Good Life Project - Shelly Tygielski | Awakening to Your Call

Episode Date: October 28, 2021

Brought up in a deeply observant Jewish Orthodox household with a reverence for her family’s history, Shelly Tygielski embraced the traditions, teachings, and practices of her faith, even spending summers in Jerusalem with family. Heading to college, then grad school, she pursued her masters in international affairs, then began building a powerhouse career in business, along with a family. But, along the way, she found herself questioning the rules and assumptions by which she lived, and the more she did, the more the walls began to come tumbling down. At 27, diagnosed with a chronic disease that left her temporarily blind, she knew a different narrative needed to be set in motion. She began to embrace her then years-long exploration of Eastern traditions and practices, growing largely out of Tibetan Buddhism, and started the process of reclaiming and reimagining her life. A process that would eventually lead her away from a 20-year career at the highest levels of business and into the world of advocacy and self-care. Though, as you’ll learn, advocacy and a deep exploration of the heart and mind, have always been a part of her DNA. Shelly began teaching meditation to a few friends on the beach, and each time, more people started showing up, until her Sunday meditation on the beach grew into a community of more than 15,000 people that call themselves The Sand Tribe. Her promise - no barrier to entry, all are welcome. Her fierce devotion to elevating others led her to post a simple form online during March of 2020, connecting those in need with those who wanted to help. It went viral, becoming a global mutual aid movement called the Pandemic of Love that has now generated more than $60-million in mutual aid, matched over 2-million people, and served as a bridge to see the humanity in others at a time it’s needed more than ever. She shared much of this journey in her powerful new book, Sit Down to Rise Up: How Radical Self-Care Can Change the World.You can find Shelly at: Website | InstagramIf you LOVED this episode you’ll also love the conversations we had with Jennifer Pastiloff about leading with love and compassion.Check out our offerings & partners: My New Book Sparked | My New Podcast SPARKEDVisit Our Sponsor Page For a Complete List of Vanity URLs & Discount Codes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You know, but if I don't do this, I could possibly just die in this misery and never know if I could have made it and done something that really was congruent with the intention that I want to live my life by. I just want to live intentionally. a deeply observant Jewish Orthodox household with a certain reverence for her family's history, Shelly Tagelsky embraced the traditions and teachings and practices of her faith, even spending summers in Jerusalem with family. And then heading off to college and then grad school, she pursued a master's in international affairs, then began building this powerhouse career in business along with a family. But along the way, she found herself really starting to question the rules and assumptions by which she lived. And the more she did, the more the walls began to come tumbling down. At 27, diagnosed with a chronic disease that left her temporarily blind,

she knew a different narrative needed to be set in motion. And Shelley began to embrace her then years-long exploration of Eastern traditions and practices, growing largely out of Tibetan Buddhism, and started really the process of reclaiming and reimagining her life on her terms, a process that would eventually lead her away from a 20-year career at the highest levels of business and into the world of advocacy, activism, and self-care. Though as you'll learn, advocacy and a deep exploration of the heart and mind, they've always been a part of her DNA. And Shelly began teaching meditation to a few friends on the beach on Sunday mornings. And each time, more people started showing up. They were inviting friends, and then they would invite friends. Until her

Sunday meditation on the beach grew into hundreds of people and a community of more than 15,000 people that call themselves the Sand Tribe. Her promise and her invitation, no barrier to entry, all are welcome. And this fierce devotion to elevating others, it led her to post a simple form online in the early days of the pandemic in March of 2020, connecting those in need with those who wanted help. That form went wildly viral, becoming a global mutual aid movement that eventually became called the pandemic of love that has now generated more than $60 million in mutual aid, matched over 2 million people and served as a bridge to see the humanity in others at a time we need that more than ever. And Shelley shared much of this journey in her powerful new

book, Sit Down to Rise Up. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes.

The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th.

Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. It's so good to be able to hang out with you. There are so many things I want to explore with you. I was just moving through your Instagram recently, and there's a story that you shared there that kind of just stopped me in my

tracks, which is a little bit of a magical thinking story, but it was also so deeply moving and powerful about your father-in-law's passing and something that happened shortly after it. Would you share that story? Yeah, I'd love to. I'd love to. So my father-in-law, his name is Zenon Tagelski. He grew up in Chicago to a Polish family who immigrated to the US. He was born here. His father died when he was pretty young. He's the oldest of six children. And he always hated the name Zenon, which apparently is a popular name or was in the 1930s in Poland, but never a name that we ever met anybody also having that name here in the US. And he just hated being bullied for his name. So he changed his name to Chuck. Like he,

when people would ask him, what's your name? He would say, my name's Chuck. But later on in life, he really started to embrace that name. And we started to call him Big Zen, you know, for short, to really just, I think it just, it was perfect in terms of his personality as well. And I had a very close relationship with him. I always used to joke with my husband, but I there's some truth to it. I used to tell him that I fell in love with his dad before I fell in love with him. Because my father in law was just really the most decent human being that I've ever met in my life. And I know, like, I don't even know if decent cuts it. But like, that is the word that always sticks out in my mind, because he was just such a good person and such a good soul. And I always felt so

comfortable with him. And like, I had known him for many, many lifetimes. And here we were, you know, converging again, and we met again. And, you know, unfortunately, my father-in-law had Lewy body dementia, which was misdiagnosed as Parkinson's originally. And he couldn't live on his own, you know, anymore, because his just his bodily functions were, you know, were not the same, and in the middle of COVID in January of this past year to put him in a nursing home in Maryland where he lived. And we put him in this nursing home and he hated it. He absolutely like hated being there. He actually told my husband that he was against old people. And we just would chuckle because we'd be like, but you're old. You're like 80 years old, like, do you not realize? And he would just constantly complain about the old people. So

the story is, is that, you know, he unfortunately contracted COVID, like many, many people in this country. And he contracted it at the nursing home, which was definitely a whole other narrative that we can discuss because it really brought about a lot of different feelings and, you know, just emotions that we all kind of had to work through. And we were really saddened by this because we thought, oh, he's going to wind up dying in ICU. He was taken to the ICU and he was there for a few weeks and nobody could go see him. And so we had a final, what we thought would be the final FaceTime call with him. The nurse, you know, left her phone in his room and we said our goodbyes and lo and behold, this tough, tough guy decided, no, no, no, no, I'm not going out like this. He somehow made it past being diet, you know, past a positive COVID test. And he wound up being moved from ICU into hospice. And so my husband and

