
Speaker 1: people need some parameters around this. It's too easy to
Speaker 1: get up and it's not going to be comfortable, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people are going to want to go forward.
Speaker 1: And I agree, and so maybe, like the first three months,
Speaker 1: you're just sitting for one minute and you don't go
Speaker 1: further than that. But I think having a regular practice
Speaker 1: instilled and cultivating the habit is more important than forcing
Speaker 1: someone in the beginning to do twenty or thirty minutes,
Speaker 1: hoping that eventually they get to the point where they
Speaker 1: see some benefits from it, because I see too many
Speaker 1: people just fall off the wagon because it's too long,
Speaker 1: or I can't sustain it, or it's too difficult. Obviously
Speaker 1: more meditation would be better, but you could take that
Speaker 1: to the extreme of eighteen hours a day. Are we
Speaker 1: going to do that? No? All right, so she would
Speaker 1: do ten hours. Are we going to do that? Probably
Speaker 1: not all right? Four hours are we going to do that?
Speaker 1: Probably not one hour. Maybe I could do that, but
Speaker 1: most people can't. Half an hour, all right, Yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: that's why ten minutes. Yeah, if you got that, do
Speaker 1: ten minutes, one minute. If you got that, do one minute,
Speaker 1: if it's thirty seconds to third, if it's five seconds
Speaker 1: to five seconds. I'm just about doing what you can do,
Speaker 1: what you're going to do. I'm not about to telling
Speaker 1: people how they should live their lives, how they should
Speaker 1: practice meditation. Yes, neuroscience does show that if you practice
Speaker 1: for longer periods of time, you will adjust your brain
Speaker 1: in different ways and it'll grow and shift through neuroplasticity.
Speaker 1: But the daily commitment to dropping into your own experience,
Speaker 1: even if just for one minute, I think is the
Speaker 1: greatest gift you can give yourself over the course of
Speaker 1: your lifetime, because then you have access to it at
Speaker 1: other points throughout the day. And what you're showing yourself
Speaker 1: every day is that you're worth showing up for nice
Speaker 1: self compassion point on that. I like it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: just the quick thing that came to mind with the
Speaker 1: last one. You made those wonderful backt by decades of
Speaker 1: research and self determination theory, that autonomy point in particular,
Speaker 1: what you're actually motivated to do, and like what's being
Speaker 1: forced on you or what you're forcing yourself to do.
Speaker 1: Of course, there's like less motivation, you don't have the
Speaker 1: same degree of success, things of that nature. The analogy
Speaker 1: I always use is just kind of funny one. I
Speaker 1: used to be a personal trainer. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I've ever told you that. Yeah, it's like nutrition stuff.
Speaker 1: I'd always say that there's probably a more efficient nutrition
Speaker 1: system to get to your target weight or something like that.
Speaker 1: But if it's so hated, if you absolutely can't stand
Speaker 1: being on it, then you're just not going to do it.
Speaker 1: The program that you actually are on and stick to
Speaker 1: is going to be way more valuable than the one
Speaker 1: that might be more effective that you just won't Yes, right, yeah, absolutely, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree. Yeah. The best meditation is the meditation you're
Speaker 1: going to do. The best exercise the exercise you're going
Speaker 1: to do. This diet is a diear you're going to
Speaker 1: stick to. I'm all about practicality, and I don't think
Speaker 1: we really share that, and yeah, pragmatism, yeah, man, all right, man, Well,
Speaker 1: so I've got a question for you that is near
Speaker 1: and dear to my heart. I don't know if you know.
Speaker 1: It was a philosophy major back in school, that guy,
Speaker 1: I can't help it. So I'm curious, in your mind,
Speaker 1: in your eyes, what do you think is philosophically significant
Speaker 1: about mindfulness? I mean, obviously it's been kind of contemplative
Speaker 1: spiritual practice for many years. It's got a little more
Speaker 1: secular now, but do you do you think that it
Speaker 1: is in some way essential to living a good life?
Speaker 1: So it helps us stop taking ourselves so seriously? And
Speaker 1: that could be taken in two perspectives. One just the
Speaker 1: try stop taking yourself so seriously, but then there's like
Speaker 1: the deeper of like who actually is? Who actually? Are you? Right?
Speaker 1: If we're going to talk about philosophy? And so one
Speaker 1: of the favorite questions I get from my students at
Speaker 1: some point in their practice is, you know, they start
Speaker 1: looking at my thoughts, their thoughts, and they watch their
Speaker 1: thoughts come and go and change, and we talk about
Speaker 1: just you know, just watch your thoughts come and go,
Speaker 1: and then eventually they start asking It's like, well, if
Speaker 1: I'm not my thoughts, then who am I. That's a
Speaker 1: great question. And I don't have a response to it,
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure anyone has a response to it.
