February 21, 2025 • 69 mins
Key Takeaways:
- What you resist, persists….
- Mastery, is the state of living effortlessly, yet effectively and efficiently.
- Most of the thoughts we have are “Judging Thoughts”. We are constantly caught in the cycle of judging ourselves and others. And although we are not our thoughts, we often forget that we are the creators, and we essentially become identified with the thoughts we create. This is where we lose ourselves.
This episode explores Bob Martin's extraordinary journey from a criminal attorney- self proclaimed 'mob lawyer', to a mindfulness mentor, emphasizing the importance of reconnecting with our authentic selves. Raised by immigrant parents in the colourful yet gritty backdrop of the amusement park business, Bob's story explores the complexities of identity, societal expectations, and the challenges of recognizing one's true self. His personal encounters with bullying and imposter syndrome echo the struggle many face in navigating life’s pressures.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kertia (00:00):
Hello everybody.
I hope today finds you in goodspirits and, at the very least,
hopeful, all right.
So today we're hearing from BobMartin, who spent 40 years as a
criminal attorney, but who iscurrently a business law
(00:22):
professor and certifiedmeditation teacher and
mindfulness coordinator at ElonUniversity, and having been
trained in Taoist principles bya Taoist master, bob is
extremely passionate abouthelping others to connect to
(00:42):
their higher potential and innerpeace, and one key highlight of
this conversation, I'd say, iswhen Bob stated that who we
think we are is a result of howwe were socialized, and it
couldn't be more true.
It really reiterates what wetalk about so much on this show,
(01:04):
that our self-concept of who weare is highly programmed, and,
of course, we do rely on saidprogramming and socialization in
order to be a member of society, to partake in the beauty and
mess of it all and everything inbetween.
But at some point it isessential that we begin to
recognize our true selves, ourauthentic selves, separate from
(01:29):
the socialized, programmed self.
So my question for you is whoare you?
Who are you behind thedifferent versions of yourself
that you role play with at home,with your parents or your
family, at work with yourcolleagues or in any environment
(01:50):
that requires you to performlike an actor with a script, and
this also includes the thingsthat we affiliate ourselves with
, like a culture, a nationalityor a belief system or just a
general identity we've attachedto ourselves.
Because the thing is, whenwe're so embedded in all of that
(02:10):
, things can get really murkywhen we then try to create the
life that we desire, when theconcept of who you are came from
someone else or structuresoutside of yourself, because
then your self-concept is basedon something that is detached
from you, not something that istruly you.
So if you are living in a stateof detachment from yourself,
(02:36):
how do you then know if yourchoices are your choices, how do
you know if your decisions arebased on what you actually want,
and how do you know if what yousay you desire is truly in your
best interest?
And that's some food forthought.
(02:57):
Okay, let's get into it.
Bob, you have had a very, veryfascinating journey.
I don't even know where tobegin.
Bob (03:12):
Well, you know, to quote Jerry Garcia from the Grateful
Dead oh, what a long, strangetrip it's been.
Kertia (03:19):
Yeah, yeah, because you were a criminal trial lawyer,
right, and now you're into a lotof social work, a lot of giving
back, a lot of mindfulness andwellness.
But you didn't quite, you know,you didn't quite start that way
.
You know we mentioned, youspoke about your childhood
(03:42):
experience being a child ofimmigrant parents who you didn't
get a lot of the affection thatyou needed.
You went through a lot bullyingin school and you didn't get, I
guess, the emotional, thatemotional support that you
needed.
And I'd love for you to justget into all of that and just
start from there and how all ofthat kind of got you to where
(04:06):
you are today, because you'vebeen like all over the place and
like just thinking about yourjourney, it's it's very
incredible, it's so incredible.
So I'd love for you to kind ofjust flesh out your experience
for me and like to just take itback full circle with me.
Bob (04:31):
Well, yeah, sure.
So, yeah, you're right, my, myfolks were, uh, uh, I, I, I
never know what first generationmeans.
Uh, my folks were immigrants.
My dad was Hungarian royaltyand left Hungary in the early
part of last century.
He was born in 1898.
(04:51):
Just to give you kind of atimeframe of my life, right, Wow
, 1950.
So I'm almost three quarters ofa century old and my mom was
(05:12):
Roma, gypsy, and the Bolshevikswiped out my dad's family and
everybody wiped out my mom's.
So we didn't have any ancestorsreally to speak of in my family
, but they found the Americandream through popcorn and cotton
candy.
So I kind of grew up inamusement parks and carnivals.
That was what we did.
But by the time I was 10 yearsold, we were selling hot dogs on
(05:40):
the boardwalk in Queens, newYork, and spending the summers
in South Florida.
And it was an exciting andcared for life on one regard,
because, you know, the extendedfamily of the amusement park was
(06:01):
very supportive.
But my folks being EasternEuropeans you Europeans they
were always of the mind thatgetting the job done is its own
reward and do the job right andyou don't need a pat on the back
and your pat on the back shouldbe your pride in your work, and
that gave me a certain workethic for sure.
(06:25):
But it didn't give me a lot ofemotional support.
And I was a big boy In thosedays.
We called it husky.
I was a husky place you couldget clothes for if you were
(06:49):
other sized the only place youcould get clothes was JCPenney's
, who had a husky department.
So I grew up that way and I waspicked on and bullied a bit and
that was painful.
It certainly isn't as painfulas some of the trauma of the
folks that I've worked with inmy life, but it was my pain.
(07:11):
So we all look at our own painas the special pain.
So fast forward.
I would say that my folks, thefact that their families had all
been wiped out, they came tothe feeling that there really
couldn't be a merciful God, andso the question or the
(07:35):
conversation of religion justwasn't in my upbringing.
It wasn't that they wereagainst it in any way, they were
not atheists, but they werenon-theists.
We just ignored it and Isuppose I started getting
curious about how the universewas organized, reading science
(07:59):
fiction as a teenager, but fastforward somehow.
As a teenager, but fast forwardsomehow.
And I have to confess somethingI am a walking example of
imposter syndrome.
You know, I still can't believethat.
I fooled that law school intoaccepting me and I tricked the
(08:23):
Bar Association into licensingme.
They only really knew what wasdown underneath, you know, and I
suppose that's a vestige of thelow self-esteem you get when
you're being bullied.
You just don't think that youare deserving of things, even
though life is proving to youvery different.
(08:45):
So I became a lawyer and when Igot to law school something
happened.
It triggered my brain.
Up until then I was verymediocre in my studies, but when
I got to law school there wassomething just really exciting
about it.
(09:06):
I think it was because my dadwas a very meticulous and a very
righteous person who believedin being fair.
He believed in being loyal,loyal and fair was a big thing
with him.
And when I got to law school Isaw that there was fairness
(09:27):
baked into the system and thatexcited me.
So I did well in law school andin my third year I interned in
the district attorney's officethey call it the state
attorney's office of Miami-DadeCounty, florida in the 70s,
which was the heyday of thecocaine cowboy days and I
(09:50):
progressed through the officefairly quickly and got up to be
a senior prosecutor in economiccrimes and consumer frauds.
So we hit the mob for a lot ofmoney 72 million bucks and it
was an exciting time.
And I left shortly thereafterand went out into private
(10:11):
practice and I got a visit froma fellow that I'll just call
Johnny.
He was Italian from the Italianleg of the Miami conglomerate,
which included the Colombians,the Cubans, the Haitians, the
Peruvians and the Italians, andhe came to visit me and
(10:36):
basically he told me that theyhad pretty good lawyers and I
was able to beat them.
So they figured I was prettygood.
They wanted to start sending meclients For the next few years.
I became a mob lawyer.
That's kind of the story upuntil that point.
Then there are things thathappened.
Kertia (11:00):
Yeah, that's really incredible.
Bob (11:03):
That is truly incredible no-transcript, and in some ways
(11:41):
it's really very common, becauseit's when we start to hit
bottom, when life starts to getout of control, when things
start to get beyond our abilityto have any sense of security in
who you are and where you'regoing, that very often people
(12:02):
seek out something different,they want change, and so in that
regard, you know my life isvery common and the way that the
facts of it are, that I startedhanging out with my mob clients
and it was the cocaine cowboydays, as we said.
There's a lot of cocaine runningthrough Miami and a lot of
(12:23):
other drugs, and they were goingout to all of these chrome and
glass discotheques of the 70s.
And if anybody's ever seenScarface, the movie with Al
Pacino, or the TV show MiamiVice, that really was the vibe
of Miami in those days.
It really, really the facts maybe weird, but it caught the
(12:47):
vibe, they caught the vibe, andso that's what I was doing, and
my personal life was beginningto unravel, and so I was seeing
a therapist and one day I got toa very important crossroads and
I went and I asked my therapistyou know, what should I do,
(13:09):
george?
Should I continue this?
Or what should I do?
And to my surprise he pulledout a bunch of coins and started
throwing them on the table.
And I'm paying him in thosedays.
65 bucks an hour was a lot ofmoney.
And.
I paid him to be my therapistand all of a sudden he's
(13:30):
throwing coins and makingmathematical calculations and
did some drawing and then cameup with a number 32.
And he opened up a book tochapter 32, and he showed me the
chapter name.
And the chapter name wasretreat.
And you know, I didn't want tohear it, I didn't believe in
(13:51):
what he was doing, I thought itwas weird and I cursed him out,
stomped out of the office.
But the word kind of cementeditself into my psyche and I knew
, you know, intuitively, I knewthat I needed to pull back from
some of my excessive behaviors.
And I started doing that, wentback to George and I asked him,
(14:14):
george, what was that that youdid?
And he said, well, bob, that isthe I Ching, or the classical
book of changes.
I said, well, where does thatcome from?
And he says, well, that's aTaoist practice.
And I said, what's Taoism?
And that's when I found outthat George was the English
(14:35):
language editor for a 72ndgeneration Shaolin priest.
The Shaolin priest, you knowthe Shaolin temple, that's Kung
Fu Tai Chi, you know all ofthose things.
And and so he introduced me toMaster Hua Ching Ni, who was a
72nd generation master.
(14:56):
Think of that.
Yeah 1400 years handing it downin the family father to son.
That's amazing, just that alone.
But this guy, this guy was afellow who had gained mastery in
life.
I mean, they call them masterknee, but it's not that he has a
(15:19):
title, it's that he has gainedmastery.
And so we asked him you knowwhat's it like to be Master, nee
?
And he said no rehearsingthoughts.
No rehearsing thoughts.
By that, you know, weunderstood that he never thinks
about what he's going to do orwhat he's done or what he should
(15:42):
say.
He just is and responds.
And he always respondedperfectly and appropriately and
had the exact right thing to say, all without rehearsing
thoughts and all withoutplanning, and it was just like
muscle memory for him.
He was in the zone.
Kertia (16:04):
That's phenomenal.
Bob (16:06):
And then we asked him you know how do you define mastery?
And he defined mastery asliving effortlessly, yet
effectively and efficiently.
Yeah.
And so, of course, the nextquestion was always how do you
get there?
And he goes, ha ha, ha ha, hegoes aha, grasshopper, this I
(16:37):
will show you.
Kertia (16:39):
Oh my gosh, that's hilarious.
Bob (16:42):
So for eight years we studied with George as our local
leader and Master Nee visitingand practiced Taoist practices
and learned how to go with theflow of life, and that was
transformational.
And so, about the same timethat I was beginning to get a
(17:04):
handle on what Master Nee wasteaching, my Johnny's son got
arrested and up until then ouragreement was nothing unethical,
nothing illegal.
