Sept. 15, 2019

Monitoring your meditation with Ariel Garten

Monitoring your meditation with Ariel Garten
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Monitoring your meditation with Ariel Garten
Monitoring your meditation with Ariel Garten
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Season 4 Psychology & Neuroscience Mindfulness & Acceptance

Meditation is a thousand year old practice but Ariel has found a way to bring that practice into the 21st century with her breakthrough technology Muse: The Brain Sensing Headband. Her mission is to help people do a deep dive in understanding your brain, how it makes them who they are and how to help manage the crazy that resides in all of us. Cass Dunn has already used the Muse headband to monitor herself and as a mindfulness and meditation teacher herself she has some fascinating insights on the technology. Cass and Ariel discuss the things wearables can teach us about ourselves and if it’s possible that technology is making us more detached from ourselves in the long run.Check out the Muse and take 20% off with code cassdunnhttps://www.choosemuse.com/cassdunn
Connect with Cass:www.crappytohappypod.comhello@crappytohappypod.com 
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Join the free 7-day Happiness Challenge:www.cassdunn.com/happiness

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Transcript
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A listener production.

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Hey guys, you're listening to Crappy to Happy. I'm cas done.

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I'm a clinical and coaching psychologist, a mindfulness meditation teacher,

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and author of the Crappy to Happy books. In this series,

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we look at all of the factors that might be

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making you feel crappy and give you the tools and

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the techniques that will help you to overcome them. In

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each episode, I introduce you to interesting, inspiring, intelligent people

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who are experts in their field, and my hope is

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that they will help you feel less crappy and more happy.

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Today I'm speaking.

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With Ariel Garton, who is a highly accomplished woman with

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a fascinating background, which she will soon share with you.

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Most recently, Ariel was the CEO of the company that

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created the Muse brain sensing headband, which provides real time

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feedback on your brain activity during meditation. You all know

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that mindfulness and meditation are topics I'm passionate about, so

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I had to talk to Ariel about the science behind

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this technology, it's potential benefits, and whether or not it

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aligns with more traditional approaches to meditation or not. Ariel

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was gracious enough to join me from her home in Toronto,

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and I hope you find this conversation as fascinating as

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I did. So, Ariel, I would like to just start

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with a little bit of your background for our listeners. So,

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because you have an interesting background too, you have a

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background in the arts, am I right, psychotherapy, and neuroscience.

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Do you want to just tell us a little bit

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about your background?

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Sure, So my mum was an artist, So I always

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grew up thinking that you could imagine anything you wanted

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and bring it to life, because you'd make these beautiful canvases.

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For anyone watching the video, there's actually one behind me.

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So I grew up in the world of the arts,

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but I was fascinated by science and how the world worked,

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and that fascination very quickly turned into the fascination with

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the self and understanding how the self worked. So I

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trained as a psychotherapist and a neuroscientist. And so I

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spent a spent a decade being a psychotherapist in private practice,

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and then as a neuroscientist, developed this amazing device MEWS,

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which actually reads your brain activity and gives you real

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time feedback during a variety of activities, including meditation. So

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I've spun the gamut from art to science, and I'm

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really fascinated by how you allow people to understand and

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transform what goes on in their own brain.

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Yeah, it is so interesting and I want to We

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will spend some time talking about the muse for sure,

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which is a brain sensing headband that you wear during meditation.

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It gives you real time feedback about what's happening in

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your brain.

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The inn at in a nutshell. Ye, so you got it.

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So before we get to that, what's your personal experience

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of meditation and sort of what inspired you to go

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down this path when it comes to all the things

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you could create with this technology.

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So I was a terrible meditator as a psychotherapist. I

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would be always recommending meditation to my patients. I would

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teach them how to meditate, and then I would go

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home and I would sit there and I'd try to

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let my mind focus on something and it would do

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a million things at once, and it'd be like, ah, man,

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this is so frustrating. And then my patients would come

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in and be like, so did you meditate this week?

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And they're like, oh, yeah, totally for like three minutes once.

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Yes, okay.

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At least you're not lying to be like the other

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patient was.

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And when I started working with this very early brand

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computer interface technology, we did all sorts of crazy stuff

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with it, but it became really clear that if we

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wanted to help people in the world and help move

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the needle for humanity in some way, that if we

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could use this technology to teach people to meditate, we

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would be doing something really meaningful.

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I know I relate so much to that because I'm

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a psychologist and I teach people meditation as well, and

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I'm not always the greatest at maintaining my own practice,

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but yes, how was the meditation practice?

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Like people couldn't sit for longer than three minutes.

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That would sit for three minutes maybe twice a week,

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and that's their limit. So I'm all for anything that

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helps people to do more of it, or to be

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encouraged or incentivized in some way to meditate, because obviously

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we know what the benefits are as a neuroscientist. Actually

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that leads me to do you want to talk to

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some of the known benefits sure of mindfulness and meditation.

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So there are so many known benefits.

