Season 2 Episode 7: Spiraling Up

In this episode, we explore the idea of spiraling, through anxiety, in our bodies, and throughout our lives.

This episode traces a familiar circle, pun intended! Nancy explores the idea of "spiraling" through a personal story about living the same lessons about anxiety over and over again. Then, she talks to movement educator and expert on the mind-body connection, Jenn Pilotti, about ways to combat anxiety by using your brain to tune into bodily sensations. Jenn shares some movement exercises, tips, and tricks for calming the nervous system through movement. At the end of the episode, Nancy puts what she learned from Jenn to the test, by taking a walk through a labyrinth.

Listen to the full episode to find out:

• How to look at the so-called "anxiety spiral" in a new light.

• How to use movement to calm anxiety.

• Tips and tricks for tapping into the sensations of the body.

• Resources and advice from Jenn Pilotti.

Resources mentioned:

• Go to jennpilotti.com to sign up for Jenn's workshops or buy her book.

• Coach in Your Pocket

• The Happier Approach Book

+ Read the Transcript

Intro

Music

Nancy VO: Hey guys, it's me, Nancy Jane Smith. Welcome back to the happier approach, the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle and achieve at the price of our inner peace and relationships.

Let me tell you, and this might sound familiar, I've had some moments in my life where I think to myself, why am I here? Again, the belief that I can conquer my anxiety is still strong in me. Even after lots of time spent working through those feelings, I still find myself saying, If only I was smart enough, strong enough, or something enough, I would be able to conquer it. Sometimes it feels like I just keep spiraling through the same lessons over and over again. But in reality, I know that something enough's are impossible.

At the core of my philosophy on high functioning anxiety is to acknowledge your feelings, get into your body, and see a bigger picture. All while being kind to yourself. Learning to live with anxiety and not let it run the show is the true goal. But for me, the belief that I'm broken that I'm just living through the same lessons over and over like our rusty windup toy, is a tough one to let go of. In today's episode, we're going to search out an antidote to that spiraling feeling and rethink what it might mean to spiral towards something, rather than into a black hole of anxious feelings. So let's hop on that merry go round.

I'm looking at myself in the mirror, getting ready to go to a small gathering for the first time since COVID. Started, and I say to myself, I don't want to go to this party. I am so socially awkward, and even more so since COVID. What if I say something wrong? Or I do the wrong thing. It was the day after Fourth of July, and I was getting ready for a backyard barbecue with friends. I was tired from the family celebration to the fourth, and was feeling anxious about gathering with people making small talk and navigating being social after a year of limited social engagement. My monger started in Good grief. You are so anti social. What is wrong with you? Why can't you look forward to social events like other people? I knew she was wrong. I was excited to see our friends. And I was anxious. The being anxious part was not okay. I kept telling myself stop being anxious. What is wrong with you? My biggest fan the voice of self loyalty reminded me that it is okay. It is okay to be anxious. But it doesn't have to drive my actions.

But my monger wouldn't give up. Come on, get over it. What do you have to be anxious about? This is ridiculous. This is just a gathering of friends. You will be fine. Get over yourself. For most of the afternoon, my monger and my biggest fan went back and forth. Finally, my biggest fan said you weren't going to conquer this anxiety. And that is okay. Let's try being hyper present. bring yourself back to your body over and over throughout the event. As I got out of the car outside of my friend's house, I paused stretched my hands above my head and thought just be present. You will be okay. You are valuable, lovable, worthy period throughout the barbecue by monger chimed in constantly keeping a running commentary about what I was doing wrong. And what I should do next, like some demented sports announcer.

But each time I heard her say, you should be more social or you should be mixing more move around. I took a breath. I felt my feet on the ground and reminded myself that whatever I was feeling was fine. I could have anxiety and stay present. That process happened on repeat. Anxiety would kick in and I would take a breath and feel my feet on the ground. And it worked. I was more present and had more fun than I normally do.

Later that night decompressing after the events of the evening, I told my husband I'm onto something. This worked. I don't need to conquer my anxiety. I just need to live with it. But as I crawled into bed my mom chimed in. Why is it so hard for you to remember that the key is living with your anxiety. Why do you always feel like you have to conquer it? When are you going to get this message and accept it Then Luckily, I heard my biggest fan, oh, no sweet pea. This is the lesson you aren't broken. And you don't need to be conquering all that is wrong with you. It's hard. This is a lesson that is wired into your brain, and one that will take a lifetime to heal. And you're spiraling up, you keep getting it at another level. When I think about life lessons as spiraling up, rather than spiraling down into darkness, it gives a new perspective. While we do repeat lessons, we don't unlearn all we have implemented before we repeat the lesson one step up with a new perspective, new challenges and new information that we didn't have the last time the lesson came into our lives.

Change isn't one and done, it is on going, we might come back to the lesson. And it might feel like we are relearning the same lesson. But really, we are experiencing it at a new level with new insight, a new situation a new challenge. And then when we have that mastered, we will spiral up to another place. But I have found that there are techniques I can use to break the pattern of that downward spiral like I did at the barbecue, my favorite one get into your body.

Jenn: So we all have a body that tells us stuff, right? Like it tells you when it doesn't feel good. It tells you when you're hungry. It tells you and maybe you're a little bit tired, or when you have a little bit of tension. And then we have this brain that takes this information and decides what that means. So if we can start to get more in tune with the signals, when maybe they're not quite so loud. And we can start to play with what would happen to how can they change the signal a little bit? What happens if I change my position or I change the way I'm holding myself or I change the way I'm breathing all these things? How does that change my experience of what my brain is telling or what my body is telling me. So that's really, to me the mind body connection.

Nancy VO: This is Jenn Pilotti. She's a movement educator who writes books, leads workshops, and works one on one with clients of all ages to support their physical and mental well being.

Jenn Technically, I'm a personal trainer, I'm using air quotes here, my youngest client right now is 10. he happens to have ADD, my oldest client right now is 86. And she happens to have anxiety. Not that these are defining factors in any way, shape, or form. But I cared deeply about that integration between the mind and the body. And I care about how movement can support someone's mental well being as well as help create more embodiment,

Nancy VO: even though she's using air quotes, now, Jenn started out her career in the vein of a more traditional personal trainer,

Jenn: I was working with clients one on one as in a personal training gym setting at a country club. And I would watch people move and I would listen to what they would tell me about what they were experiencing their aches and their pains. And I also hear about their lives. And I'd be like, something is missing. There is something missing. I don't know what it is. But I feel like I'm not able to help these individuals as well as I as I felt like I should be able to like I wasn't sure what I was missing, but something was missing.

When I went back to graduate school I fell in love with neuromuscular education and motor control and and I started really starting to dive more deeply into why do things like felden craze really help some people? Why does strength training and CrossFit really help some people like what are these common denominators that I can extrapolate? And how can I make this accessible for the person that's in front of me and choose the tool that's, that's most right for the person that's in front of me based on what they have going on. I just I really got into the brain stuff and how it intersected with the body.

Nancy VO: A lot of Jenn's work involves retraining people to actually listen to the messages their bodies are sending them. And that can help with everything from anxiety to back pain.

Jenn: The way the nervous system works is that afferent branch that's getting all of that sensory information from your joints from the mechanical receptors in the skin from you know the ambient temperature outside all of that information, we tend to just ignore it.

Nancy VO: we dismiss the real and accurate information our bodies are sensing and pay more attention to the not so helpful messages we cook up in our heads. Like focusing on why do I hurt so much What's wrong with me? Instead of paying attention to the physical sensations our body is feeling

Jenn: I always think of like a picture, right? The way a lot of us look at things, it's very black and white. But when we start really paying attention to the information that we're getting, and we start, you know, playing with it, it becomes the color starts to fill in a little bit. You know, I'm trying to make the picture as bright as possible.

Nancy: Yeah, so that black and white thinking is very common. You know, one of the steps in how I work with in my system for working with clients is to slow down and get into your body. And I encourage people to do because I realized for me, like, I'll forget I have a body. Like, every time I do it, I'm like, Oh, yeah, look at that. There's this little thing down here.

Jenn: Yes, that's so informative. It has so much to tell you. Yes. That's one of the things that I try to share with people and clients often tell me they're like, this is so simple, but so like empowering. And that's that's the goal, right like to create autonomy to create self agency to create the ability to experience in a full way.

Nancy: So can you give an example of how it's been empowering, like how that has shown up.

Jenn: So an easy way is helping people feel their feats, and how it grounds how they ground them, and how that can change breathing patterns, neck pain, what they're experiencing in the here and now and anxiety, the feet, actually, there's a huge connection. And the research actually shows this between ends, anxiety and balance. So for instance, right now, if you're seated in a chair, if you start to press your feet into the floor, and you think about pressing your feet into the floor in such a way that you feel the middle of your heel. And then you start to see if you can reach the outside of the foot really long. So it's making, it's like you're making the outside edge of the footings, long as you can. And then while you're doing that, imagine that you're putting weight evenly across the balls of your feet. And you press those parts of your foot down quite a lot on both feet, and you start pressing so much that like you're about to stand up, but you're not going to actually stand up, you're just gonna get that sense, just hang up there, and then relax. And like for you, for instance, I watched you were holding a bit of tension through your jaw. As soon as I took you into your feet, the tension through your jaw, decreased, right? So

Nancy: that is crazy. I didn't even know I had tension in my jaw. Like I had no clue.

Jenn: Because this is what I do for a living and I can see your face, I can see I could see I'm like, oh, and as soon as I cued the feet.

Nancy: That's crazy.

Jenn: So that's an example. And you probably felt a little different, right? When you pressed your feet.

Nancy: Yeah, yeah. Well, cuz then cuz I was all I was more noticing, like, Oh, I could feel it in my butt and my hips, you know, like all these other muscles engaged.

Jenn: Exactly. So what that does, which is really cool, is it creates body awareness, which is really powerful for your brain. It gives your brain information about where your limbs are located in space, which creates a sense of safety. Something as simple as that, like being able to feel the feet being able to feel there's three arches in your foot, that will change a person's entire nervous system, you'll see them drop from this pretty sympathetic state to more of a balanced state between the parasympathetic and the sympathetic. So basically, between your you know, between your chillout state and your fight or flight state,

Nancy: so is it that I can help my anxiety by building better balance. And if I'm feeling anxious, I can start feeling my feet, and that it's like it's helping long term and short term.

Jenn: What's really cool is there's a correlation between building strength and a decrease in anxiety symptoms. So as you were saying with the short term, right, like getting someone to feel their feet, that's a very short term fix. And that's great, because it works really well. It's like, Okay, cool. I have something that routes me right now. brings me back from my brain into my body and into this place, like what am I standing on? What am I experiencing. But then as you build strength, which is a long term thing, you're going to feel even more grounded through your feet, because strength does that which is awesome. And it also gives you a sense of resilience, physically, which carries over into how you feel emotionally.

Like if you stop worrying so much about like, what's going on physically, and worry about again, how's this making me feel, then the movement choices they make can be much more intuitive. They start to trust themselves so much more. I had one client Tell me Just recently, she said the biggest gift you've given me she's worked with me for a long time. She has chronic low back pain is you've taught me that. It's okay if I change my position if I don't feel good. And I tried to do the exercise a different way. And she said, and 96% of the time, I can find a way to do it where it doesn't hurt. And so I can keep moving, which is amazing. But I don't have to necessarily do it this one rigid, right by.

Nancy: So what would you say is the most important fundamental thing to understand about mind body awareness?

Jenn: I would say that it's being able to feel your body and where it's located in space. And that's all the parts of itself. Now, the easiest way to think of this is whatever's connected to something, if you can figure out how to feel that thing that is connected to something, and by something, I mean, something external. So like sitting in a chair, for instance, you've got your feet connected to the floor, but you also have your pelvis connected to the chair.

So these are the things that you'd be like, oh, cool, can I feel my pelvis? And you're rocking a little bit, which is great. Can I feel my pelvis connected to the chair? Can I feel my feet connected to the ground? And what's amazing about that is even just starting to play with these simple ideas of, can I feel when my hand is connected to my phone? How does that feel? And maybe you'll start to realize maybe I don't like how that feels. But again, this gives us information about what we need, you start to play with again. What do I What do I feel? And what is that telling me. And this can help with so many things, it's just so cool. It's very, very, very, very cool.

Nancy: That sense of play, and really grounding yourself in the moment, by paying attention to what's going on inside and outside of your body is super important in Jenn's work, it can really help to snap you out of that feeling that you're circling the drain with your anxious thoughts,

Jenn: maybe your things going for walk right, say okay, I'm going to try and carve out 10 minutes to try and walk a little bit differently. And that could mean a lot of things you could try to play with taking slightly bigger steps, picking a slightly smaller steps, paying attention to how your foot lands on the ground. You know, just give yourself permission to start to notice. And if something feels kind of funky, give yourself permission to be like, Okay, well what happens if I play with this a different way? You know, what happens if I play with letting my arm swing a little more? How does that feel? What happens if I feel with letting my breastbone rotate a little more? How does that feel? You know, just give yourself permission to tune into different aspects of your body. Maybe once you've never even thought about give yourself permission to be a little little, you know, curious with it.

Nancy: It can be easy to get stuck in that cycle of circling your thoughts in a way that doesn't feel very good. But like Jenn is quick to remind me circling and rotating is actually a normal and fundamental way that our bodies move through space, and exist in the world.

Jenn: The way we move is through rotations. Even like the knee, which we think of as a hinge joint, if you really look at how the movement of walking takes place, it's a series of rotations. So spiraling is huge in just movement. And then if you look at how do you get someone to move efficiently into move? Well, well, the easiest way to do that is to move in a rotational way. So you create little rotations, maybe and sometimes bigger rotations.

There was this crazy study I read a few years ago, where they tried to figure out the best way to train the muscles on the outside of the butt, your glute medius. For those of you that pay attention to that type of thing. It was a very small study, but they actually found that walking around in a circle activated that muscle more than any of the little gym exercises. Because our body is designed to be able to move in a lot of different directions in spiral. spiraling is how we move, walking in circles as a way to train our muscles and our brains?

Nancy VO: Hmm. Now that’s an interesting idea.

