The Ben Mulroney Show - Is Australia getting dragged under by liberalism? And mindfulness techniques for the holidays

Episode Date: December 23, 2025

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You're listening to the Ben Mulroney Show. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. There's a lot of ways to attack this next segment following the tragedy and the death and destruction that was proffered on Bondi Beach just a few short days ago by Islamic radicals. who decided it was incumbent upon them on the first day of Hanukkah to kill 15 Jews and wound over 40 more. The question is, have the politicians gotten it? Have they woken up to the reality? Are they on the right track to making sure that something like this never happens again?

And I guess part of me is like misery loves company because I feel that in a lot of ways we just don't get it here. let's let's take a look at our cousins from the other side of the world there was a man who was following prime minister anthony albinase i think it's albinase albinese uh who was it feels like he was on a a walking tour of somewhere he was at the oh this was after the bondi beach memorial thank you it was after the bondi beach memorial so you can imagine how um how sensitive people were feeling in that moment some people feel that he his government in a lot of ways, didn't see the signs or refused to see the signs and therefore bear some sort of responsibility for creating the, or for allowing the creation

of the circumstances that led to it. That's me really twisting myself into a pretzel to not say what this guy said. Let's listen to what this guy said. Blood on your hands. Blood on your hands. Okay, less than two weeks after the murder of it. We don't know, this guy might have known some of the people who died. He might have been on the beach that day. He might have had a friend on the beach. He might know firsthand the trauma that those people are dealing with.

And his reaction was to say that to his elected official in a public space. And the reaction was his arrest by at least four cops in a heartbeat. Like a blitzkrieg, they came down on him. And yes, I chose the language. of the Nazis. He was nowhere close to him. He had nothing on him. He was wearing shorts and a t-shirt.

They would have known really quick if he was concealing something. They didn't frisk him. They just arrested him. Now, blood on your hands. When I heard that, God, I've heard that before. Where have I heard that? Oh, yeah. On the streets of Toronto, on the streets of Sydney, on the streets of Melbourne.

For years shouted at Jews simply because they're Jews. The assumption being that they have. committed genocide or actively endorsing the supposed and fictitious genocide that occurred in Gaza. So it's okay for them to shout it at Jews, but it's not okay to shout it after Jews were killed at the prime minister who has some sort of responsibility as the guy where the buck stops. Okay, so there's that. Then another Aussie was stopped politely. by a police officer because she felt that, well, you know what?

Do we have the whole thing? We can listen to what she says, right? Let's listen and then we'll comment on the back end. But this is just an interaction between a police officer and an Australian citizen. We've been notified about the sign. Whilst it's not offensive in this current climate, there are concerns in relation to it being present on the main road that people cite further issues. What respect to them, hang on just all I want to ask you questions.

Can we go and have a look at the sign? Let's go have a look at the sign. And then he explained to me what you think is inciting about more signs. Which word on there? As I said, it's no offensive. The issue with wet concerns in the current climate that will give people an opportunity to damage to destroy property. Okay, so clearly this sign could cause some real trouble, right?

because in the current climate, current climate being the climate caused by the massacre at Bondi Beach, this sign, whilst not offensive, could really ratchet up the temperature and cause somebody to do something terrible, perhaps like Bondi Beach again. What does it say on the sign you ask? You've been begging, you've been wondering, we're clamoring.

Tell us, Ben, what's on the sign? Quote, I'm clamoring for it. We are sick of terrorism and those who support it. I'm going to say that again, the sign that was not offensive but could incite violence. We are sick of terrorism and those who support it. And so a cop politely came and low-key intimidated the guy in the attempts of getting him to remove the sign that said, we are sick of terrorism and those who support it. Now, if you've fallen to the ground because you are so offended by that sentiment, I'm there with you.

I'm there with you. Thank goodness. All right. So here, let's recap. There's a guy who shouted blood on your hands at the prime minister following Bondi Beach. At Bondi Beach, you got an Australian who put up a sign that deigned to suggest that we as Australians are sick of terrorism and those who support it. Crazy talk by that man. And a cop told him that she politely wanted him to take it down because it could incite further violence. So now let's hear from Australian politician Chris Minns on the delicate balance when it comes to the rights to speak, freedom of speech. I recognize and I've fully said from the beginning that we don't have the same freedom of speech laws that they have in the United States. And the reason for that is that we want to hold together our multicultural community and have people live in peace free from the kind of vilification and hatred that we do see around the world. I, I, what, okay, Chris Mins, you win the award for dumbest statement by a public official. And I've, I've had the mispleasure and misfortune of reading, you, we don't have the same freedom of speech because unlike the Americans, we're trying to hold together a multicultural society that we're proud of.

