June 11, 2025 • 57 mins
What if the anxiety that feels like it's weighing you down could actually become your superpower? In this raw and insightful conversation, we explore the transformative potential of changing our relationship with anxiety through mindfulness and gratitude.
We begin by sharing our personal journeys with anxiety – from full-blown panic disorders that led to self-medication and agoraphobia to the constant undercurrent of stress that masqueraded as "just being overwhelmed." Through these experiences, we unpack the crucial difference between experiencing anxiety and being controlled by it. The deer that shakes off stress after escaping a predator offers a powerful metaphor for how humans can learn to process anxiety rather than becoming trapped in recursive worry.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn as we examine how reframing anxiety can actually enhance performance. Athletes who channel pre-competition nervousness into heightened awareness don't try to eliminate anxiety – they harness it. Research shows mindfulness practices can be as effective as medications like Lexapro for many people, not by eliminating anxiety but by changing our relationship with it.
Perhaps most powerfully, we explore how gratitude practices create a cognitive shift where our brains begin actively seeking positive aspects in all experiences. One practitioner shares how teaching teenage athletes a simple gratitude journaling practice led to better sleep and the elimination of nightmares in just one week. With consistent practice, we can develop appreciation not just for life's blessings but even for our challenges – seeing anxiety itself as a teacher rather than an enemy.
Whether you're experiencing occasional worry or battling a diagnosed anxiety disorder, this episode offers compassionate insight into how your perception shapes your experience. As the Buddhist teaching shared at the end reminds us: "Whether we experience what happens to us as an obstacle and enemy or as a teacher and friend depends entirely on our perception of reality."
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
all right, we're back .
Here we are.
How many times do you think wecan come back?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
as many as we need to .
Speaker 1 (00:13):
It's just like meditation I was literally gonna
say it's just like meditationright, we get, we get lost and
then we come back.
That's what they teach.
Is how many?
Times we get lost and how manytimes can you come back to?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
it.
It only matters that you comeback one more time than you get
lost, right that's all it is.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
We've just been lost for a few months now.
It was so fun because we wentfrom being in person and I was
just seeing the YouTube videoI'd posted of us sitting side by
side.
And we had gone from having ourpodcast during COVID, which we
had never met each other.
Never even met yeah, we went todoing our podcast in person,
(00:49):
which lasted a couple episodes,and then I moved to California.
Now you're a thousand milesaway.
Now I'm a thousand, I think,thousand plus miles away, yep,
and we're back on the computer.
So it's definitely that goingwith the flow.
So I know it was nice to chatwith you a little bit before we
hopped on here and just thingsthat have changed.
(01:10):
I am now a father, which is hasbeen a beautiful and wild
experience, that's for sure.
You know all about it now.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
I sure do my friend, I sure do Yep.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
So going going almost six months strong on that.
Wow, Six months as of thismonth, that'll be crazy.
Uh, yeah, absolutely.
You know it's.
It has its ups and downs a lot,but it's so beautiful I I
wouldn't trade it for the world.
I'll put it that way oh, that'sso beautiful, buddy.
Yeah, but I'm so happy for you,man.
Yeah, yeah, Thank you so much.
I appreciate that.
Uh, so many lessons to belearned on there and now we can
(01:44):
talk mindfulness for parents andother discussions that I'm sure
we'll have in the future.
However, we discussed before andI think this is a great place
to start, especially with thisyear, and it's interesting we
started this podcast duringCOVID, which there was a lot of
anxiety.
Then I was personally dealingwith a lot of anxiety myself in
(02:06):
a panic disorder that I wasdealing with, which we can go
into more.
But we're now revisiting thisand we decided this morning as
our topic of being anxiety andyou say you're doing some work
around anxiety for yourself.
I'm currently working onentering back into the mental
health space of helping otherpeople.
Anxiety is one of the things Iwant to help people with as a
(02:30):
personal, I guess, survivor ofanxiety, which I guess now I'm
more of a coper of anxiety andknow how to deal with it a
little bit better.
There you go.
Yeah, right, Exactly yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
I was going to say when you said I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
No, I was just saying , yeah, let's go into the topic
of anxiety, because I think thisyear has brought up a lot of
anxiety for people, whether it'sum, uh, around the election I
don't like to get into too muchpolitics stuff and all that.
I I hear the teachers doingthat all the time and, um, just
personally not not my thing, butanything that there is a lot of
anxiety with the economy, withpolitics, with things like that,
(03:06):
anxiety in general, people, um,and so.
So I think this is a good placeto come back together and talk
about some anxiety.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
I totally agree.
I totally agree.
Yeah, when you said that mywork about anxiety, it's like a
double double entendre, right,like, yeah, the anxiety that I'm
working on in myself and thenthe work that I'm doing for
other people, you know, and Ithink you're right, I think
there's a lot of anxiety.
It's like in the air.
You know, economy, just thestuff that you see on the TV and
(03:36):
the social media, and, like yousaid, I don't like to get too
involved with the politics, butit is a very polarizing thing
out there and it's causing a lotof anxiety on both sides.
I think it's just, you know, Ithink it's, yeah, I think it's
thick in the air right now.
So it's a good, a very positivething to sort of examine.
So happy to do that with youhere, my friend.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Absolutely Good place to start and I'll share mine.
But I'm going to ask you firstwhat is your experience with
anxiety, either personally orworking with other clients.
What do you, I guess?
What does anxiety mean to you?
What's your experience aroundit?
Give us some anxiety from art.
(04:18):
I love it, man.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Art of anxiety.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Let's put it that way .
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, the art of anxiety.
There we go.
Well, you know it's funny.
You ask that because for mywhole life, I think I was
misidentifying a lot of anxietyas stress.
You know, I always felt like Iwas just really stressed.
I always thought that I wasjust, you know, sort of like I
felt overwhelmed.
(04:42):
I felt sort of like, you knowjust like there was never enough
time.
It was always, you know, tryingto trying to catch up to
everything.
You know, and when I came torealize and it was only after I
started doing the practices thatyou and I talk about, which is,
you know, really just gettingto know myself, you know that
that I realized that it was, youknow, anxiety and stress are
very, very close to each other.
(05:04):
You know, anxiety and stressare very, very close to each
other.
But, you know, stress is morethe response to whatever we're
experiencing, whereas anxiety islike the mechanism that creates
the stress in a way, right, andso it was the you know just
that that thought thateverything was going to end
horribly, no matter what it was.
You know whether it was goingon a date that was going to.
(05:26):
You know, I was going to screwit up.
You know, even like back in theday when I was in corporate,
you know, advertising I was in asales position I used to
literally have this feeling thatI was going to get a call from
a client at any given momentthat she was going to just say
that the job's over, I can'tgive you the job.
(05:50):
You know this kind of stuffeven though there were no signs
whatsoever.
You know, there was never, ever, any sign of anything that made
this even remotely true, butyet it was something I could not
stop believing.
And I think that's really where,you know, mindfulness has
really helped.
You know, because, as you know,as most of our audience
probably knows also, that, youknow, mindfulness has a lot to
do with, you know, sort oflooking at that story that we're
believing and sort of, you know, using critical thinking to
(06:13):
pick that story apart a littlebit and see what's really there
as opposed to what we'recreating through the delusion in
our mind.
You know, and so, yeah, sothat's how Art has experienced
anxiety for his whole life,without really even realizing
that he did.
Again, I thought it was.
I always identified it asstress, which, you know, again,
the the end result is not thatdifferent.
(06:33):
You know it caused a lot ofsubstance abuse, a lot of, you
know, sleepless nights, a lot ofdifficulties in relationships
and health issues and all thatkind of stuff you know.
But yeah, it feels really goodto understand that it's.
You know that the anxiety sortof, you know, takes on the
momentum of its own, if you will.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
you know, does that make sense to you?
Absolutely, I don't know.
And I've also, as a as a uh,longtime experiencer of anxiety,
I understand it's.
It's uh, for someone who'snever maybe had panic attack or
anxiety or any of that, or I'dsay, everyone has anxiety that
that's a big totally, it's a bigbelief.
(07:13):
I had to learn a big lesson Ihad to learn when I was healing
from a severe anxiety, thiswhat's what's called a anxiety
disorder, where anxiety prettymuch takes over your life
essentially.
But we have anxiety, everybodyhas anxiety, even animals have
anxiety.
It's your fight or flightsystem.
(07:33):
It's the well, how do you sayit?
The parasympathetic nervoussystem.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
It's actually the sympathetic nervous system.
Parasympathetic is the one thatbrings us back down from it.
Down, okay, so that's rightwhen you're breathing.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
So I was actually.
I just did a therapy sessionbefore this and was learning
about um, kind of the, the fightor flight, and like the, the,
where I can't remember the.
He gave me this whole worksheeton.
It is really cool, but how youknow breathing and all that
brings you back down, which,they're all things that I've
I've learned, but it's justlearning all about this stuff
again.
But anyway, coming back ontrack, everybody has anxiety.
(08:10):
Animals have anxiety.
One of my favorite examples wasthe difference between someone
who develops an anxiety disorderor a panic disorder.
They're not able to let go ofthe anxiety or the anxiety you
attach to it, right, you,essentially you become scared of
the anxiety itself and thatanxiety perpetuates on itself
and you end up in this constantcycle of oh fuck, all the time.
(08:33):
So the the greatest example Iever saw was if you think about
a deer, a deer can get chased bya tiger and you watch it.
It runs, and then if you see itescape there's videos of it and
a deer will escape and what itdoes is it shakes.
It shakes, yeah, very violently, and I, when I used to have
severe panic attacks, I wouldshake.
(08:54):
It would almost be like I wasfreezing.
I didn't explain it.
What I learned was that this isactually the body's stress
response to shake that anxietyoff.
It actually gets the throughnow in nature.
When the deer shakes thatanxiety off, it goes about its
day.
It knows there's a tiger lurkingin the bushes again and it
(09:15):
might be a little skittish,because anytime you see a deer
they're very skittish, like thatRight Right, but they don't
stop going about their day, theykind of go back into it versus
a human.
We get attached to the pointwhere I guess a slight
background on my anxiety.
It got to a point of where Icouldn't even leave the house.
(09:35):
I I got what was called uh whyam I drawing a blank on that
agoraphobia where I couldn'thouse without having severe
panic disorder.
I was convinced I was gonna die.
Starting around the age of 15years old, I had my first panic
attack.
Well, what I realized is thefirst panic attack, but after
more lessons and learning that Ifound out I had anxiety all the
(09:55):
way back from childhood, fromdealing with an abusive
stepfather and a very intenseanxiety-driven childhood, a very
intense anxiety-drivenchildhood.
So all that anxiety, that fightor flight system that I had
lived in my entire life, finallybuilt up to a breaking point at
the age of 15 where Iexperienced a panic attack.
I was actually I'd beentripping acid for about six
(10:15):
hours, which is a precursor tohaving a little bit of anxiety.
That's a typical combinationyeah.
Yeah, exactly.
And I'm coming down from thatand all of a sudden I start
feeling my heart race and it'sbeating out of my chest and
these stuff start.
Just like I'm like almost soberat this point I think I'd smoke
some weed like coming down, butthen, like all of a sudden, I
(10:36):
just I felt this rush ofadrenaline.
I felt like something was wrong, like like I'm like, oh gosh,
I'm about to die, like somethinglike full-blown body took over
everything, and all I couldpicture was that scene from pulp
fiction where, uh, they stickthe adrenaline needle chest and
he comes back to life and I'mlike that is what I pictured.
I was like that's what's gonnahappen.
(10:57):
Um, oh, they stick it in her.
It's her chest, I think.
But that's what I pictured.
I was like I'm gonna die andthey're gonna have to stick this
adrenaline needle in my chestand I was like that was what was
playing in my head.
Yeah, anyway, that fucked me up.
Good, I, I, um, you know, Istarted smoking weed at a very
early age and 15 for whatever.
(11:17):
I old I think we got 14 or 15years old at this point tripping
acid like I had a crazy childyeah, yeah, we will meet both my
friends yeah, right, thatsparked the anxiety attack and
then led to which I guess is apositive thing I wasn't able to
smoke weed anymore.
It would trigger flashbacks, itwould trigger anxiety.
Um, slowly, that anxiety justkept building.
I was convinced that I wasgoing to have this, a heart
(11:39):
attack, like it's just all thetime.
Like I, I couldn't go to school.
I'd wake wake up in the morning.
First thing I thought was I'mgoing to die of a heart attack.
What I'm in bed.
I'm 16, 17 years old and thiskeeps going.
My way of coping with thatbecame drugs and alcohol.
Well, I couldn't weed, but Ifound taking Molly and ecstasy
would make me feel really good,even though the come down to be
(11:59):
really hard.
But I was on top of the world.
And then I started drinking andI drank every single day.
I was a full blown alcoholic bythe age of 17.
I had to actually have a MRI onmy liver.
Because or not an MRI?
An ultrasound on my liver?
Because I had been drinking somuch and I it was wild.
(12:20):
Eventually I slowed down alittle bit, went through a week
of withdrawals, but thendrinking still carried on as I
still had anxiety.
It just was.
I would try to use it to cope.
Um, that carried all the wayinto adult childhood until 25
plus years old.
Uh, covid happened, and thatwas when we started this podcast
(12:40):
.
I had had it.
You know, I'd picked up ameditation practice to try to
cope with this stuff and itnever really worked as it would
help me come down, but I didn'tstick to it hard enough.
