Nurturing Softness through Meditation with Cara Lai

What if the moment you stop trying to fix yourself is the moment real relief begins? That’s the surprising turn in our conversation with meditation teacher and parent Cara Lai—authorized in the Theravada lineage (IMS, Spirit Rock) and known for an approach that’s honest, funny, and deeply humane. Cara traces her path from art school and a “soul-sucking” office to early retreats that opened a brighter world, then a year-long retreat that didn’t go to plan. Living with Lyme disease, she discovered that discipline without tenderness can harden into harm, and that the path must be larger than the cushion.

We dig into collective pain, intuition, and the limits of control—how Western culture overvalues productivity while dismissing the “soft” skills that stabilize families and communities. Parenting reframes practice: interruptions became invitations, metta becomes embodied, and desire connect us with life-giving intuition. Cara shares how micro-mindfulness moments—feeling joy fully, pausing in a trigger, relaxing the urge to fix—can change a day. She offers practical on-ramps: start with 8 minutes, consider a short retreat if appropriate, and let nature, humor, and community widen your capacity.

This is a story about the middle way reimagined for modern life: less about perfect posture, more about real presence; less about control, more about trust. If you’ve ever tried to meditate your pain away, if parenting has blown up your schedule, or if softness feels “inefficient,” this conversation offers clarity, compassion, and tools you can use today.

If this resonates, follow and share the show, leave a quick review, and tell us: what will you soften around this week?

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Episode Transcript

Lisa Danylchuk (00:03):
Welcome back to the How We Can Heal podcast.
Today our guest is Cara Lai.
Cara Lai once worked as anartist, wilderness guide, social
worker, and psychotherapist,but she traded it all in for an
all-out mindfulness rampage.
She's a working mom whoseteaching is relatable,
authentic, funny, and sometimescrass, and her teachings are

(00:24):
accessible for many people.
She's authorized to teach inthe Theravada Buddhist lineage
through Insight, Meditation,Society, and Spirit Rock.
She teaches at centers acrossthe country and has been
featured on 10% Happier, PatchSleep, The Happier app, and now
here on the How We Can Healpodcast.
She lives with her husband andtoddler in northern Vermont,

(00:45):
ultimately hoping to get wokeenough to bend spoons with her
mind in front of large audiencesand to help us all get free.
Please join me in welcomingCarl Eye to the show.
Caraai, welcome to the How WeCan Heal Podcast.
I'm so excited to have you heretoday and talk about
meditation.

Cara Lai (01:06):
Yeah, thanks for having me.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:08):
We'll talk about meditation, but we'll talk
probably more about life becausethat's I think where the rubber
meets the road and a lot ofwhat you teach and talk about.
I'm curious though, how yourmeditation journey began.
How did you start sniffing inthe direction of sitting for
hours on end and studyinginsight meditation, which I
think is your focus, Vipassana?

Cara Lai (01:30):
Yeah, I had been just on the standard prescribed track
of going to college and gettinga job, mostly just for lack of
a better idea of what to do, andwas fairly unhappy after I
finished college and was I wasworking as an animator because I

(01:55):
went to an art school and wentto school for illustration.
So I was doing this animationjob after school, and it was,
you know, it sounded probablysounds cooler than most
post-college jobs to animate fora cartoon that was actually on
TV at the time.
But I was in aclimate-controlled office, and

(02:16):
it felt very soul-sucking, and Icould not foresee a future of
just like climbing that ladderto wherever it might take me
because it felt meaningless.
Which was I spent a lot of timeworking in outdoor ed, outdoor

(02:47):
education, yes, being outside,being with young people.
And I was kind of on thisquest, although I probably
wouldn't have been able to namethat at the time, to find
something that felt moremeaningful to me.
And so I met a lot of peoplewho just had lots of different

(03:08):
life experiences.
And somebody who I worked withat one of the outdoor art
centers taught me how tomeditate because he was like, I
think you would really likethis.
And I did really like it, andI'm kind of hardcore, so I went
all into it very quickly andjust started reading a lot about

(03:29):
meditation and Buddhism andstarted doing more and more of
it.
And I was really quickly havinga lot of profound experiences
that were fairly trippy, and soI knew there was something to
it, and eventually I had a very,very profound experience with
it just from I think I was onlysitting like 10 minutes a day or

(03:52):
something at the time, and thewhole world just like opened up
to me, and a lot of this anxietythat I had just kind of
disappeared all at once, and Ifelt more at ease and more happy
than I had since I couldremember.
And it didn't last, it lastedfor a few days, which was pretty

(04:18):
amazing, but it didn't lastbeyond that.
In fact, it kind of plummetedinto despair.
And then I really wanted toknow how to get it back and what
I actually did to make thathappen.
And so I went and looked formeditation retreats, and I
happened to be living just likean hour away from a pretty big

(04:44):
retreat center, and so that wasthe Insight Meditation Society
in Massachusetts, and so I wentthere and I sat a retreat, and
then a few weeks later I didanother one.
This was back when meditationretreats were not expensive,
yeah, or donation or something.
Yeah, yeah, it was reallycheap.

(05:05):
So I just kept sitting thesemeditation retreats, and because
I worked seasonally, mylifestyle was made that
possible.
And that same year I sat athree-month meditation retreat
at that same place and justdecided that this is the most
meaning that I had ever beenable to find in life, and it

(05:28):
sort of felt like all of theproblems that I had were being
addressed by meditation.
Wow.
So it was kind of like, well, Iwhat else?
What else would one do withtheir time than this?

Lisa Danylchuk (05:40):
Yeah.
Yeah, you're feeling so muchbenefit from it.
It's like a natural choice.
Yeah.
I know you've sat longer thanthree months since then, but
early in my life I did a 10-dayvipassana, and I remember just
trying to clear that time seemedso challenging because I wasn't
working seasonally.
I was like, oh, then I'll haveto get subs for my yoga class

(06:01):
and coverage for my clients.
And it seems so hard to getthat time.
And after I did the 10-day, oh,I want to do a month, and I
never, I never did.
But I do coming back from the10-day sit, and I was living in
Los Angeles at the time, andjust seeing how much information
was coming into my eyes.
And this was in this must havebeen 2003 or four, it was a

(06:24):
while ago.
And just driving to work andall the billboards, right?
I mean, it's probably even morenow with the technology.
I mean, we didn't at that pointin time have like billboards
that changed that were digital,right?
They were just fixed at least.
But I just remember all thisfelt like an assault of other
things coming in, having justbeen in this space of filtering

(06:46):
that, right?
Of not having that.
And and then the first yogaclass taught after.
I remember like, am I talkingloud?
Is this weird?
Is there an echo?
Like I wish that had beensilent for 10 days and came back
to like, this is weird.
So so I can only imagine theimpact of three months, and then

(07:07):
especially you're getting allthose benefits.
What made you want to do ayear-long retreat?

