Sam D - Mindfulness - Podcast Recovery

Episode Transcript
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(00:03):
Welcome back to Podcast Recovery, everyone.
We're your host, David O. And Eric V.
And today we are joined again byour very special guest, Sam.
How are you doing, man? Pretty good having a good
morning. Hell yeah man, nice dude.
So what's going on with your car?
Oh, did you see it was all jacked up?
No, no, you texted me and you were like, oh, I might have some
issues with my car. OK.
Oh shit. So what happened was I, I'm

(00:25):
driving to work and I noticed that the, the temperature gauge
is like all the way maxed out. Oh yeah, yeah.
And, and so I, I like, I was like immediately found the
closest shop. I should have pulled over and
got a towed, but I was an idiot.So like I, I, I got, I called my
dad and I thought he would know what to do and he didn't tell me

(00:47):
to do that. So I was a little annoyed.
But the, the I got to the closest shop but wasn't that far
away, but in the on the way there, I like made, I was making
a right like right when the light was changing, I was like,
I better do quick. And I for a split second wasn't
looking because I was all frazzled about the, the oil and
clipped somebody's front bumper.Yeah.

(01:08):
And I mean, my car just has a damn, it's not too bad and it'll
be fine. But then eventually I was able
to get to the shop and they're like, well, it might be the head
gasket. So your engine just just dead.
And I was like, well that's great.
And turned out it was just that the coolant was low because
there was a leak in the system. Yeah.
So it was you know, like 800 bucks to fix like 2 leaks.

(01:29):
Oh, so it wasn't even like the radiator and the thermostat?
No, it I mean the thermostat housing needed to be replaced,
yeah, or maybe the whole thermostat, but it.
Yeah, probably It got fried. It it well, they said it was
actually it wasn't damaged from the overheating.
It was already leaking. Oh, so it was like they
replaced. I forget what the other thing
is, but anyways, I mean, they that's not too, it wasn't too

(01:49):
terrible. It wasn't, I mean, I'm and it
was a it was a time to just practice some, some of my
program of just not reacting. He's just like I've I've, you
know, set a goal for myself. I'm not going to cause myself
any suffering that isn't necessary, right?
It's it's it's ambitious. It's very ambitious because

(02:11):
because almost all of our suffering is self-imposed.
Oh yeah. So like there's that, that like
there's like the two arrows story from Buddhism where like
you get hit with two arrows. The first one what happened in
life and the second one is what you did to yourself by the way
you reacted to it. And you can, the first arrow was
inevitable, but you can pull that second one out.
So I mean, for the most part I was, I stayed, stayed pretty

(02:32):
calm and didn't didn't agonize or anything.
So I was glad your. Vehicle is, you know, mobile.
Yeah, it should. It should last me for I'm trying
to I mean, I'm like in an internship right now.
I'm not I don't even have an income at the moment.
So like, I'm living in savings and stuff and I like, I, I like
plan to replace the car because it's old, but I would rather

(02:53):
wait and kick it down the road another year, you know, So I
actually have like a job. How are you doing, Eric?
How are your vehicles? They're OK.
I mean, I have the electrical electric vehicle, so that takes
some time to get used to, but you know, besides that.
That the level of smarminess in that answer, like I felt through

(03:14):
the microphone. And created it.
OK, so I only have 80 miles withmy car.
Well, it is. I mean, it's, it's a big thing.
Like I can't drive down to DC. Dude, have you?
Heard of all the Tesla's exploding?
I don't have a Tesla. I understand that.
I understand that. But the cyber trucks look like
something from RoboCop. No, no, no, from her whatever.
All the flooding, it flooded theTesla's and the Tesla's started

(03:36):
exploding. Because of all the.
Water, yeah. They are not supposed to be
submerged in water at all. And, well, cars aren't really
supposed to. I mean, that's more of a.
Boat, but an internal combustionengine is not going to fucking
explode because it's flooded. Well, I mean, that's a boat's
job again, you know, not a car'sjob.
Dude, But yeah, no firefighters in North Carolina were like, we
hate these things. We were like fuck Tesla's

(03:57):
because they when they catch fire they take hours to put.
Out I mean. Because they have to.
They have to have like a very specific chemical in order.
To stop that they did. I like there was actually a
fire. You're getting way off the.
Well, hold on, actually Speakingof fires, there was a fire out
in front of our house like probably a month ago.
You can, I can show you the roaddamage.
It was crazy. This truck, probably coming from

(04:19):
Truett's, which is the butcher near us, literally just exploded
in front of our neighbour's house and like there were flames
going above the tree line. Those are tall trees.
Yeah, they're tall fucking tree.You can see like the burnt on
like the top of the trees. Like 100.
Foot tall trees. It was fucking crazy.
Me and my sister-in-law were just staring at it and it was
just like, holy shit, this fire was like 100.

(04:41):
Yeah, I'd sit out there. With my morning coffee, just
like. But the residue smells like they
use like fire retardant something and it was like I
could smell it for like a month.It was so fucking gross.
That's terrible. OK.
But back, back, back. Now to the reason we are here
today. How about you give us a, you
know, rundown? What are we going through today,
Sam? Going through I, I think we're

(05:02):
going to be talking about mindfulness.
We are going to be. Talking.
Staying present. Absolutely.
Which is important. And we will start with your
experience. So, you know, take it away and
you know, we'll jump around as we go.
Yeah, so I, I got into studying like Eastern spirituality and
some like esoteric Western stuffwhen I was, I was like maybe

(05:24):
like 18 when I first started really getting into it.
And but I went for all of the like typical like psychedelic
drug addict stuff. Of course I went for the altered
state experiences and like more grandiose things like, you know,
complete enlightenment and that kind of stuff.
So I was looking at all of thosephenomena and I somehow managed
to study Buddhism for two years without ever learning the

(05:46):
mindfulness, which is I don't know how I did.
It. How did you do that?
I think what I was reading was much more philosophy than.
Spirituality. Yeah, it was more the
philosophical stuff. I would and I would say studying
and I was reading several books.I wasn't like doing a deep, deep
dive for the. But I mean, I would say I was
studying medicine while I was, you know, sure, fucking tripping

(06:08):
out and reading medical textbooks.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's technically you
were. Yeah, I, I, yeah, I took my
mom's medical textbooks and I would get super fucking high and
read medical textbooks, Yeah. That's fun.
You can do that. That get you can study medicine
anybody out there listening to this go online buy medical
textbooks you can buy them we've.
Talked about this like one of myfavorite things was studying and

(06:30):
doing homework when getting high.
So you get it? It's fantastic.
Yeah. And people are like, how do you
know so much? I'm like, well, cocaine's a hell
of a drug. Cocaine.
Wow. Yeah, man.
So anyways, I, I got to a point like I, I got clean in 2010 and

(06:50):
I got in a relationship during my first year, which I don't
know if that's always a bad idea, but for where I was in my
recovery, it was a bad idea because I had spent the first
half of my first year just like checked out.
I wasn't really working a program.
I wasn't being honest. And, and then I went through
like a really sort of bottoming out and, and working, you know,
the steps, but I got not in working them, but in getting me

(07:11):
to the point where I was willingto do it, honestly.
Yeah. And I, I got in this
relationship and I pretty quickly realized that it was a
mistake. And I, I ended it and I felt
incredibly guilty about ending it, which sort of tripped me
into a pretty serious depression.
And somewhere around that time when I was kind of coming out of

(07:33):
the depression, somebody I was Iwas sort of helping this kid
out. That was that was early in
recovery. He was out in some family
problems and he stayed over my house couple nights and he gave
me a copy of The Power of Now byEckhart Tolle.
Nice Which? Is it Tolle?
It's Tolle, I think, Yeah, but saying.

(07:56):
Eckhart Tolle. Yeah, yeah, there's yeah.
No, that's, that's my understanding either way.
Yeah, this Eckhart guy, he, I mean, I think that there are
various detractors to his, to his writing, but I found it very
helpful because it presented thebasic idea of being present in a

(08:19):
very simple and very practical, like here's how you do it kind
of way. And so I realized that, you
know, and this was my third step, you know, I said that part
of the third step for me is realizing or acknowledging that
the past and the future are out of my jurisdiction, that like, I
can't control the future. I can't know the future at all.

(08:40):
The past, my memories aren't even complete and entirely
accurate, but I certainly can't do anything about the past.
But right now, this is what I got.
So I'm going to turn over the rest of time to God.
Now I want to, I want to, you know, time out real quick.
So, you know, with, I mean, proper educational and guidance

(09:02):
and like, you know, therapy and,and whatever work, we can't
necessarily change, you know, the actual events of the past,
but we can reframe our perspective on it, which isn't,
which is in a sense changing thepast, which at least how we're
interacting with. It I would think of that as more

(09:23):
like changing history, because the history history isn't the
past. History is the account of the
past. Yes.
So like we can change our personal history, I think.
Yeah. And but but when we're doing
that kind of work, it's helpful to stay focused right now.
Yeah, I'm, I'm in my body, I'm present in this moment.
And I'm going to reprocess it now with the more emotional

(09:44):
maturity that I have that I didn't have when those things
first started happening. Yeah, exactly.
And like when you were talking about like being in the
relationship, which was bad, andlike, it's very much like, I'm a
believer, like it was a, it was bad for the time.
Sure, for the time that it was because, you know, just as the
tape plays through, you're here now, but you wouldn't be here

(10:06):
now if that series of events hadn't transpired.
So it just, it just becomes a part of the story.
And I think that that too is a as a dimension of mindfulness,
that like 1 dimension of it is present moment.
The other dimension of it is acceptance and non judgment.