I were in Santa Barbara, we flew out to see him. We were able to be with him for the last three days of his life of this life in this body. And we were able to say our goodbyes and tell him everything that we wanted to tell him. And one of the things that my father-in-law loved to do the most was to drive. He loved taking long drives and listening to his Elvis Presley and Bobby Darin and Dean Martin CDs. And so I would walk him every single day that I would go see him in his final days through like guided meditations of him getting in a car, putting key in the ignition. And I would sing to him, I would sing Bobby Darin songs to him, you know, just imagine yourself going, driving through the countryside. And after he passed, I was every morning sitting in the backyard of my in-laws, my sister and brother-in-law's house in Maryland.

And I would just sit there for a good 45 minutes to an hour. And I would whisper continuously to, I don't even know to who, I don't even know who I was talking to, right? But I was imagining that I was talking to Chuck, that I was talking to Zenon. And I would say, you know, Zenon, please, please just send me a sign,

send me a sign that you're okay. And I would hope that when I'd open my eyes, I don't know, there'd be a peacock there or just something like a magical deer or just something that would just undeniably be him in a different form, letting me know that he was okay. Days had passed and nothing, just absolutely no signs whatsoever. I was like grasping at straws at that point, you know, like a mosquito would bite me and I'd have to hesitate for a minute and say, wait a minute, he's not coming back as a mosquito. My husband and I wound up flying back to San Francisco and we had to take an Uber to go get our car, which was parked at a, at a parking lot. And I ordered the Uber and, you know, just shoved the phone in my bag as we were sort of running to the ride share area. And I heard that ring like noise. Okay. Somebody's picking up your ride. And I went into my bag to grab a phone and I just, it stopped me in my tracks. I just yelled

out, Oh my God. Oh my God. And I just fell to my knees and I started to cry. And my husband thought like something happened to me or that I got a text that something had gone wrong or that I left something on the plane. And he said, what's wrong? What's wrong? And I said, your dad's picking us up. Your dad is picking us up. And he thought I was completely mad that I had lost my mind. And I said, look, I shoved the phone in his face and Zenon was picking us up. That was the name of the Uber driver, five-star driver, of course, because we wouldn't have it any other way, in the same exact car that my father-in-law had been driving for the last decade. So I was just sobbing

unconsolably. We get into the Uber and obviously the Uber driver must have thought like, who even knows what happened? And I just started speaking to the Uber driver and I asked him like, where are you from? And he said, I'm Polish. So Of course you are. Of course you're Polish. And of course you love driving. And of course you drive this type of car and you're a five-star driver. And it was just such a moment of reassurance because, you know, I don't know. I, I, I want to believe that there's something else, you know, I think it's a really, it's, else. I think it's a wonderful thought to think that there's something else in this afterlife that isn't just our molecules sort of bouncing around and that we're more than just stardust, not just stardust, but you know, that there's something else, some greater intelligence or

some ability to connect. And this definitely, you know, put a notch in that column for me of like, okay, maybe there is something out there. And maybe this undeniably had to be a sign from him. It's such a beautiful story. It's also really interesting in the context of you and your life and your history. You come from a very religious family, Orthodox Jews, having grown up in the tradition and practice for many years yourself. Jewish also, raised in New York. And the notion of an afterlife, especially in the Judaic tradition, it's kind of never, you know, I remember asking about it as a kid, like, is there a heaven in these questions? And never really getting like any kind of satisfying answer because there's really no, maybe, you know, like your tradition was so

much more in depth than mine, but still, I was always curious about that. And it is a tradition where, you know, the conversations that I've had, there's never been any clearly defined, okay, this is what happens after, or even like, is there anything after it? Whereas in other traditions, it's almost like, no, you behave a certain way in this life. Yeah. So that you can get to this next place and be in a certain position and have a certain status available to you then. Right.

So it's interesting, like, you it's interesting, zooming the lens out, the fuller context just of your history and your tradition as well. Yeah. So it's interesting because my grandfather used to tell me that Jews reincarnate. He didn't use that word, but he would basically tell me that we would come back and that we eventually stopped coming back. Because in know, in the old Testament, there are 613 meets vote or good deeds that you are supposed to follow. And some of them you can't even do, uh, even if you wanted to do them nowadays, like you couldn't complete them in the, in this lifetime or in many lifetimes, because like some of them require the temple to still be in existence in Jerusalem and so on.

But once you complete those 613 deeds, he told me, that when you complete the final one, you will finally no longer reincarnate and come back to earth, that you will ascend and you'll be at peace and finally be able to rest. Which is, ties into you in a whole different way, because that's a very Buddhist line of thought. Yes, totally. It's a total Buju-y way of thinking. Right. Which is interesting too. I know a lot of friends also who were brought up Jewish and actually really strongly gravitated towards Buddhism as adults. There's something about the two traditions that I think weaves together in a way that supports each other. It's almost like you don't have to say I'm one or the other. It's like, these are two philosophies about the ways of living, traditions that actually work nicely together. They work beautifully together. They really do. I think it's really

around the premise of just being a good person, tikkun olam, repairing the world, repairing yourself so that you can repair the world. It's about this constant pursuit of toiling, as the rabbis like to say, of completely constantly being in this pursuit of refining yourself as a person. And so Jews have a very prescribed way of how you're supposed to refine yourself and get to that point. But the idea is really the same, the purpose and the underlying purpose is the same. Yeah. And the way your grandfather described it as almost like you do certain things that effectively allow you to opt out of the cycle and reincarnation is very similar to the concept of enlightenment in Buddhist tradition. So let's take a step back in time a little bit and fill in

some gaps. Born in Jerusalem, but your grandparents are Iraqi Jews who immigrated to Israel. Yeah. It sounds like there's family turmoil. A lot. It goes on when you're very young, especially. That ends up having you leave at a very young age and head to the US. Yeah. So on my mother's side, Iraqi Jews airlifted into Israel. My mother was when she was two years old in 1949. So one year after Israel became a country. And on my father's side, actually, I'm the 19th generation born in Israel via Toledo, Spain,

