Speaker 1: Karen. Yes, you know how I'm always telling you that
Speaker 1: I really need to meditate more. Yes, and it's usually
Speaker 1: right after I've had my third cup of coffee of
Speaker 1: the day.
Speaker 2: Right, it's right after, like you go to bed at night,
Speaker 2: when it's too late to meditate for the day.
Speaker 1: You're saying, I tell you that right after I go
Speaker 1: to bed at night.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I always say go to sleep.
Speaker 3: I said, go to bed.
Speaker 1: Oh, make me awake in bed. Well, I think today's
Speaker 1: guests might actually be able to finally get me to
Speaker 1: stick to a meditation routine.
Speaker 3: Oh, then that means there's hope for me too.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure about that. But you see, our guest
Speaker 1: this week is a licensed clinical social worker with over
Speaker 1: twenty five years of experience. But here's a kicker. She's
Speaker 1: on a mission to get everyone in the world to
Speaker 1: meditate and actually enjoy it.
Speaker 3: Is that a mission impossible?
Speaker 1: You know what? In the edit, I'm going to have
Speaker 1: to put in the mission. With so many meditation teachers
Speaker 1: out there are so super chill and relaxed, this week's
Speaker 1: guests may not be the person you would usually associate
Speaker 1: with meditation.
Speaker 3: I like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, see, she's got this super engaging, no nonsense and
Speaker 1: often hilarious way of teaching people how to meditate. And
Speaker 1: she says, there's nothing better for you except maybe water. Okay,
Speaker 1: and you know I hate water.
Speaker 2: I know you feel like you're drowning when you drink.
Speaker 1: Well, have you been having a difficult time sticking to
Speaker 1: a meditation routine, then this might just be the episode
Speaker 1: you've been waiting for. Because once this episode is done,
Speaker 1: you're gonna want to run to your couch, your matt,
Speaker 1: your chair, definitely, though not your bed. We'll explain that why,
Speaker 1: so that you can start your practice right away. This
Speaker 1: is a skeptic metaphysicians. My name is Will and I'mars,
Speaker 1: and unlike moulderin Scully, we both want to believe. So
Speaker 1: we've embarked in a journey of discovery.
Speaker 2: We've talked to people deeply entrenched in the spiritual and
Speaker 2: metaphysical world.
Speaker 1: We've thrown ourselves to weird and wonderful experiences. I even
Speaker 1: joined a coven of.
Speaker 2: Witches and wait, you joined a coven yep.
Speaker 1: All the interests of finding something, anything that will prove
Speaker 1: that there's something beyond this physical.
Speaker 2: Three dimensional world we all live in.
Speaker 1: This is the skeptic medsians. Hey there, I'm Will and
Speaker 1: I'm caring, and today we got one of the most
Speaker 1: delightful personalities you'll ever get the chance to meet on
Speaker 1: our show. As a licensed clinical social worker, she's got
Speaker 1: over twenty five years of experience and has provided counseling, coaching, workshops,
Speaker 1: hypnotherapy and meditation classes and retreats as part of her
Speaker 1: own private psychotherapy practice for the past seventeen years now.
Speaker 1: She believes that meditation is key to healthy living, so
Speaker 1: her mission is to teach as many people as possible
Speaker 1: not only how to meditate, but how to make it
Speaker 1: a habit asks a lifetime.
Speaker 3: That's the key.
Speaker 1: In a straightforward, no nonsense, highly engaging, in often humorous way,
Speaker 1: She's taught thousands of people how to meditate and keep
Speaker 1: meditating day in and day out. There is hope for
Speaker 1: both of us. Karen, Welcome to the show. V Stress
Speaker 1: therapists herself, Sherry Flake. Sherry, how you doing?
Speaker 3: Yeah? That? Wow, I'm doing great. How y'all do it?
Speaker 1: Sherry? You are are obi Wan, You're last best hope.
Speaker 1: We are terrible at We love meditating. Yeah, we don't know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we do love meditating. But we can't keep it up.
Speaker 1: It's so hard, right, I know, So help us, obi wan,
Speaker 1: how can we maintain meditation practice?
Speaker 3: Okay? I have about a thousand ideas.
Speaker 1: Okay, well we only got a well got about forty
Speaker 1: five minutes, so.
Speaker 3: Talk fast, Okay, I'll bring up the most important ones. Okay.
Speaker 3: So first off, the thing that's well, first of all,
Speaker 3: I mean, we all know, nothing magical happens on January first, Okay.
Speaker 3: I often get called on these TV shows to talk
Speaker 3: about healthy habits, you know, during the you know, New Year,
Speaker 3: and how to make habits stick and that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: And I did do that for a good long time,
Speaker 3: you know, and until I realized that the only habit
Speaker 3: we really need is to meditate every day. If we
Speaker 3: can swing that, then you know, life just kind of
Speaker 3: falls into place. And so when I watched this with
Speaker 3: my clients, I was like, oh my gosh, I can't
Speaker 3: just be teaching how to make running a habit. I
Speaker 3: can't just be teaching how to eat carrots instead a
Speaker 3: birthday cake at the birthday party, Like I need to
Speaker 3: teach meditation all the time. And then those things kind
Speaker 3: of fall into place. And one of the coolest things
Speaker 3: about meditation is that. I mean, first of all, come on,
Speaker 3: like all the habits were supposed to be doing. Like
Speaker 3: I mean, I was listening to a comic the other day.
Speaker 3: I don't remember who it was, but he said something
Speaker 3: like I feel like a babysit myself all day, Like
Speaker 3: I'm supposed to drink this, I'm supposed to take that vitamin,
Speaker 3: and I'm so simp going wrong.
Speaker 1: I don't beat you sit myself at.
Speaker 3: All at all. Like we're not very very good at
Speaker 3: the regular habits right.
Speaker 1: I'm don feeling very good bigby sitting right.
Speaker 3: Right, Like meditation show is extra hard because we're taking
Speaker 3: our ego out of it, Okay. And so if you
Speaker 3: want to, like say I I mean, back in the
Speaker 3: day when it was popular to have like a popular
Speaker 3: YouTube video, it was a different definition, but my most
Speaker 3: popular one was how to make running a habit? And
Speaker 3: I'm not a runner. My man's a runner. There's tons
Speaker 3: of runners out there, and I just kept seeing people
Speaker 3: over and over, you know, talk about it. And if
Speaker 3: you want to make running a habit, I mean, you
Speaker 3: can use your ego to get your ass out there,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, Like you can be like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna get new shoes, I'm gonna buy a new
Speaker 3: T shirt. I'm gonna know my neighbors. I'm gonna lose weight,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna bring my dogs. It's gonna be so. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's gonna be so man. I mean, I'm gonna be
Speaker 3: more with nature. I mean, there's a million ways to
Speaker 3: bring your ego into it. Because remember, our ego identity
Speaker 3: is just who we think we are, right, how we identify,
Speaker 3: how we would explain who we are when we go
Speaker 3: to meditate. We don't get to use that, you know,
Speaker 3: so we're pushing that away, and so our egos get
Speaker 3: a little bit louder at first. Now I will say
Speaker 3: that a long time ago, I'm just like you man,
Speaker 3: like that. That's why I can teach people how to
Speaker 3: do this, because I was like, what have you seen me?
Speaker 3: I spin like a top like this is me, This
Speaker 3: is me on meditation, you know what I'm saying. Like,
Speaker 3: I mean, I was like a total complete mess. I
Speaker 3: was like an impulsive mess. And I did talk to
Speaker 3: a month years ago who said, you know, Sherry, you
Speaker 3: are gonna look to your cushion one day and with
Speaker 3: joy and anticipation. I was like, yeah, right, I did
Speaker 3: not believe that, but it's actually true if you can
Speaker 3: trick your brain into thinking that you're not meditating, okay,
Speaker 3: and if you can understand what's going on with your ego,
Speaker 3: and the coolest thing about meditation is the more you
Speaker 3: do it, the more where you're able to separate yourself
Speaker 3: right from the listener, right the actual because there's not
Speaker 3: one of you, there are two of you. And if
Speaker 3: you don't believe me, have you ever been mad at yourself?