Nancy Tape: Okay, so I am on my way to the labyrinth. It's early in the morning on a hot day in Ohio and I'm driving to a labyrinth outside of a local church to put some of Jen's advice to the test. In case you're not familiar, a labyrinth is like a big hedge maze with passages that circle around each other until they arrive at the center. I'm going to circle through the labyrinth try to really get into my body and see what happens. So the labyrinth is at a church near our home. It's a couple miles from our house called St. Alban's and it's actually my husband's childhood church where he went to his family was a member so they have a labyrinth out front and I'm gonna walk and see. See what happens. See what magic happens. You know always hoping for a little miracle with this stuff. Okay, there it is. Turn around. Okay.

The front says as you enter, walk in love at the center, be still and know that I am God and when you return, Go in peace. Okay, so I'm going to get in my body and feel my feet. It's been a stressful week. So I'm a little hopeful that this will change my mindset is a soupy day in Ohio super humid and wet but here we go. Okay.

Deep breaths

it's interesting how much I keep asking myself if I'm doing it right. That is a plague of my existence. doing it right. And it's a path you can't do it wrong.

The rhythm of it keeps you present.

Okay, I'm coming to the end.

In the center

it is been rainy here a lot and there's blue sky trying to come through. As you enter walk in love Ephesians 5:2 at the center. Be still and know that I am God. Psalm 46:10. And when you return Go in peace. So I'm back in the car. I wanted to record thoughts

doing that made me cry.

As much as I that's why I got silent.

Nancy Tape: I think the rhythm of following the path and not having to pay attention anything but the path and my body. Just kind of let your mind go. It was it was meditative. I guess that's the word. And I noticed feeling is coming up and typical for me. I was like, No, no, no, no, no. But I just let the tears come. And I could feel in my body just my legs and back there was a just a different presence than just walking and noticing. I know that meditation is hard for me. Just sitting that's why these walking meditations are nice because you're moving. And your body's thinking about that. But it's still I noticed myself like speeding up when the tears came and trying to get out of it. And am I almost done is this almost over. It's a very pretty small labyrinth. And I didn't move super slow through it just because that's who I am. So filled in my feet, reminding myself to keep coming back to that and keep coming back to my breath. That was hard. To do to keep coming back to my breath because I kept getting teary, but I feel more relaxed, I feel more present, I feel more centered after doing that, which is,which is awesome. It's a good way to start the day. Anyway, those are my thoughts from walking the labyrinth.

Nancy VO: My monger loves to think in black and white and be very Doomsday about the fact that I'm relearning a lesson. But like I figured out in the labyrinth, moving in circles can actually be healing. It can unlock deep feelings and give us new ways of looking at our problems. Just as a child who's learning to walk falls, so do we as adults, we lose our balance, we run into a new obstacle. But that doesn't mean we forgot all we knew before. Yes, this idea of living with anxiety rather than conquering it is an old insight. But it's one I keep practicing. I keep fine tuning and tapping into new ways to approach the constant curveballs and spirals that life throws at me. And each time I do, I learned something new.

That's it for this week. Our next episode is our last episode of the season. Can you believe it? We've come a long way on our journey to self loyalty and we're gonna wrap things up by talking to an old friend of the show, and an expert in self compassion, my friend, Reverend Gary Ritz. That's next time on the happier approach.

The happier approach is produced by Nicki Stein and me Nancy Jane Smith. Music provided by pod five and epidemic sound.

For more episodes to get in touch or to order a copy of my book, happier approach. You can visit live dash happier.com and if you like the show, leave us a review on iTunes. It actually helps us out a lot.

Special thanks to Jenn Pilotti for speaking with us for this episode. You can find more information about Jenn sign up for her workshops in order her book, body mind movement and evidence based approach to mindful movement at Gen Pilates calm. That's Jenn with two ends P-I-L-O-T-T-I. The happier approach Are we back with another episode in two weeks Take care, until then.

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Season 2 Episode 6: Anti-Gratitude

In this episode, we tackle a subject that Nancy has VERY strong opinions about. Gratitude.

In this episode, we tackle a subject that Nancy has VERY strong opinions about. Gratitude. Sometimes it seems like people use the idea of gratitude as a way to wipe away the pains and sorrows of life. But that isn't very effective, and can end up making us feel worse. Nancy talks to journalist and author Rob Walker about how we can use the art of noticing the everyday as a way to tap into a deeper sense of gratitude for the world around us. Rob shares some tips, prompts, and suggestions for using simple attention as an alternative to the stale notion of gratitude. Listen to the end for some excellent dog panting sounds!

Listen to the full episode to find out:

• How to hold on to our power of attention in everyday life.

• How to tap into and notice the world around us to create an authentic sense of gratitude.

• Tips, prompts, and tricks for sparking creativity through attention.

• Resources and advice from Rob Walker

Resources mentioned:

• Go to robwalker.net to learn more about Rob and order his book.

• Subscribe to The Art of Noticing newsletter: https://robwalker.substack.com/

• Coach in Your Pocket

• The Happier Approach Book

+ Read the Transcript

Intro

Music

Nancy VO: Hey guys, it's me, Nancy Jane Smith. Welcome back to the Happier Approach, the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle and achieve at the price of our inner peace and relationships.

I have one question for you today, what the f is gratitude?! Not to get all Webster's dictionary on you. But the actual definition of gratitude is: “the quality of being thankful, readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.” So on one hand, gratitude is great. Yes, we should always appreciate what we have. But what does gratitude really mean in practice? A lot of the time, it's a word that's tossed around as a solution to all our problems. We treat gratitude, like it's a pill we can take to wipe away pain. But sometimes being told that I should be thankful during a difficult moment actually makes me feel worse. And that can be more harmful than helpful.

I’m sitting at the crowded bar, wine glass in hand, enjoying happy hour with a friend. I've spent the weekend with my dad, who's dealing with Parkinson's with dementia. And it's been a tough weekend. I'm sharing the experience with my friend while sitting at the bar. I say, “It's just so hard watching dad struggling with dementia. I mean, it is the hardest thing I've ever faced.” She is quick to reply with, “Oh, I'm so sorry.” Quickly following up with, well, maybe it would be helpful to find the gratitude here. And then she went on to list all the things I had to be grateful for. My dad had lived a good life and was in his late 70s, we had a good relationship. And at least he knew who I was. I'm sitting there stunned. I take a sip of wine and try to gather myself.

My first thought of Wait a minute, I just shared something really hard with you, and you're playing the gratitude card!? is swiftly followed by my monger who pops in for an appearance. “She is right, you should be grateful. Quit your whining and remember how blessed you are.” I quickly changed the subject, recognizing immediately that she just can't go there with this topic. feelings of hopelessness and guilt wash over me, my takeaway, don't share hard moments with friends at happy hour.

In moments like that, gratitude can be tricky. Gratitude should help us gain perspective in a positive way. It shouldn't be a quick fix to a bad mood, or a way of wiping away our pain and suffering. So sometimes with gratitude, it's more about going deeper, taking the time to notice what's around you and let it sink in. Rather than making gratitude a balm for your bad days. And wouldn’t you know, incorporating gratitude into your life in this holistic helpful way, is actually a process that takes time, attention and effort.

Rob Walker: You're talking to me on a Friday and I have a thing with sort of with my wife, we call it flower Friday.

Nancy VO: This is Rob Walker, he is a journalist, columnist, writer and author and this exercise he's talking about, it's a lesson in attention.

Rob Walker: We sort of make it a point to try to notice flowers. Now that's a little corny.

But it's a real thing.

Nancy VO: Rob is literally an expert at noticing the little things. In fact, he wrote a book about it. It's called The Art of Noticing: 131 Ways to Spark Creativity, Find Inspiration and Discover Joy in the Everyday.

Rob Walker: There are 131 prompts, games, provocations, ideas, like I wanted it to be a book you could flip through, get inspired by and find things in it that you could really add to your life.

Nancy VO: Attention and curiosity originally drove Rob towards his career as a writer.

Rob Walker: I sort of discovered writing in the form of journalism. When I was in college, that was a sort of classic, no particular direction. 18 year old, my thinking at that point was like, well, Stephen King That looks like fun. Maybe I could be Stephen King. I very much randomly stumbled on the student newspaper, I stumbled across literally a flyer, they were looking for record reviewers. And I went and screwed up my courage and applied. I consider it very fortunate because I knew the minute that I began writing in the context of journalism, nonfiction writing, I knew this is what I wanted to do. And I consider that very rare fortune. I was very shy. So journalism gave me a framework for dealing with the world. Journalism is a field that rewards curiosity that sort of justifies curiosity. I was sort of maybe not interested in what the teacher was saying and more interested in you know, why is the room laid out this way? Or what kind of bird is that out the window, you know, this kind of thing. And journalism actually rewards that It rewards the idea of noticing things that other people aren't paying attention to and

Sometimes even the idea of paying attention to what you're not supposed to pay attention to.

The endless curiosity thing is still the driver. That's the one through line to all of this.

Nancy: So talking about the curiosity and noticing what excites you about right now about the everyday world around you? What are some of your favorite details to notice like in the world?

When you're allowed to go to new places, again, I advise people to ask about the weirdest thing in the room.

Music

Because this is always what gets the best stories. Like if you go to someone's house, and you're looking at the mantel, and like, you know, there's a family photo, there's, um, obviously beautiful vase or something that's like, Oh, well, that's a collectible. And then there's some weird tchotchkes. And it's like, why would you have that, and usually you people just ignore that. And in fact, if anything, they'll say, Wow, that's a beautiful vase. But I recommend the opposite, which is like, ask about that weird thing, because there's a reason that it's there.

And this works in restaurants and places like that, to where you get the best stories by asking about the things that don't seem to belong. And people appreciate those things being modern society wants your attention, there's a huge war on to steal your attention and direct you into looking at a certain thing at a certain time and a huge amount of our waking life now, and especially with these phones that you and I are both holding right now. It's not just advertisers vying for your attention. It's everyone you're connected with on social media. I don't want to make it sound like it's a conspiracy or like a horrible Black Mirror situation necessarily. But it is the function of the way we live. I call it the war for attention. And I felt it is very important to hold on to your attention to be able to direct your attention where you want it to.

Music out

You're never going to discover anything new if you don't put yourself in unexpected situations. And that means truly unexpected situations. That means when you are in a place that you're not interested in, I'm particularly a fan of taking of making it a point to take a walk.

Music

I was in I guess, Santa Clara or someplace like that, where it was not really a pedestrian friendly situation at the hotel. And there was a whole foods, I wanted to get the snack and it was a

five minute Uber ride or a 25 minute walk through kind of not super pedestrian friendly territory. But I did it anyway. And I actually ended up passing this restaurant that I never would have seen and I ended up having dinner that night, you discover things, it expands the way you're experiencing the world. Because you're not just like shuttling from one place to another in these hermetically sealed efficiency machines all the time, giving yourself a chance to be surprised. I think it's one of the most valuable things you can do.

Music out

Rob Walker: The things that you notice that other people don't notice are what make you an individual. And they are the basis of really all great art, and all great entrepreneurial ism, there is no being an entrepreneur, without spotting an opportunity that other people have missed. You can't be a successful entrepreneur by saying like, Oh, well, this category is really successful and dominated by a lot of people who are already buying and selling it all do that too, that you have to use your powers of attention and noticing to zone in on what other people are missing and to believe in it. Believe in your own vision and your own point of view.

I regularly give the assignment of find something to complain about. A lot of what entrepreneurs noticed that other people miss is problems, is something that's wrong, something that needs fixing. Why isn't anyone fix this? Here in New Orleans, there's tons of potholes, we have terrible street conditions in New Orleans. There's an Instagram feed, whose name I can't repeat in good company, but it's basically look at this terrible bottle. So it's documenting these things with sense of humor, it's pointing out problems and essentially could say like, well, they're just complaining, but they're complaining in a delightful way. And I think that that's legitimate, and I think that that's valuable. That's just a different way of looking at the world and I would argue a different form of being productive

Nancy: I have a pretty strong stance on gratitude in the sense of that a lot of the people in my world in my, a lot of the listeners, a lot of my clients have a I should be grateful belief rather than so they will whatever they're experiencing the pile on top gratitude to make themselves feel better because they should be happy all the time. but even the find something to complain about still like at its core? There's some gratitude in there. I think what I like about the find something to complain about, it is really observing the world and saying, this could be better.

I think someone that came in with the positive thinking bent or super grateful would be like, Oh, no, no, we need to be grateful for the fact that we have streets to begin with, you know.

And that's where we get in trouble, I think is we just get too stuck in that positive bent rather than really noticing there could be change here.

That's the problem in my mind with gratitude. Is that you know, it's very much that idea of it. It keeps us stuck.

Rob Walker: Yeah, exactly that we just be grateful that we have streets until eventually the streets would crumble into nothing and we would not have streets. And then I guess we'd be grateful that we have kind of clearings that we can drive on still sort of a little bit, there's actually a lot of discourse around gratitude that I think does lead people to put it on their list of like, Today, I'll be grateful for something. And there's a kind of roundness to it, that is just like another box to tick off. So I heard someone recently used the word, so I'm not making this up. But I can't credit it because I can't remember where exactly it came from. But I'm fascinated with it. Use the word savor.

Music

So this is a variation about being grateful for everyday things. Like let's say, you walk outside to get the mail, your brief break from the day, and it's blue sky, you know, sometimes you go outside and it's, you don't have no idea what's going on. Outside you go. It's like, oh, wow, it's actually a nice day. So is to savor that. And so this is a form of gratitude. The challenge is to actually pause and experience that's why I like the word savor because it reminds you of like, when you're eating something and you're like, you know, you kind of actually slow down and actually let the food rest in your mouth so you can savor it, as opposed to just swallowing it so you can get on to the next thing, that attitude, if you can apply that to whatever, maybe it's something that your dog does, like savor your dogs, that sounds maybe serving but you know, or your children or your spouse, just really have gratitude in the moment for the small things. Or maybe it's just some objects that you own. That's like, you know, this is a really good hedge trimmer or whatever. That is a slightly different angle on the challenge of gratitude. I think that maybe invites you back into the world and takes it out of this thing of being another, you know, to do list.

Music out

Rob Walker: This is why I tried to de mystify the word not demystified. But de-fang, the word complain. And this sounds funny, but complaining gets a bad rap.