(10:27):
Yes, it's a non judgmental awareness of present moment.
I mean, I don't know how how present you can really be with
while you're judging, but I think it's important.
And the the literature I've beengetting into recently about
applying this in therapy contextreally emphasizes the non
judgment part of it. Yeah.

(10:48):
Define the non judgment part. I think I know what you're
talking about, but for anybody who's listening, is that just
sort of not like, you know, whatever situation is
necessarily good or bad? I think it's like what you were
saying, you know, that seeing things in your life is like
these. These events all contributed to
me being where I am right now and I can't, you know, cuz.

(11:08):
And we're all dependent on like none of us would exist at all if
not for pretty much everything that's ever happened in the
history of the world. Yeah, exactly.
Right. So like at some point you can be
like, well, if I'm grateful for being alive, I have to in a very
non judgmental, non approving way.
You're not approving of the terrible things, but say, you
know, I can't, I can't take any element of experience and try to

(11:30):
push it out of my experience or just disown it like it's or.
I think that the non judgmental awareness, especially in
therapy, comes to be useful in dealing with emotions.
Yeah, dealing with thoughts as well, because you have the
thought and anything, why shouldn't be having that
thought? Well, why?
Yeah, why shouldn't you be having that?
You are having that thought likeyou're a human being.

(11:50):
Should, isn't it? Should isn't a very helpful
concept. Yeah, because then you're you're
just putting a, you know, a theoretical expectation into
your brain onto really an ethereal concept, which is
emotions and thoughts, which arebeyond us.
Sure, yeah. And, and I mean, the way that we
react and respond to the emotions and thoughts that we
have has a, an enormous role in determining how we're going to

(12:15):
feel and what our well-being andPeace of Mind and even things
like our cortisol levels and stuff like that is going to be
like the way we're responding. So I mean, I think judgments are
usually pretty reactive. I don't, I don't know that
they're ever that conscious likeit.
I mean, we won't be aware what the judgement is, but it's not
like we decided we were going tojudge.
It's just like we're in US. And there's probably some
exceptions to what I'm saying, but just in general, it's much

(12:38):
more of a reactive, whereas a non judgmental mindful presence
allows you to be more responsiveby instead of immediately
labeling an experience, you know, and it can be helpful to
say this is sad or happy, but instead of immediately
evaluating whether it's good or bad, you're just present with it
as it is. And a lot of times, emotions
have of maybe all times, emotions are carriers of

(12:59):
information. It's one of the ways that our
minds encode the experience of the world.
So we got to pay attention. And if, if I'm too, if I'm too
busy saying this is bad, and then when something is bad, the
immediate instinct is to try to get rid of it somehow.
Yes. If I'm doing that, I might be
missing something that's important that it's telling me.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

(13:20):
And like, and what you were talking about, you know, kind of
the transgression of or, you know, everything that's happened
throughout the past, I was like,and you were talking about the
bad things. Like immediately, immediately my
brain is like the Holocaust. And I was like, Oh my God, I
can't. So I had to choose another one
in my brain. I'm like, OK, what's a crazy
thing that happened in the past that's like, it's not

(13:43):
necessarily like. The Trail Tears.
No, no, I went really far behind.
I was like, OK, you know, the the meteoric extension of the
dinosaurs. I was like, OK, let's look at
that. Initially, we didn't know.
We didn't know those dinosaurs exactly.
We. Didn't know those dinosaurs
faces to me, like fuck Diplodocus, I don't give a shit
about you, you're gone. That's like.
But you have a little velociraptors, dude.

(14:04):
You know, they were only tiny. They weren't as big like as.
No, they were. Jurassic Park had lied to us as
an entire generation. They didn't have feathers, and
Spielberg knew that dinosaurs had feathers.
When he made the movie he was just like, Nah, this is.
Scary. I was like, you know?
Scary T Rex if T Rex is 15 colors, it's not.
Yeah, yeah, We're going to do giant lizards because nobody
really likes lizards. Like, you know, birds can be
kind of cute, You know, they cansay, you know, probably want a

(14:25):
cracker. Yeah, yeah.
But but yeah, look at looking atthe mass extinction of the
dinosaurs from more of an objective just event of living
instead of like, oh, this is theworst thing that ever happened
or like, because obviously you can't do that with the
Holocaust. There.
It's way there's way too many. It's too it's way too recent and
there's way too many moral implications.

(14:46):
I mean, I took a class called like just called genocides.
So there's other genocides that are just as bad as you know.
Yeah, as that it. Wasn't a night class.
It was dude, that was a that wasa crazy.
I took it. Started with 15 people, ended
with three. None of them dropped.
We went over all of them. The the thing that pissed me
off, I even mentioned it in the class.
I was like, where are the like Native Americans here?

(15:08):
And he was like, oh, you're right, they're not in here.
And I was like, well. An odd oversight, right?
Interesting the Americans don't talk about the Native Americans.
OK, OK, I see how it goes. So what about, So what about you
Eric? What, like what is your, you
know, experience perspective on,you know, mindfulness?
I mean, I try to practice mindfulness in my like daily

(15:29):
life. It's like even with therapy.
It's very much a tenth step thing as.
Well, yeah, it is. I was thinking about the way
over here. It's kind of like what's what's
like even before you go into the10th step part, like before I go
into a situation like what's my intent?
Because I think you have to lookat intention when you're also
looking at mindfulness, OK? Because like if you don't know

(15:50):
why you're there, then like you're just going to fuck it up
probably, right? That's true.
Like, you should know what you're doing.
So if you don't know what you'redoing before you're doing it,
like you're not being very mindful.
You're just kind of following, like the tracks.
Yeah. So I, I try to do that,
especially with reactions, like,so I don't get like, too angry
or too, like, pissed off at someone.

(16:10):
I'm like, OK, Eric, think about this before, you know, you freak
out. Yeah.
And especially in like in, in, in times of like difficulty or
you know, just when things ariselike car problems or, you know,
teeth problems with me. Man.
This teeth, you know, it's very easy to, you know, project into

(16:35):
the future and look at like the monetary wreckage that this is
causing. How much difficulty like this is
going to stack up to be. Instead of really looking at it
in a very matter of fact way of this is the issue and I can
focus on the issue which is going to cause me, you know,

(16:57):
stress, anger, anxiety, whatever.
Any list of the quote UN quote bad feelings, bad thoughts.
Instead of really, you know, using my power of perspective to
look at the solution because because I think that's a, that's
a part of mindfulness as well iswhere, where is your focus?

(17:19):
Because if you're, if, if my focus is strictly on the
problem, then all I'm going to see is more problems.
And that's just on a daily, on a, on a daily, you know, in and
out of life. If I'm, if all I'm seeing is
problems, the, that's all I'm going to be looking for.
Like the filter for problems is going to be wide open.
But if I'm looking for solutionsand you know, OK, these 3 teeth

(17:42):
are fucked, OK, I can cry about it and worry about like, you
know, oh, I shouldn't have done all that cocaine and and and
drugs back in the day. I I.
Should have well energy drinks too man.
Like those wrecked. Your teeth, you know I dude, I
stopped drinking energy drinks. It doesn't mean it doesn't mean
it didn't hurt your. Teeth.
Exactly. Yeah.
And that. And, you know, that's a

(18:02):
culmination of, you know, past, past coming back into the
future. But the reality is like, OK, I
have to do this in order to get to this point, in order to get
to this point. And you know, that's just what
it has to be. And being in a level of realism
about that is, is difficult, butyou know, necessary in order to

(18:24):
put the, the the steps forward on, you know, this the solution
path. Yeah, I, I mean, I, I like what
you're saying about like the waythat the world appears to you
depends on your interpretation. It's almost like an energy field
thing where it's just like I have AI have this mental process

(18:46):
going that is looking for bad stuff all the time, you know?
And so then the whole world looks bad and that you see that
with trauma. Sometimes people get in a very
hyperactivated state and they'rebecause they were hurt by
somebody, their their mind or brain is trying to prevent them
from getting hurt again, and therefore the entire world looks

(19:07):
dangerous as part of the therapyprocess is dialing it back.
And like re evaluating re makingin psychology, they call it
attributions, like re re evaluating those attributions to
get the person in a state where they're not feeling threatened
by absolutely everything all thetime.
And actually kind of like the pendulum swing the opposite way
because for a long time in, you know, psychology and therapy and

(19:33):
psychological medicine, doctors would help people identify their
triggers, you know, but really somebody a few years ago was
like, what if we don't do that? What, what if we don't show
these people their triggers? Because if these people, he, he
basically, you know, went with the theory that if they know
their triggers, that's what they're going to be looking.

