Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Trust That You're Good Enough | Dr. Trudy Goodman

Episode Date: March 3, 2021

This week’s conversation is with Dr. Trudy Goodman, the founding teacher of InsightLA and cofounder of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy. Trudy has trained in mindfulness and Zen since 1973, holds a graduate degree in developmental psychology from Harvard, and is one of the senior Buddhist teachers in the U.S.  She has taught at universities and retreat centers worldwide for 25 years. Trudy is widely known for her role as Trudy the Love Barbarian in the Netflix series "Midnight Gospel”. She is a contributing author to the Clinical Handbook of Mindfulness, Compassion and Wisdom in Psychotherapy, and Mindfulness and Psychotherapy.And she’s also married to Jack Kornfield, who we were fortunate to have on the podcast just a few weeks back!Trudy is a truly, a special human being.In this conversation we discuss so much… the importance of trusting yourself and why that ultimately starts with loving yourself, which can be a big hurdle for some of us.We also touch on Trudy's spiritual framework, which focuses on the relationship between the mind and the heart.It's about allowing herself to be informed by intuition (the wisdom of the heart) rather than solely her analytical, cerebral mind._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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stay present and engaged with my thinking and writing. If you wanna slow down, if you wanna work smarter, I highly encourage you to check them out. Visit remarkable.com to learn more and grab your paper pro today. There's a way that we can learn to understand how we perceive the world and that our perception of things actually determines the happiness or unhappiness that we have in any given moment. Like we can't control what's happening often, but we can certainly control our relationship to it. And the Dharma is the teachings of all the different methods. There are countless ones, like you were saying, all the different methods that develop the skill of being able to be more and more rooted in loving awareness of what's happening

and the trust that we're not alone in this life, that we really are interdependent and interconnected. And that's why the siloing and separation that's happening. I mean, just read the comments in any social media. That's why it sort of baffles me. I mean, just read the comments in any social media. That's why it sort of baffles me. I think, how did we get so far away from the truth of our lives together as humans? Okay, welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I'm Michael Gervais and by trade and training, I'm a sport and performance psychologist. And the whole idea behind these conversations is to learn from people who are on the path of mastery. We want to better understand what they're searching for, their psychological framework that they use to build and refine their craft to make sense of themselves, to make sense of events that take place in this

complicated life that we live? And what are they doing to make it as simple as possible to get the wisdom, to get the truth, and to get to the places that they can reveal high performance and express it on a consistent basis? And if you want to learn more about how you can train your mind, it's just a quick reminder here to check out the online course that I created with head coach of the Seattle Seahawks, Pete Carroll. You can punch over to findingmastery.net forward slash course. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment that I've been part of, from elite teams to

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understated, not just for strength, but for energy and focus, recovery, for longevity. And I love that David is making that easier. So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. Okay. This week's conversation is with Dr. Trudy Goodman. She's the founding teacher of Insight LA and co-founder of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy. And Trudy has trained in mindfulness and Zen since 1973 and holds a graduate degree in developmental psychology from Harvard and is one of the senior Buddhist teachers in the U.S. She's remarkable. And you can hear it in the conversation that the depth she has, the lightness she has, the combination of the ease with the wisdom, it's just really, it's remarkable. You'll hear it in the conversation,

but she's taught at universities and retreat centers worldwide for the last 25 years. This is not a new conversation to her about the practice of wisdom, the practice of mindfulness. And she's widely known for her role as Trudy the Love Barbarian in the Netflix series, Midnight Gospel. She's a contributing author to the Clinical Handbook of Mindfulness, Compassion and Wisdom in Psychotherapy, and Mindfulness in Psychotherapy. And she's also married to Jack Kornfield, who we were fortunate enough to have on a podcast just a few weeks back. I highly recommend you checking that out. And Trudy is just truly a special human being.

And in this conversation, we just get underneath the surface and discuss so much the importance of trusting yourself and why that ultimately starts with loving yourself, which can be a big hurdle for some of us. Based on the messages that we learn about ourselves right now and the messages that we learned about ourselves way back when, it can be a bit tricky. So for Trudy, it really comes down to the connection between mind and heart. And when you're working with the mind, you're also working with the heart. And so much of her spiritual framework is based on that relationship between the mind and the heart

and the transformation from an analytical, cerebral, super effective mind to allowing yourself to be more informed by intuition and the wisdom of the heart. Keeping in mind that wisdom is revealed. You can't go buy it. You can't go read it and have it be yours. You have to digest it. You have to grok with it. You have to make sense of it. And it already is within you. And one of the ways to think about this contemplative mindfulness inner work practice is to reveal the insight that is already lying dormant in you. And with all of that, let's jump right into this conversation with a flat out legend, Dr. Trudy Goodman. Trudy, how are you?

I'm glad to be here. Good. So this is the first time that I've been fortunate to have a husband-wife duo on the podcast, but not in the same episode. So I am thrilled to, um, to have this conversation with you. And it was a beautiful conversation that I had with your husband, Jack Kornfield. It was an amazing conversation. So thank you for, for, um, being part of this community now. Yeah. Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here. And, uh, I love Jack too. We have amazing conversations too. So you do. He said, we already have something in common. Okay, good. All right. So, um, well, let's, let's start with what a Dharma coaches, you know, and a Dharma teacher. Um, and you're licensed or you were licensed as a psychologist.

I don't know if you're, um, I'm not anymore. I, I lived a big chunk of my adult life actually more than half of it um in cambridge massachusetts where yes i was licensed i was also licensed in new mexico i lived for a while in um taos and taught in santa fe but not in california in california i knew that i wanted to devote myself full-time to teaching meditation and dharma And so I didn't really bother to get licensed as a therapist in California. And how long ago was that? I'm just wondering when you... I moved here to California about, oh gosh, it's almost 20 years ago now. And I came for family reasons. I didn't have a plan of anything that I was going to do. I didn't even plan to stay when I just came to visit and

help out. My daughter was pregnant with her first baby. My mom, my dad had died and they had been living overseas. So she didn't have a community. You know, there were just some family people, some folks who needed help, except that I realized once I got to LA where they live, that they weren't going to stop needing help. I want to, I don't know if you've ever done this. I fast forward into the future. And then I look back and think, what would I want to have done? What would I want to look back on? And I thought, where would I want to have been while my daughter's having her babies and my mom's really in her old age. And very innocently and pretty naively, I thought, okay, I'll just move to LA where they were. I had no idea. It was hard to do that.