Speaker 3: Have you ever been in an argument with yourself? There
Speaker 3: has to be two of you.
Speaker 1: Full disclosure, I'm a Gemini. There's many of me.
Speaker 3: Pro'bly like four. Okay. When you said it in like water,
Speaker 3: I was thinking, is he a Pisce's? My mom doesn't
Speaker 3: like water and sheese a pisces. It's really weird. But yeah,
Speaker 3: if you learn a couple of tricks to get the
Speaker 3: upper hand on your ego, then it becomes like any
Speaker 3: other habit. Where is you're just trying to make it normal, right,
Speaker 3: You're just trying to make it normal right now. The
Speaker 3: number one reason why meditation is not regular something that
Speaker 3: you do every single day without stress, procrastination or excuses
Speaker 3: is because it's negotiable. Okay, if it's like I don't know,
Speaker 3: I'm a parent, so in you guys are parents. Remember
Speaker 3: when your kid was like I don't want to wear
Speaker 3: a seatbelt. You were like, too bad, Like this is
Speaker 3: what's happening, Like it's not negotiable, right, But then when
Speaker 3: broccoli came around, you were like, well it became negotiable,
Speaker 3: and then broccli was out of the picture, was over.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean. Because you're allowing it to
Speaker 3: be negotiable. It's something that you're kind of planning on doing,
Speaker 3: you know, and so there's a there's a million points
Speaker 3: to it. So it's kind of like, let's say that
Speaker 3: you're gonna come to my birthday party, okay, and on
Speaker 3: the way there, you're thinking, maybe I'll have cake, maybe
Speaker 3: I won't.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have cake, Okay, I'm gonna. I don't care
Speaker 1: what I say to myself. I'm gonna have cake.
Speaker 3: I get it. I used to have a birthday cake problem.
Speaker 3: I get That's why I'm using example. I'm just like you, man,
Speaker 3: if you are sitting there going there's no way I'm
Speaker 3: gonna be able to meditate every single day for the
Speaker 3: rest of my bla blah blah blah. I'm telling you
Speaker 3: that was me. Okay. I was in a change your
Speaker 3: die situation. Though I was like the most unhealthy person
Speaker 3: in the all world. I had to figure something out, Okay.
Speaker 3: So I had to figure out how to do it. Okay.
Speaker 3: And so I'm with you. If you're like birthday cake,
Speaker 3: I get it, Okay. But if you say to yourself,
Speaker 3: I am not having birthday cake and you tell Karen
Speaker 3: I'm not having birthday cake.
Speaker 1: I'm having birthday cake, Careen, Oh yes, I'm here for you.
Speaker 3: Okay, you have to You're not gonna have birthday cake.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean, You're not gonna have it.
Speaker 3: And Plus, when people talk about meditating, they're like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: I mean, if I could make one billboard, it was
Speaker 3: really cool Atlanta tude. For a long time I had
Speaker 3: a billboard. It was the coolest. Just said stressed and like,
Speaker 3: I mean, I was busy anyway. But if I can
Speaker 3: have one billboard out there in the beautiful I live
Speaker 3: in Atlanta, it would just say if you would like
Speaker 3: to change something about yourself, anything, it doesn't matter what
Speaker 3: it is. You have to feel good about it. Okay,
Speaker 3: we're way too obsessed with feeling bad about what we're
Speaker 3: not working on, about bad about what we're not doing about,
Speaker 3: bad about what we should do, shooting on ourselves all
Speaker 3: the time, rather than feeling good about what we're working on.
Speaker 3: That's where it is. That's it. There's no everyone's trying
Speaker 3: to get to some magical finish line. That's not it.
Speaker 3: This is the journey. There's no way to happen is
Speaker 3: you're on the journey to it. I meaness is the way.
Speaker 3: Like so it sounds cheesy, but I'm just saying, so
Speaker 3: how do you get started?
Speaker 2: Because I I love meditating. I want to sit there,
Speaker 2: and I still just don't do it.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: It's like, Okay, I don't go to the gym, and
Speaker 2: I understand why I don't go to the gym, Yeah, but.
Speaker 3: I still don't do it all the time.
Speaker 2: I don't know what my game is.
Speaker 3: So a couple points there. The reason why I'm going
Speaker 3: to the gym is because my trainer, Anthony is sitting
Speaker 3: there waiting for me every Monday and Thursday at nine thirty.
Speaker 3: Anthony Anthony, he is a super badass. He's at workout
Speaker 3: anytime in Atlanta. But anyway, that's why he's there. So
Speaker 3: the accountability again is there. And there there's a mind
Speaker 3: body app for people who go to yoga or kickboxing
Speaker 3: or whatever where you already pay you took someone's spot.
Speaker 3: I mean that app knows what time it is according
Speaker 3: to habits, right. But I'm going to tell you a
Speaker 3: little something that David g taught me, which is one
Speaker 3: of my teachers, and he nails it with this. It's
Speaker 3: like like all of us that work in this business,
Speaker 3: we're trying to articulate, and he just nails it. He says,
Speaker 3: rise p meditate. Okay, it's not rise pee, look at
Speaker 3: your phone, let the dogs out, make a cup of coffee,
Speaker 3: read the paper, and maybe that meditation thing will happen later.
Speaker 3: We'll come back. It's rise pe meditate, rise pe meditate.
Speaker 3: And everybody wants to tell me why they can't do that.
Speaker 1: Well, it has to order, right, because otherwise, you know,
Speaker 1: we don't want to pee, rise.
Speaker 3: And meditate or right. That's not good.
Speaker 1: That sounds great. However, here's the thing, and of course
Speaker 1: it's going to be a here's a thing because there's.
Speaker 3: So many things. I get it right, call me lots.
Speaker 3: There's so many things I can't do that.
Speaker 1: We are so sleep deprived. So we rise, pee, meditate
Speaker 1: very succinctly fall right the flip to sleep right. So
Speaker 1: I need to rise, pee, take a shower, shave, get dressed,
Speaker 1: go downstairs, make my coffee, check my email, eat my breakfast,
Speaker 1: sit down, take the kid to the school, come back,
Speaker 1: finish my email, finish my coffee. Then meditate and then
Speaker 1: oh crap, I got a meeting in five minutes.
Speaker 3: I know you can't. That's not going to work. But
Speaker 3: imagine if you just woke up five minutes earlier and
Speaker 3: you didn't look at your phone or do any of
Speaker 3: those things. See, one of the things is is that
Speaker 3: when we meditate, we are trying to move our brain
Speaker 3: waves into a different state without falling asleep. So meditation,
Speaker 3: I'm a zero percent fan. You have to be in
Speaker 3: like Sherry Flake graduate school to meditate. Okay, that's like
Speaker 3: advanced tep of shit. Okay, if you're going to be
Speaker 3: if you're new to meditation, you have to rise, get
Speaker 3: out of bed, okay, and then pee and not do
Speaker 3: anything else. Wait wait, wait, wait, even if you're sleepy,
Speaker 3: here's the thing with meditation. If you don't do it
Speaker 3: in your bed where you associate your bed with sleep
Speaker 3: and hopefully sex, you don't want to fall asleep there. Okay.
Speaker 3: Your brain will move into these other alpha waves and
Speaker 3: then be like oh this, I know this. I'm just
Speaker 3: gonna go right backles sleep. Mmm.