(19:55):
For sure and. And, and, and when like that
situation happens, it's kind of going to be like an auto
Pavlovian response of like, oh, this person said this thing, I'm
supposed to react this way. And so they were like, OK, well,
maybe if we remove that, you know, that ringing bell in their
head, maybe we can, you know, cut off that short circuit to

(20:17):
that negative response. Yeah, I think mindfulness offers
an alternative approach there because instead of looking out
for what's going to be getting getting us off, like what's
going to trigger me instead, just like cultivating some
stillness in the present so thatyou prepare yourself so that
when something does trigger you,you have that deeper well of of

(20:40):
of quiet and and non reactivity to respond to the situation.
But it, it is the kind of thing that it's probably not appealing
to everyone as a solution because if you take Paxil, it
takes 5 seconds a day to take Paxil.
If you do, you know, a kind of acognitive behavior therapy, you,

(21:04):
you do homework throughout the week, but you probably are
spending 45 minutes or an hour aweek doing it.
Sure, if you do mindfulness and it's going to be effective, you
pretty much have to be doing it pretty consistently throughout
your days. And that's the challenge, but
it's I again, I think sometimes some, some like scrapes that we
get into a problems that we havecan result in an improved

(21:26):
outcome like that. I think that happened for me
with my drug addiction is that it put me on by finding
recovery. It put me on a path where some
in some ways my well-being is probably better than it would
have been otherwise. Yes.
And with mindfulness, it's like,OK, you've got all these
problems and mindfulness is a solution, but mindfulness also
allows you to access the goodness of life and to really

(21:47):
experience things. And I mean, food tastes better
and you're, you're more available to the people around
you. And there's that relationship,
relational mindfulness dimension.
So that's one of these reasons for, for being pretty optimistic
about, about whether it's a treatment process or just a
spiritual process in somebody's life.
This thing, because it's callingon so much of you.

(22:09):
It's offering so much in return.Yeah.
And so, you know, to tie, you know, one end to another, how
important is it like for people to at least, you know, start
some level of journey or work onmindfulness in a substance abuse

(22:31):
recovery environment? I mean, I there's two things
that we say in meetings a lot that I have like tied up with
mindfulness for me. The one is just for today.
Yeah, OK. Which I think just for today is
a principle, but people are like, that's so.
Bittersweet for me though. I can only live a day at a time.

(22:51):
No, you can't. You can't live a day at a time.
That's a whole day. Like, what are you talking
about? That's true.
I mean, I'm being cheeky a little bit, but yes.
But I tried to distill it down to being present.
But just for today is about being the present.
Yeah. And try to keep it right now.
Yeah. This 24 hours.
The other thing we say a lot is keep coming back.
Keep coming back. I I mean, usually it means

(23:13):
you're you're fucked up. Come to another meeting, right?
Yeah, but but I think. It's really like a bless your
heart kind. Of thing, bless your heart,
bless your heart, bless your heart.
What a what a douchebag thing tosay.
Bless your heart, sweetheart. You know, yeah, that's, you
could say any awful thing you want as long as you follow up
with that. Yeah, I'll bless your heart.
I I think keep coming back is useful in meditation because the

(23:35):
practice of meditation is getting distracted and returning
to your focus. Yes, it's, I mean, maybe some
people. I've never thought of that.
Holy shit. You just kind of yeah, like in a
meditation, you're like, OK, yeah, keep coming back.
Do you know whatever, whatever kind of guided meditation you're
going with? With that 10th step too, like we
noticed that we got off the beamall right, come back to the beam

(23:58):
like we're not going to do anything perfectly and God and
you. Sam, you.
Fucked up my whole life. There's a, there's, there's an A
a speaker named Sandy B that talks about he was an airline
pilot and he talks about when you're, when you're have the
homing beacon, the way it works is that it tells you when you're
off course and you correct. Yeah.
And you just keep doing that thewhole time.
You're never flying perfectly straight.

(24:18):
I mean, Einstein, you know, he had the theory about the
bicycle. You can never truly ride a
bicycle straight, right. You're always correcting left to
right and through the long run it appears straight but you're
but really you're going left to right constantly and.
I think that's life. Yeah.
That's that's everything. We're always.
Always, always. That's the hit right there.
They're always going left to right.

(24:38):
And this, you know, there's so many people that I think don't
understand the concept that balance is a verb.
Yes, like, and I didn't, I did like before coming to recovery,
I thought it was a plateau. You got to, you're like, you get
to here. Oh, you have arrived at balance.
Oh, thank you. And you fucking smooth sail from

(24:59):
here on out. And that is not the, that's not
the truth. Like, OK, I have a house, I have
a car, I have these things. Cool.
I have this, oh, now a tree fellon my house.
OK, well, I have to fix that. And we're like, OK, I fixed
that. Oh, well, now you know, I, my,
my car crashed. I have to fix that.
And so it is constantly a juggling act and like the way my

(25:19):
mind looks at it is I have like this, you know, room full of
scales, just just tons of scaleseverywhere.
And there's one person that has constantly trying to balance all
of them and they're like all like constantly teetering.
They're like, oh, shit, my emotional illness and you're
like, oh, fuck my relationships and oh God damn it, my job.
And there's just so much to do that people don't realize that
it is it is a 24/7 365 work. Yeah, it's, I heard that pretty

(25:48):
early on in a meeting, somebody said that I was like, oh wow,
that's like, and I was, there was so much chaos in my life.
Just the concept of balance. I hadn't even considered balance
at that point. I was just no.
Nothing was balanced at all. No, I just wanted to stop going
to jail, right? Yeah, I, yeah.
But I, I think it's another one of these things that it can
sound, it's like the way you're looking at the world.

(26:10):
Like if you have a very sort of depressed mindset and like, or a
very victim based, like self pitying mindset and someone
tells you, well, life is balanced and you're going to
have to keep balancing your whole life.
It's like, I can't believe that I have to do that for my whole
life. Really.
It's more of this dynamic, like flow.
And it can be fun like to learn to move and sort of sway with

(26:31):
what comes to you. Yeah, it's, it's not, it's not a
bad thing. And it's that that kind of
creative tension that were held in that if, if things were
permanent and didn't shift around and change, we couldn't
be creative and we couldn't experience anything new.
So I mean, that goes back to a one of the other primary tenants

(26:52):
of Buddhism, which is that and permanence is the nature of all
phenomena. There's nothing permanent in the
universe. And then with the possible
exception of, you know, whateverthe ultimate consciousness is,
but that might be more or less permanent.
But everything else is. Everything else is always.
It's in transition. Even like a mountain.
Now I know mountains are permanent, they're just really.

(27:13):
Old. Yeah.
They're just, they've been therefor a long fucking time.
Yeah. Were you about to say something?
Eric no, I was about to talk about erosion, so we can just
keep it in. Mind, we're going to keep it
moving, absolutely. Move along, Sir.
We're going to start with you, Eric, on this one.

(27:34):
So obviously one of the best, you know, applicable practices
for mindfulness is, you know, beginning the process of
learning and getting better at meditation.
So, you know, let's, let's, let's hear your, your, your
thoughts and your process with that.
On meditation? Yep, man, meditation is hard,

(27:57):
I'm not gonna lie. For sure.
Oh God damn it. I hit everything.
I need to go to David's meeting,but now I'm playing like
platform tennis on Thursdays. But I'll.
I'll make it there one day. Yeah.
Oh, I. I just set my anniversary date.
By the way, Oh yeah, you need togive me that so I can take off.
So I keep actually this, what doyou call it, this thing around
my neck, like this necklace thathas, no, it's, it's like this

(28:21):
whistle that doesn't actually make a whistling noise.
It's more for like breathing exercises.
So I kind of keep that on my neck to just remind myself to
like, to meditate and to like beconscious and like be mindful.
I'm like, Oh yeah, I have this device, this tool that will
allow me to like, calm down if Ineed to, OK?
So it's a. Touchstone OK, so you know,

(28:43):
that's it's kind of how I've I'mworking with like meditation
right now. It's just hard to find the time
and the energy, I guess the space to meditate sometimes,
especially with like a kid. But yeah, I'm I'm I'm lazy right
now when it comes to meditation.I need to up my game, but I can

(29:04):
do it. Luckily I'm luckily one of the
people who can meditate, but I think I think the important
thing about meditation is breathing exercises.
If you're looking to get something like out of it that's
calming, I I think the breathingexercises help where instead
you're just kind of running through your mind like a chicken
with your head cut off. Yeah, and, you know, I, I had

(29:30):
done some, you know, meditation,like after Herb and I started
working together and, you know, he had me like read the
Eightfold Path of Buddhism and, you know, started talking about
the way he puts it like it, which is mindfulness is policing
your thoughts and, you know, monitoring your intentions.

(29:53):
And he started me on breathing exercises and stuff like that.
But then really in like the last3 1/2 years or so, I got into my
meditation Home group, which is woo woo, which has been
fantastic. And I, I can see and feel my
evolution in that because like when I first got there and you

(30:15):
know, I'm listening to these guided meditations, which I had
done somewhat before, but not much.
And like this one, you know, I'mdoing every week for anywhere
from 15 minutes to like 1/2 hour.
And these people like, OK, now they're, they're telling you're
coaching you, you know, breathe in for four seconds, exhale for

(30:35):
six. And it's like to the noise.
And entering your mind, basically coaching me how to
breathe. And I'm like, who the fuck is
this guy? Like, fuck you.
You're gonna teach me how to breathe.
I've been breathing for 35 years.
What do you know? And then breathe out.
Yeah. Realizing, you know, coming to
the realization that I didn't know how to breathe, that I had
never. It is something that I.