Speaker 1: But what it does point to is that we are
Speaker 1: something potentially bigger than our thoughts. We are something potentially
Speaker 1: bigger than our emotions, bigger than our pain, bigger than
Speaker 1: the relationship that we might have had and then just
Speaker 1: got out of, Bigger than the story of our life.
Speaker 1: And I work at this place, and I have these friends,
Speaker 1: and I'm in this relationship, and I make X amount
Speaker 1: of money. It's a larger story that we often identify
Speaker 1: with and hold it very dearly to us because we're
Speaker 1: creatures that I think are designed to try and make
Speaker 1: sense of things and find what is our identity and
Speaker 1: what is our place and relationship to the extra in
Speaker 1: old world, and so there's merit to that. And it
Speaker 1: can also be toxic if you just have a very
Speaker 1: cemented idea of who you are and there's no room
Speaker 1: for fluidity of that, then we can end up getting
Speaker 1: stuck acting out certain belief patterns or ideas of about
Speaker 1: who we are throughout the course of a life span.
Speaker 1: And so just again just from a philosophical perspective, I
Speaker 1: think it helps soften our grip around who we think
Speaker 1: we are and allow room for some fluidity and evolution
Speaker 1: and growth and new understanding that maybe who we are
Speaker 1: is much bigger than anything that we could think. I
Speaker 1: love that. So mindfulness gives us an opportunity for self authorship.
Speaker 1: It sounds like, you know, once we liberate ourselves from
Speaker 1: our automatic thought patterns and behaviors, it gives us an
Speaker 1: ability to self determined, to really obtiously ask like who
Speaker 1: do I want to be and then implement that. It
Speaker 1: sounds like to me. So in the vein of keeping
Speaker 1: this episode especially practical, I'm curious, are there some activities
Speaker 1: that you can offer to the audience that can be
Speaker 1: used to just ground yourself really quickly so that you
Speaker 1: can show up to the next moment with full presence
Speaker 1: and a higher degree of intentionality. Yeah. So that's something
Speaker 1: that I teach to people age five all the way
Speaker 1: up to age ninety five. It's called take five. I
Speaker 1: forget who taught this to me or where this comes from,
Speaker 1: So I apologize for not giving due credit. I did
Speaker 1: not make this up. I'll just take credit or I'll
Speaker 1: just so from Corey. Yeah, I think it's like a
Speaker 1: school intervention because it's great with kids, but also of
Speaker 1: any age. And so for anyone listening right now, I
Speaker 1: want you to do this with us. I want you
Speaker 1: to take out your left hand, put it in front
Speaker 1: of you like you were holding up a pizza, and
Speaker 1: then take your right port of finger and put it
Speaker 1: at the base center of your palm, right near your wrist.
Speaker 1: That's what we're gonna do is let's slide that point
Speaker 1: of finger up the thumb. But as we do, take
Speaker 1: an inhale through the nose, so sliding up and slide
Speaker 1: back down and take an exhale slide up the porner
Speaker 1: finger with an inhale, slide back down oxtail. Same with
Speaker 1: the middle finger back down, ring finger back down. I'm
Speaker 1: pinky back down now. If you're feeling really ambitious, you
Speaker 1: could do this. On the other hand, you could do
Speaker 1: take ten. But this is called take five. It takes
Speaker 1: about thirty seconds. It's simple, it's easy. There's something about
Speaker 1: the tactile nature of this and a line it sinking
Speaker 1: it with your breath that tends to be very soothing
Speaker 1: and engages a para sympathetic nervous system. And you know,
Speaker 1: so is this activity mindfulness per se? Not necessarily, it
Speaker 1: can be if you're really bringing this attentional awareness to
Speaker 1: the feelings in your fingers and singing with the breath.
Speaker 1: I think, above and beyond that, it's a way that
Speaker 1: we can interrupt perhaps a cycle of negative thinking, rumination,
Speaker 1: constant stress, being on this treadmill of doing, doing, doing,
Speaker 1: and just stopping for a moment, being grounded, reconnecting with
Speaker 1: the breath, reconnecting to something that's happening right here, and
Speaker 1: then proceeding from that moment. And you might have done
Speaker 1: this and thought like, all right, this is foolish. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to walk around and pet my finger all
Speaker 1: day every time it stressed and listen, I get that.
