The Power Of Living With Presence

Discover the 7 key features and health benefits of presence and how it can help you with feeling less overwhelmed by the modern demands of family, work, and other responsibilities, the 5 regrets of the dying, the myths of multitasking, finding your purpose, the importance of pacing and pivoting.

Transcript

I am Anna Siwold and this is Authentic Parenting,

A podcast about personal development in the context of parenting,

Where I explore how you can find more calm connection and join parenting through the process of self-discovery and inner growth with a trauma-informed lens.

I'm a parent educator and my mission is to help children by helping parents.

The motto of this podcast is raising our children,

Growing ourselves.

Today,

The gift of presence.

Rushing through life keeps us from being present.

With the pandemic,

The pace of life has changed,

But there are new increased demands and responsibilities.

There is a whole new level of overwhelm that many of us experience.

How can presence help us when we feel distracted and depleted?

Becoming present means less living in the past or future,

More acceptance and receptivity,

More peace and calm.

According to my guest,

You don't need countless hours sitting in silence to be more present in your life.

The key is to practice mindfulness wherever you are and whenever you can.

My special guest today is Caroline Welch.

She is the CEO and co-founder with Dr.

Dan Siegel of the Mindsight Institute in Santa Monica,

California,

A graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School with a master's degree from the University of Southern California.

She started her career in law as a corporate litigator.

She began her mindfulness practice 40 years ago while working in Japan as an English teacher.

She's the author of the gift of presence,

A mindfulness guide for women,

Which was released back in March 2020.

And now it's available on paperback.

Caroline provides lectures and workshops to enhance wellbeing in our personal and professional lives.

She and her husband,

Dan Siegel live in Santa Monica and have two adult children.

In today's conversation,

We talk about the three P's purpose,

Pivoting and pacing,

As well as what is presence?

What are the seven features of presence?

What are the health benefits of presence?

How can you find purpose?

The five regrets of the dying and so much more.

We have talked about the power of mindfulness on the podcast many times,

And I would like to suggest a few past episodes that compliment today's conversation.

Episode 199,

The power of meditation with Bill Mayer.

Episode 213,

Feel less busy while getting more done with Laura Wunderkam.

Episode 176,

Teaching mindfulness to kids with Peter Moses.

And episode 224,

Helping kids to manage emotions,

Ease anxiety and stay focused with Tejal Patel.

And now please enjoy this fantastic conversation with Caroline Welch.

I would never know who Dr.

Siegel's wife was,

And I would never have read the opportunity,

You know,

Had the opportunity to read this book if he didn't mention it on the podcast.

I said,

Wow.

Yay.

I'm glad he mentioned it.

I'm glad he mentioned it.

Yes.

I'm very happy about that.

And you know,

This is such,

Such a nice,

Wonderful book.

The size of the book,

The cover,

The,

You know,

The cover paper,

You know,

Everything is so beautiful.

It's like having a little cup of tea with a good friend,

A nice companion.

And I'm happy you wrote it for women because,

You know,

We still live in this imbalanced kind of gendered society.

So I'm happy that you're speaking about the business,

The different gender roles men and women have,

And all the biases about motherhood.

And this is pretty powerful,

You know,

What you have done in your life,

In your career,

What you're doing now with the Mindsight Institute.

So it's really amazing.

Thank you,

Anna.

I really appreciate the attention you've paid to the details here from the cover art of the book to the kind of paper,

To the fact that I chose to pay attention to gender and that I took the perhaps somewhat bold step of focusing on women.

Not that mindfulness isn't helpful for everyone,

But as you suggested,

We have as women certain responsibilities,

Expectations,

And challenges that men may not have.

And similarly,

Men have challenges and other situations that may not be so pertinent to us.

But what I know best and have observed is the perspective of a working,

Engaged,

Or even non-working,

But multitasking,

Multi-roles,

All balls in the air,

Busy woman.

Yeah.

And it's such a reassuring book just for that purposes.

You know,

It's like,

I'm not alone.

Somebody sees me.

It gives voice to all of those struggling women who are invisible,

Who are silently struggling.

Firstly,

I would love to know how has the pandemic experience been for you?

I have been asking this question to all of the guests for the past year and everybody has given different answers,

Obviously.

I would love to know how have you coped?

What has showed up for you?

What do you miss the most before the pandemic life?

That's many questions in one,

So I'll peel it away.

The first thing to say is that the book deals with uncertainty.

And if there's anything that this pandemic has made really clear to us,

It is the uncertainty that is an inherent part of human life.