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If you look at the letterature, there's over a thousand

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published studies talking about meditation's ability to improve your sleep,

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decrease your stress, improve your gro scores, improve your productivity,

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improve your relationships, and change your mood. Like the studies

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over and over and over again demonstrate meditation's ability to

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have meaningful impact in our mind and our body. As

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an euroscientist, I can dive into the cool things that

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meditation can do for your brain.

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Exactly, yeah, please cool.

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So at the front of our head over here, we

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have an area called the prefrontal cortex, and it's a

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sort of a higher order control center. It's the thing

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that allows us to think, organize, plan, It's a thing

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that we have that other mammals do not have. And

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as you age, unfortunately your prefrontal cortex thins.

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Bad news.

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But the good news is if you're able to maintain

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a long term meditation practice, you can maintain the thickness

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of your prefrontal cortex even as you age. So there's

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one study by doctor Sarah Lazar at Harvard and she

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had a fifty year old long term meditator who had

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the prefrontal cortex thickness of a twenty three year old.

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So moving back in the brain, so the prefrontal cortex

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lets you organize and plan. Behind it, we have in

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the middle of the brain we have the amygdala, and

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the amygdala is your fight or flight response. It's the

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thing that's going like, ah, there's a fire, or ah,

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my pants are rinkly and I'm walking into a meeting,

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or add that person across the room maybe doesn't like me.

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It's firing all the time, and not necessarily in ways

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that are always helpful to us. And when you look

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at somebody with a meditation practice, you can often see

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a decrease in amygdala activity, and if you look at

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a long term meditator, you may even see a decrease

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in the size of the amygdala.

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That's fascinating.

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Yes, so we're seeing like real structural changes in the brain,

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and there's really a relationship between what's happening in the

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prefrontal cortex and what's happening in the amygdala. You can

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kind of think of the prefrontal cortex as the parent,

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as the thing that can plan and organize and see

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the world around it and see what's clearly going on,

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and the amygdala being the little three year old that

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wants to have a temper tantrum and freak out and

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is scared. And as you meditate, often part of what's

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going on is that you have an increase in prefrontal

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cortex control that down regulates the amygdala. So the wise

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parent is getting wiser and it's able to calm down

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the anxious, scared child. And so meditation allows us to

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really in many ways, structurally change our brain potentially through

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both those dynamics and lots of other ones. So you

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also see cool things like increased connectivity through your corpus colossom,

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so increased connectivity in the left and right brain. You

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can see increased size of the hippocampus, are learning in

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memory area, and you can even see changes in the

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an area called the temporal pridal junction, which is responsible

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for compassion, empathy, and perspective taking.

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It's really interesting stuff and I love that because I think,

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you know, obviously, for a long time we knew that

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people felt better, they felt more calm. But knowing that

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that is actually the result of actual structural changes in

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your brain, that is, it is actually changing you at

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a cellular level, is so interesting.

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It is fascinating.

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So it can change you to cellular level in your

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mind it can also change you to cellular level in

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your body.

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Go talk and well, let's do it.

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So this is some super cool stuff that comes out

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of doctor Elizabeth Blackburn's lab. Doctor Elizabeth Blackburn is a

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Nobel Prize winning scientist.

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She's not some.

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Weird woo woo hippie scientist. And what she looked at

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was the length of one's telomeres. So, the telomeres are

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the protective caps on the end of your DNA. So

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in the same way that on your shoelace, you have

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a little piece of plastic at the end that once

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it unravels, your shoelace unravels. So too, we have these

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little telomeres at the end and they protect the DNA.

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And as you age, they get shorter and shorter. They

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are a marker of cellular aging, so they can show

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how old the organism is, how much it is aged.

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As you age, the telomeres get shorter and shorter. Well,

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it turns out that when you give somebody a meditation practice,

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there's the potential for those telomeres to actually start increasing again.

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And in doctor Blackburn's landmark study, she showed that moms

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who are chronically stressed caring chronically ill children when they

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were given a meditation practice, were actually able to increase

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the length of they're telomeres. And that finding has been

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replicated over and over and over again in various populations

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and average populations as well.

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So we're literally slowing, potentially reversing the aging process potentially.

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I mean, it's an incredibly big claim to make. Look

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at the literature, there's some pretty interesting conclusions that you

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can come to.

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And Ariel, are you aware of any of the research.

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I'm just curious about because I know that there's also

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studies about compassion meditation specifically, for example, basically turning off

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and on the genes for disease. Have you read any

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of that research?

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Yeah, so you're referring to meditation's ability to have an epigenetic.

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Impact in the body.

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Yes, yes, So overall, when we look at the meditation literature,

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there's just like we were turning on the gene for telomerase,

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telamerase being the enzyme that would lengthen your telomeres. We

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can also through meditation turn potentially turn on and off

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genes in your body that increase your immune system, that

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help you go into rest and digest that in general

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improve the health of the organism overall. It's not a panacea.

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I don't want to oversell it, but there's fascinating avenues

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that the literature points to pretty compelling.

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So even though we know all of.

