Roadblocks & Benefits
Hello Friends,
This month, we start the second season of the Becoming Mindful Podcast. In this first episode of the new season, we begin a three-part series exploring Mindfulness Routines. This first part explores the direction to meditate every day. Is that really necessary? We explore conventional recommendations and our own experiences with a disciplined practice.
Until next time, Be well friends!
Video:
Audio only:
Assignment For This Month
This month, we’d like to round out this discussion by asking you all to practice journaling about your relationship with discipline. We’ve discussed many factors that affect our relationship with discipline and how we relate to them.
How do you feel about it?
Is it important to you?
Do you notice it in your life now?
Is it something that you want to get better at?
Or is it something that makes you uncomfortable? Maybe you struggle with it.
Can you imagine ways to change your relationship with it?
Just explore your relationship with discipline. Let us know what you come up with, and we’ll do the same.
Show Notes & Links
- Book: Start Here Now – Susan Piver
- Find out more about Susan Piver on her website: The Open Heart Project
Transcript
Maria: Hello and welcome to the becoming mindful podcast. With this episode, we’re starting season two of the podcast. And we want to dive into meditation and mindfulness routines and how to start them. How to restart them? And why we should even create one.
I am Maria
Jackie: And I am Jackie, and we are Becoming Mindful.
All right. Well, welcome back, everyone. We took a bit of a break, kind of a reset, and coming back to you all with season two. We’re hoping to, as we move forward, dive deeper into each of the topics that we are discussing and really peel the onion,
so we’ll be exploring topics over several episodes so we can really dive in and really get to the core of them.
Maria: Yeah, I know we’ve wanted to scale back a little bit to the basics. The podcast is called Becoming Mindful. And so we wanted to come back to our original idea of defining our paths, of becoming more mindful. And, how that can serve us and you maybe being a little bit more practical.
So, what we came up with is a slightly new structure. We wanted to hone in on each of the topics a little bit more deeply. So the idea is a three-month topic schedule where we talk about.
The topic in general, and our thoughts about it, and some questions around it. And then bring in some outside ideas in form of books or interviews or other ways. We also wanted to bring in more practicality or practice with each episode. So, each episode we’re going to do a little practice to get into the episode and the topic.
And we also want to set up a homework so we can actually do this together and, Not just think about the topic or not just practice during this time of the podcast.
Jackie: So hopefully, having some really tangible things that you can walk away from here with that you can practice in between our podcasts. And, we really hope that this new format also. Creates more of a community and brings in more of your insights as well since we’ll be discussing a topic over several months.
We hope to draw all of you into the conversation to help crack it open and find some more perspectives on it. So please join in the conversation and reach out. And it’s so fitting that the first topic we’re talking about is, how do you define your practice and what is that and what should it be and should it be anything?
And what does that mean? And just all the facets of that, where do you start? So, that’s where we begin at the beginning.
In light of all this and wanting to help our audience become more mindful, we’d like to start each episode with a bit of a centering exercise, something to bring everyone into the moment, and get that moment of your day where your practicing mindfulness. So we’d like to offer that to you now if you have the capacity. All right. So, to begin, wherever you are, if you can, please take a comfortable seat and begin to settle in where you are. If it’s comfortable for you, please close your eyes. If that’s not comfortable, you can keep your eyes open, just take a soft gaze. And just begin to settle here, start to feel all of your points of contact with the earth or with your chair. Really give your weight to this stability, begin to let go of whatever you were doing before you sat down to listen to this podcast. And give yourself permission to be here. Start to deepen your breath a little bit and let your awareness settle on your breath. So just start to feel the rise and fall of your inhale and exhale. Notice if there’s any areas of tension in your body and intentionally send your breath to that tension and try to release it. Let it go. We’ll take three cleansing breaths together. So sit up tall, and when you’re ready, take a big inhale, full inhale, feel your belly, your diaphragm expand, and then open your mouth and sigh, exhale, release it all. We’ll take two more like that. Take a deep inhale, open mouth, exhale, last time, big inhale, open mouth, exhale, let it go. And at the bottom of this, exhale, rest here for a moment. Just be here in this stillness. When you’re ready, you can start to gently open your eyes remaining in this Diffused state of awareness as you bring yourself back into the present Welcome back. Thank you for that Short practice with me with that let’s dive in
Maria: Alright, let’s talk about practice. And I don’t know if you want to, but maybe start with more of a meditation practice or broader practice.