(30:55):
Had. Sure, I've been.
Breathing, but I've been completely taking it for granted
for 35 years. I was never conscious of the act
and like how controlling the flow and like doing different,
like different intervals of breathing will, will create

(31:16):
different feelings in your body.Like there's some natural state
breathing where it's just like, you know, just keep whatever's
natural to you. And then, yeah, like I one of
the ones I like very much is, is, you know, the four or like
the 426 where you inhale for inhale for four, hold it for two
and then and then breathe out for six.

(31:37):
Well, there's a lot of those too.
There's, there's a bunch, there's a bunch of different
intervals and they, and they allproduce different feelings like
in your body. And then there's, you know,
there's like soft belly breathing and then there's like
diaphragmatic breathing and like, like pranayama, like
there's, there's so much you cango into and and it just

(31:58):
highlights, you know, a part of your life.
They is essential. It is one of the top three
things you have to do. Like, you got to drink some
water, eat some food and fuckingbreathe.
And it's, it's beautiful becausethe breath is occupies a very
strange place in terms of all our bodily functions and that
it's both conscious and unconscious.

(32:19):
Yeah. Like the autonomic nervous
system will control your breathing.
Like I don't notice that I'm breathing for the vast majority
of my day. Yes, and it's helpful to not be
aware of it the whole time. It would be distracting if you
always had to. Always had to do it on purpose.
Yeah, it'd be like seeing your nose constantly.
Right. But we can take over and, and
breathe intentionally. And it's something about that,

(32:41):
like something it's, it's just biological, but it's also, you
know, intentional. And spiritually.
Yeah, Grounding. Yeah, it's really, I've, I've
any sort of tool that can like get you into the present, like,
you know, like the breath or I, you know, I, I play a lot of
music and, and that can be a mindfulness exercise too, a

(33:02):
meditation. When I was practicing, I used to
practice a lot. And when I practice a lot, it
was like I was meditating for several hours a day because it
was, you have to stay focused. And I find like for me, I'm,
I've been meditating for a long time, but I'm not very good at
it. So I, I have a very active, I
mean, I'm probably giving myselftoo hard of a time, but I have a

(33:23):
very active mind and it just goes yes.
And so like when I sit down to meditate, I don't always have a
feeling of, of stillness, but I find if I'm doing something
that's a little more directed, like if I decide to breathe
intentionally or. Like a kinetic.
Meditation, right? Something, something that gives
my mind a little bit of something to do, like a little

(33:44):
bit of it it like, it seems to help to get me to that state of,
of stillness and, and ease a little better.
But I, I heard another meditation teacher talking about
our expectations. Like, what do you expect when
you're coming to meditation? It's going to have a lot to do
with how you feel about it. If you expect to sit down and
have no thoughts for 20 minutes,what are you smoking?

(34:06):
Right. Yeah, like some advanced
meditators can do that. But like, they didn't.
Start there. Maybe we don't know.
That's what they say. Well, I mean, there are
neurological studies that would be consistent, that's
neuroimaging is kind of consistent without having any
verbal thought processes going on.
But again, some of those guys inthose neuroimaging studies have
been meditating for 50,000 hours, yes, which is like five

(34:26):
times as long as it takes to. Master a difficult skill like
Buddha sat under a tree for what, 10 years?
Something like that. He did all kinds of crazy stuff
for for 10 years, yeah. But people forget that he left
his wife and child to do that. Like, nobody ever talks about
that part of Buddha. He just, everyone's like, oh,
he's such an amazing thing. I was like, you know, he was
married and he had a kid. Yeah.
And he fucking left them to go sit under a fucking tree.

(34:47):
Apparently never went back to. Mine never went back.
Never went back. Total shit they.
Weren't dude, they weren't important.
I mean, it was, it was all aboutwhat's in what's now.
He was playing chess while they were playing chess, you know.
I get it. What is what's going on now?
Let's talk about the now. Now is your child is starving
and your wife is just St. Buddha, what are you doing?
What's what's in your brain, dude?
What's in? What's going on up there?

(35:07):
Fat asshole, go take care of your.
Kids, it's funny too with like the family values Christianity
where it's like you realize Jesus told people to abandon
their families. Yeah, yeah.
Like, you know, I don't know that this is this is necessarily
very. And I'll tell you what,
Christian. Yeah.
Oh, what would Jesus do? Jesus would go to the market,
pull out a bullwhip instead of whipping people.
That's what Jesus would do. He would flip over it.

(35:29):
Oh, you're selling trinkets in my temple?
Fuck your table. Get out.
Yeah, it's, it's not. We like to JD.
Domesticate. Domesticate the dude and turn
him into something really like easy to easy to handle where
it's like he was anything but that.
Dude, and you know I I'm a firm believer that any religion is

(35:49):
just a whatever flavor you want to cherry pick and to suit your
own narrative. Go ahead.
But anyway. Back back, sure, that's a whole
another episode. That's maybe a different podcast
watching her been on that one. Yeah, no, I his.
Ears will be smoking. I'll be the I'll be the other,
the anti man on that one. Yeah I'm I'm pretty pro religion

(36:10):
although I've never found myselfable to adhere to anyone
religion. I I'm not, I'm not anti, I'm not
anti religion in any way shape or form.
I'm anti evangelism. Oh yeah, that's fair.
I'm I'm anti dogma. And that, that, yeah.
And that that's my favorite, oneof my favorite things George
Carlin ever said. You know, the 11th Commandment
should have been keep thy religion to thyself.

(36:31):
Like if you. Yeah, if it it helps you, great,
Beautiful, great, beautiful. Yeah.
Leave me the fuck out of it. Leave it.
I think that's, that's somethingI really resent about recovery,
honestly, is, is that the 12 step?
Well, not the 12 step, the the. The.
You're you're yeah, you're God, right?

(36:52):
Like being the only answer, which because I've met a ton of
people more on the a a side where it's like, no, you, you
have to have a God. Like you can't have a higher
power. You have to have a actual like
being. And it's like, no, dude, no, I
don't have that. I don't have to have that.
That's not that's not part of the game here.
That's a it's one of these things where it's like the

(37:14):
spirit of of the, of a, a doesn't have anything to do with
that like. That's that's a, that's a
person. It's a somebody is not aware of
their own tradition, like they don't know what the tradition is
about. Like the whole idea, you know,
Eddie Thatcher telling Bill to choose your own concept of God.
And that might be no concept at all.

(37:35):
And it makes this, it's a littleweird work in the steps without
that concept. But at the same time, a lot of
people do it and there's they'reclean.
Absolutely. Who gives a fucking shit?
Like if you're staying clean, that's the point.
Like I prefer to work it with a concept of God, but that's me
and if anybody else wants to tell me how I'm supposed to
believe in God, I don't want anything to do with that.

(37:56):
Yeah, exactly. Like, you know, one of one of my
beliefs is that, you know, a higher power is just basically
the. Ethereal principles of existence
like love, honesty, generosity, understanding, like those things

(38:16):
are a power greater than myself,because myself wants to lie to
you, cheat, like not be generous, you know, like it.
The human condition wants me to be greedy and and you know, and
capitalistic and opportunistic on everybody else.
But you know, the the more benevolent forces of the

(38:36):
universe, I can surrender to them with a third step and a
tenth step. And in the moment of whatever
it's like, oh, the boss is asking who did this thing?
Who broke the lamp? I, I broke a lamp.
What? Am I going to lie about it or am
I going to tell the truth and why?
Which I think comes back to, youknow, the mindfulness is that

(38:58):
the. Thank you and.
I mean, I, I like that mindfulness has been taken and
applied in a more secular way inWestern society and that it's
being researched for mental health applications and all of
that. But I think there can be a
problem. It's almost like cultural

(39:19):
appropriation if you don't. We're good at that.
We're really good at that. If you don't honor the nature of
the original tradition, and partof the original tradition you
talked about that eightfold pathis you have to have your ethics,
right. Like if you are creating a bunch
of moral chaos in your life, your, your ability to be mindful

(39:39):
is going to be extremely limited.
Yes, Right. Or, or, or you'll just be like a
psychopath where it's like you can be really present, but
you're not necessarily present, right.
And without that empathy, how present are you to what's going
on in front of you? Yeah, right.
You can't. You have to be open to the full
range. Yeah, you're in the world, but
you're not a part of the world. You're yeah.
And there's no reciprocity and there's no, there's no response.

(40:02):
And, and I think in when we start practicing mindfulness,
there should be an understandinglike this is probably going to
open you up in some ways that are really uncomfortable, but
that it's, it's a matter of thatheart opening brings pain, but
it also brings. Like joy and the capacity to

(40:24):
live in a way that actually feels like it means something.
Yeah. The, there's a Buddhist,
essentially Buddhist philosophernamed Ken Wilber who he somebody
asked him about what's it like what you know, with, with
enlightenment or, or spiritual awakening of what, whatever
degree, what, what's your relationship with pain and
suffering in the world? And he says, well, it hurts more

(40:47):
and it bothers you less. I found to be a very, you know,
cuz. And the times when I've been
really mindful and really at peace, it's like, yeah, there
can be like a ache in the chest,you know, just for the whole,
for the whole world. That can be a pain in an and an
ache. But but it's almost, it's almost
a beautiful thing. And it's not, it's not something

(41:08):
you want to get away from. Yeah.
Absolutely. And you know that like, I want
to make two points on that. You know, everybody back to
cherry picking. We always cherry paint, cherry
pick the good parts about love. And we're like, oh, it's, you
know, it's beautiful and it's understanding.

