October 6, 2025 • 53 mins
Bob Martin shares his remarkable journey from flunking out of college to becoming a mob lawyer and eventually a meditation teacher, illustrating how unexpected doors can open when we remain open to transformation.
• Born to immigrant parents who survived persecution in Eastern Europe
• Received a football scholarship but flunked out of college
• Worked as a prosecutor under Janet Reno during Miami's "cocaine cowboys" era
• Transitioned to defending the same mob figures he once prosecuted
• Discovered spirituality through a 72nd generation Taoist grandmaster
• Moved to North Carolina to start fresh and deepened his meditation practice
• Now teaches at Elon University and helps others find inner peace
Our nervous systems evolved for a much simpler environment with clear dangers, not today's chronic, ambiguous stressors
• Meditation helps create space between ourselves and our thoughts
• With just 10 minutes of practice daily for 2-3 weeks, we can begin breaking conditioning
• True happiness comes through service to others, not self-focus
• Both Eastern and Western spiritual traditions share core wisdom when we look beyond surface differences
Visit awiseandhappylife.com for free meditation resources, downloadable guides, and contact information. Email Bob directly at bob@awiseandhappylife.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (00:03):
Welcome to the Lift One Self podcast.
I'm your host, nat Nat, andtoday I'm going to bring a safe
landing.
We're going to talk aboutmindfulness, our mental states
and how we can be gentle andkind with ourselves.
Also, you know, let us knowthat it doesn't always come
naturally or in a gentle way.
(00:23):
We all have to find our way incertain aspects and when life
hits us, it's always learning.
How do we course correct?
How do we have that radicalcompassion for ourselves when we
know that we've gone into adead end or something that we
know not to have done?
Yet we're human and we're goingto make those mistakes.
So I have Bob Martin with metoday and he's going to help
(00:47):
introduce some of his techniques.
Tell us about his wildlife inthe beginning of his life, and
some of you might be like, wow,you went from that to this now.
Yet we're here to join eachother and meet you as a listener
, to bring some resources andsome practical tools so that you
can meet yourself.
(01:07):
Bob, will you be so gracious tointroduce yourself to the
listeners and myself?
Tell us a little bit aboutyourself.
Bob Martin (01:15):
I'd be more than happy to.
But first let me thank you foryour invitation to be on this
podcast.
What an honor and I'm so happyto be here.
This podcast what an honor andI'm so happy to be here.
So let me just say this that Inever dreamed in a million years
that I would have the life thatI've had.
When I flunked out of collegeand was working hot dogs on the
(01:45):
boardwalk in Queens, my biggestambition in life was to sell
enough hot dogs in the summer soI wouldn't have to work in the
winter.
And somehow, somehow I got towhere I am, and I still have to
wonder.
So yeah, I grew up in animmigrant family.
(02:06):
My folks had immigrated fromEastern Europe.
They had all of their relatives.
All of our ancestors were wipedout by one group or another, my
dad's ancestors by theBolsheviks.
Right after World War I, theyinvaded Hungary.
(02:27):
My mom was Roma, gypsy, soeverybody wiped them out, and so
they just came to theconclusion that if there is a
god, it wasn't one that wasworth worshiping, and so they
weren't anti-religious oratheist or anything like that.
(02:47):
It's just that we didn't havethat conversation in our house.
So I grew up without anybodytelling me how the universe
worked.
But that did kind of create acertain curiosity I suppose you
know about it which was fueledby a lot of reading of science
(03:08):
fiction when I was in my teenageyears.
But I was a football player andI was a big boy.
I was always a big boy.
Matter of fact, I was so bigthat my nickname as a kid was
Bootsy, because my legs were sobig they could have been boots.
As a kid was bootsy because mylegs were so big, they could
have been boots, okay, and I waskidded a lot, bullied a bunch.
(03:35):
But then in high school I foundout that my big body had a
function and that was playfootball.
So I got a football scholarshipbut I flunked out and, like I
said, wound up on the boardwalkand then one of those mysterious
doors just opened for me and I,you know, I still today I
(03:56):
wonder about the differencebetween things like are things
just coincidental?
Are things just coincidental oris there some synchronicity?
Are they synchronous?
Is there some glue that youknow ties the universe together
(04:18):
and brings you just what youneed just when you need it?
Anyway, there was a fellow whokept telling me I should be a
lawyer and he actually went outand earned enough money for me
to buy the ticket to take thelaw school aptitude test and
then he quit his job.
He said I only got the job sothat I could get you this ticket
.
And I took it and one lawschool took a chance on me and I
(04:41):
really didn't know where I wasgoing until I got there and I
landed at law school and all ofa sudden it hit me that I might
make something out of my lifeand so I did, wound up finishing
law school, got a job in 1976.
I was born in 1950.
(05:01):
My dad was born in 1898.
I was born in 1950.
My dad was born in 1898.
Just to give you a littleperspective of how long we've
been around, I worked for JanetReno, who was the DA of
Miami-Dade County during thedays if anybody's seen the movie
Scarface or the TV show MiamiVice.
(05:22):
It was those days that I wasthere, the days of the cocaine
cowboys, and it was crazy, and Ileft the DA's office and
because we had prosecuted somemob figures very vigorously,
they came to see me within twoweeks after I left the DA's
(05:43):
office, but not to threaten meto hire me.
So I went from being aprosecutor to a mob lawyer for
the next few years and I have tosay it was good for my
pocketbook but it wasn't goodfor my heart and my life was
kind of spiraling downwards.
(06:04):
And I was seeing a therapistand another one of those doors
kind of just opened up.
Turned out that my therapist wasone of the devotees and a main
student and the Miami linchpinfor a 72nd generation Taoist
(06:25):
grandmaster from the ShaolinTemple and he came to Miami
often and this was my firstintroduction to anything
spiritual.
So he was the kind of guy thatwhen you met him immediately you
know I'm sure you've met peoplelike this, nat, nat you meet
him and in a moment, in aninstant, you know this guy's got
(06:46):
something and I want what he'sgot.
And that's how it was for meand you know.
So we studied under Master Neefor six or seven years and he
taught me a whole different wayto look at life, a whole
different way to look at life,right about then is that kind of
(07:11):
internal transformation washappening, my mob clients, who I
had a very good relationshipwith.
They didn't ask me to doanything illegal or unethical,
we understood each other.
But then Johnny's son gotarrested and he demanded of me
things I wasn't willing to do,and so we decided that the best
(07:36):
solution would be if I leftMiami.
So I moved to North Carolinaand started my life over, and it
was another one of those greatdoors that opened for me,
because it was like a blankcanvas.
Nobody knew me.
It was a whole differentexistence.
You know, I went fromprosecuting and defending murder
cases to cases about killingdeers with no antlers.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (08:00):
Big change .
Bob Martin (08:01):
I know Big change.
I know and got into meditationthen because there's not too
many Taoists in North Carolinabut there are Buddhists and in
Buddhism there's a lot moremeditation.
Taoism is more moving, like TaiChi, kung Fu, things like that,
(08:21):
and this is more sitting.
So I sat, I went, and then theyapproached me and they said
we'd like you to take thetraining to be a teacher.
And they taught me About 2015,.
(08:43):
I decided I had 40 years ofserving justice.
I decided that was enough.
I retired.
And then the university hereElon, reached out and they said
we'd like you to come teach here.
So I've been teaching on thecampus ever since then.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (08:57):
So there's a lot of points.
I know people were like thecocaine cowboys to Taoism, to
meditation, to did you getthreatened or?
And now you left?
So I know there's a lot ofcuriosity that got piqued.
There's a lot of colorful inthe story.
Before we dive deep, would yoube willing to join me in a
(09:17):
mindful moment so that we canground ourselves?
Bob Martin (09:20):
Absolutely.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (09:22):
And for the listeners, as you always
hear.
So if you need to close youreyes, please don't if you're
driving or the visuals, yet allthe other prompts you're able to
do that I guide us through.
So, bob, I'll ask you to getcomfortable in your seating and,
(09:48):
if it's safe to do so, you'regoing to gently close your eyes
and you're going to beginbreathing in and out through
your nose, bringing yourawareness to watching your
breath go in and out.
You're not going to try andcontrol your breath.
You're just going to be awareof its rhythm, allowing it to
guide you into your body.
There may be some sensations orfeelings coming up, and that's
(10:12):
okay, Let them surface.
You're safe to feel.
You're safe to let go,surrender the need to control.
Let go Surrender the need tocontrol, release the need to
resist and just be, be with yourbreath, drop deeper into your
(10:34):
body.
Now, there may be some thoughtsor to-do lists that have popped
up.
That's okay.
Gently bring your awarenessback to your breath, creating
space between the awareness andthe thoughts and dropping even
deeper into the body, being inthe space of presence, of being.
(11:00):
Again, more thoughts may havecome up.
Gently, bring your awarenessback to your breath Beginning
again, creating even more spacebetween the awareness and the
thoughts and completelysurrendering into the body, into
(11:23):
presence, into being, justbeing with your breath, now
coming into your senses, intothis moment, at your own time
(11:44):
and at your own pace.
You're going to gently openyour eyes while staying with
your breath how's?
(12:06):
your heart?
You're welcome, you're welcome.
