Healing the Body with Meditation: Simple Daily Practices For Health & Happiness with Henry Shukman #590
00:00I was alone on a beach and I was just looking at the sun going down over the water.It was incredibly beautiful.And suddenly it was as if I wasn't looking at the scene in front of me.I was part of it.It was as if the me that could look at the world and see it as separate just switched off.And in its place was a sense of.Total belonging. Just being part of everything.Hey guys, how you doing? I hope you having a good week so far.
00:40My name is Dr. Rongan Chatterjee, and this is my podcast.Feel Better, Live More.Do you ever feel as if you're too busy to meditateor that you're simply not very good at it?Well, this is something that so many people experience,yet today's guest believes that this is only because of a fundamental misunderstandingabout what meditation really is.Henry Shookman is an authorised Zen Master and Spiritual Director
01:12of the Mountain Cloud Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico.Over the years, Henry has taught meditation at organizations,including Google, Harvard Business School, and the SELN Institute,and he's also the co-founder of the Way Meditation,app, which offers a unique pathway of training designed to help people deepen their practice.Henry is also an award-winning poet and the author of several books, including his latestoriginal love, The Four Ends on the Path of Awakening, which explores meditation as a path tocompassion, healing and presence. In this quite wonderful conversation, we explore the idea that
01:57meditation is not about success or failure, but actually about rediscovering love. How even just fiveminutes of meditation per day can calm our nervous systems, lower stress, and help us feel morepresent. Why kindness and compassion sit at the heart of health and happiness, and how meditationcan help us embody these qualities more fully. How meditation helps Henry deal with his ownsevere exma, the four ends of meditation, mindfulness, support, absorption and awakening,and simple ways to bring meditation into our busy modern lives. This episode is a great reminderthat meditation is not about adding another chore to your list or trying to empty your mindif all thoughts. It's simply about reconnecting us with kindness, compassion and a deeper sense of
02:53being alive. As Henry explains, there's no such thing as a bad meditation. The only one thatdoesn't count is the one you didn't do. The Dalai Lama says that if every eight-year-oldon the planet were to learn meditation, then we would eliminate violence in a singlegeneration. Do you agree with him? Basically, yes, I do.I think if really everybody got this capacity to be still and quiet with themselvesand be aware of what's going on within them and around them,it opens up a state of peace.It just does that the awareness brings with it peace, calm, presence.
03:49And it makes a world a difference.Yeah, it's interesting.I've been thinking about that phrase quite a lotbecause, of course, we're living in a worldwhere if you were to switch on the newsand see what's happening around the world,you would hear a lot of negative stories,war, starvation, destruction of all kinds.
04:13And that's why I felt thatquote from the Dalai Lama is so apt.You know, what would it meanto change that?What would it mean to have a kindand more compassionate world?And in your book, Original Love,one of the things you say towards the end
04:30is that in some waysthat is the point of meditationto experience love more.Yeah, I know.It's not often said, actually.Most of the things said around meditationare about becoming more aware,becoming more mindful.
04:46And of course, that's great.But why become more mindful?and my my deep sense after having done it for you know these decades i've been doing itis that it's in a way it's always about some kind of taste of love and it can be self-lovehaving compassion for this this being that i am who does suffer and it can be of course lovefor others that you know appearing in my life and it can be more sort of almost i'd say universalor unconditional, just a sense that to be here, to be existing is such a gift, you know.It's interesting, this is the first podcast I'm recording after my summer break.
05:35And I was in Australia and had a few live shows.And at the Sydney show, at the end, someone asked me a question.They asked me, if you could give one pill to everyone around the world to take, what would it be?I had to think about it on stage and think, well, okay, what would it be?And I said some version of it would be a kindness pill.And I explained my rationale for that.And the other thing that came out on stage was that I realized that what I do, Henry,with my books, with this podcast, with, you know, my time with patients.
06:15On the surface, it appears to be about health.but it isn't.It's actually about kindness and compassionbecause why do you want to be healthier?Why do you want to be happier?I think those things are downstream.I think the reason you want those thingsor we as a species want those things
06:36is so we can be kinder and more compassionate.Does that make sense to you?It totally does to me.I think deep down we really are.There's a whole world of research now.around what happened when humanity started farmingand inequality started to come in in a much bigger wayand prior to farming, you know, 10,000 or so years ago,
07:01it was hunter-gatherer bands.And they relied on caring and sharing.This is the theories that you'll hear from a lot of researchers on it,that caring and sharing, in other words, love and justice, you know,they're deep in our wiring.We were hunter-gatherers for whatever, 300,000 years or something,they're now thinking, and that's not counting the millions of prior times of evolution.But it's deep in us, I think, to know how to be fair and to know how to care.
07:40It's part of our makeup.And unfortunately, it's not all we've inherited.We've got wiring that can get really aggressive and do hate.and fear and violence.But actually, it's not like we've got to get something new on board to love.I think it's deep in us.Yeah.It's kind of super interesting, isn't it?
08:01You mentioned hunter-gatherers and our evolution.And I often wonder about traits like competitiveness and comparing.Some people say that's who we are.Others say, no, love and kindness actually.at its core is who we are.And I guess one way of thinking about thisfor people who are stumbling across this conversation, Henry,is how might somebody know
08:30if they could benefit from a meditation practice?And might it potentially be thatif we can see certain egoic traits in ourselves,so comparing ourselves with others,trying to compete with others,never feeling that what we've got is enoughare those signs that we may benefit from a practice of meditation?Yeah, 100%.
08:57Absolutely.I mean, I think the thing about meditation is thatit can take us to marvelous new ways of experiencing the world.That's, I think, a given.It really can do that.Again, there's tons of research on that.It can be profoundly helpful that way.But it also helps us be.
09:17with how we are. Rather than I might get this, you know, new way of being, a new kind ofkindness and calm and clarity or whatever, energy. But actually, it also just helps me be withmyself as I am. And so the first step is that it allows us to notice what's going on, to checkin with ourselves. And once we're doing that, we're not so dominated by what's goingon. You know, if there's, if I'm feeling agitated and frustrated and irritated or something,I can actually recognize that rather than just acting it out. So to learn how to be stilland aware and sort of come back to ourselves and just be with what we're experiencing. So that's,that's the sort of bedrock of meditation. That's the foundation of it. It's just to be with
10:14myself. And sometimes I'm restless and I'm impatient and I don't want to be still. Okay, can Ibe with that? In other words, just expanding my capacity to be with what goes on in me, it's a way ofkind of defusing my potential for harm. Yeah. Make the case, Henry, if you will, for meditationto the skeptic who's listening right now. Yeah. The skeptic who is like, Henry, listening,you're a Zen master.It's okay for you.I've got a busy life.I've got a partner.
10:52I've got some kids that need feeding and looking after.I've got an elderly parent to look after.I'm constantly rushing around.I never have enough time for myself.It's all very well you're talking about these love and compassion benefits.But that doesn't fit into my life at the moment.What would you say to that person?I meet them all the time.
11:14I'd say look it's not don't think of it as another chore on the to-do listeverybody can find five minutes everybody can and just let it be five minutes of you being youfive minutes for you not for I got to do this thing called meditation it's just for youfive minutes just being with yourself everybody can do that and in my own story you know I had I hadreally difficult skin condition from from early childhood right into early adulthood and it wasa very severe estimate sometimes I was hospitalized but it made me really uncomfortable in my ownskin literally you know I couldn't sit still it was a sort of family joke almost Henry can'tsit still so I was the worst possible candidate in a way for meditation but I was also the best
12:11possible candidate in a certain sense because I so needed it but it was the last thing I wanted to dowas sit still but actually once I was given tools that would help me sit stillmy exima started to get better for the first time it really started to it was a long gradual processbut it started to to release and I'm sure itwas because I was intervening in the way that my nervous systemwas, had been functioning, much of my life,which was on a kind of hyperdrive, constantly, you know,over-activated nervous system.
12:57Yeah.You were intervening, as I hear that,really far upstream.One of the things I've realized in my career as a doctoris that a lot of what we do,medicine is downstream. Okay? You had, well, I mean, I've heard you describe your asthma. I mean,this isn't just a little bit of bad exma. This was horrific. You know, you felt like you wereburning up on the inside. District nursing needs to come around and bathe you and put things around
13:27you, right? It's pretty incredible. But, you know, what do we do with exma generally in medicine?There's multiple things we'll do, but in essence, we try and give you something like a steroid.cream to get rid of the itching, right?Yeah. But that's downstream. That's not the cause of your X-Men. Of course, there are multiplecauses. There's multiple things that contribute. But there's something really quite profoundin the, I think it's the forward to original love where, I think, is it, Rick Hansen,who wrote the forwards. Yes. He quotes Tara Brax saying, all sickness as homesickness,which is just beautiful, like this separation from who we are
14:13or certainly let me give you my interpretation when I read thatwas likeonce there's a separationin who we really are, who we are being in the worldcompared to who we actually are,it's in that void,it's in that gapwhere all our problems starts
14:33and that could be health problems as well.Yeah, yeah.Yeah, I think that is right.I'd say there's sort of multiple levels of homecoming.You know, for me, when I started meditating, just to be sitting still and able to get these little moments of being aware, oh, I'm sitting still, it's okay, it's okay.You know, I was so used to being in this hyperactivated state where basically I was anxious almost all the time, you know, that it was so.such a gift there's this little instance of it's okay right now it's okay and it was me finding itwasn't somebody telling me that that was critical that and and all that i had to this the other side
15:24of meditation is it's so insanely simple you're just sitting here there's nothing there's kind ofnothing to it yes it helps to have a few little methods and we we can get those but basically we'renot doing anything. And I started to find in the midst of this sort of storm of itching andanxiety and stress and worry and, you know, that was kind of almost constant. I started to findit's okay. Right now it's okay. And then I'd be back to the storm. It reminds me a littlebit of Ellen Langer. Do you know Ellen, the mindfulness professor from Harvard. I think you'dlove her work. She wrote a book called The Mindful Body. She's written multiple books. And one of thethings I think she writes about in that book is, let's say someone's in chronic pain. Okay, so you had
16:20chronic itchiness. Probably pain as well, having said that, right? Yes. Yes. It's easy, she says,for people with chronic pain, you know, I'm always in pain. But one of the things I always rememberfrom my conversation with her was this idea that you're not actually always in pain.It's there a lot of the time, but once you're really mindful and you notice that, oh, I'm not in pain at the moment, you create a separation.It's not you being all encompassed by pain.It's the awareness that, yes, sometimes I'm experiencing pain and sometimes I'm not.And she has shown, with her research, incredible benefits and improvements to people just when they start to notice that subtle difference.That's very interesting.