So is that a frame that you use or a practice that you use to get some perspective to help guide decisions that you're making? Is you imagine yourself being, let's call it 20 years older. And you say, when I look back on this time now, how do I want to feel about these decisions? Exactly. And do you use the word feel or do you use the word think? How do I want to think about these or how do I want to feel about these? No, feel. Use feel?

Feel, yeah. Because I really think, you know, Mike, that, you know, working with the mind, you're also working with the heart. And so much of what we would call spiritual life is that movement from the head into the heart. You know, just letting ourselves drop from the analytic, cerebral, super effective mind. But really letting it be more informed by intuition and the wisdom of the heart. Okay. So is that, it's a beautiful description of spirituality, right? So it's a merging of the head and the heart. And are you, do you have, is your spiritual framework deity-based or non-deity based? Non-deity based. It's non-deity based, but I appreciate deities. It's

just not what I base my spiritual life on. And when people from Christianity, Islam, Judaism hear that and they go, what? Dr. Goodman doesn't believe in God? Oh, I do believe in God. I just don't believe in a personified God. I'm so glad you asked me that. When I said I like deities and I respect deities, I really see the deities as manifestations of what's most beautiful, really, in our own hearts and our own psyches, compassion and love and joy and serenity, peace, gratitude, you know, these beautiful qualities are what the deities embody, especially love. And so I, it's not a person, I just cannot relate personally to a personified God.

And I think it's just because I've always been such a rebellious person. I really, when I think of God, I just think of the presence of something invisible and profound that underlies our life and connects us all. Like there's a, there's a phrase in Jewish liturgy. I wasn't brought up to be observant, but my family was Jewish where they say the God, God is defined as the life of all worlds. And I thought, okay, that's my God. The life of all worlds. Okay. So my family, we grew up Christian and I mean, we're in it. My family was inside the church doing some amazing work. And so we would have priests and deacons

and bishops over for dinner, you know? And so it was kind of normal that we would have conversations around our dinner table on the weekend that were like highly spiritually charged. And so here I'm a, I'm, I'm visiting from college. Um, and, and I'm having a conversation with, uh, um, I can't remember his title at the time. Let's call him a priest in the Catholic church. I go, what, what is God? Like, come on. What, what, you know, you, you guys taught me that it was this like a handsome man and this old being, you know, that like had a gray beard, like it's, and then, and then there's these angels and then there's the Holy spirit and I'm doing the Trinity thing and, you know, and I'm kind of being a bit of a punk. And so I go, come on, what is God? And he goes, all right, Mike, well,

is God in the sunset or is the sunset in God? I go, what? He goes, yeah. And so he pulled some Zen maneuver on me, you know, right? Like what Catholic priest is doing a Zen move on me. I go, okay, well, God's inside the sunset. He goes, nope, sunset's inside of God. I go, wait a minute. He goes, just think about it.

Just think about it. And then he pauses and he says, listen, Mike, make it simple. He says, God is all things that are true, beautiful, and good. I can get down with that. That's, yes, me too. Me too. Yeah. Okay. So you grew up in a Jewish family from a spiritual framework, a religious framework. Okay. And then when did you migrate?

And kind of, this is a big deal. Like when you grew up in a family, traditional family structure, and you're like, yeah, I'm doing it differently. So I want to learn a little bit about that rebellion nature. Because somebody that goes to school for 14 years gets licensed a couple different states and then says, ah, I'm not doing that. I'm changing. There's something about that that's really intriguing because this need to pivot and this ability to pivot is a skill set that I think many of us can learn from you. Yeah, I pivoted a few times in my life, Mike, and I'm old now. So I can look back and see, it's actually very beautiful. Somebody was complaining to me about having their 65th

birthday. And I was just like, you're a baby. I'm 75. I don't mind telling you. And and there's and I said to her, you know, it's just stunning to get old. And it's it's like I was in Big China when it first opened up around time when Nixon was president in 1985 and spent a month in Big China visiting ancient Zen temples with my Zen teacher at that time. And I remember there was one calligraphy that I saw, and it was one of those tall, tall, tall Chinese mountains, shaped like Guilin, these really tall mountains. And an old, old person was on top with a cane. And the poem said, I mean, I couldn't read it, it was translated for me. And the poem said, I mean, I couldn't read it. It was translated for me. And the poem said, the view from up here is so clear. And that's what it is like. So I can see those pivots, you know, looking back,

it's so clear at the time. And this, I'm just saying for all of your listeners, it's not that clear at the time. You aren't sure where you're going and you aren't sure. You just know you need to make a change in your life. And so when I look back, I worked as a preschool teacher because that was something my mom had done. And frankly, Mike, I didn't see beyond that horizon for myself. Remember, I'm old. And in those days, the education that women received, we were supposed to get a good education. But after that, you get married, you have kids. And so being a nursery school teacher, that's what

we called it then. But I also began, I was invited to co-found a school for severely emotionally disturbed kids, little kids, and had to learn. That's where the shift from the head to the heart really began to happen. I had studied cognitive development and studied with one of the greatest developmental psychologists in the world, Jean Piaget. Oh, did you? Yeah, I did. I did. Oh, we're going to pull on that. I was looking for the dharma. I was looking to understand consciousness and I thought he did. Wow. Okay. Because he wrote these books like The Birth of Intelligence. Do you know what I mean? I thought he knows about consciousness.

He knows what it is. He knows where it comes from. Okay. So in science, it's one of the hard problems. It's one of the three hard problems in science, which is consciousness. And so you've been interested in consciousness from a non-science standpoint first and then a scientific standpoint? Or did it flip? Were you first exposed to it through your scientific studies? Most flipped. First exposed to it more through developmental psychology, through Piaget. But the thing is, they didn't know what I really wanted

to know. They really didn't. Nobody does, actually, looking back. It's a mystery. But I didn't. Nobody does actually looking back. It's a mystery, but I didn't know that back then. What does that mean? It's a mystery. What is a mystery? I feel as though, you know, we don't know actually what happens where we go when we die. We don't know if our consciousness goes anywhere when we die. We don't know actually exactly where we're from. I mean, we know sperm and egg and embryo and we know all that, but do you have kids, Mike? I do. Okay. So have you witnessed a birth? I wish somebody would have prepared me for it. It's remarkable. Yeah. So when you witness a birth or have you sat with somebody who has passed away during, well, as they're doing, they're dying.

