Letting Our Body Talk | 12/28/21 With Denny Miu & Lydia Grace

Lydia Grace, Denny and I listen and speak on (about, to, from) the body as well as: The ins and outs, ups and downs, history, practice, practicality, methodology, experience, etc of Lydia’s intuitive body healing technique BodyTalk. Also: mind, memory, discussion on wholesomeness, right and wrong, long term wellbeing, energy, inquiry, dementia, choosing attention, direct experience vs. interpretation, fear, compassion, needs, being seen and understood, potential, and *Lydia leads a guided practice*

Transcript

Good afternoon, Good evening. Once again, It's our last Tuesday of the month and this is actually the last Tuesday of the year. So this is not only a special episode of AUA, Ask Us Anything, Where we invite Lydia Grace back, But it's also the last one of the year. So, Hi everyone. Hi Lydia, Hi Josh, How are you? Good, Good, Good, Good. So I really want to jump in and continue with our last discussion. Last season talks about the practice that Lydia does, Which is body centric practice. And one of the things that strikes me was actually in the very beginning when Lydia talks about how her students react to her teaching and how they were so enamored or focused on, For the first time, They actually listening to the body. And I think in passing, Lydia talked about a term that she used called body speak. And so I'd like to give this, Give an opportunity to, To, To Lydia to continue with that thought and share with us her, Her teaching. And I think we have enough time that both Josh and I would like to contribute our own perspective to what we do and whether or not that relates to what Lydia worked on. Go ahead, Lydia. OK. Yeah. So last time we talked about the topic was on embodiment coaching. So I in 2020 developed a approach, I would say. I guess it's a technique, But it's more of an approach to the body to help people start to understand how they can open up an inner dialogue with themselves. And it came from a lot of my own challenges from being led by different coaches or teachers or therapists that would like get to a point. And then I'd be like, But it's not enough or it doesn't work for me in this way or. And so it was a combo of like understanding from the perspective of being a yoga teacher and massage therapist and massage teacher and health coach over lots of years of like what is an efficient, Easy way to start accessing our inner conversation and all the different parts of us. And, You know, I at the time I had a business coach who was like, You need a signature program for your business, You know, And so it kind of came out of like the title kind of came out of that the body speak method, Mostly in all honesty for marketing purposes, So that I would have a clear way to bring a unique perspective to what I offered in my coaching practice. And so before I even brought it into specific coaching, I actually just offered it up on lots of groups on Facebook and said, I have this new method. If you want to try it out for free and then leave a testimonial and give you feedback, See how it works. So I think I probably gave between one and 200 hours of of coaching for free to too many people last year in this method just to see how does this work on actual people. Not just me. And then my sister and I have done trades for coaching in the past and then I did a series of sessions with her and she was able to give me feedback. So it was a really cool experiment, But it ended up working. And, And even as I practiced it myself, I came across challenges of the approach, You know, So I I met resistance within different aspects that the brilliance of working with actual humans what's so amazing is I had certain clients along the way, Basically bring in insight into can we approach it a different way, And it like opened up so much more insight into where areas that I hadn't necessarily seen like I had a lot of experience with. I hadn't really seen like I had one client, Really say can we do this but can can it be less talking and can I be moving during it. And I hadn't really brought in a movement approach before. And it was this huge amazing thing that really confirms my philosophy which is when you're working with an individual as a coach, I'm here to facilitate safe consent based space, So that they can open up to their own wisdom. And so when I'm trying to put my wisdom onto them. I'm using my intuition wisdom and presence to create space for them to realize they are very wise themselves, And their bodies specifically are very wise. And with that approach it's a very rewarding approach as a coach because so many clients have these brilliant things I never would have thought of because they're unique in their own life and challenges, You know, So the body speak method specifically. I made it a little bit more of an intellectual approach, Because I noticed, Specifically for my personality but I tend to work with a lot of people who are intellectuals. And I've noticed again for myself and other people who are think a lot information is safe information equal safety, Education equal safety. And so one of the things I emphasize with a lot of clients is, First of all, You get to give or take away consent at any point in this session. And I follow your lead in that sense if you're uncomfortable we pivot, I give more options you bring in an option. You're not having to do it my way, But if you don't have a way, I present away, You know, So you also don't have to feel like you have to come up with something. And that is the one of the foundational elements of it, Of we're opening up an inner dialogue, But there has to be safety and there has to be consent for this to happen. Because so many times we open into like listening to a sim, Like a sensation or listening to an emotion and then we get identified with it and it runs away with us, Or we run away with it into overidentification. And so one of the main elements I wanted to bring in is there has to be some sort of inner facilitator or mediator. And like maybe in meditation that's called conscious awareness or the observer or the witness, You know, Different approaches have different words, And I let the client kind of pick whatever word they want to identify with. And I say, I'm going to be that until you have the skill to do it for yourself. And so there's always an element if something starts to feel wobbly, Then we go back to the facilitator who's kind of running the show, Essentially, You know, And it goes into various questions. So a client might be sharing something, Then there's an offering, Do you want to try out the body speak? They say yes or no. If they say yes, Then we go into some sort of grounded practice based on their personality, Whether it's movement, Breath, Visualization, So that they can come into being present and engaged. We set an intention of safety, Of consent, Of, You know, Opening up to any part of their emotions, Their energy, Their thoughts, Their beliefs, Their mind that wants to have a say in the conversation. We welcome all parts. And then I basically follow my intuition. I say, You know, You said this earlier in our conversation today. I'm going to bring this topic back up. As I say it in this moment, If you were to feel it somewhere in the body, Where would that be? And then it might go into one of two ways. If that part of the body, If you were to describe what was going on, Like through sensations, What would that be? Quiet them out of the story. Then I might take it into if that part of the body, Like a lot of people get constriction in the throat, Or they feel tears behind their eyes. And I say, If that part, If the tears behind your eyes had a voice and wanted to