In Pursuit of Emotional Freedom: The Role of Mindfulness and Authenticity

Prepare to challenge the voice of knowledge that lies within you. It's time to uncover the truth about our emotions and the power they hold over us in our everyday lives. Join us as we delve into the ideas of Godmiguel Ruiz from his book 'The Voice of Knowledge' and uncover why the knowledge we house in our heads is like a program infected with the virus Lyis. We'll bring to light the importance of authenticity in our emotions and how they are a direct response from our spirit, our integrity that cannot be faked. 

We shift gears into exploring the transformative potential of mindfulness in our daily lives. Revealing the three simple steps of waking up suggested by Joel and Michelle Levy, we'll awaken your understanding of the power held within the vagus nerve and its role in increasing calmness. We’ll also guide you in managing your emotional reactions effectively and help you comprehend the contradictory truths that, the present moment is all we have, yet, many things that cause anxiety or anger are not worth the emotional energy invested.

We finish strong by discussing the potency of decision points in our routines and why interruptions can, in fact, be a gift. We also examine how Free Time Solutions can aid in reclaiming our time and condensing our focus on what truly matters. So, fasten your seat belt; it's going to be an enlightening ride that will leave you more self-aware, emotionally intelligent, and capable of handling your daily routines more mindfully.

Transcript

Heather: 0:01

Welcome to At the Table when we are connecting entrepreneurs, discovering missions and building communities with purpose Body, soul, mind and Business. With Charlie and Heather, with Free Time Solutions.

Charlie: 0:17

Hi and welcome to the table for this week's Weekly Reading. I'm Charlie, your host, and right now we are reading Godmiguel Ruiz's book the Voice of Knowledge with Janet Mills. It's a practical guide to inner peace and it goes right along with our four agreements Same awesomeness, but just continued deeper learning about the Voice of Knowledge and for our Business Mindset Tools. Right now we are reading Career Self-Care by Minda Zetlin Find your happiness, success and fulfillment at work. We are finishing up on Minda Zetlin's book Career Self-Care. It has been a fabulous journey so far and I really hope you've been enjoying the journey as well. If there is a book that you would like us to read, go ahead and drop it in the comments below.

Charlie: 1:16

We have this year planned out but we are always looking for great suggestions for next year, starting in January. So if you have a book that you would like us to cover, go ahead and let us know. With that being said, make sure you stick around for Mindset Monday when we discuss the topics in the book Without further ado. Let's go ahead and get started. Godmiguel Ruiz the Voice of Knowledge. This week we are in Chapter 7, emotions Are Real. The Voice of Knowledge is Not Real.

Charlie: 2:02

Before you learn to speak, your brain is like a perfect computer, but without a program, when you are born, you don't know a language. It takes several years for your brain to mature enough to receive a program. Then the program is introduced to you, mainly through your parents as well as other people around you. They hook your attention and teach you the meaning of words. You learn to speak and the program goes inside you little by little, by agreement, you agree and you now have the program. Well, if you are the computer, the knowledge is the program. Everything you know, all of the knowledge in your head, was already in the program before you were born. I can assure you that none of us ever has an original idea. Every letter, every word, every concept in your belief system is part of the program and that program is contaminated with a virus called Lyis. There's no need to judge the program as good or bad or right or wrong. Even if we don't like the program, nobody is guilty for sharing it with us. It is just the way it is and it's wonderful because we use the program to create our stories. But who is running our life? The program. The program has a voice and it's lying to us all the time. How can we know what the truth is when almost everything we have learned is a lie? How can we recognize what is real in us?

Charlie: 3:43

Well, it took some time for me to find out, but I found out. Our emotions are real. Every emotion that we feel is real. It is truth, it is. I discovered that every emotion comes directly from our spirit, from our integrity. It is completely authentic. You cannot fake what you feel. You can try to repress your emotions, you can try to justify what you feel or lie about what you feel, but what you feel is authentic, it is real and you are feeling it. There is nothing wrong with whatever you feel. There is no good emotions or bad emotions. There is nothing wrong with anger or jealousy or envy. Even if you are feeling hate, it comes from your integrity. Even if it's sadness or depression that you are suffering, if you feel it, there is always a reason for feeling it. I discovered something very interesting about the human mind, something logical and important to understand.