Oh, no one likes a complainer. No one likes a critic. But you know what, we need critics. Without critics, there's no progress. So people who say critics are no good, usually just don't want to hear criticism. And that's fine. Sometimes we have to shrug off criticism. But let's not pretend that there's no role in that. And there is gratitude built in the critic the complainer is trying to build a better world ultimately. And that is an act that is wrapped up in gratitude for how things could be.

Nancy: I know for me this this art of noticing and slowing down and even being able to focus on you know, even on the dog walks, it isn't natural. It's going against my programming of get it done, Hustle, Hustle, Hustle, keep pushing forward be as productive as possible.

Rob Walker: Of course, I struggle with it. I think everyone does. And I think there are even evolutionary reasons for you know, we're in we're built to seek out threats and rewards. If you leave this interview with just one thought it is please stay off your phone while you're walking, be with your dog while you're walking your dog, your dogs not going to be there forever. Take those moments. It's a great move to try to figure out what is your dog paying attention to and you know, zero in on that, like, what's the smell or he or she smelling were they looking at were they hearing it's kind of using that mindset like adding this to the menu of things that you need to get done or that you find value in and my hope is that there's a sort of degree of gateway drug ness to this that once you have the experience of, you know, maybe having an unexpected epiphany that you will find value in it.

Nancy: Okay, buddy.

Leash jingling

Let's get the leash moving.

Let's do it. Let's do it. Do it. Here we go.

Door opening, birds chirping

Okay, so it is crack o'clock early in the morning Waterston. I are headed out for our walk, fellow goofy talking into my phone. But here we go. We're going to be noticing I'm going to try to notice whatever Waterson follows. We have lots of bunnies around here. So still

I'm going to be doing a lot of bunny noticing.

But it is a beautiful, sunny cool morning here in Ohio.

He's all weirded out because I keep looking at everything he's looking at.

I always try to be really aware in our walks, just bringing my attention to looking around and not usually on our walks, going through my to do lists and figuring out my plan for the day.

So trying to shut that off and just be present is different.

And then the number of times I have to bring myself back to now we're noticing we're just noticing instead of letting my mind go into the to do list and all that stuff, this is a fascinating our squirrel in the mind is.

The other thing I wanted to notice was red, because that is something that stands out easily so for as we head towards Main Street, there's red umbrellas and red stop signs red stoplights.

Even the library has windows or red.

Okay, let's cross the street.

Red and a basketball hoop, red tail lights.

There red in the bricks.

The red of Watterson’s tongue.

In the red leaves, the red trees, the trees look red, but that just the leaves are red.

Now my brain is just constantly scanning for red, red, red, red, red, which is very different than how I normally do a walk.

But the red really causes me my brain to hook into something different. Because I can look for now when I see something red, I'm like, oh red, red, as opposed to, as I said, going through the to do list so it gives my brain something to do which I think is helpful.

But even like noticing the red American flag, the red and the signs, it is fascinating to me how the more I do this, the more I notice.

And it is a form of gratitude, I think gets you in that mindset of gratitude. Because you're just slowing everything down. You know that we can take this walk every morning through this beautiful space and be safe and see other friendly people and just it's makes me very grateful.

So I do think that this is what I love about this is what I believe gratitude is going deep and slowing everything down and being able to appreciate what it is you have.

Rather than it being just something I tell myself to pull myself out of a bad mood. still finding the red in the no parking signs the red bricks of the capital stadium.

Now we are headed down the alley towards our home headed back. Noticing the red and someone painted their garage door read the people door. That was a red car.

My mom and some of the family members always say that the cardinal which is red is the state bird of Ohio. And we have a lot of them around here. And mom will always say whenever she sees a cardinal that it's a dad there's there's a belief that people who have passed inhabit

The Cardinal I don't know where that came from.

For a long time when I was doing these walks, I would hear what I now know is a pigeon or a dove would hear that and think of the sound would remind me of my home. My parents home and certainly my dad. And so that sound would always bring him alive to me. And I love it when we're walking the dog. I haven't heard one this morning, but I love it when I am walking the Dog and I hear that sound because it makes me think of him.

Okay, we're round on the corner. Here we go. Waterson

Here we go. finish everything up.

We did it. Thanks for going on our walk with us.

You ready ready.

Nancy VO: As I sunk into the art of noticing on my walk with Watterson and went deeper with my gratitude, I was able to relax and really savor that cool July morning, while holding the memory of my dad with me. That is the power of gratitude. It's the same with that story I told earlier about sharing my heart experiences with my dad in his dementia with my friend at the bar. Despite that negative experience, I was able to find gratitude in the little moments with him. I can slow myself down and notice moments of connection, soaking up one of his hugs, savoring a voicemail message he left, even now paying attention to the Cardinals and mourning doves on my morning walk, noticing him and the gifts he gave me.

Theme music

That's it for this week. Next time we're going to talk about spiraling but not exactly in the way you might think. We'll talk to an expert on the mind body connection about getting out of our heads and into our bodies. And I'll be taking a special trip to a place where meditation and movement intertwine. That's next time on the happier approach.

The happier approach is produced by Nicki Stein and me, Nancy Jane Smith, music provided by pod five and epidemic sound. And if you'd like the show, leave us a review on iTunes. It actually helps us out a lot Special thanks to rob Walker for speaking with us for this episode. You can find more information about Rob, order his book and subscribe to his newsletter where he shares prompts, icebreakers and conversations for incorporating the art of noticing into your everyday life at Rob Walker dot net.

The happier approach we'll be back with another episode in two weeks. Take care until then.

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Episode 161: Experimenting with Meditation and Mindfulness - Part 2

In this episode, I chat with my friend Sean McMullin, the producer of this podcast, to share the results of my 30 days of Meditation Experiment

About a month ago, I challenged myself to a month of practicing meditation. 

As I shared in Part One of this series, I didn’t have a consistent meditation practice prior to this experiment. In fact, I was pretty resistant to it in the first place. (Be sure to go back and listen to this episode if you haven’t yet!)

But I was inspired to give meditation another try because of all the stress and anxiety in the world right now. 

As I share in the episode, I made it to 30 days of practicing meditation and mindfulness. Technically, it was two weeks of meditation and two weeks of mindfulness—and I get into why I broke it into chunks like this in the episode. 

Of course, I had to invite my friend and podcast producer, Sean McMullin of Yellow House Media, back to the show to chat with me about my experience. As you heard in the first part of this series, Sean is someone who not only knows me well—but he also has a meditation practice of his own and I figured he’d be the perfect person to keep me accountable. 

I learned so much from this experience and I learned even more through my conversation with Sean.  meditation.

Listen to the full episode to find out:

• What went well and what didn’t go well in my meditation and mindfulness experiment

• The role my BFF and my Monger played in the experiment

• Sean and I discuss the role of neuro-diversity, rules, and rigidities and how something as small as closing my eyes became a HUGE stumbling block for me in my practice

• What my meditation and mindfulness plans look like moving forward

Resources mentioned:

• Headspace Meditation App

• The Real Point of Meditating by Mike Sturm on Medium

• The Science of Mindfulness | Dr. Ron Siegel | Talks at Google

• The Art of Noticing by Rob Walker

• Coach In Your Pocket

• The Happier Approach Book

+ Read the Transcript

Nancy: A little over a month ago. I challenged myself to do a month of meditation. Meditation has always been a stumbling block for me. And so I met with my podcast producer, Sean McMullin, someone who has his own meditation practice. And we talked about my plan for the challenge. If you miss that episode, make sure you go back and listen to episode 1 55 before you can.

This week, Sean and I are back to talk about all the things I learned. If you have struggled with making meditation, a regular part of your life, keep listening because the results might surprise you. You're listening to the happier approach. The show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace in relationships.

I'm your host, Nancy Jane Smith. I made it 30 days of practicing meditation. Really two weeks of meditation and two weeks of mindfulness, but we get into all that in the conversation. I learned a lot from the experiment and I learned even more through my conversation with Sean, listen, to hear what went well and what didn't in my experiment, the role, my BFF and my monger played in the experiment.

Sean and I discussed the role of neurodiversity and rules and rigidity. And now something as small as closing my eyes became a huge stumbling block for me. We also discuss my plans moving forward. Hi, Sean. Hey Nancy. We are back again to do the meditation. Download

Sean: The followup to your meditation experiment.

Talk to us about what, why did you even do this? What was your intention going into this experience?

Nancy: Because in my own life, I had not been practicing a lot of mindfulness and everything was just buzzing in my head. And I was not settled in my body at all. And just plowing forward with everything I was doing.

And so that was one like, that was why now is the time to do this experiment. But the other thing is I've meditation has. Been a thorn in my side, in the sense of, because I help people with anxiety and I experienced anxiety that therefore the top thing anyone says is, oh, then you do meditation.

And so it's always been a point of embarrassment or shame that I don't do meditation, that isn't a regular practice. And so I wanted to be able to put that shame or you. Test that and see, okay, let's really try this and see if you are a meditation person or if you aren't a meditation person, let's really get to the bottom of this.

And that was really the crux of why I wanted to do it. Does that make sense?

Sean: It does. Absolutely. It's interesting for me to hear you talk about meditation and mindfulness is not being the same thing either. Like you can certainly, and we're going to talk more about that, like that. And the connections between meditation and mindfulness approach, this would mean how did you, what was your daily practice?

Did you have a daily practice of the day? Give us a rundown on,

Nancy: so I set an alarm on my phone at two o'clock every day. And my goal was to practice just five minutes just to do a meditation for five minutes. And for me, because I am so rigid in my rules, meditation. Means eyes are closed. I'm listening to a guided meditation of someone telling me how to breathe and where to go.

And I quiet the mind as much as possible for five minutes. That was what I did every day at two o'clock. I didn't always do five minutes. Cause sometimes it was too much. I didn't always do it at two o'clock, but when the alarm went off, it was a reminder of, okay, I need to do this, but in my mind, Meditation it is that eyes closed.

It's a long period of time, two to five minutes, which doesn't seem like a long period of time, but when your eyes are closed and you're interrupting your work day to do it, it is it's hard. My hope was that I would love it so much that I would get into 10 minutes of meditation and 20 minutes of meditation because that's real meditation.

Sean: Did you feel that what you did wasn't real meditation, correct?

Nancy: It was just five minutes. So five minutes is not real meditation. Also. It's been a great lesson for me in the idea of recalibration. And where am I listening to my biggest fan telling me it's okay to recalibrate. And where am I listening to my BFF?

That's saying, screw this. We're not doing this. This is ridiculous. You don't have to do this, stop doing it, which was pretty much every day at two o'clock. My BFF was pretty loud in her. Oh, really? You're going to do this. This is so terrible. Don't do this. This is too painful, but I do think I came to a place that my biggest fan was in charge.

It took me a minute, but I got there.

Sean: Remind me how many. Did you do it for two weeks?

Nancy: I did the five minute meditation every day for two weeks. And then I loosened up my rules a little bit and I was like, what if we just practice mindfulness every day? We didn't have to shut our eyes. Mindfulness. These are open.

Mindfulness means eyes are open and eyes open. A big difference for me in just being able to like, just soften my gaze or my desk looks out on our backyard. So being able to look out the window and so I would put on nice music. I'd look out the window and I just shut my brain off, but eyes were open.

I wasn't doing the breathing exercises. I was just letting my mind wander for five minutes and that I could do for more than five minutes. It's the eyes closed. It's the eyes closed. And so maybe it is my BFF is running the show. Cause my BFF is so freaking loud in there that it was hard for me to settle down enough to get any benefits from it.

Sean: One

thing I do want to say is, are regardless of what your BFF is telling you about whether or not you meditated the, you did meditate because for starters and you know this, I'm telling you things, you already know. It can be 30 seconds and it's still meditation, but the act of just having done it, whether or not you got out of it, what you thought you would get out of or what you wanted out of it, you still did meditate.

Nancy: I guess it's the rules. And rigidities because what did happen, which I was happy about is that. In practicing the mindfulness at two o'clock every day. Once I gave my permission that I could just have my eyes open and listen to good music and just calm my brain, then that started happening more often throughout the day.

So I would keep doing the dishes and I'd be like, okay, we're like, let's just do the dishes here, and practice mindfulness here. Or I would be walking the dog and be like, let's just walk the dog. And it was there a minder of, I know how to do this. More than I think I know how to do this. Okay. So the beginning goal, which was, I need to settle my brain down more and I need to get in the present moment, definitely accomplish that in the 30 days, because I've been able to recalibrate to notice when I'm spinning.

And be able to recalibrate that a little bit, that hasn't been a hundred percent successful, but it definitely has helped. I got a couple of messages from people after our first podcast talking about that I was doing this and they were like, oh my gosh, I can't believe you're doing this. I cannot meditate.

It's so hard for me. And so with some of it is. The rules and rigidities we have around, what does meditation look like? And I have a lot of rules and rigidities around that. Yeah. So you would say what I did was meditation. I wasn't eyes closed. Yeah. Breathing.

Sean: It's the process. It's not the destination.

Now I would hope that if I were to struggle every single time, I sat down to meditate, I would propose to you and to myself, other types of meditation that within that rigidity, we think about meditation as being something very specific. And I don't think that it's as specific as a lot of us feel that it is.

You didn't try any visualization techniques. You mostly just did the breathing techniques.

Nancy: I downloaded Headspace.

Sean: Oh, you did?

Nancy: I did, but I didn't pay for it. It was two week free trial. So that's why two weeks on that. I like the heavy guided meditations. I like them walking me through talking the whole time is a lovely British accent guy that was so calming and that I really enjoyed.

And that took me awhile because the first week I was like, no, I want the not guy. Meditation once. And that was too hard. And so once I figured out that it was the guided ones I liked, then I was like, oh, then I would go on YouTube and find guided meditations. But no one had the nice voice as the guy on Headspace.

That was the best. So a lot of times we'd just do the meditation of the day and pick the guided ones. And then I did explore, like you could do watching a waterfall or something and hearing that. And I did that a couple of times, and that was nice. And then I started Googling YouTube waterfalls and would do some of those when I was in the two weeks off of Headspace, because my big fear is I was going to come on here and you were going to be like, you failed.

You did not.