But we traditionally and typically try to put routines in place or count on certain things,

Whether it's seeing our friends at the gym or working with our colleagues or meeting in a parenting group with the other parents and kids,

Whatever all of those things are,

They bring us a sense of control of our lives and certainty.

But as I wrote in the book,

I was just doing the chapter on pacing and I walked into the Brooklyn Library and saw that beautiful inscription about giving up the flimsy fantasy of certainty.

And I included it in the book.

I think all of us now have come more in touch with the fragility and uncertainty and unpredictability of life.

Yeah,

For sure.

Yes.

And so when you ask how has it affected me,

I think if I could only say it in two words,

It would be everything is more than.

So I'm more aware of the uncertainty.

I am more,

Perhaps,

Mindful,

If you will.

I pay more attention in a way because there's less coming from the outside.

And as I suggest in my book that we titrate the tech,

Which would mean not,

For example,

Having various news feeds on all day.

I think we,

During this pandemic,

And this one of the things I think I've gotten a lot better at,

Is setting limits and saying no.

And when it comes to the news,

Just to finish with that,

For example,

As a simple example,

The way that I've come to deal with it is whatever time it takes me to read three newspapers in the morning with a small cup of coffee,

That's the time I devote to the news.

And I always figure throughout the day,

Someone in my office environment or online will otherwise alert me to something if I need to pay attention.

But otherwise it's off my radar.

And that's been one of the gifts of the pandemic for me because I could really distract myself quite a bit previously by responding quickly to everything that came in,

Including the news.

So you were an overachiever,

Maybe even now.

I love one story in the book particularly,

Which shows who you are from a very young age during that time in high school when you had sent a letter all on your own.

And I was trying to find it in the book before the interview,

But I couldn't.

I didn't mark the page where you got an acceptance to go to Iran when you were in high school,

You know,

Just a courage,

Just a thought.

Tell me a little bit about that story.

And I was very surprised that your parents allowed you to go,

Right?

I was waiting for the story to end in a negative way,

But it turned out,

No,

It was a positive story and you grew up in a small town on a farm.

So I want to hear this story from you.

What made you do that?

Thank you,

Anna.

It speaks to how I think we all can learn something if we listen to ourselves.

And if what around us in particular isn't exactly suiting us,

We can recognize that and think,

Well,

Maybe I can change it.

And I'm reminded of a Bob Dylan song or lyric,

And it's something to the effect of,

I was born a long ways from home.

And I always thought on the dairy farm,

I had a certain restlessness.

We couldn't go on vacation because we had to milk the cows twice a day.

My world,

Until I got on a plane going all the way to Chicago to the airport,

Which is really even though our farm was just an hour and a half from Chicago,

We wouldn't think of going to Chicago.

And so to go from a life where the furthest I'd been from my farm was maybe three hours away to visit relatives in the north of Wisconsin,

To get on a plane in Chicago and go to New York and go to Beirut and go to Istanbul and ultimately Tehran,

Dropping off exchange students along the way.

I mean,

I didn't even know that's what was going to happen when I sent that application.

But something in me that I was paying attention to triggered the curiosity and the courage to fill out that form.

And it was a kind of a culmination of things.

I mean,

Fortunately my high school had an American field service program.

Fortunately,

We had to exchange students in our very rural high school.

Fortunately,

I saw students in our high school go for a semester or even a year or a summer to other countries.

And so that kind of let me know there's something out there.

I didn't know what it was.

I can't take too much credit for too much courage here.

A lot of it was just not knowing.

But I do remember if I were to have asked my parents,

I think they would have said no,

Like you suggested.

You said,

I can't believe they allowed you.

And so I think in part it was two reasons I didn't ask them.

One,

I didn't think it would be a yes,

But probably more importantly,

I wasn't sure of myself that I could get it because they were only going to send one student.

And there were 270 students in my class.

So I didn't necessarily think that I would get it.

And then I thought,

If I should get it,

I'll deal at that time.

Let's not get make rough,

You know,

I mean,

We're on a busy working dairy farm.

So to propose to my parents that I take a trip by myself at age 16 would have been laughable.

So it was really amazing when the telegram came to our house and said,

Caroline Welch will be going to Shiraz,

Iran as part of our exchange program.

I mean,

My parents didn't know what to make of that.

And the first thing we did was pull the encyclopedia off the bookshelf and look up Shiraz,

Iran.

And then my parents and I also,

I really couldn't place Iran in the world,

I could place Persia.

But other than that,

We didn't know what part of the world.

And as I look back on it,

I remember the form,

It wasn't that detailed.

But one question it asked was,

Do you prefer the northern or the southern hemisphere?

So I checked the box for northern hemisphere,

Just randomly without,

You know,

But then it said any further comment.

