Hello Friends,
In this episode of The Becoming Mindful Podcast, Maria and Jackie review Sharon Salzberg’s beautiful book, “Real Change – Mindfulness to Heal Ourselves and the World”.
Video:
Audio only:
Assignment For This Month
We invite listeners to do the exercises at the end of each chapter of the book Real Change by Sharon Salzberg. If you do not have the book, please check your local library or do any of the practices linked below.
Show Notes & Links
- Book: Real Change by Sharon Salzberg
- Find out more about Sharon Salzberg on her website: https://www.sharonsalzberg.com/
- Meditation on emotion with Sharon Salzberg
- A foundational meditation by Sharon Salzberg
- Loveing Kindness Meditation by Sharon Salzberg
- Previous episode in the mini-series: S2E04 Mindfulness To Catalyze Change Pt. 1
Transcript
S2 E05
Maria: Hello and welcome to the Becoming Mindful Podcast. Today, we are bringing in some outside wisdom to our series of how mindfulness is catalyzing change, with a review of the book Real Change by Sharon Salzberg, Mindfulness to Heal Ourselves and the World.
I am Maria.
Jackie: And I am Jackie, and we are becoming mindful.
Maria: All right, welcome.
Jackie: Welcome, everyone. Sharon Salzberg is the author of the book that we will be going through today, and she is most well-known for her loving and kindness meditations. So we thought we would start the podcast today with a quick, loving-kindness meditation. Okay.
So wherever you are, please find a comfortable seat.
You can sit tall and rest your hands gently, and you can soften your gaze.
Or if it’s comfortable for you, you can close your eyes.
And as you do, take a deep breath in through your nose and exhale slowly through your mouth.
Feel your breath settle. Feel your body at ease.
And now bring your awareness to your heart.
Imagine a warm, radiant light there, glowing softly and expanding with each breath.
And begin to silently repeat these phrases to yourself, letting the words wash over you and sink in.
May I be happy? May I be healthy. May I be safe. May I be at peace.
Now, bring to mind someone that you love and picture them smiling surrounded by warmth, and send these wishes to them.
May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be safe. May you be at peace.
Now, think of someone neutral. Be it a stranger or an acquaintance. And extend these same wishes to them.
May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be safe. May you be at peace.
Now, if it feels right, bring to mind someone maybe you find difficult, and with compassion, send these words to them.
May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be safe, may you be at peace.
Finally, extend this kindness to all beings everywhere.
May all beings be happy. May all beings be healthy, may all beings be safe, and may all beings be at peace.
Take a deep inhale and a slow exhale.
Feel the warmth of this practice radiating from your heart, and carry this kindness with you.
When you’re ready, gently open your eyes.
Thank you for joining us in that practice. I love those loving-kindness meditations.
Maria: Yes. Thank you for leading us in the practice.
Jackie: All right. Let’s get into this beautiful book, Real Change, by Sharon Salzberg.
Maria: Yeah, it is a very beautiful book. I took some notes, and at times, I felt “okay, you can’t just take notes of the whole book”.
Jackie: Yeah, me too.
Maria: So much love and deep emotions came up, very intense, but in a good way.
Jackie: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Maria: Yeah. to talk a little bit about the structure, I love the way, how she leads us through this process of, I would say almost like the obstacles or the things that maybe stopping us from changing or doing things that change the world or ourselves or, taking action, and how to transforming them into, energy to take action. I think starting out with heartache which really inspired me. I actually did a little painting about it and wrote something about it because it was really beautiful, and then going into anger, right? And grief.
Jackie: Yeah.
Maria: And then going into the healing. It’s almost like a whole healing process. You utilize mindfulness to heal yourself and work through these emotions and then enter into this space of interconnectedness, right?
So you expand it to other people.
Jackie: Right. Yeah. A good way to sum up the book is how mindfulness can heal the world and it just how it can be this vehicle or maybe like a compass to keep you going in the right direction, to
know that you’re on the right path, even when it doesn’t feel like it, or you get lost or there’s detours or you backtrack.
And as long as. We continue to practice and self-reflect. She made a big point about self-reflection. Then we will continue to calibrate our compass, and we’ll keep going in the right direction with the right intention, and it’s not magic. I think she made a big point in this book that we each have to take personal responsibility for ourselves and for the way we show up and how our actions affect the world and the way we behave. And passivity is like the kryptonite. We have to put in effort. It’s work.