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This, and even you and I like, even knowing all

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of this stuff, get to get people to sit down

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and spend ten minutes, fifteen minutes, five minutes just focusing

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on their breath is it seems like it's the hardest

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thing for people to do.

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There's every excuse to not do it. They can't find

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the time to do it, it's too uncomfortable.

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What's going on? We've got all the information. What is

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it that stops us being able to do this.

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It's a good question.

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And I mean I've seen it over and over and

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over again, and for some people it was like, oh, well,

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meditation is woo woo. But that perception, I think has

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gone away at this point. Everybody knows they should be meditating. It's,

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you know, part of a balanced lifestyle. You eat well,

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you brush your teeth, you go to the gym, and

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you meditate. And most people manage the first two. The

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going to the gym as much harder and meditations like

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way off the spectrum. Yeah, and I think for most people,

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you know, you sit down, most people don't know exactly

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what meditation is. So there's the perception that metal is

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letting your mind go blank, which it's not exactly. So

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when you're doing a basic meditation, what you're probably doing

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is focusing your attention on your breath. So you're putting

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your focused attention on a single point. Your mind then

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begins to wander. You notice it wanders, and you return

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it to your breath, and you don't get mad at

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yourself that your mind wanders, because all of our minds wander.

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What you're just trying to do is notice and return.

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And so I think most people don't know what meditation

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even is, how you're supposed to do it, And then

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when you do sit down to do it, your mind

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wanders all over the place, and so we create all

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sorts of judgment about it, and we're like, oh my god,

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I suck at this, and we don't like being bad

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at things.

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That makes us feel bad about ourselves. Yeah, and so

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then we just get up and we don't do it.

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Yeah, that's so true.

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That's voice of self criticism chimes in, very quickly, and

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then we do anything to avoid that.

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And the funny, you know, the ironic part is that

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meditation teaches you to deal with that yourself criticism. That's

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really a big part of the process. You observe the judgment,

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you let the judgment pass too. You observe the criticism,

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you let it go. But only once you sit in

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the practice and steepen it can you get to the

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point where you even comfortable facing the judgment in that way.

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Yeah.

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I read a study where people would rather administer electric

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shocks to themselves than be with their own thoughts for

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five silent minutes. They would actually shock themselves rather than

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sit alone with their own thoughts. It's a frightening it's

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a frightening concept, but it's true. So the Muse headband,

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which you've created, how do you think it helps to

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counteract some of that or to you know, encourage people

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to sit for longer.

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Yeah, and it's been very successful teaching people to sit

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right at all and then for longer. And so what

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news does is it gives you real time feedback on

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your brain while you meditate. So it answers that first

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question of what am I supposed to be doing. And

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then I also answer as the second question people typically have,

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which is am I even doing this right?

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Like? What am I supposed to be doing? What's going

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on in my mind? Is this working?

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And so with NEWS, we're literally reading your brain wave activity.

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We're reading your brain and we're letting you know when

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you're quote unquote doing it right, when you're in focused

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attention and when your mind is wandered, cueuing you to

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when your mind is wandered, so that you're cue to

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come back to your breath. It's kind of like having

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rumble strips for the road. It's like you're going down

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the right path. Hope you're going off, Come on back,

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You're going off, come on back. And so we're able

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to take real time feedback that really teaches you what

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to do and reinforces you and holds your hand using

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super solid neuroscience. And then at the end you're actually

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able to see what your brain is doing. So you

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have charts, graphs, stats, gamification, stuff that makes it fun

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to meditate and to come back and do it session

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after session after session.

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And I have been using a muse for the last

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few weeks, and so just to explain to anybody, listening.

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What happens is you put it on a wrap it

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around your head, just tuxs behind your ears, and then

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you have an app on your phone which will tell

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you to start meditating, and it collects the data. And

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then what happens is you've got earphones in or you

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listen to sound on your phone, and so as your

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brain becomes more active. I know there's lots of different

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sounds you can do, but the basic one is that

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storms whip up. Right, wind picks up, it becomes noisy

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and windy, and then when your brain calms down, it

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becomes very quiet. And so the whole time you're sitting

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it's like it's, well, it's a bit windy.

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Oh it's quiet. Oh it's a bit windy. Oh it's quiet.

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So initially I found that I normally meditate in silence.

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I've been doing it for quite a long time.

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Initially I found that a little distracting, and initially I

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was questioning usking, but I was not thinking.

300
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Then why is that wind up? Why is it doing that?

301
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Because my mom was very calm, then I'll have you know,

302
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because almost arguing with the device.

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But eventually you do learn to kind of tune it out.

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So for somebody who doesn't have a meditation practice, it's

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not distracting from your practice. It's just like, Okay, now

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I'm learning, and I actually have a teacher in my head.

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And for those who do have a practice, very quickly

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it just becomes this intuitive sense that the sound is

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your brain. Yes, And so you're hearing when your brain

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is noisy and stormy, and when your brain is quiet.

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And then when you stay super quiet you get birds,

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which people love.

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Little birds chirp, and it's so satisfying to get the

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little bird chirping, it really is.