Charlie: 4:57

Everything you perceive causes an emotional reaction, everything. If you perceive beauty, your emotional reaction is wonderful. You feel great. When you are heard, your emotional reaction is not so great.

Charlie: 5:11

But you perceive not just the outside world. You perceive the virtual world you create in your head. You perceive not only your feelings, but your knowledge, your own thoughts, judgments and beliefs. You perceive the voice in your head and you have an emotional reaction to that voice. Now the question is this what is the voice in your head telling you and how many times has it told you, god, I'm so stupid, how could I do that? I will never learn. The voice of knowledge judges you. You perceive the judgment and you have an emotional reaction. You feel the shame, you feel the guilt. The emotion is true, but what causes the emotion, which is the judgment that you are stupid, is not true. It's a story. Again, this is just action reaction. What is the action? The action is the perception out of your point of view, which means the perception of your own judgment. What is the reaction? Your feelings are the reaction and you react to the lies with emotional poison. Let's see if we can understand this a little better.

Charlie: 6:27

Imagine that you have a dog. As you know, the dog is just a dog and it's a perfect dog, isn't it? But what happens if you abuse the dog? What if, every time you see the dog, you kick the dog? Very soon the dog will be afraid. You can see the emotions coming from the dog. It is angry. It might try to bite you or run away. Is there something wrong with the dog's emotions? Does the dog's anger make the dog evil? No, the dog's reaction is just the result of being abused. The emotion is helping the dog to defend itself. It comes from the dog's integrity. Now imagine a dog living in the most beautiful environment, with people who always love and respect the dog. That dog is the sweetest animal in the whole world, the most wonderful dog, because that dog is not abused. He follows his nature, he loves everybody who loves him.

Charlie: 7:27

Well, your physical body is just like that dog.

Charlie: 7:30

It reacts emotionally in the same way. Why do you react with anger? Well, because somebody kicked you right. But who kicked you? The voice in your head, the main character of your story, what you believe you are. You also perceive your image of perfection, what you believe you are not, and this also creates an emotional reaction how you feel when you cannot live up to that image. How do you feel when you cannot live up to that image? The emotion is not pleasant, but your emotional reaction is real. It's what you feel. But is it true that you need to fit that image? No, it's a lie. What you are perceiving is just a lie that you agreed to believe in. You agreed, and that lie has become part of your story.

Charlie: 8:35

Humans are victimized by knowledge, by what we know. If we make a mistake in front of someone, we try to justify the mistake, to protect the image we project. Later, when we are alone, we remember what happened and we punish ourselves all over again. Why? Because the voice of knowledge keeps telling us what we did from the same point of view that we had when we did it. The voice becomes a powerful judge and it's telling us look what you did. And it's telling us this to whom? It was the voice that made us do it in the first place.

Charlie: 9:15

The voice of knowledge is abusing the emotional body. What is not real is abusing what is real. The action is to believe a lie. The reaction is to feel emotional pain. The emotional body perceives the voice, reacts to the voice and, just like a tiger, it attacks. We lose control and we do things and say things that we really don't want to do or say. Now the voice of knowledge is afraid of our emotional reaction. It judges reaction and makes us feel ashamed of our own feelings.

Charlie: 9:51

When we perceive the emotional emotion of shame and we use knowledge to try to justify the emotions which means the voice of knowledge is talking about what we feel, we feel the voice starts lying to our feelings and even tries to deny what we feel. Then we perceive that voice, we perceive the judgment and we have another emotional reaction. Now we feel guilty because we reacted emotionally. The knowledge tries to explain the emotion of guilt, the emotion you know. Pain is growing and now we are depressed. Can you see the cycle?

Charlie: 10:29

The voice of knowledge makes a story about our emotions. We perceive the story and we try to repress our emotions, perceiving that repression creates another emotional reaction and soon we just want to repress everything we feel. I shouldn't feel this way. What kind of man are you? Are you a wimp? Or what Real men? Don't cry. We pretend it doesn't hurt. Yes, it hurts, but it hurts because we make a story, perceiving the story, and drag more emotions into the story.