How's your heart doing?
heart's doing great yeah, Iintroduce these mindful moments
because, you know, we talk aboutmeditation and we talk about
slowing down, where I want toinvite people into it so that
they can actually do thepractice of it and not be told
(12:30):
to do it, that we can do it alltogether and, you know, start
creating change in the way thatwe interact with each other,
because this mind goes so fastat times and we forget to just
put a pause and just drop intoour body and see where we are
feel the presence.
So you mentioned a lot about,you know, being in miami in the
(12:52):
cocaine cowboy era.
You know, uh, you went from dato um prosecuting you know some
people to now defending them and, of course, that would bring a
different kind of lifestyle thana DA salary to a defendant's
salary.
So it opens up a lot of choices, a lot of places.
(13:12):
Yet you also said that it hadan impact on you.
When did the noise become soloud that you realized that you
had to choose silence?
Bob Martin (13:42):
I think that those two things were separated by
some time.
The noise became loud and Idon't believe I was even skilled
enough to even understand thatthe noise was loud, much less
think that there was something Icould do about it.
Just like you know so many, youhave a problem, you want to fix
it, and the noise of trying tofigure out how to fix it
(14:03):
sometimes just adds to the noise.
And so you know, I guess thefirst step was, you know, going
to see a therapist and evenadmitting that I didn't have all
the answers, because I mean, Iwas a lawyer and I was a pretty
top lawyer and of course I wasexpected to have all the answers
.
So why wouldn't I have all theanswers?
(14:24):
And I don't know that I was thebest therapist client, you know
, I probably argued with himmore than anything else.
(14:55):
I think that it wasn't until Imet Master Ni and I had a visual
example of what that silence isand what it looks like on a
human being that I was able toeven understand what it was, if
that makes any sense.
If that makes any sense, Iremember one time we asked
Master Nii, why do they call youMaster?
And he giggled a lot, he did.
He giggled and chuckled a lotand he giggled at us and he says
(15:17):
well, because you know, I havemastered life, and you know.
And he walked away and we ranafter him Master Nee, master Nee
, what does it mean to masterlife?
And he said when you havelearned to interfere with the
natural process of things theleast and use your energy
(15:42):
efficiently and yet have thedesired effect, you have begun
to learn to master life.
And it took us a while to unpackall of that.
But when we finally got it,that urge just to do something
(16:05):
is something that you can nottrust and you can learn patience
, you know, and let those urgespass.
You find that all of the workthat you wanted to do and all of
the effort that you might havehad to put out to try to fix it
(16:27):
really just required waitingtill the right time to take a
more effective and efficientaction and you had the same
impact and I think that openedup a whole world for me.
You know Taoism is.
You could say it's in anutshell it's about learning how
to go with the flow.
But that's a little bit morecomplicated a comment than you
(16:52):
might think.
It doesn't mean just takingyour hands off the wheel and
la-di-da-di-da.
You know, merrily we go downthe stream.
It means understanding the flowand then acting appropriately
with it.
Because you know, using thatriver metaphor, if it's a nice
quiet river, you know, yeah, youcan just float on down the
river, that's fine.
(17:12):
But what if there are rocks?
And then what if there'swhitewater?
And what if you're headingtowards a waterfall?
You can't just gola-di-da-di-da, you have to do
things.
So there are times, you know,to relax and withhold energy and
preserve it and conserve it,but there are times to expend it
and learning the difference isthe wisdom, I suppose, of the
(17:37):
teaching.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (17:38):
Yeah, because I think sometimes with
spiritual texts it can be sonuanced that people take it
literally.
And they would like it that well, something else is in control
and I don't have to do criticalthinking, I don't have to do
decision-making, I don't have tofeel life, I don't have to feel
my emotions.
I would rather just really notbe human.
(18:01):
And where it's like, well, theTaoism is letting you know, you
know there's a spiritual aspect,yet you still have to take care
of this human form, like yournervous system has one function
don't die.
Yet if you understandspiritually, your energy doesn't
ever die.
Yet to experience life in thisworld, you need this nervous
(18:23):
system to feel through thesenses and so, as you said, like
when the impulsivity comes todo something a lot of people
don't realize, it's like oh,it's just dysregulation and
there's some emotions coming upthat you don't know how to sit
and feel.
You haven't learned how toprocess some of this stuff.
You've just been in the processof doing rather than feeling.
(18:47):
Exactly rather than feeling andit's a profound way because it's
simple.
Yet if nobody's ever shown youthat process to feel, it's like
what the hell?
And it's messy, like when youstart entering into that you're
like I don't want this stuff.
It's, it's.
It can be a lot, especially ifyou don't have a proper mentor
to encourage you.
Bob Martin (19:09):
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
And I think that you know a lotof people place judgments on
their ability or inability tofeel emotions.
I mean they may judge, oh, I'mtoo emotional or I'm not
emotional enough, or I don'tfeel what I should feel, and
there's just so many judgments.
(19:30):
And I think that it's helpful.
And you know, in my classes Itry, you know, there's besides,
you know, just teachingmeditation.
You try to teach a little bitabout how human beings work and
one of the things that people Ithink is helpful for them to
understand is that this physicalbeing that we are is not
(19:54):
designed for the environmentthat we're living in.
You know, if you're acreationist, you know that.
You know God created us for Eve, for the Garden of Eden, and
then we got kicked out and thereis nothing in Scripture that
says that when God saw uswaiting in the TSA line with
(20:18):
only 20 minutes to catch ourplane and the line winds around
you know 40 laps that God said,oh, let me go down and redesign
their brain so that it fits thisenvironment.
There's nothing that says that.
And if you're an evolutionist,then we spent 1.7 million years
evolving into hunter-gatherersand there hasn't been enough
(20:43):
time to evolve out of that.
So what happens is, as you said,there's this big part of our
brain that's involved withsurvival.
You know, our right prefrontalhemisphere is there, but this
left side, which is involvedwith beauty, which is involved
with connection, which isinvolved with the sense of
(21:03):
spirituality, we are not given alot of stimulation for that.
Given a lot of stimulation forthat, and the way that, if
you're a creationist, the waythat God designed us or if
you're an evolutionist, the waythat we evolved, was that beauty
and connection and awe are thefunctions of that intuitive left
(21:27):
side and it acts as a governoron the stress side, it is what
balances and controls it.
And I think that we have aresponsibility to put beauty
into our lives, to put ourselvesin a place where we have
connection, and we need tointentionally stimulate that
(21:52):
part of our brain which is, youknow, if you don't use it, you
lose it and it for many of us,that part of the brain is
atrophying and that's just atragedy Because, you know, if
you're only using half yourbrain, then life is hard.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (22:08):
Yeah, it is, it very much is, and I you
know, as you said there's, thespaces are more and more limited
.
To see the beauty, to see theconnection, to see the
creativity and the delight oflife, we're bombarded with
(22:30):
productivity, fear mongering,the world is doom and gloom and
everything is going to rapewhere it's like.
Well, how can I be intentionalto create space?
And I know that you've said.
You know we're at a time wherewe don't need more information,
Like we are a society that isover consuming, and so you know
(22:53):
it's good to consume, but ifyou're not putting that in
practical work, it's justlooping in your mind and it's
creating all kinds of scenarios,but you have to take action
with it.
So how can people have a betterrelationship with their
thoughts?
And what is a practice orsomething that you teach to
(23:15):
break those loops, to be awareof those patterns and do a shift
?
Bob Martin (23:21):
Yeah.
So you know we have to say thatwe've lived a life of being
caught up in a fog of ruminationand projection.
You know, we're always thinkingabout things in the past and
things in the future, and thoseneural pathways, those habitual
ways of thinking have become soinured within us that I can't
(23:46):
just wave a wand and tell you tothink differently, matt.
I can't just wave a wand andtell you to think differently.
It's kind of like, you know,you spend 10 years gaining 50
pounds and you decide to go intothe gym and somebody shows you
the machines.
You can't just get it byosmosis.
You got to get on the machineand you got to use the machine.
(24:08):
You got to get on the machineand you got to use the machine.
You got to get on the treadmill, you got to lift those weights
and you got to start with thetwo pounders and then go to the
five and the 10 pounders.
And it's a practice just likeanything else.
But having said that, a lot ofpeople think that it takes a
long time and it does not.
My students start to break outof their conditioning in between
(24:34):
the second and third week ofjust practicing 10 minutes a day
.
So just 10 minutes a day over afew weeks, you know, with a
little guidance and a littleinstruction, and you begin to
break out of it.
And the answer to your questionis you have to understand
(24:55):
experientially what it means.
If I say you're not yourthoughts.
Most of us are living inside ofour thoughts.
We are our thoughts.
If I have a judgment, ifsomebody I'm walking down the
street at 12 o'clock andsomebody of a different race
(25:18):
that doesn't look like me iswalking in the other direction,
I have a flood of judgments.
You know, if I see somebody,well, so I have a flood of
judgments, but there's no accessto those judgments.
They come up and they become myreality and I am them, but the
(25:38):
fact of the matter is that I amnot them.
And so what?
The process, the practice ofmeditation, of doing exactly
what you said and what youpracticed when we started?
The important piece that I'llpick out of it was you may have
some thoughts that come up, youknow, and when that happens, you
(26:00):
know, acknowledge them and thenbring your attention back to
your breathing.
It is that simple, because ifyou just do that a few times,
you'll realize that you can letgo of your thoughts.
And once you can start to letgo of your thoughts, you realize
I am not my thoughts.
(26:21):
And in our language werecognize that.