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And it's like a little gold star, which leads me to.

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When obviously I've trained in mindfulness, meditation, mindfulness space, cognitive therapy.

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I've done you know, silent retreats, done a lot of

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Buddhist sort of meditation, and the whole thing is about

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non striving. But technically mindfulness is about the one thing

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that you can do that does not need you to

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be doing anything or striving to achieve anything. And yet

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built into the meuse is this kind of you kind

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of want to get the birds, So it's got this

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striving aspect to it.

325
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Can you talk about that? I was thinking, Oh, but

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doesn't that just fly in the face of what mindfulness

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is all about.

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So the funny thing is is that the birds are

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actually there to undermine the goal directed nature of the gamification.

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So the first time you get a bird, you're like, okay,

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a bird, saying that's nice, and then as soon as

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you find out that it's a reward, you then try

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to get the birds.

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And so try to get a bird.

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You can't do it because now you're striving, working, you're focusing,

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and you can only really get birds by letting go.

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And then so you can only get it by non striving.

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And then often once people get their first bird, when

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they know what a bird is, they're like, oh my god,

340
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I get the reward, and then your bird flies away.

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And then the storms come up again. As soon as

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you get the bird, it's gone.

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So it suddenly teaches you to be just as uninvested

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in your rewards as your failures, to be just as

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non judgmental. And when you get a reward is non

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judgmental when you get a failure.

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That to me, that is because that has definitely been

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my experience after using the muse. You know, the more

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often that I've used it, and the more that I've

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become just used to it now, I don't I know

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that I no longer sort of react whether it's a

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burd or whether it's a storm. Just keep on breathing,

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just keep on meditating.

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And so we have this gamification with points and scores

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that people are excited about when they come in, and

356
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very quickly it moves from the extrinsic reward of points

357
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and structure that keeps you doing it to the intrinsic

358
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reward of seeing the value, and then you don't care

359
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about the points anymore. It really doesn't mean anything, but

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it's the thing that got you into the practice and

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kept you there, and kept you.

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There long enough to get you to the point.

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Where you've established a regular practice, you understand how to

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do it, and you're actually feeling the benefits in your life.

365
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And once you feel the benefits, then you're hoted.

366
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I hope you're enjoying season four of the show, and hey,

367
00:17:45.680 --> 00:17:47.359
I would love for you to check out my brand

368
00:17:47.400 --> 00:17:50.359
new YouTube channel where I'm sharing even more tips on

369
00:17:50.400 --> 00:17:52.960
how you can feel less crappy and more happy. It's

370
00:17:53.000 --> 00:17:56.079
YouTube dot com Forward slash Cast Done, so come over

371
00:17:56.240 --> 00:17:56.720
check it out.

372
00:17:56.720 --> 00:17:58.799
I'd love you to subscribe.

373
00:17:58.160 --> 00:18:00.920
And if you haven't already taken my free seven day

374
00:18:01.000 --> 00:18:03.680
Happiness challenge, you can sign up for that at castdone

375
00:18:03.680 --> 00:18:05.680
dot com forward slash happiness.

376
00:18:10.279 --> 00:18:13.880
So it does sense your brain activity. But I notice

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I've got the MEWS too, which is the latest one. Uh,

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And I notice in the app I haven't done a

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lot of it, but there's a there's a heart, and

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there's a body like I did the body one. So

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it's senses when when you physically are moving so that

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you stay still, and then there's a heart one. Is

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it actually measuring your heart beat while you meditate? Do

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you want to talk about all the different sort of

385
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functions of the moose shore.

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So in the original MEWS, we give you real time

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feedback on your brain and that's been out for the

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last five years and super successful. Hundreds of thousands of

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people use it every day. And then use two, which

390
00:18:49.440 --> 00:18:51.839
just came out last year, gives you real time feedback

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both on your brain as well as your heart, your breath,

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and your body. So it has additional sensors. There's a

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PPG sensor that tracks your heart rate and you actually

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hear the beating of your heart like the beating of

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a drum, and it tunes something called your inter reception,

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your ability to actually understand sensitively what's going on inside

397
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your own body. And then the body sensor is able

398
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to sense your movement, so it helps you find comfortable

399
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posture and it helps you find stillness. And for a

400
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lot of people, finding stillness is the first step. And

401
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once you find stillness in your body, it's easier to

402
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find stillness in your mind.

403
00:19:25.319 --> 00:19:26.720
I went to do the body one and I put

404
00:19:26.720 --> 00:19:27.839
it on my head, and then I went to look

405
00:19:27.839 --> 00:19:29.839
at my app and it said, stop you moving too much.

406
00:19:29.920 --> 00:19:31.880
We can't we can't get reading it you as soon

407
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as I just turned my head towards it to look

408
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at my phone.

409
00:19:35.640 --> 00:19:37.440
Yeah, that's the don't look at your phone. Worn Yes,

410
00:19:38.000 --> 00:19:42.359
you're meditating, don't look your phone. And then the breath.