Charlie: 11:01

Why do we hate? Because someone is abusing us. That's why we hate. Why do we suffer? Because something is hurting us. That's why we suffered. It's a normal reaction to being hurt. What is hurting us? Well now, the answer is easy what hurts us is the voice of the liar in our head that keeps telling us the way we should be, but we are not. The hate, the anger and the jealousy are normal emotional reactions that come from what is real, which means they come from our integrity, not from whom we are pretending to be. That's why there is nothing wrong with hate.

Charlie: 11:42

If we feel hate, the voice of knowledge speaking in our head is calling us to hate. The hate is completely normal. It's just a reaction to what we believe. If we change the belief, then the hate will transform into love. All of our emotions change when we no longer believe the voice, because the emotions are the effect, not the cause the emotional plan.

Charlie: 12:06

Sorry, excuse me, emotional pain is a symptom of being abused. The pain is letting us know that we have to do something to stop the abuse. Why do people abuse us? Because we allow them to abuse us because, in our judgment, we believe we deserve to be abused. But if we go a little deeper, we see that we abuse ourselves far more than anybody else abuses us. We can blame other people who hurt us and say I grew up being abused and we can make many excuses, but in the present moment, who is abusing you? If you are truthful, you find that mostly it's your own voice of knowledge. Every time we lie to ourselves, we abuse ourselves. Every time we curse ourselves, we abuse ourselves Every time we judge ourselves, every time we reject ourselves. Of course we have an emotional reaction and it isn't pleasant. Again, if we don't like the emotional reaction, it's not about repressing what we feel we're not going to be able to do that. It's not about repressing what we feel. It's about cleaning up the lies that cause the emotional reaction. The message coming from our integrity is clear. The voice of integrity is screaming to us please save me.

Charlie: 13:27

That reminds me, as a movie, the end of this about a little girl who is possessed by demons. Well, there is this little girl on the side as saying help me, I'm being possessed by the main character of my story. Oh, my goodness, and it's true. Humans are possessed by knowledge. We are possessed by a distorted image of ourselves, and that is why we are no longer free. How many times have you heard someone say if a real me comes out, I don't know what's going to happen. We are afraid that something inside of us will come out and destroy everything. And you know what? It is true If the real you comes out, it will destroy all of the lies. And that is frightening.

Charlie: 14:15

I used to be possessed by the main character of my story. I was abused by that character for so many years. Yet I pretended to love myself. What a joke. And not just that, I pretended to love somebody else. How could I love somebody else when I didn't love myself? I can only give to others what I have for myself.

Charlie: 14:38

People have asked me Miguel, why can't I feel love? How can I learn to create love? I thought about this Create love. Then a little idea came into my mind we don't need to learn how to love. By nature we love before we speak. Love is the main emotion we feel. It is natural to express our love. But then we learn to repress our love. And I tell them you don't need to create love. Your heart is made to produce so much love that you can send your love to the entire world. If you can't feel love, it's because you are resisting love. It's because you've learned how to stop expressing your love.

Charlie: 15:23

When we are little children and people tell us that we shouldn't be the way we are, we begin to repress the expression of our authentic self. We repress our integrity, our own emotional body. We practice hiding our emotions and pretending that we don't feel them. When we feel ashamed of our emotions, we begin to justify and explain and judge our emotions. We believe in so many lies that we no longer express the beautiful emotion of love. The voice of knowledge tells us it is not safe to love. I'm afraid to love because love makes me vulnerable. If I love, my heart will be broken. So many lies. It's not the truth, but knowledge tells you. Of course it's true. I have a lot of experience with this. Every time I love, my heart is broken. Well, this isn't the truth, because nobody can break your heart if you love yourself. If your heart was broken in the past, you broke it with the lies you believed about love. Love makes you strong. Selfishness makes you weak. Love doesn't hurt. What hurts is the fear, selfishness and control that come from the lies you believe in. If you no longer believe in lies, automatically love starts coming out of you.

Charlie: 16:44

After my experience in the desert, it was clear to me that every emotion I feel comes directly from my integrity. When I noticed this, I no longer repressed my emotions. Now my emotions are the most important part of my story, because I know that my feelings are authentic. When I feel an emotion, I know it's a reaction to what I perceive. My emotions are telling me how I am doing in my life and by following my emotions I can change my circumstances.