Jackie: I guess what are we talking about? What’s the difference? Is You meditation practice, mindfulness practice is mindfulness meditation. it’s important to talk about what we’re talking about. Cause there’s so many different ways that people interpret these terms.
Maria: Yeah. we just talked about semantics before.you can get into the weeds, and this gets infinitely confusing.
Jackie: right. Yeah. So for me,this podcast is becoming mindful. And when I talk about meditation, what I’m referring to is a practice of training your awareness, your attention. so that’s, sitting down and focusing on your breath or on a candle or a mantra or anything like that.
You’re practicing. being mindful, and that’s for me, um, I guess that’s where I draw the distinction where meditation would be a practice where you sit down and You’re working on the skill of mindfulness and then hopefully you are able to better be mindful, present, aware When you step away, and you’re living your everyday normal life
Maria: Yeah. Yeah. And this is interesting because, for me, I think meditation is a little bit bigger than just mindfulness for me. So, obviously the,overlap here is, I think, yes, meditation is a practice, right? where you, I don’t want to say sit because that’s not always the case. but it’s a practice where for a certain amount of time you do somethingthat can include things like, exploring your inner self, that can include things like, visualization, that can include things like Mindfulness, like being aware of the present moment, right? And obviously, within our podcast, and that’s something that I need to remind myself, is that we’re talking about mindfulness here, right?
So, bringing yourself to the present moment, to bring up that awareness, right?so yes, a mindfulness meditation for me is a practice to bring yourself to the present moment back to the present moment and foster awareness.
Jackie: do you see a line between meditation and mindfulness?
Maria: I think
not really. okay. Again, semantics. I think meditation is broader and mindfulness is in a way a type of meditation.
Jackie: Oh, that’s interesting. I see it like the opposite.
Maria: Because I think mindfulness is a technique or something to bring you to the present moment awareness. Right. It’s the, that’s how I view it. that’s mindfulness is, what you do or how you are to be aware. I don’t know. Again, the words are hard, but I think mindfulness is something that you practice to be, aware, to have awareness, to bring awareness, bring yourself to the present moment.
And, so it’s a practice and meditation is a practice as well. So I think they’re interchangeable in that regard. But I think if you’re thinking about things like loving kindness meditation. and I know we’ve grouped that under mindfulness as well, but I don’t think necessarily that loving kindness is exactly the same thing. And same with like visualization, like if you’re trying to visualize,a certain place of, calm and safety, for example, or,a future that you want, or if you’re contemplating your own life or your own thoughts, I think that’s not always the same thing because it doesn’t necessarily bring you to the present moment.
Does that make sense?
Jackie: a bit. yeah, that’s an interesting way to look at it. So there’s a lot of overlap there in mindfulness and meditation. for me, like a lot of what you’re describing are like meditative practices but meditation itself really is a honing of the skill of mindfulness. Okay. Right. when we go out in our, every day, we want to be mindful,just doing our daily activities, eating, doing the dishes, being whatever. mindfulness is that skill of being present,of being mindful of the current moment. and for me, that’s an action. That’s something that you do. you’re mindful. Meditation is a, standalone practice, like yoga asana or, or breathing exercises or, or visualization, or, those kinds of things that you were talking about as well. But for the purpose of,discussion, that’s where I see, we can talk about being mindful, but that’s not the same as meditating because one is being in a state and the other is practicing a state. I see, meditation as the work behind it to hone the skill of mindfulness, to become more mindful, I guess.
Maria: Right. So essentially, if you’re talking, let’s think about,running. So you know, mindfulness would be the running, right? And whenever you’re mindful, you’re essentially honing your skill of running and,the running practice is still meditation. Is that how you would describe it then?