(41:30):
And then it's it's all acceptingand all that.
And it's like, yes, it is all those beautiful things, but love
is also having, you know, reallydifficult conversations.
And, you know, love is calling people out on their bullshit
sometimes. And love is having arguments,
agreements and fights and being willing to sit through really

(41:55):
difficult times because, you know, you care about something
that much that you have to, you have to sacrifice part of
yourself. And they have to sacrifice part
of themselves in order to, you know, come together as like a a
workable whole. And so, yeah, everybody saying,

(42:20):
you know, oh, love, Love Is All these and it and it is all those
great things, but it's also a lot of really difficult things
as well. Yeah, there's a big Thief song,
I think it's called Real Love, and it's the one lying that says
real love is a heart attack. Yeah, right.
It's it's not this like light fluffy thing.
It's like pretty serious and hasa lot of gravity to it.
But like, what do you really want?

(42:41):
A kind of love that's just lightand happy and fluffy?
Or do you want something that's going to call the deepest levels
of yourself into play? Yeah.
You know. Yep.
Like do you want a challenge that's going to help you awaken
or do you just want something tomake you feel?
Better. Yeah.
And it's and it's and it's, it'ssacrificing that part of
yourself on an altar of vulnerability that you didn't
even know. Because, you know, I can put all

(43:02):
this love on the table for Sam, right, Right now.
And Sam can say I don't want anyof that, right.
And that's, that's a tough concept to really, that's a,
that's probably the biggest pillto swallow.
Like it's, it's, you know, the size of a Twinkie.
And they're like, hey, swallow that one all at once.
And it's like, fuck that. Yeah.

(43:23):
It's a it's a matter of losing control to some extent.
I think people that avoid relationships, and I've been
there myself avoid of that feeling of vulnerability and
being out of control. And it's just like something bad
happened to me before where I let myself be out of control and
not going to let that happen again.
The problem is if you do that, you cut yourself off from

(43:45):
yourself and from life. So living in a way of at risk.
And I think, you know, one thingthat that meditation practice
and just a general sort of presence or mindfulness has
helped me with this. Getting in touch with a part of
myself that isn't as vulnerable to, you know, it's just a
paradox. One end make me more vulnerable,
but the other end getting in touch with some dimension of

(44:05):
spirit or consciousness that is,it's like it's I'm going to be
fundamentally OK no matter what happens.
And that fundamental like, I'm going to be OK no matter what
happens. Like is a huge boost in my
willingness and ability to put myself out there and take risks
that might hurt me because I know like this might hurt really
bad, but I'm going to be I'm going to survive it.

(44:28):
I'm going to be OK, right? And and you know, the second
part, which you know, goes back to whatever your current state
is, is how we deal with grief because grief I think is a
lifelong recurring thing that takes base.

(44:49):
I think it takes, it's kind of like a boggart in, in Harry
Potter. It kind of takes the form of
whatever your mental state is atthe time.
And I think, Eric, you should applaud that.
That's a fantastic reference. Good job, David.
Good job. It's amazing.
Oh my God, I'm getting wet over here.

(45:12):
You know you you made it cheap and that.
Kind of hurt me, OK. But anyway, so but if you're
mind, right, if my mind is right, when I think about
somebody I've lost, I'm able to look at it through a lens of,
you know, gratitude for what I had and the the time that it was

(45:35):
because, you know, reason a season in a lifetime, you know,
everything changes. We're not all here till the end
of the story. So but when, you know, when I'm
in a good, good headspace, I canappreciate that for what it was
I did. These people got to be part of
my story and it was a beautiful time and it was great.
But they're not here anymore. And that's OK.

(45:56):
And then other times, you know, the, you know, the Boggert will
resurface and it'll, it'll be catastrophic.
It'll be catastrophic to me. Like just, and part of it's a
selfishness because it's like, oh, what I've lost.
It's not necessarily that the person's gone.
It's like, oh, what I got, what I missed out on.
Like that level of grief, which it, you know, it's, it's, but

(46:22):
it's difficult and it, and it changes from time to time.
But yeah, it like, and it's, it's the same with the past in
general. Like, oh, there's, there's times
when I look back at my using andyou know, I have that thought of
like, oh man, you know, I kind of miss doing some of that shit.

(46:42):
Like some, some of that shit wasglorified in my mind to, you
know, be a nice shiny object that was fun for some reason.
And then other times I look backat it and I'm like, Jesus
Christ. And thank God I'm not there
anymore. And so, yeah, it, it it's all
about perspective. Yeah.

(47:05):
All right, Eric, what are your greatest challenges to, you
know, staying present and mindfulness?
Myself. You're not that great.
Well, it's the distractions, right?
Like it's just my daily. It's my brain.
It's my. It's like, it's like that moment

(47:27):
when you're like, going through your day.
And then there's just like this hit of existential dread of
like, Oh my God, what the fuck is this bullshit?
Yeah. I always, I always whenever that
happens, I picture that scene inJaws when, you know, the
sheriff's sitting on the beach and it's just like, it just
zooms in on him. He's like, oh shit, there's a
shark. Yeah.

(47:47):
I always think of that. Like they're like on on days
like that, it just hit like it'sjust like, fuck, here I am.
Yeah. I mean, it's, it's hard, right?
Well, because you're also you'rea very busy human.
I am a busy. I do a lot of things too.
Yes, my my sister-in-law was like, how many projects are you

(48:08):
working on in the house? I'm like, I don't know, I'm
doing a lot. Yeah, if we're looking at Eric's
brain, you have many. Windows.
There's many different compartments open.
Yeah. It's hard to shut them down.
Yeah. And so, I mean, that's my
problem, right? That's my biggest issue when it
comes to trying to sit. It's because of the ADHD.

(48:29):
I can't sit still. I have to keep moving.
So it's hard for me to sit stillfor a few minutes.
You know, there's a, there's a, there's a great Home group for
you. I, I I've heard.
I've heard. I'm gonna go.
I'm gonna go soon. Don't worry.
You should be part of that Home group just for the meditation.
I should like I should be part of that.
The other half I know, I know, whatever I should be part of

(48:50):
that. It really it dude.
It is the IT is my favorite at any meeting that I've ever been
a part. Of And I love that it's in
Dickiesville. I love it.
Yeah. I was talking to a guy at
platform tennis about Dickiesville the other day Yeah.
And just how weird it is of a place like he was like imagine a
white enclave New England community just smack dab in the
middle of like Northwest. Yeah, and right next to like a

(49:11):
park where they find dead bodiesall.
The time, all the time. Yep, Lincoln Park.
Yeah, I, I enjoy the meeting when I I always, always mean to
get, I actually have a Home group on Thursdays as well.
But it's like, I mean, it's a little little more relaxed
group. I don't have to be there every
week if you know, but I'm I'll try to call.
Does anyone think the spelling of Lincoln Park is fucking

(49:32):
stupid? What?
What do you mean? It's spelled LEAKEN and it's
pronounced Lincoln. Lincoln Park.
Lincoln. I know, but it's technically
Lincoln Park. Not here.
Yeah, I think that one of those cases where the language evolved
a little bit and we just say things wrong.
Yeah, dude, American English is it is a smattering.

(49:55):
Because it's it's it should. Have you guys ever seen the
great like Instagram thing whereit's that guy explaining
English? Yeah.
And he's like, he's like cow. And then it's like then he puts
like toe on there and he's like,what does this mean?
It's like Tao. No, he's like, no.
Toe What are you? Are you?
Yeah, and and there's like an endless supply of those.
Oh my God, everywhere dude, they're so funny.

(50:18):
Yeah, and there's also those people who they'll do like 3 or
4, basically the BIG4 translations.
They'll do like an American wordfor something, and then the
Spanish word and then the Frenchword and then the German word.
And the German word is just always long.
It's just completely ridiculous.Yeah.
It's just ridiculous. Yeah.
It's like, oh, hospital, opital,opital.

(50:40):
And then it's like cranken wagon.
Why is this happening? Cranken Wagon, Yeah.
No, I think a hospital is a crankin, a crankin house, and
then an ambulance is a crankin wagon.
Crankin Wagon. Very weird.
Wow. Yeah, very baffling.
But yeah, back to your, your, your distractions for

(51:01):
mindfulness. You know your your challenges.
It's myself, OK? Yeah, that's it's me, I think.
And time. It's good that you didn't use
use like the cop out of like everything in life.
No, no, no, because it's me. It's me.
It's because I make time for what I value, right?
And I believe that. Like, yes, I believe if I want

(51:23):
to exercise, then I'm going to exercise.
And like I should, you know, if I care about something, I should
be able to find enough time to put it in my day or I don't give
a fuck about. It and, and that's something I
like. I, I, I've really been cutting a
lot of bullshit out of my life in like the last like six months
and just really telling people I'm like, listen, if you care

(51:44):
about something, if you truly care about something, you will
make it happen. Yeah.
And if you don't, you will find an excuse, period.
Like if recovery is important toyou, you'll make it happen.
If it's not important to you, you will find an excuse not to
do it. That's true.
And, you know, that's not just, that's not just, you know,
giving up drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling, whatever.