Sean: Oh, it's so funny. You should say that because I was like the next question I was going to ask you, because for those of you out there in the audience, listening. I am married to someone quite similar to Nancy Jane Smith. And so I almost always preemptively know what her experience in these things is going to be.

Nancy, do you feel like this was a failure?

Nancy: I'm trying hard not to feel like it's a failure in the sense of, let me say that differently. I'm trying to recognize that not following the rigidities does not mean it was a failure. So maybe the failure is in thinking that it has to be this rigid. Instead of recognizing that meditation could take on a lot of forms and that the end goal is to be more present and grounded in yourself in the present moment, whether that is because you're doing a 20 minute meditation to start the day, or whether you're doing little bits of mindfulness throughout the day, or you do five minutes at two o'clock, it doesn't matter if the end goal is what we're going for.

And there are a variety of ways to get it. And so when I can get my mind wrapped around that, I'm like, it was totally not a failure. It was a great success because it reminded me of the power of mindfulness. I used to talk about mindfulness hacks all the time and the various ways to do that. And I've stopped doing that.

I stopped practicing that in my own life and I stopped talking about it as much. And so that was a reminder to come back to that because. I think I had gone down the path of, if you're going to talk about it, you got to talk about meditation, so don't bother talking about it cause you're not practicing meditation.

Does that make sense?

Sean: It does I'm very curious to know if you see the connection between your feelings and perception of success or failure and the expectations that you had going into it

Nancy: a little bit, I would say I expected myself to turn into a completely different person who would just be amazed by meditation and the power of meditation and would be transformed by it.

And because that didn't happen, I felt like a failure because it was so hard. I felt like a failure because every day at two o'clock I dreaded it. And even when I got into doing it and I was eyes closed. The days I did the five minutes, I never made it five minutes without being like how much time is left, how much time is left, cause it was so hard. It was so hard. And I think I, that was a failure that it was so hard. Yeah.

Sean: Because what I'm proposing is that sometimes we go into situations with expectations. And then when the situation experience or our performance, doesn't meet those expectations and that if we can let go of the expectation or not even impose them upon ourselves, then there really is no point of reference for success or failure because.

We never had the expectation going into it. Now, of course, this is like, how is that even possible? We always go into things with some expectations, because one of the things that I've found with meditation is that I've had to let go of what I expected it to be and allow myself to learn what meditation is in general.

And is. Through the process because it has turned out that it is not at all what I expected it's to be. In what way? I knew you were gonna ask me that. I think that I expected far more results. Oh, that's more immediate way. I'll admit that I thought that I'd come out of meditation, a session all zenned out, and that just doesn't happen.

Like I'm not even joking. The other day. I had an anxiety attack in the middle of a meditation session and I had to get up after it was over and go take my auxiliary anxiety medication. But was that a failure? I don't consider it to be,

Nancy: and I wouldn't consider that to be a failure. Yeah, it's interesting.

I wouldn't consider that to be a fail because I totally don't consider that to be a failure for, as I said that, I was like, do you think that wouldn't be a failure for me? And I can logically say, absolutely. I could see how an anxiety attack would come because you are calming yourself. You're dealing with what's there.

So when you settle, the anxiety can come up sometimes. And so logically, that makes sense to me. But if that would've happened to me in this time, I would have been like, I'm done, I'm not doing this anymore.

Sean: So moving from what your expectations of meditation were to what you actually got out of the experience, being a renewed interest in mindfulness.

That in a certain sense, there was a lot of success in this experiment.

Nancy: Yes. I would agree with that. Yeah. And today when I was walking the dog and I was thinking though about this conversation, and of course I was like, Sean's going to be like, you're a failure

Sean: and the big, bad Sean's going to come in and chastise you.

Yeah. Like I chastise anyone.

Nancy: Yeah. I put my Monger on you all the time that you're going to be chastising me. And then I said to myself, it isn't. A failure, even if Sean thinks it is, I don't think it is. And that's new for me to be able to recognize it's okay for Sean to think this is a failure, but I don't think it's a failure, but I think most of it is the idea that there's a part of me that is beating myself up because I made up my own rules on how instead of holding to the experiment This is what meditation looks like and that, and the goal of getting to be able to do 15, 20 minutes of meditation by the end of the month, that did not hold.

And so therefore, I, my monger is telling me you wiggled your way out of it. And that's where I say. The idea of being like it's okay to personalize this process. It's okay to recognize doing that is hard for me closing my eyes even like when we would go to church and praying, like that is just a hard thing for me to do.

In general and that's okay. To give myself that permission, but that's new for me to give myself that permission because the idea is always, you're wiggling your way out of this instead. You're not doing it right. Not doing the hard thing. Yes. That is it. Some of it is, I'm not doing the hard thing.

Yeah.

Sean: This is really hard for you and you're avoiding the work aren't you?

Nancy: Yeah. Yeah. But then it finally dawned on me of why is closing my eyes. The be all end, all of this, like what's the real goal here. And so that's when I realized it was the mindfulness and being able to practice that in a variety of places, I will say the second two weeks, when, so much better than the first two weeks, but I got so much more out of the second two weeks and actually was like, oh, this is nice to take this break in the middle of the day.

One of the things that's so hard with high functioning anxiety is that the push, push. And even when you might recognize you need to take a break, you're so compelled to keep going that you don't take a break and having this forced break in the middle of the day, that was a win that's super uncomfortable for me.

Sean: Have you continued?

Nancy: I have continued. I'm not as rigid about the two o'clock thing. Cause then I gave myself permission to do mindfulness elsewhere other than just the two o'clock time. So I will say, I ha I've done it every day, every afternoon, but sometimes it's at the end of my Workday.

Sometimes it's when I come back to the bathroom, I'll take a break and I'll do it. Like it would be two o'clock. The alarm goes off, drop everything and meditate. That's how I held it initially, but that has changed, which I think, I don't quite know how I feel about that, to be honest with you, because I think some of it was the rigidity, which was hard to hold, but it's also that idea.

If I give myself a pass, I just take a pass. That's why the rigidity is there. Cause I don't trust that I will really do it, but I will say this. The other thing I learned is that when I made it my own. And did you know, the mindfulness piece more so in the eyes open and then looking at my window, I got so much more out of it and it was so much more enjoyable for me.

And that was a lesson to me. It isn't all bad to make it your own, but all my life I have believed I. Broken and somebody else has the better answer. And meditation is one of those things for me, that's like the holy grail, right? If I could only practice meditation, I wouldn't have to deal with any of the stuff I deal with.

That would be the secret pill. If I could just get myself to do it, I wouldn't have anxiety and I could really be helping people. And part of me still believes it's because I did not. Do it correctly, but it still is the holy grail. I just didn't do it. Yeah. If I had done it for 20 minutes, because in my mind it is the holy grail and that has loosened some it's still there, but it's loosened up.

Sean: So do you, would you be willing to revisit meditation in the future or are you in a place where you can allow yourself to let go of it.

Nancy: I don't think I would revisit it. But I do need to really focus on that idea that meditation is the holy grail. Like I think that has loosened. And I think I need to keep loosening that belief because I do think that holds me back personally and professionally, because this is what.

I believed in the holy grail of meditation and that I was a loser because I wasn't doing it. And then I went to screw meditation that isn't the way to do it. And all these people say in meditation is the way they don't know what it's like to have high functioning anxiety. And they're totally wrong.

They're totally wrong because I can't do it. And so screw meditation. When in my book, I talk about how you don't have to do meditation. You could do these mindful. Which I believe, but I was demonizing meditation instead of saying there's a lot of ways to do meditation. It doesn't have to look like this can do it in these ways.

And so I think now that we're talking, I think I was really bouncing back and forth between the monger telling me this is the holy grill and you're a loser. Who's not doing it. And my BFF saying, screw meditation, this isn't it at all. And I, like I said, And the beginning of this conversation, I'm coming back to the biggest fan being like there's a lot of ways to do this.

Let's find the way that works for you right now. And that may change. You may find it. A year or five years that you can close your eyes and do what you think to be as traditional meditation. But right now that isn't the case and that's okay.

Sean: Yeah. Maybe even more than okay.

Nancy: (laughter)

Sean: The best thing. Yeah.

Nancy: But obviously this topic is super loaded for me.

Sean: It's interesting. You mentioned this, like it's either your broken and meditation. Because meditation doesn't work for you or screw meditation. Meg meditation is a big crock of shit, right? Yeah. But there's nothing in between that, like it's interesting hearing you like process that,

Nancy: I think. After this challenge. I came to the I'm coming to the middle more, but I think most of my life I've bounced back and forth between those two extremes. And I think if anything, that is the win of this practice. I it's a win. I didn't really see coming. It's a win that I have been more grounded and mindful and grateful to be practicing.

Like we picked a good month to be truly bringing this back in. So that's a positive, but also the idea of decreasing the trigger that is meditation and bringing it more into the middle ground.

Sean: I love that. So have you thought about what you intended on doing, going forward with this? Do you have specific plans or do you still have to process that a little?

Nancy: I don't have any specific plans, like specific, two o'clock the alarm is going to go off kind of plans, but I would like to get back into that part of what the mindfulness hacks that I did. Part of the reason I got away from them was because of COVID cause I'm home all the time, but a lot of the mindfulness hacks were built on.

And when it got into the car, when I hit a stoplight, when I got out of the car, when I got into my office, when I was at the grocery store. So I would be practicing these ways to get into my body and be more mindful out in the world. And so now that I'm home all the time, I lost those. And so that was a goal to figure out what are the cues I'm going to use to bring those back in.

So anytime I come into my office or, and when I go downstairs to get a glass of water, as I'm waiting for the water to come. Do some mindfulness figuring out what those are. The other thing that was interesting is I have had a rule around yeah. Rules, big fan rule around when I'm walking the dog. I cannot listen to anything.

I have to just be walking the dog. And then this past week I started listening to the daily podcasts and it has been so nice. But to get out of my head and to be hearing something that's going out in the world and it's not about my work. It's just something that I'm interested in because the news and politics really interests me.

So that's been strangely relaxing. And so then it was the recognition of this is strangely relaxing. Right now, because then I would make a new rule. I'm always going to listen to the daily every morning while I'm walking the dog new rule. And so to recognize that let's see every morning, let's check in and see maybe it would be helpful to listen to the daily.

Maybe it'd be helpful to have nothing on. Maybe it would be helpful to listen to a business podcast. And that is a new thing for me too, is to recognize, oh, I don't have to be so rigid. Cause I was like, this is my mindful time walking. The dog is my mindful time. This is when I'm really focused, but it got to the point where I was just like, so in my head it wasn't mindful time.

It was just like me. Hashing everything out while I'm walking the dog. And the daily kind of reminds me, there's a whole other world out there that isn't in my head. And that has been helpful.

Sean: Do you consider this to be this idea, to be someone who would have a cop-out that you can find rigidity and you can create a rule in that your morning walk, you will never impose one thing.

The rules. I will never know what I'm going to do on that walk until I set out the morning of the walk. Is that like a, do you consider that to be like a cop-out or is that like a re, could that be like a real rule that you could impose?

Nancy: That could be it, because when you said that, I was like, Ooh, that's a good rule. (laughter)

I got a little excited Ooh, there's a new rule.

Sean: If you were to bring in some openness and expansiveness in the rules and it still creates some of the elements that really entertain you and bring you comfort. Cause rules bring you comfort, but yet allow for some breathing room in there.

Nancy:

Yeah. I think that would be awesome. My husband has been so instrumental in changing that. And changing the rules. I have come a long way in my rules. And rigidities, if you can believe it, because he will frequently point out to me, there's no right way here. There's no right way. And every time he does it, I'm like media.

It's like a mind blowing experience to recognize, oh yeah, there is no right way. Cause I get so stuck in the rule and the more anxious I get. The more rigid my rules get the more anxious I get. Like it becomes a loop. Like I have anxiety, I build a lot of rules. And then with the rules comes a lot of Monger and a lot of BFF activity because that's constantly of, you should follow the rules.

You should break the rules. We should follow the rules should break the rule. So the, my anxiety. And then it just keeps circling around and around. And so when he can come in and say, there is no right way, I can breaks that cycle.

Sean: So as you're talking a thought occurs to me this way that there are, there's a right way in a wrong way to do it.

And there's the way that everyone else seems to do this, but it doesn't work for some reason for you. And then. It seems like it's a challenge to go into the way that it seems to work for everybody else and to try and find your place within it. And that struggle of that feeling of being broken because you don't fit into the way things.

What comes to my mind is I've been talking to some other people about neurodiversity and there is some extreme number, more obvious pronounced examples of neurodiversity. When you're talking about somebody on a spectrum or, and, I believe really strongly that, and don't get me wrong.

I'm not saying you have a disability.

Nancy: I hear you.

Sean: But that I remember reading somewhere once where physical disability is largely based upon the physical environment that we're in. So like with legislation that makes it so that all public spaces have to be handicapped accessible while the disability actually starts going away.

When you create spaces that are accessible, it's really the design of our space that creates. Disability or not actually what the person is going through physically. And a lot of people say the same thing about neurodiversity, where if you have a kid in school who has like really like sensory overload, certain sounds or lights or things if you create spaces where those things don't exist, the disability actually starts going away.

One of the things I know about our society is that we have a tendency to try to make everyone be like everybody else. And so going into this conversation about meditation is just I'm broken because it didn't work for me on on does this resonate with you at all? This is like, When we talk about neuro-diversity, there's a lot of less pronounced versions of this diversity.

I have it, I can't stand this people eating food, and I have to get up and leave the room, whatever. And there are for whom closing their eyes is just anguish. Now, like with more pronounced versions of this of this diversity, I wonder if it's a matter of finding. Not the way you need to conform yourself to fit, but the way that you can find what you need and make your own place in this.

Nancy: Yeah. I think I totally agree with you. I think that is fascinating. The fascinating idea, stop trying to fit your round peg into a square hole, which is one of my favorite visualization, things to think of. I still am like a better person can close the eyes. Yeah. And if I worked hard enough and figured out enough hacks and tried, I could be a normal person too.

Sean: I think what, yeah. And I understand definitely what you're saying, and I know that it's cliche, but it's like, what is normal?

Nancy: Totally. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's easier. It's easier said than done. Easier said than done. And it's definitely, I think every day I say to one of my clients, stop trying to fit your square peg into a round hole.