Yes. You know, that's what I mean by mystery, because there's something in those moments when a baby emerges, when somebody, you know, exhales their last breath, this quality of the stillness and the richness of, I would call it samadhi, but concentration or intensity in the atmosphere surrounding those events. To me, that's very mysterious. It's some mystery of our being.

I don't know how to describe it any other way. When you think about it now, like in the most concrete sense, what do you think happens next? Even after we die? Is that what you're asking me? I don't know. I mean, I've done meditations on the dissolution of the elements and the letting go and that I can't go past. But there is something, and I will tell you,

I had the misfortune of being hit by a car as a pedestrian probably about 30 years ago. I was crossing the street. I had a walk sign and it was nighttime and it was raining. And this guy, he leaned over to light his cigarette while he was making a left turn, which turned out to be a left turn into me. And I went flying. And I thought, this is it. I'm, you know, I'm being killed. Actually, time does stand still in those moments. And I was flying. And I was looking up at the trees. It was winter.

And I thought, oh, I swear to God, this is the thought that came into my mind. This is like Mary Poppins. I actually thought that. But then slam, you know, you land in the asphalt and it's not funny anymore or anything. And I don't know how I survived, actually. I really don't. But while I was waiting for the ambulance, we were all, all the people who come running and gathered,

were waiting for the ambulance. I had one of those experiences where you leave your body. And near-death experience? Well, I don't know if I was near death. I just know that I left my body and I was looking down at the scene from quite high up and I could see myself. You know, they had they had leaned my body against a car because obviously I couldn't stand up. And my neighbors were around and there was just a certain hubbub. And then the guy was crying.

He thought he had killed me. And, you know, there was just, I could see all that from up high. And what I felt at the time was only compassion. Now that didn't last, but while I was up in the sky, looking down, only tenderness and compassion for the entire scene, including the man who had driven into me. But the part that I wanted to tell you is that I heard, I don't usually tell this story, but you're easy to talk to. I heard a voice say to me, almost apologetically, but very clearly and unmistakably,

and I was not somebody who heard voices, we could not prevent the accident, but we cushioned your fall. Oh, I heard that. Oh, my skin right now. Yeah. And I just, you know, you're in shock and you don't, that's just what I heard. And then boom, I was back in my body. And then I was, you know, in the ambulance and then in the hospital and then having x-rays and agony and so forth.

But I remember nobody could understand. I had so many injuries, broken pelvis, broken leg, broken knee, you know, a lot of broken bones and my whole back and my head, not a bruise, not a bump, not a scratch. Now, how can you land on your back? Which is how I landed, land on your back and not have, you know what I mean? Your head would have to hit, um, nothing. And so I thought that's in the hospital. I thought, oh, something did protect my head. I didn't have a pillow on my head and that wouldn't have helped either. So when you ask me, I don't know, but there's something because I've had some experiences like that in

my life where I don't, they're mysterious. I don't, that's why I use the word mystery. There isn't a rational scientific explanation. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday, what you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust Momentus. From the moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and CEO, I could tell this was not your average supplement company. And I was immediately drawn to their mission, helping people achieve performance for life. And to do that, they developed what they

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F E L I X G R a y.com. And use the code finding mastery 20 at Felix gray.com for 20% off. Do you hear, let's call it the voice of God or an angel, whatever frame or emblem that we put on the word, but do you hear, have you heard that more since that time? Or was it sometimes rarely, rarely before that, would you have heard it? Um, I think I saw things, but I didn't hear them before. Like I'll give you a couple. I mean, this is if you want, I'll give you a couple examples. Like three years ago, I broke my back. I was doing something stupid and I had a day off and I was so excited. I'm just going to do body things all day.

And I went to a water aerobics class. And then I went to, I don't know, some other, you know, I think it was an abs class. And then I went to, I forget the name, completely blocked Tabata, this other kind of class where you do interval training. Yeah. And this, wait, this is at like, you're 72 years old at that point? Yeah. And so I'm at the Tabata class. And at the end of the class, she takes us outside to do these sideways jumps, like, you know, preparing for snowboarding. And, but we're on a sidewalk. And obviously, you know, it's like the end of the day skiing is when you fall. I had already done three classes. I was tired. And I heard a voice in my head, just as distinct as that day with the accident that said, let's skip this one. But I didn't listen. And I was going really

fast and my foot caught in the crack of the sidewalk and I slammed down and broke my back. So that was another time I heard something. But I think these experiences, everybody can have them. Everybody, I'm sure many of you who are listening have had the experience of, you know, the phone rings and you just know who it is, or somebody passes away and they're far away from you, but you have an image of them and a feeling in your body. Or for me, the doorway really into my spiritual search and opening men into my spiritual life was an experience I had in childbirth. So I revere these everyday experiences, whether it's giving birth. A second big one was when my daughter was dying in the hospital. Thank God she did not die. And she's fine today, but she was at that time. These

experiences where life just pushes us up against something we're terrified of. When we can meet those experiences, either when we have no choice, when you're in labor, you have no choice. You can't say, I'm getting off the roller coaster now. It's just click, click, click. It's going up that hill. And you're not getting out of there until you've had a baby. When you find yourself in these kind of no escape situations, or when my daughter was so ill in the hospital, I feel like something in us, you know, we tap into something that just is not our ordinary consciousness, and can have what I would call openings into another dimension of experience. You could call them spiritual openings because

it's a dimension that's usually hidden to us in our everyday life, not so visible. But, and to me, those experiences, they're not the point of a spiritual practice or spiritual life, but they're encouraging because they show us something that's possible that we might not have dreamed of. And they also help with fear. You and I started earlier talking a little bit about fear. And that's a big, big theme in my life and probably the life of every human being, if they're honest with themselves.

The openings. I don't speak about it that way. I don't think about it that way. I don't think about it that way. So I love where you're, it's not artistry, it's not the right word, but you're putting language to it that I don't normally put language to it, which is the way that you meet a moment,

that you meet a challenge, that you meet an experience. And that sometimes if we have the right mix, something opens. Yes. Sometimes it doesn't. You know, we can muscle our way through things, so to speak, and it gets done, but we miss so much. So can you talk about the preparation to be able to meet a moment and to meet it in a way that you've come to find value in the optimal or a optimal or a purposeful way. And so there's lots of ways to meet moments. You

can meet it with a sledgehammer. You can meet it with a screwdriver. You could meet it with like, you know, lots of ways, but I'm talking about that kind of fluid, deep, purposeful opening that you're speaking of. How do you prepare for that? Well, for me in my life, the way that I have prepared for that is through meditation practice and particularly awareness practices like mindfulness and compassion and loving kindness, things like that. But I think that looking back now, and I'll come back to the question about pivoting that you asked earlier too, because this is linked, because it takes fear. You have to be able to work with your fear. When I say fearlessness, I don't mean there is no fear. I just mean that the fears aren't in charge of you. That's my definition of courage, really.