17:04And I totally agree.and it was the same for me with the itchingthat I started, I've been so identified with it.I was just, who Henry was he itchedand he couldn't sit still.That was who I was.And to start getting these gaps in another sense,a little space where, oh my gosh, that's not who I am.
17:25The itches are rising, it's present,but I'm not it.I am, I have my own being.And somehow that was another key insight and help with dealing with my skin affliction as I started to meditate.It gave me that little gap.And I think that's exactly right that mindfulness shows us that there's a quality of awareness that we can have that is its own thing.and so the difficulties we have are viewed from the we can learn to view them from the perspective of that awareness of mindfulnessrather than being totally tied up in them yeah yeah in your latest book you write about these four ends on the path of awakening
18:27And I think it's just such a beautiful way to lay out a path that one might wish to take if they choose to meditate.Before you actually articulate these four different ends, throughout the book, you wrote something which I've been meditating on actually, awakening, right?You say awakening has a potential like nothing else to heal the destructive divisions of this world.And then you sort of say, so how do we get there?Basically, we learn to meditate and we learn to love meditating.Now, I'm fascinated, Henry, as to why people struggle to make changes that actually last.You know, people often listen to the show for guidance on how they can live healthier, happier, more compassionate lives.and people will follow something for a bit
19:28and then fall off track.Looking at that through the lens of meditation,I feel, and I used to have this as well myself,that people meditate to get something, right?So, oh, I read this studythat meditation can help with anxiety.I should meditate.So they're meditating because they feel they should.
19:54Oh, at some point, I'm going to get something out of this practice?That's very different from the second part of that phrase,which is to learn to love to meditate.And I think I really wanted to explore thatbecause there's a different energy behind that.If you'll meditate because, oh, you know, I know this is going to help me.I tried it last year.Couldn't make it stick.
20:15Oh, man, I'm going to try and do it this year.It feels like a struggle.And that struggle means at some point, I would imagine,they're going to fall away from it.So what's the differenceand how do you go from thatto learning to love to meditate?Yeah, that's a really great...
20:33I've forgotten I'd written that actually,so thanks for reminding me.And it's a really great question.And it's critical, actually,because I think our general orientation in lifethat we've been conditioned to have,and it seems very natural that we would have it,is sort of trying to get what we want
20:49and avoid what we don't want.and of course that makes total senseand that's fine and good that we do thatbut when it comes to meditationwe're actuallyopening up the possibilityof simply beingit's like a shift from wanting to get
21:08X, Y and Zwell and good, finebut what ifthere's something already herethat we just need toto sort of fall into the arms of kind of thing it's already here and when we get even a littletaste of it it feels good already and it makes us realize that yes i'm i'm absolutely right in havingthese goals and these things that i want to i want to either achieve and accomplish and also
21:44simply acquire and also things that i really want to avoid and be free of and and perhapsget over, and I've heard that meditation may help with all that.So in other words, bringing the same mindset that I've got for everything else to meditation.It's very natural and it's okay.But there's something else each of us can find for ourselves, which is really different,where we actually drop the search and quest and struggle to get what we want.We drop that.and you know it's a little shift
22:22there's maybe a little knack to ita little somethingand we'll get it more and morethe more we meditatebecause when what happens in that shiftis that we findthere's something already herethat we love
22:38yeah I love thatI mean you've already said in this conversationthat even five minutes a daycan have a profound effectand there'sThere's a section in the book where you talk about tips for practice.You say, number one, not too long, so consistency is more important than duration.So five minutes a day is better than 20 minutes once a month kind of thing.
23:02Way better, way better.Right?And I think we've all got five minutes a day.And you also talk about establishing a regular time.You say, yeah, for many people, for most people, dare I say the morning is the best time.But you also spoke about things like straight after a shower or when it gets to dusk or beforebeds. Can you talk to us a little bit about the more practical nature of how we canactually implement this practice into our daily lives? Yeah, I'd say the biggest thing is to
23:31make the decision. I'm doing it every day for a month or something like that. Put a timelimit on it and decide that you've made the decision. So you don't have to make the decisioneach time. Shall I do it or not? You've already made that decision. I remember hearing two economistswrote a book about dieting.They'd been having a lot of big lunchesand they wanted to do something about it.And they said the same point.They said, just decide no dessert.
23:58It's just off the table.So you don't have to keep remaking the decision.It's like brushing the teeth.We don't really make a decision about itor about showering.We just do it.You know, because actually we made the decision long agoand we're just stuck with it.
24:13So if it can be like thatand then you stack it with some other activity,that makes it a bit easier.you know like a shower after you've been working out or something or you know just before amorning walk or just before breakfast or just before the first cup of coffee you know stacking itwhile the kettle's boiling if it's just five minutes and let the kettle sit you know so you stackit with something else and and and but again the why yeah that of course that can help if you've gota strong reason and i mean for me the biggest reason is to be alive you know and that might
24:48sound a bit crazy but we're so busy doing from you know we get up and we just do do dothat we don't get a moment to recognize I'm actually alive I'm being given the gift of beingalive and aware of being alive and somehow I think that's the biggest thing about meditationit gives us a chance to actually know that we're alive. Is there something unique aboutmeditation. And the reason that II ask that question, Henry,is because Iwill often talk about
25:25the benefits of solitude.And I do strongly believethat in 2025, for most people,a daily practice of solitude is probablythe most important thingthey can do for their health,well-being, their happiness.Because we're living in a world where there's
25:42so much noise, we can constantlyconsume from the outside.So it gets very hard for us to actually.listen to what's going on on the inside.But solitude, of course, comes in a variety of different forms.You can practice solitude by sitting in meditation.But you can also practice solitude by journaling or by doing some breath work or by goingfor a walk in nature.
26:08So if we think about solitude as a practice, do you feel that there's something unique thatmeditation offers that those other practices potentially don't offer?Just taking a quick break to give a shout out to the brand new updated formulation of AG1,one of the sponsors of today's show. Now, this is the time of year when our immune systemsare under the most pressure, between spending more time indoors, travel and seasonal bugs,It's natural to look for extra ways to support our immune defences.But most people don't want to juggle multiple pills.They want something simple, effective and easy to stick with.
26:58AG1 is a daily health drink that provides key immunity-supporting nutrients,vitamin C, vitamin A, zinc and selenium,all of which contribute to the normal function of the immune system.These nutrients are included in highly bioavailable forms, meaning they are much easier for the body to absorb and use.Backed by clinical research, expert formulation and continuous improvement, age one has been in my own life for around seven years now.And each batch is independently tested for quality and safety.That's how they guarantee what's in your scoop and what's not.And the best thing, of course, is that all this goodness comes in one convenient, tasty, daily serving.
27:48Right now, I have a very special limited time offer for you worth £58, which is around $80.Subscribe now and get 10 free travel packs and a welcome kit with your first subscription.Simply go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more.This episode is brought to you by AirB&B.Now, just this summer, whilst on tour in Australia with my family,we stayed in Bondi Beach in Sydney.It was an Airbnb just two blocks away from the beach with a wonderful outdoor areaand it was within walking distance from all the shops and cafes.
28:32Experiencing a place like that made me realise how simple hosting your home whilst you're away can be.and it's a lot easier than you might think.Now, I get it.There are times when life can feel really busyand the idea of hostingmight feel like one more thing to manage.But it is even easier today than it was before.You see, with the new co-host network on Airbnb,
28:59you can team up with a local co-hostwho can help take care of things for you.Whether it's setting up your listing,messaging guests whilst you're away,or even help with a little extra styling, it's all handled for you.They take care of the finer details so you can make hosting work,or whilst earning a little extra income.I have so many friends who've told me just how incredibly helpful
29:27teaming up with a local co-host can be.So whether you need help getting started or are looking for extra help with the day-to-day,find a co-host at Airbnb.co.com.uk forward slash host.I love all the ones you mention. I do them myself, actually. And I think they're very, they've been critical for my development, my well-being.The difference with meditation is that we're not really doing anything.I would say stack it with one of those.If you're doing one of those solitude practices, walking in the woods,you're journaling, lovely.
30:15Just add five minutes.Put in five minutes somewhere.You lay down the pen, you sit on a log, on a branch, on a bench,and you're just still.And you just let yourself be.Because the big thing about it is not doing.If we didn't think of it as meditation, we just call it not doing.That's all we need to say.
30:41We're not moving.We're not walking.We're breathing and we're aware.And gradually in time, it's like this tide of commotion within us.It just starts to settle.It won't, it's not that it does it within every meditation session.But if we're doing it every day, over time, over a month,two months, three months, you'll start to feel it. The tide of commotion just recedes.