Like it's one of my favorite phrases because, cause I think I need to hear it, but it's so different when it's, when you have been programmed and we all have been to some degree, you have to be. A square peg, you have to fit into the square hole. Even though there are oval holes and round holes and star holes, like there's a lot of different holes out there, but the, I would call it brainwashing, the brainwashing you receive.

And it was given to me as a good thing. Here's a way to, to fit in. Here's a way to, to survive without conflict in the world. But even with that, even though the messaging was from an, a positive intent, the messaging I got was because you're broken and you won't fit in just being you. And so you have to figure out ways to do it differently.

And the interesting thing, as we're talking, I just was realizing because meditation is one of those things. Like it is morphed in my brain. How much of an issue it is for me? Like how, I've amplified it to be, I don't to meditate is the same as saying, I don't like to eat chocolate.

It's just who are you then if you don't like to eat chocolate. But even though I know there are a lot of people out there that don't like deep chocolate. Relate to that at all, but it doesn't mean it's wrong, but it's that same, everybody likes chocolate. What is wrong with you? That you can't do it.

And so recognizing I've amplified it to be this big thing. And it's really just when you said that about Sable to start to close their eyes, I'm like, yeah, that's all it is. I like to close my eyes. It's not some, I'm a failure at meditating. It's I just don't really. Because of my eyes and it makes me feel too out of control.

Sean: And I love also this, like going back to the beginnings and looking towards what were the actual goals all along well success. And that, if it seems to me like the experiment has been a success, because you've been able to identify, there was this thing that you wanted, it's been weighing upon you, you gave it the college try or whatever, and. You found that one tool meditation with your eyes closed, isn't the right tool for you. Maybe someday. It might be again, who knows? Maybe not that's okay. But there are all, but now it's just wait a second. There's these mindfulness techniques that I love and they work and you felt those results.

And so now you actually get to move forward with a little less baggage, actually.

Nancy: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And not even knowing that all that baggage was there, like that was the interesting thing too, is also to recognize like how many people who are listening have something like this. This is oh, if I was a better person, I could blah.

And instead of having the kindness to be like, What's the end goal here. The end goal is to feel for meditation is to feel more grounded and more in the present and less spinning out in my brain and the mindfulness hacks get me there. And I do them, like both are true, whereas the meditation also could get me there, but it's something I, I dread doing.

It stirs up a lot of crap for me. So instead of being like, I got to power through that and get to the other side, which is always been. Default power through, get to the other side, instead of doing that, to recognize what if there's another way of doing this, that gets you to the same goal and it doesn't cause any problems.

In the meantime, like I almost act as if by doing the mindfulness hacks where little babies are dying, because the same meditation, the right way. That's how. Big, it gets in my brain as if I'm affecting other people's lives, because I'm not able to do meditation by closing my eyes. And even that was really helpful just to recognize when you said that about the diversity to recognize, oh, it's the closing the eyes.

You're like, that's the main problem is it's really the closing. The eyes is the main problem.

Sean: Interesting,

Nancy: fascinating on the neuro-diversity thing. Cause that never entered my brain.

Sean: Nancy that you wanted to say to the listeners? Like any sort of advice about how you would suggest would you suggest people do an experiment like this?

Nancy: The beauty of the experiment was that it forced me. To come to a reckoning with a lot of this stuff that I did not realize was there. And so for that reason, I would encourage people to do an experiment because something might come up that they don't know that it's there. And if they don't want to do an experiment, what I would encourage them to do is to have some curiosity around when they do practice mindfulness or meditation, how that feels and what comes up for them and to be able to have that practice.

Without all the judgment and rigidities if possible, which I know is a lot to ask, but bottom line, I would encourage people, whether you're doing meditation or mindfulness, opening your eyes, closing your eyes, dancing in the street. I don't care. You have to have some type of practice. That brings you into the moment that gets you in your body.

That cuts out the nonstop chatter in our brains. And I think people need to have some curiosity around what that practice is for them. And I'll happily in the podcast notes include some yeah. Mindfulness hack examples that I have used in the past to give to people. And I think I even have podcast episodes where I talk about it to give people some other ways of doing that.

Because as I've said, a thousand times, acknowledging your feelings and slowing down and getting to your body are the two things that are the most important in dealing with anxiety and are the two things that. Want to do the least. I was really bummed when I realized those were the keys, but since I have embraced those two things, my anxiety has become so much more manageable.

Sean: Incredible. And then what I love about that answer is there's so much hope in that answer too. There's so much optimism

Nancy: cause to me now it feels more free and spacious than it did when we first had the first conversation. And I was like, this is what it has to look like. I was super. Closed in what meditation had to look like.

And so to your point on the neuro-diversity, just to recognize that we have a lot of different ways of processing stuff and a lot of things, whether it's a personal preference or a hard wired part of your brain, when you're doing practices like this, you want to be doing them where they are enjoyable.

So let's pay attention to those practices or those personal preferences. Neural pathways rather than beating ourselves up for them. If it's not explainable, it's still okay. To cut out the judgment on this is mindfulness. This isn't mindfulness. Yeah. Instead of just being like this makes me feel bad.

This makes me feel more grounded. This makes me feel more connected to myself. This makes me cut out the noise.

Sean: And I'm going to do this regularly and on purpose.

Nancy: Yes, exactly. Yeah. Yes. I'm glad you said that. Cause I do think when you can train it to be, this is something I'm doing for myself. This is a gift I'm giving myself that flips.

From external locus of control, internal locus of control. I'm not doing this because Nancy Jane Smith and Sean McMullan said that meditation and mindfulness are the key. I'm doing this because I have done it. And I know it helps me feel better. That's why I'm doing it. And that's the key. That's awesome.

Thanks for challenging me to do this, Sean. Cause I would probably would not have done this. Had you not held my feet to the fire a little bit about it. That's been my pleasure. Okay, Shawn, thanks so much for joining me on this conversation. This was really fun. I hope you get as much out of this experiment as I did at the bare minimum, I hope it encourages you to give it a try, whether it be meditation or mindfulness.

I know quieting our minds and getting into our bodies is a powerful practice.

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Episode 155: Experimenting with Meditation and Mindfulness - Part 1

In this episode, I sit down with my friend Sean McMullin, the producer of this podcast, to talk about experimenting with meditation and mindfulness. 

To hear how the experiment went: Listen to Part 2

I don’t have a meditation practice of my own. 

In fact, I’m pretty resistant to it. I have a lot of rules around meditation and I’m pretty rigid in how I think about it. 

But, with all the stress in the world recently and my own anxiety, I thought it might be helpful to revisit meditation. 

Meditation, after all, puts our anxiety front and center. It encourages us to make space for it so that we can soften our feelings of anxiousness and stress. Maybe it could help? 

That’s why I decided that doing an experiment would be a lighthearted and fun way to reintroduce meditation back into my life. Plus, it would be a space for play and exploration rather than rules. 

In this episode, I sit down with my friend Sean McMullin of Yellow House Media, who is the producer of this podcast, to talk about experimenting with meditation and mindfulness. 

Sean’s been practicing meditation for nine months at the time of recording and is light years ahead of me—and he also understands my blocks and resistance to meditation.

Listen to the full episode to find out:

• The moment when Nancy realized that she needed to start adding meditation into her morning routine

• Sean’s experience with daily meditation plus how long his meditations were when he first started and how long they are today

• Nancy and Sean explore the reasons behind why people meditate, why they don’t, and common expectations (like meditation is going to make everything easier in life)

• How people with high functioning anxiety might struggle with establishing a daily meditation habit and what to do about it

Resources mentioned:

• Headspace Meditation App

• The Real Point of Meditating by Mike Sturm on Medium

• The Science of Mindfulness | Dr. Ron Siegel | Talks at Google

• The Art of Noticing by Rob Walker

• Coach In Your Pocket

• The Happier Approach Book

+ Read the Transcript

Nancy: If you've listened to me for awhile, I do not have a meditation practice of my own, but recently with all the stress in the world and my own anxiety, I thought it might be helpful to revisit meditation. Not surprisingly. I have a lot of rules around meditation and I'm pretty rigid in my thinking about it, which is why.

Maybe doing an experiment would be a good way to reintroduce meditation into my life. I wanted to talk to an expert in meditation and fortunately the producer of this podcast, Sean McMillan has been practicing meditation for nine months. He would not call himself an expert, but he is light years ahead of me and is also someone who really understands my blocks and resistance to meditation.

So following is our very casual conversation around meditation and how I'm approaching this meditation experiment. You're listening to the happier approach, the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace in relationships. I'm your host, Nancy Jane Smith.

So today I'm reversing the roles here and I'm bringing on my friend, Sean, who also happens to be the producer of the happier approach who is going to be talking me through this new thing. I'm working on this meditation experiment. Hey, Sean, tell the audience a little bit about yourself.

Sean: Hello audience.

You've asked me on because we've decided to do, you've decided to do an experiment, a meditation experiment, and we're going to talk about it because I have a daily meditation practice. And I'm curious why you don't, because I feel pretty strongly about meditation and

Nancy: People that do it, do feel very strongly about it, why I'm interested in doing the experiment, but I have also been very anti, not anti meditation because I know for those that do it, it's very powerful.

I've not been able to start my own practice. And so I've been anti it for myself even this morning, as I was doing my morning routine. And right now, as we're recording this, we're in the crazy pre-election time. And Trump is hospitalized with COVID and there's a lot going on, but that doesn't mean I need to be obsessive early.

I'm checking Twitter at seven o'clock in the morning. While I'm making my coffee, just to see if there's any news updates. And I noticed this morning, I couldn't put it right. Like I couldn't put my phone down. I was checking email. I was checking Twitter and I was like, this is why you need to be doing a meditation or mindfulness practice.

I don't have any time where I just have space in my brain to be. And I'm hoping that the meditation practice can help me do that. And meditation is like that. If I could only practice meditation, then yeah, I will be totally fine. As if that's the one thing I need to do and then everything will be okay.

And so I want to. To demystify that. Cause I don't really believe that. And so that's why I wanted to talk to you. Cause I know you have meditation practice and you are open to discussing that and walking through what it has done for you and why it's a powerful practice.

Sean: Do you want me to tell why I've only been meditating daily. I'm going to guess nine months. Okay. Long time. And then additionally, like I, I have my meditation app and it tells me what my. Streak is and for good and for bad, I'm not a completionist.

So if I miss a day, which I don't feel bad about myself and I

Nancy: You don't have high functioning anxiety.

Sean: No, I do not. I have anxiety, but I don't have high functioning anxiety. That's a hundred percent for starters. I a hundred percent, except that I am a meditation novice. And that everything that I say is based upon my own experience and that there is always the very exciting reality that there is so much to learn and that I'm just a child when it comes to these things.

Nancy: But that's why I wanted to have you on, because I think many of my listeners. Our pre-child to this. And so to them, you are, and to me, you are an expert because you've been doing it for nine months, inconsistently, perhaps, but still longer than I've ever been able to manage.

Sean: I have, I have attempted it many times over my life.

And when I lived out in Oregon, there was at a Buddhist monastery near us and they had every Sunday they'd have like open house and you'd go and you could meditate with them. And I did that. I did it a few times. And that was really interesting. It was interesting. They did a lot of moving meditation where they actually walked there was like this, there was a space that they walked.

Yeah. There was some chanting involved too, but it never really stuck. What happened was about turn of the year, last year. I a few things happened this coming up in November, I'm three years sober and yeah. Big deal. And so that process of becoming so. And has given me space to become more mindful of who I am, what I do.

I now approach life with way more intention. I don't feel quite so I just have way more space and it's wonderful. There were a lot of things that sort of became revealed to me that I think that I could ignore because I was just intoxicated, like my level of anxiety on a daily basis. And so then about nine, 10 months ago, I had, I started having panic attacks and anxiety is so irrational.

I was like, I need to do something about this. I need to get serious about this. Backed off coffee, that kind of thing. I got on medication, but I also started my meditation practice. And when I first started, I'm not even joking. It was three times a day. I was meditating.

Nancy: Wow. How long would each time be?

Sean: When I first started, it was like 10 minutes. Wow. That sounded like now my daily is 20, which is great. Okay. And then I'm actually going to like, try to increase it to the 45 minutes to an hour, but not on a daily basis because one of the, one of the things that I ran into and I would imagine a lot of people listening run into is this idea that there's a right way and a wrong way to do it.

And that you have to go all in and you have to. Become a meditator.

Nancy: You're speaking my language. That is exactly what I feel.

Sean: But the truth is that, I would imagine that there are benefits from doing, there's a scientifically proven that at a certain period of time, that's the most beneficial make the time. And, but even if you just stop and take 10 deep breaths, Even that is a big deal that in of itself when you stop and you say to yourself, into your mind, just quit for a second.

And yeah, so that's how I started. And it was a really big deal for me because like I said, I was in just like breakdown, panic mode. And when I started out my back was really hurting. And so I would lay down. And I'd meditate laying down, which is still one, which is still one of my favorite ways to meditate.

And although I don't do it very often because I tend to fall asleep. I started using the app Headspace and it's, they've been really great. And they add a particular module on anxiety where they, they talk about anxiety and what it isn't. How to approach it. And I did that for their sessions that they had for those, I think, I can't remember how many they were and then it just, I don't know if it was like that or a combination of other things, but like having made the decision to start meditating, I started seeing everything just become more manageable and I started looking forward.

To meditation every day where it gave me something to look forward to where I knew had solemn. It's just so nice to be able to have a time of the day, whether you don't have anything to do, except for what you're just sitting there. And imagine people with high functioning, what am I talking about?

I know people with high functioning anxiety. Really find that challenging

Nancy: because I'm like, that sounds like hell to me.

Sean: So regardless of whether or not you have high functioning anxiety or not modern society tells us that we are constantly have to be doing something going on.

Exactly. And that if we sit and do nothing, we are lazy. We are worthless. We are, our life does not have purpose action has to be happening, but I also think the way a lot of people approach meditation, they bring that baggage. With them to their meditation practice, where this has to be productive. This has to produce results.

This has to be quantifiable. You know what I'm saying?

Nancy: Oh my gosh. I totally know what you're saying. Yeah. I know what you're saying. So that was why. You've heard this story before, but I went to a training on meditation by Ron Siegel. And we're going to put the video, not of my training, but of a training he did at Google in the show notes.