Speaker 1: Got it. But I got to clarify something.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: Are you suggesting you meditate on the toilet?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: Okay, because you know I didn't get that at all.
Speaker 1: Here's why I need to defend myself. Our bedroom. When
Speaker 1: you get up and you go pee, you it's the
Speaker 1: bathroom is right in the bedroom. There's wheel chairs. There's
Speaker 1: no other place to meditate than the bed or the john.
Speaker 1: So it's one or the other unless you go downstairs.
Speaker 1: And at that point I may as well make a coffee.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, So here's the thing. You're gonna need to
Speaker 3: have a designated spot. So like, remember I told you
Speaker 3: that Monk told me that I would love and I
Speaker 3: would look to the cushion with joy and anticipation and
Speaker 3: all that. Oh she said I would look to the
Speaker 3: cushion like I was greeting an old friend. I was like,
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna be doing that, but I definitely do
Speaker 3: that now I can't. I really have to hand it
Speaker 3: to her. Really, what I do is I rise pee.
Speaker 3: I'm avy at sherry Flake School, so I do brush
Speaker 3: my chumps, then meditate because otherwise I think about my
Speaker 3: teeth all day. But you start with rise pea meditate.
Speaker 3: That's you. That's where you, that's where you live, your
Speaker 3: rise p meditate. So what you want to do is
Speaker 3: you have to have a designated spot, so your brain
Speaker 3: associates that spot with sitting quietly.
Speaker 1: But that spot is downstairs, right next to the coffee pot.
Speaker 3: You're going to have to resist the temptation to make coffee,
Speaker 3: rise pee and go right to that room. Do you
Speaker 3: have a pet?
Speaker 1: We do, Yeah, we got a dog.
Speaker 3: Okay. What's really nice is your pet is going to
Speaker 3: pick up on meditation habit way faster than you. So
Speaker 3: what I noticed was my dogs would lead me into
Speaker 3: the meditations because I could go straight for the coffee, okay,
Speaker 3: and I don't know if you guys want me on
Speaker 3: coffee all out the experience. Okay, I can go straight
Speaker 3: to the coffee, or I can go right, and they
Speaker 3: always go right, and they sit on the cushions and
Speaker 3: they wait for me to sit down, and then I
Speaker 3: each give them something to chew, and I'm already sitting
Speaker 3: in the space, and then my brain's like I get
Speaker 3: to sit here because it's a big present for yourself.
Speaker 3: The reason why it's tough is because, a it's negotiable.
Speaker 3: You know, you're like, well, I can meditate today, I
Speaker 3: can meditate tomorrow, I can meditate whatever. But once you
Speaker 3: start to really like look at like, do yourself this
Speaker 3: beautiful favor. I used to give this talk before COVID
Speaker 3: to the National Association of Social Workers every year about
Speaker 3: meditation and its benefits. And it took me like an
Speaker 3: hour and twenty minute talk to talk about the clinical
Speaker 3: benefits that had been proven one hundred years ago now right,
Speaker 3: that meditation was helpful for physical symptoms, you know, physiological symptoms, psychiatric,
Speaker 3: all these things. And once you kind of pick one,
Speaker 3: like let's see, yours is going to be I want
Speaker 3: to lower my blood pressure, right, or I want to
Speaker 3: eat more mindfully, or I wanna be calmer or whatever
Speaker 3: it is. Okay, whatever it is, So I get this.
Speaker 3: I get this gig to go to the middle school
Speaker 3: and talk about meditation. And I'm like, there's one thing
Speaker 3: you can do. And people who do this thing after
Speaker 3: three weeks, only three weeks of doing it every single day,
Speaker 3: they're better at sports. They learn faster and quicker, they're
Speaker 3: more sociable, they're happier, they're calmer, they have better attention skills,
Speaker 3: they're more focused. So I start naming all these things, right,
Speaker 3: and everybody likes the better at sports one because they're
Speaker 3: in middle school, right, And I'm going on and on
Speaker 3: and on, and then I said it begins with m
Speaker 3: I was out of middle school. I mean, they all
Speaker 3: came in. I know Karen's with me. Maybe you don't
Speaker 3: want that story in there. I'm just saying, what is it?
Speaker 1: Oh? Good god?
Speaker 3: Oh no, I don't even know you. No.
Speaker 1: I was thinking, like marijuana. I don't know.
Speaker 3: All the boys are like masturbation. I was like, oh no,
Speaker 3: that's terrible. And then there was a little boy out
Speaker 3: there who was like twelve years old and he's meditated
Speaker 3: with me a thousand times. His parents are big meditators.
Speaker 3: They come on retreats. And he said, no, it's meditation.
Speaker 3: So it has a happy ending.
Speaker 1: Excuse me, yes, it does.
Speaker 3: A terrible Okay, can you have a dirty mind and
Speaker 3: still meditate? Yes, because once you start looking at all
Speaker 3: of these benefits, whatever it is, the one that you pick,
Speaker 3: whatever it is, the one you pick, you will magically
Speaker 3: get that benefit if you start meditating. I mean it's
Speaker 3: it's unbelievable, but you will also get a benefit that
Speaker 3: I could that no one can predict, like if you
Speaker 3: really do decide that you're going to do it every
Speaker 3: single day, like brushing your chumps. I mean, nobody says
Speaker 3: to me, I'll have time to rush my chumps, right, Like,
Speaker 3: come on, come on, it's not negotiable. You're brushing your chomps.
Speaker 3: And if you miss a day, fine. I mean, these
Speaker 3: people are like, I haven't missed a day in twenty years.
Speaker 3: I'm like, whatever, it's usually a man, and there's usually
Speaker 3: a woman behind that man, but it's never a woman
Speaker 3: saying man. Okay, I'm just throwing that out there. But anyway,
Speaker 3: side note, you know there are these people who say,
Speaker 3: I haven't missed a day of meditation or twenty It
Speaker 3: doesn't matter if you miss a day. Have you missed
Speaker 3: a day brushing your chomps, You're fine, You're fine. Get
Speaker 3: on to the next day, Get onto the day that
Speaker 3: you're in. Get onto this moment, not five minutes from now,
Speaker 3: or this moment right here or right here. How I'm
Speaker 3: gonna end this sentence right now, now, right now, this one,
Speaker 3: right here, This is it. This is all we got.
Speaker 3: Nothing's gonna happen in the future. It happened now. Nothing's
Speaker 3: gonna happen in the past. It happened right now. And
Speaker 3: if you're saying shit like I can't believe it's Solloween,
Speaker 3: and I can't believe it's Thanksgiving, and I can't believe
Speaker 3: it's Christmas, why can't you believe it? Okay, you need
Speaker 3: to be in the moment that you are in. Christmas
Speaker 3: always comes out Thanksgiving. Why can't you believe it? Why
Speaker 3: are you saying things about your kids like when he walks,
Speaker 3: I'll be happier when he goes to kindergarten, I'll be
Speaker 3: happy when then, Shit, none of us get out of
Speaker 3: here alive. You have no idea how much time you have.
Speaker 3: Take the time that you have right now and now
Speaker 3: and then this now, this is it. This is all
Speaker 3: you got. All you're gonna take with you wherever you
Speaker 3: go is your consciousness, work on it a little bit.
Speaker 3: You know, if you work on being distracted all damn day,
Speaker 3: you're gonna get real good at it. And everybody wants
Speaker 3: to press me. I got adhd. I'm like, join the club, everybody,
Speaker 3: you got a phone. You're good, you got it, You're
Speaker 3: you're you are meeting symptomology. Usually if you are remotely
Speaker 3: complaining about that, and it's because you're getting really good
Speaker 3: at it. You're practicing it. So maybe practice being quiet,
Speaker 3: practice being calm, practice, breathing slower, practice, mantra practice. And
Speaker 3: that's the other thing too. Nobody knows what meditation is.