It's not to be without fear, but that the fear doesn't determine what you do. But the preparation, I'm going to refer to a 13th century Zen master named Dogen Zenji, who said, he said, when the self comes forward to meet experience, I'm paraphrasing, when the self comes forward to meet experience, that's delusion. But when the self can step back and allow the myriad phenomena, all the experiences of life to be received, that's awakening. And so what he was talking about was just what you were saying. What kind of agenda do we have when we need an experience?

So we've got our sledgehammer in our hand or, you know, what the outcome that we're really focused on in that experience. Or are we willing to be curious and kind of step back and to a more receptive mode, which that willingness to step back into a more receptive mode of presence with the body, awareness of what's happening, and the willingness to just see and not to not have any agenda, but to let that agenda be for a while, just to be able to set it aside. To me, that's the preparation. In addition to the willingness to sit in meditation over and over again and sit through experiences that are boring or difficult or, you know, your body hurts or, but to be able to be immersed in the body in a meditation practice, to me, that is the source or the fountain of wisdom and creativity and compassion. You know, this

quality of mindfulness when it's anchored to a feeling of presence. So I get asked a lot, like, you know, we throw around phrases and words, us psycho mumbo jumbo meditator. I'm doing it right now. No, no, no, but I, so I get, I get like when I'm in front of an athlete, that's why I'm really listening to your language because it's not mumbo jumbo. I'm like really listening to the precision and appreciating it. And so I get asked a lot, you know, like, okay, Mike, what is this? Like an athlete talking like, yeah, I get it being present. Yeah. What does that really mean? And so the way that I try to explain being present is very close to what you just said, which is when your mind and your body are in the same place, focusing on the

same thing. So that's how I do you think the same thing? Yeah, I used to say, when your mind and your body are in the same place at the same time. Yeah, okay, good. Yeah, yeah, okay, good. Another way of saying what you just said. And then if you can string together a bunch of those, in the sport world, we talk about the science of flow, flow state, or athletes say be in the zone, or musicians call it be in the pocket. But really what it does is, for me, a couple things. One, if you can string together a bunch of nows,

like now, now, now, and you can string them together, one, you get a glimpse of what the essence of reality is. And I don't say that lightly, right? Like you get a glimpse of it. If you can get kind of quick little frames, you also get a glimpse of insight. And if you can string a bunch of insights together, you get to some wisdom. But I don't know another path to get there. Like, I wish that there was something easier to do than to train my mind and my body to be in the same place at the same time, focus on the same thing. I'm glad to hear you talk about your body aches and the, um, the frustrations that happen internally. Like, okay, come back. Wait, hold on. Let me come back without judgment. Okay. Let me come back, you know, wait, Oh, I see what I just did. And the trains of thought are so tricky,

but you're talking about like using your body for what aim? I'm talking about using your body as just kind of home base, you know, where you know that what happens in the body, the sensations that happen in the body, they only happen in the present moment. You know, we don't feel yesterday's sensations. We might remember them, but we don't actually feel them. And we don't feel tomorrow's like we don't breathe yesterday's breath or tomorrow's. We don't hear yesterday's sounds or The body is like that. So when we're connected to the body, we're connected to the present moment. It's that simple. And then the mind wandering away is so it's inevitable.

That's what its default mode is. We know this. But every time you bring the mind back to being present, every time you let a thought go, or you don't get swept away by a strong emotion, or you know you're aware when you're swept away and you come back to being present, every time you do that, that to me is an act of tremendous compassion. Compassion for yourself and compassion for the world, because you're going to be clear when you learn how to do that it brings clarity and wisdom and glimpses of reality like you said um and you just your heart feels stronger more confident less afraid uh and somehow your life just feels that it has more meaning and value and purpose.

Being present is a purpose. Yeah. Okay. You're speaking it. And so the purpose of being present. Wait, being present has a purpose. How did you just say that? I said it is a purpose.

In other words, yeah. And so it's not a means to an end it is the end in of itself being here now is the end and there's many practices mindfulness meditation being one of them one just one just to be here now yeah yeah and then so let's double click because i think we're at a place 10 years ago, I felt like people would look at me cross-eyed, like, especially in the sport world, like, what are you talking about? You know, much like George, you know, one of our friends. But now it's not. The questions now are like, okay, I get it.

I understand the value. I've read some about it. But how do I do it? And I'd love for you to wave me off. I try to simplify it best I can. And it's a beautifully complicated 2600 plus year tradition that I'm butchering in this simplification reductionist model. But I say that there's two ways that I know to practice, single point and then contemplative and so the single point is like relentlessly with a high dignity for the wandering mind and the um high skill to refocus back to the present beautiful beautifully said yeah oh great okay so so that's the single point and that single

point could be a chant it could be a breath It could be a flickering Kung Fu candle. It could be whatever you want it to be. Right. Yeah. And then the contemplative is like, okay, let's explore. Let's go somewhere. Let's look and watch and observe. And let's have some thought stems. Let's explore some questions. And every time that we start thinking about our laundry list of things to do, let's go back to the deeper work. And so that's how I think about contemplative, contemplating the senses or contemplating who am I or what am I or fill in the blanks. There's so many thought stems that we can explore. And what do you think? What would you add to that as a basic, basic framework? I think I would add to the contemplative piece, that kind of open receptive awareness, that where you take that step back from approaching, you know, approaching experience with all

of our things that we approach experience with, our wants, our not wants, all of it. Just, I would just add that maybe that open awareness um you know and i've been dear friends with ron dos who passed away last year who's a spiritual teacher i really wanted to meet him i was yeah i've been enamored by his teachings and readings and i know he was over i think in hawaii for you know a while. I really wanted to meet him. So I share that with you. It's whatever you're about to say. I'm on the edge of my seat.