And I said,

I would like to go to an unusual country.

And the reviewers of these applications probably thought,

Bingo,

We've been looking for someone who will go to Iran.

We just found her.

She's on a dairy farm in Wisconsin.

And part of that,

Anna,

Was,

And I have had until really recent years,

I have always thought that every opportunity I had was my last one.

The last trip.

Why is that?

I don't know.

I think maybe growing up where I didn't see travel much,

Many of us didn't see travel.

I mean,

It's not so unique for me,

But I always thought I may not be able to get away again and go on a trip.

So I want to go to an unusual place.

I think one day I might get to at least say a couple of the European capitals,

But I couldn't see myself really exploring the world.

So that's what caused me to put that statement,

Which of course kind of changed the whole thing.

It was amazing that I could go to Iran in the late sixties when Reza Shah Pahlavi was in power.

We met the queen.

I mean,

It was just such an impressive,

Impactful experience.

And this ties in with your book,

Like the bits of the information that I'm gaining from just this one story,

That unknown,

Dealing with uncertainty,

Just taking fate and leaping into doing something.

That speaks about you pivoting,

You know,

Taking risks,

Even the career that you had chosen,

Right?

You were a corporate litigator in a male dominated world,

But you always,

It seems like had this,

I'm not going to say feminism,

But women's issues in mind.

I think you were a strong woman.

The theme from your career,

From your stories,

It comes through.

And of course,

I'm not surprised that the book that you have written or the work that you do is primarily with women and the book is for women.

So it all sort of comes together when I read your story.

Yeah.

And I think Anna,

When we do talk about pivoting,

I think since we're all put in these tracks,

You know,

We go to this grade school and then we kind of know what our tracks are.

And many of us get,

If we have careers,

We get into career paths and we kind of know where we're going.

So it's not easy to pivot and know the unknown.

And so there is a certain trust there.

And I hope that the book can inspire women thinking of change,

Needing change,

Even though there isn't a charted path.

They can have the confidence that with pivoting,

Which I love the term because it reminds us that we're grounded.

We're not just giving up everything.

We're not changing all aspects of our life.

We are swiveling,

If you will.

And we still have our family,

Our friends,

Our resources,

Our work experience,

Our past experiences with us.

And I think that empowers a lot of women to know that they can do this and they've done it before.

They just haven't thought about it that way and they can do it again.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I love that.

I love that.

So of course the book starts with a wonderful story of you in an airport rushing to get to your plane or to your gate and your eye catches a magazine.

And you read two words that changes a lot of things for you.

So I want you to speak about that.

Yes.

Thanks for that question.

I love to speak of that moment because it was a real light bulb moment.

Rushing as you suggest through the airport,

Which actually sounds pretty good right now.

I cannot wait to go back to the airport.

But rushing that morning and then just seeing this big exercise ball,

Yoga ball with an elephant teetering on it.

And then what I thought was very brave headline of forget balance.

I just felt an immediate release because we hear so much about balance and it becomes kind of a Holy grail or a goal.

And I think it's so important to redefine balance as I discuss in the book to give ourselves a break.

If I look at one day and I had to get out a big work project,

That wouldn't be the one day to say,

Did I have enough time with my pet?

Did I take care of my mom or my child or my friend who went to the hospital?

I mean,

We have to give ourselves these breaks.

This self care is so important.

And I know you do a lot of work with parents,

Taking care of parents,

Taking care of themselves.

And this kind of reframe is so important.

Yeah.

Because I mean,

Balance is,

People talk about this,

Right?

If you start chasing balance,

Then you're going to feel less than,

Not good enough.

You're going to think that everybody else has it and how come I don't have it?

And it's not a good state of mind to be in.

So balance really is a myth,

Right?

Yes.

I can say it's a myth and I interviewed,

As you know,

Over 100 women.

And I love what one of the interviewees said.

She gives herself a three week or four week track,

If you will,

Or span to look at.

And when she leaves on a business trip,

Which might take her out of town for a week or 10 days,

She has two children.

And then she has family,

Fortunately,

Who can help her at that time.

But she just says to herself,

I'm going to be back.

And then I'll be the most resilient,

Most available mom I can be.

But right now I'm going to go on something else that's really important to me.

And I think one of the things that I wanted to make clear,

And I hope it's clear from the book,

Is that there are many ways to do,

Since your field is parenting,

We'll talk about that just for a moment,

But to do this parenting.

For some of us,

We have found careers that we love.

And we want to make it work,

Either part time or full time.

And others can take,

For whatever reason,

Either they haven't found the career they want or they want to devote themselves full time to raising their families.