Alcohol and drugs theenticement of that was always.
It always gave me a quick fix.
It didn't give me meditation.
And this deeper work is not aquick fix.
It's.
It's a work that we have topractice for life.
Right, it's called a practice.
That's here we are coming backtogether right now.
(13:02):
Right, it's, it's the practice.
Um, but, covid, when everythingshut down and you talk about
the anxiety of the pressures andall that, as someone who you
know, even through all this wasan overage, like I really wanted
to have my own business and besuccessful and all these things
and current things that I'mworking on actually in therapy
of of reasons why I try to dothis stuff and negative
(13:23):
self-beliefs, it's veryinteresting Coming into that.
I was able to come out of theanxiety and I did that by
stepping through the fire iswhat I call it.
I actually was able to confrontthe anxiety, say you know what
this anxiety might kill me, andI'm going to step towards that
Instead of going oh no, thisanxiety might kill me and run
(13:44):
away.
So the grocery stores were atrigger for me.
So instead of saying well, I'mnot going to the grocery store
anymore, I'd have to go to thefucking grocery store through
that panic attack and I wouldfeel it.
I'd feel a chest tight and I'dfeel everything.
I'd feel one.
I'd want to call the hospitalLike I couldn't be.
I hated being a certaindistance away from a hospital so
I wouldn't go on trips.
I had to know where thehospital was.
(14:04):
I needed to know that, and it'svery common for people who
experience it.
Yeah, absolutely.
But anyway, long story short,god bless, everything that I put
a lot of work in was able tolet go a bit.
I still experience anxiety.
I still get panic attacks, evenevery once in a while.
However, it doesn't perpetuate.
It doesn't perpetuate, itdoesn't last for days.
(14:28):
Now, right, right, it's down.
So I know that was a big, bigtangent.
I love it, man.
Big, deep dive into a verylarge story.
So I guess it's still more.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
I love it.
But but I think you know whatyou're saying.
You know the last part that youwere talking about is so
illustrative of of what mindful,why mindfulness for anxiety
right, which, by the way, I wasrecently doing some research or
brushing up on some old research.
You know there's a study done afew years ago that showed that
mindfulness practices were justas effective as Lexapro for the
(14:58):
people who went through thisstudy, like the same results.
You know, and I think thereason for that is what you just
mentioned, which is that youknow, as you put it, walking
through the fire, and Iabsolutely love that.
But you know it's it'smindfulness is all about.
You know it's not aboutchanging something, or it's.
It's first and foremost aboutknowing ourselves right, and and
(15:20):
and if we, if we try to thinkof anxiety as something apart
from ourselves that we can justsort of extract, well, then
we're always going to be in aconflict with it.
And you know, just like theTaoist notion of the cork
floating in the water, theharder we try to push something
away, the harder it comes backat us, right.
And so I think mindfulness isabout sort of, you know, it's in
(15:42):
a weird way, it's aboutbefriending, almost like almost
loving, that part of us.
You know it's, it's, it's in aweird way, it's about
befriending, almost like almostloving that part of us.
You know, and and and, throughthat love of that part of us,
then to understand it.
And then, once we understand it, now we can start working with
it right, without themaladaptive coping mechanisms
like drugs and alcohol.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
So it's.
It's that practice ofcompassion, then, in the sense
of having compassion for anxiety, exactly, and, and and
compassion for the way that youfeel and not trying to push that
away Exactly and and reallylove and kindness for yourself
for the anxiety, right Like likeloving yourself because of the
anxiety, not in spite of it.
(16:21):
Yeah, and understanding thatanxiety is again.
It's a very natural thing.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
It's a Exactly I love that you put that, I love that
you brought that up.
Yeah, I really do, becauseyou're right, it's, you know,
it's throughout the animalkingdom.
Even.
You know, and I think that'syou know, if I may, you know
that that's such an importantthing for people to hear.
I think right Because a lot oftimes I think and this certainly
would happen with me when Iwould consider things like
(16:49):
anxiety or even stress or, youknow, other neurodivergent
issues you know, it's like, Ithink, a lot of times there's
this sort of stigma that ifyou're not at a point of like
diagnosable disorder, well thenit's not real.
You know, and I think peopleneed to understand that it is
real and it's something that youknow.
(17:09):
Again, virtually everybodydeals with on some level, but
that the spectrum, you know itcan get, you know, very, very
close to that point of disorder,even if you're not diagnosed,
even if you haven't been totherapy.
You know, and I think that'swhat you know.
I think that's helpful forpeople to know you haven't been
to therapy.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
You know, and I think that's what you know, I think
that's helpful for people toknow.
You know, that's good, becauseI was listening to something the
other day on over-diagnosing.
Like over-diagnosis, I cannotspeak today, but essentially
saying that we've come up withthis diagnosis for every right
and for things that are just,maybe that's just the way it is.
Like.
I think ADHD is one of thosethings where how many people you
know are like, oh, yeah, I'madhd.
And it's like, well, yeah, I'madhd.
(17:49):
It's like what, if that's justwho we are right?
Like exactly why has it got tobe this thing?
That's that's to fix.
Um, I actually just posted areel today.
It's ramdas talking aboutseeing trees and how we walk
into nature and we just seetrees as they are.
Like oh that, one's trees, ohthat one's fat, oh, that one's
twisted, it's like.
But then we see humans andwe're like, oh, that one's thin,
(18:09):
oh, that one's fat.
There's like we're honestlywalking over and judging
everything.
And it's what, if I love thattalky thing, yeah, it's
beautiful, it really is.
And, um, I saw it and I satwith it as I was thinking of the
, the caption I wanted to shareon it, and I was like, oh, I see
where I resonate within myselfof that judgment of why can I
(18:30):
let myself just be who that is?
And I think, when you'rehealing from anxiety, um, are
you trying to understand anxiety?
Yeah, and it's important to havethat humility, that compassion
of like oh yeah, like like ofcourse I have anxiety, like of
course I feel that Right.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Of course.
Like like how could I not?
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Yeah Cause.
Then everyone feels like, oh, Ineed to.
The anxiety shows up and it'slike nope, don't want to feel
that, got to push it away, pushit away.
And I was always doing that.
I was so scared of the anxiety.
What happened was eventually,when I start healing from
anxiety and I've heard this fromother people is you're healing
and you're having a good day andall of a sudden you realize,
(19:15):
holy shit, I've been having agood day, where's the anxiety?
And you go oh fuck, there it is.
You're like, oh, there's theanxiety and you're you're scared
of falling back into theanxious cycle.
And it was.
It was a relapse of anxiety.
I essentially was breaking theaddiction of anxiety.
Is you're addicted to feelingit because you're?
Speaker 2 (19:34):
like you.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
You get scared of the anxiety because you're trying
to prep yourself to not have theanxiety, but you're scared.
It's like this whole again,right, right, um, so what are?
What are some techniques yousaid?
You said mindfulness practicesare they're?
They're as good as lexapro,right, and I want to be careful
there, because I do.
I don't ever want to suggestthat taking that bad thing or,
(19:58):
if you're, you're doing that,I'm a big believer in um using,
using western medicine to getyou back to ground zero per se,
and also I'm not one of thosepeople that's like mindfulness
and meditation fixes, all Likeoh, you're stressed out Go
fucking meditate.
It's going to be great.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
No, I totally agree with you.
I totally agree with you.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Sometimes you need out of the mind, right?
Sometimes it's not to go intothe mind, going into the mind
when you're ready to do the workExactly.
But you have to get yourself toan even playing field to go
into the work.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Exactly, exactly, and but that you know, and I'm
really really super happy youbrought that up because I, and I
appreciate it, because I don'twant to, I'm the same as you I'm
not trying to suggest toanybody that you don't follow
your doctor's orders, right?
That that's.
(20:48):
You know.
If you're on medication,there's a reason for it, you
know.
And a lot of people, though, inyou know this was a study that
was done with control groups andeverything else.
But what a lot of people findand I was actually just talking
to somebody yesterday on ameditation I was doing is that
people find that, you know, themindfulness practices, along
with the medication and alongwith the therapy, it, it like
almost the mindfulness practicessort of amplify the impacts of
those two things.
(21:09):
Right, so it's not one or theother, it's, it's a holistic
approach, in my opinion, youknow.
But, yeah, you know, you askedlike what, what is it about
mindfulness?
And I think, I think you reallyjust kind of touched on it
there, which is that you knowit's, it's, you know, anxiety,
you know.
First of all, before I even saythat, I would like to say that I
(21:31):
believe that anxiety, you knowthe, the, the mechanism that
causes the anxiety, right is, isreally just a form of
imagination.
Right, it's a form of the ofthe mind creating a story.
Right, and story.
But the only problem is thatanxiety, that story becomes
(21:51):
really, really scary.
But the imagination thatcreates the story is a very
positive thing.
So I firmly believe that we cantransmute our anxiety from a
great weight that's around ourshoulders all day to something
that can be a superpower.
Great like a weight that'saround our shoulders all day, to
something that can be asuperpower.
It can be something thatactually gives us, you know,
strength and confidence, knowinglike no F that man, I got the
anxious mind behind me, youcan't mess with me, you know, as
(22:14):
long as we can do that in apositive and optimistic way
rather than a negative andpessimistic way.
And that, I think, is where wecome back to mindfulness.
Right, because what ismindfulness other than I mean on
its very, very basic level?
It's attention training, right?
It's?
You know, just like we saidearlier, that the practice is
(22:35):
when you're doing a formalmeditation practice, you're
focusing your attention onsomething, and when not if, but
when the attention wanders off,we bring it back right.
And so, as we do that, webecome.
We develop, as you know, theycall it, the muscle of
mindfulness, right, the abilityto, a know when my thoughts and
my attention is on a certainthing and then, b, having the
(22:57):
power, in any given moment, toredirect that attention.
And that's where it becomes areally, really powerful tool so
that when we feel that anxietycreeping up, we recognize, okay,
these thoughts are not helpingme, I'm paying attention to the
stuff that's not helping me, andI have the choice to redirect
(23:18):
my attention, and that couldjust grounding myself into the
moment through, you know, justmindful breathing, or grounding
into my senses, or groundinginto the bottoms of my feet.
You know we can.
There's tons and tons ofdifferent strategies that you
can use in that moment, but theskill of mindfulness is the
thing that allows you toactually do it when it's
(23:40):
necessary.
You know, that's my beliefanyway, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
You brought up so many, uh, so many beautiful
points in there and just I, Iit's, it's.
It's so interesting because Idon't know how we ever stop this
podcast, because I, I sit herewith you and and I'll get into
this a little bit more becauseI'm very full of gratitude right
(24:06):
now I feel a lot of.
I feel emotional.
I definitely like my eyes feelwatery, Like I'm just like
listening to you talk and I'mlike whoa, this is just so great
to share this with someone,Even if this podcast never came
to light, Like I, you know whatI mean.
We post it and a couple ofpeople listen to it.
(24:28):
That's great, and I the factthat other people will, they'll
connect with it, that'sbeautiful as well.
But just to enter this spacewith someone who feels the way I
do, who takes the time tounderstand the mind the way that
I do, and and have that sharedspace, it's very beautiful.
So I feel a immense amount ofgratitude for you right now, and
I just wanted to express that.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Bro.
Thank you so much, man.
I feel it too.
I love you so much, man, Thankyou.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
It is great.
Uh, the what I want to.
I carry on.
I'll come back to the gratitudething, because that's don't let
me forget about that.
No I won't, because gratitudehas personally been one of my
greatest ways of fighting a lotof stress and anxiety and things
like that is gratitude.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
It's right there in what I was talking about.
I'll let you go on, but yeah, Imean, gratitude is the positive
right, that's what we canredirect to.
Anyway, I don't want to.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
No, no, it's great.
What I want to say is youbrought up this point of
utilizing.
I love how you said.
You basically brought up thepoint of like we're not, we
don't need to get rid of anxiety, right, anxiety is there to
help us.
It was installed in our brains,the human nature, to keep us to
survive.
The classic I guess at thispoint is almost cliche, you'll
(25:50):
hear is the saber-toothed tigerin the bushes we were.
We were built to survive everydanger around the corner and we
were constantly.
We were the deer, we weregetting chased by things, so we
had a very intense fight orflight system that was there to
keep us alive.
And now we, arguably, if you'renot in a war zone or you're not
in a famished place or you're um, you know, I even live in not
so great of a neighborhood andeven then I live in a pretty
like, we're all in a pretty safeplace, yes, right, we don't
(26:11):
have to hunt and gather everyday.
We go to the grocery store andeat, like, all of our basic
necessities are met, as long asyour basic necessities are being
met, right, obviously, ifyou're in any of those other
situations, then yes, you'redefinitely heightened.
But now we find anxiety throughother things and you become
stressed.
And kids you hear kids anxietyhas become a buzzword, almost
(26:34):
Like how mindfulness has becomea buzzword, exactly.
Kids are like oh, I haveanxiety and there's a new song
out.
A lady wrote and it's out andit's like anxiety is killing me
and it's like this like pop songthat's on the radio and I'm
like anxiety that we're alltrying we look at it as this
(27:05):
thing.
That's a negative thing and weneed to if we can learn to work
with anxiety, which I learnedthis because I would get super
nervous before my mountain bikeraces.
So I was racing downhillmountain bikes for the last few
years.
I put it to the side while Ihave a child because my income
is dependent on me working and Ican't get hurt and all that
(27:27):
stuff.