Speaker 1: But I can tell you like I have introduced it
Speaker 1: to people, you know, in school systems, the kids that
Speaker 1: love it. Although I have to CEOs of companies and
Speaker 1: get I get emails back from the CEOs. I said, hey, Core,
Speaker 1: you know, I thought that Take five thing was kind
Speaker 1: of weird. And then before I had to go give
Speaker 1: a big talk in a meeting, I was under my
Speaker 1: desk doing Take five and they say, like that was
Speaker 1: that was awesome. So it tends to have merit for
Speaker 1: anyone across the lifespan. And so I really encourage you
Speaker 1: have like all the things I teach, and I like
Speaker 1: to think I teach some things with some depth to it.
Speaker 1: This tends to be like the biggest takeaway for people.
Speaker 1: It's called Take five. So very simple, practical, easy to
Speaker 1: implement strategy. You could use it for yourself. You could
Speaker 1: teach it to your kids, you could teach it to
Speaker 1: your husband or your wife, or anyone that might be
Speaker 1: of interest. Very cool. Love that I actually feel immediately relaxed.
Speaker 1: It's really simple, you know, little courageous vulnerability here. This
Speaker 1: is my first guest interview, entirely A little nervous about it.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, I feel quite chill. I should
Speaker 1: have done it in the beginning. Yeah, that would have
Speaker 1: been a smart move, right. I love these somatic interventions,
Speaker 1: you know, because I find that if your mind is
Speaker 1: racing sometimes it can be really hard to just I'm
Speaker 1: just not going to let it race anymore. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to stop it. Yeah, it doesn't work
Speaker 1: when it's really going off. But I find that, like
Speaker 1: coming at the body, coming at the breath, finding some
Speaker 1: way to tap into the nervous system is super effective.
Speaker 1: I mean, like, I've actually been doing these kinds of
Speaker 1: things before talks, and it centers me to walk out
Speaker 1: there without the mind running around. It gives me an
Speaker 1: opportunity to be a little more present and I think
Speaker 1: like functional for people. Yeah, and even from a Buddhist perspective,
Speaker 1: Like the first thing that he taught in relationship to
Speaker 1: cultivating mindfulness was mindfulness of the body. It's like the
Speaker 1: first foundation of mindfulness dropping into the body. So not
Speaker 1: to take this and take a religious or spiritual turn
Speaker 1: on this, but since some of the best articulations of
Speaker 1: mindfulness come from the Buddhist tradition, there is something to
Speaker 1: glean from that piece of understanding and wisdom. Yeah, something
Speaker 1: about dropping into the body that can be very settling.
Speaker 1: We are animals, after all, right, Yeah, yeah, we are so. Corey.
Speaker 1: We're going to include one of your guided meditations in
Speaker 1: like the podcast notes for this episode, and I've heard
Speaker 1: this one before. It's a personal favorite of mine. Totally
Speaker 1: recommend everyone out there give it a listen. That a
Speaker 1: smooth chocolate voice of Corey's. They'll bless them a little bit.
Speaker 1: But I was curious if we could explore some of
Speaker 1: like maybe the different ways that you could practice meditation,
Speaker 1: novel ways maybe that people haven't heard of. I feel
Speaker 1: like people immediately the mind travels to sitting, paying attention
Speaker 1: to the breath. Yeah. What are some of the other
Speaker 1: practices that people might want to engage in or try
Speaker 1: out for themselves. Yeah, I mean so there are a
Speaker 1: number of measurable amount of meditation practices that you can do,
Speaker 1: but particularly in the realm of mindfulness. You know, you
Speaker 1: can bring mindfulness, as we've said, to any part of
Speaker 1: your experience. And I think often people think, oh, mindfulness meditation,
Speaker 1: I need to be sitting on the ground, cross legged
Speaker 1: in full lotus position with my hands and amudra and
Speaker 1: going own and nothing against any of that. There are
Speaker 1: certain traditions that value sitting on the floor more sitting
Speaker 1: in a chair. But if you look at what we're doing,
Speaker 1: we're cultivating attention, presence, and awareness, and you can do
Speaker 1: that in any posture, standing, lying down, sitting, walking, or
Speaker 1: even sitting on your head. So one, if sitting doesn't
Speaker 1: work for you, feel free to stand and you could
Speaker 1: do the standing meditation, be either focusing on your breath.