Maria: Yeah. She brings up a lot of points about what mindfulness does in this process of igniting change and healing. There are elements of what it is, not that it’s not, this thing where you just feel bliss or like an escape or
something. And we’ve talked about this quite a bit, but it is there on one hand to heal, right?
But it’s also there to give us tools for resilience.
So when we are facing these difficult emotions that might stop us or freeze us from taking action, we have a tool to allow us to work through them not by pushing them away or getting rid of them but by being able to process them by being able to feel them, by being able to work with them and transmute them into energy to work.
Like transmuting anger, transmuting fear and sadness and this heartache you feel for the world into this driving force that you can utilize.
But then also using the mindfulness as a tool not to burn out when you transmute this energy not to push so much that you completely burn out.
And then I think the next piece is this. So you have this energy, but where do you put the energy? So mindfulness can also help us really get clarity on what the things that we have to offer are. And also, what are the things that really need to be done? Where do things need to change or need something from us?
This two-sided thing, like what can we offer, what needs to be done? Lastly, using mindfulness to connect with others to really make a community, and teamwork efficient and working out, and help others on this way as well.
Yeah.
Jackie: And I like that she said no action is too small. Whatever is in front of you that needs to be done, that you can do, is gonna create change. It’s going to move the needle in the right direction.
Yeah. And
I like that the idea of connection and finding ways to look beyond ourselves really begins with connecting with ourselves and loving ourselves. And she said something like, ask someone who doesn’t. Love themselves yet care about someone across the world. And they can’t because they’re not connected to anything yet. We have to start by seeing ourselves and other people and then letting that ripple outward, greater and greater. We really need to know who we are, self-reflect, see who we are, and be honest. With ourselves, with who we are, and then love that person before we can go out and have compassion for others. Not as a prerequisite, but as a foundation,
It’s difficult to do that if you haven’t done it for yourself yet.
Maria: Yeah, respecting and loving ourselves. And, yeah, there’s a lot of self-worth also tied up into this. Right. And in one chapter, she says, we have control over so little a truth that is sometimes exceptionally bitter. But we can choose to care, and we can choose to act.
That is the truth that frees us. You know that, as you said, every little thing matters, and we are not a small piece of the puzzle. Every single person has power within themselves.
And what you said. With loving ourselves. There’s also another quote from the book that resonated with me a lot.
She said, “Respecting ourselves may not appear to be a radical act, but it is. It is both radical and impactful. When we care and when we know we are worthy, we can be agents of change for ourselves and for others.”
Jackie:
Yeah, I wrote that one down, too.
Maria: Yeah, it was a good one.
Jackie: When we start to have compassion for ourselves, that’s when we can start to. Digest all those big emotions that you were talking about a minute ago. When we’re talking about things like anger and grief and fear, to back up a second. A lot of what we read from all these great mindfulness sages is the same information, but a great writer like Susan can. Just put it in a way that makes it more actionable or more tangible, or more relatable. And I feel like she really did that by relating to those big emotions. and how she said we need to take an active role in our relationship with those emotions.
If we let ourselves become consumed by them, they can become destructive, and if we try to control them or push them away, we can become really rigid and unbendable. So we have to find a way to not identify with or attach to them, but rather to listen to them and find what’s useful in each emotion and what needs to be heard, needs to be processed, and needs to be seen in the rest of the world.
Be reflected and honored when we’re going out into the world and living our lives.
So, I like that we have to take an active role in our relationship with those emotions. There’s a responsibility.
Maria: Yeah, that we see them, that we listen to them, because. Those emotions are indications of something, right?
They’re trying to tell us something, and they’re gonna try and tell us something. And that’s something that Thich Nhat Hanh said in this book, the art of communicating. They’re going to tell us until they’re heard, right? He equates them to little children tugging on your sleeve, and really what you need to do is to pick them up and hold them right and listen to them. And it is just so beautiful that, yeah, we need to listen to these emotions – not in a way that they can tell us what to do, but in a way of what can we learn from them? What is there underneath them that we need to address? There’s a message there, right?
Just like how pain in your body is a message. The pain isn’t hurting you. The pain is the message to say that, Hey, there is something wrong somewhere. Pay attention.
Jackie: Yeah.
Maria: Yeah.