Well, he lived on Maui. I guess a few years after his stroke, he went there because it was such a healing place and he just stayed for, I don't know, anyway, 15 or 20 years. I'm not sure, 15 years anyway. But Ram Dass coined this phrase that Jack and I have been using in our teaching, loving awareness. So it's not just awareness, which is a very clear, bright, but it's suffused with tenderness or suffused with love. And, you know, just like you asking the visiting dignitary, the priest, whoever it was, look, what is God anyway? I asked a similar question to my Zen

teacher. I was like, well, what is the Dharma anyway? To me, it's just love. What is it anyway? And it is, it is just love. But we have so many kind of sentimental associations with that word, romantic, sexual, so forth. But really, awareness that is suffused with love is what Ram Dass taught. And so I might just add that to your contemplative piece. That would be the piece I would add. And, you know, Pope Francis talked about what the world needs is a revolution of tenderness. Did you ever hear that talk he gave? Yeah.

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they have Satya Nadella was their new CEO. And I'm not great with timelines, but it's about that many years ago. And he was on the podcast as well, but we've been able to have some meaningful exchanges. And he's got 180,000 people that eventually roll up to the mission, to him, but the mission, the really beautifully ambitious mission of Microsoft. And so he's like, we need empathy. And so there's a calling for it right now. And you know what happens? I think people go, I don't get it. I don't get how I should have empathy when those people over there are screwing up with my wellness. Because I don't know somebody that says, I, Mike, I am the reason other people suffer. I am the evil. I am the bad one, to be- Yeah. No, people aren't going to say that. They're not.

So it's the other reason. It's the other. It's the condition. It's the experience or it's the other person. So how do you help translate the reason why empathy and love are so important when people are just trying to figure it out and get by at some level. How do you translate why it's so important? I don't know. I would, I guess I would ask somebody if their happiness was important to them. If they cared about their happiness.

Yeah. If they cared about their relationships at all. Well, if they would just do better, I'd be fine. I'd be happy if them over there did. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, the tendency to look outside of ourselves, the reasons for everything is very deeply rooted. That's for sure. And, you know, when you first asked your question, the first thing I thought about was that documentary that Tristan Harris starred in, The Social Dilemma. Because I think that's

actually at the root. That is what is amplifying all this othering that's happening, where we're making each other the problem. It's never me. It's you, Mike, et cetera. Well, at least we're clear. At least we're clear about that. Yeah. Yeah. But that's what I'm trying to get at is like, I hear, if you were to ask me, it all comes down to, actually, I'm not going to answer that. Yeah. What does it all come down to? Yeah. I'm going to ask you first. I will say it. I promise. But I don't want to influence you. If I gave you a thought stem, it all comes down to, and no pressure. This is only, you know, 40 years of contemplative practice on the line right now for you.

No pressure, no pressure. I understand. I mean, to me, for me personally, in the end, it really does all come down to trust. Love and trust. Oh, I did not think you were going to say that. What did you think I was going to say? I thought you were going to say what I was going to say. What were you going to say?

Love. And it's so trite, you know, it's so trite, you know, to say it. But like, I feel like I'm singing a Beatles song or something. But it does. Love and trust. Okay, but you said trust. So let's go with trust so i said trust first trust of self or trust of others i said trust and love i i didn't just say one because i'm a

gemini and there always have to be two i cut you off there always have to be two yeah no trust trust and love um but i think trust is a big one because it, it psychologically, personally, it has to do with our confidence and ability to work with our fears, to trust ourselves. And how can you trust yourself if you don't know yourself? And how can you get to know yourself if there's no love in your heart? It's too scary. It's too scary to look deeply into who you are. Everybody imagines, you know, there's some monster down there. And so the love, trust that there's goodness down there. There's goodness inside of us. And the willingness to be with those experiences that you were talking about and that I was talking about, you know, through hours and hours of meditation practice, it could be sports training. It can be whatever you systematically approach with that kind of sustained attention and the willingness to go through whatever you have to go through and stay with it, right? It could be any practice like that. But what you

develop is, you know, you get to know every feeling, every fantasy, every thought, everything that you maybe didn't want to know about yourself, and ultimately, to not only accept it, but to have some love for all of that. And the trust, but I guess the trust, for me, has to do with trusting that this is really our true nature. This is really who we are. We're not asking ourselves to invent or fabricate these beautiful states that, you know, how could you? This is deep down who we are. And you can see that in the eyes of a baby.

And you can see that in the eyes of somebody who is about to pass away. It's just who we are. You know, I love this conversation because we're not falling into the psychobabble nonsense. You know, like I really appreciate it. And you know, when I talk about trust, I think that I don't, I want to ask you how maybe you've learned trust. And I love the, the, the stitch you made between trust and love, meaning that, um, how can you trust if you don't love yourself? Like, I mean, it's, I've, I've never had that stitch before. And so when I think about trust, I, I'm not exactly sure how I've completely learned how to trust myself, but I do have a sense I've been through some hard things and, um, you know, uh, life wasn't clearly, uh, there wasn't a clear path. And just like all people,

you know, there's hardships and hard things that I've experienced. Um, all that being said, I haven't had big trauma. I've had small trauma, you know, so I have great respect for big T trauma, if you will. But I have learned somehow that no matter what is about to happen or what could happen, I'll figure it out with my community, not just me alone, but with my faculty and my others. And we'll figure it out. And so I have incredible trust there, which allows me to just step into a moment and be like, okay, let's figure it out. Oh,

let's figure this moment out. Oh, this moment is unfolding too. Oh, they're all unfolding. Oh, well, let's just kind of go with it a little bit. And so that, I'm not sure how I've done it, but I'd love to know how you help others develop a sense of trust. Because as you know, especially with your graduate work, the initial part of trust is developed pre-verbally, zero to two. That was actually Erickson's work, not necessarily Piaget's work. Well, I think also Winnicott, you know, when he wrote about the wonderful, very famous in the last century, British psychoanalyst and pediatrician D.W. Winnicott, who wrote, I think, in the 50s. So some of the writings are dated in terms of sexism and things like that, but it was so brilliant. And he talked about the capacity to be alone and how you learn to be with yourself and links it to the earliest experience of an infant being held. And you might think, well, not everybody

gets to have a nice parent holding them, but most parents, the majority of parents, no matter what happens next, if a baby cries, they're not going to go and drop it on the floor. They're going to hold it if only to stop the crying. And that infant can go through all its storms of whatever infants go through, you know, hunger and rage and terror and the difficult things that babies go through and be held throughout all of that. And that is sort of the foundation of the trust. So how do you teach an adult who doesn't remember being a baby and doesn't maybe have that felt that basic felt sense of trust because of things that happened later that were either

violent or abusive or you know whatever may have happened capital t trauma later or even a succession of small t traumas is enough oh yeah for sure you know that yeah and by a certain point in life everybody's had those uh that's part of our human condition um and so in my work I would say what I try to do is help people access an experience of self-love, help people enter that territory. And it starts maybe with just acceptance. It's not something you dive into. But one of the ways that I did it, and I know you do too, when you're a clinician, is by loving people. And sometimes it's their first experience of being loved without having strings attached. You know, we say unconditional love in that way.