It's good to have a lawyerthat's respected by the courts.
That's in your best interest,johnny.
(17:24):
He goes, yeah, but now it washis son.
So now there was no saying no.
Kertia (17:31):
It's different.
Bob (17:32):
You will do this, you will do this, and it was something
that I would not do, especiallyafter my years of learning with
Master Nee.
I would not, and so the bestway that I found to resolve it
was to move to North Carolina.
Oh my God, and we decided thatwe would move there.
(17:53):
I went to Johnny and I saidJohnny, I'm moving to North
Carolina.
And he said well, Bob,sometimes a man just has to move
on.
Well, Bob, sometimes a man justhas to move on.
This way we can part friends.
We shook hands and I neverheard from them again.
(18:21):
So I got to North Carolina andI moved.
I moved from chrome and glasshotssy-totsy Miami to some place
where, as soon as I opened mymouth, everybody said you don't
sound like you come from aroundthese parts.
Kertia (18:38):
You, sure don't.
Bob (18:39):
You sure don't.
And I got to tell you.
I brought my TV up up and itwas one of those old, big, thick
cathode ray TVs, you know.
That had to warm up and I gotit and I set it up for the very
first day that I got to NorthCarolina and there was a little
dot, you know white, and it grewand it bigger and finally the
(19:00):
screen appeared and there wasthis big guy that looked like
Horst Cartwright from Bonanza,with a 10-gallon white hat and a
map of North and South Carolinabehind him with all the Ford
dealerships having stars, and helooks right at me and he goes
you need to get yourself a truckand I go.
(19:27):
Oh my God, where have I gone?
Where have I?
been?
Where have I gone to?
Where have I?
Where am I?
But I had a fresh canvas.
I had a brand new slate, a newchance to redefine my life.
(19:47):
So, with the training and theteaching of Master Nee and
coming to a place where I cannow define myself as I wanted to
and what my heart led me to do,you know, I don't know.
When you engage in practicesthat are designed to cultivate
(20:12):
compassion, that are designed toopen your heart, when you
practice them and you actuallyhave the physical sensation of
your heart opening, the onlything that is left for you, the
only thing that you want to doin life after that, is to
relieve suffering.
(20:33):
Yeah.
And when I got to North Carolina, I devoted myself to what Jesus
would call the least of theseand I became a public servant,
went back to school, got amaster's in social work, went
back to school, got a master'sin social work, stayed in
criminal practice until 2015,.
(20:54):
Treating my clients not onlytheir legal issues but also
their holistically looking atwhat their life was, making sure
that when they left myrepresentation they felt heard,
they felt somebody had stood upfor them and they understood why
(21:14):
what was happening washappening to them.
And that was important becauseeven today now it's been nine
years that I haven't been doingcriminal law some of my clients
will run into me on the streetin a small town and they say you
(21:35):
know, mr Martin, the last timethat you represented me was the
last time I got in trouble.
Kertia (21:46):
That's beautiful.
Bob (21:47):
I can give myself the pat on my back that my parents
didn't.
Kertia (21:52):
Yeah, absolutely Absolutely.
Oh my gosh.
But imagine, like you know,having that low self-esteem and
then imposter syndrome thatcomes along with it and being
able to do the work that youwere doing, being recognized as
a huge mob lawyer.
(22:12):
That's just wild, that issomething I'm sure you wouldn't
have imagined.
Those moments when you weregetting bullied, when you felt
misunderstood or when you werefeeling low, that is something
that you don't even kind ofthink that you can do.
You know when you're goingthrough the worst of it, but
(22:35):
that is incredible.
For you to even come from that,coming out of that, to where
you are right now, likefollowing instruction of
masternanny, that must have beenlike a huge, pivotal turn in
your life.
What you know, coming from your, your childhood experience,
your experience as a lawyer, asa business owner, and coming
(22:57):
back to now like what did thatteach you essentially?
Bob (23:03):
Well, you know.
So over the years, you knowI've come into contact with
monastics.
You know we've gone on retreatsand I go into.
I've come into contact withmonastics, we've gone on
retreats and I've come intopeople who, at the age of four,
have dedicated themselves tomonastery living and cultivating
their inner world and the like.
You know they're very, verywell trained.
(23:36):
What I think is missing fromthem is that they don't have
that experience of having livedin the real world as a normal
person who's subject to all ofthe slings and arrows as Hamlet
said, the slings and arrows ofoutrageous fortune.
And so, although they are greatteachers and they have great
skills that they can relate to,you never feel like they really
(24:00):
have any idea of what's going onwith you.
And so I think, even today, Iwent through bouts of addiction,
and that meant that I wentthrough times in the NA, and I
never had a problem with alcohol, just opioids.
But I spent a lot of time inthe Narcotics Anonymous rooms,
(24:27):
and you know the people who wecall the old timers, the guys
that have been in recovery for12 and 15 years, but they still
show up at the rooms.
Yeah, I mean these guys have awisdom and a kindness and a
grace about them that can onlybe there if they have gone
(24:50):
through the gamut.
Yeah.
Kertia (24:53):
Yeah, it's a different level of compassion as well.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Because then you can identify with the pain of the
other, like you get it, youunderstand, it doesn't need to
be said, right, right.
Bob (25:15):
Because they know Exactly, yeah, so, yes, all of that has
contributed.
And you know, I mean growing upon not, I didn't grow up on the
streets, but I grew up in theparks.
You know the amusement parks,and in amusement parks, you know
, we had, you know, in thosedays.
It's not politically correcttoday, but this is how life was
(25:37):
then.
You know, the Poles were thefolks that put up the rides and
the Gypsies were the ones thatwere the fortune tellers and the
Italians were the game guys andthese guys were these guys and
those guys were these guys andthose guys were those guys and
you had this really diversefamily of folks that you know
(25:58):
you live with.
So it's not like you grew up onthe street, but it's like you
grew up in a multicultural, very, very real, very, very real
gritty I would say grittyenvironment, and so I think like
, and I feel like, you know,I've got some common sense,
because that's what that streetknowledge, you know.
(26:20):
Yeah.
And, and that helps also.
Kertia (26:24):
It definitely does.
It's a good combination when youknow cause you're mentioning
the guys that are more monasticand you know not having a
certain kind of experience tothe work that they do.
They do amazing work, of course,but when you can have the same
or similar conversation withsomeone else that has that
(26:47):
street knowledge, that has thatgets it, that gets what it's
like to be on the ground, it'sdifferent, it hits different,
right, because now you'rerelating to that person, right,
you can relate to their pain,you can relate to their
suffering and to the things thatare challenging for them.
And, leading from that, youmentioned the last time that a
(27:10):
lot of people aren't even awarethat they experienced trauma or
they don't recognize it.
Right, and that when you weredoing meditation work with them
or spiritual work with them, theterms that they would use like
they're stressed or they'reoverwhelmed or they're
overthinking right, so you beingable to balance that spiritual
(27:33):
knowledge with your experience,your life experience, right,
with the grit and the grime andeverything in between, right,
that definitely makes a hugedifference.
So I want you to speak to yourwork facilitating meditation and
helping others to reconnectwith themselves.
Bob (27:59):
So I have this wonderful privilege, this wonderful honor
of being able to actually getinside other people's heads and
that sounds a little weird orscary, but I don't mean it that
(28:20):
way and this is what I mean.
So I teach meditation and Iteach it.
You know, of course I teach itprivately, online, but I also
teach it on the campus.
We have a two credit meditationcourse that the students you
know take and college studentsyou know who are trying to
(28:40):
achieve.
You know they're prettystressed out, they're
overthinkers, they'reperfectionists, they have racing
thoughts and they overthinkeverything.
Perfectionists.
They have racing thoughts andthey overthink everything, and
they're stressed out by alltheir assignments and all that
kind of stuff.
And so every semester, 12 to 15of them sign up to take my
(29:02):
course and the way that thecourse is taught is that I have
because I'm certified in theKORU course.
Koru was developed at DukeUniversity and they created this
digital infrastructure.
They created an app and on theapp are all the guided
(29:25):
meditations and all theresources you need.
But the one thing that'sdifferent about it from any
other way of teaching is thatafter you listen to the
meditation and after you sit for10 minutes and maybe you'll do
breath awareness, maybe bodyscan, maybe belly breathing,
maybe labeling thoughts, allthese different techniques.
(29:46):
You write a log on the app andyou write how that was for you.
And the next morning I get upat four o'clock in the morning
and after I take my dogs andfeed my dogs and have my coffee
and sit for my own meditation, Iturn my computer on and I get
(30:07):
12 to 15 logs.
I get a little scope into theminds of 12 to 15 people as they
write their logs and describehow their experience was, and
then I get to give them feedback.
And that is just such an honor,especially in the second or
(30:30):
third week of the course, whenthey start to break open, when
they start to get the skill ofstepping out of their thoughts
and stepping into the role ofwatching their thoughts.
It takes about three weeks ofkind of prying them loose from
(30:52):
words like focus andconcentration and quieting the
mind, all of which have nothingto do with meditation, you know.
So they finally, they finallyget it.
And one of them said it wasbeautiful and a lot.
They said yesterday.
They said, oh, I've been soupset about being distracted
(31:13):
when I'm meditating, but nowthat I'm labeling thoughts.
When I got distracted, I justlabeled it a distracting thought
and I was able to go right backto my breath and that was huge.
(31:36):
That's a huge opening.
Instead of being distracted,she realized that all she had
was a distracting thought, andonce you can see your thinking
that way, it is incrediblyfreeing.
All of a sudden, you're notcontrolled by your thoughts.
You move to a place where youcan manage your thoughts because
(32:00):
you realize they're just littlethings that you have, they're
not you, and so it's just lovely.
It's just lovely to be able todo that.
Now, not everybody engages inthe class, but you know this is.
The podcast is called the OtherSide of Fear, and I have a
(32:24):
perfect example.
Yeah.
There was one young lady in theclass and I'm seeing the logs
come in and you know we're aboutthree weeks in.
Everybody else has done about20, 22 meditations, 10 minutes a
day.
She's done five.
Yeah.
And of course she doesn't getit because she hasn't practiced.
(32:47):
A week goes by betweenpractices.
She hasn't practiced, you knowshe you know, week goes by
between practices.
So I asked her to stay afterclass and I and here's where the
life experience comes inAnother teacher, another person
who you know, who grew upwithout going through the gamut,
(33:09):
might say you know what's wrongwith you, not what's wrong with
you.
They say you know, the class isgraded on how many you do and
you've only done five and weonly have two weeks left and you
better get up and you betterstart.
You know, catching up toeverybody else and blah, blah,
blah.
Yeah.
But I was more curious about.
(33:29):
You know, here it is, she'sself-selected to take the class.
I mean, it's not a requiredclass.
Yeah.
So you choose yourself to takethe class because she was hoping
to get a benefit from the class.
Yeah.
And here she is not engaging.
Yeah so what's that all about?
(33:50):
Rather than being judgmentalabout it, it's a curious thing.
So, with a genuine andauthentic curiosity, I said
what's that all about?
What is it that is keeping you?
And man, the floodgates justopened, the tears started coming
(34:14):
down and she says I don't feellike I deserve it.
Every time I want to try tomake some progress, I get in my
own way.
I take on, I want to do things.
And it was like it wasn't justmy class, it was her whole life.
It was her whole life.