You say that 10 days after Bondi Beach, you have the gall to say that you to look down your nose at the Americans when you just witnessed one of the most savage events of terrorism and anti-Semitic violence that we've seen in the Western world since October 7th, you have, you believe you have a leg to stand on when a guy gets arrested for shouting blood on your hands and another gets intimidated for writing a sign that says, we're sick of terrorism? Buddy, buddy, who the heck vetted your speech? Buddy, you need to take that day. You need to apologize for that. I suspect you won't because it seems like there's a certain type of political class

in your country that's infected with the same insanity that we see here where there is no crime, no level of violence, no level of intimidation, no level of disgusting public rhetoric that will ever get you to say what the problem really is. You won't do it, and I don't know why you won't. I genuinely don't know why you won't. You had two guys who said they were inspired by ISIS, who went out and shot Jews,

went out there deliberately to kill them during an event called Hanukkah by the sea. And they succeeded. Boy, did they succeed. and you and your political ilk refuse to say what this is about. You are bending over backwards to deprive other law-abiding citizens of their freedoms talking about how we have to limit hate speech. And when I hear a politician say they want to limit hate speech, we're talking about circumscribing free speech, right?

Because we've got to limit even more of that. We're going to start monitoring what you say online. We're talking about how, oh, that joke that you liked, because we see that in the UK, that joke that you liked, that could incite violence towards one group or another. Those are not problems. The problems are when somebody picks up arms against Jews. That's the problem.

And you don't want to talk about that. You do want to talk more generally about anti-Semitism, not about the specific anti-Semitism in this case, where it came from. You want to talk about anti-Semitism more generally as if this had anything to do with neo-Nazis or misogynistic right-wingerers. Go ahead. Let's attack them in this case because that's the problem.

This is dumbfoundingly stupid. Dumbfoundingly stupid and you are going to watch your country burn. And if we are not careful, we will follow you down that path right into the fiery pits of hell. I'm not trying to be biblical, just trying to paint an image for you. That's what we have in store for us. The signs are there. Just be responsible politicians. Do your jobs.

Recognize what the problem is. I promise you. If it had been a neo-Nazi, you'd be cracking down on neo-Nazis right now. Now ask yourselves why you're not doing that. Ask yourselves. All right, are you worried about family dynamics and emotional triggers this holiday season? Let's talk about it. to our competitors.

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Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. And if you are like me and the temperature under your collar has been getting progressively hotter over the course of, of this show and you're asking yourself, am I going to carry this level of passion or anger or frustration into the holidays as I sit down for long, drawn out dinners and conversations with family,

whom I know I share differing perspectives with, am I going to let the issues of my pocketbook affect my mood when I'm with my family? If you've got all these questions on your mind, then look no further than our next guest who is here to offer a path forward in peace and in mindfulness. So please welcome to the show, the founder and CEO of Mindful Institute, Michael Apollo. Michael, welcome to the show.

Great to be here, Ben. Thanks so much. Yeah, so there are so many scenarios that we can get into. But in the best of times, the holidays are a stressful time. But given the issues of food insecurity and how we've got less money in our pockets that doesn't go as far as it used to, and then depends. depending on how old you are. You're either worried that the polar ice caps are going to melt,

or you're worried that you won't be able to afford a home, or you're worried about the prime minister and his priorities, or Pierre Poliev and what he might want to do with the country. You know, there's always something that you're going to worry about and that someone next to you is going to take a fence by. How do we navigate, just generally speaking? What are some tips on how to be, I don't know, get the most out of the holidays authentically, right? I don't want anyone to put on airs and pretend to be happy if they're not.

So what are some of your key tools that people could incorporate into their lives so that tomorrow is better than today? Yeah, I think the list goes on and on, and I call it the intensity lasagna, which for the Italian listeners, I'm sure, will be something they'll be eating over the holidays here. And the reality is, I think, that there's so many layers of stress that the holidays bring. it's almost like a stacked amount of pressures and responsibilities, and they're overloading our nervous system, right? So I think it's really important just to name your stress layers and just realize with awareness that there's a lot that we're holding right now. And that isn't a weakness.

That stress isn't a weekend. It's just that we're being overloaded in the moment. Yeah. And so when we become overloaded, this chronic stress, we get more emotionally reactive, we can forget things, and we start focusing more on the negative. So I think it's really about disrupting that and finding ways to, first off, be able to support our emotions in the moment, knowing that not us, you know, that it's our brain. It's becoming hijacked, right, by our emotional centers.