(26:43):
You don't say, oh, I am an idea.
You say, hey, hey, nat, nat, Ihad an idea, I had an idea, I
had a thought.
So we recognize that we're notour thoughts.
Then we have access to whetherthe thought is helpful or not
helpful.
We can learn to let it go.
We can learn to reprogram ourdatabase so that the thoughts
that come up are by design.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (27:03):
Yeah.
Bob Martin (27:04):
They are by design.
We actually have the ability todesign our thinking.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (27:11):
We can.
And to bring this a little bitmore deeper, it's realizing like
people are seeing thoughts it'sactually recognizing to
disidentify with the nervoussystem.
You think you're the nervoussystem.
Mm, hmm, and so when you can putthat space in between the
(27:32):
stimulus and response and comeback into vulnerability, which
your nervous system isprotecting you from being in
that space, the oneness, theoneself.
You know, the abundance of anervous system that's processing
past information and biases andjudgments, and all that.
(27:52):
I can be in the space and allowpossibility, allow myself to
let go of the control and be inthe delight of experiencing life
.
Is there pain?
Yeah, there's no.
I think a lot of people want touse mindfulness and meditation
to have a life that is unscathedand you won't feel anymore, and
(28:13):
that can be in stoicism if youwant to, to always use your mind
and reshift it and not haveemotions.
Yet the beauty is for myself,as you saw, in the mindful
moment.
I don't call it meditationbecause there's such a wrong
definition with it it's.
(28:34):
it's bringing that taoism andit's bringing the meditation.
It's bringing mindfulness allin one and accepting the
spirituality and the humannessand integrating them, because I
think people are always choosingone or the other.
Where it's like yourspirituality needs this nervous
system to experience all thesenses.
But most people don't even knowthat space and, as you said,
(28:58):
like it only takes you about,you know, two weeks of 10
minutes of practice and thenthey start to build that space
where, oh, I'm not, thisconstruct of a body and these
thoughts and these judgments andhow I've identified and not in.
I think you know how I helpserve the clients that I have is
(29:19):
to have radical compassion,recognize your nervous system is
protecting you, even thoughsometimes it's a bothersome and
it can be very frustrating andyou don't understand why your
behavior is doing certain things.
If you come at it as protectionand understand well, why are
(29:40):
you not feeling safe?
Because in your safe modeeverything's open, you're in a
delay.
But if you feel unsafe, thosedefense mechanisms have to come
in and they're doing theirfunction.
So, allowing there to beprotection and context into it.
Bob Martin (29:59):
And what confuses us , I believe, is that, again, we
have to remember that thatentire nervous system evolved in
a very simple environment wherethe danger was represented by a
tiger or a snake.
Yeah, and you could identify it.
And there was a clear thing runor run or fight.
(30:21):
You know, yeah, and there was aclear solution.
But today's danger and you know, we call it stress, but stress
is a sugar-coated word yeah,stress really means the
sensation of danger.
That's what it really is andthat's what our body is reacting
(30:44):
to.
But today's stress is a misseddeadline, an appointment you got
to take, worrying about whatthe lab report's going to say
Did I leave the stove on?
Do I have to pick my kids up?
And you've got a hundreddifferent things.
And so, rather than this beinga tiger or a snake, it is death
by a thousand little cuts.
And it is chronic and it'sundifferentiated.
(31:08):
And so is there any wonder thatpeople say well, my mind is
always going crazy and it'salways wandering, it's always
talking and I can't quiet it.
Well, is there any wonder?
The old mechanism of scanningfor danger is now trying to scan
and identify any one of thesethousands of stressors and it
(31:31):
can't do it.
And so we get stressed over ourstress and it's just like going
down a rabbit hole.
But you know, I want to go backto something you said about the
mindful moment.
I think this helps peopleunderstand what the process of
(31:54):
meditation is.
So, nat, nat, I am sure thatyou have experienced, and I'm
sure that your audience hasexperienced, the situation where
you're telling a joke and evenas you're telling the joke,
there's another voice in yourhead that's commenting on how
the people are taking it and isworrying about whether they're
(32:15):
going to get the punchline andis thinking that maybe you're
talking too much or not talkingenough.
And there's that other littlevoice that that is a very, very
important function of the brainwhich we, it happens on its own
in everyday life.
The only difference between itand meditation is in meditation
(32:39):
we intentionally listen to theother voice we intentionally
want to hear that other voicebecause it's not our thoughts.
You know, if you want to bespiritual, when I teach in
churches, you know I call it thesoul.
When I teach, you know, insecular classrooms, you know I
call it.
You know your authentic self orthe.
(33:01):
You know some otherpsychological term.
The scientists call itmetacognition, the ability to
think about our thinking.
Metacognition, the ability tothink about our thinking.
But in meditation we actuallystart to reconnect with that
other voice because when we areconnected to that voice, we're
(33:22):
not in our thoughts.
And, if I can, there's justanother metaphor that I like to
use a lot.
So, using that metaphor of theriver, so let's say, like the
river itself is like oursensation of consciousness, okay
, and on the river there aretwigs and leaves and all kinds
(33:45):
of stuff.
Those could represent ourthoughts and for the most part
we live life like there's a login the river and we're holding
on to the log and whateverhappens to the river, whether
it's whitewater or calmness or ahurricane or a drizzle, we are
experiencing it.
What we learn in meditation,when we reconnect to that other
(34:10):
voice, is that we can, evenwhile we're on the log and even
while we're experiencing life,we can also be up on the bank of
the river watching ourselves gothrough the whitewater.
There's a calmness and there's aconsistency, but, most
(34:38):
importantly, there's a stability, and that's where that sense of
peace comes from.
It's not because I've divorcedthe ups and downs of life.
I still get that on the log.
I've divorced the ups and downsof life.
I still get that on the log.
But in this ego state, in thisplace, which we've all
experienced before, I have asense of stability.
(35:02):
I know I'm going to get throughthis, because I always have and
.
I always will, and I think thatthat's just a really helpful way
to understand why people saythat meditation is calming.
Again, like you say, it's notbecause you don't feel the pain
(35:22):
of life.
It's not because if you cutyour hand it's not going to hurt
.
It's not because if you don'tput a Band-Aid on it and some
iodine it won't get infected.
It's not because if you don'tput a Band-Aid on it and some
iodine it won't get infected.
But from that other place, yeah, you cut your hand, you don't
take care of it, it starts toswell and it takes twice as long
to heal.
But from the other place,you're looking at it
(35:49):
non-judgmentally and go oh hey,bob, you know that's a little
bit of a learning thing.
Maybe the next time you knowtime you'll put a Band-Aid on it
, but not in a critical way,just in an observational way,
exactly exactly In your book.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (35:59):
I Am the Way you had a conversation with
your wife and you blended Taoismwith Christianity and you
merged of seeing, two worldsthat were apart, but you blended
it in.
And seeing, I guess not.
I guess the language of loveand listening and staying
(36:19):
connected even when your beliefsdiverge, of all these different
ways to come to the river, iswe're all sitting at a table and
we're all eating the food indifferent ways and, rather than
sharing the experience of whatthe food feels like, everybody's
(36:41):
criticizing oh, you're eatingwith a knife and fork, you're
eating with your hands, you'reeating with chopsticks.
Rather than we're all eatingthe same food, we're just
experiencing it differently.
And how are you experiencing itand how can we learn that?
So it almost sounds similar tohow I have the visual that you
had a conversation with yourwife.
(37:01):
What sparked that and what grewin you after having that
conversation and writing thisbook?
Bob Martin (37:12):
So thank you for the question.
So I came to my wife through alife of non-religion and then
Taoism and then Buddhism and adevotion to Jesus, who I've
always seen as a great wisdomteacher.
(37:33):
I don't mean to be sacrilegiousto any of your listeners, but
when you don't grow up beingtaught that there are I don't
mean when I say superstitious, Idon't mean superstitious but
when there are creatures inanother dimension, gods and
(38:00):
angels and things, when you'renot taught to believe that at an
early age, it's a little hardto see that.
But what I noticed about Jesuseven at an early age, is that if
he was a Buddhist priest hewould not have taught anything
differently.
I mean, you know he wouldn't.
(38:24):
Just today I was talking toanother professor who had just
finished a semester at sea.
She had visited 15 countriesand she said when we got to
Kenya we were amazed at howhappy the Kenyans are and she
described that to me.
And she said we asked themabout that and what they said
(38:45):
was we teach our children at avery young age to be very
careful about what they eat.
But she didn't mean eatingliterally, she meant it
metaphorically what they allowinto.
You know what they consume interms of ideas and thoughts and
(39:06):
the like.
This is part of the way youraise a child and I mentioned to
her yeah, and the Buddha saidyou must place sentinels at the
portals to your mind.
And for that moment we justlooked at each other and we got
it.
Here in Kenya, all the way overthere in China, all the way
(39:29):
over here in the Mideast,everywhere.
They all taught the same stuffover there in China, all the way
over here in the Mideast,everywhere they all taught the
same stuff.
And my wife is a Bibleliteralist.
She believes literally in theBible as an historical document.
So her science was something Icouldn't buy into very easily
and she thought my stuff wasjust weird.
(39:50):
Something I couldn't buy intovery easily and she thought my
stuff was just weird.
But when I looked at how sheacted and how she lived her life
and she is a saint, she is, Imean, I'm in awe of her and I
really am Just how she movesinto whatever is necessary to be
(40:11):
done without any thought, youknow, of a pat on the back or
anything else.