And so we got the opportunity toactually start to work through
(34:36):
that, using some meditativetechniques that deconstruct the
power of feelings, and I wasable to teach her some things,
so that now it's a couple ofweeks later and every morning,
like clockwork, she gets up, shegoes and brushes her teeth, she
(34:58):
sits down, she does her 10minutes and it took a couple of
weeks, but she's getting it.
And she says I can't believehow free I feel.
And you know when we started,she goes well, I'm just so
afraid.
Started, she goes well, I'mjust so, I'm so afraid.
And I had to say to her I'mreally sorry, but there's no
easy way through this.
You just have to do it.
(35:19):
It's not hard, but you justhave to do it.
There's no way around it.
You have to.
You have to just sit for 10minutes, keep it simple, follow
the instructions, trust theprocess and do it, because it's
not hard.
But she had created thisboogeyman in her head.
(35:40):
So once she was able to stepback from her thoughts and
realize that these are justthoughts and she is not her
thoughts, it broke open a wholenew way of looking at life for
her, and so that's what I do.
Kertia (35:59):
That is amazing and it's so beautiful how you were able
to help her through that,especially you having that
compassion.
You know that compassion I wastalking about earlier, when when
you know, you know when you'vebeen through it right, because
it's so easy to go straight tojudgment and like ask questions
(36:21):
like what's wrong with thisperson.
You know what I mean and it'sbeautiful when you have that
experience, when you've beenthrough something and you can
identify, you can see your paininside of another person and be
able to have that compassion toapproach them differently.
(36:42):
right, and that's because, yeah,you, you recognize something
really clearly like, okay, thisis an elective course, she, she
didn't have to be here, but shecame here for a reason, but then
she is not engaging, so therehas to be something else that's
going on here, right?
And absolutely there was, and itmakes such a huge difference
(37:03):
when you can see yourself inanother person, actually
identify with them, because thenyou can see the whole being and
you're not just focused onwhat's wrong with them, right,
that perception of what's wrongwith them.
So that that was a reallybeautiful thing that you did
there.
And, just coming back to um,identifying with your thoughts,
(37:29):
right, we mentioned that in ourprevious conversation, when you
mentioned you know, there's adifference between identifying
with the I, the I that hasthoughts separate from the real
soul, so I'd love for you tospeak about that in some more
detail as well.
Bob (37:46):
Sure, sure so, you know, in our common language.
Sure, sure so you know, in ourcommon language, we all say, oh
(38:13):
hey, you know I had a thought.
So that's a recognition thatthe thought is not me and that I
was the creator of that thought.
And so what we do in life, whatwe tend to do without any, some
people come to this naturallyand and you know these there are
(38:35):
kind and compassionate peopleout there that are just empathic
, and I don't know if it'sgenetics, um, life experiences,
um.
So some people come to itnaturally, but most of us most
of us are are hung up and wehave a thought, and most of it
is a judgment.
They're judging thoughts.
(38:57):
Yeah, Either judging others orjudging ourselves.
I like it, I don't like it,it's good, it's bad, he's good,
he's bad.
You know we go judging, judging, judging all the day, all day,
and ourselves, especially thatcommittee in the head.
You should have done this, youcould have done that, you could
have done it better, you know,yeah.
(39:18):
And so we even identify, we areour thoughts.
You know, we see somebody andwe have a thought that you know
that dress doesn't look good onher, or you know he shouldn't
wear those kinds of pants, or Idon't like the fact that his
pants are halfway down aroundhis butt.
(39:39):
And all of a sudden you have animage of who this person is and
what they're like, and you knowyou either like them or you
don't like them, and that's yourtruth.
It is you.
There's no access to it,there's no managing of it.
It just came up and it becomeswho you are.
(40:04):
And unfortunately, most of ouruntrained thoughts are the
product of social conditioning.
Yeah, and they're not helpfulfor the most part.
So it's crazy that we start tobecome who we believe ourselves
(40:26):
to be based on the thoughts thatcome up, which is what the
world has implanted into us.
And, of course, that's notgoing to be very workable in
terms of having a happy andjoyful life.
And think of what the worldgives you between the news and
(40:48):
missed deadlines and TSA lineswhen your plane is late and
traffic when you're in a rushand the lady who's got the three
ring notebook with all thecoupons in front of you at the
shopping center.
Just think this is the stuffthat life gives you Of course
(41:16):
you know it's not going to behelpful.
So when you can break free of it.
And the metaphor that I like touse is that and I think that we
all can agree that we have thisfeeling that there is a stream
of consciousness that flowsthrough us and on that stream of
consciousness it seems like ourthoughts are being carried on
it.
So the metaphor that I like touse is a river flowing by with
(41:40):
sticks and twigs on it, and theriver is the stream of
consciousness and the sticks andtwigs are our thoughts, and
generally we are riding on theback of a twig and if the
river's calm, then everything'sgoing hunky-dory in life.
But then when we get into thewhite water, we start getting
(42:02):
fearful and stressed and thenwhen we see that we're coming up
to a waterfall, we get reallyfreaked out.
Right, and that's where we'reat.
But in meditation, through avery simple process of simply I
mean the instructions are verysimple Form an intention to put
(42:23):
your attention on something, andthen your mind is going to
wander, and it's okay that itwanders.
It's not about maintainingfocus, it's not about keeping
your attention on the candle oron your breath.
Your mind will wander.
(42:44):
It's an evolutionary thing thatcame about when we were
hunter-gatherers, because wewere always scanning for danger,
and so it's built into thestructure of our brain that our
mind will wander.
But we had formed an intentionto put our attention on
something.
(43:05):
The best example I could giveyou is have you ever been
listening to somebody who youwanted to listen to and then
your mind wandered and youweren't listening to them
anymore, absolutely.
Then you notice you go, oh, I'mnot listening.
You notice at some point thatyou're not listening right.
(43:25):
Then you go back to listening,but before you do, you have all
these judgments about oh, howcan I get them to repeat what I
didn't hear without letting themknow that I wasn't listening?
And oh, I really messed up andthere was something important
that I probably should.
But we do it artificially sothat we can play with it.
(43:58):
So I say, put your attention onyour breath, and then your mind
wanders and then because youhad said that I want to pay
attention to my breath, yourmind will say, oh hey, you're
not paying attention to yourbreath, and then all the
judgments will come in andeverything else, and then you're
(44:21):
supposed to bring yourself backto your breath and just begin
again.
And then your mind wanders offagain and you notice it, and
then you have all the judgmentsand you come back and you begin
again and it wanders and younotice and you begin again.
So through this repetitiveprocess you become familiar with
(44:44):
a bunch of stuff.
One you become familiar withwaking up, the sense of waking
up from the fog, because whenyour mind wanders you kind of go
into that default fog.
Then you wake up from it.
So you realize what it feelslike to wake up.
You begin to notice what itfeels like to be in the fog.
You begin to notice thejudgments that you have, and
(45:09):
then the instructions are also.
You know, see, if you can begentle with yourself, if you do
this over and over, what happensis that you start to get bored
of the judgments.
They become known, they becomeold hat.
And because they become old hat, hat and because they become
(45:37):
old hat, they start to losetheir power over you.
And when you start tounderstand that they're losing
your power over you, then youstart to see that all thoughts
can be seen that way.
And then you start into the.
You know, you go to a secondarylevel where you start learning
how to manage your thinking.
So that's kind of how it goes.
(45:57):
So, going back to the metaphorof the river, as you do this
simple practice, what you learnto do is separate yourself into
two beings Okay, I'm not sayingthat, not really, but you know
and one of you is still on theleaf, experiencing life, but the
(46:23):
other one has climbed up on thebank of the river and is
watching it all flow by.
So from the place of being onthe leaf, you you feel grief and
sadness and anger and all thatstuff, but from sitting on the
bank, you're stable and you'recalm and you're okay.
(46:46):
So you get to actually be bothand as the skill progresses, you
know you can kind of moveintentionally between them.
You start to get angry aboutsomething and then, even as
you're angry, you go sit up onthe thing and you're asking
(47:08):
yourself is this a good time forme to be angry?
I wonder if this is beinghelpful for me to be angry.
I mean, when I'm talking toutilities like the telephone
company or those guys, it's goodto be angry.
You know, a little anger atthat point, you know, will get
(47:30):
things done, um, uh and so, um,so, yeah, so that is that is.
My job is to take the beginningstudent and pry them away from
the misconceptions of trying toquiet their mind and teach them
(47:53):
this new skill.
It's not an unusual.
It's not an unusual thing.
In In science they call itmetacognition or thinking about
your thinking, and we all do it.
We just don't do itintentionally and we don't
develop the skill intentionally.
And it makes a huge differenceto have that tool in your tool
(48:15):
belt to use it.
You know when, when it whenit's helpful to use it.
Kertia (48:22):
That's definitely true, and I love that analogy that you
gave being the the personperched on the leaf in the river
and then being the personsitting on the bank of the river
observing yeah, yeah, that's.
Bob (48:37):
That's a really good analogy of that yeah, and even
that person that sits up on thebank is almost like you would
imagine if a couple of alienswere in their flying saucer yeah
watching the goings-on of earthand they would be just so
(48:58):
curious Like I wonder why theydo that and I wonder why they do
that, yeah, and that person upon the bank has that kind of
curiosity.
And I should mention theantidote to judgment is
curiosity.
Kertia (49:15):
Yeah, that's so true.
Bob (49:17):
If you can go from, they shouldn't be like that to.
I wonder why they're like that.
Yeah, that's so true.
You know, if you can go from,they shouldn't be like that to.
I wonder why they're like that.
Yeah.
You know it's a great place tomove to.
Kertia (49:28):
It's a huge shift in perception.
Yeah, because then you perceivethe person and the situation
completely differently, when youcan approach it with curiosity
rather than judgment.
Bob (49:39):
Because then the judgment is coming from all those
preconditioned beliefs that youhave, and imagine if you could
turn that shift of perceptioninto the self-judgment that you
have.
Kertia (49:53):
Exactly.
Bob (49:56):
How freeing?
Kertia (49:57):
Yeah, yeah, because of course, then you know, like
imposter syndrome wouldn't beimposter syndrome, it would be,
you would observe it fromsomething else, from a different
perception, right, Right.
Bob (50:09):
Right, exactly Because, right now, my imposter syndrome.
I've already created a wholepersona for it and I call it the
little boy.
There's that little kid again,and it's not even me anymore.
(50:31):
There are thoughts that are inmy head and there are thoughts
that I think, but it's not methinking.
It's that little kid.
Kertia (50:45):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's so many ways that wecan reframe the experiences that
we have that can be morehelpful, right and conducive to
our mental health too right,because imposter syndrome can be
heavy.
It can be so heavy, so, so heavy, heavy.
So when you can, like, I guess,depersonalize it a little bit
and really observe it for whatit is, instead of judging
(51:08):
yourself or those feelings ofnot being enough or not being
deserving, right or not, I donknow, whatever it is that you
think you're not, when youdepersonalize it you can change
the energetic charge of that,right.
So yeah, yeah.
Bob (51:30):
And it, you know.
And again, what people try todo is they try to not think it.
And what you resist persists.
But what you can be with willlet you be, and so the trick is,
when those thoughts come, youallow them to come and you
(51:51):
become curious about them, andagain there's a certain boredom.
Actually, there's a scientificword for it, it's called hedonic
adaptation.
But don't worry about that,let's just call it boredom.
It's like you get used to themand then, when you're used to
them, they become like oldannoyances.
(52:12):
That you just brush off.
There's something else aboutthat.
Yeah, feelings as a way of kindof organizing your mind, but
(52:47):
labeling feelings that skill iswhat we call labeling feelings
is really combined with bodyscans.