And so how can you ground yourself in the moment? So some ways is just to check out from certain conversations, have a cold glass of water, steer away from certain conversations. I think that's something right off the back can be really helpful. Also focusing on the positive, you know, really, you know, I think the Grinch had some really good points there where, you know, you'd see that he'd get really focused on all the different things that he didn't like about the holidays and then suddenly he started finding things that he did like. So find those things, those, those sights, the sounds, the smells, those moments, those

small moments that can really disrupt, you know, the negative. You know, it occurred to me as I introduced you as the founder, and CEO of Mindful Institute, a lot of people might have a misapprehension about what mindfulness is. Some people would think that it's about yoga and meditating all the time. Can you give me a sense of what mindfulness means? Exactly. I mean, I think mindfulness right now, there's a lot of Mick Mindfulness out there. A lot of misconceptions around it, but there's a lot of science. I think actually some of the largest amount of neuroscience research has come out of this mindfulness space where essentially there are trainings and practices that you can go through

that train our attention to be more present in the moment and for us to be more aware of how we're relating to whatever is happening right now. So what does that mean? You can be more clear and see more clearly what's happening right now so you can start responding more skillfully. And that usually happens in the present moment because we're usually, you know, depression, anxiety is really being caught up with what has happened or what's going to happen.

So really what they're finding is by being present in the moment, it can seem counterintuitive, right? There might be certain conversations we don't want to have. There's certain experiences that we want us to get away from, right? But being more present can actually help us to disrupt that and also to find more joy and more pleasure and more happiness. And in your capacity, as the founder and CEO of Mindful Institute, I mean, what is your day-to-day? Are you helping people navigate these difficult situations? working one-on-one with people or is it something different? Well, so, you know, as a CEO, I am an executive, right?

So the interesting thing is people think of, go, wow, Michael, you just, you probably have the most peaceful life ever. But I deal with Q4 pressures and stressors that many listeners are dealing with. I have a 10-year-old and 8-year-old who are my greatest Zen masters. You know, they'll test me to the limit. And so my day-to-day life is dealing. with a lot of the same things that I think a lot of us deal with. But, you know, as a registered psychotherapist, as a certified mindfulness trainer,

I've trained thousands and thousands of people myself. Now I oversee larger groups of trainings in different companies with hospital health care networks like UHN, et cetera, and we bring some of these practices to them. And so they've been really helpful for me. I am, I think, I hope, a little bit more grounded in certain moments, but I also do share some of these strategies in the moment, like how do you ground yourself? How do you become more aware in the moment of, you know, your habits and how they're showing up? And then what you can do about it? How can you be more skillful in the moment, right? And I think it's all about

growth and development. And so I get the need for mindfulness in big companies, right? Because you want to, you want to do everything you can as running one of those companies to keep your employees as engaged as possible. You want to avoid burnout. You want to avoid confrontations with human resources, and so all of that can be mitigated by practicing mindfulness. But individually now, I mean, you must notice trends. Like, is there, who's adopting mindfulness more now? Is it families? Is it mothers?

Is it executives? Is it athletes? Where's growth coming in that in the mindfulness space? Well, you know, I think it's what's unique about the mindfulness field is that it's sort of, it's permitting everything. because I think really up until like 20 years ago, there wasn't even an understanding of what our thoughts and emotions really are. And I think now with the advent of neuroscience,

we can start understanding and learning about our minds. Now, what can that benefit? That can benefit parenting. It could benefit the school systems. It could benefit our surgeons to be more skillful in the moment. It can benefit executives to have better conversations in the moment, right? just by realizing how much of these experiences that we've had in our lives, how they stick to us, you know,

and also how our brains work, right? And I think what's happening right now, you're seeing adoption around the world. There's millions of people engaging in it. And I think it's for its practicality. And another thing I should share, though, is that, you know, it looks different in whatever setting it goes into. So when we do leadership development, it's focused on that, right?

How do we set our strategies more effectively? How do we communicate more effectively? And with parenting, it's really thinking about our kids, right? It's, you know, during the holidays, there's a lot of stress, right? And so how do we understand the inner lives of our kids, giving them more predictability, more clarity around routine so that they're not overstimulated or emotionally overloaded, knowing that it's not that they won't do what we want them to do, it's that they literally can't in the moment, right? Yeah.