411
00:19:42.880 --> 00:19:45.400
The breath sensor actually senses your breath, and we have

412
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guided breathing exercises, so in the heart meditation you can

413
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learn to hear when your heart rate is increasing and

414
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when it's decreasing. And then in breath meditation, we teach

415
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you breath patterns to teach you to increase your decrease

416
00:19:59.039 --> 00:20:02.119
your heart rate and to be able to potentially affect

417
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your heart rate variability.

418
00:20:03.519 --> 00:20:07.000
So obviously, with mindfulness meditation for anybody unfamiliar, you know,

419
00:20:07.119 --> 00:20:09.519
part of it is also tuning into the sensations in

420
00:20:09.599 --> 00:20:12.119
your body. We tend to walk around the world. We're

421
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very cerebral. We've engaged with world through our thinking mind,

422
00:20:16.880 --> 00:20:20.200
and we've become quite disconnected with our physical sensations as

423
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a whole world of like information and intuition and wisdom

424
00:20:23.480 --> 00:20:25.559
stored in our body, and so we connect with the

425
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sensations in our body like in a body scanned meditation.

426
00:20:28.440 --> 00:20:32.119
So with the muse, that's one of its functions, I guess,

427
00:20:32.200 --> 00:20:35.319
to help you to really connect inward to what's happening.

428
00:20:35.359 --> 00:20:38.920
Yep, to be able to start to sensitively understand what's

429
00:20:38.960 --> 00:20:42.599
going on in your different systems, and meditation occurs throughout

430
00:20:42.640 --> 00:20:47.119
the whole body. So meditation is partly about stilling the

431
00:20:47.200 --> 00:20:50.640
mind and changing your relationship to your thoughts. It's also

432
00:20:50.759 --> 00:20:56.000
about being able to understand and use your physiology positively

433
00:20:56.079 --> 00:20:59.000
to help you relax. So when you take deep breaths,

434
00:20:59.319 --> 00:21:03.039
it becomes a huge your autonomic nervous system to calm down.

435
00:21:04.240 --> 00:21:06.920
So when we learn deep breathing patterns, we recognize that

436
00:21:07.000 --> 00:21:09.559
we can begin to shift our bodies physiology out of

437
00:21:10.119 --> 00:21:13.039
fight and flight and into rest and digest, and that

438
00:21:13.359 --> 00:21:15.880
changes our heart rate and that has a feed forward

439
00:21:15.960 --> 00:21:18.839
effect which is then able to calm the mind. So

440
00:21:19.000 --> 00:21:22.440
all these systems really work synergistically with one another to

441
00:21:22.519 --> 00:21:24.400
help us get into an optimal state.

442
00:21:24.759 --> 00:21:25.279
It's amazing.

443
00:21:25.319 --> 00:21:28.319
You can really see the progress session after session, and

444
00:21:28.400 --> 00:21:31.759
like we have users who've done literally thousands of sessions,

445
00:21:32.200 --> 00:21:33.880
and you can see the progress.

446
00:21:34.079 --> 00:21:35.640
They see the progress over time.

447
00:21:35.640 --> 00:21:39.200
Yeah, and hopefully translating then, as you say, into their

448
00:21:39.279 --> 00:21:41.799
lives then really realizing the benefits in the day to

449
00:21:41.839 --> 00:21:43.000
day life, which is where it counts.

450
00:21:43.200 --> 00:21:44.960
And you can even see progress over you know, the

451
00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:47.359
first five or ten sessions that you do. You know,

452
00:21:47.400 --> 00:21:49.400
I'll sit with people during their first few sessions and

453
00:21:49.440 --> 00:21:51.400
they can immediately start to see how their mind is

454
00:21:51.440 --> 00:21:56.119
calming down, how they're getting the practice. I just ran

455
00:21:56.319 --> 00:21:58.599
a session with a number of people for three weeks,

456
00:21:59.000 --> 00:22:01.599
and like the that they were noticing in their lives

457
00:22:01.680 --> 00:22:06.359
after the first two weeks were amazing. Shifting relationships to

458
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how they were yelling, you know, yelling at their husband,

459
00:22:08.440 --> 00:22:10.480
how they dealt with stress at work, how you.

460
00:22:10.480 --> 00:22:11.640
Know, how sleep is for them.

461
00:22:11.960 --> 00:22:14.079
It can take varying lengths of time for people to

462
00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:18.559
find ease with the practice and start to see the changes,

463
00:22:18.680 --> 00:22:21.480
but it can be surprising what you might finally start

464
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doing it.

465
00:22:22.279 --> 00:22:25.200
So Ariel, just looping back to the beginning of our conversation,

466
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when you said that you you know, even you as

467
00:22:28.160 --> 00:22:30.440
a psychotherapist teaching people to meditate.

468
00:22:30.119 --> 00:22:33.599
You know, you found it really difficult. And for you

469
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as a woman. Now you have got young.