Speaker 3: That's why it sucks. They don't know what to do
Speaker 3: when they go sit down.
Speaker 1: That was weirda be my next question, Actually, am I
Speaker 1: doing it right?
Speaker 3: Yeah? What you're doing is remember this meditation is not
Speaker 3: because people like I can't clear my thoughts. I'm like, well,
Speaker 3: no one can't. I mean, like some monks can, but
Speaker 3: like even they for they keep coming back, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean. It's the same thing. So you're not
Speaker 3: trying to clear your thoughts. Meditation isn't thinking about nothing,
Speaker 3: no thing. It's concentrating on one thing. Okay, And you know,
Speaker 3: this gets into the yoga philosophy, and without doing that,
Speaker 3: if you can focus on one thing, it's incredibly calming.
Speaker 3: And the thing that we always have with us is
Speaker 3: our breath. So when I teach meditation to kindergarteners, they're
Speaker 3: so cute. I'm like, who here is breathing? And they
Speaker 3: all check. They're like, you know what I mean? And
Speaker 3: then I go in to talk to lawyers, which for
Speaker 3: some reason, I'm always talking to lawyers. I just got
Speaker 3: another gig today with lawyers because these guys are stressed out,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. They have no idea how,
Speaker 3: they have no idea how to meditate. And I say,
Speaker 3: who here is breathing? They're like, they don't even, they
Speaker 3: don't check, right, how do you know? You gotta check? Okay?
Speaker 3: And I live in the South, which is so funny
Speaker 3: because people I'm not from the South. I know, I
Speaker 3: don't come across as Southern. I'm from Detroit. Okay, I'm
Speaker 3: from Detroit. Except the people here are so sweet. They
Speaker 3: say all the time. They'll say it's part of their culture.
Speaker 3: They'll say, hey, I'm gonna say a prayer for you.
Speaker 3: And I'm always like, right now, like or later, like,
Speaker 3: are you gonna call me? Like when will I know
Speaker 3: it went out? Like how am I gonna know that
Speaker 3: you did it? You know? And it's the same thing
Speaker 3: with breathing. They're like, I'm gonna take a breath, take
Speaker 3: a deep breath, and they're like okay, And I'm like,
Speaker 3: did you take it? You didn't take it. No one
Speaker 3: took it, No one's doing it. Everyone's talk talk dot
Speaker 3: talk talk talk talk pos post pousers and down by
Speaker 3: the beach, and I'm all dressed in white and I'm like,
Speaker 3: I don't that's not it. That's not what this is.
Speaker 3: This is every single day, not negotiable. Brushing your chomps.
Speaker 3: You want someone take a picture of you brushing your
Speaker 3: chomps or sleeping? No, okay, this is a private personal thing.
Speaker 3: You don't even need to tell anyone you're doing it.
Speaker 3: You can keep it private. Every time. My husband's like,
Speaker 3: I'm not telling anybody for five years that I'm meditating.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm telling everybody. I'm just kidding with the
Speaker 3: But I will tell you this. My husband had. The
Speaker 3: doctors told me, thankfully after his surgery that it was
Speaker 3: the most extensive surgery that a human can endure. Okay,
Speaker 3: it was like fourteen hours. It was terrible. I tell him,
Speaker 3: it was so much worse for me. I mean, he
Speaker 3: was sleeping. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding you guys,
Speaker 3: for those of you that are listening. I just made
Speaker 3: like a funny like I was joking. Disclaimer. But when
Speaker 3: when he came out of it in his room, I
Speaker 3: had it all decked out in the Buddhast medicines and
Speaker 3: the Jesus shawls and all the things, and the bullshit
Speaker 3: and the incense in the crystals and everything. There was
Speaker 3: stuff everywhere, because hospitals are a horrible place to heal.
Speaker 3: But once he was dealing with this incredible amount of pain,
Speaker 3: he wanted to sit. He wanted to sit. He did
Speaker 3: not want the pain pills, like I made him take
Speaker 3: some painbells, but like he wanted to sit. He always
Speaker 3: preferred that over it. And I'd read all the studies
Speaker 3: about morphine and meditation being more effective than morphine for pain,
Speaker 3: and I did not believe that. I didn't believe them.
Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, there's a bunch of bullshit. It's like
Speaker 3: I'm gonna look at my cushion like an old friend.
Speaker 3: Yeah right, I'm doing this so I don't die, so
Speaker 3: I don't have an heart attack, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: So I don't freak out, so I have a pleasant life,
Speaker 3: so I could slow down well enough to see something
Speaker 3: because I am raced up. I'm like this all the time.
Speaker 3: My husband's like, okay, time to stop doing cartwheels, handstands,
Speaker 3: Let's go to bed. I mean, I have a lot
Speaker 3: of energy, and meditation will also help with that. If
Speaker 3: you're feeling like once you spend some time being calm, okay,
Speaker 3: I mean if this might be shocking, but I used
Speaker 3: to just say whatever I thought all the time. Now
Speaker 3: I have a little bit of a filter. Okay, a
Speaker 3: little bit of a filter, but like I'm just saying,
Speaker 3: I'm so happy. I just want you to have this, right,
Speaker 3: So when I see these people who come in, and
Speaker 3: you know, I got a friend who's also a therapist,
Speaker 3: and he always says, you can't quit your private practice.
Speaker 3: But I want to tell as many people as I
Speaker 3: possibly can, please just try this and then tell me
Speaker 3: it didn't work, you know what I mean. Like on
Speaker 3: my tombstone, y'all can write like what if it works?
Speaker 3: What if it does. What if it works and you
Speaker 3: have this magical benefit, and then you have the magical benefit.
Speaker 3: My benefit is I have never saw a sunset until
Speaker 3: after I've been meditating for probably twelve years. Like I
Speaker 3: never even noticed one. I was too busy, do you
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying? And now I don't want to
Speaker 3: miss any I have one painted in my little meditation room.
Speaker 3: I don't I want to see them all the time.
Speaker 3: Last night I said to my husband last night, I said,
Speaker 3: is this a joke? Like? Are these how sunsets have
Speaker 3: always been? There's like tears running down my face, like,
Speaker 3: I mean, this is not my cup of tea, This
Speaker 3: is not who I am, But it's definitely who you
Speaker 3: want to be because you allow yourself to step aside,
Speaker 3: and you'll get to be who you really are, which
Speaker 3: is a holy in divine and creative creation and creator.
Speaker 3: I mean, you're you're lovely, and you don't really get
Speaker 3: a chance to face yourself like that.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm making a big mistake here. I'm feeling
Speaker 1: like I'm listening to your show. I just love the
Speaker 1: way you talk, right, so I'll just like I'll just
Speaker 1: let you talk. Oh I'm not listening to her show.
Speaker 1: She's on my show. I got to have a question.
Speaker 1: I have a question too, Okay, ask.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's hear it. Question.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm ready, get up, pee, go downstairs to the room.
Speaker 3: How much time?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 2: Are we talking about fifteen minutes?
Speaker 3: Thirty minutes?
Speaker 2: What are we looking at here?
Speaker 3: Okay? So when we're trying to get together a habit
Speaker 3: that we want for the rest of our life, okay,
Speaker 3: like brushing your teeth or whatever. My daughter sits a
Speaker 3: timer for two minutes, she brush her tea for two minutes.
Speaker 3: Can you believe that? I guess it's the recommended I
Speaker 3: don't know. I don't do that. I don't do it.
Speaker 3: You're trying to do this forever, okay, not to January
Speaker 3: thirty first, or like this year or whatever, right, you
Speaker 3: want to do it forever? And so my clients all
Speaker 3: start with three minutes.
Speaker 1: So wait, wow, three minute meditation.
Speaker 3: Guess what, It's better than zero minutes.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't let me even I don't relax until
Speaker 1: like twenty minutes into it.