And that's really powerful. And I'm sure that you, I certainly experienced that from my mentors and my teachers. And so then it becomes just paying it forward, right? You're just passing along what you've received, that gift that starts with being born, and then the good fortune of having people along the way who are your community, who will love and support you. I don't know, how do you access that or help people access that? Yeah. I think not more, not in any more sophisticated way than you are,

which is like, what I do is the natural relationship that we have is built on an axiom that everything that the other person needs is already inside them. And so I'm going to be really curious with the highest regard about how they solve and how they think and how they feel and how they cry and how they rage and just be really curious about what is their purpose? How is their behaviors now and their thoughts and actions lining up towards it or not? And just being that vehicle for unconditional positive regard. Carl Rogers was one of the, you know, a mentor in that respect. And then, so that's one, but then that's like one to one or one to a handful. And then the practice that I help people with for trust is to go do difficult things, to go really get to the edge of something that's hard and

difficult. And it used to be in the nins and the 80s and the 90s, like, you know, do something physically hard. Ah, that's cool. You can still get there through that. But why not do something emotionally difficult and challenging today? And that means decoded, do something that requires vulnerability. And when you do that and you can be lined up as best you possibly can to the virtues and the values that matter to you. Okay, now you start to build that base a little

bit like, oh, I can actually trust me. And like, I can do some hard things. And it starts to shape our narrative in return shapes our brain. And then I would say that the way that I help people with love is not self love. I don't think I do a good enough job there. I think that I help people share the love that they have to others. And so that's part of the practice, the gratitude practice is like, okay, see somebody in your mind right now. And however you fill up your heart, as soon as that happens, pour it into them. And that's part of the practice.

And then when you feel like you've really done that work, okay, good. Shift it to someone else. But you got to fill up. However you swell your heart and then pour it into somebody else. And then, I don't know, that's the way I've been doing it lately. That's beautiful. But you see, you are, when you ask somebody to swell their heart, fill it up so that they have something to offer to somebody else. I mean, that's what I'm talking about with self-love.

Just that ability to fill your heart, to feel the love. You have to have it. Or how can you give it? How do you do that? How do you do something? How do you swell your heart in that way? We do specific practices like loving kindness practices to cultivate and strengthen certain states of mind like love and compassion and joy and equanimity and and so i i

mean i don't feel i you know i just teach people the practices which will oh you know it's like handing them the keys to their own heart because it's all in there. But those practices and the willingness to stay with them, because it's hard. It's hard to do loving kindness practices when you are in the grip of hate or revenge fantasies or just holding the most icky grudge. It's hard. I ask people to do emotionally hard things, not so much physically hard things. Although it's also hard to meditate for hours and hours in a silent retreat. That's physically hard. But you don't have to go do that.

Have you done it? Oh, I'm sure you've done it. You know, one of the treats, I was going to tell you the story about hearing a voice, is that I've been listening, Trudy, for a long time. I've done some radical retreats and I've been listening for a long time. And I get kind of caught up in my head sometimes like, is that a voice? No, that's me. Yeah, it's hard to tell sometimes. It's so hard. So my wife and I were doing a three-day retreat with John Kabat-Zinn and his son, Will. And there's a moment, and it's a silent retreat, a noble silent retreat. And so there was a moment

where I could, I was going to share this with you earlier that when you're talking about, you know, when you can feel certain things, I could, my eyes are closed, I'm in my place, and I can feel my wife, who's like four people away from me, like staring at me. And so, you know, there's actually a psychology about we can actually, with quite odd accuracy, tell when somebody behind us is staring at us. It's a weird bit of research. Now I'm super connected to my wife. We've dated since we were 15. And so I mean, I'm attuned and I could feel it. And I open my eyes and i kind of look over just to check and she's staring at me and the first time she's staring at me trudy she says what are we doing like like this was her first three day

she's mouthing it like this is this is like it's probably like hour 11 where we've been sitting and noble eating and noble like no like radical and i'm just like okay yeah i feel you and then it was the next day it's probably at about the 10 minute 10 hour mark and i could feel again i look over to her and um she's crying now she wasn't looking at me but she's fully crying and i was like oh wow okay like i wonder what that is and so there was a moment where john brought us all back and he's like, okay, so let's kind of debrief and talk about what you learned.

And she says, and this is the first time she shared, she's an introvert, so she keeps a lot to herself first. And she says, I heard a voice. And I leaned in like, oh my God. And so, I mean, Trudy, I listened to you saying, yeah, I've heard it quite a bit. And I'm like, yeah, that's awesome because there's hope for me. And so I'm leaning into my wife and, and, and, and she says, and John says, well, would you mind sharing? And she says, yeah, I heard it's all okay. It's all okay. And I was like, oh man, like, and that is beautiful. Oh, it's all okay. You know,

and it's like, Oh, like my skin curls again. So I don't know where I got into that story with you, Trudy. But I'm glad you told it because you know that Will Cabot's in is my godson. No. Will is a legend. Yeah. Oh, that's Yeah. Yeah. John and I are childhood friends. No, John and I, we met, I was 14 and he was the older man. He was 15. And our fathers worked together at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. So we actually, it's a really funny story. One day, my parents were like, we're going to go visit an American family. I'm 14.

The idea of getting in the car with my family and going to visit some other family on Sunday afternoon when I go to school all week at a lycée, which is really tough. I didn't want to go. My wife went to lycée. Oh, did she? Yeah. Did you go to lycée in France or lycée? Oh, so she went to the lycée school, the branch in California.

Oh, fantastic. Oh, anyways. So she speaks French too.cée School, the branch in California. Oh, fantastic. Oh, anyways. So she speaks French too. Yeah, she does. Yeah. So we're going to this family's house and I'm sulking in the backseat and we go in and then I look across the room and there is this darling boy, just this Romeo sitting across the room.