31:11The sense that I got from reading original love is, well, many things, but one of the sensesI got was this idea that it's about the practice of meditation, not necessarily the outcomeof the meditation. Some days you'll experience calm and presence. Other days it'll be a busy,hectic mind, but that's all okay. So instead of judging on the outcome, I mean, don't judgeit at all, but if you're going to judge it on anything, judge it on whether you're actuallysitting down and practicing every day. Do the five minutes. I mean, you're the Zen master,so tell me if I've got this right, but that's my sense. That's exactly right. And actually,we say on our app, the way, we say there's no bad meditation or the only bad meditation
31:59is the one you didn't do.Just the very fact of sitting downwith the intention of being still and quiet,that's it.It's absolutely true.Because here's the thing,it's like, again, with that outcome focus,we're back to that frame of mind
32:16where I've got to try to get what I want in life.I've got to try to get what I want.And it's very understandable.But meditation really isn't about that.And for most people, when we start,it is and that's okayit was for me I didn't knowwhat I needed I just desperately
32:34needed something different when I was anxiousand really uncomfortableyou know one of the things I've been thinkingabout on my summer breakis this idea ofthings that we wanthow do we even know that what we want is what we truly wantanyway right
32:52because that's the truth it's like we think we wantthings exactly but where's that even come fromand how do you even knowthat getting what you think that you want is what you really want or what you need, right?That's exactly right. It's like that's part of a system. It's just one system of there'sme and here seeking things out there that me and here thinks he wants. But if I can see thatas a system, that's just a kind of, it's almost like it's a game going on. But there's a wider view.There's a larger perspective where I can see Henry's been trying to get this,
33:31Henry's been trying to get that, Henry's been trying to avoid that.But who is it that's seeing that Henry's doing all that?Isn't that Henry too?And it's such a different perspective.Yeah.So the thing with the getting from meditation is we can start to get more calm.We totally can.But we get it not just by creating more calm through the meditation.
33:55we get it through patience.Patience starts to grow.We start to let ourselves be as we are.And so it's kind of a little bit paradoxical.It is.We get what we want because we're okay not getting it.You see what I mean?Yeah.
34:13And that sort of highlights another themethroughout your book,throughout what I've been thinking about recently,which is why I think the timing of this conversationis perfect.And I have, I think I've posted about this before, this idea that the most important thingsin life, we gain through experience.Yes.
34:39Yes, you can learn things.You can read a book about something.You can get guidance on the importance of meditation.But you only really get it when you experience it for yourself.And then when you've experienced it for yourself, in some ways, it doesn't matter what thepeople around you are saying because you know that truth.I couldn't agree more.And that's what I'm always trying to convey with the meditation, you know, is like, I can
35:04say, feel this, feel that, and, you know, find deep states of absorption and flow that feelsso good.It's meaningless unless you're getting it yourself.And when it's your own, it doesn't matter what I'm saying.Yeah.You know, because you've got it.That's where I'm trying to, you know, help people with.Well, you really are.
35:23I mean, you mentioned your app.the way, it is bloody fantastic, honestly. It's such a beautiful app and the way you'vecurated a journey, a meditation journey for people is phenomenal. I've been using it myselffor the past week and I'm looking forward to continuing that journey with it. It's really,really great. What you just said about, it's the act of sitting there and in many waysdoing nothing. It reminds you something you wrote in your book where youYou say meditation is the great adventure of a lifetime, even if all we do is sit still for a few minutes a day.I mean, it's a beautifully evocative statement that.
36:07And in so many ways, it is the polar opposite of how we've all been brought up, particularly in the West.Right?And I see it my children, for the minute they start at school, it's about do, do, do.some of the kids at schools are so over-committed and over-busy.And, you know, I respect everyone's right to their opinion.And maybe for certain outcomes, it is a good thing.But to me, I'm thinking all we're doing is training children from a young agethat they can't just sit and be.
36:40You have to constantly be doing something and moving on to thatand doing this task and this activity.I think that's a problem, right?Yeah, you might achieve success in societal's definition of success,but in terms of the success, I think we all want,which is that inner peace and contentment,I'm not convinced that that's the right approach.That's why I call the book Original Love,
37:06because originally there's love, and it's here right now.And if you have a concept like Original Sin,the Western foundation of its Judeo-Christian spiritual system,you're wrongyou start badyou start needing to prove yourselfneeding to become worthyneeding to
37:26you knowand then you add thatthe whole industrialand post industrialwork ethicwork work workit's allyou're not okay
37:37until you've achievedand accomplishedwhatever it might beI don't agreeI think we startokaywe're built inalready okay
37:48wanted, belonging, beloved even,just by the fact of existing,the universe wants us here,or we wouldn't be here in some sense, you know?And so original love is what we can come back to,not having to escape some shame state, original sin,not having to escape thatand prove that we deserve our place on this earth.
38:17Yeah. No. No. It's the opposite of that. It's just by being. You know, we can break the, again, I'm not saying don't do anything, you know, but have space in your day when you're not doing a thing. Yeah. When you're just being. Yeah, it's kind of interesting in a world now where people are saying that wellness is the preserve of the wealthy and the middle classes. But if we think about what you're saying at its very core,Yes, you have an app, which is very reasonably priced, so people want to, you know, engage in it, okay?At the same time, what you're simply saying is sit for five minutes a day and essentially do nothing.That is accessible to every single person.It doesn't matter your income level, you know, where you grow up in the world.So, like, everyone has access to that.but you almost have to stop the doing.And I think this is one of the reasons
39:20why people in the West struggle with meditation.It's like, okay, I'm going to do it to get this.And I think I used to do that.But the truth is Henry, I love meditating.I didn't at first.It was a struggle.But there is just this luxurious feelingof bliss and calm sometimes
39:44when I sit in meditation, that's not a chore.That's like, this feels amazing.Exactly.And I think everyone has the opportunity to experience that.I do too, just by virtue of being a human being.We already have access to it.The problem is just we're so conditioned in not knowing that we have access to it.It's just like a faulty imprinting on our consciousness.
40:14that our society has given us, our culture has given us.You must be doing, you must be achieving,you must be avoiding what you don't want to face.And actually, it's really sad in a way.It's beautiful in the, oh my gosh, we've all got it.We've just got to learn.It's sad to see children being conditioned out of heads.It is.
40:38That's something I find deeply sadbecause it's like, no, no, you know,they've already got to.Got it. They're born with it.You know, I'd love to know your views on happiness.Actually, I believe happiness is our default state.And one of the bits of evidence, as it were, that I would use to support my case isjust look at children, look at a two-year-old, a three-year-old, look how present, calm in the
41:03moment they are.Exactly.You know, we're exploring and creating.Yeah, that's who we are before societal conditioning.Yes.So on the subjects of happiness, I mean, what's the relationship between meditation and happiness and is happiness our default state?I believe it is. Again, original love. It's like coming back to a profound well-being that's really always here.It's like, and honestly, it can even in difficult situations, you know, when we've got something complex, challenging going on and we're stressed around it, even then, I believe, actually, there's a,
41:41there's an unconditional well-being that's actually present even then.And I've known it myself.I've found that in times of difficultywhen suddenly it flips and suddenly I can see Henry's in this difficult situation.Yeah.But there's a larger perspective that I sense, you know, that is at peaceand it's already well, even while there's the challenge going on.Yeah.
42:09So I do think it's like,I'd say is, is it a default setting or is it that there's just this slightly wider perspective?I feel there's always a bigger picture, you know, and in the slightly wider perspective,that's where we see, wow, yeah, there's a lot of turmoil and difficulty and trouble,and still there's an okayness.Yeah.that's able to see from that larger perspective.Yeah.
42:44Let's get into these four ends on the path of awakening.Mindfulness, support, absorption, and awakening.It's one of the first times I've actually seen a roadmap laid outon the kind of journey one could take if they participate in meditation.And it's a journey that I'm thinking, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm,ready for this journey. I kind of, the truth is I'm already on this journey, because I've beenmeditating on and off for years. I particularly probably want to focus on the final two, absorption andawakening. But if you wouldn't mind just giving a brief overview of each one what they are, just so people
43:28can follow along, that would be super helpful. So, you know, what are these four ends? And why did youchoose them. Yeah, okay. Well, I think these are the primary dimensions that meditation practice canopen up for us that they deal with. And I wanted to write this and lay it out like this becausethere's a lot of confusion around it. Meditation has grown exponentially in the globalized Westernworld over the last 20 years. That's a good thing? It's a very good thing. Okay. But it's all new hereand there's still confusion around it. So people hear the term awakening. And they'rehere mindfulness. Are they the same thing? They might think, well, this teacher said they are.This one said they're not. I don't know. I'm confused. This is a basic map of the ground,
44:15of the territory. And I'm not sure it's entirely comprehensive, but it's pretty good. It covers,it covers all, pretty much all the basics. So the first mindfulness, yes, about becoming moreaware, able to recognize what's going on inside me, thoughts and feelings, emotions, moods.can be very happycan be not so happyand talk in the mindimages in the mindthe experience of thinking
44:43very common for all of usenergies in the bodybeing more aware of thatand also being aware of hearinghearing the soundsseeing sights and coloursand shapes and faces and everythingand body sensation
44:58physical body sensationbeing more awarein all those waysand that's mymindfulness. And it can help to dial down our nervous system. It can really help to interruptwhen our nervous system is on overdrive, when the sympathetic nervous system is firing up,we're in subtle stress or strong stress. It can dial it down and we come back to a baseline.We open up the parasympathetic nervous system, more rest, rest and digest, coming into a
45:28karma state. And so it really helps to kind of tone and balance the nervous system.Before we go into the second end, just on that first set of mindfulness, if that's the onlyone that we ever focused on, those things you're talking about are pretty incredible.They're enormous.Moving your system from the stressed out, burnt out, chronically exhausted state that manypeople find themselves in into that more peaceful, relaxed state, which is also going to impactyour sleep, how calm you feel, your guts. All these things are going to improve.even that alone that first in has huge benefits doesn't it it totally does i mean i'd say
46:06most of the first few years of my meditation practice was all about that and one of the thingsthat happened to me when i started to meditate and you know i really really seriously started i'mi did twice a day every day you know without fail because i was desperate enough that i needed to becauseof your skin because of my skin and the anxiety with it that came with it i slept insanely the first weekI was sleeping 18 hours a night, 20 hours a night, literally.Like a lion.Yeah, exactly.Literally.