Jackie: I guess the lineage that, that I’ve studied would say that running isn’t meditation. It’s a mind, it’s a meditative practice and it, you can be mindful doing it, but the way you’re able to be mindful in that moment is through honing that skill and in meditation.
Maria: Yeah. No, I wasn’t actually, talking about running as a mindfulness exercise. I’m just trying to explain this distinction between mindfulness and meditation. Right. As an example of equating it like a metaphor, right. Equating it to running. So mindfulness is running. And the practice is meditation. Would you say the meditation is the practice? Or is meditation the form of practice. what I mean, like if you’re just being mindful, spontaneously versus unspontaneously, maybe that’s what it is.
Jackie: Okay. Yeah. I see what you’re saying. like
mindfulness is to running as meditation is to,
Maria: exactly, exactly. That’s what I was saying. I know. It doesn’t help that obviously walking meditation exists, so. That doesn’t
Jackie: I know.
Yeah.
Maria: I think that was a little confusing. I’m just trying to get the distinction right. I think we have a little bit of a different view on that, slightly.
But again, this is one of the things, and maybe this is a good jumping off point of our relationship to, meditation practice and mindfulness practice, because I think we have a very different View on that and,thoughts like this as even defining the words of what they exactly mean And, you have so many different descriptions of it, and I know we’ve talked about it.
it gets really overwhelming, and it gets confusing, right? And then you get to a point, or I get at least to a point where I’m like, why am I even, why am I even thinking about what these words really mean? What is the point,
Jackie: II’m a little bit biased because I’m a meditation instructor and yoga teacher. So when, I’m teaching meditation, it’s a specific thing. I’m not teaching people how to run mindfully. I’m teaching you how to be mindful, like how to have presence and how to have awareness. And for me, that’s really the distinction. And I am, I’m worried that I have a bit of a tunnel vision because I have a training in a specific lineage.
and so that gives me just a really one pointed view of it. And I’m lucky in that when I started getting into meditation, I found the type of meditation that worked for me really quick.
So I didn’t explore a lot of other, lineages and cultures and things like that. So I pretty much have stuck to, very, Eastern Tibetan Indian kind of, practices, but there are a lot of different, interpretations of, meditation. but really for me, and for the purpose of conversation, I think it’s important to Make a distinction between the two ideas where mindfulness is presence.
it’s a being here now It’s being in the moment. It’s being you know, unattached from distractions and things and then there’s Meditation where you’re sitting down and trying to hone that skill, you know,I feel like our whole society, our whole world is constructed in a way to distract us.
There’s television and advertisements and, games and all these things that are trying to buy our attention constantly. So we’re constantly training our habits and training our thought processes to be distracted. So we have to spend some time practicing not being distracted, practicing focus, practicing having autonomy over our awareness. And that’s really the line for me, I need that stand alone practice.
Maria: yeah, so for me, personally, I think there’s a little bit of a struggle there that is compounded by, or it compounds the effect of,modern society the focus on distraction is because, now I’m not officially diagnosed. My daughter was, but I know it’s genetic.
And I, researching a lot about ADHD. Um,I do see a lot of those things in myself now. It’s not as severe, but I do notice it in situations where, you know, just from a short background, it’s really like a developmental disorder of the brain where your brain is not able to,create as much dopamine itself.and then, what that does is it, it’s not really a lack of awareness, even so that’s what the name says, it’s more of there’s too much input, and the lack of focus, really, or actually it’s not even the lack of focus, it’s the lack of, selecting the focus
Jackie: Mm
you know, It’s like the, you sit in a classroom and a normal kid would definitely see the bird in the window and be like, okay, there’s a bird, butthis is more important here. But for ADHD, this selecting of which is more important is
Maria: hard, harder to the point where some people that have it with a severity, they cannot. decide to not focus on the bird. It just can’t
or not be distracted by the bird. And then the opposite too is like when you are focused into something that your brain decided to focus on, to switch to something else is extremely hard. And that is actually one of the reasons though that I am interested in mindfulness because I know that, honing this mindfulness skills, can have an impact on making that easier and reducing these struggles.
there’s still going to be there, the struggles, compared to someone that doesn’t have this disorder, right? So it’s always going to be a little harder. And this is exactly the reason it’s also a point of struggle to even do a disciplined practice, right? But the skill of mindfulness is definitely also helpful with that.