And we just had so much fun. We shared our school books and what we're doing in school and we hung out. John grew up in Paris for a little bit? A little bit. I think they were there for a year. I'm going to give him some stuff about being a Romeo at age 15. I'm going to give it to him. He was really, really cute. Let me tell you. And he was really, we all had to study many languages. And he was so smart back then, too. So our families are friends. That's how we got to be friends.

Yeah, our families are friends. Let's go back. Let's go back, yeah. To Dharma. It was the first question I asked. How do you describe Dharma as being a Dharma teacher? I describe Dharma, to me, Dharma is kind of like nature. It's the way things are. That's what people say. But Dharma is, you know, that the ocean rolls, the waves roll in and not out, or the trees go up and not down. This is how I talk about it with kids. It's nature, the laws of nature, and then how those

unfold when it's life in the form of you, Mike, or me. You know, there's a way that we can learn to understand how we perceive the world and that our perception of things actually determines the happiness or unhappiness that we have in any given moment. Like we can't control what's happening often, but we can certainly control our relationship to it. And the Dharma is the teachings of all the different methods. There are countless ones, like you were saying. All the different methods that develop the skill of being able to be more and more rooted in loving awareness of what's happening and the trust that we're not alone in this life,

that we really are interdependent and interconnected. And that's why the siloing and separation that's happening, and we just read the comments in any social media, that's why it sort of baffles me. I think, how did we get so far away from the truths of our lives together as humans? I love it. And Dharma is a beautiful concept and the way you described it um is eloquent and when i i grew up in nature like for a deep affinity you know surfing and just being part of nature and it wasn't until um i had a revelation where i was like wait a minute i used to always think of i got to get in nature to kind of get right.

And then I was like, wait, I'm the same material as the tree and the ocean and whatever. And like, actually this nature right here, meaning I'm pointing to myself, like we are nature. Exactly. And so it just was a mind bender you know for me so dharma is not uh it's it's inside it's outside it's the true nature and and i just when i when i kind of tripped into that and said i was like i just gotta if i want to get right by being in nature that's almost like a lazy that's like it's a lazy approach to get right.

Nothing wrong with it. There's good research around when you get your body absorbed into nature, something happens to our brain. Like it actually kind of dampens down the whole regulation system in a beautiful way. And, but then I was like, I could do it anytime. I just got to get connected to my nature. Like, okay, well, what is that? And so have you been influenced by Thich Nhat Hanh's work? Uh, yes, I think we all have, um, in that, you know,

the early days Thich Nhat Hanh was, I mean, he was just so inspiring. His first book Lotus in a Sea of Fire kind of said it all, you know, about the Vietnam war. um and in I think his first book about mindfulness was called the miracle of mindfulness and I had a long period as a single mom in my life in between marriages and uh and I remember it was so hard sometimes because you just, you know, I worked, I would come home from work. You just sometimes don't have that much to give. And I would long for time to myself and then feel guilty because I'm a mom. That book, he talked about how he taught me in the book that when you're reading a story to your child or you're doing these things that parents do, that that's your time too. If you're present, that's your time too.

So I'll always be grateful to Thich Nhat Hanh for that. I love, I never had that because he introduced me to, he was part of the introduction to this idea that nature isn't the flower over there, you know, and it is, and it's also the flower inside. And so, you know, without getting too weird about my flower, you know, but that idea is, I don't know. So he's been so influential for me as well. And, you know, I want to say something about when you said, oh, I don't want to get weird about my flower. And I think, you know, this is a kind of self-consciousness that exists also that we're conditioned to have that somehow compassion isn't strong or love, you know, opening to your own vulnerability is a weakness. And you're right. I do have that, Trudy. Like I do think a lot about, I, I sorry to jump on you on the, but like you're saying it and I'm like,

you know, that's me that you're speaking to because I have, I have a thing against that. I've said it like five times with you, like psychobabble kind kind of woo-woo, doe-eyed something. I'm in a phase where I feel like for me to be able to do my most important work, I need to speak in concrete ways and not like, hey, get in touch with your inner flower. And I've got a room of alpha competitors that go, dude. Yeah, right. Exactly. Go away.

So, you know, yeah, I relish the place that you're in, the freedom that you have, and that I can sense it the way you're sharing it. But you know, the thing is, I'm a very practical person too. And I relate to you that way. Because I mean, I hear that you're that way. Because what is this for it's really to help people um and to help people with their actual everyday lives or their performance wherever they need to be um you know coming through for whether it's in sports you know whatever their field, whatever our field. And so the practical, having the eye on the practical, you don't have to, I mean, you have to talk in the vernacular of the people that are in front of you, you know, and if you're sitting in front of a bunch of

people who've been conditioned to be tough and strong, and you don't lead with, you know, Ferdinand and the flower, you just don't. You learn the language that people are going to be tough and strong and you don't lead with you know ferdinand and the flower you just don't you learn the language that people are going to be able to hear it's like you don't go to france and speak english to everybody you learn french no yeah it's such a clever way like we talk about like being risk takers and getting after it and getting on the edge and then you go hold on let's double click oh that's about courage and yeah yeah the edge. And then you go, hold on, let's double click. Oh, that's about courage. And yeah, yeah, yeah. And then it's like, hold on, double click under that. Oh, that's about vulnerability. And everyone goes, what? There's a trail that we get to pretty quick. Like what? So, all right. Trudy, I could go on and on. No, this is so fun.

Jack told me it would be fun talking to you. He was right. Jack is amazing. The two of you guys, what do you talk about at breakfast? What are your conversations? What we're going to have for dinner? No, just kidding. Actually, we talk about all these things.

We're passionate about these things. We talk about, yeah. I'm trying to remember something came up last night. We were just laughing because it was, it was like a koan, you know, as then saying that, that doesn't, it's meaning is not clear. You have to delve into it. And one of the fun things that we do is sort of delve into what is this, or what do you think about that? And then like everybody, we do talk

about what we're going to have for dinner and who's going to do the shopping. But I think one thing that's really been helpful is the training that we have is for this pandemic, because we didn't used to live together full time all the time we had a long distance marriage because my center that I founded my big center is in LA his retreat center is up here where I am now in northern California um and so we would go back and forth and have time alone we've always talked about how much we treasured the time alone. And then, boom, we're together 24-7 for almost a year. And we weren't too sure how it would be. But I feel like, you know, when you really have explored your own mind, your own heart,