She's just a marvelous humanbeing.
And I looked at the way shelived her life and she goes well
, I just, you know, I just thinkof what would Jesus do, and I
said, well, this guy's worthexamining.
So I started looking at that andlistening to what she said
about what she thought wasJesus's message, and it would
(40:35):
always remind me of a chapterfrom the Tao Te Ching, which is
the seminal book of Taoism.
So eventually I looked and Isaid, yeah, lao Tzu wrote it
this way and Jesus said it thisway, said it this way.
(40:56):
Now I have to tell you, movingfrom a non-God-based philosophy
to a God-based philosophy is alittle bit of a challenge, and
then trying to maintain the samekind of cadence and poetic feel
, you know, of those Chinesewritings, but it was okay.
So I started finding in theBible the same lessons that Lao
(41:16):
Tzu taught, and sure enough,they were there, and so I wrote
a couple of chapters and Ishowed it to her and she goes
wow, now I get it.
And then it became like aRosetta Stone for us.
All of a sudden my stuff wasn'tso weird and I really got her
and I think that it made a hugedifference in our relationship.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (41:38):
Wow, and so I just kept.
Bob Martin (41:40):
Yeah, I just kept writing and writing.
And another one of those doorsopened and a publisher heard
about it and I didn't have to gothrough all that terrible
publishing process and theyreached out to me and they said
we'd like to publish your bookand now it's out there.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (41:54):
Wow, what a beautiful way of teaching that
you don't have to convinceanybody.
It's better that we can bothunderstand and meet each other,
that you're not trying to, youknow, convert somebody into your
way, that you can allow them tobe where they are and they can
allow themselves to be wherethey are, and that we both
(42:16):
listen and see what thesimilarities are.
And if the world could engagein this, what a different world
we would be in.
Yet you know the, thosejudgments, those defense
mechanisms, those belief systemsand also that power when you
think you have the only way, itgives a sense of ideation and
(42:39):
people idolizing you, peoplewanting to come, so you feel a
sense of necessity in the world,whereas, okay, I have one way
and there's many ways, yet thisis the way.
But some of those religiousspaces, especially in
Christianity, that's the onlyway and that's it, and don't
tell me about anything else.
(42:59):
And it's very narrowed and andclosed and I'm like, are you
actually recognizing that yourbehavior and actions aren't
actually even following what theBible is saying?
Like, do you?
But the mind will use the Bibleto convince them that the way
that I'm doing it is served bythe Bible and it's birthed from
(43:23):
that and really showing people adifferent way of blending and
not having to make peopleconvert or change who they are
yeah, you know, um, that, justto give like an example, um Lao
(43:45):
Tzu says, uh, about leadership,that um know you must go where
you're called to go, but never,you know, with the idea that you
know it comes from your senseof importance.
Bob Martin (44:02):
And then, when your work is done, you know, finish,
step down because it's the workthat's important, not you.
And if you think of, you know,jesus' life, he went where he
was called to go and when hiswork was done he ascended and
thus his work became eternal.
And so there's just so manyareas that it maps on to it.
(44:31):
It maps on to it.
And let me, if I may, a littleaside, because I was just
thinking about you know, as youwere mentioning that and
leadership, and howcounterintuitive our sense of
(44:51):
ego is.
You know the strong it seemslike.
The stronger our sense of egois, the less happy we are.
Yeah, you know, the moreimportant it is for me to know
to be the expert, to be prettier, to be thinner, to be better.
You know, smarter, moreproductive, the less happy I am.
I mean, I don't want to getpolitical, but no matter what
(45:15):
you may think of President Trump, I certainly don't think that
he's a happy man.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (45:19):
No, I mean because of the policies.
Bob Martin (45:25):
You know, he's just always striving, always more,
every little moment.
There has to be more, morecompliments, more this, more
that, and it's so, it's sofragile, really, and um, so a
little story, if I may.
Um.
So one time I'm having dinnerwith my wife not this wife, uh,
(45:47):
another wife, uh, and uh, sheordered a fisherman's platter,
you know, and it had a lobstertail on it and it came out with
crab legs and she goes no, no,no, I want her to lobster tail.
I said lobster tail, this iscrab legs.
I don't want crab legs on alobster tail.
And I said, oh, crab lobster,you know you put butter on them.
(46:09):
They're both good, don't worryabout it.
No, no, no, I want you to tellthe waiter that I'm supposed to
get a lobster tail.
They probably don't have anylobster tails.
And I just didn't want to bother, I didn't want to be
confrontational, it was allabout what I didn't want.
And then she said look, put onyour lobster hat, put on your
(46:30):
lawyer hat, and put on yourlawyer hat, put on your lawyer
hat.
And so when she said that itwas like there was an a shift of
perception of who I was, now Iwas not about me.
It was that I was advocatingfor her, I was going to stand
for her.
So now I had no waiter, youknow, and in that little moment
I kind of realized that my wholelife of advocating for other
(46:53):
people and taking a stand reallyhad a lot to do with my
happiness.
And I think that it's just soimportant that and we get that
idea that you know it's notabout us.
It's about what we stand for.
It's, you know.
(47:13):
It's about making thatdifference, it's about being of
service.
Those are the ways, you know,to happiness.
And if you look at all of thewisdom teachers from the very
beginning, you know everybodythinks that they all came to
this earth for the purpose ofmaking you a better person,
making the world a better place.
And I say, maybe, not.
Maybe the only interest theyhad was please be happy.
(47:37):
It just so happened that theway to happiness happens to be
by being a good person.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (47:44):
Yeah, exactly Exactly, and the world
will condition you that.
That's selfish.
Yes, yes, yes, your service hasto be of gruel and sacrifice
and lack and misery and it'slike wait.
You could be a service andstill be happy.
Bob Martin (48:04):
You can have both, but that's not how the world
conditions it.
Yeah, I mean both Jesus and theBuddha and the Pope all washed
their servants' feet.
Exactly they did.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (48:14):
They did Well.
I know many listeners are likeokay, where can I find Bob?
Can you let the listeners knowwhere they can find you and the
books that you have written andany other services that you
provide to people?
Bob Martin (48:27):
Yeah, sure, just come to my website and in the
menu there is a big.
There's a place where it saysfree resources.
Come to my website and checkthat out and there I have a
couple of free downloadableeBooks about meditation.
I have a little self-assessmentquiz, but, most importantly, I
(48:50):
have over 300 downloadableself-assessment and instruction
sheets about how to do a bodyscan or how to do a breath
awareness meditation or how tochoose a career or what passion
(49:10):
is all about.
There's 300.
They're all categorized intosections and they're all free
and downloadable.
So I invite you to come andtake advantage of that.
And if you want to contact medirectly, my website's name is
awiseandhappylifecom isawiseandhappylifecom and if you
(49:34):
want to contact me directly,just send me an email at bob at
awiseandhappylifecom.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (49:37):
Great.
All that will be in the shownotes, so it will be clickable.
So, at any time while you werelistening to this podcast, if
you got any tingles, any shivers, any aha moments, that's your
nervous system, limbic system,letting you know that Bob has
something that could be ofservice to you.
So don't hesitate, reach out tohim, go on his website, send
(50:00):
him an email.
This is the first time that wehad a conversation and you see
how much ease and delight andopenness there was and how
approachable Bob is.
So please just listen to yourbody's wisdom and reach out to
him.
I want to thank you, bob, forall that you bring into the
world.
And you know doing the alchemy,taking those impurities of
(50:25):
making decisions in your lifeand having to navigate through
like, oh, this isn't really whatI want to do, and turning them
into gold, yet not keeping thatgold to yourself, that you're
sharing it with others, sharinga way that other people don't
realize that they have withinthemselves.
So I want to thank you fordoing that warrior work in the
(50:46):
light that you bring into theworld.
Bob Martin (50:48):
Thank you.
What you mentioned?
Check it out.
Tonglen T-O-N-G-L-E-N is ameditation specifically designed
to be like alchemy to breathein difficulty and breathe out
ease.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (51:05):
I do it often, especially when I'm
supercharged or there'ssomething going on.
It's like remember.
Remember the power you havewith your breath and let your
system like I say, healing forme is being able to shift your
perception and a lot of peopledon't realize that they get
stuck in just one way ofthinking and they don't realize
(51:26):
that they can see it in adifferent way.
Instead of always looking left,they don't realize you can look
right.
Yet that takes that innerexperience and warrior work to
start shifting that aspect.
I want to ask you to bereflective and to go into your
heart and to leave an intentionfor the listeners.
(51:48):
That would empower them.
Bob Martin (52:03):
The next time your mind says, oh, I have to dot dot
dot.
Just stop for a second andswitch that to I get to dot dot
dot, I have to.
No, I get to.
(52:24):
I have to go to thisappointment.
No, I get to go to thisappointment.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (52:31):
No, I get to go to this appointment, and
those are the small reframesthat we can do to change our
emotional state, our mentalstate and how we're interacting
in the world.
Again, bob, this has been adelight and I thank you for
being here and being with thelisteners and empowering each
one of them.
(52:51):
Hey, you made it all the wayhere.
I appreciate you and your time.
If you found value in thisconversation, please share it
out.
If there was somebody thatpopped into your mind, take
action and share it out withthem.
It possibly may not be themthat will benefit.