say something at the round table right now, What would it say? We tend to move towards and then what does it need from this moment, From you, From this conversation? And then we go back to so can the facilitator aspect of you meet that need? The other pivot that I can sometimes take is how old does this part feel? And I just say, Whatever comes up, 4, 10, 15. We're not trying to go into memories of the past. We're not trying to go into trauma. We're just allowing their inner child per se to come in if needed. And then I say, Again, We're not going into the trauma aspect of this. We're just saying, Does that seven year old want to say something now? Does it have a need that needs to be met right now from you? And so, Again, This brilliant client I worked with, Who's an artist, She was like, I like it, But sometimes I feel like I want a little bit more in the body. Can you almost facilitate it where I don't have to answer you right away, But I can be like moving, Like off camera? And so we did a session. So it was almost a little more guided on my part because there wasn't direct answers. And it was one of the most profound experiences she had had. And she was like, I can't believe it. I came home to myself. I feel it now. I feel my big self with a big S and I'm not afraid anymore. And I feel like I'm connected. And so it was brilliant for her to bring that in because it made it a little bit less engaged in conversation. And so it almost gave her a chance to be a little bit more in the body. I do the conversation piece because to me, It feels, Many of us feel safer in our intellect before we know how to come into the body. And so keeping a little bit of conversation can have there be a sense of, They get to be like, I don't know. And then we, Cool. That's a perfect answer. And we get to allow there to be a sense of permissiveness as there's this kind of co-regulating exploration between me and the other person. And I want to say this is one of many approaches I take to the embodiment coaching. So I had one client where we did it once out of a three, We were working together for three months. And it was like, She felt a little bit uncomfortable doing it. So I was like, We do not have to go there until you want to go there again. And so it was several sessions before it was interesting to go there again. So it's not something I say every session we have to do this, No matter if you feel comfortable or not. And so that's kind of specific to the body speak. When I was developing this, I did not know that there's actually a trauma modality out there that's very similar called internal family systems. They have more specific names like they say, I think self with a big S. So I think I took that from them. They call it different parts. I used to say voices. So parts voices are interchangeable for me, But they say there's parts of you that are protectors. There's parts of you that are managers. There's parts of you that are firefighters. And then there's parts of you that are exiles. So I appreciate that approach. I specifically don't love labels because I think it's up to the receiver to explore what roles they're defining within themselves. But I've been learning, I've been going through trainings and internal family systems and it's very interesting and very effective for many people. And it, It essentially affirms and confirms what I was already on the path to to be like, Oh, There's been research in this type of approach since like the 80s. Awesome. You know. So, Yeah, Like I said, That's a very specific technique that I've used in, In certain perspectives with various clients that doesn't always come in, But it's one, One way that we've we've used that has been very effective and sometimes clears up something in moments that surprises both of us, You know, Where it's like, Oh, My two year old came in and she just went, A hug every night, Like what is that simple we just have to share a little bit of a hug with ourselves before we go to bed every night. I was thinking for a scene, One of the scene in the movie where it doesn't need to be husband and wife but it's just like two person and they were having an argument, Or they were having some difficulty with the relationship and one person says you never listen to me and then the other person says well I'm listening now, And that actually get the other person more upset than ever, Because what what what the person was looking for was not just that that person listen to that person, But that it's the respect that they were looking for is that they have something intelligent to say. And so, Just saying that while I'm listening now what do you got to say that that actually is the worst possible response so the reason I said that is, Is, Even though we talk about body speak embedded in that is that the body actually has a lot of wisdom. And I think that was one of the things that you talk about can you can you elaborate on that so it's not just that we want to let the body speaks to say like, I'm listening now. I'm listening to respect my body because it actually has a lot to say. Yeah. Yeah. And, You know, One of the, One of the ways I talked to clients about just this approach I say it's one of many, Like this is one way to possibly enter into conversation that has worked for me but you uniquely get to come and say it's not working for you and that's great because then that means there's another approach that's better, You know, And the point the whole entire point of it is to give you a give them access to realize, Just like an interpersonal relationship with a family close friend partner. It's a relationship dynamic that continues over time. It's a conversation that we're opening into the possibility so that they can keep going with it. Where it. And honestly, It has 100% come from the practices that I've learned from Asian tradition, Qigong, Thai Ayurveda, Thai healing, Yoga, Meditation, So many of these practices specifically Thai Ayurveda that talks about how we have different bodies. And each of these bodies have different ways of dealing with life and when there's a block in one, If it's not dealt with it'll affect the other and the other and the other, But the healing can actually be a multidisciplinary approach where we don't have to just work with where the symptom is we actually get to work anywhere in the body whether it's emotional in the breath spiritual, You know, Mental, Physical. And so so many of so many of the things we go through in life are affecting different bodies different aspects of our humanity so we get to take whatever approach resonates with us the most I guess, Which to me is so like expansive, And I had one client that could one of the things that she continued to say over and over about sessions when we work together was she's like, I've never understood this concept of permissiveness before, And you emphasize it every single time, I'm allowed to I can give permission to myself. And, And it was such a powerful concept for her to learn how to just be more. I think of it as permissive but also like compassionate, Like I'm allowed to be human as I grow, Instead of I'm not allowed to be angry or I'm not allowed to hurt people it's like, Yeah, Ideally we're moving away from causing harm to ourselves or others, Definitely integrity matters, But we also get to allow ourselves to be a mess, As we're figuring it out, Because we're a human living friction, We're like, We're physical, You know like this is everything about our life is friction and energy transfer, You know, As far as like science, I'm saying science because a scientist might not agree with how I'm articulating this. Yeah. So, Earlier I purposely used the word body centric, As opposed