1492, the Inquisition. And this is all traced back. It's like fact, you know, my father's family owned one of the first gas stations in Jerusalem. And my father was the oldest. His father, my grandfather, got sick when my father was still in the equivalent of junior high school. And my father had to be pulled out of school to go support the family to go work. And I think my father was incredibly resentful about that for many years and didn't really want to work in the family business, but sort of got saddled with that. And so, you know, years, years later, when he finally had enough of the sort of financial ability to take a chance and come to the U.S., he had one friend in New York and one friend in Florida. And he basically,

you know, spoke to his friend and his friend said, Yeah, sure. Come on, come down. I have a garage in Brooklyn, just I'll give you a job. And my dad uprooted our entire family. Much to my mother's dismay. She went kicking and screaming, had no desire to come to this country whatsoever, did not have an American dream. She was living the Israeli dream, if you will, at the time. And she was the dutiful wife like her mother was. And she followed her husband, wound up coming here with her three children in 1979 to Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn. Yeah. So, I mean, it's a story that you hear in many different ways, in a lot of different conditions, a lot of different traditions. But the story also so often is traumatizing. And what's interesting is often it's traumatizing in different ways to different

participants. And sometimes it's not very traumatizing. It's very exciting and hopeful to one person and then profoundly traumatizing to another, which causes its own interrelational trauma, which compounds the whole experience. And then that so often radiates into the family and becomes, you know, intergenerational trauma. And it sounds like this is sort of a part of the fabric of your upbringing. Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, my mother was already suffering from and sort of starting to break free, you know, in her own right from the intergenerational trauma that she was saddled with, you know, was born into, right? Coming from an Iraqi Jewish family that was airlifted and that

were refugees, that was a lineage of women that really were not empowered, were not allowed to have a voice and who were illiterate. I'm one generation removed from a illiterate woman on a mountaintop in Baghdad. And I think about that often because I think about what type of tools they had access to, right? My maternal ancestors, I think about what type of tools did they have? And what type of tools did my mother really even have access to, as well growing up? And, you know, I look at how far my mother who's now in her mid 70s, how far she's been able to come, but, but how much still her self worth and her confidence and her, you know, just some of these conditioned, this conditioning and the lenses that she sort of views life through are still very much the same lenses that my grandmother was wearing. Yeah. I mean, how could they not be right? You know, to a certain extent,

there's, this is what we're born into. This is the history that we have. And this is what gets passed on to us as just the way things are so often. Right. Right. Unless and until at some point further in life, you know, we step into our own identity and sense of agency and start to question it. Yes. Which for you eventually happens, but it sounds like it, you know, this is much further into life for you. You grow up what sounds like a fairly traditional younger life, end up going to college, end up studying bio and also international

relationships simultaneously, which I was like, oh, that's interesting. What's up there? Well, that's like the maybe I'll go to med school route of your parents expecting you to go to medical school. So you're like, okay, I'll do pre-med, but I'll also do this other thing. I had a feeling it was something like that. I did like the typical 500 person bio class in my freshman year of college. And I was like, by the end of that, I was like, yeah, med school is not happening. I was just like, there are 499 other people who are way more devoted to that path in this class

than I am. So for you, it sounds like business, the world of business, the world of corporate America is the thing that you step into. Reluctantly though, I will say. So tell me more about that. So I reluctantly stepped into business because I came out of a graduate school here in New York City in the 90s, late 90s, the dot-com boom. There were so many jobs available that were paying a lot of money, especially coming out of the school that I came out of, right? So there were people recruiting you before you even were close to graduation, you already knew where you were going and what job you had. And I had a lot of student debt.

And I thought, well, my heart, my real desire was to go work for an NGO or go work for a UN agency somewhere or a nonprofit or just do something really lofty in the world that I thought would be of service to people. And I got a job offer I couldn't refuse, as they say. And I thought, OK, well, maybe I'll just go do that for a few years. And in spite of myself, I was actually really good at that job. And so I just kept getting promoted and getting promoted and getting promoted and moving up the corporate ladder and the ranks. And, and eventually, you get accustomed to a lifestyle. And it becomes harder and harder and harder to extract yourself to say, I'm going

to leave that all behind, you know? And that is eventually what I did after two decades. I left after 20 years of being in the corporate world and finally reaching my goal quote in quotations of becoming the, you know, the head of a, of, of a company and the company that I, you know, that I ran had over 2,400 employees and 14 markets. And it was incredible to, to get to that, that place, that point. But one, I was never more miserable than I'd ever been in my life. You know, I reached that pinnacle. And I just looked around. And as, as that, that great line from from the movie goes, you know, is this as good as it gets? That's exactly what I would ask myself every single day, I would look around and go like, this is it like the top of the heap, I finally made it here. And I'm just

absolutely miserable. And I spent 20 years getting here. And I finally made a decision to leave for a lot of reasons. But when people would ask me, where are you going? What are you going to be doing? And I'd say, I'm going to go teach mindfulness full time. And people would just think that I lost my mind. I remember my mom looking at me going, what are you doing? What are you doing? You spent 20 years to get to this place and you're making more money than you've ever made before. And, you know, your son is, is about to go into high school and you're going to soon have like a college tuition to pay for him. And, and you're leaving all of that behind. And I just, you know, I never felt more sure about

anything in my life though. I was like, yeah, I'm leaving it behind. And I just, you know, I never felt more sure about anything in my life, though. I was like, yeah, I'm leaving it behind. I have no idea what's going to happen. And I don't know if it's going to work out. But I do know that the worst case scenario is that it doesn't work out. And I will figure it out. I could always go back. I'm very employable. You know, But if I don't do this, I could possibly just die in this misery and never know if I could have made it and done something that really was congruent with the intention that I want to live my life by. I just want to live intentionally. I want it to be a great role model for my son and to make sure that he knows that you really need to follow your passions as we're told that all the time.