470
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Children, right I do with three year old, have three

471
00:22:40.799 --> 00:22:43.400
year old, and you have we're a sea of a

472
00:22:43.480 --> 00:22:47.759
major company for seven years. You've stepped down now with

473
00:22:47.920 --> 00:22:52.400
having children, but you know, busy working mum professional. How

474
00:22:52.720 --> 00:22:55.880
has it helped you? What's how has it helped you

475
00:22:56.200 --> 00:22:58.960
to build your own meditation practice? What what have you

476
00:22:59.039 --> 00:22:59.920
noticed in your own life?

477
00:23:00.759 --> 00:23:03.680
So, first of all, I literally learned to meditate using news.

478
00:23:04.119 --> 00:23:06.960
I had read so many books, I had, you know,

479
00:23:07.440 --> 00:23:09.960
so many resources, but it wasn't until I actually started

480
00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:12.200
regularly using music. I was like, oh, this is what

481
00:23:12.279 --> 00:23:14.319
I'm supposed to be doing. Okay, now I get it.

482
00:23:14.720 --> 00:23:16.000
And then all of a sudden, you know, the two

483
00:23:16.000 --> 00:23:18.279
thousand years of history that I'd been reading made sense,

484
00:23:19.279 --> 00:23:23.079
and once I started to do that, the benefits were fascinating.

485
00:23:23.119 --> 00:23:24.519
So one of the first things I noticed was an

486
00:23:24.559 --> 00:23:29.200
increase in my productivity. I was typing a long format document,

487
00:23:29.240 --> 00:23:31.960
which would normally take me forever. Because I was the

488
00:23:32.039 --> 00:23:33.759
CEO of the company, I was in an open office.

489
00:23:33.799 --> 00:23:36.000
You know, everybody going past me. I felt like needed

490
00:23:36.039 --> 00:23:38.799
me in some way. It was always distracting. And for

491
00:23:38.920 --> 00:23:41.359
the first time, I sat down and I wrote something

492
00:23:41.519 --> 00:23:43.839
just all the way through in my open office with

493
00:23:43.920 --> 00:23:44.799
all the sounds around me.

494
00:23:45.680 --> 00:23:46.519
Yeah, I see your face.

495
00:23:46.680 --> 00:23:47.880
Yes, I was shocked.

496
00:23:47.920 --> 00:23:49.000
I was like, what just happened?

497
00:23:49.319 --> 00:23:51.200
Well, it turns out the practice that I had learned

498
00:23:51.319 --> 00:23:54.000
that taught me to notice when my mind is wandering

499
00:23:54.440 --> 00:23:56.519
and then move away from the distraction back to the

500
00:23:56.680 --> 00:24:01.200
object of my focus translated beautifully to my own productivity.

501
00:24:01.319 --> 00:24:03.279
It's like my mind would begin to wander, nope, back

502
00:24:03.319 --> 00:24:06.039
to my document. Begin to wander, nope, back to my document.

503
00:24:06.680 --> 00:24:08.599
And the next thing I noticed was my cell phone

504
00:24:08.640 --> 00:24:11.920
behavior changed. You know, that urge to constantly check the

505
00:24:12.039 --> 00:24:14.599
phone just started to sort of peter away because I'd

506
00:24:14.599 --> 00:24:17.000
feel that sensation of like, oh, check my actually, no,

507
00:24:17.200 --> 00:24:18.880
I don't care, back to what I'm doing in front

508
00:24:18.880 --> 00:24:22.359
of me. And so I started to notice that my

509
00:24:22.559 --> 00:24:26.079
you know, my impulses and my urges and desires all

510
00:24:26.160 --> 00:24:29.680
of a sudden became much wiser and much easier.

511
00:24:29.359 --> 00:24:30.880
To manage, just naturally.

512
00:24:31.799 --> 00:24:35.160
And then from there the emotional changes also began to

513
00:24:35.240 --> 00:24:39.279
take place, you know, my dialogue's aka arguments with my husband.

514
00:24:39.640 --> 00:24:42.160
There was no longer the sense of I need to

515
00:24:42.200 --> 00:24:43.960
be right and I need to like say this fifty

516
00:24:44.039 --> 00:24:45.720
thousand times so that you hear me. I would just

517
00:24:45.759 --> 00:24:47.480
say it once and then I hear what he said,

518
00:24:47.519 --> 00:24:48.839
and then I'd be like oh, and then I could

519
00:24:48.880 --> 00:24:49.559
just reflect on it.

520
00:24:49.920 --> 00:24:51.240
It wasn't this constant, you.

521
00:24:51.279 --> 00:24:57.519
Know, react well shit inside of me, yeah, reactivity like needs,

522
00:24:58.799 --> 00:25:01.680
My needs presented themselves and that I could articulate them.

523
00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:04.279
It wasn't quite as straightforward as that, but you know,

524
00:25:04.400 --> 00:25:06.400
standing back, it was kind of like an astonishing shift.