to body, But embodiment, And the reason is that I want to take our conversation and put it under a bigger umbrella. So, Lydia talks about embodiment last time and now talks about body speak, But I like to kind of put that say okay there's a, There's a bigger world out there. Different people try different ways and all has to do with the body and that's why I choose to work body centric, Because in Buddhism we practice the mindfulness of the body, The mindfulness of the body mindfulness of the feelings so forth. So I like to kind of bring that now to this bigger umbrella, And I like to open this up to Josh and see if he can make any comments as to how your practice relates to Lydia's practice, Either in similarity or differences, Josh, What do you, What do you think of what leader just said to many. I'm enjoying listening right now and I invite you all to listen with your entire body so this is a kind of thing that I've heard and like Tara Bhatta Buddhist talks pretty, Pretty often about entire body listening, And I invite you to do that for the rest of the show, And maybe we'll come back on and give our, What that means to us, But I would invite the audience listening to this to just notice their experience with whole body listening whatever that means to you, And you don't have to sit there and think about it and figure it out, Just see what happens. And then we can use as a reference point. If we come back later and say what that means to us. Yeah, You know, I'm gonna pass it off to Denny and Lydia. Oh no, Before we do that, But you actually did prepare something, Would you like to share it now. Pretty too much of stuff. Yeah, Too much so if any of it works into a natural conversation great. If not, That's okay too. I'm very interested too so you can make it work into a natural conversation if you want. We're extending an invitation now, Josh. Oh yeah, Now I need to be defensive right. No, I don't want to I can, We can go and then when you feel good, You can know that I mean that that is the great thing about you know having my own little platform right so I don't have to, Like we were talking about or Lydia was talking about earlier forcing wisdom on people and that's a big lesson I had to learn, Because you know, Now it just makes so much more sense it's so much more. At ease to dispense wisdom that specifically asked for, You know, However you know I can do that in general on these online platforms by myself and people can just find it if they want you know and it actually this forum here we can, You know, Share things that are related so it's it's pretty cool. You know, Let's see. So I don't know what do you what more specifically, What, What would we like to talk about. Well, I would love to say one thing based on what you just said, One of the lives, I've done on insight timer, I call it the embodied book club. And I will pick a book. Like for example, I think last time I did this one by young Pueblo he's a. He was a monk for a while and then he became an author. And it has little excerpts, You know, Like poetry about clarity and connection. From the perspective of a meditator. So what I would do is say first, You know, Where are you in your body, And then similar to you like whole body listening. We would start with first listen from your mind, I'm going to read this excerpt, Notice how you feel. We do that. Okay now listen from the bottoms of your feet. We do that. Did you did anything Did you notice any shift if you don't notice anything cool, That's not a problem. You also get to be where you're at. Then, Listen from your heart space. What shifts, And it was very, It's a very cool facilitated practice to do because the comments of what arises and people's realizations of where they're listening from is so it blows me away, Just hearing other people's experiences. And it was such a. I remember the first time I did on insight timers, Maybe early summer. I remember being like, Why have I not done that in specifically and something like a conflict. Like, Been conscious about like where am I listening to this other person from I'm listening from defensive, Like limbic overwhelm protective measure, You know, Instead of like, Okay, I want to come to this conversation with boundaries that match my value system and integrity. But can I also at the same time, Listen from an open front or from a relaxed spine or from a grounded pelvis. And like, What would happen if we started doing that more regularly, Specifically in more tense conversations where we meet our, Our default is to become defensive first, You know, So I immediately went there when you were saying, Whole body listening. You know, And that's the tendency is for us to match the energy of what we're being presented with, Right? And so the solution I've been taught is that, You know, If we can become aware of that, Then we can focus more on how we want to respond to. And I think it's fascinating this listening to and listening from different areas of the body to, You know, I mean, Is there a possibility for listening and speaking on a cellular level even? I mean, Just think if all the barriers were out of the way, You know, On a cellular level, I mean, This is the human potential, Perhaps that, You know, Cells are vibrating, Right? They're not still either. So if we could, How do we listen? Well, It's reverberations, Right? In sound, The cell is reverberating. I mean, It's very minute sound if it's audible at all, Right? And then there's movement, So we can see movement with our eyes, So that would be internal sight. I mean, This is a little woo woo here, But and then feeling, Right? So if anything has a vibration, You know, You take it on a gross level, But if you scale it down more and more and more, And the sensitivity becomes more and more acute, Enable, Well, Then it would be possible to listen to ourselves, Ideally, Given the right environment. Now, You know, The other thing is, Of course, You know, You get into this, What's it called? An amniotic chamber where there's complete silence. And so you can, This is people experience hearing the blood rush to their ears in their heart, Sounding like a machine gun or a drum. That's how loud it becomes. But anyway, What relevance does this have? This just shows that we're only scratching the surface, And that's okay, Right? Just know that there's potential way beyond this, And we start where we're at. And so, Denny, What are your experiences of listening to and listening from? Because we don't normally think about listening from, Right? We just say, Well, We listen with our ears. Well, I want to go back to one of the AUAs where we talk about physicality versus mentality or materiality versus spirituality, Right? And really, I think we all know what body is. Body is something that we can touch, We can smell, We can see, We can hear, We can taste. This is the body. I think there's some misunderstanding of what is the mind. And so if we go back to that conversation, The mind can be part of the body, And that would be like the brain or the analytical power or your ability to recall memory and all that. That's just part of physicality. Whereas in the Buddhist teaching or even in some way the Taoist teaching, The mind is something else. The mind is actually beyond this physical body. And this reminds me, This actually, I remember one time our master, Our Dharma Master, Master Zuru says, There is no mind. And we kind of blew our mind. What does it mean there's no mind? And so what he's talking about is that as human, We really cannot access our mind. What we think is the mind is the effect of our mind. So we really have to understand the mind, Which is not something that we're capable of experiencing, Or