46:37I was so exhausted, and I hadn't realized I was.And then I paid off my sleep debt, as some people called it.And I suddenly was awake.I love the fact that you shared that.One thing I've noticed, people will contact me,or if I'm doing a live event and we do a breathwork practice togetheror a certain, you know, we go through somethingand often people will yawn.
47:05And there's often confusion, you know,say, oh, it's making me tired.It's not making you tired.It's just you're stuck in a stressed outadrenaline-driven-driven nervous system the whole time.When you actually relax,your body is realizing how tiredand chronically exhausted it is.
47:22So the practice isn't making you tired.It's just uncovering what is actually there within already.Exactly.Exactly, exactly. And I always say like, it's a barometer meditation. It shows us how we're doing. And sometimes we're just exhausted and we need to sleep. I always tell people, if you start meditating and you get really sleepy, lie down to sleep. Count the nap. If you need a nap, count it as meditation. So even, that's kind of interesting. Even if the meditation teaches you that you're chronically exhausted and need to rest. And instead of completing the meditation, you nap, that's still a benefit.Because had you not done that, you probably would have kept doing, doing, doing and pushing throughand kicking the can down the road.That's exactly right.Which just gives you the opportunities to go, oh, I need to rest.
48:10Exactly.It's checking in with ourselves, coming back to ourselves, seeing how we're doing.It's critical.Okay.I think you mentioned this in the book, but again, is it, are we looking for that path up to the top of the mountain?And along the way on this path of meditation, we pass these ends?I mean, that sort of makes it feel as that it's a linear journey,which, of course, I don't think it is a linear journey.
48:33But is that useful for us to look at it like that?I think early on it is useful.It's good to feel that we're on a journey.Got it.And we build this into the app, by the way,so that people, because it's a single no-choice pathway we have on the app,which moves through these four ins,but it does it cyclically.
48:52But it helps us to know that we sort of feel like we're going somewhere.And in some ways we are.But on the other hand, as I think you're suggesting, really,these are more like dimensions of our being.They're not exactly sequential.They may be somewhat, but they totally don't have to be.Okay.I guess for the purpose of this conversation,
49:15to really land the concepts,I guess we can think of it a little bit linear, right?So the first in we pass on the way to the top of the mountainis mindfulness.And you've just covered that.the next in is that of support.Yeah, support, connection, connectedness.So this is critical because, you know,
49:37now there's millions of people now doing mindfulness.And just like we've already said in this conversation,they very often feel kind of,I've got to do my mindfulness.It's like going to the gym and doing my reps.I've got to do my work with the mindfulness.this, that misses a critical point from my point of view, which is that actually as we settle,we get more connected. We're more open to relating. We're more open. We become more receptive.
50:15We're ready to receive connection and support. And the way this can happen is in the worldof meditation. For example, simply having guidance can be really helpful early on on the meditationjourney. I mean meditation guidance. Having somebody actually guide your sitting. So from a teacher,from a class that you attend, from an app like you're at, for example, where you're giving us theguidance. And there's obviously, I don't know how many meditation apps out there. Yes. But this allcounts assort of guidance and support, does it?It totally does, yeah.
50:53So don't feel that it's just down to you on your own.Just reaching out for a little bit of supportin any of those waysor with a friend who's trying to meditate.Is this potentially one of the reasonswhy we fall off these practicesbecause let's say someone hears this podcastand goes, yeah, you know,
51:15all those benefits and mindfulness,I quite fancy that.And so they start meditating or they download your appand start using the way.And it's the risk that you'll do it for a little whileas a solo pursuit.But at some point, it will just get too muchbecause it's always down to you
51:36and your motivation and your discipline and your desire.Help me in the sand support, right?Because fundamentally, unless someone has accessto a class nearby,they kind of are doing it themselves in their living room or in their bedroom, aren't they?So what does support mean in that context?Yeah, well, I mean, that's exactly, you've laid out the problem exactly,that people, if they're falling off, they'll think,
52:05I must push myself harder, or it's down to me.One phone call to a friend who's also trying to meditate will do far more.It's like suddenly you're not alone in it.And that makes so much difference.And or one yoga class where there's meditation at the end.Just being in a context of other human beings.Even if it's remotely.Yeah, even if it's remotely.
52:32Totally.Yeah, absolutely.So don't do this by yourself.Have a little bit of a connection with some community or some person that is already doing it.We typically think it's down to me to make something happen,especially with a new habit formation, something like that.But actually, and it is, it is,but one little sense of connection to somebody else
52:56who's also trying to do itwill make often far more differencethan me trying to push myself.It's surprising how that works.You know, I think, I mean, I used to find this as a writer.I started writing very youngand, you know, it was how I made my living for a long time.and I'd get stuck and I'd be trying to work it out, trying to work it out.
53:19Then I happen to run into a friend who's an artist or another writer.And we just chat for 10 minutes or we go and have a cup of coffee, chat for an hour.And suddenly, I've got a whole new orientation.Yeah.And the problem is different.And I can handle it.And you know you're not alone or the struggles you're having are the same struggles they're having.Exactly.
53:40You just feel this connection to what it means to be human.when you talk to other people, you know, oh, you're struggling with that as well.Yeah, so am I.Suddenly you have this new energy and enthusiasm just when you know you're not alone.That's exactly right.That's precisely it.And that's really important on this journey of meditation.Just also to say that there's ways in which we're just totally supported already.
54:05And meditation, I believe, is about finding some of those.You know, we wouldn't be here without breathing.the atmosphere isevery breathevery momentwe're being supportedby the atmospherewe wouldn't be here
54:19without fluidswe need to drinkwe're made ofwhatever it is70% seawaterwherever we areyou know we'rewe're totally dependent
54:30you know we think we're independentand isolatedbut we're not actuallyand you knowthere's the flesh of my bodyis everything I eathas made itand I'm made of this earth
54:39and so and the warmthSo the sun keeps me alive.And so the point is just rediscovering, you know,that we're kind of embedded in this world.We're not isolated.That's another aspect of this second in of support.It's rediscovering that I'm not actually totally independent, isolated.You can't be.
55:03You know, we're made of this planet.Yeah.You know, this table in front of us is made of wood.Someone would have had to chop the wood.were down, carve it, varnish it, put it here in front of us so that we can now have thisconversation. Exactly. And they themselves had to eat. And that came from the wheat fields andthe, you know, and the fruit and the vegetables. Can we think of support also in terms of ourancestors? 100%. I write about that in the book. You know, what we are has come down from
55:34these millions of generations of living beings, of different kinds. Yeah, it's kind of interesting.one of the things I've been talking aboutin my sort of recent live showsis about my relationship with my dadand dad's life a little bitand what's happened since my dad diedand howalthough it was over 12 years ago now
56:02I think about my dad probably now more than everand I still feel that he's hereAnd actually, I now see my dad's death as a gift to me, in the sense that the things that I'velearned through my dad's death, I don't think I would have learned if my dad was still alive.And again, just to be clear, I'm not expecting anyone else to reframe their parents' deathin that way. I certainly wasn't doing that in the first year or two after dad died. But now I'mchoosing to look at that through this lens. And I kind of feel it speaks to the second innersupport because, you know, and I can bring my mom into this as well, I guess, but I'm only here
56:53because of what my parents have done and the sacrifices they made and the things that they didfor me to enable me to do what I do today. Yes. I remember at my dad's funeral,after the cremation, there was a religious ceremony. It was conductive.by a Hindu priest, and a big part of it is acknowledging your ancestors and praying to ancestors.I don't think I quite realize the importance of that until quite recently,but I think it speaks to support this idea that, you know, we're not just here in isolationby ourselves. There's so many different things that are necessary in order for us to be here.I kind of feel a lot of people come to meditation
57:43because they want to help with their depressionor their anxiety, right?But one thing I've noticed in my clinical career, Henry,is that many people, let's say, with depressionor with a diagnosis of depression, are very isolated, right?They're living for a variety of reasonsin a very me world.And if you can help people get out of that eye world
58:07and me world and volunteer,and connect with othersand feel that actuallyyou're part of this kind of rich tapestryof human experience,everything starts to change.Yes, it 100% does, exactly.I think, and I think the point about ancestors
58:24is absolutely right,that we're not, it's not just sort of horizontalour connectedness in the world.It's vertical, it's across time.And to feel, you know, I have this,I've sometimes on meditation retreats,I felt like I've seen many, many ancestors, you know, standing behind me.And their lives are what have enabled me to have this life and this very moment.
58:52And my mother and my father, without them, I wouldn't be here.And to feel that, just as you say, it brings on a kind of humility that is sweet, you know,and can make us grateful for every moment.And I totally agree with you about the isolation that is a very common thing these days actuallyand how to cut through it.And again, it's like this support, this inner support is a sort of corrective for the mindfulness.I've got to do, I've heard that mindfulness can help with depression.Indeed it can.
59:31and you know but with with caution and with careful use and guidance of mindfulness with depressionbut not to the exclusion of being open to others yeah you know and how do I what is the vulnerabilityI need to feel in order to be able to open to others and what's the vulnerability I need tofeel in order to say I need help you know that's that's very scaryfor a lot of us please help me reaching out you know many of us don't really want to do that we've beeningrained in this culture of i've got to manage and cope myself and there's a resistance we havei think i'm speaking for myself i had a lot of resistance to being able to reach out and ask forhelp when i most needed it why
01:00:31This episode is brought to you by Bonchard, a wellness brand who have a fantastic range of productsto help you sleep better, feel better and live better.From blue light glasses to red light therapy and beyond, Bonchard makes it easy to prioritisewellness at home.And I myself have been using many of their products for well over five years now.Now, without question, one of my favorite products from them is their demi-redlight therapy device.I closely follow the research on red light therapy, and I'm really interested in potential benefits, including enhanced recovery, improve skin, better eye health, and improved sleep.And ever since I got this panel, I spent about 10 minutes in front of it each morning whilst reading.