We do body scans where youbring your attention to the
different parts of your body andkind of reconnect with the
physical sensations of your body, because many of us have
disconnected from our physicalsensations.
So we reconnect to thosephysical sensations and then we
(53:10):
also start labeling our feelingsso that we can be aware of what
the thoughts are that areassociated with those feelings.
Once we have gotten a littlebit skilled around those things
and it sounds like it's a lot,but I promise you, in four or
(53:30):
five weeks you can acquire thesethings.
It's not years, you don't haveto go to a monastery.
In four to five weeks you canget there.
And the best thing that I cantell you is to tell you a little
story about how I reallylearned how body scans and
labeling feelings come together.
(53:51):
And so what happened was I wasat a retreat and I'm sitting on
the cushion and you know we satfor 20 minutes.
We did walking meditation for10, sat for 20, walked for 10,
on and on, and I'm sitting onthe cushion and all of a sudden
I realized the value ofmeditation, how it's going to
(54:11):
change the world and how we allhave to go out there and change
the world and teach everybodymeditation If we have to
strangle them to teach them it.
We got to teach them and Icouldn't sit anymore.
I was so excited.
I got up from my cushion and Iwent over to the room where all
the teachers were huddled in theroom.
(54:32):
I knocked on the door and oneof the teachers came and she
said yes, bob, knowing that Ishould be sitting on the cushion
.
And I said I guess I got totell you something.
I'm just so excited.
And she goes okay, bob.
And she stepped out and she goeswhat is it?
And I said well, I told her andI went on and on about how
(54:54):
excited we're going to changethe world.
We got to go out there and dashe looked at me, she listened
to me and then she said so,you're having some thoughts.
And I go yes, yes, I am, I'mhaving thoughts.
And she goes and you're havingsome body sensations too.
Yes, yes, I have bodysensations.
(55:17):
I'm all excited.
My face is flushed and I canfeel it in my chest and my
heart's beating, and yes, I havephysical sensations.
She goes.
So you have thoughts and youhave physical sensations.
I said, yeah, I have thoughtsand I have physical sensations,
so she goes.
Yeah, you have physicalsensations and you have thoughts
(55:39):
and I go.
Yeah, Hmm.
Back on the cushion.
Huh, she goes yeah, back on thecushion.
So I learned that all of theseemotions that are so powerful in
our lives are really made up ofa thought and a body sensation.
(56:00):
Yeah.
You know, because if I said toyou, you know I love you, but I
don't feel anything in my chest,I don't feel any body sensation
, it's just an intellectualstatement.
Yeah.
And then if I felt the bodysensation but I didn't have the
thought, I would swear that Ihad indigestion, right.
Yeah, right, yeah.
(56:26):
So when you have an emotion, ifyou label it and you look at
what the thoughts that you haveare and then you like connect it
to the body sensations, you canbreak it down into its
component parts and it just kindof like becomes manageable.
And that is one of the biggestthings, that, when you talk
(56:49):
about trauma-informed meditation, it's one of the biggest things
that we focus on body scans anduh and and labeling feelings so
that we can break into theircomponent parts and then we can
deal with those component partspretty effectively.
Kertia (57:07):
But when they're combined and we don't know
what's going on, yeah, come lordthat's truly amazing because,
as you said before, a lot of uswere disconnected from our
bodies, right, a lot of us wehave.
It's challenging sometimes fora lot of us to even identify
what we're feeling, right,because sometimes, especially
(57:28):
when we have triggers and thingslike that frustration, anger,
sadness, even sometimesloneliness.
Some of the emotions sometimesare difficult for us to identify
, much less to actually feelthem in our body.
Right, we just know that wedon't feel good in the moment.
But sometimes you know, whenyou ask someone how they're
feeling, they can't actuallyalways give you an identifiable
(57:54):
like name for what they'refeeling right, like name for
what you're feeling right.
So, um, that is really helpful,especially when you're doing
trauma work, because you have toknow how to first reconnect
back to yourself and reconnectto those emotions so that you
can work through them.
So that's that is.
That is a really goodobservation.
I truly, truly enjoyed that,that explanation that you gave
(58:18):
there.
And then, leading all of thisback to the work that you're
doing right now, I know thatyou've written a book.
I'd love for you to tell uswhat to expect from your book.
I'd love to know more aboutwhat its contents are.
Bob (58:32):
Okay, well, yeah, so that was.
The book was actually based onmy spiritual path of non-theism
or no religion to.
Taoism and then, when I got toNorth Carolina, buddhism.
Then I wound up marrying aSouthern Baptist Bible
literalist.
(58:53):
She really believes the storiesof the Bible are historical fact
yeah the stories of the Bibleare historical fact, and
although she and I love eachother dearly she's my second
wife we love each other dearlyand we both have the same sense
of compassion and desire to easesuffering in the world I
(59:13):
thought her science was a littleoff.
You know, her science was alittle off and she thought my
stuff was really weird and um,and she was unhappy.
She said you know, I love youso much, bob, but I really hate
it that you're not going to goto heaven with me because I
hadn't been saved.
And I would kid her saying thatI was unhappy that she wouldn't
(59:35):
be reincarnated with me.
But but I had to be carefulbecause that would always get me
a good slap.
And so what I started doing is Istarted taking some of the
ancient manuscripts that supportTaoism and I started looking in
the Bible for the same stories,because I started seeing that
(59:59):
what Lao Tzu wrote thousands ofyears ago, 2,500 years ago, what
he wrote and what Jesus taughtwere virtually identical.
It's just they were expressedin different terms, coming from
a different place.
Taoism, of course, is notdeistic, it's not God-based,
(01:00:20):
yeah, whereas of courseChristianity is God-based, and
so you have to make a certainleap in translation, but the
lessons are the same.
I mean when Jesus said when youtake care of the least of these
, you take care of me.
Lao Tzu said the same thingleast of these, you take care of
(01:00:41):
me.
Lao Tzu said the same thingwhen Jesus washed the feet of
his disciples.
Lao Tzu did the same thing.
The Dalai Lama still does thesame thing.
So these are universal truthsthat exist, and so I started
taking passages from the Tao TeChing and reimagining them as a
(01:01:01):
Christian poem, and so Ieventually did all 81 chapters
and a publisher reached out tome and wanted to publish it, and
we published it.
It's great because a lot ofpeople have left the church
because of its exclusivity andbecause of its dogma and because
(01:01:23):
of thinking like I hate it.
You're not going to go toheaven because you haven't been
saved.
A lot of folks can't imagine why85% of the world is going to
burn in hell, that kind ofthinking.
But when they left, they alsoleft their relationship with
Jesus and God and what theyfound in my book and I get
(01:01:47):
letters from all over thecountry.
What they found in the book isthat they can reestablish that
relationship with the divinewithout having to go back to the
dogma of organized religion.
Yeah.
And it's acted as a RosettaStone for me and my wife, and so
now we are able to relate onmuch, much deeper and more
(01:02:09):
profound levels.
Kertia (01:02:11):
Yeah, that's amazing.
Yeah, the basis of all religion, or you know a lot of those
esoteric spiritual teachings.
They're all on theirfundamental level, before
anything was changed and alteredand things like that.
They all have that fundamentalthing of love, thing of love,
(01:02:46):
not fair, um, not control, butlove and compassion and empathy
and being in connection toyourself and being connected to
everything that is.
They all have those fundamentalteachings, right.
So, like the similarities, youcan always find that when you
look at the foundation of wherethese religions and these
esoteric teachings came from.
So that's really, reallybeautiful that you've been able
(01:03:10):
to reflect that in your book.
That's amazing.
I love that.
Bob (01:03:14):
It was certainly a labor of love.
I'll tell you that.
Four years, four years, it tookfour years.
Kertia (01:03:19):
Four years.
Bob (01:03:20):
But there's something else that I've written that I'd love
to tell your audience about.
Kertia (01:03:24):
Oh yeah.
Bob (01:03:25):
So a lot of people ask me about meditation and a lot of
people ask me about relaxation,and relaxation is not really
meditation.
Now, there are some meditationsthat are relaxing, but some
meditations are real active work, like paying attention and your
(01:03:47):
mind wandering and labelingthoughts and contemplating, but
anyway.
So I put the answers to thosequestions, I put them into two
little e-books that are free anddownloadable that answer the
questions what is meditation andwhat is it not, how to do it
and how to get started.
(01:04:07):
And the other one is 25 tipsand tricks from around the
internet that you can learn torelax in five minutes or less.
Yeah.
So those two books are availablejust with a click and a free
download, no obligation, no cost, nothing else.
(01:04:28):
But they're helpful and I'mhappy to make them available.
Kertia (01:04:34):
That's amazing.
That's a great resource.
Bob (01:04:37):
Yeah, all they need to do is go to my website,
awiseandhappylifecomawiseandhappylifecom and there's
little free download buttonsthere, and there's also a
contact button.
If anybody wants to send me aquestion by email or make a
(01:04:58):
contact, I'm available.
Kertia (01:04:59):
Perfect.
Thank you so much.
This conversation was amazing.
I value so much.
I value everything that wediscussed today, and I just want
to know if there are anyparting words that you'd love to
share with everyone today sharewith everyone today.
Bob (01:05:17):
I would say there are three things.
One you're not your thoughts.
Just burn that into the, youknow, tattoo it on your third
eye.
You're not your thoughts.
And just if you don't get itright now, just keep it in mind
and keep thinking about.
You're not your thoughts.
(01:05:38):
You're not your thoughts.
The other thing would be createa morning routine where you have
an opportunity to set asidefive or 10 or 15 minutes of just
being with you.
Maybe it's sitting with yourcoffee in the morning.
If you need to get up a littlebit earlier, get up a little bit
(01:05:59):
earlier, because the morning isthe only time that you own.
Once the day starts, once youstart getting dressed for work,
you're done.
Everybody else owns you, yeah,and so make use of that time and
create a morning routine thatincludes some statement of
(01:06:23):
intention for the day.
Yeah, day by day.
That's what they taught us inNA.
You know, take it a day at atime.
And I, every morning, my routineis because, again, I am three
quarters of a century old andthere are many fewer days ahead
(01:06:44):
of me than there are behind me.
So my days are becoming moreand more valuable, and so my
commitment every day is that I'mtrading a day of my life for
whatever I leave in this day,excuse me.
And so I had the intention tomake sure that I leave something
(01:07:10):
good in it, because I'm tradinga day of my life for it.
It's an important thing.
Every day is important, yeah,so I take a few minutes, I take
my dogs out, out, out the backof the house, to the little park
, and I'll let them run aroundjust as the sun is coming up,
and that's my time and I thinkit's important.
It keeps me grounded.
(01:07:31):
And the other thing that Iwould say is get.
If you don't have a pet, get adog or get a cat, you know, get
some animal that unconditionallyjust loves you.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
You know, yeah.
They bring me.
No, I even said to my kids youknow I'd lay down my life for
(01:07:54):
you.
But in terms of the emotionalresponse, my dogs beat you out.
You know hands down, I wouldn'tlay my life down for my dogs,
but anyway.
Kertia (01:08:14):
Thank you so much, bob, that was beautiful.
Bob (01:08:18):
Thank you for having me.
You know, having a podcast isno easy feat and it's a lot of
work.
Kertia (01:08:26):
It is.
Bob (01:08:26):
And you do it as an act of love, I know, to give a platform
for all the wonderful peoplethat you have on your show so
that they can share their wisdomand their learning with your
audience.