the effect of the mind, Which is something that we can experience. So when you talk about listening to the body as opposed to listening to the mind, The question is which mind? Is it the mind that we can actually assess with the body? Or is it a mind that is beyond the body? This reminds me of when I was a professor teaching mechanical engineering. And once a year we had to teach the introductory. These would be students, Not necessarily engineering students, They could be pre-med or they could be social science, Whatever. And one of the things I need to do is to talk about gravity. And so the little trick that I do is that in the beginning of the class, I stand up, Walk to the podium, And I carry with me the thickest book possible. And I just drop it onto the table, It makes a huge sound, And then I look at the class and I say, What is that? And the smart student would say, That's gravity. And I said, No it's not. It's the effect of gravity. No one has ever seen gravity before. So I absolutely believe in listening to the body, Listening to the body for the purpose of not listening to a mind. But which mind? Which mind? I don't mean to say not listening to a brain. Because that wouldn't be right. I'm talking about actually using all our faculty, The eye, The ear, The nose, The tongue, The body, And the brain to listen to the effect of the spiritual mind. So it's different. It's going down the same path as what Lydia is talking about, Which is stop listening to the noise and get to know your body. And let the body speak to you because it has a lot of wisdom. I think I understand that. Now this is similar to what we do. This is similar to what we do. We listen to our body like when we're in motion. We try to focus on our hands and our feet. We listen to our body like when we're sitting. We listen to the breath. We do all kinds of exercise to enhance the breath. And doing deep abdominal breathing using the diaphragm, With understanding that the diaphragm actually connects to the entire body through a cellular level. Because every cell, Every nerve, Every muscle and organ has a membrane. And the membrane actually conducts both electricity and magnetism. And that flow of electricity and magnetism is what we call Qi. So a whole lot of techniques develop into listening to your body. But as far as I'm concerned, It has the ultimate goal of using our body to listen to the effect of our mind. Similar, But not identical. You know, It's really interesting because the mind is considered one of the senses in Buddhism, But you can't use your other senses to detect it. So it's really fascinating. You can't see the mind. The brain is the physical representation. It's an organ. So the brain is the brain. The mind is something different. Some people use it synonymously. I think it's important to separate them. Yeah. Go ahead, Josh. Sorry about that. Oh, No, That's yeah, We'll come right back. But you know, Even this body, You know, It helps to be really stable and grounded in our certain in ourselves too. Because when with like a warning alert here with the Buddha was a master of deconstructing things, Right? So, You know, We think we just know what this body is. But do we really, You know, Where does the finger start and end? You know, If you zoom into the quantum level, You know, That particle that are that sub particle that's always changing, How do you pin it down to the finger right in the hand or you zoom way out and what relevance does you know a hand have and then so the classic analogy that's always given as a car, Right? It's a car, We all know what a car is, Right? But if you take it all apart, And you put it in boxes, Is that still a car? Well, I guess you could argue it still is it just needs some assembly, But it's a it's a box of parts then. So this comes back to the Nama Rupa. And so it's like when we think we really know what something is, Well, Then I mean, That's that it can help ground and stabilize us and give us some coherency in a way to, You know, Get through the world easily. Because if we had to figure out what a table was, Every time we saw it, I mean, Life would be really confusing, And we couldn't really do much, Right. But then at the same time, If we think that, Oh, I know what a table is, I don't have to look into it any further, Right? But you get the point. So when we think we know something, Then then we just stop at one level, And which is okay, There's no value judgment on that. It's just something to be aware of. Right. Okay, So, Denny, You were saying about the mind. Well, So, So other than the brain, I'm not saying that I know what it is. I'm saying that to me, The mind, Again, Going far back to the education of a engineer and a scientist, We know that the world exists in both particle and wave. As well as information. Right. So I think we all understand that the particle in the wave is, Is, Is there's a duality. So sometimes it can appear as particle and sometimes it can appear as wave. And the idea that, And people who does deep meditation, They talk about that, That they talk about how, When they're in deep meditation, They enter into these states of deep samadhi, Their body disappear, And they just see this energy within them. In fact, In fact, This is how the Qigong was developed. The Qigong and meridians and the pressure point, The energy points, They were developed not by dissecting a cadaver, They were discovered by the masters who enters into deep meditation. And also they see the body not as a collection of particles, But, You know, Actually energy flow. And so I think we all understand, I think we could understand how a particle in a wave could be the two dimensions of existence. And I think the mind is the third dimension, Which is information, Is that for every thought that we have, Which is electrical signal, There could be a memory of that thought. And that memory of the thought is stored somewhere in the inside body, Or we talk about how trauma could be retained in the muscle, You know, That could be another place where it can store. Or it can store somewhere that is beyond a comprehension, But it stores somewhere because for every electrical signal, There's a magnetism, And for every magnetic signal, There is a memory of that. But that same memory can then come back and participate into the next thought. And so, In our teaching, In the Buddhist teaching is that it has this feedback loop. That's why we focus so much on what we call the kusela thoughts, The kusela, The wholesome thoughts, That because if we have unwholesome thoughts, Then for every unwholesome thoughts, It can actually leave unwholesome seed, And then that unwholesome seed can come back and generate more unwholesome thoughts. The best example I can give would be like how you raise, How you plant tomatoes. You have to start with a seed. Now, Without the seed, You wouldn't have the tomato as a fruit. So, The seed becomes a fruit through conditions. So, The big thing about Buddhism is that since you and I can change a condition, We can change our own destiny. There is no outside force that says that your destiny is such that, And there's no, No, No, Everything can be changed by changing the condition. But the point is that you start with the seed, You put in the right conditions, It's very fruit, But now the fruit contains even more seeds. And so, If you start with the bad seeds, Now you have a bad tomato, But then what's worse is that you have even more bad tomato seeds. I have, So, I'll be controversial, Like I do. I have, And it may not be, We might be in agreement. I have a problem with saying one thing is good and one thing is bad. The approach of saying unwholesome and wholesome, Because in my perspective