It's that they know somebodythat will benefit from listening
(53:13):
to this conversation.
So please take action and shareout the podcast.
You can find us on social mediaon Facebook, instagram and
TikTok under Lift One Self, andif you want to inquire about the
work that I do and the servicesthat I provide to people, come
over on my website, come into adiscovery call liftoneselfcom.
(53:38):
Until next time, pleaseremember to be kind and gentle
with yourself.
You matter.
Bob Martin (53:47):
And thank you, Nat Nat, for going through all of
the work to give folks like me aplatform.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (53:53):
You're welcome.
Please remember to be kind toyourself.
Welcome to the Lift One Self podcast.
I'm your host, nat Nat, andtoday I'm going to bring a safe
landing.
We're going to talk aboutmindfulness, our mental states
and how we can be gentle andkind with ourselves.
Also, you know, let us knowthat it doesn't always come
naturally or in a gentle way.
(00:23):
We all have to find our way incertain aspects and when life
hits us, it's always learning.
How do we course correct?
How do we have that radicalcompassion for ourselves when we
know that we've gone into adead end or something that we
know not to have done?
Yet we're human and we're goingto make those mistakes.
So I have Bob Martin with metoday and he's going to help
(00:47):
introduce some of his techniques.
Tell us about his wildlife inthe beginning of his life, and
some of you might be like, wow,you went from that to this now.
Yet we're here to join eachother and meet you as a listener
, to bring some resources andsome practical tools so that you
can meet yourself.
(01:07):
Bob, will you be so gracious tointroduce yourself to the
listeners and myself?
Tell us a little bit aboutyourself.
Bob Martin (01:15):
I'd be more than happy to.
But first let me thank you foryour invitation to be on this
podcast.
What an honor and I'm so happyto be here.
This podcast what an honor andI'm so happy to be here.
So let me just say this that Inever dreamed in a million years
that I would have the life thatI've had.
When I flunked out of collegeand was working hot dogs on the
(01:45):
boardwalk in Queens, my biggestambition in life was to sell
enough hot dogs in the summer soI wouldn't have to work in the
winter.
And somehow, somehow I got towhere I am, and I still have to
wonder.
So yeah, I grew up in animmigrant family.
(02:06):
My folks had immigrated fromEastern Europe.
They had all of their relatives.
All of our ancestors were wipedout by one group or another, my
dad's ancestors by theBolsheviks.
Right after World War I, theyinvaded Hungary.
(02:27):
My mom was Roma, gypsy, soeverybody wiped them out, and so
they just came to theconclusion that if there is a
god, it wasn't one that wasworth worshiping, and so they
weren't anti-religious oratheist or anything like that.
(02:47):
It's just that we didn't havethat conversation in our house.
So I grew up without anybodytelling me how the universe
worked.
But that did kind of create acertain curiosity I suppose you
know about it which was fueledby a lot of reading of science
(03:08):
fiction when I was in my teenageyears.
But I was a football player andI was a big boy.
I was always a big boy.
Matter of fact, I was so bigthat my nickname as a kid was
Bootsy, because my legs were sobig they could have been boots.
As a kid was bootsy because mylegs were so big, they could
have been boots, okay, and I waskidded a lot, bullied a bunch.
(03:35):
But then in high school I foundout that my big body had a
function and that was playfootball.
So I got a football scholarshipbut I flunked out and, like I
said, wound up on the boardwalkand then one of those mysterious
doors just opened for me and I,you know, I still today I
(03:56):
wonder about the differencebetween things like are things
just coincidental?
Are things just coincidental oris there some synchronicity?
Are they synchronous?
Is there some glue that youknow ties the universe together
(04:18):
and brings you just what youneed just when you need it?
Anyway, there was a fellow whokept telling me I should be a
lawyer and he actually went outand earned enough money for me
to buy the ticket to take thelaw school aptitude test and
then he quit his job.
He said I only got the job sothat I could get you this ticket
.
And I took it and one lawschool took a chance on me and I
(04:41):
really didn't know where I wasgoing until I got there and I
landed at law school and all ofa sudden it hit me that I might
make something out of my lifeand so I did, wound up finishing
law school, got a job in 1976.
I was born in 1950.
(05:01):
My dad was born in 1898.
I was born in 1950.
My dad was born in 1898.
Just to give you a littleperspective of how long we've
been around, I worked for JanetReno, who was the DA of
Miami-Dade County during thedays if anybody's seen the movie
Scarface or the TV show MiamiVice.
(05:22):
It was those days that I wasthere, the days of the cocaine
cowboys, and it was crazy, and Ileft the DA's office and
because we had prosecuted somemob figures very vigorously,
they came to see me within twoweeks after I left the DA's
(05:43):
office, but not to threaten meto hire me.
So I went from being aprosecutor to a mob lawyer for
the next few years and I have tosay it was good for my
pocketbook but it wasn't goodfor my heart and my life was
kind of spiraling downwards.
(06:04):
And I was seeing a therapistand another one of those doors
kind of just opened up.
Turned out that my therapist wasone of the devotees and a main
student and the Miami linchpinfor a 72nd generation Taoist
(06:25):
grandmaster from the ShaolinTemple and he came to Miami
often and this was my firstintroduction to anything
spiritual.
So he was the kind of guy thatwhen you met him immediately you
know I'm sure you've met peoplelike this, nat, nat you meet
him and in a moment, in aninstant, you know this guy's got
(06:46):
something and I want what he'sgot.
And that's how it was for meand you know.
So we studied under Master Neefor six or seven years and he
taught me a whole different wayto look at life, a whole
different way to look at life,right about then is that kind of
(07:11):
internal transformation washappening, my mob clients, who I
had a very good relationshipwith.
They didn't ask me to doanything illegal or unethical,
we understood each other.
But then Johnny's son gotarrested and he demanded of me
things I wasn't willing to do,and so we decided that the best
(07:36):
solution would be if I leftMiami.
So I moved to North Carolinaand started my life over, and it
was another one of those greatdoors that opened for me,
because it was like a blankcanvas.
Nobody knew me.
It was a whole differentexistence.
You know, I went fromprosecuting and defending murder
cases to cases about killingdeers with no antlers.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (08:00):
Big change .
Bob Martin (08:01):
I know Big change.
I know and got into meditationthen because there's not too
many Taoists in North Carolinabut there are Buddhists and in
Buddhism there's a lot moremeditation.
Taoism is more moving, like TaiChi, kung Fu, things like that,
(08:21):
and this is more sitting.
So I sat, I went, and then theyapproached me and they said
we'd like you to take thetraining to be a teacher.
And they taught me About 2015,.
(08:43):
I decided I had 40 years ofserving justice.
I decided that was enough.
I retired.
And then the university hereElon, reached out and they said
we'd like you to come teach here.
So I've been teaching on thecampus ever since then.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (08:57):
So there's a lot of points.
I know people were like thecocaine cowboys to Taoism, to
meditation, to did you getthreatened or?
And now you left?
So I know there's a lot ofcuriosity that got piqued.
There's a lot of colorful inthe story.
Before we dive deep, would yoube willing to join me in a
(09:17):
mindful moment so that we canground ourselves?
Bob Martin (09:20):
Absolutely.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (09:22):
And for the listeners, as you always
hear.
So if you need to close youreyes, please don't if you're
driving or the visuals, yet allthe other prompts you're able to
do that I guide us through.
So, bob, I'll ask you to getcomfortable in your seating and,
(09:48):
if it's safe to do so, you'regoing to gently close your eyes
and you're going to beginbreathing in and out through
your nose, bringing yourawareness to watching your
breath go in and out.
You're not going to try andcontrol your breath.
You're just going to be awareof its rhythm, allowing it to
guide you into your body.
There may be some sensations orfeelings coming up, and that's
(10:12):
okay, Let them surface.
You're safe to feel.
You're safe to let go,surrender the need to control.
Let go Surrender the need tocontrol, release the need to
resist and just be, be with yourbreath, drop deeper into your
(10:34):
body.
Now, there may be some thoughtsor to-do lists that have popped
up.
That's okay.
Gently bring your awarenessback to your breath, creating
space between the awareness andthe thoughts and dropping even
deeper into the body, being inthe space of presence, of being.
(11:00):
Again, more thoughts may havecome up.
Gently, bring your awarenessback to your breath Beginning
again, creating even more spacebetween the awareness and the
thoughts and completelysurrendering into the body, into
(11:23):
presence, into being, justbeing with your breath, now
coming into your senses, intothis moment, at your own time
(11:44):
and at your own pace.
You're going to gently openyour eyes while staying with
your breath how's?
(12:06):
your heart?
You're welcome, you're welcome.
How's your heart doing?
heart's doing great yeah, Iintroduce these mindful moments
because, you know, we talk aboutmeditation and we talk about
slowing down, where I want toinvite people into it so that
they can actually do thepractice of it and not be told
(12:30):
to do it, that we can do it alltogether and, you know, start
creating change in the way thatwe interact with each other,
because this mind goes so fastat times and we forget to just
put a pause and just drop intoour body and see where we are
feel the presence.
So you mentioned a lot about,you know, being in miami in the
(12:52):
cocaine cowboy era.
You know, uh, you went from dato um prosecuting you know some
people to now defending them and, of course, that would bring a
different kind of lifestyle thana DA salary to a defendant's
salary.
So it opens up a lot of choices, a lot of places.
(13:12):
Yet you also said that it hadan impact on you.