But to actually be able to prove to your son that it can be done is a whole different thing. Yeah. And saying that it can be done versus modeling that behavior as a parent. As every parent knows, it really doesn't matter what you say. Like, kids look at what you do, how you actually live in the world. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised.

The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot if we need him!

Y'all need a pilot Flight Risk The Apple Watch Series 10 is here It has the biggest display ever It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever Making it even more comfortable on your wrist Whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch

Getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. So the notion of mindfulness, when you hit that point and when you start saying this to people and you see their eyebrows raise, it's not like that practice is new to you at that point. I mean, over the course of those 20 years, it sounds like your body had been giving you a lot of tells. Yes. That, okay, something is just not right here.

Yeah. Well, I was fortunate enough to start practicing meditation when I was a graduate student here in New York City. I took a class with Professor Robert Thurman, who is one of the founders also of Tibet House. And I wound up in classes with Sharon Salzberg, who became my core teacher. And I always tell her that the reason that I picked her class of all the classes at Tibet house is because her last name sounded Jewish to me. So I thought, okay, if anything, like at least that'll be like a safe place for me to be, you know, with this Jewish Buddhist teacher. And so the journey started really early for me. But it was interesting, because as I, you know, got married and had a child, like many people do,

I fell away from practice and I became what I like to call a crisis meditator. Um, whenever I was in crisis, I would be like, Oh, I haven't meditated in so long. Let me go back into practice. And then as things got better, I would just find myself falling away from practice again. And at one point, you know, that the tipping point sort of, you know, just went in a completely dark direction. I was in the middle of a divorce and divorces are absolutely as amicable as they may be are never fun. They're very stressful. And my son was a toddler and I was working full time. I wasn't taking care of myself. And I woke up one morning and I was blind. I couldn't see at all. And I didn't know if I was going to get my vision back or why this was happening. And I eventually was diagnosed with a autoimmune condition called uveitis.

And the type of uveitis I have is called pars planitis. And usually in about 75 to 80% of people who are diagnosed with this disease, it's a byproduct of another autoimmune condition. So like, you know, it could be multiple sclerosis or even full blown AIDS or, um, ankylosing spondylitis or arthritis or anything, any other type of, of autoimmune condition. And I, um, was one of the fortunate people who I gave me a fortunate really, truly that, you know, we're one of the 20% that was, it only manifested in my eyes and I was never diagnosed with anything else. But for a

while, it was very scary, because I thought, oh, wow, I could wind up blind and in a wheelchair, you know, and when you are faced with that type of a diagnosis, like your life really becomes just a ticking time bomb. You're like, okay, the frame that you start to like, look at every single day of your life, you know, through you're like, wait a minute, is this really worth being angry over? Is this really worth doing? Is this something that I want to be spending my time on? And you start to also cherish things and savor things in a very different way as well. So, you know, I'm still, by the way, I still have this disease. I'm actually a vision impaired in my left eye, uh, and still very much in treatment for my right eye. And I could very possibly, you know, wake up one morning and, uh,

lose my vision and not regain it. And I'm acutely aware of that. Like I, I know that that could possibly happen in my lifetime, but I also feel very fortunate that I was diagnosed to be honest with you. I was, I feel very fortunate that I had this diagnosis because in a way it was a gift for me. It was a gift for me to, um, see life differently, appreciate my life in a completely different way, and also pick up the pace on my dreams and the things I want to do and the place I want to go and the way that I just cherish things that usually I would just walk right by, you know, as cheesy as it may sound, just looking at the way that like there's dews on a petal leaf, or, you know, the way that my mother's laugh lines when she

laughs, you know, just studying, literally studying like an artist would, what that looks like, or sunlight as it hits my son's eyelashes, like just these things that are seemingly so small. I kept thinking to myself, I've got to snapshot these moments as much as possible because I need to create this like memory bank for myself. And that's what I've been doing for the last, you know, almost 20 years now since I was diagnosed. So powerful. You know, part of what you're describing also is, on the one hand, you have the great fortune of being in a school where Bob Thurman is actually teaching and then being introduced to that whole world, which is stunning. And this introduces you to the Tibetan practices and to

Tibetan Buddhism and meditation and mindfulness. And then Sharon Salzberg, who's one of the legendary teachers in the space. But what you're describing to me also is what so many people get introduced to this and the tools and the practices, and it resonates deeply. And then life happens. We're adults and business gets in the way and parenting gets in the way and complexity enters the picture. And we kind of like, we drop the practices and then something happens that brings us often simultaneously to our knees and back to the practice in some way, shape or form. You know, for some people, it brings you back to faith. For some people, it brings you back to certain practices. It's almost like whatever allows you the greatest access to that feeling of touching stone.

Like that's where we tend to return to. But what's so fascinating to me also is you have all of that inside of you, and you also have these profound practices from Judaism. But what you're describing to me, the thing that became really present for you was not a seated mindfulness practice. It was not so much a return to prayer, but it was a devotion to recognizing within every flicker of every moment, the possibility of grace. And I feel like so often that gets lost in this conversation because we talked about the seating practices. We talk about this and we talk about that, but we do that all because of

how it allows us to then step into our days on any given moment. And I feel like so often that gets lost in the conversation. I totally agree with you. I think it gets lost in the conversation. And I think that really, truly, that is the backbone of the title of my book, right? Sit down to rise up. It's basically get off the cushion and get into the world. Like take these practices, these contemplative practices that are so beautiful and actually help manifest them in the world and in your life in very real and tangible ways. And I think oftentimes we are so focused on the inner work that we just, you know, fail to connect it to the way we show up in the outer world in practical ways, the way we show up for other people, the way we show up even for ourselves, for that matter. So yeah, that for me, you know, the practice that I was introduced to of meta, loving kindness meditation was huge because I over 20 years have been able to really,