Charlie: 17:18

Whatever the feeling from joy to anger, from love to hate it's just a reaction. But being a reaction, it is important to see the action. If I am not happy, it's because there's something in my story that is suppressing my happiness. Then I have to take a step back and see what is causing it. If I have the awareness, I can fix the problem and be happy again as soon as any problem arises in my life, I resolve it in one way or another, without even trying to make the story about it. The universe is simple. It's about cause and effect, action and reaction. If you don't like the way you are living your life, this is a reaction to the program that is ruling your life, the liar. The program is not even part of you, but at the same time, it is part of you because it's the way you identify yourself. The program creates the story, then it tries to make sense of the story by explaining and justifying everything to the main character of the story.

Charlie: 18:26

A setup, what a creation. Humans create an entire culture, a whole philosophy of humanity. We create history, science, art, olympic games, miss Universe you name it. It's our creation and it's beautiful and wonderful. But it's just a story. The main character of your story is you, but the role that you are playing is not you. You have practiced the role for so long that you have mastered the performance. You have become the best actor in the entire world, but I can assure you that you are not what you believe you are. Thank God, because you are so much better than what you believe you are.

Charlie: 19:06

I remember when my grandfather told me Miguel, you will know that you are free when you no longer have to be you. At that moment I didn't understand him, but later I know exactly what he meant. I don't have to be the way everybody wants me to be. I don't have to be what I believe I should be according to my own lies. Your story is your creation. You are the artist with the force of life flowing through you. If you don't like your art, you have the power to change it. That's the good news. You don't have to be you anymore and that's the maximum freedom. You don't have to be what you believe you are. You don't have to be that anger or that jealousy or that hate. You can recover the sense of what you really are, return to paradise and live again in heaven on earth. Points to ponder.

Charlie: 20:17

Every emotion that you feel is real. It is truth. It comes directly from the entirety of your spirit. You cannot fake what you feel. You can try to justify or repress your emotions. You can try to lie about what you feel, but what you feel is authentic. The voice of knowledge can make you feel ashamed of your feelings, but there's nothing wrong with whatever you feel. There are no good emotions or bad emotions.

Charlie: 20:43

Even if what you feel is anger or hate comes from your integrity and you feel it, there is always a reason for feeling it. Everything you perceive causes an emotional reaction. You perceive not only your feelings, but your knowledge, your own thoughts, judgments and beliefs. You perceive the voice in your head and you have an emotional reaction to that voice. Every time you lie to yourself or judge yourself or reject yourself, you have an emotional reaction and it isn't pleasant. If you don't like the emotional reaction, it's not about repressing what you feel. It's about cleaning up the lies that cause it. All of your emotions change when you no longer believe in lies, because emotions are the effect, not the cause. Our emotions are real. The voice of knowledge that makes us suffer is not. Our suffering is true, but the reason why we suffer may not be true at all. Humans are possessed by knowledge, by a distorted image of ourselves. That is why we are no longer free. Emotional pain is a symptom of being abused. The pain is letting you know that you have to do something to stop the abuse. The emotions are the most important part of your story because they are telling you how you are doing in your life. By following your emotions, you can change your circumstances. And in Career, self Care. This Week by Minda Zetlin, we are on Chapter 20. How Mindfulness Can Help you In Work, in Life.

Charlie: 22:46

Years ago, bill and I were driving somewhere. I was sitting in the passenger seat and for some reason I got to thinking about how much my life I had spent with my mind fixed firmly on the future, anticipating, planning and worrying, especially worrying. So much time spent worrying and it had done me so little good, I said. Someday I'll learn to live in the present moment, I said, but I don't know when that will be. Yes, I know how ridiculous that is. I knew it as soon as I said it, but there it is. This business of mindfulness and being in the present moment has always been challenging for me. I'm excellent at planning, organizing and anticipating. I pride myself on finding solutions to future problems before others even realize their problems, but when it comes to staying in the present moment, noticing what's around me and what I'm feeling, really experiencing my life, that's always been much, much more difficult. If you're like me, if you're like me good at planning and organizing, bad at just letting go, maybe it's difficult for you too. Even that idea of mindfulness has been tough for me to get my head around.