When did the noise become soloud that you realized that you
had to choose silence?
Bob Martin (13:42):
I think that those two things were separated by
some time.
The noise became loud and Idon't believe I was even skilled
enough to even understand thatthe noise was loud, much less
think that there was something Icould do about it.
Just like you know so many, youhave a problem, you want to fix
it, and the noise of trying tofigure out how to fix it
(14:03):
sometimes just adds to the noise.
And so you know, I guess thefirst step was, you know, going
to see a therapist and evenadmitting that I didn't have all
the answers, because I mean, Iwas a lawyer and I was a pretty
top lawyer and of course I wasexpected to have all the answers
.
So why wouldn't I have all theanswers?
(14:24):
And I don't know that I was thebest therapist client, you know
, I probably argued with himmore than anything else.
(14:55):
I think that it wasn't until Imet Master Ni and I had a visual
example of what that silence isand what it looks like on a
human being that I was able toeven understand what it was, if
that makes any sense.
If that makes any sense, Iremember one time we asked
Master Nii, why do they call youMaster?
And he giggled a lot, he did.
He giggled and chuckled a lotand he giggled at us and he says
(15:17):
well, because you know, I havemastered life, and you know.
And he walked away and we ranafter him Master Nee, master Nee
, what does it mean to masterlife?
And he said when you havelearned to interfere with the
natural process of things theleast and use your energy
(15:42):
efficiently and yet have thedesired effect, you have begun
to learn to master life.
And it took us a while to unpackall of that.
But when we finally got it,that urge just to do something
(16:05):
is something that you can nottrust and you can learn patience
, you know, and let those urgespass.
You find that all of the workthat you wanted to do and all of
the effort that you might havehad to put out to try to fix it
(16:27):
really just required waitingtill the right time to take a
more effective and efficientaction and you had the same
impact and I think that openedup a whole world for me.
You know Taoism is.
You could say it's in anutshell it's about learning how
to go with the flow.
But that's a little bit morecomplicated a comment than you
(16:52):
might think.
It doesn't mean just takingyour hands off the wheel and
la-di-da-di-da.
You know, merrily we go downthe stream.
It means understanding the flowand then acting appropriately
with it.
Because you know, using thatriver metaphor, if it's a nice
quiet river, you know, yeah, youcan just float on down the
river, that's fine.
(17:12):
But what if there are rocks?
And then what if there'swhitewater?
And what if you're headingtowards a waterfall?
You can't just gola-di-da-di-da, you have to do
things.
So there are times, you know,to relax and withhold energy and
preserve it and conserve it,but there are times to expend it
and learning the difference isthe wisdom, I suppose, of the
(17:37):
teaching.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (17:38):
Yeah, because I think sometimes with
spiritual texts it can be sonuanced that people take it
literally.
And they would like it that well, something else is in control
and I don't have to do criticalthinking, I don't have to do
decision-making, I don't have tofeel life, I don't have to feel
my emotions.
I would rather just really notbe human.
(18:01):
And where it's like, well, theTaoism is letting you know, you
know there's a spiritual aspect,yet you still have to take care
of this human form, like yournervous system has one function
don't die.
Yet if you understandspiritually, your energy doesn't
ever die.
Yet to experience life in thisworld, you need this nervous
(18:23):
system to feel through thesenses and so, as you said, like
when the impulsivity comes todo something a lot of people
don't realize, it's like oh,it's just dysregulation and
there's some emotions coming upthat you don't know how to sit
and feel.
You haven't learned how toprocess some of this stuff.
You've just been in the processof doing rather than feeling.
(18:47):
Exactly rather than feeling andit's a profound way because it's
simple.
Yet if nobody's ever shown youthat process to feel, it's like
what the hell?
And it's messy, like when youstart entering into that you're
like I don't want this stuff.
It's, it's.
It can be a lot, especially ifyou don't have a proper mentor
to encourage you.
Bob Martin (19:09):
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
And I think that you know a lotof people place judgments on
their ability or inability tofeel emotions.
I mean they may judge, oh, I'mtoo emotional or I'm not
emotional enough, or I don'tfeel what I should feel, and
there's just so many judgments.
(19:30):
And I think that it's helpful.
And you know, in my classes Itry, you know, there's besides,
you know, just teachingmeditation.
You try to teach a little bitabout how human beings work and
one of the things that people Ithink is helpful for them to
understand is that this physicalbeing that we are is not
(19:54):
designed for the environmentthat we're living in.
You know, if you're acreationist, you know that.
You know God created us for Eve, for the Garden of Eden, and
then we got kicked out and thereis nothing in Scripture that
says that when God saw uswaiting in the TSA line with
(20:18):
only 20 minutes to catch ourplane and the line winds around
you know 40 laps that God said,oh, let me go down and redesign
their brain so that it fits thisenvironment.
There's nothing that says that.
And if you're an evolutionist,then we spent 1.7 million years
evolving into hunter-gatherersand there hasn't been enough
(20:43):
time to evolve out of that.
So what happens is, as you said,there's this big part of our
brain that's involved withsurvival.
You know, our right prefrontalhemisphere is there, but this
left side, which is involvedwith beauty, which is involved
with connection, which isinvolved with the sense of
(21:03):
spirituality, we are not given alot of stimulation for that.
Given a lot of stimulation forthat, and the way that, if
you're a creationist, the waythat God designed us or if
you're an evolutionist, the waythat we evolved, was that beauty
and connection and awe are thefunctions of that intuitive left
(21:27):
side and it acts as a governoron the stress side, it is what
balances and controls it.
And I think that we have aresponsibility to put beauty
into our lives, to put ourselvesin a place where we have
connection, and we need tointentionally stimulate that
(21:52):
part of our brain which is, youknow, if you don't use it, you
lose it and it for many of us,that part of the brain is
atrophying and that's just atragedy Because, you know, if
you're only using half yourbrain, then life is hard.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (22:08):
Yeah, it is, it very much is, and I you
know, as you said there's, thespaces are more and more limited
.
To see the beauty, to see theconnection, to see the
creativity and the delight oflife, we're bombarded with
(22:30):
productivity, fear mongering,the world is doom and gloom and
everything is going to rapewhere it's like.
Well, how can I be intentionalto create space?
And I know that you've said.
You know we're at a time wherewe don't need more information,
Like we are a society that isover consuming, and so you know
(22:53):
it's good to consume, but ifyou're not putting that in
practical work, it's justlooping in your mind and it's
creating all kinds of scenarios,but you have to take action
with it.
So how can people have a betterrelationship with their
thoughts?
And what is a practice orsomething that you teach to
(23:15):
break those loops, to be awareof those patterns and do a shift
?
Bob Martin (23:21):
Yeah.
So you know we have to say thatwe've lived a life of being
caught up in a fog of ruminationand projection.
You know, we're always thinkingabout things in the past and
things in the future, and thoseneural pathways, those habitual
ways of thinking have become soinured within us that I can't
(23:46):
just wave a wand and tell you tothink differently, matt.
I can't just wave a wand andtell you to think differently.
It's kind of like, you know,you spend 10 years gaining 50
pounds and you decide to go intothe gym and somebody shows you
the machines.
You can't just get it byosmosis.
You got to get on the machineand you got to use the machine.
(24:08):
You got to get on the machineand you got to use the machine.
You got to get on the treadmill, you got to lift those weights
and you got to start with thetwo pounders and then go to the
five and the 10 pounders.
And it's a practice just likeanything else.
But having said that, a lot ofpeople think that it takes a
long time and it does not.
My students start to break outof their conditioning in between
(24:34):
the second and third week ofjust practicing 10 minutes a day
.
So just 10 minutes a day over afew weeks, you know, with a
little guidance and a littleinstruction, and you begin to
break out of it.
And the answer to your questionis you have to understand
(24:55):
experientially what it means.
If I say you're not yourthoughts.
Most of us are living inside ofour thoughts.
We are our thoughts.
If I have a judgment, ifsomebody I'm walking down the
street at 12 o'clock andsomebody of a different race
(25:18):
that doesn't look like me iswalking in the other direction,
I have a flood of judgments.
You know, if I see somebody,well, so I have a flood of
judgments, but there's no accessto those judgments.
They come up and they become myreality and I am them, but the
(25:38):
fact of the matter is that I amnot them.
And so what?
The process, the practice ofmeditation, of doing exactly
what you said and what youpracticed when we started?
The important piece that I'llpick out of it was you may have
some thoughts that come up, youknow, and when that happens, you
(26:00):
know, acknowledge them and thenbring your attention back to
your breathing.
It is that simple, because ifyou just do that a few times,
you'll realize that you can letgo of your thoughts.
And once you can start to letgo of your thoughts, you realize
I am not my thoughts.
(26:21):
And in our language werecognize that.
(26:43):
You don't say, oh, I am an idea.
You say, hey, hey, nat, nat, Ihad an idea, I had an idea, I
had a thought.
So we recognize that we're notour thoughts.
Then we have access to whetherthe thought is helpful or not
helpful.
We can learn to let it go.
We can learn to reprogram ourdatabase so that the thoughts
that come up are by design.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (27:03):
Yeah.
Bob Martin (27:04):
They are by design.
We actually have the ability todesign our thinking.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (27:11):
We can.
And to bring this a little bitmore deeper, it's realizing like
people are seeing thoughts it'sactually recognizing to
disidentify with the nervoussystem.