Speaker 1: But the first like twenty minutes of mind meditation in
Speaker 1: the morning is actually just a standing meditation where I
Speaker 1: stand and I feel my feet grounded into the earth,
Speaker 1: almost like a tree grounded into the earth, and I
Speaker 1: just try and say as still as possible and just
Speaker 1: feel the sensations in my body and feel myself being grounded,
Speaker 1: feel the weight shift on my feed and see if
Speaker 1: I can balance the weight between my right foot and
Speaker 1: my left foot. And in that I'm just I'm dropping
Speaker 1: in and feeling and paying attention to the sensations in
Speaker 1: my body. So it's a great way to ground myself
Speaker 1: on the body. And it's also great for posture. So
Speaker 1: it kills two perns with one stone. Yeah, so if
Speaker 1: you're not into sitting and watch right standing, you can
Speaker 1: do that. There are other practices like a choiceless awareness,
Speaker 1: or open presence or open monitoring. Those are three phrases
Speaker 1: described the same thing, where instead of bringing your attention
Speaker 1: just back to the breath as an anchor, you sort
Speaker 1: of just let your mind go wherever it wants to go.
Speaker 1: But you're aware as that happens so often when we're
Speaker 1: mind wandering, we're not really aware that we're mind wandering.
Speaker 1: So that's like being in class. If you're a student
Speaker 1: and like an hour goes by and you have no
Speaker 1: idea where you were. That's just aimless mind wandering in there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but we can also like sit down and just allow
Speaker 1: our minds to think and be very aware that, oh,
Speaker 1: the mind is thinking right now, and allow feelings to
Speaker 1: come up and just oh, notice what we're feeling right now,
Speaker 1: where left sounds to arise? And notice what sounds are there.
Speaker 1: And the visual metaphor I use for this is like,
Speaker 1: imagine when you're sitting in a car in the passenger
Speaker 1: seat and you kind of look out the side of
Speaker 1: the window and let's say you were going five miles
Speaker 1: per hour, so the car is just moving slowly forward,
Speaker 1: but as you're passing, you see, oh there's a tree.
Speaker 1: Oh there's a stop sign, or there's a person. Oh
Speaker 1: there's a house, there's another tree, there's a lawn, there's
Speaker 1: a dog, there's a fire hydrant, and so and so
Speaker 1: it's this awareness you're kind of just like sitting in
Speaker 1: your experience as experience is moving by and just noticing, Oh,
Speaker 1: there's a thought, there's another thought, there's a sensation, there's
Speaker 1: an emotion, there's a sound, there's another thought, and you
Speaker 1: just kind of be with that is this moving moment
Speaker 1: after moment after moment, And so that's choice, this awareness
Speaker 1: which can be a really helpful practice. If you're finding
Speaker 1: that it's really hard to bring your attention back to
Speaker 1: the breath, don't fight it. Just allow the mind to
Speaker 1: wander and just be aware that the mind is wandering.
Speaker 1: And then you know, other things I like to do is,
Speaker 1: especially on a nice day, I'll go sit outside and
Speaker 1: just like stare at a tree, or sit in my
Speaker 1: backyard and just look at you know, look out into
Speaker 1: the distance. Or when I was in Burma, after I
Speaker 1: would eat breakfast, I would come down and I would
Speaker 1: sit at the end of the edge of this lake
Speaker 1: and I would just look out over the lake. And
Speaker 1: that's what we call seeing meditation. Just observing, just seeing.
Speaker 1: You don't have to get caught up in a story
Speaker 1: about what you're seeing. Oh this is so pretty, or
Speaker 1: oh this is so ugly, or oh I wonder what
Speaker 1: that is, just noticing just oh, just the sunset, and
Speaker 1: just being in the presence of that, the raw, direct
Speaker 1: primary experience of that before we get caught up in
Speaker 1: a judgment around that thing. There's a quality of intimacy
Speaker 1: in that awareness, in that presence. So that's just seeing meditation.
Speaker 1: And then you could do walking meditation, which is just
Speaker 1: you know, just walking and as you're walking, just be
Speaker 1: aware that you're walking and feel each foot pressed against
Speaker 1: the floor. If you want to do formal walking, usually
Speaker 1: it's like you take ten steps, stop and then turn around,
Speaker 1: take another ten steps in the opposite direction, turn around,
Speaker 1: and you just go back and forth and with each
Speaker 1: step you're you're sensing into the foot, grounded into the earth.
Speaker 1: And this is a great thing that you could do
Speaker 1: maybe in the morning, while you're walking your dog or
Speaker 1: you're just you're going outside, make that into a mindfulness
Speaker 1: meditation practice, just dropping into your experience, feeling it more vividly,
Speaker 1: more intentionally, with greater awareness. And so those are a few.