I feel like expand my heart to a point where my default mode and this, by the way, annoys my husband endlessly. My default mode is always to look at somebody, even when they're just awful and they're doing such horrible things, whether they're known to me or known to me and think, oh, that person is suffering. They're suffering. And what can I do to alleviate that suffering? How can I come from a place of love versus trying to feel like a victim, you know, of that suffering. And so I try to kind of beam it back and turn it around and see how I can be a conduit instead. And for me, that's been the beauty of this practice, of my practice over the last couple of decades. It's expanded my heart to the point where I can, in very practical and tangible ways, I think come from a place of

love on a daily basis as often as I can. Yeah. I remember Sharon Salzberg saying to me a number of years back, we were in New York and she was saying, she was walking down the street earlier that day. And as she's walking down the street, she's just looking at strangers passing by her. And she's thinking in her mind, may you be well, may you be happy. And she's literally just walking down the street with these intentions in her mind about absolute strangers. And I'm just like, I am so not that person, but I really would love to be. I really would love to be. And her point being that it's a practice and it's a practice that may often start in a formal way on the mat, but also like,

this is also just a thing where you can take it in little drips and moments and just weave it into the tapestry of your day, like all day, every day. And over time it becomes more of a way of being than sort of like an intentional force thing, which it seems like she, for her, like that's where she is in this moment in her life. So when you leave, when you say, okay, I'm going to go and do mindfulness and everyone's like, what? You literally start teaching meditation on the beach. In the early days, I guess it's a handful of people. And then this starts to grow and grow and grow. What's going through your mind as this is all happening?

Well, I was actually still working. So I was still in my final year of my contract with the company that I was with. I actually started, I was so, so defeated in that final year. As I mentioned, I was so miserable that I really was seeking community. And I was seeking even to find community within my own heart again, you know, to reconnect with myself. So I would started going to the beach alone on Sunday mornings, and eventually invited some girlfriends to come, who were all going through different stages of their life, you know, through divorce and through illness and death and empty nester syndrome and et cetera, et cetera.

And we all met on the beach in November of 2015. And it was so lovely. It was so nice to just guide them in meditation and to teach them some breath practices. And we resolved that we would meet again because it was just wonderful. And the next time that we met, they brought some friends. And then the next time they met, they brought friends and they brought friends and it just, people started posting on social media. And eventually that community of 12 became, you know, 15,000 people, which is just crazy to think about, right. And I remember when it finally hit me was when I went home, maybe four or five months into this kind of growth that was happening within the community. And I asked my husband to order me or

go with me to go buy a wireless speaker. And he was like, why? Why do you need a wireless speaker? And I said, well, because the people in the back can't hear me. And he's like, what people in the back? And he said, who are all these people? I was showing him pictures and he was like, I can't, this is crazy. So we wound up buying one speaker and then eventually another speaker and daisy chaining it and another speaker and so on. And, and it was just, it was remarkable to, you know, in that moment to just witness the convergence of like so many different people, different generations, different races, different, every single type of person, every gender, every, you know, socio-economically people that were like millionaires sitting with people on food stamps and having a conversation. And I oftentimes think about like, well,

why did it grow to be so big so quickly? And, you know, was it like the right place at the right time? Was it, was it me, you know, like, what was it? And I actually think that a big piece of it was particular location that could be just intimidating for people to attend, but to invite somebody to come on a Sunday morning to the beach in Florida for 30 minutes, like what's the worst that could happen? Like you can't meditate, but you're staring at the ocean for 30 minutes. So you're like, okay, that wasn't a bad way to spend a Sunday morning, you know? And then you can go have breakfast like right there on the beach. And so I think it was really just this warm invitation for people. And they were always pleasantly surprised when they

came and they saw that nobody was asking anything of them. You know, it wasn't, I would walk around with a bucket and the bucket said, take what you need. And inside the bucket, I would have these pieces, colorful pieces of paper. And I would, as I would meditate throughout the week, write different intention words that came to me. And people would close their eyes and they would reach in before meditation class started, they would reach in and pull out a piece of paper and it was like whatever they needed in that moment, you know, would say things like you kindness or openness or courage, bravery, et cetera. And, um, it's so interesting because I would always know who the first timers were because I would be walking around with the bucket and they would just look at me and go, Oh, I forgot my wallet in the car. They would reach into their pockets and put money

and I would look at them and go, I'm not asking anything of you. I'm actually giving you something. And it would just stop them in their tracks, to not be asked for something when you come to a gathering like this. And I think that people just felt like they could be free and they could just show up,

show up as they were in whatever, you know, whatever was going on in their lives in that moment, and and find connection, whether with themselves or with other people in the community. So it's pretty remarkable. So I, I actually, part of the reason that I, I think I had the courage and the platform to quit my job was because I realized that the universe was telling me something as the gatherings grew larger and larger by like the summer of 2016, I decided to tender my resignation. And, you know, I gave like a few months notice. And I didn't really know how I was going to monetize, if you will, it felt weird for me to like, think about monetizing this beautiful,

free offering, or to start asking people for money to attend or for donations, you know, I was like, that just seems not right to me. Like, I don't think I could do that. So I started to think, well, well, maybe I'll go teach in the corporate space, because I have a voice there. And I understand the afflictions of being in the corporate world from the cubicle to the corner office. I remember going to my first client, who was a corporate client of Fortune 1000 company down in Miami. And I walked into the conference room and there were like 20 white men and like two Latin women in the room. And I thought, what, what am I doing here again? You know, why am I here? And I taught my

class and I thought, this is not my purpose. This is not why I quit my job, not to come here to basically teach people how to be more productive or, you know, less miserable in there in the, in the, with the work that they're, that they're doing. And so I, I just kind of decided that I was going to remain open, remain open to what, what the universe was going to throw my way. And, uh, and then the election happened in 2016. And I think that was the seminal moment when I realized that I could channel my grief and my rage and my tools, my compassion-based resilience tools to help other people avoid burnout and fatigue. And as my friend, Dr. Amishi Jha says, you know, gain pre-zzillions and pre-covery tools. And so that was essentially where I wound up