(52:04):
Like it, It's, it's reaching fora better version of yourself.
If reaching for a better versionof yourself is important to you,
efforts will be made. And if it's not important to
you, then they won't. And, and people want to be like,
yeah, well, it's like, no, thereis no, yeah, well, it, it, it's
just, it is or it isn't. Yeah, and I mean, that's the the

(52:25):
great thing about mindfulness isthat there are no circumstances
in which you can't practice it. Yeah, it's, it's absolutely
everything, like every, you know, all we ever have is the
present moment that that is reality for us.
And So what is getting in the way of, of being present now?
And it's, it's never what's actually going on.

(52:45):
It's it's my what's going on with me, you know, and like,
like Eric was talking about likethe, the biggest hurdle is the
self. And that's what we're dealing
with in a spiritual journey. It's like primarily just it's a
journey with ourself. We're, you know, shadowboxing
ourself, learning to, learning to overcome like.
The shadow boxing ourself, Eric,there it is.

(53:09):
That's the hit. That's the hit, yeah.
Mindfulness, presence in parentheses, shadow boxing
yourself. Shadow boxing yourself?
Yeah, well, God. Damn.
And no. And I'm like going back a little
bit. Like I love what you said about
like when you were talking aboutbreathing, because I'd never
thought of that 04 because yes, it is.

(53:30):
It is part of our autonomic nervous system.
It just does what it does most of the time, but we have the
ability and the choice to changeit.
But everything it like how's my kidney processing?
I don't know. I can't fucking change that.
It's gonna do that. Whatever.
My if God, Eric wishes he was, he could just change his

(53:53):
stomach. Like, oh, my stomach is going to
do this now. Like, that would be amazing.
But we don't have that level of control over most of our body.
There is biofeedback you can learn to control certain
autonomic responses like your heart rate and your blood
pressure and your body temperature.
But but that's that's fucking like takes a while to learn and
it's like, why do you want to do?

(54:13):
It and there's only certain percentages of it that you
actually can control. Like you can't control it 100%
but your breathing thing like. Yeah, it's 100.
Percent, yeah, when you when your mind clicks into, you know,
conscious breathing, you can control.
It yeah, for sure. And it's, it's just funny too,
the way like if you start consciously breathing, try to
not try to breathe without beingconscious of it, like try to

(54:34):
just let it happen. Once you do it, you're, you're
doing it automatically, you know?
It's it's, it's kind of like like when you incept something
into somebody's brain, you're like, you're like, OK, a White
Horse, a White Horse. Now try and not think about a
White Horse. And it's like, well, of course
I'm thinking about it about that.
I, you just said it three times.And it's like, yeah.
Yeah, I I tasted these yoga needyour meditations, which means

(54:55):
sleep yoga and you do it lying down.
It's like a body scan breathing kind of thing.
And yeah, and the, the instructor would say try to
sneak up on your breath, try to like sneak up.
So you're, you're going to like approach it enough so that it's
still, it's still just happeningnaturally.
And but which is very challenging to, to be aware of

(55:16):
the breathing without controlling it.
But I think there's something valuable in that too, like if
you can do it because it's a, you know, that not trying to
control life, just being aware without pushing back.
And there's certain circumstances where being in
control is fine and we want to be and moving and changing and
doing all that kind of shit. But in meditation, it's like
you're invited to take some timeto not be in control.

(55:38):
Take some time to to not try to fix, to not judge, not evaluate.
If you want to judge and evaluate later, go for it.
But like, right now, let's see what happens if you stop doing
that for 10 minutes. Yeah, you know, And then one of
my Home group members, Martin said something about that, which
is very true. He was like, if you're going
into a meditation thinking, you know, I need this temperature, I

(55:59):
need this pillow, I need this type of meditation, I need this
type of voice, I need this type of guidance.
And it's like, then you don't really want to meditate, right?
It's like you're not really trying to like you're not
you're, you're trying to cultivate a specific experience,
right? You're basically chasing the
dragon of a meditation, right? Not actually not having an
actual natural experience of something new and like, and by

(56:22):
all means, if you have, if you have a meditation that you like
and enjoy, by all means, you cango back to it at any time.
But also, you know, try new ones.
Like don't just do the same thing every time because it'll,
it'll, it'll give your brain thechance to actually, you know,
kind of adjust and ignore to your surroundings.

(56:43):
Because sometimes you can be in a room that's too fucking hot
and you feel uncomfortable and you're like, OK, I have to
become comfortable with the surrounding or, you know, this,
this meditate the the volume is too loud and it's like, OK,
well, I have to adjust to this volume.
Or like this person's voice is fucking goofy, which happens
sometimes. Like I will listen to like, and

(57:04):
this might sound terrible and itprobably does, but like, there
are some meditations that come on with somebody who just has a
very, very thick Indian accent. And it's very difficult for me
not to laugh because there's just so many like comical tropes
that I've been brought up with. So like, I'm, I'm and this is
terrible, but like, I hear like The Simpsons, I hear of Abu and

(57:27):
I'm like, oh, that's, that's terrible.
Like I shouldn't be. Here and then you're judging
yourself. And then I'm judging.
I'm like, I'm a Peach shit. Like I'm thinking this guy who
is just saying some beautiful things in his just attempt to
speak a second language to him obviously.
And and I'm just judging him like dude, like and I, I'm
really holding back on not doingan Indian person impersonation,

(57:50):
sure, because it's terrible. It's not.
Yeah, don't you do that. I'm not gonna do it, but like my
mind, like the I'm, I'm a comedian at heart.
So you know that I, I want to dothat so bad for the level of
comedy, but it's so rude. But yeah, that's like the stuff
my brain will do. Like like I'll click on
something and it's guru someone or other.

(58:12):
And the words he's saying are amazing, but like, I can't deal.
Like I can't deal with the way it's being said.
So what's wrong with me? But yeah, but he was saying that
he was like, that's not actual meditation, that's conditional
meditation. And if you're going into it with
a conditional meditation, then you're not really going into it
with like the best possible, youknow, opportunity for a good

(58:36):
outcome. Yeah, but I, I would, I would
agree And I especially because it's like if is your meditation
is the goal to become open to reality as reality is or to get
some specific experience that you want for some whatever
reason it is. And I those experiences might be
enjoyable and helpful sometimes,but but I think that the more

(58:59):
basic practice of just being open to whatever comes is more
helpful. And something you were talking
about, like whether it's too hotor the volume is too loud or you
can understand the speaker, it'sa little bit like if you were to
sit down and you didn't have anything that was bothering you.
It's a little bit like going to the gym and there's no
equipment. Like you don't have anything to

(59:20):
work with. You know I stole that from
somebody, but like you don't have anything to work.
With damn it, you should have just taken it.
You should have like I made thatup of myself.
Right now. But it yeah, fucking rigorous
honesty. But like that I have that
attitude sometimes about my own spinning mind.
Like I sit down, it's like, OK, this is what I'm working with
right now and this is this is what's here right now.

(59:42):
And can I be present when the mind isn't quiet?
Can I still be quiet if the mindis going and just like watching
it like a river or whatever and it.
Hey, you can't beat the river into submission.
You just have to surrender. To its flow.
I love that, That there's a proverb, Yeah, there's a proverb
in. I like your honesty.

(01:00:03):
Yeah, there's a proverb in, I think it's in the book of
Proverbs in the Bible that says don't push the river.
Yeah, yeah. It's not going to do anything.
Nope. Nope, not going to happen.
I want to just for people out there, I'm going to go through
our favorite types of meditation.

(01:00:25):
So for me, one thing I love a good emotional based meditation.
I've in the last really last 18 months, I've done a lot more
research and a lot of and what'scool like this meant my

(01:00:46):
meditation Home group started aslike, you know, I'm going, I'm
going on Thursday and I'm meditating 15 minutes or half an
hour a day. Then it and then like as I felt
the difference, I was like, OK, I need to infuse this more
times, more times a week. So it has branched out into, you
know, I'm, I'm actually sitting down to meditate for 15 minutes,

(01:01:07):
half an hour, many, many days ofthe week and not just one time a
week. But anyway, so my research, like
I really love basically personifying you, my emotions
and realizing that they're not my enemies.

(01:01:28):
Like my anger and my anxiety andmy frustration and my sadness
and my depression are not reallymy enemies.
They're just like you said, they're trying to teach me
something and they're trying to like make me become aware of
something that's going on aroundme or how I can better handle
whatever's happening internally to move forward.