from personal experience, Mostly, Not, You know, Take it or leave it. As soon as I make a thought bad, Then I, It can trigger shame, Which then triggers self-sabotage, Which then triggers, And that might feed right into the point you're making. I would rather see it as they're seeds. Let's look at the quality of the seeds without judgment. Let's look at what happens when certain seeds are nourished versus others. Let's look at what, So almost more of a curiosity before judgment, Like, Which I don't, I don't necessarily think I'm disagreeing with you because most Buddhist philosophy is all about observation. It's a semantic. Yeah, It's a semantic. I think it's, I think I'm like arguing the semantics. It's funny, Lydia, I'll jump in real quick. The whole thing is to miss that, You know, The good and bad. That's what the wholesome, Unwholesome thing was supposed to get away from the good and bad. It was supposed to be an alternative to good and bad. So you said nourishment. That's the thing. So it's what's wholesome, What nourishes us, What is, You know, What, You know, Skillful. And also it's translated as skillful and unskillful. So it's not good or bad. You know, There's no value judgment on skillful, Unskillful. In the same way with wise, Wise and unskillful. It's not good and bad. So yeah, That's where it gets kind of confused a lot. But that's not the point. The point is not the choice of the words. The point is not whether you choose something, The dichotomy of good and bad or the dichotomy of wholesome, Unwholesome. That's not the point. The point is who gets to judge. Who gets to judge, Is that what you asked? Who gets to judge. So in Buddhism, No one gets to judge. So it really doesn't matter then if no one gets to judge. And so it comes back to the word of positivity. You know, We use the word about body positive. And I use the word in Chi positive, Which is that there is no judge. No one gets to judge. If you choose, You can judge yourself, But you judge it by experience. And I believe there's a difference between good and bad. I believe there's a difference between wholesome and wholesome. I believe it's worthwhile to distinguish them. But you get to do it. No one else does. And you get to do it not through your intellect, But through your experience. Right. And that's the point. Semantic. And it's all about not value judgment. No, Not semantics. Westerners tend to just throw that out there as if that was the word that solved all conflicts. No, You're right. No, It's not. We're not talking about differences in semantics. We're talking about something very fundamental than that. It's that there is no judge. So I'm sorry for I have a bad habit of interrupting people. So it's about what's leading towards your long term happiness and well being and what's leading away from that. So I think that's something we can understand and not get hung up on semantics. Right. Because if we take those kind of out of context and without that added piece of information, Then yes, It can turn into a good, Bad value judgment really easily. So I guess rather than immediately disagreeing like I just did, I might as well do what I said, Which is be curious before judgment. I judged before being curious. I guess for the question I have out of curiosity is if you determined one seed is wholesome and one is unwholesome, What are you saying to do with that? Are you doing away with the unwholesome and pushing it away? Are you getting curious about the unwholesome? Are you redirecting your focus to the wholesome? Like what's the point, I guess? The point is very simple. Discover for yourself what leads towards your happiness, Long term happiness and well being and the long term happiness and well being of others. And that we have to know for ourselves. I know this wholesome thing can be a real trigger because of different lifestyles that are popular or different lifestyles that we have different ideas about. And that's OK. You know, So I can, You know, I my dad. I talk about my dad being a dementia, Someone who suffers from dementia. The good news is that he no longer suffers from dementia. He's too weak to even qualify as a dementia patient. He just, You know, He just lied there and he's just he's self-determining his time, You know. And so my my my goal now is to give him as much comfort and dignity as I can. But I can tell you that a person who suffers from dementia, This is from first person experience, Is that. They have lost much of the brain power, Which is the physical side of the brain, Of the mind. OK, That that much is clear, But it hasn't affected their spiritual side of the mind. Not at all. Not a bit. And so. When that happens. They become a white sheet of paper in the mirror. In other words, When you approach them, If you go in there with unwholesome thoughts. They'll come back with unwholesome thoughts and you know immediately that thought was unwholesome. There's no way of arguing that. So if you go in there. With despair and anger and, You know, All that bad, What we call the unwholesome thoughts, It comes back 10 times. And you can tell right away because it's a mirror. So so that's one one case where it is it is very, Very clear. And so going back to what Lidia said about. So what do you do with that now that you. Forget for a minute, You know, Who get the judge, But let's say you come to the conclusion that this is good. This is not so good. This is wholesome. This is not so wholesome. This is skillful. And this is not so good. So you pick the word. It doesn't matter. It falls into one or two bin. And so in Buddhism, It's very simple. It's very, Very simple. We have this four ways. It's just like four ways, Four squares. You know, If you're doing something good, Keep doing it. If you haven't stopped doing it yet, But recognize it's good. You know, Try as hard as you can to do that. If you're doing something bad, Then you should stop doing it. If you haven't stopped, Then you should never stop. You know, It's a self-discipline. I think where, Where I want to maybe clarify where I was coming from was. To me, It feels over simplistic. For example, I've gone through trauma. I deal with PTSD. Someone reaching out their hand for a hug to me out of goodwill. Comes across as a complete threat to my entire nervous system. My brain says bad danger on wholesome. If I wasn't to get curious to be like, Interesting, What's going on? I then become reactive. Cause unintentional harm back to the person. And we're just both reacting from experience rather than a sense of curiosity of really coming into the nuances of how are we determining wholesome and unwholesome? How are we, What part of the body are we listening from? Am I listening for my intuition? Am I listening for my intellect? Am I listening for my trauma response? Because those are three extremely very different aspects that are all affected by biochemistry. They're all affected by the energy flows in my body. They can all be shifted. Like you said, We do have a certain level of power over changing our internal or external condition to a degree. So much of it from my perspective and experience, I have struggled a lot to go into philosophies that appear to me from my perspective. To be simplistic that don't leave space for the experience of trauma in my own body, For the experience of trauma on my own emotions, My own mind, My own intellect, My own perception. And there's a word called neuroception that comes out of the polyvagal theory, Which is what your nervous system is taking in before your mind determines what that means. So it's the nervous system responding the quickest to the environment, Internal and external. And then at some point it goes up to the intellect