So, um, racing downhillmountain bikes is a very intense
, high injury sport very much,yeah, going to.
You know you're trying topropel yourself as fast as
possible down this mountain withrocks, cliffs, big jumps.
It's a very gnarly sport.
It's probably one of the mosthardcore sports I've ever seen
in my life Hard to carry acamera with a broken collarbone.
(27:49):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, and peopleget hurt on the daily, like
every race.
People are getting carted out,people break their necks, people
get paralyzed.
Like it's a wild sport.
I have a love for it deep in myheart but I have had to pretty
much retire from it for no doubt, just making life's decisions.
But when I would go to race Iwould get super fucking nervous
(28:12):
like I'd get so nervous and myhands are sweaty.
Like you wake up on racemorning and it's like, oh, am I
gonna make it down?
Okay, am I gonna go fast?
Like what's gonna happen couldpop.
Like your, like your wholebrain is going like this,
absolutely.
I looked up one time I was, itwas the night before and I said
how can I cope with the anxietyof, uh, before a race?
(28:33):
And it was like somebody hadwrote something about it.
Um, and I think any goodprofessional athlete knows how
to do this is they use thatanxiety?
Yes, to do this.
Is they use that anxiety?
Yes, they use the use the fightor flight, because that's the
adrenaline.
that adrenaline is there to putyou in the zone right, it's to
give you power yeah, yeah, powerthat use the anxiety to put you
(28:55):
in the flow state, especiallyfor an intense sport.
I mean you could be.
It could be basketball, beforeyou get nervous before a game,
or it could be a hockey, likeanything like that.
If you're able to actually belike, oh well, what it comes
down to and this is somethingI'm working on right now is
reframing.
Exactly that's what it is.
It's reframing the idea of, oh,this anxiety isn't here to kill
(29:16):
me.
It's actually here to protectme.
The anxiety is my friend.
The anxiety is not the enemy,the as soon as we look and we go
, oh, anxiety is an enemy, likewe, we and we, we now make it
the opposition versus making itour friend.
Once we put it next to us andsay, hey, anxiety, like I
understand why you're here, Iunderstand, thank you for
(29:36):
actually thank you instead oflike fuck, you get away from me,
exactly, exactly, yeah, exactly, be friends with the anxiety.
So what I learned, just to wrapthat up, was to and I'll still
come back to the gratitude, butI want to hear your thoughts-
afterwards um, use that anxiety,I would.
I would feel it.
I'd say, oh right, this is it,the anxiety, this is the nerves.
(29:57):
I'm going to use this to get meeven faster down the mountain,
right, right right exactly to dothat.
I did really well, I racedreally well and I placed well
and and that was the you knowthe the best use of anxiety I
could come up with.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
So a hundred percent a hundred percent, man, a
hundred percent, yeah.
Yeah, I got two things that I'dlike to reply to.
The first is that, like, as yousaid, you know, anxiety, a A is
there to help us and it servesa purpose, right, like, so, the
anxiety is the thing that'sgetting you to kind of go
through that checklist, like aremy tires okay?
Is my handlebar okay?
You know, I have to, really,you know.
(30:32):
And it also sharpens us, right?
It makes you look at the traila little bit closer, right, it's
about you know that.
You know, on the tail ofanxiety comes the stress
hormones which sharpen oursenses and create, as you say,
this empowered sort of, you know, state of our body, you know.
So that's the first thing thatcomes to my mind.
(30:55):
But the other thing that yousaid before, with regard to fear
and regard to, or I think theword you were using was safety
right and in regards to, or Ithink the word you were using
was safety right, which is that,you know, and so many times,
like the anxiety, for me it was,you know I'd be sitting at my
desk.
You know I'm totally safe here,right, there is nothing that's
(31:16):
going to hurt me, right?
I mean, obviously there's.
You know something could happen, of course, right, but you know
, for X amount of yearsnothing's happened.
You know, and I'm safe here andI am secure here, but as soon
as I start thinking about theemail I sent that they haven't
replied yet, or the, you know,the girl I was talking to the
(31:37):
other night hasn't called meback, or you know, you know, was
my breath bad during myinterview and all that stuff,
now, you know it goes from justthis, you know this thought
process, within this very safeand secure space, to the actual
perception that I am in danger,which I am not.
(31:59):
The key about the reframe, youknow, which is also applicable
to the mountain bike, right,like you're, you know, we think
what happens.
You know, what if I pop a tire?
Right, the answer to that isyou haven't popped a tire, right
?
What if the client doesn't, youknow, sign me up for the job?
(32:20):
Well, right here, right now,the client has not not signed
you up for the job, right, andthat's that reframe.
To come into the present momentand say, right here, right now,
the thing that I'm afraid of isnot here, but thank you,
anxiety, for giving me thisthing to look out for right.
Does that jive with what youwere saying?
(32:41):
Because that's what I'm feeling.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
I heard 10%.
Does that jive with what youwere saying?
Because that's what I'm feeling110%.
My therapist asked me.
He said do you consideryourself a depressive person?
Do you identify more withdepression or do you identify
more with anxiety?
Yeah, and without evenhesitation I was like anxiety
and the difference betweendepression and anxiety?
(33:04):
Depression is you, you'rethinking in the past.
Exactly, depression is thinkingin the past.
Anxiety is thinking in thefuture.
That's correct.
When you're depressed, you'rethinking about, oh, what could
have been if I did thisdifferently.
Oh, I missed this.
Uh, nostalgia, uh, it'spositive pressure, very big for
me.
Um, but when we're anxious,we're thinking about, oh, what
(33:28):
could happen?
What has what if?
What if?
Yeah, it's, it's what if I'm avery big what if?
Person?
Yeah, yeah, me too.
You know I.
I go to a client, tells me youkeep going on a client thing.
A client says oh well, we wantto book this shoot with you next
month and until that shoothappens, I'm like they're going
to cancel.
They could cancel.
(33:48):
What if they can't?
And they're like nothing hastold me.
They're going to cancel Nothing.
But I'm so anxious, I'm like wehave to make it to that shoot
and the problem is.
I tend to live life a lotfaster in that sense.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Right, you want to speed up to get to the point
that you get the job up to getto that Holy crap.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
No I can know that I'm safe, I can know that I made
it through, I can know that,okay, you made it safe.
But then the process beatsitself Like then it's just
another client calls me and I'mlike, okay, well, now this.
Now.
(34:35):
Then it's just another clientcalls me and I'm like, okay,
well, now this.
Now we got to make it throughthis year and it's happened to
me in the sense of when I wasmountain bike racing and I ran
my business, it was like, okay,well, I would not ride my bike,
which is, in some sense, it wassmart.
I was like I'm not going torace this weekend because I've
got a really big job this nextweek and I get falling, get hurt
this weekend, and that that's aa little bit more of risk
mitigation.
Yeah, yeah, that's calculated.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Yeah, that's different from risk, exactly
right.
That's different from avoidinga party because of the social
anxiety yes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Um.
So again, that's healthyanxiety in that sense, okay.
Well, this is protecting me andallowing me to make a choice
that is probably better for mywell-being.
Um, but it's still anxiety,it's still a what if?
Speaker 2 (35:07):
it's a what if?
Speaker 1 (35:08):
what if I skip the mountain bike race and I fall
and slip on ice and somethingelse?
Speaker 2 (35:12):
yeah, right.
Well, you should have been onthe mountain bike.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
I always say that I'm like I was so scared of getting
uh paralyzed while mountainbiking because it happens,
that's no joke, they break theirnecks all the time and things
like that, yeah, that's no joke.
I'm like.
I always say, as like, kind ofa joke, I'm just like I'm gonna
be so upset if, like, I just dosomething stupid, like because
it happens to people, and I'm Ijust like do something I don't
even do.
Uh, you know what I mean andright, and that happens and it's
(35:39):
like, but that's the reality ofit, right it is now something
may put you at a higher risk ofsomething.
and there's there's theunhealthy version of that as
well, where you can say well, I,totally, I, I'm gonna drink
because you know I I could diefrom something else anyway.
Right, exactly, exactly, yeah,yeah.
Before I get into the into thegratitude aspect of again, I
(36:02):
keep bringing that up because itit is, it's a lot of gratitude
for me, I believe, is a um, um,an ultimate healer to totally,
isn't it?
Because because, in when you'reable to bring up gratitude and
you're able to live in a truesense of gratitude, where your
body is feeling grateful foreverything around you, there's
(36:25):
nothing less, there's nothingleft to do to figure out
anything that you're just likeI'm grateful for what I have, I,
I can sit here in a sense ofgratitude, anxiety, depression,
nothing else is possible to feel.
Yeah, right, exactly.
With that said, what I want tohear before I go off on my thing
, to go back into your space howhas gratitude worked in your
(36:50):
life?
Where do you feel gratitude?
What gratitude have you used?
Do you see, when you work withyour clients, is gratitude a
thing of importance?
Just all of it Tangent for me.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
All of it, man, I'm so happy that you handed me this
baton, or handed me the mic, Iguess is the real term.
First of all, I will say that Iam currently working with, I do
a program that I have set up a12-week program for teen
athletes, right To you know, towork on things like emotional
regulation and you know, andexactly the kind of stuff that
(37:25):
we're talking about, likeharnessing the stress and
anxiety to empower us to dobetter in our sport, right, and
I'm working with kids, you know,who are like teenagers, right,
and so kids who are teenagers,that what the F you know scary
part of their brain isdeveloping before the part of
the brain that can regulate thatand say no, no, everything's
okay, you know.
So that's really, you know, atthe crux of what I'm doing.
(37:48):
So, anyway, you mentionedgratitude, like two weeks ago,
I'm working with these two kidswho are brothers, jackson and
Nolan I love you if you'rehearing this.
They're like I think you know,around like 13 and 15 years old,
right, and pardon me, guys, ifI got your ages wrong, but I
(38:09):
taught them a gratitude practice, just the other, you know, two
weeks ago, right, which is avery simple practice which I'm
sure you're familiar with, butfor our audience, just very
simply, before you go to bedevery night, just write down
five things that happened todayfor which you're grateful, right
, and the only rule is that youdon't repeat things from one day
to the next, right?
So you don't, you know, say likeevery day, it's not like, oh,
(38:31):
I'm grateful for my health, I'mgrateful for my house, I'm
grateful for the food.
You know, come up with newstuff, and the smaller the
better, right?
Like, thinking of, like, oh,when I walked outside today, I
felt the, you know, the weatherfelt really good, you know, like
that, you know.
And so, anyway, these kids weredoing it, for I mean, like a
few days before or maybe a weekbefore we had our next meeting,
(38:52):
and I asked them both.
I said, I said how, you know,how do you feel?
You know, do you feel anydifferent after having done this
gratitude practice every nightfor, you know, for a week?
The younger brother said, said,I feel like I'm sleeping better
, I feel like I wake up, justfeeling better.
And I was like dude, that'samazing, right.
And his brother said I haven'thad a bad dream since I started
(39:16):
doing this One week, one effingweek, and it's just so amazing.
So, anyway, so you know, I justsay that to show that you know,
first of all, everybody canbenefit from gratitude, right,
whether you're young, you're old, it doesn't matter, right?
But number two, how quickly itcan really change things for you
(39:39):
.
You know, your brain and yournervous system crave the thing
that gratitude is doing for you,right?
Same thing with generosity,right, it's a similar kind of
thing as we've talked aboutbefore, the Buddha.
You know, if you knew, as I do,the power of giving, you would
not let a single meal passwithout sharing some of it,
(40:00):
right, because it just puts youin this positive state of, you
know, of harmony, right.
And so, anyway, getting back tothe question of what gratitude
has done for me personally, inmy own practice, the biggest
thing and the thing that I justI will, you know, I will be the
(40:21):
champion of gratitude until mylast breath.
For this reason, right, becauseultimately, what happens and
this is not right away, this isa, you know, down the road thing
, as you're practicing gratitudeand living gratitude for a bit
of an extended period of timemonths, maybe a year or
something I have gotten to thepoint where I feel and it's
(40:43):
genuine, I'm not justgaslighting myself, it's genuine
.
I have a genuine gratitude evenfor the nasty stuff that happens
in my life.
I didn't want to bring it upbecause you're in such a
positive place in your life, butI just went through a divorce
that got, you know, prettycontentious and pretty, you know
, antagonistic right, and evenin those moments where I'm
(41:07):
crying and I'm frustrated and Ifeel like it's all just, you
know, just so hard, I can feelgratitude for that feeling and
not for the difficulty that iscausing the feeling, but I can
feel gratitude for the abilityto feel it in myself Because you
know what it's teaching mesomething.
I'm growing through something,I'm healing through something.
(41:30):
This is a positive experience,even though it's completely
negative.
You know and to me that's thereal, again in terms of yes,
about my own practice, that isthe thing in my practice that
has really created the greatestshift, you know, in my life is,
again, just to very conciselysay, to be able to feel
(41:51):
gratitude even for those really,really negative experiences, be
able to feel gratitude even forthose really, really negative
experiences.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
So, anyway, that's my rant.
No, that was.
That was so much beauty packedinto that, thank you.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
And uh, thank you, brother, you're getting kids to
to practice the gratitude,because yeah, I always think
back like if, if somebody taughtme this when I was 13 years old
, like oh my gosh, yeah exactlybecause I could not imagine
being taught that.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Because I guess parents are always like, oh my
gosh.