Cara Lai (07:15):
Well, it had been something that had been on my
mind for a while after I hadbeen practicing for a few years,
just from my I I had heardabout other people who had done
one.
And it, I don't know.
I just am the kind of personwho's like, I'm gonna go for a
run.
Oh, that means eventually I'mgonna go for a marathon.

Lisa Danylchuk (07:36):
Yeah, yeah.

Cara Lai (07:37):
You know, so that was just something that I had
thought about doing every time Isat a retreat.
The first I remember the firstthree-month retreat, I sat
thinking, wow, what if I justdid this three more times
afterwards?

Lisa Danylchuk (07:49):
Yeah.

Cara Lai (07:50):
And and then so it had been just on my mind, and I was
talking to a good friend ofmine, Dennis, who was also a
really serious meditator, and heasked me what my ideal retreat
length was.
And I said, Well, I really wantto sit a year, but I probably
won't be able to until because Ireally want to have kids, and

(08:11):
so I I probably should waituntil they grow up and then I
can do that.
And he had kids who were intheir teens and twenties, and
he's like, Uh, you should dothat now.
Yeah, you should not do thatafterwards because you're gonna
want to be around for theirlives, and it's just really hard
to peel yourself away, even forshorter periods of time as a

(08:36):
parent, even with adult kids,and uh, it just kind of flooded
into me, like, oh my god, yeah,you're right.
I I do need to do that now.
And then it just it all kind offell together fairly easily
after a really, really tenderconversation with my husband,
who is extremely supportive.

Lisa Danylchuk (08:58):
Wow, yeah, because that's a long time to be
apart, yeah.

Cara Lai (09:01):
And we had just gotten married too.

Lisa Danylchuk (09:04):
Wow.

Cara Lai (09:04):
Yeah, he's he's great.
He's he's an amazing person,always been really supportive of
this.

Lisa Danylchuk (09:10):
Yeah, that's awesome.

Cara Lai (09:12):
Yeah.

Lisa Danylchuk (09:12):
So how was that?
I I know it's a big question.
Uh how was that year-longretreat for you?
You know, and I know you'vedone entire interviews focused
on that.
Um what what would you sayabout it now looking back?

Cara Lai (09:26):
Well, it was the hardest thing that I've ever
done.
And not in the ways that I wasexpecting it to be hard.
I think I was just expecting itto be a longer version of all
of the other meditation retreatsI had ever sat, which you know,

(09:47):
I knew that there was a varietyof ways a meditation retreat
could go.
But what ended up happening onthe year-long retreat was
leagues different from any otherretreat that I ever
experienced.
Partly, I think, because I wasalone and I hadn't done one
alone before, yeah, and partlybecause I was feeling really

(10:10):
sick the entire time and justtotally uncomfortable and brain
fog.
So I had Lyme disease, and Ionly found out a few months
before the retreat that I hadbeen living with it for seven or
eight years.
Wow.
And so I tried to do what Icould to address it before going

(10:33):
into the retreat, but it endedup, and then I thought, you
know, well, I'll just meditateand that'll make it better.

Lisa Danylchuk (10:39):
Yeah, I'll get relief, right?
All these good things thatmeditation brings, it'll help.

Cara Lai (10:45):
Yeah, because like I had said uh meditation felt like
it was the answer to all myproblems, yeah, including health
problems.
And I had had retreats where Iwas feeling the Lyme symptoms
before they I knew they wereLyme.
And going into these reallydeep states of concentration
felt extremely healing, likevery, very nourishing and

(11:07):
transformative, and was likepushing the toxins out of my
body.
And so I figured, well, no bigdeal, Lyme disease.
It'll just get destroyed by allthe meditating we're gonna do.
Yeah.
And that just wasn't it wasn'twhat happened at all.
In fact, it felt like Icouldn't even meditate because

(11:30):
there was so much, there wasjust so much brain fog, and
there was so much discomfort inthe body, yeah, and not enough
capacity to hold it all and tosit with it.
And being alone and lookingdirectly into the pain was not
helpful at all.
What I learned was this reallyimportant lesson about expanding

(11:55):
one's notion of what it meansto be on the path, and that it's
not just about meditating andit and that you don't have to do
it by yourself, and you don'thave to push so hard to fix
yourself, which was apparentlythe mentality that I had been
holding about it withoutrealizing it.

(12:15):
Yeah, and the universe was kindof telling me, Kari, you don't
have to do this, yeah.
You don't have to, the pathdoesn't need to look like this,
you don't have to be arenunciate who lives in a cave
and doesn't have human contact.

(12:35):
Actually, that's not servingyou at all, and you would be
better served by being aroundpeople who love you and comfort
and safety, and actually notmeditating so much, and maybe
not even meditating at allsometimes, because you can't

(12:57):
anyway.

Lisa Danylchuk (12:58):
What a lesson, right?
I mean, that's probably notwhat you expected to take away
from that experience.

Cara Lai (13:05):
Not at all, but it was a really, really valuable
lesson to learn, and there's nopart of that experience that I
regret just because I learned sothat wasn't the only thing I
learned.
I learned a lot aboutcompassion, a lot about
patience, and a lot aboutlistening to myself and trusting

(13:28):
myself, and I probably wouldn'tdo it again.
Yeah, you know, like well, atleast I wouldn't do it again
that way.
Yeah, you know, if if if Istarted doing it again and it
was going like that, I wouldstop.
But I um for whatever reasonthat had to happen for me to to

(13:54):
under to really understand andbreak out of this strong
conditioning that I had to justpush and to feel like I had to
be responsible for all of mywell-being and all of my path,
and that it was me all alonehaving to walk it, which it's so

(14:15):
freeing to not have to thinkabout it that way anymore.

Lisa Danylchuk (14:20):
Yeah.
And I've heard you talk aboutfeeling like some of what you
felt, some was the Lyme disease,some was being alone, but
there's also this element oftapping into more collective
experiences, human experiences,and feeling things that might
not just be yours, but are ofthe world in the moment or of

(14:43):
the world in general.
And so it's such a contrast,right?
If you're feeling things thataren't just you, then why does
it need to just be you?
Right.
Maybe having that larger fieldof people together in a room or
outdoors or wherever it is doesyou know do something in that
way too, of holding thecollective, holding the

(15:03):
individual in a different way.

Cara Lai (15:06):
Definitely.
And that was something that wasanother important feature of my
retreat was that because itdidn't actually really feel like
my meditation teachers couldcould really relate to my
experience that well because itwas a very unique one.
I just did a ton of branchingout into other things.