So it’s a weird codependency of, it’s helpful, but it’s also harder. Which is why, personally, I often struggle with a disciplined approach Because it is a lot harder to create a routine and stick to a routine. There’s always more effort, to doing a task, or starting a task, or focusing on a task that you want to do.
And it’s harder to actually have it as like a routine that you can do, or to develop a skill that you can do something without having to really, spend a lot of effort to do it. Does that make sense?and thus I’ve always gravitated a little bit more to the mindfulness practices that were more spontaneous, like trigger based.
I know that, things likethe sound thing, where did we talked about the bell sound? Cause they’re having like a trigger, right? And the trigger is something that is easy for an ADHD brain to, focus on. So a trigger of I’m outside, this happens or I have a strong emotional, feeling coming up that I notice, then I can, practice mindfulness in that moment.
Like what we talked about the sacred pause with, the book radical acceptance, for example. Those exercises or those practices come a lot more easy to me.so as for meditation, contrary to you, I did not have a formal meditation education at all. So this is all just stuff I learned myself, right?
Or researched myself.nothing that was formally taught to me. And I know I don’t have an aversion to it. It’s something I would like to do. And I frequently do start to do a daily or whatever practice, right? But then I always inevitably get to a point where I stop and a lot of times it’s a gray line between I didn’t commit to it enough.
and maybe, now I’m seeking an excuse to not do it anymore because it gets uncomfortable or something. But also, thinking about that there is some predisposition to that being harder to stick to, right? And there’s things like where I literally forget that I was doing this practice in the morning.
Like it’s just, I literally forget it. And then two days later I’m like, oh wait, there was something. How did I forget that I would plan to do this every morning at this time, right? But it happens.
This is my background, but I know that’s why I want to have this discussion with you as well and look a little bit more into how can we do this?
Jackie: Yeah, you hit on a lot of points that a lot of people can,relate to, and myself included, whereone of the reasons that a discipline practice is so beneficial and so recommended because the more you do something every single day, the more it’s going to become automatic, like brushing your teeth.
do you go two days without brushing your teeth? Probably not. but that’s an interesting thing. Like, how can we Make something like meditation or mindfulness practices or whatever, coming back to the present moment, like an intentional coming back to the present, how can we make that as,every day, mundane, automatic as brushing your teeth as, all the things that you do on a regular day. I think there’s a lot of factors that go into it, learning disabilities and things is a huge one. the way is we process informationis a big one. And every person has got to come up with the way that they can work it into their lives. Unfortunately, our culture doesn’t, really help us to prioritize these kinds of things like self care and not being productive and being present in the moment and just being and being okay with that is basically, abrasive to our productive culture and society.
And, you sit down and do nothing. You’re just like, Oh, what are all the things that I could be doing? Now I’m just getting into my own baggage about, my issues with meditation.
Maria: No, but that’s good because other people have the same feelings, the same baggage, let’s say it this way. And, I know this way too much. I have even more. when you’re talking about brushing teeth, you know what, I don’t necessarily I always brush my teeth.
Jackie: I know you get to work and you’re like,
did I put on deodorant?
Maria: and this is one of the things too, it’s if you think about, like what you said with learning disabilities or developmental disorders, like ADHD, for example, yeah, forgetting Brushing your teeth and even brushing your teeth is not an automatic habit that’s like the thing like it goes so strongly and we want to get meditation to that same level. i’m like Brushing teeth is not even a habit for me.
I’m not even there with brushing teeth.
Jackie: Like you might
need an alarm for all those things.
Maria: Yeah, exactly. Or some sort of visual reminder. and then even visual reminders. If they’re in the same spot every time, I will ignore them.
After a week,
I get used to it.
There’s like this thing and people make fun of it too, you know, kind of self deprecating.