channeling most of my efforts over the, really till this day, actually. Yeah. I mean, it's such a powerful story. The timing is so helpful for me to also to understand that it's almost like there was this year long overlap and the fact that you've started showing up at the beach and the fact that all these people started showing up, it just becomes this signal and this slowly building body of proof that, oh yes, there's something else that's like the universe is inviting me to step into. And I don't know exactly what shape or form that takes it. And I don't know exactly how I support myself doing it. If that in fact is the thing that I support myself doing at all, but the invitation is just growing stronger and stronger until at some point it becomes hard to look at that and then look at

the thing that you've been doing for 20 years and say, like, I'm going to keep allocating the vast majority of my waking hours to that thing when this next thing is calling me. Yeah, exactly. I really, for the first time, since I think I was in graduate school, I would really just, if it didn't feel good, if it didn't feel like it's in alignment with being in service to the world, making the world a kinder place to be, then I didn't want to have any part of it. It wasn't about making money for me. It wasn't about, you know, being successful or having a follower or being an influencer or even growing the community for that matter. It was really just about how do I tend to my community,

tend to the area of the garden that I could reach and how do I ensure that everybody in my community has enough and that they're taken care of? Yeah. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary.

Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. January 24th. Tell me how compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him.

Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. So as you're stepping into this new season, a lot of stuff is happening in our country and around the world. Part of that also being an increase in violence and increase in gun violence. And the activism, the social justice side of you also really takes a lead, which is interesting also because that side of you, that impulse has clearly been there. It's a big part of who you are. And it sounds like there was something that happened to you very early in life when you were two years old. Yeah. about how you were literally kidnapped at a DMV and somebody sort of stepped up and said, like, stop this whole thing from happening.

And there's just been ongoing question with you. Like when the time comes when I'm called to take action, to not stand by, like, would I do it? And it seems like that whole thing, that question is coming full circle and you're stepping into the answer in an embodied way in this season of life. Yeah, that's beautiful. You just summarized my life. I love it. That's like the abstract. It's great. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. I think that was a very big question for me for a very

long time. And I would like to think that I, in that moment, you know, was saved for a reason, right? And that I owe it to the Good Samaritan, to her legacy, to the risk that she took, because she didn't know if she was putting her own life in danger at the time, you know, following the kidnappers out of the DMV down many city blocks in New York. And so I feel like I owe it to her to, you know, to pay it forward on a daily basis, for sure. I try to do that every day, certainly. It's interesting, I see, you know, behind you, for the listeners who are not viewing, but your book sparked. And I actually took my own, my quiz online and not shockingly, I'm an advocate. That's my sparkotype. I'm sure you could have nailed it. Probably you would have guessed that, but yeah, I've always, I've always been really interested in, in speaking up for the underdogs and speaking up for those who did not have a voice. And I think part of that is sort of my way of healing that intergenerational trauma,

taking it back to like my mother and my grandmother and, you know, my great grandmothers and so on. And all the, all the women, especially that I, that I haven't met in both sides of my family who didn't have a voice and weren't allowed to have a voice. And so I feel like I have this responsibility to be their voice and to heal them, but also heal my descendants in a way, right? To give voice to whoever comes after me. And I think I was saved for that reason. Which brings us to March of 2020, when you're deepening into sort of like this next season of life, deepening into activism, deepening into mindfulness and all the skills, because you're also seeing that so often the people who rise up and play this role of advocate and activists have their own suffering that if they don't take care of themselves, they're dealing with it. In the middle of all this, the pandemic hits. And in March, 2020, you have a very different response than most other people. Yeah. Well, I would like to say that that's part of the training,

right? That's what I've been training for, for the last 20 some odd years is that we biologically as humans have evolved, of course, to have different modes of reactions, flight, flight, freeze mode, meditation. Oftentimes, if you're really committed to a practice helps you move away from reaction into response mode, where you could just kind of create that sacred pause, mind the gap, and then make a decision versus reacting to something. And now there's these other two forms of response that are being studied called the tend and befriend, or as I like to New York was and California maybe. And, you know, the West Coast, basically Seattle and Portland. And it was obvious that Florida was going to be in a lockdown mode fairly soon. And here I am now leading this community of thousands of individuals who are from every walk of life and have many different needs. And I'm acutely aware that many of the individuals that are in our community

barely are making it even pre-pandemic, right? They're relying on free lunch and breakfast for their children. They can barely make their bills. And they're working in industries that are like hospitality, especially in South Florida, where it's like such a big industry. Or they're working, you know, for hourly wages, or they're relying on tips. And I'm aware that they're already suffering and that when we are going to go into lockdown, which is going to happen, they're not going to be able to survive. You know, they're not going to be able to fill their fridge with food for their kids. And what are they going to do? How are the kids going to go to school if they can't pay to keep the lights on or the, you know, have internet

or wifi? And so I'm already like scheming. I'm already thinking about prior to this happening. I see this like slow train crash about to happen. And yes, I'm fearful and I'm fearing the unknown. Certainly I'm in this mode of just pausing and being upset and very self-aware of all of these emotions that I'm feeling. And with the practice, I'm able to then say, wait a minute. Okay. I'm feeling this way. I'm agitated. I'm angry. I'm enraged or outraged. I'm, I'm sad. And the immediate default to that is, and what are you going to do about it? You know, I don't linger there for that long. I'm self-aware. I name it.