(15:28):
And I was meeting regularlywith an intuitive who I had had
a long relationship with her.
Her name is Karen Benevento,she's really incredible.
And she started, I mean,actually, the whole time, even
before the retreat started, shewas telling me that this is what
the retreat was going to beabout for me, it was gonna be

(15:49):
about feeling the pain of theworld.
And it was almost like shewanted to reach through the
phone and like shake me and belike, this is not yours, this is
not about you.
You climbed down into this holethat nobody else wanted to
explore, and it's the whole holefull of everyone's baggage that

(16:10):
no one wanted to look at.
And you're you're in thereright now, and you're reporting
back to the world what you'refinding, and it's all this shame
and all this anger, and youfeeling that is a service to the
world.
Wow.
And you know, she wasn't givingme like a meditation technique,
she was just helping meunderstand it from a perspective

(16:33):
that wasn't so personal, yeah.
And that's something that feelsreally, really valuable to me
when it comes to practice is notthinking that we're just
working on ourselves.

Lisa Danylchuk (16:47):
Yeah.

Cara Lai (16:48):
Because it's so much easier to do it if you're you
can directly see therelationship between watching
your own mind and helping otherpeople.

Lisa Danylchuk (16:58):
Yeah, and I don't have them in front of me,
but I've read of studies wherepeople gather and meditate and
the crime rates go down andthings like that, and like
tapping into this larger field,it does seem like the connection
piece on both sides, whetheryou're exploring the depths of a
dark hole of shame and oryou're focused and concentrated

(17:20):
and uplifted or immersed, likeif it's a you know, whatever
experience it is on thespectrum, that having that
happen together is differentthan having it happen alone,
right?
There's again like a largerenergetic field or more nervous
systems co-regulating, orhowever you want to describe it.
There's just more energy thereto move through or experience

(17:44):
what's happening.

Cara Lai (17:45):
Yeah.
And I think we kind of as aculture hesitate to talk like
that too much because it feels alittle too magical for us.
But I love that kind of thing.
And I have a hard timeimagining that that's not true.

Lisa Danylchuk (18:00):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, we have definitely herein the states and a lot of
places in the world more of anindividualistic bend on a lot of
things, right?
It's we see the individualthings first and we want it to
be, oh, it's within my controlif I just take this step, if I
just make this action.
And collectively in the USright now, at least we're sort

(18:20):
of starting to, or in some ways,reckoning with larger
sociological connections, atleast.

Cara Lai (18:27):
I think the word control is exactly it.
It's like we don't feel thesame sense of control that we
might feel if something isapproved by science or backed by
some studies.
Yeah.
And so if it's not, then we'rekind of like giving our control

(18:48):
over to the universe.
But it's all just illusory.
Our that sense of control isn'treally real.
And if we can actuallyrelinquish it, there's there's
immediate freedom to be foundbecause there's so much more
possibility that gets opened upto us when we're not in charge

(19:09):
of everything.
And we can make mistakes, wecan try something and fail, and
uh, we can just start listeningto more different kinds of truth
and different parts of our bodythan just our brain.
There's just a lot moreinformation that can come in,
and that's where that's whereintuition lives.

Lisa Danylchuk (19:30):
Yeah.
Yeah, it sounds like you hadsuch a deep experience taking
that time on your own and divinginto the hole where the anger
and the shame live.
And then also I heard you talkabout accommodating just your
body, right?
Because you were in so muchphysical pain to maybe lie down
or walk more than sitting.

(19:51):
Yeah.
Any other changes that feltimportant that came to you or
have come to you in general,just being a meditator or living
with Limes?

Cara Lai (20:00):
Well, I do a lot less formal practice in general now,
but a lot more all the timepractice.
In fact, it feels like becauseof that retreat, I can practice
in almost any situation, andit's very readily available

(20:22):
because maybe because of thefact that I couldn't, I really
had a hard time doing sittingmeditation at all.
Yeah.
So it was like, well, I guesseverything else has to be
meditation.
Yeah.
And also because my body wasjust so in so much agony and it
was so in my face that now it'salmost like I can't not be in my

(20:47):
body anymore because it's beensomething that I've been tending
to with care so habitually forso long.
So I just feel very in my bodyin a way that makes mindfulness
way more accessible.

Lisa Danylchuk (21:02):
Yeah.
That relates, I think, toparenting.
How has your practice changedbecoming a parent?

Cara Lai (21:12):
Yeah, that totally relates to parenting.
It's like who has time topractice when they become a
parent?
Who has time to see an hourthing?

Lisa Danylchuk (21:22):
What's the thing?
I'm like, just let me finishthis thought, please.

Cara Lai (21:27):
I know.
Everything's an interrupt.
Everything gets interrupted.

Lisa Danylchuk (21:30):
Everything, everything.

Cara Lai (21:33):
And yeah, so I mean, it's just about embracing all of
that for me.
It's I think my goal when Ireally set out to on this path
was to make sure that I remainedreally flexible in in my ideas
about life and my ideas aboutthe path and my ideas about

(21:54):
myself.
And parenting is making peoplehella flexible, you know, like
the most flexible, most patientpeople in the world are parents,
not meditators.
I know a lot of meditators whoare not flexible.

Lisa Danylchuk (22:06):
Yeah.
Have to sit at this time everyday.

Cara Lai (22:09):
Yeah.
And uh we we kind of have toexpand our ideas of the path
when we're always gettinginterrupted.
And I've really come to embraceinterruption as a sign that the
the universe is just telling methat it's time to pay attention
to something different now.

(22:29):
You know, it's like, okay, Iknow you thought that that was
the thing that you were supposedto be doing, but right now it's
not.
And if you don't move withthat, then you miss you miss
your kid growing up, you know.
If you just stay like, no, Ican't, I just gotta finish, you
know, reading this news articleright now, or I just gotta

(22:52):
finish folding all the slandrybefore I can turn and my
attention to you, then you missout on a lot of beautiful
moments with your kid.
And I don't want I don't wantto miss any of that.
I don't want to have any senseof like, wow, I could have loved
you harder.

Lisa Danylchuk (23:10):
Yeah.

Cara Lai (23:12):
And and that's the other thing to me, is there's so
much love.

Lisa Danylchuk (23:18):
Oh, yeah.

Cara Lai (23:18):
And I know everyone's experience with parenting is
different and complicated andcomes with our own baggage
around our own childhood and ourown senses of insecurity, but
it's it's hard to avoid lovewhen you become a parent.
And to me, mindfulness is kindof interchangeable with love.
And so it's really a full on,full body, full contact

(23:46):
experience with love to be aparent, and all of the things
that come with falling in loveand feeling attached, and we
really get to have thataccessible all the time.
You know, there's just alwaysthis being that's there

(24:06):
beckoning you in to love overand over and over again, and
talk about metta practice, thatloving kindness practice in
Buddhism.
It's like the way that you'reoften taught to practice loving
kindness is to repeat thesephrases like, may you be safe,
may you be happy, may you be atease, and think of a being that

(24:31):
makes you five cents into thisthe feeling of kindness while
you repeat those phrases.
And that was helpful for me tosome degree, but it's almost
like there's nothing, it doesn'teven come close to the level of
open-heartedness that I'veexperienced so easily with my

(24:56):
son.