And it's just a wonderful thingand, like I say, it's a true
act of love and thank you fordoing that.
Kertia (01:08:46):
Thank you so much.
Thank you, okay, amazing people.
Thank you so much for stickingit out with me For another
episode of the other side offear podcast.
Please continue to share thispodcast, to share the show with
your friends, with your family,with whoever you think might
(01:09:08):
resonate.
Thank you so much.
Love you all.
Hello everybody.
I hope today finds you in goodspirits and, at the very least,
hopeful, all right.
So today we're hearing from BobMartin, who spent 40 years as a
criminal attorney, but who iscurrently a business law
(00:22):
professor and certifiedmeditation teacher and
mindfulness coordinator at ElonUniversity, and having been
trained in Taoist principles bya Taoist master, bob is
extremely passionate abouthelping others to connect to
(00:42):
their higher potential and innerpeace, and one key highlight of
this conversation, I'd say, iswhen Bob stated that who we
think we are is a result of howwe were socialized, and it
couldn't be more true.
It really reiterates what wetalk about so much on this show,
(01:04):
that our self-concept of who weare is highly programmed, and,
of course, we do rely on saidprogramming and socialization in
order to be a member of society, to partake in the beauty and
mess of it all and everything inbetween.
But at some point it isessential that we begin to
recognize our true selves, ourauthentic selves, separate from
(01:29):
the socialized, programmed self.
So my question for you is whoare you?
Who are you behind thedifferent versions of yourself
that you role play with at home,with your parents or your
family, at work with yourcolleagues or in any environment
(01:50):
that requires you to performlike an actor with a script, and
this also includes the thingsthat we affiliate ourselves with
, like a culture, a nationalityor a belief system or just a
general identity we've attachedto ourselves.
Because the thing is, whenwe're so embedded in all of that
(02:10):
, things can get really murkywhen we then try to create the
life that we desire, when theconcept of who you are came from
someone else or structuresoutside of yourself, because
then your self-concept is basedon something that is detached
from you, not something that istruly you.
So if you are living in a stateof detachment from yourself,
(02:36):
how do you then know if yourchoices are your choices, how do
you know if your decisions arebased on what you actually want,
and how do you know if what yousay you desire is truly in your
best interest?
And that's some food forthought.
(02:57):
Okay, let's get into it.
Bob, you have had a very, veryfascinating journey.
I don't even know where tobegin.
Bob (03:12):
Well, you know, to quote Jerry Garcia from the Grateful
Dead oh, what a long, strangetrip it's been.
Kertia (03:19):
Yeah, yeah, because you were a criminal trial lawyer,
right, and now you're into a lotof social work, a lot of giving
back, a lot of mindfulness andwellness.
But you didn't quite, you know,you didn't quite start that way
.
You know we mentioned, youspoke about your childhood
(03:42):
experience being a child ofimmigrant parents who you didn't
get a lot of the affection thatyou needed.
You went through a lot bullyingin school and you didn't get, I
guess, the emotional, thatemotional support that you
needed.
And I'd love for you to justget into all of that and just
start from there and how all ofthat kind of got you to where
(04:06):
you are today, because you'vebeen like all over the place and
like just thinking about yourjourney, it's it's very
incredible, it's so incredible.
So I'd love for you to kind ofjust flesh out your experience
for me and like to just take itback full circle with me.
Bob (04:31):
Well, yeah, sure.
So, yeah, you're right, my, myfolks were, uh, uh, I, I, I
never know what first generationmeans.
Uh, my folks were immigrants.
My dad was Hungarian royaltyand left Hungary in the early
part of last century.
He was born in 1898.
(04:51):
Just to give you kind of atimeframe of my life, right, Wow
, 1950.
So I'm almost three quarters ofa century old and my mom was
(05:12):
Roma, gypsy, and the Bolshevikswiped out my dad's family and
everybody wiped out my mom's.
So we didn't have any ancestorsreally to speak of in my family
, but they found the Americandream through popcorn and cotton
candy.
So I kind of grew up inamusement parks and carnivals.
That was what we did.
But by the time I was 10 yearsold, we were selling hot dogs on
(05:40):
the boardwalk in Queens, newYork, and spending the summers
in South Florida.
And it was an exciting andcared for life on one regard,
because, you know, the extendedfamily of the amusement park was
(06:01):
very supportive.
But my folks being EasternEuropeans you Europeans they
were always of the mind thatgetting the job done is its own
reward and do the job right andyou don't need a pat on the back
and your pat on the back shouldbe your pride in your work, and
that gave me a certain workethic for sure.
(06:25):
But it didn't give me a lot ofemotional support.
And I was a big boy In thosedays.
We called it husky.
I was a husky place you couldget clothes for if you were
(06:49):
other sized the only place youcould get clothes was JCPenney's
, who had a husky department.
So I grew up that way and I waspicked on and bullied a bit and
that was painful.
It certainly isn't as painfulas some of the trauma of the
folks that I've worked with inmy life, but it was my pain.
(07:11):
So we all look at our own painas the special pain.
So fast forward.
I would say that my folks, thefact that their families had all
been wiped out, they came tothe feeling that there really
couldn't be a merciful God, andso the question or the
(07:35):
conversation of religion justwasn't in my upbringing.
It wasn't that they wereagainst it in any way, they were
not atheists, but they werenon-theists.
We just ignored it and Isuppose I started getting
curious about how the universewas organized, reading science
(07:59):
fiction as a teenager, but fastforward somehow.
As a teenager, but fast forwardsomehow.
And I have to confess somethingI am a walking example of
imposter syndrome.
You know, I still can't believethat.
I fooled that law school intoaccepting me and I tricked the
(08:23):
Bar Association into licensingme.
They only really knew what wasdown underneath, you know, and I
suppose that's a vestige of thelow self-esteem you get when
you're being bullied.
You just don't think that youare deserving of things, even
though life is proving to youvery different.
(08:45):
So I became a lawyer and when Igot to law school something
happened.
It triggered my brain.
Up until then I was verymediocre in my studies, but when
I got to law school there wassomething just really exciting
about it.
(09:06):
I think it was because my dadwas a very meticulous and a very
righteous person who believedin being fair.
He believed in being loyal,loyal and fair was a big thing
with him.
And when I got to law school Isaw that there was fairness
(09:27):
baked into the system and thatexcited me.
So I did well in law school andin my third year I interned in
the district attorney's officethey call it the state
attorney's office of Miami-DadeCounty, florida in the 70s,
which was the heyday of thecocaine cowboy days and I
(09:50):
progressed through the officefairly quickly and got up to be
a senior prosecutor in economiccrimes and consumer frauds.
So we hit the mob for a lot ofmoney 72 million bucks and it
was an exciting time.
And I left shortly thereafterand went out into private
(10:11):
practice and I got a visit froma fellow that I'll just call
Johnny.
He was Italian from the Italianleg of the Miami conglomerate,
which included the Colombians,the Cubans, the Haitians, the
Peruvians and the Italians, andhe came to visit me and
(10:36):
basically he told me that theyhad pretty good lawyers and I
was able to beat them.
So they figured I was prettygood.
They wanted to start sending meclients For the next few years.
I became a mob lawyer.
That's kind of the story upuntil that point.
Then there are things thathappened.
Kertia (11:00):
Yeah, that's really incredible.
Bob (11:03):
That is truly incredible no-transcript, and in some ways
(11:41):
it's really very common, becauseit's when we start to hit
bottom, when life starts to getout of control, when things
start to get beyond our abilityto have any sense of security in
who you are and where you'regoing, that very often people
(12:02):
seek out something different,they want change, and so in that
regard, you know my life isvery common and the way that the
facts of it are, that I startedhanging out with my mob clients
and it was the cocaine cowboydays, as we said.
There's a lot of cocaine runningthrough Miami and a lot of
(12:23):
other drugs, and they were goingout to all of these chrome and
glass discotheques of the 70s.
And if anybody's ever seenScarface, the movie with Al
Pacino, or the TV show MiamiVice, that really was the vibe
of Miami in those days.
It really, really the facts maybe weird, but it caught the
(12:47):
vibe, they caught the vibe, andso that's what I was doing, and
my personal life was beginningto unravel, and so I was seeing
a therapist and one day I got toa very important crossroads and
I went and I asked my therapistyou know, what should I do,
(13:09):
george?
Should I continue this?
Or what should I do?
And to my surprise he pulledout a bunch of coins and started
throwing them on the table.
And I'm paying him in thosedays.
65 bucks an hour was a lot ofmoney.
And.
I paid him to be my therapistand all of a sudden he's
(13:30):
throwing coins and makingmathematical calculations and
did some drawing and then cameup with a number 32.
And he opened up a book tochapter 32, and he showed me the
chapter name.
And the chapter name wasretreat.
And you know, I didn't want tohear it, I didn't believe in
(13:51):
what he was doing, I thought itwas weird and I cursed him out,
stomped out of the office.
But the word kind of cementeditself into my psyche and I knew
, you know, intuitively, I knewthat I needed to pull back from
some of my excessive behaviors.
And I started doing that, wentback to George and I asked him,
(14:14):
george, what was that that youdid?
And he said, well, bob, that isthe I Ching, or the classical
book of changes.
I said, well, where does thatcome from?
And he says, well, that's aTaoist practice.
And I said, what's Taoism?
And that's when I found outthat George was the English
(14:35):
language editor for a 72ndgeneration Shaolin priest.
The Shaolin priest, you knowthe Shaolin temple, that's Kung
Fu Tai Chi, you know all ofthose things.
And and so he introduced me toMaster Hua Ching Ni, who was a
72nd generation master.
(14:56):
Think of that.
Yeah 1400 years handing it downin the family father to son.
That's amazing, just that alone.
But this guy, this guy was afellow who had gained mastery in
life.
I mean, they call them masterknee, but it's not that he has a
(15:19):
title, it's that he has gainedmastery.
And so we asked him you knowwhat's it like to be Master, nee
?
And he said no rehearsingthoughts.
No rehearsing thoughts.
By that, you know, weunderstood that he never thinks
about what he's going to do orwhat he's done or what he should
(15:42):
say.
He just is and responds.
And he always respondedperfectly and appropriately and
had the exact right thing to say, all without rehearsing
thoughts and all withoutplanning, and it was just like
muscle memory for him.
He was in the zone.
Kertia (16:04):
That's phenomenal.
Bob (16:06):
And then we asked him you know how do you define mastery?
And he defined mastery asliving effortlessly, yet
effectively and efficiently.
Yeah.
And so, of course, the nextquestion was always how do you
get there?
And he goes, ha ha, ha ha, hegoes aha, grasshopper, this I
(16:37):
will show you.
Kertia (16:39):
Oh my gosh, that's hilarious.
Bob (16:42):
So for eight years we studied with George as our local
leader and Master Nee visitingand practiced Taoist practices
and learned how to go with theflow of life, and that was
transformational.
And so, about the same timethat I was beginning to get a
(17:04):
handle on what Master Nee wasteaching, my Johnny's son got
arrested and up until then ouragreement was nothing unethical,
nothing illegal.
It's good to have a lawyerthat's respected by the courts.
That's in your best interest,johnny.
(17:24):
He goes, yeah, but now it washis son.
So now there was no saying no.
Kertia (17:31):
It's different.
Bob (17:32):
You will do this, you will do this, and it was something
that I would not do, especiallyafter my years of learning with
Master Nee.
I would not, and so the bestway that I found to resolve it
was to move to North Carolina.