I claim it or name it to tame it or however you want to say it. And then I'm moving into, okay, and what am I going to do about it in a tangible way? And this is where the corporate me starts to think, right? This is where the corporate training comes in is like, okay, what's the plan? How are we going to fix this? You know, let's create a standard operating procedures and start whiteboarding like what we're going to do. And the interesting kind of third question that pops up for me, which I really can credit the practice that Sharon taught me over 20 years ago is what am I going to do about it? And how do I come from a place of love? How do I come from a place of love? That's the fundamental question, right? Can I do something

about it? That's actually improving people's situation, improving life for people that's coming from a kind place. That's coming from a compassionate place. And so with that, you know, I thought, okay, I know a thing or two about mutual aid, because we've enacted it as a community during certain times of year, like during the holiday season and during, you know, back to school months and after hurricanes, you know, it sort of pops up whenever people are in need, and then it slowly fizzles away, like many mutual aid communities do. And I think, okay, I'm going to start a mutual aid community, but I'm going to try to, at a time of disconnection, find a way to connect people, to make, as we say in Yiddish, to make shiddachs, which is basically matchmaking. And just connect person A

who has a need with person B in our community that can fill that need. And so I am not a technologically savvy person in any way, shape or form. I go online, I go to Google Forms, I create two very simple forms, and they're still very simple to this day, called the Give Help and the Get Help form. And there's no website. There's no name for what this is. It's just a mutual aid tool. And I put these two links up on my social media accounts. And I go to bed, wake up the next morning, and I look at the forms. And I see that there are like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people have filled out the forms on both sides. And as I'm looking through the applications, I realized I don't know many of these individuals names. I'm looking at

the phone numbers and the area codes and the country codes that are there. And I'm thinking, my God, like how many times has this thing gone around the world and back? And I realized that it's been shared around the world. At this point, I'm getting emails now from people who and direct messages from people who are in, in Italy, and in Germany and in Portugal and all over the place saying, this is amazing. How can we replicate this? And so the hashtag that I used when I posted these two links was pandemic of love. Because I said, let's not create this pandemic of fear. Let's create a pandemic of love instead. And that's the name that stuck. I wound up buying the domain name and putting those two links there. And eventually those two links kept becoming replicated and replicated and scaled.

And so we currently have over 280 chapters in 16 countries. We've got thousands of volunteers. This is 100% a volunteer run organization. We're not a nonprofit. We're a nonprofit disruptor, actually. And we have transacted, when I say we, I mean, the donors and the recipients have directly transacted over $60 million in 18 months. And we don't have a bank account. Pandemic of Love isn't, again, not a 501c3. We don't have a bank account.

We're not the middleman. We're just the matchmakers. And we connect person A to person B. And in order for that transaction to take place, what has to happen? A human connection, a conversation. So both people have to feel seen and heard and then the transaction happens.

And what oftentimes happens is a beautiful friendship emerges as well. And those are just amazing stories and a testament to our common humanity. Yeah. It's so powerful in so many ways. I remember after 9-11 in New York, people were literally just wandering around just asking, what can I do? What can I do? What can I do? And there's suffering for those who have experienced loss and harm and grief. Absolutely. It's real. And there's also a certain suffering for those who desperately want to step in and help and play some role, but can't see, don't know how to do that. It's a different suffering for sure. And I'm not a fan of playing

the game of like who's suffering more. But what you're doing is effectively saying like, I'm inviting everybody and there is something to do here. There's hope and there's generosity and there's possibility and there's kindness and there are actions to take and there's vulnerability on all sides and generosity on all sides. And when you create that mechanism, I mean, it's astonishing what has built around it in literally a year and a half. And you made a really interesting distinction, which I think is important too. It's the notion of the distinction between, I think you phrase it as solidarity versus

charity. Yes. So that's not my phrase, actually. That's really the terminology used for mutual aid, which has existed for hundreds of years. And it's not something that I invented, but I love that notion. And I think that when we look historically at mutual aid and sort of its origins, Kropotnik, who was a social biologist from Russia, you know, at the turn of the 19th century, capitalists were leaning on Darwinian theory, right? They were looking at survival of the fittest. Every man for himself, you know, may the best person win. And Kropotnik was really adamantly

against that. He was an anarchist. And he was like, wait a minute, no, no, no. Darwin also talked about cooperation. Darwin also talked about not just survival, but he talked about how species have to rely on each other to more than survive to thrive. And so he was like trying to get back to this notion of like, how do we as communities thrive versus just survive, right? And so, you know, people have been, whether in clans or tribes or in magical communities that your grandparents and my grandparents grew up in called back in the day communities, where everybody knew each other's name, and they took care of each other. And, you know, maybe they knew too much. But certainly, if somebody got sick, you know, that there'd be like chicken soup, like on their doorstep, you know, without no questions asked, you would even

have to ask for help, it would just already be there. And so, you know, it's this longing, I think, that I have as well to really go back into that nostalgic time period of back in the day where we feel like we have this like social responsibility and inherent responsibility, a moral obligation to take care of each other, even if each other is just our circle of influence, but really just make sure that the people within our circle of influence have enough. And that if they have enough, then from that point, we can really think about how we can thrive, thrive as a species. Yeah. It's so powerful. And the way that you structured it is really interesting to me too, because like you said, this is not just creating a mechanism for people to be helped and to help, but also to creating a mechanism for people to be in relation with people that they don't know at a time where we're feeling more isolated. We were feeling more isolated than ever before, before the last 18 months.

And the last 18 months have only exacerbated that along with the political and cultural climate of the last five to 10 years, where it's like of the vast universe of people who are giving and receiving that you're talking about. It's not like one person is like, well, show me the person of this gender, this sexual orientation, this race, this political affiliation so that I can give to them. It's like, no, just like, is it, this is a person who is suffering. How can I help? You know? So it's like, you created this mechanism to see past all of the filters that we so often put up to dehumanize others these days and just say, there's someone in need. How can I help? And that is so rare. It is so rare. And it's so interesting because sometimes it's a mechanism that breaks down a person's conditioning. So I share a story in the book, one of my favorite stories of connection between Eileen, who is a New Yorker, New Yorker Jewish woman in her late 60s who worked as a social worker in the Lower East Side was very much a part of the gay pride movement and, you know, working at the time when like, you know, HIV first sort of popped on the scene and like they didn't really know what it was obviously really prevalent in the gay community. And she's a self-proclaimed liberal hippie. That's how she described herself in her application to us.