01:01:27and I'm about 10 minutes in front of it every night.It helps me wind down, feel more relaxed,and I'm finding I fall asleep a lot easier.I'm also a big fan off their infrared P-E-M-F grounding mat.P-E-MF stands for pulsed, electromagnetic field,which sends magnetic energy into the body,which can help enhance sleep,improve focus, and increase energy.
01:01:53Bond charged ship worldwide in rapid time.easy returns and exchanges, and as an exclusive offer for my podcast audience, they are giving you20% off everything on their website. All you have to do is go to bondcharge.com forward slash live moreand use coupon codes live more to save 20%. Today's episode is sponsored by Vivo Barefoot.The human foot is a masterpiece. 26 Bones, 3,000.33 joints and over 100 muscles and tendons that evolve to move us and ground us.But unfortunately, we've lost touch with our natural connection to the earth through modern footwear.Barefoot shoes are a tool to restore that primal link between brain and body, foot and earth.
01:02:48I've been wearing vivo barefoot shoes for over 12 years now,and there is simply no way I would go back to wearing cushioned shoes.shoes. What many people don't realize when they are used to wearing cushion shoes is just howdisconnected they have become from their feet and the way their feet interact with the ground. VivoBarethought strips away the unnecessary, no thick spongy foam, no elevated heels, just thin,flexible protection that lets your feet move, stretch and strengthen the way nature intended.The science is simple. When your feet canfeel your body moves better. I have felt it myself and experienced feedback from thousands of
01:03:34patients and friends over the years who have also felt the incredible benefits of wearing barefootshoes. As well as their regular office shoes and athletic shoes, Vivo also have a fantasticrange of winter boots. And my current favorite are the tracker forest. Absolutely fantastic feel.they are really comfortable, really warm, and at the same time, have insane amounts of grip.I cannot recommend Vivo Barefoot Shoes enough, and if you want to give them a try,please do use Vivo's online sizing tools to ensure that you find your own perfect fit.Step into better health and freedom for your feet today.Get 20% off your first Vivo Barefoot order, plus a 100-day discovery.
01:04:25period with full money-back guarantee, visit vivow barefoot.com forward slash live more and startyour barefoot journey today.I think in my case there was a lot of shame. I grew up with a lot of shame about the way I lookedwith my skin condition. People don't want to hear from me. You know, it's kind of the mindset I had.and it was and depression brings shame i was depressed when i was a young man as well as anxiousyou know depression brings shame stigma i i felt so bad that my mental health wasn't goodyou know it's not only did i have you know feeling really feeling bad bad not not good i wasashamed of feeling bad and um you thought you should be able to
01:05:25to feel good. Yeah, it was a sign of my total incompetence as a human being and my failure as a humanbeing that I wasn't feeling good. I wasn't feeling alive. I knew I could and I wasn't. I wasfeeling down and unmotivated and, you know, I was kind of going through the motions of a postgraduate degreeactually at the time. But I wasn't, my heart wasn't in it and I felt bad about that. And, andI didn't in some way I felt unworthy you know not good enough and so again it was when I started to meditatethat I just began to find little cracks in that mindset starting to happen little here and theirlittle ray of light would come in just for a moment the little cracks in the story the story you'retelling yourself that you believe to be real it's like we're saying
01:06:25said before about when you're in chronic pain, you're not in chronic pain 100% at the time.Exactly. And as soon as you understand that and see, oh, I wasn't in pain there. It wasn'ta pain there. It starts to break through the cracks, right? In probably a very similar way.Exactly. Exactly. The light just a little bit started to come in and I could reach out for helpand it and it was what I needed to do. And, you know, so I mean, personally, my journey's beenvery much aboutI sort of do my partand for the keystone habit
01:06:59my life has been meditationbut I alsolearned to reach outespecially when Ileast want toyou knowhow much do you meditatethese days
01:07:16well I it's dailyyou know and it'sit varies sometimesyou know ifif I'm on retreat, it's quite a lot. I don't want to scare anybody. You don't have to do 10 hoursa day, but I have done 10 hours a day at times for quite a lot at certain times in my life.But my average is about an hour a day. In one go?Might be, or it might be half an hour in the morning, half an hour later on.
01:07:45So you're quite fluid and flexible, but you will do it.Yeah, I'll always do it.And what about something I wanted to ask you about? We'll get back to the internet.cover the first two mindfulness and support. And, you know, there's plenty more in original loveabout those two ends, right? We're just covering the surface here. But one of the things I thinkpeople struggle with these days, they're kind of stuck in a loop where they're stressed out,they're busy, they've got too many things to do, they don't feel they've got time to meditate,they hear about the importance of sleep, right? And therefore, it's like, yeah, hold on a minute,
01:08:21but how am I going to fit this in to an already busy life?Okay.And I was thinking about this idea that if you,I think it was when I spoke to Sudkuruon this podcast a few years ago,the Indian mystic.The amazing guy, yeah.I think he was talking about this idea,
01:08:40well, if you're not creating a load of stress anyway,you need less sleep, right?So if you're living a calm existence,there's less to recover from,when you sleep, right?So I was thinking, well, hold on a minute.Maybe if we all meditated more and were less stressed and calmer,well, maybe a lot of us would get by with six hours of sleep at nights.
01:09:08Maybe we can't look at how much sleep we needwithout looking at the context of our entire life.So do you feel sometimes that if you meditate regularly,you perhaps can get away with less sleep.I do believe it can be a deep form of rest.They talk about non-sleep, deep rest, N-SDR.And meditation definitely is one way that we can bring on that deep rest.And in some meditation traditions, they would claim that in meditation it's a deeper rest.
01:09:43Yeah, I've seen that.More ristocito than sleep.And so, yeah, there's some schools that say, hey, if you're doing,In TM, for example, Transcendental Meditation,which is a popular form years back,and is what I did at first,they'll say, if you're doing your daily dose,20 minutes twice a day, you need less sleep.
01:10:03And I think it's true once you've paid off a sleep debt,and if you've got a sleep debt, you'll need, you'll know,because it'll show up as fatigue,and then you've got to pay it off with rest.But once we're in a steady habit with meditating,I do think it's actually true that we need a bit less sleep.Certainly if we're, I mean, people on an intensive meditation retreatwhere you are meditating, let's say, 10 hours a day, you need much less sleep.
01:10:34And we're actually creeping into the third in.Let's do that. Let's creep in.So the third in is flow in meditation or samadhi is called or absorption.It's where we get into these beautiful,beautiful states of mind. And they call it, the traditional name is samadhi in the meditation world.Sanskrit word? Yes. And it's something about everything held together, everything unified.It's very, and it's energized and it's peaceful and it's calm and it's clear and it's effortless.The most common way people find it is in activities, actually, because it's not exclusive to meditation this.
01:11:14is this flow states have been really thoroughly researchedsince there was a guy called Chixat Mihaiback in the 70s and 80swho began pioneering research on flow statesand you know people, athletes will get into it, musicians,actually anybody will get into flow now and thenwhile engaged in some kind of activityand it can be from a very challenging activity
01:11:41like you know basketball or you know or getting in thezone, painting or something, you know, an artist or a musician.But it can also be just simple repetitive tasks, we'll get into a flow state.Is that different from getting into a flow state whilst meditating?Because, you know, the things you mentioned are about doing something, right?And we spoke about doing already.So we're, you know, yeah, surfing, mountain biking, playing guitar.you know, painting, right?
01:12:16So we're doing an activity where we switch off.Well, it feels as though, you know, time stands still.We're fully immersed.Body and mind, there's no separation.That feels as so it's different, though,from reaching that state by just sitting there.Or is it different?Well, it's a great question.
01:12:37And I've wondered about this a lot.when flow comes on in an activitybecause it becomes effortlessand time stands stillexactly as he saidand there's much less sense of selfyou know we're not so self-consciousit's it's almost like
01:12:56we're not doing for some other purposewe're just doing the thing we're doingand that's enough it's for its ownwe're doing it for the sake of doing ityou know and it's fulfilling so in meditation just transferring all of that to meditation the greatdifference is that we're not doing an outward activity that is the big difference in meditation sowe're getting into similar states with our own being with our own being you know and and and it'sit's where meditation really is starting to kick in and show us what it's been about all along
01:13:38which is not for other purposesjust for its own sakewe're doing it without a kind of ulterior motiveyou know and and but it is similarto flow in other in other areasbecause it's got the same sort of characteristicsit's effortless I would say for meif I think about my own experience
01:14:01I can experienceyou know traditional flow as Mahalisent me high would would describe itin all kinds of activities.If I'm playing my guitar and I've got an idea for a new songand I'm sort of lost in that,I could be there for 90 minutes.And I'm like, oh, wow, you know, I didn't realize.
01:14:19You know, it was wonderful.But I feel when I get itor when I have experienced it in meditation,it feels quite different.And I imagine they're both things that we want, ideally.I think about life a lot through the lens of dependencies.How dependent am I on externalities in order to feel a certain way, right?The words of other people, acquiring things, the weather to be right, whatever it might be.