It was a full day training and I was dreading it, cause I have this thing about meditation and we did the meditation. I think it was 10 minutes. And he was like, if you didn't experience this as puppy. Like puppies that you were trying to gather in then you weren't doing it because that your thoughts are like puppies that are constantly rambling and that's how it should be.

It should be uncomfortable. It should be, like you're constantly trying to wrangle as you're new at this. And he went on to say the Jon Kabat Zinn, who did great things by bringing meditation into the. Medical community and really did some studies around it, but he sold it as a stress reliever.

And he said, meditation is not, that's not the end goal to relieve stress. The end goal is to separate out you from your thoughts. So to recognize that there are these things happening all the time, and to put some space between you and them. Is the goal. And I can remember at the time that really resonating with me of, oh, that's doable.

That is an end goal that I can see. I remember years ago I downloaded Deepak Chopra, did a series, meditate every day for 30 days. I think he might still do it. And. Maybe 10 minutes. And I don't think I got through any of them for 10 minutes. It was too intense, too long. I can remember looking up after a minute, after two minutes after five minutes with so much anxiety around, am I doing this right?

Is this going okay? Am I, I start relieving my stress. And my experience with meditation. That sounds stressful. Yes. And that was years ago that I took that class. It's taken me this long to recognize, okay. I want to go into this experiment being loose, as loose as I can about. My expectations and what the rules are and what this has to be like.

Even as we sat down to start this conversation, I said to Sean, okay I just read that it's 45 minutes is what the studies have shown that really gives you the best results. So I should do it for 45 minutes every day. Okay. And that is like an impossible. I just said I can barely do it for 10. And now suddenly I'm going to be able to do it for 45.

Come on, welcome to my brain. So what's the difference in your mind between meditation and mindfulness?

Sean: Ugh. I don't know. I've been thinking about this though. Like we can talk through this because I think that meditation. Is one tool for developing mindfulness. I would agree. That's meditation.

Isn't mindfulness and vice versa.

Nancy: Is that what you're saying?

Sean: I just don't think that there's the same thing. And I think that there are many ways to obtain greater levels of mindfulness. And I think that meditation is one. Tool that you can use to work towards that. And I'd love to hear actually, when we're go ahead.

Nancy: So mindfulness is the larger umbrella and meditation is one avenue to mindfulness.

Sean: Okay. Like I, I love the metaphor of a toolbox. If you have your mindfulness toolbox, we have okay, now we have a few of them. There's walking your dog. There's, I'm looking for the color blue. There's smiling to people.

When you walk down the streets, there's things that are bringing you into. Where you're being more mindful of your act of your actions. And I would say that meant that meditation and even meditation, the probably has different skillsets and different modes underneath it. There are different ways to meditate.

And I would say that those are another set of tools within your toolbox of a greater mindfulness. Does that, do you agree with that?

Nancy: I totally agree with that. Yeah. Yeah. I would agree with that

Sean: . So mindful, right. Meditation being a tool for developing mindfulness. I liked the eye and I like that mindfulness becomes an expands out into the rest of my life.

And that I would say that for starters, I've been pursuing mindfulness in some way or another for most of my life. But when I intentionally make time and space for it, because I'm looking forward to it, I would say that it does expand out into the rest of my life. And I've learned how to identify that.

Why am I rushing from place to place in my head? I'm like, just slow down, just do a little stretch real fast.

Nancy: Why this is coming up for me now, because I was better about mindful. Before COVID when I was out in the world and would have those moments of recognizing just slow down, like I be in the car and I would just be in the car and looking at the clouds, as much as you can safety wise, or if I notice myself rushing from thing to thing, I would do that.

But in the house, Not having that separation between work and personal life and having everything be all muddled. I have less and less of that. And I think that's a reason this is coming up for me more. I need some space in my brain that I've don't have because everything is so muddled together right now.

Sean: So how are you planning on approaching. This experiment

Nancy: years ago when I was practicing I had to get all the accoutrement to do the meditation. So I was thinking today in preparation for this conversation. So I was going to set up a meditation corner and I had that cushion and then the little back support thing.

So I was like, oh, I should get that all set up. So I walked the dog every morning and that is like my. My favorite time of the day. Like I absolutely love it. And it used to be that I guarded it, no podcasts, no listening to music. It was just me and the dog. And then lately I don't have time to listen to podcasts because I'm not leaving the house as much, so I need to get some podcasts done.

And so it has become, let me be more productive with this dog walking time. And. So that is something I think you had mentioned, like even going on a walk and that you would look for the color red, or you look for the color yellow, or you have a practice that brings you back into the space. And so I would love to hear more about that.

So I think it would be cool to see, to ease into it, to have that dog walking time, be the beginning where I'm doing a minor. Practice as I'm walking the dog. And then when we get back in the house to take 10 minutes and do a meditation app where I'm just sitting in the house somewhere doing that.

So that's my loose plan.

Sean: That sounds great.

Nancy: Oh, cool. I needed your approval on,

Sean: It's a good starting place, right? Because. Immediately it's manageable. It's doable. You're going to enjoy it. Yeah. If someone would be setting themselves up for some level of failure, if they are trying to force something on themselves that they don't even enjoy on some level.

So you're talking about how I go on walks and I'll go looking for a particular color. Or I go looking for padlocks, or I only walked down ways or I look at chimneys. Oh. And lightening rods. I go out looking for lightning rods. So what it does is it's just taking me out of my head and it's bringing me into my body.

It's bringing him into my space and this is mindfulness. This is a fun. Version of it, right? Because you're doing these field trips. You don't have to focus on breathing. You don't have to pretend you don't have to try to be Buddha, but I would say highly important to what you're saying is don't look at your phone, turn it off.

Yeah. But a resource that I recommend for this is Rob Walker's book, the art of noticing and emails. Yeah. I think that, I think I recommended them. He does these weekly icebreaker things. So they're fun, but he's particularly with with the pandemic. He's been really talking a lot about how, what we can do just within our neighborhoods without having to travel far distances, how we can engage and enjoy our neighborhoods.

But the subtitle of this book is 131 ways to spark creativity, find inspiration to discover joy in the everyday God. He was the one who inspired me to go looking for a color. I would say. Try, I would say, start with your dog, but I recommend at some point go in, without your dog

Nancy: Ah, that's a good idea.

Yeah. Yeah. That would be non-productive

Sean: exactly.

Because with your dog, you are giving yourself that excuse because isn't going out and taking a walk for yourself enough?

Nancy: You would think? yeah, even as you said that my first thought was, oh, that makes sense. And I was like, oh my gosh, when would I possibly find time to do that?

Which dude, it's not like I'm booked, 24, 7 or even 12 hours a day. I could definitely find time. To do it. It was just me taking the time to do it. But yeah, absolutely.

Sean: So I'll often do that in the middle of the day. So I'll do a quick lunch and then I grab an apple and then I take a walk and I find that actually middle of the day is a really good time.

Because you're awake in your alerts. Yeah. To talk about like the sitting meditation. So I do sit in meditation, I have my cushion and you have your cushion. I love my cushion. Like I have right there on the floor and people trip over it. When they walk into my room, I have put it like smack dab.

In the middle of the floor of my office and it doesn't move. It's not in the corner. It's not, it doesn't have a special space. It sits there and it demands attention.

I was going to say, you were talking about. The puppy metaphor, the Headspace people use the blue sky metaphor where, you're trying to obtain that blue sky where you don't have any of the worries and thoughts going by.

But the truth is that the sky constantly has clouds going past it. I'm on the other side of it. Yeah. The blue sky. And when we're having these thoughts, the feelings come into our minds. Our first reaction is to resist them and we want to push them away and get rid of them as opposed to what they've recommended and what I've learned to do.

And this is like very valuable it beginning practice is what's called recognizing where you are. You literally in your mind say that's a thought and it feels like this. Or not even that it feels like that's a thought and it's a negative thought or it's a positive thought, and then you identify it and then you go back to, we are breathing or your visualization or whatever it is.

And then when the next one comes, you do the same thing. And it's not about pushing them away ever. It's about just, okay. There it is. And now. I'm just going to let it go and moving back to your focus and to send to the anxiety stuff. And you can definitely do this when you're walking is that we get so wrapped up in thinking that our thoughts and our feelings are us, as opposed to something that we're experiencing. And so when we identify these things as this, instead of saying, I am sad, you can say, I am experiencing sad. I love that. Yeah. To identify our thoughts and their feelings is something that we're experiencing as opposed to who we are. And for me, that's what had been one of the, when we talk about the results, I would say that's one of the biggest results because that, it's always work, but I don't always successfully do this, but I can generally achieve this experience where I can say, oh, that's, I'm experiencing something right now.

And I can just be with it. I don't have to do anything. And just it's there and immediately makes it so much better when I don't identify it as me.

Nancy: Yeah. Because I think partially why I'm more interested in this, in the idea of meditation now, why it's coming up is because before I did the happier approach and did you know, acknowledging your feelings and getting into your body before I had the ask philosophy, practicing ask is my baby step to be like, oh, you aren't your feelings.

You aren't your thoughts. Let's be curious about who you are as a person, as opposed to just treating yourself like a machine that needs to be harnessing your best potential. And I think to have that reminder to myself, I have taken some steps towards mindfulness in comparatively to even when I went to the wrong seat.

Conference I was talking about, but my next step is I need to do it more intentionally for longer periods of time. And so that was another reason why this seems intriguing to me to actually have a practice. Yes.

Sean: So would you say that's what this experiment is feeling out what your personal practice would be?

Nancy: Definitely. Yeah. Cause I feel like I've railed against it for so long. It's become a thing. That I rail against it more so than it's worth railing against. And so I'm ha let's put down my ego for a minute about how I don't meditate. You don't have to meditate to deal with your anxiety and be like, okay, all these people are saying, this is really beneficial.

So let's put down that you go and practice and see. How to make this your own and it doesn't have to be, oh, which is a strong pull for me. Obviously it doesn't have to be the here's the 45 minute session. And I'm going to sit in the Lotus with my. Legs crossed applesauce and be all, Zen for 45 minutes.

That's I, that is not necessarily going to happen. It may happen a day or two, or I may be into that, but I don't have to be rigid about my practice. And even that. Is new to me, not to have to be rigid about it, but to figure out how to make it mine. Yeah. I want to look at it as this is the next step of exploring my internal world and I've spent most of my life looking outside for the answers and I realized that, okay, it's not that all the answers to life's mysteries are inside me, but I think that.

Navigating life would be easier if I had a little more awareness of what's happening inside my brain and body,

Sean: I feel like life becomes richer. Yeah.

Nancy: That's the word? It is richer. Not easier richer.

Sean: Yeah. And I think that misunderstanding. Meditation is going to make life easier. And then when it doesn't causes a lot of people who have tried, it feels strife.

They feel like why isn't this working?

Nancy: Yeah. Yeah. I'm so glad you said that. Cause I think that is that is a key difference.

Sean: It might not make things easier, but I feel like it does make it better and more manageable for me because things are still hard, yeah. But I feel less panicky about it and I feel like there's something I know that I can do.

And I know that's a thing that appeal to a lot of listeners. I think having something neat that when you feel out of control and it's just oh shit, I can't believe this. That you actually have a tool that you can fall back on.

Nancy: And a grounding within yourself to no pull into, I keep thinking of that.

But I think lately I've been missing that connection with myself because I have been so externally focused because of COVID and everything that's happening in our world and have pulled up some of my negative coping strategies. To deal with that. You have gone back into my defaults and I want to reset that.

And this is a way of doing that. That's a fun light-hearted. I can think of it as an experiment and pull back some of that rigid rigidness.

Sean: And for me, I think. For me and my personal brand of mindfulness is to look at everything it is happening to us with as an opportunity. This is, we don't learn anything, just living in easy beige colored life.

We just don't know challenges, difficulties. This is an opportunity for us to grow. And if we don't have those opportunities and it's, difficult things suck, but I think that we can appoint you approach them with a little as a word to joy Levine. And I just be like, all right.

All right. Life, let's bring it on. Yeah.

Nancy: Yeah, definitely. I think because I think when we're not so focused on. I got to get to the DMV and get to the next thing. So I can check this off the list and be like, this is where I am, I'm at the DMV. So I might as well make this the best experience it can be.

My dad always makes me laugh. He used to play the game, walking down the street which I didn't know this. And my dad was like, business suit, super gruff looking guy. He would see how many people he could get to talk to him and he would, so you'd greet everyone down the street and see if he could get them to smile and talk with him.

And I was like, wow, that is totally, did not expect that from my dad. What a fun little game, and it's a way to bring you back to center.

Sean: My stepdaughter and I, and my wife were walking down the street the other day and we, and I got my stepdaughter to play a game where we were looking for things that were odd.

And then we were rating them on a scale of odd. And then. And it was so fun. Cause she's 12 and I'd be like, look at that. That's pretty odd. She's oh no, that's not odd enough that doesn't make the cut.

Nancy: That's awesome.

Sean: So you're playing. Is you're going to wait a month to start off with how long a month I can do a month. Yeah, I have a hundred percent. You're going to do it out of just sheer stubbornness at this point.

Nancy: Oh, Hells to the, yeah. And this is it. That's partly why I wanted to declare it so that I could be like, I know I have it here.

It is. It's declared. I'm doing a meditation experiment now. I can't back out. And I'm going to report back in a month and share how it went and it, and that doesn't mean it's going to be like, oh, and it went amazingly and I've totally changed person. It's going to be my struggle with how it went or the ups and downs.

And I think that's how I'm approaching it differently this time than how I have in the past, where in the past it would have been like, and so in a month, I'll come back and share with you how it's been amazing. And I've a totally changed person. And. Cause I wouldn't want to show that it didn't go well.

And now I can be like, I'm open to where it's going to go and what my sticky points are going to be and the experiment.

Sean: Yeah. I love that. Because with an experiment, you can't go into an experiment knowing what's going to happen because then it's not an experiment. Do you intend on exploring different modes of meditation or do you intend on doing the one year to start there?

Are you open to changing and trying other things? Yeah, most definitely. Yeah. Yeah.

Nancy: Yeah. Okay. And so when you say other. Modalities of meditation. What would that be? Where would I find those? Do you have any

Sean: I use the Headspace app. One of the things that's nice about it is every meditation that they have.