Like they have this pile of something in the middle of the walkway and everyone has to step over it, but the ADHD person is like, what pile? It’s just part of the environment, So and I think that’s really interesting and you said something to about society and I think that yes, that’s again compounding because the society right now, Anything even self care and mindfulness and things and they all become tools to press another dollar or another hour out of someone right and then the whole You Apparatus of shame that is used for that, I sit here and do nothing and now I feel shame,
Jackie: I feel totally called out right now because I got into meditation like 10 years ago when I was burning out at work. And meditation was like hitting Silicon Valley and stuff. And I was like, Oh, I can be more productive. I can do better at work if I meditate and get these benefits from meditation and then I can be more productive and work harder. so, which is just a very silly approach to meditation.
Maria: I have those thoughts constantly. I’m like, okay, I should really do more meditation because it will help with ADHD symptoms. Right, to make me what, why, so I can function better in this society that is built against me. If society was different, then I wouldn’t even need to worry about these kind of, problems, or symptoms. Maybe not. obviously if it’s really severe,if you can’t even, do your normal things to survive. You don’t eat enough, or you forget to drink, Like it can get really severe and that’s, obviously, a level where it’s not society anymore.
This is just basic survival, and then maybe, you know, you need to go into like medication and things like that. But, this is one of the thoughts I have all the time.I feel shame and now because of this mindfulness journey that we’ve been on, Already, there’s a recognizing factor as well, okay, wait, I’m feeling shame.
This is not what I should be striving for. But that again leads to another extreme. I think sometimes for me, it’s like kind of this anti society, this I want to break this all up. And this is all, like too oppressive. And then I don’t even want to do any meditation routine. This is also again, too oppressive. Like why do I even, need to sit down every day? what is this? this, like rebellion against every structure. Right.
Jackie: yeah. okay, this kind of brings it full circle for me as we’re talking because I think this is where a disciplined practice comes in because when You have a discipline practice that you do every single day. You’re inevitably going to show up times when you don’t want to be there, when you’re irritated, when you’re tired, when you don’t want to meditate.
And when I don’t want to meditate, I know I’m like, I should probably meditate. and you’re going to sit down and do it. And the thing is whatever your reasons, you’re talking about all these reasons for showing up for meditation that like, you’re resenting. like, why should I have to do this and everything.
Andas a meditator, like as someone who’s meditated for a long time, I can see now after a long time , I meditate to feel good. It makes my inner experience feel better. That’s why I do it. Maybe it makes me more productive at stuff. I don’t care. Maybe it makes me like, whatever. I don’t care.
Like I feel better and I exist in the world better and I can be kinder just by doing it. What comes out of me is just better,and not in an externally defined sense, not you’re doing better at work. you’re accomplishing this better.
Your house is cleaner. nothing like that. literally, that’s the real crux of it. When you have a disciplined practice and you’re showing up every day, you have all those feelings like, why am I doing this? Why am I sitting here? Why am I wasting my time? Whatever, all that goes through your head. But as soon as you start to sit with that and let it dissolve and loosen your relationship with it, loosen your attachment to it, you start to see it and be like, Oh, that’s some external thing that I don’t need.
You can like more easily let it go. Not that you let it go and it’s gone, but like you let it go. And it’s a little easier to let go the next day. And it’s a little easier to let go the next day and a little easier the next day. And it’s such a slow process. But then you realize, or I realized, let me say for me, I realized that my motivations of trying to be more productive got me to into the practice, but I could just let that go and I can define what productive or good means to me. However I show up, maybe I show up tomorrow, whatever in a terrible mood or in a great mood, or maybe I’m completely distracted in my practice, or maybe I’m completely present in my practice. It doesn’t matter. every day you just show up and try to be with what you are.
And that’s the expectation. That’s it. It’s just to be there.
It’s just to be with whatever’s there. That’s it. That’s all you have to do.
Maria: Yeah. And it comes full circle. I’ve noticed that also in the discussion, that I had with you before, when we were researching about this topic there’s exactly that, like in the beginning of this podcast, I said,about my experience that I prefer especially emotional triggers.
So if I feel a certain stronger emotion that then I want to start my practice of being with that emotion and letting me feel this emotion nonjudgmentally and nonreactive, right?