01:14:52And I used to be very dependent.I would say these days, not so much.But you can almost argue that flow from an external source also has a dependency attached to it.I need to be playing my guitar in order to get the flow.I need to be on my mountain bike in order to access that flow,which is all fine, right?Nothing wrong with that at all.But it feels really quite empowering to know that,
01:15:25yeah, but I can also do that with nothing.That's exactly right.I find it just amazing how fulfilled we can beby not doing anything, by just sitting still.That's the beauty of the flow in meditationis that we're finding that instead of needing stuff,needing anything external,just in our own being,
01:15:51we can be completely fulfilled at peace,alive, energized, clear, calm,but not docile.We're sort of really awakeand totally fulfilledwithout anythingI find thatjust so beautiful
01:16:10yeahin that sectionyou writewe never knewwe needed so littleto be happyexactlybeautiful
01:16:19because againgoing back to cultural conditioningthat is not what most people believethey believe they need thingsyeah rightthey need a certainjob titlea certain office
01:16:33a certain salary.And listen, I'm saying this with compassion and sensitivitybecause I understand that there are peoplewho are struggling to buy food to feed themselves, okay?So that I also recognize at the same time.But I think for many people, let's say you've got enoughto feed yourself and pay your mortgageand whatever that number is.
01:17:00I think a lot of people still think that happiness comesfrom something outside of themselveswhereas this state of absorptionor samadhi or flow,I guess it teaches us thatthe happiness is already there.It's inside of us.Exactly.
01:17:16I was really lucky.When I was 12 years old,I met this tramp,an old kind of hobo type of person.He used to come through the valleywhere we lived in north of Oxford.And he was so differentfrom everybody else I know.
01:17:33No, I knew.My parents were both professors at Oxford,and I grew up in that very rational, privileged middle-class world.And this guy, he was called Speedy,he'd wander into our valley every springand put up in this ruined millabout a mile away from where our house was.And I got to know him.
01:17:53And he basically, he pretty much had nothing.He had two dogs, fishing lines, no rod, you know,and he lived off fishing and setting traps for rabbitsand he'd go door to door when he needed to.And but he used to, he said,he taught me a lot actually.It was over several summers I got to know him.But he would sit every day.
01:18:21He said he called it stopping still.And he would just sit, you know, in the woods somewhere.He'd just sit and be still.And he said, you know, people are running around like chickens withtheir heads cut off. They don't realize. They don't learn what they would learn if they justsat still. And I, I, some of that somehow landed in me that he was a person who was at homeeverywhere. He lived in the countryside. He didn't live in a house, but he had so little. And hewas alive in a way that was unlike anybody else I knew. He was really alive. Yeah, I love
01:19:00hearing things like this, right? Because whenever you talk about things like this, there's often,there's often the socioeconomic arguments, right? And, you know, that, and yeah, if you look atthe data, for sure, you know, people in certain areas of the UK, you know, your life expectancy,for example, can be up to 10 years different if you're living in an area of low socioeconomic statuscompared to high. Right? So this stuff is real for sure. But when we think about happiness,and well-being, there is still a view that your financials hugely matter.And I'm not saying they don't matter, right?Just to be clear.
01:19:42But I've also had the experience of every other summer as a child,we would go to India to Kolkata for six weeks, right?I have seen and been with people and chat to them in India with very littlewho seem to have a joyful essence, who are happy.They sort of seem to get life.And I find that really inspiring to go, well, hold on a minute.We've, again, been culturally conditioned to think that we're going to get happiness when.When this happens, when we get the A levels, and we get the job, when we get the promotion.
01:20:21Oh, when that happens, we get this amount of followers or this amount of downloads.Oh, yeah, there it is.It's like, well, hold on a minute, some people I've spoken to in India, they don't have those things.Yet I would argue some of them are happier than most of us are.Yes.Right?They've found the unconditional well-being.Yeah.
01:20:40And that is the key.That's what meditation is actually really for.So thank you for bringing that up.And I totally agree with you also not to discount the difficulties of being undernesty.a certain poverty line you know it's incredibly hard and we're not discounting that butwhat if there's a well-being that we're missing in our pursuit of conditions material conditionsthat we think we need all kinds of conditions that we think we need what if there's actuallyan unconditional as well you know unconditional okayness and that's that's that's
01:21:25That's the inspiration that I find in, you know,what traditionally thought of as a spiritual life.Yeah.Is that it's not based on the conditions of our lives.There's so much I want to go deeper into that.Before I do, let me just put my head into the mind of some of the listenerswho might be thinking, this is all great, right?But how the hell do I get there?
01:21:53I think, you know, I've covered mindfulness on the show before.You have your own unique way of describing it, to be fair, an original love.But I think, you know, there may be an understanding of the importance of mindfulness,the importance of support, the first two ends.But this kind of flow state that we can experience in meditation,if someone has never experienced that before, and I'm thinking, yeah, that sounds great.I want some of it, how do they get it?Yeah, well, you know, I'd have to say,
01:22:31just keep doing your meditation, and it starts to come on.Yeah.You know, and, you know, our app is actually trying to help people find that.You know, it's very much trust the process, right?It is.It shows up for the daily meditation,and you will find at some point that these states,start to appear.
01:22:53Yeah, exactly.And it's sort of like,I would say to somebodywho's not quite sure what we're talking about,I would say,think of a timewhen suddenly you just felt really goodand there was a shift
01:23:08and you don't know why it happened.But it wasn't to do with accomplishmentor it wasn't to do with somethingyou were actively doing.It just sort of came on by itself.And you felt sort of,somehow life was smooth and easy and rich and fulfilling and time didn't seem to matter so much.If you think of something like those little magical moments that I think everybody will have had some taste of,
01:23:38even if it was only in childhood, some sense of a kind of spell fell on you and everything seemed okay.That's what this is like.And the activity of non-activity,the time set aside for meditation of just not doingwill attract that.It's almost more like a magnet.We're not trying to grab it.We're just by virtue of making space
01:24:10for just being in our lives.We attract it.It just comes on.unpredictably by itself at times.And so it's a fairly, I want to say,you know, we can just about promise it.We can just about promise itthat if you do keep doing this thing regularly, consistently,
01:24:38you'll start to get a taste of it.Yeah.And one of the things I believe happens with peopleis that because they're so busy doing all the time,and not tending to their internal world,if they ever stop doing,all the stuff that they haven't processedstarts to come out.
01:24:58So, because I'm scared of that,they just shut it down and stay busy again.No, no, no, no.Do the practice.Meditate daily.Let it all come up.Let it all come up.And maybe once you've almost burnt it out,
01:25:11you'll experience the calm and presencethat was sitting there all along.Yeah, I believe that's a great way to look at it.And then if you're doing,doing it regularly, you're processing the daily stuff that's come up, so you're sort of keepingahead of it. I think that's why the consistency is so important. But I think that's exactlyhow we are. If you've done, let's say you've been for a long drive, you know, and you put yourhead on the pillow at night, close your eyes, you see how you see the road. Yeah. You know, it's
01:25:40sort of like that. We're busy in our days. It's a course when we stop, we're processing whatwe've been doing you know and when people come to a retreat you go to a retreat first dayyou're dealing with your life it's recent life and then sometimes old life stuff comes up as wellbut you're letting actually so healthy you're just being and you're letting this stuff on you'rekind of letting your mind digest your life and it's all this stuff comes up and you just let itmove on and that's that's how we settle down that's what settling down actually means for meIt's letting all the stuff that's been going on in my life just process itself and release, you know.Then we find this deeper layers of calm and clarity and fulfillment.
01:26:31Yeah.There's so much more about absorption I want to talk to you about, Cohen's and the importance of beauty.Maybe I'll just park those for a moment because I want to make sure we have time for the fourth inning, awakening.And what's really interesting to me, and I know you talk about it, you write about this in the book, is that these first three innings, mindfulness, support and absorption, are still all done under the realm where we still have a self, right? And I guess, you know, for people who need some meditation, maybe just start there, right? Maybe you don't need to come to this point, right? But this is what I have.really, really interesting.So I want to go in here if that's okayand say in-four.This idea where the first three are great,
01:27:23but there's still this idea that we have an identitythat is a self.Whereas an in-four,there's a loss of self, isn't there?So I don't know how you want to tackle this,but can you explain to uswhat is this fourth in of awakening?It's a difficult thing to talk about, actually,
01:27:43because it's a discovery that we can each make about who we really are,who we've been all along.And it may sound weird, it may not make a lot of sense to hear about it.And on the other hand, there may be people who hear about it and think,oh my gosh, that's what that was.Some moment I had as a kid that I've never forgotten.It's a moment I had as a youth that I've never forgottenwhen it was as if I discovered that I wasn't separate from the world I live in
01:28:22that my sense of being me contained within my skinthat I inhabit this body that I think of as mineand what I am is something within this body,some little core nugget or core that's me.that I know so wellI've been with it as long as I can rememberbut suddenly it was as ifthat wasn't there, that wasn't here
01:28:51and insteadI was part of everythingit's a suddenglimpse of a differentway of experiencingourselves in this worldI don't think I've ever coverednon-duality on the podcast
01:29:10to date.So perhapsthe best way to startof this is with you describingwhat happened to youwhen you were backpacking at 19.I don't know, what do you think?Yeah, I think so too.
01:29:23I think it's probably easier to get itif I try to describe it.Yeah.So I, you know, as I said,I'd grown up in Oxfordand had this terrible eczema.I went away when I was 1819on a gap year
01:29:37and I worked,actually in South America,worked on a ranch for several months.That was through my dad, somebody in his college, was from Argentina, and I worked there,and then I backpacked.And towards the end of the trip, I was alone on a beach, and I was, it really was an empty,deserted beach, and I was just looking at the sun going down over the water.It was incredibly beautiful, you know, and I was studying the water and the light on the water,
01:30:07and I was just standing there very absorbed.in this beautiful scene with nobody around.Real profound solitude.It was just so beautiful.And suddenly it was as if I wasn't looking at the scene in front of me.I was part of it.It was as if the me that could look at the worldand see it as separate just.