Speaker 3: I can't, I know, I know. So you are learning
Speaker 3: how to make showing up habitual first, Okay, so you
Speaker 3: come and you sit for three minutes. Now. I don't
Speaker 3: know if you've listened to the show about motivation, but
Speaker 3: you know, there's three little motivators that I always talk
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 1: I listened to every one of your first I can't
Speaker 1: believe that.
Speaker 3: It's so funny too, because I just hit record and
Speaker 3: then I just start talking about whatever. The other day,
Speaker 3: my boy, he's doing my editing. He's like, I can't
Speaker 3: I'm not really doing that much. You're just talking, okay.
Speaker 3: So there are three mothers of motivation, the moms I
Speaker 3: like to call them, okay, the big dogs, okay. And
Speaker 3: the first one is you gotta feel good, okay, and
Speaker 3: so in order to do that, motivation comes after action,
Speaker 3: not before. Motivation comes after action, not before after Okay.
Speaker 3: If you think it comes before you're thinking of inspiration,
Speaker 3: that's great, right. And like, you know, if you watch
Speaker 3: a Rocky movie, I'm dating myself. But if you watch
Speaker 3: a Rocky movie, you might feel like you want to
Speaker 3: go learn how to box or whatever. But if you
Speaker 3: like run up by Down this year's in Philadelphia, like
Speaker 3: you know, you're gonna have motivation movement, okay. And the
Speaker 3: second one is little by little, little by little little
Speaker 3: bit you get a little bit better and a little
Speaker 3: bit better, and then next thing you know, you're a
Speaker 3: lot better. Okay, and then the third one and this
Speaker 3: is the tough one, and this is the one you're
Speaker 3: talking about.
Speaker 1: Will.
Speaker 3: Is that when you go there and you're like, Sherry
Speaker 3: doesn't know what she's talking about. I feel great, it's
Speaker 3: only been three minutes. I'm gonna keep meditating, right. What
Speaker 3: happens is is you feel motivated because you're just medavotated
Speaker 3: for three minutes. If you feel great, and it's in
Speaker 3: alignment with your true purpose, okay, because you really want
Speaker 3: to be a meditator, like you're into it, right, But
Speaker 3: you have to leave on a high note because motivation
Speaker 3: means you want more. And if you sit there for
Speaker 3: twenty minutes, your brain's like, I'm not doing that tomorrow. No,
Speaker 3: I have five for that shit. Okay, I'm not doing that. Okay,
Speaker 3: that's not We have to do this, this, this, and
Speaker 3: it's gonna pick three different categories of all the reasons
Speaker 3: why you can't do it. It usually has to do with
Speaker 3: your body, time, or your environment. You're gonna pick one
Speaker 3: of those things and be like, I'm out. I gotta
Speaker 3: make the lunches. Okay, I don't have time for I
Speaker 3: gotta clean. Okay, this my hip hurts when I sit
Speaker 3: that long. Okay, okay, all these reasons why you're not
Speaker 3: gonna sit there. And so the third one is you
Speaker 3: have to leave on a high note. You have to
Speaker 3: leave wanting more so, if you're running, and you're running
Speaker 3: and you're like Cherry said, eight minutes run, yeah, whatever,
Speaker 3: I feel great. I'm gonna keeprunning. I'm gonna keep running.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna keep running. I'm gonna know my neighbors, and
Speaker 3: I feel great. What if you would stop right then? Okay,
Speaker 3: And this is a great example. Have you met anybody
Speaker 3: playing pickleball? They're stopping on a high. They're the happiest
Speaker 3: people on earth. They're like, they big ball. It's amazing.
Speaker 3: It's the most amazing thing. They're not at the end
Speaker 3: of it. They're not talking about their scores. No one
Speaker 3: tells me if they're any good. They're just doing it,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. That's it. That's all they're doing,
Speaker 3: is it. They're just showing up and they are pumped. Okay,
Speaker 3: like they're the most happy people in the world. A
Speaker 3: couple of retreats. Ago I called our group text the
Speaker 3: pickleball enthusiasts because I used it as an example, and
Speaker 3: everybody they're like, bick a ball and they went on
Speaker 3: and out and not about how great it is. All
Speaker 3: I'm saying is you got to be in it to
Speaker 3: win it. You got to be doing it, okay, And
Speaker 3: what you want is for your brain to go. I
Speaker 3: want to do that again. And so the next morning
Speaker 3: when you get up to rise, pe meditate, you're gonna
Speaker 3: show up because it's only three minutes. And that's an
Speaker 3: argument you can win with yourself.
Speaker 1: City Let's take a break and we'll be right back.
Speaker 1: And now back to the skeptic metaphysicians. So then when
Speaker 1: do you expand that or do you not? Do you
Speaker 1: do three minutes for the rest of your life, or
Speaker 1: do you expand it out to ten, fifteen, twenty?
Speaker 3: Eventually you do, so you make it longer. Now is
Speaker 3: this this is gonna get like the after hours thing. Again,
Speaker 3: Deeper is better than longer.
Speaker 1: I hear that all the time.
Speaker 3: I get. Deeper is better than longer. Okay. So you
Speaker 3: want to have a more you want to have a
Speaker 3: really good experience, okay, Rather than you know, sitting there
Speaker 3: and like clutching, you know, the wheel sort of thing,
Speaker 3: and there will come a time where it's really easy.
Speaker 3: I have this amazing client, who I mean, he would
Speaker 3: be a very It's funny because all my clients are
Speaker 3: like my clientell very lucky therapist. I have a very
Speaker 3: diverse crowd, and none of them look like meditators. None
Speaker 3: of them look like yoga teachers, none of them look
Speaker 3: none of them, I mean, they're all like that verson's meditating,
Speaker 3: you'd be really shocked. But one of them and he's
Speaker 3: you know, he's he's from Georgia, and he he ups
Speaker 3: his meditation thirty second intervals so his brain won't notice them.
Speaker 1: So does he set a clock or yes?
Speaker 3: Okay, so I'm very opinionated about that. You don't want
Speaker 3: to have an alarm, you know, so you want to
Speaker 3: have an alarm that's not very alarming, right, Like my
Speaker 3: first alarm was like Krishna Das or something like that.
Speaker 3: Someone's singing pretty things to me. Now I'm listening to
Speaker 3: Patty Griffin. Oh my gosh, she's got you know, oh oh,
Speaker 3: there's so many good Petty Griffin songs, Like you want
Speaker 3: to pick you want to pick something that's lovely to
Speaker 3: hear because when you're done meditating, you know. I think
Speaker 3: it was Para Mahansa Yogananda said, you know, you don't
Speaker 3: want to milk the cow and then jump up and
Speaker 3: kick the milk over, like you know, just like sit
Speaker 3: there for a second, right, so after your three minutes,
Speaker 3: you might open your eyes and just sit there. Okay.
Speaker 3: I think I'm really bad at remembering who said what,
Speaker 3: but I think it was Edison that said something like,
Speaker 3: you know, all of our problems stem from the fact
Speaker 3: that we can't sit in a room quietly for fifteen
Speaker 3: minutes doing absolutely nothing. I mean he nailed that in
Speaker 3: a time when we're not even dealing with this. Right,
Speaker 3: did I answer your question though? Because you said you ride,
Speaker 3: you get up.
Speaker 1: You extended out, and you said yes, three seconds and
Speaker 1: then you do it.
Speaker 3: I would take a long long time to do it.
Speaker 3: I would take your time, like we used the term.