you know yourself pretty well, it's so much easier to get along with somebody else. We see, I don't know, there's just less judgment or it's just, yeah, I think it just makes life easier. And one Zen teacher, I'm just going to close with the one Zen teacher, he said, bitter practice, sweet mind. Now, you know this from training or athletes training, it's bitter, it's hard, you sweat, it's, it's hard. But then the mind that you have afterwards, right? It's very sweet. And I don't just mean sweet, like flowers and bunnies and delicious. That's what I mean, that kind of sweetness. And you know how I can, I relate to that is that two stories. One is a friend of mine shared this insight from a teacher. And it was, I don't know, I don't know the relationship, but it just struck with me. One of those things that

stayed with me, like, he said to my friend, Oh, um, your athlete doesn't appreciate bitter yet. And so he's from Asian descent. And so he had kind of that wisdom that he was coming from. I don't know what it is, but he says, Oh, your athletes don't understand bitter yet. It's like, they're too young to understand bitter. So meaning that they're just working, but not really appreciating that you get to the sweetness on the other side of it. Yeah. So I love that. And you know, I had surfing or hitting the gym or going for a run, whatever it might be. Some days I don't want to do it. And then I can't think of the times that I've gotten finished with surfing or finished with fitness. And at the end, I go,

that was a really bad decision. You know, that sweetness, right? You're like, I'm so glad. I was tired, but I'm just really glad I did that. You know, meditation is the same way. I don't always I don't always feel like meditating. Yeah, same. You know, but I like you, I just if you I mean, I never thought of it that way. Listening to you, I'm like, that's true. I don't think I've ever gotten up, even if it was an unpleasant, my mind was busy. I wasn't settled or I was obsessed with something. I've never stood up and said, boy, am I sorry I did that. That was a waste of time.

Exactly. Might not have been the most productive, but that's part of the journey, you know? Well, and that's part of where the trust comes in. That's the big trust, trusting that it might not be productive and measurable outcomes that, you know, we've learned to focus on, but it's productive because it's strengthening your heart and it's helping you be present even when it's hard to be present. So it's a different kind of productive, right? Oh, it's so different. And, you know, on this productive thing,

I just want to hit one more question with you is because I wanted to ask you this. Why do people care so much about the opinion of others? Oh, that is such a poignant question, Mike. I, as somebody who's done so much work with children, Oh, that is such a poignant question, Mike. As somebody who's done so much work with children, I really feel like it comes back to childhood and how we're taught and the way children are. And I'm not talking that there's any mistake about this. I mean, children are taught and socialized

by the approval of their parents. And, you know, good job. Yes. Instead of know, good job. Yes. Instead of that, try this. You know, we have different, children are so attuned to approval. And I feel like it's a leftover from childhood, really. Because as you mature in your practice,

whatever that practice may be in life, you get less dependent, I think, on the approval of others. And you start to look for, you know, not so much proving yourself or getting the approval of others. It becomes more the discovery or the exploration or the, right. It's, or the self-expression, these things are more important, but with younger people, and you work with a lot of young athletes, yeah, I think approval, our teachers in school, our grades, our gold stars, you know, this is how our behavior was shaped. So I think it's pretty deeply rooted.

What do you think? I think that you're hitting on the center of it. And I think there's an ancient brain that is highly attuned to being part of the pack. And so when we use language as parents or coaches or whomever, and there's a hint of disapproval that it triggers a very ancient part of our brain that says, uh-oh. And so we do everything we can to pick up those micro-expressions. And what those micro-expressions do, we're looking for them. Am I okay? We're

looking outside. Am I okay? Am I okay? Am I okay? And that looking out is actually part of the brain's job. Scan the world to see if you're okay. And if one of the things that we're constantly scanning for now is not the saber tooth, but the kind of tilt and the squint of another or a voice flexion that changes that as we move into adulthood, that becomes one of the great constrictors of human freedom is that we're looking to the other for approval for self, as opposed to the work that you're suggesting is, hey, go in, sort some stuff out, look, feel, maybe with some loving awareness, explore, and you probably won't need approval of others. You'll actually explore what is true for you. And Virginia Satir was material for some of that work for me. And are you familiar with some of her work? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful work. I Am Me is one of, I think,

a watershed poem, her poem, I Am Me. It's beautiful. And for children, the disapproval of parents is terrifying. And not just because they're going to be punished or I'm not talking about, you know, abusive situations or emotionally abusive situations. It's just that idea of losing, losing the loving gaze, you know, and being left kind of abandoned. I mean, that's a frightening, scary thing. And none of us want that. If you could light a candle, you know, and go back and light a candle inside your daughter that would endure for her whole life, what would that, what would be that candle and maybe how to not get out of the metaphor? How would you light it well the candle that i mean the first thing that just popped to mind so i'm just going to go first thought best thought is um trust in her own goodness just deep trust in her own goodness and how would i light it as a parent i would be mirroring that to her over and over in countless

ways i would i mean and of course now I have the wisdom of being a grandmother. So I know things that I didn't know as a parent. And being a grandmother is so blessed. I know why it's a metaphor for acceptance and unconditional love, because, you know, you're not anxious about how they are. That's the parent's job. You're just appreciating them. And my granddaughter said something.

She was about five years old and she was in a struggle with her mother. And she calls me Nini. The grandkids call me Nini. And she said, Nini loves everything about me, even my poo-poo. And I thought, that's what we want the kids to feel. You know? That's awesome. Too good. Yeah. Too good. Okay. Trudy, Dr. Goodman, thank you. Thank you, Mike.

Oh, what an honor. I mean, we're going to end our conversation on loving poop. Loving awareness of poop. Where can people find you? Or can they go for your center? And where do you want to direct some attention? Insight LA and insightla.org. So you can go to the website and find tons of classes and retreats and wonderful teachers, many of whom I have mentored and I love them all. And I have a website, trudygoodman.com where you can find my blogs and things like that. And you don't have to be in LA now. This is the silver lining of the pandemic too. We're all online.

So if you want to take a class or something like that inside LA, you could be anywhere in the world now. And also I teach Sunday mornings between Pacific time, 11 and 1230, pretty much every Sunday. So everybody's welcome to join. And we do about a half an hour of meditation. I give some teachings and then we have a chance for some dialogue.

So that's the shape of the morning. Brilliant. Trudy, thank you. Thank you, Mike. A pleasure. All right. Thank you so much. A pleasure. follow button wherever you're listening. Also, if you haven't already, please consider dropping us a review on Apple or Spotify. We are incredibly grateful for the support and feedback. If you're looking for even more insights, we have a newsletter we send out every Wednesday.

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