01:30:40switched off and somehow I discovered it felt like a discovery that I had always been part ofeverything I wasn't a separate observer the sense of being the separate me who is movingthrough the world as a separate entity that separateness just switchoff and in its place was a sense of total belonging just being part of everything without exceptionand it felt like in a certain way really it felt like I was part of the whole universeand I'd never not been and it wasn't an idea it was a it was a palpablesensation. It was as if I could, it really felt for a moment as if my, my fingertips werereached to the end of the universe. The tip of my nose was pressing against the beginning of time
01:31:58and the end of time. It was as if what I really was and always had been waspart of everything.Is the termouter body experiencerelevant hereor is it almost tooreductionist?Yeah, I mean,
01:32:18to me,out of body suggeststhat, you know,when people describeNDE's,where they're sort ofup, looking down,they could see their body,
01:32:27I think it wastotally different actuallybecause it wasn'tthathere's my body,I've left it.It was thathere's my body,
01:32:37body it's everything or that my true body is everything that's that's what it felt like but the thethe me that the inner body it didn't feel like mine in the way that I normally knew the sense ofme that felt like what I really was was everything part of everything and it was very I mean tosay, like, I was hugeor something. No, it wasn't, it wasn'tsort of...Was it almost like you just blended in witheverything? You were just...
01:33:16Yes, it's more like that.It's more like... It's more likethe boundarybetween meand the worldwas gone.These non-dual experiences, okay?Our words inherently
01:33:31limiting in ourattempt to describe it.Yes, it's an unfortunate thing.It can't do it.Because some people, they're just to sort of play,not devil's advocate, really, but for,I guess there'll be some people listening, Henry,who are on board with the benefits of meditation
01:33:52and totally get those first three endsbecause, of course, they're all predicated on this assumptionthat there is a self, right?So how do I improve the self?How do improve myself?Yeah, I get better at mindfulness and noticing my experiences and my feelings and my minds.I make sure I reach out for support that it's not just me.Like everything I do is dependent on other people and other things.
01:34:21And then can I reach flow states?Yeah, I can reach flow state and my favorite passion.But yeah, I can also perhaps if I meditate enough without expectation and I follow the process.maybe at some point I'll start to experience this intrinsic flow statethat doesn't need me to be doing anything.I reckon, for those interests in meditation,they're naturally going to be on board with that.Right.
01:34:50I think now going into the fourth end,awakening, now I'm on board, to be clear.I'm trying to put myself in the mind as someone who's going,hold in a minute.I get the first three.I'm interested in those threewhat the hell is thisthat you're talking about, about awakening,
01:35:09that there's no boundary to my skin,that I'm part of everything.Yeah.And you must get this a lot, right?I do, I do, I do.I mean, I'm very, I feel,I feel the problem here is,is very real.
01:35:21That it doesn't make,it only makes senseonce we've had a glimpse of it.Yeah.It's difficult to make it make sensethrough cognitivelyjust thinking about it.it and conceptually. But there's a few ways we can we can try a little bit conceptually.
01:35:39One is, I mean, just right now, you know, being aware that, you know, wherever you happen tobe, you know, we two were sitting in this room with seeing one another, there's the walls,there's, you know, lights, a mic stand, the, this beautiful, very beautiful, actually,table between us. All of this is arising for each of us in a, you know, a lot of us in aawareness right all of it is contents in an awareness that maybe that can that makes a kind of sense rightyou know so so so what is that awareness and how big is that awareness and where does it endwhere does it begin the awareness is actually really hard to put dimensions on the awarenessitself, we can put dimensions on the wall, on the space between us, but the awareness itself
01:36:36within which this whole experience of this room and this conversation within which it's arising,the awareness that's hosting this, it's impossible to know how big it is. It's impossible to knowwhere it begins and ends. Is this, you know, put through another lens, you know, who is the seerwho is the person that's experiencing the table?Like, you know, when you get that separation and meditation, you know,and let's say you're feeling anxious, okay,and you think the entirety of you is anxiety.But a meditation or some practice where you just separate and go,
01:37:20no, no, but who is it that's experiencing the anxiety?Yes, yes.You just start to open up a crack of separation.Yes.Something I think about a lot is, well, I don't know how old I was, how many days old I was when my parents gave me the name Rongan.I can't remember.I know, you know, for example, in some Indian cultures, there's a naming ceremony at day six, right?So day six is when you're given your name officially, right?
01:37:56Yes, yes.So then if you just play this out, let's say I was given the name Rangen at day six from my birth.Well, who the hell was I for the first six days?Right? Because I wasn't Rangen then.Because I hadn't been given that name.So there was an awareness.Yes.There was an essence of who I was that existed before I was called Rangen.
01:38:21Exactly.Is this in the same realm as non-duality?Or is this something completely different?No, it is.it is i mean and whoever that was those first five days yeah what's happened to him is he still hereif it's he even is that not still here somehow you know is there like if i if you think back toa childhood experience being on the beach age seven or something you know the water the sounds thesmells, sun lotion, sand, you know.
01:38:56What was, is there something that was there then, which is here right now?Is there some sort of essence of you, of awareness, of beingness, of aliveness,that was absolutely present then and is exactly present also now?isn't there somethingyou know thatwho you were before you had a nameis still here nowand what is that
01:39:31is it possiblethat it just doesn'tdo timeand it doesn't even do spaceit's without dimensionit's without timeisn't it possiblethat there's something
01:39:47already alwayshere. Yeah. Of course.Right. Okay. So that's comingwhat we mean by thisexactly is a very dry term, non-duality. It doesn'tconvey how heartwarming and beautifuland intimate and close this actually. Where did that term come from?Non-duality. Well, I think actually, I think it might be
01:40:12India because there's the term ad-viter.Right. Non-2, non-dual, adviter.Wow.You know, and so there's Advaita Vedanta is an ancient Hindu school of practice around this.And that's what, when, like the word Buddhism actually means awakeningism.The word Buddha means awakened.And it's the heart of what some say Buddhism is really about.Buddhism is not, some would say it's not really a religion, it's a practice.
01:40:43But the heart of the term Buddha awakened or awakening,is to wake up to, I'd say, wake back up to reality.To reality that's been here all along.Would you say that people who have experienced this non-dual state?And what was really interesting about your experience at 19is that you weren't a meditator then.You weren't trying to attain in number four on the path up the mountain.You'd rest on your gap here, having fun, traveling, backpacking around,
01:41:17watching the sunset and then boom, you've experienced something, right?Yes, yes.Which I think is also quite interesting because you, on your app and in your book,offer a path that we can follow.Yes.And if we follow that path at some point, we may get an awakening,we may be more open to seeing an awakening.Yes.
01:41:38But you've got one without doing any of them.Well, I know.But I then found, and then I was really unhappy afterwards.Like a few weeks later, I went back home.Because you didn't understand it.I didn't understand it.And also, when I went home, I was open for the first time in my life, wide open.And all the difficulty, challenges, unhappiness in my childhood, I couldn't help but feel them.
01:42:05In my childhood, I'd done my best not to feel the challenges of my childhood because I felt they were overwhelming.So it almost cracked you open.It cracked me open.So when I went home, I was swamped by...childhood unhappiness that i'd never really let myself feel before and you need a therapy didn't youi did or you i should say you need it you you you saw therapists who helped you yeah but later i meani struggled for several years and then i started meditating and and then i found a therapist and i wasvery very lucky to be able to do that but but the the point just to just coming back to um the it's unconditional
01:42:46that awakening you can't you can't create it through conditions but you can make it more likelyand and so any path of meditation that knows about that and acknowledges it and is open to it can createthe condition where it's more likely to happen but it can't make it happen but but at the same timethat's that the beauty of it is it's kind of a law unto itself it doesn't like in my caseas you said I wasn't practicingbut it showed itselfbut only whenI started to practice
01:43:23was there any chance of learningto integrate itinto how I liveso it wasn't a flash in the panand what happened with me on my own meditation paththis is why I'm trying to share this with othersyou know is that I started outmeditating and it was incredibly
01:43:39therapeutic and healingand so helpful for meand at a certain pointI was like, well, what about that thingthat happened on the beach when I was 19?It had seemed the most important moment of my lifebecause I saw something about what my life really wasthat I'd never seen in any other way, in any other context,
01:44:00and nobody seemed to sort of talk about it.And then the reason I got into Zenis that I recognized, I met somebody who did Zen, actually.It was quite popular, you know, in America.and I was working on my third book at the timeand I had gone to New Mexicoand a new friend of minea great writer called Natalie Goldberg
01:44:20she started reading some Zen stuff to meand I justrecognizedoh my goshthese people know what happened to me on the beachthey know about itand so I got into Zenand sure enough
01:44:35they totally knew about itand they actually valued itthey recognized how important it wasAnd through training, you know, a long time in Zen, I actually met, well, I was very luckyof me, some fantastic teachers who'd gone even beyond it.They knew about it.And I had some more experiences, not the same, but same territory, other kinds of non-dual experiences.I hadn't known it could show up in different ways.
01:45:11It's not the one that I hadwhere everything's just oneand I'm part of that onenessThat's one way it could show upAnother way it shows usIn a way there's nobody hereIt's all happening by itselfI want to regularly spending time
01:45:27In nature and experiencing awePerhapscould help with thisIn the sense that if you are somewhereIncredibly awe-inspiring in natureand you're not distractedand you're not sort of doing something elseif you actually think about it
01:45:48and you know it is a wonder that this sort of beauty existsand we're even here on this vast incredible planetsI mean it's you know it really isI think beauty can be a way inand actually that's why I believethe third in that we were just talking aboutflow and absorptionand this isn't always pointed out about it
01:46:10but it's a lot of beauty we sense in the third innsomehow you know again somebody on a mountain bitetotally absorbed in it suddenly getting into flowit's beautiful it's really beautifuland that that beauty can actually serve as a gatewayto non-dual experiencewhere we're overwhelmed by the wonderI agree with you oh
01:46:37That was actually, in that third in section in the book, one of my favorite bits was the stuff about beauty.There was one section in terms of beauty in a sick room.You say in any moment we can find what we need.I thought that's lovely in any moment.And you actually illustrated that point from recollection with a mum whose child was quite sick.Yes, the child was in a lot of trouble with, you know, addiction issues.and yeah she was watching waves on a beach she described us to me so beautifully i wanted to share that youknow she was just watching these waves in the evening coming up the beach withdrawing coming up
01:47:18with drawing and and suddenly she noticed how beautiful it was and then she realized she couldfeel the beauty at the same time as feeling all her sorrow and worry about her child who was in such a harddark place she could feel the the the tremendous parents grief and caring for their child who's introuble and also the beauty of the scene before her and then she suddenly realized that both the beautyand what she felt about the beauty she was seeing and the the worry they were like noin a single experience.And even the worry was beautiful.So this is really interesting.