So they have like their daily that they provide, which is, you never know what it's going to be, but it's typically they'll have some sort of discussion on a topic. I don't know, a couple of minutes before you start meditating. And then the system of the guided meditation is consistently the same and it's breath.

It's breathing based. Okay. And what's nice about them is that you can, there's a slider where you can choose anywhere from five minutes, 20 minutes as you actually choose the length of the meditation based upon. Okay. And I, one of the things I like about them is that it's not, it's pretty poppy and it's very accessible.

But when I say other modes, there's also visualization, so there's breath based, but then there's visualization based. Or things like you S you have a some light growing in your chest that expands out into your body. And then it starts expanding out into the room. I struggle with visualization visualizations.

I am not good at them. So even this morning as I was meditating, I know that I'm not supposed to use this language, but I was failing as a meditator this morning. I was thinking about this interview. I was thinking this conversation. I was thinking about all the things I had to do for work, but I have reached this point.

Then when I find myself quote, unquote, failing as a meditator, I actually laugh at myself because I actually laughed out loud, sitting there meditating. I laughed to myself and then I go back to my brain. And that is, that's a huge accomplishment that I've gotten there. Other modes of meditation are moving meditation and that's where like even Headspace has these, where they have walking meditations, where you do put your headphones on, you listen to a specific meditation and you go out and take a walk, listening to it.

I haven't done it yet, but they have the whole thing. Oh, wow. Okay. That might be something really valuable for you to try out. Yeah. And they also have like sleeping meditation. So the middle of the night you wake up, will you put it on and they bring you to a different place. I'm really, I really dig what they do.

And I know that there are many other ones, it was just the first one that I chose when I was in a place of desperation. But those are the, those are some of the. I'm that I'm familiar with. And I'm I thinking that there's a lot of other modes modalities. Okay. Can I give you one piece of advice though, for starting off with your don't do this sitting down on the cushion thing.

Okay. Find yourself a good upright chair, like a kitchen table chair with a back. Okay. And set up right. Ground your feet, hands in your lap. And don't put too many barriers up at first because a lot of us, our bodies don't like to sit on the ground. And I would say, grow, graduate into that, but just sitting upright in a chair.

is just such a good way to meditate. So in a month or so I'm looking forward to hearing what comes of

Nancy: this. Yeah, me too. I'm definitely looking forward to it. I think it'll be fun.

Sean: Are we going to, are we going to touch bases on our follow-up to this episode?

Nancy: Yeah, definitely. Thanks Sean.

Sean: You bet ya.

Nancy: I appreciate all your insight and your help. You made it so much more approachable. I was already feeling that it was approachable, but just walking through the different ways you've done it and how it's helped you and challenging me on my own biases around it has been helped.

Sean: Good. I'm glad to hear that as always

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Episode 120: The 3 Steps of A.S.K.: Slow Down And Get Into Your Body

In today’s episode, we continue our discussion of A.S.K. with the second step of the system: Slow Down and Get Into Your Body. 

To deal with the Monger, you have to get out of your head and get into your body. 

Most of us live predominantly in our heads. We literally aren’t even aware that we have a body unless it starts to hurt, and then we just take a pill to make it better. Our Monger takes up a lot of space in our heads, so the more time we spend in our heads, the more we stay out of our body and the louder our Monger gets.

Last week I introduced A.S.K. and talked about the first step: Acknowledge your Feelings. If you missed it please go back and give it a listen. 

This week we are talking about the second step: Slow Down and get into your body. 

When we hear our Monger talking and berating us or our BFF judging other people or sabotaging us, the goal is to bring in the voice of Biggest Fan. 

One key to channeling your Biggest Fan is getting into your body. When we can slow down and get into our bodies, we change our perspective. By changing our physical presence, we can see more options and the last step – Kindly pull back to see the big picture – can happen with greater ease.

Listen to the full episode to find out:

• How accomplishment and drive can take up the same space as slowing down and intentional living

• How to create a practical meditation practice that will actually work for you even if you’re not a “super meditator”

• What the research has to say about slowing down and the mind-body connection

• And some tips for practicing the Slow Down and getting into your body when it is the last thing you want to do

Research and resources mentioned:

• Mind–Body Research Moves Towards the Mainstream – Vicki Brower

• The Feelings List PDF

• Episode 110: The Voices In Your Head – The Monger

• Episode 111: The Voices In Your Head – The BFF

• Episode 112: The Voices In Your Head – The Biggest Fan

+ Read the Transcript

He lovingly grabbed my shoulders and said, “Honey, I think you need to take a deep breath.”

What?!? I thought to myself, resisting the urge to punch my husband in the face. Take a deep breath! That is the LAST thing I want to do.

This was a common scenario in our house, me coming downstairs to share my stress and anxiety and my husband trying his hardest to help by reminding me to take a deep breath.

He didn’t mean to anger me to the point of violence (ha!). He meant it as a kind, loving activity that he knows works in decreasing anxiety, but for me, taking a deep breath when I am that anxious is torture.

“You’re listening to The Happier Approach—the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace and relationships. I’m your host, Nancy Jane Smith.”

It’s not just deep breathing.

Any attempt to reconcile the idea that I need to slow down with my desire to push push push and accomplish as much as possible has always been a challenge, and I am sure will continue to be. The idea of sitting down to meditate for any considerable length of time makes me want to jump out of my skin. But I have found a way around it, a way to get into my body and take a break from the never-ending chatter of my Monger.

In December, we talked about the 3 characters that play in our minds the Monger (inner critic), the BFF (the voice of false self-compassion), and the Biggest Fan(the voice of kindness and wisdom) when we hear our Monger talking and berating us or our BFF judging other people or sabotaging us, the goal is to bring in the voice of Biggest Fan. All this month, we will be talking about HOW to do that. We will be diving deeper into my 3 step A.S.K. system for calling in the Biggest Fan.

Last week I introduced A.S.K. and talked about the first step A. Acknowledge your Feelings. If you missed it, please go back and give it a listen. This week we are talking about the second step – the S. Step, Slow Down and get into your body.

Okay, here’s the truth. To deal with the Monger, you have to get out of your head and get into your body. Most of us live mostly in our heads. We literally aren’t even aware that we have a body unless it starts to hurt, and then we just take a pill to make it better. Our Monger takes up a lot of space in our heads. So the more time we spend in our head, the more we stay out of our Body and the louder our Monger gets.

One key to channeling your Biggest Fan is getting into your body. When we can slow down and get into our bodies, we change our perspective. By changing our physical presence, we can see more options, and the last step, K. Kindly pull back to see the big picture, happens with more ease.

When I share this step with my clients, their eyes glaze over, and I can almost hear them internally saying, Yeah, yeah, yeah, get into your body. It is a similar reaction to the idea of feeling your feelings. Helpful but the LAST thing you want to do. Thanks to more and more research being done on the mind-body connection, we have heard so many times that we need to slow down and get into our bodies that we don’t even hear it anymore. And I know that when you are in go-go-go mode, checking off the to-do list and running from activity to activity, the last thing you want to do is get into your Body. Trust me. I get it.

I fought for years the idea of getting out of my head and into my body. Whenever you hear the words “get into your body,” the next word you often hear is “meditate.” Meditation is awesome if you are able to meditate and/or have a regular meditation practice. Rock on. You can use that practice with the second step of A.S.K., S. Slow down and get into your body.

A meditation practice is amazing, and meditation is not for everyone. Honestly, I couldn’t meditate for five minutes even if you held a gun to my head! For way too many years, I beat myself up for the fact that I couldn’t meditate. My Monger convinced me that there was only one way to get into your body, and it was through meditation. So if I couldn’t meditate, I would never be able to slow down and be present. (See how wily the Monger can be?!)

Finally, I accepted that I was not going to be a super meditator (or even an average meditator), and I tried to find a way to hack it. To create a meditation practice that would work for me. No, I don’t do 30 minutes of meditation a day or even five minutes, more like 10 seconds. I realized that even if I just touched my toes or wiggled my Body for a few seconds and took some deep breaths while doing it, I was able to shift out of the headspace of the Monger.

Mindfulness Hacks are simple and quick ways to slow down and get into our bodies. They work in two ways: Action and Prevention.

Action: This is the S. part of A.S.K. When you notice your Monger chatting or one of the behaviors that indicate your Monger is running the show, practice a 10-second Mindfulness Hack. This allows you to get out of your head and into your body and to channel your Biggest Fan. One of my favorite practices for this one is to literally wiggle my body because it makes me laugh and also because it changes my perspective and reminds me to literally give myself some wiggle room. But it doesn’t have to be that dramatic. I encourage clients to choose several go-to Mindfulness Hacks such as taking three deep breaths, feeling your feet on the floor, touching your thumb to your fingers, doing a neck roll, or stretching.

Prevention: You can also use Mindfulness Hacks to cultivate more awareness of your Monger. Randomly throughout the day, do a quick movement that puts you in your Body: touch your toes, look up and notice the clouds, or take three deep breaths at a stoplight. Frequently I will set an alarm on my phone to remind me to take a break. These Mindfulness Hacks help break the endless chatter of your mind (aka your Monger) and allow you to spend some time in your body (and with your Biggest Fan). Your Monger tends to lull you into a trance of being critical and shaming. Because these Mindfulness Hacks pull you out of your mind and change your physical state, you can start to break that trance and notice your Monger chatting. The more you can break the Monger trance, the less power your Monger will have.

The other thing is it took me a very long time to reconcile that accomplishment and drive could take up the same space as slowing down and intentional living. One of the issues with High Functioning Anxiety is that slowing down is HARD. To slow down requires us to work against our anxiety and our drive and our push push push mentality. (This pull is so strong I wanted to punch my husband, who I adore!) I realized that it took some big-time TRUST on my part to actually slow down. The issue isn’t that we don’t know HOW to slow down. The issue is that we don’t WANT to slow down because we don’t trust that slowing down is a good thing.

Here is a great example: You’ve heard that slowing down is good for you, and you agree wholeheartedly. You want to slow down; you decide to attend a yoga class or do a 5-minute meditation every morning. And (here’s the part few people talk about) at first slowing down is PAINFUL. It causes us to be more aware (uh-oh!), feel more (blech!) and gives space for that nasty voice in our heads to tell us how lazy and slow we are (hello Monger!). And then, after our painful morning experience with slowing down, we meet a friend for lunch who is all about sharing everything she is accomplishing, how early she is getting up, and how she is killing it on a daily basis (all hail the to-do list!). And your BFF jumps in to say, screw this slowing down thing, let’s just keep pushing.

Slowing down is like working out. That first workout after months or years of not working out can cause us to be incredibly sore, so to the act of slowing down. Except society usually supports our idea of working out, and society DOES NOT support the idea of slowing down and especially the idea that slowing down can increase productivity (that’s crazy!!)

So yes, slowing down will initially be painful. AND then after a few days, weeks, months, it gets less painful. Those thoughts and feelings aren’t so scary, and you realize that being intentional and aware opens up your life in a way your to-do list can’t touch.

Here are my tips for Practicing the Slow Down and Get into your Body when it is the LAST thing you want to do.

Tip #1 Start Small.

A 5-minute meditation is a LONG time to be silent when you haven’t done it before. Some of us are hard-wired to go go go, so slowing down is the LAST thing we want to do. I have added slowing down to my life by practicing mini rituals throughout the day.

Start where you are:

Being in the shower when you are in the shower, notice how hard this is to do.

Take 3 Deep Breathes at the stoplight.

Pick a task and hyper-focus on it. Go through your senses as you complete the task. e.g., cutting vegetables for dinner, cleaning dishes, writing an email.

Do anything slower. Drive slower, eat slower, walk slower.

Do a full-body movement: Wiggle your Body.

Dance to your favorite song

Touch your toes

Reach for the sky

Roll your neck

Tip #2 Visualize your thoughts and feelings on a conveyor belt.

Visualize a conveyor belt running above your head with packages. Each package is a thought. Ranging from what we are going to have for dinner to I shouldn’t have spoken up at the meeting. That conveyor belt is constantly moving with thought after thought afterthought. When we are still, we can notice those thoughts moving quickly and randomly down the conveyor belt. Occasionally we will pick up a thought package off the conveyor belt and obsess over it. The thought of ‘I shouldn’t have spoken up at the meeting becomes what were you thinking! You are such an idiot! They were all staring at you like you were speaking Greek! When I notice myself obsessing over a thought, I take my hands as if I am holding a package and lift the package up on the conveyor belt that is above my head. This is a reminder to me that I have a choice, I can CHOOSE to obsess over a thought and beat myself up, or I can put that thought up on the conveyor belt and let it roll on by. Yes, most likely, the thought will come back, and you just rinse and repeat. Lifting that thought back up and saying, nope, not right now. This visual helps us to remember that we don’t have to be consumed by our thoughts. We can take them or leave them. Our thoughts and feelings are separate from us.

Tip #3 “Stay in Your Own Car.”

You have heard me talk about this analogy before, but it is one of my favorites. As we start to loosen up our go go go mentality, we start comparing ourselves to others. Yes, your friend might be accomplishing a ton in her life. Yes, your co-worker might be able to function on 5 hours of sleep. Yes, your neighbor appears to work full time, raise 3 amazing kids and keep her yard pristine. Good for them. But as your Mom told you, YOU are not your friend.

You can only take care of you. Don’t worry about how much other people are accomplishing or how driven they are. Comparing ourselves to others is 100% Monger activity. You are you. Stay. In. Your. Own Car.

Tip #4 There is No Right Way.

The point of slowing down is to create ways for you to get out of the hustle, notice your Monger chatting and be more engaged in your life. Slowing down by its very nature will make your Monger more chatty, and she will have a lot of tips for how you SHOULD be doing it. Remind yourself repeatedly that there is no right way. One day you might be great at slowing down, the next day, you might forget completely. That is ok. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It is a practice and a process.

Tip #5 Keep Practicing

When I first started intentionally slowing down, I had to keep bringing myself back over and over and over ( I still haven’t made it through a shower without getting lost in my head, but when I started, I couldn’t make it through the shampoo portion of my shower). It doesn’t matter how many times you have to remind yourself to ‘slow down’ just keep practicing.