Jackie: Yeah.
Maria: So that’s a practice. And then I’m thinking now that, my aversion to the, Daily at this specific time practice was mostly regarded to me saying yeah, this is a lot harder for me.
It’s a lot easier for me to do the other thing. And, I forget too. And why can’t I just do this trigger based? And then now that you were thinking about yeah, you’re coming to the practice and you don’t want to do it and you maybe feel angry. I’m like, that’s the trigger right there. And then I can start my trigger based again.there it is.
Jackie: You’re meeting yourself where you’re at. It’s perfect. Yeah. You just show up as yourself and then practice.
Maria: Yeah. And then I can sit there and be angry with the world. And it’s okay.
Jackie: And if you’re just angry your whole meditation practice and you’re angry when it’s over, then that’s what it was. That’s
what it was. And that’s fine. And you just show up again tomorrow and do it again. And
it just. it’s and thenthat builds on itself. And, yeah, I think it just it’s about creating.habits in your mind, I, besides meditating, my professional experience for listeners is in like marketing and advertising, digital marketing, and so I have this background in learning how to,I’ll just say manipulate people, like putting ideas in people’s minds, that’s what advertising is
Maria: Mm hmm.
Jackie: is
yeah, it’s propaganda.
It’s learning how to seep messages into people’s minds. And, Create a relationship with a product, and you just see that it’s these imprints happen on our minds without our consent, just going out in the world and, being witness to advertisements and media and propaganda and things like it seeps into your brain and meditation is nothing else if not a moment of a break from that, of a time when you’re telling your brain, you don’t have to look over here and look over there and worry about that thing and plan that.
And you can just. You can just experience what’s happening in this moment and absorb it and just be a witness and just see it. And I think that’s a beautiful offering and gift we can give ourselves and to do it once a day. Like you deserve it at least once a day. Right.
Maria: Right.
Jackie: Just give that moment to yourself.
Give yourself some pause, some quiet, some stillness
and it can be five minutes,
Maria: Give yourself the time, and even if it means give yourself the time to be angry.
Jackie: Yeah. Yeah. Feel, just feel. yourself, feel your, whatever’s bubbling up. And I mean, I think we’ve talked about it before, but as you get into practice, like you’re going to have all these things bubble up that are very superficial for me. Like I had so many superficial things bubbling up, Oh, I’m uncomfortable.
What was that noise? What’s that smell? Oh, I’m annoyed. Like I have to do this thing today and I got to go to work, like whatever. But then like, when those start to fall away, then,you start to. churn up bigger things and then you start to see the themes in the things that are popping up and you just start to Get to know yourself and understand what’s underneath all of those distractions, those things that are calling you all the time.
And it gives you a compassion for yourself and an empathy and confidence. This was something I was thinking about though. And we are talking, we have some really great conversations when we’re leading up to these, maybe we should Twitch our planning or something, but, meditation is going to serve you for however you need to be served.
Like when you’re thinking about, Oh, what’s meditation going to give me? You’re not supposed to have any goals. Like you just be open to the practice and see what happens. And what you need is going to be offered to you through the practice. And you don’t even have to be conscious of what you need, if you show up and you are really distracted, meditation might give you more focus. if you show up and you’re, really deep in your ego or something, meditation practice might, bring you humility or start to ground you. if you aren’t really mindful of yourself and you don’t have a good sense of self, it might give you some autonomy and connect you with your intuition and confidence.
And, For me, I was always worried about so many things and anxious about so many things. And one of the things meditation helped me do is slow down and just have some inner peace. And,you don’t know what the distracting world is distracting you from until you experience it.
I think, I don’t know. It’s hard to describe.
But I hope that makes sense.
Maria: Yeah. But yeah, that kind of brought up a thought too about, we also talked about,techniques, right? Meditation techniques. And then what’s right for you? Or what’s the right way to do this? we’ve talked mostly about, just sitting with your thoughts, right?
Jackie: Right.
Maria: your feelings,
feeling your feelings, but obviously there’s more techniques.and I think that’s one of the confusions, or one of the things, too, that a lot of people feel when they want to start. It’s which one do I pick? do I need to sit here and do breathing exercise?