Yeah, exactly because I couldnot imagine being taught that,
because I guess parents arealways like you should be
grateful, right, and it's like,but no one ever taught what that
meant, don't ever.
Exactly, exactly.
No green beans on your platenow.
Eat them right, right, okay,right yeah, I get that, but like
yeah there's a deeper, oryou're gonna get nothing and
you're gonna like it.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
Yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
Yeah, be grateful, there's kids that are starving.
It's like, okay, I get whereparents are coming from,
especially as a parent.
It's interesting.
Thank you for sharing you knowkind of deeper stuff that's
going on with you and it'sinteresting to share.
(42:55):
I heard you say oh, I didn.
I feel like people are scaredto share things, especially if,
like, it seems like someone elseis doing really well, or they
don't want to be a negativelight on someone.
And I always, I want to sayyou're always welcome to share
things with me, because, ofcourse, here's the other side of
things too, where and I knowyou know this is that everything
(43:17):
can look so good on the surface, right, right, being like oh,
everything looks so great andfrom what you've seen of my life
or what I've seen of someoneelse's life, it's like, for what
I see, it's all about only whatyou share on the surface.
(43:40):
It doesn't even have to besocial media.
Social media is just verysurface level for most people
that don't share deeper.
I'm working on sharing deeperstuff on social media.
Me, too.
I really want to.
I want to go deeper on that.
I want to share more raw stuff.
I want to talk about the nittygritty shit that people are just
like.
No, I don't want to.
I don't want to share that.
I want to do that, and I knowyou as well.
Um, you know, I, we all have ourown struggles.
On that sense, I've I've got afriend who's struggling very
(44:03):
heavily with depression rightnow and he's probably one of the
most successful people I knowand got a beautiful family and
it it shows, um I, you know,even with a newborn child and
beautiful wife and house and allthese things that are on the
surface that look great to a lotof people Um, I struggle very
(44:25):
deeply.
I mean it's I don't know ifyou've had a newborn child and
in dealing with um a newbornchild into a new, into a
relationship, right, and how tonavigate that with your partner
and that's that's somethingwe're constantly working on is
like, oh, we've got this newbeing.
That's like sleeping in themiddle of us and like, but wait,
I still want your attention,but right, taking all of our
(44:47):
attention and so there is somuch more going on.
so thank you for sharing, um,what, what you're you're doing
with this, with this there?
And I think this is amisconception that we all just
kind of need to break.
And I know everyone knows thisof understanding, and I'm not
saying that this is what you did.
I'm just saying that it's easyto say to anybody or to feel
(45:08):
envy or to feel, oh, I don'twant to share anything with them
because their life is.
You never know if you sharethat with me and I go hey, I
actually am dealing with somestuff as well and sharing going
deep, because now you know,everything might look like it's
going good, but really now Ifeel safe to enter your space of
say, hey well, actually I'mstruggling with something too,
(45:29):
because if we're scared to sharesomething with somebody who's
like, oh, I don't want to bringyou down, it's like, well, you
know what I mean.
If any good person that wants tolisten, or if you trust them
enough right to share.
That's a little side questthere.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
Oh, you're right, man , you're right.
The ego part of me wants tolike tell you why I did it and
stuff like that.
But I just I take your pointand I think that's a beautiful,
beautiful and really importantpoint.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
so I hope everybody's listening to that I I love the,
uh, the recognizing of the egopart I've been really working
with, trying to recognize whenthe ego shows up and what I'm
doing and in in relationship, uhdefinitely of like me wanting
to say something or why I saidsomething, or being brutally
honest, uh with myself.
(46:14):
I mean yeah why are you doingthat?
And it's like, instead oftrying to make a justification
for it being like, oh, I didthat because I felt this way,
because I felt insecure.
I did that because I get itreally like and going like oh,
how'd that feel to say, Exactlyexactly.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
And that goes back to the awareness that we develop
in mindfulness.
As you're talking, I was ableto and I'm not saying this as a
boast, I'm just letting theaudience know this is how it
works but as you're talkingabout that, I was feeling that
part of me inside that's sayingno, no, wait a second.
This is the ego, this is partof the anxiety.
(46:58):
This is it and it's okay.
It's okay that it's there, justlet it be there.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
Yeah, isn't that fun.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
Dude, I love it man.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
Start becoming aware of the awareness and then that
spirals on itself.
It's crazy in a good way.
It's a good it's In a beautifulway.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
Yeah, and it's crazy in a good way.
It's a good, it's in abeautiful way, yeah, and it
never ends.
That's the beautiful thing, youknow, it's just a gift that
keeps on giving.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
Absolutely.
I'd love to chat more on thatstuff, but again, thank you for
going deeper, of course.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
So tell me about gratitude from your point.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Yeah, yeah, let's.
Let's go back to the gratitude.
So gratitude for me, um, when Iwas healing from anxiety and
still I feel like anxietyhealing is a lifelong process I
agree Gratitude.
I would try to find space whereit would be as simple as saying
, oh, I can turn on my sink, andI would be like I'm great, I'd
(47:50):
walk over to my sink, fill up mycup of water.
The fact that I lived inColorado at the time and I could
fill up my water cup out of mysink Didn't even need to filter
it.
I was like, oh, like I've gotgood water right out of the sink
, like that to me.
I was like, oh, okay, well,that's good, like that's a start
right, like that's a reallygood, like gratitude start, and
then just like trying to findall these little, what am I
(48:10):
doing, what am I grateful for?
Um, and re-centering it.
And then I I've this oneinstance sticks out of.
I was out walking my dogs inthe middle, like trying to calm
down from anxiety thing, and Iwas practicing gratitude and
this person in a wheelchair camewheeling by and they had no
legs and I'm like, okay, I'mgrateful for my legs, yeah, I'm
grateful I can step, and uh, andit's not.
(48:32):
I want to be careful not to gointo like a comparison type
Exactly Right, but it's real,yeah, but it is true.
And no matter how bad you haveit somebody probably has it
worse at that sense, and I don'tthink that's either.
I don't want to say that's thehealthy way to look at it either
, but it is a place to start oflike okay, hey, okay, hey, like
what can I be grateful for?
Speaker 2 (48:54):
and yeah, and it doesn't.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
Just, I always want to be careful and I don't I
don't mean to like backtrack onthings, but I just want to be
careful and say, you know itdoesn't downplay any of the
negative things that arehappening to you, because I
don't want, we don't actuallybypass anything exactly.
I used to do that as well.
I was like, oh right, likesomeone would pass away, and
they're like, oh, of coursepeople die.
It's like haven't you read theboot?
Haven't you got into buddhism?
like everything don't be sadyeah right and it's like wait,
(49:19):
wait, wait, that's not quite it.
Like it's it's understanding it, but also understanding that
the grieving process is alsopart of it.
Right, that sadness is alsopart of that, and that's right.
And then letting the naturalunfolding versus fighting all of
it.
So, gratitude practice the sameway, just understanding what
(49:39):
you are grateful for, creatingthose practices.
I have a gratitude journal thatI do my best.
I'm not perfect, but everymorning you're supposed to,
every morning and night, fillout what I'm grateful for and do
that same gratitude practice,and anytime that I can step into
that or start my day in thatspace, it starts you in a much
(49:59):
better position to winthroughout the day, I think,
yeah yeah, yeah because you can.
You can learn to be, I guess theword that's coming back to me
and and my adhd brain is reframe.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
Is reframe, yeah, yeah, reframe, exactly what it
is.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
Anything that you're feeling that is negative Right?
Can you reframe it forgratitude, right?
Speaker 2 (50:24):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
That's what it is.
Is there a way for you toinstead be grateful for what is
happening Right?
Okay, so the divorce is hard.
Divorce is not easy.
No, I don't want to say thatI'm grateful for the divorce
happening, right, I'm not, but Iam grateful for the lessons
(50:47):
that I am learning during it.
So that's-.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
Yeah, and for the opportunity that it presents
right, exactly.
Yeah, that's Exactly, man my.
For the opportunity that itpresents, right, exactly.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
Exactly, man.
My look on gratitude is justyeah, I guess it's that reframe
of gratitude it is.
I ask anybody listening iswhere can you find something
that you're stuck on, somethingyou're anxious about?
Where can, instead of it beinga pain, where, instead of it
being this thorn in your side,how can you reposition it to say
(51:19):
, okay, I'm good for this thing?
Speaker 2 (51:21):
Yeah, can you see something positive about it,
right?
Speaker 1 (51:24):
Well, what is it teaching you?
Speaker 2 (51:26):
Totally, man totally.
Speaker 1 (51:27):
And that's cliche like kind of baseline, like you
know self-help coach type stuff,but it works.
Speaker 2 (51:34):
There's a reason why it's a cliche because it works,
yeah, yeah, it does.
But but the really importantthing, though, for all of you
who are doing that practice,that adam just uh, you know
prompted you.
You know it's important thatthe consistency is where it's at
right.
It's like it's like brushingour teeth right, if you brush
your teeth, you know, once in awhile, you know you're still
(51:54):
going to get lots of cavities,right, you gotta.
You know it's about doing itevery single day, because what
happens in the brain is that, asyou, as you practice gratitude
every day or every night or both, which is how I presented with
the kids.
I said you gotta do it everynight, extra credit doing it in
the morning.
But but as you continuously dothis, what happens is your brain
shifts to looking for thosethings that are positive.
(52:18):
Right, and that's back to thereframe, because how many times
can you look at a day thatyou've had right and, like you
know, maybe there was like oneor two like negative things that
happened and, oh, it's such abad day.
You know this happened and thathappened.
It sucked, you know.
But there were also all kindsof other things that you know A
neutral things, which issomething else that we have to
(52:40):
pay attention to, that we neverdo we think of the good stuff
and the bad stuff, but there'slots of neutral stuff in between
, which.
That's what gratitude also helpsyou to reframe, to get out of
that duality of either good orbad, right, but anyway, there
was lots of neutral things thathappened and there was probably
a few positive things thathappened too.
In fact, I can guarantee youthere were a few positive things
(53:01):
and that's that reframe.
And, as you say, it's soimportant, the point that you
made about the spiritual bypassand stuff like that.
The negative stuff is real too.
Yes, yes, and we don't want todeny that.
We don't want to get rid ofthat.
We don't want to because thenegative stuff is.
(53:24):
You know, I love the it'sanother cliche that you know
smooth seas never make a goodsailor Right.
The adversity that we feel inlife, the difficulty that we go
through, the hard feelings thatwe feel sometimes, are what.
The difficulty that we gothrough, the hard feelings that
we feel sometimes, are what makeus who we are, every bit as
much as the positive stuff, andso it's important to kind of
honor that a little bit, youknow.
(53:45):
And that's where we get back tothe anxiety as a.
You know, it's a power, it'ssomething like no, you're
special, you know.
You know and in somethingoccurred to me when you were
talking before, but in you know,sort of shamanic cultures
around the world, it was thepeople who were autistic and who
had anxiety and issues andstress and stuff.
They were the people who wereelevated as like the magic
(54:07):
people.
You know they're special, youknow they see the world
differently.
We see the world differently.
Know they see the worlddifferently, we see the world
differently.
Speaker 1 (54:18):
So much, so much more .
To touch on with anxiety andit's, uh, something that's close
to home with me is someone whohas, uh, experienced it at a
very intense level.
Um, and, yeah, anyone who isstruggling with that, it's,
there are tons of resources.
I, my inbox is always open andI'm sure, please, mine too.
Yeah, we're happy to happy towork on that.
Speaker 2 (54:40):
Art at artburnscoachingcom.
Speaker 1 (54:41):
Reach out anytime there you go Hit him up.
He's the guy.
So we've got a lot of stuff inthe works between some courses
and things that we're doing,yeah, so just going to keep
excited.
We're back.
Yeah, really grateful to behere.
We're back, but we also neverleft.
Exactly, exactly, exactly.
Again grateful to be here.
(55:02):
We always end our podcast fromthe beginning by picking a
random page out of a book.
I've got the pocket pen withchildren sitting in front of me.
How about you throw a page atme real quick.
Speaker 2 (55:15):
What's the book go to ?
What's the number of the lastpage?
Speaker 1 (55:18):
Goes to let's see here 180.
Speaker 2 (55:25):
Okay, page 111, please 111.
Speaker 1 (55:30):
Let's check it out.
All right, Do do do flipthrough this thing.
Obstacles can become ourteachers.
On the night on which he was toattain Sorry, let me restart On
the night on which he was toattain enlightenment, the Buddha
sat under a tree.
(55:50):
While he was sitting there, hewas attacked by the forces of
Mara, the Lord of Destruction.
The story goes that they shotswords and arrows at him and
that their weapons turned intoflowers.
What does this story mean?
My understanding of it is thatwe habitually regard as
obstacles.
Is that what we were I'mstumbling all over today?
What does this story mean?
(56:10):
My understanding of it is thatwhat we habitually regard as
obstacles are not really ourenemies, but rather our friends.
What we call obstacles arereally the way the world and our
entire experience teach uswhere we're stuck.
What may appear to be an arrowor a sword can actually
experience as a flower.
Whether we experience thathappens to us sorry, whether we
(56:33):
experience what happens to us asan obstacle and enemy or as a
teacher and friend, dependsentirely on our perception of
reality.
It depends on our relationshipwith ourselves.
Speaker 2 (56:47):
Oh, my gosh.
Everybody's gonna think thatwas a setup.
Speaker 1 (56:51):
It's too perfect, you know it always is always is
exactly what we need to hearevery time.