Speaker 3: There's a great there's a great book. I don't think
Speaker 3: it's called take your time, but it's something by Eknatha
Speaker 3: Schwar and he does a beautiful job of talking about
Speaker 3: slowing down and actually take your time with this. You know,
Speaker 3: take it seriously. Okay, take it as seriously as you
Speaker 3: have teeth and mouth health. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3: You know, nobody says I don't have time to brush
Speaker 3: my teeth, or I misbrush my teeth so I'm never
Speaker 3: gonna do it again, or I'm gonna wait till my parents,
Speaker 3: you know, leave this house, or because they're visiting, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna wait till this vacation's over to brush my tea.
Speaker 1: Nobody says that.
Speaker 3: Okay, Like this is your ego trying to get you
Speaker 3: to stop, because when you're quiet, your ego's not there,
Speaker 3: and that's scary for you, Okay, And so your ego's
Speaker 3: like I make coffee and I let dogs out, and
Speaker 3: I clean up, and I do this, and I get
Speaker 3: the paper and I look at this and I do that,
Speaker 3: like it wants to own you.
Speaker 1: Right, If you are already a meditator and three minutes
Speaker 1: may seem to be too short, it's just clarifying. It's
Speaker 1: cool to do ten minutes, right, or fifteen to start
Speaker 1: with that, or do you suggest everyone's start back at
Speaker 1: three minutes.
Speaker 3: Well, if you're trying to show up every day, then
Speaker 3: I would start at five or seven minutes. I would
Speaker 3: probably still bring it down really low. And I would
Speaker 3: always use an odd number because your brain like loves
Speaker 3: odd numbers. That's why we click on links that say
Speaker 3: eleven things. You know, the clickbait is always odd numbers.
Speaker 3: So I would use an odd number. I would use
Speaker 3: seven minutes then, And you know, because your goal has changed.
Speaker 3: It's not to meditate sometimes perfectly. It's to medicate every
Speaker 3: single day for the rest of your life, right right, Okay.
Speaker 3: And the thing about these benefits, they're great, They're wonderful.
Speaker 3: There's a million of them. I can't even imagine how
Speaker 3: many I've gotten. I mean, I mean, it's amazing. But
Speaker 3: you don't get them unless you do. You have to
Speaker 3: do it. You have to sit there. Okay. There's a
Speaker 3: lot of posters out there talk and talk and talking.
Speaker 3: Sits it.
Speaker 1: You mentioned earlier that that meditation is not clear in
Speaker 1: your mind. It's thinking about one thing, yes or no.
Speaker 1: Guided meditations versus silent meditations versus music meditations. Do you
Speaker 1: have advices to which one you use?
Speaker 3: Yes? You know? I do you know? I do? Yes?
Speaker 3: So guided meditation is great. I kind of like to
Speaker 3: think of it like if you go to Colorado and
Speaker 3: you want to go skiing, you will probably get someone
Speaker 3: to teach you how to go down the mountains because
Speaker 3: it's like serious skiing in Colorado. Right, If you really
Speaker 3: want to seriously learn how to to do it, you're
Speaker 3: going to get a teacher. And you know, binaural beads,
Speaker 3: guided meditation, those types of things they show you. This
Speaker 3: is what it's like. This is where you're going, This
Speaker 3: is how you do your feet, this is how you
Speaker 3: do your polls, this is how you get on the lift.
Speaker 3: This is where you know. This might help, this might
Speaker 3: not help, right, But what you really want is a
Speaker 3: formal sitting practice where you're not listening to anything, and
Speaker 3: because then you're just listening to music, then you're just
Speaker 3: listening to someone talk. I find them now kind of distracting,
Speaker 3: but sometimes it can be fun to have, Like a
Speaker 3: guided meditation. You're gonna hate this answer, but use guided
Speaker 3: meditation in those after you get the hang of sitting. Okay,
Speaker 3: use them as your second meditation of the day. Yes,
Speaker 3: there could be too eventually, so.
Speaker 1: I only rise in pee you once. Well, well that's
Speaker 1: that's not true. I'm over fifty, says that happens a lot. Actually,
Speaker 1: sometimes I've heard it say too much is too much.
Speaker 1: So you think more than one is okay a day?
Speaker 3: I think more than one is okay if you're doing
Speaker 3: it every single day for like a year.
Speaker 1: So how many, two, five, twelve, wait numbers thirteen?
Speaker 3: How many times a day?
Speaker 1: Yeah? What do you recommend?
Speaker 3: Twice?
Speaker 1: Twice a day? Okay?
Speaker 3: But first, see, that's the thing. We really love to
Speaker 3: start at the goal. We're like, January first, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: be running two miles a day. I'm like, dude, you
Speaker 3: don't say January first, I'm gonna be playing Jimmy Hendricks licks.
Speaker 3: If you ain't never pick up a guitar. You know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. You can't start at the goal. Okay,
Speaker 3: you got to start. You got to think of your
Speaker 3: body like food. You can't just eat a Believe me,
Speaker 3: if you could eat all your meals for the whole
Speaker 3: year and one day I would sign up, I would
Speaker 3: pay and be done and not have to eat. It's
Speaker 3: such an inconvenience. It's a pain in the ass. I
Speaker 3: hate making dinner. I hate it. I'm a mom. I
Speaker 3: know it's terrible. I'm a terrible mother. It's such a
Speaker 3: drag by the time. By the end of the day,
Speaker 3: I'm not hungry. How are these people constantly eating all day?
Speaker 3: I can't believe they're not five hundred pounds. I'm like, God,
Speaker 3: it's constant eating. Okay, but if I could, I would
Speaker 3: eat all my meals in one day. But remember the mother's
Speaker 3: a motivation. The second one is little by little. You
Speaker 3: can't do that. You can only eat a cup a
Speaker 3: little bit each day, okay to maintain what you want.
Speaker 3: So you need to think of meditation like that. That's
Speaker 3: how your brain works. That's why when you go to
Speaker 3: clean your whole garage in one day, you're like, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna keep it organized and it's gonna be great, it's
Speaker 3: gonna be perfect. And then your brain's like, I'm never
Speaker 3: doing this again. I missed all my shows, I didn't
Speaker 3: have a fun Saturday. I'm letting it get messy again.
Speaker 3: That's why we do it once twice, three times a year,
Speaker 3: all day long. But what you would do instead is
Speaker 3: maybe just the bikes, you know, and then you'll leave
Speaker 3: yourself wanting more because motivation comes after action, and then
Speaker 3: you want to do more and you say, SUREY doesn't
Speaker 3: know I'm just gonna do the whole garage. But I'm
Speaker 3: just saying, what would it be like if you just
Speaker 3: did a little bit there and you practiced showing up,
Speaker 3: you practiced being quiet. And you know that also gets
Speaker 3: into the like you know, you know, running is my
Speaker 3: meditation and that doesn't make any I mean, like that's
Speaker 3: like saying talking is my singing, and you know, breathing
Speaker 3: is my jogging or something like that. That's the difference
Speaker 3: between mindfulness and meditation. I hate the word mindful because like,
Speaker 3: isn't our mind already full? It should be mindlessed, right,
Speaker 3: I don't know, But anyway, what you want to do
Speaker 3: is like they say in London, you know, you have
Speaker 3: to mind the gap. You got to be in the
Speaker 3: thing that you're doing right. Like so earlier, I was
Speaker 3: having a very frustrating situation uploading homecoming photos to drop box.
Speaker 3: Each one took five seconds. I was like, I mean,
Speaker 3: it was this thing forever, right, and I'm just like
Speaker 3: sitting there, I'm like like this and I was like, okay,
Speaker 3: how many breaths can I? Okay take his five breaths?
Speaker 3: And I was like, well, could I get it to
Speaker 3: three breaths? You know, one breath, you know, like take
Speaker 3: advantage of the situation that you are in, you know,
Speaker 3: like Joe just spends is so funny. He's like, you
Speaker 3: gotta hurry up and get up to go to work thing,
Speaker 3: hurry up and have lunch, and then hurry up and
Speaker 3: drive home, and then hurry up and watch the show,
Speaker 3: and then hurry up and eat your thing, and then
Speaker 3: hurry up and go to bed. So you can hurry
Speaker 3: up and get up. He's like, where are you going?