Lisa Danylchuk (24:57):
Yes.

Cara Lai (24:58):
And and then, but because I've done that other
formal version of the practice,I can intentionally make that
love bleed past the moment thatI'm with my son and into other
things.
And so there's this way inwhich that those two have merged
in a beautiful way, like, okay,this he is my excuse right now

(25:21):
to love.
It's not about him.
And so I can just take thisopen-heartedness, this love, and
keep it going past the momentthat I'm looking at him, and
just now what am I looking at?
And now where can I love?
And what else can be includedin my heart in this expansive
feeling?

Lisa Danylchuk (25:43):
Yes.
I was listening to a meditationonce.
You are enough was the message.
And within a few minutes afterI probably got interrupted doing
it.
And I look at my daughter,yeah, right.
I look at my daughter and I'mlike, what is this enough crap?
Like, enough what?
Like you are magnificent,brilliant, overflowing with

(26:05):
energy and spirit, and likeenough what?
Like it just felt like even thethe meditation that, you know,
it's a helpful meditation, it'spositive, but it once I turn my
attention, like you're saying,to this being, and you know, I
think your son's a half a yearolder or something, the
daughter, it's like that doesn'teven begin to describe what

(26:28):
you're trying to communicatehere.
It's like this this littlescribble of writing when there's
this whole alive, dynamicpresence there.
And so I so relate to that andto the the interruptions and
going with the interruptions.
I mean, you just described mymorning.
I was trying to file aninsurance claim, and I'm like, I
have to get this done.
I have to get this done.

(26:48):
I have to get this done.
It's time I have to get thisdone.
And mama, can we play dinosaurpuzzles?
Mama, like tugging my leg help,and I'm like, oh, I'm gonna get
this done.
I'm almost done.
Let me finish it.
And then I'm just like, okay,no, I'm not gonna finish it
right now.
I'm gonna do some dinosaurpuzzles.
Yeah, you know, and I'm gonnalike fully, I'm gonna fully do
dinosaur puzzles with you untilyou say again for the eighth

(27:10):
time.

Cara Lai (27:11):
And I'm like, Which, like, I think for for a lot of
us, that's why we had kids, isso that we could we could stop
doing so much insurance claimstuff and start doing more
dinosaur puzzles.
Yeah, it's like, oh, right,there's an immediate perspective
offering that that happens withthat.
It's like, oh, okay.

(27:32):
This felt really important,yeah.
But actually, in the grandscheme of things, doing dinosaur
puzzles with my daughter is waymore important.

Lisa Danylchuk (27:41):
So much more important.
And I really struggle withmaintaining those, you know,
life practices that aren't themost fun.
I don't think most people wouldsign up for insurance claims,
you know, filling out forms astheir top activity.
But then I'm like, well, Igotta do it at some point.
Like, I just want to playdinosaur puzzles all day.
That's like more fun, yeah.

Cara Lai (28:03):
And yeah, and it's like you can still do it, but it
just doesn't have to feel asheavy and because it the an
important piece of this for meis just holding the question of
what do I want to be doing rightnow?
And it's usually dinosaurpuzzles, but it's sometimes I do

(28:31):
want to do the thing that needsto be done because there is a
part of me that understands theimportance of it.
Yeah, but without the questionof what do you want to do, we're
kind of excluding this reallyimportant part of ourselves that
has our life force in it, youknow, that that really has a

(28:54):
sense of perspective that hasthat's like our our child,
because our children, that'slike kind of all they're ever
doing is what they want to bedoing.
And they're not doing stuff outof obligation, right?
And I think especially in inmeditation spaces in Buddhism,
what we want gets kind of uh youknow put into this category of

(29:17):
not great, like not preferencesaren't a great thing to have,
they kind of get in the way ofdoing of really making strong
progress on the path.
But I think that's gotten kindof conflated a little too much
with greed.
And it's it's not always greedwhen you want something, it's

(29:41):
it's often intuition, it's oftenlove.

Lisa Danylchuk (29:45):
Yes.
And I feel like that worddesire lives in the middle
there, where desire could be apositive intuitive draw, right?
Or it could be greed anddistraction and right, this
thing that's gonna take us awayfrom.
ourselves, but I love thatyou're centering our energy, our
internal knowing and ourintuition that doesn't so easily

(30:09):
fall into maybe a schedulethrough the day of like 8 a.m.
I'll do this and 10 a.m.
I'll do that.
It's more follow what you'refeeling in the moment, right?
Exactly.
Exactly.
Which also a meditationpractice can bring us much
closer to, and also isn't theway that general Western culture

(30:30):
is.
General Western culture isn'tsupportive of that.
Oh, what do you want to do now?
How about now?

Cara Lai (30:37):
Yeah, it feels too inefficient and kind of
wishy-washy, and like there'stoo much space for your emotions
to get in the way.
And we like to be really in ourheads about stuff and
caffeinated about stuff, notfeeling our way slowly through

(30:58):
life and just letting the windblow us wherever it might blow
us.
That feels too soft.

Lisa Danylchuk (31:09):
Yeah.
And soft is often used in apejorative way, right?
Soft skills.
I'm like relationship skills,those seem pretty important.
Soft skills.
I'm like everyone could usesome soft skills in this world.

Cara Lai (31:24):
Dude, and if you look at the problems in the world,
it's too much hardness.
It's all because of too muchhardness, you know, war and all
the fighting that goes onpolitically and in within our
country and between boundariesof countries.
It's all there's too muchhardness and not enough

(31:45):
softness.
And we it's not that we onlyneed softness because then
nothing would happen, but weneed a balance.

Lisa Danylchuk (31:54):
Yeah.
In yoga, the terms are um stiraand sukha.
Is there a similar concept inBuddhism that you're familiar
with?
Of the like, and some peoplewill say just in psychological
terms, like chaos and rigidity,or like these there are these
extremes we can get to wherethere's no structure or there's
too much structure.
And in yoga, it's sthira is thestructure and sukha is the

(32:19):
ease.

Cara Lai (32:20):
Yeah.
I don't know if there are well,it's yin-yang, but that's not
Buddhism.
Yeah.
But you know, when peopleinstruct meditation at early on,
it's like sit with a posturethat is both relaxed and alert.
Yes.
So that's like the immediateinvitation into balance.

(32:44):
And you could also say that thewhole concept of the middle way
from Buddhism is about thisbalance.
You know, it's you don't wantto be too hard.
The story of the Buddha is thathe started off just kind of
wallowing in pleasure when hewas young as a prince and just
had all of his needs metinstantly and experienced no

(33:04):
pain, didn't even know aboutsickness and death, and then
found out about it, and thenwent really hardcore into pain
land and was trying to beat hisway out of life by beating down
his sense of desire, deprivinghimself of pleasure.

