May 23, 2025 • 23 mins
As I spoke at multiple events for hundreds of people this past week, I had a moments of deep gratitude for the tools available for us to use to practice presence. Some of what I teach on the podcast is content that I’ve invented and created, and other tools and concepts are things I’ve collected over time from brilliant thought leaders, authors, theorists and changemakers.
In this episode, I’ll share a go-to tool that I learned almost two decades ago from Eckhart Tolle, and share the ways you can apply this part of his work- to daily life, big decisions, and the ideas that you’re trying to make real. I’ll also give examples of how I used his teaching this past week to reset for a public speaking event after getting one hour of sleep (!), to reframe my mindset after making a mistake, and how the concept of joy, ease and lightness has connected me to others in the least expected moments.
What you’ll learn in this episode:
- Eckhart Tolle’s “Joy, Ease and Lightness” practice
- How focusing on the how and not the what is a hack for presence
- Why process instead of result thinking can calm the system
- Why pulling our mind into the present connects us to feeling happiness and joy
- How this practice helps us side-step habituated brain patterns
- Three examples of how practicing presence overcame real-time mind-drama
How to connect with Marie:
- On the Web | The Local Bloom
- Instagram: @the.bloom.coach
- All Things Marie on LinkTree
JOIN THE BLOOM ROOM!
We'll take all these ideas and apply them to our lives. Follow me on Instagram at @the.bloom.coach to learn more and snag a spot in my group coaching program!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to the Bloom your Mind Podcast, where we take
all of your ideas for what youwant and we turn them into real
things.
I'm your host, certified CoachMarie McDonald.
Let's get into it.
Hello, my friends, and welcometo episode number 128 of the
(00:38):
Bloom your Mind podcast.
What a week.
I'm talking today about aconcept that has served me for
15, 20 years 20 years, I wouldsay very effectively in read his
(01:01):
books, my favorite of which iscalled A New Earth, his most
famous perhaps, of which iscalled the Power of Now, and he
is an incredible thinker andleader, and I've been wanting to
record this podcast for you fora while, and while I did plan
to record it and release it thisweek, I had multiple
(01:22):
experiences that sort ofembodied the actual content of
this podcast, the concept, thepractice that we're going to be
talking about today.
I have to say I'm not surprised.
It is so fundamental thatprobably any week that I was
living with the topic of thispodcast in mind would present to
(01:45):
me examples of how this contentplays out in the day-to-day.
That is, how poignant and howtrue and how applicable it is to
all of life, all of the time,and the basic concept is called
joy, ease and lightness.
But before that, I'll just tellyou why this week was such a
wild one.
I am very involved in mychildren's school just in
(02:09):
helping to lead and run lots ofdifferent parts of it, and one
of the things that was reallyfun that I got to do this year
was lead our gala for the school, which is a big party that is
so much fun, with lots ofdancing and fundraising and all
of that good stuff, and I hadfor a long time, for a year,
known the night that this galawas going to happen.
It happens at this place calledLulu's in San Diego, which is at
(02:32):
the Lafayette Hotel, which is areally hip, really just vibrant
, amazing, artistic, soulfulplace, and we get to hold our
gala at this place, luckily.
So we knew we had thisscheduled for a really long time
and I have been planningtowards it for a really long
time.
There are so many pieces toputting on a party like this All
(02:55):
of the different fundraising,the auctions, the attendance,
the marketing for the thing youknow, getting people to attend,
then just the decorations, the,you know what are you going to
wear, what are you going to say,all the communication, all the
pieces.
I also this week had a retreatI was leading for two days with
my partner for over a hundredpeople, with hours and hours and
(03:16):
hours of content that I hadwritten and was writing with my
partner and slide decks, youknow, speaking all the good
stuff which requires also somuch working in organization and
communication.
It was all going to work outuntil the retreat was moved by a
week and was actually moved tothe two days right after the
(03:39):
gala.
Now the gala ended at 9 pm on aSunday night this past Sunday
night and I needed to begin mytraining in Oakland at 9 am the
next morning.
How is this going to work,right?
So that was the past weekendthat I had, you know, in the
couple of weeks leading up to it, just months leading up to it,
(03:59):
full of all of the planning andI set myself up for success and
I had everything done in the waythat I like to do when I can
see something like this coming.
