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The 3-Breath Pause in Real Life - How slowing down rewires everything · Fierce Encouragement

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hey there.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is Mark, and this the is the podcast called Fierce Encouragement.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm doing a simultaneous audio recording and video recording again.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Gonna post this on YouTube, but also make sure I get this up to my private podcast.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, I'm gonna light a quick candle that I got from a good friend of mine.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's called the Quick Ass Recovery Candle.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's got lavender scent.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I'm gonna light that for the episode today.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: And uh for those of you who can see, there you go.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Quick ass recovery from one when I was sick a couple weeks ago, my friend sent it over to me.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're out there, Paul, thanks for the candle.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: And thanks for tuning in to the aware, um, I'm sorry, fierce encouragement this week.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: I got awareness lab on my mind since this is something I wanted to talk to you about.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: And thanks for sharing your time.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for tuning in.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for spending these few minutes with me because I love talking about this stuff, love being authentic and real, sharing my stories, but also wanting to share things that you can practice and kind of bring to your own life.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess that kind of begs something for me right off the bat.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: I I have this kind of doubt around what I'm sharing and what I do.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure you do too, whether it's your work or maybe your parenting or how you're showing up uh in your life with your workouts or something like that.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because I just want to be real with you, because I still doubt sometimes if this pause, if this meditation or contemplation practice really works.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: But then I start to pay attention to my life.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: I start to pay attention to the people I connect with.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then I just remember it's not about perfection.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about 100% silence in the mind, or even that idea of controlling everything.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's more about noticing and getting to choose how we respond in moments.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I was out on a nice walk and it's getting cooler here, actually, very cold, uh, with my hat and scarf on and reflecting a bunch today.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess I just wanted to come from a place of authenticity because as my body continues to still heal and getting back into my workouts and my exercise and really investing in sleep, I feel this stuff in my body.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: I feel the practice and the work kind of in the bones and in the blood that you know courses through my body.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I think just to be transparent and fully open, sometimes even as a coach, I wonder, does this really help?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: I had a great conversation with my buddy Paul this morning.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And one thing that he said really woke me up and kind of maybe reframed some of those doubts.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Would a priest say those same things to themselves, like, oh, I'll do, I'll do my best today and you know, serve God and serve my congregation?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Would a therapist or a counselor kind of have that attitude?
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you know, um, I'm kind of doubting what I'm doing.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Would uh a monk who's going on a long retreat, maybe a three-year retreat and going deep into studying the mind, would they kind of have those kind of bubbling doubts?
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Not really.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure they do.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody taking those oaths of faith, obviously go through that dark night of the soul, if you will.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: But for the most part, they have really deep conviction.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: They have a really deep purpose in the sense that they're serving and they're connecting it to their faith and their deeper mission in life, if you will.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, in my own experience as a coach, sometimes I get caught up in that appearance that I'm, you know, out there like selling something that people uh don't want.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: But honestly, it's not like that.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I can look back at the hundreds of conversation, uh conversations I've had and the thousands of hours I've practiced and learned and connected with people.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: And nine times out of ten, my clients and the people I connect with, they say yes.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: They say yes, this works.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: And they feel it in their bones and in their blood and in those difficult moments in their life.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: So, this work, while it is something that a lot of people get scared of because it is challenging work, it's something that does work.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess I want to normalize that struggle, right?