(33:28):
So he would sleep on a bed ofnails and he starved himself,
and he would hold his breathuntil he almost died, and it
didn't work.
So that was when he discoveredthe middle way was like, Oh,
what if there's a balancebetween these two things?
Where what if there's a kind ofpleasure that's not dangerous

(33:50):
that I can actually open to?
And that was the pleasure ofmindfulness, of love, actually,
and and of caring for oneselfwith compassion from a place not
of not a place of believingthat having that pleasure was

(34:11):
going to make you happy for therest of your life, but just from
a simple place of taking careof yourself with compassion.
And so that was how the Buddhadiscovered mindfulness and the
middle way in this path.
So basically the the whole ofBuddhism is about that balance,

(34:36):
yeah.
It's about finding that sweetspot between hardness and
softness.

Lisa Danylchuk (34:40):
Yeah.
Yeah, finding the middle,finding the balance.
And you can invoke the yin andyang, you can invoke, you know,
other words or concepts, butit's essentially that same
thing.
And part of what you found onyour retreat too was like, this
is too hard.
This is I I would do itdifferently next time.
Would bring in more care for meor more supports or more people

(35:03):
or something different.
Yeah, yeah.

Cara Lai (35:07):
And I think the tricky thing about it is that because
we're so conditioned to nottrust that that kind of softness
because it feels sounstructured and unregulated,
and there aren't a lot of modelsof how to live a life that way.
We just get really scared to doit and we feel lost and

(35:29):
confused and alone.
And uh it's been it's it'svery, very important for me to
sit in those feelings because Idon't need the idea that I
should be doing more just forthe sake of doing more to be
running my life, which is what alot of us are doing.

(35:52):
You know, I just feel like Ihave to be efficient.
I don't know why.
I need to be productive and Ineed to be efficient for some
reason.
But a lot, so much of whatwe're doing because there hasn't
been the soft attunement towhat we really want and need and
what feels important to us, alot of what we're doing isn't

(36:12):
going in a direction that'struly productive.
It's just kind of business asusual.

Lisa Danylchuk (36:21):
Yeah.

Cara Lai (36:21):
But we're not, there's no no real deep transformation
taking place.

Lisa Danylchuk (36:25):
Yeah, there's not a lot of soul in that.
Like maybe there's widgetsbeing made, but there's not the
experience is dry.
Yeah.
It makes me think aboutparenting too.
And you talked about that lovethat comes from being, you know,
being with your child, and thenthe fear that comes with the

(36:47):
softness.
I mean, even in terms ofparental leave, people taking
time off of work, you know,that's that's a whole can of
worms in terms of how much timepeople get, how much time does
it take for a body to heal afterbirth, right?
What supports are there inprocess?
And I took three months offwhen after had my daughter,

(37:08):
which felt like the bareminimum, and then slowly ramp
back to work over like threemore months in the next even
year, still, right?
Like slow, slow, slow,re-engaging and tried to be
really intuitive with it, buthad to also be practical, you
know, running a business.
But there's something aboutbeing able to be in that

(37:30):
unstructured space, being ableto be in that love without the
fear coming in.
Like it's like it's notpossible, right?
It's kind of like if yin andyang are they're sitting there
side by side, like there's thatoverwhelming love, and then
there's, oh, well, if I'mstepping out of this rhythm and
really being in what's happeningnow with my very young child,

(37:55):
well, then I'm I'm not connectedto the economy and these other
things.
I feel like it's a naturalplace for people to feel a lot
of love and a lot of fear,right?
Or even just the fear of arethey okay?
Are they still breathing?
Right.
Like, okay, they rolled overwhile they're sleeping.
They're still okay.

Cara Lai (38:14):
Yeah, yeah, totally.
I mean, I feel like parentingjust brings up all of our stuff
in a way that's magnified like athousand times.
And there's something too hereabout how since most of the

(38:38):
society that we live in isn'treally doing the yin thing so
much, there's a lonelinessthere, you know, and and there
isn't really a a sense ofcommunity or even approval for
that way of being.
It's just seen as lazy.
And in some ways, also evenjust being a person who wants to

(39:09):
find deeper meaning or deeperfreedom in life is also lonely
because you're going against thegrain of what most people are
doing, and you are actuallytrying to that's the whole point
of the path is to go againstthe grain of habit to transform
everything.
So you encounter some placesthat feel pretty lonely because

(39:32):
most people aren't doing that ordon't know how to do that, and
that also harkens back to thewhole piece of you know, going
into the hole.

Lisa Danylchuk (39:44):
Yeah.

Cara Lai (39:45):
It's gonna be lonely in the hole.
But when you're doing somethingto help everybody, you have to
not be drowning in the waterlike everybody else.
You have to be on higherground, and there aren't as many
people on higher ground.

Lisa Danylchuk (40:01):
So, what would you say supports you as a
parent?
I'm assuming you're taking thismore yin slow approach to life
and work.
You left thatclimate-controlled environment a
long time ago, right?
And you're expecting anotherbaby in a few months.
So that's a whole you know,precipice of newness and growth

(40:25):
and expansion in so many ways.
What do you feel like supportsyou in having this type of life
that's softer?

Cara Lai (40:35):
Yeah.
Um good question.
Well, in some ways we've talkedabout some of it already, you
know, just having a kid who'sinterrupting any kind of
schedule that you try to make isforcing more softness in.

(40:59):
And I think kids are naturallyway more balanced than adults
are, so they're justdemonstrating softness and
inviting us into softness.
So that's that's part of whatsupports me.
Another thing is justremembering and looking

(41:22):
intentionally at the ways thatmy life is functioning without
me having to do it all.
There are so many things thathave happened in my life that
aren't because I made themhappen or planned on them
happening, but they're great.
They're this these blessingsthat I didn't create, or maybe I

(41:44):
did in like some manifesty way,but not in the the way of
opening a 401k kind of planning.

Lisa Danylchuk (41:51):
Right.
Or even making a vision board,right?
Like some sometimes there'sthat middle ground where people
are like, I'm gonna visualizethis and intend it.
And sometimes things just comeinto your life as a result of a
myriad of choices we couldn'teven count, but and of
opportunity and of somethingbeyond us.

Cara Lai (42:08):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And so just intentionallyremembering the ways that I'm
being held already and carriedthrough life, and it's not just
me orchestrating the wholething, it's so relieving and
it's so helpful.
And when I meditate, when I doformal meditation practice, that

(42:31):
it tends to be the consistentlesson is you don't have to be
in charge of this.
It's it's it's very live for meright now when I because my
body is still in a lot of pain.
And so I can't help but noticewhen I meditate that the only
real relief I get is the reliefof relinquishing control and

(42:55):
needing the pain to go away orneeding to use my meditation
powers to try to get rid of it.
It's only when that strain andstruggle is put down that
there's actual relief.
And it's not the relief of thepain going away, it's the relief
of feeling unburdened from thispressure that I was putting on

(43:16):
myself to heal it or make itmake it go away.
And then all of a sudden it'snot a problem.
Oh, I can just have thisfeeling.
That's okay, it's unpleasant,but it's way more tolerable if
my mind isn't viewing it as aproblem and my responsibility to
fix and change.