Do I need to sit here and maybe do, which one do I pick, can I do a guided meditation? Do I rather do it without a guided voice? Maybe that’s distracting. So yeah, if you have these different techniques that, we’ve talked about in the past as well. And then how do you decide what you do and how do you not fall into this rabbit hole of why do I need to do this over this?
and then we’ve talked a little bit, you know,about attachment before about, attaching to a goal. And I think that, from my perspective, you can also be attached to having to do it the right way. Like having that feeling of, oh, I need to do, this specific breath exercise or this specific, type of technique of meditation for it to be somehow beneficial to me.
And if I don’t do it, then I’m a failure. You know what
Jackie: Yeah.
Maria: right. Yeah. I
Jackie: Yeah. That’s hard. Cause I think. it’s important to stick with a certain kind or for a period of time to see if it works because doing a meditation practice once you don’t really get a feel for how it fits into your life. but at the same time, you don’t just want to be like jumping from one to the next and not really making progress.
I don’t wanna say progress, but like really working on the skill. you’re not able to really immerse yourself as much, when you’re all over the place, but it is important to find something that works for you because everyone is different and everyone’s starting from a different place and everyone has, different abilities and things.
So, I think it’s really important to find a teacher that. Resonates with you or a practice that resonates with you. I should say. there’s a lot of Buddhist thinking that says that you can’t, embark on a meditation journey without a teacher, without,someone guiding you. I’ve been pretty on my own, and found some really great work with meditation almost on my own. but I do have a specific lineage. I do have a specific teacher who trained me. but the idea behind it is that as you’re, Going through a long term meditation process, a lot of stuff is going to come up. Things are going to change. There’s going to be things to navigate and it’s nice to have, someone to talk to about that. and so finding a community can be really helpful and supportive, especially if you’re having difficulty starting a practice or maintaining a practice.
Maria: mean, this is one of the things which why I appreciate the podcast because we can, talk to each other, especially with you having, some more from former background there. And, but yeah, I’ve had other, influences as well. if you think about some of the more of the pagan or nature, based spirituality, so there’s a lot of good things there too.
and I think, if you look into meditation practices,when you find them, even if you find them on your own, they come from somewhere, right? Someone created them, someone wrote them down. So, there is some sort of, input there as well, but yeah, I think the community aspect is pretty big, or at least a mentor or a teacher or peer,sure.
Jackie: online communities. Yeah.
Maria: and yes, everyone has different needs. As you said, the need might need not even be as aparent, but it will come up.and so picking something, I think the picking part is really just the hardest, but it’s also the most important is that you just need to start somewhere and stick with it.
and feel it out.it’s like you’re doing an experiment. you can’t do an experiment with just one, measurement.you need to have a significant, size of,empirical data and that you need that for yourself too. And, sometimes it’s also good to remember that a lot of these techniques, they’re not something that someone just throws out there without knowing what they’re doing.
Like they’ve been around for many of them for thousands of years.
Jackie: thousands of years.
Yeah That is one thing that really attracted me to, Shamada Vipassana meditation was that it’s thousands of years old. So it’s been working for people to hang on to it that long. And that was one of the things that sold my analytical brain into trying this particular style.
Maria: Right.
Jackie: I need that analytical side. it’s part of me. It just is.
Maria: Yeah. Yeah. it comes up every now and then and it’s just something, I grew up into with,my family and environment being more on the scientific, analytical side and, not so much spiritual. And therefore, that is something that comes up like a lot. where it’s okay, something has to be somehow proven and I’m trying to remind myself that, the use of something like this over thousands of years by Okay.
Lots and lots of people is proof in and of itself,
Jackie: Yeah.that brings us up an interesting question. Is meditation spiritual?
is it a spiritual practice to you? what do you think?
Maria: I think it can be. It can be. Um, you can definitely bring the spiritual aspect into meditation. But I don’t think it has to be. It’s like a tool, if you think about, candles. Candles are used. In spiritual practice, everywhere, all the time.