(01:01:51):
So, you know, like when, when sadness comes, you say, OK,
sadness, you know, come here, like sit with me for a while,
tell me what you have to tell me.
But then it's time to leave. And really getting to an
emotional maturity level that I had never known before because I
like I most people until they get into mindfulness and

(01:02:14):
meditation, and especially me. I had the belief that I was my
thoughts, I was my emotions. And that's not the fact.
That's not like the, the closer reality is that you are your
actions. That's a closer reality because
that's more of a realistic trackrecord of like, OK, this is what

(01:02:36):
you've done. Like what you've thought and
what you've felt is not necessarily like that can
coalesce out of anywhere. Like you can see a pigeon in the
street and you're like, kick that pigeon.
Your brain just kick that. Pigeon.
No, you don't kick the pigeon, but your brain can say that and
it comes out of nowhere. Poor pigeon.
But if you actually kick the pigeon, then you're a fucking

(01:02:57):
kicking. You're a pigeon kicker.
I mean pigeon. Is what you are.
Pigeon. You should feel bad for pigeons.
They weren't. They were domesticated.
And then we just kind of gave upon this.
But you being a culmination of your actions is more realistic
than you being a culmination of your.
Thoughts and your emotions, Aristotle.
Yeah, yeah, we are what we habitually do.
Yes, exactly. The Buddhist perspective is more

(01:03:18):
like the I mean, it's more transpersonal respect, you know,
that it's that that pure conscious awareness of self.
And I think it's one of these circumstances where both
perspectives are helpful, they're both true in their own
way. Yes, But yeah, So for me, you
know, shadow work meditations, guided meditations have been,

(01:03:42):
you know, transformative for me and being able to right size my
emotions, which I I love that phrase Once I heard that, you
know, not taking any, not maximizing an emotion or
minimizing any emotion, just letting it exist as it is for
whatever time it needs to exist and then letting it go.

(01:04:04):
And it's the same with thoughts,like, you know, let the thoughts
that arise die a natural death as they should to that.
That's one of my favorite types of meditations.
But I also like, I like a good journey meditation sometimes
where you're like, Hey, we're walking through this, this
beautiful, this beautiful Meadow.
And look, there's a stream. And then you walk, you walk

(01:04:26):
along the stream until you find a staircase and you're like, oh,
take the staircase. It's something I can really
like, I can, when I'm in the right mindset, I can really get
into and like, I can activate myimagination.
So I'm like, oh cool. Yes, and by engaging your mind
in those meditations, I think itquiets the mind a little bit
because it's giving you something to do.
Exactly it's giving me it's giving you, you know, a

(01:04:48):
construct and a medium for your brain to create a stimuli right,
which which is which is cool. So you know, those those journey
meditations are super cool. So those are the two I'll go
with. Let's go.
Let's both give let's all try 2 examples.
What about you, Sam? The one I do most frequently is
just like ordinary what would you might call like a witnessing

(01:05:13):
meditation. The witness is the.
Like a body scan. Not necessarily that that can be
helpful with the witnessing is the capacity of the mind to
notice without any judgement. It's just awareness.
It's like pure like watching. It's not involved.
It's not it's that you know I'm not my thoughts.
Well, you'll find I'm not my thoughts by being able to

(01:05:35):
witness our thoughts. So I just will tend to to sit
down. I usually do before bed and put.
Somewhat of like a transcendental.
Yeah, it's, it's transcendental in a broad sense, but not really
the way it is. It's not ATM it's, but it is, it
is sort of in, in a way, although it doesn't necessarily
have to be super metaphysical. It can also just be like, you

(01:05:58):
know, in, in and psychoanalysis,they call it the observing ego.
Like there's a part of your ego which is just aware of what's
going on. But so I like doing that.
I like, I, I found once I started cultivating that I, I
had some element of that witnessing awareness with me
over all the time. Sometimes it was really like

(01:06:19):
really strong and really like, you know, and I found that there
was an immense amount of love inthat witnessing.
It was just effortless And that didn't last for very long, but
some amount of some amount of awareness that's outside of just
the thinking has, you know, justbeen been a support and it's
kind of stayed with me. But I I also, you know, music is

(01:06:40):
meditation. I already talked about, but but
also walking meditation. I really like, you know, the
tick out. Holland is a big walking
meditation person. And then he and his monks walked
around Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
Like, you know, ministering to people like, not like telling
them, not like a minister, but like caring for them, providing
support. And, and they, he said, you

(01:07:01):
know, when he the way they were able to do that work without
getting compassion fatigue or burnout is that when they're
walking, they just pay attentionto their walking.
They're not in the previous town.
They're not in the next town, right?
What is this next step? And there's something about when
you're doing that and feeling the sole of your foot and
feeling, feeling yourself touching the earth, that step

(01:07:22):
can become the whole universe inthat moment.
Like you're just that one next step.
And it's like your whole, your whole journey is condensed down
into that one movement. And it doesn't have to, it
doesn't have to be that existential, but it can be
helpful to have something where you're you're moving, it's
involving your body and. I am here in this point in time,

(01:07:43):
Yep. And it, and it gives you
something to keep coming back to.
Like that's the focal point of your, of your meditation is, is
those footsteps. And it's like, keep coming back
to it 1000 times during, you know, you.
I go to Centennial Lake a lot and walk around the lake.
It's like I might, I might get distracted, you know?
A million times a. Million times, yeah.
Who knows how many times? Yeah, many times, yeah.
But you keep coming back. Nice.

(01:08:05):
What about you Eric? Your favorite types of
meditation? Mine are definitely the breath
work meditations because they, Imean they actually give you
physiological like, yeah, feelings like you actually get
like a little bit of like a buzzor whatever.
So you're chasing, you're just chasing another dragon.
I guess so, I guess so. Breath work heroine.
And then the other one, I mean, similar to what Sam said, but

(01:08:30):
walking, but in nature, like going on like hikes and stuff
like those, those are definitelylike my meditative, like I try
to do almost every day, just go into the woods, Yeah, walk
around and shit. Yeah.
And and you know, like any anybody out there, there's
meditation is is such a broad spectrum.

(01:08:53):
It, you know, I kind of just thought of this.
It's very much a higher power. Yeah.
It is. It is so personal to whoever it
is that you know what it whatever you choose to be your,
you know, quote UN quote happy place is a form of meditation.

(01:09:14):
Like if it's book reading books,absolutely a meditation.
Like if like I I love a good mystery novel.
You know, me following Hercule Poirot in like whatever goofy
case he's trying to solve it. Like I'm I'm a Babel.
I'm able to, you know, suspend disbelief of life for a little

(01:09:35):
while to, you know, be, be existing in this book at that
moment or a movie or, you know, some people it's exercise, some
people it's cooking. It can be a lot of things.
Yeah. Focusing on your breath work,
focus, focusing on your step. And, and I know it's not
technically meditation, but it is like yoga.

(01:09:57):
For yoga is absolutely technically meditation.
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's a. Physical like a somatic
meditation? Yeah, exactly.
But yeah, I don't think a lot ofpeople necessarily, especially,
I don't know, I, I think there needs to be a greater emphasis
on it, you know, moving forward because they it's in the 11th

(01:10:17):
step, but it doesn't really talkabout it in much in any other
step. Like they mention it like it is
verbally in the the 11th step, but other than that it's like,
you know. Yeah.
And like you're saying with all these different possibilities, I
think, you know, my definition of meditation would be anything

(01:10:38):
that you're doing that you're doing with your full.
Focus with your whole with your whole selves.
Yep. And I think that it is helpful
to have a meditation practice that's a little bit less like
Matthew Fox is like a esoteric Christian theologian.
He like doesn't even talk about God.
He just talks about the world and like life.
It's pretty. He's very beautiful, but nice.

(01:11:00):
He it talks about introverted meditation and extroverted
meditation. So an extrovert meditation might
be something like painting, which is still a pretty
introvert activity, but it's, it's expressed outward.
Whereas the introverted meditation might be something
like a mantra or the breath workand it's inward.
And I would just for myself, want to have all of these

(01:11:21):
options available to me, like whatever.
And, and I'm, I'm hoping that after, you know, talking about
this with you guys, I'm going tobe inspired to double down on my
own, on my own mindfulness efforts.
And yeah, because otherwise what's, you know, what's the
point? But yeah.
And also just realize them, you know, kind of, you know, with
the 12 step, you know, practice these principles and all of our
affairs, you know, that moment. Yeah, that mindfulness, like

(01:11:44):
when you're, you know, that tunecomes on the radio, you know,
crack it up a little bit louder and like, you know, feel it.
Yeah. Feel that song sing like, oh,
the, you know, sun is coming through, you know, my
windshield. They feel the temperature's good
every, like life is good, you know?
Life is a highway, man. I I that that reminds me of and
I really hate. I just said life is a highway

(01:12:07):
life. Is a highway oh night long, but
yeah, I. All you can see is Michael
Scott. There was a story I heard to
speak to what you just said about turning it up and really
feeling it, a story I heard of a, a Zen practitioner.
I don't think she's a monk. She's a layperson, but she's a

(01:12:28):
Zen practitioner. And she said she went on a Zen
retreat one time and she was meditating.
And you go on a Zen retreat, you're going to meditate for
five or six hours a day. You know, it's intense.
I've never done it, but I would kind of like to.
But she said she was meditating.It was a few hours in in the day
and it was time for breakfast because they start very early.
And she said a monk brought her a bowl of oatmeal.
She tasted the oatmeal, and she started crying because she

(01:12:51):
realized that she had never tasted oatmeal in her entire
life, her entire life. She wasn't experiencing life as
it was. She was, she was too distracted.
She couldn't feel it. So I think that's what's at
stake. See, Eric, you can cry over
oatmeal. Well, you.
Can. Yes I can, because I'm I'm tuned
into my emotions, you fucking robot.
Close some, close some screens and enjoy the sunset, you

(01:13:12):
bastard. I don't know about all that.
But the snakes that where we have our like, we can miss our
lives. Yeah, it's very easy to.
And this might be it. This might be all we get.
Yeah, and like, that's a recurring joke from Eric because
I told him the story about how when I was in Yosemite with my

(01:13:36):
wife. Jesus, see, look at this, this
just disdain for my for my emotional process.
Oh my God, there was such a beautiful sunset.
Yeah, we go. You know, we were at Glacier
Point and we're watching the sunset over the far edge of, you
know, the Sierra Nevadas. And you can just, you can see

(01:13:57):
forever because you're, you're 11,000 feet up and, and you're
just seeing everything like Yosemite Falls and, and it's,
and it's beautiful. And she had never been to
California, so she had never seen like a West Coast sunset
and shit like that. And, and this was my third time
going to Yosemite, and it's where I proposed to her.
And it was just like such a monumental event like that.
I can share this moment with this woman I love.