And so all these insights, I think, are just valuable across the board. But I've got to believe that there's no. one size fits all, right? Because, like, I'm somebody who compartmentalizes very, very well. And there's parts of that that are very helpful. In fact, you said something earlier where you said, you know, like, it's recognizing that, you know, your problems will still be there. So just, you know, park them for a second.

I can, I can sleep like a baby. No matter how much stress is in my life, I can sleep really, really well. Because I know that my problems will be there in the morning. But that also comes with, I mean, I never really learned to unpack. the boxes that I was using as compartments. And so that presented its own challenge. But, you know, I could have a friend who has lived the exact same life as me, who does not have that approach, which means I have to believe that whatever approach to mindfulness

we would both need would have to be completely different. Yeah. You need to make it your own, right? And I think each and every one of us are unique. And I think there's a lot of research right now around a really unique term called neurodiversity emerging right now. and where we're realizing that each and every one of us have a unique neurophysiology. So just for example, we were talking about holiday stress, right?

You're going to, I have my family members who are going to say and do outlandish things. Hey, Michael, we're going to have to take a quick break because I ran out of time. I didn't even realize that that's how good the conversation was, but don't go anywhere because we've got more with the founder and CEO of Mindful Institute, Michael Apollo, on how you can steer clear of some of the landmines this holiday season. You are listening to the Ben Mulroney-Chone, very happy to continue my conversation with Michael Apollo. He's a mindfulness expert. He's a founder and CEO of Mindful Institute. And we really wanted to talk to him today because there's a lot of stress associated with this holiday season, as wonderful as it is.

it can weigh very heavy on us for all sorts of reasons. And Michael, thank you so much for sticking around. I want to play for you some audio of a conversation that was captured on social media on a plane between a couple. And I guess the man was a little too friendly to the young woman sitting between he and his wife. The wife didn't take too kindly to it and it escalated. We're going to play a little bit of it for you. Then I want you to comment on the other side.

Is there a reason why you did this? Why just to yell? Is it people that play? Don't stop some yelling. All right? Be, be, I consider it. You know what? I'm asking you why you would do something like this, intentionally.

I feel that was intentional. Oh, now I did intention. Yeah, it seems like it's intentional. Why? Because she's pretty? Huh? What does I have to do with the... No, that's what you're talking about.

Yeah, yeah, sure. Somehow you just noticed she was pretty? Somehow you just noticed she was pretty? Well, you're not pretty anymore. Look at the way. You let yourself go. Okay, so now you're insulting me. Yeah, I am.

Because you insulted me. such a piece of not what you're all right Michael now there's there's humor around this but it's serious I mean there's a couple

there's clearly in crisis to the point that A it feels like they're fighting in the wrong way and B they're doing it in public what what red flags pop up or what do you hear as an expert

when you hear something like that well you know as we had the commercials going on there I had a chuckle when Spence Diamond said that you know and that everybody's being out of their minds with joy. I think over the holidays, and especially when we go flying, it's just very easy to be out of our minds, literally, you know.

And so I think, you know, what the, that was an intense, a very intense situation. And so whatever happened there, we don't know the full context of it. But what seems to happen in a lot of these situations is, especially when you're flying, especially when there's a lot of stress, it's very easy to become triggered, no matter what's happening, right? So what usually happens in these moments, the emotional brain, the amygdala, takes over, right? Especially when you're traveling. It's just so much pressure, just like during the holidays.

That's called the amygdala hijack, right? And so in that moment, there's no rationality, I think, on either sides, right? Yeah. Oh, they both said things. They both had these, like, forks in the road, and they could have taken the path that would have de-escalated. And instead, they both chose escalation time and time again. Yeah. And I think it's a really great example because during the holidays, you sometimes can't get out of those conversations. You're trapped, just like on a plane, right, which doesn't allow

our rational minds to come online and to be able to cool down, right? And especially in situations when we're heavily stressed, our attention, our brain for survival starts focusing on the negative. right so it's not even possible to find light of any of these situations so you know what's happening in the moment there the brains are overstimulated uh they're highly stressed highly reactive and the best thing in that moment is non-reactivity yeah like cooler minds prevail try to get away from it i know it's it's hard but we have to find all those moments not to react wait until things cool down on all sides and then you can approach approach the situation more constructively. Michael Apollo, how, there's so much stress, I think, popped up a few years ago where we didn't have the stress before. You know, we used to, they used to say like you're keeping up with the Joneses, you know, trying to keep up with your neighbors when they'd have a nice, pretty lawn,