Slowing down and getting into your body is a key step because it changes our physical perspective. We are so often in go-go-go mode, where our Monger chats unchecked. Pulling ourselves out of that mode to slow down and get into our body is challenging, which is why the Mindfulness Hacks work so well. Pick a few of your favorites and put them on sticky notes around your house, or set an alarm on your phone to remind you to practice one of them. When you do the S. Slow down and get into your body step, you can literally shut out the continual blah blah blah of the Monger as you concentrate on what is going on in your body. Which then allows the next step, K. Kindly pull back to see the big picture, to flow that much easier.

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If you don’t do it, who will? If you’re not hustling, pushing, and keeping it all together yourself, nothing will get done.

Look, you don’t need me to tell you that. You tell yourself every day. There’s that voice inside your head constantly pushing you to do more, be more, and get closer to perfect.

And there are all the people--your family, friends, and random people on the street--who congratulate you on how productive you are.

Mixed messages, am I right?

I know I’m right because I’ve dealt with high-functioning anxiety too. I know what it’s like to relish the accolades that come your way one minute and shame yourself for being so tired and overwhelmed the next.

And, I’ve been working with women like you living with hidden anxiety every day for over 20 years as a coach and counselor.

I wrote The Happier Approach to give you a framework for dealing with your anxiety and start living happier.

The Happier Approach will help you understand the voices in your head and what to do with them. It’s not another woo-woo self-help book that asks you to think positively and live your best life. It’s a practical guidebook for getting out of survival mode and finding a genuinely happy and productive life.

Know someone who has High Functioning Anxiety and a VERY LOUD Monger. The Happier Approach makes a great gift.

Find The Happier Approach on Amazon, Audible, or Barnes & Noble!

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Episode 116: How Mr. Rogers Can Teach You To Slow Down And Be Present

Today’s episode is about slowing down and being in the present moment. One of our greatest teachers of this concept is Mr. Rogers and so I thought it would be fitting to do an episode about Mr. Rogers’s effect and some of the ways he has taught me to be present.

Have you ever sat in a movie theater and been blown away by a single quote?

One little line just floats into your brain and holds on for dear life?

This happened to me last Thanksgiving watching the new movie about Mr. Rogers, It’s A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood, and I have been thinking about it ever since.

In the scene, Lloyd Vogel, a cynical journalist who has been assigned to do a profile on Mr. Rogers, is calling to set up their first meeting. He is shocked to have Fred Rogers answer the phone. Not his assistant, not his handler, Mr. Rogers himself. Lloyd, not wanting to waste the time of an important person, suggests they set another time to talk. Surely Mr. Rogers has more important things to do. 

And here is what blew me away: In response to this suggestion, Mr. Rogers says, “What do you think is the most important thing in the world for me right now? To speak on the phone to Lloyd Vogel.”  

When I heard this line I audibly gasped.

The quote got me thinking: How often do I miss conversations or important moments because, in my head, I am already moving on to the next thing? How often does my worrying about what comes next distract me from the important things that are happening right there in the present moment? 

Almost all my clients have mentioned to me how hard the month of January can be. For a variety of reasons–the darkness, the packing up of the holidays for another year, the inundation of self-improvement New-Year-New-You messages–this time of year can be challenging. 

This is why my goal this month is to give you different ways to think about this New-Year-New-You crap and reframe how you think of change and self-improvement. 

Today’s episode is about slowing down and being in the present moment. One of our greatest teachers of this concept is Mr. Rogers and so I thought it would be fitting to do an episode about Mr. Rogers’s effect and some of the ways he has taught me to be present.

Listen to the full episode to find out:

• How to use the Most Important Thing Test as a way to check in with ourselves and practice mindfulness

• What the difference and similarities between mindfulness and meditation are

• How the test helps us be gentle and stop mentally beating ourselves up

• How to use the test to identify if something is even important

• How when we don’t acknowledge our feelings we spend all of our time trying to ignore them

• And how acknowledging our feelings is much easier than we are making it out to be

Some of the research and resources mentioned:

• Name Your Values Worksheet

• Fred Rogers Acceptance Speech - 1997

+ Read the Transcript

Have you ever sat in a movie theater and been blown away by one quote. One little line just floats into your brain and holds on for dear life. There were a couple of those times as I sat in a darkened movie theater on Thanksgiving watching It’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, the Mr. Rogers movie with Tom Hanks, that came out end of last year. But there is one that stands out the most and is something I still think about multiple times a day. Lloyd Vogel is a cynical journalist who has been assigned to do a profile on Mr. Rogers calls Mr. Rogers to set up their first meeting, and he is shocked that Fred Rogers answers the phone, Not his assistant, not his handler, Mister Rogers himself. And when Lloyd suggests they set another time to talk because he knows that Fred has more important things to do right then, Mr. Rogers says, “What do you think is the most important thing in the world for me right now? To speak on the phone to Lloyd Vogel.” I audibly gasped as I heard that line. Thinking to myself, how often do I miss those conversations or moments because I am so busy moving on to the next thing or in my head worrying about what comes next.

“You’re listening to The Happier Approach—the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace and relationships. I’m your host, Nancy Jane Smith.”

I think I have told the story of this scene in It’s A Beautiful Day at least 30 times since we saw it, and I think about it at least once a day. It is one way I bring myself back to whatever it is I am doing. The most important thing I am doing is whatever I am doing right now. I call it the Most Important Thing Test.

Almost all my clients have mentioned to me how hard this month is. For a variety of reasons, the darkness of January, the packing up of the holidays for another year, and the inundation of New Year New You messages. My goal this month is to give you different ways to think about this new year, new you crap, to change how you think of change and self-improvement. I wanted to do an episode about slowing down and being in the present moment, and one of our greatest teachers of this concept is Mr. Rogers. So I thought it would be fitting to do an episode about Mr. Rogers’s effect and some of the ways he has taught me to be present.

Let’s get back to the Most Important Thing Test. I have found this philosophy has helped me on two levels. One, when I am doing a task and my mind wanders, or I start beating myself up for not doing something else, I remind myself that whatever I am doing is the most important thing. I swear, every time I say this one phrase, a light bulb goes off in my head, my heart rate slows, and I take a deep breath and re-focus on what I am doing. I have experienced this while writing, at the grocery store, talking to my husband, spending time with family. Each time it brought me back to what I was doing and made that task 1000 times more fun—yes, even going to the grocery store. Because you know what, you are stuck at the grocery store, so you might as well immerse yourself in the experience. And fully being somewhere all in, completely present is amazingly better than being half in and half out.

The second way the Most Important Thing Test is valuable is it points out when you aren’t doing something important at all—for example, wasting time on social media or playing a game on your phone. There have been times that I am scrolling through social media, and I think, IS this the most important thing I am doing right now? Nope. Definitely not, and it helps me move on to something I would rather be spending my time on.

A 2-fold test. Helping you concentrate on one thing at a time and help you notice when you need to be moving on to another task.

At its root, what the Most Important Thing test is, is a way for you to check-in with yourself and practice mindfulness. Whenever I bring up the idea of mindfulness, the next question is inevitably, do you have a regular meditation practice? And my answer is no. If you have been following me over the years, you know I don’t have a regular meditation practice even though, yes, meditation is an amazing tool.

While we are on the topic of mindfulness and meditation, I want to clear up the difference and similarities between these 2 activities. And it starts with a Continuing Education Training I attended with Ronald Siegel, a psychologist, and renowned meditation expert. Not surprisingly, at one point, he had us practice meditation. I think it was only 15 minutes, and at the end of it, he asked how many people felt more stressed after the meditation. A few hesitant hands popped up around the crowd eventually as people looked around and saw they weren’t alone the more hands that popped up, and before long, almost every hand was up. And then he said something that made me gasp (just like the Mr. Rogers, Most Important thing quote) “meditation isn’t about reducing stress, meditation is about noticing your thoughts and building a relationship with yourself, so when you get stressed, you know your thought. How can it be stress-reducing if your thoughts are running around like a pile of puppies? The reason you meditate is to be able to recognize that your thoughts are a litter of puppies, they are constantly moving and jumping, and you don’t have to believe each and everyone.”

At that moment, I realized all my mini-mindfulness practices were doing the same thing, just in a different form. And that is why I love my mini-mindfulness practices because they give me that chance to see that my thoughts are like boxes on a conveyor belt, and I can choose to pick one up and obsess about it, or I can put it right back up on the conveyor belt and move on. The Most Important Thing test falls nicely into that mini-mindfulness idea, so when a thought comes in and interrupts my time with my nieces and nephews, I can say to myself, put it back up there because THIS is the most important thing right now.

Another mindfulness practice that Mr. Rogers celebrates is gratitude, my rule of gratitude is “always go deep, not wide.” And the practice that Mr. Rogers suggests was an amazing moment at the Daytime Emmy’s when he was given the Lifetime Achievement Award. During his acceptance speech, he stood up and said, “All of us have special ones who have loved us into being. Would you just take, along with me, ten seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are--ten seconds of silence.” And he stood there for 10 seconds in silence. I don’t know if you have ever stood still for 10 seconds staring at hundreds of people, but it is an incredible visual. This exercise is one I practice when I can’t sleep at night. I will lie in bed and name those who have helped shape me into who I am. I challenge myself to go as far back as I can and name as many people as I can. Inevitably when I practice this exercise, I feel not only appreciation but a sense of groundedness. Whenever you are feeling alone, overwhelmed, and like no one gets it, I encourage you to take 10 seconds and name all those who have loved you.

Ok, so back to the movie, It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, you know it is a good movie when there is more than one quote that permeates all the stuff in your brain and holds on for dear life. Near the end of the movie, Mr. Rogers says, “Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary.” Again I gasped in the theater. The truth to this message is bone-chilling; let me say it one more time:

Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary.”

So many of our worries, anxieties, fears become blown out of proportion because we are living in fear of mentioning them, but the minute we mention them, they become manageable. But for most of us, we let them swim around in our heads, thinking we are the only one in the world feeling this way and feeling more and more alone.

This idea of acknowledging our feelings is something I am going to be talking about more next month because it is the 2nd most important practice I have implemented to reduce my HFA (after mindfulness).

For too many years, I swallowed my feelings, pushed them down, boxed them up, and threw away the key. I was the queen of “fine” everything is “fine,” acknowledging that I was scared and worse, telling someone else just wasn’t in my repertoire. I realized (I admit begrudgingly) that this behavior of not acknowledging my feelings was hurting me because I was skating on the surface of life.

When we don’t acknowledge our feelings, we spend all of our time trying to ignore them. We engage in people-pleasing, perfectionism, hustling, to-do list management, not to mention numbing on food, alcohol, and our phones, all in a way to keep our feelings down. As Mr. Rogers said, anything mentionable is manageable, so if we aren’t mentioning our feelings, we aren’t able to move through them and engage with them. If I don’t share that I am sad about a promotion I missed at work and just ‘soldier on,’ I won’t ever be able to figure out why I didn’t get the promotion, what steps I need to take next and how I can engage differently at work.

I see it all the time in my clients in Coach in Your Pocket, they will vox me sharing the stress of the day, and they are litanying off their stress, naming all the things that went wrong, they are worried about or disappointed in. But they don’t name ANY feelings. They just talk about the story as if they were giving a news report without any depth. Acknowledging our feelings gives our life dept. Mentioning our feelings allows them to be dealt with in a healthy way.

We make acknowledging our feelings so much harder than it needs to be. It really is as simple as labeling our feelings. If you work with me, you will frequently hear me say, “pull out the feelings sheet,” and label how you are feeling. It isn’t hard or time-consuming, but it is challenging. It feels uncomfortable. But for now, just start noticing your feeling and labeling them. Remember,

“Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary.”

The last thing I want to mention about Mr. Rogers is that he worked for it. In the movie, the journalist Lloyd asks Mr. Rogers’s wife what it is like to live with a Living Saint, and she replies, “I don’t like that term because it makes what he is unattainable,” she says. “And it’s not.” She goes on to detail how much work he puts in to “stay grounded” each day — praying, swimming, and reading scripture. He’s the nicest man in the world, and he works for it.

He works for it. I think the danger is we look at Mr. Rogers’ slow, present, deliberate, focused, empathetic style, and we think it is unattainable. It was something he was born with. When in fact, he worked at it, he made it a minute-to-minute practice. He was not perfect. He was not a living saint. He was human, just like all of us, doing the best we can with what we have. I hope you will implement some of these practices into your daily life. They are a game-changer, AND I definitely recommend you go see the movie It’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.

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Helping people with High Functioning Anxiety is a personal mission for me. I have a special place in my heart for this struggle because it’s both something I dealt with unknowingly for years and because it silently affects so many people who think this is just how it is. But this isn’t how it is. The constant questioning, doubting, and rehearsing all while handling everything, checking stuff off the list, and “never letting them see you sweat.”

There is hope if you struggle with High Functioning Anxiety—it doesn’t have to be this way. You can reduce your anxiety and keep your edge. You can have less self-doubt and still get a ton done.

We have been sold the lie that our anxiety and our drive to succeed are the same thing. I have seen it in my clients over and over: when they learn how to quiet their anxiety, their passions and interests actually increase. They have new clarity that they never had before.

When I asked clients how they felt about their work via Coach in your Pocket, I was blown away. One of my clients illustrated how HFA affects all areas of our lives and that working with me via Voxer has improved all areas; She said,

“I started this work to feel less anxious. I had no idea how much it would improve my marriage, work, relationships with my kids, and health overall. I do less out-of-control emotional eating, have spoken up more at work, built a stronger connection with my spouse, and have learned how to react less emotionally to my kids.”

Over the course of the three-month program, we meet once a month for a face-to-face session via a secure video chat, and then throughout the entire three months, you have access to me anytime you are feeling anxious, having a Monger attack, celebrating a win, or just need to check-in, and I will respond to you during my office hours (Monday through Friday, 9am - 6pm EST).

I have been doing this work for over 20 years, and Coach in Your Pocket is the most effective and most life-changing work I have ever done. My clients are consistently blown away by how these daily check-ins combined with the monthly face-to-face video meetings create slow, lasting changes that reprogram their High Functioning Anxiety tendencies over time.

Working with me this way is an incredibly efficient and effective way to deal with your anxiety in the moment--without waiting for your next appointment.

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