Charlie: 24:10

A few years ago, I took a weekend meditation course with the authors and Tibetan Buddhists, joel and Michelle Levy, and on the first day they gave us an exercise that's turned into a daily habit for me. When you first wake up in the morning, they said before you get out of bed and before you reach for your smartphone or other device, do three things. First, be awake to the fact that you're awake. Second, find three things to be grateful for, even if they're just the sunlight streaming through the window or the fact that your body is alive and functioning for one more day, then set an intention for the day. Second and third, are those practices seem straightforward enough, but I spent a lot of time wondering how to do the first one. How do you wake up to the fact that you're awake? What does that mean exactly? I know when I'm awake, but how can I really be awake to that knowledge? But eventually I came to a solution that may or may not have anything to do with what the Levy's intended. All I can say is it works for me.

Charlie: 25:27

I pet one of our cats. When I wake up in the morning, one or both of them are invariably next to me, with an easy reach and happy to be petted. My husband is there too, but he sleeps later than I do and I don't want to wake him up. The feel of the soft fur under my hand is a tactile reminder that I'm there, awake and alive in that moment, surrounded by warmth and love. And really, mindfulness can be as simple as that. At least I believe it can. It can be profound, mystical spiritual experience achieved after hours of practice and meditation and study, but it can also be as simple as petting a cat.

Charlie: 26:10

I like to think of mindfulness as one of those maps in a shopping mall with a big red dot that says you are here, that's it. You are here, not anywhere else, not anyone else, not any time else. That big red dot can be a reminder that you are here now, that we are all here now and that's really all that. Any of us have Stoppy surface calm below. So how do you use mindfulness? How can it help you at work and your daily life? A few years ago, for my column, I posed that question to Ched Ming-Tang. Ming, as he likes to be known, is a former Google engineer. In fact, he was the company's 107th employee. He studied meditation and mindfulness and began giving a highly popular course at Google called Search Inside Yourself. When we talked, right after the publication of his bestselling book based on the course, his official title at Google was Jolly Good Fellow, which nobody can deny. Since then, he's retired from Google, continued as an author and movie producer and become co-chair of One Billion Acts of Peace, a nonprofit that encourages ordinary people to help solve the world's biggest problems through small actions.

Charlie: 27:34

Mindfulness is about the training of attention in a way that allows your mind to stabilize, he explained when we talked. He compared it to the ocean the surface is choppy, but the bottom is very calm. If you're able to go deep inside, you can access that calmness and a cyst in a world where you can be calm and in action at the same time. How do you achieve this admiral state? Manx spends a lot of time in meditation, but it's not the only way to achieve mindfulness, he said. Gaining this skill turns out to be very easy. A great place to start is to focus your attention on your breath from time to time throughout the day, whenever you think of it or, especially helpful, when you feel yourself getting tense. Focus on your breath for three breaths or just one breath. You don't have to train very deep. He says the stress and upset of failure are physical sensations may explain. Calming your body by focusing on your breath will not only settle your emotions, but it will settle your body as well.

Charlie: 28:44

He talked to me about the vagus nerve, which I have never heard of. I learned later that it's the longest nerve in the body, connecting your brain to your digestive system. According to information on the National Institutes of Health website, the vagus nerve is the main component of the parasympathetic nervous system, which oversees a vast array of crucial body functions, including control of mood, immune response, digestion and heart rate. You can use this powerful nerve to increase your own calm with an absurdly simple technique. When you inhale, your heart naturally speeds up, but when you exhale, the vagus nerve releases a neurotransmitter that slows your heart rate. You can both increase your sense of calm and increase the variability of your heart rate, which has all kinds of health benefits, by slowing your breathing and making your exhalations longer than your inhalations. The simplest way to do this is by counting, for example, count four while inhaling and count five or six while exhaling. As you become calmer, you can increase those counts if you want to slow your breathing further, which will help you relax more.

Charlie: 30:05

But mindfulness isn't only about achieving your inner calm. It's also about being awake and aware and fully in the present. It's about understanding two seemingly contradictory truths. First, the present moment is all we have and all we truly know. Second, many of the things that make us desperately anxious or frustrated or angry doesn't really warrant that much emotional energy, which becomes clear when we consider them in the grand scheme of things. This is why the question how much will this matter five years from now can be so powerful.