or they'd put up some festive lights, you know, you felt the need to, to keep up with them. Now it's like keeping up with the most impossible, curated false realities that so many people see on social media. And at no time is it worse than it is right now at the holidays because this is one event that we're all going through at the same time. How do you talk to parents about being at peace with who they are and not coveting either something they don't have or a reality that is unattainable for so many of us? Yeah, you know, I think here it's what I always approach is is choose presence over performance, connection, over perfection. You know, this is how I approach my life as best I can within my families

and then other parents that I either connect with or work with. The reality is, especially on social media, and you're right, there's just so much comparison, social comparison, it's called that's arising, that it's creating within us this, you know, you might call it FOMO or this, this idea that things need to be a certain way. And if they're not, then we're not good. There's shame that comes into the play a lot of, you know, deeper seeded things. But I think when you actually hone in on it, there's actually, when you think about happiness and like really, what's the intention here? I think the intention is that we want to make our partners happy. We want to be happy. We want our kids to be happy. Okay. So if we really look at it, the research

shows that there's like these two kinds of happiness. There's happiness that doesn't endure quick. It's fast and it's called hedonic. It's pleasures. It's the presence. It's all the sight, sounds, it tastes, you know, all that great stuff. Yeah. And it's good in a way, but it's not going to endure. What's going to endure is something that's a little bit more longstanding. It's from making meaning with their family, deep sense of connection, being present. And that's called the demonic happiness.

And so, you know, that Maya Angel quote, people forget what you said or did, but they won't forget how you made them feel. Yeah. I think really honing in on that, that's how you can really get the most of the holidays. Yeah. And listen, you can't tell somebody to put down their phone. They're always going to be looking at it. But it's just, it's, there's a, there's a wonderful feeling when you, when you recognize

that what you're seeing has no bearing on whether or not you can make your kids happy. And if somebody wants to post a version of their life of doing X, Y, and Z, that's great, more power to them. They may have given me one tip that I might incorporate, not a thousand that they demonstrated. But the moment that you can decouple from that. and not judge yourself based on that. There's a feeling of freedom and lightness that comes from that. Yeah, and don't be, don't judge yourself that you weren't connected in that moment, right?

So there's enough stress in our lives. And yeah, okay, our habits are taking over. We check our phone 150 times on average a day, right? Yeah. This is, it's real and it's very compelling. And yeah, we do need to check things. It's, you know, we have these responsibilities and all that. But in that moment, guess what?

our conversations don't go as deep because people don't feel like we're connected with them. This is what their research is showing, right? Yeah. And in another way, it's just let people know. Let people know, you know, this is why I check this. Now I'm present with you. Right?

And Michael, we only have a couple of minutes left, but I think it's really important for us to remember that, you know, the holidays end, but that doesn't mean the stress ends. It's not, there's not a clock that goes off where you clock out and say, okay, holidays are over, so so too goes the stress. Yeah.

I like to plan for recovery. not for resolutions, right? Take January just to recalibrate yourself, take care of all the things around the house, take care of the things around your life that you need to put in, that need to be in order, and just really plan for the emotional come down,

the fatigue, maybe a little bit of the anxiety for the year ahead, and then from that place, okay, set up the simple routines, back into the good exercise habits, good food, surround yourself with good people, and then set your intentions for the year ahead. Yeah, and, you know, you're right, You know, you go through the stress of the holidays and you've set up these false expectations. Everything's going to be better on New Year's Day because that's when I'm a new version of myself,

which leads to so many people, the vast majority of them, give up on their resolutions. That's got to add to the disappointment. Yeah, yeah, be gentle with yourself, be kind to yourself, be present, and everything else will take care of itself. Michael Apollo, I want to thank you so much for joining us, the founder and CEO of Mindful Institute. really, really good tips. I guess, I mean, the takeaway is don't be so hard on yourself. Nothing has to be perfect. And so long as you're present, you don't have to be perfect.

And I really appreciate the simple nature of this stuff. There's obviously harder work that can be done. But if you can incorporate just a few of those small things into your life as you go forward in this holiday season, you'll probably be better off. Yes, that's true. Thanks so much, Ben. Thank you. Take care. Happy holidays.

Thank you. Michael Drole. Some really great tips there. Well, they're important to, they're important to listen to. We're going to have them on again. I hope so. Because he's, he's one of those guys that can really help you out. You know what?

I'll tell you when we should have him on. I'm turning 50 in March. I want to have him caught with having a guy. Distress. How do I deal with becoming an old, old, grumpy old man? Maybe I'll love it because I'll just be settling into what I've always been. I'll have the, it'll be age appropriate in my annoyance with the youngans. There are streaming services, and then there's Stack TV.

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