Speaker 1: There are plenty out there, and I don't want to
Speaker 1: overwhelm everyone with the paradox of the choice nice sorts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they're they're endless resources. So if you want to
Speaker 1: type into Google mindfulness meditations are, go on YouTube, you're
Speaker 1: going to find plenty with plenty of stuff that's out there,
Speaker 1: and feel free to get in touch with me the
Speaker 1: email and I could send you some stuff as well.
Speaker 1: We'll include that on the yeah stuff in the podcast.
Speaker 1: It's very cool to have some different options about how
Speaker 1: we could get started meditating and also gain some variety
Speaker 1: about how we might mix it up with our different
Speaker 1: kinds of meditations. If I could just say, if you're
Speaker 1: out there and you're anything like me and have ADHD,
Speaker 1: I actually found it extremely difficult to just stop and
Speaker 1: listen to my breathing and continually restrain my thoughts. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously with ADHD, as it is an executive control function issue,
Speaker 1: but for me, an easy entry point with getting started
Speaker 1: with mindfulness meditation was the open monitoring style. Actually, it
Speaker 1: allowed me to daydream. I could actually sit back and
Speaker 1: let my mind do what it did normally, sort of
Speaker 1: on its default, but with the intentionality and with the
Speaker 1: non judgment behind it that constitution and mindfulness practice. I
Speaker 1: would recommend that to anybody out there who has ADHD
Speaker 1: and has had some trouble with mindfulness. It's a nice
Speaker 1: easy entry point. Yeah. I find open monitoring is great
Speaker 1: to do right before you go to bed, just because
Speaker 1: I'm often very tired and I don't want to force
Speaker 1: my attention anywhere, and so just like letting my mind wander,
Speaker 1: it's sort of similar to just like letting the day
Speaker 1: move through me any emotions that are left over, any thoughts,
Speaker 1: just let them come and go without interfering, just allowing,
Speaker 1: and it can be quite peaceful and cleansing, emotionally cleansing.
Speaker 1: I guess who like that? I know? Right? Cool? All right, Corey,
Speaker 1: Well thank you a thousand times, my friend. I would
Speaker 1: like to be mindful of your time. I'm not proud
Speaker 1: of that, you right, But you know, I was wondering
Speaker 1: if you just had any last comments you'd like to
Speaker 1: share with the audience or wrap up for convo. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a poem that stands out that it's become a
Speaker 1: staple in the mindfulness community, but I'll just leave everyone
Speaker 1: with it. It's called the guest House by Roomy, where
Speaker 1: he says this being human is a guest house. Every morning,
Speaker 1: a new arrival, a joy, a depression, a meanness, some
Speaker 1: momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor, and says, welcome
Speaker 1: and entertain them all. Even if there are a crowd
Speaker 1: of sorrows who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture,
Speaker 1: still treat each guest honorably. They may be clearing your
Speaker 1: out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame,
Speaker 1: the malice. Meet them at the door, laughing and invite
Speaker 1: them in be grateful for whoever comes, because each has
Speaker 1: been sent as a guy from beyond. So I think
Speaker 1: if there's any message maybe that you might take from
Speaker 1: this episode is that this being human is a guest house,
Speaker 1: and living your life is going to be a guest house.
Speaker 1: And they're going to be things that come up that
Speaker 1: are wonderful and joyous and beautiful and things that come
Speaker 1: up that are painful and difficult and tragic. And I
Speaker 1: think as we integrate mindfulness into our lives, one thing
Speaker 1: it allows us to do is embrace the fullness of
Speaker 1: who we are, the totality of what it means to
Speaker 1: live as a human being. And it's my experience and
Speaker 1: deep belief that that adds an entirely different level to
Speaker 1: this journey that we're all embarking on together of being
Speaker 1: a human. So that's my encouragement. You have permission to
Speaker 1: be human. It's okay to feel sad. You don't always
Speaker 1: need a motivational quote. Sometimes you just need to allow
Speaker 1: yourself to feel sad, to feel grief, to feel pain,
Speaker 1: and that often lays the fertile soil for joy, appreciation, gratitude,
Speaker 1: and savoring to arise organically. All right, man, Yeah, thank
Speaker 1: you thanks for listening to The Psychology Podcast with doctor
Speaker 1: Scott BARRK Kaufman. I hope you found this episode just
Speaker 1: as thought for booking and interesting as I did. If
Speaker 1: you'd like to read the show notes for this episode
Speaker 1: or hear past episodes, you can visit the Psychology Podcast
Speaker 1: dot com