So, oh my gosh, that wasperfect.
I think that pretty much sumsitself up for that's puts a bow
right on it.
Speaker 2 (57:04):
Man, that was absolutely perfect.
Yeah, they could have made thispodcast like 30 seconds by just
reading.
Speaker 1 (57:10):
Yeah right, that's exactly that.
If you get anything out of it,go go visit that.
Pick up the book Mishodron,page 111.
Speaker 2 (57:17):
Read that and there you go, You're all set, save
yourself some time or for thelong version, listen to this.
Speaker 1 (57:27):
All right, my friend.
Well, thank you so much, oh,dude so great to be back here
with you, man.
Speaker 2 (57:32):
Oh, love it.
This has been a great reframe.
Thank you Absolutely Much love.
Love you, my friend Namaste.
all right, we're back .
Here we are.
How many times do you think wecan come back?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
as many as we need to .
Speaker 1 (00:13):
It's just like meditation I was literally gonna
say it's just like meditationright, we get, we get lost and
then we come back.
That's what they teach.
Is how many?
Times we get lost and how manytimes can you come back to?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
it.
It only matters that you comeback one more time than you get
lost, right that's all it is.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
We've just been lost for a few months now.
It was so fun because we wentfrom being in person and I was
just seeing the YouTube videoI'd posted of us sitting side by
side.
And we had gone from having ourpodcast during COVID, which we
had never met each other.
Never even met yeah, we went todoing our podcast in person,
(00:49):
which lasted a couple episodes,and then I moved to California.
Now you're a thousand milesaway.
Now I'm a thousand, I think,thousand plus miles away, yep,
and we're back on the computer.
So it's definitely that goingwith the flow.
So I know it was nice to chatwith you a little bit before we
hopped on here and just thingsthat have changed.
(01:10):
I am now a father, which is hasbeen a beautiful and wild
experience, that's for sure.
You know all about it now.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
I sure do my friend, I sure do Yep.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
So going going almost six months strong on that.
Wow, Six months as of thismonth, that'll be crazy.
Uh, yeah, absolutely.
You know it's.
It has its ups and downs a lot,but it's so beautiful I I
wouldn't trade it for the world.
I'll put it that way oh, that'sso beautiful, buddy.
Yeah, but I'm so happy for you,man.
Yeah, yeah, Thank you so much.
I appreciate that.
Uh, so many lessons to belearned on there and now we can
(01:44):
talk mindfulness for parents andother discussions that I'm sure
we'll have in the future.
However, we discussed before andI think this is a great place
to start, especially with thisyear, and it's interesting we
started this podcast duringCOVID, which there was a lot of
anxiety.
Then I was personally dealingwith a lot of anxiety myself in
(02:06):
a panic disorder that I wasdealing with, which we can go
into more.
But we're now revisiting thisand we decided this morning as
our topic of being anxiety andyou say you're doing some work
around anxiety for yourself.
I'm currently working onentering back into the mental
health space of helping otherpeople.
Anxiety is one of the things Iwant to help people with as a
(02:30):
personal, I guess, survivor ofanxiety, which I guess now I'm
more of a coper of anxiety andknow how to deal with it a
little bit better.
There you go.
Yeah, right, Exactly yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
I was going to say when you said I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
No, I was just saying , yeah, let's go into the topic
of anxiety, because I think thisyear has brought up a lot of
anxiety for people, whether it'sum, uh, around the election I
don't like to get into too muchpolitics stuff and all that.
I I hear the teachers doingthat all the time and, um, just
personally not not my thing, butanything that there is a lot of
anxiety with the economy, withpolitics, with things like that,
(03:06):
anxiety in general, people, um,and so.
So I think this is a good placeto come back together and talk
about some anxiety.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
I totally agree.
I totally agree.
Yeah, when you said that mywork about anxiety, it's like a
double double entendre, right,like, yeah, the anxiety that I'm
working on in myself and thenthe work that I'm doing for
other people, you know, and Ithink you're right, I think
there's a lot of anxiety.
It's like in the air.
You know, economy, just thestuff that you see on the TV and
(03:36):
the social media, and, like yousaid, I don't like to get too
involved with the politics, butit is a very polarizing thing
out there and it's causing a lotof anxiety on both sides.
I think it's just, you know, Ithink it's, yeah, I think it's
thick in the air right now.
So it's a good, a very positivething to sort of examine.
So happy to do that with youhere, my friend.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Absolutely Good place to start and I'll share mine.
But I'm going to ask you firstwhat is your experience with
anxiety, either personally orworking with other clients.
What do you, I guess?
What does anxiety mean to you?
What's your experience aroundit?
Give us some anxiety from art.
(04:18):
I love it, man.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Art of anxiety.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Let's put it that way .
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, the art of anxiety.
There we go.
Well, you know it's funny.
You ask that because for mywhole life, I think I was
misidentifying a lot of anxietyas stress.
You know, I always felt like Iwas just really stressed.
I always thought that I wasjust, you know, sort of like I
felt overwhelmed.
(04:42):
I felt sort of like, you knowjust like there was never enough
time.
It was always, you know, tryingto trying to catch up to
everything.
You know, and when I came torealize and it was only after I
started doing the practices thatyou and I talk about, which is,
you know, really just gettingto know myself, you know that
that I realized that it was, youknow, anxiety and stress are
very, very close to each other.
(05:04):
You know, anxiety and stressare very, very close to each
other.
But, you know, stress is morethe response to whatever we're
experiencing, whereas anxiety islike the mechanism that creates
the stress in a way, right, andso it was the you know just
that that thought thateverything was going to end
horribly, no matter what it was.
You know whether it was goingon a date that was going to.
(05:26):
You know, I was going to screwit up.
You know, even like back in theday when I was in corporate,
you know, advertising I was in asales position I used to
literally have this feeling thatI was going to get a call from
a client at any given momentthat she was going to just say
that the job's over, I can'tgive you the job.
(05:50):
You know this kind of stuffeven though there were no signs
whatsoever.
You know, there was never, ever, any sign of anything that made
this even remotely true, butyet it was something I could not
stop believing.
And I think that's really where,you know, mindfulness has
really helped.
You know, because, as you know,as most of our audience
probably knows also, that, youknow, mindfulness has a lot to
do with, you know, sort oflooking at that story that we're
believing and sort of, you know, using critical thinking to
(06:13):
pick that story apart a littlebit and see what's really there
as opposed to what we'recreating through the delusion in
our mind.
You know, and so, yeah, sothat's how Art has experienced
anxiety for his whole life,without really even realizing
that he did.
Again, I thought it was.
I always identified it asstress, which, you know, again,
the the end result is not thatdifferent.
(06:33):
You know it caused a lot ofsubstance abuse, a lot of, you
know, sleepless nights, a lot ofdifficulties in relationships
and health issues and all thatkind of stuff you know.
But yeah, it feels really goodto understand that it's.
You know that the anxiety sortof, you know, takes on the
momentum of its own, if you will.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
you know, does that make sense to you?
Absolutely, I don't know.
And I've also, as a as a uh,longtime experiencer of anxiety,
I understand it's.
It's uh, for someone who'snever maybe had panic attack or
anxiety or any of that, or I'dsay, everyone has anxiety that
that's a big totally, it's a bigbelief.
(07:13):
I had to learn a big lesson Ihad to learn when I was healing
from a severe anxiety, thiswhat's what's called a anxiety
disorder, where anxiety prettymuch takes over your life
essentially.
But we have anxiety, everybodyhas anxiety, even animals have
anxiety.
It's your fight or flightsystem.
(07:33):
It's the well, how do you sayit?
The parasympathetic nervoussystem.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
It's actually the sympathetic nervous system.
Parasympathetic is the one thatbrings us back down from it.
Down, okay, so that's rightwhen you're breathing.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
So I was actually.
I just did a therapy sessionbefore this and was learning
about um, kind of the, the fightor flight, and like the, the,
where I can't remember the.
He gave me this whole worksheeton.
It is really cool, but how youknow breathing and all that
brings you back down, which,they're all things that I've
I've learned, but it's justlearning all about this stuff
again.
But anyway, coming back ontrack, everybody has anxiety.
(08:10):
Animals have anxiety.
One of my favorite examples wasthe difference between someone
who develops an anxiety disorderor a panic disorder.
They're not able to let go ofthe anxiety or the anxiety you
attach to it, right, you,essentially you become scared of
the anxiety itself and thatanxiety perpetuates on itself
and you end up in this constantcycle of oh fuck, all the time.
(08:33):
So the the greatest example Iever saw was if you think about
a deer, a deer can get chased bya tiger and you watch it.
It runs, and then if you see itescape there's videos of it and
a deer will escape and what itdoes is it shakes.
It shakes, yeah, very violently, and I, when I used to have
severe panic attacks, I wouldshake.
(08:54):
It would almost be like I wasfreezing.
I didn't explain it.
What I learned was that this isactually the body's stress
response to shake that anxietyoff.
It actually gets the throughnow in nature.
When the deer shakes thatanxiety off, it goes about its
day.
It knows there's a tiger lurkingin the bushes again and it
(09:15):
might be a little skittish,because anytime you see a deer
they're very skittish, like thatRight Right, but they don't
stop going about their day, theykind of go back into it versus
a human.
We get attached to the pointwhere I guess a slight
background on my anxiety.
It got to a point of where Icouldn't even leave the house.
(09:35):
I I got what was called uh whyam I drawing a blank on that
agoraphobia where I couldn'thouse without having severe
panic disorder.
I was convinced I was gonna die.
Starting around the age of 15years old, I had my first panic
attack.
Well, what I realized is thefirst panic attack, but after
more lessons and learning that Ifound out I had anxiety all the
(09:55):
way back from childhood, fromdealing with an abusive
stepfather and a very intenseanxiety-driven childhood, a very
intense anxiety-drivenchildhood.
So all that anxiety, that fightor flight system that I had
lived in my entire life, finallybuilt up to a breaking point at
the age of 15 where Iexperienced a panic attack.
I was actually I'd beentripping acid for about six
(10:15):
hours, which is a precursor tohaving a little bit of anxiety.
That's a typical combinationyeah.
Yeah, exactly.
And I'm coming down from thatand all of a sudden I start
feeling my heart race and it'sbeating out of my chest and
these stuff start.
Just like I'm like almost soberat this point I think I'd smoke
some weed like coming down, butthen, like all of a sudden, I
(10:36):
just I felt this rush ofadrenaline.
I felt like something was wrong, like like I'm like, oh gosh,
I'm about to die, like somethinglike full-blown body took over
everything, and all I couldpicture was that scene from pulp
fiction where, uh, they stickthe adrenaline needle chest and
he comes back to life and I'mlike that is what I pictured.
I was like that's what's gonnahappen.
(10:57):
Um, oh, they stick it in her.
It's her chest, I think.
But that's what I pictured.
I was like I'm gonna die andthey're gonna have to stick this
adrenaline needle in my chestand I was like that was what was
playing in my head.
Yeah, anyway, that fucked me up.
Good, I, I, um, you know, Istarted smoking weed at a very
early age and 15 for whatever.
(11:17):
I old I think we got 14 or 15years old at this point tripping
acid like I had a crazy childyeah, yeah, we will meet both my
friends yeah, right, thatsparked the anxiety attack and
then led to which I guess is apositive thing I wasn't able to
smoke weed anymore.
It would trigger flashbacks, itwould trigger anxiety.
Um, slowly, that anxiety justkept building.
I was convinced that I wasgoing to have this, a heart
(11:39):
attack, like it's just all thetime.
Like I, I couldn't go to school.
I'd wake wake up in the morning.
First thing I thought was I'mgoing to die of a heart attack.
What I'm in bed.
I'm 16, 17 years old and thiskeeps going.
My way of coping with thatbecame drugs and alcohol.
Well, I couldn't weed, but Ifound taking Molly and ecstasy
would make me feel really good,even though the come down to be
(11:59):
really hard.
But I was on top of the world.
And then I started drinking andI drank every single day.
I was a full blown alcoholic bythe age of 17.
I had to actually have a MRI onmy liver.
Because or not an MRI?
An ultrasound on my liver?
Because I had been drinking somuch and I it was wild.
(12:20):
Eventually I slowed down alittle bit, went through a week
of withdrawals, but thendrinking still carried on as I
still had anxiety.
It just was.
I would try to use it to cope.
Um, that carried all the wayinto adult childhood until 25
plus years old.
Uh, covid happened, and thatwas when we started this podcast
(12:40):
.
I had had it.
You know, I'd picked up ameditation practice to try to
cope with this stuff and itnever really worked as it would
help me come down, but I didn'tstick to it hard enough.
Alcohol and drugs theenticement of that was always.
It always gave me a quick fix.
It didn't give me meditation.
And this deeper work is not aquick fix.
It's.
It's a work that we have topractice for life.
Right, it's called a practice.
That's here we are coming backtogether right now.
(13:02):
Right, it's, it's the practice.
Um, but, covid, when everythingshut down and you talk about
the anxiety of the pressures andall that, as someone who you
know, even through all this wasan overage, like I really wanted
to have my own business and besuccessful and all these things
and current things that I'mworking on actually in therapy
of of reasons why I try to dothis stuff and negative
(13:23):
self-beliefs, it's veryinteresting Coming into that.
I was able to come out of theanxiety and I did that by
stepping through the fire iswhat I call it.