Jackie: Yeah. One quote I wrote down from her that I really loved was that meditation supports us in having a more direct relationship with our experience. When we get quiet and pay attention, we can start to hear ourselves talking to ourselves and telling ourselves what we need. What we maybe haven’t been respecting or having compassion for. And when we start to. Really honor all of those messages that are coming up, and we’re able to feel secure in ourselves and have that self-love that she was talking about. Then we start to turn outward, and we can see how connected we are to the world and something greater.
There was an analogy or a story that she told in the book about seeing a cloud in a piece of paper because without the cloud that gave the rain to the tree that made the paper, then we wouldn’t have that piece of paper. And she goes on to say that it even involves the logger who cut down the tree and his family and his parents and so on.
You can see how connected we are and Foundationally, how we are connected to everything. And in that sense, she talked about how people who are self-reflective are often less lonely because in that silence, we can start to see all of the ways that that we aren’t alone essentially.
Maria: Yeah, never. The story that you mentioned she’s quoting, Thich Nhat Hanh there, and I recognize this story because he is actually telling the story in the book that we read together.
Jackie: Yeah. I love that.
Maria: It’s so great.
Jackie: Yeah.
Maria: But yeah, definitely, going from the practice of listening to yourself and being in conversation with yourself and widening that and then really the body connection as well,
Jackie: Mm-hmm.
Maria: To connect to your body, listen to your body, and widen that to others. Yeah. Because then, with this connection that you’re building, you can re-use these mindfulness practices that you used for yourself with others. So now you can listen to others actually, what they’re saying and what’s underneath there, without judgment and assumption because that’s the hardest part because we’re always interpreting all the time, not only what we are seeing, what we are experiencing, but also what others say.
Jackie: Mm-hmm.
Maria: Don’t act. Just listening and taking it at face value, right?
Jackie: Mm-hmm.
Maria: And then being able to respond compassionately.
Jackie: And when we’re practicing, meditation we’re practicing that non-judgment and that, openness. as you’re saying, in relating with others and talking with others, when we’ve done the work ourselves and we encounter, that anger, that fear, that grief in someone else, we’re able to sit with it with them because we’ve sat with it with ourselves and we don’t run away from that discomfort. and we see that it’s the same. It’s universal. We are connected. And in that way, we can be compassionate because we learned how with ourselves, and I guess she said. In doing mindfulness work, it makes you want to go out and help people and serve Because of this, what we’re talking about getting close to yourself brings you close to everyone and really opens you and takes you outta that rigidity, and
Maria: Right. Yeah.
Lets you see these things from a different angle.
If talking about anger and so on, instead of looking at it as their anger hurting you and being triggered by it, you can really see what is this anger that’s actually hurting them, and then you can have compassion for their suffering.
Jackie: Yeah, that was. Something that I’ve always struggled with is the idea of being compassionate for everyone. Having universal compassion is great, but sometimes, it’s hard to be compassionate when you see someone harming someone else. And I know I’m supposed to be compassionate even for the one that’s harming, but how can you do that? It feels so wrong. In this book, Sharon actually talks about that and says that you should have compassion for the one causing harm, but maybe not before you have compassion for the one that they’re harming.
Taking care of that first and then saying, okay, what was happening here?
Let’s go back to the source. That really brings it into what I feel was a beautiful way of bringing this all together, is that mindfulness helps us to have a systems thinking to look at the causes of problems because as she says, if we’re not addressing the root causes, we are going to become hopeless because we’ll be spinning our wheels and not really accomplishing anything.
Yes. Everyone deserves compassion. We first need to stop harming. We need to get to at least there.
Maria: Yes, exactly. Yeah, I wrote that one down, too. Acting compassionately towards the person harming should not come before acting compassionately on behalf of those harmed.
And that also comes back to when she’s talking about how this compassion materializes, having compassion for someone.
It doesn’t necessarily mean reconciliation. It doesn’t. Right, and another thing she points out is that there is this kind of difference between grace and forgiving, right? Giving someone grace or forgiving. And, the grace can be offered from another person in the community, that’s not the person that’s being harmed.
So the person that’s being harmed doesn’t need to be re-traumatized. They can’t maybe do that at this moment, and that’s okay. But yeah, I definitely can see a lot of the teachings we’ve heard or seen before in this book.
