The Sabrina Zohar Show - 14: How does meditation help anxiety with Manoj Dias of Open

Episode Date: April 21, 2023

On this weeks episode of The Sabrina Zohar Show, Sabrina Is joined by Manoj Dias the Co-Founder of Open. They discuss how meditation helps with anxiety and how to utilize breath work, movement and meditation to manage anxious attachment and the narrative that plays. Want to work with Sabrina? HERE! Stuck After the Podcast? Master Implementation in 8 Weeks with Sabrina's Foundation Course Join the Make It Make Sense: Getting Through a Breakup course HERE! Get Ad-free episodes and 2 Bonus episodes a month HERE! Dont forget to follow Sabrina and The Sabrina Zohar Show on instagram and Sabrina on Tik tok! Video now available on YOUTUBE!  Disclaimer: The Sabrina Zohar Show, formally known as Do The Work, is not affiliated with A.Z & associates LLC in any capacity. Try Open for 30 days FREE! Click HERE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Save the everyday with Amazon. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to another week of Do the Work podcast. My name is Sabrina Zohar and I am the host for today's episode. Guys, I am so excited. I have a really good friend here and an incredible guest. I have Manage Diaz. He is the co-founder of the app Open, one of my favorite meditation apps and I promote this all the time because I have been using it. And actually, Minaj got me into meditation. So I'm so excited for you guys to meet him and get well acquainted, and this is going to be one of my favorite episodes on how to utilize meditation for your anxiety, how to help through this, and really start to gain control over your thoughts

so they no longer control you. So I'm super excited, and let's get going. Amazing, Menage, welcome. Welcome to you. You're in my house. I am. Yes, yes, for everyone who doesn't know that's listening digitally, we are in Santa Monica right now. But I'm so excited, Minaj, I would love if you just, I like when my guests introduce themselves. So if you could tell the viewers and the listeners kind of your journey and how you got to where you are, because for anyone who doesn't know, I met Minaj 2017, and I met him when he was in New York doing a meditation event. And you actually got me into meditating. I love hearing that. Yeah. That's sweet. Thank you. Sure. I mean, I personally hate introducing myself. I think I'll start at the beginning. And the beginning for me really

is that I was exposed to meditation at a young age. I was exposed to spirituality at a young age, but it didn't really catch. It didn't really grab me. But later on in life, much later on in life, I was going through a whole series of health issues. And it began with a panic attack, a really big panic attack that led to depression,

led to an eating disorder, led to ADHD medication, led to an addiction. So it was a whole host of things that kind of came together, at the one time over a period of about three to four years. And I was quite sick. And at that point, I'd seen doctors, I'd seen psychologists, psychiatrists. Like I said, I was on different medications. My mother was looking after me at one point. So it was quite a crazy wild time in my life. And then very serendipitously and randomly, a friend introduced me to go to a yoga class, told me there was going to be lots of hot girls. And that was the way he was going to get me there.

And so I ended up going to this class, and firstly, there was no hot girls. There were people, the majority of them were over 60. And it was a meditation studio. And my teacher, who's still my teacher to this day, was there. And he was essentially talking and teaching about the mind. And he was talking about observing your thoughts and not believing that you are those thoughts. And everything you were saying at that point was just landing very different. I was like, oh, wow.

were like, who am I if I'm not my thoughts? And it got me really curious. And there was a point in that practice that I observed all of my thoughts as they were moving through my mind. And they were telling me all kinds of weird things. Like, you're never going to get well or you're so sick or, you know, your daughter, you have to look after her. How are you going to look after her and this and that? It was actually quite an enlightening moment because I realized I could observe the thoughts and not become those thoughts. And so that got me so curious that the next day I came back and the day after that and the day after that. And I ended up studying with this teacher every day for five years. I still, you know, keep in touch with me in Australia now. But it began to slowly change my life. It began to

first help me with sleep. I started to sleep a lot better. My anxiety started to go down. I was off medication at that point. I'd let go of all of my addictions. And gradually, my perspective on life began to change and my relationship with my suffering began to change. And, you know, it was never in my life path to teach. I was in marketing and advertising. I was quite successful, but always felt like that was a bit empty. And randomly, I just fell into it one day when my teacher asked me to come and teach. And then a girl I was dating was going on a yoga teacher training and I wanted to impress her. And so I'm like, okay, I'll come and I'll come and do the training. And then again, you know, serendipitously, a studio offered me a job and the rest is kind of history. Here I am.

That's amazing. I love your story because I think, relatable. It's real. It's not like you were, they've been among all of your life and this is just this enlightening. You're coming from somebody that struggled with anxiety and issues and were able to overcome it. Now, let me ask you, how long was that journey for you? Like when you started that first class to until you felt like you had maybe more grasp on your thoughts and anxiety. Like, what did that look like for you? Yeah, it was a journey. I think with anxiety, it's one of those really interesting things that you don't ever really get rid of it. I find, right? It's, it comes and it goes and it presents itself maybe when you're doing too much coffee or when you're

nervous or in your new relationship. But over time, you start to develop a different relationship with it. And that relationship is one that actually doesn't leave because you'll have knowledge and context and wisdom when anxiety arises, how to meet that, how to manage that and how to get through that next moment. But for me, you know, I've been in this kind of world for 16 years, 15 years. And, you know, there are still times when, you know, I'm a co-founder of a startup that sometimes I'll get it. I'm like, where did this come from? Yeah. But now the tools are there and the effect it has, it's very different than when I had it, you know,

maybe 10 years ago, 15 years ago. So it's a gradual process. But, you know, with actually embodying ourselves and our emotions, I start, I genuinely believe that progress can be quite quick. Oh, 100%. I mean, I think you know me. You know me for years and, like, the journey through anxiety. and the journey through how it manifests and how it manifests in your life,

that's something I will always attest to of like, it doesn't just go away. You don't just wake up one day and go, oh, cool, I just don't have any more anxiety. Everything's great. But it's more of, it doesn't affect you as heavily. Your triggers don't have the same effect as you anymore because you have now gained control over your thoughts

as opposed to letting them. Because I think with a lot of our viewers, and maybe you can help us on understanding how to gain control over this, The number one thing that I really hear a lot is like that narrative that plays, that screw tape, that I'm not good enough. Like when you get into that rumination brain, and I'm sure you can know that feeling, we know what it feels like and how it affects your body. I would love to know like your favorite tools when things like that happen because I know obviously when you're dysregulated, it's hard to think about meditating. But perhaps like I know you do breathwork and things and movement and I'd love to hear like how you implement these in those moments when you're feeling that anxiety coming on for what. whatever the reason might be.

Yeah, that's a great question. And I think that the answer is not straightforward. It's not as easy as do this and it'll go away or this is what happens. The first thing to understand is meditation is somewhat subtle. You know, it takes time. But what meditation gives you is not a quick fix for what's happening in that moment. Meditation really transforms how you think about the anxiety. So, you know, physiologically, I remember reading once that, you know, love and fear are

experienced in the body in a very similar way, right? Where our heart starts to beat, our palms get sweaty, our mind starts to race. The difference is the thoughts around it. When we're in fear, mind is telling us, oh shit, we've got to like run or we've got to fight. We go into the flight of fight response, sympathetic nervous system gets activated. And all our thoughts are around survival at that moment. And love is obviously a very different experience. So with meditation, because it's a gradual practice that takes time,

minute takes patience, we start to understand when I'm in a state that feels anxious, we have a choice. And that's the biggest thing that meditation gives you is a choice. How do I respond to this moment? Like I can notice my heart beating quickly. I can notice my palms getting sweaty. I can notice my thoughts. And I can be like, oh, okay, I'm having an anxious moment. I don't have to be thrown around by that experience.

And that's really the incredible wisdom that you gain from practice. Now, on the other hand, there's other practices that just snap you out in a moment that perhaps aren't as long-lasting, that just you need a moment of salvation. You need a moment where you just short-circuit that thinking. And those are practices that are very somatic. You can do a couple of rounds of breathwork. You can do some shaking. You can ground yourself with your feet on the floor. You can talk to a friend.

You can have a cold shower. There are all of these different exercises that are very subtle. and quick, but they don't have the long-lasting effect that perhaps a meditation practice does. And for me, the real power in navigating anxiety with mindfulness is having all the tools. So you have a consistent meditation practice which changes your relationship and your brain to the experience and the reality. And then you have these little things in your toolkit that you pull out when you need it. And also you have the wisdom with both of those experiences to know that, hey, if I drink coffee at this time, this is what's going to happen.

Right. Or if I'm on a date and they say this thing, oh, I'm triggered. And that's what's happening. So you gain not only the accessibility to a toolkit that will help you in the moment, but we'll also cultivate your mind. You'll become smarter, essentially, to navigate moments as they arise in your journey. Yeah, I found meditation for me personally helped my self-awareness, cultivating the self-awareness that I think is really lacking.

and it allowed me to stop being in a victim mode of everything is happening to me and my life and all of this and look at the cards I was dealt. And instead it allowed me to go, wait a minute, you are literally attaching to this. You are, I was self-identifying as I'm anxious. And as my therapist always said, no, you're not anxious, you have anxiety. And so I remember I'll never forget when you actually taught at our first software event. And I remember when you did a meta meditation. And to me, that is, you know, that is. is one of my favorite meditations that you do. Like anytime. So for anyone who's not on open, get on it.

And every day there are daily meditations, which is what I love. I listen to those every single morning and I do the 10 minutes to like set my day up. And when I see your name and it's like some kind of meta meditation, it really allows me to dive in a little bit deeper, I think, into like where the kink still are. Because I think a lot of people struggle with meditation because the thoughts take over and all of a sudden your brain is going in all these places. but for me, what meditation really allowed was like to hone in on my visualization. And now moving through the grief of my losing my dog and being able to reconnect with little me

and do the inner child work, meditation has become the most important part of my toolbox. And I love that you even brought that up of having all of these things that you can use. Because I think what that really teaches us is like you said, it doesn't just go away, but these are ways so that you can start taking controls so it no longer controls you. to what you said that all meditations aren't equal, right? Like when we think of meditation and perhaps, you know, some of your audience has tried and they're like, oh, it's not for me. Yeah.

Like there are so many different styles of meditation practice. I primarily work with a style called mindfulness and it has lots of different aspects to it. You know, it has the very traditional Buddhist aspects of mindfulness than it has the more contemporary secular mindfulness practices. But inherently what it develops firstly is a level of awareness. That's the baseline. We are aware of what's happening internally and we're aware of what's happening externally. And the internal awareness is, okay, yes, the heartbeat and quickly, for example, or the mind is

running into this train of thought. Then there's the external awareness. And the external awareness is, oh, these different sounds that are occurring are the way this person is presenting when I'm connecting with them. And over time, that level of awareness creates a clarity in our experience. Because so much of anxiety is distorting our experience, right? It's telling us that something is happening that isn't actually happening. But then if we can be in the reality of the experience, if we can see what's happening as the experience, not the memories that we're bringing into it, not our past experiences, not our biases, then the moment begins to change.

And so that's one aspect of mindfulness. Then there's other qualities we can cultivate like compassion, like loving kindness. We can use meditation to sleep better, to regulate a understanding. nervous system. So there are all these different styles that we can call upon when we move through life, but the baseline is awareness. And whether it's dating, having self-awareness is huge for that. Yes. Or whether it's really using it as a self-care tool to nurture ourselves. Yeah, which I love. And I think it's interesting because I, for so long, thought of it as, okay, my anxiety is in dating. Oh, okay, well, I thought daddy issues and like all of that.

And then I started really doing the inner child work and reconnecting with me and utilizing meditation to do that. And that was huge for me. Like, I'm not sure if you kind of went through that a journey like that, but it was what bridged the gap for me. And then now that I've done all that, I started to realize, even through my meditation practice, like, whoa, anxiety is showing up in other ways. Like, now it could be how I see finances and how that was triggering for me when I was a kid and how I would see my father interact with money and how that laid kind of on me.

So for everyone listening, like, anxiety manifests more than just dating. It's not just somebody triggering and then that. It could be friendships. it could be relationships. It could be work. It could be, as Menaj and are both business owners, we know how triggering that can be as well on your self-worth. And so I love that you even are bringing up, like,

the overarching umbrella of how this affects you in different ways for your life. And you let me ask, did you fall? So let's talk about dating for a second and all the anxieties that go around. Did you ever feel when you were dating, because I know now that you were not, more anxious, avoidant? How did you kind of, where did that lie in for you? And then I'd also love to know, like,

if you implemented your meditation in your dating practices and what that looked like. Yeah. I think it's always been situational for me. If I've dated someone that's been particularly avoidant, then it's created an anxiety for sure within me. And there are relationships I've been in where I've been the avoidant. And so I don't know what that means for me. And I don't know if I'm the right person to give this advice.

But I think life comes at you fast and you can't always control how you respond. And I think, you know, I've been in long term. relationships where I've seen partners go from anxious to avoid it and secure. And self-awareness is the key to that. It's to recognize who you are and to recognize that you will also change. You have the nature to change. And to be honest, like me as well, loving kindness is really what transformed my relationship with myself.

Because so much of anxiety tells us that we're not a good person, that something's wrong with us, that we want to be different. and if we change, then this person will love us and will be accepted and will be loved. And so meeting our self-awareness practice with a compassion practice is really transformative because you realize that I am good, I'm whole, I am complete, no matter what this person says or does, even if they stay with me or if they don't, it doesn't change my relationship to myself. When we begin to change our relationship to ourself, I have found that our relationship to our partners begins to change. If we approach relationships from a place of lack or if we approach

relationships from a place of I'm so lucky to be with this person and if this person leaves, I am nothing, then inevitably that causes a risk within that relationship. So it is a daily practice of noticing our triggers, noticing our responses. And then also the compassion has to meet them as well, right? You also have to, I believe, you also have to approach out your partners with the level of compassion because they are also changeable creatures. Like they're not the same person that were five years ago or six years ago or even two weeks ago. So if you develop a relationship of compassion to yourself, you naturally have that for another person. And you create spaciousness.

And when people ask me to describe love, I describe love as spaciousness. And for me, that means in space, when life feels spacious, things can come and go, things can change and evolve. but everything is held. There's a sense of you create space for everything to be held. And I love that reference to love. And I think one of my teachers, Lama Rod Owens, came up with us. I shout out to you. And as soon as he said it, I really felt that

because it also reminds me of what it's like to be in my body. Yeah. And when people ask me what meditation has given me, it's given me the ability to remain in my body. And that really means I'm not in my head. Yeah. It means that I can embody what I'm feeling. feeling. I can embody the anxiety right now and I'm not rejecting myself. I'm creating compassion for that moment. I love that because I think that's probably for me, you know, for so long,

it's like you're in therapy. Okay, you're talking about your issues and you're trying to work on yourself worth and all of those things. And so I would go out and date going, no, no, I want this and their partner and I want the emotional availability and I want someone that's going to have these deep conversations and all of that. Unbeknownst to me, not realizing that like I wasn't showing up in that way. And I wasn't matching what it is that I wanted. And I think that's like a huge thing. Even when I'm dealing with clients or talking, it's like, you'll hear all this. And it's like, yeah, but you don't even feel comfortable having a simple conversation about feelings, let alone could you handle the depth that comes with a serious relationship where communication is everything.

And I think when I started to do that loving kindness towards myself is where I started to really see big picture. Oh, wait, bitch, you got a lot of work on you that needs to still be done because receiving that was hard for me. And that's why I love when you do those meditations of like, may I be happy, may I be at peace. It's overwhelming for me emotionally because for me to actually have, my favorite saying is like, you'll see it when you believe it. And for me to really believe that was undoing years of a little version of me screaming that I'm not good enough and I'm not worthy and I'm not this. And being able to meditate and cultivate this practice of, yes, I am. And I, And when I gained control over those thoughts, then like you said, you have a different vibe.

You show up differently for dates and you start to act differently. And then you stop accepting that shit because you know that no matter what, you're going to be okay. Yeah, yeah. And I think we should break down for your audience what loving kindness is. I would love that. Because, you know, 2,500 years ago, the Buddha taught a particular meditation of fear. Loving kindness was originally taught for fear. these days we kind of refer to it as a practice that cultivates love for ourselves,

cultivates friendliness, cultivates benevolence. But ultimately what we're doing is we're cultivating this special quality of love that isn't conditioned. And what that means is that, you know, if we think of a romantic love, we probably think of it as being a conditioned type of love. Like, you know, if I don't do this, this person's going to leave me. Or if they don't do this, this person's going to leave me. So if we think about it through the lens,

of a love that's based in friendship or even like a mother's love, right? The kind of love that is just not, you can do anything and they'll still accept you and love you. And so what we do when we practice loving kindness is we think of ourselves, we think of someone that we love, we think of someone that we don't know very well. And then we think of what we refer to as an enemy, someone that's been difficult in our life. Often people tell me it's like an ex. Yeah.

Someone that hurt them, right? And so what we practice doing is we practice visualizing them as if they're here with us as we practice. And then we send ourselves in these stages, and then we send to all the other people, these wishes. And the wishes are traditionally, may I be happy, or may that you be happy, may I be safe, may I be free, may I be free from suffering. And we repeat these phrases and then we notice what it feels like in our body to say that. And if you've spent even five minutes saying to yourself, may I be happy? And then really letting you know, self sink into that feeling. A, it's hard. It's much easier saying it to someone that we love

because we're used to that. It's much harder for us to receive that love. And that there for me is an invitation to practice more. If I know it's hard for me, I'm like, oh, I need to do that. It's like, you know, when you go and do squats in the gym, like, this shit is hard. It means, okay, I probably need to work on it. Yeah. And so meditation is the same. And what we do and what we feel is we start to get the somatic feeling of us offering ourselves this wish to just be happy. And it's so profound. It's so mind-blowingly profound to recognize that like our wish to be happy transforms us in this way and it touches us so deeply. Over time, it begins to change how we see the world. It begins to change how we see the person that we love, the person that we don't know very well,

like you're barrister every day. And then eventually it begins to change how we see our ex or this person that is an enemy. We begin to see them as humans that are just navigating this crazy human life that we all exist in. And that for me is really transformational. When we develop that level of compassion that we begin to accept someone, doesn't mean we forgive them for what they've done. Doesn't mean that we accept them for what they've done. But it means that we've let go of that energy of hating someone,

that energy of despising someone. And we recognize that they're flawed human beings just like us. Yeah. And then everything begins to change. And I love all that because I think it's so especially in the dating world, it can get, I mean, you're like we've both been single. We understand what this feels like. And it can get, after a while, one, you start to feel it very personal.

You start to feel like what is wrong with me? And I remember one thing that changed kind of my perception of all of this was when my therapist that I want you to go around and start when you date. I want you to look at them as their children. Because what you really are, it's a wounded kid in there that's reacting. And I think when I started to do that, and like you said, it wasn't excusing bad behavior.

I wasn't going, oh, you're being an ass. Oh, okay, whatever, no big deal. You're just hurt. But what it allowed me to do is, one, not take it personally. That's my favorite part of the four agreements of like, like I always say, you are the main character in your movie. Everyone else is an extra. You're just an extra in their movie, too.

You hold a lot less weight than you actually think you do in somebody else's life. And by being able to show that compassion. And it's also what I teach even of like communication. You're not doing it because of anybody else besides you. So if you show up as the best version of yourself because you love who you genuinely are and you are not afraid to show and give and receive love, just because somebody else might be limited doesn't change the fact that I can show up in that way. That shows that they can't. It's not a direct reflection.

And I think by implementing that practice, it allows you to date less attachment to the outcome. and looking at it as, let me see who this person actually is versus the version of who I'd like them to be or who I think they are based on the text messages that I've sent. Right, right. And you're going to think, like, we're all so traumatized. Oh, yeah. I mean, not.

To say it lightly. To say it lightly. And I'm not even just talking about what our parents lovingly gave us. Like society, it's traumatizing, right? If you're a person of color, you're navigating a whole different kind of trauma. If you're living in low socioeconomic areas and navigating that sort of trauma. And when you meet someone, it's never really this clean version of them that isn't traumatized. And I often think, like, how often I spend in my mind in most interactions in my life.

And then you're like, oh, yeah, this person must be doing the same as well. So, like, we're both experiencing each other through lenses. Yes. And what meditation helps us to do is to clear those lenses. It's like you're wearing a pair of sunglasses that have dirt and mud on it. Actually, a better example is, you know, this glass of water. it's like someone dropped some dirt in there. And those are the lenses in which we see the world.

When we practice, the dirt tends to fall to the bottom. And so then the rest of the water becomes clear. And you can see through it much more clearly. And so practices like meditation and mindfulness and yoga and breathwork help us to clear it, but also then the compassion holds all of that. You're like, okay, we're just trying to figure all of this shit out. And I think when you, like that's why I love the app. That's why I love open is because it's not just meditation.

You also have breathwork. You also have movement. And like, for me, I always teach when you're in dysregulation, when you're feeling, because you know you're out of the prefrontal cortex. Like you are not making any rash decisions when you're ruminating an anxious brain. The first thing I'm always like, first, I would like you to identify what your triggers are. And what is the narrative that is playing? Because when you have that, when you cultivate that self-awareness of the narrative that continues

to play around the situation, you can then start to discredit it and break it down. And then, like you said, you start to see it clearly. and you also start to look at, not how I feel about them, but how do we feel with them? Yeah. And I think the step before that is to actually feel the discomfort. Yes, sit in it. Sit in it. Yeah.

And I think, you know, we, because we are, like, people are anxious, what we tend to do is we go straight to the solution. Yes. Right. And we bypass the feeling. And the feeling is uncomfortable. Like, if you, someone hasn't texted you back or if you're feeling anxiety, like, you don't want to feel that because it feels like it's painful.

And we can't heal what we can't feel. And so in order to get to that step, in order to get to that step of understanding the narratives that's going through our mind, understanding the triggers, we have to first be okay with the feeling. And the feeling is the heart part. And because it's painful as humans, we're hardwired to not feel it. We want to feel pleasure. So what is the most pleasurable thing in the moment?

Maybe it's to grab our phone. Maybe it's to text them. maybe it's to go into all these different weird and wonderful scenarios that we create in our mind, but the hard part is just to be there and to say, this hurts right now, where am I feeling it in my body? And it might be the chest, it might be the belly, it might be the hands. Can I just be with that for a moment? And if you can learn and train yourself to be with the discomfort, that for me is the transformational part. That for me almost overrides the cognitive understanding of what's happening because we then train ourselves to be in on.

comfortable situations. We train ourselves to be in places that feel really scary and hopeful. And we develop a courage and fearlessness in that moment. And we can also then from that place of courage and fearlessness have conversations. Right. We can be like, hey, I don't like when you did this. Even though our mind's like, this is fucking hard. Yeah. I hate this. We're like, I can know we can be this and we can do that. Yeah. And I love, I mean, I think that's like my number one thing. Like, growth comes from discomfort, growth and connection. Like, I know at least in my relationship, because we call them tech. He's anonymous and we keep it in that way on the platform.

And the only way that we've connected isn't because we go out and have great times, isn't because the dates are all fun, isn't because it's because we push ourselves to have hard conversations, to talk about things that make us uncomfortable. And for me, like, I'm glad you brought up the texting because I think that is probably the biggest point of contention with most of the people listening is like not understanding what to do in those moments when someone's not texting them. And then it's like, because you know how it goes, like you're in dysregulation. Then our brain loves routine. Our brain wants to look for familiarity. That's what it's literally trying to do. So of course you're going to go back into creating a

narrative that fits that core belief of, I'm not good enough. I'm not worthy. Great. I need to find facts. I need to find something. But we all know that these aren't facts. The thoughts that you're having, That's why when you put them on trial and you start to say, what are the facts to back up these thoughts? You don't have anything besides the action of or the inaction of they didn't text me. And so when you can start to undo that, and for me, that's where mindfulness played in. Same even like mind-to-body connection whenever the gym. I sometimes will go, no, no, no, I want you to really think about how this feels right now. Where are you feeling it?

How are you feeling it so that I can start to feel the growth through it and go, okay, I'm actually doing something right. That's really fucking uncomfortable. But how are you going to grow up? And I think same with the dating and the texting. And I would love if you have, what do you think like when you have something, you haven't heard from that person and you're sitting there and you're ruminating. What are some things that you love when you're in those moments of feeling, fuck, I'm spinning, I'm out of control.

Yeah. I mean, my recipe, I'm not dating anymore. My recipe for dating when I was dating was vulnerability. It was honesty and it was dignity. vulnerability because I think, you know, if you're wanting to be in love, it takes vulnerability to be in love. And sometimes it takes you expressing something that you may want to keep closer to your chest. You might, you know, do that. And it takes honesty because you need to be really honest with yourself and you need to be honest with the other person.

So kind of to break down those areas, I just thought about those on the spot, by the way. Yay! Right. The vulnerability part is knowing that, okay, entering into this thing or texting this thing will likely bring up things for me, you know? And sometimes we like to idealize a person. Oh, yeah. And it could be our anxiety speaking right then, or it could be our trauma or it could be our conditioning.

But to even wanting to engage with this relationship will take vulnerability. And I think that's a part of love. and that's not going to go away. In order to love wisely, you need to be vulnerable. So my thing is like enter into that, knowing that you might get your heartbroken. Right. And that's okay. Like one of my teachers once said, signing up to love is signing up to get your heartbroken.

Right. In one way or another, either daily or weekly, you will get your heartbroken. Maybe it's eventually. Maybe you'll live to be 100 years old and eventually one of you will die and that's heartbreaking. So that's a part of life and that's a beautiful aspect of life. The second part was honesty. And I think you have to be really honest. That comes with self-awareness.

That comes with, like, am I in this thing because I really want it to work? Right. This is the person I visualize in my mind. And I've told my parents about it. Or maybe I'm getting old. And this is my last shot at doing it. And be really honest. And whatever your reason is, it's okay.

But if you're honest around why you're engaging in this and how you're engaging in it, then you're authentic. in that experience. And the final part is having awareness to know that, okay, this person isn't texting back. This person's actions aren't really aligning with how I would want someone in a relationship to show up and having the dignity to walk away. And, you know, I've been in situations where I've wanted to cling. I've wanted to hold on to them. I'm like, no, but if they do this and do that. I think that came from a lack of love for myself. Truthfully. It's a belief that, no, I deserve this or this person's actions are okay.

And walking away with dignity for me means that there's a lot of love for this person. There's a lot of compassion for where they're in my life. I feel like I need something different right now. And I can create a boundary around that and I can create standards for myself. And it's okay to do that. And that comes from a place of compassion. And so walking away with dignity for me has been a big thing. And it doesn't mean I have to hate someone.

It doesn't mean I have to dislike them. It doesn't mean I have to judge them. It just means that, hey, like, dating is wild out here, you know, and I remember what it was like. And it's like, okay, we're not meeting each other right now. So have the balls to walk away and to believe that love is really out there. And your person is there and be willing to hold off until then. And to me, honestly, what you just described is the epitome of what's secure, being secure in the attachment. Like, because you can fluctuate.

Like, I've been anxious. Now I'm more secure. Like, you can move. Like you said, people trigger different things. But I think it's like knowing that there is no scarcity mindset. This isn't the end all be all. This isn't the last one. That narrative that's playing up.

There's nobody else. And this is really hard. Like, again, if you go outside looking for a red car, you're going to find a red car. So if you enter it with the mindset of this is really hard and there's nobody else, then you're going to attach to the outcome. You're going to attach to people and removing all of that and stripping that away to say, but does this actually work for? me is the person, I'll never forget our mutual friend, Vince.

I remember when I was breaking up with my ex and he said, do you love him for who he is today? And I said, yes, but, and he goes, and we're done with this conversation. And he said, because you can't but this. It has to be who are they now and you accept them for who they are, not trying to change them. And that was a like, whoa, moment for me of, you're right. It's not the idea of them. It's not the potential of them. It's who the fuck they are sitting in front of you and being able to cultivate the mind.

mindfulness to see that. I also would add to that. I love that and shout out to Vince if you're listening. I would also add to that one of the most important things I think I've encountered in people and, you know, my partner for sure is someone that is willing to actively look at themselves and work. I don't, yeah. And, you know, I always entered into relationships much after I began a practice knowing that I wasn't going to find the finished product. Yeah. Because I'm not the finished product. And I couldn't, I couldn't. I couldn't. I couldn't. put that on someone like oh i'm going to meet a perfect person but i needed to believe that i was going to be with someone that was always going to have a level of willingness and desire to look at themselves work on themselves change if they needed to and have humility in that to be like hey look i'm sorry it came from here right and for me that's like gold and having that in a partner like i'm

i'm willing to compromise on other things just to have that one thing because with that one thing you know there's longevity. You know, there's always going to be a desire to look at ourselves and the ugliness to accept it and work on it. Yeah, I mean, that's, and that's growth-minded. Like, to me, I know when I was dating, like even when I met my boyfriend, anytime we'd have an issue, he would always say, I want to be in this with you. I want to make this work, so I need to take the actionable steps to do so. And that was wild for me to be like, whoa, I can express myself safely and with eye statements and from a place of confidence. And it wasn't deflected, it wasn't used. And that's okay if it was. In those moments are where I realize, I think we're on different pages here.

I think the way we communicate and the way we operate might be different, and that's okay. Like I said, showing compassion of I'm doing the best what I can with the information that I know in front of me and that that person, this doesn't define me and being able to go through all of that. But having somebody, because I think it was, I don't remember if it was J-Shed, somebody was talking about how you actually need a lot less to make a relationship work than you think you do. But really, is somebody willing to take accountability and ownership? Are they growth-minded? Do they actually have, like I said,

cultivating that self-awareness to be able to identify, you're right. I am so sorry, this is on me as opposed to it's everybody else. Narcissism starts to play in. But I think it's such, I love how you put all of that of like how that is such an important quality to look for. And that's also why I encourage people when you're dating, especially in those early stages when it's, you know, I don't want to say anything because then it's going to rock the boat.

And it's like, what makes you think that's sustainable though? And how is that going to, yield the results that you'd actually like versus staying true to yourself, knowing your boundaries and non-negotiables and saying, I was good before this person, I'll be good after. And if I walk away, that's not a reflection that I'm less than or not good enough. That's actually me really loving myself and saying, I trust myself. Yeah. And just, you know, never forgetting, you know, in Buddhist meditation practice, we begin with the belief that we are born, good, whole, and complete. And our meditation practice simply helps us see that clearly. And so often,

Often people that are anxious, I found that, you know, I've bought, they think of themselves as a self-improvement project. They think they always have to be better. They think they have to, you know, do the latest diets or do the latest exercises and wear the latest clothes and constantly trying to better themselves so they will be lovable to someone else. My 100% belief is that we are good, whole, and complete. We're born with it.

All meditation practice helps us with is to see that clearly. And any time you get lost in your anxiety, you're not seeing it clearly. And so drop out of that, drop into your body and recognize that you're powerful, that recognize you are so much more than what this anxious thought is telling you at that moment. And then embody that really genuinely, because it's the truth. It's not false. Like you are not broken. No, there's nothing to fix.

There's nothing to fix, right? And this moment is complete in and of itself. Right. And so the practices, the older I get, it just reveals. feels itself that this moment is perfect. This relationship being really weird and anxiety right now is perfect. It's telling me that, okay, this doesn't feel right. And just see the reality of that.

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autotrater.ca. Canada's car marketplace. Do you have any, like, I'm super excited for anybody. We're going to link this in the show notes that they get a free month of Open to try it because I think it's such a beautiful, like it's my favorite app.

I use it and this has been well before any of this even started. I've always used it. Sabrina's been an OG student of mine way before Open as well. So I really thank you for that honest feedback. I believe in it.

And I'll even text Minaj and say, like, hey, this is something I think could be really cool. And I love that the feedback is implemented. So I would love to know, kind of as we're wrapping up, what advice do you have for people that struggle to meditate? Or if they say, I'm sitting and I can't do it and I'm ruminating in my thoughts, like, is there something on open that's for them? Or what would you suggest to people that are just struggling to, like, start their journey? Yeah.

If you're really anxious, then meditating is hard. Yeah. And so you need to go into that thing, recognizing that it's a long-term journey. but what you can do is do practices like breathwork. And the reason I've really dove deep into breathwork at the last five years is because it is the quickest way to drop out of your head and into your body. There are down-regulative practices and down-regulative means that you're essentially dropping into a parasympathetic state.

And when you drop into a parasympathetic state, you're telling your brain that you're safe. You can rest, you can relax. And so there are practices that calm you down. There are also practices that give you more. energy. And then there are practices that you do over like a 60 minute period, which can, you know, people have reported it being transformative in the sense that it really begins to allow you to feel your feelings and against the shake you up a little bit and you know, you can scream and you can bang your feet. And all of these practices just drop you into the body. And my whole teaching these

days is around the body. It's like how much can we experience through the body? Because when we're in the body, we're in our feeling state. We can feel when we meet someone. We can feel it. We can drop into intuition. We can drop into a sense of safety. We're in our minds. We're thinking, where is this going to go? Is this guy right for me? He's this girl right for me. Blah, blah, blah. And so breathwork practices are really useful. Also practices like yoga can be useful if we do it in a very mindful way. We're not just kind of using it as an exercise. If we're in certain postures and we're feeling, okay, what's happening here when I move this, when I do that? And so somatic practices are the way. The way, way to drop into mindfulness if you have a really anxious attachment style or if you have a really

anxious mind. But then eventually work towards meditation. And the places to begin, if you're anxious, is to do more spatial awareness practices. So concentrating in your breath can be hard because your mind is already going a million places. So noticing sounds as they come and go is really useful because it's more spacious. And then noticing sensations as they come and go because you're not focusing on one thing. Your mind is kind of noticing multiple things. And then eventually you can move into breath, but then practices that take you out of your body, but then bring you back in is useful, like loving kindness practice where you visualize certain things. So you're actively using your mind to do something can be really useful. Compassion practices can be really useful.

And then there's sleep practices, obviously, that will help you just calm down. Yeah. And I have to like, quick little story, even before we end, like, how I was so proud of myself this week. And on Friday, I did a breathwork on open. And it was like 20 minutes. And I remember just after thinking being like, I can't do this. I can't do this. And I was like, no, you know what, sit through it. Like it was like, do what the fuck the person is telling you to do. And by the end of it, I started getting that high where I was like, oh, this is why we do it. And I started to feel it.

And I came out of it feeling, wow, I'm really proud of myself. I pushed myself. And then Saturday, my boyfriend and I went on a hike. And after we started going, started going, and he's an avid hiker. But this was a new one for both of us. And we about two and a half hours in, all of a sudden realized, like, we're in the middle of the fucking desert. We are three hours away from the car.

and on the hike that we thought was significantly more difficult than we thought with the heat and the dog was about to pass out, the moment hit of, we're fucked. And I remember just sitting there and I was like, okay, I can choose to freak out or I can choose to say, we're going to get through this and we're going to figure this out. And I tapped into my breath work. I started going, four in. I was box breathing just to catch my breath and not panic. And the whole walk through, I just kept saying, I'm going to acknowledge, this sucks.

You're right. I'm here. It sucks. But you know what? the car is there and we're going to make it. And I really utilized the, you are stronger than you think. And I remembered the breathwork moment of, I sat through something to uncomfortable and I made it.

Yeah. And the most important thing you said for me there was that you realized you had a choice. Yeah. You realized that you could feed into the thoughts, which were going to derail you and probably make it worse. Much. Or you could just choose to accept the moment just as it is and realize you had another choice,

which was to regulate yourself and just keep moving forward. And that choice is what we forget, we have or we're anxious. Exactly. As I was, I'm like, you have the power in your relationship, just like the other person. And when did it do? It's like, instead of it freaking out and ruining my relationship and going, my anxiety, ruined it again, brought us closer. We got back to the car. We had a big high five.

And it was like, we did it. And I think ending on that of like, you have the choice on what your thoughts can do to you, just like you're having them. Well, you can have other ones. And once you start to cultivate, and I think by, implementing meditation to really be able to distance yourself between the thoughts and then attaching to them is such a beautiful practice. And I think start with five minutes a day. Yeah. I also think like meditation isn't the panacea. It's it's the gateway, right?

Meditation really just changes how you see the world. Totally. And so don't rely on any one thing. Yeah. I say to fix you, it just should help you see the world differently. One of my teachers always said that meditation doesn't make you a better meditator. Meditates. you, meditation makes you better at life. I love that. And that perception is really what we're cultivating through sitting down and noticing. Yeah. And I love that. And I think that's why I'm so excited to you're open with the community because it's something else to add to your toolbox. It's another means to say, cool, I get to explore myself further. And I can't wait to develop this. Like I said, I use it to go through my grief with my dog and inner child stuff.

And so I'm just so grateful that you introduced me to this. And I'm so grateful that you are on the podcast to introduce this to so many other people. And guys, again, We're going to link in the show notes. You'll get up to be able to try open and you can sit with Minaj live or pre-recorded and be able to actually try all of this and see how it works for you and where the Kings are. Yeah. So thank you so much for joining us. Thank you.

I'm super excited for everyone to be able to sit with you.