Speaker 3: You're already there, You're here. What are you doing here?
Speaker 3: How are you gonna spend your time here? The best
Speaker 3: way to spend your time here is spending a little
Speaker 3: time quiet. And if I could do this, I mean,
Speaker 3: come on, if I can do this, y'all can do this. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you can do it. Okay you can right, all right,
Speaker 3: we can do it.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have to bring her back on the show. Yes,
Speaker 1: because we haven't even gotten deeper into this.
Speaker 3: How well we're doing? Yes? I need updates. I need updates.
Speaker 3: So today I was telling my boy, I'm teaching him
Speaker 3: how to drive. Whoa we got on the highway today.
Speaker 3: I was like, let me tell you something. None of
Speaker 3: this happens in Detroit. Everybody know how their car goes,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. Just worry about this here
Speaker 3: in Atlanta. All right, So, Ryse, you're gonna send me
Speaker 3: a text and you're gonna say rise pee meditator or
Speaker 3: I did it or whatever. Okay, for three minutes, that's it.
Speaker 3: Tell me that you're not dying to get back to
Speaker 3: the cushion. After three minutes, you're gonna be like, I
Speaker 3: want to. And then you're gonna be like, I found
Speaker 3: a feather and I'm gonna put it in my meditation spot.
Speaker 3: And then like you're gonna be like, and then I
Speaker 3: found this picture of my grandma. Is there so much?
Speaker 3: Just put it right there, and like you're gonna want
Speaker 3: to make that space really pretty, and all of a
Speaker 3: sudden you're gonna look to it like it's an old
Speaker 3: front and we're gonna name it Gladys.
Speaker 1: Gladys. Oh, I see.
Speaker 3: That is hot. That's hot. That's really hot.
Speaker 1: All right. When you say deeper is better than longer,
Speaker 1: what makes something deeper? What's what makes a deep meditation deep?
Speaker 3: If you're just what you're learning, you know, when you
Speaker 3: focus on one thing a mantra, your breath, whatever it is,
Speaker 3: whatever we call our anchor, that's gonna be our one
Speaker 3: thing that we focus on. You know, you might have
Speaker 3: a moment or flash where you're kind of in between,
Speaker 3: like so to say, like the notes of the music
Speaker 3: right where there's just silence, there's nothing there. Right. As
Speaker 3: soon as you realize that, of course you're thinking about
Speaker 3: it and it's over, right. But really, what we're trying
Speaker 3: to do is change our brain waves into alpha, theta,
Speaker 3: whatever waves. And it's so without falling asleep. Okay, And
Speaker 3: when we do that, when we maintain that, you have
Speaker 3: these moments with my husband causin like dropping in. You know,
Speaker 3: I dropped in my clients. Let's say I dropped in
Speaker 3: and it's just like this, right, And what you want
Speaker 3: are a couple more. If you're having sixty thousand thoughts
Speaker 3: a day, what if you had fifty thousand, What if
Speaker 3: you had thirty thousand, What if you're like me, you
Speaker 3: had eighty that I'm just kidding one million, right, And
Speaker 3: so you what you want is a meaningful experience. And
Speaker 3: so that's why I tell people. You know, a lot
Speaker 3: of people assume that I'm an MBSR practitioner because I'm
Speaker 3: a social worker.
Speaker 4: That's really popular in my business. It's mindfulness based stress reduction,
Speaker 4: and it's you know, a very practical physiological way to
Speaker 4: look at meditations.
Speaker 3: Great. I tell people, even though I'm a social worker,
Speaker 3: I think because I'm a social worker, I tell people,
Speaker 3: bring whatever it is that means anything to you. There
Speaker 3: the feather, Jesus, Buddha, Alah, Susie, passy, Jimmy, whatever you
Speaker 3: call it, Bring it to that cushion. Because there are
Speaker 3: many pasts to one truth and you are kind of
Speaker 3: you're in touch with yourself. What you're going to realize
Speaker 3: is the thoughts that are coming and coming and coming,
Speaker 3: that you're separate from them right now. You might feel
Speaker 3: like that's you, right, but you're separate from those things
Speaker 3: and you just don't take it so seriously. And I
Speaker 3: think that's why my favorite benefit of meditation, which these
Speaker 3: you know, these clinicians are having difficulty like defining you know,
Speaker 3: it's coming across as like people are more real, Like
Speaker 3: they feel more wise, they feel more compassionate, you know,
Speaker 3: those things that everybody wants. Because I think sometimes people think, well,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna be too chill, or my personality I mean, like,
Speaker 3: my personality is clearly still here, Like this is it,
Speaker 3: this is what you get, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: But I think seeing myself separate from that, you know,
Speaker 3: it's it's such a relief, you know, because it's God,
Speaker 3: it's exhausting, you know, it's it's this constant running thoughts
Speaker 3: and judgments. I mean, there's nothing you could do about
Speaker 3: it except maybe take a break from it. You know.
Speaker 3: Michael Singer does a really good job in one of
Speaker 3: his books when he says, you know, I can prove
Speaker 3: to you that there's two of you. You know, He'll say,
Speaker 3: if I gave you a pill and I said I could,
Speaker 3: we could get rid of those thoughts just for like
Speaker 3: ten minutes, you know, would you take it? And everything's
Speaker 3: like yeah, hell yeah, I just got the chills. I'm like,
Speaker 3: I want one. Right, But if I said, how about
Speaker 3: the one that's listening to that? If I give you
Speaker 3: a pill to get rid of that, would you want that?
Speaker 3: You're like no, because that's you, that's you, that is you.
Speaker 3: Thoughts ain't you? Okay? We think they're important because we
Speaker 3: keep going to them, just like we think word is
Speaker 3: important because we keep going. Right, we think it's it's
Speaker 3: it's important because we hear it over and over again.
Speaker 3: What we think about, you know, if we think about
Speaker 3: something long enough, you know, we think it's true, whether
Speaker 3: it's true or not. So why people drink the kool aid?
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying. So you have to spend
Speaker 3: some time facing yourself and then you get this massive
Speaker 3: benefit of being like, oh my gosh, that's not it's
Speaker 3: not really, that's not it all.
Speaker 1: Right, So I lost track again because I just started
Speaker 1: listening to you. I started listening to your show once again.
Speaker 1: When you're on my show.
Speaker 3: Huh.
Speaker 1: Deeper means losing yourself completely.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and just just be okay with it. It's a
Speaker 3: little scary at first when you slip into those little moments, right.
Speaker 3: And Wayne Dyer has great books if you want to
Speaker 3: pick up some of his old old books about how
Speaker 3: to slip into the into the gap, you know, and
Speaker 3: he's got you know, like our you know, like like
Speaker 3: I pledge allegiance or our father, know, like our father,
Speaker 3: our father slip in there like like try to find
Speaker 3: the spaces, you know. But deeper just means you're not
Speaker 3: sitting there thinking about laundry that can't be here like you. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you have like laser focus on something right, and there
Speaker 3: will be times where you sit around and think about
Speaker 3: think about laundry. If you're gonna do this every day,
Speaker 3: you're gonna have good times, bad times, and all these
Speaker 3: months in sage. Just say it doesn't matter. Just go
Speaker 3: sit again.
Speaker 1: I think that's probably can be the hardest thing for me,
Speaker 1: is stopping thinking about doing laundry.
Speaker 3: You don't have to stop thinking about it, start thinking
Speaker 3: about it. This is what you do. You tell yourself
Speaker 3: you have three jobs. You go This is from Kelly McGonagle.