And I connected her to a woman named Christine in Mobile, Alabama, who is a single mom and lives in a trailer and is conservative and has a Confederate flag sticker, we later learned, on her trailer. And Eileen was so upset that we connected her with somebody who was voting for somebody that wanted to harm her, that really opposed everything that she believed in. And she initially wrote to us and said, I demand to be matched with somebody else. I don't want to be matched with this person. And I picked up the phone and I called Eileen and I said, Eileen, I will totally do what you want, what you're asking me to do, but I want to appeal to your senses for a minute. And I want you to hear me out. And she, she said, okay, I'll listen. And I said, you know,

since we've already introduced you, if you do not go through with this transaction, there is a possibility that you are going to verify for Christine, everything she thinks about a Yankee from New York and Yankee snowflake from New York. You have to imagine that Christine probably has never been outside of Alabama, or at least the whole coastal area of Gulf Coast area. And she certainly probably never been to New York. And she has this probably conception of like what a New Yorker is and what somebody who, you know, is a Democrat is and, and all these different narratives. And you are just essentially going to be feeding into that. On the flip side, you can transact with her, maybe try to have a conversation with her, and maybe you'll wind up having something in common

with her. And you could change her mind and or you could plant a seed with her and maybe you'll wind up having something in common with her. And you could change her mind and or you could plant a seed with her even, even if it's just a one time conversation. Right. And she said, I'll think about it. She thanked me for the call and I didn't hear from her for like months. And then I got this beautiful letter from her in late July. And the letter was just so heartwarming. I wound up sharing it like a week before the contentious November elections in 2020 to just show how we can get along regardless of what the outcome is going to be. And Christine and Eileen became friends. They became friends. And Eileen started inquiring about her children and sending them books because Christine's daughter loves to read.

And she started opening up her world to books that maybe they're not available at the library and mobile, you know, or her mom wouldn't have bought them for her, right? Like things like the Diary of Anne Frank and just like books that were very diverse and could kind of open up her world to be bigger than the trailer park in Mobile, Alabama, where she lives. And Eileen continued to help Christine for an entire year until she was able to, you know, get back on her feet and would buy her groceries every two weeks to feed her children. And it's just this beautiful notion, this beautiful example of how we feed into these narratives, these labels and these boxes that society sort of puts us in or that we put ourselves in. And we think, oh, I couldn't possibly have anything in common with this other person, because we just refuse to take the time to boil it down to that common humanity, that empathy, that natural state of being as compassionate human beings as a species that we could that we have, if we're just willing to sort of

tap into that and listen and just feel from the heart and not think with the mind. Yeah. So powerful. A lot of the things that we've been talking about are both stories and ideas from your beautiful new book, Sit Down to Rise Up. And something that I mentioned that I want to make sure that we circle back to is when people step into a place of giving care, of helping others, very often they're also stepping into a place of loss, of suffering, of grief, of pain, both somebody else's and their own. It may be triggering of their own history. And it can be incredibly hard for those who say yes to helping others. And the notion of, okay, so many people feel like it's almost like any energy that I give to myself is energy that I'm taking away from being of service to others. And in their mind, they struggle with that notion. And you really reframe this and saying, no, you actually,

part of your other care is self-care and part of our collective care is also self-care. Yes, totally. Well, I think self-care is inherently thought of as being this individualistic pursuit because the word self is in there, but really it's not. I mean, I think really for all intents and purposes, self-care should probably be a retired term. It's really communal care. I really don't think that we're capable, especially in this day and age, with everything that's coming at us in all directions, to achieve true wellness, true health and balance and equanimity and just all of these lofty things that we're trying to attain, this enlightenment that we're trying to reach if we don't lean on each other. because only our community can help hold us accountable,

remove obstacles for us, and make it easier for us to carry the burdens that exist with just living in this world. Yeah. I think it's a powerful reminder. It feels like a good place for us to start to come full circle in our conversation. You share also in the book, there's so many beautiful ideas and stories. I guess you have an eldest uncle who shares this verse from the Talmud that really seems to have become this guidepost for work. It reads, do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly now, love mercy now, walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. That is definitely a guiding post, a marker for me from the Talmud that is something I go back to, I reflect on often because the world is daunting, the problems of the world, I should say. And oftentimes we think, oh, there's nothing I can possibly do. I'm never going to be able to repair the world and to fix all the problems in the world. And, you know, it's not a responsibility to do so. That's essentially what

the Talmudic phrase is telling us. It's not your responsibility to fix the world. No one person can do that, but it's your responsibility to never stop trying, to never stop showing up, to never stop giving up on the hope that if you can just fix the things that are within your ability to fix within your range, within your, your circle of influence, you've just got to keep showing up to heal the world in your, wherever the world is within your own circles. And it's such a beautiful, it's such a beautiful guidepost for me because there are many times when I, you know, feel like I, I, I wake up in the morning and I'm just like, I'm so tired. What is it now? You know, what, what, what's happening now in the world? What, what natural disaster, what crisis, what thing is it today?

And then I remember, if I can just do a little bit, if a lot of people do a little bit, we can make a huge impact. That ripple becomes a wave, becomes a tsunami of change. I love that. So hanging out in this container of good life project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life too. Because I don't think I would be able to live a quote unquote good life knowing that other people are suffering and that I wasn't trying to fix that. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, before you leave, if you love this conversation, safe bet you will also love the conversation we had with Jen Pasteloff about leading with love Thank you. if you appreciate the work that we've been doing here on Good Life Project, go check out my new book, Sparked. It'll reveal some incredibly eye-opening things about maybe one of your favorite subjects, you, and then show you how to tap these insights to reimagine and reinvent work

as a source of meaning, purpose, and joy. You'll find a link in the show notes, or you can also find it at your favorite bookseller now. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch,

getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum compared to previous generations. iPhone tennis or later required charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday. Mayday. We've been compromised.

The pilot's a hit man. I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him.

We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk.