Sense of Soul - Mindfullness and Non-Duality

Episode Date: June 24, 2022

Today we had an amazing repeat guest author Martin Wells who has worked as a psychotherapist in the NHS for over 30 years. He also teaches mindfulness to patients and staff, from a non-dual perspective. Ten years ago his own profound experience of 'letting go' radically changed the way in which he now works. He joined us today to talk about his new book, No One Playing - The Essence of Mindfulness in Gold and Life. It’s not just about golf or sport, nor about improvement or progress or how to do something. If anything, it points to a way of living effortlessly that is free and harmonious, that is, to the essence of mindfulness and non-duality. Each of the nineteen chapters contains a lesson which the author palpably resists for the first few holes. But, gradually he comes to realize the profound truth in the teachings of the stranger and begins to understand the radical perspective of no one playing. https://www.non-dualmindfulness.com Visit Sense of Soul  www.mysenseofsoul.com Please Rate and Review! Join our Sense of Soul Patreon!! Our community of seekers and lightworkers who get exclusive discounts, live events like SOS Sacred Circles, ad free episodes and more. You can also listen to Shanna’s new mini series, about the Goddess Sophia! Sign up today and help support our podcast. As a member of any level you get 50% off Shanna’s Soul Immersion Healing Experience! https://www.patreon.com/senseofsoul  

Welcome to the Sense of Soul podcast. We are your hosts, Shanna and Mandy. Grab your coffee, open your mind, heart, and soul. It's time to awaken. Today we have with us again, Martin Wells. He has worked as a psychotherapist in the NHS for over 30 years. He also teaches mindfulness from a non-dual perspective. He is also an author and today he's joining us again to talk about his new book, No One Playing, the essence of mindfulness in golf and in life. And it is such a pleasure to have him on with us again. Nice to see you again. Yeah, nice to see you again. Where are you at in the uk we're um based in bristol in the west of england oh okay awesome well and you know there's a lot of golfing out here in

colorado yeah like some of the most beautiful golf courses you know in my kids family my ex-husband who golfs a lot of their togetherness has been around golf yeah you know like aunts and uncles and you know father and son they commune here on the golf course often mandy and her father that's like something that they like to do yeah yeah absolutely yeah do you think it's because it's there's like this space and that space isn't always created you know here in the world and in many activities yeah i think that's a part of it you know you're spending four hours or so with someone and if you're just playing with one other person you're spending four or five hours with that person yeah no i think it i think it is really true and you're out in a spacious place so you know

symbolically you're not confined. Some of the most beautiful golf courses I've ever played are like a diamond in the rough. Like there was this one in Cave Springs, Arkansas, just in the middle of nowhere, where there were frogs like on the greens. And then all of a sudden there'd be an owl on the docks and it's one of my favorite memories because there was this little old man who had on overalls and he had like the oldest golf clubs I've ever seen I was like those definitely an antique and it was a really slow day. I was the beer cart girl. And he asked me if I wanted to try some of his family's moonshine. And it was like this special recipe. So anyway, we sat and talked. And when he was done, he ended up getting into this old beat up truck. And he was just this nice, quiet soul. And after he left, the manager was like, do you know who that was that you were hanging out with all day? And I was like, who?

He's like, he owns Tyson Chicken. And I was like, no way. This man was the most humble person I'd ever met. And he's worth millions and millions of dollars and had these old antique golf clubs. But we had the best day just talking. Fantastic. Sounds wonderful. It was.

You know, when I had my near-death experience, I share a lot. What kind of catapulted me into my journey of mindfulness was that I had to move slow. I was forced to slow down in my recovery and I feel like that's what golf does for people naturally it brings them more present like yes without having to go through that trauma like I did I feel like five to six you know how long it takes a lot of people cannot be that present for that long it's very difficult but if you're doing something like golf yeah this is so good martin and you're actually only playing the game for about a minute and a half like the actual yeah the actual part yeah yeah the rest of

it is walking thinking talking silence unless you're like happy gilmore yes bob barker was hilarious in that movie yeah yeah that was a good one but you know we just were talking about with one of our last guests about how he's like you know men have such an issue sometimes with mindfulness which we know you don't back your prior book was sitting in stillness yeah no i think men have a tendency to overthink things just like in golf yes yes exactly yes exactly not just approach them for what they are but but maybe need to pull them apart or understand them or or work out what's next i think women are much better at being present and accepting things for what they are

i think men struggle with acceptance in my husband's line of work he wine and dines a lot of his you know clients like this past week and I think he took DHL out golfing. And in corporate America, that golf is huge. That's what they do to go sign the dotted line, get to know each other. And it goes very against the grain of their normal conversations on Zoom or when they're in public, because I've had many years of listening to their conversations it's a lot of people it's a lot of energy it's a lot of input it's a lot of hard talk it's a lot of numbers it's a lot of fast talking yes but some of the best relationships he's built

with customers is in the slowness of the golf game yes yes i thought you were going to say a strip club mandy uh i think those days are over hopefully but you know they bond there too i don't know if it slows them down though no i was gonna say i was gonna say they probably have a lot of mindfulness there too. No, I think that's, they're dropping into bodies and using discernment. I wonder if there's another factor as well as this, the slowness I think is important. And I wonder if there's something about ego and golf in the fact that as a golfer, you can't say I'm doing well today or I'm going to play well today.

You don't know, do you? So you've got to have some humility. humility and I wonder if that helps in a in a business community if you're having conversations on the golf course then maybe maybe ego doesn't um be so important on the course I don't know I haven't really thought about it I think that's a pretty amazing thought because I mean our ego is naturally relaxed or should I say put put a little bit to sleep it takes a nap like when you go hiking yeah when yeah when you go skiing and snowboarding because the energy of earth and just nature naturally has that effect on you. So I think that that's probably very much true.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So when my husband and I are going to have a big fight or we need to have some rough conversation, I'm going to make sure I take him to the golf course to do it. So his ego doesn't get in the way. It's also perhaps the notion that you can't force things so the beauty isn't it of a golf swing is that you you can't force it and if you if you try and if you try too much or if you grasp too tightly like you might do in a business negotiation or something it's not going to work so so maybe again

there's something symbolically that happens on the course where you let things flow a bit more rather than push the river yeah but it's just how much we complicate things that ego yes yes yeah no exactly it's a it's a real tendency isn it? We do complicate when we don't need to. Krishnamurti was once asked if he could sum up all his teachings in one phrase. And quite surprisingly, he had a go at it. And he said, I'd have to say, I don't care what happens. Now, he didn't say I don't care like he he cares deeply about about life and humanity and nature but i don't care what happens so it's letting go of the outcome any investment yeah wow i i think i felt that way because it's almost like when I think about like life or death of course I want to live and I want to be here yes no but I'm not afraid of the other side

yes yes exactly it's that surrendering right yes it's that surrendering and it's classic mindfulness in a way because as we sit and just allow things to arise we don't care what arises there's a neutrality to that and what arises arises what knocks on the door knocks on the door a near-death experience or crisis of some sort these things they arise and we stay open to them we welcome them as open-heartedly as we can wow we've grown you know it's it's such a hard thing to explain sometimes to people like for example yesterday i had a friend who's she's she's letting the worry of the future still presents today. Yes. And she's worried about her father possibly passing and the choices he's making.

And then her sister who's in addiction and she's consumed in this fear that she might have to have two funerals next year for her family members. And I deep down wanted to say, if that's what happens, that's what happens. Yeah. You're letting that fear and that worry take away from these moments. Now you could have. Yes. And we do that, right? We consume ourselves with worry over things that haven't even happened

yet. It would also sound very cold for me to be like well and if you do have to throw two funerals next year for a lady it is yeah yeah I'm often having that conversation I think with people like your friend you know who are struggling with stuff now stuff in the future and it's how we talk about that it's quite important I think isn't it so we don't sound like we're some new age people who are just dismissing something or or dismissing the the pain or the suffering that's going on in the mind but also we want to help them cut through that so they don't keep getting caught with it and of course it's easier with a friend isn't it because they know that actually we're on their side we're not saying that in any way to hurt them but to liberate them

in your new book no one playing you go through these many lessons in your many different chapters you are teaching mindfulness and these things to the reader they're learning through these stories um maybe even realizations that are common to most all of us yes i would say the essence of mindfulness because mindfulness of course because of anything that becomes popular starts to get colonized a bit by people who think maybe that they know more about mindfulness than the buddha or something and you know we need to be careful with that i think but i think the essence of mindfulness is that pure presence it's not about progress or getting any further or self-improvement it's about a realization of our true nature kind of like when i was crocheting like i told you yes that's an essence in a way that crocheting you were talking about there's no one doing it

there is crocheting you're not thinking oh i should do this or maybe i know so it's a there's a there's a loss there's a dissolving of the self, of the I thought, and there's just an immersion in whatever activity. And, of course, babies and animals do that all the time. But as grown-up human beings, or mostly grown-up, then we've got all that conditioning and all that I thought and all that pressure to do it well or not do it this way or do it that way and and we're returning to that pure state that infant state where we can

see things as they are and immerse ourselves in besides golf what other things how take you out of that ego and into the eye everything ideally ideally everything because then life is is a meditation or a form of yoga but you know I'm fortunate in my work as a therapist and teacher of mindfulness is that you know each time I sit with someone, then hopefully that's an immersion in the process, in the relationship. So one thing that can happen in working in coaching or counselling or psychotherapy is that we can be a bit too tuned into ego. What do I need to do here? Or am I doing it properly? Or I need to be helpful those sorts of things so for me working is is meditation this talking to you is meditation because it's observing ego but but it's not coming from ego so it's coming from a source well the the name of your podcast you know it's that it's coming from that sense of soul that connects us

beyond the human so all of it is meditation all of it wow i love that yeah and the way you speak though it brings me to mindfulness yes Yes. That's a trained thing, is it? Well, the naming of the first book was Sitting in the Stillness. And that came from, I met a Chinese Buddhist nun who worked in our psychiatric hospital. She was only 30-something, but she'd been a nun for half her life. And she ran a meditation group on a on a psychiatric ward so some people who were very distressed and upset and it was successful and i said to her well

how would you describe what you're doing and she says i sit in my stillness and i invite people into theirs okay so i sit in my stillness and I invite people into theirs and I think that's what you're talking about just in that moment there so there's an invitation we all know people we've sat with and been with and just sitting with them is an invitation into our own stillness and notice it's not something that's passed from one to another like a do this and then you'll feel better it's a resonance between beings where the invitation is through that being it's not a doing either. Such duality that you are so focused, but yet there is no work to focus. Exactly. Exactly.

There's a lovely little Zen poem, which I think sums it up. I don't know who wrote it. It's an ancient Zen poem. And it says nowhere to go, nothing to do, no one to be. And just those simple three things. So of course nowhere to go means we sit in our stillness, there's nowhere to go physically or mentally in that moment, we're just here like the crocheting, you know, just there you are nowhere else to be nothing to do so so the the doing is not is not an action that comes from ego or mind any doing comes just comes spontaneously like in buddhism it's called right actions just like it comes from the source from from a place of stillness and no one to be so nothing to prove or no performance no worries about how people will see me or you know all of that can

just fall away so that then we can be true to who we are and true to this moment whoever we're talking to and i know that if you practice mindfulness even on your busiest day it actually will help you yes yes and the thing to remember is the stillness hasn't gone anywhere it's not a it's not a literal stillness like it it helps to sit still and be still as as a formal practice But if we get up from the formal practice and then spend the next 23 hours rushing about, we're probably not, you know, practicing it in a lived way. But the thing to remember is the stillness doesn't go anywhere at all.

It's always present there in the background. So it's possible to be busy and pay attention to that stillness. I noticed the difference between unpacking my home versus unpacking it two years ago. Right. Yeah. It was so much different. It felt like I was just being more mindful and like pulling the paper out and then folding it because I'm passing on the boxes and the paper to other people and instead

just rushing through it I was just looking at each thing I took out like oh I love this I'm so glad I have this and it was just very peaceful to do it didn I didn't feel so rushed to get things done. And you want to know what? I was more productive. Yeah. I got done. The boxes were organized. Yeah, it was great.

We're so growing. That's such a good example, isn't it? That we think that it's the busyness that makes a difference. But actually, when we bring a stillness to an action, it's got a different energy to it. In Chinese, they call it Wei Wu Wei, which is the action of no action. It's a paradox, obviously. It's action without trying to act. Like, perhaps as you were saying, maybe like the last time we packed, there was action fueled by agitation. Whereas action fueled by stillness and the peacefulness has a very different quality to it. and you know what like we were just saying if you have that willingness to surrender

with no outcome you are giving up anything that may be you know in the past exactly not worried about the future and you are just being present exactly that exactly that i need to do this with my closet when you are in action having to do something like moving or something there's a lot of sometimes like emotions attached to different things and even when you're going through old stuff i know you know with my dad you know when he had passed getting rid of some of the stuff was you know there was that attachment you know to some of those things yeah and so there's so much emotion sometimes or maybe you know you don't want to leave somewhere or yeah maybe even the excitement of moving somewhere there's a lot of stuff that

can get in the way of that mindfulness sometimes or just or maybe that's part of it maybe that's absolutely part of it i mean years ago when i first got interested in meditation i think i was looking to sort of transcend it and feelings and thoughts and difficult stuff and thought i could just be like smiling like a buddha in the corner but but no it's actually the opposite because let's say we're packing up our father's things and and it's painful there's emotions that arise absolutely we'd be with those because that's the stillness that we're talking about the still stillness of, okay, this is arising. This is painful. This hurts.