You think you're the nervoussystem.
Mm, hmm, and so when you can putthat space in between the
(27:32):
stimulus and response and comeback into vulnerability, which
your nervous system isprotecting you from being in
that space, the oneness, theoneself.
You know, the abundance of anervous system that's processing
past information and biases andjudgments, and all that.
(27:52):
I can be in the space and allowpossibility, allow myself to
let go of the control and be inthe delight of experiencing life
.
Is there pain?
Yeah, there's no.
I think a lot of people want touse mindfulness and meditation
to have a life that is unscathedand you won't feel anymore, and
(28:13):
that can be in stoicism if youwant to, to always use your mind
and reshift it and not haveemotions.
Yet the beauty is for myself,as you saw, in the mindful
moment.
I don't call it meditationbecause there's such a wrong
definition with it it's.
(28:34):
it's bringing that taoism andit's bringing the meditation.
It's bringing mindfulness allin one and accepting the
spirituality and the humannessand integrating them, because I
think people are always choosingone or the other.
Where it's like yourspirituality needs this nervous
system to experience all thesenses.
But most people don't even knowthat space and, as you said,
(28:58):
like it only takes you about,you know, two weeks of 10
minutes of practice and thenthey start to build that space
where, oh, I'm not, thisconstruct of a body and these
thoughts and these judgments andhow I've identified and not in.
I think you know how I helpserve the clients that I have is
(29:19):
to have radical compassion,recognize your nervous system is
protecting you, even thoughsometimes it's a bothersome and
it can be very frustrating andyou don't understand why your
behavior is doing certain things.
If you come at it as protectionand understand well, why are
(29:40):
you not feeling safe?
Because in your safe modeeverything's open, you're in a
delay.
But if you feel unsafe, thosedefense mechanisms have to come
in and they're doing theirfunction.
So, allowing there to beprotection and context into it.
Bob Martin (29:59):
And what confuses us , I believe, is that, again, we
have to remember that thatentire nervous system evolved in
a very simple environment wherethe danger was represented by a
tiger or a snake.
Yeah, and you could identify it.
And there was a clear thing runor run or fight.
(30:21):
You know, yeah, and there was aclear solution.
But today's danger and you know, we call it stress, but stress
is a sugar-coated word yeah,stress really means the
sensation of danger.
That's what it really is andthat's what our body is reacting
(30:44):
to.
But today's stress is a misseddeadline, an appointment you got
to take, worrying about whatthe lab report's going to say
Did I leave the stove on?
Do I have to pick my kids up?
And you've got a hundreddifferent things.
And so, rather than this beinga tiger or a snake, it is death
by a thousand little cuts.
And it is chronic and it'sundifferentiated.
(31:08):
And so is there any wonder thatpeople say well, my mind is
always going crazy and it'salways wandering, it's always
talking and I can't quiet it.
Well, is there any wonder?
The old mechanism of scanningfor danger is now trying to scan
and identify any one of thesethousands of stressors and it
(31:31):
can't do it.
And so we get stressed over ourstress and it's just like going
down a rabbit hole.
But you know, I want to go backto something you said about the
mindful moment.
I think this helps peopleunderstand what the process of
(31:54):
meditation is.
So, nat, nat, I am sure thatyou have experienced, and I'm
sure that your audience hasexperienced, the situation where
you're telling a joke and evenas you're telling the joke,
there's another voice in yourhead that's commenting on how
the people are taking it and isworrying about whether they're
(32:15):
going to get the punchline andis thinking that maybe you're
talking too much or not talkingenough.
And there's that other littlevoice that that is a very, very
important function of the brainwhich we, it happens on its own
in everyday life.
The only difference between itand meditation is in meditation
(32:39):
we intentionally listen to theother voice we intentionally
want to hear that other voicebecause it's not our thoughts.
You know, if you want to bespiritual, when I teach in
churches, you know I call it thesoul.
When I teach, you know, insecular classrooms, you know I
call it.
You know your authentic self orthe.
(33:01):
You know some otherpsychological term.
The scientists call itmetacognition, the ability to
think about our thinking.
Metacognition, the ability tothink about our thinking.
But in meditation we actuallystart to reconnect with that
other voice because when we areconnected to that voice, we're
(33:22):
not in our thoughts.
And, if I can, there's justanother metaphor that I like to
use a lot.
So, using that metaphor of theriver, so let's say, like the
river itself is like oursensation of consciousness, okay
, and on the river there aretwigs and leaves and all kinds
(33:45):
of stuff.
Those could represent ourthoughts and for the most part
we live life like there's a login the river and we're holding
on to the log and whateverhappens to the river, whether
it's whitewater or calmness or ahurricane or a drizzle, we are
experiencing it.
What we learn in meditation,when we reconnect to that other
(34:10):
voice, is that we can, evenwhile we're on the log and even
while we're experiencing life,we can also be up on the bank of
the river watching ourselves gothrough the whitewater.
There's a calmness and there's aconsistency, but, most
(34:38):
importantly, there's a stability, and that's where that sense of
peace comes from.
It's not because I've divorcedthe ups and downs of life.
I still get that on the log.
I've divorced the ups and downsof life.
I still get that on the log.
But in this ego state, in thisplace, which we've all
experienced before, I have asense of stability.
(35:02):
I know I'm going to get throughthis, because I always have and
.
I always will, and I think thatthat's just a really helpful way
to understand why people saythat meditation is calming.
Again, like you say, it's notbecause you don't feel the pain
(35:22):
of life.
It's not because if you cutyour hand it's not going to hurt
.
It's not because if you don'tput a Band-Aid on it and some
iodine it won't get infected.
It's not because if you don'tput a Band-Aid on it and some
iodine it won't get infected.
But from that other place, yeah, you cut your hand, you don't
take care of it, it starts toswell and it takes twice as long
to heal.
But from the other place,you're looking at it
(35:49):
non-judgmentally and go oh hey,bob, you know that's a little
bit of a learning thing.
Maybe the next time you knowtime you'll put a Band-Aid on it
, but not in a critical way,just in an observational way,
exactly exactly In your book.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (35:59):
I Am the Way you had a conversation with
your wife and you blended Taoismwith Christianity and you
merged of seeing, two worldsthat were apart, but you blended
it in.
And seeing, I guess not.
I guess the language of loveand listening and staying
(36:19):
connected even when your beliefsdiverge, of all these different
ways to come to the river, iswe're all sitting at a table and
we're all eating the food indifferent ways and, rather than
sharing the experience of whatthe food feels like, everybody's
(36:41):
criticizing oh, you're eatingwith a knife and fork, you're
eating with your hands, you'reeating with chopsticks.
Rather than we're all eatingthe same food, we're just
experiencing it differently.
And how are you experiencing itand how can we learn that?
So it almost sounds similar tohow I have the visual that you
had a conversation with yourwife.
(37:01):
What sparked that and what grewin you after having that
conversation and writing thisbook?
Bob Martin (37:12):
So thank you for the question.
So I came to my wife through alife of non-religion and then
Taoism and then Buddhism and adevotion to Jesus, who I've
always seen as a great wisdomteacher.
(37:33):
I don't mean to be sacrilegiousto any of your listeners, but
when you don't grow up beingtaught that there are I don't
mean when I say superstitious, Idon't mean superstitious but
when there are creatures inanother dimension, gods and
(38:00):
angels and things, when you'renot taught to believe that at an
early age, it's a little hardto see that.
But what I noticed about Jesuseven at an early age, is that if
he was a Buddhist priest hewould not have taught anything
differently.
I mean, you know he wouldn't.
(38:24):
Just today I was talking toanother professor who had just
finished a semester at sea.
She had visited 15 countriesand she said when we got to
Kenya we were amazed at howhappy the Kenyans are and she
described that to me.
And she said we asked themabout that and what they said
(38:45):
was we teach our children at avery young age to be very
careful about what they eat.
But she didn't mean eatingliterally, she meant it
metaphorically what they allowinto.
You know what they consume interms of ideas and thoughts and
(39:06):
the like.
This is part of the way youraise a child and I mentioned to
her yeah, and the Buddha saidyou must place sentinels at the
portals to your mind.
And for that moment we justlooked at each other and we got
it.
Here in Kenya, all the way overthere in China, all the way
(39:29):
over here in the Mideast,everywhere.
They all taught the same stuffover there in China, all the way
over here in the Mideast,everywhere they all taught the
same stuff.
And my wife is a Bibleliteralist.
She believes literally in theBible as an historical document.
So her science was something Icouldn't buy into very easily
and she thought my stuff wasjust weird.
(39:50):
Something I couldn't buy intovery easily and she thought my
stuff was just weird.
But when I looked at how sheacted and how she lived her life
and she is a saint, she is, Imean, I'm in awe of her and I
really am Just how she movesinto whatever is necessary to be
(40:11):
done without any thought, youknow, of a pat on the back or
anything else.
She's just a marvelous humanbeing.
And I looked at the way shelived her life and she goes well
, I just, you know, I just thinkof what would Jesus do, and I
said, well, this guy's worthexamining.
So I started looking at that andlistening to what she said
about what she thought wasJesus's message, and it would
(40:35):
always remind me of a chapterfrom the Tao Te Ching, which is
the seminal book of Taoism.
So eventually I looked and Isaid, yeah, lao Tzu wrote it
this way and Jesus said it thisway, said it this way.