Oh my God, and we decided thatwe would move there.
(17:53):
I went to Johnny and I saidJohnny, I'm moving to North
Carolina.
And he said well, Bob,sometimes a man just has to move
on.
Well, Bob, sometimes a man justhas to move on.
This way we can part friends.
We shook hands and I neverheard from them again.
(18:21):
So I got to North Carolina andI moved.
I moved from chrome and glasshotssy-totsy Miami to some place
where, as soon as I opened mymouth, everybody said you don't
sound like you come from aroundthese parts.
Kertia (18:38):
You, sure don't.
Bob (18:39):
You sure don't.
And I got to tell you.
I brought my TV up up and itwas one of those old, big, thick
cathode ray TVs, you know.
That had to warm up and I gotit and I set it up for the very
first day that I got to NorthCarolina and there was a little
dot, you know white, and it grewand it bigger and finally the
(19:00):
screen appeared and there wasthis big guy that looked like
Horst Cartwright from Bonanza,with a 10-gallon white hat and a
map of North and South Carolinabehind him with all the Ford
dealerships having stars, and helooks right at me and he goes
you need to get yourself a truckand I go.
(19:27):
Oh my God, where have I gone?
Where have I?
been?
Where have I gone to?
Where have I?
Where am I?
But I had a fresh canvas.
I had a brand new slate, a newchance to redefine my life.
(19:47):
So, with the training and theteaching of Master Nee and
coming to a place where I cannow define myself as I wanted to
and what my heart led me to do,you know, I don't know.
When you engage in practicesthat are designed to cultivate
(20:12):
compassion, that are designed toopen your heart, when you
practice them and you actuallyhave the physical sensation of
your heart opening, the onlything that is left for you, the
only thing that you want to doin life after that, is to
relieve suffering.
(20:33):
Yeah.
And when I got to North Carolina, I devoted myself to what Jesus
would call the least of theseand I became a public servant,
went back to school, got amaster's in social work, went
back to school, got a master'sin social work, stayed in
criminal practice until 2015,.
(20:54):
Treating my clients not onlytheir legal issues but also
their holistically looking atwhat their life was, making sure
that when they left myrepresentation they felt heard,
they felt somebody had stood upfor them and they understood why
(21:14):
what was happening washappening to them.
And that was important becauseeven today now it's been nine
years that I haven't been doingcriminal law some of my clients
will run into me on the streetin a small town and they say you
(21:35):
know, mr Martin, the last timethat you represented me was the
last time I got in trouble.
Kertia (21:46):
That's beautiful.
Bob (21:47):
I can give myself the pat on my back that my parents
didn't.
Kertia (21:52):
Yeah, absolutely Absolutely.
Oh my gosh.
But imagine, like you know,having that low self-esteem and
then imposter syndrome thatcomes along with it and being
able to do the work that youwere doing, being recognized as
a huge mob lawyer.
(22:12):
That's just wild, that issomething I'm sure you wouldn't
have imagined.
Those moments when you weregetting bullied, when you felt
misunderstood or when you werefeeling low, that is something
that you don't even kind ofthink that you can do.
You know when you're goingthrough the worst of it, but
(22:35):
that is incredible.
For you to even come from that,coming out of that, to where
you are right now, likefollowing instruction of
masternanny, that must have beenlike a huge, pivotal turn in
your life.
What you know, coming from your, your childhood experience,
your experience as a lawyer, asa business owner, and coming
(22:57):
back to now like what did thatteach you essentially?
Bob (23:03):
Well, you know.
So over the years, you knowI've come into contact with
monastics.
You know we've gone on retreatsand I go into.
I've come into contact withmonastics, we've gone on
retreats and I've come intopeople who, at the age of four,
have dedicated themselves tomonastery living and cultivating
their inner world and the like.
You know they're very, verywell trained.
(23:36):
What I think is missing fromthem is that they don't have
that experience of having livedin the real world as a normal
person who's subject to all ofthe slings and arrows as Hamlet
said, the slings and arrows ofoutrageous fortune.
And so, although they are greatteachers and they have great
skills that they can relate to,you never feel like they really
(24:00):
have any idea of what's going onwith you.
And so I think, even today, Iwent through bouts of addiction,
and that meant that I wentthrough times in the NA, and I
never had a problem with alcohol, just opioids.
But I spent a lot of time inthe Narcotics Anonymous rooms,
(24:27):
and you know the people who wecall the old timers, the guys
that have been in recovery for12 and 15 years, but they still
show up at the rooms.
Yeah, I mean these guys have awisdom and a kindness and a
grace about them that can onlybe there if they have gone
(24:50):
through the gamut.
Yeah.
Kertia (24:53):
Yeah, it's a different level of compassion as well.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Because then you can identify with the pain of the
other, like you get it, youunderstand, it doesn't need to
be said, right, right.
Bob (25:15):
Because they know Exactly, yeah, so, yes, all of that has
contributed.
And you know, I mean growing upon not, I didn't grow up on the
streets, but I grew up in theparks.
You know the amusement parks,and in amusement parks, you know
, we had, you know, in thosedays.
It's not politically correcttoday, but this is how life was
(25:37):
then.
You know, the Poles were thefolks that put up the rides and
the Gypsies were the ones thatwere the fortune tellers and the
Italians were the game guys andthese guys were these guys and
those guys were these guys andthose guys were those guys and
you had this really diversefamily of folks that you know
(25:58):
you live with.
So it's not like you grew up onthe street, but it's like you
grew up in a multicultural, very, very real, very, very real
gritty I would say grittyenvironment, and so I think like
, and I feel like, you know,I've got some common sense,
because that's what that streetknowledge, you know.
(26:20):
Yeah.
And, and that helps also.
Kertia (26:24):
It definitely does.
It's a good combination when youknow cause you're mentioning
the guys that are more monasticand you know not having a
certain kind of experience tothe work that they do.
They do amazing work, of course,but when you can have the same
or similar conversation withsomeone else that has that
(26:47):
street knowledge, that has thatgets it, that gets what it's
like to be on the ground, it'sdifferent, it hits different,
right, because now you'rerelating to that person, right,
you can relate to their pain,you can relate to their
suffering and to the things thatare challenging for them.
And, leading from that, youmentioned the last time that a
(27:10):
lot of people aren't even awarethat they experienced trauma or
they don't recognize it.
Right, and that when you weredoing meditation work with them
or spiritual work with them, theterms that they would use like
they're stressed or they'reoverwhelmed or they're
overthinking right, so you beingable to balance that spiritual
(27:33):
knowledge with your experience,your life experience, right,
with the grit and the grime andeverything in between, right,
that definitely makes a hugedifference.
So I want you to speak to yourwork facilitating meditation and
helping others to reconnectwith themselves.
Bob (27:59):
So I have this wonderful privilege, this wonderful honor
of being able to actually getinside other people's heads and
that sounds a little weird orscary, but I don't mean it that
(28:20):
way and this is what I mean.
So I teach meditation and Iteach it.
You know, of course I teach itprivately, online, but I also
teach it on the campus.
We have a two credit meditationcourse that the students you
know take and college studentsyou know who are trying to
(28:40):
achieve.
You know they're prettystressed out, they're
overthinkers, they'reperfectionists, they have racing
thoughts and they overthinkeverything.
Perfectionists.
They have racing thoughts andthey overthink everything, and
they're stressed out by alltheir assignments and all that
kind of stuff.
And so every semester, 12 to 15of them sign up to take my
(29:02):
course and the way that thecourse is taught is that I have
because I'm certified in theKORU course.
Koru was developed at DukeUniversity and they created this
digital infrastructure.
They created an app and on theapp are all the guided
(29:25):
meditations and all theresources you need.
But the one thing that'sdifferent about it from any
other way of teaching is thatafter you listen to the
meditation and after you sit for10 minutes and maybe you'll do
breath awareness, maybe bodyscan, maybe belly breathing,
maybe labeling thoughts, allthese different techniques.
(29:46):
You write a log on the app andyou write how that was for you.
And the next morning I get upat four o'clock in the morning
and after I take my dogs andfeed my dogs and have my coffee
and sit for my own meditation, Iturn my computer on and I get
(30:07):
12 to 15 logs.
I get a little scope into theminds of 12 to 15 people as they
write their logs and describehow their experience was, and
then I get to give them feedback.
And that is just such an honor,especially in the second or
(30:30):
third week of the course, whenthey start to break open, when
they start to get the skill ofstepping out of their thoughts
and stepping into the role ofwatching their thoughts.
It takes about three weeks ofkind of prying them loose from
(30:52):
words like focus andconcentration and quieting the
mind, all of which have nothingto do with meditation, you know.
So they finally, they finallyget it.
And one of them said it wasbeautiful and a lot.
They said yesterday.
They said, oh, I've been soupset about being distracted
(31:13):
when I'm meditating, but nowthat I'm labeling thoughts.
When I got distracted, I justlabeled it a distracting thought
and I was able to go right backto my breath and that was huge.
(31:36):
That's a huge opening.
Instead of being distracted,she realized that all she had
was a distracting thought, andonce you can see your thinking
that way, it is incrediblyfreeing.
All of a sudden, you're notcontrolled by your thoughts.
You move to a place where youcan manage your thoughts because
(32:00):
you realize they're just littlethings that you have, they're
not you, and so it's just lovely.
It's just lovely to be able todo that.
Now, not everybody engages inthe class, but you know this is.
The podcast is called the OtherSide of Fear, and I have a
(32:24):
perfect example.
Yeah.
There was one young lady in theclass and I'm seeing the logs
come in and you know we're aboutthree weeks in.
Everybody else has done about20, 22 meditations, 10 minutes a
day.
She's done five.
Yeah.
And of course she doesn't getit because she hasn't practiced.
(32:47):
A week goes by betweenpractices.
She hasn't practiced, you knowshe you know, week goes by
between practices.
So I asked her to stay afterclass and I and here's where the
life experience comes inAnother teacher, another person
who you know, who grew upwithout going through the gamut,
(33:09):
might say you know what's wrongwith you, not what's wrong with
you.
They say you know, the class isgraded on how many you do and
you've only done five and weonly have two weeks left and you
better get up and you betterstart.
You know, catching up toeverybody else and blah, blah,
blah.
Yeah.
But I was more curious about.
(33:29):
You know, here it is, she'sself-selected to take the class.
I mean, it's not a requiredclass.
Yeah.
So you choose yourself to takethe class because she was hoping
to get a benefit from the class.
Yeah.
And here she is not engaging.
Yeah so what's that all about?
(33:50):
Rather than being judgmentalabout it, it's a curious thing.
So, with a genuine andauthentic curiosity, I said
what's that all about?
What is it that is keeping you?
And man, the floodgates justopened, the tears started coming
(34:14):
down and she says I don't feellike I deserve it.
Every time I want to try tomake some progress, I get in my
own way.
I take on, I want to do things.
And it was like it wasn't justmy class, it was her whole life.
It was her whole life.
And so we got the opportunity toactually start to work through
(34:36):
that, using some meditativetechniques that deconstruct the
power of feelings, and I wasable to teach her some things,
so that now it's a couple ofweeks later and every morning,
like clockwork, she gets up, shegoes and brushes her teeth, she
(34:58):
sits down, she does her 10minutes and it took a couple of
weeks, but she's getting it.
And she says I can't believehow free I feel.
And you know when we started,she goes well, I'm just so
afraid.
Started, she goes well, I'mjust so, I'm so afraid.
And I had to say to her I'mreally sorry, but there's no
easy way through this.