Of course. Just let it be there. Yeah, because sometimes you haven't created that space. Exactly. Yeah, no, exactly. And that's really common in our culture, isn't it? That we move on and move on without grieving without letting go without feeling the full intensity of our feelings Mandy I know you move all the time but do you experience

that when you go through the stuff yeah I do yeah I do for sure like even kids stuff right you're like oh I remember when they wore this. It's like Christmas every two years for me when I unpack. And memories and memories, you know. And then also lots of letting go, purging. I enjoy purging. Yeah. You know, Martin, I loved what you said earlier, because I was thinking about Tick Knock On. I think one of the reasons we really enjoyed him was because he does what you do.

He invites you. Yes. He invites you into your own stillness just by being around him. Yes. And you could probably actually just become like a billionaire by inviting people into your stillness because you're so good at it. Mandy's like, you want to come to my new house? I'll sit in the corner. is and we talked about it that people think you're not being productive when you're when you're creating that stillness so you know there's the whole saying that i learned in aa

expectations equal future resentments and a lot of people get confused because they're like so then how do you plan things? Like, how do you, and they get it confused the same with mindfulness and stillness. So is it wrong? Do I not plan things? If there's no doing, then can I fill my calendar up still? Do you plan, Martin? Do you have a calendar full of planning?

Yeah. Otherwise you couldn't organize this could you know i'd be sitting upstairs looking at my navel instead of talking to you yeah no yes of course plan but you're absolutely right it's how you plan and what you do with the plans that don't go the way you were wishing now like john lennon's lyric you know life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans you know and and make the plans but but don't in any way grasp them or or think that they're in any way fixed because of course they can't be none of us know what's happening tomorrow let alone next week. I was just thinking about that, that impermanence, which is something so hard for people.

Absolutely. It's really tough, isn't it, for people? That was a huge thing for me. I mean, that was a huge realization for me, impermanence. Understanding impermanence helped me be more successful with being mindful. Yes. Yes. Reminds me, the first time I heard about Thich Nhat Hanh was from my psychotherapist.

She lived in Boston, but she was originally from Alabama, I think. She said she'd heard him give a talk. And she said, first, the flower is becoming the garbage and then the garbage is becoming the flower. And I was always remember saying that. And I thought, yeah, this is so simple and beautiful, isn't it? Yeah. And some would say, what the hell? exactly talking about garbage in the flower i feel like if someone were to come to you um for some some therapy some guidance it it sounds like it would be more of an experience yes it's interesting you say that because in a way there's no doing in in the therapy these days it's more of a meeting and an attempt to sort of resonate just really listen to what

the other person is experiencing and it's like you with your friend in a sense part of it is also you know just can can we be present and can you watch your mind and where it goes rather than follow it all over the place and caught up with that room so yeah it is an experience for me too that's part of the privilege you know my uncle dwight and my aunt phyllis are just very calm, mindful people. And I remember always placing judgment on that my ego did when I was young. Like, they don't like me, they don't talk to me very much. They're so quiet. You know, I made it all about me. Like, they hardly say anything. you're uncomfortable with that it was all because I had never been

around someone like that and I was uncomfortable with quiet and stillness because I didn't know that in my own house yes and the story I told myself about them is insane I used to say oh it's because they have such smart kids and they're so smart. I'm too dumb for them. And I made this all up in my head based off of just being, I mean, going back to what Shanna said, it was all about me being uncomfortable with the stories that came out of it. I mean, isn't it crazy? The stuff our ego can tell us oh yeah and the stories that get created unbelievable isn't it I mean that's 90 percent of my work really is helping people notice that story and and stop identifying with it I mean it's going to be there it's it's each

