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:
+ 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