(01:14:19):
Oh, you. Both.
Had yeah, we shed some tears. Yeah.
We're sitting there at at at Glacier Point watching the
sunset and yeah, I I was like, life does not get better than
this. It doesn't like there's there's
like this, like obviously I think there's an echelon.
It's not like, you know, a Zenith point, but there's an

(01:14:41):
echelon and like this is this isupper echelon living.
And like, and dude, there's beentimes when I'm putting my son to
sleep that like I've I'm like, this is life doesn't get better
than this. Like I'm sitting here singing
The Beatles to him as he's goingto sleep.
Like this is this is perfect. This moment is amazing.
And yes, it is emotionally overwhelming for me in those

(01:15:03):
moments. So yeah, I have cried over at
sunset. I have cried while singing The
Beatles to my singing my son to sleep with The Beatles.
Or, you know, the Mamas and the Papas or whatever.
I cried at a Tool concert. I cried in a Slipknot concert a
couple times. What I was eating.
For like the first the first set, it was just like the whole

(01:15:25):
time. Yeah, dude.
And like Paul and I, dude, Paul and I have cried at Slipknot
shows because it is, it is such a physical and like emotionally
visceral experience that dude, Paul and I are very serious.
We're like, this is not like this is not just a concert.

(01:15:46):
Like this is, this is a, an experience.
Like, this is a like, because it's been something I've been
listening to for 25 years and like emotionally gravitated to
and understood for that long of my life that, you know, when I'm
fully present in this like very physical music and like, they're
giving out and like it. Yeah, there there is a an

(01:16:09):
emotional like vibe, operationalexchange in those moments that
are very palpable if you're willing to be vulnerable and
open to it. So yeah, dude, concerts.
Concerts and music art in all its forms, I think can be an
amazing meditation. Yeah, it's, I mean the visionary

(01:16:32):
artist Alex Gray talks about artas a spiritual path.
I mean, there's like 4 spiritualpaths in Hinduism which are
pretty comprehensive, you know, your action path, like doing
good works and meditation path and then the studying and and
gaining knowledge path. And there's some other ones it
might be, might be love and thenyeah, the devotional path.
And then. But art is like its own thing,

(01:16:54):
like creating something new is different than all of those
other things. It has elements of all of them.
Yeah. But I mean, it's.
And the great thing about art isthat you don't have to be good
at it. Yeah, you don't have to be good
at you, just just do it like. It's just what level you like.
Let yourself express. Yeah, it's, it's about feeling

(01:17:16):
that. I mean, I early on in that that
same winter when I was reading Arcatola, I was painting a lot
and I would drink too much coffee and just paint for hours
and, and dude. Have you ever heard how many
pots of coffee Dave Grohl drinks?
He drinks like 4 pots of coffee a day.
Really. Yes.
That's too much. Who are you drinks?
That much? Dave Grohl.

(01:17:36):
I that's way that's. YouTube it, he is drinking
coffee 24/7. It's because like, I mean the
lead, like that's stupid because500 milligrams is like a toxic
dose. Of yeah, I think 400 milligrams
is the maximum recommended by the FDA. 200 milligrams is the
maximum for a single serving, which is what Celsius is.
They're like, we'll go to the. Max that's what valerian are not

(01:18:00):
what is it Vivitrol or I have like a caffeine pill that has
200. Why do you have caffeine pills,
Eric? Because sometimes coffee takes
too long. Jesus, yeah, you're not an
addict. I I'm just finding a more
efficient of administration. I get it.
You know Voltaire was reported to drink 68 cups of coffee a

(01:18:23):
day, yes? That's absurd.
Yeah, Voltaire. Didn't he also have like
gonorrhea like 23 times in his? Life.
I don't know about that. He got gonorrhea or chlamydia
like in an insane amount of times.
I mean, that's the French for you.
Yeah, good for them. God bless him.
Any other topics by anybody, Eric?

(01:18:44):
You got anything else? No, no, I think, I think we're
good are. You fully in this moment, Are
you fully present? Are you going to cry for me?
No, I don't cry, David. I never don't use.
It's very rare. It's.
A very rare. He is.
It's not that he's dead inside, it's just that he is
compartmentalized everything so efficiently and effective
actively. That my wife.

(01:19:04):
It is just it. Is I'll give you a dolphin's
butt, I'll give you a weird. So I'll give you a weird
example. Like I've been mentally
preparing myself for my cats to die for probably the past like
10 years. So I feel like once they do die,
I'll be like in a pretty good spot, you know, like I would
have like, because now I'm at a point of like, OK, they're like

(01:19:25):
in their teens. Like I have a real appreciation
for their life. I'm grateful for the life
they've had like. So are we thinking burial or a
funeral pyre? Oh, we haven't talked about
this. What I like, I want like I.
Can shoot a. Flaming Arrow, Hellboy style,
like labyrinth of a crypt you're.
Gonna create a cat crypt. And I want, I want there to be

(01:19:51):
like little, like maybe like a boulder or something, some
traps. What's your budget, Eric?
What's your budget on? Yeah.
Yeah, give me a number. Yeah, you're gonna, you're gonna
booby trap their sarcophagus salt.
Acid. Well, no, this is also.
This is also for me too. I wanna be there as well.
So booby trap your own tomb. Yeah, yeah, I definitely I it's

(01:20:13):
always he's. Gonna have his cats in Coptic
jars outside of Eric. 'S I've always dreamed of having
like, you know, a huge crypt that I could, like, do the.
Trap. Yeah, that is so.
Since I was a little boy, I thought about how I was.
Gonna die. I just like the Egyptians, you
know, like for it. Oh my God, I I that that is one

(01:20:36):
way to end this podcast. How how we can project our own
deaths into the future. The exact opposite of
mindfulness and being present atthe moment.
Well, it's no. But we were open to it, though.
But we were open to it and we didn't judge we.
Didn't judge. We didn't judge.
You know, I, I judged a little bit.
About well, I did too, but like,so we did, we did that wasn't

(01:20:58):
mindful at all. That was not mindful.
At all a catacombs. It's a catacombs anything.
Oh my God. Anything can be a meditation,
including shitting on Eric. So that's true.
That is Catacombs. OK, wait, hold on.
Have you gone into any of like the research of the catacombs?
Which which ones? So like the major ones in like

(01:21:19):
France, they don't really know how they got built.
Really. What wasn't it?
Wasn't it the Romans? No, no, no, no, no, no.
Look in. I'm telling you, look into it
like I I, I went down a rabbit hole one day.
The amount of skulls that are down there and.
Bones. I know about the skulls.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Listen, the amount of time that

(01:21:40):
it would take to ornately place all of those in place and like
with all the elaboration that they did would take such a gross
amount of time with such like itwould take so many people.
Where did they get all those bones?
Thank you. They don't.
No, they don't understand. They were like, do you
understand this is millions of bodies.

(01:22:03):
Do you realize how many time, how much time it would take
somebody to do all of this shit?They were like it was would take
not not decades, but like hundreds of years.
And they're like, this is like, this is an astronomical like
undertaking. Thank you, dude.
I'm telling you, I've sent you both down a rabbit hole.

(01:22:23):
Look into it. It's horrifying because they
don't know they're. Like, kind of beautiful.
Honestly, it is. But also for the time that they
were, for the time that they were built, they were like,
there really weren't that many humans on Earth.
Right. So I mean where?
Did this amount of bodies they have same time collectively?
They have this beautiful like buttressed like column.

(01:22:44):
Of of skulls, dude. It's an engineering feat of
human bones. And there's it is.
I think. Yes, dude, it's horrifying.
It is horrifying. Like it's not.
I mean, it's kind. Of no, it's absolutely
beautiful, but it's horrifying on the level that.
It's just like that. Those are people.
Yes, that is kind of horrifying.Just like where did it come
from? It is it is a it is a pyramid

(01:23:05):
level like mystery of human bones.
Anyway, that's where we're goingto end it.
Everybody. Thank you for joining us for you
know, another. This was a fantastic podcast,
like the so much we ran the gamut of, you know, car problems
and catacombs and crypts and Aristotle to Eckhart Tolle,

(01:23:26):
which I know is pronounced that way now.
But we would like to thank our guest, Sam, for joining us once
again today. Yeah.
Thanks for having me guys. Absolutely.
It's fantastic everybody out there.
Thanks for listening. Go to all our social media
outlets, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, like, share, subscribe,
become part of our Patreon because we need help keeping the

(01:23:48):
mics on because we are self supporting but most importantly
everybody out there. Stay safe and stay clean.

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Sam D - Mindfulness

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