of our stories it's still there we don't have to identify with it anymore. You obviously don't. But it's interesting, isn't it, the power of that story and the influence upon it, particularly if we identify with it. And how are you now with them, Mandy? Oh my gosh, I, they're just so beautiful. And I just, I feel so heard when I'm around them because they are, they're not trying to just come up with words to respond. They're amazing listeners. They share beautiful stories about traveling and what they've learned all over the world. And they're just, they're just calm. They're calm and, and wise. And, and, you know, my brothers and I created this story together because we used to sit at the kids table at Thanksgiving. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I don't know why parents do that. And then when

you're like a teen and you have to sit with like the little, little kids, you're like, this is bull crap. This chair is so small for me. But me and my brothers used to sit there and be like, we can't talk to our cousins because they're that family is just too smart for us they just think we're dumb I mean that's so sad that we thought that and they aren't at all like that they're non-judgmental they're kind they're wonderful the power of projection the stories we tell ourselves I have a dish towel that Shanna and I had in our truck that says bury me on the golf course so my husband will visit me once in a while I have a lot of clients who don't really come to me

for self-care they're coming to me for their golf game but that is their space that that helps them you know get to this place that so many of us you know have have seen as a challenge yeah you know we had this one lady Anna, and she taught us about light language. And at the end of our episode, how we always ask someone to break that shit down, she just sat there. And she just kind of nodded her head and smiled and made a message to me and was like, say something. She doesn't get it. Like, say something. We we were dying we didn't know what to do we were like oh my god what's happening and then we got it no i then i said something to

her and then she said this this is light language and we were like oh my god and then it just turned into a beautiful stillness but it was awkward though sometimes you know we're so used to adding words like mandy said or you know finding something in our brain to think about that it's uncomfortable it can be you know uncomfortable at first yeah yeah for sure has anyone ever said to you or have you ever thought about how sometimes stillness can make someone feel uncomfortable or have you felt like someone that was in your presence felt uncomfortable? Oh, yes, definitely. And it's not an uncommon thing for people like to meditate and drop into that stillness or sometimes an emptiness and take a bit of a U-turn because it's frightening.

There's a loss of structure, a loss of the familiar. So, yeah, it's common and I think one of the things that goes with teaching people mindfulness is to say well this is this might happen and it might be somewhat frightening and it's part of you letting go so if you can just continue with that and continue the letting go yeah because when I first started Martin, I had to look for something to do during it. That was so awkward for me. So I chose a mala to begin with, and then I wanted music. But when I think back to my most successful time, it's not the mala.

It's in Philippi, actually. The mantra, the chanting actually was a big part of my journey yeah but it was the stillness that like you said i didn't i didn't actually create in crocheting yes exactly exactly so yeah i mean for me it was going on several silent retreats seven day silent retreats and and being immersed in that silence for that length of time taught me I mean it was really busy in my head for the first two or three days but it taught me just to carry on sitting with that you know eventually to really enjoy the spaciousness and the stillness and the silence but you know most people in our culture

aren't conditioned to stop and just be we're supposed to be getting on with something i'm doing something i mean the most quiet i can get might be if i go clean that closet for the rest of the day you're talking yourself into it i am i really you know i've really closed it right now and it's like bothering me i'm like i need to do this there was this song that i remember really affected me once and it was by metallica it was called one and it's about a gentleman who gets his arms and legs blown off by a landmine and war and he ends up you know blind and deaf and I remember thinking to myself like even just right now I could barely breathe thinking about it because that used to scare me so much to think of being stuck in my own head

that's the stillness of not being able to see anything move around you and then to also not be able to hear and that song just made me so sad for this man that it happened to and I will say as I've gotten older it doesn't scare me as much and I think that that's growth because that would be the ultimate stillness, which in reality is kind of the place I experienced when I had my outer body experience and my near death experience because my body was gone. You don't see with eyes. You don't hear with ears. So it doesn't scare me as much anymore.

But that song was very powerful. It's like being alone. So it doesn't scare me as much anymore, but that song was very powerful. It's like being alone. You know, so many people fear of being alone. It's uncomfortable to be alone. And I think that if you can be alone, and I don't know, though, Martin, I mean, if you can be comfortable with that inner voice and with just being still do you think that if for some reason everyone left and you don't and you understand the impermanence yeah you know those things will help a little bit if the whole world did disappear and here you are yes there's a there's a catholic writer who i

quite like who already knew him and he said one of the spiritual challenges is to move from loneliness to solitude. So in solitude, we have a, you know, just a relaxed way of being alone and we don't desperately need other people to fulfill ourselves. But in loneliness, of course, we then we do need other people otherwise we don't feel enough or fulfilled and of course that leads to relationships where people are clinging to each other rather than just being side by side along the way in life because you don't need someone to play golf no exactly in the book i book, I'm not playing with someone. I've got the Asian guy in my ear, but no, I'm playing on my own. You can play on your own.