Whatever those scenarios are,

Whether it's for a year,

A month or 10 years,

I hope we can get to a place where we all honor the other.

And I think one thing I observed in the interviews is the experience that we had with our own mothers.

I heard women say,

Wow,

I wish my mom had let me know that it would be okay not to be a working mom,

That I could stay home,

Even though I have a great degree or even though I have a promising seven years under my belt in whatever field.

And you'd hear the other side too.

I wish my mom would have encouraged me and let me,

Or even though she herself wasn't out in the world working.

And I want to also honor that being a parent is the hardest work that I've ever done.

But that if it's our choice to,

And sometimes it's not a choice also to acknowledge financially and for other reasons,

We have to hold all of these baskets and that's okay.

Yeah.

So you talk about presence and the three P's.

Let's get to the meat of the book.

And I love,

Love the little detail of the water symbol,

The droplet and the waves,

Or I don't know how to call it,

The symbol that you use in the book that that's very meaningful.

So the presence is the foundation for all the three P's.

Three P's being purpose,

Pivoting and pacing.

And you have something in common with your husband,

Right?

You love the three P's,

The acronyms,

I guess.

Oh yes,

Yes.

He has the four S's.

I have three P's.

Yes.

We do have that in common.

I love that.

And his latest book,

Right?

With Tina Payne-Bryson,

The Power of Showing Up.

It's all about presence basically.

And your book,

The Gift of Presence.

So you must've had conversations around presence in your household quite a lot that yielded two books on the same topic.

So let's talk about presence then.

How do you describe what presence is?

And then I'll ask you some additional questions.

I don't want to burden you with a bunch of questions right away.

I define presence as synonymous with mindful awareness.

And I rely upon the definition of Jon Kabat-Zinn,

The paying of attention in the moment to what's going on on purpose and without judgment.

And that sounds simple,

But it's difficult.

One of the things in terms of presence,

I think it's often associated with a meditation or sitting on a cushion.

What I'd like to do is expand our notion of presence so that my talking to you right now,

Neither of our devices going off.

We are very present for each other and this is great for our brains,

Our wellbeing,

Our minds.

Because basically what's going on,

And I loved when I learned more about the default mode network and that is that we can train our minds to pay attention and that will activate our side sensory circuits and take us out of that narrative that is so busy,

A narrative or movie,

If you will,

Starring each one of us that takes us to the past,

To what we failed to do or to the future for a dreaded future that may never happen.

What I so treasure is to spend as much time as we can in the present,

Whether it's feeling my hands on a steering wheel when I drive a car,

Or it's going outside of my house in the morning to pick up a newspaper,

I still get a print paper,

To feel the air that day,

Feel the temperature,

Take in the smells.

These experiences are reinforcing states of presence and these states can become traits,

Which can in fact change our baseline way of being.

Yeah,

And increase our happiness ultimately.

You know,

Doing this podcast has actually helped me to become more present because I have to listen fully with my whole body,

Especially when I'm doing audio only.

I find it more presence inducing than when it's visual because the visual aspect,

I'm interpreting your hand gestures,

The facial expressions,

Like my mind does multitasking,

But when it's audio,

I sort of immerse myself and just listen to the tone of voice,

The little shifts,

The intonation,

The words,

And it helps me to be ever more present.

So I view doing podcasts and interviewing people or having conversations as my mindfulness practice.

Absolutely.

And you may be interested to know,

I interviewed Amishi Jha,

Who's a researcher at the University of Miami and a neuroscientist.

And she told me at the beginning of our interview,

She said,

You know,

For my own practice today,

I do have my mindfulness practice and more traditional where,

You know,

She will sit quietly.

But she said,

I'm also going to include some mom meditation.

I'm going to call my mom and be fully present for her.

And I thought that was a beautiful example of also just keying on what you're saying,

When we can be fully present for another human and take in all of those signals,

That is mindfulness in action.

Okay.

So let me tell you then a quick,

Funny story.

When I was interviewing Tina Payne Bryson,

I think people,

You know,

Don't expect me to have an accent,

Right?

The moment you get on the call with me.

It was just the beginning of the interview and then something happened.

Tina disappeared.

It just went offline completely.

And then she came back,

Logged back onto Zoom and I said,

What happened?

Bad connection?

She said,

No,

I became so present in the moment with you that I turned off my computer and all the distractions,

Including the very Zoom that we were using to record the conversation.

I thought that was quite,

You know,

Like a funny story.

Yeah,

That's amazing.

Exactly.

So that was quite funny.

So what are the benefits of presence?

Can you speak of the many benefits,

Health benefits of becoming more present and cultivating more presence in our lives?

Yes,

Of course.

My book lists physiological and other benefits.