You just have to do it.
(35:19):
It's not hard, but you justhave to do it.
There's no way around it.
You have to.
You have to just sit for 10minutes, keep it simple, follow
the instructions, trust theprocess and do it, because it's
not hard.
But she had created thisboogeyman in her head.
(35:40):
So once she was able to stepback from her thoughts and
realize that these are justthoughts and she is not her
thoughts, it broke open a wholenew way of looking at life for
her, and so that's what I do.
Kertia (35:59):
That is amazing and it's so beautiful how you were able
to help her through that,especially you having that
compassion.
You know that compassion I wastalking about earlier, when when
you know, you know when you'vebeen through it right, because
it's so easy to go straight tojudgment and like ask questions
(36:21):
like what's wrong with thisperson.
You know what I mean and it'sbeautiful when you have that
experience, when you've beenthrough something and you can
identify, you can see your paininside of another person and be
able to have that compassion toapproach them differently.
(36:42):
right, and that's because, yeah,you, you recognize something
really clearly like, okay, thisis an elective course, she, she
didn't have to be here, but shecame here for a reason, but then
she is not engaging, so therehas to be something else that's
going on here, right?
And absolutely there was, and itmakes such a huge difference
(37:03):
when you can see yourself inanother person, actually
identify with them, because thenyou can see the whole being and
you're not just focused onwhat's wrong with them, right,
that perception of what's wrongwith them.
So that that was a reallybeautiful thing that you did
there.
And, just coming back to um,identifying with your thoughts,
(37:29):
right, we mentioned that in ourprevious conversation, when you
mentioned you know, there's adifference between identifying
with the I, the I that hasthoughts separate from the real
soul, so I'd love for you tospeak about that in some more
detail as well.
Bob (37:46):
Sure, sure so, you know, in our common language.
Sure, sure so you know, in ourcommon language, we all say, oh
(38:13):
hey, you know I had a thought.
So that's a recognition thatthe thought is not me and that I
was the creator of that thought.
And so what we do in life, whatwe tend to do without any, some
people come to this naturallyand and you know these there are
(38:35):
kind and compassionate peopleout there that are just empathic
, and I don't know if it'sgenetics, um, life experiences,
um.
So some people come to itnaturally, but most of us most
of us are are hung up and wehave a thought, and most of it
is a judgment.
They're judging thoughts.
(38:57):
Yeah, Either judging others orjudging ourselves.
I like it, I don't like it,it's good, it's bad, he's good,
he's bad.
You know we go judging, judging, judging all the day, all day,
and ourselves, especially thatcommittee in the head.
You should have done this, youcould have done that, you could
have done it better, you know,yeah.
(39:18):
And so we even identify, we areour thoughts.
You know, we see somebody andwe have a thought that you know
that dress doesn't look good onher, or you know he shouldn't
wear those kinds of pants, or Idon't like the fact that his
pants are halfway down aroundhis butt.
(39:39):
And all of a sudden you have animage of who this person is and
what they're like, and you knowyou either like them or you
don't like them, and that's yourtruth.
It is you.
There's no access to it,there's no managing of it.
It just came up and it becomeswho you are.
(40:04):
And unfortunately, most of ouruntrained thoughts are the
product of social conditioning.
Yeah, and they're not helpfulfor the most part.
So it's crazy that we start tobecome who we believe ourselves
(40:26):
to be based on the thoughts thatcome up, which is what the
world has implanted into us.
And, of course, that's notgoing to be very workable in
terms of having a happy andjoyful life.
And think of what the worldgives you between the news and
(40:48):
missed deadlines and TSA lineswhen your plane is late and
traffic when you're in a rushand the lady who's got the three
ring notebook with all thecoupons in front of you at the
shopping center.
Just think this is the stuffthat life gives you Of course
(41:16):
you know it's not going to behelpful.
So when you can break free of it.
And the metaphor that I like touse is that and I think that we
all can agree that we have thisfeeling that there is a stream
of consciousness that flowsthrough us and on that stream of
consciousness it seems like ourthoughts are being carried on
it.
So the metaphor that I like touse is a river flowing by with
(41:40):
sticks and twigs on it, and theriver is the stream of
consciousness and the sticks andtwigs are our thoughts, and
generally we are riding on theback of a twig and if the
river's calm, then everything'sgoing hunky-dory in life.
But then when we get into thewhite water, we start getting
(42:02):
fearful and stressed and thenwhen we see that we're coming up
to a waterfall, we get reallyfreaked out.
Right, and that's where we'reat.
But in meditation, through avery simple process of simply I
mean the instructions are verysimple Form an intention to put
(42:23):
your attention on something, andthen your mind is going to
wander, and it's okay that itwanders.
It's not about maintainingfocus, it's not about keeping
your attention on the candle oron your breath.
Your mind will wander.
(42:44):
It's an evolutionary thing thatcame about when we were
hunter-gatherers, because wewere always scanning for danger,
and so it's built into thestructure of our brain that our
mind will wander.
But we had formed an intentionto put our attention on
something.
(43:05):
The best example I could giveyou is have you ever been
listening to somebody who youwanted to listen to and then
your mind wandered and youweren't listening to them
anymore, absolutely.
Then you notice you go, oh, I'mnot listening.
You notice at some point thatyou're not listening right.
(43:25):
Then you go back to listening,but before you do, you have all
these judgments about oh, howcan I get them to repeat what I
didn't hear without letting themknow that I wasn't listening?
And oh, I really messed up andthere was something important
that I probably should.
But we do it artificially sothat we can play with it.
(43:58):
So I say, put your attention onyour breath, and then your mind
wanders and then because youhad said that I want to pay
attention to my breath, yourmind will say, oh hey, you're
not paying attention to yourbreath, and then all the
judgments will come in andeverything else, and then you're
(44:21):
supposed to bring yourself backto your breath and just begin
again.
And then your mind wanders offagain and you notice it, and
then you have all the judgmentsand you come back and you begin
again and it wanders and younotice and you begin again.
So through this repetitiveprocess you become familiar with
(44:44):
a bunch of stuff.
One you become familiar withwaking up, the sense of waking
up from the fog, because whenyour mind wanders you kind of go
into that default fog.
Then you wake up from it.
So you realize what it feelslike to wake up.
You begin to notice what itfeels like to be in the fog.
You begin to notice thejudgments that you have, and
(45:09):
then the instructions are also.
You know, see, if you can begentle with yourself, if you do
this over and over, what happensis that you start to get bored
of the judgments.
They become known, they becomeold hat.
And because they become old hat, hat and because they become
(45:37):
old hat, they start to losetheir power over you.
And when you start tounderstand that they're losing
your power over you, then youstart to see that all thoughts
can be seen that way.
And then you start into the.
You know, you go to a secondarylevel where you start learning
how to manage your thinking.
So that's kind of how it goes.
(45:57):
So, going back to the metaphorof the river, as you do this
simple practice, what you learnto do is separate yourself into
two beings Okay, I'm not sayingthat, not really, but you know
and one of you is still on theleaf, experiencing life, but the
(46:23):
other one has climbed up on thebank of the river and is
watching it all flow by.
So from the place of being onthe leaf, you you feel grief and
sadness and anger and all thatstuff, but from sitting on the
bank, you're stable and you'recalm and you're okay.
(46:46):
So you get to actually be bothand as the skill progresses, you
know you can kind of moveintentionally between them.
You start to get angry aboutsomething and then, even as
you're angry, you go sit up onthe thing and you're asking
(47:08):
yourself is this a good time forme to be angry?
I wonder if this is beinghelpful for me to be angry.
I mean, when I'm talking toutilities like the telephone
company or those guys, it's goodto be angry.
You know, a little anger atthat point, you know, will get
(47:30):
things done, um, uh and so, um,so, yeah, so that is that is.
My job is to take the beginningstudent and pry them away from
the misconceptions of trying toquiet their mind and teach them
(47:53):
this new skill.
It's not an unusual.
It's not an unusual thing.
In In science they call itmetacognition or thinking about
your thinking, and we all do it.
We just don't do itintentionally and we don't
develop the skill intentionally.
And it makes a huge differenceto have that tool in your tool
(48:15):
belt to use it.
You know when, when it whenit's helpful to use it.
Kertia (48:22):
That's definitely true, and I love that analogy that you
gave being the the personperched on the leaf in the river
and then being the personsitting on the bank of the river
observing yeah, yeah, that's.
Bob (48:37):
That's a really good analogy of that yeah, and even
that person that sits up on thebank is almost like you would
imagine if a couple of alienswere in their flying saucer yeah
watching the goings-on of earthand they would be just so
(48:58):
curious Like I wonder why theydo that and I wonder why they do
that, yeah, and that person upon the bank has that kind of
curiosity.
And I should mention theantidote to judgment is
curiosity.
Kertia (49:15):
Yeah, that's so true.
Bob (49:17):
If you can go from, they shouldn't be like that to.
I wonder why they're like that.
Yeah, that's so true.
You know, if you can go from,they shouldn't be like that to.
I wonder why they're like that.
Yeah.
You know it's a great place tomove to.
Kertia (49:28):
It's a huge shift in perception.
Yeah, because then you perceivethe person and the situation
completely differently, when youcan approach it with curiosity
rather than judgment.
Bob (49:39):
Because then the judgment is coming from all those
preconditioned beliefs that youhave, and imagine if you could
turn that shift of perceptioninto the self-judgment that you
have.
Kertia (49:53):
Exactly.
Bob (49:56):
How freeing?
Kertia (49:57):
Yeah, yeah, because of course, then you know, like
imposter syndrome wouldn't beimposter syndrome, it would be,
you would observe it fromsomething else, from a different
perception, right, Right.
Bob (50:09):
Right, exactly Because, right now, my imposter syndrome.
I've already created a wholepersona for it and I call it the
little boy.
There's that little kid again,and it's not even me anymore.
(50:31):
There are thoughts that are inmy head and there are thoughts
that I think, but it's not methinking.
It's that little kid.
Kertia (50:45):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's so many ways that wecan reframe the experiences that
we have that can be morehelpful, right and conducive to
our mental health too right,because imposter syndrome can be
heavy.
It can be so heavy, so, so heavy, heavy.
So when you can, like, I guess,depersonalize it a little bit
and really observe it for whatit is, instead of judging
(51:08):
yourself or those feelings ofnot being enough or not being
deserving, right or not, I donknow, whatever it is that you
think you're not, when youdepersonalize it you can change
the energetic charge of that,right.
So yeah, yeah.
Bob (51:30):
And it, you know.
And again, what people try todo is they try to not think it.
And what you resist persists.
But what you can be with willlet you be, and so the trick is,
when those thoughts come, youallow them to come and you
(51:51):
become curious about them, andagain there's a certain boredom.
Actually, there's a scientificword for it, it's called hedonic
adaptation.
But don't worry about that,let's just call it boredom.
It's like you get used to themand then, when you're used to
them, they become like oldannoyances.
(52:12):
That you just brush off.
There's something else aboutthat.
Yeah, feelings as a way of kindof organizing your mind, but
(52:47):
labeling feelings that skill iswhat we call labeling feelings
is really combined with bodyscans.
We do body scans where youbring your attention to the
different parts of your body andkind of reconnect with the
physical sensations of your body, because many of us have
disconnected from our physicalsensations.
So we reconnect to thosephysical sensations and then we
(53:10):
also start labeling our feelingsso that we can be aware of what
the thoughts are that areassociated with those feelings.