Charlie: 30:41

That brings me back to Josh Davis, the neuroscientist from chapter 19. Some of his most intriguing advice is about how to best use the few moments in every day when you are fully awake and aware. What does that mean? Davis writes in two awesome hours. In one regard, we are very much like computers. Almost everything we do, from plossing our teeth to answering a day's worth of emails, we do by following neuro routines, the human version of computer programs which guide our thoughts, feelings and behaviors. In other words, we spend much of our time more or less on autopilot, and it's not our fault. Our brains evolved this way, and for good reason, as David explains. One influential theory says that humans are cognitive misers, conserving mental energy whenever we can, so we can use it for advanced problem solving when we need it.

Charlie: 31:44

You're probably aware that you do some things by rote, like brushing your teeth. For me, the process goes like this I put toothpaste on my electric toothbrush and turn it on. I start my brushing routine, as always in the upper right corner of my mouth. Three minutes later, the toothbrush turns itself off and my teeth are clean, but I have no memory of actually brushing them. That happened automatically while my mind wandered away to the day's plans or the movie I watched the night before. Driving or walking to a familiar destination is another time when autopilot kicks in for many people. If you ever missed a turn you were supposed to take because it required you to deviate from your usual route, you know what I mean.

Charlie: 32:33

According to Davis, this business of operating by rote doesn't just apply to things like tooth brushing and commuting, but to nearly everything. You may believe you go through your day thoughtfully, constantly making fresh decisions about what you do, but that mostly isn't true. The vast majority of the time, you're gliding along well-worn neural pathways, completing tasks the same way you've done them before and using as little mental energy as you can. To be clear, this does not mean you don't have to care about these tasks or that you're not putting your best effort into them. You're probably doing them very well because they're things you've done many times before and you've learned how to do them right. If you're not on autopilot, it usually means you're a complete beginner at whatever you're trying to do, and so the task requires your absolute attention. Understand all that and you'll see why a few times we come out of autopilot during the course of an average day are so very valuable.

Charlie: 33:40

Davis calls these moments decision points, and they generally happen at one of two times. Either you've just completed a task and are ready to move on to something else, or you were in the middle of a task but have just been interrupted. The second instance seems ironic, at least to me. So many of us do. So many of us who do thought-intensive work, such as writing, try our best at major work-lifes to cut interruptions to a minimum. This is why so many successful people get up at 5 or even 4 in the morning. They love having a couple of hours to work without fear of interruption, while everyone else is asleep. Then there are those of us who like working late at night for the same reason. It's not that we prefer to miss out on sleep or time with our loved ones, it's that working without interruption lets us really disappear into whatever it is we're doing. We're not entirely wrong to dislike interruptions. Reachers researchers at the University of California Irving, found that it takes the average worker 23 minutes to get back on track after an interruption.

Charlie: 34:56

But according to Davis, an interruption can make you more productive instead of less, because it gives you a rare opportunity to really ask yourself whether what you were doing beforehand was truly the most effective use of your time. When you get interrupted, he says a gift has just occurred. It's a gift most of us try to reject. When we're interrupted, we try our best to get back to what we were doing quickly, picking up exactly where we left off. When we complete a task or finish a phone call or leave a meeting, we immediately look around for the next thing to do or check the next item on our to-do list and we jump right in. That's a shame, davis says, because a decision point is an opportunity that you should value. It's a rare moment in your day when no autopilot routine is running and therefore your brain is completely awakened and engaged. It is therefore a perfect moment to make a smart decision and since Davis is focusing on greater productivity and effectiveness, he suggests using that moment to decide how best to spend your time, instead of jumping into the next task right away. He says take five minutes or so to really think about the best way to use your next chunk of time.

Charlie: 36:22

Perhaps you have a large, important project you need to get started on. You may be tempted to jump on in, but should you? Maybe you have an important meeting in half an hour and your time would be best spent preparing for that meeting, so you'll be able to answer any questions that arise. Or maybe it's the end of a long, arduous day and your mood and energy level are low. In that case, starting on the big project may lead to frustration and perhaps exhaustion. Answering your email, which is relatively easy and can give you the satisfying feeling of accomplishing something, might be the right choice. Or maybe you're feeling upbeat and energetic and you have nothing on your schedule for the next two hours, making this the perfect time to start on a more challenging task.