I actually was able to confrontthe anxiety, say you know what
this anxiety might kill me, andI'm going to step towards that
Instead of going oh no, thisanxiety might kill me and run
(13:44):
away.
So the grocery stores were atrigger for me.
So instead of saying well, I'mnot going to the grocery store
anymore, I'd have to go to thefucking grocery store through
that panic attack and I wouldfeel it.
I'd feel a chest tight and I'dfeel everything.
I'd feel one.
I'd want to call the hospitalLike I couldn't be.
I hated being a certaindistance away from a hospital so
I wouldn't go on trips.
I had to know where thehospital was.
(14:04):
I needed to know that, and it'svery common for people who
experience it.
Yeah, absolutely.
But anyway, long story short,god bless, everything that I put
a lot of work in was able tolet go a bit.
I still experience anxiety.
I still get panic attacks, evenevery once in a while.
However, it doesn't perpetuate.
It doesn't perpetuate, itdoesn't last for days.
(14:28):
Now, right, right, it's down.
So I know that was a big, bigtangent.
I love it, man.
Big, deep dive into a verylarge story.
So I guess it's still more.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
I love it.
But but I think you know whatyou're saying.
You know the last part that youwere talking about is so
illustrative of of what mindful,why mindfulness for anxiety
right, which, by the way, I wasrecently doing some research or
brushing up on some old research.
You know there's a study done afew years ago that showed that
mindfulness practices were justas effective as Lexapro for the
(14:58):
people who went through thisstudy, like the same results.
You know, and I think thereason for that is what you just
mentioned, which is that youknow, as you put it, walking
through the fire, and Iabsolutely love that.
But you know it's it'smindfulness is all about.
You know it's not aboutchanging something, or it's.
It's first and foremost aboutknowing ourselves right, and and
(15:20):
and if we, if we try to thinkof anxiety as something apart
from ourselves that we can justsort of extract, well, then
we're always going to be in aconflict with it.
And you know, just like theTaoist notion of the cork
floating in the water, theharder we try to push something
away, the harder it comes backat us, right.
And so I think mindfulness isabout sort of, you know, it's in
(15:42):
a weird way, it's aboutbefriending, almost like almost
loving, that part of us.
You know it's, it's, it's in aweird way, it's about
befriending, almost like almostloving that part of us.
You know, and and and, throughthat love of that part of us,
then to understand it.
And then, once we understand it, now we can start working with
it right, without themaladaptive coping mechanisms
like drugs and alcohol.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
So it's.
It's that practice ofcompassion, then, in the sense
of having compassion for anxiety, exactly, and, and and
compassion for the way that youfeel and not trying to push that
away Exactly and and reallylove and kindness for yourself
for the anxiety, right Like likeloving yourself because of the
anxiety, not in spite of it.
(16:21):
Yeah, and understanding thatanxiety is again.
It's a very natural thing.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
It's a Exactly I love that you put that, I love that
you brought that up.
Yeah, I really do, becauseyou're right, it's, you know,
it's throughout the animalkingdom.
Even.
You know, and I think that'syou know, if I may, you know
that that's such an importantthing for people to hear.
I think right Because a lot oftimes I think and this certainly
would happen with me when Iwould consider things like
(16:49):
anxiety or even stress or, youknow, other neurodivergent
issues you know, it's like, Ithink, a lot of times there's
this sort of stigma that ifyou're not at a point of like
diagnosable disorder, well thenit's not real.
You know, and I think peopleneed to understand that it is
real and it's something that youknow.
(17:09):
Again, virtually everybodydeals with on some level, but
that the spectrum, you know itcan get, you know, very, very
close to that point of disorder,even if you're not diagnosed,
even if you haven't been totherapy.
You know, and I think that'swhat you know.
I think that's helpful forpeople to know you haven't been
to therapy.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
You know, and I think that's what you know, I think
that's helpful for people toknow.
You know, that's good, becauseI was listening to something the
other day on over-diagnosing.
Like over-diagnosis, I cannotspeak today, but essentially
saying that we've come up withthis diagnosis for every right
and for things that are just,maybe that's just the way it is.
Like.
I think ADHD is one of thosethings where how many people you
know are like, oh, yeah, I'madhd.
And it's like, well, yeah, I'madhd.
(17:49):
It's like what, if that's justwho we are right?
Like exactly why has it got tobe this thing?
That's that's to fix.
Um, I actually just posted areel today.
It's ramdas talking aboutseeing trees and how we walk
into nature and we just seetrees as they are.
Like oh that, one's trees, ohthat one's fat, oh, that one's
twisted, it's like.
But then we see humans andwe're like, oh, that one's thin,
(18:09):
oh, that one's fat.
There's like we're honestlywalking over and judging
everything.
And it's what, if I love thattalky thing, yeah, it's
beautiful, it really is.
And, um, I saw it and I satwith it as I was thinking of the
, the caption I wanted to shareon it, and I was like, oh, I see
where I resonate within myselfof that judgment of why can I
(18:30):
let myself just be who that is?
And I think, when you'rehealing from anxiety, um, are
you trying to understand anxiety?
Yeah, and it's important to havethat humility, that compassion
of like oh yeah, like like ofcourse I have anxiety, like of
course I feel that Right.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Of course.
Like like how could I not?
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Yeah Cause.
Then everyone feels like, oh, Ineed to.
The anxiety shows up and it'slike nope, don't want to feel
that, got to push it away, pushit away.
And I was always doing that.
I was so scared of the anxiety.
What happened was eventually,when I start healing from
anxiety and I've heard this fromother people is you're healing
and you're having a good day andall of a sudden you realize,
(19:15):
holy shit, I've been having agood day, where's the anxiety?
And you go oh fuck, there it is.
You're like, oh, there's theanxiety and you're you're scared
of falling back into theanxious cycle.
And it was.
It was a relapse of anxiety.
I essentially was breaking theaddiction of anxiety.
Is you're addicted to feelingit because you're?
Speaker 2 (19:34):
like you.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
You get scared of the anxiety because you're trying
to prep yourself to not have theanxiety, but you're scared.
It's like this whole again,right, right, um, so what are?
What are some techniques yousaid?
You said mindfulness practicesare they're?
They're as good as lexapro,right, and I want to be careful
there, because I do.
I don't ever want to suggestthat taking that bad thing or,
(19:58):
if you're, you're doing that,I'm a big believer in um using,
using western medicine to getyou back to ground zero per se,
and also I'm not one of thosepeople that's like mindfulness
and meditation fixes, all Likeoh, you're stressed out Go
fucking meditate.
It's going to be great.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
No, I totally agree with you.
I totally agree with you.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Sometimes you need out of the mind, right?
Sometimes it's not to go intothe mind, going into the mind
when you're ready to do the workExactly.
But you have to get yourself toan even playing field to go
into the work.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Exactly, exactly, and but that you know, and I'm
really really super happy youbrought that up because I, and I
appreciate it, because I don'twant to, I'm the same as you I'm
not trying to suggest toanybody that you don't follow
your doctor's orders, right?
That that's.
(20:48):
You know.
If you're on medication,there's a reason for it, you
know.
And a lot of people, though, inyou know this was a study that
was done with control groups andeverything else.
But what a lot of people findand I was actually just talking
to somebody yesterday on ameditation I was doing is that
people find that, you know, themindfulness practices, along
with the medication and alongwith the therapy, it, it like
almost the mindfulness practicessort of amplify the impacts of
those two things.
(21:09):
Right, so it's not one or theother, it's, it's a holistic
approach, in my opinion, youknow.
But, yeah, you know, you askedlike what, what is it about
mindfulness?
And I think, I think you reallyjust kind of touched on it
there, which is that you knowit's, it's, you know, anxiety,
you know.
First of all, before I even saythat, I would like to say that I
(21:31):
believe that anxiety, you knowthe, the, the mechanism that
causes the anxiety, right is, isreally just a form of
imagination.
Right, it's a form of the ofthe mind creating a story.
Right, and story.
But the only problem is thatanxiety, that story becomes
(21:51):
really, really scary.
But the imagination thatcreates the story is a very
positive thing.
So I firmly believe that we cantransmute our anxiety from a
great weight that's around ourshoulders all day to something
that can be a superpower.
Great like a weight that'saround our shoulders all day, to
something that can be asuperpower.
It can be something thatactually gives us, you know,
strength and confidence, knowinglike no F that man, I got the
anxious mind behind me, youcan't mess with me, you know, as
(22:14):
long as we can do that in apositive and optimistic way
rather than a negative andpessimistic way.
And that, I think, is where wecome back to mindfulness.
Right, because what ismindfulness other than I mean on
its very, very basic level?
It's attention training, right?
It's?
You know, just like we saidearlier, that the practice is
(22:35):
when you're doing a formalmeditation practice, you're
focusing your attention onsomething, and when not if, but
when the attention wanders off,we bring it back right.
And so, as we do that, webecome.
We develop, as you know, theycall it, the muscle of
mindfulness, right, the abilityto, a know when my thoughts and
my attention is on a certainthing and then, b, having the
(22:57):
power, in any given moment, toredirect that attention.
And that's where it becomes areally, really powerful tool so
that when we feel that anxietycreeping up, we recognize, okay,
these thoughts are not helpingme, I'm paying attention to the
stuff that's not helping me, andI have the choice to redirect
(23:18):
my attention, and that couldjust grounding myself into the
moment through, you know, justmindful breathing, or grounding
into my senses, or groundinginto the bottoms of my feet.
You know we can.
There's tons and tons ofdifferent strategies that you
can use in that moment, but theskill of mindfulness is the
thing that allows you toactually do it when it's
(23:40):
necessary.
You know, that's my beliefanyway, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
You brought up so many, uh, so many beautiful
points in there and just I, Iit's, it's.
It's so interesting because Idon't know how we ever stop this
podcast, because I, I sit herewith you and and I'll get into
this a little bit more becauseI'm very full of gratitude right
(24:06):
now I feel a lot of.
I feel emotional.
I definitely like my eyes feelwatery, Like I'm just like
listening to you talk and I'mlike whoa, this is just so great
to share this with someone,Even if this podcast never came
to light, Like I, you know whatI mean.
We post it and a couple ofpeople listen to it.
(24:28):
That's great, and I the factthat other people will, they'll
connect with it, that'sbeautiful as well.
But just to enter this spacewith someone who feels the way I
do, who takes the time tounderstand the mind the way that
I do, and and have that sharedspace, it's very beautiful.
So I feel a immense amount ofgratitude for you right now, and
I just wanted to express that.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Bro.
Thank you so much, man.
I feel it too.
I love you so much, man, Thankyou.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
It is great.
Uh, the what I want to.
I carry on.
I'll come back to the gratitudething, because that's don't let
me forget about that.
No I won't, because gratitudehas personally been one of my
greatest ways of fighting a lotof stress and anxiety and things
like that is gratitude.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
It's right there in what I was talking about.
I'll let you go on, but yeah, Imean, gratitude is the positive
right, that's what we canredirect to.
Anyway, I don't want to.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
No, no, it's great.
What I want to say is youbrought up this point of
utilizing.
I love how you said.
You basically brought up thepoint of like we're not, we
don't need to get rid of anxiety, right, anxiety is there to
help us.
It was installed in our brains,the human nature, to keep us to
survive.
The classic I guess at thispoint is almost cliche, you'll
(25:50):
hear is the saber-toothed tigerin the bushes we were.
We were built to survive everydanger around the corner and we
were constantly.
We were the deer, we weregetting chased by things, so we
had a very intense fight orflight system that was there to
keep us alive.
And now we, arguably, if you'renot in a war zone or you're not
in a famished place or you're um, you know, I even live in not
so great of a neighborhood andeven then I live in a pretty
like, we're all in a pretty safeplace, yes, right, we don't
(26:11):
have to hunt and gather everyday.
We go to the grocery store andeat, like, all of our basic
necessities are met, as long asyour basic necessities are being
met, right, obviously, ifyou're in any of those other
situations, then yes, you'redefinitely heightened.
But now we find anxiety throughother things and you become
stressed.
And kids you hear kids anxietyhas become a buzzword, almost
(26:34):
Like how mindfulness has becomea buzzword, exactly.
Kids are like oh, I haveanxiety and there's a new song
out.
A lady wrote and it's out andit's like anxiety is killing me
and it's like this like pop songthat's on the radio and I'm
like anxiety that we're alltrying we look at it as this
(27:05):
thing.
That's a negative thing and weneed to if we can learn to work
with anxiety, which I learnedthis because I would get super
nervous before my mountain bikeraces.
So I was racing downhillmountain bikes for the last few
years.
I put it to the side while Ihave a child because my income
is dependent on me working and Ican't get hurt and all that
(27:27):
stuff.
So, um, racing downhillmountain bikes is a very intense
, high injury sport very much,yeah, going to.
You know you're trying topropel yourself as fast as
possible down this mountain withrocks, cliffs, big jumps.
It's a very gnarly sport.
It's probably one of the mosthardcore sports I've ever seen
in my life Hard to carry acamera with a broken collarbone.
(27:49):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, and peopleget hurt on the daily, like
every race.
People are getting carted out,people break their necks, people
get paralyzed.
Like it's a wild sport.
I have a love for it deep in myheart but I have had to pretty
much retire from it for no doubt, just making life's decisions.
But when I would go to race Iwould get super fucking nervous
(28:12):
like I'd get so nervous and myhands are sweaty.
Like you wake up on racemorning and it's like, oh, am I
gonna make it down?
Okay, am I gonna go fast?