Once we have gotten a littlebit skilled around those things
and it sounds like it's a lot,but I promise you, in four or
(53:30):
five weeks you can acquire thesethings.
It's not years, you don't haveto go to a monastery.
In four to five weeks you canget there.
And the best thing that I cantell you is to tell you a little
story about how I reallylearned how body scans and
labeling feelings come together.
(53:51):
And so what happened was I wasat a retreat and I'm sitting on
the cushion and you know we satfor 20 minutes.
We did walking meditation for10, sat for 20, walked for 10,
on and on, and I'm sitting onthe cushion and all of a sudden
I realized the value ofmeditation, how it's going to
(54:11):
change the world and how we allhave to go out there and change
the world and teach everybodymeditation If we have to
strangle them to teach them it.
We got to teach them and Icouldn't sit anymore.
I was so excited.
I got up from my cushion and Iwent over to the room where all
the teachers were huddled in theroom.
(54:32):
I knocked on the door and oneof the teachers came and she
said yes, bob, knowing that Ishould be sitting on the cushion
.
And I said I guess I got totell you something.
I'm just so excited.
And she goes okay, bob.
And she stepped out and she goeswhat is it?
And I said well, I told her andI went on and on about how
(54:54):
excited we're going to changethe world.
We got to go out there and dashe looked at me, she listened
to me and then she said so,you're having some thoughts.
And I go yes, yes, I am, I'mhaving thoughts.
And she goes and you're havingsome body sensations too.
Yes, yes, I have bodysensations.
(55:17):
I'm all excited.
My face is flushed and I canfeel it in my chest and my
heart's beating, and yes, I havephysical sensations.
She goes.
So you have thoughts and youhave physical sensations.
I said, yeah, I have thoughtsand I have physical sensations,
so she goes.
Yeah, you have physicalsensations and you have thoughts
(55:39):
and I go.
Yeah, Hmm.
Back on the cushion.
Huh, she goes yeah, back on thecushion.
So I learned that all of theseemotions that are so powerful in
our lives are really made up ofa thought and a body sensation.
(56:00):
Yeah.
You know, because if I said toyou, you know I love you, but I
don't feel anything in my chest,I don't feel any body sensation
, it's just an intellectualstatement.
Yeah.
And then if I felt the bodysensation but I didn't have the
thought, I would swear that Ihad indigestion, right.
Yeah, right, yeah.
(56:26):
So when you have an emotion, ifyou label it and you look at
what the thoughts that you haveare and then you like connect it
to the body sensations, you canbreak it down into its
component parts and it just kindof like becomes manageable.
And that is one of the biggestthings, that, when you talk
(56:49):
about trauma-informed meditation, it's one of the biggest things
that we focus on body scans anduh and and labeling feelings so
that we can break into theircomponent parts and then we can
deal with those component partspretty effectively.
Kertia (57:07):
But when they're combined and we don't know
what's going on, yeah, come lordthat's truly amazing because,
as you said before, a lot of uswere disconnected from our
bodies, right, a lot of us wehave.
It's challenging sometimes fora lot of us to even identify
what we're feeling, right,because sometimes, especially
(57:28):
when we have triggers and thingslike that frustration, anger,
sadness, even sometimesloneliness.
Some of the emotions sometimesare difficult for us to identify
, much less to actually feelthem in our body.
Right, we just know that wedon't feel good in the moment.
But sometimes you know, whenyou ask someone how they're
feeling, they can't actuallyalways give you an identifiable
(57:54):
like name for what they'refeeling right, like name for
what you're feeling right.
So, um, that is really helpful,especially when you're doing
trauma work, because you have toknow how to first reconnect
back to yourself and reconnectto those emotions so that you
can work through them.
So that's that is.
That is a really goodobservation.
I truly, truly enjoyed that,that explanation that you gave
(58:18):
there.
And then, leading all of thisback to the work that you're
doing right now, I know thatyou've written a book.
I'd love for you to tell uswhat to expect from your book.
I'd love to know more aboutwhat its contents are.
Bob (58:32):
Okay, well, yeah, so that was.
The book was actually based onmy spiritual path of non-theism
or no religion to.
Taoism and then, when I got toNorth Carolina, buddhism.
Then I wound up marrying aSouthern Baptist Bible
literalist.
(58:53):
She really believes the storiesof the Bible are historical fact
yeah the stories of the Bibleare historical fact, and
although she and I love eachother dearly she's my second
wife we love each other dearlyand we both have the same sense
of compassion and desire to easesuffering in the world I
(59:13):
thought her science was a littleoff.
You know, her science was alittle off and she thought my
stuff was really weird and um,and she was unhappy.
She said you know, I love youso much, bob, but I really hate
it that you're not going to goto heaven with me because I
hadn't been saved.
And I would kid her saying thatI was unhappy that she wouldn't
(59:35):
be reincarnated with me.
But but I had to be carefulbecause that would always get me
a good slap.
And so what I started doing is Istarted taking some of the
ancient manuscripts that supportTaoism and I started looking in
the Bible for the same stories,because I started seeing that
(59:59):
what Lao Tzu wrote thousands ofyears ago, 2,500 years ago, what
he wrote and what Jesus taughtwere virtually identical.
It's just they were expressedin different terms, coming from
a different place.
Taoism, of course, is notdeistic, it's not God-based,
(01:00:20):
yeah, whereas of courseChristianity is God-based, and
so you have to make a certainleap in translation, but the
lessons are the same.
I mean when Jesus said when youtake care of the least of these
, you take care of me.
Lao Tzu said the same thingleast of these, you take care of
(01:00:41):
me.
Lao Tzu said the same thingwhen Jesus washed the feet of
his disciples.
Lao Tzu did the same thing.
The Dalai Lama still does thesame thing.
So these are universal truthsthat exist, and so I started
taking passages from the Tao TeChing and reimagining them as a
(01:01:01):
Christian poem, and so Ieventually did all 81 chapters
and a publisher reached out tome and wanted to publish it, and
we published it.
It's great because a lot ofpeople have left the church
because of its exclusivity andbecause of its dogma and because
(01:01:23):
of thinking like I hate it.
You're not going to go toheaven because you haven't been
saved.
A lot of folks can't imagine why85% of the world is going to
burn in hell, that kind ofthinking.
But when they left, they alsoleft their relationship with
Jesus and God and what theyfound in my book and I get
(01:01:47):
letters from all over thecountry.
What they found in the book isthat they can reestablish that
relationship with the divinewithout having to go back to the
dogma of organized religion.
Yeah.
And it's acted as a RosettaStone for me and my wife, and so
now we are able to relate onmuch, much deeper and more
(01:02:09):
profound levels.
Kertia (01:02:11):
Yeah, that's amazing.
Yeah, the basis of all religion, or you know a lot of those
esoteric spiritual teachings.
They're all on theirfundamental level, before
anything was changed and alteredand things like that.
They all have that fundamentalthing of love, thing of love,
(01:02:46):
not fair, um, not control, butlove and compassion and empathy
and being in connection toyourself and being connected to
everything that is.
They all have those fundamentalteachings, right.
So, like the similarities, youcan always find that when you
look at the foundation of wherethese religions and these
esoteric teachings came from.
So that's really, reallybeautiful that you've been able
(01:03:10):
to reflect that in your book.
That's amazing.
I love that.
Bob (01:03:14):
It was certainly a labor of love.
I'll tell you that.
Four years, four years, it tookfour years.
Kertia (01:03:19):
Four years.
Bob (01:03:20):
But there's something else that I've written that I'd love
to tell your audience about.
Kertia (01:03:24):
Oh yeah.
Bob (01:03:25):
So a lot of people ask me about meditation and a lot of
people ask me about relaxation,and relaxation is not really
meditation.
Now, there are some meditationsthat are relaxing, but some
meditations are real active work, like paying attention and your
(01:03:47):
mind wandering and labelingthoughts and contemplating, but
anyway.
So I put the answers to thosequestions, I put them into two
little e-books that are free anddownloadable that answer the
questions what is meditation andwhat is it not, how to do it
and how to get started.
(01:04:07):
And the other one is 25 tipsand tricks from around the
internet that you can learn torelax in five minutes or less.
Yeah.
So those two books are availablejust with a click and a free
download, no obligation, no cost, nothing else.
(01:04:28):
But they're helpful and I'mhappy to make them available.
Kertia (01:04:34):
That's amazing.
That's a great resource.
Bob (01:04:37):
Yeah, all they need to do is go to my website,
awiseandhappylifecomawiseandhappylifecom and there's
little free download buttonsthere, and there's also a
contact button.
If anybody wants to send me aquestion by email or make a
(01:04:58):
contact, I'm available.
Kertia (01:04:59):
Perfect.
Thank you so much.
This conversation was amazing.
I value so much.
I value everything that wediscussed today, and I just want
to know if there are anyparting words that you'd love to
share with everyone today sharewith everyone today.
Bob (01:05:17):
I would say there are three things.
One you're not your thoughts.
Just burn that into the, youknow, tattoo it on your third
eye.
You're not your thoughts.
And just if you don't get itright now, just keep it in mind
and keep thinking about.
You're not your thoughts.
(01:05:38):
You're not your thoughts.
The other thing would be createa morning routine where you have
an opportunity to set asidefive or 10 or 15 minutes of just
being with you.
Maybe it's sitting with yourcoffee in the morning.
If you need to get up a littlebit earlier, get up a little bit
(01:05:59):
earlier, because the morning isthe only time that you own.
Once the day starts, once youstart getting dressed for work,
you're done.
Everybody else owns you, yeah,and so make use of that time and
create a morning routine thatincludes some statement of
(01:06:23):
intention for the day.
Yeah, day by day.
That's what they taught us inNA.
You know, take it a day at atime.
And I, every morning, my routineis because, again, I am three
quarters of a century old andthere are many fewer days ahead
(01:06:44):
of me than there are behind me.
So my days are becoming moreand more valuable, and so my
commitment every day is that I'mtrading a day of my life for
whatever I leave in this day,excuse me.
And so I had the intention tomake sure that I leave something
(01:07:10):
good in it, because I'm tradinga day of my life for it.
It's an important thing.
Every day is important, yeah,so I take a few minutes, I take
my dogs out, out, out the backof the house, to the little park
, and I'll let them run aroundjust as the sun is coming up,
and that's my time and I thinkit's important.
It keeps me grounded.
(01:07:31):
And the other thing that Iwould say is get.
If you don't have a pet, get adog or get a cat, you know, get
some animal that unconditionallyjust loves you.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
You know, yeah.
They bring me.
No, I even said to my kids youknow I'd lay down my life for
(01:07:54):
you.
But in terms of the emotionalresponse, my dogs beat you out.
You know hands down, I wouldn'tlay my life down for my dogs,
but anyway.
Kertia (01:08:14):
Thank you so much, bob, that was beautiful.
Bob (01:08:18):
Thank you for having me.
You know, having a podcast isno easy feat and it's a lot of
work.
Kertia (01:08:26):
It is.
Bob (01:08:26):
And you do it as an act of love, I know, to give a platform
for all the wonderful peoplethat you have on your show so
that they can share their wisdomand their learning with your
audience.
And it's just a wonderful thingand, like I say, it's a true
act of love and thank you fordoing that.
Kertia (01:08:46):
Thank you so much.
Thank you, okay, amazing people.
Thank you so much for stickingit out with me For another
episode of the other side offear podcast.
Please continue to share thispodcast, to share the show with
your friends, with your family,with whoever you think might
(01:09:08):
resonate.
Thank you so much.
Love you all.
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