525
00:25:06.519 --> 00:25:08.480
But that's the point is that that's that's really interesting,

526
00:25:08.519 --> 00:25:10.839
and that's the point, isn't it. Like people who say,

527
00:25:11.039 --> 00:25:13.000
what's the point, Like, what is the I can see

528
00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:14.759
her and focus on my breath, but what's the point

529
00:25:14.799 --> 00:25:18.200
it's because that is learning to train your mind to

530
00:25:18.319 --> 00:25:20.519
go where you want it to go, not where it

531
00:25:20.720 --> 00:25:24.480
wants to go, and then applying that to work and

532
00:25:24.599 --> 00:25:28.240
focus and the people in your life. You know, conversation

533
00:25:28.359 --> 00:25:30.160
that you're having, whatever it might.

534
00:25:30.079 --> 00:25:32.960
Be in negative thoughts, yes, so you know, for a

535
00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:35.400
lot of people, so we have these internal dialogues, and

536
00:25:35.720 --> 00:25:38.039
for a lot of people, those internal dialogues are negative

537
00:25:38.039 --> 00:25:40.279
and unpleasant and just keep you feeling a little bit

538
00:25:40.480 --> 00:25:44.079
shittier than you need to every single day. And when

539
00:25:44.119 --> 00:25:46.720
you learn that you have a choice about the dialogue

540
00:25:46.839 --> 00:25:49.880
in your head, that you can hear something inside your

541
00:25:49.920 --> 00:25:51.440
head and say, actually, I'm going to choose to take

542
00:25:51.480 --> 00:25:52.400
my attention elsewhere.

543
00:25:52.519 --> 00:25:54.160
I don't need to be caught up in you right now.

544
00:25:55.119 --> 00:26:00.400
It's an unbelievable sense of freedom, an unbelievable shift in

545
00:26:00.559 --> 00:26:04.119
what who you are because you are no longer those

546
00:26:04.200 --> 00:26:07.039
dialogues in your head. You're an individual with agency and

547
00:26:07.119 --> 00:26:08.799
a choice of how you are living.

548
00:26:09.200 --> 00:26:10.960
I would have to agree.

549
00:26:11.000 --> 00:26:12.680
I think that's so important, and that's certainly in the

550
00:26:12.720 --> 00:26:15.039
work that I do. I hear people all the time

551
00:26:15.200 --> 00:26:18.279
say they feel powerless, like this is just who I am.

552
00:26:18.359 --> 00:26:20.240
I just can't stop this. My mind just does this

553
00:26:20.400 --> 00:26:22.720
or I just do this, And it's giving people back

554
00:26:22.799 --> 00:26:28.039
that power over the thoughts in the head, the managing

555
00:26:28.119 --> 00:26:30.319
those urges and impulses and that reactivity.

556
00:26:30.440 --> 00:26:31.640
Like, you do have a choice in this.

557
00:26:32.039 --> 00:26:33.440
These might be old patterns that you've had for a

558
00:26:33.480 --> 00:26:36.119
really long time, but with some awareness and with some

559
00:26:36.720 --> 00:26:39.559
present you know, some present minded awareness, then you.

560
00:26:39.880 --> 00:26:42.559
Do have a choice about how much impact they have

561
00:26:42.839 --> 00:26:43.680
those things have over you.

562
00:26:44.519 --> 00:26:48.799
Yes, it's extremely empowering, and that's why it was so

563
00:26:49.000 --> 00:26:51.559
clear that you know, for me and my team that

564
00:26:51.640 --> 00:26:53.799
this is what we needed to build, that this was

565
00:26:53.839 --> 00:26:56.240
the best possible thing we could apply our lives to.

566
00:26:56.920 --> 00:26:58.319
You know, when you look at the fact that eighty

567
00:26:58.359 --> 00:27:00.640
five percent of the world has low self estelle and

568
00:27:00.720 --> 00:27:03.359
that we're all pulled by these urges that just don't

569
00:27:03.440 --> 00:27:06.119
serve us, it's like, how can we help humanity by

570
00:27:06.200 --> 00:27:07.119
teaching them to meditate?

571
00:27:07.680 --> 00:27:12.240
This must be personally just so rewarding for you beyond yes,

572
00:27:12.759 --> 00:27:18.519
so Ariel, for our listeners who perhaps like like you were,

573
00:27:18.799 --> 00:27:20.839
and like many people are, who struggle to just get

574
00:27:20.880 --> 00:27:24.559
started with a meditation practice and who don't necessarily have

575
00:27:24.640 --> 00:27:27.839
their hands on a muse today, What advice do you

576
00:27:27.960 --> 00:27:31.000
have to help people to just start to get started

577
00:27:31.039 --> 00:27:33.079
with some sort of mindfulness meditation practice.

578
00:27:33.680 --> 00:27:36.680
So the first thing is meditation is not complicated, it's

579
00:27:36.759 --> 00:27:40.079
not weird. It's really simple and a focused attention practice.

580
00:27:40.119 --> 00:27:41.960
You're just going to focus your attention on your breath.