and the thoughts and the emotions and then interpretations are made. And then we, That's when we're kind of tuned in consciously and then we make determination from that. But so much of it is happening before we have any sense of saying, Putting any value system or judgment to the experience. So from the perspective that I'm coming from is, How are we determining what these mean? What part, What, Like, Am I learning this from the conditioning of trauma that I've gone through in my body? Unwholesome is going to be everything I see around me. The plant is unwholesome. The animal is unwholesome. And I think I, I want to say I'm so grateful, Denny, For your perspective on dementia because that, That feels like, Like I'm getting teary eyed just thinking about it feels like such an amazingly compassionate experience that you spoke to or articulated because you spoke to how significant deep presence is with people who no longer have some of the same functions that we expect in regular society, You know. One of my, One of my hardest thing to do is to actually convince my mom and my siblings, Not to hug my father. So when you said that it really hits a nerve. Because a lot of times we have relatives who might be my dad's sisters, And they don't come often, You know, They come out of care, Out of caring. And the first thing they do is that, Do you recognize me? Do you recognize me? And this is the worst thing you could do to a dementia patient because a dementia patient suffers from a physical disorder, Not a psychological disorder. For one reason or another, Parts of the brains are not connecting. And so they are trying to juggle. They are a patient with trauma, With deep trauma, And they're trying to juggle these multiple worlds. They have a world that they remember bits and pieces that could be like his childhood. It could be a world where he was bringing up three sons, Taking them to kindergarten. And then now he has this new world where he doesn't recognize anyone, But he recognizes them as someone who cares. And our survival, He can't put them together. He's not capable of putting them together. And our survival, He cannot force them together. But the people who visit him, Whether they understand or not, Is that they do things out of their own need, That they want him to recognize them as their sister. And so he keeps saying, Do you recognize me? They're recognizing me. That actually causes pain. And the first time I recognized that is I was putting my dad to sleep, And I tried to hug him. And he pushed me away. He absolutely pushed me away. Just like you were saying, He said the act of compassion, The act of love, By any definition, Turned out to be a personal attack. Because he recognized me, He recognized me as a caregiver, But not his son. And he never tried to bring them together. And I crossed the line, And he felt that he was being attacked. And he pushed me away. He puts a cover over his head. He was scared. And so going back to what you said is that someone else might reach out to you thinking that they're doing good. That by their definition is wholesome, Turned out not to be. Because it was an unwholesome act to begin with. Because they didn't understand your need. They never bothered to listen to you. They never bothered to understand you in terms of your needs. And also, Though, It could come from their lack of capacity to even know that's a skill to develop. So it's like we have to have compassion for the compassion of the compassion of the compassion. Absolutely, Absolutely. So going back, I absolutely agree with you that sometimes putting into this black and white bin, Whatever name you put in, Is not just that it oversimplifies the situation that is actually counterproductive. And there's a quote I kind of came – I came to a realization weeks ago. And I came up with some sort of quote like, It's not just about intention, It's about impact. I feel like there's a lot of conflict between people in the world. And I've been at both ends of the conflict. So I've been the person who has caused the harm and the person who's received the harm. When we have this idea that it came at a good intention, We're setting ourselves up to not have to take responsibility for the impact it may or may not have had on another person. And yes, Sometimes in order to not be codependent, The other person gets to have their reaction, Their response as a human on their path. However, I think there has to be a little bit of noticing on our end. What was my impact based on my intention? Did they match? Can I make it closer together? Can I make my impact closer to my intention? And I'm noticing a pattern where my impact is constantly coming off as aggressive when my intention is supposed to be gentle. What's the mismatch here? So it encourages, Again, Curiosity rather than automatic judgment of like, Well, It's your issue. I'm sorry that you thought I was mean versus shit. I want to say that's not my intention, But crap, I see you're feeling awful. Now I want to get curious what just happened on your end. Like, How are you perceiving me without even needing to go across the aisle and say, Because you acted poorly, I must be wrong. So we don't have to go straight to the other extreme either. But it's an invitation into curiosity, Which I feel like, Again, My internal sense. I grew up in a very, Again, From my perspective, More dogmatic, Conservative household that really taught me black and white binary ways of living that didn't match my personal identity. As an adult, I've really had to work hard at noticing what is the value that I took? What can I, What is super like the truth, The truth for me that I can really take that's expanding my integrity? And what did not do me service? And instead of, Again, Automatically judging it, Why didn't it do me service? Is there just another approach I need to take to the same truth? Or is it something that I actually disagree with because I see it causes harm to others? So as I've become, Like my client said, More permissive of myself. It's totally allowed me to shift my paradigm of what's wholesome, What's wholesome, Unwholesome, What's good, What's bad, How I'm, Where is my bias when I'm making these judgments? Am I in my fight or flight response or am I in a calm response when I'm determining a wholesome versus unwholesome? Because again, For me, That totally determines. I'm so quick to say something's bad when I'm in a fight or flight sympathetic response versus when I'm calm. And this is so great. And both of you guys speak to this notion of ehipassako, Come and see for yourself. You have to invite investigation. I mean, That's what the Buddha was all about. He's not, Don't take my word for it. You have to look into these things yourself. And absolute, All the time, Encouragement for investigation and inquiry. That's one of the factors of awakening. So if we don't look into and investigate and inquire about our experience, About things we're hearing. Well, Then we're just a mindless robot, Right? Like a drone that just goes on and just, You know, Into a hive mind, You know? So, Yeah, So this is great. I want to share one more personal story and kind of center around my dad. This time has to do with my mom. But before I do that, I want to bring us back to this conversation that we have about the umbrella, The body centric spiritual practice. And I think we're going to take that. It goes down to embodiment and then body speak, Which is Lydia, You know, Talk about, Which is what Lydia talked about. And then when I talk about it, I said I distinguish between the spiritual mind versus the materialistic mind. The materialistic mind is the brain is part of the body, Whereas the spiritual