Charlie: 37:12

If you think about it, davis says, you almost certainly know the best way to use your time right now. The important thing is to take those few moments or so to think about it and make a deliberate choice. It might feel like you're wasting time, but spending five minutes deciding how you'll spend your time is way better than immediately starting a task. That isn't the best use of that time. Decision points don't come up often, he notes, if you had ten of them in a day, which would be quite a lot, and took five minutes for each, you'd still lose less than an hour. Why do we tend to jump so quickly into the next task or back into the task that was interrupted? Because sitting with a decision point is mentally uncomfortable, davis explains.

Charlie: 38:01

Not knowing what to do, or even briefly, is an unpleasant feeling for most of us. We may find ourselves thinking about everything we have to do and it may all crowd into our brains at once At least that's what happens to me, something my husband calls my litany and so we grasp at something, anything to start working on. The moment we do, we activate one of our neural routines, although we probably aren't aware of it. Being in the routine is much more comfortable for our overtaxed brains and we breathe a sigh of relief, happy to feel productive again and to lose the awful sensation of not knowing what to do with ourselves. Davis doesn't often use the term mindfulness, but that's what he's talking about. That unpleasant sensation of being outside all your neural routines and completely aware is all about being mindful, and his suggestion to use those decision points to your advantage is just one example of how mindfulness can help you be more successful and more present when you're at work. Mindfulness is also what many people are after when they meditate.

Charlie: 39:20

I realize meditation can seem like an un-inviting activity to some people, and if you feel that way, you can certainly find mindfulness without it. But meditation has many scientifically proven benefits. It can change the brain to literally make you smarter, and can reduce the effects of aging on the brain. It can lower your blood pressure, reduce pain and help with a variety of illnesses, as well as anxiety and inflammation. Not only that, but research shows that meditation can make you happier. Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the University of Washington, wisconsin, led a 12-year study on the brain and found that 20 minutes of daily meditation made people measurably happier. The person with the happiest brain activity Davidson ever measured was a Tibetan monk named Matthew Ricard, originally from France, who sometimes meditates for an entire day at a time, and meditation may be both easier and more pleasant than you think.

Charlie: 40:29

I'm a complete amateur when it comes to meditation, but years ago I took meditation class where the teacher impressed upon us that five minutes of meditation every day carries much more benefit than hours of meditation. Once in a while I took that tar and started meditating for five minutes a day, not every day, but whenever I had time and remembered to those five minutes when I did them made a big difference to my mood and my ease of calm. Over the years, I've tried to increase my meditation practice and I'm now up to nine minutes a day Still not every day, though I'm more consistent. Nine minutes may, as nine minutes may be as far as I ever get, and if so, I think that's fine. If you're a more serious meditator, good for you. You're helping yourself in countless ways. But if you've been reluctant to try it, consider just a couple minutes a day. Also, consider guided meditation, which I think is a lot easier and more enjoyable for many people. There are any number of recorded guided meditations out there to try. Many people love the guided meditation series the Oprah Winfrey and Deepak Chopra have uploaded to YouTube. If you have Netflix, the Headspace Guides Meditation Series is a fun and animated way to start practicing meditation with Meditation Master and former Circus Arts student Andy Pudekonde. But even without meditation, there are many ways to be mindful, because mindfulness is at least as much an attitude as it is a specific practice. One of the best ways I know to understand this is to consider the difference between a regular walk outdoors and an aw-walk In early 2020, before the pandemic spread in the United States, researchers at the University of California, san Francisco, conducted an experiment where they told people to take a 15-minute walk in nature once a week.

Charlie: 42:36

Some randomly selected members of the group were given one additional instruction to seek to experience awe during their walk, defined as a positive emotion elicited when the presence of vast things not immediately understood. Both groups were also asked to take a selfie at the beginning and end of each walk. Researchers followed these subjects for eight weeks, during which time they filled out daily surveys about their emotions. The awe group had a marked increase in emotions like gratitude and compassion and a marked decrease in feelings of distress. But what was really interesting was those selfies. Over the eight weeks, the awe group took up less and less room in their own selfies, devoting more and more space to the nature around them, and when experts in reading facial expression reviewed the selfies, without knowing which group was which, they identified the awe group as having noticeably happier smiles.