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: It is very difficult to practice a pause.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: It is hard to sit and stay, not just for our dogs or our pets, but for ourselves.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to notice our mind and that flavor, that energy of our mindstream.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to familiarize ourselves with that.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it really doesn't mean that you're doing anything wrong, because it's hard and difficult and stressful at times to practice this.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: But it does mean one thing.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: It does mean you are paying attention.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've had uh people in my awareness lab, which is a small group, a monthly group that we meet up and practice together and share some teachings and connect, but they've reached out to me to, you know, one-to-one and saying that they're forgetting to practice.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they're feeling guilty about not listening to some of the live sessions.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: And they use some of the words like fall off or I have too many plates kind of spinning around.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: That guilt, that shame kind of comes to the surface.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I think even people like myself, uh I've been meditating for years, we all go through that.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's normal to have that like want to just kind of forget it and just kind of have the results without the effort.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it's normal to like maybe want our minds just to turn off and have it be a natural habit.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: We want our kind of meditation to be a blank mind, you know.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: We want it to be a hundred percent still, you know, settled and perfect.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to normalize this chaos, I want to normalize the movement of the mind.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: I want to say that it is completely natural when we feel that our mind is being loud or sleepy or active, or we just don't feel like quote unquote practicing.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you sit for 10 minutes and realize that your mind never stopped racing, that's not failure.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's awareness.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: When that bell goes off at the end, and instead of guilt and shame or hating it, normalize it.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's awareness that you feel right in that moment that bell rings, right at the moment when it's over.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Celebrate that.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's something really powerful here, and I kind of wanted to tie it back to my own personal story.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: So about 15 years ago, when I was really struggling mentally and really depressed and had a lot of ups and downs, like a roller coaster in life.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um I started working with a group and they were doing some zen training and doing a thing called a co-an.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's K-O-A-N.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: But they'll they have these questions that you ask yourself.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: And this is maybe something you can practice if you're just starting out.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: They'll ask, they'll say, like, you know, obviously settle, watch your mind, um, get, you know, kind of normalize yourself with the breath or just settle yourself with the breath.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then when you feel that movement of the mind, ask yourself a question that's almost unanswerable.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like, um, what was your face like before you were born?
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Or the one I used a lot was, what's the sound of one hand clapping?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: So when you do that, like you you feel that movement of the mind, you start thinking about the bills, or you get frustrated at the kids, or all those things that come up in our mind, you just ask really quick, what's the sound of one hand clapping?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, when I practiced this about 15 years ago, that was the first time I felt that gap or that space come in between my active thinking and then that settled mind.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: That space, that relaxed space.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it was almost scary in a sense to feel that gap between thoughts because it's unfamiliar for a lot of us.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it was enjoyable after a while, but then I started to chase that silence of the mind, right?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is also something we can fall into a mistake or kind of a wrong view, if you will.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: We start to chase that.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: I need to be a hundred percent like that.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's a myth.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Meditation isn't about zoning out, it's more about working with your mind when it's at its most honest and sometimes wild.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Keep that in mind.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe use that koan practice.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: You can actually look it up, K-O-A-N, um, and come up with some of your own questions that are unanswerable.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: What's the sound of one hand clapping?
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: What was my face like before I was born?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then use these koans in short practices.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Watch that moving mind and ask those questions to yourself repeatedly.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it will take a long while, but when you feel that gap, when you feel that space kind of just pop in there for a few seconds, actually gives me goosebumps and excitement now.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Remembering I was astonished that there was that space.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we just need to kind of practice and bring that space up a little bit more in our lives.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, what you know, to continue my story, when I was practicing at this point, uh, I had a small basement room where I had my guitars and a little space heater for the cold months.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: I had a cushion my wife made for me out of buckwheat hulls, and I was really proud of it.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but actually, right above that space was just the uh the wooden floor and the joists because we didn't have um an insulated basement.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but above it was the chaos.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: My two young boys, it was you know, the TV room and the family or the living room was right above us, so they would be running around, playing, wrestling, jumping off the couch, watching their movies, and you know, being rambunctious.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: It was interesting for me, like all that external sensory information.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: I almost had to like fight myself because I felt that frustration and anger.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I need this to be 100% quiet.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you know I'm meditating?