This is something that I’ve heard from another mindfulness teacher. It really doesn’t matter who the teacher is because you have to be open to receiving the teaching. And then it doesn’t matter, like it doesn’t help you if let’s say go to Sharon and then go to Thich Nhat Hanh and then go to the Buddha himself if the one person can’t, then the other person can’t either. You have to be open to that. And in this path or this transformation we’ve talked about, it’s the dharma, right? You have to go at your own pace, and everyone is in different stages of it.
It is important, and that’s something that mindfulness practices do as well, to recognize that and give space for that as well.
Jackie: For sure. Yeah, it’s it. Really meets you where you’re at. You can approach mindfulness practices at all those different stages and find something for you because what you need is what’s gonna resonate. And that’s probably why Sharon started this book with a chapter on agency. For so many of us – I know this was a huge part of my adulthood – finding some sense of agency because we get so caught up in our habits or with external influences or expectations. And you really don’t know who you are or what you stand for. Self-reflection can be very difficult when you’ve never done it and when you don’t have a strong sense of agency.
You have to be open to it, be receptive to it, be ready for a certain message. When you’re ready, the teacher will appear. And that’s so true. You can read Thich Nhat Hanh a million times, and the million and first time is the first time you really get it because you’re in the right place.
You really have to open first.
Maria: Yeah. And then the teacher can come from. Anywhere, anything, any little thing in your life, anything you encounter.
The universe has those teachings all over the place, but you don’t see ’em if you’re not ready to see ’em.
And that’s one thing she mentions as well with the, what’s the jolt that wakes you up?
I know for me, it was like a beginning to listen.
Jackie: But I think, too, that’s asking a lot. That can be many people I don’t think are in a place where they can do that. And it can be a really slow path, and that’s totally fine. But it’s hard not to compare yourself to others or compare other people to you, and just need to realize that everyone’s walking a very different path. Even those very close to you. It’s very individualized.
Maria: Yeah, and that was something she discussed in the book as well when she was talking about intersectionality and. We sometimes start from different spots in life, different situations, and those situations and those privileges or lack thereof impact our path. Or they might throw us back, or forward or, all kinds of ways. And that’s so interesting to me. There is no prescribed way. It’s completely unpredictable. Something that might hold someone back for decades might be the thing that gets someone in their early twenties.
Jackie: Right.
Maria: So interesting, and I think it’s also iterative because you have these moments where you’re like, “okay, yes, I get it”. Then you go on and learn more, and then you have this moment again, and you’re like, “Oh, I get it now. I didn’t get it before. Really?”
Jackie: I know. It’s like it’s a whole new level. You’re like, “oh man”.
Maria: Yeah, like my daughter had this thing, and she used to say that for a while. I love it. “A whole new world again.”
Jackie: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I think though just being willing to be on the path and be open to the world is what we need, is the crux of what she’s talking about and how mindfulness can help change the world is just that with everybody meeting themselves where they’re at, We’re going to find that interconnectedness, and then applying it to these small interactions we have every day as well as like in our career or with, our family systems or, in the greater world at large. It’s going to ripple through all of those places.
Maria: It also helps, the practice of being in the now and being open, right? The whole non-judgmental part of it. It really helps also to see that, the clarity of which decisions to make or where to go and where to turn. Not only that, but also to know that a lot of the times, it really doesn’t matter what you choose. What matters is what you do with that choice and that you commit to that choice and that you live your values, right?
Jackie: Right. That’s again, the whole systems approach that she’s talking about is, it’s not that small individual choices that you make, but rather your method of going about it and like you said, living your values. And when you’re committed to that, you’re gonna be on the right path. You’re gonna go in a positive change direction.
Maria: Yeah. Yeah. And it also ties back to this in some way. That’s all you can do.
You can just live the way that aligns with your values and aligns with the person you want to be and the person that you are, right? Because we cannot know the outcome of a lot of things. This goes back to that story of the farmer and his son. The horse ran away, and everyone in the village said, “oh no, what Bad luck”.
And he was like, “We’ll see.” And then the son returned with a herd of horses, and everyone was like, “oh, that’s so good luck. You have all these new horses now.” And he’s like, “We’ll see.” Then, the son was trying to tame one of the horses, fell, and broke his leg.
Everyone’s “oh no.” Then the war breaks out, but he couldn’t be drafted, so it goes on like that because you don’t necessarily know. Obviously, there are some things that, if they cause suffering, are probably bad. But there’s also this: you don’t really know what this goes towards.