The ones,

If I picked two only,

I would say,

Especially in these pandemic times,

The first is that with presence,

We can cultivate the confidence that we can handle whatever comes our way.

And the second thing that I see as a major benefit is that we have the presence of mind to repair ruptures.

I think that especially in times like this,

We're not our most resilient selves and those around us may not be.

And ruptures are always with us,

But perhaps there are more now.

And so perhaps mindfulness is always important,

But a more visible role maybe in bringing front and center,

Okay,

That whatever event occurred,

I could have done it differently and just name it right away and take care of it.

So those are two,

I think,

Benefits especially relevant now during this pandemic time.

What kind of practices have you been using to stay calm,

Grounded and present during this pandemic time?

Do you have your favorite go-to tools and practices that you can share with us?

I have several tools and I always liken the practices that we do in the world of mindfulness to our physical practices if we were to go to the gym or otherwise keep our bodies fit.

So I draw from a range of different things and even if,

For example,

I use Insight Timer,

Headspace,

Calm,

And this isn't a commercial,

So I'm not going to be listing all of them,

But I love all of them.

And within each one,

I have my favorite leaders,

Although at other times I'm open to whom ever is live or whomever is offering a topic that I might be interested in.

So I try not to be attached,

If you will,

To my practice in the sense of what exactly will it be,

But I am very attached and faithful to the fact that it will happen every day.

And I think the latest research,

And this is actually coming out of Amishi Jha's lab in Florida,

Whom I mentioned earlier,

But I believe we now know that 12 minutes is an amount of time from which we can receive a benefit.

What we don't know and what is being studied in other places,

Such as Richie Davidson's lab at the University of Wisconsin,

Is two minutes times six okay or better?

Do we have to do it all at once?

And so these are questions that we don't have the answer to,

But I think the important thing is that we all keep ourselves open to what practice we might want to do on a given day.

And not just the mindfulness in the traditional sense,

I'm going to listen to a tape or do a loving kindness meditation or a breathing meditation,

But to open it up in the way we've already talked about.

It might be with our friends.

It might be when I'm riding my bicycle to work.

I'm not going to have my earbuds in.

I'm just going to pay attention to what's around me.

So we can each find every day new and more ways to have a practice and the informal practices are as important as the formal.

Yeah.

Yeah,

That's great.

And it has cumulative effect probably,

Right?

Afterwards.

Right.

Exactly.

Back to what we mentioned earlier,

These states,

These states of calm in the midst of chaos,

And they can exist in the midst of chaos.

These states can and do create traits that change our baseline way of being.

Can you speak about the seven features of presence?

I like that too,

That you highlighted.

If you don't want to mention all seven,

Maybe you can choose your favorites or whatever you think might be important.

I love how you organized the book too.

It flows very well.

Great.

I'm glad.

You know,

Anna,

You're really like a detective.

There are so many things that I toiled over on this book from the water drop to kind of hopefully be a little signal to bring us back to the moment,

But also the seven key features of presence.

That is really the heart of the book.

I'm glad I'm asking all the right questions.

You are.

All the right ones.

And we should let your audience know that I didn't send you these questions and you didn't send me questions in advance,

But this is truly one of the most thorough and beautiful interviews I've had.

Okay,

Good.

I knew you came prepared.

I was present with the book.

You were definitely present.

I can attest to that based on these questions.

The seven key features of presence come out of the work of Teasdale,

Williams and Siegel,

As I mentioned in the book.

And they have a mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and I thought they also have a workbook.

I thought the way they broke down those features was very accessible.

And so I wanted to lay them out for the reader.

And some of this we've already talked about so we can go quickly.

The first one is more presence means less autopilot.

This goes back to the default mode network.

If you're living present,

Talking to your friend,

Then it's harder to go back to that scenario of woulda,

Coulda,

Shoulda in the midline circuits.

The second feature is similarly more sensing,

More being in touch,

More somatic experience means less thinking.

And depending upon your career,

Being a lawyer and an avid reader and so many other things,

I gravitate to the thinking world.

And so whichever world you gravitate toward,

The more you can bring in the other,

The more wellbeing you can enjoy and the more mindfulness,

The more presence.

The third thing is more living in the present means less living in the past or future.

And as you know,

We spend half of our time with unintentional mind wandering.

And that's usually not about the present.

That's about something that happened or something we fear will happen or we hope will happen.

Or as I believe Jack Kornfield puts it,

The hope for a perfect past.

I love that.

I love that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the fourth aspect is that more acceptance and receptivity means less aversion and reactivity.

And the studies show us that the single thing in the mindfulness databases that makes a difference is acceptance.

If we can accept what we're facing,

If we can accept the reality,

That is the first key step and the most important one to realizing the benefits of mindfulness.

And then it would follow that if we can accept,

We're not avoiding defending against or bringing a game,

Clinging.

Exactly.

Exactly.

So that's why acceptance,

Being open,

Being receptive,

And it doesn't mean being a doormat.

Yeah.

You know,

Like,

Oh,

Anything's okay with me.

No,

It's not that kind of acceptance.

That's resignation,

I think more.

More resignation.

Right.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Exactly.

And then we move on to the final one would be again with accepting because accepting is so key.

More accepting and letting be means less judging.

And of course,

Judging is what we do.

Our minds,

We have to judge things.

We have to,

We're set up so that we have to make categories and see patterns.

And so I think that's why mindfulness is so challenging because we're bringing attention in a way that we ordinarily may not.

And so that's why we can come to do less judging if we can be more paying more attention,

Being more accepting and letting things be.

And then finally,

I think I said finally a minute ago,

The final one would be that we can have more understanding and more experience of our thoughts and emotions as fleeting,

Not fixed.

And this is so liberating.

I think as is pointed out in the book,

The Telomere Effect by Elizabeth Blackburn and Alyssa Epple,

The life of an emotion is 30 seconds unless we engage with it.

And of course,

If it's a strong emotion,

We humans will engage with it,

But it's very freeing to think that we can come to put some distance,

If you will,

Between ourselves and the emotions and the feelings and the thoughts.

Yeah.

Now that's just such a liberating thing to know.

Well,

One more thing I want to ask you about that is not related to the book,

But it's about a specific necklace that you wear in pictures that I'm not sure if it's that water droplet image from the book or is it related to a moon or maybe I'm making assumptions,

But I want to know the meaning of that necklace.

Well thank you.

You are truly,

I'm going back to it.

You're a detective.

You must've been in an earlier life for sure.

The necklace that I often wear was a gift on my 50th birthday from a dear friend and colleague.

And so of course,

For that reason,

I love to wear it.

It's from him and his wife.

And it's by a designer named Jill Plattner in New York.

And I like it for its simplicity and its abstractness.

You suggested a moon and I think that's right.

It could be a moon.

It could be phases of the moon.

Phases of the moon.

Yeah.

Right?

Or not.

Different people see different things in it,

Which is what I love about it.

And it's made of nothing fancy.

I mean,

It's strong fishhook.

I'm sure there's something fancier than that or for the chain part of it.

But I just appreciate its simplicity.

And I also like being loyal to those few things that I like.

It's sort of the Marie Kondo approach to treasuring what you have and it has meaning.

And I think surrounding ourselves with that is important.

Yeah.

And of course,

Let's talk about a little bit about purpose and pacing.

So first I would love for you to describe what you mean by purpose and then I'll ask you what I want to know.

Okay,

Great.

Great.

Purpose is what gives our lives meaning and it arises out of what we value.

And the research is so clear that like presence,

It's a natural resource available to us 24-7 and it bodes very well for our happiness.

And I was so excited when I was researching my book to learn more about the power of purpose.

Victor Strecker at the University of Michigan wrote a book called Life on Purpose and he encourages his students to take a little piece of paper and write their purpose on it.

And he says,

That'll be the most important piece of paper you'll have and that you'll carry around.

And since I've learned more about purpose,

I've tried when things are especially challenging to keep in mind,

Oh,

Okay,

This was a really hard day.

My technology failed me on the podcast.

I didn't get that blog finished.

Whatever those things are that we all go to at the end of the day that didn't get done.

But I say,

Hey,

Wait a minute.

My purpose is still to get my work out in the world.

It's still to write as best I can about ideas and experiences that may inspire others.

And that just kind of lifts a weight off of me.

Just the idea that I have my purpose and I've articulated it.

And what are some myths about purpose?

You talk about some of them in your book.

I'm wondering if you will share a few here.

Sure.

I think when you talk about asking someone what their purpose is,

It's the kind of question that it might stump us because we don't spend a lot of time thinking or take the time to think about what is my purpose and what is meaningful for me because the press of our daily lives can be very consuming.

One of the myths is that I just have to figure out my purpose and it's one and done.

I think it's important to embrace the fact that just as our lives unfold in chapters,

Our purpose will evolve.

We will always have our underlying valued goals,

But it could be that our purpose may change and it may tweak.

And we may not.

The other thing is that a purpose is so much more than goals.

There are many purposes in life,

For example,

To make a difference in the world of climate change.

These are purposes which many lives are devoted to that will survive many human lifetimes.

This is the other thing.

It's not that you have to nail it or finish it in your lifetime.

It is that will this get you up in the morning?

In that chapter,

You also have the five regrets of the dying.

So I'm wondering if you could share those and if you have a favorite out of the fives.

Wow.

Now you're really digging deep.

I'm going to go now because I don't want to miss them.

Oh yeah.

Okay.

I found them.

I got them.

I don't want to miss one of these.

I'm so excited to find this book because it was written,

As I mentioned,

By a palliative nurse who had plenty of experience being at the bedside of those who were passing.

I was very much taken by these regrets.

I'll cover all five of them and tell you the one that really speaks the most to me as we go.

The first one is I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself,

Not the life of the others.

There are many stories in the book about that.

One of which I often like to tell is the woman who was an accountant by training,

Which in her native Pakistan was such a well-regarded profession.

When she moved to the United States and decided what she really loves is law and being a lawyer and she switched careers,

She had no idea how she could tell her parents because they would be so disappointed.

But I admire that breakout and that ability to live your life,

Which we have to do.

Or as we talked earlier,

Anna,

About parents and working parents or not,

Like we need the courage to live our parenting life and be the parent we can and want to be for our reasons.

The second regret is I wish I hadn't worked so hard.

This one is you always hear the story,

Okay,

What do you have on your tombstone?

Not that you worked 2000 hours a year,

But that you had a beautiful family or whatever that one sentence is,

But it rarely relates to work.

I think given,

Especially now with work from home or being at home trying to work more accurately,

The boundaries are blurred and many of us are running a kitchen in the classroom.

We're trying to care give for the older generation.

We're trying to run the household.

We're trying to stay ahead of the needs of the household,

Whether it's plumbing or meal schedules.

So this work element,

To the extent that we can be more mindful of how much that's consuming us and if we can,

I mean,

I know there are phases in our lives when we can't work less.

And if you're on an important project at work,

It's not the time to think about doing this.

Or if your child is two years old and home sick,

That's not the day either.

But the point is that many of us work harder and value work more than we might want to do as we go further into our lives.

The third one is I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.

And I think especially as women,

Sometimes women and it's increasingly less so and it doesn't break so much by gender,

But I think in the past expressing feelings was a sign of weakness.

And now I think with the great work of Brene Brown on vulnerability,

We can all come to embrace our feelings and we can bring the whole person to work more than ever before.

The fourth and fifth.

Fourth one is I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

And this is actually the one that resonated most with me because I think especially when we're in the trenches raising our kids or we have our careers,

Our friends kind of fall by the side.

And then as we get a little more time,

Now I have adult children.

So I have time to reconnect with my grade school friends or my high school friends.

And I'm coming to treasure that more than ever.

I think also if I had to do over some of my busy career years,

I would have treasured my friends more.

I would have had a girls' weekend.

I would have said,

That's okay.

That's really important.

But I did prioritize my family and my work first.

And I think within the bigger world of self-care,

Friends are so important.

And I read a letter that Vincent Van Gogh sent to his brother Theo.

And it said something to the effect of,

In these chaotic times,

There's really nothing that gives me comfort other than my friends.

And I thought,

That's beautiful.

Because we usually think about our significant other,

Or if we have one,

Or our parent,

Or not so much our friends.

I mean,

Of course we all love our friends,

But I think elevating them and being in touch.

Because I don't know about you,

But one of the things I don't miss in the pandemic is having to figure out a social schedule.

And you almost get to the point where you don't want anyone to ask you to do anything,

Because that means you're going to have to go to your calendar and look at that puzzle and figure something out.

And that takes effort.

And I have the fortitude now to,

Of course now we're not scheduling,

But I think I will return to socialization with a renewed value and treasuring of the fact that staying in touch with our friends is very important.

And the fifth one is,

I wish I had let myself be happier.

And this is again,

Kind of going back to the idea of purpose and it's ooh-daimonia.

It's the happiness you get from living your purpose,

Not the happiness exactly from your new car or whatever the thing may be.

Very nice.

Yeah.

I couldn't agree more about the friendships and it's a good reminder to get in touch.

During this pandemic,

It's a good time.

We have time.

We can reach out and talk to friends.

But then for me,

I'm so exhausted and depleted by dealing with virtual learning and all of the other things.

The last thing I want to do is,

Even though it will be nourishing and amazing to connect with a friend and speak,

Somehow I always say,

Oh,

Okay,

I'll call her tomorrow.

I'm not going to answer this call.

But I think this is such a good point.

I'm going to prioritize because these are the relationships that inspire,

Nurture,

Hold us in the times of hardship.

We need to mindfully create space for them.

Even if it's just talking about recipes or remembering old things,

It gives you such warm feelings that you're part of something larger than your daily tasks and duties.

That's right,

Anna.

It goes to belonging.

We are very much a part of different social and familial circles.

It is so important.

Like you say,

It may seem mundane what you talk about or what you connect about,

But it's really with a much deeper meaning.

Yeah.

Okay.

So pivoting,

We've talked about pivoting already.

I think pretty much what I would love for you to talk about is pacing,

Which I actually love the word pacing itself.

Just the sound of it.

It gives you that calmness and comfort,

Right?

Right.

I hope so.

Right.

Yes.

So how do you describe pacing and what do you mean when you say pacing?

Again,

I appreciate your pointing this out.

There was competition for the three P's and pacing kept coming back.

Pacing defined to mean that we can be free to realize we don't have to do everything all at once.

And that freedom can give us so much calm throughout our various life stages.

When I wrote my book,

I had a post-it that said,

I am right where I should be.

Writing the book,

You could take it as a metaphor for our whole lives.

It's like,

It's got a beginning,

A middle,

And end.

It's got a lot of stuff in there.

You got to get it done and you got one chance to do it before it goes to the printer.

And we get one,

As one of my high school friends used to say,

You only go around once in life.

And so pacing,

Especially for busy parents or anyone who has more than one life responsibility,

That's more than a full-time job.

And there are a lot of those in our lives.

More than full-time,

If you were to devote yourself to them easily could fill.

And many of us have two or three things like that in our lives.

So I think it kind of goes back and weaves in nicely with purpose because we have to look at what's important to us right now.

And if this is the time for me to make the career move,

Then that becomes important.

If this is the time that we have to apply to a new school and we have to deal with a child with special needs or help an elderly parent find a new living situation.

I mean,

These things percolate to the top.

And somehow if we can give ourselves the freedom and the bandwidth to say,

This is what I'm really going to pay attention to right now,

And there'll be time for the rest.

There'll be time.

I'll get to that.

I'll take care of that in the next phase,

The next week,

The next year,

The next month.

And so that's why I wanted to make pacing one of the piece,

Because I think it has a lot to say to us at any stage of life.

Yeah.

Last question.

Knowing what you know about mindfulness,

Presence,

You know,

You had a beautiful life experiences.

What would you say to yourself as a new mom,

If you were to go back and say something to yourself?

That's such a good question.

I would say along the lines of what I just talked to you about with pacing,

I would say your kids are just this age once.

And so don't feel guilty about jumping off the corporate litigator track.

I am forever grateful that I jumped off and it wasn't easy because when you're on these tracks,

Whatever,

Take finance,

Take any industry,

You can't see the outside.

And so I think if I could go back,

I would try to give myself that calm,

Which I tried to give women who read or anyone who reads the book.

Like,

It's okay.

You don't have to be in my case,

You know,

Making partner in five years right now in your law firm.

What you really need to do is figure out how can I keep my professional life and how can I also grow my ability to be a great parent and an available parent,

A parent who shows up.

So I think that's what I would say to myself that right now the important thing is that I make peace with what it is I can do.

And I know my value right now is to serve my family.

And at the same time,

And I told the story of my working on the Judge Judy show,

Which came to my life at the right time,

Right place,

Right time.

And again,

Talk about not knowing and being willing to take a risk,

Jump out of a big law firm and just have no plan.

And then the call came to maybe do something that I'd never done before on the set of an untested reality TV show.

That's like a whole,

I was going to ask you about that,

But you know,

There are so many things you write about.

You know,

Of course,

We can't all squeeze into this conversation,

But I truly want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your time,

For your generosity,

For your presence,

Your energy and your wisdom.

So I really enjoyed this conversation and be well,

Be safe and a big warm virtual hug to you.

Thank you,

Anna.

And thank you for such a beautiful interview.

I loved your questions.

Thank you.

And if you have to listen to what Dr.

Siegel said to the question about if he were to go back,

What would he say to himself?

I asked him the same question too.

Okay.

Well,

That'll be interesting.

I wonder if I know the answer.

I'll talk to him about that.

Thank you.

Okay.

Take care for now.

That concludes today's conversation,

My dear listener,

And I hope you enjoyed it.

What's your biggest takeaway?

Did you find it useful?

How you may apply what you gleaned from this episode into your life?

I would love to hear from you.

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Until next week,

Connect to the present moment,

To yourself and your children.

I am Anna Siwald.

Thank you so much for listening!

Reviews

wonderful interview, At first I thought my children are grown I'm not sure this will be of value for me at this time in my life. WOW, that was not the case. thank you, I learned a great deal and look forward to purchasing the book now😊