(43:37):
So formal practice really helpsme with that.
And when I say formal practice,I basically just mean when I'm
lying in bed, in bed awake inthe middle of the night, and I
can't sleep because I got wokenup by a toddler.
And so now I'm awake and I'mlying in bed and I'm feeling my
body.
Yeah.
And so it's not even like Ihave to set aside extra time to

(44:00):
do that.
It's just something thathappens naturally.
And granted, I have had a lotof hours of practice to help my
to help support my mind in beingable to get into that kind of
state in the middle of thenight.
But that's not to say thatother people can't do that too.
In fact, I think everyone coulddo that.

(44:22):
We just don't realize we can doit.

Lisa Danylchuk (44:24):
Yeah, it's a habit and it's a choice, and all
the experience builds on thehabit, makes it feel maybe more
accessible, right?
Yeah, we can all build in thatdirection.
Yeah.
Do you have a formal in quotespractice these days?
Uh, or do you feel like it'sjust, I know you use the term
parenting as the path, life asthe path?

(44:47):
Is there any formal practiceelement that feels important to
you right now?

Cara Lai (44:53):
Actually, what I just said that I do in the middle of
the night, that's it.
Yeah.
I don't know about you, but Istopped sleeping well in the
middle of the night.
So at some point, maybe thatactually was during my year-long
retreat at 2 or 3 a.m.
every morning, I would just beawake.
And it's just I've never had ahard time sleeping, and it's

(45:17):
just continued since then.
But now that's going on for me,I've discovered that it's very
common.
There's so many people, andit's that time, it's always like
2 or 3 a.m.
Yeah.
And so I'm not actually reallycomplaining about it because
that's when I practice.
Yeah.

(45:37):
You know, it's like, oh, cool.
And it almost kind of feelslike my body is like, well, you
haven't done any of this allday.
So like we need it.
We I like we're waking you upright now so that you can do
that.

Lisa Danylchuk (45:54):
Here's your time and space to yourself that you
were asking for.

Cara Lai (45:57):
Yeah.
So that's my formal practice,really, and it's not planned.
It's just, oh, I'm awake, andit doesn't happen every night,
but it actually feels like itjust kind of comes to me when I
need it.
And something that I I like tothink and that I try to teach

(46:19):
about is that your practice cancome to you when you need it,
but it's it you only reallynotice it if there's some soft
receptivity that you're alreadyundertaking because you won't be
open to the invitation ifyou're just pushing hardcore

(46:41):
into your agenda for your day.

Lisa Danylchuk (46:44):
Yeah.

Cara Lai (46:45):
Yeah.

Lisa Danylchuk (46:46):
It makes me think too of parenting and how
we approach parenting as awhole.
We can read development booksand check for what stage is
happening and get theeducational tools for every
stage, or we can just like letour kid play and see what they
do, right?
And maybe there's a both handin there somewhere, but I feel

(47:08):
like the way that Americanculture tends to approach has
that sense of pressure andcontrol in it.
And I've seen I used to workwith teens too in the outdoors
and in therapeutic programs, andyou see how that pressure
that's put on young people to bea certain way or develop in a
certain direction or make acertain choice tends to be

(47:29):
counterproductive, right?
Like, yeah, we want to haveconversations and guidance and
support as they're developingand making choices.
But when there's that sense ofcontrol or force or pressure,
you see this every force has anequal opposing force, right?
So when we come with that, wetend to have problems, right?
And and that intuitive natureof the child that's learning and

(47:54):
growing in this environment andtrying to express is like, no,
I want to go this way, I want todo that.
And a lot of that to me ends upfeeling like wasted energy.
I mean, I know a lot of thefamilies I've worked with who be
like, well, let's like get downto where we're on the same
page.
The the young person wants tobe happy and parents want them

(48:15):
to be happy.
You just have very differentpictures of how that manifests,
right?
Different strategies.
You think that's law school.
And like this this person isexploring art or something
different, you know, that maybebrings up fear and unknown.
And so it's just such aninteresting sort of meta of what
we're talking about in terms ofparenting that we can have that

(48:39):
pressure on ourselves for ourday to day.
And when we take a moment tosoften that and be with our
children, we get the benefit ofthat experience of that love and
even carrying it into otherplaces.
They get the experience of thatconnection and that love and
that attunement.
They get support.
And it's not even like mydaughter doesn't want me there
all the time.
Like she'll start singing asong, I'll sing it with her.
She goes, Mama, no.

(48:59):
Like this one's for me.
I'm like, okay, you do you.
I'll have to do everything withyou.
But I'm here.
And if you can't find thepuzzle piece, like you put the
middle piece of the dinosaur'sbelly upside down and it's
really getting to you becausethe rest of the puzzle is not
coming together, and you startto get a little bit stressed,
and you need me, I'm I'm here,and I can help flip that puzzle

(49:20):
piece around.
I can help coach you andgetting it going, right?
And so I feel like there's veryimmediate benefits to this
softness for all of us, right?
It's just a more enjoyable dayto put the insurance claim down
and do the dinosaur puzzles andget to it.
I did get it done, you know.
I got it done.
Yeah, yeah.

(49:40):
And then to also just, youknow, take that pressure off um
off our children, off ourselves,and and like let it be.
I think that's kind of thephrase that's coming to me is
like, can we just let things bea little more?
That's what I'm gathering fromfrom what you're expressing.

Cara Lai (49:59):
Yeah, yeah.
And the more that we practiceand look in our own minds about
our ideas about what is best forour kids, it's it starts to be
easier to see that those arejust our conditioned ideas about
what happiness is.
And we're very conditioned tobelieve that happiness is based

(50:21):
on our outside circumstances,and partly because that's what
we feel like we can control.
And so we try to make sure thatour kids have the proper quote
unquote outside circumstancesand that they're in control of
the things that they cancontrol, and often that's a good

(50:43):
education and good grades, andthen getting the job and having
financial security, and it's alot of what school is focused on
is ultimately getting a jobthat makes money, yeah.
And we're not really thinkingabout if that is actually

(51:06):
correlated with happiness.
And even though we all wouldprobably say that money doesn't
buy happiness, that's not howwe're behaving.
And we don't teach aboutkindness in school, we don't
teach about softness in school,we don't we've stopped funding

(51:28):
arts programs, and those arereally, really important.
Yeah, and so we're sending thismessage to our kids that
there's a particular way thatone can be happy in life, yeah,
and not leaving a lot of spacefor the kid to figure it out on
their own or explore whathappiness looks like for them.