581
00:27:42.599 --> 00:27:45.039
Your mind will begin to wander. At some point you'll

582
00:27:45.079 --> 00:27:47.000
notice that it's wandered away from your breath, and then

583
00:27:47.039 --> 00:27:48.279
you'll return it to your breath.

584
00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:50.319
That's it, and you'll do it.

585
00:27:50.440 --> 00:27:54.400
Over and over and over again. Doesn't matter where you're sitting.

586
00:27:54.519 --> 00:27:55.880
You don't need to be in a mat, you don't

587
00:27:55.920 --> 00:27:57.799
need to be in half lotus, you don't need to

588
00:27:57.839 --> 00:27:59.880
have candles, you don't need anything. You can do it

589
00:28:00.079 --> 00:28:03.599
anywhere anytime. You're just going to sit there. Set aside

590
00:28:03.599 --> 00:28:07.599
of time to do it. It's useful to do a timer.

591
00:28:07.920 --> 00:28:09.880
You can start with three or five minutes, a very

592
00:28:09.960 --> 00:28:12.559
short period of time, and then you just sit there

593
00:28:12.720 --> 00:28:15.160
and you focus your attention on your breath. Your mind wanders,

594
00:28:15.240 --> 00:28:18.440
you notice any return until your timer goes off. And

595
00:28:18.519 --> 00:28:21.240
if you do that, you'll totally meditated.

596
00:28:21.319 --> 00:28:24.160
You've meditated, And I would say even somebody potentially listening

597
00:28:24.200 --> 00:28:26.839
to this episode, they're on the tram or they're on

598
00:28:26.920 --> 00:28:29.599
the train going to work. You could just set the

599
00:28:29.640 --> 00:28:32.880
timer right now and just do it right now. Just breathe,

600
00:28:33.039 --> 00:28:35.480
focus on your breath. Your mind will wander. That's what

601
00:28:35.720 --> 00:28:38.000
minds do. That's not a problem.

602
00:28:38.519 --> 00:28:40.160
Come back to the breath. I would love that. I

603
00:28:40.200 --> 00:28:41.200
think we should put that challenge.

604
00:28:41.240 --> 00:28:43.440
If you're listening to this right now, get to the

605
00:28:43.559 --> 00:28:47.240
end of the episode, set your timer and spend three

606
00:28:47.319 --> 00:28:49.720
minutes focusing on your breath, and you've meditated, and.

607
00:28:49.799 --> 00:28:51.119
We are cheering for you right now.

608
00:28:52.759 --> 00:28:54.880
Ariel, I have really.

609
00:28:55.119 --> 00:28:57.559
Loved having you on the show. I appreciate your time

610
00:28:57.680 --> 00:29:01.480
so much. I know it's nighttime where you ask after

611
00:29:01.599 --> 00:29:04.519
your whole dinner, bath, bed routine. I just want to

612
00:29:04.519 --> 00:29:06.880
say thank you so much, and I hope that people

613
00:29:06.960 --> 00:29:08.920
will go out and have a look for the mus

614
00:29:09.039 --> 00:29:10.680
and if not, I hope they will at least be

615
00:29:11.119 --> 00:29:14.119
encouraged and inspired to start some sort of meditation practice.

616
00:29:14.240 --> 00:29:16.079
Thank you so much, it has been such a joy

617
00:29:16.119 --> 00:29:16.640
and pleasure.

618
00:29:21.400 --> 00:29:23.599
If you're interested in the MEWS headband, you can check

619
00:29:23.640 --> 00:29:25.519
it out at meus dot com. And of course, if

620
00:29:25.519 --> 00:29:28.240
you're interested in learning how to start a meditation practice.

621
00:29:28.279 --> 00:29:31.119
You are welcome to join my eight week online course

622
00:29:31.319 --> 00:29:34.640
Mindfulness for Busy People. Go to cast Doune dot com,

623
00:29:34.759 --> 00:29:37.960
forward slash MBP and use the code Crappy to Happy

624
00:29:38.039 --> 00:29:38.880
to take fifty.

625
00:29:38.640 --> 00:29:39.759
Dollars off at the checkout.

626
00:29:41.680 --> 00:29:44.079
My new book, Crappy to Happy Love What You Do

627
00:29:44.480 --> 00:29:46.480
is out in all good bookstores, so if you want

628
00:29:46.519 --> 00:29:47.200
to find more.

629
00:29:47.160 --> 00:29:50.279
Happy in work, go and check it out. On the

630
00:29:50.359 --> 00:29:51.480
next episode, I'm.

631
00:29:51.400 --> 00:29:55.599
Chatting with triple Olympian Sally Kelly, who incredibly recovered from

632
00:29:55.640 --> 00:29:59.519
a stroke using the power of neuroplasticity. Sally has such

633
00:29:59.519 --> 00:30:02.720
an inspired hiring message to share with anyone facing challenges

634
00:30:02.799 --> 00:30:07.519
that seem insurmountable. Crappy to Happy is presented by Cast Dunn,

635
00:30:07.880 --> 00:30:15.359
produced by Davis Lensky, Audio production by Darcy Thompson. Listener