So all you can do is live in the way that, with compassion and being open, yes.
Jackie: And. Practicing mindfulness and meditation to build that skill and build that resiliency because the man in that story, the farmer, people were telling him, oh, what? Good luck. And he could identify with that and think he had good luck, but he didn’t. He said, “We’ll see.” And then they could say, “Oh, your son broke his leg. What Bad luck.” And he could identify with that and say, “Oh, I have bad luck.” But he didn’t. He said, “We’ll see.” You just take it as it comes and be present. Just meet each moment as it is and let it come.
Instead of being defined by external things and looking within to find that, Sharon talked about finding a place inside of you closer to nature. This will be inherently compassionate since our nature is to cooperate and be compassionate and kind. So, strip away all those voices telling you “you have good luck, you have bad luck,” and instead letting it come from within and getting back to that with your practices and staying close to it, so that you can show up every day with resiliency when everyone’s telling you your reality. And you can be secure wherever you are at any moment.
Maria: Exactly. Yeah.
Jackie: Yeah.
Maria: Yeah. And at the same time, it doesn’t mean you don’t feel sad, you don’t feel angry, you don’t feel those emotions. If you’re circling back to those, ’cause they’re still there, it’s still gonna be there. All of that is included. Right?
Jackie: And she said, all those things, they’re just visiting, and they’re just visitors here to give you a message and then, you can invite them to leave. You can respect them and feel them and then say, okay, that served me, and now I can move forward with the wisdom that came from it.
Maria: You can also learn to say, “Okay, you can stay. But you better do the dishes right.” So it’s utilizing some of these feelings to drive and to get stuff done and to,
Jackie: Exactly.
Maria: And being okay with them, they’re there, and that’s okay.
Jackie: Yeah.
Maria: Yeah, so very great book. So much wisdom in there about how mindfulness really helps us not only have a foundation so we can enact change but also helps us enact the change and do that together with others.
Jackie: It almost made me feel like there’s no other way. Like, we have to be mindful. As we create change and imprint on this world.
Maria: Yeah. I mean, sure, change can be possible without mindfulness, but it’s gonna be a sliver of what you can do with mindfulness.
Jackie: Without mindfulness, it can lead to those areas she was talking about, like destructive outcomes.
Maria: Yeah. Like self-righteousness.
Jackie: Yeah. Or rigid outcomes. Inflexible ones. and, yeah, so unsustainable.
Maria: Yeah. If you don’t have clarity about what to do, you might do the wrong things. Yeah, you’re changing something, but then it’s not helpful. It doesn’t really reduce suffering in the world.
Jackie: It doesn’t consider the whole.
Maria: Right.
Jackie: Yeah.
Maria: Yeah. So that’s it, it was great.
Jackie: Yeah, I loved it, and I think I need to read it a dozen more times,
Maria: Yeah, I feel that about many books we’ve read. And I also know that I won’t because I don’t have the time in my life.
Jackie: Well, Sharon’s got a whole catalog,
Maria: Yes. But yeah, I think it’s a very valuable rate.
Anyone listening, if you have read it and have any comments, anything that stuck out to you, anything you wanna share about it? We’d love to hear it, and if you haven’t read it, I encourage you to pick it up and read it.
Jackie: Yeah, let us know what you think. If you’ve got the book, every chapter has some practice at the end. We invite you to do some of these practices as homework. If you don’t have the book, we will include some links to some of Sharon’s practices and some YouTube links in the comments below, and you can do those. But I do highly encourage you to head to your local library and pick up the book because it’s worth the read. It’s very good. Yeah.
Maria: And it’s not very big either.
Jackie: It’s not; no, it’s a quick read except for all the pausing to contemplate.
Maria: And write down quotes.
Jackie: Right. But otherwise, it’s very digestible.
Maria: Yep.
I remember this one area where I was reading and taking notes and quotes, and then I’m looking at the page count. I’m like, oh my gosh. It took me an hour to get through 20 pages.
Jackie: Yeah.
Maria: That was funny.
Jackie: Yeah.
Maria: All right. I think we can conclude our episode here. And, as always, we thank you for listening in. We’d love to hear any feedback. Please follow us on social media @BecomingMindfulPodcast or visit our website, Becomingmindfulpodcast.com.
Jackie: Until next time, be well.
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