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's some lesson here for me, at least looking back at it and obviously thinking about the conversations I've had over the years leading meditation and connecting with people in hundreds of sessions.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to feel that noise.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to feel that distraction.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to feel that kind of that real life activity and that pressure of trying to remain still.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: We can kind of have a joyful curiosity about that, measure our expectations, if you will, and not let need it to be perfect, let it be as it is.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because even if we go to a meditation retreat, like I've had, I've done many times, we still, you know, somebody's uh moving next to us, or we hear, you know, traffic outside.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's no such thing as a completely 100% quiet.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: And there's really no such thing as a distraction-free life.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: There's only a mind that learns to meet it differently, learns to approach those distractions and that external stimulation or even the internal emotions and feelings that come up.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: We learn to approach those differently with awareness, with compassion, and with a little discernment and grace and openness.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, those those external things can really be good things, and we can practice with them.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think another application, and it's something you can practice with and find that moment in your life.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: But one thing that I started with, and I had a teacher tell me this like, find out what upsets you and work in that moment.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I I had something I called like 15 years ago, my angry dishes.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: I love my family, love my wife, but the pots and pans were something that never really got washed in my house.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, when I wanted to, you know, make something, you know, there's a big pot that I had to, you know, take time to wash.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: But I would get really angry.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that narrative or that story in my mind is like, why do they do this?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this is caked on now.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now I have to, you know, soak it for 15 minutes and then scrub it harder.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: My mind would stay in that anger and frustration and that energy, kind of what like permeate my head and permeate my dish doings.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd be actively scrubbing and really upset.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: But this is where I was challenged by my teacher and a meditation teacher, even some of the books I was reading.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: When we take like a three-second pause and just reset, we can really learn to practice a cognitive flexibility there.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean it'll be fixed right away, but when we practice for like three seconds or even a minute and soften that internal narrative that we might have around whatever it is that we get angry at.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's uh, you know, traffic, maybe it's the dirty dishes, maybe it's something in your life.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: But this practice, when we find that thing that frustrates us most and take that three-breath pause or that minute pause, when we practice in that moment and change our narrative around it, this rewires our mind.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: It isn't just a calming action.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's literally transforming our neurobiology or chemistry, you could say.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it it wasn't one night and a strike of lightning, but there was something that gradually shifted.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: The volume on that inner critic and that negative storyline, that volume went down.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then that's when the pause really started to work.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: I saw the fruit and the results from it.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because we're really not pausing to feel better.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: We're not just doing it for that reason, we're pausing to push or to encourage ourselves to become better at being human, at being human.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is the real leadership that we can train in because this practice isn't just about, you know, being again perfect or ideal or, you know, fixing it right away.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's a life education.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: It helps us parent differently.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: It helps us connect to our work in different ways.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean the things that we're frustrated by go away, but it reorients ourselves and gives ourselves a choice in that kind of that gap with the co-an.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: It helps us live with more choice and drop some of the criticalness.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's changed literally.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: I get goosebumps thinking about it.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's changed how I've shown up with my family.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's changed how I've shown up when grief and loss and even angry dishes.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's changed the way I've led and lead myself and connect with others who really want to lead.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Reaction, reflexive reaction isn't our destiny.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: We're not fixed there.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I know in my heart that awareness is your superpower.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for listening.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you got some tools out of this, some things to practice and take back to your life, whether they're angry dishes, or whether it's a koan practice just for a couple minutes, or whether it's just taking that time to be present and whatever sensory information is coming up as you observe your mind, not being critical, not being strict with yourself, but having that open heart and having that curiosity and just staying and observing the mind, knowing that awareness is there.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to invite you to my December 3rd um webinar that's happening.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: This is exactly what I want to bring to that session.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's the kind of practice that we'll be doing together live.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: We'll have a little fun, we'll have some QA.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: And if this resonated, please check out the show notes and register to join for the free lab, the pause that changes everything.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's December 3rd, it's at 11 a.m.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: 11 a.m.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: Central.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be recorded.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: So if you can't make it live, please still sign up and I'll send you a recording afterwards, along with some bonus materials, some journaling prompts, and some invitations.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think pausing and breathing and practicing together, it's something that we all crave.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it's something that I love to bring to my clients, but also to the community and the awareness lab that I've connected with.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: The link is in the show notes.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate you sharing your time with me.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: Let me know how this landed with you.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: But more importantly, grab that link and join us on the third.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope to see you there.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Take care of yourself.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: All right, bye bye.