But are they spiritual? No. By in themselves, not. They’re not.
Jackie: I think that’s a perfect way. Yeah,sitting down and focusing on your breathing there’s nothing inherently spiritual about that. You’re just sitting in,practicing your attention.
Right. Although I will say that my meditation practice, I didn’t know I had anything spiritual within me until I started a meditation practice. I started to emerge from that.
Don’t know why exactly that comes from meditation, but, I don’t know, it’s something that at least emerges in me when I’m, when I’m, really giving myself to the practice.
Maria: yeah, I have the same experience. And I think many people have the same experience.
And I think that, even if you don’t adhere to a specific religion,
I think every person, there is a spiritual aspect to people. We are spiritual
Jackie: Yeah.
Maria: by nature. I think there’s, it’s just something that’s there and how, what shape or form that takes, what your beliefs are might be all different.
Jackie: Right. Right. Although I find like the more that I like clean out those distractions and clean out those attachments, it just becomes more and more fundamental. So, and raw and really simplified. It just keeps simplifying.
Maria: yes.
Jackie: That’s what you may think about like science and looking for that, equation for it all and to unify everything.
But, I feel like that’s already locked in each of us somewhere.
Maria: Yeah. And I think this is one of the big misconceptions is equating science to some sort of spirituality or religion. Science is, again, it’s a method. it’s a method of understanding your world of understanding more of your world, which is one of the things, like science and magic, for example,Why is it less magical just because you understand it now through science? Why is life less magical,
Jackie: man, that really gets me when people like say that things like science takes the magic out of things and I’m like, science is the magic, man. Have you studied chemistry? Have you looked at our world closely? That is incredible and inspiring and Wow.
It’s that’s what, yeah, that’s where the magic is.
Maria: It’s putting a magnifying glass on the magic like suddenly, people Researching, you know how things work and then you’re like, oh my god have you seen the pictures from the George Webb telescope?
Jackie: Oh my gosh. Yeah.
It’s amazing. Yeah. Yeah.
Maria: So, yeah.
Jackie: I loved this discussion with you. this was really comprehensive. we can probably, wrap up a bit here because I think we’re ready to draw in some external wisdom. our next episode is going to be reviewing a book about this topic specifically.I actually have it right here. We’re reading Start Here Now by Susan Piver. I don’t know if this is mirrored or not, but we’ll put a link for everyone if you want to read it before our episode. It’s a really easy read. pretty quick book, but it’s really great. full disclosure, it’s written by Susan Piver, who is my meditation, teacher. This is a very, secular, book that is just very straightforward about, the meditation practice. so yeah, I highly recommend you check it out so you can join our conversation on our next episode.
Maria: And it does also exist as an audiobook, which is the version that I got. So, if you’re more into that, it exists.
Jackie: Great. Yeah. in that light too, we would like to leave you with some homework.
Maria: Yes. because this is something we wanted to incorporate in our podcast is, A practice or something that you can take from it and that will help you even while not listening to the podcast to further also your mindfulness journey. And, and for us to something,we want to commit to as well. And talk about it.
Jackie: This month we I’d like to round out this discussion by asking everyone to, do a journaling practice about your relationship with discipline. we’ve talked about a lot of factors that go into our relationship with the discipline and how we relate to it. how do you feel about it?
is it something that is important? important to you? Do you notice it in your life now? Is it something that you want to, get better at? Or is it something that makes you uncomfortable? And that, there’s, reasons that maybe you struggle with it. And are there ways that you can change your relationship with it? And do you want to, just, explore your relationship with discipline. Let us know what you come up with and we’ll do the same
Maria: Yeah, so as always, thank you so much for listening. And I’m excited to have you here for season two of our podcast.
Jackie: season two.
Maria: And if you want to listen to some older episodes, please check us out on our website at becomingmindfulpodcast. com as well as on social media, at becomingmindfulpodcast.
Jackie: Thank you so much for coming back and being with us again for this new season. We really appreciate all of our listeners. Pick up the book if you want it. Otherwise, you can hear us, discuss it in the next episode. Thank you all. And until then be well.
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