Like what's gonna happen couldpop.
Like your, like your wholebrain is going like this,
absolutely.
I looked up one time I was, itwas the night before and I said
how can I cope with the anxietyof, uh, before a race?
(28:33):
And it was like somebody hadwrote something about it.
Um, and I think any goodprofessional athlete knows how
to do this is they use thatanxiety?
Yes, to do this.
Is they use that anxiety?
Yes, they use the use the fightor flight, because that's the
adrenaline.
that adrenaline is there to putyou in the zone right, it's to
give you power yeah, yeah, powerthat use the anxiety to put you
(28:55):
in the flow state, especiallyfor an intense sport.
I mean you could be.
It could be basketball, beforeyou get nervous before a game,
or it could be a hockey, likeanything like that.
If you're able to actually belike, oh well, what it comes
down to and this is somethingI'm working on right now is
reframing.
Exactly that's what it is.
It's reframing the idea of, oh,this anxiety isn't here to kill
(29:16):
me.
It's actually here to protectme.
The anxiety is my friend.
The anxiety is not the enemy,the as soon as we look and we go
, oh, anxiety is an enemy, likewe, we and we, we now make it
the opposition versus making itour friend.
Once we put it next to us andsay, hey, anxiety, like I
understand why you're here, Iunderstand, thank you for
(29:36):
actually thank you instead oflike fuck, you get away from me,
exactly, exactly, yeah, exactly, be friends with the anxiety.
So what I learned, just to wrapthat up, was to and I'll still
come back to the gratitude, butI want to hear your thoughts-
afterwards um, use that anxiety,I would.
I would feel it.
I'd say, oh right, this is it,the anxiety, this is the nerves.
(29:57):
I'm going to use this to get meeven faster down the mountain,
right, right right exactly to dothat.
I did really well, I racedreally well and I placed well
and and that was the you knowthe the best use of anxiety I
could come up with.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
So a hundred percent a hundred percent, man, a
hundred percent, yeah.
Yeah, I got two things that I'dlike to reply to.
The first is that, like, as yousaid, you know, anxiety, a A is
there to help us and it servesa purpose, right, like, so, the
anxiety is the thing that'sgetting you to kind of go
through that checklist, like aremy tires okay?
Is my handlebar okay?
You know, I have to, really,you know.
(30:32):
And it also sharpens us, right?
It makes you look at the traila little bit closer, right, it's
about you know that.
You know, on the tail ofanxiety comes the stress
hormones which sharpen oursenses and create, as you say,
this empowered sort of, you know, state of our body, you know.
So that's the first thing thatcomes to my mind.
(30:55):
But the other thing that yousaid before, with regard to fear
and regard to, or I think theword you were using was safety
right and in regards to, or Ithink the word you were using
was safety right, which is that,you know, and so many times,
like the anxiety, for me it was,you know I'd be sitting at my
desk.
You know I'm totally safe here,right, there is nothing that's
(31:16):
going to hurt me, right?
I mean, obviously there's.
You know something could happen, of course, right, but you know
, for X amount of yearsnothing's happened.
You know, and I'm safe here andI am secure here, but as soon
as I start thinking about theemail I sent that they haven't
replied yet, or the, you know,the girl I was talking to the
(31:37):
other night hasn't called meback, or you know, you know, was
my breath bad during myinterview and all that stuff,
now, you know it goes from justthis, you know this thought
process, within this very safeand secure space, to the actual
perception that I am in danger,which I am not.
(31:59):
The key about the reframe, youknow, which is also applicable
to the mountain bike, right,like you're, you know, we think
what happens.
You know, what if I pop a tire?
Right, the answer to that isyou haven't popped a tire, right
?
What if the client doesn't, youknow, sign me up for the job?
(32:20):
Well, right here, right now,the client has not not signed
you up for the job, right, andthat's that reframe.
To come into the present momentand say, right here, right now,
the thing that I'm afraid of isnot here, but thank you,
anxiety, for giving me thisthing to look out for right.
Does that jive with what youwere saying?
(32:41):
Because that's what I'm feeling.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
I heard 10%.
Does that jive with what youwere saying?
Because that's what I'm feeling110%.
My therapist asked me.
He said do you consideryourself a depressive person?
Do you identify more withdepression or do you identify
more with anxiety?
Yeah, and without evenhesitation I was like anxiety
and the difference betweendepression and anxiety?
(33:04):
Depression is you, you'rethinking in the past.
Exactly, depression is thinkingin the past.
Anxiety is thinking in thefuture.
That's correct.
When you're depressed, you'rethinking about, oh, what could
have been if I did thisdifferently.
Oh, I missed this.
Uh, nostalgia, uh, it'spositive pressure, very big for
me.
Um, but when we're anxious,we're thinking about, oh, what
(33:28):
could happen?
What has what if?
What if?
Yeah, it's, it's what if I'm avery big what if?
Person?
Yeah, yeah, me too.
You know I.
I go to a client, tells me youkeep going on a client thing.
A client says oh well, we wantto book this shoot with you next
month and until that shoothappens, I'm like they're going
to cancel.
They could cancel.
(33:48):
What if they can't?
And they're like nothing hastold me.
They're going to cancel Nothing.
But I'm so anxious, I'm like wehave to make it to that shoot
and the problem is.
I tend to live life a lotfaster in that sense.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Right, you want to speed up to get to the point
that you get the job up to getto that Holy crap.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
No I can know that I'm safe, I can know that I made
it through, I can know that,okay, you made it safe.
But then the process beatsitself Like then it's just
another client calls me and I'mlike, okay, well, now this.
Now.
(34:35):
Then it's just another clientcalls me and I'm like, okay,
well, now this.
Now we got to make it throughthis year and it's happened to
me in the sense of when I wasmountain bike racing and I ran
my business, it was like, okay,well, I would not ride my bike,
which is, in some sense, it wassmart.
I was like I'm not going torace this weekend because I've
got a really big job this nextweek and I get falling, get hurt
this weekend, and that that's aa little bit more of risk
mitigation.
Yeah, yeah, that's calculated.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Yeah, that's different from risk, exactly
right.
That's different from avoidinga party because of the social
anxiety yes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Um.
So again, that's healthyanxiety in that sense, okay.
Well, this is protecting me andallowing me to make a choice
that is probably better for mywell-being.
Um, but it's still anxiety,it's still a what if?
Speaker 2 (35:07):
it's a what if?
Speaker 1 (35:08):
what if I skip the mountain bike race and I fall
and slip on ice and somethingelse?
Speaker 2 (35:12):
yeah, right.
Well, you should have been onthe mountain bike.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
I always say that I'm like I was so scared of getting
uh paralyzed while mountainbiking because it happens,
that's no joke, they break theirnecks all the time and things
like that, yeah, that's no joke.
I'm like.
I always say, as like, kind ofa joke, I'm just like I'm gonna
be so upset if, like, I just dosomething stupid, like because
it happens to people, and I'm Ijust like do something I don't
even do.
Uh, you know what I mean andright, and that happens and it's
(35:39):
like, but that's the reality ofit, right it is now something
may put you at a higher risk ofsomething.
and there's there's theunhealthy version of that as
well, where you can say well, I,totally, I, I'm gonna drink
because you know I I could diefrom something else anyway.
Right, exactly, exactly, yeah,yeah.
Before I get into the into thegratitude aspect of again, I
(36:02):
keep bringing that up because itit is, it's a lot of gratitude
for me, I believe, is a um, um,an ultimate healer to totally,
isn't it?
Because because, in when you'reable to bring up gratitude and
you're able to live in a truesense of gratitude, where your
body is feeling grateful foreverything around you, there's
(36:25):
nothing less, there's nothingleft to do to figure out
anything that you're just likeI'm grateful for what I have, I,
I can sit here in a sense ofgratitude, anxiety, depression,
nothing else is possible to feel.
Yeah, right, exactly.
With that said, what I want tohear before I go off on my thing
, to go back into your space howhas gratitude worked in your
(36:50):
life?
Where do you feel gratitude?
What gratitude have you used?
Do you see, when you work withyour clients, is gratitude a
thing of importance?
Just all of it Tangent for me.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
All of it, man, I'm so happy that you handed me this
baton, or handed me the mic, Iguess is the real term.
First of all, I will say that Iam currently working with, I do
a program that I have set up a12-week program for teen
athletes, right To you know, towork on things like emotional
regulation and you know, andexactly the kind of stuff that
(37:25):
we're talking about, likeharnessing the stress and
anxiety to empower us to dobetter in our sport, right, and
I'm working with kids, you know,who are like teenagers, right,
and so kids who are teenagers,that what the F you know scary
part of their brain isdeveloping before the part of
the brain that can regulate thatand say no, no, everything's
okay, you know.
So that's really, you know, atthe crux of what I'm doing.
(37:48):
So, anyway, you mentionedgratitude, like two weeks ago,
I'm working with these two kidswho are brothers, jackson and
Nolan I love you if you'rehearing this.
They're like I think you know,around like 13 and 15 years old,
right, and pardon me, guys, ifI got your ages wrong, but I
(38:09):
taught them a gratitude practice, just the other, you know, two
weeks ago, right, which is avery simple practice which I'm
sure you're familiar with, butfor our audience, just very
simply, before you go to bedevery night, just write down
five things that happened todayfor which you're grateful, right
, and the only rule is that youdon't repeat things from one day
to the next, right?
So you don't, you know, say likeevery day, it's not like, oh,
(38:31):
I'm grateful for my health, I'mgrateful for my house, I'm
grateful for the food.
You know, come up with newstuff, and the smaller the
better, right?
Like, thinking of, like, oh,when I walked outside today, I
felt the, you know, the weatherfelt really good, you know, like
that, you know.
And so, anyway, these kids weredoing it, for I mean, like a
few days before or maybe a weekbefore we had our next meeting,
(38:52):
and I asked them both.
I said, I said how, you know,how do you feel?
You know, do you feel anydifferent after having done this
gratitude practice every nightfor, you know, for a week?
The younger brother said, said,I feel like I'm sleeping better
, I feel like I wake up, justfeeling better.
And I was like dude, that'samazing, right.
And his brother said I haven'thad a bad dream since I started
(39:16):
doing this One week, one effingweek, and it's just so amazing.
So, anyway, so you know, I justsay that to show that you know,
first of all, everybody canbenefit from gratitude, right,
whether you're young, you're old, it doesn't matter, right?
But number two, how quickly itcan really change things for you
(39:39):
.
You know, your brain and yournervous system crave the thing
that gratitude is doing for you,right?
Same thing with generosity,right, it's a similar kind of
thing as we've talked aboutbefore, the Buddha.
You know, if you knew, as I do,the power of giving, you would
not let a single meal passwithout sharing some of it,
(40:00):
right, because it just puts youin this positive state of, you
know, of harmony, right.
And so, anyway, getting back tothe question of what gratitude
has done for me personally, inmy own practice, the biggest
thing and the thing that I justI will, you know, I will be the
(40:21):
champion of gratitude until mylast breath.
For this reason, right, becauseultimately, what happens and
this is not right away, this isa, you know, down the road thing
, as you're practicing gratitudeand living gratitude for a bit
of an extended period of timemonths, maybe a year or
something I have gotten to thepoint where I feel and it's
(40:43):
genuine, I'm not justgaslighting myself, it's genuine
.
I have a genuine gratitude evenfor the nasty stuff that happens
in my life.
I didn't want to bring it upbecause you're in such a
positive place in your life, butI just went through a divorce
that got, you know, prettycontentious and pretty, you know
, antagonistic right, and evenin those moments where I'm
(41:07):
crying and I'm frustrated and Ifeel like it's all just, you
know, just so hard, I can feelgratitude for that feeling and
not for the difficulty that iscausing the feeling, but I can
feel gratitude for the abilityto feel it in myself Because you
know what it's teaching mesomething.
I'm growing through something,I'm healing through something.
(41:30):
This is a positive experience,even though it's completely
negative.
You know and to me that's thereal, again in terms of yes,
about my own practice, that isthe thing in my practice that
has really created the greatestshift, you know, in my life is,
again, just to very conciselysay, to be able to feel
(41:51):
gratitude even for those really,really negative experiences, be
able to feel gratitude even forthose really, really negative
experiences.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
So, anyway, that's my rant.
No, that was.
That was so much beauty packedinto that, thank you.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
And uh, thank you, brother, you're getting kids to
to practice the gratitude,because yeah, I always think
back like if, if somebody taughtme this when I was 13 years old
, like oh my gosh, yeah exactlybecause I could not imagine
being taught that.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Because I guess parents are always like, oh my
gosh.
Yeah, exactly because I couldnot imagine being taught that,
because I guess parents arealways like you should be
grateful, right, and it's like,but no one ever taught what that
meant, don't ever.
Exactly, exactly.
No green beans on your platenow.
Eat them right, right, okay,right yeah, I get that, but like
yeah there's a deeper, oryou're gonna get nothing and
you're gonna like it.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
Yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
Yeah, be grateful, there's kids that are starving.
It's like, okay, I get whereparents are coming from,
especially as a parent.
It's interesting.
Thank you for sharing you knowkind of deeper stuff that's
going on with you and it'sinteresting to share.
(42:55):
I heard you say oh, I didn.
I feel like people are scaredto share things, especially if,
like, it seems like someone elseis doing really well, or they
don't want to be a negativelight on someone.