That's interesting. When I had my near-death experience, there was an Asian girl who came with me, but she didn't talk. She just sat with me but she didn't talk uh-huh she just sat with me and then when i was feeling anything she would just come over and touch me with her energy wow lovely i know so so tell us about your golf game come on let's let's get down to the nitty and gritty what's your score well i'm still playing off nine so single figures and i play one once a week mostly with a friend of mine and we play on really you talk about beautiful courses it's about 45 minutes drive from here it's 900 feet above sea level so it's it's on a sort of plateau and you can see 30 miles that way 30 miles that

way 30 miles that way from one part of the course it's really stunning that's amazing is he a physical friend like a real friend oh yes yeah i do i do have some real friends that's good um did did you have a lot of imaginary friends when you were young? No, I don't think I did. I don't remember having an imaginary friend. I was on my own until seven, and then my brother was born when I was seven. Me too. Yeah?

Yeah. Yeah. I was in, I was in Lake Havasu, Arizona, and we always go there because the lake itself is just beautiful. A lot of boating. And it was kind of a windy day. So we decided to go like 40 miles to this like desert town. And we found this golf course that is the most beautiful golf course I've ever played. It was nothing but desert, but it had like these rock formations. And there was, there's this one hole where you would hit the ball and you could hear the ball ricochet off the rock wall. If you had any like type of, you know, what I can't even think golf right now because my brain is fried. What do they call it? Slice. If you had any sort of slice, you were screwed on this pole. You would hear the ball ricochet the walls. But it's but I think what's been cool for me with golf too is experiencing the different

types of courses the different types of landscape bring a different energy to the game and so um i think that that's also the aspect of golf that people don't realize is you get to see so many different landscapes that are so beautiful in different ways yeah absolutely yeah yeah yeah i'm i've just booked up to go to band and dunes golf in oregon in august oh beautiful part of the do you know the shiva science society no tell us about it and so the the shiva science society grew out of michael murphy's book golf in the kingdom he wrote in the 1980s which i'd really recommend to you it's a wonderful book and out of that came a society interested in learning about the inner game about the mind, mindfulness. That was the purpose of the society. So Google them and have a look at the website.

For me, it's a lovely society to be a part of because it's exactly what floats my boat, really. Well, Martin, it's been such a pleasure to have you on again. For me too. So No One Playing is the name of your new book they can find it anywhere i mean i've looked at it found it everywhere pretty much yeah i get it i heard um through the great buy that the buyer for barnes and noble really liked it that would be a place i know they've got quite a few copies because i think she bought some too

awesome is your next uh is your next book going to be No One Fishing? It's true. It's like you can find mindfulness and stillness in everything that you do and even in the closet that I have to clean today. Absolutely. Definitely. And Thich Nhat Hanh taught that beautifully't he beautifully. Mandy, the next book is a book of poetry. Comes out in November. Oh, yay! Will it be like Zen poetry

kind of? Yes, it's sort of mindfulness non-duality poetry. Perfect. Well then we can't wait to have you on again next year then. Let's do it. We'll just do once a year. And now it's time for Break That Shit Down. I think given what's going on in the world,

I'd like to say a little bit about Ukraine and Russia and how we as beings manage that. And, of course, you mentioned Thich Nhat Hanh, of course, committed his life to peace and talking about peace. And someone was telling me the other day that he tells a story of someone, a rape where, I think it is a fisherman actually, rapes a young girl. And in his contemplation of it and his meditation of it he said i am that fisherman i have that potential to be that fisherman so being peaceful

isn't saying i'm not like that it's saying i have the potential to be like that but i'm not hopefully going to act that out in the world so a a few of us therapists in the UK have been talking about, for example, how we might look at Vladimir Putin and claim those qualities as us, not try and distance ourselves from them. So we might say, which is true, sometimes I invade people's space sometimes I like to be right even though I'm not sometimes I might bully other people I might bully myself internally all these things are possible within every human being the challenge and that this is where we come to mindfulness and non-duality