(40:56):
Now I have to tell you, movingfrom a non-God-based philosophy
to a God-based philosophy is alittle bit of a challenge, and
then trying to maintain the samekind of cadence and poetic feel
, you know, of those Chinesewritings, but it was okay.
So I started finding in theBible the same lessons that Lao
(41:16):
Tzu taught, and sure enough,they were there, and so I wrote
a couple of chapters and Ishowed it to her and she goes
wow, now I get it.
And then it became like aRosetta Stone for us.
All of a sudden my stuff wasn'tso weird and I really got her
and I think that it made a hugedifference in our relationship.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (41:38):
Wow, and so I just kept.
Bob Martin (41:40):
Yeah, I just kept writing and writing.
And another one of those doorsopened and a publisher heard
about it and I didn't have to gothrough all that terrible
publishing process and theyreached out to me and they said
we'd like to publish your bookand now it's out there.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (41:54):
Wow, what a beautiful way of teaching that
you don't have to convinceanybody.
It's better that we can bothunderstand and meet each other,
that you're not trying to, youknow, convert somebody into your
way, that you can allow them tobe where they are and they can
allow themselves to be wherethey are, and that we both
(42:16):
listen and see what thesimilarities are.
And if the world could engagein this, what a different world
we would be in.
Yet you know the, thosejudgments, those defense
mechanisms, those belief systemsand also that power when you
think you have the only way, itgives a sense of ideation and
(42:39):
people idolizing you, peoplewanting to come, so you feel a
sense of necessity in the world,whereas, okay, I have one way
and there's many ways, yet thisis the way.
But some of those religiousspaces, especially in
Christianity, that's the onlyway and that's it, and don't
tell me about anything else.
(42:59):
And it's very narrowed and andclosed and I'm like, are you
actually recognizing that yourbehavior and actions aren't
actually even following what theBible is saying?
Like, do you?
But the mind will use the Bibleto convince them that the way
that I'm doing it is served bythe Bible and it's birthed from
(43:23):
that and really showing people adifferent way of blending and
not having to make peopleconvert or change who they are
yeah, you know, um, that, justto give like an example, um Lao
(43:45):
Tzu says, uh, about leadership,that um know you must go where
you're called to go, but never,you know, with the idea that you
know it comes from your senseof importance.
Bob Martin (44:02):
And then, when your work is done, you know, finish,
step down because it's the workthat's important, not you.
And if you think of, you know,jesus' life, he went where he
was called to go and when hiswork was done he ascended and
thus his work became eternal.
And so there's just so manyareas that it maps on to it.
(44:31):
It maps on to it.
And let me, if I may, a littleaside, because I was just
thinking about you know, as youwere mentioning that and
leadership, and howcounterintuitive our sense of
(44:51):
ego is.
You know the strong it seemslike.
The stronger our sense of egois, the less happy we are.
Yeah, you know, the moreimportant it is for me to know
to be the expert, to be prettier, to be thinner, to be better.
You know, smarter, moreproductive, the less happy I am.
I mean, I don't want to getpolitical, but no matter what
(45:15):
you may think of President Trump, I certainly don't think that
he's a happy man.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (45:19):
No, I mean because of the policies.
Bob Martin (45:25):
You know, he's just always striving, always more,
every little moment.
There has to be more, morecompliments, more this, more
that, and it's so, it's sofragile, really, and um, so a
little story, if I may.
Um.
So one time I'm having dinnerwith my wife not this wife, uh,
(45:47):
another wife, uh, and uh, sheordered a fisherman's platter,
you know, and it had a lobstertail on it and it came out with
crab legs and she goes no, no,no, I want her to lobster tail.
I said lobster tail, this iscrab legs.
I don't want crab legs on alobster tail.
And I said, oh, crab lobster,you know you put butter on them.
(46:09):
They're both good, don't worryabout it.
No, no, no, I want you to tellthe waiter that I'm supposed to
get a lobster tail.
They probably don't have anylobster tails.
And I just didn't want to bother, I didn't want to be
confrontational, it was allabout what I didn't want.
And then she said look, put onyour lobster hat, put on your
(46:30):
lawyer hat, and put on yourlawyer hat, put on your lawyer
hat.
And so when she said that itwas like there was an a shift of
perception of who I was, now Iwas not about me.
It was that I was advocatingfor her, I was going to stand
for her.
So now I had no waiter, youknow, and in that little moment
I kind of realized that my wholelife of advocating for other
(46:53):
people and taking a stand reallyhad a lot to do with my
happiness.
And I think that it's just soimportant that and we get that
idea that you know it's notabout us.
It's about what we stand for.
It's, you know.
(47:13):
It's about making thatdifference, it's about being of
service.
Those are the ways, you know,to happiness.
And if you look at all of thewisdom teachers from the very
beginning, you know everybodythinks that they all came to
this earth for the purpose ofmaking you a better person,
making the world a better place.
And I say, maybe, not.
Maybe the only interest theyhad was please be happy.
(47:37):
It just so happened that theway to happiness happens to be
by being a good person.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (47:44):
Yeah, exactly Exactly, and the world
will condition you that.
That's selfish.
Yes, yes, yes, your service hasto be of gruel and sacrifice
and lack and misery and it'slike wait.
You could be a service andstill be happy.
Bob Martin (48:04):
You can have both, but that's not how the world
conditions it.
Yeah, I mean both Jesus and theBuddha and the Pope all washed
their servants' feet.
Exactly they did.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (48:14):
They did Well.
I know many listeners are likeokay, where can I find Bob?
Can you let the listeners knowwhere they can find you and the
books that you have written andany other services that you
provide to people?
Bob Martin (48:27):
Yeah, sure, just come to my website and in the
menu there is a big.
There's a place where it saysfree resources.
Come to my website and checkthat out and there I have a
couple of free downloadableeBooks about meditation.
I have a little self-assessmentquiz, but, most importantly, I
(48:50):
have over 300 downloadableself-assessment and instruction
sheets about how to do a bodyscan or how to do a breath
awareness meditation or how tochoose a career or what passion
(49:10):
is all about.
There's 300.
They're all categorized intosections and they're all free
and downloadable.
So I invite you to come andtake advantage of that.
And if you want to contact medirectly, my website's name is
awiseandhappylifecom isawiseandhappylifecom and if you
(49:34):
want to contact me directly,just send me an email at bob at
awiseandhappylifecom.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (49:37):
Great.
All that will be in the shownotes, so it will be clickable.
So, at any time while you werelistening to this podcast, if
you got any tingles, any shivers, any aha moments, that's your
nervous system, limbic system,letting you know that Bob has
something that could be ofservice to you.
So don't hesitate, reach out tohim, go on his website, send
(50:00):
him an email.
This is the first time that wehad a conversation and you see
how much ease and delight andopenness there was and how
approachable Bob is.
So please just listen to yourbody's wisdom and reach out to
him.
I want to thank you, bob, forall that you bring into the
world.
And you know doing the alchemy,taking those impurities of
(50:25):
making decisions in your lifeand having to navigate through
like, oh, this isn't really whatI want to do, and turning them
into gold, yet not keeping thatgold to yourself, that you're
sharing it with others, sharinga way that other people don't
realize that they have withinthemselves.
So I want to thank you fordoing that warrior work in the
(50:46):
light that you bring into theworld.
Bob Martin (50:48):
Thank you.
What you mentioned?
Check it out.
Tonglen T-O-N-G-L-E-N is ameditation specifically designed
to be like alchemy to breathein difficulty and breathe out
ease.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (51:05):
I do it often, especially when I'm
supercharged or there'ssomething going on.
It's like remember.
Remember the power you havewith your breath and let your
system like I say, healing forme is being able to shift your
perception and a lot of peopledon't realize that they get
stuck in just one way ofthinking and they don't realize
(51:26):
that they can see it in adifferent way.
Instead of always looking left,they don't realize you can look
right.
Yet that takes that innerexperience and warrior work to
start shifting that aspect.
I want to ask you to bereflective and to go into your
heart and to leave an intentionfor the listeners.
(51:48):
That would empower them.
Bob Martin (52:03):
The next time your mind says, oh, I have to dot dot
dot.
Just stop for a second andswitch that to I get to dot dot
dot, I have to.
No, I get to.
(52:24):
I have to go to thisappointment.
No, I get to go to thisappointment.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (52:31):
No, I get to go to this appointment, and
those are the small reframesthat we can do to change our
emotional state, our mentalstate and how we're interacting
in the world.
Again, bob, this has been adelight and I thank you for
being here and being with thelisteners and empowering each
one of them.
(52:51):
Hey, you made it all the wayhere.
I appreciate you and your time.
If you found value in thisconversation, please share it
out.
If there was somebody thatpopped into your mind, take
action and share it out withthem.
It possibly may not be themthat will benefit.
It's that they know somebodythat will benefit from listening
(53:13):
to this conversation.
So please take action and shareout the podcast.
You can find us on social mediaon Facebook, instagram and
TikTok under Lift One Self, andif you want to inquire about the
work that I do and the servicesthat I provide to people, come
over on my website, come into adiscovery call liftoneselfcom.
(53:38):
Until next time, pleaseremember to be kind and gentle
with yourself.
You matter.
Bob Martin (53:47):
And thank you, Nat Nat, for going through all of
the work to give folks like me aplatform.
NatNat - LiftOneSelf (53:53):
You're welcome.
Please remember to be kind toyourself.
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