mind is something that we really cannot see or feel or touch or whatever. But we can't get to see and feel and touch the effects of that. And so our practice is really about calming down, Slowing down our senses so that we become very sensitive to this body, Very sensitive to our breath, So that when these unwholesome thoughts that are deep, Very deep into our subsurface of consciousness, When it comes up, It affects our body, Affects our breath. And so we know right away that, OK, Now I can make a decision to follow that or I can make a decision not to follow that. It's a choice. And only I get to judge. Right. So back to this. Now go into the story. And this last, Probably, I would say most intense was the last six to nine months. But before that, It was building up in terms of taking my dad, Who was actually at one point still very functional, But a lot of issues. And in comparison, It's actually a lot easier now to take care of my dad than it was before. But anyway, When my dad started to lose his ability and becomes incontinent, Then it falls upon my mom and I to clean him. And we were looking for a full time caregiver, More than one maybe. But things were moving so fast, We just didn't know, Didn't really know what to do at the point. So there was a time when it was we bared the total responsibility, Which is OK. You know, I have time. So I stay over at night. You know, After a while, I just take over an evening and my mom would take care of the day and so forth. And one time, You know, It happened and it was my mom decided that she wanted to clean it and she started using bleach, So much bleach that I couldn't even breathe. And I said, Mom, Why are you using so much bleach? Don't use so much bleach. It's really bad for you. And but I know why, Because she really didn't want to deal with that smell. It wasn't just the physical is the. It's it's mental. She didn't want to deal with what's in front of her and she really want to get rid of that. And she did it with bleach, But it wasn't the physical that she wants to get rid of. It's the idea that she want to get rid of. So anyway, After a while, We both kind of got used to it and she was actually becoming more at ease with it. And I said, Mom, You have nine grandchildren. You raised three. Changing diapers was easy for you. Why is it so difficult now? You know. And she said and she's very she's very good. She said. It's different. It's different because I don't want to see it. This is not what I want to see. I don't want to see your father like that more. I don't want to see myself being like that one day. I said, That's the difference, Mom. That is the difference. And that's why we practice, Because it's your mind that is working. It's some conscious mind that is working. All that attachment wanting to be like it was before, All that aversion reacting negatively, All that comes up through your deep subconsciousness. But you had no way. You didn't you didn't take my teaching seriously enough to understand that what I've been teaching you is actually develop the sensitivity to your body and your breath. So that when that effect of your mind comes up, You can choose. And he starts to understand that. And that's our practice. That is so profound. That is actually our practice is that the same thing in front of you. It's more than just the fact that it's just so. But it's your mind that is so. And is that I think, Too, I think for me, So much of my internal struggle has been not even necessarily from what I observe about myself specifically, But more about what I think about what I observe. So it's the judgment of the weakness I see in myself, The fact that I am quick, Like you, I've been practicing really hard to not interrupt, But I have that same issue. Quick to interrupt or try to steamroll a conversation. And in initial observation, My my second part of my mind, I don't know, Another level of mind is like, See, F you like you suck and you're never going to change and see all you do is hurt people. Like it's almost like, Again, It's not the initial observation. It's what what I do with the observation that has caused, I think, Me the most struggle and resistance. And that's where I want to where I've worked a lot to cultivate. That's where we have where we cultivate the grace, The compassion. And when we can start, Like you said, Really noticing a shift in our own bodies, We see the profound effects of healing that it can have that we can then extend to others. Because I think if we try to do that to others before we do it for ourselves, Then it's almost transactional. Like, Well, Now I did it. You have to do it. And then it can almost like you said, It can be counterproductive when we haven't really. And sometimes we have to do it with someone else first, Like a coach or a therapist or a Qigong teacher. So someone can guide us into it. And then we can be like, Oh, OK, Now I get it. Now I can extend it. Now I can practice it. Yeah. Denny spoke to the sign in the sign list and Lydia just so beautifully illustrated this point of there's a difference between experience and our interpretation of the experience. And most people live in an interpretation of the experience, Not the actual experience itself. And some people can't even tell the difference. Right. So that's where these practices can really help us delineate and discern between the two. And, You know, If we do have a little bit of time here, I know we've said this for two shows now, If Lydia would guide us in a in a practice, Unless Denny wants to wrap up something here. No, No, No. I think that's a good idea. Yeah. Yeah. OK. OK. We have a few minutes to extend. It just got it just got choppy for a second. Did that happen for anyone else? OK. I feel smooth. OK. So the intention again, Intention to me is always really important. Anyone listening live or to the replay. You get to have full consent of how much or little you want to participate in this guided practice. So at any point you get to follow your own body. And if there's an if it feels off, You stop, You go to the bathroom, You drink water, You open your eyes. You get to have this as a way to practice consent within yourself to practice what feels safe. What do I want to lean towards? What do I want to lean away from in my human person sharing? The intention is always safety and consent. So the first thing is find a comfortable spot for your body. You might feel comfortable standing, Sitting, Lying down. If you feel a little bit thirsty, It's always a good idea to drink a little water to bring a little more flow to the physical experience. I like to sometimes start just with a little bit of a gentle roll to the shoulders, Bring in a little bit of circulation to the upper body. Follow your intuition about any head movements you want to do. Relax your jaw. See if you can start relaxing your eyelids, Whether that means keeping your eyes open or closed. That's up to you. And then take a nice deep breath in through the nose. Exhale with a sigh so you can hear your exhale. Do that a couple more times where you're breathing in through the nose. Almost it might almost feel like an exaggerated exhale. The audible sound is a signal to the nervous system to start relaxing. Another evidence based approach is taking your pointer and middle fingers and putting pressure without pain over your eyelids. You're just going to feel this and this is a way to start relaxing the nervous system in your brain, The back of your neck down your spinal cord. Notice how it feels to have your fingers put pressure on your eyelids. You can keep your fingers here or you can take them away whatever feels intuitive to you. Start to bring awareness now into your breath. What parts