And I always, I want to sayyou're always welcome to share
things with me, because, ofcourse, here's the other side of
things too, where and I knowyou know this is that everything
(43:17):
can look so good on the surface, right, right, being like oh,
everything looks so great andfrom what you've seen of my life
or what I've seen of someoneelse's life, it's like, for what
I see, it's all about only whatyou share on the surface.
(43:40):
It doesn't even have to besocial media.
Social media is just verysurface level for most people
that don't share deeper.
I'm working on sharing deeperstuff on social media.
Me, too.
I really want to.
I want to go deeper on that.
I want to share more raw stuff.
I want to talk about the nittygritty shit that people are just
like.
No, I don't want to.
I don't want to share that.
I want to do that, and I knowyou as well.
Um, you know, I, we all have ourown struggles.
On that sense, I've I've got afriend who's struggling very
(44:03):
heavily with depression rightnow and he's probably one of the
most successful people I knowand got a beautiful family and
it it shows, um I, you know,even with a newborn child and
beautiful wife and house and allthese things that are on the
surface that look great to a lotof people Um, I struggle very
(44:25):
deeply.
I mean it's I don't know ifyou've had a newborn child and
in dealing with um a newbornchild into a new, into a
relationship, right, and how tonavigate that with your partner
and that's that's somethingwe're constantly working on is
like, oh, we've got this newbeing.
That's like sleeping in themiddle of us and like, but wait,
I still want your attention,but right, taking all of our
(44:47):
attention and so there is somuch more going on.
so thank you for sharing, um,what, what you're you're doing
with this, with this there?
And I think this is amisconception that we all just
kind of need to break.
And I know everyone knows thisof understanding, and I'm not
saying that this is what you did.
I'm just saying that it's easyto say to anybody or to feel
(45:08):
envy or to feel, oh, I don'twant to share anything with them
because their life is.
You never know if you sharethat with me and I go hey, I
actually am dealing with somestuff as well and sharing going
deep, because now you know,everything might look like it's
going good, but really now Ifeel safe to enter your space of
say, hey well, actually I'mstruggling with something too,
(45:29):
because if we're scared to sharesomething with somebody who's
like, oh, I don't want to bringyou down, it's like, well, you
know what I mean.
If any good person that wants tolisten, or if you trust them
enough right to share.
That's a little side questthere.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
Oh, you're right, man , you're right.
The ego part of me wants tolike tell you why I did it and
stuff like that.
But I just I take your pointand I think that's a beautiful,
beautiful and really importantpoint.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
so I hope everybody's listening to that I I love the,
uh, the recognizing of the egopart I've been really working
with, trying to recognize whenthe ego shows up and what I'm
doing and in in relationship, uhdefinitely of like me wanting
to say something or why I saidsomething, or being brutally
honest, uh with myself.
(46:14):
I mean yeah why are you doingthat?
And it's like, instead oftrying to make a justification
for it being like, oh, I didthat because I felt this way,
because I felt insecure.
I did that because I get itreally like and going like oh,
how'd that feel to say, Exactlyexactly.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
And that goes back to the awareness that we develop
in mindfulness.
As you're talking, I was ableto and I'm not saying this as a
boast, I'm just letting theaudience know this is how it
works but as you're talkingabout that, I was feeling that
part of me inside that's sayingno, no, wait a second.
This is the ego, this is partof the anxiety.
(46:58):
This is it and it's okay.
It's okay that it's there, justlet it be there.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
Yeah, isn't that fun.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
Dude, I love it man.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
Start becoming aware of the awareness and then that
spirals on itself.
It's crazy in a good way.
It's a good it's In a beautifulway.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
Yeah, and it's crazy in a good way.
It's a good, it's in abeautiful way, yeah, and it
never ends.
That's the beautiful thing, youknow, it's just a gift that
keeps on giving.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
Absolutely.
I'd love to chat more on thatstuff, but again, thank you for
going deeper, of course.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
So tell me about gratitude from your point.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Yeah, yeah, let's.
Let's go back to the gratitude.
So gratitude for me, um, when Iwas healing from anxiety and
still I feel like anxietyhealing is a lifelong process I
agree Gratitude.
I would try to find space whereit would be as simple as saying
, oh, I can turn on my sink, andI would be like I'm great, I'd
(47:50):
walk over to my sink, fill up mycup of water.
The fact that I lived inColorado at the time and I could
fill up my water cup out of mysink Didn't even need to filter
it.
I was like, oh, like I've gotgood water right out of the sink
, like that to me.
I was like, oh, okay, well,that's good, like that's a start
right, like that's a reallygood, like gratitude start, and
then just like trying to findall these little, what am I
(48:10):
doing, what am I grateful for?
Um, and re-centering it.
And then I I've this oneinstance sticks out of.
I was out walking my dogs inthe middle, like trying to calm
down from anxiety thing, and Iwas practicing gratitude and
this person in a wheelchair camewheeling by and they had no
legs and I'm like, okay, I'mgrateful for my legs, yeah, I'm
grateful I can step, and uh, andit's not.
(48:32):
I want to be careful not to gointo like a comparison type
Exactly Right, but it's real,yeah, but it is true.
And no matter how bad you haveit somebody probably has it
worse at that sense, and I don'tthink that's either.
I don't want to say that's thehealthy way to look at it either
, but it is a place to start oflike okay, hey, okay, hey, like
what can I be grateful for?
Speaker 2 (48:54):
and yeah, and it doesn't.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
Just, I always want to be careful and I don't I
don't mean to like backtrack onthings, but I just want to be
careful and say, you know itdoesn't downplay any of the
negative things that arehappening to you, because I
don't want, we don't actuallybypass anything exactly.
I used to do that as well.
I was like, oh right, likesomeone would pass away, and
they're like, oh, of coursepeople die.
It's like haven't you read theboot?
Haven't you got into buddhism?
like everything don't be sadyeah right and it's like wait,
(49:19):
wait, wait, that's not quite it.
Like it's it's understanding it, but also understanding that
the grieving process is alsopart of it.
Right, that sadness is alsopart of that, and that's right.
And then letting the naturalunfolding versus fighting all of
it.
So, gratitude practice the sameway, just understanding what
(49:39):
you are grateful for, creatingthose practices.
I have a gratitude journal thatI do my best.
I'm not perfect, but everymorning you're supposed to,
every morning and night, fillout what I'm grateful for and do
that same gratitude practice,and anytime that I can step into
that or start my day in thatspace, it starts you in a much
(49:59):
better position to winthroughout the day, I think,
yeah yeah, yeah because you can.
You can learn to be, I guess theword that's coming back to me
and and my adhd brain is reframe.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
Is reframe, yeah, yeah, reframe, exactly what it
is.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
Anything that you're feeling that is negative Right?
Can you reframe it forgratitude, right?
Speaker 2 (50:24):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
That's what it is.
Is there a way for you toinstead be grateful for what is
happening Right?
Okay, so the divorce is hard.
Divorce is not easy.
No, I don't want to say thatI'm grateful for the divorce
happening, right, I'm not, but Iam grateful for the lessons
(50:47):
that I am learning during it.
So that's-.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
Yeah, and for the opportunity that it presents
right, exactly.
Yeah, that's Exactly, man my.
For the opportunity that itpresents, right, exactly.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
Exactly, man.
My look on gratitude is justyeah, I guess it's that reframe
of gratitude it is.
I ask anybody listening iswhere can you find something
that you're stuck on, somethingyou're anxious about?
Where can, instead of it beinga pain, where, instead of it
being this thorn in your side,how can you reposition it to say
(51:19):
, okay, I'm good for this thing?
Speaker 2 (51:21):
Yeah, can you see something positive about it,
right?
Speaker 1 (51:24):
Well, what is it teaching you?
Speaker 2 (51:26):
Totally, man totally.
Speaker 1 (51:27):
And that's cliche like kind of baseline, like you
know self-help coach type stuff,but it works.
Speaker 2 (51:34):
There's a reason why it's a cliche because it works,
yeah, yeah, it does.
But but the really importantthing, though, for all of you
who are doing that practice,that adam just uh, you know
prompted you.
You know it's important thatthe consistency is where it's at
right.
It's like it's like brushingour teeth right, if you brush
your teeth, you know, once in awhile, you know you're still
(51:54):
going to get lots of cavities,right, you gotta.
You know it's about doing itevery single day, because what
happens in the brain is that, asyou, as you practice gratitude
every day or every night or both, which is how I presented with
the kids.
I said you gotta do it everynight, extra credit doing it in
the morning.
But but as you continuously dothis, what happens is your brain
shifts to looking for thosethings that are positive.
(52:18):
Right, and that's back to thereframe, because how many times
can you look at a day thatyou've had right and, like you
know, maybe there was like oneor two like negative things that
happened and, oh, it's such abad day.
You know this happened and thathappened.
It sucked, you know.
But there were also all kindsof other things that you know A
neutral things, which issomething else that we have to
(52:40):
pay attention to, that we neverdo we think of the good stuff
and the bad stuff, but there'slots of neutral stuff in between
, which.
That's what gratitude also helpsyou to reframe, to get out of
that duality of either good orbad, right, but anyway, there
was lots of neutral things thathappened and there was probably
a few positive things thathappened too.
In fact, I can guarantee youthere were a few positive things
(53:01):
and that's that reframe.
And, as you say, it's soimportant, the point that you
made about the spiritual bypassand stuff like that.
The negative stuff is real too.
Yes, yes, and we don't want todeny that.
We don't want to get rid ofthat.
We don't want to because thenegative stuff is.
(53:24):
You know, I love the it'sanother cliche that you know
smooth seas never make a goodsailor Right.
The adversity that we feel inlife, the difficulty that we go
through, the hard feelings thatwe feel sometimes, are what.
The difficulty that we gothrough, the hard feelings that
we feel sometimes, are what makeus who we are, every bit as
much as the positive stuff, andso it's important to kind of
honor that a little bit, youknow.
(53:45):
And that's where we get back tothe anxiety as a.
You know, it's a power, it'ssomething like no, you're
special, you know.
You know and in somethingoccurred to me when you were
talking before, but in you know,sort of shamanic cultures
around the world, it was thepeople who were autistic and who
had anxiety and issues andstress and stuff.
They were the people who wereelevated as like the magic
(54:07):
people.
You know they're special, youknow they see the world
differently.
We see the world differently.
Know they see the worlddifferently, we see the world
differently.
Speaker 1 (54:18):
So much, so much more .
To touch on with anxiety andit's, uh, something that's close
to home with me is someone whohas, uh, experienced it at a
very intense level.
Um, and, yeah, anyone who isstruggling with that, it's,
there are tons of resources.
I, my inbox is always open andI'm sure, please, mine too.
Yeah, we're happy to happy towork on that.
Speaker 2 (54:40):
Art at artburnscoachingcom.
Speaker 1 (54:41):
Reach out anytime there you go Hit him up.
He's the guy.
So we've got a lot of stuff inthe works between some courses
and things that we're doing,yeah, so just going to keep
excited.
We're back.
Yeah, really grateful to behere.
We're back, but we also neverleft.
Exactly, exactly, exactly.
Again grateful to be here.
(55:02):
We always end our podcast fromthe beginning by picking a
random page out of a book.
I've got the pocket pen withchildren sitting in front of me.
How about you throw a page atme real quick.
Speaker 2 (55:15):
What's the book go to ?
What's the number of the lastpage?
Speaker 1 (55:18):
Goes to let's see here 180.
Speaker 2 (55:25):
Okay, page 111, please 111.
Speaker 1 (55:30):
Let's check it out.
All right, Do do do flipthrough this thing.
Obstacles can become ourteachers.
On the night on which he was toattain Sorry, let me restart On
the night on which he was toattain enlightenment, the Buddha
sat under a tree.
(55:50):
While he was sitting there, hewas attacked by the forces of
Mara, the Lord of Destruction.
The story goes that they shotswords and arrows at him and
that their weapons turned intoflowers.
What does this story mean?
My understanding of it is thatwe habitually regard as
obstacles.
Is that what we were I'mstumbling all over today?
What does this story mean?
(56:10):
My understanding of it is thatwhat we habitually regard as
obstacles are not really ourenemies, but rather our friends.
What we call obstacles arereally the way the world and our
entire experience teach uswhere we're stuck.
What may appear to be an arrowor a sword can actually
experience as a flower.
Whether we experience thathappens to us sorry, whether we
(56:33):
experience what happens to us asan obstacle and enemy or as a
teacher and friend, dependsentirely on our perception of
reality.
It depends on our relationshipwith ourselves.
Speaker 2 (56:47):
Oh, my gosh.
Everybody's gonna think thatwas a setup.
Speaker 1 (56:51):
It's too perfect, you know it always is always is
exactly what we need to hearevery time.
So, oh my gosh, that wasperfect.
I think that pretty much sumsitself up for that's puts a bow
right on it.
Speaker 2 (57:04):
Man, that was absolutely perfect.
Yeah, they could have made thispodcast like 30 seconds by just
reading.
Speaker 1 (57:10):
Yeah right, that's exactly that.
If you get anything out of it,go go visit that.
Pick up the book Mishodron,page 111.
Speaker 2 (57:17):
Read that and there you go, You're all set, save
yourself some time or for thelong version, listen to this.
Speaker 1 (57:27):
All right, my friend.
Well, thank you so much, oh,dude so great to be back here
with you, man.
Speaker 2 (57:32):
Oh, love it.
This has been a great reframe.
Thank you Absolutely Much love.
Love you, my friend Namaste.
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