(51:51):
And granted, this is kind oflike a privileged, it's like a
thing that one gets to do whenthey have enough security.

Lisa Danylchuk (52:02):
Yeah.

Cara Lai (52:04):
But that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it.
Yeah.
You know, what's the point ofhaving security if you're not
going to use it to find a deeperkind of freedom for yourself
and for the world?

Lisa Danylchuk (52:18):
And I think something you said earlier about
in your long retreat, trustingyourself, right?
Can we trust ourselves and canwe support our children in
learning to trust themselves tomake decisions?
Yes, wanting them to havesecurity, wanting them to have
healthcare or whatever thoselike everyday, you know, world

(52:39):
things are that are important,but also not prioritizing that
at the sacrifice of intuition orconnection to your your own
inner world or your energy,right?
It's so interesting becausewe're very individually focused
and very externally focused atthe same time, right?
It's like individual, but nottoo deep and collective, but

(53:02):
only in the outside way, right?
Like it's mental.
It's just funny.
That contrast is becoming awareto me, is right.
Interesting.
Yeah, yeah.
Right.
And so I feel like a lot ofwhat you're describing is this
space to meditate brings you incontact with a deep sense of

(53:24):
self in a way that reminds youof your own agency and power,
right, in your life.
Yeah, and probably, I mean, I'mnot a traditional Chinese
medicine practitioner.
I took a course in Italy in theyear 2000.
I never like got certified, butI'm always interested in that
level of it too, like just theqi or the energy or like the

(53:46):
what's up in here that's maybe alittle bit beyond our our
scientific comprehension andmapping in this culture or in
Western medicine, or you know,maybe we don't quite have the
full body scanner that can readall your energy lines and
predict things.
But I feel like there'ssomething about that, yeah, just

(54:06):
that that energy, I'll justcall it, uh, that's important
too.
I mean, I feel that with mydaughter, like she just has, she
has energy.
Like, yeah, she'll run aroundcircles, she'll run circles
around me, literally.
But there's also just this lifeand this curiosity and this
like it just self-evolving thingthat you know, I can introduce

(54:29):
concepts or I can play with thistoy, or I can take her to the
library or the zoo.
But ultimately, there's so muchcoming from her.
And I feel like there'ssomething in this that you're
describing of a reconnectionwith something positive
internally, also not beingafraid of other things that are
happening internally, also beingconnected to other people, and

(54:52):
then releasing the pressure,like taking off the weight.
I know some of the words youuse to describe after your
year-long was like acceptance,ease, lightness.
There was this presence withhard things that you're
describing throughout, evenmeditating now in the middle of
the night with a pregnant bodythat's not always comfortable

(55:13):
with limes, right?
Like there's a lot of factorsthere, but when you release
that, oh, I have to fix my painwith my meditation thought,
something softens.

Cara Lai (55:24):
Yeah.
And to me, it opens up so muchmore possibility that wasn't
there before.
When we move from being reallycaught in our sense of control
and our ideas about what shouldhappen or what we need to make
happen, then the possibility foranything else happening opens

(55:47):
up.
What actually is happening,what might happen if I don't
control this?
Yeah.
And it's it can feel scary, butit can also be really beautiful
and the opposite of boring.

Lisa Danylchuk (56:03):
Yeah.
So what might you say tosomeone listening who wants to
explore meditation or is justgetting started?
I know you have some resourcestoo on your website.
You lead classes.
What advice might you give themas well?

Cara Lai (56:19):
Yeah, I wouldn't not recommend doing what I did at
first, which is just sit for afew minutes a day.
I sat for eight minutes a daywhen I first started meditating.
And there's tons of there'stons of guided meditations out
there that you could use to kindof get us feel for the basic

(56:41):
instructions and the 10%happier.
Oh, it's now it's called thehappier app has has really good
basic meditation instructions.
So that's the one I wouldrecommend.
And it doesn't have to be, Iwould say set the bar low for
the amount of time that you doit.
And don't worry if it feelslike not a lot, because it

(57:02):
doesn't have to be a lot.
And I would also say, I knowthis might feel like a leap, but
I would also say that it'sprobably for not for everyone,
but for a lot of people, itmight be really interesting to
try a meditation retreat, evenif it's a short one, like a
weekend or something.

(57:23):
And part if you're a parent, Ithink it's important just to
name that it's not a vacation,like you don't have to feel
guilty about doing somethinglike that.
It's actually something it'shard.
They're hard to do.
And there's something that youdo not just for yourself, but
for everyone in your family'sbenefit.

(57:45):
And a lot of the times parentswill say, Well, I can't, I
couldn't possibly go on ameditation retreat.
But actually, you actuallyprobably could if you really
wanted to.
But what's holding you back isoften a sense of guilt.
Yeah.
Like, uh, I can't, like,they're gonna think I'm at a spa

(58:06):
and it looks bad.
And but logistically, for mostpeople, it's possible.
I even know someone who he'sgot this kid with who's in a
wheelchair with needs round theclock care, and they have very
few resources.
And he, the dad, he knows howimportant it is to go on retreat

(58:27):
and he makes it happen, eventhough it's really expensive and
it costs the family money moremoney than they sometimes can
afford, but he still makes ithappen.
And so I think a lot of us canmake something like that happen.
And again, it's not necessarilyrecommended for everybody.
If you have PTSD, for example,it might not be great to do that

(58:48):
much meditation, but you couldtalk to your therapist about it
and see if you think they mightbe a good fit.
And I think it's in terms ofreally understanding what
meditation is about, meditationretreats are very helpful.

Lisa Danylchuk (59:07):
Yeah, it makes me think too of even Spirit Rock
here in the Bay Area anddaylongs or virtual offerings,
even bringing things into thefamily.
I mean, I I know that mytwo-year-old's not gonna sit for
hours at a time, but there'sthe mindfulness books, and we
teach her to sniff the flowersand blow out the candles and
connect to her breath.
And there's there's somethingto be had for everyone in it.

Cara Lai (59:31):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, and that's I guess that'sthe last piece of it.
You know, there's a formal, theformal daily practice, then
there's the meditation retreat,extreme, but then on the other
end of it is just moments ofmindfulness all day.
And sometimes I get cued bylife into a moment of
mindfulness.
If I'm having a moment ofeither extreme joy or extreme

(59:55):
displeasure, it's usually amindfulness spell for me.
Like Something really good ishappening.
Oh my gosh, okay.
What's going on in my bodyright now?
Can I really absorb thisfeeling and feel it fully and
delight in it and enjoy it andbe here for it?
And also be here for when itleaves to stay with my body and

(01:00:16):
my breath.
And then when something reallytriggering is happening, just
pausing.
What is it that I'm not wantingto feel right now?
Can I just be with thosefeelings physically,
emotionally, and just touch intothem?
And it doesn't have to be for along time, but just briefly,
can I just hang with myselfinstead of reaching for

(01:00:39):
distraction or lashing out orwhatever it is that the trigger
is making us want to do?