01:48:15Okay, so the appreciation of the deep beauty in the ocean and the waves,it didn't make her child not be struggling with addiction.Correct.But it changed her experience of how she reliance.related to her child struggling with addiction.Exactly.She could see that there was even a beauty in that.When you can't change a situation, you're forced to change yourself.
01:48:50Exactly.Exactly.And she made that little shift that's so huge to a bigger perspective.Do you think sometimes, you know,surfers might experience these kind of states in the sense i'm not talking about flow necessarilyyeah surfing's front of mind because i've just been in australian i would just sit on the beachand watch these tribes of surfers just go and i thought it's the most beautiful thing there mustbe some sort of deep connection not just flow state but that you're you're you're
01:49:28literally riding on this wave that has no wayIt goes probably, you know, if you follow that body of water, it goes all the way around the world, doesn't it?Yeah, yeah.I mean, I think, actually, I used to teach a Zen to a group of surfers in Southern California pre-COVID.Right.They were fantastic at meditating and they were so into it because they were that bit closer to getting this non-dual message.Because I think exactly what you're describing, that you're riding this body of water that's doing this particular energetic thing of the wave.and it's and that's your motion your motion is the waves motion you know and actually with just
01:50:11with the with the wave thing that you know one of the old metaphors in in several spiritualtraditions to get this non-duality idea is exactly a wave a wave if a wave as it were thought it wasits own thing this little shape of water thisis me and didn't recognize it's part of the whole ocean that's very like non-duality thatin other words our sense of me i think i'm just this body i don't see that my little cup ofconsciousness here is part of the great ocean of consciousness it's like that it's so so we'renot denying this this consciousness and but theego says it's mine and it doesn't know how to recognize actually it's part of a vast
01:51:13a vastness a boundlessness it's part of it and yes it's made this shape called henry or runganyou know each of us it's made this being that seems to be its own thing but in non-duality werecognize the great ocean that has formed into this wave we recognize the great ocean yeah so that'swhy the term non-duality does not convey how beautiful how mind-blowingly beautiful it is because when wefind that you know all are maybe just for a moment all our worries are gone yeah because theyall came from the conviction that we were just the waynot the whole ocean.That's why it's so important.
01:52:10I think it's the most important thingbecause when we find it,we find what our life has been all along.We actually find something that feels like the truth.Relating that to health for a moment,or, you know, traditional health, as it were,because, you know, it's kind of interesting we have this conversation.I've said for years, this is not a health podcast.
01:52:38It may seem like a health podcast, but it isn't because health is everything.You know, health isn't just in the realms of health.Health is related to happiness.Health is related to your relationships.Health is related to how you feel about yourselfand your ability to interact with the world in a loving and kind way.One of the problems I've always had with Western allopathic medicine,of all the benefits, I would say it's way too reductionist.
01:53:06Everything is kept separate, separate body parts, separate diseases.It literally makes no sense at all to me, and it actually makes no sense scientifically or physiologically.Everything in the body is connected.But bringing it back to you and you had this chronic debilitating exmaand not necessarily a non-dual experience,but meditating per sehelped you to heal your eczema.Is that correct?
01:53:35It is. I believe that really...Yeah, and I've seen thatand similar patterns before in patients, okay?So, I'm really interested,yes, on the path to meditation,on those first three ins for sure,but let's just go to that final step.for people who do experience a non-jew, I just, I just don't like that to say a non-chial experience, right,
01:53:59but this kind of awakening experience. I like awakening. Yeah.And if they have the tools to integrate it into their life as you did not when you were 19, but you do now,do you see that people often seen improvement in their health and their well-being?well. I do, actually. I do. Because there's so much less stress. And they've learned,they've discovered an unconditional well-being. Therefore, whatever they're doing is a choice,choosing to do it. And typically they reorient more to lives of service.You know, they want, it's more important to themthat what they be doing is of service to others.
01:54:58And that also brings fulfillment.So they're just, they're just happier.And yeah, of course, they'll still get diseases as they get older, you know,and they'll still get flu now and then.But handling it in a way that's much easier,that doesn't put additional stress on the system.I think it makes a big difference.Yeah.
01:55:25One thing that going deeper into non-duality,allowing non-duality to be more part of our experience,it actually changes our relationship with death.We don't think about death in the same way.It's actually, it's almost like,It's part of life.Death is part of life.It's not something to be afraid of.
01:55:55It's already here.And this is, here we are.So I think that's one of its beautiful consequences.We know when we've really sort of got itbecause fear of death has gone.A fear of life has gone.And we can't.we can't be afraid of it fear is gone in fact there's a there's a zendo a zen center that i've
01:56:25sat in in japan for retreats a number of times where one of my zen masters lives and it has thiscalligraphy above the altar at the end of the room which which says i ask what are those i don't readcharacters you know what what do they mean bringing no fear bringing no fearAnd I find that a beautiful, a beautiful kind of motto for life.What if we could get to a place where we're just not afraid?Fear has gone.And I think the most profound way for me for finding that has been this kind of openingmore and more deeply to the reality of being not the wave, the ocean, or not just the wave,
01:57:24but the whole ocean, to being part of the whole ocean of existence and not separate.Because if I'm not separate, there's nobody to be afraid.Yeah.I love that, Henry.So beautiful.And I guess on my own inner journey, spiritual journey, if you will,probably since dad died,I realized that somewhere along the way
01:57:50my fear of death has evaporated.I can't pinpoint an exact moment.There wasn't like, oh, this happened.There wasn't this linear thing.Oh, I did this and then the fear has gone,no, just as part of, it's a bit like this whole thing, right?You follow the process.Okay?
01:58:07You follow the daily practice of meditationand you'll find there's a whole varietyof different outcomesthat would just happen as a constant.consequence, not by focusing on the outcome, but by focusing on the process. Henry, I thinkoriginal love is just a beautiful book. It's so well written. It does provide this lovelyframework on what we might be able to experience as we meditate more and more. I think the wayapp is brilliant. I can see why it's so popular. I'm enjoying it. I love the fact that there's
01:58:45no choice that you just turn up and it makes it easy this is what you have to do today it'sit's a fantastic idea i think it's brilliant i've thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with you icertainly hope we get the chance to do a part two at some point um but just to finish offfor that for that person who has made it this far who's listened to the conversation andfeels that yeah you know what meditation i think is what i need right nowAnd perhaps the fourth stage of awakening feels too far just at the moment.But they're thinking, yeah, I want a bit of mindfulness and want support.I want that flow state from meditation.
01:59:26But I don't know where to start.What would your final words be to them?Yeah.Well, I don't want to be self-serving.But the Way app is a great way to get into it because it lays it out for you so you don't have to choose.So that's one option.and there's a ton of other great appsHeadspace Calm
01:59:50they'll help as wellbut the biggest thingis justgive yourselffive minutesalonewith yourselfbeing still being quiet
02:00:07if you're not if you don't evenyou know don't even want totouch an app finejustsit down alone for fiveminutes. Just see what it's like, you know, can you let yourself be still and quiet? Just,just be you. Because all you're doing is coming home to you. It's not some grand thingthat you've got to get, you've got to do, really. It's coming home to you. Can you just give
02:00:41yourself that one minute a day? If you can't do five,Do one.Henry Shookman, it's been an absolute pleasure.Thank you so much for coming on the show.Thank you very, very much for having me.A delight and a real honour.Really hope you enjoyed that conversation.Do think about one thing that you can take away and apply into your own life.
02:01:09And also have a think about one thing from this conversation that you can teach to somebody else.Remember when you teach someone,it not only helps them, it also helps you learn and retain the information.Now before you go, just wanted to let you know about Friday 5. It's my free weekly emailcontaining five simple ideas to improve your health and happiness. In that email, I shareexclusive insights that I do not share anywhere else, including health advice, how to manage yourtime better, interesting articles or videos that I'd be consuming, and quotes that have caused me tostop and reflect. And I have to say in a world of endless emails, it really is delightful that
02:01:50many of you tell me it is one of the only weekly emails that you actively look forward to receiving.So if that sounds like something you would like to receive each and every Friday, you can sign itfor free at Dr.chatsy.com forward slash Friday 5. Now, if you are new to my podcast, you may beinterested to know that I have written five books that have been bestsellers all over theworld, covering all kinds of different topics, happiness, food, stress, sleep, behaviour changeand movement, weight loss, and so much more. So please do take a moment to check them out.They are all available as paperbacks, e-books, and as audiobooks, which I am narrating.If you enjoyed today's episode, it is always appreciated if you can take a moment to share
02:02:38the podcast with your friends and family or leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Thank you so much forlistening, have a wonderful week, and please note that if you want to listen to this showwithout any adverts at all, that option is now available for a small monthly fee on Apple andon Android. All you have to do is click the link in the episode notes in your podcast app.And always remember, you are the architect of your own health. Making lifestyle change is alwaysworth it, because when you feel better, you live more.Thank you.
There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click any sentence in the transcript to leave one.