Speaker 1 · 0:00Welcome to the Mindfulness Exercises podcast. May this be a source of inspiration and motivation in your mindfulness practice and teachings.
Speaker 2 · 0:14Sometimes it's either downright scary or there's just a very subtle sense of fear of just being with what is, even if it's unpleasant. You know, we are um conditioned to fix things. There's the fight, flight, freeze, part of our amygdala that's just it doesn't want to be with what's not cool or interesting or pleasant or tasty or whatever it is. So there's the courage to face it and then the courage to be with it, like over time. I think sometimes when you look at someone who maybe has been practicing mindfulness for a long time, there's a sense of steadiness in how they are, a sense of presence for more than one or two seconds, and less dartiness in their behavior. And you know, there's a very strong parallel or correlation with how we are internally in meditation practice. Like, can we stay? Or are we darting around? You know, are we kind of bouncing a lot? And again, there's nothing wrong with bouncing or darting or moving per se, but can we practice staying? Can we practice being with whatever's here, even if it's uncomfortable? It was a couple days ago. I was at a stoplight, it was like a long red light, and I was looking at this conversation on the street corner between this like younger guy and an older woman. And the older woman was kind of like nodding and trying to talk, but you could tell that the younger man just kept talking, kept talking, kept talking. Would you know that's fine? But he was looking around, like he couldn't maintain eye contact with anything, including her, for more than like a second and a half. Like he was just darting his gaze all around, and she was trying to talk, but you could tell he wasn't listening and he wasn't really looking at her. And so I was just kind of thinking about that, and you know, thinking about our ability to stay with the experience, and as mindfulness teachers, a lot of what we do is that we encourage courage. That's kind of a big part of this as mindfulness teachers. So we encourage courage, and that's born from the heart, and so we don't want to pressure people that they should feel a certain thing or that they should stay present for X amount of seconds or minutes or anything like that. We don't want to judge judgment, and so we encourage courage by creating this container of safety, care. You know, like you can do this, it just takes practice, it's okay. I've been there too, but you can do this, you know. I have a two and a half-year-old daughter, and I say things like that all the time. Like, you can do it, you can you can do it. You know, I'm not saying you have to do it right now or else. And there's many shades of gray here, but if I really speak from the heart and say, you know, you can do it, come on, you know, then she has more courage to try. You know, and I'm not saying we should talk to people like they're two-year-olds, but can we feel that in the heart that you know we believe in them, we care about them, we know they can do it. And baby steps bit by bit. You know, mindfulness is not for faint-hearted, mindfulness is not easy, or else we wouldn't need mindfulness teachers in the world. If this was easy, this world would be a very different place. But because it takes courage, because it's not easy, that's why we need to help people. Because a lot of people are scared of just being with themselves, being with their experience for a whole number of reasons, whether they know it or not.
Speaker 1 · 4:50May each of us continue to find courage in our own way by sharing mindfulness with a deep sense of faith, knowing that seeds we plant will certainly, someday, bloom. To learn more about Sean's Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training Program and the wisdom, support, and community that's available there, visit teach.mindfulness exercises.com.