Charlie: 43:42

Mindfulness can be as simple as that Noticing the beauty that's around you and around us. All Trying to look beyond ourselves, finding wonder, because it's there to be found. For me, it's about crows. I'm a bird lover and I've always been fascinated by crows and ravens because they are highly intelligent Among the very few types of creatures other than humans that can use tools. For example, they will tear a stem off a bush, bend one end into a hook shape and then poke the hook into a rotted log, fishing for grubs, which are a tasty snack from a crow's point of view. After I took the Levy's workshop and was driving home, I saw crows in the trees and decided to make them into my own personal mindfulness cues. Now, every time I notice crows around me usually once or twice a day while walking or driving they remind me to let go for a moment of my constant thinking, planning and worrying about the future and instead to be here in the present moment, which is always enough and is all we have. Mindfulness can be an incredibly powerful tool for a calmer, happier, more thoughtful life, and it can be as simple as a big black bird sitting on a telephone line Exercises to try.

Charlie: 45:17

One use breathing to hack your nervous system. In yoga there's a controlled breathing practice called pranayama that can calm your nervous system In its simplest form. You breathe in for a count of, say, four beats and then breathe out for a count of six beats. The numbers can vary, but the important thing is for your exhalation to be longer than your inhalation. This simple act will activate your vagus nerves to slow your heartbeat and to communicate to your body on a psychological level that all is well. There are various ways to use mindful breathing to increase mindfulness and calm. Here's one easy technique that Bhava Ram, formerly Brad Willis from chapter one, recommends Focus on your breath and mentally stay high on inhalation and am on the exhalation. That should increase your level of calm in most any circumstance. Some other inhalation exhalation words that work well are let go, and from my own favorite, just this.

Charlie: 46:30

Number two take a walk in nature. You don't need to go for a long hike in the woods, although that's a lovely thing to do. A walk in a park or along a river or lake, if there's one nearby, can also be effective to you. If you like, try mindful walking. Simply focus your attention on what's around you and on the sensation of your feet rising and falling as you go along. You can do this for just a few minutes believe it or not, it's a form of meditation and then go back to walking as you normally would, or make it an awak. Look around you and just let yourself marvel at the vastness and wonder of our world. And number three find your own crows. Using crows as a reminder to be mindful has worked so well for me that I've turned it into a permanent mental practice.

Charlie: 47:26

If, like me, you spend too much of your time reviewing the past or planning the future, I invite you to find mindfulness cue of your own. It should be something you see perhaps once a day or a few times a week, or it could be something you encounter more frequently. It might work best if it's something in nature the top of a nearby mountain might work, or a grand tree that you pass on your way to and from work. Whatever it is, it's there for you. Make it your own. Mindfulness compares Companion. Thank you for joining us for this week's Weekly Reading. Again, I'm Charli, your host. Thank you for pulling up a seat at the table and we'll see you next time, namaste.

Heather: 48:20

As entrepreneurs, we have a unique opportunity to make a positive impact in the world around us. In a time when the world is shifting towards supporting local businesses and embracing community-driven initiatives, it becomes even more important for us to give where our heart leads us At the table. We believe in the power of giving back, and that's why we have our cause of the quarter. This quarter, we are proud to support Perfect Pals, a local organization dedicated to rescuing and providing care for stray cats in our community. By supporting local causes like Perfect Pals, we not only make a difference in the lives of those in need, but we also contribute to the growth and well-being of our local community. We believe in small acts of kindness, and they can create a ripple effect of positivity, inspiring others to do the same. As we shift our focus solely from supporting large corporations to championing local businesses and giving back, we not only strengthen our community, but we also foster a sense of connection and unity. Together, we can create a thriving ecosystem where everyone can flourish. So let's follow our hearts and give where they, where it truly matters. Join in supporting Perfect Pals and making a difference in the lives of these furry companions. Together, we can make our community a better place, one act of kindness at a time. Thank you for being part of our journey and for embracing the spirit of giving. Together, let's create a brighter future for all.

Heather: 50:06

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Heather: 50:57

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Charlie: 52:04

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