Lisa Danylchuk (01:00:46):
Yeah.
And those are the moments,right, of just being with life
and having even a little bit ofspace to experience or connect
with or process something ratherthan distracting and saving it
for later or you know,responding in a way that's
harmful that then we need tohopefully repair later.

Cara Lai (01:01:08):
There's a lot of benefit just to those moments in
a yeah, those are moments thatwe can actually really transform
because of bringing mindfulattention to a moment like that.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:01:24):
So what's coming next for you?
I know there's a baby comingnext.
Are there any other things youwant to share, projects?

Cara Lai (01:01:31):
In terms of in-person stuff, there's really not much
because of the baby, the theimpending baby.
But I do teach these onlineclasses really regularly, and
you can find them on my website,which is carali.org.
And they're just drop-inclasses that anyone can come to.
They're donation-based, soanyone can attend.

(01:01:52):
And then the other thing that Ido is I have a Substack and I
regularly put out guidedmeditations on it and little
articles about mindfulness.
Sometimes ones about parenting.
There's a whole section forparents that that they can
subscribe to, and it's a sweetlittle community.

(01:02:12):
So that's carali.substack.com,I think.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:02:17):
You have meditate your face off.

Cara Lai (01:02:19):
Yes, that's the name of my online class, Meditate
Your Face Off.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:02:23):
There was a meditation I found that you had
led, and at the end your babycried in the background, and you
said, That's my baby, notyours.
And I was like, Oh, thank you.
Every time I hear a baby cry,even in a movie, you know, I'm
like, uh what's happening?

Cara Lai (01:02:40):
I know.
Yeah, it's like hearing sirens.
You're like, oh, that's they'repulling me over.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:02:46):
Right?
Exactly.
It must be me.
Oh wow, they're going fast.
It's not me.
So people can connect with youat Caraai.org and to follow your
Substack as well.
Uh last question, I'm justcurious.
What brings you, well, I alwaysask, like, what brings you hope
or what brings you joy?
But I want to ask you, whatbrings you softness these days?

Cara Lai (01:03:09):
What brings me softness?
Animals and nature.
Yeah.
And especially looking atanimals and nature with my son.
Yes.
So it's like next levelappreciation.
Yes.
And yeah, there's just thisimmediate way that looking at
nature kind of absorbs a lot ofthat stress and effort and

(01:03:35):
emotion that might be kind ofobscuring my ability to be
completely present.
And so even just looking out awindow, which I'm doing right
now, gives us this invitationinto softness.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:03:51):
Yes.
Yeah.
We took my daughter out on acar ride intending for her to
fall asleep the other day.
And we saw a pig and deer and araccoon.
And she still talks about it.
And this is actually a coupleof weeks ago, and she's like,
the pig and the deer and theraccoon.
So there's something reallyspecial about nature always for

(01:04:16):
me too.
And also just the magic ofanimals in general.
We have dogs, but animals innature when there's a sighting,
right?
I just noticed for her it likelit something up.
The pig.
We saw the pig.
We did.
We saw the pig.

Cara Lai (01:04:31):
The other thing actually that this reminds me
of, because that's we're bothsmiling so much when we're
talking about these things, ishumor.
It's such a helpful uh way toaccess softness.
And then for some reason, theexample I'm thinking of right
now is how my son started sayingthe F-word, and my husband and

(01:04:52):
I are huge jokers.
But we taught him instead ofsaying the F-word to say
Brandsilver, which is the nameof our friend who's a meditation
teacher, Matthew Brandsilver.
So instead of swearing, he justgoes, Brunsilver.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:05:10):
That's amazing.
That's amazing.

Cara Lai (01:05:13):
Yeah, I mean, if you are at all familiar with Matthew
Brandsilver, he's a perfectperson to replace a swear word
with because he's just he's justa delightful nerd.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:05:26):
That's amazing.
That's a perfect match.
It makes me think of mydaughter's favorite book right
now, which is The Stinky WonkyDonkey.
Have you read it?

Cara Lai (01:05:34):
No.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:05:34):
I almost want to send you a copy and just have
favorite juice.

Cara Lai (01:05:39):
That sounds great.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:05:40):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It has to do with loving hoobedanimals.
And then there's a littleinflection on the words and the
tone that makes it one big fartjoke.

Cara Lai (01:05:50):
Oh my god, my son would love that.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:05:54):
Yeah, seriously.
Send me your send me your bestaddress.
I'll ship you a copy.

Cara Lai (01:05:59):
Okay.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:06:00):
It'll be a happy.

Cara Lai (01:06:04):
I know.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:06:06):
Daughter laughs.
I'm like, is she laughing atparts?
Because I'm laughing at parts,or is she just get it too?

Cara Lai (01:06:10):
Yeah, or is it just universally funny?
Like, do they come out of thewomb thinking farts are funny?

Lisa Danylchuk (01:06:14):
It feels like it, right?
Could I model that?
I don't know, but she thinksthey're hilarious.
So we're going.
All right, Cara, thank you somuch for your time today.
Thank you for all the love andinsight you share with everyone
through your work.
And it's just been a pleasureto connect with you.

Cara Lai (01:06:32):
Yeah, thanks so much, Lisa, for having me.
It's been really fun.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:06:40):
Thank you so much for listening.
Now, I'd really love to hearfrom you.
What resonated with you in thisepisode and what's on your mind
and in your heart as we bringthis conversation to a close?
Email me at info at how we canheal.com or share your answers
and what's been healing for youin the comments on Instagram, or

(01:07:00):
you'll find me at How We CanHeal.
Don't forget to go tohowwecanheal.com to sign up for
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You'll also find additionaltrainings, tons of free
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If you love the show, pleaseleave us a review on Apple,
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(01:07:22):
right now.
If you're watching on YouTube,be sure to like and subscribe
and keep sharing the show thatyou love the most with all your
friends.
Visit how we can heal.comforward slash podcast to share
your thoughts and ideas for theshow.
I always, always love hearingfrom you.
Before we wrap up for today, Iwant to be super clear that this

(01:07:44):
podcast isn't offeringprescriptions.
It's not advice, nor is it anykind of mental health treatment
or diagnosis.
Your decisions are in yourhands, and I encourage you to
consult with any healthcareprofessionals you may need to
support you through your uniquepath of healing.
In addition, everyone's opinionhere is their own, and opinions

(01:08:06):
can change.
Guests share their thoughts,not that of the host or
sponsors.
I'd like to thank our gueststoday and everyone who helped
support this podcast directlyand indirectly.
Alex, thanks for taking care ofthe babe and taking the fur
babies out while I record.
Last and never least, I'd liketo give a special shout out to

(01:08:27):
my big brother Matt, who passedaway in 2002.
He wrote this music and itmakes my heart so very happy to
share it with you here.