of your body are breathing you right now? Do you feel like your entire torso is moving? Does it feel like just your shoulders and upper body? Do your breaths inhales and exhales feel shallow? Do they feel relaxed? Do they feel open, Constricted? I'm just throwing out words to give you examples of ways you can start to notice. As you're tuning into your breath, Notice what part of your body has your awareness right now. A lot of times when I'm more heady, I tend to be much more aware of my upper body and I feel a little bit dissociated like I'm not very aware of my lower body, My back, Low back or hips unless I feel discomfort. Notice if there's a part of your body that you're mostly aware of and notice if you want to stay with that awareness or are there other parts of your body that are inviting you into awareness there? Take a deep breath in through the nose as you exhale without thinking about how, Relax twice as much. Notice how that feels. Bring awareness to the center of your heart space. Imagine smiling from the heart. And imagine that as you smile from the heart, You're opening your awareness, You're opening your intention, You're opening your perception to welcome in whatever you desire in this moment. Welcome in self-worth, Value, Unconditional love, Peace, Non-local consciousness. As if when you imagine smiling from the heart, You're opening access to greater source, To greater intelligence, To greater infinite source, Infinite experience, Infinite love. If it feels good, You can visualize that now that's almost becoming solid and moving through your whole body with your circulation as if your heart is pumping it through your whole body all the way to your fingers and toes, Underneath your fingernails, In between the webbing of your toes, All the way down your spine, To all the nooks and crannies of your body. As you go into this little imagination, Notice if there's anything that shifts in your perception of your body, In your awareness. And take the next few moments to be with yourself, To be in this moment. If you notice you're feeling uncomfortable or maybe there's anxiety that you're becoming attached to, A good practice is to either listen to the heartbeat or focus on lengthening your exhale. Both of these are really helpful in down regulating or calming the nervous system so you can focus on either of those. Otherwise you can allow your awareness to just feel expansive being present in this moment. Bring your awareness once again to your breath. Notice if your breath has shifted at all in this little practice. Notice where your awareness is in your body. If it feels good, You can give yourself a little more extension of love, You can imagine your hands are an extension of your heart smile, And if there's anywhere on your body that your body wants a little bit of attention or love, You can send your hands to those places so that you have the experience of both giving and receiving. And then when you're ready, When it feels okay for you, You can blink your eyes open, Come back to the live conversation. Thank you, Lydia. That was wonderful. Indeed. I want to get us back into a real quick comment of what Lydia said earlier about this kind of one side of her saying, Screw you, You're harmful kind of thing. And there is a lot of truth to that because over the eons, Or in recent history, Just kind of this masculine idea of harming and just not giving, So there's been so much, So much harm. So that's why it's like, Raise the bar for non-harming and committed to that, Right? And so the thing, But also to use this kind of warrior energy and that energy that's still there in a lot of males and not to totally do away with that, The male species altogether, Right? We can slay ill will. So instead of suppressing that energy, Just turn it back on itself, Right? And this is where I think we're at in time where, Yeah, The non-harming thing is just way more admirable, It always has been, Right, Than any kind of harming or anything like that. So just wanted to throw that out there. And then on the flip side of that, And it's totally understandable that the feminine is caught in this fear because of the way they've been treated. But now that is a challenge too, And it's not something they've done wrong or something. It's just that I just see this so much, This state of fear. And it's okay, It's okay to be in fear, But to investigate what is this all about? How do we break these victim-victimizer cycles? I would love to share a piece of wisdom that I 100% attribute to my mom, Who listened to our last live, By the way, And loved it. So she might be listening right now or to the replay. And I was in ninth grade in high school, And I was dealing with demonic dreams, Or that's what my perception of a lot of fear, Fear when I was awake, Fear when I was asleep. And I had never experienced cellular full body fear that couldn't go away before. And we were up one night and she was telling me little stories, And I just was desperate. And she used words that I later changed the words, But she said, Lydia, It doesn't matter if you believe in God or not, God is infinite and Satan is finite. So why would you ever compare fear to love? And later, She didn't exactly say those words, But I interpreted it later when my beliefs shifted about how I saw the world of love. Let's live like love is infinite and fear is finite. Why are we making it binary? Why are we making one equally powerful to the other? What if love was infinite and fear was finite? We don't have to fight fear. You know, Because the greatest human need is to be seen and understood. It's not to be agreed with. It's not to even necessarily be fought for. You know, And if we come from that place of extending that to others, It almost makes fear and pain and defensiveness like ephemeral. You know, Like whisk away. Obviously, I'm talking very abstract, You know, There's a lot going on in the world that we have to like work with very strategically. But that has been one of the most powerful concepts I've taken through my life that has always brought me back to like connection, You know, And one other thing that she said she has these moments of brilliance that I'm like you were a bodhisattva. She wouldn't know what that means. But where I was like, Mom, I don't it was like I was in college 20 years ago or something and I was like, I don't understand why we're alive as humans. Like I just I was in an existential crisis. And I was like, Please don't give me religion, A religious answer. Please just give me you in this moment. And she thought about it. She's like potential. As long as there's potential, There's reason to be alive. And again, It was like, What? Who are you? Oh, My goodness. Okay, I'll take that in for the rest of my life. Yeah, Yeah. Beautiful and wise. That's very nice. That's very nice. Well, I think we should wrap this up. This is wrapped up year 2021. More or less. We are again. Thank you, Lydia. Thank you so much for coming to our AUA and now being such an integral part of it. Well, She's co-host now. Yeah, It's always it's always a fun journey to see where it goes. Yeah, Absolutely. And I want to extend an invitation to anyone listening, Whether you're in the replay or the live, Always ask questions, Send comments, Because it always makes these conversations even more interesting. So never feel afraid to comment if you're listening to the replay on YouTube or if you're live. You can also join my circle on Insight Timer, Embodied Living and ask questions there. So it's interactive is great. And that's the thing, Right? Bravery encouraged to do so, Right? Right. Okay. So with that, We'll say goodbye and goodbye to 2021 eventually. Thanks, Olivia. Thank you.