is that whilst we say i am that we also at the same time say i'm not that because vladimir putin ultimately isn't that either our true nature is is loving and connected and peaceful so we're not that but we we can't take the bypass we have to we have to claim all our potentialities and and then in relationships with others we can notice our potential for those things and act in a different way act in a loving way wow thank you thank you for that for that perspective it was interesting because i had a moment where i sat and i thought well he's gone too far i know how that feels yeah you're just like i've dug myself a hole how am i going to get out of this one

i think that might be how he feels and you know and that was a moment where where I connected to that exactly and that's what Gandhi meant I think when he said be the change that you want to see in the world yeah so you you catch yourself noticing that yeah you you might go too far it's a good example you've gone too far because it doesn't mean that we're going to you know bomb the country next to us it just means that that human dynamic is possible in us and of course if we establish that inner peace whilst noticing that potential maybe to go too far or whatever then of course we're not only making a contribution here in terms of ourselves but also in relation to anyone we're with families and friends etc communities but even beyond that because it's there's a collective consciousness that that

feeds into great reminder that was so powerful you know i've just i've said this like the last four episodes but i keep saying it over and over as i've slowly figured out that everything you see or experience or do ultimately can come back it comes back to you I had a moment of compassion because hurt people hurt people yes yes and it felt uncomfortable for me to have compassion for him because he's done such horrible things yes that then I had to sit and think why is it that you feel uncomfortable having compassion for people that have done wrong so there there was a learning in it and and i think you're right we can all take what's happening and learn about ourselves and then be the change we want to see so thank you

for that you're welcome hey martin do you ever heard the story about and i can't remember where it was at but it was like a speaker was speaking about forgiveness and compassion and a woman rose her hands said well how do you have compassion for someone like hitler yes he started to tell a story about a little boy and it was about how he had been very abused and his mother had died and all these things and at the end of the story he says and that little boy was hitler was that a fitler yes and during that you know his talk about the boy there i mean people were emotional thinking about this boy and at the end this woman goes to hug him and as she does her sleeve falls and you can see the numbers of where she was in the concentration camp and yes she says to him

you made me feel compassion for someone who I thought I could only have hate for yes indeed and we see it that don't do particularly with the sort of narcissistic leaders that have been coming to the fore in the last few years. For me, Donald Trump and that whole thing was fascinating to watch and to understand as a therapist. And we've got our own Boris Johnson and there are many others around the world. But the narcissist actually at the core is full of self-loathing. They really hate themselves. This is the hurt people hurt people again. And they need to keep inflating themselves and having more followers and being more popular in order that they don't feel that self-loathing.

But we can have compassion for the self-loathing because it's an awful awful start in life and an awful place to be and that doesn't mean by the way that we we allow ourselves to be bullied you know sometimes it's the right thing to stand up to the bully and that might even take some sort of peaceful but violent action in a sense assertive it might need that so we're not talking about a passivity but you can have again compassion within within those actions wow it's amazing i love it thank you for showing us and giving us another perspective on that it's been delightful to spend time with you again martin you're. Thank you for inviting us into your space and your stillness today. Thank you.

You're welcome. Thanks for what you're doing. And thanks for inviting me on. It's the book is, of course, it's about golf in some ways, but, you know, where we've gone with the conversation is what I hope for, that people deepen their conversations around these issues. And to share that with you two has been been great great thank you so much is there a website that you have for your book non-dual mindfulness which is all one word dot com and are you still practicing and working with

clients as well yeah I'm two days a week in our National Health Service and two days a week privately teaching supervising therapy as well. Therapy looks a bit different these days from what it used to. But yeah, fifth working day was us looking after my granddaughter, who's now gone to school. So we don't have to look after her anymore. Have you got time for a quick story about her? Oh, please. So this came after the book. I've taken her to a local playground. And as part of the playground, there's a,

there's a sort of quite a little rock face that you can climb on. She's only three and a half at the time. And she starts climbing up. And I say, well, maybe you should put your hand there and your foot there. You know, there's a nice little handhold there. And she looked up at me and she said, stop giving me instructions. They're a distraction. Three and a half. She could have written a book, couldn't she?

I was thinking there's so much behind that, isn't there? Yeah. First of all, great language for three years yeah not bad yeah yeah we'll have her on in a few years okay oh my god i love that wow that's smart no well thank you for having me as well it's been real enjoyable really pleasurable too thank you awesome take care namaste Thank you. Awesome. Take care. Namaste. Namaste. Thanks for being with us today. We hope you will come back next week.

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