We can't always see it coming,but when I can see something
this complicated coming, I haveall my clothes, you know, chosen
and packed, everything that Ineed the wild outfit for Sunday
(04:19):
night, the clothes that I needfor the next couple day
everything printed, everythingloaded on my computer and
charged up.
I have everything done.
Uber scheduled check-ins forflights in my calendar.
On top of it, right, I have mysitters lined up all the things.
But there are always elementsthat you cannot expect, and what
(04:39):
happened this time is we had abeautiful time on Sunday night
at the gala.
So much love in dancing, somuch money raised for children,
so much community built, so manyperformances.
I gave a talk.
It was lovely.
I get to get home at about 10 pm, settled myself in, did
everything I needed to do andgot in bed and did not sleep
(05:02):
that night.
There were dogs that werebarking and banging.
There were children that hadrough night sleeps.
There was a rib injury thathappened for one of my children.
There was so much.
There were visitors from out oftown that were late to our
house.
There were all kinds of thingsthat popped up that were
(05:22):
unexpected, and what ended uphappening is that I had one hour
of sleep that night, my friendsone hour.
If you've listened to my podcastbefore, you know that sleep is
super important to me.
It is my number one toppriority, above exercise or
eating well or whatever else Isleep and I sleep eight or nine
hours so to sleep for one hourwhen I had so much
(05:47):
responsibility for the speakingevents, for organization, for
all these things, really threwmy brain into the arena for
using my best tools forpracticing setting a mindset and
practicing thoughts that wouldcreate feelings in my body that
would allow me to act in a wayIf you've listened to episode 18
(06:08):
and know the model, that was itthat would allow me to act in a
way where I could honor thissuper important content that I
had created and lead these twodays of training.
It just so happened that in thefirst morning of training I was
also presenting for the veryfirst time a new feedback
framework that I have beenworking on for months.
It it compiles the best of my20 years of leading companies
(06:34):
and leading businesses andentrepreneurship, of leadership
experience and so much learningand training that I've done in
the realm of leadership with mytraining in communication,
cognitive coaching, cognitivereframing and subconscious
coaching and hypnosis.
I've created a feedbackframework that I say new.
(06:55):
It's articulated in a new way,but we've been teaching it for a
long time and I was teachingthis framework that was going to
be rolled out to hundreds ofpeople.
I really my point is, I reallyreally cared about what I was
doing on this morning and I'dbeen looking forward to it for a
long time.
I had put a lot of time andlove and effort into building
slide decks, creating content,learning my content, and was so
(07:18):
passionate about the impact thatthis really clean, strong
leadership and communication wasgoing to have on lots of kids
that need strong leadership andcommunication.
But here I was with one hour ofsleep and communication.
But here I was with one hour ofsleep, caught my flight.
I flew to Oakland.
I was there at the training ontime.
(07:39):
There were some bumps with thelogistics of the training, but I
began my training at 9 am.
Thank the Lord or, whatever youthink, thank the universe that
I was there on time.
I was like okay, here's somerelief.
The gala went well.
Here I am on time and I startto train.
I've you know this training isfor over a hundred people that
(07:59):
I've written and I'm in front ofthem with my, with my partner,
and we're training and it's it'sgoing great.
But I began to realize that mybrain is not holding on to words
and sentences like it usuallydoes?
I usually have an almostphotographic memory, in ways
Like if I've seen somethingwritten, I can kind of picture
it on a page and pull out thecontent or ideas or information
(08:23):
from it.
It is not photographic but it'sso visual that sometimes it has
elements of a photographicmemory.
That's not working.
This morning I'm looking out atpeople being like what the hell
is the next thing that I wasgoing to say In my head.
That's what's happening.
I'm looking at the slide deck.
(08:44):
I'm just rolling through thiscontent, feeling the presence
and importance of these messages, but in the system of my
physical body I'm also feelinglike am I losing them?
Is this obvious that I'm justnot on my game, you know, and my
concern is that thisinformation will not get across
successfully to these people.
(09:05):
This is really important to me.
So I'm going through mytraining content.
I know that I'm getting themessages across.
I'm just feeling not on my gameand we have a break for the
participants to do someself-reflection and I walk up to
my partner and I'm thinking inmy head she is going to say what
(09:26):
the hell is wrong with you?
She's going to say hey, we canget.
You know, we can get this back.
We can totally pull this backtogether.
And instead she says what'sgoing on, how's it going?
And I said oh, it's like.
I think it's going great, Ithink they've got it.
I'm really sorry, I'm so off mygame this morning.
She says what are you talkingabout?
And I said I feel like my, likeI'm not holding onto sentences
in my head.
She says no, you are completelyfantastic.
(09:49):
You're doing the incrediblepublic speaking that you always
do.
I said wow, okay, so you can'tsee that I don't have any sleep.
You can't see what I'm feelinginside?
And she said not in theslightest bit.
She said when you got thatperson up in front of the room
and you coached them, that wassome of the best coaching I've
ever seen live.
She said everything you'resaying is landing beautifully.
(10:11):
You are exactly as you alwaysare as a speaker.
In that moment, two thingshappened.
Number one I was so grateful tohave a person next to me in a
moment when I could use somesupport with my mindset, that I
could ask for help.
She offered me a differentthought that I was having a hard
(10:33):
time coming up with myself.
Usually, I can really do thaton an hour of sleep.
That's probably my weakestpoint.
With little sleep is my weakestmind body, everything.
I do not like having thatlittle sleep, and so I leaned on
a friend and she gave me adifferent way of thinking about
it.
And the second thing thathappened aside from the
(10:54):
gratitude for her and the waythat she answered that and the
fact that I had her next to mewas the minute she said it.
Everything changed.
I was able to completely dropthe thought that I was having a
hard time letting go of,recognize that if I accept what
she saw as reality in thismoment, I was going to be a much
more successful trainer forthem.
(11:14):
They were actually going to getthis content from the best
version of me.
Even if this is a tiniest tweakthat's not even visible to them
, to me it feels huge.
I can be filled with energy andfilled with that feeling of
motivation and inspiration andpassion for what I'm doing.
It shifted everything.
So it was such a beautifulexample, number one of the model
(11:36):
.
I let go of the thought thisisn't going well, I'm off my
game and instead replaced itwith this is going great.
This is exactly the trainingthat I was hoping.
It was Number one that shiftedeverything for me and brought me
back into the present momentand into joy and into the
passion of what I love to do.
(11:56):
Secondly, it illustrated thatsometimes we can ask a friend to
help us shift our mindset.
I'm usually the friend thatpeople are asking.
In this moment I was sograteful to have my friend next
to me to say, oh God, in my mindI'm feeling like this is not
going well, and she said, oh no,it's going great.
She just helped me do a quickthought trade.
(12:19):
That changed everything for mein my experience, an experience
that was very important to me.
So two practices that you canuse for yourself.
First, number one, practicingthought trades.
Number two, asking for supportwhen you need it.
And number three I want tointroduce the idea of joy, ease
and lightness.
(12:39):
Back in the day in my mid tolate 20s, I was leading an
organization and scaling aninnovation education
organization and I was listeningto Eckhart Tolle on my really
long drives.
Eckhart Tolle, as I said, is atheorist and an author and a
thought leader and he's amazingand I used to listen to him on
my drives to.
Really I would listen to hisbooks over and over to really
(13:02):
let the concepts sink in and Iwould pause them and think about
them and then listen to anotherchapter and pause and think
about them.
And one day, on this long drive, I listened to his chapter on
joy, ease and lightness.
And on this day I wanted toremember the concept joy, ease
and lightness, which I'll talkabout in just a moment.
So I wrote it on my hand andsomething amazing happened with
(13:27):
those three words written on myhand.
First, let me tell you aboutthe concept.
The first concept that EckhartTolle teaches is that when we
are fully present in the presentmoment, we experience life
fully and we experience itdirectly.
The life that is actuallyhappening now, which is actually
(13:50):
all that there ever is, is thispresent moment, and we
experience it directly.
And what he means by that iswe're experiencing the world and
our life this moment, withoutthe filter of the mind and its
habitual patterns that it placesour mind places in front of the
world, that filter throughwhich we perceive everything
that's happening, that filterthrough which we get that 95% of
(14:13):
our thoughts that are automatic, that are just going.
Those are our habituated waysof thinking, right?
So when we can become morepresent, when we are fully
present, our struggles dissolve,our unhappiness dissolves,
eckhart Tolle says, because inthe present moment there are no
problems.
(14:34):
The vast majority of the timewhen we can become fully present
, we are, in this moment,focused on what is happening
right now.
The majority of our struggle orour unhappiness or our problems
are created by the mind.
Now we might say, okay, yeah,being present.
I've heard this a million times.
I practice presenceno-transcript that we want yet,
(15:18):
and so we lose our awareness andour experience of the present.
So many problems are created inour focus on the future and the
past, and so many problems aresolved when we bring our focus
back to the present moment.
Two ways that we can do thatanswer the question of okay,
(15:40):
yeah, I want to be present, buthow do I do it?
The first way that EckhartTolle teaches is to shift our
focus from the outcome of whatwe want to happen, with whatever
we're doing right now, to theprocess of doing it.
Shift your focus from the whyto the how, instead of what am I
(16:05):
doing right now and why am Idoing it.
Shift my focus to how am Idoing it, paying attention to
the process of doing rather thansolely on the result we are
trying to create, and thiscultivates presence in the
moment, and it also allows us tofocus in on joy and ease, the
(16:28):
joy and ease that come from theactivity itself, whatever it is
we're actually doing.
So Eckhart Tolle says is therejoy?
This is the second practice andthe reason that I'm talking
today on the podcast.
The main content is thisquestion that he asks.
The main content is thisquestion that he asks In any
moment of your life, you can askyourself is there joy, ease or
(16:59):
lightness in what I am doing?
The ultimate goal would be joyin a moment, the joy of
existence, of presence, thenostalgia for now, the being in
the part of the process thatwe're in, instead of overly
focused on where we've been orwhere we're going, and in that
full presence we can beconnected to joy.
If joy is not accessible in amoment, maybe we can just look
(17:27):
for a little bit more ease.
Can we find ease?
If not joy?
Where is the ease in what weare doing?
If there is no ease accessible,how might we introduce a little
ease?
How might we search for or finda little ease in what we are
(17:47):
doing?
And ultimately, if joy is notaccessible and if ease is not
accessible.
Is there a way that we can justfind an edge of lightness, a
little little bit more lightnessin what we are doing, the
(18:10):
conversation we are having, thework we are doing the drive, we
are in the traffic, we are inthe shower, we are taking the
garden, we are walking throughthe public speaking event we are
in the middle of?
And he says if there is no joy,no ease and ultimately even no
lightness in what we are doing,that means that time is covering
(18:32):
up the present moment and lifeis being perceived as a burden
or a struggle.
So we can bring ourselves hometo the real experience we are
having, what is ultimately muchmore real, pull ourselves out of
the filters of our habituatedways of thinking that the mind
creates by asking ourselves thisquestion is there joy, ease or
(18:56):
lightness in what I am doing?
And in those days on that drive,on that day when I wrote joy,
ease and lightness in ink on myhand in my 20s, I was driving
down to oversee one of theeducational programs and I
stopped at a shoe store.
I had to grab some shoes thatday and I was on my way and I
(19:19):
stopped there on my way down andthe person that helped me to
try on my shoes was in themiddle of fitting my shoe and he
looked at me and he said whatdoes that say on your hand?
And I said it says joy, easeand lightness.
And he paused with so muchcuriosity and he looked up and
(19:39):
he said why?
And I said well, I've beenlistening and learning about
presence and there's a teachernamed Eckhart Tolle and I'm
learning from him and he saysthat in every moment of life we
can look for joy.
And if joy is too much to find,in that moment we can find a
(19:59):
little ease.
And if ease is too hard to find, what lightness, what little
bit of lightness can we find inthe present moment?
And his eyes filled up withtears and he took my hand in his
hands, this person that wastrying on my shoes, and he said
(20:20):
thank you so much for sayingthat to me right now.
That is what I needed to hearon this day, in this moment.
Thank you so much.
And he let go of my hand and hefinished trying on my shoe and
I bought those shoes and I left.
But it was such a fundamentallyhelpful concept that just the
(20:44):
brief description filled hiseyes with tears, touched his
heart and helped him.
And then, when I think back tothat training moment where my
friend helped me organize mythinking in a way that was much
more useful to me, andultimately, if we're looking at
the model, I was able to thinkthis training is going great, I
(21:08):
love doing this, and it filledme with joy and presence and I
was able to be the effectivetrainer that I love to be and
the public speaker that I loveto be, because I was in my body
and authentic and not distractedby potentially failing them
right.
What it did was it introducedjoy, ease and lightness all of
(21:28):
them to that moment for me.
So, as you are going through theworld, making your ideas into
real things, as you are doingdishes, as you are combing your
hair, as you are driving intraffic, as you're speaking to
the people around you peoplethat you love and people that
you don't even know as youperceive the issue in front of
you, as you read the news, asyou think about the problem that
(21:51):
you're trying to solve, whatjoy can you find in it?
And if no joy, what ease?
And if no ease, what little bitof lightness can you find in
what you are doing in thismoment, right now, which,
ultimately, is all there is.
(22:13):
That's what I've got for youtoday.
My friends and I will see theBloom Room.
(22:33):
This is a year-round membershipwhere we take all of these
concepts and we apply them toreal life in a community where
we have each other's backs andwe bring out the best in each
other.
We're all there to make ourideas real, one idea at a time.
I'll see you in the bloom room.
Welcome to the Bloom your Mind Podcast, where we take
all of your ideas for what youwant and we turn them into real
things.
I'm your host, certified CoachMarie McDonald.
Let's get into it.
Hello, my friends, and welcometo episode number 128 of the
(00:38):
Bloom your Mind podcast.
What a week.
I'm talking today about aconcept that has served me for
15, 20 years 20 years, I wouldsay very effectively in read his
(01:01):
books, my favorite of which iscalled A New Earth, his most
famous perhaps, of which iscalled the Power of Now, and he
is an incredible thinker andleader, and I've been wanting to
record this podcast for you fora while, and while I did plan
to record it and release it thisweek, I had multiple
(01:22):
experiences that sort ofembodied the actual content of
this podcast, the concept, thepractice that we're going to be
talking about today.
I have to say I'm not surprised.
It is so fundamental thatprobably any week that I was
living with the topic of thispodcast in mind would present to
(01:45):
me examples of how this contentplays out in the day-to-day.
That is, how poignant and howtrue and how applicable it is to
all of life, all of the time,and the basic concept is called
joy, ease and lightness.
But before that, I'll just tellyou why this week was such a
wild one.
I am very involved in mychildren's school just in
(02:09):
helping to lead and run lots ofdifferent parts of it, and one
of the things that was reallyfun that I got to do this year
was lead our gala for the school, which is a big party that is
so much fun, with lots ofdancing and fundraising and all
of that good stuff, and I hadfor a long time, for a year,
known the night that this galawas going to happen.
It happens at this place calledLulu's in San Diego, which is at
(02:32):
the Lafayette Hotel, which is areally hip, really just vibrant
, amazing, artistic, soulfulplace, and we get to hold our
gala at this place, luckily.
So we knew we had thisscheduled for a really long time
and I have been planningtowards it for a really long
time.
There are so many pieces toputting on a party like this All
(02:55):
of the different fundraising,the auctions, the attendance,
the marketing for the thing youknow, getting people to attend,
then just the decorations, the,you know what are you going to
wear, what are you going to say,all the communication, all the
pieces.
I also this week had a retreatI was leading for two days with
my partner for over a hundredpeople, with hours and hours and
(03:16):
hours of content that I hadwritten and was writing with my
partner and slide decks, youknow, speaking all the good
stuff which requires also somuch working in organization and
communication.
It was all going to work outuntil the retreat was moved by a
week and was actually moved tothe two days right after the
(03:39):
gala.
Now the gala ended at 9 pm on aSunday night this past Sunday
night and I needed to begin mytraining in Oakland at 9 am the
next morning.
How is this going to work,right?
So that was the past weekendthat I had, you know, in the
couple of weeks leading up to it, just months leading up to it,
(03:59):
full of all of the planning andI set myself up for success and
I had everything done in the waythat I like to do when I can
see something like this coming.
We can't always see it coming,but when I can see something
this complicated coming, I haveall my clothes, you know, chosen
and packed, everything that Ineed the wild outfit for Sunday
(04:19):
night, the clothes that I needfor the next couple day
everything printed, everythingloaded on my computer and
charged up.
I have everything done.
Uber scheduled check-ins forflights in my calendar.
On top of it, right, I have mysitters lined up all the things.
But there are always elementsthat you cannot expect, and what
(04:39):
happened this time is we had abeautiful time on Sunday night
at the gala.
So much love in dancing, somuch money raised for children,
so much community built, so manyperformances.
I gave a talk.
It was lovely.
I get to get home at about 10 pm, settled myself in, did
everything I needed to do andgot in bed and did not sleep
(05:02):
that night.
There were dogs that werebarking and banging.
There were children that hadrough night sleeps.
There was a rib injury thathappened for one of my children.
There was so much.
There were visitors from out oftown that were late to our
house.
There were all kinds of thingsthat popped up that were
(05:22):
unexpected, and what ended uphappening is that I had one hour
of sleep that night, my friendsone hour.
If you've listened to my podcastbefore, you know that sleep is
super important to me.
It is my number one toppriority, above exercise or
eating well or whatever else Isleep and I sleep eight or nine
hours so to sleep for one hourwhen I had so much
(05:47):
responsibility for the speakingevents, for organization, for
all these things, really threwmy brain into the arena for
using my best tools forpracticing setting a mindset and
practicing thoughts that wouldcreate feelings in my body that
would allow me to act in a wayIf you've listened to episode 18
(06:08):
and know the model, that was itthat would allow me to act in a
way where I could honor thissuper important content that I
had created and lead these twodays of training.
It just so happened that in thefirst morning of training I was
also presenting for the veryfirst time a new feedback
framework that I have beenworking on for months.
It it compiles the best of my20 years of leading companies
(06:34):
and leading businesses andentrepreneurship, of leadership
experience and so much learningand training that I've done in
the realm of leadership with mytraining in communication,
cognitive coaching, cognitivereframing and subconscious
coaching and hypnosis.
I've created a feedbackframework that I say new.
(06:55):
It's articulated in a new way,but we've been teaching it for a
long time and I was teachingthis framework that was going to
be rolled out to hundreds ofpeople.
I really my point is, I reallyreally cared about what I was
doing on this morning and I'dbeen looking forward to it for a
long time.
I had put a lot of time andlove and effort into building
slide decks, creating content,learning my content, and was so
(07:18):
passionate about the impact thatthis really clean, strong
leadership and communication wasgoing to have on lots of kids
that need strong leadership andcommunication.
But here I was with one hour ofsleep and communication.
But here I was with one hour ofsleep, caught my flight.
I flew to Oakland.
I was there at the training ontime.
(07:39):
There were some bumps with thelogistics of the training, but I
began my training at 9 am.
Thank the Lord or, whatever youthink, thank the universe that
I was there on time.
I was like okay, here's somerelief.
The gala went well.
Here I am on time and I startto train.
I've you know this training isfor over a hundred people that
(07:59):
I've written and I'm in front ofthem with my, with my partner,
and we're training and it's it'sgoing great.
But I began to realize that mybrain is not holding on to words
and sentences like it usuallydoes?
I usually have an almostphotographic memory, in ways
Like if I've seen somethingwritten, I can kind of picture
it on a page and pull out thecontent or ideas or information
(08:23):
from it.
It is not photographic but it'sso visual that sometimes it has
elements of a photographicmemory.
That's not working.
This morning I'm looking out atpeople being like what the hell
is the next thing that I wasgoing to say In my head.
That's what's happening.
I'm looking at the slide deck.
(08:44):
I'm just rolling through thiscontent, feeling the presence
and importance of these messages, but in the system of my
physical body I'm also feelinglike am I losing them?
Is this obvious that I'm justnot on my game, you know, and my
concern is that thisinformation will not get across
successfully to these people.
(09:05):
This is really important to me.
So I'm going through mytraining content.
I know that I'm getting themessages across.
I'm just feeling not on my gameand we have a break for the
participants to do someself-reflection and I walk up to
my partner and I'm thinking inmy head she is going to say what
(09:26):
the hell is wrong with you?
She's going to say hey, we canget.
You know, we can get this back.
We can totally pull this backtogether.
And instead she says what'sgoing on, how's it going?
And I said oh, it's like.
I think it's going great, Ithink they've got it.
I'm really sorry, I'm so off mygame this morning.
She says what are you talkingabout?
And I said I feel like my, likeI'm not holding onto sentences
in my head.
She says no, you are completelyfantastic.
(09:49):
You're doing the incrediblepublic speaking that you always
do.
I said wow, okay, so you can'tsee that I don't have any sleep.
You can't see what I'm feelinginside?
And she said not in theslightest bit.
She said when you got thatperson up in front of the room
and you coached them, that wassome of the best coaching I've
ever seen live.
She said everything you'resaying is landing beautifully.
(10:11):
You are exactly as you alwaysare as a speaker.
In that moment, two thingshappened.
Number one I was so grateful tohave a person next to me in a
moment when I could use somesupport with my mindset, that I
could ask for help.
She offered me a differentthought that I was having a hard
(10:33):
time coming up with myself.
Usually, I can really do thaton an hour of sleep.
That's probably my weakestpoint.
With little sleep is my weakestmind body, everything.
I do not like having thatlittle sleep, and so I leaned on
a friend and she gave me adifferent way of thinking about
it.
And the second thing thathappened aside from the
(10:54):
gratitude for her and the waythat she answered that and the
fact that I had her next to mewas the minute she said it.
Everything changed.
I was able to completely dropthe thought that I was having a
hard time letting go of,recognize that if I accept what
she saw as reality in thismoment, I was going to be a much
more successful trainer forthem.
(11:14):
They were actually going to getthis content from the best
version of me.
Even if this is a tiniest tweakthat's not even visible to them
, to me it feels huge.
I can be filled with energy andfilled with that feeling of
motivation and inspiration andpassion for what I'm doing.
It shifted everything.
So it was such a beautifulexample, number one of the model
(11:36):
.
I let go of the thought thisisn't going well, I'm off my
game and instead replaced itwith this is going great.
This is exactly the trainingthat I was hoping.
It was Number one that shiftedeverything for me and brought me
back into the present momentand into joy and into the
passion of what I love to do.
(11:56):
Secondly, it illustrated thatsometimes we can ask a friend to
help us shift our mindset.
I'm usually the friend thatpeople are asking.
In this moment I was sograteful to have my friend next
to me to say, oh God, in my mindI'm feeling like this is not
going well, and she said, oh no,it's going great.
She just helped me do a quickthought trade.
(12:19):
That changed everything for mein my experience, an experience
that was very important to me.
So two practices that you canuse for yourself.
First, number one, practicingthought trades.
Number two, asking for supportwhen you need it.
And number three I want tointroduce the idea of joy, ease
and lightness.
(12:39):
Back in the day in my mid tolate 20s, I was leading an
organization and scaling aninnovation education
organization and I was listeningto Eckhart Tolle on my really
long drives.
Eckhart Tolle, as I said, is atheorist and an author and a
thought leader and he's amazingand I used to listen to him on
my drives to.
Really I would listen to hisbooks over and over to really
(13:02):
let the concepts sink in and Iwould pause them and think about
them and then listen to anotherchapter and pause and think
about them.
And one day, on this long drive, I listened to his chapter on
joy, ease and lightness.
And on this day I wanted toremember the concept joy, ease
and lightness, which I'll talkabout in just a moment.
So I wrote it on my hand andsomething amazing happened with
(13:27):
those three words written on myhand.
First, let me tell you aboutthe concept.
The first concept that EckhartTolle teaches is that when we
are fully present in the presentmoment, we experience life
fully and we experience itdirectly.
The life that is actuallyhappening now, which is actually
(13:50):
all that there ever is, is thispresent moment, and we
experience it directly.
And what he means by that iswe're experiencing the world and
our life this moment, withoutthe filter of the mind and its
habitual patterns that it placesour mind places in front of the
world, that filter throughwhich we perceive everything
that's happening, that filterthrough which we get that 95% of
(14:13):
our thoughts that are automatic, that are just going.
Those are our habituated waysof thinking, right?
So when we can become morepresent, when we are fully
present, our struggles dissolve,our unhappiness dissolves,
eckhart Tolle says, because inthe present moment there are no
problems.
(14:34):
The vast majority of the timewhen we can become fully present
, we are, in this moment,focused on what is happening
right now.
The majority of our struggle orour unhappiness or our problems
are created by the mind.
Now we might say, okay, yeah,being present.
I've heard this a million times.
I practice presenceno-transcript that we want yet,
(15:18):
and so we lose our awareness andour experience of the present.
So many problems are created inour focus on the future and the
past, and so many problems aresolved when we bring our focus
back to the present moment.
Two ways that we can do thatanswer the question of okay,
(15:40):
yeah, I want to be present, buthow do I do it?
The first way that EckhartTolle teaches is to shift our
focus from the outcome of whatwe want to happen, with whatever
we're doing right now, to theprocess of doing it.
Shift your focus from the whyto the how, instead of what am I
(16:05):
doing right now and why am Idoing it.
Shift my focus to how am Idoing it, paying attention to
the process of doing rather thansolely on the result we are
trying to create, and thiscultivates presence in the
moment, and it also allows us tofocus in on joy and ease, the
(16:28):
joy and ease that come from theactivity itself, whatever it is
we're actually doing.
So Eckhart Tolle says is therejoy?
This is the second practice andthe reason that I'm talking
today on the podcast.
The main content is thisquestion that he asks.
The main content is thisquestion that he asks In any
moment of your life, you can askyourself is there joy, ease or
(16:59):
lightness in what I am doing?
The ultimate goal would be joyin a moment, the joy of
existence, of presence, thenostalgia for now, the being in
the part of the process thatwe're in, instead of overly
focused on where we've been orwhere we're going, and in that
full presence we can beconnected to joy.
If joy is not accessible in amoment, maybe we can just look
(17:27):
for a little bit more ease.
Can we find ease?
If not joy?
Where is the ease in what weare doing?
If there is no ease accessible,how might we introduce a little
ease?
How might we search for or finda little ease in what we are
(17:47):
doing?
And ultimately, if joy is notaccessible and if ease is not
accessible.
Is there a way that we can justfind an edge of lightness, a
little little bit more lightnessin what we are doing, the
(18:10):
conversation we are having, thework we are doing the drive, we
are in the traffic, we are inthe shower, we are taking the
garden, we are walking throughthe public speaking event we are
in the middle of?
And he says if there is no joy,no ease and ultimately even no
lightness in what we are doing,that means that time is covering
(18:32):
up the present moment and lifeis being perceived as a burden
or a struggle.
So we can bring ourselves hometo the real experience we are
having, what is ultimately muchmore real, pull ourselves out of
the filters of our habituatedways of thinking that the mind
creates by asking ourselves thisquestion is there joy, ease or
(18:56):
lightness in what I am doing?
And in those days on that drive,on that day when I wrote joy,
ease and lightness in ink on myhand in my 20s, I was driving
down to oversee one of theeducational programs and I
stopped at a shoe store.
I had to grab some shoes thatday and I was on my way and I
(19:19):
stopped there on my way down andthe person that helped me to
try on my shoes was in themiddle of fitting my shoe and he
looked at me and he said whatdoes that say on your hand?
And I said it says joy, easeand lightness.
And he paused with so muchcuriosity and he looked up and
(19:39):
he said why?
And I said well, I've beenlistening and learning about
presence and there's a teachernamed Eckhart Tolle and I'm
learning from him and he saysthat in every moment of life we
can look for joy.
And if joy is too much to find,in that moment we can find a
(19:59):
little ease.
And if ease is too hard to find, what lightness, what little
bit of lightness can we find inthe present moment?
And his eyes filled up withtears and he took my hand in his
hands, this person that wastrying on my shoes, and he said
(20:20):
thank you so much for sayingthat to me right now.
That is what I needed to hearon this day, in this moment.
Thank you so much.
And he let go of my hand and hefinished trying on my shoe and
I bought those shoes and I left.
But it was such a fundamentallyhelpful concept that just the
(20:44):
brief description filled hiseyes with tears, touched his
heart and helped him.
And then, when I think back tothat training moment where my
friend helped me organize mythinking in a way that was much
more useful to me, andultimately, if we're looking at
the model, I was able to thinkthis training is going great, I
(21:08):
love doing this, and it filledme with joy and presence and I
was able to be the effectivetrainer that I love to be and
the public speaker that I loveto be, because I was in my body
and authentic and not distractedby potentially failing them
right.
What it did was it introducedjoy, ease and lightness all of
(21:28):
them to that moment for me.
So, as you are going through theworld, making your ideas into
real things, as you are doingdishes, as you are combing your
hair, as you are driving intraffic, as you're speaking to
the people around you peoplethat you love and people that
you don't even know as youperceive the issue in front of
you, as you read the news, asyou think about the problem that
(21:51):
you're trying to solve, whatjoy can you find in it?
And if no joy, what ease?
And if no ease, what little bitof lightness can you find in
what you are doing in thismoment, right now, which,
ultimately, is all there is.
(22:13):
That's what I've got for youtoday.
My friends and I will see theBloom Room.
(22:33):
This is a year-round membershipwhere we take all of these
concepts and we apply them toreal life in a community where
we have each other's backs andwe bring out the best in each
other.
We're all there to make ourideas real, one idea at a time.
I'll see you in the bloom room.
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