Speaker 3: By the way, you go and sit down. Okay, you're
Speaker 3: gonna remain completely still for three minutes or five minutes
Speaker 3: or seven minutes, however you're starting. Please don't go over
Speaker 3: seven minutes unless you want to be unsuccessful. You sit
Speaker 3: completely still with your eyes closed, sitting up. Okay. You're
Speaker 3: not leaning back on something, and you're not leaning forward
Speaker 3: on something. You're sitting up. Okay. That's your first show. Okay.
Speaker 3: Your second job is to just notice that you're breathing.
Speaker 3: Is if someone else is breathing for you? Okay, because
Speaker 3: someone else kind of is. I mean, we go to
Speaker 3: bed every night and we breathe all night, like I'm
Speaker 3: not doing it? Are you doing it? I don't know
Speaker 3: who's doing that. Someone's doing that, It ain't me. Okay,
Speaker 3: So you're just gonna watch it. So you're not gonna
Speaker 3: change it and make it deeper or shallower, be like
Speaker 3: my breath is no good, or it's too long, it's
Speaker 3: too short, like judgment whatever. You're just gonna notice that
Speaker 3: you're breathing. Okay. Your brain is gonna find this incredibly boring, okay,
Speaker 3: right away, it's gonna be like I want to think
Speaker 3: about lunchtime, I want to think about later, I want
Speaker 3: to go to work, I want to do this. This
Speaker 3: is boring. I've made a mistake yesterday. I should do this,
Speaker 3: I should do that. All this should all this running stuff, right.
Speaker 3: Your third job is to just notice that and come
Speaker 3: back to the breath. Okay. If you notice that and
Speaker 3: come back to the breath five hundred more times than me,
Speaker 3: you're gonna benefit from that sit more than me. Okay.
Speaker 3: So if you're terrible at this, awesome okay, Like it's
Speaker 3: okay to be terrible at it. That's it. One two three.
Speaker 3: You sit quietly, You notice your breath. When you space out,
Speaker 3: you come back to the breath. That's the practice because
Speaker 3: every time you come back to the breath, and maybe
Speaker 3: we can talk about this next time, you have physiological
Speaker 3: changes in your brain and your prefrontal cortex that show
Speaker 3: up only about after about three weeks four weeks of meditating.
Speaker 1: M oh okay, Well, if you enjoyed listening to Shary today,
Speaker 1: then you got to check out her show Stress Therapy, right,
Speaker 1: because not only do you do exactly what you just
Speaker 1: did is giving us practical advice on how to continue
Speaker 1: to meditate, but then you actually do it with us. Right.
Speaker 1: You want to meditation every show too, So if you
Speaker 1: enjoyed Shary today on our show, do yourself a favor
Speaker 1: and go subscribe to her show Stress Therapy because it
Speaker 1: is really, it is so it is, it's it's one
Speaker 1: of my favorite I'm fine we met because I was
Speaker 1: listener to your show. I know, sweet, it is a
Speaker 1: great show and I can't recommend it enough. But if
Speaker 1: someone wanted to reach out to you to maybe go
Speaker 1: on some of your treats that you do which are
Speaker 1: really cool, or learn meditation from you directly, or if
Speaker 1: they're in the Atlanta area. Why don't you bring you
Speaker 1: on as their counselor what's the best way for someone
Speaker 1: to reach.
Speaker 3: Out to you. You can go to my website. It's
Speaker 3: the stress therapist dot com. It's not a stress therapist,
Speaker 3: it's these.
Speaker 1: Because of course there could only be one.
Speaker 3: It's only one. If you can't remember that, it's you
Speaker 3: can go to I Love therapy dot com too. That's
Speaker 3: the same place, but you could. You could also shoot
Speaker 3: me an email. I'll root for you, I mean, I love,
Speaker 3: I will root for you. I will I will help
Speaker 3: you along. I mean I Sometimes I do these interviews
Speaker 3: on like script news or whatever, and they'll act like
Speaker 3: they're all interested. They'll be like, Okay, did you do it?
Speaker 3: So I really want to be around people. Yeah. I
Speaker 3: really want to be around people who actually want to
Speaker 3: do it, you know, And it's fun to of course.
Speaker 3: I think it's fun to talk about it. But you
Speaker 3: don't have to. You can keep it private. It can
Speaker 3: be your own private thing where you can just tell me.
Speaker 3: You don't have to tell your spouse or your neighbor
Speaker 3: or anyone. You could just kind of see have it.
Speaker 3: Let it be your own little adventure, your own little
Speaker 3: piece of joy, your own sunset right.
Speaker 1: And so for those of you who are just running
Speaker 1: out with meditation or having a hard time, this is
Speaker 1: the perfect way forward. For those of you who are
Speaker 1: already seasoned meditators, you already know the benefits of meditation,
Speaker 1: but are having a hard time sticking to it, this
Speaker 1: is a perfect way to do it.
Speaker 3: And I even have on my retreats people that are
Speaker 3: doing it twice a day every day. They still come
Speaker 3: on the retreats. So I have one in the mountains
Speaker 3: that's pretty immersive. You know, you are meditating and eating
Speaker 3: amazing food and then doing yoga, and then meditating and
Speaker 3: eating amazing food in the and then doing yoga. Pretty immersive.
Speaker 3: And then I have one at Checkle Island right off
Speaker 3: the coast of Georgia. We just did one during Hurricane Helene.
Speaker 3: That was a trip, but we did it.
Speaker 1: You know, it was great, and if you can keep
Speaker 1: meditating during that, you can keep.
Speaker 3: I mean, it was amazing. I can't believe how everybody.
Speaker 3: I was like, is everybody okay? They were like, we're great.
Speaker 3: I was like, we don't have any power, we don't
Speaker 3: have any cell service. We were using our paper maps
Speaker 3: to get to our beautiful beaches to meditate. So if
Speaker 3: you want to come, I'm really trying to serve my
Speaker 3: community here in Georgia. You know I'm licensed in Georgia.
Speaker 3: That's probably why. But I'm happy to hear about all
Speaker 3: your endeavors across the world. I love hearing from everybody
Speaker 3: everywhere about how they're meditating and actually showing up, actually
Speaker 3: doing it, and then you know, with their own little
Speaker 3: stories that I just I could never You know, it's
Speaker 3: anyone's guess how it's going to be for you. It's
Speaker 3: anyone's guess, and I don't want you to miss it.
Speaker 3: I don't want you to miss out on it. I
Speaker 3: want it to be your your little private joy. I
Speaker 3: want it to be your sunset.
Speaker 2: Wow, oh my god, you are so joyful. Oh just
Speaker 2: that energy. It's like shooting out of our computer at us.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. This is just fantastic, so sweet.
Speaker 3: I'm so happy I was on the show.
Speaker 1: Well, it's not gonna be the it's not gonna be
Speaker 1: the last time, Sharry you. You are quickly becoming one
Speaker 1: of our absolute favorite guests. You were always one of
Speaker 1: our favorite people, so this is just bringing you to
Speaker 1: right all right, Cherry, thanks so much for coming on
Speaker 1: and sharing your wisdom with us. We look forward to
Speaker 1: doing many more of these in the future. I can't wait,
Speaker 1: and a huge thank you to you. We know that
Speaker 1: there are tons of options out there, and having you
Speaker 1: decide to come along on our journey of discovery with
Speaker 1: us is an absolute honor for us. If you know
Speaker 1: someone who would benefit from hearing the message we're sharing
Speaker 1: on the show, do them and us a favor and
Speaker 1: share the show with them. It will help get the
Speaker 1: word out about us and it might just change someone's
Speaker 1: life for the better. Well that's all for now. We
Speaker 1: will see you on the next episode of The Skeptic Metaphysician.
Speaker 1: Until then, take care,